Saturday 3 September

I type fast, writing the browser extension. Clem isn’t here, but she left her room open for me. It’s the one place Iris won’t think to look. I know what I’m doing, but I have to concentrate. I haven’t written one of these before and I need it to work.

There are a few variables, even if I get it right.

I don’t want these people to win. I want that feeling I had at the audition – the hum of doing something, being something; the hum of having friends, a boyfriend; the hum of feeling fantastic about yourself – I want that hum to go through everyone at the formal.

What I don’t want is some manipulative fuck to win tonight. My hands are aching. I can’t type fast enough.

When it’s finished I copy it to the USB stick and kiss it for luck.

Done, I text Ady. Can you send password? And what’s the browser?

I stare at the three dots and imagine Ady typing.

Please, please, please, I think as her reply pops up.

Password is Art Department. Browser is Chrome. See you there.

Ady and the rest of the committee have done a brilliant job. Fairy lights lead the way to the door. I walk past the photographer’s corner, a cloud of silk and hairspray, where people are lining up to have their official memory of the night taken. One after the other they stand close to their tuxedo-ed date and smile like this is the best night of their lives.

Please work, browser extension. Please, please work.

I’m helping Iris with tech, so I have access to all areas and all equipment. I walk backstage, grabbing an appetiser and drink on the way, and announce that I need to do some sound and computer checks. Ady has taken care of Theo, luring him outside.

There are others standing around me, though. Guys from Basildon that are probably in on the whole thing, so I hope they’re not technical. It turns out that, even if they are, they’re too busy talking to the band members from Hoxton to worry about me.

I’m just mute Kate, I guess.

But it’s the quiet ones, don’t you know?

Hoxton start up their first set while I’m working, and it gives me the cover I need. They’re playing one of their louder songs – the perfect soundtrack – all guitars and fuck yous.

‘Fuck you, Theo and Iris,’ I say calmly, as I type in the password and plug in the USB. It feels like forever till it pops up in the menu, and then forever between opening it, clicking on the file and installing the plug-in on the browser.

Done, I text to Ady and Clem.

I do some pretending – act like I’m checking lights, mics, sound.

Oliver appears after a while, stepping over cords and past speakers. He’s still grinning from the audition. ‘I don’t want to jinx us, but we were brilliant,’ he says. ‘I mean, we were bloody brilliant.’

‘We were indeed.’

I look him up and down. He’s wearing an old blue suit that belongs to his grandfather. His shoes, as I would expect, are shined. ‘You look very beautiful,’ I tell him, straightening his tie.

‘You look very beautiful, too,’ he says.

I feel good – the silk dress that Ady gave me is cool against my skin. My hair is done like she did that night at the club – piled up with flowers through it. I’ve left off the crimson lipstick for practical reasons: I have plans for kissing later.

Hoxton take a break as Theo walks backstage with Iris. ‘I’ve got it from here, Screamer,’ he says.

Loser, I think, and squeeze Oliver’s hand so he doesn’t say anything. The payback will come, but it will be later.

Iris is with Theo as his date – at least she’s clinging to his arm, desperate to be that. ‘We want to check the computer,’ she says.

‘I’ve got it covered,’ I tell her.

She nods, and looks worried, and I wonder if she’s having second thoughts. I want her to have them. I want to know that she’s the person I thought she was. If she doesn’t say something now, I can’t talk to her again. I won’t. This is her chance. Anyone who would do this isn’t someone I want to know.

Please say something.

But she walks away, telling us she has to go to the bathroom; she’ll see us later.

I call out goodbye.

‘So, you’ll start up the slide show?’ Theo asks.

I tell him he’s welcome to start it himself. ‘I’ll be out watching. When you’re ready, just hit play.’

The formal is in full swing by the time Oliver and I leave backstage. Hoxton are taking a break during the mains. Ady’s taken my advice on the music and Mazzy Star is coating the room in low velvet voices. Oliver and I take a seat at a white-clothed table marked by the Ady touch – flowered centrepieces wild with colour.

‘Which fork?’ Oliver says. ‘I always forget.’

‘You start from the outside,’ I tell him.

I wave at Clem, who’s laughing hysterically as she tries to get her paella past her beard. ‘Who’s she meant to be?’ Oliver asks.

‘Herself,’ I say, as my food arrives.

‘You don’t seem nervous at all,’ Oliver says, nodding to the screen that’s onstage, ready for the presentation. ‘I eat when I’m nervous,’ I tell him, forking up salad that’s left on his plate.

I wasn’t looking forward to the formal. It wasn’t even on my radar. All term people have been planning dresses and dates and make-up and nails. I’ve been in music-land, Kate-land. But now that I’m here in the middle of it all – the school transformed into elegant, thanks to Ady – it feels important. It doesn’t matter whether you’re subverting like Clem or embracing like Tash and her friends – it’s a moment. And it’s not the waiters or the tablecloths or the cutlery or the amazing food or the fact that Hoxton are here. It’s that we are here.

And if my plan fails, then Theo ruins it all.

‘I’m actually beyond nervous,’ I tell Oliver.

After the mains are done and cleared, Tash heads to the bathroom, a sign that the presentation is about to start. I imagine her in front of the mirror, checking her lipstick, checking her teeth, checking her hair, practicing her smile, before she’s in front of everyone, onstage.

I watch her sauntering through the crowd, stopping to hug and kiss people on the way. Backstage, Theo is waiting – laughing – the shithead. I can’t tell if the other guys here know what he has planned. Oliver thinks most of them don’t and I want to believe that.

Tash walks on stage. There’s electricity in the air. She swings her whole body and flirts with the room till we’re quiet. ‘We love you, Tash!’ a couple of people call out, and she waves at them, then taps the microphone and everyone goes quiet.

‘The St Hilda’s formal committee would now like to present for you a slide show. “Moments”,’ she says, with a hand flourish that convinces me she has no idea what’s about to appear behind her on the screen. She’s just as likely as anyone else to be in the Top Ten. ‘This years highlights – St Hilda’s and Basildon.’

She nods towards off stage, to Theo, just before the lights go out.

I shift nervously.

The familiar PSST page comes up on screen, and then PSST BEST OF.

There’s a collective inhalation of breath, no cheering, just hushed silence broken by some fucks and oh my gods. I can see the shadow of Tash, hovering on the side of the stage, freaking out. I can see the calm shadow of Ady, her hand on her arm. I imagine Ady looking at the screen and telling her to watch.

The posts roll.

Guess what put on at Jonno’s party?

Helena Parks – total body

Who is the biggest ?

Angela Bannon – hot and number one

Clem Banks is so I can’t stand it.

Who gave who a at Tash’s party?

Kate Turner – but if you’re it’s the that really

Patrons at St Hilda’s Fair were by a mass. It came of out of the water and remains a .

Ady Rosenthal likes courtesy of Rupert.

I would like to give Kate Turner at huge

Every slut is replaced by a flower. Every fucked-up thought replaced by a star. Whores, blow jobs, fat, rape, bitch: they’re all gone, wiped out by us. And a little technical know-how.

I raise my hands in the air and cheer with everyone else.

Everyone in the room is going crazy with happiness, with the feeling of telling the things and people in the world that try to trap you to go themselves.

Everyone except Theo and Iris that is.

But as Oliver tells me I’m spectacular, I really couldn’t give a about them.