*Lottie, who has been fidgeting for the past few minutes, starts to jiggle urgently on her chair*
Lottie:
Mo, I need a wee.
Mo:
Go then. What do you want? My permission?
Lottie:
I want you to come with me.
Mo:
Gross.
Lottie:
And wait outside the door, I mean.
Lottie:
I’m scared the Junkers will come while I’m tinkling.
Mo:
You are not. You just don’t trust me with the vlog on my own. But you’re going to have to either trust me or wet yourself, because there is no way I’m coming to the toilet with you.
Lottie:
Fine. I can hold it.
*She crosses her legs, jiggles for another second, and then jumps to her feet*
Lottie:
I can’t hold it! Don’t say anything about me while I’m gone!
*She runs out of the room*
*Mo moves close to the camera*
Mo *whispering*:
Before we carry on with the story, I should just warn you not to believe everything Lottie says. She’s not a liar, exactly – well, mostly she’s not a liar – but she does exaggerate A LOT. Just keep that in mind.
*Footsteps can be heard, quietly at first, but growing louder, and Lottie runs into the room*
Lottie *out of breath*:
I’m back.
Mo:
You didn’t wash your hands.
Lottie:
This is an emergency situation: normal rules don’t apply. Everyone knows that.
Mo:
Gross.
*Lottie grabs at Mo*
Mo:
Get off me, Lottie! I don’t want you to touch me with your wee fingers.
Lottie *laughs wildly*:
Serves you right for not coming with me. Now you are covered in my wee residue.
Mo:
I hate you.
Lottie:
Now where was I?
Mo:
I’m doing the next bit – you’ve been talking for ages.
Lottie *sighs*:
Fine, if it will stop you from being in a mood.
Mo
The new boy snatched the handout and started doodling on it with black pen. And, by doodling, I mean he drew all over my epically important competition poster. And, by black pen, I mean he used unerasable ink.
If you take a look at Exhibit A from the evidence box, you will see the doodle in its original form. It’s in the bottom, right corner of the handout.
‘If you want to win this dumb competition,’ he said, smudging his doodle with his sleeve, ‘I should lead the group. Science is my thing.’
Lottie raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Ooh,’ she said.
‘What?’ Jax looked up from his mindless graffiti.
‘Well,’ Lottie said, apparently all excited at the disaster unfolding in front of her. ‘It’s just that…’
‘Science is my thing,’ I said, taking the pen out of Jax’s hand and putting it firmly down on the desk.
Jax looked from me to Lottie and back again.
‘Hey, no problem, bud, I was just trying to help. You can take charge,’ he said.
I felt a bit bad.
‘No, no, it’s fine. You should take charge,’ I said, hoping he’d refuse and insist that I did.
‘Why don’t we all just work as a team?’ Lottie said. ‘Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ said Jax.
‘Agreed,’ I said, but I snuck the pen into my pocket, just in case.
She’d only been at school for a day, but it was like Lottie had spent her whole life at St Pippins. By first break, she was chatting with a group of girls from my class. By lunchtime, she was their leader – bossing them around, getting them to plait her hair and making them all laugh hysterically whenever she said anything. Worse than that, even the boys liked her. When a ball was kicked out of the MUGA, she dribbled it back in, took it past three of the kids from the school football team, and scored a goal. You should have seen the respect on their faces. I’ve known them for seven years, and they’ve never looked at me like that.
I wasn’t jealous, exactly. I’d never wanted to be friends with any of them anyway. But I was annoyed.
‘I thought you two were friends,’ Jax said, sitting on the wall of the vegetable patch next to me.
‘We’re NOT friends,’ I said. ‘My mum is going out with Lottie’s dad, so we all live together.’
Jax gave me a sharp look. ‘Like brother and sister, then?’
‘No. Not like that, either.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And you’d probably better not talk to me if you want to be one of the popular kids.’ It was only fair to warn him, after all.
Jax flicked his hair back from his face. ‘You know, I’ve never been bothered about the popular kids.’
I looked across at him, wondering if he was trying to trick me.
He smiled suddenly – a quick, bright smile that cracked across his face like a flash of lightning. ‘Do you want to work on ideas for the Discovery Competition?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ I said, trying to play it cool while feeling a warm glow in my heart.
‘If we come up with ideas while Lottie is busy with her friends, she’ll have to go along with what we want.’
‘She’s very stubborn,’ I said.
‘But then it will be us against her,’ Jax watched my face. ‘Why should she always get her own way? Science is your thing, remember?’
‘So, you want to team up with me? Against Lottie?’
‘Partners?’ Jax said, holding out his hand.
‘Partners,’ I nodded, and shook it.
‘So, tell me more about what you like doing, Mo. Maybe we could come up with an idea to do with your interests,’ Jax said, offering me a gummy worm from a bag he had hidden in his pocket.
‘Sweets aren’t allowed at school,’ I said, thinking it was something else he hadn’t realised because of his newness.
‘Nobody has to know.’ He bit the head off an orange one.
