“You can’t be beaten by her!”
At the end of school, I call Aunty Teresa and tell her everything—apart from Bradley.
“Do you want me to have a word with her, Mills?”
I have a vision of Aunty Teresa turning up to school in her ice-cream van and shoving a giant Cornetto in Erin’s FACE. It’s a lovely fantasy that I may think about for days.
Gracie comes up to me mid–Aunty Teresa’s anti-Erin ranting and makes a motion that I need to get off the phone FAST.
“Millie. I don’t know how to break this to you, AND PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE I TOLD YOU, but … Erin is telling everyone that you were having a go at her. The Snapchat shows you and her arguing. The fact is, you look very cross, like you’re the one who is laying into her and telling her to back off. Look!”
Sure enough, when I see them, what I thought was my blank expression of spoon actually seems like a death stare. Bradley was COMPLETELY wrong when he said it looked like we were just talking. I’m like a cheetah eyeing up a gazelle before getting it by the neck and ripping it to pieces, then eating it in front of a really excited cameraman.
“It does look a bit … bad.”
I can’t believe how she can twist things.
“What can I do about it?”
Gracie goes very quiet and then says, “Nothing, Millie. You can’t fight that. You can’t beat her. She’s amazing.” Gracie realizes what she’s said. “Horrible, don’t get me wrong, but amazing.”
I look over to the edge of the mobile classrooms that were meant to be temporary but have been there since Roman times and see a crowd of girls comforting Erin. She shakes her head and wipes her eyes, but when she catches me looking at her, she flashes a perfect grin. There are already sharks with cameras walking around, menacing people. I’ve seen them. They are called Erin. That’s what I would have told Bradley. If I hadn’t kissed him.