CHAPTER 1

They are everywhere she looks. Some of them are prowling in gangs, stalking their prey. Others are screeching and shouting and generally attempting to be the loudest they can possibly be while randomly kicking a football at each other. On the far side of the field a whole crowd of them are caught up in an activity that involves chasing after their allocated victim and rugby-tackling them to the ground. It doesn’t appear to have any actual rules – none that Tally can figure out, anyway. She suspects they’re making it up as they go along, which is absolutely the worst kind of game, in her opinion.

Not everyone is in a group, though. Scattered here and there are the loners. The ones without their people, which is why they’re standing on the edges of the field. It’s always important to have a couple of escape routes when you’re the prey, and they know it. The whole scene reminds Tally of the zoo, and she wonders for a moment why people don’t buy tickets to visit their local high schools to observe the students in their natural habitat.

“And here we have the Alpha male, banging on his chest and bellowing loudly as he runs after a ball.” She puts on her best David Attenborough voice. “As you can see, if another male approaches him he is instantly threatened and, despite the fact that this is generally understood to be a non-contact activity, he will stop at nothing to take out his opponent – including punching him in the face, if that’s what it takes—”

“Did you hear what I said, Tally?” Lucy’s voice cuts in. “Or are you off on another planet, as usual?”

And then there are the girls that she is sitting with. The popular, confident, pretty girls. Tally isn’t one of them, she knows that, but her best friend Layla is, and so Tally gets to hang out on the edges, not quite part of the group but not on her own either.

“Planet Tally,” sniggers Jasmine, giving Tally a sideways look. “Where all the aliens live.”

Tally blinks and tries to focus on what Lucy had been talking about. Something about her new haircut, perhaps?

“It looks great!” she says, making sure that she sounds enthusiastic. “Honestly! I really love your new fringe!”

Lucy rolls her eyes and, next to her, Ayesha makes a snorting noise. “I wasn’t talking about my hair,” Lucy tells Tally. “Keep up, will you? I was telling everyone about how my YouTube beauty videos are really getting noticed.”

Tally has a YouTube channel too, but her account is private and she hasn’t got any followers. That’s OK, though. She writes her songs and performs them on her keyboard to make herself feel good, not anyone else. She has considered that maybe it would be nice if people heard her every now and again, but the possibility of being made fun of is just too great to risk sharing her music with anyone else. The only person she ever shows it to is her dad and even then it makes her feel nervous.

“I got a ton of followers last weekend after I posted my nude make-up tutorial…” Lucy looks around the group of girls, clearly waiting for their response.

“It was incredible,” agrees Ayesha.

“You’re going to be so famous,” gushes Jasmine.

“Well done, Lucy,” adds Layla.

“Why were you nude?” asks Tally. “That’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?”

It’s a joke. Of course it’s a joke. Tally might not have the slightest interest in make-up or any of that stuff, but she hasn’t survived the last almost-thirteen years without developing a few skills, one of which is using humour to join in with a conversation. People like it when you make them laugh.

Lucy stares at her for a moment and then flicks her hair over one shoulder.

“It’s a type of make-up,” she explains, over-enunciating, as if she’s talking to a baby. “It’s where you use neutral colours that match your skin tone.”

“No, I know—” starts Tally but Ayesha shuffles forward on the grass and shoves her face right into Tally’s.

“I’m wearing nude make-up today,” she says, her hot cheese-and-onion breath making Tally wince. “Look. Can you tell?”

Tally tries not to breathe as she looks obligingly at Ayesha’s skin.

“Sorry,” she confesses after a long minute. “I can’t see anything.”

Ayesha laughs. “Exactly! You’re not supposed to be able to tell I’m wearing it. It took me ages to get ready this morning but I followed Lucy’s tutorial and it really works!”

“Turn to look at me,” orders Lucy. Ayesha obeys and Lucy peers closely at her face, her eyes critical. “You messed up this bit around the brows,” she informs her best friend. “I’ll put up a video on ‘Everyday Eyes’ and that should help you.” She runs her finger along Ayesha’s cheekbone and bobs her head up and down, reminding Tally of a chimpanzee grooming its child. “But this is pretty good, for a beginner. I can barely tell you’re wearing any make-up.”

“So what’s the point, then?” asks Tally. “If nobody can see it.”

It’s a fair question, but Lucy raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow, as if Tally is being ridiculous. “To hide what you really look like, obviously.”

Tally frowns. “But why would you want to do that? There’s nothing wrong with either of your faces.”

Ayesha gives her a big smile. “It’s OK for people like you,” she says, her voice dripping with apparent kindness. “You don’t think that way and you don’t mind how you look. But some of us get really insecure about stuff like spots and blemishes.”

“And that’s why make-up is important.” Lucy stretches out her legs and picks a bit of grass off one knee. “It makes sure that nobody can see your imperfections.”

The faint sound of a ringing bell drifts across the field and Layla glances at her watch.

“Period five is about to start,” she groans, reaching for her bag. “Why does lunch always go so quickly?”

Tally couldn’t disagree more. The sixty minutes of lunch always passes so, so slowly for her, unlike the hectic, manic pace of lessons where she barely has time to figure out what subject she’s supposed to be learning before it’s time to move on to the next.

The four girls stand up and start walking back towards the school building. Tally pauses for a second before slowly pushing herself off the grass and following them, their words tumbling around her head and turning themselves into question after question.

Why does Ayesha think that she doesn’t care what she looks like?

Who are people like her? Surely Ayesha can’t be suggesting that all autistic people aren’t bothered about their appearance? Tally isn’t interested in make-up but that doesn’t mean how she looks isn’t important to her, and being autistic hasn’t got anything to do with it. It’s just her.

And what did Lucy mean about make-up hiding a person’s imperfections? Tally definitely isn’t perfect, she knows that, but she also knows that some lipstick, mascara and eyeliner isn’t going to go anyway near hiding the parts of her she isn’t so proud of.

Being friends with Layla is one of the most important things to Tally in the entire world, but she seems to spend most of her time desperately trying to keep up with all the rest of them and Tally’s been wondering for a while if it’s really worth the effort. Their biology teacher told them a few weeks ago about shoals of fish who stay in a big group for social reasons. He said that some fish, like herrings, get very anxious if they are removed from the group. Tally is definitely a little herring, swimming on the edges of a big shoal, trying not to get left behind. It’s a long way from the group of friends she found on last year’s school camping trip but that’s just the way it is. She bonded with Gory and Jade over their mutual love of animals and they have become two of her closest friends, but they don’t go to her school and since she drifted back to swimming with Lucy and Ayesha, she’s barely seen Aleksandra, even though she’s in year eight too. Lucy and Ayesha don’t ever actually say anything bad about Aleksandra, but Tally has seen the way they flick glances between them whenever she stops to say hello to Tally and Layla. It makes Tally feel worried and uncomfortable, and it’s just been easier to let Aleksandra drift away. If it wasn’t for Layla, pulling her along behind her, Tally would be completely out in the shadows and all alone.

She glances again at the loner kids. Some of them are listening to music through their headphones and one of them is walking into school with his head still buried inside a book. Maybe being alone wouldn’t be so terrible? Or perhaps she and Layla could form their own group, just them? Two people is all you need.

“Come on, Tally!” calls Lucy from up ahead. “I’m not getting a demerit card just because you walk at the pace of a snail.”

Ayesha and Jasmine laugh, and even Layla beckons at her to speed up. Tally hesitates, trying to figure out if they’re mocking her, then breaks into a jog. She’s lucky to be part of a group, even if she is on the edges.

She just didn’t expect to feel quite so lonely.

Hi, Readers!

In this first issue of TALLY magazine we meet the legend herself, soon-to-be famous pop star, Tally Olivia Adams!

Tell us about yourself, Tally.

Well, what do you want to know? Tally is short for Natalia, which is my real name. I’m twelve (almost thirteen) and in year eight at school. I love dogs, horses, Taylor Swift and I’m just like any other nearly-thirteen-year-old. With a bit of a difference.

Ah, yes, are you talking about your autism diagnosis? Tell us about that.

Finding out I was autistic when I was ten was a mixed bag for me. I learnt more about who I really was, and why I’d felt so different, and I gradually started to own my autism rather than be ashamed of it. But it did take some getting used to. I’m autistic with a PDA profile – which stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance – and that means I really struggle with everyday demands and expectations, and with not being in control of situations. And, yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking: we all feel like that. But this is different. It’s not your usual not-wanting-to-do-something. It’s pathological, which is a horrible way of saying that it’s extreme. Very extreme. Very, very. And pretty exhausting at times too.

What are the trickiest things you are handling right now, Tally?

That’s an easy one to answer: friendships. And being at school. Oh, and having a family. Just those. Everything else is OK.

Tell us about more about friendships.

Well, it’s strange how you can be right in the middle of a group of friends but still feel completely alone. I do have Layla, who is never horrible to me. She understands me, which is all I want in life really. Unfortunately, with me that doesn’t happen very often. Layla is so popular that everyone wants a piece of her so I have to share her with the others, who don’t make me feel so comfortable. Kids like Lucy and Jasmine make me feel edgy, like when they say nice things about my clothes even though I know they aren’t cool. Lucy gets this sort of menacing beam across her face which makes me think what she says isn’t as genuine as the words she’s saying. I hate not being sure if someone means what they say or not. It makes me feel really uneasy. But, hey, I guess I’ll take fake compliments if it means I manage to stay in a friendship group, even if it feels like I only have a ticket for the back row.

How about school?

I’m kind of used to it now, and I don’t mind the lessons soooo much … at least I sort of know what’s expected of me (unlike at break), and I like some teachers and I think they like me. So they should – I work hard to try and do the right things. Not getting into trouble is the main focus of my days at school, because getting into trouble is the most humiliating, excruciating thing. All those eyes burning into you as you get told off – aaaargh, it’s making me stressed just thinking about it.

What would you change about school?

If only I was allowed to choose what I want to learn and how to learn it, school would be amazing. When my mum does her evening classes, there’s a whole pamphlet that she can choose from showing different types of lessons. That’s how school should be for young people too. I actually love learning, just not the way they make you learn at school.

I taught myself to speak Spanish when we were on holiday because I wanted to understand people, to skateboard because I wanted to get around faster, to play the piano and guitar and ukulele and drums because I wanted to write and perform my own songs, and to mimic EXACTLY the sound of the ticket machine at our local train station – just because it was fun.

But apart from a few teachers, like Mrs Jarman, Kingswood Academy isn’t interested in what you already know and already can do. They’re not even interested in what you would like to be able to do. They just decide everything for you. Where to sit, when to talk, even when you can go to the toilet or take off your blazer. Honestly, it’s true, folks. Then they say they are teaching us to be able to think for ourselves! What a joke. Next question, please.

OK, update us on your family.

Mum is working more and is busy and stressed, and I feel I don’t get enough nice time with her at the moment. Nell is also being really annoying and needy because she has exams coming up and so Mum and Dad are bending over backwards to be nice to her. For some reason, every time they say something lovely and positive about her it instantly makes me feel like they are making a negative point about me. Even though I know this isn’t really the case, my brain alerts me that it might be.

And then there is Dad. He sometimes gets it wrong with me, a bit more than Mum does, but at least he listens and tries. Mum says he’s just worried about stuff, which makes me worry. I try to be less difficult. But it’s my brain I have to convince, and that’s not so easy.