CHAPTER 20

“Where were you yesterday?” Lucy’s hands are on her hips and she is staring at Tally with distrust in her eyes. “We missed you.”

Tally doesn’t know why, but she suddenly feels nervous. Spending the day at the stables with Ginny and Nigel was wonderful but as soon as she got home, the worries started to invade and she hardly slept last night. Not that Mum and Dad helped with that – when she tiptoed across the landing to their room all she could hear was their muttered conversation coming from the other side of the door. Which at least was better than the not-muttered full-on argument about the electricity bill that erupted this morning while she was trying to eat her breakfast. All she could do was put on her headphones and drown them out with her favourite playlist.

“I had to go somewhere,” she murmurs, not wanting to tell them the truth. Nigel and Ginny don’t belong in the canteen of Kingswood Academy. Nobody here would understand them.

“You have to tell us if you’re not going to be in,” Lucy instructs her. “Anyway, more important is how many comments I got on that lip tutorial! Seriously – there were so many that I couldn’t even read them all!” Lucy’s eyes are shining as she looks around the group. “One person said I’m an inspiration – isn’t that amazing?”

“Well, it’s true,” Ayesha tells her. “You’re totally inspiring.”

Lucy blows her a kiss and then pulls out her phone to show them the latest video that she’s posted. Tally tries to make it look like she’s watching, but inside her thoughts are whirring. She knows that Lucy is doing really well with her makeover channel but what she can’t figure out is how.

How does she get so many people to watch her stuff?

How can she have so many subscribers when all she’s talking about, day after day, is boring make-up?

And how does she make people listen?

“There’s hardly anyone in school who isn’t following you,” says Jasmine, sounding a little envious. “It’s like everyone wants to hear what you’ve got to say.”

Tally nods. It’s exactly like that and, even though she knows it makes no sense, she can’t help feeling that the more people are listening to Lucy, the less people are able to hear a word that Tally says.

The bell rings and the girls pick up their bags, each heading off to different lessons. Tally checks her timetable and sees that she’s got drama. Last year she was with Lucy and Ayesha but this year none of the girls are in her class. At least she’s still taught by Mrs Jarman – nobody would ever think about giving her a hard time in front of the fierce but fair teacher.

Pushing open the door, Tally does what she always does and quickly checks the room. It’s the same as always, with groups of kids hanging around the edges, ready for Mrs Jarman to appear and issue them with the warm-up task. She starts to move across to her usual lone spot by the desk and then pauses. Ginny said that she shouldn’t have to change to make people like her and she knows that she’s been squished and squashed so much that she’s done things she would never had done if she’d been Tally-shaped. And so, even though the thought terrifies her, she knows what she has to do if she’s going to try to be herself once more.

Changing direction, she heads across to the opposite corner where another girl is carefully placing her bag on the floor.

“Hey—” she starts, and then Mrs Jarman dashes through the door.

“Sorry I’m late!” she calls. “There was an emergency in the staffroom and I got delayed.”

“Did someone steal Mr Kennedy’s coffee cup again?” someone shouts.

Mrs Jarman spins round. “It was his chocolate biscuits, actually – and if you know anything about that, Olly Daniels, then you’d better speak up.”

There’s a moment of silence and then Mrs Jarman grins, causing a ripple of laughter to spread around the room. “OK, I’d like you to get into groups of four and then you’ve got five minutes to play a quick round of Unique and Shared. Find out what characteristics you have in common, as well as anything about you that might be unique. Off you go.”

Everyone starts moving into groups. Luke and Ameet walk across to where Tally is standing and she gives them a brief nod, before turning to the girl beside her.

“You can be in our group, Millie,” she says. “Who’s going to start?”

Millie looks down at the floor and Tally frowns. She was trying to make up for what happened in the hall by including her instead of making her wait until everyone else was in a group, which is what usually happens.

It was supposed to be a nice thing – but it’s not going to be enough.

“I’ll go first,” offers Ameet, sitting on the floor. The rest of them join him. “OK. Something that’s unique about me are my incredible football skills.”

“No way,” objects Luke. “I’m just as good as you are, maybe even better!”

“So that’s a shared characteristic,” says Tally diplomatically. “OK – how about me? I’m autistic and that’s pretty unique.”

“Is it, though?” asks Luke, looking thoughtful. “I mean, I didn’t know anyone else who was autistic when we were in primary school but there’s quite a few people in our year now. So it’s not that unique, is it?”

Tally scowls. “I think you will find,” she informs him, “that no one autistic person is like another. So, yes – I am absolutely unique, thanks very much.”

Luke puts his hands up. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you or anything! So, my thing is, I really like watching Peppa Pig. Does that make me unique?”

“It makes you a loser,” scoffs Ameet, wincing when Luke smacks him on the arm.

“I like Peppa Pig too,” admits Tally, before she can think about it. “It makes me laugh.”

Luke nods. “Peppa is seriously underrated brilliance,” he agrees. “You know that homework we had to do on Animal Farm? Well, I managed to include Peppa and her little brother George in my essay.”

“What did miss say?” asks Tally, and even Millie raises her head, looking curious.

Luke shrugs. “She said that I had failed to understand the task and made me do it again,” he tells them. “’S’not my fault that she doesn’t appreciate the links between popular culture and the classics.”

Ameet snorts and Tally turns to Millie.

“How about you? What’s unique about you?”

Millie stares at her for a moment. “I don’t know,” she says calmly. “But why don’t you tell me. You seem to think that you know who I am.”

“I don’t really know you.” Tally takes a deep breath and stares at her shoes. “But OK. I think that you’re kind because I saw you looking after one of the year sevens who fell over by the gates. I reckon you’re pretty clever because you always have the answer in our science lessons even though you never put your hand up. I’m guessing that you like sunflowers because you’ve got loads of stuff with them on. And the one thing I do know for sure is that you really didn’t deserve for us to put that note in your locker and leave you up on the stage in front of everyone.”

Tally pauses and then looks up at Millie’s face. “I’m really sorry,” she says finally. “It was a horrible thing to do and I know that you probably hate me now. And I don’t really like that idea but I can’t change what I did. I’m sorry.”

“Once the last person has had their turn, you can all gather in the middle of the room while I hand out the scripts,” calls Mrs Jarman.

Luke and Ameet leap up immediately, leaving Tally alone with Millie.

“How do you know all that about me?” asks Millie, not moving.

Tally exhales slowly. “I notice stuff? I saw you and, if it makes any difference, I thought it’d be great if you were part of our group.”

“You let me completely humiliate myself in front of the whole year.” Millie shakes her head. “You have no idea how bad that made me feel.”

“I do,” confesses Tally, feeling her cheeks start to redden. “I know exactly what that feels like, which probably makes me even worse than the others, because at least they don’t know what’s it like to be on the outside. Nobody laughs at them, so they don’t get it – but I do.”

“I thought you were just like them,” Millie tells her. “Part of their group.”

Tally’s hand start to flap.

“I didn’t mean to make you sad,” she says. “If I could take it back then I would – I promise. I wanted to fit in with the others but I never wanted to hurt you.”

Millie looks at her for a long moment and then stands up.

“You can’t take back what you did,” she tells her. “But I guess we all do stuff we’re not proud of. Maybe things can be a bit different from now on? If you really mean it?” She reaches one hand down and pulls Tally to her feet.

“I really mean it,” Tally says, her heart thudding with relief and nerves and, maybe, just the tiniest feeling of hope.

Words can never completely remove the hurt that actions have caused. Tally knows that better than anyone else. But maybe they can help heal some of the wounds? Maybe words can form a bridge between her and Millie that will allow Tally to show the other girl who she really is. Perhaps words do matter, as long as what you’re saying and what you’re doing are the same thing.