Just as a mirror reflects only what’s in front of it, what you get out of life depends on what you put in. Before leaving home on my first day at Thorncroft School, I stand in front of the mirror. I see my bed’s reflection, the corner of my desk and a pale wash of sky framed by the sash window. I don’t see myself. I am the invisible girl. But I’m tired of being unseen. I’m going to change, to fit in for once and be popular. I’m going to be somebody. I just hope that no one sees through me.
I’m psyching myself up on the way to school, breathing deeply, then blowing out all the air and hopefully my nerves with it. I traverse tree-lined streets past rows of yellow-brick houses with immaculate white-painted window surrounds and small but perfectly manicured front gardens, then I cross the park. In daylight it’s a picture-perfect green haven and, if you find the right spot far from the road noise where the trees are tall enough to block the skyline, you feel you’re anywhere but in a city. At night it’s a completely different story, with shadows stalking you and the trees whispering. I follow the curve of the river and hit Sandringham Avenue, darting past dog shit and bus stops, under a dodgy railway bridge sheltering drunks, cider cans and used condoms, until shops appear. There’s Ali’s Foodstore, the doctors’, pharmacy, off-licence and chippy. Thorncroft School, biggest of all the buildings, sits head of the table, yellow brick with window frames painted in a jarring cobalt-blue gloss.
I collect my timetable from the school office. Mrs Vernon, the receptionist, directs me to the form room. Inevitably I get lost in the maze of corridors and end up in the sports hall before a Year 11 girl takes me to A2.
My stomach feels weird and fluttery, like a deflating balloon. The first day at a new school is always the worst, as if some law makes it illegal for new kids to slip into the system unnoticed. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please don’t notice me. It’s the same every time I move schools. But this time, it’s permanent, real-life-staying-put-till-end-of-sixth-form-finishing-your-exams-time-to-make-friends-stationary schooling. The blood drains from my face. My innards turn inside out. Carla Carroll: late, shy and licensed to hurl.
I knock on the form-room door. Through the glass – you know that glass with wire mesh like graph paper? – I see a man in brown loafers crouching on the wipe-clean vinyl floor. Shards of glass and spilled water glint under the energy-saving fluorescent lights. He tilts his head towards the knock, which was evidently not inaudible, as I’d hoped. I wish I was somewhere else – anywhere – a beach, the park, at home, under that tree with my dad twirling butterflies down to me.
The door opens. My chest wheezes involuntarily as the balloon empties. Thirty pairs of eyes fix on me. Shit.
Mr Brown Shoes waves me into the room. “Come in, er, Carla, is it?” he asks. I manage an affirmative grunt. “Welcome. Take a seat. We’ve got a slight spillage to attend to and then we’ll get cracking with proper introductions.”
I want to die. Instead I mumble, “OK, um, yeah,” and sit down at the table with the fewest people, by the window.
My eyes flit around the room, unable to focus. Everyone is looking at me, all perched on metal-framed stools with seats of moulded off-white acrylic the colour of an overcast sky. I try to ignore the visual dissection I’m receiving. Newbie. Geek. Ugly. Rabbit. In. Headlights.
I focus on Mr Brown Shoes. He’s swarthy, taller than average, but not a skyscraper, more a multi-storey car park; olive-skinned with cocoa-dark hair tousled into thick, messy curls. Fittingly flamboyant for a secondary school art teacher. Kimonos and earrings and you’re looking at local college teacher/failed artist, but unkempt locks, that’s fine. There’s something perfect about him. I don’t mean like that. There’s just something calming about him, magnetic, pleasing. He seems balanced.
He glides over to where I’m sitting. He’s wearing a forgettable sky-blue shirt and jeans, but has a brilliant scent that conjures vivid images of Marrakesh – pulsing sun, bustle, life and spices.
“I’m Mr Havelock. Head of Year 12. These inattentive monkeys are your new form group,” he says.
“Hey, Ted, we’re not monkeys! I’m a tiger, mate.” A boy jumps off a stool and claws with his hands. “Raaaaaa!” He launches at me. I panic. I push him and he backs off. “Easy, tiger!” The boy cocks an eyebrow. “Already trying to rip my clothes off. I like that.”
The whole class laughs. I die inside.
Mr Havelock glares at the boy, his cheeks flooded with red. “Back to your seat, you cocky fool.”
“Only trying to make the new girl feel comfortable, Mr H. You know, calm her nerves, make her laugh.”
I glance at my attacker. He’s unbelievably handsome. Easily the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. Eyes like coffee beans, long dark lashes flicking against milky skin. High cheekbones and a smooth jaw like lathe-turned wood, sculpted to perfection. He’s wearing skinny jeans, their low-slung waistline exposing his boxers. A spike protrudes from his left earlobe and a ring circles his bottom lip. All is forgiven…
Still, I wish I was anywhere but here, away from these glaring eyes.
“Does she look like she’s laughing?” Mr Havelock smiles, tight-lipped. “Get on with your work, Mr Masterson.”
“You all right, Carla?” he asks.
Yeah, apart from wanting to curl up and hide in the ventilation system for the rest of the day, I’m great.
“Mmmm,” I mumble. My brain calculates the quickest exit route. Options include:
1. window on left
2. form-room door
3. fire escape at back of room
4. spontaneously combust.
Unfortunately, it isn’t over. Six hours of classes remain: double Biology, Chemistry, English Lit, Psychology and Art: my AS-level subjects.
I’m good at school. I’ve got my head around Dadaism and I can describe cognitive dissonance. I’m not a total geek or anything, I get stuff wrong and I find coursework a pain in the arse like anyone else. I just try to do my best. Usually that means getting into the top achievers, upper sets, fast-track classes.
I guess I can be hard on myself sometimes. It’s-not good-enough-don’t-you-want-to-achieve-something? rings in my head for days if I don’t put the effort in.
I try to keep to myself, silently clock-watch my way to three fifteen. But despite the nerves, I need someone to take an interest in me, say something vaguely friendly. I suppose unless I emanate some signs of life I’m bound to be ignored. Hello, I’m here, I’m new, I’m nervous. Somebody speak to me. I’m not weird, honest. Regrettably, the words just swim in circles around my head.
Art is the last lesson before lunch, back in my form room, A2, my timetable tells me. I sit in the same seat as at the start of this hideous day. I swear, everyone thinks I’m mute. Or a mutant. Or both. I challenge myself to string at least one sentence together by the end of the lesson.
We’re studying sculpture, which I’m excited about. Art’s a subject I actually enjoy. Ideas bubble inside me, bursting to get out. Whether drawing, painting, writing or, I hope, after this course, sculpting, I seem to do it well. Art’s an outlet, a way of expressing myself. I sound like a hippy. Whatever.
Most of the class have already started their sculptures. The girl to my right has designed a brooch in the shape of two birds facing each other, fiery-looking, enamelled in orange. The guy to my left is making a horse from old cogs and washers. Pointless and hideous. I like the brooch. I hate the horse. I already know what I’m going to make. My favourite insect, animal, living creature: a butterfly. They’re so beautiful.
I draw a few sketches and make a list of materials and equipment.
The girl with the brooch design taps my sketchbook.
“That’s lovely.” She smiles warmly. “I wish I could draw like that.”
“Thanks. It’s an Ornithoptera alexandrae – Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing. Their wings are like patchwork.” Finally. Someone has made contact with me, the alien. I come in peace!
“I’m Lauren,” the girl says.
“Carla.”
Lauren has jet-black hair pulled back into a knotty blob and green eyes that shine, unaided by make-up. She pulls out a tin of Vaseline and coats her lips. I notice she doesn’t wear rings, or any jewellery, not even studs in her ears. She’s unintimidating, safe. My shyness subsides and I gear up to compliment her brooch, but stop, distracted by a low hum of voices from the next table. I twirl my pencil like a baton between my fingers.
“Yeah, mate,” the beautiful boy says, “that’s what I’m talking about! It was a massive night. We didn’t get home till eight a.m.”
“Ha ha! You must have been dead for, like, a week after that.”
“Slinky was totally on form.”
I turn my head to get a better look at them.
“You should have seen the VJ set-up! It was huge. The screen was almost on the ceiling, sitting on scaffold.”
Mr Havelock must have caught me staring, because he darts over to the boys.
“Finn! Do you mind? I’m trying to teach a class.” His face darkens. Finn, his name is Finn.
“Sorry, Ted. Won’t happen again.” Finn looks genuinely sorry. Then he smiles widely.
“Come on. You’re seventeen. Act it.” Havelock’s look of irritation fades. “Get on with your work.”
I wonder what Finn and the other boy were talking about. Sounds pretty cool, whatever it was.
Lunchtime arrives. At least I’ve strung together one sentence. I’m not a total outcast, a mute mutant; a lonely, newbie freak. Success!
I swear, even with a whole scout troop on an orienteering trip to help me, I’d have difficulty finding my way around this place. It’s like the bloody Bermuda Triangle for new students. I might never escape. Searching for the sixth-form common room takes half my lunch break.
Eventually I find it. There’s a kitchen in one corner; a couple of guys perch on the worktop, playing with their phones. The walls are lined with hard, low blue chairs, inhumane hybrids – half seat, half torture device. They look poised to snap closed like a Venus flytrap if you sit on them. There are two long tables in the middle of the room, with safer, if not more comfortable, benches.
I see Lauren and a friend at a table, eating lunch. She waves me over and I gratefully accept. No one wants to be a loner at lunchtime.
“Hey,” I say and sit in the space opposite her, next to the other girl.
“This is Sienna,” Lauren says, “our resident spelunking enthusiast.”
Sienna has a thick copper fringe, cut severely just above her eyes, and skin like porcelain.
“Spelunking?” I ask.
“She likes to crawl about in dingy caves.”
“I want to be a speleologist.” Sienna looks at me through a curtain of hair. “Study cave systems. In Austria there’s a giant cave filled with ice sculptures made when the snow above thawed, drained into the cave and refroze. It’s amazing.”
“It sounds, um, cold. Cool, I mean.” I can’t get the right words out.
“Sienna spends so much time in the dark, she’s lost the genes for skin pigmentation. That’s why she’s so white!”
“I’m Irish!” Sienna turns to me. “So where are you from?” There’s a question.
“All over the place. More recently, Nottingham. But I’ve lived in Bath, Cardiff, Cheltenham…”
“Are you in witness protection or something?”
“My family just moves around a lot.”
“I bet you have to say that.”
I shrug. But then I realize I have a real chance to make friends here and I’m screwing it up.
“We’re fugitives. On the run. My dad stole Simon Cowell’s helicopter for a joke. Took it for a joyride.”
Lauren raises an eyebrow and takes a bite of cheese sandwich. I fiddle with the frayed straps of my bag, then take out a chicken roll wrapped in foil. Dad made it from last night’s leftovers. I munch away.
Sienna laughs. “It all makes sense now.”
Lauren finishes her sandwich and starts on an apple.
I whip out my timetable, hoping my new acquaintances will be in the same lessons. “I know you take Art, Lauren, but do either of you take these other classes?” I ask, spreading the crumpled piece of A4 on the table.
“Let’s see.” Lauren studies the paper. “I take Biology.”
Sienna perks up. “Me too, and Chemistry. You’ve basically found the Science geeks.”
“What am I in for?”
“With us? A thrill ride of cellular organization, anaerobic respiration, inherited variation and the occasional trip to the cinema.”
Lauren ignores Sienna. “Miss Tillsman, the Biology teacher, is all right. A bit loopy. She has a serious mascara goop problem. Always in the right eye. It can be hard to concentrate with that thing just sitting there like a baby slug.”
“We mark the goop on a scale of one to five,” Sienna says. “One: Minor goop; Two: Goopus Maximus; Three: Goopasaurus Rex; Four: ‘Is it a bird, is it a plane?’; Five: ‘That thing is so huge, how can she even see us? It looks like the bloody Death Star.’ ”
“It freaks me out. I’m so OCD I just want to stick my finger right in there and scratch it out.” Lauren shudders.
“That’s disgusting,” Sienna says.
“Look forward to it,” I say.
The common-room door flies open. A group of guys and girls walks in. They sit on the other table, their feet on the benches. Finn tosses a helmet in his hands.
“So, enlighten me,” I say to Lauren. “Who are they?”
“That’s Finn Masterson. Nice guy. The local fittie. Slight problem with authority. Greg White, hockey captain. Georgia Presco with the mess of curls and scary red talons. She’s a model in her spare time. Goes out with Greg. Her parents won eight million on the Lotto last year! She didn’t fancy going to a posh school and leaving Greg, so she’s still here.”
“And that’s Violet Brody with the shiny shampoo-ad hair that’s been known to blind people if it catches the light,” Sienna says, pointing to a girl who looks like she’s stepped right out of an American Apparel commercial. She embodies cool. Tall, sleek, chic, shining eyes… And cheekbones. I mean, I know everyone has them, but hers are set some magic way that makes her face a perfect shape.
“They say her hair’s woven from a unicorn’s mane,” Sienna chips in, leaning closer, “and sprayed with real diamonds.”
Lauren rolls her eyes. “She’s basically the queen bee. The guys fall over themselves to impress her.”
“Didn’t Jay Fletcher write her that song in Year 10? And sing it at the talent show?” Sienna asks.
“Ohmygod, that was classic.”
“How did it go again?”
Lauren straightens up and strums air guitar, closing her eyes to exaggerate the emotion:
“Violet, you’re so beautiful,
A man could get violent,
With passion, not fists, I’m not like that.
If I couldn’t have you,
I’d take a vow of silence.
Oh, Violet, be mine,
We can shine together for ever in the twilight.”
Sienna descends into hysterics. “And the whole crowd started chanting, ‘Take the vow of silence!’ ”
“She’s popular, then?”
Lauren shrugs. “I guess. So, that’s Fat Mike, self-explanatory.” She continues the lesson, Cool Kids 101. “The tall one’s James ‘Slinky’ Tyler. He smokes a lot of weed.”
“Why do they call him Slinky?”
“Because he’s always looking round corners. Like a Slinky goes down steps. Paranoid on account of the fact he smokes so much. Plus he’s really tall. And that’s Isaac, Finn’s older brother. He’s in year 13. The strong, silent type. They’re impossibly cool. If you like that sort of thing.”
The curly-haired girl accidentally drops her folder on the floor. Finn hops off the table and retrieves it. She thanks him.
“I’m going to the shop. Anyone want anything?” Finn asks the room. There’s a chorus of mumbled negatives.
“You’ll be late for class,” Isaac tells his brother.
“Yes, I will,” Finn replies.
I’ve been to enough schools to know that when you start, you pick a group and you stay there. I never really bothered to stray from my social sub-group, the Brainy Plain Girls, two-thirds of the way down the pecking order. Of course, the categories differ depending on location and there’s some overlap, but it normally goes something like this:
Beautiful People
Impossibly Cool Hipsters
Sports Freaks
Geek Chic
Emos
Brainy Plain Girls
IT Crowd
Oral Hygiene Deficients.
I feel like this new school, my final-ever school, is in some ways a last-ditch attempt to climb that ladder.
There’s nothing wrong with mid-range social standing, not at all, but, I guess, I’d really like to have my time in the sun.
Finn, Isaac, Violet, Georgia, Greg: they’re all magnetic, alive with this energy. There’s a charisma about them that I long to have. I want to be in on their secrets and jokes; to tell a story and have them rapt, tipping back their heads, roaring with laughter; for them to link arms with me in the corridor and think, Wow, that Carla is really someone.
It’s time for change. It’s time to twirl around in that phone box and exit as all-singing, all-dancing Super Carla.
Is hanging around with the Brainy Plain Girls going to get me where I want to be? Probably not… But I need the friends. And they are nice… Maybe I’m not worthy of the top spot anyway. One of the Beautiful People? It’s just a fantasy; a deluded, last-third-of-the-ladder fantasy. This is where I’m meant to be, and I ought to be thankful I’ve made human contact at all.
The bell rings. I shove my timetable and the half-eaten chicken roll into my bag.
“Come on,” says Sienna. “I’ll show you to the Chemistry lab.”