On Monday Mum dropped Zara and me off at school really early so she could prepare for the gingerbread-man lesson. Zara rushed off to join her friends at breakfast club and catch up on all the gossip. I didn’t feel inclined to hang around in my classroom. I didn’t want to hear Sally Mac and Marnie saying stupid things about Sam.

I wandered down the corridor and up the stairs to the library, just in case it was open before school started. Mr White was at his desk, writing in a black Moleskine notebook, so absorbed that he jumped when I came up to him.

‘Frankie! Hello, there. Bright and early this morning, I see,’ he said, smiling at me. He had a lovely rosy face and a shortish haircut that made him look like a little boy, though he was probably fifty or so. I loved his clothes. They weren’t at all school-teachery. Today he wore a bright blue checked shirt with a vivid green pullover, black cord trousers, and a pair of blue suede shoes.

He saw me staring down at them. ‘I’m rocking my Elvis look today,’ he said.

‘I think you look very dashing, Mr White,’ I said. ‘Is it OK to be here? I don’t want to disturb you.’

‘You’re very welcome. Whenever I’m here, consider the library open. Join my regular early birds,’ he said, gesturing.

There were two smallish boys from Year Seven playing games on the computers. One had very large sticking-out ears and the other had ginger curls and glasses. They had deep frowns of concentration on their faces. There was a cluster of Year Elevens doing their homework at a round table, comparing notes and copying. And there was Ivneet sitting at a table by herself, colouring an intricate pink and red and blue design with her felt-tip pens. I was surprised to see an ultra clever girl like Ivneet doing something as childish as colouring.

I wandered across and peered over her shoulder. I was startled. She wasn’t colouring a pretty pattern. She was shading in different parts of a dissected human body.

‘Goodness!’ I said.

‘I suppose it does look a bit ghoulish,’ she said, colouring a long line of blue vein.

‘Well, I like ghoulish,’ I said. ‘I’ve been toying with the idea of dyeing my hair black and becoming a Goth.’ I hadn’t even thought of it before. I just wanted to make myself sound interesting.

Ivneet nodded, her teeth catching her lip in concentration.

‘You should be one too. You’ve already got black hair,’ I said.

‘It would be a bit high-maintenance for me, seeing as Goth girls have chalk-white complexions,’ she pointed out.

I felt stupid, but she smiled to show she was joking. Then she went on colouring, murmuring under her breath.

‘Sorry?’ I said.

‘I’m just repeating all the medical words, trying to learn them by heart,’ said Ivneet. ‘I want to be a surgeon when I’m grown up.’

‘Oh, I see.’ I was impressed she was already preparing for her career when she was only in Year Nine like me.

‘What do you want to do, Frankie, apart from becoming a Goth?’ she asked.

‘I want to write, but I’m not sure that’s a proper career. When I was little I wanted to be a vet, but I didn’t realize you had to be brilliant at exams, and I’m not,’ I said.

‘You generally come near the top in class,’ said Ivneet.

‘Yes, but I’m never first like you, not even in my best subjects.’

‘I have an unfair advantage in that I’ve got a photographic memory.’ Ivneet wasn’t showing off, she was simply stating a fact.

‘And clearly a very high IQ,’ I said.

‘Yes. How sickening of me,’ said Ivneet.

I hadn’t realized she could be so dry. I’d always dismissed her as the geeky girl who always knew the answers, but now I decided I rather liked her. I liked her colouring book too. If I had one like that, I wouldn’t stick to the appropriate colours. I’d invent a new exotic race with green and purple organs and silver blood in their veins.

I felt a bit awkward hovering by her side, so I wandered off and peered at the books.

‘If you’re in a Gothic mood, why not give Frankenstein a go?’ Mr White suggested.

‘I didn’t know it was a book – I thought it was just an old film,’ I said.

‘A very good book, written by a teenager,’ said Mr White, finding it on the shelves.

‘A teenager? Seriously?’

‘Mary Shelley. She was nineteen and already married to Percy Bysshe and had a baby.’

She sounded interesting, but Frankenstein was a Penguin Classic and I thought it might be very hard work reading it. Still, I wanted to impress Mr White so I said it looked brilliant.

‘I’ll put it on my list of books to read,’ I said.

‘I like a student who takes on a reading challenge,’ said Mr White, and he offered me a jelly baby from a crumpled paper bag in the top drawer of his desk. ‘My wicked secret.’ He patted his tummy ruefully. ‘No wonder my trousers are getting too tight. You can have the last black jelly baby if you like, little Goth.’

I took it, smiling. I was so pleased he had a sweet tooth. He’d love a little packet of home-made fudge as a Christmas present.

He had a special box of ex-library books that had got a bit battered, selling for 50p each. I shuffled through them, wondering if there might be anything suitable for Sam – then I’d have all my Christmas presents settled. (Unless I weakened and gave Dad something after all.)

They were mostly too jokey or too girly, not Sam’s taste at all, but then I came across a book called The Chrysalids. Some idiot had scribbled all over the cover but I could just about make out a picture of a footprint. It had six toes.

‘Is this science fiction, Mr White?’ I said.

‘Yes, it is. It’s very good. I’ve ordered a new copy as this one’s been desecrated. Sharpies cause almost as much harm as knives, in my opinion,’ he said, sighing. ‘I think you’d enjoy it, maybe even more than Frankenstein.’

‘It’s not for me, actually, it’s for a friend, but I suppose I could have a sneak peek first,’ I said, scrabbling in my bag for my purse. I dropped 50p into a glass jar of silver coins. ‘Is this your private jelly-baby fund?’ I asked.

‘I wish,’ said Mr White.

Just then the ten-minute bell went.

‘Come along, young people. Off to your various classrooms,’ he called. He closed his black Moleskine notebook with a sigh. ‘Work beckons for us all.’

‘So is that your diary, Mr White?’ I asked. I’d glimpsed the word Monday at the top of the page.

‘It’s a work of fiction, but in diary form. That’s why I’m not typing it straight onto the computer. I’m trying for an authentic feel,’ he explained.

‘I didn’t know you were a writer,’ I said, interested.

‘I’m not. Though I’d like to be. I thought I’d have a go at writing a children’s book. What do you think, Frankie? Most kids like reading stuff in a diary format, don’t they? Think of all those Wimpy Kid books,’ he said.

‘And Tom Gates,’ I said.

‘And then of course there’s Adrian Mole. Hmm. Maybe the marketplace is a bit crowded,’ said Mr White, sighing. ‘Maybe I’ll never make it as a writer.’

‘I want to be a writer too,’ I told him.

‘Well, how about we start a school writing group?’ he said. ‘For all us library supporters.’

He looked at the two Year Seven boys jostling each other at the computer. ‘Would you like to join a writing group, boys?’ he asked.

‘You mean like writing stories, Mr White?’ they said in chorus.

‘No need to look so disgusted, George and Peter. You could invent a whole new scenario for a computer game. That’s writing, after all.’

‘We don’t have to, do we?’ asked the ginger-haired one, George.

‘No thanks, Mr White!’ said Peter, the one who had the distinctive ears. ‘We want to play games, not write them, don’t we, Ginger?’

Mr White looked at the Year Elevens stuffing textbooks and files and paper back into their school bags. ‘What about you guys?’ he asked.

‘Per-lease, Mr White! We don’t have the time,’ said one, answering for the group.

‘Or doubtless the inclination,’ he said, sighing.

‘I’ll join,’ said Ivneet.

‘That’s very tactful of you, Ivneet,’ said Mr White. ‘But you always seem to be doing so much studying too.’

‘My parents are nagging me to get some hobbies. They want me to grow up well rounded.’ She paused. ‘And they know it will look good on my UCAS form when I apply to university.’

‘You’re way too young to be thinking about university,’ said the biggest boy in the Year Eleven group. ‘You haven’t even done your GCSEs yet!’

‘Maybe I’m so brilliant I’ve done them already,’ said Ivneet, deadpan.

They rolled their eyes derisively. She laughed when they shuffled out of the library clutching their bulging school bags.

‘You haven’t really done your GCSEs, have you?’ I asked.

‘Of course not!’

‘You’d better get going, girls. The final bell is going to clang at any moment,’ said Mr White.

I wished I could stay in the library all day long. I sighed as I said goodbye to Mr White and walked down the corridor, clutching The Chrysalids.

‘Do you think he’s serious about this writing group?’ Ivneet asked.

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘It might be fun.’

The bell went. We were supposed to be in our classroom within a minute, but I dawdled down the stairs as slowly as I could. I thought Ivneet would hurry on ahead of me, but she stayed by my side.

As we approached the classroom she said softly, ‘Just smile at them in a superior way if they start having a go at you.’

I was startled. I hadn’t realized the whole class knew that Sally and her gang were being hateful to me. I didn’t want Ivneet feeling sorry for me.

‘As if I care about them,’ I said. I flicked my hair over my shoulders and marched into the classroom, my head held high.

Miss Eliot was at her desk, looking irritated. ‘You’re late, girls. Hurry up! Ivneet, I’m surprised at you!’

I looked up, up, up as I went towards my desk – and then tripped over the strap of someone’s school bag. There was a titter of laugher when I staggered.

‘Try to stop clowning about, Francesca,’ said Miss Eliot before starting to take registration.

Did she think I was doing it on purpose? I sat down hurriedly, trying not to look in Sally’s direction. It was almost a relief that it was double maths, the most terrible start to the week. Miss Eliot took it herself, and she was very strict. Most teachers let us muck around a bit the last week of term, but Miss Eliot’s only concession to the time of the year was to set us a complicated problem about the transportation of Christmas trees to a marketplace.

I felt even more woolly-headed than usual and didn’t know where to begin, let alone how to proceed. As we struggled, Miss Eliot started marking our maths homework. I was pretty certain I’d got all those sums right because Sam was a genius at maths. Perhaps I should have made a few deliberate mistakes. Miss Eliot would sense something suspicious if I got ten out of ten for my homework.

Ivneet was sitting at a desk in front of me, her pen working steadily down the page of her maths notebook. She already had a long tail of answers, as neat and tidy as the plait down her back.

Halfway through the second lesson Miss Eliot started giving back the marked notebooks. I waited, heart thudding. She stood beside my desk, peering down at the incoherent workings on my page. I’d abandoned the first question, bodged the second and was stuck on the third.

‘Mmm,’ she said wryly. ‘Struggling, are we?’

‘Yes, Miss Eliot.’

‘So it looks as if you had a little private tuition over the weekend …’

I nodded. There was no point pretending.

Miss Eliot shook her head.

‘Now the Frankfurter’s for it!’ Marnie whispered to Sally. It was a very loud whisper.

Perhaps Miss Eliot saw me twitching. ‘Oh well, you clearly need further tuition over the Christmas holidays, Francesca, so you can shine in class too,’ she said, and moved on.

I couldn’t believe it. She’d never been so easy on anyone else. And when she handed back Marnie’s homework, Miss Eliot was very tart with her, saying she really had to try harder.

I was dreading break time. I was dying to go to the loo but didn’t like to go to the girls’ toilets. I was pretty sure they’d be in there, waiting for me. Zara saw me sitting on the steps in the playground, writing in my school jotter, and left her friends to come over.

‘You OK, Frankie?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

‘You look a bit fed up,’ she said. ‘Have Sally and those others been bullying you again?’

‘I’m not being bullied,’ I insisted. ‘They say stupid stuff, but it doesn’t bother me.’

‘OK, OK. Keep your hair on. What are you doing anyway? Not homework?’

‘I’m planning a new story. Mr White’s started up a special writing group,’ I said.

‘Seriously? What, just for the geeky library lot?’ asked Zara. ‘You don’t want to hang out with them, Frankie. They’re so not cool. It’ll only make the Sally Mac gang pick on you even more.’

‘Did I ask for your advice? Just push off, Zara. I’m fine,’ I said.

‘OK. Suit yourself. Loser!’ said Zara, and she flounced off back to her friends.

After that I had to face the toilets, because I was scared I was going to burst into tears. Thank goodness Sally and her gang weren’t there after all. I hated being called a loser, especially by Zara. I knew she’d tried to be kind to me. I shouldn’t have told her to push off. But she was only making me feel worse. Anyway, what was wrong with the library crowd? What was so dreadful about being a geek? Ivneet was very bright and hard-working, and it seemed certain she’d achieve her dream and be a surgeon one day. Zara wanted to be a famous YouTuber, like a million other girls. She practised demonstrating make-up and hairstyles, staring into the mirror on her dressing table. She wasn’t very good at it. In fact, she sounded pretty dreadful – affected and self-conscious.

I looked down at the few sentences I’d scribbled in my jotter about the agonies of a transparent green boy in a world of purple people who sneered at him. He cried copious chartreuse tears. Wasn’t that affected and self-conscious? I wasn’t even sure chartreuse was a green drink.

I tore the page into tiny shreds and threw them down the loo. Then the bell went for the end of break. I thought of all the other bells clanging, until at last the bell at twenty to four signalled home time, with Mum and Rowena coming to pick us up in the car.

What if Mum’s eyes went funny again or she had another stumble? How would we manage if she couldn’t drive any more, couldn’t work? I felt as if my brain was swelling like a balloon with all these worries. The rest of morning school seemed interminable.

I had the canteen ordeal to get through next. I wished Ivneet didn’t sometimes go home for lunch. I selected a triangle of pizza and some salad, and then looked around for somewhere to sit. It was absolutely heaving. There was one space at a table of Year Nine boys. They’d been my mates once, when we’d played football together, but they didn’t seem to like me any more.

‘Get lost, Frankie,’ they said – or words to that effect.

I kept hold of my tray and tried to spot another spare seat.

‘Hey, Frankie. Come and sit with me! I’m all by myself.’

It was Sally Macclesfield! She was sitting with spare chairs around her.

It was a trick, of course. I was the last person in the world she’d want to sit with. And she wasn’t all by herself. I could see Marnie and Georgia and Scarlett standing in the pudding queue, waiting for trifle, everyone’s favourite.

‘Come on,’ said Sally, and she patted the chair beside her. The sun was shining right onto her through the canteen window, making her blonde hair glow like gold. She was the sort of girl who could look stylish even in school uniform. She had her sleeves rolled up, showing her slender white wrists. She’d inked a little bluebird on one, and on the other she had a scarlet thread bracelet with a tiny gold heart charm. Mock tattoos and jewellery were forbidden at school, of course, but Sally didn’t care.

She smiled at me in a friendly way. I was certain she was playing games with me, but I found myself sitting down beside her.

‘Hey there,’ she said softly. She looked at my single slice of pizza and salad. ‘That’s not much.’

She had a large plate of chips with a pool of tomato sauce on the side. She dipped a chip in the sauce, nibbled it, and then pushed the plate in front of me. ‘Go on, help yourself.’

‘No thanks.’ I stared at her flawless skin. ‘How do you manage to stuff yourself with chips and never get spots?’ I asked.

She grinned. ‘Will power,’ she said. ‘How do you manage to get the hottest guy in town as a boyfriend?’

Ah! So this was all about Sam. OK, I could joke too.

‘It’s my fatal attraction,’ I said, picking up my pizza slice and taking a bite.

Sally laughed. ‘You never even said you had a boyfriend, let alone one like him.’

‘What do you want me to do? Go round school with a megaphone announcing it?’ I said.

‘So where did you meet? At the Gold Star?’

The Gold Star was the nightclub in town. You had to be eighteen to get in, and they were very strict about it too, but on Fridays they lowered the age to fourteen. Zara was desperate to go, but Mum wouldn’t let her, as it had a reputation for drug-taking and fights.

‘Do you really think I could blag myself into the Gold Star?’ I said to Sally.

‘Maybe not,’ she said. ‘So, did you just bump into your Sammy somewhere?’

‘It wasn’t that difficult. He lives next door. We’ve been bumping into each other since we were toddlers,’ I said.

‘Oh, you lucky thing!’

Marnie and Georgia and Scarlett came over, each balancing a big portion of trifle. They looked at me in astonishment.

‘Get out of my seat, Frankfurter!’ said Marnie.

‘Hey, don’t be like that,’ said Sally. ‘Sit on my other side, Marnie. Frankie’s just telling me about her boyfriend – you know, the one we saw at Whitelands. Though is he really your boyfriend, Frankie? Aren’t you just boy-and-girl-next-door pals? I mean, there’s no romance going on, is there? Kissing?’

I thought about Sam’s kiss in the park and felt my cheeks going hot.

‘You’re blushing! So you do kiss?’

‘What else do you do then?’ Marnie said, sitting down. She made some crude suggestions and I blushed more.

‘No! And mind your own business,’ I said.

‘Yes, shut up, Marnie. You’re just jealous because you’ve never kissed a boy,’ said Sally.

Marnie looked stunned. We all were. Sally was snubbing her best friend and sticking up for me!

‘How old is he then, Frankie?’ Scarlett asked. ‘My boyfriend’s sixteen.’

‘Sammy’s our age,’ I said.

‘Boys our age are so immature,’ she said.

‘If you’re talking about Mike, I don’t think it’s very mature to get drunk on six cans of lager and then spew up all over your mother’s sofa,’ said Sally. ‘And he’s not really your boyfriend anyway – he’s your brother’s best mate, that’s all. None of you have a proper boyfriend.’

‘I have,’ said Georgia. ‘Jake.’

‘Jake!’ exclaimed Sally. ‘The lovely, adorable Jake who’s sent you a couple of texts since you met on holiday. The romance of the century.’

‘Why are you being so mean, Sally?’ asked Scarlett.

‘Because you all get on my nerves sometimes,’ she said. She stood up. ‘Come on then.’

‘We haven’t finished our trifle!’ said Marnie.

‘Well, you guys carry on guzzling. Come on, Frankie.’

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Everything had changed so quickly. It was as if I’d entered another dimension. I knew that Sally was only interested in me because of Sam. She was acting nice to me now, but I still hated her, didn’t I? Why was I standing up too? Why was I going off with her?