“Not your turn, and no offensive language,” Mrs Taylor jumps in.
“Responsible,” Lottie says. Lottie and Beth are so not involved in this at this point, but they’re carrying on either valiantly or obliviously.
“Able to take criticism,” Tariq says.
“Here’s some criticism!” Jack announces. “Tell the truth! Don’t lead people on!” He points to our paper. “Be kind to YOUR BOYFRIEND!”
“That says ‘animals’,” Lottie says.
“I think both count,” Dylan says.
Jack snaps his fingers. “Exactly!” he says triumphantly.
“Exactly,” Dylan echoes. “They’re basically the same thing – my ex-boyfriend is behaving like an absolute pig right now.”
“Such an obvious choice of animal!” Jack hurls back. “And also, THIS IS YOUR FAULT, NOT MINE!”
“OK! OK, that’s absolutely enough!” Mrs Taylor says. “Whatever is going on here, I don’t want to hear any more about it. OK? We need to learn to leave our personal lives outside the sixth form. OK? OK, Jack?”
“OK.”
“OK, Dylan?”
“OK.”
Mrs Taylor looks between me and Tariq. We both nod.
“OK, then,” Mrs Taylor says. “One more example each, please.”
“A team player,” Jack mutters.
“Able to manage workloads,” Beth adds.
Dylan’s eyes have a dangerous twinkle in them. “Doesn’t. Have. PUBIC LICE!”
It’s at that point that Jack launches himself at Dylan, and they both topple to the floor in a mess of squeals and flailing limbs, none of which look like actual punches, but more like a very homoerotic wrestling match. Various classmates have their phones out, filming. Once again, Jack’s made this whole thing into The Jack Show. Suddenly I’m so completely furious I have to stop myself jumping into the scrum and wringing his stupid neck.
Mrs Taylor is straight on her walkie-talkie. “Office? I need some backup in the main hall, please?”
CHAPTER NINE
JACK
Nate is so super furious, I mean, honestly, talk about overreaction. Personally, it felt good to air my considerable grievances, plus, don’t Dylan and Tariq deserve to be embarrassed in public for what they’ve done? Also, thanks to the element of surprise, I basically won a wrestling match with the football captain, so that’s another humiliation for Dylan.
Nate clearly does not feel the same, though. I can barely keep up with him as he charges down the street, all red-faced and breathing heavily.
“Nate! It’s not like it even matters!”
He doesn’t look at me. “I have never been thrown out of a class in my life!”
“OK, (a) it wasn’t a class. Not a proper one. It was a—”
“Seriously, you should shut up.”
“OK, but also, (b) we’re not officially at school, we’re technically—”
“Jack, shut up.”
“OK, but finally, (c) the school gets money for each sixth former they recruit, so all this ‘compulsory orientation session’ thing is just them pretending they’ve actually got power over us because they’ll want us regardless, like, whatever we’ve done wrong, they will still want us in September because otherwise we’ll just probably go to Downham College and they’ll get the money for us instead. Literally, we could have committed a heinous atrocity, nuked an entire continent, millions dead and they’d be like, ‘Yeah, OK, you can still study A level English here.’”
He stops dead and turns right into me, so we’re almost nose to nose. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
I can tell it’s more than that. I can tell he actually wants to wring my neck. His left eye is twitching, which always used to happen when he was stressed. It’s kind of sweet. “Maybe talking about it will help,” I suggest.
“What’s there to talk about, Jack? How I’ve been humiliated? How I just want to crawl under a rock right now? How you’re making everything a billion times worse by being so…”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Fabulous in the face of adversity?” I suggest.
He scowls at me. “I don’t want to talk.”
And off he goes again, charging down the street.
Trouble is, I do want to talk. I’d love to. Between us, maybe we could piece this whole thing together, get some answers. And there isn’t anyone else I can talk to about this. It’s not like I have anyone I would call a best friend. I mean, Nate was my best friend, once, so I guess he’s the closest thing, even if he does now hate me. “Nate!”
He doesn’t look back.
“Don’t make me wrestle you, Nate!”
But he doesn’t seem to care.
I try to catch him up, until I’m literally doing a light jog next to him as he strides along. “This is crazy,” I tell him.
He gives me nothing.
“Our boyfriends both cheated on us. Don’t you think we have something in common to talk about?”
“No.”
“Talking helps!”
“No.”
He arrives at his house, where his mum and dad are both in the driveway, packing things into a camper van.
“Hey, Nate!” his dad chirps. “We’re just—”
Nate barges past, doesn’t even acknowledge either of them, heads in through the front door and slams it shut behind him.
His parents glance at one another, and then at me. “Jack!” his mum says.
“Hey,” I say, smiling. Nate’s mum hasn’t changed a bit – she’s dressed practically (but not unstylishly) in jeans and a floral blouse, and her whole vibe still exudes “mum”, if you get me? It’s like, you can tell she’s caring, she’d protect you from bad guys, and would always have a tissue handy, but you’d better not swear in front of her. His dad, who always was a little rough around the edges, is slightly rougher these days (he totally wouldn’t care if you swore in front of him), although it’s nothing a trip to the barber, a shave – and possibly a spa day – wouldn’t solve.
“We haven’t seen you since you were—” Nate’s mum illustrates my height as a thirteen-year-old with her hand. “Look at you! All handsome and grown-up!”
“It’s true, very grown-up – I actually had to shave two weeks ago. Sort of.”
“You and Nate used to hang out all the time,” Nate’s dad says, putting down a box which has “cooking stuff” written on it in marker pen.
“Yes, well, that was before your son turned against me because he
