The bell rings and we all bustle out of our chairs, buzzing with anticipation as we grab our bags and push our way through to the corridor, and then outside. I wait for the girls at our usual spot under the oak that spreads itself into the sky at the boundary of where our school field meets common ground, and a copse.
I’m always first on a Friday afternoon because Molly and Serena and Tilly all have pretentious drama, which is on the other side of the school from the art rooms. Their teacher is a failed actress turned teacher who faffs around and usually keeps the class over time because she wants them to watch her perform something they are supposed to be learning, so they are always late out. I don’t mind, though; it’s good to have a moment to unwind and the sounds of everyone leaving are already fading away as I lie back against the knotty trunk of the tree and close my eyes.
I’m almost dozing off when I hear a scraping noise above me and I open my eyes and look up into the tree to see that there is a boy – Newboy, actually – sitting in the bloody tree and just staring at me. I don’t move; I look back, challenging him to speak first. He doesn’t, he just laughs and then I’m cross, temper suddenly bubbling up in me, which makes me even more angry because I don’t like to get angry; it doesn’t agree with me.
‘Pervert!’ I shout up at him. ‘Do you get off staring at girls when they don’t know you’re there? Why are you up there anyway, you weirdo? Aren’t you a bit too old to be climbing trees?’
He lets his weight pull him out of the tree, leaning forward and falling feet first, landing so quietly that I briefly wonder if he is even real. He sits down next to me.
‘I was there first,’ he tells me, in an annoyingly sexy voice. ‘I wasn’t staring at you the whole time; anyway, I didn’t realise you were even there until you started snoring.’
‘I was not snoring!’
‘Are those your friends?’ he says, nodding in the direction of the school.
‘Yes,’ I reply, turning to look at them walking towards us through the warm hazy air. Molly is wearing her long socks pulled up over her knees, her skirt shorter now she’s out of school and can hike it up without being told off. She looks curvy and touchable, and I’m suddenly bitter-jealous and all awkward elbows and scrawny hips.
Newboy is silent for a moment and then says: ‘Right, I’m off. Nice to meet you…?’ The word hangs in the air between us, it’s a question for me to take.
‘Vivian,’ I say, willing myself not to blush like a twelve-year-old.
He doesn’t repeat it back to me incredulously or laugh, like most people do at my stupid granny name. He looks pleased with himself instead, and for a heartbeat I get the impression that he’s keeping it in his mouth and tasting it somehow, and I feel a bit light-headed, but then he grins at me, teeth flashing white.
‘I’m Alex.’ He looks at me for a long moment, searching my face like he’s waiting for a reaction, but when I don’t give him one he smiles again and pushes himself off the ground in one fluid movement, and he’s gone.
Time seems to have slowed down while we were talking; I feel as if I were caught up in it, thick and hot, melting like tar, and I have to shake my head as the girls come up to me, to clear it. For a moment I think I see a dark look on Molly’s perfect face but it’s gone so quickly I must have imagined it. She’s got no reason to be jealous of me, anyway. I put my hands out to her and she grabs them and pulls me to my feet. I make sure I don’t wipe my hands off straight afterwards, even though hers were damp and horrid. I wait until she’s not looking.
‘What was that about?’ she asks, casually. ‘Were you getting chatted up by Newboy?’ I can hear the undertone to her question. You? Mousy, skinny, flat-chested Vivian – you, attracting the interest of someone that good-looking?
‘Of course not,’ I say, pretending to laugh off the insult I feel – I know I’m not as pretty as her, she doesn’t need to rub it in. ‘He wanted to know what your name was.’
‘He already knows my name,’ she says, sharply. ‘I told Ben to tell him when he got his number for me. I told you I was going to text him last night.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t sure which one you were,’ I say, back-pedalling. ‘You guys do all look a bit similar from a distance.’
It’s true, they do all look the same at first. All of them are blonde, though Molly is the only one who doesn’t need help from a packet at the chemist, and all of them dress in the same way, with anything that shows off their long and lean legs and tanned arms. They are all taller than me: I seemed to stop growing at a tiny 5’2” while they soared, stretching away from me, leaving me behind in the dirt.
Molly links my arm with hers
