Ella wasn’t speaking to me. Which made hanging out with my friends back at school really quite difficult. In fact, it was impossible. Any time I got near Grace, Ella would whisk her away from me as though I was spreading vicious germs, and whenever I walked past, Ella and her new minions would whisper something and then all turn to stare. On Monday, I just shrugged it off, telling myself it would be sorted by the next day, but it just got worse. By Friday, I resigned myself to the fact that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to blow over.
The whole thing was so stupid; if anyone should have been mad, it should have been me. Ella was the one who made the horrible comment; I was nothing but nice to her. Instead, there was a rumour going round that I’d lied about hanging out with celebrities – in fact I’d just been waiting on them.
Ella was meant to be my friend but she sure wasn’t acting like it. She seemed to be enjoying spreading rumours about me. I felt sad about Grace too. I missed our weird conversations, and I could tell she felt awkward about everything. She kept throwing me longing looks down the hallways and across classrooms, but couldn’t seem to find the courage to face Ella’s wrath and come to talk to me. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had loads of other friends, but weirdly, even though I’d always known that I was the most popular girl in my class, I had no idea who to actually hang out with now. I had always been part of Ella’s pack – or rather, she’d been part of mine – and now I had gone solo, I came to the quick realisation that I didn’t know anyone outside that group, not properly.
I felt safe in the knowledge that as soon as I appeared on Ethan’s vlog or was photographed at Sky’s party, my friends would come flocking back and Ella would be stuck on her own. That didn’t make lunchtimes any easier in the meantime, though. I had no idea where to sit, so on Monday I just sat on my own, at the end of a table of boys from two years above, who barely noticed me because they were so engrossed in talking about computer games.
After another solitary lunch on Tuesday, I dreaded a repeat on Wednesday, so I bought some crisps and a chocolate bar from the vending machine and hid in the corner of the library. Mr Grindle was in the staffroom having his lunch so I could eat in peace – that is, until I was disturbed by Cal. The last person I wanted to meet.
He looked totally stunned to see me. ‘What are you doing in here?’
‘Reading.’
‘You don’t have a book.’
Damn his stupid logic.
‘I’m about to read. I was just having a sit-down first. Is that a crime?’
‘What are you really doing in here, Flick?’
I let out a long drawn-out sigh and then told him the truth about having no one to sit with at lunch. I thought he’d feel all sorry for me but instead he just laughed, which was incredibly rude and inappropriate. So I told him so.
‘That is incredibly rude and inappropriate.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He chuckled, not looking sorry at all. ‘But it’s just that, well, now you know how it feels.’
‘How what feels?’ I said angrily. ‘Being a loser?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
‘Huh?’
‘Come on, Flick,’ he continued, ‘this is how the other half lives. While you and Ella enjoy looking down your noses at everyone and acting as though you’re in some kind of elite club, this is how everyone outside it feels. Anyway,’ he added chirpily, ‘I’ve got to return these books. Enjoy your lunch!’
And then he had the cheek to just walk off and leave me there.
Even though he had acted outrageously and I considered never talking to him again, I slowly accepted that Cal may have had a point. The next day at school, I noticed that people tended to keep their heads down and speed up in the corridor as they passed wherever Ella and her gang were standing. Every now and then, Ella would see someone approaching and whisper something to the gang, who would turn right on cue to watch that singled-out person pass. And that person would always look nervous and go bright red. The only person who didn’t have that reaction was Cal. He passed them without taking any notice and, due to recent events, there was more whispering and pointing at him than ever.
Not as much as I got, though.
On Friday, I sat at my now-usual table in the library with a delicious pasta dish Chef had made me. I’d told him what was going on at school and he’d gone all red in the face and then exploded.
‘Well!’ he yelled after he had finished ranting about Ella. ‘I certainly won’t be letting you go hungry. If they won’t let you eat in the cafeteria, then you will dine like a queen in the library.’
And then he’d created the poshest lunchbox of all time, complete with a starter, main and pudding. It almost made not having any friends a good thing.
Cal had returned that book on London architecture to the library, so I had sneaked it from the shelf and started reading the chapter on the Royale. It turns out there were loads of cool facts in there, like how, when it was being built in the 1900s, one of the builders, a Mr Colin Whittle, was convinced that he kept seeing a ghost appearing from its walls. He quit his job and tried to garner support from the other workers to have the building work halted but no one believed him. He ended up begging to come back but they didn’t let him.
I couldn’t help but feel that Mr Colin Whittle and I had a lot in common, now that I too had been shunned from society. Except, you know, my situation was maybe a little less paranormal.
I was just reading the Colin Whittle story and freaking out about that time my earrings vanished into thin air – and how they may not have been eaten by Fritz as I’d thought but stolen by this ghost – when I heard footsteps come up and stop next to me. I rolled my eyes and turned to tell Cal to leave me alone, when I found myself staring up at Olly.
‘Hey.’ He pulled out the chair next to me and sat in it.
I glanced around, checking to see if this was some kind of cruel joke where Ella jumped out at me and poured a bucket of custard over my head or something, but I couldn’t see anyone else through the stacks of books.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, reading my panicked expression. ‘It’s just me.’ He gestured at my pasta. ‘That looks amazing.’
‘It is.’
‘I’m really sorry about the way Ella’s treating you,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ I relaxed, comforted that this definitely wasn’t a joke and he was here of his own accord. He was doing that being-nice thing again. ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with you.’
‘It’s not cool,’ he noted. ‘I don’t even really understand what you did wrong.’
‘That makes two of us.’ I smiled, twirling pasta on my fork.
‘She just likes the power of putting people down,’ he said bitterly. ‘I broke up with her.’
I stopped twisting my fork. ‘What?’
‘I mean, we weren’t even really going out.’ He sighed, leaning back in his chair and running his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t even like her.’
He caught my eye and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. He looked surprised at first but then he started laughing too.
‘Stupid, right?’
‘So stupid.’ I giggled. ‘Why were you dating someone you didn’t like?’
‘I don’t know!’
We exploded into a fresh round of laughter and then he leaned forwards and put a hand on my wrist. I had to admit that Ella was right about one thing: Olly’s eyelashes were insanely long, especially close up. And they were so neat. Framing those deep, dark eyes so perfectly. Have they always been that neat? I don’t remember his lashes being so neat.
The word ‘neat’ began to lose all meaning in my head.
‘On Monday, don’t hide in the library. Come to lunch. Sit with me.’
‘NEAT.’
OH MY GOD, WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?
‘Neat?’ He laughed. ‘I’ve never heard you use that expression before.’
‘Uh,’ I began, ‘I’m thinking of bringing it back. Neat. It’s a good word. Don’t you think? We should use it more. Neat.’
I hate my brain.
‘If you say so.’
As he stood up to leave, our gaze broke and I was able to pull my brain into gear.
‘Olly,’ I said quickly, ‘she won’t like it. I mean, you need to really think about it, if you sit with me at lunch. She’ll be cross with you and probably won’t talk to you again. Trust me, I know what she’s like. I completely understand if you don’t want to risk that.’
He sighed.
‘Flick, I no longer have any hairs on my arm due to her constant possessive stroking. Her not talking to me would be a good thing.’
And he walked away, leaving me to my pasta. I just wasn’t feeling so hungry any more.
He must have told Grace about it because that evening I was giving Fritz his weekly bubble bath, when the landline rang. It was Matthew, telling me that Grace was in reception, asking for me. I told him she could come up and as I wrapped Fritz in his favourite fluffy towel, I hugged him close, suddenly feeling sick with nerves. I opened the door when the bell rang to see Grace sheepishly holding several packs of microwave popcorn and two tubs of ice cream.
‘Movie night? Since you missed last weekend’s.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood aside to let her come in. She went to perch on the sofa. I followed her and sat opposite, placing Fritz, who was now fast asleep in his little towel, next to me, and waiting for her to speak.
‘I’m so sorry about school,’ she wailed. ‘I’ve hated everything this week and I just really want us to be friends again!’
I passed her a tissue. ‘We are friends, Grace.’
‘Ella’s been so mean and I told her not to say horrible things about you and then she snapped at me and said that you had never liked me in the first place and had always said nasty things about me behind my back, so I didn’t know what to do. And then Olly broke up with her and now she hates me even more, and then Olly said I’d been a really bad friend to you, and . . .’ Her lip quivered. ‘Everything is awful!’
I held out another tissue and waited patiently while she mopped herself up and blew her nose, which woke Fritz up. He growled and then buried himself back into the towel.
‘It’s OK,’ I said, coming to sit next to her and giving her a comforting pat on the knee.
‘It’s not OK,’ she whined.
‘Yeah, it is. You haven’t been a bad friend. I know what Ella can be like.’
‘So, we’re still friends?’ She sniffed, her big eyes blinking hopefully through her tears.
‘Yeah, we’re still friends.’ I smiled.
‘Phew!’ She launched herself at me for a hug. ‘I’m so pleased,’ she said with a watery smile, pulling away and shuffling comfortably into the back of the sofa. ‘And you know what? I don’t think I’ll miss being friends with Ella. I’ve been on constant eggshells this whole term. It’s exhausting.’
I laughed. ‘You can relax now. We’ll face her together.’
She pulled off the lid of one of the tubs of ice cream. ‘So. Movie night?’
‘Sounds perfect.’
Mum said Grace could stay over, so she set her up a mattress on the floor and we talked for hours, which Fritz got very grumpy about. He kept gnawing loudly at the edge of his bed in an attempt to communicate to us to shut up and stop disturbing his beauty sleep, but it was the first time I’d actually properly talked to Grace without her being afraid of saying something wrong, so I found out loads about her that I had no idea about. Like how she loves animals – especially dogs and tortoises – so she wants to be a vet when she’s older, and she’s also this massive film buff with a thing for old movies that no one has ever heard of. According to Grace, they don’t make them like they used to. In a few hours of chatting, I learned more about Grace than after weeks of hanging out.
I didn’t mind that we didn’t stop talking until the early hours of the next morning. I drifted off to sleep happy in the knowledge that I had absolutely nothing to do the next day.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.