‘THIS ISN’T F—’
The door is closed in my face.
LOCATION SETTING: THE CLASSROOM
It’s two hours later, and my friends and I are sitting together at the back of class, furiously passing indignant notes and discussing this absolute injustice. Olivia can’t believe it and Sophia is sympathetic; Madison’s calling for mutiny, but she always overreacts so we ignore her.
Finally, we simmer down and our conversation turns to normal topics: parties, clothes, teachers, the new boy who’s just started at school. He’s clearly very bad news (he has piercing green eyes), but he keeps staring at me across the classroom. We all suspect that, deep down, he has an interesting backstory and a secretly good heart.
And Olivia is all, ‘Oh, Hope, when are you going to realise?’
‘Hope.’
Sophia is all, ‘You two are meant for each other.’
‘Hope.’
Except I can’t see it, because—
‘HOPE.’
Jumping, I blink at Mr Gilbert. ‘Mmm?’
‘Are you listening, or shall I take this absorbing lesson outside and teach a squirrel to pass their fast-approaching exams instead?’
Umm, good luck getting them to hold a pen.
‘I’m listening,’ I ad-lib quickly: we world-class actresses have to be able to think on our feet. ‘And … in … ah … 1052 William of Normandy claimed that he was the rightful heir to the throne, and thus began the Norman Conquest!’
‘In 1052?’ Mr Gilbert frowns.
‘1053? 54? 55?’
His ancient bushy grey eyebrows are going up a fraction at a time.
‘56 … 57 … 58 … 59 … 60?’
They’re still going up.
‘61 … 62 … 63 … 64 … 65 … 66 …’
They stop moving.
‘In 1066!’
‘Excellent. I’m glad we finally got there, Hope. What a shame we’re studying chemistry this morning, not history.’
I stare at the red book in front of me.
If only Sophia or Olivia or Madison or New Boy had pointed this small technicality out to me earlier, but they didn’t. Mainly because I’ve never been to school. I study alone in our library with a tutor and none of my friends actually exist in real life … which makes it hard for them to warn me about stuff.
‘Ah,’ I nod.
What does Mum say when she’s not listening?
‘I’m just multitasking, darling.’
‘Let’s see if we can single-task first,’ Mr Gilbert says, closing his eyes briefly. ‘Then we’ll consider branching out to more than one. And please don’t call me darling.’
He looks tired, which is strange because up until two years ago he had to teach all the Valentine kids and now it’s just me. You’d think it would be a lot less hard work.
‘Shall we push on?’ Mr Gilbert coughs. ‘We write the molecular formula of the repeating unit in brackets, putting an n where—’
My eyes start wandering around the room.
I can’t believe I’m in here, surrounded by thousands of books in brown, beige and snot-green, when I could be out there, telling Variety my entire life story. What does a nearly movie star need with this information anyway? They’re not exactly going to quiz me on repeating units for a feature in Vogue Japan, right?
Bored, my eyes flick across the chintzy wallpaper, windows, wallpaper, books …
Finally, they reach a small, oily and deep grey/brown painting I haven’t paid attention to before because it was made before they invented proper colour paints.
‘Is she dead?’ I ask abruptly. ‘Or sleeping?’
Mr Gilbert pauses from polywhatsits and rubs his face. ‘Who?’
‘That woman. The one lying in the boat.’
I peer more closely. She’s got long blonde hair, her eyes are shut, she’s covered in flowers, people are crying … and I may have just answered my own question.
‘That’s Elaine,’ my tutor says in an exhausted voice. ‘She was in love with the knight Lancelot, but he loved Queen Guinevere who was married to King Arthur.’
He says this in a flat tone, as if it’s not the most interesting thing he’s ever told me.
I lean forward. ‘And then what happened?’
‘She was trapped in a tower, cursed to only watch the world through a mirror.’
‘And then?’
‘Lancelot rode past and Elaine spun round to see him.’
Mr Gilbert has no ability to tell even a basic story properly. ‘And then?’
‘The mirror breaks and she dies.’
My heart is swelling; my eyes are losing focus. ‘That is … the most … beautiful … and … romantic … film … I have ever …’
‘It’s not a film, Hope. It’s The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – we studied this poem last month. Have you been listening at all?’
Umm, no.
Honestly, I heard a lot of dull stuff about barley and rye, and figured it was a vegetable-based poem about baby onions. This is exactly why titles and visuals are so very important.
I’d have called it Lancelot’s Lover is Dead and it would have been huge.
‘OK,’ my tutor sighs, shaking his head. ‘So where were we? Hydrogen atoms, Hope. How many electrons do they have?’
Kill me. ‘Five?’
Mr Gilbert and I are in tune: he clearly wants to kill me too.
‘One. And, because they only need one more to complete the first shell, they seek out other easily available atoms to combine with, which means they’re weaker and less stable …’
‘But … what if they’re not.’ I lean forward and jab the page with my finger. ‘What if they’re meant to be with other atoms, Mr Gilbert? What if they want to be? What if it’s their atomic destiny?’
‘It kind of is, Hope,’ my tutor nods, unexpectedly delighted. ‘Chemically speaking. Well done.’
I glow at him, even though I was obviously talking about myself.
‘So,’ he continues, ‘hydrogen perox—’
There’s a soft knock at the door.
‘OH NO!’ I shout, jumping up. ‘It must be someone from Variety, come to disrupt my pivotal lessons! They’ve realised I am an integral part of the interview and they can’t go on without me! What an unexpected twist! What will I do?’
Effie’s head appears. ‘Sorry for butting in, Mr Gilbert.’ Then she grimaces at me. ‘Bad luck, Po. I tried my best to talk