frown. I thought we’d already done that. “OK.”
“And pretend it never happened,” Nat adds in a tense voice.
“…OK.”
Every time she tells us to put it behind us, it’s becoming more and more clear that Nat hasn’t done that.
“We’ll just carry on as normal,” Nat adds.
“…OK.”
Then there’s a long silence and it’s not comfortable. In ten years, it might be the first uncomfortable silence there has ever been between us. Apart from the time she peed herself on the ballet-room floor and it hit my foot. That was a little bit awkward too.
“Anyway,” Nat says after a couple of minutes, as she pats her hair and straightens her coat and pulls up her school tights with one hand. “So, Harriet.” She looks at the bite of sandwich left in her hand. “Where’s the protein in this thing, huh? I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve done your research properly.”
Finally, the topic has moved back to territory I can handle.
“I have done my research properly!” I shout back, pretending to be totally outraged. “The protein’s in the…” What can I say to move the conversation as far from modelling as it is possible to move it? “Chicken,” I finish and then grin at her. “There’s chicken in it too. Did I forget to mention that? Strawberry and high-protein chicken sandwiches. Mmmm. My favourite.”
“Strawberry and chicken?” Nat laughs and my shoulders relax a little bit.
“You can totally live on strawberry and chicken sandwiches,” I clarify, trying not to meet her eyes. Is there any way we can just avoid the subject of yesterday until it goes away completely? Is that how Best Friendship works? Maybe. Maybe not.
But we both spend the rest of the journey to school trying to find out.
“Woooooaaah,” he says as Nat and I walk into the classroom. We’ve got to school in one piece – just. I’ve talked about the Greek origin of the delphinium flower (delphis, because it looks like a dolphin), just how many wives Henry VIII actually had (between two and four, depending on whether you’re Catholic or not) and the fact that the Egyptian pyramids were originally shiny and white with crystals on the top. Nat has stared into the distance, nodded and grown progressively quieter, stiffer and pinker around the collarbone.
But the important thing is we’ve managed to avoid talking about modelling or dream stealing or the bone-crushing disappointment of thwarted lifelong ambitions. Or the fact that there’s palpable tension between us.
Anyway. “Wooooooaaaah,” says Toby. “Look at the palpable tension between you! It’s like the Cold War, circa 1962. Harriet, I think you’re probably America. You’re sort of trying to make lots of noise in the hope it goes away. Nat, you’re more like Russia. All kind of cold and frosty and covered in snow.” Then he pauses. “Not literally covered in snow,” he clarifies. “Although it’s terribly wintry today, isn’t it? Do you like my new gloves?”
And then he holds out a pair of black knitted gloves with a cotton-white skeleton hand attached to the back. There’s an embarrassed silence while Nat and I put a lot of energy into getting our books out of our bags. All our morning’s hard work has just been totally undone.
Thank you, Toby.
“You know,” Toby continues obliviously, turning his gloves over and over with an affectionate expression, “I had to sew these bones on myself. I was inspired by an old Halloween costume, but it just wasn’t warm enough for December.” He holds a glove up to my face. “Plus, I thought it would be an excellent way of developing my medical knowledge.”
I can now see that on quite a few of the 27 white bones in the hand he’s written in grey pen the Latin name for them: carpals, metacarpals, proximal phalanges, intermediate phalanges, distal phalanges.
“Very nice, Toby,” I say in a distracted voice because Nat’s already getting out of her seat.
“I’ve just got to go hand in my biology homework,” she says in an awkward voice. “See you at breaktime, OK?”
For the record, Nat and I don’t have any lessons together. Despite trying very hard to get put in the same sets last year (Nat studied more and I did my best to answer things wrong), I’m still in the top sets and Nat is in set two or three for everything.
“OK,” I say. She’s still not really looking at me. “Meet you in the school canteen?”
“Sure,” she says, and then she flicks me a smile and shoots out of the classroom faster than I’ve ever seen Nat shoot out of anything.
The rest of the day can be summarised thus:
By the time the final class comes around and she tells me she’s going to be kept behind after school as well, I’m fairly convinced that Nat is specifically getting detentions just to avoid me. I’m torn between being devastated and simultaneously impressed by her extremely cunning strategic bad behaviour.
Toby has been making the most of Nat’s absence to follow me around like a small kitten follows a ball of wool; he even pats me now and then to check that I’m still there.
“Harriet,” he whispers during sixth period English literature. “Isn’t it lovely to spend so much time together?”
I make a noncommittal grunt and doodle another eye on my textbook.
“I really feel that I know you better now,” Toby continues enthusiastically. “For instance, I know that at ten o’clock exactly you tend to go straight to the toilet, and when you come back out, your hair is much neater so I can only assume that you redo your ponytail in front of the bathroom mirror.”
I continue doodling.
“And,” he whispers in excitement, “at five past twelve you go back to the bathroom and when you come out at twelve fifteen, your eyes are sort of pink and gummy around the edges. Which I can only conclude means that you go in there to cry in private.”
I glare at him. “I don’t do that every lunchtime, Toby.”
“No?” He gets out a little notepad and opens it to a page that appears to have a list on it. He draws a line through the corresponding entry.
I can sense that I’m about to lose my temper. I’ve hurt Nat, it’s been a rubbish day and I suspect that Toby is about to bear the brunt of it.
“And,” he continues, “at approximately three pm you go to the bathroom again, but this time you’re in there for the entire break so I believe you might be avoiding me. Either that or you’re… you know. Engaged in intricate bowel activities.”
I can feel my cheeks suddenly flame. He was right the first time, but I’m not happy with that second insinuation. I don’t like talking about bowel activities, regardless of intricacy.
“Could you just leave me alone perhaps?” I whisper and I can feel my voice getting louder with every word. “I mean, is there any chance that you could – I don’t know – find someone else to stalk?”
Toby looks astonished. “Who?” he says, looking around. “There’s nobody else worth stalking, Harriet. You’re the only one.”
I grit my teeth. “Then don’t stalk anyone.”