‘How about you, Steffi?’ Mrs Baxter’s voice is casual. ‘What makes a girl strong?’
‘Agency,’ I say. One word. Three syllables. I haven’t looked up from my notepad; my caterpillar looks great in his slippers.
‘Nice word,’ Mrs Baxter says. ‘What do you think Steffi means by agency, George? And does Briony have it?’
I can feel eyes on me, but I still don’t look up. My cheeks feel red but my heart isn’t hammering; my palms aren’t sweating. Under the caterpillar I write ‘agency’ and then add a smiley face.
Do I have agency? I give my caterpillar a hat with a fluffy bauble on top. OK, yes, I have it. But do I use it? Or do I just let things happen to me?
I feel like I’m hovering on the edge of some kind of epiphany, but it’s just out of reach. I carry on drawing, sketching out a beetle friend for my caterpillar, letting my mind whir as the pencil moves. If I really did have agency, wouldn’t I be the one choosing about going to university, not my parents? Why am I letting them act like it’s their choice to make?
And Rhys. Being with him is my choice – my choice and his – and maybe that’s part of the reason my parents are so angsty about the whole thing. Maybe they’re used to making decisions for me, and I’ve just let them for so long they don’t know what to do with this new, agency-having Steffi.
I should do something, I think. Make a choice that is so definitively mine they’ll realize that I really am my own person, and it’s fine to let me be that. That they can trust me not to fall apart. (Can they trust me not to fall apart?) (Yes. Yes they can, Steffi, and so can you.) Then I can go to university. And then my life will really begin.
The bell rings and I close my notepad, already standing up and reaching for my bag. Across the room, Anthony leans on to the corner of Cassidy’s desk and starts talking in a low voice while she makes a show of ignoring him.
I leave the classroom and head down the hall, pulling out my phone as I go. There’s a message from Rhys telling me to meet him by the school gates, and so I pick up my step. I see him first and take a second to appreciate his figure, leaning against the gatepost, looking at his phone.
I slide my hand through the crook of his elbow and smile when he turns to look at me. Hey, I mouth.
Rhys kisses me and then holds out a small paper bag, a pleased smile on his face. Hi, he says. Happy Friday.
I take the bag and look inside it, already thrilled even if it contains nothing but cotton wool or pencil shavings or thin air. It’s a chocolate cupcake adorned with an obscene amount of green icing. Thank you, I sign, raising myself on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.
‘Get a room!’ a boy yells.
I blush, but Rhys is oblivious, signing something to me about girls and cupcakes. I nod as if I’ve understood him, then take a bite.
Do you need to be anywhere? Rhys asks me. Want to go for a walk or something?
I have to go to Mum’s to babysit Bell, I say. But that’s not until five. A walk sounds good. How was your day? We begin walking away from the school.
He shrugs. OK. You?
I mimic the shrug. OK. I was thinking, we should do something together.
Crinkles appear around his eyes as he smiles. Something? Like what?
Something like . . . I think about it. An adventure. We should have an adventure.
He nods. Definitely. I’d love to have an adventure with you. A big one or a small one?
Both! My mind is already alive with impossible ideas. I’m imagining the two of us in a hot air balloon, scaling Everest (note to self: what’s the British Everest?), kayaking down a river.
I could drive us somewhere? he offers. How about somewhere on the coast? Or we could go to Brighton? There’s can get a train direct from Bedford.
Maybe, I hedge. Is that an adventure, though?
It would be if I was with you, he says, and I immediately crack up. His face falls. I mean it!
I know! I try to control myself. I’m sorry. That was just too cheesy to be real.
He gives me a little shove. I was being romantic. Fine, no Brighton.
Think bigger, I say, exaggerating an excited expression. Think a road trip around America. The Northern Lights. The beach in Goa!
He laughs. Skydiving in New Zealand?
Yes! A safari in South Africa. Hitchhiking across Europe! We both come to a stop at the edge of the road, waiting for the traffic lights.
I didn’t know you had these kinds of dreams, Rhys says.
I know he hasn’t meant it in a bad way, but the words make me sad. Do I really seem that small? To Rhys, who by now knows me so much better than most? How must I look to everyone else, if even he thinks this?
Of course I have dreams, I reply. Don’t you? I want the world, I think. Even if it scares me. Doesn’t everyone?
Rhys smiles instead of answering, taking my hand again as we cross the road. I can’t promise lions and tigers and bears, he says when we’ve reached the other side. But I’ll think about it. I’ll find an adventure for us.
‘Rhys and I are thinking of going on holiday,’ I say.