t takes a few moments to work out where the bananas are coming from. Within seconds, I’ve got sweets in my hat, in the collar of my jumper and a half-chewed one stuck to the sleeve of my coat.
Inexplicably, I look upwards.
“Hey, geek,” a voice yells. It’s only as I turn round that I realise the sky isn’t raining sweets after all. Alexa is standing on the other side of the road just outside the local shops with her hand in a paper bag. “Geek,” she shouts again and then she laughs.
I freeze. Alexa has the single ugliest haircut I’ve ever seen on a girl in my life. Somehow I don’t think this is going to be a friendly encounter. A confused buzzing has started in the back of my head. Aren’t things supposed to be different now?
“Leave me alone,” I say more firmly than I feel and start walking away as fast as I can.
She follows me. “As if that’s going to happen.” Another banana smacks me hard on the back of the head. “I saw a documentary about monkeys last night and I think you look just like one, Harriet. And you move like one too. A little ginger orang-utan. All orange and hairy.” She looks at the bananas in the bag she’s holding. “You know,” she adds, “it’s lucky these taste like perfume or I’d probably just eat them.”
“Umm,” I say. Does she want me to thank her?
Alexa looks back at me and her lips pull back so I can see her teeth, except it’s definitely not a smile. “What do you think, Harriet? Do you like my hair?” And she points to her head.
Don’t engage in conversation. It’s going to make it worse. “It’s, umm,” I say because yet again the connection between brain and mouth has snapped. “Very… snazzy.”
“Yeah?” Alexa says. “Personally I’m not so keen.” She runs her hands through it. “In fact, I’m pretty hacked off about it.”
I burst out laughing at the pun and then bite my lip in horror.
“You think this is funny?” Alexa yells, suddenly losing her cool. Her face changes colour. “You think I’m laughing?”
“No.” I put my suddenly sweaty hands around my satchel straps so that when I have to run, it doesn’t slow me down.
“The hairdresser can’t fit me in until tomorrow. I’ve had to go to school like this for two entire days. Two days, geek. Do you know how many boys have stopped fancying me now?”
“Two?”
“It was a rhetorical question!” Alexa looks furious. “Nat said she did it for you. So I’m going to make you pay for it.”
I take a few jittery steps backwards because she’s going to hit me. Finally – after years of vaguely promising it – she’s going to get down to bullying basics and smack me right in the face.
I quickly run through the options.
I’m so surprised that I nearly forget about the fifth choice:
“Are you going to punch me?” I ask, feeling numb and strangely relieved. I wish she had done this years ago. Maybe then she’ll be finished with me.
Alexa frowns and then laughs. “Punch you? Why would I punch you? What on earth would I get out of that, apart from a load of trouble?” Then she pulls something out of her bag. It looks a lot like a newspaper. “You forget, Harriet, that I’ve known you for ten years. I don’t need to punch you.”
I’m so confused my whole head feels like it has been stuffed with cotton wool. And yet somehow I know that whatever it is Alexa’s about to do, I’m going to wish she’d just used her fist.
I look at the paper. “W-w-what’s that?”
“This?” Alexa looks at it. “It’s an article, Harriet. About some fifteen-year-old schoolgirl apparently. Took the fashion world by storm yesterday in… where was it? Moscow.”
My entire body goes cold and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“That’s in Russia,” she adds. “In case you were wondering if I knew.”
No. No. There’s no way this could have happened. It would have to have gone to print… Last night.
Sugar cookies.
Alexa smirks and moves close enough for me to see. There – in full glory – is a large photo of me yesterday. Sitting on the catwalk, with Fleur next to me. The headline says English Schoolgirl Knocks Fashion World Off Its Feet.
“I…” I start mumbling, but my insides are ice and my ears are completely numb. “I… I…”
“I, I, I,” Alexa echoes and then she looks at it again. “I know. It’s beyond me why anybody would want a photo of you.”
At the back of my brain, I finally feel the horror of comprehension. “You haven’t… shown anyone, have you?” I whisper and my voice sounds like I’m being strangled. “You haven’t shown anyone else this article?”