And if she has a problem with this analogy – I do, actually, because in Tudor times houses were made out of straw and they didn’t seem to have a problem with the elements – then I’ll switch to The Three Bears and tell her it doesn’t matter how much of our porridge she eats and how many of our beds she sleeps in: we’ve finally found the strength to run her back into the woods.
And then I’ll turn to The Three Brothers, and I’ll just keep going with the fairytale triumvirate analogies until she understands that we’re not frightened of her any more. And she can’t hurt us again, however hard she tries. Because we won’t let her.
I prepare myself to launch an attack verbally way below my range, but abruptly stop. I don’t need to say any of it. I know. Nat knows. And Toby knows. We’re here and that’s enough. But there is something I do need to say.
“We’re sorry about your hair.” I point to Alexa’s head. “That’s what we came to say. What we did was horrible, malicious and wrong, and we are sorry.”
Alexa lifts her eyebrows. “You came all the way over here to tell me you’re sorry about my hair?”
“Yes.” I turn to Nat, who looks totally speechless. “Aren’t we, Nat?”
“I’m sorry too,” Toby interjects. “Despite having nothing to do with it in a literal sense, as leader of this gang I feel I should take responsibility for its actions.”
Nat and I look at each other. We’ll just let Toby have that one.
Nat scowls and her cheeks go pink. I know she’s been feeling bad about it too. She’s just not mean enough to think it was acceptable behaviour. “Yeah,” Nat says finally, her shoulders relaxing. “I lost my temper, Alexa, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” She pauses. “But if you do anything like that to Harriet again,” she mutters so that only I can hear her, “I’ll give you a buzz cut.”
Alexa touches her hair. “Luckily my face shape can pull off just about anything. Are we done now?”
“Yes,” I say slowly, looking at her hard. “We are done now.”
And I really, really mean it.
“Then please feel free to go to hell. All of you.” Alexa looks at the three of us. “Geeks,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.
And closes the door on us.
e dance all the way home. Although we wait until we’re out of Alexa’s driveway first obviously. We’re not on a suicide mission.
“Did you see that?” Toby keeps shouting, wiggling his hips. He’s opened his jacket up and is accompanying our triumphant movements with the electric keyboard on his T-shirt. “Take that, Alexa! WHAM! We came all the way to your house and everything!”
I twirl round in a happy little circle with my hands over my head. It’s all over. If the big bad wolf wants to get us, she’s going to have to climb down the chimney. Where we’re going to keep a big cauldron of hot water, just in case.
It feels amazing. Even Nat does a little triumphant shoulder wriggle when she thinks nobody’s looking.
“You know,” she says breathlessly when we’ve all finally stopped glorying in the moment, “that felt really good. Alexa’s never going to say sorry for anything, which makes us the good guys, right?”
“Well, we know we’re not the bad guys,” Toby says earnestly. “If we were, we’d be wearing black with little skulls and we’d probably have moustaches.”
“I still can’t believe you cut her hair off.”
“I know. What was I thinking?”
“Where did you even get the scissors?”
“The art room. Everything went a bit blurry for a few minutes and the next thing I knew I had a ponytail in my hand. I’ve felt horrible about it for days.”
“Nat,” I say seriously, slowing my skipping down a little. “I am sorry. For everything. For lying to you. For stealing your dream. And I know that you’ll probably hate me forever, but…”
Nat rolls her eyes. “I was never going to hate you forever, Harriet. Just a couple of days.”
“But you said…”
“We were fighting. What did you want me to say? I’ll hate you for about thirty-six hours until I’ve calmed down a bit?”
Oh.
“Yeah, that would have been nice, actually,” I tell her, slightly huffily. “Just a heads-up could have been really handy. I was in the depths of despair.”
Nat laughs. “Drama queen as always. Although if you had a temper like mine, I probably would have kept the modelling secret too. I am terrifying.” She looks proudly at her nails and blows on them. “Unpredictable and absolutely terrifying.”
“So we’re…” I venture.
“Yeah.” Nat shrugs and grins at me. “Whatever.”
I’m just about to throw myself into her not-even-slightly open arms when my phone rings and Toby holds his hands up.
“It’s not me,” he points out. “Just in case anyone’s wondering. I’m not ringing you, Harriet. Although I could because I’ve totally learnt your number off by heart.”
“Wilbur?” I say, grabbing it out of my pocket.
“Hello, my little Crunchie-nut,” Wilbur says happily. “I’d love to sit and chat about all sorts of girly fun, but I want to go home, so here’s the details for this thing Yuka wants you to do. It’s tomorrow morning, Petal-moo; an interview for a fashion special on WakeUp UK. They need you there nice and early so you’ll still get to school on time.” He pauses. “If your school starts at 10am obviously.”