Читать книгу Gemini Rising - Tanya Byrne, Holly Bourne, Eleanor Wood - Страница 11

I swear it’s nothing to do with Josh’s all-too-fleeting appearance and swift exit, but I feel out of sorts for the rest of the weekend. Although the rest of the evening was fine, I felt a bit deflated from the second he left. Sunday’s always a nice, chilled-out ‘family day’ in my house, but there’s something about Sunday nights that makes me want to kill myself. That’s not just me, is it – everyone gets that?

So, when Monday morning rolls around, of course I’m tired and grumpy as usual from having stayed up as late as humanly possible in order to prolong the weekend, reading Daisy’s Heat magazine while listening to Trouble Every Day on my headphones.

Which means that the morning is a blur until I find myself plonked down at my desk with a copy of On The Road hiding my face. I’d actually forgotten that anything might be different today. No sooner has Amie arrived, checked her pink BlackBerry — spoiled, much? — and flipped open the ubiquitous fashion mag, than the common room door swings open again and the twins walk in like they have been here forever, already more comfortable than I am after all this time. They somehow manage to look just as cool in their school uniforms as they did in their own clothes – seriously, how is that even possible?

As soon as Amie sees Elyse walk in, the ice is instantly broken. Melanie is not far behind, looking nonchalant despite the fact that she’s clearly not as confident as her sister. Their coats and bags are thrown onto the nearest desk, room is made on the sofa, and the conversation is immediately intense. Though, breaking the unwritten rules, when they pass my desk, both of the glamorous new girls smile and say ‘hi’ to me.

Even though I look as though I’m engrossed in my Kerouac, I am ear-wigging furiously and spend the next ten minutes reading the same sentence repeatedly. It’s Elyse and Amie doing pretty much all the talking, while Melanie is largely silent. Abruptly, Melanie looks up and catches me staring; rather than looking startled, as I might have expected, she gives me a friendly smile. I smile back but am so embarrassed that I quickly look away.

‘Obviously you’ll want to come to The Crown with me and the rest of the girls on Friday night – it’s where all the cool people go…’

As she says this, Amie shoots a targeted, bitchy look in my direction, just to make sure that Elyse and Melanie are clear on exactly who is and isn’t included in this invitation. Simply going out on a Friday night isn’t nearly as much fun for these girls as feeling superior to the rest of the population is. I comfort myself with the knowledge that, to Amie, ‘cool’ seems to mean wearing a minuscule outfit and getting groped while puking up WKD in the street.

‘…and this Wednesday night we’re staying over at my house – my parents are away for the week, so it’s just me and my older brother. They go away a lot, so it’s become kind of a tradition – break up the week and have a bit of a party. You two’ll come, right? You can stay over at mine.’

‘Yeah, OK. Cool.’

I suppose I should resign myself to the fact that The Amazing Twins and I are never going to be friends. As the room starts to fill up, their words start to be drowned out, made less distinct with every girl that comes into the room and starts faffing and chatting. Nathalie spills into the room complaining about being behind in Sociology, closely followed by Shimmi and her incessant crowing about some allegedly gorgeous boy who did not stop staring at her all evening when she was waitressing at her dad’s restaurant on Saturday night.

‘Hey, how was sexy Josh?’ Shimmi hisses while registration’s starting.

‘Don’t even ask,’ is all I have time to mutter back before being evilled by Miss Webb.

Just like that, the day is back to a normal start again. And there’s no doubt in my mind that it will come to an equally normal finish, just like all of the days before it and presumably after it as well.

By Tuesday, I’ve been depressingly right so far. As well as all the usual hump day clichés, I hate Tuesdays because that’s my day for Remedial Maths. I’m not supposed to call it that – it’s written in my timetable as a ‘catch-up workshop’ or something – but I find that it actually makes me feel like less of a dunce just to tell it how it is.

I’m the only one in the whole sixth form doing Maths retakes, which makes it all the more galling. Even Helen Kennedy managed to scrape a ‘C’ because it was so obvious to her rich parents that she was struggling, they hired an intensive tutor to coach her throughout Year Eleven. On the other hand, my problem was that I covered it up too well – I was too embarrassed to let on that I didn’t understand a word, so I just stayed quiet in class and copied Shimmi’s homework. I’d hoped I might get lucky in the exam. My Maths teacher, Mrs Ravenscroft, was shocked when I failed. As were my mum and Pete.

I schlep to the Maths room with the scowl that Mrs Ravenscroft must think is my permanent expression – she’s perfectly nice, but my ineptitude for numbers means that she is forced to treat me like a genuine imbecile, which gets annoying pretty quickly for both of us. She isn’t there, so I settle in to the classroom by myself while I wait. I’m just getting out my books when the door opens.

‘Hi, is this Maths for dummies?’

I can’t help but grin as I see Elyse standing in the doorway making a ridiculous face. ‘Yeah, welcome to the remedial class…’

‘I’m so glad it’s not just me, to be honest.’ Elyse chucks her bag onto the floor and pulls her desk up closer to mine. ‘I’m dyslexic, and at my last school I had all these hideous one-to-one tuition classes. Now there’s two of us, we can make it fun.’

‘When you say “fun”, you do realise where we are…?’ I ask her, laughing.

‘You’re Sorana, right? We don’t know each other very well yet, but don’t worry – I can make trouble happen anywhere!’

I have the strangest feeling that from now on I might actually look forward to Tuesdays and to Remedial Maths. As Mrs Ravenscroft walks into the room, we can’t suppress our giggles.