Geek Girl (3 page)

lexa. My nemesis, my adversary, my opponent, my arch-enemy. Whatever you want to call somebody who hates your guts.

I’ve known her three days longer than I’ve known Nat and I’ve yet to work out what her problem is. I can only conclude that her feelings towards me are very similar to what I’ve read about love: passionate, random, inexplicable and totally uncontrollable. She can’t help hating me any more than Heathcliff could help loving Cathy. It’s simply written in the stars. Which would be quite sweet if she wasn’t such a cow all of the time.

And I wasn’t totally terrified of her.

I stare at Alexa in total shock. I’m still clinging to her tight-covered leg like a frightened baby monkey clinging on to a tree. “Let
go
,” she snaps. “Oh my
God
.”

I scrabble away, trying desperately to stand up. There are approximately 13,914,291,404 legs in the world – over half of them in trousers – and I had to grab
this
one?

“Ugh,” she says loudly to anybody who will listen. “Do you think I might have caught something? Oh, God, I can already feel it starting…” She cowers in her seat. “No…The
light
… It
hurts…
I can feel myself changing… Suddenly I want to do my homework… It’s too late!” She puts her hands over her face and then pulls them away, crosses her eyes, protrudes her teeth and pulls the ugliest expression I’ve ever seen on public transport. “Nooooooo! I’ve caught it! I’m… I’m… I’m a geeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

People start sniggering and from somewhere on the left I can hear a little ripple of applause. Alexa bows a couple of times, pulls a face at me and then goes back to reading her magazine.

My cheeks are flushed, my hands are shaking. My eyes are starting to prickle. All the normal responses to ritual humiliation. The thing I want to make really clear right now is that I don’t mind
being
a geek.
Being
a geek is fine. It’s unimpressive, sure, but it’s pretty unobtrusive. I could be a geek all day long, as long as people left me alone.

The thing is: they don’t.

“
Seriously
,” Nat snaps in a loud voice from a few metres in front of me. “Did you sniff wet paint as a child or something, Alexa?”

Alexa rolls her eyes. “Barbie
talks.
Run away and play with your shoes, Natalie. This has nothing to do with you.”

I’m trying desperately to think of something clever to say. Something biting, poignant, incisive, deeply wounding. Something that will give Alexa just an ounce of the hurt she gives me on an almost daily basis.

“You suck,” I say in the tiniest voice I’ve ever heard.

Yeah
, I think.
That should do it.
And then I hold my chin up as high as I can get it, walk the rest of the way down the aisle and sink into the seat next to Nat before my knees give way.

I’m in my seat for about three seconds when the morning promptly decides to get worse. I barely have time to open my crossword book first.

“Harriet!” a delighted voice says, and a little pale face pops over the back of the seat in front of me. “You’re here! You’re really, actually, actually
here
!” As if I’m Father Christmas and he’s a six-year-old whose chimney I’ve just climbed down.

“Yes, Toby,” I say reluctantly. “I’m here.” And then I turn to scowl at Nat.

It’s Toby Pilgrim.

Toby “my knees buckle when I run” Pilgrim. Toby “I bring my own Bunsen burner to school” Pilgrim. Toby “I wear bicycle clips on my trousers
and I don’t even have a bike
” Pilgrim. Nat should have told me he’d be here.

I’m now following my own stalker to Birmingham.

magine you’re a polar bear and you find yourself in the middle of a rainforest. There are flying squirrels, and monkeys, and bright green frogs, and you have no idea how you got there or what you’re supposed to do next. You’re lonely, you’re lost, you’re frightened and all you know – for absolute certain – is that you shouldn’t be there.

Now imagine you find
another
polar bear. You’re so happy to see another polar bear –
any
polar bear – that it doesn’t matter what kind it is. You follow that polar bear around, just because it’s not a monkey. Or a flying squirrel. Because it’s the only thing that makes it OK to be a polar bear in the middle of a rainforest.

Well, that’s how it is with Toby. One geek, incoherently happy to find another geek in the middle of a world full of normal people. Thrilled to discover that there is someone else like him. It’s not me he wants. It’s my social standing. Or lack thereof.

And let me get something straight: I’m not going to have a romance with someone just because they’re made out of the same stuff as me.
No.
I’d rather be on my own. Or – you know – in unrequited love with a parrot. Or one of those little lemurs with the stripy tails.

“Harriet!” Toby says again and a little bit of bogey starts dripping from his nose. He promptly wipes it on his jumper sleeve and beams at me. “I can’t believe you came!”

I glare at Nat and she grins, winks and goes back to reading her magazine. I am not feeling very
harmonised
with her at the moment, if I’m being totally honest. In fact, I sort of feel like hitting her over the head with my crossword puzzle.

“Yes,” I say, trying to edge away. “Apparently I had to.”

“But isn’t this just wonderful?” he gasps, clambering up on to his knees in his unbridled enthusiasm. I notice that his T-shirt says
T
HERE’S
N
O
P
LACE
L
IKE
127.0.0.1.
“Of all the buses in all the towns in all the world, you walk on to mine. Can you see what I did there? It’s a quote from
Casablanca
, except that I replaced the words
gin joints
with
bus
and the word
into
with
on to
.”

“You did, yes.”

Nat makes a snuffle of amusement and I subtly pinch her leg.

“Do you know what I learnt this morning, Harriet? I learnt that the phrase
rule of thumb
came from a time when a man was only legally allowed to beat his wife with something the width of his own thumb. I can lend you the book, although there’s a pizza stain on page 143 which you might have to read round.”

“Erm. Right. Thanks.” I nod knowingly and then lift my book so that Toby realises the conversation is over.

He doesn’t.

“
And
,” he continues, holding it down so he can see me properly. “You know the most
unbelievable
thing?”

It’s funny, when Toby behaves like this, I can suddenly see why I’m so annoying.

“Well, did you know that…” The coach swerves slightly into the middle lane. Toby swallows. “That…” he continues and licks his lips. The coach swerves back into the slow lane. “That—” Toby’s face goes abruptly green and he clears his throat. “I don’t want you to think I’m easily distracted, Harriet,” he finally continues in a little voice, “but I’m suddenly not feeling so well. I don’t take too kindly to vehicles, particularly the ones that move. Do you remember the ride-on lawnmower in Year One?”

I look at him in horror and Nat immediately stops smirking. “Oh, no,” she says in a dark voice. “No,
no
.” Nat obviously remembers it too.

“Harriet,” Toby continues, licking his lips again and going an even stranger colour. “I think we might need to stop the bus.”

“
Toby
,” Nat snaps in a low, warning voice. “Breathe in through your nose and out through your—”

But it’s too late. The coach makes one more sudden movement and – as if in slow motion – Toby gives me one look of pure apology.

And vomits all over my lap.

n case you were wondering, that’s what Toby did on the ride-on lawnmower in Year One too. Except this time he manages to broaden his horizons in the most literal sense and hit Nat too.

She’s not happy about it. I mean, I’m not happy about it either. I don’t relish being hit by the contents of other people’s digestive tracts. But Nat’s
really
not happy about it.

She’s so unhappy about it that when the coach finally pulls up to The Clothes Show at the NEC, Birmingham – two and a half hours later – she’s
still
shouting at him. And Toby’s telling both of us how much better he feels now because, “Isn’t it funny how it feels OK when all the vomit’s gone?”

“I don’t
believe
this,” Nat is still snapping, stomping across the carpark. We’re both now wearing PE kit: luckily two of the boys had football practice straight after the trip, so – after a lot of whining – Miss Fletcher managed to convince them to lend us their kit. We’re wearing orange football shirts, green football shorts and white knee socks.

I quite like it. It’s making me feel quite sporty. Nat, on the other hand, isn’t so keen. We were forced to keep our shoes on, and – while my trainers look quite normal – Nat’s red high heels… don’t.

“Do you
know
how long it took me to choose my outfit this morning?” she’s yelling at Toby as we approach the front doors.

Toby contemplates this like it’s not a rhetorical question. “Twenty minutes?” he offers. Nat’s face goes slightly puce. “Thirty?” Nat’s jawline starts flexing. “An hour and a half?”

“
A really long time!
” she shouts. “A really,
really
long time!” Nat looks down at herself. “I had a brand-new dress and
leggings from American Apparel,
Toby. Do you know how much they cost? I was wearing
Prada perfume
.” She picks up a piece of green nylon between her fingers. “
And now I’m wearing a boy’s football kit and I smell of sick!
”

I pat her arm as comfortingly as I can.

“At least my vomit was sort of chocolatey,” Toby says cheerfully. “I had Coco Pops for breakfast.”

Nat grits her teeth.

“Anyway,” Toby continues blithely, “I think you look awesome. You both match. It’s super trendy.”

Nat scrunches her mouth up, clenches her fists and furrows her brow right in the centre. It’s like watching somebody shake a bottle of fizzy drink without taking the lid off. “Toby,” she says in a low hiss. “Go.
Now
.”

“OK,” Toby agrees. “Anywhere in particular?”

“
Anywhere
. Just
go. NOW.
”

“Toby,” I say in a low voice, taking him by the arm. I’m really, genuinely scared for his safety. “I think maybe you should go inside.” I look at Nat. “As quickly as possible,” I add.

“Ah.” Toby contemplates this for a few seconds and then nods. “Ah. I see. Then I shall see you both anon.”

And – giving me what looks disturbingly like an attempt at a wink over his shoulder – he skips off through the swing doors.

When he’s gone and I know that Nat can’t rip his head off and feed it to a large flock of pigeons, I turn to her.

“Nat,” I say, chewing on a fingernail anxiously. “It’s not that bad. Honestly. We smell fine. And if you put my coat on over the top, nobody will see what you’re wearing. It’s longer than yours.”

“You don’t get it,” Nat says and suddenly the anger pops: she just sounds miserable. “You just don’t
get
it.”

I think Nat underestimates my powers of empathy. Which is a shame because I am a very empathetic person.
Em
pathetic
.
Not
pathetic.

“Sure I do,” I say in a reassuring voice. “You don’t like football. I get that.”

“It’s not that. Today was
really important,
Harriet. I
really
needed to look good.”

I stare at her blankly. After a few seconds, Nat rolls her eyes and hits herself on the forehead in frustration. “
They’re
in there.”

I stare at the revolving doors. “
Who’s
in there?” I whisper in terror. I think about it for a few seconds. “Vampires?”

“
Vampires
.” Nat looks at me in consternation. “You have got to start reading proper books.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. Just because I own a lot of books about things that don’t actually exist in real life in no way indicates that I’m not connected to the real world. I totally am.

Nat takes a deep breath. “I put the prawns in Jo’s dinner,” she says, avoiding my eyes.

I stare at her. “Nat! Why would you do that?”

“Because I need you today,” she says in a tiny voice. “I need you for support.
They’re
in there
.
” And she looks again at the doors and swallows.

“
Who?
”

“Model agents, Harriet
,
” Nat says as if I’m an idiot. “Lots and lots of model agents.”

“Oh,” I say stupidly, and then think about it. “
Ohhhhhhhh
.”

And I finally understand what I’m doing here.