Nowhere Girl

Chapter 3

Sleeping that night had been awkward, as I had not wanted to mess up my hair. I had lain on my back all night and barely moved a muscle. But even though I woke up as stiff as the straightening tongs my hair had seen so much of the night before, I got out of bed as soon as I came to, and went quickly to the mirror. I was in luck for, incredibly, my hair looked nearly the same as it had when I'd gone to bed. Just a few strands were rucked up, but I was able to brush these down quite easily.

I was just desperate to get to school. I checked outside to see if it was windy or raining. Again, things were going my way. It was an electrically crisp day, not a cloud in sight; the autumn russets and golds of the trees reminded me of the illuminated letters of the medieval manuscripts our history teacher had been so into. I grabbed my bag, quickly checked that I had everything I needed for my subjects that day, and set off.

The morning went faster than I thought it would, because despite dying to see Ben at lunch time, I got engrossed in a chemistry problem in class. In fact, I nearly forgot about my new hairstyle altogether. But as I walked past the canteen windows, I suddenly saw my reflection and was quite startled. I really was a different person.

I loaded up a tray of food, and went and sat down opposite Ben. He always seemed to manage to get to a table before me. I've no idea how. Especially considering he had to walk down the road from his own school first. At first, he looked up and just nodded hi. Then he did a double take and stared at me. He seemed to frown at first, and then he said,

'Hey, you look different! Did you get your hair cut?'

I shook my head, slightly tentatively as I didn't want to mess my hair up.

'No. I straightened it.'

'Why? It looked nice the way it was before... it was... natural.' Now he hesitated, unsure how to continue. 'I mean, er, it looks great now too. Actually, it makes you look much older. Sophisticated!'

He stopped – now it was his turn to blush. Not bright red like my sister, but his skin lost its pallor and seemed charged in some way.

I laughed. But I was unsure whether what he had said was a compliment or not. Did it sound as if he thought older and more sophisticated was good? I couldn't really tell. But I was fired up anyway, pumped with adrenalin from the whole thing. Before I could think it through, I invited him back to our house for tea that evening.

I guess he didn't give himself much time to think either as he said yes straight away. After that we didn't mention it, we just started talking about the latest computer code we've been learning with Mr Gillahon. It was only as the bell rang for afternoon period that I brought up the tea thing again. He still seemed totally up for it. So we agreed to meet after school at the main gate.

Amazingly, it didn't feel awkward standing at the bus stop with him. It felt as if I'd been standing with him there all my life. I mean not all my life, obviously, but every journey to and from school. Suddenly, I couldn't ever imagine being at that bus stop again without him. The bus turned up, we got on it and we just carried on talking. Sometimes we were silent, but it felt fine. Another thing that felt fine was sitting next to him. Normally we sat opposite each other at lunch, and in class for some reason we were always placed in separate groups by the teachers. I was very conscious of the heat of his body, and it was on my mind how near our legs were to each other, but overall I really liked being so close to him, being able to look at his face – his eyes especially – so close up.

But as soon as I turned my key in the front door lock, I realised that I had forgotten to let my mother know that I was bringing someone back for tea. I should have texted her. She didn't normally worry about things like that, though. For all the fact we had what I would call a pretty distant sort of relationship with each other, she was fine with us bringing whoever we wanted home.