by Holly Smale
I stare at her.
Shouldn’t she be shouting at me, or at least giving me a long, disappointed lecture on the importance of education? Doesn’t she care?
No, I realise suddenly. No, she does not.
“But I want to study,” I say, clenching my hands tightly in front of me.
“Maybe.” Miss Hall leans back in her chair. “But some people just aren’t mentally equipped for academia. I think it is time to accept the fact that you are one of them.”
My hands are shaking.
Today has just raced on to my Top Ten List of Least Favourite Days Ever, slightly above the time Alexa made everybody in class say they hated me and slightly below the day I ate a bad piece of chicken and couldn’t leave the bathroom for twenty-four hours.
“I am,” I say in a small squeak. “I am equipped.”
Because if I’m not equipped for academia, what else do I have left? If I can’t study, who else can I be?
“Some of us are strong and capable,” Miss Hall says, pointing to herself. “And some of us are not.”
She stares pointedly at me.
Thanks to my first day of study, I know that scientists think that a quark is the smallest thing in the known universe.
Right now, I’m so little I could climb inside one.
Alexa was completely right.
“OK,” I say quietly. I sit heavily on my bed and stare blankly at the wall. “So what do I do now?”
“Whatever you like,” Miss Hall says, looking at her watch and standing up. “My shift is over. See you tomorrow.”
ver the next three days, I am entirely on my own.
And I mean that in every sense possible. (Miss Hall sitting in the corner of my room ignoring me does not count.)
I am on my own when I eat: my meals are left outside my bedroom door. I am on my own when I study: trawling through books and trying desperately to work out what everything means. I am on my own when I wake up, and when I go to sleep, and when I go to the toilet.
I’m actually quite glad about that last one. It would be a bit weird if I wasn’t.
In the meantime, Nat doesn’t ring me or text back.
Toby/Hugo doesn’t email me.
My parents don’t talk to me. (They are taking the How to Ground Your Teenager manual far too seriously for my liking.)
Miss Hall sits in a corner and reads a book with a man carrying a woman on the front cover, which – given her stature – might be a little optimistic.
And Nick?
He rings three times, but I’m under strict instructions from Kenderall not to answer his calls.
This is the list I’ve been sent:
I put it in a list, obviously.
It came from Kenderall in a series of text messages with ‘babe’ scattered at random throughout.
I’ve written it down and studied it carefully.
I’ve also compared it to dating advice on the internet, and it mostly tallies up. Frankly, I can’t believe I didn’t research this before now. Thank goodness I finally have a plan to follow.
This is what happens when you don’t do your homework properly. I have nobody but myself to blame for the mess I’m in.
So I do my best.
I dutifully ignore all of Nick’s phone calls. I ignore most of his text messages. And then, occasionally, eight or nine hours later, I send a reply that says:
Sorry! Crazy busy and mysterious! Will speak soon! Hx
or
Oops, I missed your call! Have you seen the interesting stuff in the news about Pakistan?! Hx
And, sure enough, Nick’s phone calls and text messages get increasingly frequent, and increasingly confused, culminating in:
What is going on? Has somebody stolen your phone? LBx
Finally, Kenderall decides it’s ‘time to bring out the big guns’.
“Not literally?” I ask her anxiously down the phone. America has eighty-eight firearms per one hundred people, and the more I know Kenderall the more I’m convinced that she definitely has one of them.
“LOL,” she says flatly. “We need to crank it up. Meet me at 81st Street and Central Park West at 4pm tomorrow. A buddy is doing a photo shoot tomorrow afternoon, and I’ve convinced them to use you for it. I would do it myself, but they need a girl with hair and that is so last season.”
I blink and look at the list.
I’ve got just one more day of being grounded left. Do I really want to risk getting caught again?
“But … Which of the bullet points does a photo shoot tick off?”
“All of them, babe. Trust me.”
I look at Miss Hall, nodding off in the corner. I look at the dark, slightly stale recesses of my bedroom, which still smell of pizza and this morning’s breakfast Pop Tart.
Then I look at the photo of Nick I have stuck on the wall next to my bed so I can see it when I fall asleep.
I don’t really have an option.
“Do you really think it will work?”
Kenderall laughs.
“Oh, babe,” she says. “With boys, it always does.”
he next afternoon, I can’t even bring myself to look out of the window of the train from Greenway to New York: that’s how guilty I feel for sneaking out again on my last day of being grounded.
But if ticking off this list is what it takes to make Nick fall in love with me, then that’s what I have to do.
So I focus as hard as I can.
It takes four attempts at Grand Central station to get on a subway train going in the right direction, but I finally succeed and emerge into the sunshine, feeling a little proud of my map-reading skills. I knew that Brownie Orientation badge would come in handy one day.
Then I see who’s standing at the entrance of the subway, and my smile falters.
They’re not six-foot tall and they’re not bald. They don’t have gleaming brown skin or cheekbones you could spread houmous with or a voice that carries five miles without the aid of a loudspeaker. They aren’t wearing orange and they don’t have a pet pig.
Most importantly, they’re not even female.
They have blond hair, and a striped shirt, and piercing blue eyes.
Laser beams are different from normal light because they have one monochromatic wavelength of light, focused in one coherent direction: each photon moving in perfectly coordinated step with the others.
And as this boy stares at me, that’s how I feel.
As if a series of photons are pinning me to the spot, one after the other.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Cal smiles as I squiggle like a butterfly on the end of a pin. “I was kinda hoping I’d see you again.”
I stare at Cal.
Then I quickly drop my eyes to the floor because I’m slightly concerned that if I keep them wide open my rapidly rising blood pressure is going to force them straight out of my head.
“Where’s Kenderall?”
“She couldn’t make it.” Cal shrugs. “The photo shoot has been cancelled.”
“Oh,” I say in disappointment. I was kind of hoping for an opportunity to wear a dress that was actually stitched together this time. “Well. I guess I’ll just go home then.”
I turn to leave.
“But you’ve come all this way,” Cal says slowly. “It seems a shame to waste the journey.”
He’s totally right.
Nobody knows I’m here. And I’m officially ungrounded in less than twenty-four hours so I’m almost legitimately free again anyway. I can use the time to finally tick off a few things on my New York To Do List.
I can go to the New York Metropolitan Museum, or the Guggenheim, or the Strand Bookstore that has eighteen miles of books: new, used, rare and out of print. I can spend the rest of the afternoon buying as much exciting literature as I can physically carry.
I can go to the New York Supreme Court and enquire about branded pens for Annabel and a super-cool NYPD T-shirt for Dad.
I can visit the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art and pick up some po
stcards to send Toby.
I can go to the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum and find Nat a really cool belt that she will say she loves and then never wear because I am terrible at picking out belts.
I can pick up a New York snow globe for Nick, to remind him of when it snowed in Moscow.
Except I can’t.
Because I spent all my birthday money on stupid shoes that I lost before I even got home.
Because if I buy Annabel and Dad gifts, they’ll know I was in New York again.
Because Toby and Nat have so completely forgotten about me, they don’t deserve presents; Nat would probably just give the belt to stupid Jessica anyway.
And because I don’t think Kenderall would consider buying your boyfriend snow globes very cool or mysterious. It’s definitely not on the list she gave me.
So I pull my guidebook out of my satchel and quickly scan the bookmarked pages. “I could go to the Federal Hall where George Washington was inaugurated,” I say with slightly less enthusiasm. “They might let me sit on the steps outside.”
It’s not that interesting, but at least it’s free.
“Wait,” Cal says, grabbing my hand as I start to walk away. “That isn’t exactly what I meant.”
My entire body suddenly feels hot and prickly, as if I’ve just been coated in chilli oil and deep-fried.
I stare at our linked hands. What is he doing?
“I thought maybe I could get to know you a little bit better?”
“Why?”
“Because every time I’m with you it feels like there’s a rainbow nearby.”
I look at the sky. It’s totally cloudless.
“But there’s no rain,” I say, feeling even more confused. “You need raindrops so that beams of sunlight can refract through them and separate into different wavelengths.”
“No,” he says slowly, taking a step closer. “Because I’ve just found a treasure.”
I’m not sure how you can scratch an unbearably itchy body all over at the same time, but I’m considering lying on the floor and giving it a thorough go.
“Umm,” I say awkwardly. “I sort of have a boyfriend.”
“Sort of?” he deadpans. “So … which bit of you doesn’t?”
The itchiness gets even worse. “I mean, yes. I do. I have a boyfriend. One hundred per cent. So I’m not really interested in … umm. You. But thank you.”
Cal gives me his megawatt smile and then starts rubbing his thumb along the top of my hand. “Wow, bit arrogant, aren’t you? I only meant it as a friend.”
I’m so embarrassed I’m considering peeling off my skin, leaving it on the pavement and starting again. Like a snake. Or an orange. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean …”
I fade into humiliated silence.
“So? Want to hang out? As buddies?”
“I’m not sure I—”
My phone beeps and I finally yank my hand away.
Go with Caleb.
I stare at my phone, as another message immediately follows the first.
You asked me what to do. This is it.
I look back at Cal. He’s now so close I can see splashes of silvery-grey in the blue of his eyes, like flecks on the foam of the ocean.
Which – as far as I’m concerned – is way too close.
I take a step back so they just look blue. My phone buzzes again.
You’re going to tell Nick you’re sorry about the silence but you’re out with your new friend Caleb and you’ll ring him later.
And again.
Just DO IT.
I frown at my phone, and then back at Cal. This makes no sense. Kenderall wants me to go with Cal, and then tell Nick? What is that going to achieve?
Except of course it doesn’t make sense. Because I clearly don’t know what I’m doing.
And as doing what makes sense to me has got me absolutely nowhere up to this point, it might be time to listen to someone else, for a change.
So I nod, and obediently send Nick the text, word for word.
Then I look up at Cal.
“OK. What would you like to do?”
“Tell me, beautiful girl,” he says, smiling widely, “do you like stars?”
o I like stars?
That’s like asking a rabbit if it likes carrots, or a bee if it likes nectar, or my dad if he likes attempting to do the Riverdance in the middle of the living room when he gets overexcited.
In other words – yes.
I also know quite a lot about them.
Scientists think there are one trillion galaxies in the universe, and each of those galaxies has 100 billion stars.
You would need 1,100 years to circle the largest known star in the universe at 560 miles an hour, and it would take you 35,000 years to reach the nearest next star to the Sun.
If you look at stars, you are actually looking back in time because it takes light thousands or millions of years to reach Earth.
When we study stars in physics, I get so excited that Mr Kemp has to ask me to stop putting my hand up before he asks the question.
But I have no idea what Cal’s talking about.
It’s 4pm.
Either he is an extremely optimistic kind of person, or he doesn’t understand how night and day work.
“I can’t stay out late,” I say nervously as we start walking down the pavement.
“We don’t need to,” Cal says, stopping abruptly. “We’re here.”
I stare at the enormous entrance of the American Museum of Natural History – all grey stone and columns and brightly coloured flags – and it clicks into place.
“The Rose Center for Earth and Space?”
“Unless you’d rather go somewhere else?” Cal stretches his arms out. “We could go for a carriage ride in Central Park, or take a boat around the Statue of Liberty, or go to the top of the Empire State Building, if you like?”
My stomach flips.
“No,” I say, looking back at the museum. “Stars sound good to me.”
The Hayden Planetarium is like an enormous bubble, except with walls made of cinema screen instead of a layer of water molecules sandwiched between two thin layers of glycerine.
Cal pays for both of us, and we file in quietly and start heading towards the middle.
“How about here?” he says, taking my hand and pulling me towards the back row. “The view is better.”
That makes no sense. Surely that’s kind of the point of a three-dimensional screen?
I shrug and take my seat, and then focus on sitting with my face pointing upwards so I don’t have to acknowledge how close Cal is. Armrests are there to provide a natural divide, and he isn’t paying attention to either of them.
“Hey,” he whispers in the darkness, leaning over so I can feel his breath on my cheek. It smells weird. Orange-y. As if he’s been eating mandarins. “I think you might have something in your eye.”
He reaches forward.
“Oh,” I say, quickly blocking him with my hand. “No, it’s just astigmatism. There’s an irregular curve in my lens so I get a bit squinty when I’m tired.”
“Are you sure it’s not a twinkle?”
I turn to look at him. What? “No, it’s definitely astigmatism.”
“Right.” He leans back in his seat and puts his hands behind his head. “Good to know.”
The crowds are settling down with incredible slowness. Why aren’t they hurrying up? When is this show going to start? How long do I have to talk to Cal for?
“Speaking of which,” I say as the silence stretches out for what feels like eternity, “did you know that stars don’t actually twinkle? They only look like they do because the light passes through different densities of the earth’s atmosphere which makes it wobble.”
Silence.
“And on a good night,” I add, “you can see twenty quadrillion miles with the naked eye.”
Suddenly Cal sits forward.
“Huh?” He pushes his hand through his hair. “You know, stars ar
e really beautiful. Almost as beautiful as yo—”
“Will you shut up,” the woman behind us snaps loudly. “I came here to see the universe in all its glory, not two teenagers trying to make out.”
I’m glad it’s pitch-black: maybe I can slip to the floor and slide on my belly all the way to the exit, like some kind of seal.
“Oh no,” I say, turning round as apologetically as I can. “We’re just friends.”
“Exactly,” Cal agrees, grabbing my hand. “Good friends. Great friends. Really, really close friends.”
I’m still trying to work out how to make him let go without having to chew off my own hand when a loud voice booms:
“Thirteen billion years ago, the very first stars were born.”
And the universe explodes around us.
ew York has officially disappeared.
But as a piano starts tinkling, the darkness above us is suddenly replaced with a bright, vivid-blue sky. White clouds race across what used to be the ceiling as the sun sets over the spiked Manhattan skyline. People in time-lapse picnic in Central Park, then scurry and jitter across it like a thousand tiny ants in jeans and T-shirts.
Then we pull backwards, until all that’s left is a silent, spinning Earth and blackness.
We hang there for a few seconds.
Then the sky shatters into colour and sound: blues and greens and yellows and purples, pianos and cellos and harps. Supernovas explode and swirling cosmic dust pulls together in huge pulses of light. Comets streak across the sky and nebulas glow blue and yellow; planets spin and pulsars flare red. Suns flash and galaxies spiral. Stars are born and die.
As drums beat and a violin lifts and soars, we rush across the known Universe, around solar systems; orbit around the moon; through the Milky Way and out again.
A gentle voice tells us how everything we are built from came from the nuclear fusion at the centre of a sun. How every element of Earth was formed there.
How we are all made of stars.
And the air in my chest swells and swells until it feels like I’m about to explode into colours and lights too.