by Holly Smale
What’s been the best Christmas present you’ve ever received?
Honestly, I’ve never really been much of a gift-person. I’m a Christmas baby, so I’d normally get what I wanted for my birthday two weeks beforehand anyway. But the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received was probably an old, out-of-tune piano I got when I was eight. I heard it being tugged in through the back door while I was opening my stocking, and I thought I was going to explode with happiness. All my dreams of being a (doomed) character in Little Women had finally come true.
What goes on top of your Christmas tree?
Our family has an ancient, falling-apart fairy who has been handed down through three generations. She’s always wonky, her wings are broken and re-stitched on and the top branch always looks really uncomfortable. But we all love her anyway.
What would your perfect Christmas Day be?
For me, Christmas is all about family, not gifts. It’s about the stories we tell, the jokes, the magic, the lights, the smells, the food. It’s about making peppermint creams with my mum and going on long snowy walks with my dad and dancing round the living room to festive music with my sister and her puppies. I’ve only ever spent one Christmas on my own, and I wouldn’t choose to do it again. As long as the people I love are there, I’m happy.
What would you give Harriet as a Christmas present?
Lion Boy. So – with this story – that’s what I’ve done.
Read on for a bonus story …
geek/gi:k/h noun informal, chiefly N. Amer.
an unfashionable or socially inept person.
an obsessive enthusiast.
a person who feels the need to look up the word ‘geek’ in the dictionary.
DERIVATIVES geeky adjective.
ORIGIN from the related English dialect word geck ‘fool’.
My name is Harriet Manners, and here are some things I love:
Documentaries about king penguins narrated by David Attenborough.
Getting a Q and a U in Scrabble.
Knowing that you can fit a baby through the blowhole of a whale.
Wondering if anybody has actually tried.
Putting things I love in lists.
Here are some things I’m not so keen on:
Having heavy things intentionally thrown at my face.
Running, jumping, catching, or any other activity that requires breath regulation and limb control.
Getting my furry legs out.
Public humiliation (see points 1, 2 and 3).
Anything that involves the word “wing” that doesn’t feature penguins or aviation.
Suffice to say, I’m not super happy that today’s PE class is netball. In the course of an average lifetime we accidentally eat seventy assorted insects and ten spiders, and I’d rather have them all in one mouthful right now.
Sadly that’s not an option we’ve been given.
“Girls,” Miss Watkins says sharply as Nat and I slink miserably out of the changing room. “It’s a bit of rain. It’s not going to kill you.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” I point out as we shuffle past, tugging at our tiny nylon skirts to make them a bit more respectable. (In my case, longer; in my best friend’s case, a more flattering shape.) “Floods are the most widespread natural disaster apart from wildfires, and can cause walls of water up to 20 feet high. Rain literally kills thousands of people a year all over the world.”
“Exactly,” Nat agrees enthusiastically. “I hope you’re insured, Miss. I hope you can sleep at night, risking our lives like this.”
My Best Friend and I have very few things in common, but a mutual hatred of PE is one of them.
“That’s very kind of you, Natalie,” Miss Watkins says smoothly. “I do indeed sleep very well. I have a brand-new air-sprung mattress and it’s extremely comfortable. You should look into getting one.”
Nat scowls, and I clear my throat and start walking faster so we can keep up. I can already tell from the speed of Miss Watkin’s stomping and the shape of her shoulders that next week’s Parent-Teachers’ Evening is going to be an interesting one.
“I’m really sorry Nat and I were late,” I mumble. “It was entirely unintentional and a result of a timetable error and a directional miscalculation.”
“You could say late,” our PE teacher states flatly, without turning around. She speeds up slightly. “Or you could say hiding in the stationery cupboard.”
Nat and I glance at each other in guilty silence. She’s absolutely right: that’s exactly where we were. At least until a very tiny Year Seven girl opened it and started screaming because she thought we were waiting in there to kill her with sharpened pencils.
In our defence, two words: netball and raining.
“Well, you’re here now.” Miss Watkins gives us a glance of pure vengeance, and then pushes open the door to the playground and our punishment. “I’ll leave you to explain to the rest of the class why they’ve been waiting for you both in the freezing rain, shall I?”
She points to where a group of miserable girls are standing, huddled in a silent group around an orange ball and dripping wet, just like Attenborough’s penguins.
Sugar cookies. They were supposed to start without us.
Actually, scrap that. They were supposed to start without us and play the entire game without us and finish without us. That was kind of the point.
“Harriet,” Nat says in a low voice as Miss Watkins blows her whistle to stop them all muttering and picks a large pile of orange and green bibs off the floor. “We should probably start hoping for that twenty-foot tidal wave.”
Because in the middle of the group – freezing, soaked to the bone and looking absolutely furious – is the third word in our defence:
Alexa.
So, imagine you’re in a rainforest.
It’s such an enormous rainforest it feels as if there’s no way out, and sometimes – in the darkest parts where it gets really thick and overwhelming – when you look up you can’t even see sunlight. All you can see are trees and rainforest spreading in every direction all around you forever and ever, with no end in sight. And you can’t imagine what it’s like not being in the rainforest.
Well, that’s what school is like.
There are all kinds of animals here: monkeys and toucans and anteaters and sloths and butterflies. All just swinging and flying and eating and sleeping and trying to get through the day as best they can. Minding their own business. Trying not to get eaten.
I’m like a polar bear. Lost, bewildered and incapable of fitting in. Unsure of what to do, or how I got here, or how on earth to get out again.
The majority of the group in front of us right now are the tigers. The jaguars; the anacondas; the baboons; the poison dart frogs and piranhas. These animals don’t just belong here: they rule here. You tread as softly as possible so you don’t disturb them; you keep your ankles covered and your head protected. You stay quiet and hope with every bit of you they choose something else to rip apart. It’s not fair, but it’s the rule of the jungle. There’s no point in complaining. It’s just the way it is.
Alexa’s the mosquito. Small and sneaky, and by far the most dangerous.
And always, always wanting blood.
All Nat and I wanted today was to stay out of the way: warm, dry and unnoticed. Instead, we’ve managed to make everything a billion times worse.
Which – if you know me – is not a massive and unprecedented surprise.
“Captains,” Miss Watkins says sharply, nodding at what I can now see is two distinct groups of sodden girls. Alexa and Becky obediently step forward. “Choose your players quickly. Alexa first.”
Nat may hate netball, but she’s naturally fast and strong, and when a ball flies at her face her automatic reaction is to catch it. Not flinch, cry out and cover her eyes with her hands, which is how I play any kind of sport.
I start to shuffle towards Becky.
“Harriet,” Alexa says.
I keep wa
lking, because obviously all the Year Seven screaming has damaged my hearing.
“Harriet,” Alexa says again, more loudly. “I choose Harriet Manners.”
There are loud murmurs from both teams. “You realise the point of a game is to win, right?” one of Alexa’s minions says.
Alexa shrugs and casts a furtive look at Miss Watkins. “Harriet deserves a chance, right? Maybe she’ll surprise us all and pull it out of the bag.”
OK: Alexa has hated me since we were five years old. And at no stage whatsoever at any part of the last decade a) has she given me a chance, or b) have I pulled anything out of the bag.
I’m not even totally sure where the bag is, or what’s supposed to be inside it.
“That’s a lovely attitude, Alexandra,” Miss Watkins says approvingly.
“Fine,” Becky says after a puzzled silence, shaking her head. “I’ll take Nat, then.”
Nat gives me a look that says What The Hell Is Going On? and then strides over to the other side of the pitch and pulls a green bib over her head.
“Here,” Alexa says, handing me a bright orange one and inexplicably saying nothing about how it matches my hair.
I blink and hand it back. “I think it’s the wrong one. This is Goal Attack.”
“Good luck, Manners.” Alexa shoves it back at me then starts walking on to the middle of the netball pitch. “You’re going to need it.”
My hands are starting to shake. I’m normally forced into the passive/loser position of Goal Keeper, and then spend most of my time staring at a tree in the distance, working out what kind of clouds they are behind it and being yelled at to WAKE UP, HARRIET by Goal Defence just before a ball gets lobbed at my head.
What the sugar cookies is Alexa doing? Is she that desperate to impress Miss Watkins? Does she know I’ll fail horribly, and that’s what she wants?
Or has she had a sudden, abrupt change of heart about me and wants to offer me the world’s weirdest, netball-shaped olive branch?
But there isn’t time to work it out, so I swallow, pull the bib over my head and walk to my unfamiliar position on the court.
And the whistle blows.
According to Wikipedia, the origins of netball can be traced back to a women’s version of basketball, created in 1891. Back then, the ladies wore floor-length dresses and hats and tossed the ball gently and probably said things like “how absolutely spiffing” when they scored a goal.
I really wish it was still like that.
The court is a battleground: girls are screaming, yelling, jumping, elbowing, running, spinning; whistles are blowing; the ball seems to be in six places at once. I’m disorientated within five seconds.
All I know – according to what is being yelled at me – is I have to FOCUS ON THE BALL, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m focusing so hard, I can’t see anything else. I feel like I’m at an opticians and they’re waving a pencil in front of my nose: the rest of the court is a total blur with an orange spot in the middle.
“Harriet!” somebody shouts.
“Anna!”
“Over here!”
“No – to me!”
“Catch it, Fiona!”
“HARRIET!”
Hannah in a green bib grabs the ball to my left, and passes it to Fiona on my right. Then it gets thrown over my head to my left again to Ellen, and 90 degrees to my right. Anna runs in one direction for a few steps, grabs it then lobs it; Lucy steps in and throws it over my head yet again, where Jo snatches it and passes it to Nat.
And all I’m doing is backing down the pitch, spinning in little circles, following the ball, like a kitten chasing a mouse on the end of a bit of string.
“HARRIET!” somebody shouts loudly as I dizzily try to stabilise myself. “GRAB IT!”
Suddenly I can see an orange circle, flying straight at my face. I close my eyes and put my hands out, and – to my absolute shock – the ball sticks.
I open them again and look at it in total astonishment. The way a father looks at a newborn child: as if they can’t believe they haven’t dropped it already.
“NOW SCORE!” Alexa screams, pointing at the hoop above me.
This is it, I suddenly realise.
This is my metamorphosis. This is the bit where everything could change: where I transform from outsider Geek – incapable of touching her own toes without sitting on a chair first – to Bouncy Athlete Extraordinaire.
They’ll make me Captain of the netball team. I’ll suddenly know how to crowd surf and dance. I’ll get invited to parties where everybody knows the words to the same songs even though they’re not written down anywhere.
I take a deep breath. People are shouting, screaming, yelling: there are bodies everywhere, and feet, and ponytails, and the ball feels gritty and rough in my hands.
I’m going to prove Alexa right: I’m going to surprise everyone. Whether that’s what she was intending or not.
The shouting gets louder and louder, a celebratory whistle is piercing through the air, and all I can feel is a triumphant pulse of blood in my head as nobody makes even the smallest effort to grab it off me.
Which means I can do this.
I hold the ball carefully above my head. Then I take another deep breath, aim, close my eyes and shoot.
For a few fractions of a second there’s nothing but silence. Nothing but quietness, and darkness, and rain. Then I open my eyes, just in time to see the orange ball, sailing through the hoop.
Which means I just scored the first goal of my entire life. The first anything.
“YESSSSSS!!!” I squeak, jumping up and down. What does my dad shout when he’s watching football? “BACK OF THE NET! Or – you know – through it!”
And I turn to high-five Nat, even though she’s on the other team.
Except she’s not there.
For a few seconds I hold my hand in the air, waiting for the praise and adulation and cheering, and it’s only then I realise the court’s still strangely silent. Silent, and wet, and there’s a crowd of girls in orange and green, staring at me.
Then I see Nat’s face – somewhere in the distance – hidden in her hands, and Alexa’s expression. It’s pure, incandescent triumph.
And the whistle is still blowing.
A shrimp’s heart is in its head, and I suddenly feel like I might be turning into one: my cheeks are pounding and beating and heating and racing, as if they’re about to explode.
It’s the wrong goal.
That’s why nobody was trying to stop me. That’s why everybody was shouting. That’s why Miss Watkins is going crazy with her whistle. That’s why I’m stood next to the Goal Keeper of my own team, looking like a total plonker. Because I was running in the wrong direction.
The direction Alexa pointed me in.
“Disqualified,” Miss Watkins shouts, blowing her whistle for the millionth time. “Free penalty to the opposition.” The entire green team – bar Nat – suddenly explodes into triumphant shouts and push forward Hannah, who has never, ever missed a penalty shot in PE history. The orange team explodes too, but in the opposite way.
“Idiot,” somebody shouts.
“What a total geek,” somebody else yells. “Miss! That’s unfair! Harriet’s obviously too stupid to play!”
“Seriously, what is wrong with her?”
“She wasn’t even allowed in that section! She should have been stopped! Miss, that’s cheating! She’s a mole for the other team!”
My cheeks are burning, my eyes are stinging, and all I want to do is run away. But I can’t, because I’ve already done that once today and I obviously wasn’t very good at it.
“I’m really sorry,” I say, looking desperately around me for something to make it better.
“Such a shame,” Alexa says, shaking her head and taking the bib off me. “I was really rooting for you, Harriet. How about you take Goal Keeper instead, since you’re so keen on the other team’s goal?”
I stare at her, and then at the rainforest behind her:
all snarling and snickering and squeaking and jibbering. Furious and disgusted with me. Ready to attack. Alexa just risked losing an entire game to make them hate me. That was her revenge for making her soggy and cold: ritual humiliation.
Although, in fairness, even she couldn’t have realised I’d be that stupid. I might as well have covered myself in gravy and handed myself to her on a plate with a sprinkling of rosemary on my head.
I nod quietly and take the bib off her.
“Hey – it’s the same colour as your hair,” she adds, laughing and heading back to the centre of the court.
The whistle blows again, and the game starts. Except this time I’m on the edge of it: standing uselessly by the same goal, with my hands stuck in the air, staring into the distance. A polar bear again.
Hannah gives her team-mates a quick wink, and then lobs the ball through the net with the grace of a performing seal.
As the entire rainforest erupts again, I glance quickly at Nat. She grins, shrugs and makes an enormous wave motion with her hand.
And, as I grin back, I can feel us both thinking the same thing:
We’re going to have to find a better cupboard.
See how it all began …
Harriet Manners knows a lot of things.
* Cats have 32 muscles in each ear
* Bluebirds can’t see the colour blue
* The average person laughs 15 times per day
* Peanuts are an ingredient in dynamite
But she doesn’t know why nobody at school seems to like her. So when she’s offered the chance to reinvent herself, Harriet grabs it. Can she transform from geek to chic?
Click here to read …
The geek is back!
Harriet Manners also knows: