“Jemima,” Jaz whispered. “Close the zip. It’s freezing.”
I took one last look at the sky, then wriggled back into the tent. “Sorry,” I whispered.
“I can’t sleep,” Jaz said. “I keep hearing wolves.”
“They’re owls, Jaz. There aren’t any wolves.”
“Harry said that wolves could live in the forest and no one would even know,” she whispered.
“That’s stupid. We don’t have wolves in England.”
Jaz shone her phone light on her face. “He said they could have escaped from a zoo!”
“He was just trying to scare you. Anyway, most species of wolves don’t pose any risk to humans. The deadliest thing at Camp Go Wild! is probably that lake water we were swimming in earlier,” I whispered back. “You can catch all kinds of things. And the catering equipment did not exactly look hygienic to me.” I told Jaz about the different forms of bacteria that live in water, and the general breaches of health and safety and human rights I’d seen so far at Camp Go Wild! “Jaz?” I whispered. “Are you still awake? Jaz?” And that’s how I discovered talking about bacteria and health and safety might be slightly soporific.
I wriggled as far into my sleeping bag as I could, hoping that the “payback” Lottie was planning wouldn’t be any worse than the mud challenge Camp Go Wild! had in store for us tomorrow.
The next morning, huge blobs of rain slid down my face as I tried to run through the forest. It was the mud challenge. Or, more accurately, the five-kilometre mud challenge uphill through a monsoon. And, contrary to Gina’s prediction at the start line, I was not “smashing it”. I was finally grateful for Dad’s gaiters though. They were keeping my legs dry. It was just a shame about the rest of me. I could feel sweat collecting against the fabric of my cagoule. I’d slipped over approximately a trillion times. One thing was for sure – Camp Go Wild! was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Miki was way ahead with his group and Lottie had gone past ages ago, telling me not to have a heart attack.
“Keep going!” Frankie, our team leader, shouted as she ran past in shorts and a vest.
I looked up and slipped over on a muddy tree root.
Frankie smiled. “It’s all part of the fun!” She helped me up and told me, “Rest but don’t quit!”
I really did not like her.
I found a tree stump that was half-sheltered from the rain and unzipped my cagoule. “I’ll catch you up,” I said to Heidi.
“Okay. I’ll go slow.”
I watched her half-jog, half-skid across the forest floor.
I stretched my aching legs out in front of me and wiped the sweat from my forehead. A five-kilometre mud challenge. In a deluge. It was basically physical torture.
“Jemima! There you are!” Gina’s smile appeared through the rain. “Heidi said you needed a rest! Are you okay?”
“I’m not running,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “We can walk. But you have to finish. Team GGB Code, remember?”
I sighed. “How far is it?”
“Not far!” she said. “The camp’s about five hundred metres up that hill.” She crouched next to me and pointed through the trees. “See the flag?”
I could just make out a tiny spot of blue in the distance.
“You can do it, Jemima!” she said, but I didn’t move. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t I quiz you on the way? See how many questions you can get right before the end!”
I looked at her.
“Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you haven’t got some revision cards hidden in that cagoule.”
I took a deep breath and pulled the revision cards out of my pocket. “Okay, but only because these are my laminated ones.”
“Awesome!” Gina said, helping me up. Her hands were really soft; she must have used loads of moisturizer. It probably came free in her luxury accommodation. “Hey! Look at us!” She pointed to our legs. She had virtually the exact same trousers on. “Team Gaiters!”
“They’re my dad’s.”
“Well, your dad is seriously cool!”
“That’s what he says.”
I walked back to camp with Gina asking me questions all the way until finally, the meeting point came into sight. A crowd of people stood by the finish line.
“This is so embarrassing,” I said, trying not to lose my breath. “Coming last.”
“Oh, we’re not last!” Gina said. “Ms Fraser’s group went the wrong way apparently. They’re miles behind! Anyway, who cares?” She dipped her fingers into a mound of mud and drew stripes across her cheeks. “Go Team GGB!”
And it was annoying because I couldn’t stop laughing and it made it even harder to breathe.
About thirty metres away from the flagpole, I picked up my speed and tried to forget about what people might think. I focused on what my body was feeling instead. Which was mostly excruciating pain. Miki jumped up from the grass and shouted, “Go, Jemima!” as I crossed the finish line.
My trainers were covered in mud. My skin was covered in sweat. My hair was soaking wet and sticking to my face. And my cheeks felt like they’d been set on fire. But I didn’t feel like that on the inside. On the inside I felt like one of Luna’s tarot cards. The one with the woman riding on the back of a lion with her hair flowing out behind her, holding a heart of flames. The one that says Strength at the bottom. I felt exactly like that. And a bit worried about what Dad was going to say about my ruined trainers.
The showers at Camp Go Wild! were freezing, which had to be illegal. I was going to google it when I got a phone signal. I waited until the changing rooms were almost empty, then got dressed in the corner of the changing rooms, with goosebumps on my skin and aching legs. I pulled a plastic bag out of the back pocket of my rucksack and shoved my muddy trainers in it.
“Hey, you dropped something,” Heidi said, pointing to something on the floor. “It fell out of your bag.”
“Thanks.” I picked it up. It was a brochure saying, Bright Star Cruises: the luxury cruise ship that treats you like a star.
We’d never been on a cruise. Definitely not a luxury one. Dad’s idea of a luxury holiday was staying in Nana’s old caravan in North Wales. There was no way Dad would pay for a cruise. He moaned about how much it cost to play crazy golf at Dolphin Bay. I wondered where it came from, but my hair was still wet and my hands were freezing, so I put it in my coat pocket, then sat under the hand dryer until I felt less like I might get hypothermia.
Miki was leaning against a tree outside the changing block. His hair was still slightly wet and flapping around in the wind. “Here.” He handed me one of his mum’s home-made cookies and I looked around for the coach. “We’ve got to walk, remember?” Miki said, munching on a biscuit. “Two miles!”
“Oh my God,” I said. “I can’t believe we had to pay for this experience.”
Just then, Lottie ran past looking at me and laughing. And I got this cold kind of dread – probably how it feels to really get hypothermia – like she’d done something, and it was too late for me to do anything about it.
I guess that’s what happens when you stay up half the night star-gazing and talking about wolves and bacteria. You forget to keep an eye out for the real predators.
I spotted Dad as soon as our coach pulled into the school car park. He was wearing his bright-yellow high-visibility jacket. In case my whole year might not notice how totally embarrassing he was.
“You survived!” he shouted at a hundred decibels as I got off the coach. “Incredible! No ingesting poisonous mushrooms, or being devoured by killer leeches or falling down ravines!” Then he laughed extremely loudly at his own joke.
“Yes, Dad,” I said, climbing down the steps. “I survived all of that. Unfortunately, so did your gaiters. I’ll just get my rucksack.” I walked over to where the coach driver was putting everyone’s bags. Dad waited with me for a minute, then started scanning the crowd.
“Is Gina here somewhere?�
� he said. “Thought I’d say a quick hello! I’ll meet you back at the van.” He spotted her and practically sprinted over. Gina’s smile went as wide as ever. He was probably doing more of his jokes.
I waved goodbye to Miki, whose mum was waiting in the car like a normal parent (an alien concept to my dad). I waited by the van trying to telepathically tell Dad it was time to go. But it didn’t work. Mr Nelson had joined the conversation. I could literally die of hypothermia in the school car park and no one would notice.
“Gina’s so nice!” Dad said when he came back over. “She said you did great!”
“She’s lying.”
Dad laughed. “She said you scored six goals in water polo! And ran a 5K!”
“I came last. Apart from the group that got lost.”
Dad started the engine. “That’s not last then, is it? Mr Nelson said you didn’t even complain, which I can barely believe!” Dad laughed again. “I thought I’d get a phone call from you in the middle of the night saying camping’s against your human rights or something.”
“I couldn’t get a signal.”
“Ha! Seriously, I’m proud of you. I didn’t want to say before you left, but Jasper said that trip was a complete nightmare! You had fun though?”
“Well, let’s see…I camped in the freezing cold, in the middle of nowhere, possibly with escaped zoo animals. I trekked halfway up a mountain, ran through a mud swamp and swam in an algae-ridden lake. And don’t even get me started about the food.”
“Exactly! Lots of fun! Oh, and by the way, Jasper’s been looking for his binoculars.”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t know anything about where they might be, do you?”
“I might have borrowed them to look at the stars.”
“Jemima! You can’t just take things without asking!”
“I did ask!” I said, then turned to face the window and muttered, “It’s just he said no.”
As we pulled into our drive I said, “Dad, have you ever been on a cruise?”
He looked at me weirdly. “No, why?”
I took the Bright Star Cruises brochure out of my coat pocket and handed it to him.
“Where did you get this?” he asked sharply. “Did Luna give this to you?”
“No, it was in your rucksack.”
The colour drained out of his face, like Jasper’s did that time ages ago before he threw up all over the seat.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “I’ll stick it in the recycling.” He got out of the van and stuffed the brochure in his back pocket. “Now, tell me all about this mud challenge!” he said, lifting my rucksack out of the back. “Gina said I was right to pack those gaiters!”
I followed him inside, but I didn’t say anything about the mud challenge. I went straight upstairs and into my room. I leaned on the window sill, looking out at the expanding universe, wondering why an old cruise brochure could make Dad look like he was going to be sick.
I plugged in my phone. The screen glowed and it vibrated loads of times. I scrolled through the notifications. Then my heart stopped. As though I’d plunged into a freezing cold lake without wearing a wetsuit.
Lottie Freeman tagged you in a video.
I tapped the screen and there I was. Covered in mud. Sweating. With bright red cheeks. Hair stuck to my face. In my cagoule. And my dad’s gaiters. Running towards the finish line. My heart thumped harder and harder as I read her post.
Wishing my friend jemima small good luck in #Brainiacs !!!! #uk #cliftononsea #cliftonacademy #goteam #mudgoals
#genius #tv #lifegoals #jemimasmall #friends #lol
There just wasn’t a hashtag for how much I hated Lottie right now.
As soon as I woke up the next morning, I remembered the video and felt sick. I sat up in bed and pressed my phone.
Miki had messaged me saying:
Don’t worry we’ll tell mr nels he’ll sort it out.
But that feeling of nausea didn’t disappear; it pumped around my veins like venom. I wondered how many people from school would have watched the video by now. I tapped on Lottie’s profile and scrolled down the comments.
There were some nice ones from some people in my class.
Afzal had put: go jem!
Jaz had written: cant wait youre so brainy!!!!!
Erin said: mud challenge was so bad lol.
But there were some other comments too, from people I didn’t know.
woah that is VILE keep runnin girl
That’s not healthy
Whaaaaaat? Is this girl on TV in England?
Lol gross
I hope that’s a fitness camp!!!!
I could probably have dealt with those ones. They were bad. But if they were arrows, the shield I’d been building over the past few weeks was strong enough to withstand them. I think. But not the one I read next:
her mum should be ashamed
My imaginary shield could have been made of titanium and that arrow would have still got into my heart. And an arrow that sharp is kind of fatal. Because there’s no way you can be on TV with your heart punctured like that.
“JEMIMA!” Dad shouted. “You’re going to miss the BUS!”
I heard Jasper’s voice outside my room shouting at me to hurry up. “DÉPÊCHE TOI, JEMIMA!”
But I stayed lying in bed. I couldn’t face school today. Not now everyone on the planet had seen the video. And the comments. It would probably be on YouTube before lunchtime. I stared up at the ceiling, wishing it had an escape hatch to a different universe. I’d climb out and never come back. Because who’d want to stay on a planet where your body should make your mum ashamed of you?
I looked over at the revision kit Dad had made and felt myself take a giant breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, and pressed my hands on them, because I didn’t want the pain of it all coming out.
But there was nowhere I could hide from the truth. I couldn’t go on Brainiacs and have my mum feel ashamed of me. The empty space in my heart felt bigger than ever, like a galaxy stretching on for infinity, entirely devoid of stars.
Dad opened my door. “Jemima! You’re going to be late! Why aren’t you out of bed?”
“I don’t feel very well,” I said, turning to face the wall.
Dad pressed his hand against my forehead. “You’re fine. You haven’t got a temperature. You’re probably just tired from the camping trip! Come on! You can have an early night tonight.”
“Lottie’s posted a video of me online,” I said in short breaths. “A horrible one.”
Dad did an extra-long sigh. “Well, she certainly shouldn’t be doing that. But it’s not a reason to miss school. Jemima, get up!”
I tried to hold the tears in, but I couldn’t. And they came out in a kind of deluge. “I look so horrible, Dad! People commented. Really bad things. About me being fat and gross.” I gulped deep breaths of air as huge tears soaked into my duvet.
Dad sat on the edge of my bed and rubbed my back. “Oh, Jem. That’s awful,” he said gently. “I’m so sorry. It’s all right. We’ll get it sorted out.”
I heard Jasper creep in.
“What’s happened?”
“Someone’s posted a video of Jemima online,” Dad said. “There’s some…not very nice comments.”
“Let’s see, Jem.”
I wiped my eyes and handed Jasper my phone. I watched its light reflecting in his eyes.
“Jeez, that’s bad.”
“Jasper!” Dad said. “You’re supposed to make her feel better about it! Give me that.” Dad took my phone and tapped the screen. “Wow! Is that the mud challenge? Look at you go! Jemima! I know you’re upset, sweetheart, but I think that’s a great video!”
“Are you actually joking? The whole reason Lottie’s put it on there is because it’s so bad. She wants people to laugh at me. She’s even tagged Brainiacs in it! She’s trying to ruin my life! Read the comments.”
Dad scrolled down. He kept grimacing and looking away, like he did whenever we watched the
World’s Deadliest Animals documentaries. “Honestly! Do some people not have anything better to do?” He shook his head. “You poor thing. If there’s anything that’s vile around here it’s those comments. Listen, those people are nasty. Don’t listen to a word of it. Do you know how to delete it, Jasper?”
“He can’t. It’s on Lottie’s profile,” I said, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my pyjamas.
“Take screenshots and tell Mr Nelson,” Jasper said. “He’ll get it taken down. That Lottie is a class A—”
“Thank you, Jasper!” Dad said. “For what it’s worth, I think you look – what’s that word you young people say? Fierce.” Jasper snorted as Dad rubbed my shoulder.
I thought finally Dad was appalled enough to not send me to school. But he said, “Jemima, wash your face, get dressed, and you do what Gina says and hold your head up high. Don’t let these people upset you. I’ll take you to school in the van.”
Miki was by the gates when I got to school.
“I hate Lottie!” he said. “I’ve messaged her so many times saying take it down. She’s seen them but not replied.”
My eyes felt swollen from crying, but I scrolled through the comments again to see if there were any more. Katie K had put: good luck jemima. I think she was in Year Nine.
“Stop reading the comments!” Miki said, taking my phone and zipping it into my rucksack pocket. “I’ll think of a way to get back at Lottie. I can’t wait to see her face when you slay it on Brainiacs. That’ll wipe the smile off her ratty face.”
Jemima Small Versus the Universe Page 20