I blinked a few times as the lights dazzled my eyes. Then I spotted her in the audience. Sitting next to my dad, surrounded by a yellow glow like an aura. Gina. Her mega-watt smile was turned up to approximately one hundred per cent of her face.
Tiny beads of sweat ran from Dexter’s temple as he spoke to the camera. My mouth felt dry, and I could feel sweat soaking into the back of my shirt. I wasn’t sure if I could remember a single card. Until I heard the first question.
“What is the total value of the teapot, the goldfish and the rose?”
My hand pressed down and my podium lit up. “One hundred and forty-eight?”
“Correct!”
“What is the value of the spoon minus the apple multiplied by the flute?”
“Two hundred and sixteen?”
“Correct, Jemima! Which colour background was on the sun card?”
My buzzer again. And again. And again.
The klaxon sounded and Dexter shouted, “What an incredible round!” over the applause. “And what an incredible memory one of our young Brainiacs has! Jemima, that was truly extraordinary!”
But Dexter Riley wasn’t exactly right. The Memory Round only tests your working memory. It’s the part of your brain that stores information for a short amount of time for processing. I’d forget all the cards by tomorrow. Your proper memories are stored in your cerebral cortex. They’re the ones that pop into your head when you hear a song or see an old photograph. The three-dimensional ones that play in your head like a film.
Like painting a wooden cabin with your dad in the summer; holding his hand when you’re rock-pooling because he doesn’t want you to slip; him rushing you to hospital because you think you’ve broken your ankle playing basketball, and smiling with relief when it’s only sprained, even though you had to wait there for hours; him sitting with you in the garden when it’s freezing cold, really late at night, because it was the only chance in your entire lifetime to see Comet ISON before it went extinct. And driving all the way to North Wales in the pouring rain to stay in Nana’s caravan, because he wants you to have a proper holiday, like he had with his parents when he was younger. So your brains will have some of the exact same memories stored up. And him sitting in the audience, looking like he’s proud of you. They’re the memories that are truly extraordinary.
The studio lights dimmed, and a spotlight fell on me. It was the maths round. Two minutes to answer as many questions as you can. I dabbed my forehead with my blazer sleeve. I don’t know why, but dimming the lights seemed to make it hotter.
I’d watched people answer too quickly, forget part of the sums, take ages thinking so their time ran out. It’s the sort of thing that happens when you haven’t been brain-trained by an ex-coach of the British Paralympic team. I glanced around the podiums. Zane had forty; Sophie, ten; Alejandro’s said twenty-five. There were nine of us left. Four of us with the lowest scores would be eliminated. I did a quick calculation in my head. I needed at least thirty points to stay in. That was six correct answers. In two minutes. It didn’t feel totally impossible.
I did what Gina told me to do in brain-training. I shook out my legs and arms, and moved my head from side to side. She said it helps disperse the adrenaline in your body so your mind can focus. It made me look like I thought I was about to do a hundred-metre sprint, not a maths round, but when you have to answer six questions correctly in two minutes, you’ll try anything.
“Jemima, your time starts now. Minus five, zero, nine, twenty-two. What comes next?”
I felt the tiniest smile creep onto my face. Because it was a quadratic sequence. I must have done a million of them in Miss Reed’s class at primary school. Occasionally as a punishment. “Thirty-nine.”
“Correct. Minus four, twelve, thirty-eight, seventy-four. What comes next?”
“One hundred and twenty.”
“Correct.”
I didn’t look at the timer, or pay attention to Dexter’s quiff, which was starting to flop over slightly, or count the number of times he said “Correct”. But when the klaxon sounded for the end of my time, I saw a Miki-shaped silhouette jump in the air.
“Well done, Jemima! Fifty-five points!”
Over the clapping I heard a loud, “Allez allez, Jemima!” I looked over to where Jasper was sitting. The only person in the world who would cheer me on in French. Well, maybe not the only person. If they had TVs on cruise liners. I didn’t mean to smile at Jasper, but I did.
When the studio lights came back on, Maggie told us to relax for a few minutes while she took the eliminated contestants to sit in the audience. A woman in a Brainiacs T-shirt brought us all some squash and banana-flavoured biscuits.
When the lights dimmed again, Dexter stared into the camera lens. “Welcome back. Our five remaining contestants are about to be tested on some of the most difficult words in the English language. That’s right. It’s Spelling Sudden Death!”
Ananya went up on her toes, Alejandro fiddled with the buttons on his blazer, Zane took a deep breath, Victoria looked up at the ceiling and prayed. I’m not sure what I looked like. Maybe surprised. Because it felt like there was an avalanche in my brain. The words from the Spell Like A Superstar: Advanced Edition book that Dad had bought me were falling through my mind all at once. I hoped I could think straight enough to catch them.
Dexter’s teeth practically glowed in the spotlights. He could definitely get a job advertising toothpaste if he ever got sacked from Brainiacs. “This is our penultimate round, Brainiacs! And, remember, it’s sudden death. Spell a word incorrectly and you could be eliminated. Jemima, we’re starting with you. The word is: thalassophobia.”
A heartbeat sounded loudly in my ears. At first I thought it was a sound effect playing in the studio. But it wasn’t. It was my heart. That warrior in there was reminding me of home. Because thalassa is Greek for sea. Thalassa was a goddess who had horns made out of crab claws and wore robes made of seaweed. Pretty unforgettable really. Like a lot of the goddesses I knew about. I closed my eyes and spelled.
“Correct!” Dexter cried. “Ananya, your word is: phytoplankton.”
Ananya went up on her toes like a ballerina and spelled the word without hesitating. I smiled at her as Dexter said, “Correct!”
After the first set of words, Zane had spelled appoggiatura wrong and been eliminated. He got a huge round of applause and mouthed, “Good luck,” to me as he left the stage. Four of us were still in. Only three of us could go through to the final round. It all rested on my next word.
“Jemima, your word is: archaeopteryx.”
There was a gasp from the audience. Maybe they hadn’t watched Brainiacs before. The spellings always got harder as the round goes on. Maybe they didn’t know much about dinosaurs either. Because the archaeopteryx was kind of important. It’s not even that hard to spell. Not when your spelling book from Miss Reed had a dinosaur section. I closed my eyes and recited it, just like I had at home.
Dexter shouted, “Correct!” Only he said “Correct” three times after that too, which meant we all had to spell again.
I looked nervously out to the audience.
“Good luck, everyone. Jemima, your word is: staphylococcus.”
There was another gasp from the audience.
“You have two minutes.”
But I didn’t need two minutes. Not when I’d already spent the whole of one break time staring at Mr Shaw’s Bacterium and Viruses poster while he was lecturing me about breaking conical beakers. Staphylococcus are this type of bacteria that cluster together. I remembered because they looked like microscopic bunches of grapes.
“Correct! Aren’t this year’s contestants something else?” Dexter joined in with the applause, and then the studio fell into silence.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t open them again until I heard the adjudicators ring the bell. They ring it when someone gets a spelling wrong. Which is how I knew Victoria had spelled rhinencephalon wrong. Which meant I didn’t need to spell any more
words because there were three of us left. No one else would be eliminated. I’d made it through to the final round of Brainiacs.
And that’s called definitely not looking stupid on TV.
I’m going to tell you something that I never thought would happen in a million revolutions of the sun: me winning Brainiacs.
I was right. I didn’t win. Ananya won. I came second. Luna said it was because I let her hold my fluorite crystal. But I don’t believe that. It was because she knew that Plovdiv is in Bulgaria, and a Mississippi saxophone is a harmonica.
If Dexter had asked me about Pandora or Helene or Phoebe or any of the other moons in our solar system instead, then maybe I’d have won the trophy. But probably not. Because Ananya got all the other questions right too. She must be the only person in the world who knows more about the nutritional content of an avocado than me.
But coming second isn’t bad. Coming second out of fifteen people is actually pretty good. You still count as a winner if you come second. According to Brainiacs you do anyway. Because they gave me a silver medal saying:
Jasper says second place is the first loser. But Jasper doesn’t know anything. The best thing he’s ever won is the Clifton Academy French Prize. He doesn’t know that sometimes second place can feel like the biggest thing ever.
I’m standing at the end of the Plank – the little wooden platform in Dolphin Bay that points out to the ocean. It’s wet from the sea crashing against the rocks. The wind is blowing my hair all over the place, and my fingernails are turning blue from the cold. I haven’t been up here in a long time. Since I was seven years old actually. When someone says you look grotesque in your new swimsuit, you don’t exactly feel like repeating the experience. So I didn’t. Until today.
I look up the coast towards the harbour. The paddle steamboat is there, anchored, waiting for the new season next summer. Dad, Luna, Nana and Jasper are at home getting everything ready. Gina’s probably there too. Because that’s something else I found out after I filmed Brainiacs. My dad has been secretly dating Gina. I guess the only two people in the universe who think gaiters look cool are probably a match made in heaven. Besides, Dad said he’s not keeping any more secrets.
Wherever the Bright Star cruise liner called Pegasus is right now, I hope it has a big TV. I hope every TV on the whole ship plays Brainiacs tonight. So my mum definitely sees me. Jemima Small. Not looking stupid. Still being her daughter and her still being my mum. Even though she’s not here.
My human anatomy book says the heart has four chambers. But I think it has an invisible one too. A part they don’t label on diagrams. Where the people you’ve loved live. When someone’s been inside your heart they stay in that chamber permanently. There’s no escape hatch. No emergency exit. Nowhere to disappear to. It’s how I know me and Jasper are still in there. Frozen in time and space, like a photograph. Because someone who sings you to sleep and stops you from sinking and points at the stars and tells you to believe in magic, must have a secret chamber in their heart. Maybe it’s so big she’s afraid to open it. Like Pandora’s box.
I watch a squabble of seagulls circle an anchored cabin cruiser. Collective nouns like a “squabble” are the type of thing you learn when you’re friends with the current Brainiacs champion. I look past the boat and I wonder where the Pegasus cruise ship is right now.
Probably somewhere near the coordinates:
37° 09’ 37.13” N
012° 18’ 16.87” W
Which is near Gibraltar the last time I checked. You can download a live tracking app from the Bright Star Cruises website. It’s the kind of thing you know if you’re a Brainiacs finalist.
Gibraltar is exactly 1359.83 miles away from Clifton-on-Sea. But it feels a lot closer than that. It’s closer than nowhere, anyway, which is kind of where Mum was before.
I look out to the horizon, where the sea touches the sky and I hope. I hope really, really hard. That she’ll watch. And call. Or write. Say she’s sorry for the light years of empty space. And change her mind about us. Hope isn’t the same as wishes. Hope is more real. With hope, it feels like there’s a bigger chance it can come true.
I wrap my arms around myself as tight as they’ll go. My body feels warm and soft against the cold air. It’s actually okay living here. And going to my school. It’s sort of better than okay now I’m officially a Brainiac. Now it’s Boxing Day. And I’m about to be on TV. Nine Year Sevens asked for my autograph before school broke up for Christmas and the show hasn’t even been on TV yet. They asked for Miki’s autograph too. But that’s what happens when you outshine Mary Poppins in the Christmas production. I’m going to be on the front page of the Clifton Echo next week. The journalist said the headline will be: CLIFTON’S JEMIMA SMALL WINS BIG. Mrs Savage will probably put it up on the wall in reception. The second place winner got five hundred pounds worth of books for their school. I’m kind of popular in the library now.
I take a step forward and peer over the edge of the Plank. Icy waves splash over the rocks underneath and I can feel the toe ring I borrowed from Luna digging in.
“Come on, Jemima!” Miki shouts.
I turn around. He’s wearing the beanie I got him for helping me with Brainiacs. It uses the chemical elements boron and fluorine to spell out BFF. He says it’s the geekiest thing he owns, but he’s barely taken it off since I gave it to him. He’s got my dad’s emergency blanket under his arm and he’s holding my phone ready to take the photo. Me jumping off the Plank in my swimsuit. It’s for my new profile: jemimasmall_bigdeal.
There are a few people on the beach standing watching me. I don’t know if they’re gawping because my body doesn’t look exactly the same as theirs. Or because I am about to jump into the sea in December. But I don’t really care that much if people are staring. I’m not going to spend my whole life being invisible. I’m not a quantum particle.
I take a deep breath and my lungs fill up with icy air. It’s the way to get more oxygen to your heart. Your heart is the thing that matters the most. And I think mine’s pretty big. It has to be. Because I can feel a whole warrior in there.
“Hurry up, Jemima! Jump!” Miki shouts. “We haven’t got all day!”
He’s right. Because we’ve got a party to get ready for. I can’t miss my own TV debut. Plus, it is really freezing. I lift my head up high and look out into the distance. Right up to where the sea meets the sky. You can see all the way to the edge of the world from here.
What inspired you to write Jemima’s story?
I had read a newspaper article about an eleven-year-old girl who received a letter from her school telling her she was overweight and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Almost the entire article centred around the mother’s perspective – how she felt and what she thought about it. I looked at the photograph of that girl and wondered what she was feeling. I thought about how receiving a letter like that would have affected me at her age, when I was already self-conscious and insecure and my body was changing in so many ways. Jemima’s story came from that.
What is the message you wanted to send and why?
I hope Jemima’s story shows how important it is to respect every body, including our own. We spend so much time and energy worrying about what we look like, trying to hide or disguise our bodies, thinking and speaking negatively about them. On social media, we are bombarded with messages telling us how our bodies could be improved, yet our lives would be improved dramatically if we weren’t judged for the way we look! In a recent Girls Attitude Survey, 52% of girls aged 11-21 said they sometimes feel ashamed about the way they look. Ashamed. It’s an incredibly sad statistic but one that’s not surprising. We are rarely encouraged to think about how incredible our bodies are, or the amazing things we can achieve just the way we are. Like Gina says, we are literally made of star dust. I hope Jemima’s story helps readers to look in the mirror and appreciate all the qualities they share with the stars.
Did you draw on any personal experiences or those of people you
know?
I can remember vividly the first time someone commented on my body. I was sitting on my nana’s sofa and someone grabbed my leg and held it up for everyone to see, saying, “Look at the size of her legs!” I can remember feeling confused, embarrassed, uncertain about what was wrong with the size of my legs. Then later, I decided they must be too big. I was about eight years old when it happened, over thirty years ago, but I still hear that voice sometimes when I look in the mirror.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with my eight-year-old legs. They were legs that had won medals for ballet, legs that had earned swimming badges, legs that could run, tap-dance, roller-skate. But from then on, I forgot about all of that. I had the slow realization that what I could do mattered a lot less than how I looked. And all I saw when I looked in the mirror was everything wrong with me.
What followed was a period of disordered eating that lasted well into my twenties. I guess part of me wanted to write the story I needed when I was younger.
Did you ever find it hard putting yourself in Jemima’s shoes?
Yes, mainly because she is a lot brainier than I am! The best part of writing for me is getting inside the character’s head. It can be heartbreaking sometimes, but it’s essential to make them real. Writing the scenes where Jemima tells her dad about the video posted online and decides to quit Brainiacs were the hardest to write, I think. I suppose Gina’s pep talks were what I would tell the younger me if I had the chance. I didn’t have the same experiences as Jemima growing up, but that feeling of wanting to be somebody else, or wanting to astrally project myself out of my body, is a familiar one to me. It took me a long time to feel comfortable in my own skin, to feel happy being myself. It was awesome to get Jemima there a lot sooner.
Did you do any research? How did you come up with all Jemima’s interesting facts?
Jemima Small Versus the Universe Page 23