When Anna met Chrissie it was not love at first sight. Anna had other things on her
mind. Important things like survival. Apparently it was perfectly natural to be scared on
your first day at a brand-new school. Her father said if she didn’t have butterflies then
she wouldn’t be normal. Anna had long considered herself to be far from normal, and not in
a good way, so his reassurances were lukewarm comfort. Still, it was nice of him to try.
‘You’ll love it,’ he said, over breakfast. He blinked twice, which meant he was lying.
‘Will I?’
‘Of course you will. A school like this, it’s a dream come true.’
She put on her fighting face and smiled. She didn’t want him to feel bad. ‘You’re
right,’ she said. ‘A few nerves are perfectly acceptable. Only natural.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’ he said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I was trying to be positive.’
‘Then you can see why I might be suspicious.’
‘Everyone, please pay attention. This is Anna Page. Her father is taking over as Head
of Maths this year and so Clareville House has offered Anna a place in Year 10.’
Anna groaned inwardly. Now everyone would know that it was neither excellence nor
affluence that brought her here. And that anything they said in front of her might get
back to her dad. Being the teacher’s daughter was going to be a challenge.
A class of around twenty girls, each one a flourishing combination of inexperience and
hormones. At fourteen and fifteen they were the kind of girls that men who should know
better would soon be lusting over, if they weren’t already. The girls sat in rows of
identical blue V-neck jumpers, grey blazers on the back of every chair, and collectively
blanked her. The faces, dazzlingly similar in their disinterest, swam before her eyes;
perhaps she was about to faint. How embarrassing. To be forever known as the girl who
fainted on her first day. No, worse: the fatgirl who fainted on her first day. The very
thought of it was enough to pull her vision sharply back into focus and she realized she
was now expected to take a seat.
She looked at her feet as she walked to a spare place near the back of the class. The
shiny black toes of her Doc Marten boots were oddly reassuring. She could remember seeing
them in the safety of her bedroom. She took a deep breath. It was time for her nerves to
go now. They weren’t helping.
She sat down and slumped low in the chair, wondering why she was bothering to make
herself invisible when they had barely noticed her anyway. Nobody was looking at her. Was
it possible to feel paranoid and ignored at the same time? Nobody would appreciate that
she had spent an extra hour this morning blow-drying her hair so that it would perhaps be
described as sophisticated dark auburn, rather than that loathsome word ‘ginger’. She
hadn’t worn her regulation black eyeliner because her dad had told her she’d be going back
to her old school if she so much as dared. She was happy to obey him. At least for the
first day.
Anna tucked her feet under the desk and delved into her bag, not for anything in
particular, merely for something to do now that she could no longer see her reassuring
boots. She didn’t want to be the only person in the room paying attention. First
impressions last, so she concentrated on trying not to make any impression at all. It was
an art she had mastered at her old school, where eventually she sank so far into the
background that she almost disappeared altogether.
‘At the beginning of every day we make sure that all the day girls are accounted for
and none of the boarders have absconded in the night,’ said Miss Webb. Her laugh at her
own joke then disintegrated like candyfloss in the rain. She proceeded to call the
register in a meek voice that diminished still further as the girls took delight in
answering her with excessive force, shouting their replies for sport. This seemed
unnecessarily vicious and Anna felt sorry for the teacher. A shiver of apprehension
tickled the back of Anna’s neck.
Halfway through the register Miss Webb was quaking in her thoroughly sensible shoes.
‘Chrissie Morton?’ she said, her voice breaking on the M.
‘HERE!’ yelled Chrissie, loudest yet by far, and four or five girls began to laugh.
Chrissie flicked her shiny brown bob like a show pony and tittered behind her hand.
‘Everyone, please,’ said Miss Webb. ‘What must Anna be thinking?’
Anna’s head flicked up at the mention of her name. She was thinking: please don’t drag
me into this; I’m trying hard to be invisible.