“Not in my house.” Mum snorts. Light bounces off the back of the shiny paper and hits the printed logo of Dad’s firm. My heart drops into my stomach.
Crap.
“Katharine Breakspeare,” Mum says, skimming the page. “You’re going to do this?”
Awkwardly, I squeak, “I’m…going to apply.” How the hell do I get that leaflet out of her hand? She can’t see Dad’s name. She’ll get the wrong idea and assume I’m interested in the program because I’m, like, upset about his abandonment or something cringey like that when, in reality, I just want to grind my future success in his traitorous face and possibly ruin his life a little bit. Which I can do without ever bothering her with the details.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll get in, baby,” she says fondly. “You’re so clever. I told Mr. Hollis at school about your AS results and he was not surprised. You were the highest-achieving pupil Farndon Primary ever had. I still remember your year-four parents evening…”
Year four was just after Dad ditched us. Her hand lowers to the bed as she waxes lyrical about a project I did on the water cycle. Gently, soooo so gently, I ease the leaflet out from between her fingers while mmm-ing in all the right places.
“Tea, Mum?” Giselle asks, popping her head into the doorway just as I shove the paper under a pillow. Her eyes narrow on the movement of my hand. I run it casually through my ponytail, and she looks away.
That was close.
BRAD
Was I moaning about the heat on Monday? I want to go back and smack myself because by Thursday evening, the weather’s cold and miserable. Autumn is officially here.
So is Celine, striding up to meet me outside the Beech Hut with a face like thunder and a jacket that’s angry scarlet. It contrasts with the neon green in her hair and the tiny black love hearts she’s drawn under her eyes （don’t ask, she does it all the time） but…annoyingly, it suits her. The problem is that almost everything suits her because her skin is all glowy and—
“What are you looking at?” she demands, peering up at me from under her hood. There are raindrops clinging for dear life to the tips of her eyelashes.
“Nothing,” I say flatly, and stalk off, trusting she’ll follow. On second thought, the scarlet coat is way too flashy and makes her look a bit sick.
We’re climbing into my car when someone shouts across the car park, “Bradders!” There is precisely one person who calls me that, because everyone else knows I don’t bloody like it. I find Donno leaning out the window of his yellow VW Golf, waving an arm as if I could possibly miss him.
With a tight smile, I wave back.
He shouts, “Do you need a rescue, mate?” then screws up his face like a toddler rejecting broccoli and gestures dramatically in Celine’s direction.
What the fuck? My cheeks heat at his rudeness and my gaze flicks to Celine. She doesn’t seem as surprised as I am—or upset, for that matter. She looks bored.
“Charming as always, Max,” she calls back, and rolls her eyes as she gets in the car. I stand there like a lemon for a second or two before following her lead, turning my back on Donno entirely. He’s really starting to get on my nerves.
I mean, he always gets on my nerves a little bit, but we’re sharing more classes this year and it’s…
He’s…
“Sorry,” I say, my eyes on the dashboard, not because I’m avoiding Celine and her pointed eyebrow raise, but because I am preparing to drive and safety is my priority, thank you very much.
She snorts, the sound half swallowed as I start the engine. “What are you apologizing for? Compared to you, all your little friends are deeply polite.”
Little friends. She always says that, like they’re not real or they don’t count just because they aren’t Celine-approved.
Or possibly because they’re dicks?
My friends are not dicks! Donno’s just a poor representation of the group today. “Maybe I’d be polite to you,” I say, “if I thought you were even physically capable of being polite back.”
She raises her left hand, flashing the cast beneath her coat. “There’s a lot I’m not physically capable of doing right now.”
The and it’s your fault part is silent. I click my teeth together and drive.
The meeting is being held in the Sherwood, a fancy hotel about twenty minutes away from school, in the center of Nottingham. I get nervous on busy roads, but if I let nerves stop me, I would never leave the house, so I do it anyway.
Celine doesn’t comment when it takes me three tries to get into our parking space because I want to be perfectly central. But when I switch off the engine and open my door…she pipes up. “Where are you going?”
I turn to find her eyeing me with alarm, her arms crossed over her chest. “What,” I say incredulously, “you want me to wait in the car?”
“That was the plan, yes.”
“What do you think this is, Driving Miss Daisy?”
“Oh, get a grip, Bradley,” she mutters, as if I’m being unreasonable, and slips out, heading toward the hotel.
I lock up and follow.
“You’re not even interested in the meeting,” she says briskly.
“I’d be bored in the car!”
“God forbid, you absolute five-year-old. You don’t know how to entertain yourself?”
“Do you enjoy pissing me off?” I ask. “Would you consider it, like, a hobby?” This week is the most time we’ve spent together in the last four years, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think there was a zing of satisfaction beneath all her dry insults.
The worst part is, I’m starting to think I feel that same zing. Which is ridiculous because I’m a nice person! I don’t enjoy snapping at Celine. It just…happens. This girl would provoke the Pope.
“Don’t flatter yourself. You are not nearly interesting enough to be a hobby,” she says with this scathing hint of amusement, and I find myself making a mental note of that exact tone so I can replicate it next time I tell her—
Wait. No. Arguing with Celine is not a competitive sport. Instead, I focus on my surroundings as we move through the hotel. This place—the Sherwood—has pillars of gleaming, unsmudged glass, and puffy brown chairs all over the lobby, and tropical-looking flowers stuck in posh gold vases everywhere. The signs directing us to a conference hall where Katharine Breakspeare will be speaking are subtle but clear.
We’re ten minutes early—that’s kind of my thing—but there’s a healthy trickle of teenagers heading in the same direction as us, and I find myself scoping them out. Most people are easy to categorize as private school kids with plummy accents and designer clothes, or grim-faced loners with color-coded binders （aka Celine’s people）， or sporty types with confident grins and rain-soaked hoodies. What’s interesting about this group is the varied mix.
I’m wondering about their motivations. I probably should’ve read that leaflet properly, but I almost choked to death halfway through when I realized that Celine’s hero’s enrichment program involved camping in the woods. She hates team building, and she’s always avoided the outdoors, which I didn’t understand until she let slip that her dad used to take her and Giselle camping. （God knows how he found the time, since he was so busy being a slimy, two-timing twat, but clearly he kept on top of his schedule.） She must be hating this and desperate for it at the same time.