‘Your accent’s neat. You sound like that actress—

you know, the one in the pirate films.’

Did I real y sound so posh? I wondered. I’d always thought I was too London for that.

‘You related to the Queen or something?’ Tina teased.

‘Yes, she’s like my second cousin twice removed,’

I said seriously.

Tina’s eyes widened. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘Actual y, I am—kidding I mean.’

She laughed and flapped her face with her file.

‘You had me for a moment there; I was getting worried I’d have to curtsey.’

‘Go ahead.’

We helped ourselves to lunch from the canteen and took our trays into the dining hal . One wal was composed entirely of windows, giving a view of the muddy playing fields and woods beyond. The sun was out, silver-plating the peaks a glistening white, so some students were eating outside, gathered in groups arranged roughly by style of clothing. There were four years in this high school, ages ranged from fourteen to eighteen. I was in the eleventh grade, the so-cal ed ‘junior’ year below the senior class of those graduating.

I waved my can of fizzy spring water towards them.

‘So, Tina, who’s who?’

‘The groups?’ She laughed. ‘You know, Sky, I sometimes think we are al victims of our own stereotypes,’ cause we do conform even though I hate to admit it. When you try to be different, you just end up in a group of rebels al doing the same.

That’s high school for you.’

A group sounded good: somewhere to take cover.

‘I suppose it was the same back where I came from.

Let me guess, those lot are the jocks?’ These had featured in every film I’d seen from Grease to High School Musical and were easy to spot thanks to the team strip for lunchtime practice.

‘Yeah—the sports mad ones. They’re mostly OK—

not many fit guys with six-packs, sad to say, just sweaty teenagers. It’s mainly basebal , basketbal , hockey, girls’ soccer and footbal here.’

‘American footbal —that’s like rugby, isn’t it, except they wear loads of padding?’

‘Is it?’ She shrugged. I guessed then that she was not sporty herself. ‘What do you play?’

‘I can run a bit and have been known to knock a tennis bal about, but that’s it.’

‘I can handle that. Jocks can be so boring, you know? One track minds—and it’s not girls they’re thinking about.’

Three students walked by, discussing gigabytes with serious expressions worthy of Middle East peace negotiators. One twirled a memory stick on a keyring.

‘They’re the geeks—they’re the clever ones who make sure everyone knows it. Almost the same as nerds but with more technology.’

I laughed.

‘To be fair, there are also other bright ones—

they’re clever but wear it wel . They tend not to hang together in packs like the geeks and the nerds.’

‘Uh huh. Not sure I’l fit in any of those groups.’

‘Me neither: I’m not dumb, but I’m not Ivy League material. Then there’s the arts type—the musicians and drama people. I kinda fit in there as I like fine art and design.’

‘You should meet my parents then.’

She clicked her nails on her can in a little drum rol of excitement. ‘You mean you’re that family—the ones coming to Mr Rodenheim’s Arts Centre?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cool. I’d love to meet them.’

A group shuffled past, boys with trousers hanging off their butts like mountain climbers clinging to an overhang with no safety rope.

‘That’s a few of the skater dudes,’ snorted Tina.

‘Enough said. I mustn’t forget the bad boys—you won’t see them hanging round here with us losers—

they’re way too cool for us. Probably out in the parking lot right now with their groupies comparing, I dunno what, carburettors or something. That’s if they haven’t been suspended. Who have I left out? We have some misfits.’ She pointed to a little group by the serving hatch. ‘And then we have our very own skiing fraternity, special to the Rockies. In my opinion, that’s the best game in town.’ She must have seen my worried expression because she hastened to reassure me. ‘You can be in more than one—ski as wel as be a jock, do the play and get the best grades. No one has to be just one kind of thing.’

‘Except the misfits.’ I glanced over at the group she had indicated. They weren’t real y a group, more a col ection of oddbal s who had no one else to sit beside. One girl was muttering to herself—at least, I saw no evidence of a hands-free headset for her phone. I felt a sudden panic that I would be among them when Tina got tired of me. I’d always felt something of an oddity; it wouldn’t take much to knock me over into the group of the seriously weird.

‘Yeah, don’t mind them. Every school has them.’

She opened her yoghurt. ‘No one makes a big deal about it. So what was your last school like?

Hogwarts? Posh kids wearing black gowns?’

‘Um … no.’ I choked on a laugh. If Tina could’ve seen us at lunch in my comprehensive, she would not be reminded of Hogwarts but a zoo as two thousand of us tried to fight our way through to the cramped dining hal in forty-five minutes. ‘We were more like this.’

‘Great. Then you’l soon feel at home.’

Being new is something I’d had a lot of experience of in my life before Sal y and Simon adopted me. In those days I had been shuffled from home to home like a chain letter no one wanted to keep. And now I was back to being a stranger. I felt horribly conspicuous wandering the hal ways, map in hand, completely at sea as to how the school functioned, though I guess my obviousness was al in my mind; the other students probably didn’t even notice me.

Classrooms and teachers became landmarks to orientate by; Tina a kind of rock I could cling to when I washed up in her area from time to time, but I tried to hide this as I didn’t want to put her off developing friendliness into friendship from fear that I would crowd her. I went hours without talking to anyone and had to force myself to ignore my shyness and make conversation with my classmates. Stil , I had the impression I’d arrived too late; the students of Wrickenridge High had had years to form groups and get to know each other. I was on the outside, looking in.

As the school day drew to a close, I wondered if I was always going to be doomed to this feeling that life was a shade out of focus for me, like a poor quality pirated film. Dissatisfied, and a little bit depressed, I made my way out of the main doors to head home. Threading through the crowds pouring out of the building, I got a glimpse of the bad boys Tina had mentioned at lunchtime. Caught in a shaft of sunlight in the car park, there was nothing fuzzy about these guys, though they certainly looked il egal. There were five of them, lounging against their motorbikes: two African-American boys, two white guys, and a dark-haired Hispanic. At any time, any place, you would have identified them immediately as trouble. Their expressions matched

—a sneer at the world of education as represented by al us good students dutiful y filing out on time.

Most pupils gave them a wide berth, like ships avoiding a dangerous stretch of coast; the remainder shot them envious looks, hearing the siren cal and tempted to stray too close.

Part of me wished I could do that—stand there, sure of myself, flipping off the rest of the planet for being so uncool. If only I had legs from here to eternity, quick cutting wit, looks to stop people in their tracks. Oh yeah, and being male helped: I could never carry off that hipshot look, thumbs linked in belt loops, kicking the dirt with my toe caps. Was it natural to them, or did they calculate the effect, practising in front of the mirror? I dismissed the thought quickly—that was something losers like me would do; they surely had such inbred coolness they were their own little ice age. The Hispanic fascinated me in particular—his eyes were hidden by shades as he leaned, arms folded, against the saddle of his bike, a king in his court of knights. He didn’t have to struggle with the conviction that he was lacking in any way.