Page 4 of Role Model
“Ssh, they’ll hear you!” Fizz cries, aghast at me. “And they’re not just for little kids, they’re for anyone. Come on, I’ll buy you one. Ooh, look at the one in the pink spacesuit.”
She clasps my hand but I wrench it away. “No!”
14“Babe, let me get you a toy. I can get you a truck if you don’t want the pretty ones? Or a board game. What about the one with all the frogs?”
“No, can we just go!”
I’m irritable and snappy. I never used to be. I don’t like how I sound. I sound like someone no one would want to be around and I don’t know why. Some unknown force is making me like this.
I turn to start walking up the street, when I stop dead. I see three girls looking into the window of the designer shop a little further up from the toy shop. They’re taking a picture on their phones of one of the bags on display.
Sable, Jaya and Ana. They’re all together without me.
The sight of the three of them makes me want to never go to school again. In fact, it makes me want to leave the country. We’re all in an email thread, because Mum says I can’t have a smart phone, and on it they all promised that they were too busy with family stuff this weekend. Jaya had this whole story about her cousin’s wedding and Ana said her mother needed her to help with a video.
I realise now that they probably have a group chat without me.
Ana glances away from the window display for15a second, and catches my eye. Surprise lights up her face and then I see the mortification of being caught. She turns as red as the buses that pass us on Regent Street. She looks away quickly and Jaya and Sable both notice. They glance over and Jaya’s face is completely emotionless. Sable splutters out a laugh and slaps her hands over her mouth.
“Come on,” she tells the others, and they walk speedily away from me. I watch them rush up towards Oxford Street. When they think they’re out of earshot, they all break into shrieks of laughter and my blood is as cold as the air around us. I feel frost creeping in, winding around my bones and clenching my heart.
I read a story once about a boy who had a piece of ice in his eyes and it spread to his heart.
This feels like that.
16
Chapter Three
“Welcome to our Role Model Assembly.”
Dr Mars beams out at all of us and I stare at the back wall of the hall we’re all sitting in. I’m still hurt from what they’ve done, but this Monday morning has been horrendous enough to distract me. Ilya has to walk me to my form tutor for safety reasons and everyone is staring and whispering.
Last Friday, I was the autistic girl. Now, I’m the autistic girl whose mother runs the country.
“I want to invite someone very special up onstage today. To be our Role Model of the Week.”
We’ve sung hymns and listened to Mr Archer’s long lecture about littering and community service. As this week’s theme is “Role Model”, they made us watch a slide show of influential people.
None of them were like me, but they never are.17
“Can I please invite Aeriel Sharpe up here for a moment.”
I don’t really hear Dr Mars say my name, I just notice all of the heads in front of me turning to stare at me. I don’t move. I can’t. The feeling of being perceived is like cold water being thrown all over me.
“Aeriel, up here, please!” Dr Mars chirrups.
People are starting to smirk so I move. I jerkily get to my feet and head to the stage steps, taking them one at a time and avoiding the intensely friendly stare of Dr Mars. She puts an arm around me and speaks to the entire senior school with a horrifically embarrassing tone of admiration.
“This brave young lady has just been through a monumental thing,” Dr Mars tells everyone, as if they don’t already know. If they don’t watch the news, their parents do. If they haven’t heard it from the media, the whispers around school will have reached them. I don’t know what Dr Mars is intending to do, but my heart starts to sprint.
“Aeriel’s Mum is our new Prime Minister and I know you will all give Aeriel and her family your congratulations,” she says.
I hope this is all she wants to do. I want to sit back down.
18“Aeriel is also one of my special students and I thought she might give us a few words about that, as she is absolutely one of our role models this week!”
Before I can swallow the sick in my throat, she nudges me towards the standing microphone and starts to clap, forcing the rest of the assembly hall to join in, albeit flatly. I stare at the microphone. It’s an imposing, ugly thing. It’s intrusive. I don’t like looking at it.
