All That Glitters (39 page)

And with a firm kick of the radiator Nat storms out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Now, I know a lot about space.

I know it’s big, and dark, and lonely, and we don’t really understand it. I know that all stars are moving away from each other, and that the galaxies at the outer reaches of the universe are racing away from us at ninety per cent of the speed of light.

But as I let myself out of the bathroom and start charging angrily home, I can’t help wondering if maybe that’s what is happening to Nat and me too.

Because it feels like my universe and everything in it is slowly pulling apart.

And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

here’s an altitude point that occurs between 18,900 to 19,350 metres above sea level, called Armstrong’s Line. It’s the exact level where atmospheric pressure becomes so low that water boils at 37°C.

In other words: precisely the temperature of the human body.

My blood is now bubbling so fast I suspect I may have crossed it.

In a fury, I rip home and charge straight up the stairs.

I fling open my cupboard and get my Arts and Crafts kit out. I pull out my baking kit and my notepad. And I start party-preparing like I have never prepared for anything before in my life.

And as I prepare, I chatter angrily.

“Oh I’m
sooooo
fashionable and cool,” I snap as I start blowing up balloons and squeakily drawing on them with pens. “Oh I know
sooooo
much about eyeshadow,” I mutter as I cut little shapes out of shiny paper. “Oh I am just
sooooo
pretty with my swishy black hair and my glowing brown skin and I never ever get zits because I eat
allll
my vegetables and drink two whole litres of water a day.”

Then I realise I’m essentially just being really nice about Nat under my breath, which isn’t making me feel any better at all.

So I focus my anger and give it another shot.

“Fickle and disloyal,” I hiss as I mix flour in with eggs. “Volatile,” I complain as I shape ham and cheese sandwiches. “Nowhere
near
as good at Jenga as she thinks she is.”

That’s
more like it.

In an angry whirlwind – not unlike the Tasmanian devil, the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial and generally deemed to have one of the worst tempers on the planet – I whizz round the house: cutting and sticking, baking and mixing. I paint and blow up, pop accidentally and blow up again. I attach strings and ribbons and twinkle and put things in cardboard boxes.

But it’s still not enough.

By the end of Thursday night, I’m nowhere near ready, and I’m definitely not calm. In fact, I’m more charged up than ever. Instead of defusing, the anger is just hardening and stiffening like cement between each of my cells until I lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling because I’m now too rigid to roll over.

This isn’t just a party any more. It’s a
battle.

A battle made of streamers and balloons and music and carefully arranged snacks, and I have to win.

I’m going to show Nat.

She’s going to
rue the day
she ever doubted me. I’ll throw such a successful party, such an
amazing
party, that she will be forever known as The Girl Who Had Nothing To Do With It, Actually. For the rest of time, Natalie Grey will be asked where
she
was the night Harriet Manners triumphed socially, like the first time humans walked on the moon.

And any ideas I had for Friday night – which were quite a few anyway – are now accelerated, heightened, turbo-charged.

There is
nothing
I will not do to make my party victorious.

With a bolt of defiant adrenaline, I bounce out of bed on Friday morning and carefully pack everything away neatly in the car so that Dad and Tabby can help me drive it to The Venue.

I remind my father, for the billionth time, that he’s not invited.

I listen to
It’s so unfair
another 1,298 times.

Then I use every breaktime, lunchtime and all of my free periods at school to run out and start setting things up. I specifically hired a venue as close to school as possible so it would be convenient for everyone to get there.

Not least me.

“Can’t we
help
?” Ananya says as I trot out of the front gates for the third time, holding a pair of scissors (upside down, obviously – I don’t have a death wish). “Are you sure there isn’t anything we can do? Can’t we at least be at the gates to greet people?”

“We
so
want to be involved,” Liv explains, chewing on a nail. “It’s the best theme
ever, I can’twaittoseewhocomesandwhatthey’rewearingand—
”

“
Olivia
,” India sighs, putting a hand over her eyes. “Stop
.
Only killer whales can hear you now, and as far as I know, none of us are members of the orca family.”

“Sorry, Indy. ButI’mgoingtofangirlsohardandohmyGodI’mbringingmyphoneandcameraand …”

India slowly lifts her bag and puts it in front of Olivia’s face until she stops talking.

“That’s so nice of you all,” I say, shaking my head. “But I really want this to be a big surprise for everyone, so I’d like to do it myself, if that’s OK?”

“Absolutely,” Ananya says, nodding sweetly. “Just know we’re here if you need us. For
anything.
Anything
at all.
”

By my fourth visit, I can feel the cement running through me starting to soften again.

The Venue has finally started taking shape.

As each table goes up, as food gets carefully laid out in strategically planned and organised patterns, as decorations get pinned to the walls and the ceiling, lights are unplugged and re-plugged, and a corner is set aside for a dance floor, I start to fill with a warm, confident glow of satisfaction.

And by the time I’ve quickly run home, jumped into the shower and tugged on my brand-new outfit, there’s no question in my mind that I’ve done the absolute best I can possibly do.

Now there’s nothing left to do but wait.

ou already know what the theme is, by the way.

Of course you do.

If you’ve been paying attention, and if your mind works like mine does – in a logical, strategic, slightly obsessive-compulsive kind of way – there was really only one possible choice: one area I knew I could shine in.

But – just in case you’ve missed it – here’s the invitation:

Let’s be honest: it was the only option that wasn’t dinosaurs or group-solved crossword puzzles.

And yes, I know the Shakespeare quote is from
The Merchant of Venice
and is technically “all that
glisters
” but glisters sounds a bit too much like
blisters
and I don’t want people at my party getting accidentally confused and coming as one of those instead.

At 7:59pm exactly, I count down the last ten seconds of the hour as calmly as I can.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two –

Then I fling the doors open wide.

I’m wearing a gold T-shirt customised all over with black star stickers, black leggings individualised carefully with tiny gold stars and a black headband with a large cardboard gold star stuck to the front. And I’ve used every single make-up trick I learnt in Morocco to help make me look suitably celestial.

Gold eyeshadow and eyeliner, highlighter, a bit of twinkle spray that’s supposed to be used on trees at Christmas.

Behind me are reams and reams of hand-dyed black sheets, hanging from ceiling beams, with white fairy lights also borrowed from our family Christmas box wound carefully round them. The floor is covered in little hole-punched silver circles, and precisely three hundred and fifty hand-cut gold and silver paper stars are stuck to the ceiling in accurate constellations:
Chamaeleon, Octans, Reticulum, Indus, Pavo, Norma, Carina, Volans.

Balloons are bunched in the corners with stars drawn on the front in Sharpie, and from the rafters hang two round red rubber balloons, two yellow, two blue, a teeny tiny brown one and a green-and-blue-mottled one I coloured in myself.

On the tables – on top of black sheets covered in little dobs of white Tipp-Ex – is an array of appropriately themed foods: sandwiches cut into stars, jellies shaped into stars, cupcakes with icing stars stuck on top, pizzas cut into stars, biscuits cut into stars, melon pieces cut into …

Well. You get the drift.

Let’s just say I really made the most of my new star-shaped cookie cutters.

Bowls of Mars bars and Milky Ways have been distributed at random for the peckish and non-diabetic, the lights have been turned down low and in the corner is Tabitha’s little fluffy turtle night-light, borrowed for a few hours: shining bright white and moving stars on all the walls.

(I obviously have a glow-in-the-dark constellation in my bedroom too, but the stars are stuck on the ceiling with superglue and Annabel wouldn’t let me “dismantle the house” despite my desperate pleading.)

And – in the middle, at the back – is my
pi
è
ce de r
é
sistance.
The main meal: the showpiece, the highlight, the pinnacle of all my achievements.