Head Over Heels

Also don’t forget the itineraries for tonight! Hxx

Apparently one in three teenagers send over three thousand text messages a month, and according to my last phone bill I am definitely heading towards that minority. (Although judging by my parents’ reaction, you’d think I was already there.)

Being in a happily organised gang is a surprising amount of work.

There’s another buzz, and the barista pauses from frothing up my milk to grab his phone out of his apron pocket and stare at it with one bright blue eye and one brown.

“You know, Harriet,” Jasper says, “you’re standing right in front of me. You could just say it.”

I glance up in surprise.

His lightly tanned face is flushed by the steam, his dark blond hair has grown into a kind of scruffy mohican and his dark eyebrows are knitted together in their standard frown.

“But what if you forget? You might need it written down for later.”

OK, there might be another, slightly less poetic, reason why we hang out here. Jasper’s family owns this cafe, so he works here most evenings and every weekend and we usually get a discount or an extra sprinkle of chocolate.

If Jasper’s in a good mood, that is. If he’s in a grump, he gives us cinnamon.

“Take your fake-uccino,” he sighs, shaking his head and passing it over the counter. “Burnt biscuit? I’ve screwed up another batch and need to get rid of them before Mum notices.”

I beam at him: I love the burnt ones. “Yes, please.”

“Such a little weirdo,” he says, grabbing two from under the counter. “And what other documentation do I need to bring this evening? A passport? Some kind of visa? Do you have a fingerprinting machine for security purposes?”

Oh my goodness, that would be awesome.

Then I spot his smirk.

“Jasper King,” I tell him airily, “I am very busy so if you’re just going to be sarcastic, I have more important things to do.”

He thinks about that for a few seconds. “I am literally always going to be sarcastic.”

“In that case, I shall be over there, eating my biscuits.” I stick my nose in the air. “Which I appreciate very much, by the way. Please send more over in due course.”

Then, humming to myself, I take my hot chocolate contentedly over to my special section of the corner sofa.

I put little bits of typed-out, laminated paper on the rest of the seats to make sure they’re officially reserved.

I take a huge gulp of my delicious Harriet-uccino.

And I sit down patiently to wait.

(#ub357af95-0ce4-5b93-9268-eae5e00ded02)

nfortunately, we could be here some time.

Regardless of my gentle yet informative lectures about the importance of punctuality – and the street maps I drew for each of them individually – the rest of Team JINTH is almost always late.

Even though every single one of them lives closer to the cafe than I do.

So I may as well use this delay to update you on what else has been going on in the four months since you last saw me. Just try not to imagine me breaking up my biscuit and crumbling it into my hot chocolate at the same time, because that’s not what I’m doing.

I’m not dropping three more sugar cubes in there either: that would be gross.

Or sprinkling extra chocolate on top.

Ahem.

Well, none that I plan on telling you about right now, anyway.

I’m far too traumatised to go into it quite yet. All you need to know is I never want to hear the words “Paris Couture Fashion Week”, “fluorescent swimming pool” or “giant rabbit head” ever again.

The humiliating nightmares are still recurring.

What else?

Nat and Theo broke up and she won a big fashion award at college – consequently she seems to spend even more time there, if that’s possible; India was promoted from new girl to Head Girl – making her simultaneously cool and powerful; Jasper has done a lot of stomping around, covered in paint and scowling at everyone. (Everybody in my gang has a talent and that’s his speciality.)

In fact, every person in my social circle appears to be on a similarly positive trajectory: the only way is up.

Literally, in Toby’s case.

My ex-stalker has managed to grow another three inches over the last two terms, and we’re beginning to worry that – much like Alice in Wonderland – he’s just going to keep eating things and shooting up vertically until he hits the ceiling.

And that’s pretty much everything.

My entire life: neatly summarised in a series of beautifully organised bullet points and decisive sentences.

Except that’s not what you want to know, is it?

You’re sitting there, nodding – yes, Harriet, lovely, Harriet, how interesting, Harriet – but there’s one burning question I haven’t answered and you’re not going to pay any attention until I do.

Trust me, I understand: that’s how I feel about burning questions too.

So here it is.

I’m just sorry if it’s not what you were hoping for, that’s all.

Every time we fall in love, we statistically lose two good friends: reducing our average friendship group from five people to three.

So six months ago, I pushed a wooden box full of memories under my bed.

I opened the big box in my head.

I put love and romance inside and locked it up tightly.

Then I kept moving forward with the things that make me happy: into a neat, tidy and organised world with lots of extra space in my story now for other things. Like learning that polar bears can eat eighty-six penguins in one sitting and if you lift a kangaroo’s tail it can’t hop, or that outer space tastes of raspberries.