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Late for school, and it’s the twins’ fault again. They are freckly cheeks, and sigh, ‘Ahh, aren’t they like Orphan ginger nut-jobs. People see their orange curls and Annie from the musical?’ Er, noactually, because:
a) There was only one of Annie, and
b) she didn’t run round like a Teletubby who’s drunk too many Fruit Shoots. Also
c) Annie mopped the floor occasionally. The twins just spill stuff on it.
Take this morning: The second Mum leaves for work, they pull their bowls of Coco Pops off the table. I go for the mop, while Daisy body-slides across the mess, crying, ‘Wheeeeeee!’ Lil goes one better, and actually does awee, all over the Coco Pops… and a bit of my foot. Agh, my sisters are not ready for potty-training! But we can’t afford the nappies OR a kiddy-crunching cyborg to chase them to nursery (believe me, I’ve asked). So when I should be hogging the mirror, teasing my fringe and applying lip balm LIKE A NORMAL YEAR 10, I’m stuck poking two ginger furballs into a double buggy with the business end of my mop. It doesn’t help that the seat straps are knackered; as soon as I get one twin in, her demented doppelganger slides out. It’s like some crazy Japanese gameshow NO ONE CAN WIN.
Pushing them up the street, I wish Dad could take over. But we can only afford morning nursery sessions (says Mum) and my dad writes best first thing (says Dad), so it makes sense for:
a) Me to take the twins in, and
b) Dad to tell Mum. She’ll just worry (i.e. shout).
Handing the twins over to their nursery worker (is it me or has her hair turned white since they started here?) I give Daisy her special kiss, then duck away before Lil can wee on my shoes (SHE HAS GOT TO STOP). I’m bombing down Norbridge Hill to school when I feel the R3 loom up alongside like a pirate galleon rammed with Winsham Academy boys. On the top deck, Zack Melway rides up front with his guitar like some brooding hero! I blame those ridiculous razor-edge cheekbones of his. Chuck in a perpetually clenched jaw, and fierce green eyes fixed on a bleak horizon. Yep, Zack could pass for cool, if not for his mad mate veering alongside like a shipwreck about to happen.
‘Kat?’ he mouths through the glass. ‘What are you doing?’ Is it not obvious? Do I have to swing my arms and high-kick my legs in the international code for speed walk? I get a grin out of him at least. It disappears the second he checks his
watch. ‘Kat, you need to run.’
I run. But I don’t factor in the wind blowing up my school kilt. As the bus pulls past, I hear whoops: Year 10 hockey boys Daniel Sanders and Liam Parkes are craning out the back, which means Jonah Kerridge must be up there too. Not yelling though.
Jonah’s way too confident for that… and sensitive… and… be still my heaving chest, I really should go jogging more.
Wheezing towards the gates of St Edward’s School for Girls, I realise registration is a lost hope. Staggering into the assembly hall, I skiiiiiid down onto the end of the Year 10 row, grin at my best mate Lisa, and hoik my coat off quick
before the Tag-Hags catch the threads trailing from my sleeves. ‘Ow,’ mutters Lees, as I knock her, then, ‘Give.’ She sits on my coat, as our head teacher mounts the stage.
‘Good morning, girls,’ harrumphs Mrs Cribbs. “Camel” Cribbs, we call her. She’s dead whiskery, and chews when she talks. She also has the permanent hump, so I’m not the only St Edward’s student to double-take when she
announces, ‘I have GOOD news.’
‘Hear that?’ I nudge Lisa, who’s back to scrolling down her phone for “Most Violent Hockey Goals”. ‘Good news,’ I whisper. ‘Perhaps Cribbs is leaving?’
‘Yeah right, for the Sahara,’ mutters Lees. ‘I pity those prickly pears.’
Cribbs starts chewing.
‘Girls…’ She peers into the gloom of the assembly hall. ‘Many of you may be familiar with Darwin’s Dental Health in Norbridge Mall.’ Two hundred orthodontic braces glint back at her. ‘Darwin kindly provided ALL the fizzy drinks and sweets for our Year 11 Summer Prom. Now they’re offering to sponsor a Christmas party for our pre-GSCE cohort.’
‘D’you hear that?’ I clutch Lees.
‘Yep. Nope.’ Lees looks up from her phone. ‘What’s a cohort?’
‘Us, you numpty! Shh.’
‘The Winter Wonderland Ball will be open to girls in Years 9 and 10,’ continues Cribbs, ‘and will climax with an exciting and aspirational competition. Girls!’ Our head raises her voice over the sound of three hundred girls whooping. ‘You don’t need me to remind you of our school motto.’
She does, it turns out. ‘Strive for success!’ she tells three hundred girls looking blank. ‘I urge you to empower yourselves through competition, and enter our ball’s fashion-forward finale: a catwalk contest for Most Dazzling Look, courtesy of Darwin’s Dental Health. Prize is £500.’
‘£500? Yessss!’ A Mexican wave runs down our row. It breaks against the shiny blonde wall of Stella Harcourt. She’s
acting all “whatever”, but you can tell she’s excited because… yep, here comes the trademark hair-flick! Now the whole of her crew are flicking their hair too, even Keisha who’s got braids. They’re all giggling and saying, ‘We’re gonna rock this ball, girlfriend!’ (Seriously, THEY TALK LIKE THIS! Like they’re Hollywood Hills girls on a reality show, not a maths C-stream from Norbridge, Surrey.)
‘As with our summer prom,’ Cribbs continues, ‘we’ll hold the Winter Wonderland Ball here in our school gym, and open ticket sales to students at our twin school, Winsham Academy.’ (‘Yesss,’ hiss the cool crew: THERE WILL BE BOYS.)
‘We expect all of you students to socialise sensibly on the night,’ Cribbs finishes up. ‘Be creative with your gowns, but restrain your décolletage – and possibly…’ She scans our row, stopping at Lees. ‘…brush your hair?’
Lees tosses her wild strawberry blonde curls and scowls.
‘Our kind sponsor just wants pics of pretty girls with flouncy frocks and cute smiles,’ she mutters. ‘Darwin’s Dental is going to get a lot of marketing material for their £500.’
It’s only when we’re filing out of assembly into double geography that girls get to worrying what a “décolletage” is. Stella Harcourt reckons it means something “down there”, but then she thinks most things are either to do with “down there” or “up here” (i.e. boob-related). Mum says, ‘That girl needs to spend more time studying maths, and less time taking selfies and picking on you.’
Well, Mum, that may be true, but the other girls follow Stella’s every move. Me? Feels like I’m pursued by a bad smell most days. Yep, we live in different worlds, Stella and I. But maybe magic can happen. Play it right, and even a nobody like me can get into Winter Wonderland…
Can’t I?

Late for school, and it’s the twins’ fault again. They are freckly cheeks, and sigh, ‘Ahh, aren’t they like Orphan ginger nut-jobs. People see their orange curls and Annie from the musical?’ Er, noactually, because:
a) There was only one of Annie, and
b) she didn’t run round like a Teletubby who’s drunk too many Fruit Shoots. Also
c) Annie mopped the floor occasionally. The twins just spill stuff on it.
Take this morning: The second Mum leaves for work, they pull their bowls of Coco Pops off the table. I go for the mop, while Daisy body-slides across the mess, crying, ‘Wheeeeeee!’ Lil goes one better, and actually does awee, all over the Coco Pops… and a bit of my foot. Agh, my sisters are not ready for potty-training! But we can’t afford the nappies OR a kiddy-crunching cyborg to chase them to nursery (believe me, I’ve asked). So when I should be hogging the mirror, teasing my fringe and applying lip balm LIKE A NORMAL YEAR 10, I’m stuck poking two ginger furballs into a double buggy with the business end of my mop. It doesn’t help that the seat straps are knackered; as soon as I get one twin in, her demented doppelganger slides out. It’s like some crazy Japanese gameshow NO ONE CAN WIN.
Pushing them up the street, I wish Dad could take over. But we can only afford morning nursery sessions (says Mum) and my dad writes best first thing (says Dad), so it makes sense for:
a) Me to take the twins in, and
b) Dad to tell Mum. She’ll just worry (i.e. shout).
Handing the twins over to their nursery worker (is it me or has her hair turned white since they started here?) I give Daisy her special kiss, then duck away before Lil can wee on my shoes (SHE HAS GOT TO STOP). I’m bombing down Norbridge Hill to school when I feel the R3 loom up alongside like a pirate galleon rammed with Winsham Academy boys. On the top deck, Zack Melway rides up front with his guitar like some brooding hero! I blame those ridiculous razor-edge cheekbones of his. Chuck in a perpetually clenched jaw, and fierce green eyes fixed on a bleak horizon. Yep, Zack could pass for cool, if not for his mad mate veering alongside like a shipwreck about to happen.
‘Kat?’ he mouths through the glass. ‘What are you doing?’ Is it not obvious? Do I have to swing my arms and high-kick my legs in the international code for speed walk? I get a grin out of him at least. It disappears the second he checks his watch. ‘Kat, you need to run.’
I run. But I don’t factor in the wind blowing up my school kilt. As the bus pulls past, I hear whoops: Year 10 hockey boys Daniel Sanders and Liam Parkes are craning out the back, which means Jonah Kerridge must be up there too. Not yelling though.
Jonah’s way too confident for that… and sensitive… and… be still my heaving chest, I really should go jogging more.
Wheezing towards the gates of St Edward’s School for Girls, I realise registration is a lost hope. Staggering into the assembly hall, I skiiiiiid down onto the end of the Year 10 row, grin at my best mate Lisa, and hoik my coat off quick before the Tag-Hags catch the threads trailing from my sleeves. ‘Ow,’ mutters Lees, as I knock her, then, ‘Give.’ She sits on my coat, as our head teacher mounts the stage.
‘Good morning, girls,’ harrumphs Mrs Cribbs. “Camel” Cribbs, we call her. She’s dead whiskery, and chews when she talks. She also has the permanent hump, so I’m not the only St Edward’s student to double-take when she
announces, ‘I have GOOD news.’
‘Hear that?’ I nudge Lisa, who’s back to scrolling down her phone for “Most Violent Hockey Goals”. ‘Good news,’ I whisper. ‘Perhaps Cribbs is leaving?’
‘Yeah right, for the Sahara,’ mutters Lees. ‘I pity those prickly pears.’
Cribbs starts chewing.
‘Girls…’ She peers into the gloom of the assembly hall. ‘Many of you may be familiar with Darwin’s Dental Health in Norbridge Mall.’ Two hundred orthodontic braces glint back at her. ‘Darwin kindly provided ALL the fizzy drinks and sweets for our Year 11 Summer Prom. Now they’re offering to sponsor a Christmas party for our pre-GSCE cohort.’
‘D’you hear that?’ I clutch Lees.
‘Yep. Nope.’ Lees looks up from her phone. ‘What’s a cohort?’
‘Us, you numpty! Shh.’
‘The Winter Wonderland Ball will be open to girls in Years 9 and 10,’ continues Cribbs, ‘and will climax with an exciting and aspirational competition. Girls!’ Our head raises her voice over the sound of three hundred girls whooping. ‘You don’t need me to remind you of our school motto.’
She does, it turns out. ‘Strive for success!’ she tells three hundred girls looking blank. ‘I urge you to empower yourselves through competition, and enter our ball’s fashion-forward finale: a catwalk contest for Most Dazzling Look, courtesy of Darwin’s Dental Health. Prize is £500.’
‘£500? Yessss!’ A Mexican wave runs down our row. It breaks against the shiny blonde wall of Stella Harcourt. She’s
acting all “whatever”, but you can tell she’s excited because… yep, here comes the trademark hair-flick! Now the whole of her crew are flicking their hair too, even Keisha who’s got braids. They’re all giggling and saying, ‘We’re gonna rock this ball, girlfriend!’ (Seriously, THEY TALK LIKE THIS! Like they’re Hollywood Hills girls on a reality show, not a maths C-stream from Norbridge, Surrey.)
‘As with our summer prom,’ Cribbs continues, ‘we’ll hold the Winter Wonderland Ball here in our school gym, and open ticket sales to students at our twin school, Winsham Academy.’ (‘Yesss,’ hiss the cool crew: THERE WILL BE BOYS.)
‘We expect all of you students to socialise sensibly on the night,’ Cribbs finishes up. ‘Be creative with your gowns, but restrain your décolletage – and possibly…’ She scans our row, stopping at Lees. ‘…brush your hair?’
Lees tosses her wild strawberry blonde curls and scowls.
‘Our kind sponsor just wants pics of pretty girls with flouncy frocks and cute smiles,’ she mutters. ‘Darwin’s Dental is going to get a lot of marketing material for their £500.’
It’s only when we’re filing out of assembly into double geography that girls get to worrying what a “décolletage” is. Stella Harcourt reckons it means something “down there”, but then she thinks most things are either to do with “down there” or “up here” (i.e. boob-related). Mum says, ‘That girl needs to spend more time studying maths, and less time taking selfies and picking on you.’
Well, Mum, that may be true, but the other girls follow Stella’s every move. Me? Feels like I’m pursued by a bad smell most days. Yep, we live in different worlds, Stella and I. But maybe magic can happen. Play it right, and even a nobody like me can get into Winter Wonderland…
Can’t I?

Do you have a way of escaping the bad stuff? A focus for your dreams when reality hits? We all get curveballs thrown at us – by life, by our folks (and don’t get me started on school!) Some kids shout. Some kids run. Me? I rev my motor, put my foot down – and sew

Do you have a way of escaping the bad stuff? A focus for your dreams when reality hits? We all get curveballs thrown at us – by life, by our folks (and don’t get me started on school!) Some kids shout. Some kids run. Me? I rev my motor, put my foot down – and sew.
Vroom. I whizz round a buttonhole. Gran’s old Singer sewing machine was built with the dinosaurs, so it can withstand even Mum going T-rex. Almost.
If you like these opening chapters, you’ll LOVE the book! Buy THE SWISH teen novel from your lovely local bookshop or click here to buy from Amazon.
If you like these opening chapters, you’ll LOVE the book! Buy THE SWISH teen novel from your lovely local bookshop or click here to buy from Amazon.