Solitaire

IN WEDNESDAY ASSEMBLY the Sixth Formers spread themselves along five sectioned-off rows of the hall seating. You have to fill up all the gaps, otherwise not everyone will fit in the hall, so you don’t get to choose where you sit. This is how I end up accidentally sitting between Rita and Becky.

As people are filing into the seating rows, Ben Hope, back at school with a moderately bruised face, stares directly at me. He doesn’t seem angry or scared, and he doesn’t even try to ignore me. He just looks sad. Like he’s about to cry. Probably because he’s not going to be popular anymore. I haven’t seen Ben and Becky together yet, which is a sign that maybe Becky actually listened to my explosion. I think about Charlie. I wonder where Michael is. I wish Ben didn’t exist.

Kent’s taking the assembly. He’s talking about women. Most of our assemblies are about women.

“—but I’m going to tell you the absolute truth. You, as women, are at an automatic disadvantage in the world.”

Becky, on my right, keeps changing which side she crosses her legs. I make a conscious effort not to move.

“I don’t think . . . that many of you realize how fortunate you have been so far.”

I start counting Kent’s pauses under my breath. Becky doesn’t join me.

“Going to . . . the best . . . girls’ grammar school in the county . . . is an unbelievable privilege.”

I can see Lucas two rows in front of me. He managed to catch eyes with me as he was sitting down on the way in, and I didn’t bother trying to look away. I just stared. I don’t even feel angry, really, about him standing me up last night. I don’t feel anything.

“I know that many of you . . . complain about the hard work, but until you’ve faced the real world, the world of work, you can’t understand the meaning . . . of hard work.”

Rita taps me suddenly on the knee. She holds out her hymn sheet. Underneath the lyrics to “Love Shine a Light” she has written:

You’re isolating yourself!!!!!!

“You are going to face a phenomenal shock once you leave this school. This school, where all are treated as equals.”

I read it several times, then study Rita. She’s just someone I know. I’m not really friends with her.

“You are going to have to work harder than men . . . to get to where you want to be. That is the simple truth.”

She shrugs at me.

“Therefore I hope that while you’re at this school, you’ll think about, and be appreciative of, what you’ve got. You are all very lucky. You have the potential to do anything you want to do and be anything you want to be.”

I fold up the hymn sheet into a paper plane, but I don’t fly it, because you can’t do that in assembly. Everyone stands and sings “Love Shine a Light,” and the lyrics nearly make me laugh out loud. On my way out, I drop the paper plane discreetly into Becky’s blazer pocket.

I don’t sit with anyone at lunch. I end up not having any lunch, actually, but I don’t mind. I walk around the school. At many points during the day, I wonder where Michael could be, but at other times I’m fairly sure that I don’t care.

I haven’t seen Michael all week.

I have been thinking a lot about his skating. National Youth Semifinals.

I wonder why he didn’t tell me about it.

I wonder why he isn’t here.

I’m sitting against the tennis courts, surrounded by seagulls, which is odd, because they should have migrated by now. It’s Period 5. Music. I always skip Wednesday Period 5, because that is our performance practice lesson. I am watching as every girl in Year 7 makes her way out of the main school building and onto the field, some running, most laughing, and each with a collection of party poppers in her hands. I can’t see any teachers.

I don’t know what Solitaire has said to Year 7, but it is clear to me that this is its doing.

I take out my phone and load up Google. I type in “Michael Holden,” and then I type in the name of our town. Then I press enter.

Like magic, my Michael Holden appears in the search results.

The first result is an article from our county newspaper entitled “Local Teen Wins National Speed Skating Championship.” I click on it. It takes a while to load. My knees start to bob up and down in anticipation. Sometimes I hate the internet.

The article is about three years old. There is an accompanying picture of fifteen-year-old Michael, but he doesn’t look so very different. Maybe his face is a little less defined. Maybe his hair is a little longer. Maybe he’s not quite so tall. In the picture, he is standing on a podium with a trophy and a bunch of flowers. He is smiling.

Local teen Michael Holden has skated to victory at this year’s National Under-16 Speed Skating Championships. . . .

Holden’s previous victories include Regional Under-12 Champion, Regional Under-14 Champion, and National Under-14 Champion. . . .

The head of the UK’s speed skating authority, Mr. John Lincoln, has spoken out in response to Holden’s undeniably extraordinary run of victories. Lincoln claimed, “We have found a future international competitor. Holden clearly displays the commitment, experience, drive, and talent to bring the UK to victory in a sport that has never received satisfactory attention in this country.”

I head back to the search results page. There are many more articles of a similar nature. Michael won the Under-18 championships last year.

I guess this is why he was angry when he came second in the semifinal. And fair enough. I think I would be angry, if I were him.

I sit there, staring at Google, for some time. I wonder whether I feel starstruck, but I don’t think that’s really it. It just seems momentarily impossible for Michael to have this spectacular life that I don’t know about. A life where he’s not simply running around with a smile on his face, doing stuff that has no point.

It’s so easy to assume you know everything about a person.

I click off my phone and lean back against the wire fence.

The Year 7s have now congregated. A teacher runs out of school toward them, but she’s too late. The Year 7s shout a countdown from ten, and then they lift their party poppers into the air and let loose, and it sounds like I’ve wandered onto a WWII battlefield. Soon everyone is screaming and jumping, the streamers spiraling through the air like some crazy rainbow hurricane. Other teachers begin to show, also screaming. I find myself smiling, and then I begin to laugh, and then instantly feel disappointed in myself. I shouldn’t be enjoying anything that Solitaire is doing, but also this is the first time in my life that I have ever felt a positive emotion toward Year 7.