Read Online Solitaire, Part 3 of 3 by Alice Oseman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alice Oseman
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that I’m the one who always comes to find you. I’m the one who always starts our conversations. Sometimes you don’t say anything for ages. But that doesn’t mean that our friendship is all about
me
trying to make
you
feel better. You know me better than that.”
Maybe I don’t want to be friends with Michael Holden. Maybe that’s better.
We sit together for a while. I randomly select a book from the shelf behind me. It’s called
The Encyclopaedia of Life
and it can only be about fifty pages long. Michael reaches out his hand towards me, but doesn’t, as I anticipate, take my own hand. Instead, he takes hold of a strand of my hair, which, I guess, had sort of been in my face, and he tucks it carefully behind my left ear.
“Did you know,” I say at some point, for some inexplicable reason, “that most suicides happen in the springtime?” Then I look at him. “Didn’t you say you had news?”
And that’s when he gets up and walks away from me and out of the library door and out of my life, and I am one hundred per cent sure that Michael Holden deserves better friends than the pessimist, introvert psychopath Tori Spring.
FORTY
THE SONG REPEATING itself over the tannoy throughout Thursday is ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe. Most people enjoy this for the first hour, but by second period, no one is screaming “IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWWN” in the hallways any more, much to my delight (if that’s possible for me). Zelda and her entourage are once again strutting through the hallways, tearing posters from the walls, and today these include pictures of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Abraham Lincoln, Emmeline Pankhurst, Winston Churchill and, oddly enough, former Christmas chart-toppers, Rage Against the Machine. Perhaps Solitaire is attempting to offer us some sort of positive encouragement.
It has been snowing violently since I woke up. This, of course, sparks mass hysteria and insanity in everyone in the lower school, and a kind of collective depression in everyone in the upper school. Most of the students have gone home by break, and lessons are officially cancelled. I could easily walk home. But I don’t.
Tomorrow is the day.
At the start of what would have been Period 3, I exit the school building and head towards the art conservatory. I sit down, leaning against the little grass slope that leads up to the room’s concrete wall, and the roof above me overhangs a little so I’m not really getting snowed on. It’s cold though. Like, numbingly cold. On my way outside, I picked up a large heater from the music block and plugged it in via a classroom window a few metres away. I’ve got it nestled into the snow next to me, blasting clouds of warmth around my body. I have three shirts on, both of my school jumpers, four pairs of tights, boots, blazer, coat, hat, scarf and gloves, and shorts under my skirt.
If I don’t find out what’s happening tomorrow before tomorrow, then I’ll have to come to school and find out on the day. Solitaire is going to do something to Higgs. It’s what they’ve been doing so far, isn’t it?
I feel strangely excited. It’s probably because I haven’t slept for quite a long time.
Last night I watched a film called
Garden State
. Not all of it, but most of it. It really surprised me that I hadn’t seen it before because I thought it was absolutely excellent in every possible way, and I mean that – I gave it a spot in my ‘Top Films’ list. It’s about this guy, Andrew, and you’re never quite sure whether Andrew’s life is truly depressing or not. It seems like he has no decent friends or family, but then he meets this girl (typically happy-go-lucky, quirky and beautiful, Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl Natalie Portman, of course), who teaches him how to live properly again.
You know, now that I think about it, I’m not so sure that I liked the film that much after all. It was very clichéd. To be honest, I may have just got myself caught up in the artistic
me
trying to make
you
feel better. You know me better than that.”
Maybe I don’t want to be friends with Michael Holden. Maybe that’s better.
We sit together for a while. I randomly select a book from the shelf behind me. It’s called
The Encyclopaedia of Life
and it can only be about fifty pages long. Michael reaches out his hand towards me, but doesn’t, as I anticipate, take my own hand. Instead, he takes hold of a strand of my hair, which, I guess, had sort of been in my face, and he tucks it carefully behind my left ear.
“Did you know,” I say at some point, for some inexplicable reason, “that most suicides happen in the springtime?” Then I look at him. “Didn’t you say you had news?”
And that’s when he gets up and walks away from me and out of the library door and out of my life, and I am one hundred per cent sure that Michael Holden deserves better friends than the pessimist, introvert psychopath Tori Spring.
FORTY
THE SONG REPEATING itself over the tannoy throughout Thursday is ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe. Most people enjoy this for the first hour, but by second period, no one is screaming “IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWWN” in the hallways any more, much to my delight (if that’s possible for me). Zelda and her entourage are once again strutting through the hallways, tearing posters from the walls, and today these include pictures of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Abraham Lincoln, Emmeline Pankhurst, Winston Churchill and, oddly enough, former Christmas chart-toppers, Rage Against the Machine. Perhaps Solitaire is attempting to offer us some sort of positive encouragement.
It has been snowing violently since I woke up. This, of course, sparks mass hysteria and insanity in everyone in the lower school, and a kind of collective depression in everyone in the upper school. Most of the students have gone home by break, and lessons are officially cancelled. I could easily walk home. But I don’t.
Tomorrow is the day.
At the start of what would have been Period 3, I exit the school building and head towards the art conservatory. I sit down, leaning against the little grass slope that leads up to the room’s concrete wall, and the roof above me overhangs a little so I’m not really getting snowed on. It’s cold though. Like, numbingly cold. On my way outside, I picked up a large heater from the music block and plugged it in via a classroom window a few metres away. I’ve got it nestled into the snow next to me, blasting clouds of warmth around my body. I have three shirts on, both of my school jumpers, four pairs of tights, boots, blazer, coat, hat, scarf and gloves, and shorts under my skirt.
If I don’t find out what’s happening tomorrow before tomorrow, then I’ll have to come to school and find out on the day. Solitaire is going to do something to Higgs. It’s what they’ve been doing so far, isn’t it?
I feel strangely excited. It’s probably because I haven’t slept for quite a long time.
Last night I watched a film called
Garden State
. Not all of it, but most of it. It really surprised me that I hadn’t seen it before because I thought it was absolutely excellent in every possible way, and I mean that – I gave it a spot in my ‘Top Films’ list. It’s about this guy, Andrew, and you’re never quite sure whether Andrew’s life is truly depressing or not. It seems like he has no decent friends or family, but then he meets this girl (typically happy-go-lucky, quirky and beautiful, Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl Natalie Portman, of course), who teaches him how to live properly again.
You know, now that I think about it, I’m not so sure that I liked the film that much after all. It was very clichéd. To be honest, I may have just got myself caught up in the artistic
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