Page 1 of Role Model

“Smile!”

Voting Day is also Picture Day. I care way more about these class photographs than whether or not my mother will be voted in as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

This is still a new school for me; every day feels like a test where I get all of the questions wrong, even though I know the answers.

Mum always came down to London for work before, but now the whole family is here.

Dad, who says that an accountant can happily work anywhere.

Mum, who works in the huge palace next to Big Ben and shouts a lot on television.

My younger brother, Gideon, who is good at every subject at school, but doesn’t enjoy speaking.

I have an older sister, but she doesn’t live with us.

“Aeriel Sharpe, get to stepping!”

Then me.

I step towards Miss Leslie, who barked out my name. She’s got Sable, Jaya and Ana already waiting. They’re my friends.

I know they are. I think they are. I really do.

They do the class photos a little differently here in this school.

We assemble in smaller groups and then the photographer photoshops us all into one big class picture.

As I approach my friends, Ana gives me a warm smile and Jaya steps back a little so that there is room for me to join them.

Sable gives me the slowest appraisal, a long look up and down.

She has always been a little more difficult for me to get along with, and she rolls her eyes a lot when I speak.

Her once-over speaks for itself–she doesn’t think I look good.

3 “I’m wearing the same uniform as you,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.

“If you say so,” she mutters to the others, smirking at me.

I don’t understand it. We’re all dressed the same, but they all look more confident than I do. The clothes sit differently on them.

Ana was my ‘buddy’ on the first day of term.

She introduced me to Jaya and Sable. Jaya was civil and polite.

Sable was too, at first, but recently it feels like she’s been trying to get me out of the group.

I don’t know why, I haven’t done anything wrong.

I’ve done everything to make them happy.

Sometimes I don’t want to come into school because I don’t know if it will be a day where Sable is nice or a day where she’s not.

“Smile, girls,” the photographer says and I close my eyes for a moment.

I think I hate it here. I hate being told to smile.

I hate the noise, there is so much of it because there are so many other students.

I hate the way their shoes squeak as they scrape across the shiny floor.

I hate the shrieking bells. I hate the rules.

No talking allowed in the school hallways.

Always make eye contact with the teachers.

4 It’s as though they drafted up a list of the most uncomfortable things for a neurodivergent student and then called them the official school values.

“Aeriel!”

Miss Leslie wakes me up and I force the grimace. Mum always says I don’t actually know how to smile which, shockingly, didn’t make me less self-conscious about it. The flash goes off a few times and I hate it.

I just hate it.

*

“My dad says he’s going to vote for your mum!” a boy from Year Eleven tells me as I exit the toilets. I glance around, nervous about a teacher spotting illegal conversation in the hallway.

“Thanks,” I mouth at him.

I head to the lunch hall, flashing my pass at a prefect who also says her parents are voting for Mum.

I thank her, too. When I collect my tray, I’m given some rubbery penne pasta and a very bland tomato sauce on a clear white plate.

I grab cutlery and a glass of water and head for our usual spot by the window.

Sable, Jaya and Ana are already there, all three of them eating expensive and elaborate lunches that they’ve 5 brought from home.

They eye my school meal with distaste as I slide into the only empty seat at the round table.

“So, do you think your mum is going to win the election, Aeriel?” Jaya asks.

Mum once told me Jaya would grow up to be the prettiest one of the group and I can see it more and more.

Her hair is sleek and black, her nails always look pristine.

She has an air and manner of walking that make the rest of us look like peasants.

She’s never overly warm but she’s fair. I like her, for the most part.

Her parents are quite strict and the teachers like her the most out of the four of us.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. Mum and Dad never talk about Mum’s job with us.

She just told me an election is a contest between groups who want to run the country, and the people are the ones who go to the polling stations and vote for them.

Dad said it was more complex than that, but Mum waved him away.

“If enough people vote for me and my party, we’ll be moving to Whitehall,” was all Mum said this morning, before she was rushed away to vote for herself and talk to the press.

“I think she will win,” Ana says and I throw her a small, grateful smile.

Ana grew up on her mother’s vlogging channel 6 and knows all about trends and fashionable things. She has a designer handbag for her school supplies and always carries a big water bottle with a built-in straw.

“If she does win, will she let you get your hair done properly?” Sable asks.

I don’t look at her, letting the silence become slightly awkward. All I really know about Sable is that she can be pretty awful and it looks like today is going to be a “not nice” day.

“Sable,” Ana finally says, with only a little chastisement in her voice.

“What?” Sable looks around at everyone, pretending to be shocked. “That’s not being mean, that’s just asking a question? Can’t I ask her questions?”

I eat my lukewarm, unappetising pasta and ignore her. When I glance across the lunchroom to the door leading out to the grounds, I see Dr Mars. She’s the school SENco and I like her name. It conjures up images of the galaxy and faraway planets.

Stratospheres away from here.

She’s beckoning me so I excuse myself and abandon my lunch. I walk over to her. She’s short and round and always smiling.

“I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Aeriel,” she says, beaming at me like she’s proud of me, even though she 7 doesn’t know me. Not even a little. “Come and join us in the SEN Space for a bit today, hm? Just until the end of lunch. I’m sure your friends won’t mind.”

“Dr Mars, I’m honestly good.”

“Just for a bit. You’ll love Txai and Niamh.”

“Sorry but I’m with my friends at lunchtime.”

Her eyes drift to something behind me and the slightly stricken look on her face makes me turn around.

I see Sable pulling Jaya and Ana by the wrists.

The three of them run from the lunchroom, giggling and glancing back at me.

I watch Sable, full of glee. Jaya, full of middling amusement.

Ana, guilt mixed with excitement. She knows it’s wrong but she likes doing it anyway.

“Some friends,” Dr Mars says softly.

I clench my fists, so dangerously hard I feel as though my nails might pierce the palm of my hand.

I watch them dash out into school grounds.

They go to sit on the edge of the grass, beneath the old tree with the wooden box.

A few weeks ago, a bird was there with her nest but she decided to leave it. The baby birds were left alone.

The rest of the day is an angry haze and when I get home from school, Gideon is doing his homework on the kitchen table, utterly relaxed.

He’s nine and 8 his homework is his happy place.

Dad is talking to somebody on the phone.

He gives my shoulder a squeeze and quietly tells me that we’ll know at ten o’clock at night if our lives are about to change.

He seems to definitely think that they will.

I watch the television with him as the exit polls come in. Those are the early guesses at who will win the election. They say it’s going to be my mother. Dad is crying with joy and he wakes Gideon up to tell him, then calls our grandparents and everyone we know.

I don’t care about any of it. I fixate. I ruminate. I wonder if it’s normal for your friends to hate you.

I think about the wooden bird box again, and the little birds that were inside of it.

I wonder who is going to teach them to fly away from here.