Page 8 of Role Model

I sit between Cassidy and Richard at dinner.

He tells me to call him Richie. I don’t think I’ll call him anything.

I feel a little betrayed, even though I know that’s stupid.

He could have told me who he was. He knew me, after all.

But then again, he probably never has to tell people who he is; they just know.

There are so many food courses and they all look too complicated and strange.

I watch as Richard and Cassidy eat without any issue.

Food sometimes makes me nervous. Taste and texture can overstimulate me without any warning, but I don’t like to bring it up because then people accuse you of being fussy and they tut and roll their eyes.

A lot of the vegetables in these courses are cooked, and I only like them raw.

I do my best to eat as much as I can, but each bite makes me more and more anxious.

Cassidy acknowledges my question with a sideways glance and then indicates that she’s chewing, and will therefore need a moment before answering.

After swallowing her guinea fowl, she turns to smile at me.

“It’s a bit like this place. Old. Big. Some of it private, some of it public. My friends love coming over though.”

I feel a twinge of envy. “Really?”

“Yeah, they come over most days. They love bothering the secret service. It’s fun.”

I glance down the long, narrow table. Everyone else is deeply involved in dinner conversation, none of the grownups are paying attention to us.

“Yeah, same,” I hear myself lie. “My friends like Downing Street more than I do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Cassidy grins, surprised. “What do they think about you going so viral? I would have thought that might make things weird.”

Being honest about my friends, if you can even use that word, is harder than telling a lie.

I know it’s wrong, but the untruth comes as naturally as breathing.

“They’ve been great. They help me avoid the photographers at school.

They come to my house 61 because it’s a lot of hassle going out in public.

And yeah, they make fun of my security guard as well. They’re the best.”

I’m not a bad kid. I don’t know why I lie.

After a very underwhelming dessert, Richard takes Cassidy and I for a walk around the public parts of the palace. His nanny, a member of the secret service and Ilya follow us at a respectable distance.

“Is this your favourite of your palaces?” Cassidy asks sarcastically.

“No way,” Richard says, refusing to be offended. “This one’s super draughty.”

Cassidy laughs, but I can’t join in. As I look at the paintings and the furnishings and the ceilings as high as a church tower, I think of the people I see on my way to school.

The ones laying down on cardboard or wrapping scarves around their dogs.

The ones who move from bench to bench, because so many walls and windows now have spikes to keep them away.

It’s not Richie’s fault. But I can’t laugh.

*

A photographer eventually appears and the three of us know what is expected.

We stand together, not in 62 a straight line, but in a small semi-circle with Richie in the middle.

Richie says something, trying to be funny and so Cassidy throws her head back and laughs.

It almost sound genuine. I try to smile but the photographer has to prompt me.

“Smile, Aeriel. Come on, chin up.”

I try but I know how terrible I am at pretending to enjoy myself. I try. I force a grimace and I hope it at least looks all right on camera.

When I meet with Keren before school the following day, I realise that whatever I did was passable.

“You really do have to get better at smiling,” she tells me, as people bustle around us. Mum left for a meeting before dawn and Dad is getting Gideon ready for a badminton lesson. Fizz is nowhere around, of course. Probably staying with her friends in Camden. Or Brixton. Or Stratford.

“I’ll try,” I tell Keren, looking down at the newspaper in front of me.

Some newspapers don’t care what the children of world leaders do, but other really fixate on it. I stare at the printed photograph of the three of us. Cassidy and Richie look so at ease. I look like an alien.

“She needs to get to school,” Ilya says gruffly, from his usual place by the door.

63 “Yes, yes,” Keren sighs irritably. “But tonight you’re doing that live interview with the BBC. I don’t want tired and crabby; I want bright and inspiring. Got me?”

I push the newspaper away and grab my schoolbag. “Okay, Keren.”

“Good girl.”

Ilya never says anything on our drives to school but today he tells me to wait before opening the car door.

“You are allowed to say no to things,” he says, in his intense and quite voice.

I stare at him. “I don’t–”

“Aeriel.”

“I have to go,” I say hurriedly. “I’ll see you after school.”

I rush inside. I can feel people staring and whispering, but I’m getting a little more used to it. The school receptionist puts the phone down as I enter the building. She beams and waves at me, something she never used to do.

“Saw you in the paper, Aeriel!” she calls to me.

I smile tightly and head for my form room. Upon arrival, I see Sable, Jaya and Ana all huddled together by the window. They instantly stop talking when I enter the classroom and it makes me feel sick.

“Hey,” Jaya says, while Ana smiles.

Sable just watches me. 64

“Hey,” I say, heading to my locker and ignoring how my hands shake as I try to manage the combination.

“So it’s going to be on the last Friday of the month,” Sable says, loudly and pointedly, as if trying to make sure that I hear her while simultaneously excluding me from the conversation.

“No adults?” Jaya asks, disbelievingly.

“None,” Sable confirms, proudly.

“I don’t know,” Ana says. “My mum is on this group chat with a bunch of other mothers and they’re determined that no one gets to have a party since Liam’s birthday.”

Liam’s party had been the talk of the school.

I hadn’t been invited, of course. It was back in October.

Too many kids showed up, he had lied to his parents about the number and they played their music way too loud and broke one of Liam’s mother’s sculptures.

Parents had shown up en masse, furious and ready to dish out punishments.

Sable and Ana had breathlessly bragged over lunch about how fun it had been.

“Your mum spoils everything fun,” Sable says to Ana. “She’s the reason we couldn’t have RENT as the school musical.”

“Stuck with Guys and Dolls,” grumbles Jaya.

“Yeah, I know,” Ana agrees, a little self-consciously. 65 “She’s a lot.”

“Right, so make sure you tell her it’s a study session.”

“A study session that will go until 11pm?” Jaya says. She sounds doubtful about the plan.

“Everyone has to tell their parents that it’s a study group, and some people are staying to sleep over.”

“It’ll never work, they’ll ask each other,” says Ana, meaning the parents.

“No, only your mum because she’s obsessed,” Sable says, and even I’m alarmed by how rude she sounds. I suppose, after me, Ana is the one she picks on the most. Jaya is too strong-willed, even though she’s the quietest.

“Fine,” Ana says, her voice quivering a little. “I’ll tell my mum it’s just a study sleepover, and you tell yours the same, Jaya. My mum doesn’t like your mum, Sable, so hopefully they won’t–”

“Is she coming?” I hear Jaya interject.

I close my eyes as a horrible silence follows her question. She meant me.

“Don’t worry,” I say stiffly, not turning to look at them. “If you think Ana’s mum is hard to get around, imagine mine.”

I was trying to make a light-hearted comment about having the Prime Minister for a mother, but it falls 66 flat and none of them say anything. I watch them exchange glances, basking in the weirdness of me. The unspoken looks between them make me feel like even more of an alien.

I slam my locker closed.

*

Dear Autism,

Maybe you can help me understand. I want to be friends with people.

Ever since primary school, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I try to buy everyone presents that they’ll love.

I listen to people. I ask them questions and I remember their answers.

I watch the shows they talk about. I listen to the music that they like.

For years and years and years, I’ve tried. I’ve tried again and again.

What am I doing wrong? Why can I never get it right?

I walk up to a group of people and all I want to do is get along with everyone, learn more about them and have a good experience.

And every single time, I walk away feeling like a freak.

I can see the moment they realise I’m different, it crosses their face like a shadow.

And so I try again. I try to be positive. But it 67 never works.

Why am I like this? Why can’t I be like other people?

I know there’s nothing wrong with having my disability, I know it’s how I’m made and it’s natural and I will fight anyone who tries to tell me different.

No one gets to call me names because I’m autistic, no one.

I’ll never let them make me feel like I’m less than them because of it.

But I’m really lonely.

I never used to notice it as much. Now it’s all I think about.

Aeriel.

“You okay?”

I look up from my seat in the SEN space. Txai is regarding me with a concerned expression. His eyes drop to the letter I’m writing and I feel the need to turn it over.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

He frowns but doesn’t push me. Niamh arrives, moving to take the seat next to mine without comment. She also eyes my paper, except she fixates on the small elephant I’ve drawn on the bottom corner of the page.

“I love elephants,” I say, unprompted. “I’m not much of an artist but they’re easy to draw. From the side.”

68 She nods in understanding and gets back to her own drawing.

Txai and I are halfway through a conversation about the graphic novel he’s reading when Niamh removes one of her many beaded bracelets and drops it onto my paper.

I stare at it. It’s made up of pale blue beads and in the centre there is a small white token.

With an elephant on it.

I can’t move. When I slowly pick up the bracelet, I ask, “Is this for me?”

She nods without looking at me. I slip it onto my wrist.

“Thank you, Niamh.”

She nods again.

And I realise that, for the first time in an age, I don’t have the familiar feeling of wasps in my lungs. I can breathe. The SEN space, and the people in it, have made me feel at ease.

She gave me a friendship bracelet. Like it was the simplest thing in the whole world.