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early in my academic career.’
    I realise that the bus has stopped and everyone is piling off, until only the Sixth Formers are left. One of them – Ryan I think he’s called, he’s in the sporty set – says, ‘Are you coming, Seth, or what?’ I realise that I’m blocking the boy in, so I hurriedly get up and go down the bus. I can feel him behind me, and try to hold on to the memory of his fresh, lemony aftershave, which made me almost giddy when he leant towards me. As I climb off the bus, I’m dying to turnand get another look at him, but daren’t. Then I feel his hand on my arm.
    ‘See you around,’ he says, and disappears with a group of boys into the Sixth Form block.
    I hurry into our form room so I can tell Imogen about him. Imogen always gets to school before me and sure enough there she is, sitting at our desk, in the corner at the back, reading a book.
    The form is divided into groups. At the moment they’re all hanging around because our form tutor hasn’t arrived yet. Basically there’s the boys, who keep to themselves, except a few of them who are slightly more mature than the rest and fancy themselves a bit and try and chat up some of the girls. The girls are split into roughly three groups. At the bottom of the heap are the no-hopers. These are the girls who are hopelessly swotty and don’t care what they look like. They mostly have spots and greasy hair and still wear socks. I know this sounds awful, but it’s just the way it is. Generally this lot don’t get bullied because it’s too easy and they’re below the radar of someone like Sasha, who wouldn’t deign to even look at them. Next are the girls that I think of as normal. Some of them verge on the geeky, they do their work and wear the right uniform, and some aspire to the other group, the group that is headed by Sasha.
    Sasha’s group sees itself as the pinnacle of everything. If you’re not in her group you don’t exist, unless you’re being made fun of. Imogen refers to them as the ‘Handbag Brigade’ because they actually come to school with handbags instead of school bags. They all wear as much make-up as they think they can get away with and they like to pretend not to do any work.
    And then there’s Imogen, who doesn’t fit into any of these categories and so, by association, neither do I.
    Imogen sees me coming and puts the book away. I’m glad because I suspect that, deep down, she’d rather carry on reading it. Let me explain Imogen to you and what it is about her that sets her apart. For starters, she’s got a completely different hairstyle from everyone else. Most of the girls have their hair long and straighten it. Some, like Sasha and her ilk, even have streaky highlights in theirs. Imogen has her hair, which is quite thick and almost black, cut into a style. It’s like a bob, only it’s shorter at the back and comes down into points at the front. It looks really grown up and it suits her because she’s very mature in some ways. She doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of her. Some of the girls are a bit wary of her because, if provoked, she can be sharp tongued, though not in a catty, personal way like Sasha, so people tend to leave her alone, including Sasha, and she likes it that way.
    Imogen is good at every subject, though not in a swotty way. It’s just the way she is. She dresses differently as well. Most girls wear their skirts really short and go round all day with the top two, and sometimes three, buttons of their blouses undone. Of course, we have to wear school uniform and ours is deadly dull and boring: black skirt or trousers, white blouse, grey jumper and a black blazer. I suppose it’s better than St Winifred’s uniform, though. They have to wear purple and green tartan skirts and purple blazers.
    Anyhow, Imogen looks completely different in her uniform. She’s got an old skirt that she bought at a vintage clothes shop. It’s like something they used to wear in the sixties. It’s