Read Alice in Time for Free Online Page B

quiteheavy material and it’s pleated all the way round in big fat pleats and it comes well below her knees. Also she wears a long-sleeved white shirt that doesn’t have a collar. She calls it a grandad shirt but she always wears a baggy jumper over it. Her jumper is made of really soft, fine wool. Not like the regulation acrylic jumpers we’re supposed to wear. She never seems to get hot. She wears thick, woolly tights. These are stripy, though you have to get quite close to see this because they’re grey and black. Imogen wears black Doc Martens in the winter and black and white baseball boots in the summer. I think she looks dead cool and the teachers never complain that she’s not in regulation uniform. Actually, I think some of the teachers are a bit in awe of her, because I bet she’s cleverer than some of them.
    We’ve been best friends since primary school. Most girls seem to go round in groups of three or four but Imogen and I just stick together. When we moved up to this school, some girls did try and attach themselves to us, but Imogen always seemed to put them off and if she’s happy with it just being us two then so am I. Luckily for me she is never off sick and so far it’s worked out all right.
    I plonk myself down in the chair next to her. I want to tell her about the bus, and Sasha’s remark, but I don’t because I’m too embarrassed to repeat it, and anyway I know Imogen won’t understand how awful it was because she never gets embarrassed about anything. She’d probably tell me that I should have told Sasha in a very loud voice that it’s better to be a virgin than a slag. She doesn’t understand that I could never, in a million years, do that. I can’t not tell her about the new Sixth Former, though.
    ‘There’s a new boy in the Sixth Form,’ I say as casually as possible. ‘He’s dead nice.’ I want to add, ‘and he actually spoke to me’, but this doesn’t sound very cool so I don’t bother. Sometimes I wish Imogen wasn’t so together and mature so we could have a good gossip about the new hunk and get all girly over him. I don’t tell her that I know his name, because I want to keep it to myself.
    I keep saying it in my head: ‘Seth, Seth.’ It sounds like a sigh and I imagine myself whispering it, in a moment of passion, into his perfectly formed ear. I’m just about to drift off into a new daydream featuring myself and Seth when there’s a commotion in the classroom. I look up and naturally Sasha is starring in the main role.
    ‘You’ve all
got
to come. It’s going to be the best party ever. But you can only get in with an invitation.’ She’s handing these invitations out. She pauses by me and Imogen. ‘I don’t want any gatecrashers.’ And then she moves on.
    Imogen has got her book out again and is reading.
    ‘Did you see that?’ I say, although I know she did.
    ‘What?’ Imogen doesn’t even look up from her book.
    ‘Sasha’s given party invitations to everyone except us. She’s even given one to Isobel Murray!’ Sasha dislikes Isobel nearly as much as me, but obviously not quite as much. Sasha keeps glancing over at us. I turn my back on her and I can feel tears forming in my eyes and I hate myself for it. Imogen looks up and sees my face. She sighs.
    ‘Would you go to her party if she’d given you an invitation?’ she says to me.
    ‘No way.’
    ‘Well, then, what’s the problem?’
    ‘I hate her.’
    ‘You shouldn’t let her get to you. She’s not worth it.’
    We’ve discussed this a thousand times. Imogen says that it’s really her that Sasha doesn’t like but that Sasha knows Imogen doesn’t care what she thinks so she picks on me instead because I always react to it. I know this is true and I’ve tried really hard to pretend I don’t care, but even if I ignore her, I always give myself away by blushing.
    Imogen is putting her book away. ‘It’s quite funny, really,’ she says. ‘In order to make her point, Sasha has had to