The Number One Rule for Girls. Rachel McIntyre

my ID photos taken and my timetable printed, I headed straight for the canteen. Fair enough, there were plenty of ‘exciting’ people milling around. Unfortunately, none of them seemed interested in meeting me.

      Most people had been to the same feeder schools and I didn’t have the balls to gatecrash those cosy cliques. Without the girls or Matt as backup, I was apparently a bit of a social doof. A crash course in gatecrashing, that’s what I needed.

      And the campus! Just leaving the foyer made my ears pop and there was no chance I was ever finding my way round this mad maze of staircases, Hogwartsy nooks and crannies and never-ending corridors.

      Confused, lost, overwhelmed, ignored . . . these emotions were definitely NOT mentioned in the brochure.

      I clung to Rule #8 and tried thinking positive until break, when I wussed out and rang Ayesha.

      ‘You’ve only been there for a couple of hours,’ she said, when I’d unloaded my nearly-teary emotional splat. ‘Stop skulking about like the ghost of no-mates past. Just walk up to someone and say hiya. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?’

      ‘Well, the worst that could happen is they laugh in my face and the sound echoes through the whole building, attracting everyone’s attention, and when they’re all staring at me, my clothes mysteriously disappear meaning two thousand people see me naked and –’

      ‘Enough!’ she said.

      ‘But what if you were right and I did rush into it? What if I should have stayed on at school?’

      As the whine crept into my voice I swear I could hear her eyes rolling. ‘Daisy, you have done NOTHING but slag St Mary’s off all summer. The uniform. The teachers. The toilets. The dinners . . .’

      ‘You hypocrite! Who started the petition to DNA-test “Mystery Meat” pie?’

      ‘Yes, but we’re not talking about me, are we? Oh. And the carpet tiles. You said they gave you static shocks.’

      ‘They did!’

      ‘Fine, but my point is you can’t suddenly get nostalgic for school after a couple of hours at college. You need to give it more of a chance.’

      Of course she was right. And anyway, school wouldn’t be the same with Matt being in Spain. Us not getting the bus together. Not seeing him at break. Not sitting with him at dinner. Freaky-deaky. And that on top of everyone knowing he’d dumped me.

      College hadn’t ticked many boxes so far, but it certainly beat having my crappy-ever-after picked over by the gossip vultures.

      ‘The bell’s just rung,’ Ayesha said. ‘Look, me and Beth’d love you back here, but you need to give college a proper go before you think about jacking it in.’

      I gave myself a mental arse-kicking there and then. Think positive, Daisy:

      1. Induction day is a trailer, not the main event

      2. There’s no such thing as insta-mates

      3. College will be what I make of it.

      Now grow a pair and stop whingeing.

      I’d been told to go to tutorial at eleven in room 71(b) so I walked back into the foyer to get my bearings just as the clock over the main entrance clicked to 10.56.

      I had no idea where room 71(b) was. Four thousand (approx.) doors in the place, each numbered by a sadist with a black belt in sudoku. Where is 71(b)? Upstairs? Uruguay? Uranus? Despite Ayesha’s best efforts to tame the panic demons, I couldn’t help desperately missing my St Mary’s-shaped comfort zone as I blundered up and down corridors that didn’t lead to where I was supposed to be.

      I was insanely flustered by the time I finally found the room. It was rammed to the ceiling tiles, meaning I had to squeeze through a tiny gap to get to an empty seat. And this was made infinitely worse because only ONE person (a Scarily Handsome Guy) stood up to let me pass.

      I was rocking (Ayesha’s carefully curated idea of) student style: Mum-made tea dress; vintage floral blazer (swirly shades of purple), plum tights and my trusty pink patent Doc Martens. Kooky cool. And, under the gaze of what felt like a million snidey eyeballs, I was nearly at my seat when this girl with an American twang went, ‘Hey, why’d no one tell me it was fancy dress?’

      Eh? Then the fake-baked twiglet cackled and my face flushed as pink as my boots at her smack-my-gob rudeness! And the irony because she was wearing the shortest, tightest, lowest garment imaginable: a neon orange dress so dazzlingly tacky it would have made my Nana Green wince and she had cataracts.

      I was fluorescent with sweaty embarrassment myself by the time I finally sat down, thinking, Did I miss the ‘Meet snarky classmates’ page in the prospectus? At that precise moment I would’ve given my right arm with my vintage Biba bag slung over it to have Beth and Ayesha by my side.

      Looked left: lad in a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt who smelled of rice cakes (or possibly wee), but at least he smiled in a friendly way. Then the teacher (‘Call me Phil’) came over and handed me a sticky address label, mouthing, ‘Pop your name on that.’

      I wrote Daisy with a little flower on the tail of the y, same as usual.

      ‘Okaaay.’ Call Me Phil perched on the edge of the desk, swinging his flip-flopped foot. ‘As I was saying, you’ve all got a college email account and you should remember to check it every day. And now, here . . .’ He chucked a beanbag at a lad in glasses. ‘Tell the class your name plus three interesting facts about yourself. When you’re done, pass it on. It’s time for an ice-breaker methinks.’

      Noooo! methought.

      Every member of the class was eyeing the beanbag with horror. (Except the mouthy girl, who was almost exploding with all about meeee! ecstasy.)

      The lad who’d caught the beanbag pushed his glasses up his nose. Not literally up his nostrils of course, because that would have been entertaining. No, instead he blinked a couple of times, then kicked off the I like football/pizza/telly/hate sprouts yawnathon which travelled round the room until it reached Scarily Handsome Guy, who practically had What the actual f . . . written across his perfect, modelsome features.

      He picked the beanbag up carefully, taking his time, inspecting it. One side. The other. No rush. Then he pressed his hands on the desk and slowly levered himself to his feet.

      It gave me a chance to get a better look at him. Tall, flawless, kind of Mediterranean-looking with his dark hair and olive complexion (as in tanned, not green or stuffed). From his sulky, fifties movie-icon expression to his very tight, very white T-shirt, he radiated this ‘Look at me’ subliminal command. An aura of awe. (An awe-ra?) Whatever it was, he turned fondling a manky beanbag into a mesmerising spectacle. The air zinged as we waited for him to speak and the bitchy American skankwomble began to drool.

      ‘I’m Toby Smith,’ Mr Incredible said eventually in a vaguely London accent. ‘I’m seventeen and, sorry, I don’t do ice-breakers.’

      Then he slouched back down with professional-grade ennui and gently lobbed the beanbag at weedy SpongeBob who, judging by his face, urgently needed a clean pair of SquarePants. (And possibly a Sponge.)

      ‘Er, h-h-hello everyone. Nice to meet you all. My name is Humphrey Badger and I-I . . .’

      Well, coming after Toby King of Cool, the poor lad had no chance. The tension instantly shattered into yowls of ‘Humphreeeeyyyyyyyy!’

      ‘Quiet please!’ Flip-flop Phil shouted. ‘Enough, thank you, guys, shhhh.’

      Humphrey raised his eyebrows along with his voice. ‘So now you’ll understand why I prefer to be called Badger. And yes, my parents do love me. And no, I’ll never forgive them.’ More laughs, kinder this time, and he gave the hint of a smile as the room quietened. ‘OK, my three facts are: I’ve been home-schooled my whole life, I play the trumpet and the French