Phosphorescence by Raffaella Barker Page B

cardigan and coughs, looking over her glasses at the rows of pupils.
    â€˜This morning I am going to read to you from one student’s work. I have chosen this opening part of a project because it displays energy and clarity, it is poetic and lyrical, and because it opens a door in the imagination. The pupil who wrote this is in Year Ten.’
    Oh no. My face, burning since she started waffling, bursts into clammy perspiration and everyone in my year group turns to look at me. Thewhisper and the movement goes through the whole school, and I swear there isn’t one person there who doesn’t know that I am the author when Mrs Bailey begins to read.
    â€˜
Phosphorescence means shining in the dark; luminous without combustion. In August in Norfolk, the sea warms to a point where the algae become phosphorescent. If you swim at night in moonlight, you become luminous, the water droplets around you sparkle green fire, your skin drips light like sequins, and you seem to be made of glittering scales.
’ Mrs Bailey pauses and looks around at all of us. There is an ungodly silence which makes me want to faint, if only I bloody could. She carries on. ‘
You are a mermaid when you swim in phosphorescence. And you glow in the dark.
’
    There is a small silence as she finishes, then a shimmering giggle which starts at the front and surges back through the room.
    Surely she could have left that bit out? It is so unmerciful, so blistering to read out something that was never meant to be heard by anyone. Mr Lascalles seems to be the only person who shares my view. On the platform behind Mrs Bailey he is sitting sideways on a chair, one hand over his eyes as he shakes his head.
    I hadn’t thought much about what it would be like after the project was read out, and if I had, I would have imagined even more people avoiding me than normal and a lot of sniggering. But what actually happens is really surprising. I am on my way back from the science block after physics, texting Dad totell him about substituting terns for plankton. A group comes towards me on the covered walkway and, without looking up from my phone, I pause to let them pass.
    â€˜Hey.’ There is a scuffle of feet as the group stops next to me, galumphing a bit like the elephants in the
Jungle Book
cartoon. Harry Sykes, whom I have never spoken to before, but who is still the fittest boy in the school in my view, is grinning at me. My hands become solid lumps, nerveless, and I drop my phone. He picks it up and hands it back to me.
    â€˜It was your stuff in assembly, wasn’t it?’ His eyes are blue and his hair is the colour of wet sand, but I can’t stop looking at his mouth, his teeth white and straight in his smile.
    â€˜Yes,’ I croak.
    Not even Jessie knows I have had my eye on Harry. Only Nell, safely in Norfolk, has heard about him from me. It is one of those secret situations, so enjoyable to hold to oneself because to release it would make everyone laugh. Harry Sykes is more of a god than Aiden and all those superstars in the basketball team; the graffiti art for the rap band he did last holidays has been seen on television, and the fact that he comes to school is generally considered by fellow pupils to be more him doing the James Ellis Grammar School a favour than them giving him an education. It is ridiculous to try and explain how cool he is and here he is talking to me.
    â€˜How do you spell “phosphorescence”?’ he asks. ‘It’s a wicked word. I want to look it up online. I likethe whole deal about the plankton and the luminosity. Have you actually ever seen it?’
    I almost rise off the ground with amazement because he appears so impressed when I answer, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen it; I’ve swum in it, and I will again this summer I should think.’
    To have Harry Sykes of all people looking at me with proper focus and a bit of awe is too much. I am not ready for this.
    He steps