I guess you could say we’re normal, just like every other normal family. Parents, two kids, two cats and a dog, living in what the Americans would call ‘suburbia’. How much of the population does that account for, at least at some point during their lives? A quarter? A half? All of us at some point?

My name is Hannah, and I spend a lot of time trying not to seem weird, and winding up seeming weird because of that. Weirdly, so does everyone else, at least at some point. And that’s normal. I’ve spent much of my almost-16 years trying to work out what normal is, trying to be normal, and failing. The chances are that you have, too. If you haven’t gathered yet, I’m kind of socially awkward. More than usual. I have a talent for always saying or doing precisely the wrong thing.

So, the living situation. Mum, Dad, still married and still together, which is completely abnormal today, right? Like, everyone I know comes from what used to be known as ‘broken homes’. You know, their mum and dad are split, there’ve been numerous stepmums, stepdads, step brothers, sisters, goldfish, so on. Or maybe, parents did the order of kids then got married. Not mine. I guess they’re kind of traditional in their own way. They did things in the ‘proper’ order; met, bought a house, had me.

I suppose the only thing slightly odd for an outsider is that there’s a 10-year age gap between me and Lee-bo, my brother Liam. He’s 6, and couldn’t say his own name properly until a couple of years ago, so at some point when trying to say ‘Liam’ he said something like ‘Lee-bo’ and the name stuck. At least that’s how I remember it. He’s a cute kid, as they go, I guess.

The 10-year age gap probably isn’t that big a thing, anymore. Stacie, who gets my bus to school sometimes, her mum’s with a guy and she’s just got pregnant and they planned it. The bloke Stacie’s mum’s with is about 12 years older or something and he’s never been with a woman. Stacie’s already 16, and her mum had her after she went to college, so this guy must be at least as old as dad. I don’t know if I’m disgusted or disturbed.

My dad’s called Chris and is a teacher at a different school to the one I go to. I’m a total daddy’s girl and can usually work my way round him because he’s lovely most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a dad so he can be embarrassing, annoying, has a bad sense of humour and a worse dress sense, a tummy that you’d never see on an underwear advert for men, receding hair which looks like he’s run flour through it, but he’s generally cooler than mum, even when he gets super moody for no apparent reason.

Mum’s generally in a constant state of impatience. She’s super organised, but with a family and a job thing’s never go to plan, whether that’s at home or work, she’s always stressed. In terms of looks, and I have to hand it to her because I have no idea how she does it, she’s still kind of glamourous for her age and quite the opposite to Dad. She’s slim, blonde, and knows how to apply enough makeup to hide her age but without looking like a slag. Not that she needs to wear a lot, anyway. My hair’s dark, like dad’s, or at least how it used to be, so I’ll probably age like him.

The dog’s named ‘Deefur’, because at some point Dad thought it would be hilarious to have a dog called ‘Deefur Dog’, and at some point, that actually happened. Don’t get me wrong, Dad loves him to bits and the dog wasn’t bought on a whim, he just named it on one. Dad’s always been really into animals and openly admits that he loves them more than most humans. You know where you are with animals. Apparently. Deefur’s a black Labrador, but still leaves hairs which show up on black clothes, which apparently defeats the point of why we got that breed in the first place, but we all still love him to bits, and it’s obvious that he adores us, unlike the cats.

I know it’s cliché, but the cats really just see us as meal providers. If we don’t provide them with meat every other day, then we’re practically dead to them and we wind up with a bloodstain and feathers all over the cat flap. Sometimes they save some for us, but most of the time they don’t even treasure us that much. I swear that they’ve wiped out the robin population of Keyton between the two of them.

I guess, in a nutshell, that’s my little family world. There are more who aren’t worth it, but I won’t bore you with any more details about them, because you’ll see it yourself soon enough. And as for my limited social life, which every girl my age simply has to have, apparently, and school, well yeah. You’ll get to see a little of that, too. So, hang tight, I guess. I’ll do the whole expositional thing and explain to you anything which needs explaining, and probably some things which don’t need explaining, either. I’m not a big fan of the whole fourth wall thing, so we’ll get to know each other pretty well.

Gradually, the days are becoming a little brighter and I’m slowly woken up by a gentle peach glow emanating through the curtains. The air is still cool as the heating bangs into its morning routine, travelling through the pipes, echoing its click-click-clicks amongst clanks and groans and bangs. I feel like I’m waking up as the house does, feel myself stretching and becoming aware of my position, my heavy eyelids, my dried make up, my dishevelled hair escaping its night time ponytail, and image the house doing the same as the floorboards creak, the light dully makes its way through the curtains and windows ripe with condensation. How is it that I can think like this now, barely awake, but I completely suck at getting any sort of idea down on paper when we have to do creative writing in English?

I stretch out, enjoying the sensation of my body slowly coming back to life, one hand and one foot hanging off the edge of the bed as I try to get used to the chilly air outside the snug, marshmallow duvet. As I fight the weight of my eyelids, I can feel myself sinking back into the heavy darkness of sleep, but then I’m wretched suddenly out of it.

‘Fine! I’ll do it then, like I do everything else round here!’

‘You’re taking this out of context – ‘

‘Am I, Chris?’

What now? I’ve seen evidence that Mum and Dad love each other growing up, to the point that it’s properly made me cringe, even before I got all that stuff that adults do but that is totally gross when you think of your parents. Sometimes, however, it’s a wonder they’ve got this far and carried on living together. Especially the way mum gets stressed.

‘Well, what if - ?’

‘Don’t bother! It’s not like I have enough on my plate.’

‘I said I was sorry, Becki. How many more times to I have to apologise?’

It’s true. Dad apologises, a lot, for things he shouldn’t even apologise for, just to keep the peace. Sure, Mum’s job is stressful, I don’t even know what she does other than it’s in an office, but it’s not really Dad’s fault. Last year, she turned down a promotion; it came with more money, but she’d sometimes have to go on business trips, travel, work away, that sort of thing. Of course, it was then Dad’s fault when she said no. He wouldn’t cope. We wouldn’t cope. He wouldn’t cope with us. The house this, school that, Liam blah blah blah.

The shouting’s stopped, and now there’s a heavy clattering of crockery on worktops, cupboard doors banging, and cutlery being dealt heavy-handedly. It stops, and a moment later Mum’s voice comes up the stairs.

‘Hannah! Liam! Are you up? Come on. Breakfast.’

That tone is not cheerful.

I pull the duvet so that it’s off my right side, but my left is doubly warm. This is a tactic I sometimes use, although it almost never works. The idea is that I’ll feel uncomfortable with the two extremes of warmth and room temperature, or cold air, and will get up to cool myself down. Inevitably, what winds up happening is that I put the whole duvet over me to even out the temperature and press the snooze button on my phone’s alarm again. Besides, I know that if I get up before Lee-bo, I’ll have to encounter the friction and the fallout of whatever’s going on down there, whereas if I can down afterwards they’ll be trying to put on smiles so that he doesn’t expect anything’s wrong. Even at the age of 6, he’s not that stupid.

It might seem odd, the big age gap between me and Liam. Truth be told, Mum and Dad were a little young when they had me, and a little old when he came along. Once they had me, and careers got going, they weren’t going to have another. I guess they got it right the first time. The thing is, they were happy as they were, successful for their age and generation with their own house, comfortable, you know? But then, at some point, they both had ‘yearnings’ and it kind of seemed like a good idea if – if – they were to have another one, and then Lee-bo became this happy, spontaneous accident, I guess. At least we don’t have the arguments that other siblings with smaller age gaps have.

‘Kids! I won’t tell you again!’

They will if they have to, but a small thump from the next room tells me that Liam has half climbed out of his cabin bed, before letting gravity take care of the rest of the work for him.

Sweeping the darkness of my hair away from across my eyes, I sit up and reach for my phone. It sounds graceful, but really, I look like some sort of contorted wooden toy taking shape. No messages or notifications. 7:36 a.m. Loads of time. Registration’s at 8:45, 20-minute walk if I don’t get the 2-minute bus – which would also mean getting there mega early, 5 minutes to put shoes on and leave the house… I look at my appearance using the selfie camera, work out how much work my hair and face need, and do the same rough calculations that I do and get wrong every morning and – despite always getting it wrong and running late – I continue to do them, continue to get it wrong, and continue to panic as I hastily brush my teeth, throw my hair around my face and paint simple, wonky makeup on as the stress and panic set in during the 10 minutes which follow. Every morning.

I wait until I hear the soft, soothing tones directed at Lee-bo before I leave the bathroom and head downstairs. He takes a little longer to get dressed, even though he only has to pull on the basics, but he doesn’t give a damn about his gappy teeth and chaotic sandy hair, so I tend to hog the bathroom and indulge myself in there while I wait for him to head down first each morning.

When I head into the kitchen, Liam’s already halfway through a bowl of choco-flakes, his legs kicking back and forth under the chair. I pinch his nose as I walk past him. ‘Alright, smelly goblin?’

‘Yep, thanks, fart knickers.’

At least, that’s I think he says between his crunching on his mouthful and slurping. He’s not hot on the insults and banter yet, but he’s getting there. Mum frowns at me as she irons a lilac shirt for Dad, attempting to be the responsible adult in the room and therefore disapproving of insults from children. Dad, on the other hand, clearly thinks that ‘fart’ and ‘knickers’ coming from a 6-year-old child as a form of a morning greeting is amusing. And he’s an English teacher, so he appreciates the aesthetics and nuances of language. I mean, his hand is clenched in front of his mouthful of toast, but I can see from his eyes and the way his cheeks plump up that he’s quietly laughing. Our eyes meet, and he gives me a quick wink. Mum raises her eyebrows.

‘You’re not going to say anything?’

Dad tries to swallow his mouthful with a slurp of coffee, then sprays out a response. Take two: he tries again.

‘What do you want me to do?’

Mum shakes her head, sighs – or rather huffs – as the puts the iron down and shakes out Dad’s shirt before thrusting it at him.

‘There.’

Dad surreptitiously wipes his fingers in his palms and takes it from her before she can find another reason to complain. (I learnt the word ‘surreptitious’ the other day, and think it sounds kind of neat.) He finds the top buttons so that they’re level, works down to the middle, then does the buttons up downwards first over his slightly hairy gut, before then working upwards from the middle. Meanwhile, mum sips her tea and stares down the street out of the window.

It’s a Tuesday, which usually means Year 11 assembly in the hall during registration. There’s a familiar routine: we spend 5 minutes waiting out in the cold before quickly filing in and finding a seat, 10 minutes being talked at while our form tutors try and see if everyone is here – trying to find us in a sea of similarly bored faces, all wearing the same thing, and usually being marked as absent because we’ve been missed or confused for someone else – and a hurried 5 minutes getting out of the hall, putting the chairs away, only to be collectively late for period 1. Sadly, this is almost exactly what happens today, too, and our hopes of it being cancelled or having a guest speak are cancelled.

I find a place somewhere in the middle of the hall, neither near the front or the back. Arms folded, legs crossed, slumped and bored already. We’re supposed to come in silently, so – of course – everyone is talking loudly while the teachers just focus on getting us all in and sat down. Emily sits on my right and gives me a sharp dig in the ribs, causing me to jolt and her to laugh loudly.

‘Morning to you, too.’ I bump her shoulder in retaliation and she laughs again.

‘Oh, come on, Han. What’s the problem?’

‘Nothing,’ I say, sounding unconvincing even to myself. Now I’m beginning to wonder if there is a problem. ‘I just hate this waste of time.’

‘I know, right? Same old shit about exams and behaviour, how we’re not working hard enough and letting ourselves and the school down, followed by a quick announcement by the plastic committee.’

She’s bang on, there. The plastic committee, by the way, refers to the prom committee. My parents have said time and again that they never had prom at our age. Not like we do now, anyway. It’s another import from America with yearbooks, leavers’ hoodies, expensive dresses you’ll wear once in a limo while the rich kid pulls off a helicopter and the class clown rolls up in a tractor. The committee itself is made up of all the popular girls with their perfect hair, perfect boyfriends, perfect fashion sense, perfect bodies and make up plastered on with a trowel. They are also, of course, incredibly fake. That’s why we call them ‘plastic’, ‘plastic girls’, or ‘the plastics’. Especially when half the pretty blonde ones are obviously going for a certain Barbie doll look and lifestyle.

‘Are you going?’ I ask.

‘Of course! Aren’t you?’

I really haven’t thought much about it, lately. I’m not always up to socialising, and I’ll have to get super dressed-up, hair done, nails, a date. It all feels kind of forced.

‘I dunno, to be honest.’

Emily stares at me, frowning at me with her brown eyes and a scattering of pale freckles.

‘You’re joking, right? We only get, like, one of these.’

‘There’s sixth form.’ I quickly point out. ‘And we’ll be allowed to drink at that one.’

‘Oh, Hannah. We’ll be drinking at this one.’

‘Yeah, but we’ll have to keep it on a low key. And the boys will hopefully have grown up a bit, by then.’

‘You’re not worried about your assets, are you?’

‘What? No!’

By assets, Emily’s referring to arse and tits. Admittedly, she has less to worry about there than I do. But that really isn’t it. Why does everything have to be about perceived attractiveness?

Luckily, I’m saved from having to convince either of us any further by Mrs Daniels standing at the front, asking the room to calm down.

‘Good morning, Year 11.’

We all mumble a ‘good morning’ in response, careful not to sound like a primary school saying it in rhythmic unison. Mrs Daniels visibly sags a little at our apathy and lack of enthusiasm. Here we go…

‘As you all know, you’re approaching a very important time in your lives. I’m not talking about relationships, although that comes too, and you need to be careful, as has been discussed with you in PSHE.’

Cringe. It’s as if you can feel the whole room wince as our eyes roll. It’s not even called ‘PSHE’; it’s got a whole bunch of extra letters thrown in there now, too.

‘You’re on the final stretch now, and adulthood awaits. Some of you will stay here next year, while others will go into college or apprenticeships. Some of you might not have decided yet, which is worrying, quite frankly. But every single one of you, no matter what you do, no matter what you choose to do next year, will be affected by how hard you choose to work over the coming weeks.’

Her neck seems to slowly crane, her chin pointing out, as she enunciates and barks each work, pronounces each syllable. She doesn’t always talk like that, only when it’s something she thinks is serious, as if talking like that adds some sort of gravitas.

‘You need to take this seriously, Year 11. More seriously than you are now, I feel. Your mock results last week really should have been a wakeup call to a lot of you, a realisation that you need to work harder, a realisation that you need to wake up, come to school prepared and a realisation that you need to put the effort in.’

The doors slam at the back as someone enters.

‘See me at the end please, James. This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about! Timekeeping! Equipment! Concentration! Taking ownership of your learning and doing the work, not being chased by us. We teachers have done our exams, more than our fair share in order to be here, I should say. We are not doing yours. You are.’

Mrs Daniels pokes the air in front of her at that last remark, letting it sink in. She has become more impassioned, more animated. But I’ve started to zone out and I let the rest of it wash over me. She counts down the number of weeks until our exams start, calculates it into days, hours spent at school, roughly how many English lessons, roughly how many Maths lessons. I can feel my breath becoming heavier and I try not to think about it. For those of us who are conscientious, who are studying hard already, this just adds to the stress and the pressure. For those who don’t give a damn, they’re not about to start with this repetitive assembly if all the others haven’t sunk in.

Eventually she finishes, and asks if there are any notices. Mr Bryan stands up and commends the boys’ rugby squad for a match well played against Fishermead High, even though Keyton Academy suffered a crushing defeat. We’re reminded by Mr Sams that the fields are off limits if it’s wet, so there’s no reason any of us should be at the far end of it at break or lunch. Several teachers plug their revision sessions at lunch and after school, then Libby stands up, bubbly, outgoing, popular. Bleach blonde extensions down to her skinny waist.

‘Hi everyone! I just wanted to say, the prom committee has a meeting this Thursday lunchtime in B5. You don’t have to be on the committee for this one, it’s not just our prom, it’s your prom too, so if there’s anything you like included, please come along and say!’

She sits back down to mixed applause. They won’t listen to us anyway, it’s still going to be pink balloons and a popularity contest.

The bell rings and there’s a hurried clatter as chairs scrape along the floor, chaos as teachers call students back to talk about behaviour, missed detentions, chairs which have been left and not put away, even though we’re already late now and so are they.