The Square Root of Summer(22)

“What’s the band name?” I ask, finally.

“Get this.” Sof peers over her heart-shaped sunglasses. They match her heart-print bikini. If she could, she’d probably make her goose pimples heart-shaped. “The Blood Wagon.”

“Gross,” I say, trying to make an effort. “Are all your songs about tampons?”

Sof chuckles and flips my book over to read the back. “Ugh, do you have anything a normal person can read?” She rummages through my bag. “Oh my God.” I worry she’s found Grey’s diary, but she emerges with a battered copy of Forever: “Definitely extracurricular.”

Actually, it was one of two books on Ms. Adewunmi’s list that the library had. I even checked on the last day of term that she meant the Judy Blume. She just laughed, wagging a gold-nailed finger, and told me to have a good summer—and write her that essay.

“I haven’t read this in—ha, forever. Why do you have this?” Sof thumbs rapidly through the pages, murmuring to herself, “Oh my God, Ralph. I’d forgotten that. Straight people are so weird.”

“I’ve never read it.”

“Why are you—oh my GOD,” Sof says for the third time. She looks from the book, to me, shocked. “Are you having sex with someone?”

“What? No! Give me that.” I snatch Forever back from her. What the hell is this book about?

“Whoa. Gottie, I’m joking. I know you’re not having sex. You’d ask me first,” she says, superior and certain of herself as she stands up, pulling her dress on. “Okay, I’m going to get a drink.”

“Could you get me a Creamsicle?” I ask when she doesn’t offer. It’s not ice-cream weather, but I skipped breakfast.

She holds out her hand for my money, and I can hear her singing loudly “T-A-M-P-O” as she goes marching up off the beach. There’s no one else in sight.

I immediately crack open A Brief History of Time again, and try to wrap my head around the two parts of string theory. 1. Particles are one-dimensional loops, not dots. 2. There are threads of energy that run through spacetime.





Grey claimed the term was “cosmic strings” and insisted it referred to a giant harp in the sky. If he’s right, the universe is out of tune.

I look up when a shadow falls across the page.

“That was quick, you—” I break off as I see Meg standing above me.

“Hi.” She waves.

“Sof’s at the snack bar.”

“Yeah, I just saw her,” she says lightly, and helps herself to a large fraction of blanket. I can’t figure out if she and Sof are together or friends. “She said you’d be over here.”

I peer over my book as she takes a small green bottle out of her bag and starts polishing her toenails. It’s not that Meg’s horrible. But since Grey died, I barely know how to talk to my own friends, let alone someone else’s. All my words were cremated along with him.

Thankfully, I hear Sof’s voice seconds later—except she’s not alone. The full Fingerband entourage is here. And trailing them is Thomas. I haven’t seen him since he walked out of my room on Friday night. One benefit of Papa being head-in-the-clouds—no enforced family dinners. That’s how I’ll score my Nobel: one girl’s experiment to live off cereal in her room for an entire summer.

Ned and Sof lead the pack. He’s got his arm slung round her neck, and she’s laughing. Possibly at his outfit. Where do you even get an orange playsuit in Holksea? Behind them are Niall, Fingerband’s drummer, and Jason, the only one of us dressed weather-appropriate in spray-on black jeans and ever-present leather jacket. Full bad-boy regalia, except I know his mum knitted his jumper. Seeing him here isn’t a surprise—this is north Norfolk, there’s nothing to do besides cow tipping and the beach—but my body reacts anyway. I turn cold, and hot, and cold, and my throat constricts.

He smiles lazily at me, and I think of that moment in Grey’s room, when he touched my hand and called me Margot.

I shiver, no longer wanting the ice cream Sof’s flapping at me.

“Take it, it’s freezing my fingers,” she says, as everyone clusters round. “They only had ice-cream bars. You’re twenty pence short.”

“Thanks.”

Thomas is lurking at the back of the group, his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched up. He nods at me, and I focus on unwrapping my ice-cream bar so I don’t accidentally stare at Jason in front of him for nine hours. I’m so busy fake-concentrating, it takes me a minute to notice everyone’s still standing up, waiting for me to move.

“Blanket reshuffle,” Sof explains. She glances at Ned. “Actually, that’s a good name for a band.”

“All right, shoegazer,” he teases, gesturing for everyone to huddle together for a photo. “I bet I’ll have you rocking out to Savage Messiah by the end of the summer.”

“You can pay up at the party”—Sof bats her eyes—“when I get you dancing to Blanket Reshuffle.”

I stand up, somehow ending up sandwiched between Thomas and Jason while Ned fiddles with the settings. It takes forever, because today he’s brought one of his eight thousand film cameras instead of his phone. Thomas and Jason both sling an arm round my shoulders for the photo, and they clash just as Ned bellows, “Okay, everybody say ‘Ziggy Stardust.’”