A Hundred Pieces of Me Read Online Free Page A

inside for putting pens in. She could tell it was expensive – although Georgina wasn’t fooled by that. It was a Trojan satchel. A satchel containing a whole stack of her mother’s guilt about sending her to yet another new school although, nominally, it was a present from Terry.
    Terry is her stepfather. Before he was her stepfather, he was the unmarried son of her grandmother’s friend-from-church, Agnes, and then he was the lodger in her mother’s spare room when they’d moved out of Gran’s house, where they’d been living since Georgina’s dad died. Now they’re living in their own house, near Terry’s new job, a few hundred miles away. Mum, Terry and Georgina, the new family. The satchel seems to have been Terry’s idea.
    ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,’ said Terry, when she inspected it over breakfast. He works in medical sales, and has meticulously ironed shirts that he presses himself, even though Georgina’s mum irons like a demon. Tea towels, pants, even socks, if they have frills on them.
    ‘Say thank you, Georgina,’ Janet had prompted her, before she’d even had time to think about not saying it.
    ‘Thank you, Terry,’ Georgina had said obediently, and looked down at her new school shoes, so as not to catch whatever variety of look her mum and Terry were exchanging.
    Her shoes are navy blue, with the Mary Jane strap that everyone had wanted at St Leonard’s. Mum had finally given in after months of pleading, but the shoes – exactly the right shade of blue – aren’t making Georgina as happy as she’d hoped.
    Half an hour later, pretending to read safety notices outside the registration room, Georgina knows for definite that the shoes are wrong. The satchel is beyond wrong. The other first-years around her are wearing the exact same brown blazer and white shirt but her over-tidy newness is making her different – she can already pick out the kids with older brothers and sisters by their cool, worn-in, hand-me-down uniform and bags. And their confident manner, the way they’re laughing and bumping against their mates, at ease with teasing and physical contact.
    Georgina wishes she knew how to make friends. How come some people have that knack, she wonders. What do they say? How do they know the right people to home in on?
    Think about Dad .
    The three photographs of Captain Huw Pritchard that she still has flash into her mind: Dad in his Welsh Guards uniform, Dad in shorts on holiday, Dad with an SAS moustache in a rugby shirt, holding a pint of beer. He looks handsome in all of them, happy and sociable. The sort of man who doesn’t even think about making friends, they just happen.
    Georgina digs her nails into her palm. I can’t just be like Mum, she thinks. Dad fitted in everywhere he was posted. I must have some friend-making genes. What would he have done?
    She ignores the fact that she doesn’t know what her dad would have done because she can barely remember him. A dark streak of unfocused longing sweeps through her and, as the bell goes, she dives forward, carried by the hope that she’ll look like she knows someone if she barges in with the rest, but when she gets a seat, no one comes to sit next to her.
    The teacher – Mrs Clarkson, flustered in a mohair jumper – arrives, and Georgina fiddles with her pencil case. She’s sat too near the front. Again. The next class, she’ll aim for the middle.
    Did she hear the faint hiss of ‘. . . satchel’?
    ‘Good morning, first-years,’ Mrs Clarkson shouts over the racket. ‘Are we all here? Let’s make a start.’
    As she gets the register out, the door’s flung open and a small girl barrels in, wearing a blazer that’s so big her fingers are hidden by the sleeves. Her tie is knotted low and thick, more like a cravat, and she’s cradling her stack of books in one arm. No bag.
    No bag, thinks Georgina, making a mental note.
    ‘Sorry I’m late, miss,’ the girl gasps. ‘Missed . . .