Wednesday 3rd September

School has reconvened which means I have now officially entered Year 11. The horizon of my future looms closer. The pressure is on as it's less than a year until we take our GCSE's, and then that's it, I have to decide what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

Will I just wake up one morning, et voila, I now know that it's my life's purpose to pursue a career as a teacher, a lawyer or some other insipid, mind numbing existence? Or will this epiphany lead me to realise that "whoa Maths isn't totally boring and useless after all", and all I desire to dream from this point forward is how much I want to be...an accountant? I really need to get top grades if I'm ever going to reach such dizzy credentials, otherwise Mother will be right and I'll end up working in a factory forever. But compared with counting numbers all day long I really don't to see how that can be so bad?

Making the gloomy mix of end of summer depression / impending future doom murkier still, is that the school in their wisdom has decided to enforce upon our still malleable minds the worst of our societies draconian class structure, meaning that I'm now imprisoned around the clock with only the other swots for company. But at least someone is pleased,

'She's studying for her GCSE's you know, and she's in the top set,' Mother announces to anyone who will listen, like I've just passed some sort of prestigious entrance exam. Doesn't she realise that everyone else's offspring are also studying for their GCSE's, because that's the standard objective of attending school in the first place?

But for me the dread only increases, and rather than spending the finest years of my life listening to Flora Sidebottom shout obscenities, I now have to endure a constant stream of correct answers being spewed from the self righteous mouths of Liam Payne and Eleanor Baxter. Add to this the moronic noise of Harry Styles, and it's going to be a tediously protracted unnecessary year. Which raises the question, how has Harry even managed to get into the top set since he's such a dunce? Bribery must have featured heavily in such obscure decision making, otherwise he'd be in his rightful place, right down at the pit of the bottom class.

Whilst I'm naturally mortified, Natasha's dreams have come true, and further to last week's motion picture disaster her love for both Liam and Harry has only strengthened.

'Gosh, don't you think he's so clever? Gosh, don't you think he's so cute?' Blah, blah, blah...It's all way too grotesque, and I'm forever struggling to keep up with which of the two losers she's talking about. All I know is that they're both wretchedly boring. Worse still is something which I hadn't foreseen; Natasha is in awe of super swot Eleanor Baxter,

'I know Miss. Me Miss.' I can picture them already, giggling together, whilst I sit quietly in the corner, forever beaten in to submission, and all the time the teachers will look at me concerned, saying things like,

'Why are you so quiet Simone? Why don't you ever speak? Is something the matter?' Isn't it obvious that silence is easier?

Saturday 18th October

I've been sat on this wretchedly rickety old bus for nearly six hours but can you believe that we're only half way there? If we don't stop soon then I'm certain to vomit onto the already present sick stain which was staring at me from the back of the seat in front.

'Please don't make me go.' I had begged Mother as she waved me off on my journey to the European continent; a requirement of Year 11's Language Exchange Programme. 'I can't bear to be away from you for an entire week.'

'Don't be silly Simone. You're a big girl now, and if you learn your verbs it will take you anywhere in life.' Anywhere, are you really sure of that Mother? I beg to differ, but I suspect that learning my verbs will take me to France and that's about it, and right now I'm not too sure that I want to go there, especially not with this bus load of monkeys.

I detest French, and it's not like I've got any intention of speaking it ever again once I've left school. Yet Mother insists that not only is it a privilege to learn a second language, but going on this trip will help broaden my world view.

Once more Natasha is too lucky since her mother thinks quite the opposite. There is no way that she will be playing host to a "foreigner" when the exchange is reversed, and since this is a requirement of taking part she is to remain at home, with only Harry for company, because he of course has been banned from attending after just last week he got caught climbing the roof of the Maths portakabin. Now why didn't I think of performing such a stunt, or better still why can't Mother share some of the sensibilities of other people's parents for once? For Mother aside, who else actually cares about my ability to conjugate verbs or appreciation for blue cheese?

Thankfully Sarah is with me, a calming influence amongst the noise of the bus, her quiet acquiescence providing a welcome respite to the constant contrary verbosity that spews from Natasha's mouth. She is my only friend right now, something that's likely to remain for the duration of the trip, as I know no-one else, except vile Liam Payne, and he certainly doesn't count. I'm a lonesome solider who must battle hard to make it through the wine sodden wilderness of the coming week.

Wednesday 22nd October

At half-way through the trip I'm eventually starting to relax in to the routine, really quite thankful for not having to do much actual work. Plus brilliant news; the absence of my gym kit means that I just have to sit at the side watching Renata play stupid badminton each morning. Better still was that we got let out of school early today, and since it's Wednesday Renata suggested we take the bus to town to meet her mother who would then take us out for hot chocolate.

Well this was just typical. Of course, who else was riding the bus with Clive, his host, but Liam. What I was expecting was my reaction. Now you know that under any ordinary circumstance I'd be spitting all over the place at having to waste a dreg of oxygen intake trying to avoid making awkward conversation with his stupid face, but the isolation of my situation, well, it must have had a peculiar effect, for here I was gushing and smiling, ecstatic to recognise even such a tenuous reminder of home. How desperate am I?!

'Oh Liam, it's so good to see you,' I ran hurriedly to sit next to him. What was happening to me?

'You too Simone,' his eyes shone. I realised that I'd never seen him smile before. There was a reason for that.

'So are you enjoying the trip?' He whispered.

'I guess. Expect it's been pretty solitary, especially at the weekend when I didn't see anyone other than Renata and her family.' God I bet he thinks I'm a right wimp, not even able to survive a week alone without crying out for Mother's bosom.

'Simone, when we get back to England, how do you fancy going out on a date with me?' Now I really did need my mummy. What a chump! Here I am, an innocent for believing that he was about to reciprocate, to agree that yes, the experience was lonely, to offer an empathetic ear, but oh no, in his mind this somehow translates to me wanting to go out with him!

'Erm, no thank you,' I stammered, just as Renata indicated that we had reached our stop. A lucky escape!

'Oh no, Liam Payne just asked me out,' I hissed at Renata.

'Great, and what did you say? You said yes, right?'

Monday 27th October

Being back at school is royally grim. Jubilant with excitement to see my best friend for the first time in over a week, my keenness was thwarted by Natasha's overwhelming lack lustre reaction to my reappearance.

'Hi', was the best I was to receive, before she returned to her no doubt inane conversation, and with Eleanor Baxter of all people.

Thoroughly dejected, and with the prospect of Maths looming, I dragged my now weighty heart in to the classroom. Stop, wait! So much laughing was occurring. I look to the left, look to the right, silence. Carry on walking and the laughing resumes. But this was hardly news worthy; the classroom is always pumped to the point of suffocation with nitrous oxide. But damn it, something was different. Why I knew it, they were laughing at me, and pointing and whispering too. Was a gargantuan bogie crawling its way across my face, ready to introduce itself as today's supply teacher?

'Did you have fun in France?' Harry shouted, his arms suspended from a rusty heating pipe which ran across the ceiling.

'What's it to you?' What does Harry care if I enjoyed myself or not?

'Apparently you tried to get yourself a boyfriend whilst we were away?' Natasha was livid, 'why didn't you tell me?'

'I tried to do what?' What a laugh. Why this past week has been one of the rare occasions that I haven't spent pining after some dim wit or other. All I ever pined for was to come home.

'Well according to Liam Payne you did?'

'According to Liam?' Since when does he have access to the details of my social calendar? 'How would he know whether or not I got a boyfriend?'

'Because it's him! He's telling everyone that when you caught the bus home together one day, that you asked him to go out with you, but when he said no, you punched him.'

'I did what?'

'I can't believe you'd do that to me. I thought we were best friends?'

'We are, and I don't know what you're talking about?'

'Stop lying to me! How could you ask Liam out when you know how much I like him? You told me that you don't even fancy him.'

'I don't and I never did anything of the sort. It's not true.'

'I wish I could believe you, I really do, but everyone knows how good looking Liam is, and that every girl wants to go out with him, so I can only think that you've been lying to me this whole time, and that secretly you've just been waiting for an opportunity when I wasn't around so that you could pounce. Well the truth is out and everyone knows what a back stabber you really are.'

Later

The turd, now standing with his spiny hands hidden within his rotten pockets, was talking to those other hideous articles, no doubt bragging about how he had turned down Simone Rose.

'She is a bit over rated,' I swear I heard him laugh. Over rated at what?

That was it; I lunged across the open space of the corridor, my fist clenched and leading me into a collision with his unprepared torso.

'Ow!' This was typical; I've broken my best artists hand, my dreams of A* Art GSCE glory are ruined and all because of him. Surely I should have at least winded him, but alas the rodent appeared uninjured. But my own petty injury dwindled too when compared to the need to expose the truth, to clear my name, to make sure that everyone knows who the real loser is.

'Why are you spreading rumours about me, saying that I asked you out when we were in France?'

'Simone. I don't know what you are talking about.'

'Of course you don't, because it's not true. So why don't you tell everyone what really happened? That you were the one who asked me out, but I turned you down, because I'll never go out with someone as smug as you. Are you listening to this Natasha, it was Liam Payne who asked me out, not the other way around!'

Tuesday 28th October

'Okay, so I've been thinking about what you said,' Natasha inched next to me, her eyes arched upwards and fluttering those over the top spidery lashes at me, something only achievable with the help of her big old fake curlers, 'and if you're really certain that you didn't ask Liam out, and you aren't secretly crazy in love with him, then I'm willing to forgive you.' She is willing to forgive me? 'I'm sorry for not believing you,' she continued, 'but having thought about it some more, well I just don't think you'd have the guts to ask Liam out, and so I should have trusted that you wouldn't do something so cruel to me. Plus Eleanor told me that he was planning on asking me out when he got back from France.'

'Well you never know your luck.'

'Oh no, I don't think so. I'm done with Liam Payne, and I'm certainly not here to mop up your rejects. Who do you think I am?'