Of all my options at this moment, a mental collapse would probably not be the most productive one. I step into the mire and look helplessly around me.
There’s a guy with a beard who’s signing people up for the Juggling Society, and a girl dressed inexplicably in a panda body suit. For a second I’m distracted by a guy standing in front of her. He’s taking in the scene around him with this wide-eyed, out-of-his-depth look that, somehow, I recognise instantly. He’s nice looking, with curly hair and holey canvas shoes. He looks panda-girl up and down, then turns the badge she has flung at him over with a sharp burst of laughter. He shows it to the tall girl tucked beside him and she rolls her eyes, even though she’s smiling. The girl is wearing a dress covered in prints of pink cupcakes, and a red scarf wrapped elaborately around her hair. Even from a distance she projects that tangible confidence that typically makes me shrink. I watch them for a moment. I can’t tell if they’re a couple – unless two people are sucking face I rarely can – but there’s something about the two of them together that makes me feel inexplicably … lonely. I turn away as the girl grabs the curly-haired guy’s hand and tugs him, still chuckling, past the panda.
To my right there’s a line of people waiting for free popcorn, and as I turn, a group with Chinese Student Society jumpers push past, arms laden with pizza boxes.
And there is a boy staring right at me.
I glance over my shoulder. The band is behind me, a crowd milling in front of the stage. I turn back, but it’s not the band he is looking at; he’s staring, unmistakably, at me.
My brain clocks the following:
Tall. Too tall, really, at least six three or four. A battered leather satchel slung over his body, under a blue MU showbag, its flatness indicating that it’s all but empty.
Brown cord pants, long-sleeved blue shirt, grey waistcoat, tweed hat. I’m no fashion expert, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the busker near the supermarket wearing something similar.
I almost don’t recognise him out of uniform. And for a second, I have the strangest suspicion that he is a bit startled. Then he sort-of-but-not-quite smiles. That vaguely familiar half-smile, not directed at anything perceptible in the universe around him.
Elsie and Raj are nowhere to be seen. The indifferent crowd near the stage seems to have decided that this is, in fact, the greatest band in history and should be venerated with frenetic dancing in the mud. When I look back, busker-boy is walking towards me.
Balls balls balls. Okay. Pre-emptive strike followed by a quick escape.
I hug my jacket tightly around me. He comes to a stop a few feet away.
‘I know you,’ I say quickly. ‘Are you here with Mr Peterson? I thought he was with the Specialist Maths group. I haven’t seen you in Specialist, though.’
He doesn’t speak. The silence stretches far enough for the rising warmth in my cheeks to become perceptible, even through the chill. He folds his hands behind his back and does this wriggly manoeuvre, like he’s subtly adjusting his shoulders. He drops his gaze from the place where it’s been hovering above my head. He takes a deep breath.
‘Well, I’m barely scraping a passable grade in Further Maths. I mean, science I don’t mind, but I’ve never really had a head for numbers. It’s like, have you ever stared at one of those awesome illusion pictures? You know, you blur your eyes and if you’re lucky, a picture jumps out. And maybe you see a spaceship or the face of Albert Einstein or a dinosaur, but then, you look away for a sec and when you look back there’s nothing but colours again? That’s kinda like me in Maths. An occasional stegosaurus. But mostly, it’s mangled chaos that I’m pretty sure was created by a guy on ’shrooms.’
I stare at him.
He clears his throat. Then he grins. ‘Ah, yeah. I was with Mr Peterson’s group,’ he says brightly.
I tuck my hands into my armpits. ‘Right, well,’ I stammer. ‘Don’t let me keep you. I’m just –’
‘– Sophia.’ He takes off the hat and tucks his dark hair behind his ears. ‘You’re Sophia,’ he says, as if this statement holds some significance that I should be aware of. He smiles as he settles the hat back onto his head. ‘I’m Joshua.’
He holds out a hand, formally, like he’s Mum’s accountant, here to discuss my taxes.
I glare at his hand, panic at touching a stranger warring with panic that my shoes are now encased in mud and I will be stuck in this situation until Elsie comes to rescue me. With limited options, I take his hand, just the tips of his fingers, for a handshake that seems to last less than a unit of Planck time.
‘Ah – it’s nice to meet you?’ he says.
The icy wind is doing nothing to cool my cheeks. Even with an eidetic memory, I can’t recall the last conversation I had with someone from school who wasn’t Elsie; probably because any someones who aren’t Elsie tend to avoid me like I’m lugging a chunk of plutonium in my pocket.
Busker-boy – Joshua – tilts his head, his feet shuffling slightly in the mud. I clock, dimly, that the fingers of his left hand seem to be tapping out a shallow rhythm on his leg, a pattern that is noticeable only because his right hand seems to be drumming a totally different beat.
He tucks his hands into his pockets. ‘You know, a bunch of scientists have managed to teach apes some basic language skills. Okay, their conversations weren’t exactly profound – and involved more faeces-hurling than I’d be comfortable with – but I reckon, if Washoe the chimp can learn to carry a conversation, anyone can.’ He beams at me.
I gape at him. His words tap dance over one another, smooth and practised, but like a song played at slightly too fast a speed. And I can’t be sure, but I think I catch the tiniest hitch in his pronunciation –
‘Who is supposed to be the ape in this scenario?’ I blurt.
His cheeks redden. ‘Ah, I didn’t mean … I mean, neither. Or both? I don’t think it’s offensive. I can easily be bribed with bananas.’
There it is. His deepish voice carries a shadow of a lisp.
Across the lawn the band kicks into a song the crowd seems to know, and a strident cheer snaps me out of my fugue. Suddenly, I’ve run out of steam. I’m cold, and abruptly aware of just how loud it is here, how the chaos pervades even the edges of my vision. I can feel the wash of prickles travelling over my skin, and the tiny fingers of doom emerging from that place somewhere deep beneath my breastbone. I bury my face in my scarf, and pour all my mental energy into breathing.