“Saffie!” yelled Victoria Cunningham, the girl who had single-handedly made Saffie’s school life a living nightmare ever since she’d started at St George’s High. Saffie ignored her and threw what was left of the contents of her locker into her backpack. Today wasn’t just the last day of term before the summer holidays, it was her fourteenth birthday, and all she wanted was to be able to leave school without having an egg cracked over her head.
There were many cliques in St George’s Year 9, and Sapphire Sparkes wasn’t welcome in any of them. She was neither intelligent enough for the intellectuals nor cool enough for the slackers, she was too static for the sporties, not edgy enough for the goths and the neo-emos, and nowhere near beautiful enough for Victoria’s social elite. Because of this, she’d never managed to make a close connection with anyone, and had spent the majority of the last three years eating lunch alone, something Victoria liked to tease her for.
It was just one of the many things Victoria liked to do.
During this year alone, Victoria had cut off a chunk of Saffie’s hair when she had been reading, poured ketchup down the back of her jumper in the canteen, and started a rumour that she was in love with their 65 year old Geography teacher Mr Grimsbottom, leading to a lecture about infatuation and a very awkward parent’s evening. This was on top of the fact that her classmates would still avoid any physical contact with her because Victoria had once claimed she had rabies and was contagious.
“Saffie!” Victoria barked again over the noise of excited pupils raring for their summer of freedom. Victoria approached and slammed the locker shut, narrowly missing Saffie’s fingers.
Saffie guessed the rest: “Saffie, why are you still such a geek?” “Saffie, what IS that horrible smell?” or “Saffie, can you please go flush your own head down a toilet for once? My arms are getting tired.”
What Victoria actually said was far more confusing.
“Saffie, I… don’t want to finish the school year like this.”
Victoria was effortlessly beautiful; long, golden locks framed an impossibly perfect, symmetrical face. She had full, pouty lips that were coated in glossy pink lipstick and was one of the lucky few who didn’t have a single zit.
“Don’t tell me,” said Saffie, “you want to beat me up first.”
“No, silly!” Victoria giggled, “I don’t want to finish the year with us on these bad terms. I want to make amends.”
Make amends? Victoria always made it sound like they were involved in some kind of feud, but Saffie couldn’t recall a single instance where it it had been a two way thing.
“Listen,” Victoria said, sighing. “I know you might not believe this, but… I’m sorry.”
Saffie searched Victoria’s face for any signs of malice, but she couldn’t find any.
“I’m genuinely sorry for everything. I’ve been a bully to you these last three years and I regret it. I’ve been truly awful.”
This had to be some kind of joke.
“Okaaaaay,” said Saffie, waiting for a punch line that never arrived.
“I want to apologise by having you in my Yearbook Collection this year.”
Victoria was already somewhat of a social media superstar and her Yearbook Collection had become an annual event for her 600K plus followers on the photo sharing app QuickPic. At the end of term, Victoria would have selfies with those select few she deemed pretty enough to grace her feed. Getting into one of those posts was like hitting the social jackpot.
“You want a photo?” said Saffie in disbelief. “With me? For your Yearbook Collection?”
“Like I said, I want to apologise.”
Saffie couldn’t get her head around it. She didn’t want to be in Victoria’s Yearbook Collection. She was most likely the only one in her year that didn’t.
“I don’t like having my photo taken,” she said. It was the truth; she had a plain face, and didn’t wear a great deal of make-up to disguise it. Nor was she particularly skilled in applying the small amount she did wear. She was also pale, and she’d always suffered with dark patches under her eyes that made her look tired. Add to that her lifeless brown hair, thin lips, and ears slightly larger than they should have been, and she tended to avoid cameras wherever and whenever she could.
“Come on, Saff,” Victoria pleaded. “Just one.”
“I’m really not interested,” Saffie said, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and making to leave. “Enjoy your summer, Victori-”
Victoria suddenly threw her arm over Saffie’s shoulders and held up her diamond encrusted phone. There was no escape.
Saffie reluctantly smiled.
Their selfie immediately appeared on screen, and as Saffie expected, she looked like an utter troll next to Victoria.
“See! This is so cute!” Victoria squealed. “Can I post this? Please say I can.”
Saffie sighed. “Sure, but… can you get rid of my bags with some kind of filter before you post it?”
“Girl, I can do more than that!” Victoria said, then shouted, “Beautify!”
A few sparkles caressed their onscreen faces and suddenly Saffie’s pale, spotty skin was super smooth and glowing, her thin lips were now plump and juicy, her ears had been pinched smaller, and her hair was a voluptuous plume of pure sass.
Saffie had avoided apps like these all her life for the very reason that she knew they would only point out how pretty she wasn’t, but now that one of them was in front of her, she couldn’t take her eyes off the image. This was what she’d look like if she was one of Victoria’s friends. For a moment, she could see that life; the footy boyfriend, the girly sleepovers, the Saturday shopping mall sessions, the nail salon appointments.
It was a life she’d never wanted, but staring at the picture, she was surprised to find herself welling up. It wasn’t the looking beautiful that affected her, nor was it the promise of popularity. It was the glimpse at a life in which she wasn’t bullied.
“I know it’s gonna take time,” Victoria said, slipping her phone into her handbag, “but maybe we can eventually… put everything behind us. How about we meet up over the holidays? Go for a coffee or catch a movie or something?”
Saffie wanted to hate Victoria, she really did, but all she felt was utter, utter relief.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “That’d be nice.”
Victoria smiled and walked away as Saffie just stood there in stunned silence, processing what had just happened.
She was knocked out of her daze by Jordan Peeler, St George’s resident jack-the-lad, who shouted, “Sparkes! Say cheese!” holding up his own phone for a selfie with her. This was followed by Janie Davies, then Owen Brown, and before long she’d had photos with over half of her year, her smile getting bigger and bigger in each one. She’d even gotten a few hugs.
Something magical had happened. Victoria’s sudden change of heart had instantly propelled Saffie up the social ladder. She had gone from absolute outcast to hottest commodity in a matter of minutes.
When she finally left school, she couldn’t help but smile the entire way home. Her parents were going to be ecstatic; they were always talking about Richard and Elizabeth Cunningham - the heirs of London’s Cunning Insurance and had never believed Saffie’s stories about their daughter being a bully.
Well, she didn’t have to convince them any more. The bullying was over. It was all over.
Holly Sparkes was in the kitchen making her usual late afternoon cocktail of gin and tonic and paracetamol when Saffie arrived home.
“Your uncle is on his way here,” she said in a disapproving tone. Holly’s brother, Saffie’s uncle Dax, was the coolest guy Saffie knew. Not only was he the current record holder for most uppercuts in their favourite video game Uber Smash Fighters, he was also the only friend she’d ever had. She couldn’t wait to see him and tell him what had happened.
Holly suddenly eyed Saffie up and down.
“You look happier than usual,” she said suspiciously. “I’ve never seen you look this happy on your birthday. You always make out the other kids are horrible to you.”
“I actually had a… great day today.”
“You… did?”
“I really did.”
“Are you just saying that to make me feel better? Like I’m less of a failure as a parent?”
“No mum,” Saffie chuckled. “I swear. I had photos with everyone for their yearbook collections this time. Even Victoria Cunningham.”
Saffie had never seen her mum look so pleased.
She opened the QuickPic app and found Victoria’s profile, but when she tapped it, her huge grin slowly faltered.
The selfie of Saffie and Victoria was featured at the top of the collection making it the largest of the lot, but it looked very different to the one she had been looking at earlier.
Victoria’s sweet, smiling face was just as effortlessly beautiful as it had been in the original, but Saffie’s had now been tinkered with so that she was covered in warts, was wearing heavily rimmed glasses over eyes that were pointing towards each other, and had an elongated nose that was dripping with a bulging green bogey. Underneath Victoria had written:
My selfie with #SAFFIETHESTRANGE
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