Chapter 2
"Did you sleep well last night?" Aaron asked Harper as they sat down at the table for breakfast. Harper nodded whilst shoving her cereal into her mouth, she had woken up a little later than she should have. "I'm full" Oliver mumbled before rising out of his seat and making his way towards the door. "Oh it is pretty late isn't it, Harper you should get going too! Follow Oliver, he can show you where to get the bus from" Eleanor called to her, passing her a piece of toast to eat quickly. Harper quickly wolfed it down and made her way towards the door where Oliver was putting his shoes on. He hadn't made eye contact with her at all that morning, almost as though he was actively avoiding any engagement with her. Just as they left, she thought she heard Finley shouting something from the table and Eleanor demanding that he remain in his seat but it was too faint to make out properly.
As they made their way down the street towards the bus stop Harper tried to keep up with Oliver who was walking at a pace fit for a boy of his height. He suddenly stopped and turned to look at her, "the bus stops right outside our school, you better keep your distance from me going forward or you'll probably make things difficult" he explained "also don't tell anyone that we're living together, I don't want any rumours going around school". With that he turned back around and carried on at his usual pace. Harper was a mix between shocked and slightly annoyed as she screamed "I know that thank you!" but Oliver didn't even so much as flinch as he continued to walk away.
The bus was very crowded, they barely made it on and had to squeeze through the crowd of people. Harper stopped pretty early but Oliver continued further onto the bus more towards the middle. Harper tried not to let his little outburst earlier perturb her and was determined to have a good day regardless. Although the route couldn't have been very long there were still a few stops so the journey took longer than she thought it would. She felt something brush up against her rear end and assumed that due to the overcrowding someone had done that by accident. It wasn't until she felt a literal squeeze that she realised the person behind had not in fact done this by accident, but was intentionally feeling her up. Her heart pounded in her head, was she supposed to scream, cry, yell? But despite his hand slowly caressing her buttoks she was frozen to the spot in fear and unable to do anything. She shot a glance over to Oliver who appeared to be looking her wa. Maybe he had noticed what this guy was doing? Had he seen the panic on her face? But just like that he turned away again and continued to look out of the window. Harper shut her eyes tight and willed for it all to be over so she could just get off the bus and go into school, but this bus journey felt like it was taking a lifetime. When they finally reached school she caught sight of the pervert who sent her a weird smirk as she disembarked. "Erm… Oliver" she stuttered as he headed through the school gate.
"I told you not to talk to me," he replied, actively avoiding any eye contact.
"I think there was a pervert on the bus, he was feeling me up" she tried to hold back the tears in her eyes as she confessed what had just happened.
Not completely unconcerned, he turned around and looked at the girl who was now pale as a sheet, "it was a pretty crowded bus, it was probably just an accident". Oliver considered himself a rational kind of person so this was the only conclusion that he thought could have made any sense. But he couldn't help but think back to the look she had on her face while they were riding the bus, he had concluded then that she probably had a stomach ache or some kind of female ailment. He shrugged it off and carried on into school, something he would later regret doing.
In their English class, their teacher was explaining the upcoming exam to them and what questions they were likely to get. Being the bottom set, no one seemed to be particularly bothered by this information. Except for Harper who was furiously scribbling as many notes down as she could in her notebook.
When questioned by her friends about her newfound love for English Literature, Harper merely mumbled "I won't lose to Oliver Rivers". They paused for a moment while trying to understand what she meant and then burst into fits of laughter. "Oh Harper, as much as I love your jokes you really need to get serious sometimes. There's no way you're going to beat Oliver at anything!"
They went on to once again explain that Oliver was one of the top in the country and that there was no way she would ever be able to best him in any tests that they take. Despite the berating she received from her best friends, Harper didn't feel the least bit deflated. Whether they liked it or not she was going to show Oliver Rivers not to underestimate her.
Back at home that evening Harper quickly went upstairs and cracked open her Maths textbook, if she was going to beat Oliver then she at the very least had to know how to do fractions. Five minutes of mindless reading later and she nearly had a breakdown, not even understanding what she didn't understand she wailed as she slammed her book down. Despite her best efforts that evening Harper slumped down on her desk not feeling any smarter than she did when she started.
A light knock on the door startled her as she called for them to come in. It was Eleanor with some tea and biscuits, she had come to see how Harper was getting on. "This is so nice, honestly I've always wanted to do this but my boys never seem to need to study, they just go straight to bed" Eleanor complained.
"Wait, Oliver never studies?" Harper was shocked, he was top of the school and he never studied, how is that possible?
"Well he is very smart, sometimes I think he has some sort of eidetic memory that allows him to remember anything" she sighed, despite her immense pride in her son's achievements, she did sometimes wish he was a bit more normal. "Why don't you have a little break, here I'll show you something" she giggled, jumping up and running into her own room before returning with what could only be a photobook. As she flicked through the book Harper assumed that these baby pictures were of none other than Oliver, some of him as a newborn, in a highchair, in the bath and of different holidays they went on when he was young. Harper had to admit this was the cutest thing she had ever seen! That was when she came across some pictures of what looked like the same baby but this time in girls clothes.
"Who's that?" she questioned, gesturing to a picture of the child curtseying in a dress.
"That's Oliver" she beamed, finally able to share this little secret she had been keeping all of his life. "I had two boys but honestly I had always wanted a little girl and I guess I projected that dream onto Oliver" she confessed, not quite proud of what she had done as she had a feeling that it might be why he was the way he is now. "Let's keep this a secret between us okay"
At the breakfast table the next morning Harper couldn't help but giggle when Oliver sat down at the table. She knew something, but he didn't know she knew what she knew and that made her really happy. Oliver noticed that something wasn't quite right and judging by the strange smile she had on her face while they made their way to school, it clearly wasn't something he should be happy about. Had she stuck something to his back? She wasn't exactly the brightest so he wouldn't put it past her to play such a juvenile prank. When it came to lunchtime though, Ash stared in horror when he realised what he thought was the reasoning behind Harper's little show this morning. She had switched their lunch boxes. At the bottom of his bag was a bright pink lunchbox with Harper's name sprawled across it in glittery purple letters. This was low even for her, what exactly was she trying to achieve with this stupid idea of a joke. He stood up as calmly as he could and made his way over to the table that she was sitting at just as she was about to pull his lunch box out of her bag. "You, come with me" he demanded as he turned on his heel and headed out of the cafeteria. Harper looked confused at his request, the fact that he had addressed her as "You" and the fact that he was even speaking to her at all.
"What do you want?" she queried as they reached the back of the school building, Oliver looked really mad.
"This isn't funny, what sort of childish prank is this?" he shouted, pulling her lunchbox out of his bag. He acknowledged almost instantly that Harper was clearly confused by this as she swiftly reached into her bag and pulled his lunchbox out. Perhaps this wasn't her doing after all. "Okay, perhaps it was a mix up on my Mother's side. How bothersome, you've been nothing but trouble since you came to my house". Harper got visibly annoyed at his crass attitude over a simple mistake, but her anger quickly turned back to the sly smile she had on her face this morning. "What" he queried, suddenly feeling rather anxious.
"Gosh, we better be careful huh? Wouldn't want you accidentally wearing my skirt to school now would we?" she chuckled, pulling a picture out of her bag. It couldn't be? This was the first time Harper had seen pure horror spread across Oliver's face as it dawned on him what she had.
"Where did you get that?!" he shouted trying to snatch it away from her, but his efforts were futile as she quickly shoved it into her breast pocket. "I've already seen the others too, how cute" she giggled "of course your Mum gave it to me"
Oliver's face turned red, he couldn't remember ever feeling so embarrassed and angry all at the same time. "Give it back now!" he screamed, holding his hand out to her.
"I'll give it back, don't worry" she smiled, "but you have to help me pass my mock exams next week. All of them". Oliver paused, was that hard? How often did this girl fail such simple exams?
"Which subjects did you fail last time?" he probed, trying to get an idea of how difficult this was about to be. The dejected look on her face didn't give him much hope.
"Pretty much all of them"
"Are you insane?!" his anger returned almost immediately "you want me to tutor you to a passing level in every single subject? That's unquestionably impossible!"
"Okay fine" she turned around and crossed her arms, "I guess I will just post this on Facebook for everyone to see then!"
"Alright, fine! I'll tutor you, but I can't make any promises about you passing"
Harper was delighted and jumped up and down on the spot as she watched him walk away. Her friends who had watched everything transpire ran over to interrogate her about what had just happened. Harper just exclaimed that it was nothing and ran off congratulating herself for acquiring a study partner who might actually be able to help her pass her exams.
Later that night after dinner, Oliver asked his Mum to bring some tea for him and Harper who would be studying. His Mother looked shocked, "You're studying" she chirped delightedly "and with Harper! Wow I'm shocked".
"I wanna study too" Finley groaned from his seat but Oliver shook his head and told him he doesn't need to study and to leave them be.
Up in her room, Harper suddenly felt incredibly nervous. She had never been alone with a boy before, not to mention a boy that she had been crushing on for years. "What subjects did you need help with?"
Harper blushed as she fumbled through her textbook, picking out her maths textbook. "I think it's up to this page" she flicked through the subjects that were covered in the lower tier as she wouldn't be taking the upper tier exams.
He started circling certain parts of the pages and explaining what he thought would likely come up on the exam. In order to gauge her knowledge he wrote out a couple of practice questions for her and gave her about 20 minutes to complete them all. 20 minutes passed, and then 40 until it was coming up to an hour.
"Are you not done yet?" he shouted. Harper looked completely frazzled by the time he had lost his patience, having only filled out half of the answers.
"I answered the ones I think I know how to do but I just couldn't do the others" she whined as she handed the test paper back to him.
"How did you do this? Where's your workings out?" he questioned, pointing to one of the only questions she answered.
"Is that a requirement?" she joked, semi not joking as that was not something she thought to do.
"Right, I'm gonna teach you all this from scratch! You better listen carefully or you're not going to bed until you can do this!" He shoved the paper back towards her and picked up her textbook. Harper didn't know if it was just because she liked him, or because he was good at explaining things, but all of a sudden this stuff started to make sense. "So the answer is X=72", she looked over at Oliver who seemed to relax a little and nod. "YAY!" she screamed jumping out of her seat "OLIVER I DID IT!"
"You still have more to…." Oliver heard the door open and turned around, his mother had come in to bring them their tea.
"Don't mind me, you guys, carry on I'm not even here" she giggled as she placed the tea down and stood behind them. Oliver eyed her in suspicion and slowly swivelled back to Harper as he watched her quickly work out the next equation. Click. His eyes darted back to his Mum who was now somehow holding her DLSR camera. "Sorry, I just wanted to keep that as a memory, it was just too cute" she brought her hand up to her mouth in a feeble attempt to hide her smile. "It would be great if you two got married!"
"What are you thinking?!" Oliver shouted, not usually one to speak to his mother in such a way but she was crossing a serious line here. Harper had completely forgotten about her work as she blushed profusely while staring at the floor. "You, get back to your question" he demanded as his Mum left the room. Harper managed to get the rest of her questions correct and was
awarded with a well earned sleep.
When Harper got to school the next day, it was obvious to her friends that she hadn't gotten much sleep last night. "Harper, are you okay?" Niamh questioned her.
"I'm fine, just been up most of the night studying" she replied through a yawn. Kunal was not buying it.
"Is someone at your new house bullying you?" he grabbed onto her shoulders as he interrogated her. "I bet they make you do all their chores and you're just saying you're studying because you don't want us to worry". He sat down and started ranting about how she was Cinderella who just needed a handsome prince, probably him, to come and save her. When he was done he turned back to her seat and she had conveniently slipped away while he was talking. "Where did she go?" he asked Niamh who was waiting for Sarah to finish her work. Niamh shrugged and muttered something about the library.
As the evening drew near, Harper was once again in her room studying for her French exam. "Okay, how do you say I will go by plane in French" Oliver asked.
"Erm… Je suis avion" she replied, clearly not very confident about her answer.
"You just told me that you're a plane" he planted his face in his hands. Once again he explained what might come up on her French exam and taught her how to conjugate the grammar easily. He then wrote her a small paragraph and handed it to her advising her to translate the whole thing. It took her a little while and she had to frequently reference back to the notes that he had given her but she finally did it! She turned to him to give him the good news, only to find that he had fallen asleep at her desk. Harper started to feel really guilty, she had essentially blackmailed him into staying up late every night to help her study, so much so he was falling asleep outside of his room. Before she knew it, her own tiredness betrayed her and she found herself falling asleep across from him at the table. Before she drifted completely though, she could have sworn she heard the faint click of a camera, but maybe she just imagined it.
The exam period was finally here and Harper had a newfound vigour thanks to Oliver's tutoring. "Oh Harper!" Oliver's Mum called to her before she walked out the door "here, I got you a good luck charm" she handed an envelope over to her. "Don't open it until you get the results that you passed okay!"
On her way to the auditorium for her first exam she noticed Oliver making his way into a classroom, should she speak to him? He would just get angry though wouldn't he? As she caught up to the queue that he was in outside his classroom door she quietly whispered a quick thank you and started to hurry away.
"Good luck" he called back, a few people turned to look at him but he appeared to be unperturbed by it and shrugged off any questions people asked him.
At the sight of the exam paper, Harper was over the moon. These were all questions that Oliver had asked her and she knew the answers to them! She powered through exam after exam until the week finally came to a close and she could relax.
"How did you do Harper?" Sarah asked, looking a little worse for wear due to those questions.
"Not too bad" she lied, trying to hide the cheeky grin she had. There was no doubt in her mind, she aced those exams. Suddenly, Kunal ran over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, "we can finally hang out now Harper" he shouted. "I don't care what you say, we are going out this evening!" Despite her normal reaction to Kunal, Harper was too happy to object to anything and happily agreed for them all to go out after school to get some food.
From across the hall, Oliver was just making his way out of his English class when his friend William spotted Harper with her friends. Something about this interaction didn't sit right with Oliver for some reason, but he couldn't pinpoint why. "Isn't that the girl who tried to give you that love letter? She moved on quick, look she already has a boyfriend" he tapped Oliver's shoulder pointing towards Kunal who still had his arm wrapped around Harper.
"I couldn't care less" Oliver retorted as he hastily made his way for the school exit, "it has nothing to do with me"
This was Harper's final class to get her results, amazingly she had somehow gotten C's in all of her other subjects and if she had managed to do the same in French then she had reached her goal of passing all of her subjects. Her heart caught in her throat as her teacher went down the desks, handing each student their marks. Several groans came from other students as they realised how abysmally they did, this didn't give Harper much hope.
When Mrs. Monet reached her desk she stopped and smiled at Harper, "I was very impressed reading yours in particular Harper" she placed the paper down and tapped the big red C. "Keep this up and you will do really well in your final exams". Harper beamed as she stared at her accomplishment, she had done it! The class couldn't end soon enough, she had to go and tell Oliver. He had to know that thanks to his efforts (and hers) she had managed to pass every single one of her exams. After a brief sprint through the halls of the school to the school gate she looked around to see if she could find him, a huge smile spread across her face. When his eyes met hers he realised immediately what she was going to say and he couldn't hide the surprise on his face.
"Congratulations" he muttered as she ran up to him bouncing up and down on the spot. She explained how she got all C's across every paper and all of her teachers were so proud of her for the work she put in. At this point, everyone was staring and he was eager to get this interaction over with. He held out his hand in order to retrieve the object of Harper's blackmail. She clearly misunderstood this and started shaking his hand violently, which he yanked away immediately. "No you idiot, give me the…" he paused and looked around "give me the photo" he whispered.
"Oh of course" she responded and immediately reached into her bag and pulled out the picture. He snatched it quickly to make sure that no one else got a glimpse of what was on there.
"And I thought I told you, don't talk to me at school" he shook his head and started walking, he could hear her screaming from behind him saying thank you. Despite how annoying and embarrassing this whole scene was, Oliver couldn't help but crack a small smile as he walked away.
