“And the hair is a disaster.” Eloise is not making any effort to keep her voice down. “No one wears low ponytails. Although with hair like that, what else can she do, I suppose. Oh! Hi, Brian. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you checking me out all day.” Mouth pouting, eyelashes fluttering. I look away.

“Ah, El, I can’t take my eyes off you,” Brian Firth says as he saunters past. He jerks his fringe from his eyes like he has a twitch. Eloise giggles. I stir the plastic spoon through my yoghurt pot in slow, aimless circles.

“He is so into you, El,” Steph says, leaning forward excitedly. The end of her long plait drops into her own yoghurt.

“Steph, are you going to paint with that hair later or just use your fingers? Maybe Mummy will put it on the fridge for you,” I say, nodding at her hair.

She blushes, puts the end of her hair in her mouth and sucks on it. I look away, disgusted, and she blushes an even deeper shade.

“And who starts at a new school at the beginning of their last year anyway? Talk about making it hard for yourself,” El continues. “Unless she’s super bright or something. Although I can’t imagine she is.”

“I heard she lives on the farm on the outskirts of the village. You know, that one just past your house, Hels,” Emily says. “It looks like a right dump.”

I shrug. “I didn’t see her around over the summer.”

“If that’s so, how can they afford to send her here?” Eloise’s nose is elevated, making her neck look scrawny, her head like a lollipop on a stick. “Probably one of those scholarship kids.”

Eloise has a point. Seahaven School is elitist. Those that come here have bankers and lawyers and landed gentry for parents. The air is pungent with old money and entitlement. Many of the kids are dropped at school each day either by the hired help or by surgically enhanced mothers in pristine walking boots and shoulder pads, driving Range Rovers that never see a dirt road unless it’s the long, sweeping driveway up to their large houses. Even the bus that ferries around some of the more local kids like me is more fitting for a professional sports team than transporting a bunch of spoilt kids a few miles to school. Miles that could easily be walked.

I’ve attended the school since I was four years old, along with Eloise. Steph and Emily recently wormed their way into our social group, but we made it suitably hard for them. Nothing comes easy, certainly not our attention. You must earn your place. We are The Originals. The Queen Bees of our year. Eloise in particular works hard to maintain our reputation as such.