Holly Smale - All That Glitters

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

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London SE1 9GF

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Copyright © Holly Smale 2015

Holly Smale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007574582

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007574605

Version: 2017-01-31

“Loved Geek Girl . Wise, funny and true, with a proper nerd heroine you’re laughing with as much as at. Almost” James Henry, writer of Smack the Pony and Green Wing

“I would highly recommend Geek Girl to anyone who likes a good laugh and enjoys a one-of-a-kind story”

Mia, Guardian Children’s Books website

“Smart, sassy and very funny”

Bookseller

“Brilliantly funny and fresh… A feel-good satisfying gem”

Books for Keeps

“There’s laughter and tears in this hilarious roller-coaster story”

Julia Eccleshare

“Simultaneously hilarious and heart-warming. Everyone should read this book”

We Love This Book

“Pure fun”

School Library Journal

For Mum. Who has given me so many stories.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Geek Girl

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

glitter[glit-er] verb, noun

1To sparkle with reflected light

2To make a brilliant show

3To be decorated or enhanced by glamour

4Tiny pieces of shiny ornamentation.

ORIGINfrom the Old English glitenian: ‘To shine; to be distinguished’

y name is Harriet Manners, and I am a genius.

I know I’m a genius because I’ve just looked up the symptoms on the internet and I appear to have almost all of them.

Sociological studies have shown that the hallmarks of extraordinary intelligence include enjoying pointless pursuits, an unusual memory for things nobody else finds interesting and total social ineptitude.

I don’t want to sound big-headed, but last night I alphabetised every soup can in the kitchen, taught myself to pick up pencils with my toes and learnt that chickens can see daylight forty-five minutes before humans can.

And people don’t tend to like me very much.

So I think I’ve pretty much nailed this.

Other symptoms of genius I recognise include:

“I’m confused,” my father said when I triumphantly showed him my ticked-off list. “Aren’t they also the symptoms of being a sixteen-year-old girl?”

“Or a baby,” my stepmother added, peering over at the list. “Your sister also appears to fit the list.”

Which just goes to show why so many of the intellectual elite are misunderstood. Even our own parents don’t recognise our brilliance.

Anyway, as the biggest sign of a high IQ is asking lots of questions and I got to the page by googling …

Am I a genius?

… I’m feeling pretty optimistic.

Which is good, because this morning is my first day back at school so I’m going to need all the extra brain-power I can get.

That’s right, I am now an official sixth former.

By my calculations I have spent exactly eleven years of my life at school so far: 2,145 taught days, or approximately 17,160 hours (not including homework or the free tests I downloaded to take on holiday).

In short, I have invested over a million minutes in education in preparation for this precise moment. The day when all my carefully collected knowledge will be valued and appreciated, instead of just irritating people.

Finally, school is getting serious .

Gone are the homework-haters and eye-rollers, and – thanks to an influx of new students from other schools – in their place are people who really want to learn. People desperate to know that gerbils can smell adrenaline and a caterpillar has twelve eyes, or that there’s enough carbon in your body to make 900 pencils.

People just like me.

And I couldn’t be more excited.

As of today, I have five A levels to study, two universities to introduce myself to early and a bright career in palaeontology to begin pursuing in earnest. I have statistics to analyse and frogs to dissect and thigh exercises to start so I don’t get cramp when I’m brushing soil away from dinosaur fossils in the not-so-distant future.

I have brand-new, like-minded friends to make.

It might be the same school with a lot of the same people, but things are about to change. After eleven years of scraping insults off my belongings and retrieving my shoes from the cisterns of toilets, this is my chance to start all over again. A new beginning.

A chance to shine.

This time, everything will be different.

Luckily, one of the really great things about being a genius is that it’s easy to multitask.