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kind of right of course- James did appear to be sticking two fingers up the world. Maverick was its own rules, rules I hadn’t even realised were there to be broken. James’ face did something to me that day.
    Maverick I now understood to be: one outsized or undersized, misaligned or misshapen, single nightmarish feature of complete and utter disturbance. The possibilities, when you stop to think, are endless. A year later, I hear of the Smile Blocker. I never even saw the box until the day I did it.
    Now I can flick a smile and freak myself out. In this stunning new talent, I am alone in my class, alone in the school, alone on the streets. I have become a violent head-turner; I smile and the eyes of strangers can’t settle, but neither can they leave me.
    I grab my phone and go back into My Face History and start to delete the templates for each of my former faces, one by one. This is my personal photo album- all destroyed. The last one to go is a Merlot SexyFace that looks a lot like my best friend. Then I delete all of the back-up copies. No Face Reversals. I am Maverick; watch me.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    It’s time to tackle this essay, a gift from from the AGs.
    Study text: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
    Discuss the Relationship Between George and Lennie.
                  “New document.”
    My screen obliges with a crisp white page.
                  “Dictate.”
    The cursor appears, top left, flashing.
                  “George is the parent figure, he’s like a dad to Lennie. Right up until he shoots him in the back of the head. He’s got his reasons. I prefer to imagine Lennie turning to find the muzzle of the gun. His face; could George still do it? That’s the real discussion right there. Not the cop-out ending-”
    A text message elbows itself in front of my essay and of course it’s from Dad. Incredible how intrusive it is, forced information. ‘Miss You’- I glare at the text like it’s his actual face. I blocked his messages the day he left, after he insulted me with ‘The Explanation.’ Reversed it a day later, when I developed this perverse desire to monitor his increasing desperation. Mainly I keep a tally. Never read them. (Almost never.) A response is out of the question, the aim is to maximise my protest, my disgust. I remove the message to the unnamed file, otherwise known as the Dad File. At sixteen years old I’m already more mature than him- possessing the ability to grasp the consequences of my actions. Leaving means you don’t get to chat, whenever you feel like it, to your former family.
     
     
    The display on my phone says 10 .36pm but Mum’s bedroom is empty so I head downstairs. Night lights activate four stairs ahead of me, unnecessary, as a vast panel of illumination from the TV slides across the lowest steps. Mum always leaves the doors open, or it’s like living alone, she says - the silence. But the sound-proofing will be handy when the new baby comes. Babies love the early hours. We will have to open up the downstairs, Mum argues, because you can’t monitor a baby through these walls. I’ve never altered the walls, although I’ve watched Dad do it, and Mum can’t scale a ladder in her state. There are no ‘Dad jobs’ now.
    T he far wall of the living room is alive with running detectives.
    “There must be another exit, call for back-up!”
                  It’s easy to turn my back to those two- they always come out alright in the end. The TV control has been drawn into the orbit of Mum’s bump and lies semi-wedged, along with a pillow. A segment of a cheese sandwich glares up at me: guilty . She should have at least got raspberry pasta or something. She’s breathing heavily, the edge of a snore. Then I notice that her features have changed.
    Half of Mum’s fa ce is nestled into a furry black cushion, but the visible portion of her jaw is stronger, pronounced even at rest. Her brows have lost