He She It

one: butt-ugly

When asked for her weaknesses, Lilly Martin will raise one badly-shaped eyebrow, flash her crooked smile, and point to her face.

"Weakness," she will say, "singular. Unfortunately, my butt-ugly mother decided it would be a good and not at all cruel idea to reproduce with my butt-ugly father, and out I popped. Other than that, though, I'm damn near perfect."

(Lilly is not, of course, damn near perfect, but anybody that tries to tell her that will probably find themselves with a flat tyre the next day. Maybe even some tasteful graffiti, if they've been really critical. Lilly Martin takes no prisoners).

Normally, her less-than-average gene pool does not get in her way. In fact, she often finds it helpful, because as well as being extremely self-assured, (which is her go-to word to use whenever she's trying to sell herself, because it sounds a thousand times better than 'almost unbearably arrogant') Lilly also suffers from chronic impatience.

"Just think of all the time I'm saving by being this hideous," she will tell anyone who dares question how she, notorious Ugly Girl, can possibly be so happy. "I don't have to fend off desperate guys who apparently bypassed that lesson in pre-school where they were taught the meaning of the word 'no,' - that alone has to be saving me at least two hours a week - and I never have to try too hard to make myself look halfway decent because, as we all established at Emma's makeover party, no amount of pampering is capable of doing that."

So up until January 12th 2015, she had been perfectly content with the state of her face. Sure, maybe she would have liked a slightly more symmetrical one, or teeth that went in a logical order, but as far as she could tell, pretty didn't always equal happy. (Of course, this was a judgment based entirely on Grace Hammond's Twitter account, which was more depressing than a Nicolas Sparks' novel, despite the fact that she was Kate Moss in the making).

Funnily enough, Grace Hammond was part of her problem. Not all of it, (her face was at least 20% of the dilemma) but definitely a significant element. She was the only one in their textiles class even half as skilled as Lilly, and while that - much like her ugliness - had never been a huge issue before, it was now quite a large one. Massive, actually, because when Lilly walked into school that Monday, Grace was already scrawling her name beneath a sign that read:

Fashion designing competition! Participants must design and make a dress which can be modelled either by themselves or another at a fashion show on 16th April. Prize is £250 and an internship at Dotty's designing headquarters this summer. Please sign up below.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, far too excited to feel even the slightest bit of irritation at Grace's inability to write at any pace other than 0.2 letters a minute. "Finally, a competition that doesn't involve running."

Grace laughed and handed her the pen, stepping to one side to allow Lilly to first admire her calligraphy skills and then scrawl her details in her own barely legible handwriting. "I have to admit, I was kind of hoping you wouldn't sign up."

"Worried, are we, Hammond?"

"A little bit, yes."

"Good," Lilly said, capping the pen and sliding it back into its holder. "Now I just have to find a willing model. If you weren't so good at textiles, I might have asked you."

"I'm flattered," Grace dead-panned, waving at someone on the other side of the hallway. "But couldn't you just be your own model?"

Lilly snorted. "Good one, Grace. I don't know if you've ever noticed in the ten years we've known each other, but I am the very definition of ugly."

"Please, you could kick my arse on that catwalk."

"Didn't your mother ever teach you that lying was bad?" Lilly asked as they walked towards their form room. "It shouldn't be that hard to find someone, anyway. Not once I offer them some of the prize money."

"Funny, I never had you down as one for blackmail," Grace said, and then smiled. "Or generosity, actually."

"Ouch, Gracie."

They reached their form room one minute after the bell. Amara pointed to the empty chair at the front of the room and gave Lilly a thumbs up, a silent 'half a minute later and you would have been dead, Martin.' Ever since his wife had (understandably) divorced him last July, Mr Willner had made it his personal mission to make everyone else just as miserable as he was, and unpunctuality was one his pet hates.

Sure enough, he arrived just as Lilly had taken her seat next to Amara. As soon as he'd stopped scanning the room, presumably looking for any opportunity to hand out a detention slip, she leant closer to her best friend.

"So," she whispered, "have you seen the notice about the fashion competition?"

Amara sighed. "Yes, and don't get me wrong, I support you one hundred percent, but - here, sir! - but if you even think for a second that I'm going to put on your dress and prance around on a stage for five minutes, then you clearly don't know me very well."

"Come on, Ra! It'll be fun."

"No. Absolutely not."

"I'll pay you £50."

"Lil, you could pay me all of that prize money and I'd still refuse. Sorry, but I'm sure someone else will do it," Amara said, biting at the cuticle of her thumb. "You know I can't do anything in front of an audience."

Lilly stuck out her bottom lip, scratching a star into the table with her nail. "Not even if I made it really pretty?"

"Not even if you were Coco Chanel."

Now Lilly Martin might have been famous for her persistence, (among other, less desirable things) but even she couldn't argue with that.