Firewallers

by Simon Packham

  ‘She shoots, she scores!’

  I high-fived my hottest imaginary teammate (Canball Xtreme is of course a mixed sport), cheerleadered over to the wastepaper basket and stooped down to retrieve my Coke can.

  And that’s when I spotted it.

  Peeping out from a scrunched-up ball of paper was a face; a face I thought I recognised. It was the spitting image of that bloke in reception with the terrible acne and a dragon tattoo crawling up his neck. It must have been him because when I smoothed out the paper there were cartoons of that woman with the eyebrows in Starbucks, the intern guy with the crooked nose, and a nice one of Brian Simkins sitting on the photocopier with a bubble coming out of his mouth saying, ‘Does my bum look big on this?’

  Scrawled across the bottom of the page in black felt tip were seven random letters.

  todtnau

  What was that all about? I must have been pretty bored because I started trying to turn them into a well-known phrase or saying, like on that TV show Grandma watches. But the best I could come up with was DAN U TOT (totally odious turn-off?), so I tried saying it loud (TODD NOW!), in case it was a joke or something.

  If it was, I didn’t get it. And anyway, they hardly needed a caption; those pictures spoke for themselves. And I was grinning inanely when the door crashed open and someone started shouting at me.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing in my office?’ Unlike your average St Thomas’s form tutor he was definitely angry, not just disappointed.

  ‘I was . . .’ Words failed me, but I had the presence of mind to stuff the piece of paper into my Where’s Wally? sports bag before turning to face my accuser.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ he said. That did sound a bit like a St Thomas’s teacher. ‘You’d better have a good explanation or I’m going straight to security.’ It was the same Steve who’d run away from me in Dad’s office. Only this time he didn’t look the slightest bit cute.

  ‘Brian Simkins told me to wait for you,’ I said.

  ‘Old Sicknote?’ said Steve, his twitching temples starting to recover. ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m on work experience. Brian said you were expecting me.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Right,’ said Steve, reclaiming the black swivel chair and slumping down at his workstation. ‘I remember now. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  He reached for his half-eaten cheeseburger. ‘No need to look so disgusted. I never have time for a decent lunchbreak. Why do you want to do work experience in a dump like this?’

  ‘Don’t you like it here?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he said, forcing down a final mouthful of cold, reconstituted cow.

  I was starting to warm to his rebel-without-a-cause act. ‘Why do it then?’

  ‘For the money, of course. What else?’ said Steve. ‘Believe it or not, I wanted to go to art college.’

  ‘Money isn’t everything,’ I said, semi-repeating what Mr Catchpole told us when a show of hands revealed that at least half the PSHE class wanted to be overpaid celebrities.

  ‘Try telling Chelsey that,’ said Steve.

  ‘Who’s Chelsey?’

  He glanced up at the fake-tanned figure in the photograph. ‘My fiancée; she won’t get her dream wedding if I don’t . . .’ He can’t have been that much older than I was, but he’d already perfected that world-on-your-shoulders look that you only see in adults. ‘DJs and canapés don’t come cheap, you know.’

  Dad had this theory that the longer couples obsessed about their wedding, the shorter the marriage was likely to last, but I wasn’t about to share relationship advice from a man in couples’ therapy himself. So I lied through my teeth. ‘She looks . . . a really good laugh.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Steve gloomily. ‘Anyway, why did Sicknote send you down here?’

  ‘He said something about explaining how the firewall works.’

  Maybe it was just a bad day at the office. Steve still looked kind of adorable when he laughed. ‘I think we can do better than that. Have you heard that remix of “Old Yellow Bricks” on YouTube?’

  ‘Are you allowed to look at that sort of stuff at work?’

  He winked and fired up his computer. ‘If anyone asks, you can tell them we were checking out the firewall. Anyway, I won’t tell if you don’t.’

  Steve had great taste in music; pity that Chelsey’s was so ‘totally lamestream’. He played me the five tracks he’d take to a desert island, and I showed him my favourite fail video of that nun falling out of a tree.

  It was the fastest forty-five minutes of the week. And when Brian Simkins arrived, the weight of the world pressing down on his dandruff-flecked shoulders, I almost wished it wasn’t my last day.

  ‘So sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you, Steven.’

  ‘No problemo,’ said Steve, his computer screen swiftly flicking from Nirvana live at The Paramount, to a row of incomprehensible digits. ‘Jess here’s a quick learner.’

  Brian nodded and stepped carefully over the wastepaper basket. ‘Yes, well, be seeing you.’

  ‘Thanks a lot for showing me the firewall,’ I said with a huge metaphorical wink. ‘Oh, and good luck with the wedding.’

  Steve was already tapping dejectedly at his keyboard by the time I’d squeezed into my court shoes and stumbled towards the lift.

  ‘The meeting didn’t go terribly well, I’m afraid,’ said Brian, pushing the button for Reprographics. ‘Still, your father’s an extremely experienced professional. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.’ He clicked his tongue infuriatingly. ‘I just hope he realises what he’s up against. The press could have a bloody field day.’

  That’s what gave me my first inkling that things were getting serious. It was the only time I’d ever heard Brian swear.

  Angry Birds

  It was the end of the day. Dad was late as usual, so I sat in reception with the beginnings of a headache, and only my phone for company. After I’d checked Facebook, launched a whole flock of angry birds and finished tweeting (What sucks worse than Year Ten enrichment day? Work experience!!), there was nothing for it but to read Dan Lulham’s latest batch of texts. Same old, same old, and they were starting to get to me.

  Jess n Dan. 2gether 4ever

  It must have been nearly eight o’clock by the time Brian Simkins arrived with his top shirt button undone – a global calamity by his standards. ‘I’m afraid your father’s going to be working late. We’ve got a conference call with Moscow booked. But don’t worry, there’s a cab waiting to take you to the station.’

  ‘Right. Fine.’

  ‘This is my e-mail address. Now I know I haven’t been as thorough as I might have been, so if there’s ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.’

  ‘Thanks, Brian,’ I said, stuffing the white index card into the bowels of my Where’s Wally? sports bag and trying desperately not to laugh.

  Somewhere between East Croydon and Gatwick Airport I had an epiphany. You know, a eureka moment, like that guy in the bath? Maybe it was the woman opposite with the joyless tone in her voice as she duty-called her significant other with the earth shattering news she was ‘on the train’, or the haunted look that possessed Steve every time he mentioned Chelsey’s dream wedding. Anyway, whatever it was, the thought of another long-term relationship was about as appealing as that problem-solving workshop we did on enrichment day. Six more weeks with a muppet like Dan Lulham was the last thing I needed – or anyone else for that matter. I didn’t even read his final message, just fired off my most sensible text of the month.

  no chance u 2 timing loser. I’m just not that desperate, Dan.

  He probably wouldn’t appreciate my ironic use of text-speak. It made me smile anyway. And I was feeling much better until I walked into the lounge and found Mum and the Golden One having one of their girly chats. I could just hear Mum telling the other ‘fat ladies’ at her aqua-aerobics coven that she and Millie were ‘more like best
friends than mother and daughter’ – and it hurt.

  ‘Hi, Jess,’ said the Golden One, aka Amelia Emmeline Hudson, aka my disgustingly perfect older sister. ‘How was work experience?’

  ‘All right,’ I muttered, crash landing in my favourite spot on the sofa and reaching for the remote. ‘Dad says he’s going to be late.’

  ‘Yes, we know,’ said Mum tetchily. ‘Pity he couldn’t have called two hours ago.’

  ‘He only found out at the last minute,’ I said, doing my best to defend him. ‘He’s having a really hard time at work.’

  Mum nearly choked on her marinated olive. ‘And I’m not, I suppose. He wants to try working for the health service before he starts bleating on about his heavy schedule. If he thinks he can —’

  ‘There’s that celebrity hairdressing show in a minute,’ said Millie, jumping in before Mum could go off on one. ‘Why don’t we all watch that?’

  ‘Good idea, Mills,’ said Mum. ‘Let’s hope that irritating woman from the Shopping Channel gets evicted.’

  What can I tell you about the Golden One? Unlike most of the geeks at St Thomas’s, she was smart enough and pretty enough to make the front page of the County Times on GCSE results day. And even though she’d been wowing her tutors at sixth form college for the past nine months, it didn’t stop Mrs Mendoza reminding me that ‘Millie picked up quadratic equations in about two seconds’ or old Catchpole finding it ‘almost inconceivable’ that we’d emerged from the same gene pool.

  She was just so perfect. Every time I screwed up (spoiler alert: big one coming up!), the gulf between us looked even wider. She’d even cut back on her social life to concentrate on getting into Oxford. How did that make me look when I rolled in from one of Ella’s parties looking ‘tired and emotional’? How could I ever compete with the mind of Steven Hawking and the body of a supermodel?

  Halfway through the beach-hair photo shoot, Mum’s phone went off. It was mildly amusing when she first got it, but her ‘Staying Alive’ ringtone was starting to do my head in. ‘Oh well, that’s just great . . . You can’t keep doing this, you know . . .’

  It was obvious who was calling from the angry policeman in her voice.

  ‘You see, this is exactly what Tricia’s talking about . . . I don’t care if your bloody job is on the line. Try thinking about your marriage for once . . . Forget it . . . No, look, just forget it, OK?’

  Mum grabbed the newspaper, launching herself off the sofa like an angry bride. ‘That was your father. Surprise, surprise, they’re having another meeting, so he’s staying in town tonight. Anyway, I’m off to bed.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to see Justine’s highlights,’ I said.

  ‘Not in the mood,’ said Mum, shuffling across to the door. ‘Turn the lights out when you come up, won’t you?’

  I zapped a footballer’s wife with the remote. Even a celebrity hairdresser ought to know the difference between loose curls and ringlets.

  We sat in silence for a bit – just like Mum and Dad on Sunday afternoons. I don’t know what Millie was thinking, but I was half wondering where we’d be spending Christmas.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, her toothpaste-advert smile already starting to work its magic. ‘They’ll come through this, I promise.’

  I wondered if she knew about their counselling sessions. But of course she did. Mum told the Golden One everything. She was just so capable, so comfortable in her own – meticulously exfoliated – skin. Whatever crap you threw at my sister, she always came up smelling of roses. At least, that’s what I thought then.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I do anything else, I should probably tell you what happened halfway through the last lesson on the following Monday afternoon. If I could skip over it, believe me, I would. The trouble is, it kind of explains how I acted later. That doesn’t mean it isn’t still painful though. ‘Personal tragedy’ doesn’t even come close.

  Everyone Get the Picture?

  ‘Are you Mr Colin Catchpole?’

  ‘That’s right, Officer. How may I help you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some really bad news for you, sir. It’s your fifteen-year-old daughter, sir. She’s dead.’

  Mr Catchpole stared out at the all-weather hockey pitches and sniffed up a gobbet of snot. ‘I’m sorry, Officer. I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, you know, sir. Not living? Snuffed it?’

  ‘But that’s impossible. Gillian was always so healthy. Isn’t that right, Mrs Catchpole?’

  ‘What? Oh yeah, yeah. She was well fit. Sorry. Sorry, I’m not laughing, Colin. It’s just a bit of a shock.’

  I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but this is not another story about a dying teenager. Millie used to love all that. Anything with a terminal illness and an unhappy, but ultimately life-affirming ending and she was hooked. No, it was just one of Mr Catchpole’s role-playing exercises. How was it that St Thomas’s ‘favourite’ PSHE teacher/war graves guru, managed to turn all the exciting stuff (sex, drugs, bacon rolls) into something about as gripping as an arthritic granny?

  ‘But how did it happen?’ said Mr Catchpole, fixing his ‘wife’ with a grief stricken glare. ‘She was fine on the way to the party.’

  The Year Ten wise guys offered up a few helpful suggestions.

  ‘Probably binge drinking.’

  ‘Was she being bullied, sir?’

  ‘Or dangerous driving. You know what young people are like when they get behind the wheel.’

  ‘Was it an accident in the workplace?’

  ‘How about too much junk food?’

  Mr Catchpole stepped, diva-like, out of character. ‘Look, this is not a pantomime.’

  ‘Oh yes it is.’

  ‘And I’ll have that, thank you, Aidan,’ he bellowed, his upturned palm extended in front of him until Aidan Corcoran emerged from his metal-head coma and handed over his iPod. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if you were listening to something decent. No doubt it’s another tuneless cacophony with sub-adolescent lyrics and a throbbing baseline.’

  Aidan Corcoran made no attempt to defend his taste in music.

  ‘Well, you can see me afterwards,’ said Mr Catchpole. ‘Now, where was I?’

  ‘Your daughter, sir. She’s dead.’

  Considering we’d spent the first twenty minutes brushing up on the street names of every drug from aerosols to XTC, we hardly needed the cast of CSI: Miami to establish the cause of death. So while Mr Catchpole conducted a post-mortem, I tried to establish the cause of the buzz of excitement that had suddenly circled the temporary classroom.

  It happened all the time at St Thomas’s. Someone’s mobile went off in the middle of a lesson and the next thing you knew, every kid’s in the class was vibrating. Ninety-eight per cent of the rumours that went round were just some saddo with a score to settle. Put it this way, we’d had about twenty ‘teenage pregnancies’ since Christmas, but unless half of them turned out to be virgin births and Darren Denyer really had had a sex change, by my calculations only about 0.4 of them would be pushing a screaming brat round Sainsbury’s next year.

  Even so, I had high hopes for this one. There’d been nothing juicy on Two-Faced Book since that thing about Shezza Morgan’s boob job, but by the way Izzy and Tania were cackling into their hidden mobiles, this was obviously right up there with Rob the Slob’s prom date.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ I whispered to the boy in front, whose name I could never remember. ‘Oh come on, don’t be an idiot. I’d show you mine.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet you would,’ he said, his creepy smile making me even more glad I’d made zero effort to get to know him.

  I couldn’t believe no one had sent me anything. And then I realised why.

  Ella tapped me on the shoulder and handed me her phone. ‘You’d better have a look at this, babes.’

  Shock competed with anger, and anger won. No wonder they were all wetting themselves.

  That photo was supposed to be private. How could I ever show my
face in public now that the whole school had had a glimpse of so much more?

  ‘I’ve seen worse,’ said Ella, handing me a tissue. ‘It’s actually quite tasteful, babes. Don’t worry, they’ll all have forgotten by next week.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  Thank God old Catchpole had arrived at his learning objective. ‘Right, perhaps someone would like to tell me what they’ve gleaned from today’s lesson?’

  ‘That Ella’s rubbish at acting?’

  ‘That the drugs don’t work?’

  But it was the last suggestion that got the biggest laugh.

  ‘That you should always be careful who you share your photos with?’

  Mr Catchpole was stuffing his visual aids into a Tesco bag. ‘Yes, well, I’m glad you were listening last week, Damien, but I fail to see what that’s got to do with —’

  The bell went, and I was out of that door faster than a celebrity mum gets back to size zero after a difficult birth. There was no way I’d be sticking around for the inevitable five-day festival of smartarse commentary. And Ella’s brand of glee and sympathy was even worse.

  Rampant with rage, I shot past the Keep Calm and Carry On poster in the corridor, adrenalin pumping. I knew exactly who’d done it, and I knew exactly where to find him. If he wanted a fight, that was exactly what he was going to get.

  A Neanderthal ‘Whooooaaa’ went up when they spotted me approaching the bus stop.

  I pressed my fingernails into the palm of my hands, already wishing that I’d stopped to retouch my mascara.

  ‘Sorry, Jess,’ said one of his dumb mates. ‘We didn’t recognise you with all your clothes on!’