Not Pretty Enough

by Jaimie Admans

  “I’m well aware of the school rules,” I interrupt. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Come and see me at lunchtime for detention, Miss Clemenfield. We’ll simultaneously revise the population of the Far East and appropriate ways in which to speak to your teachers.”

  Great. I want to say something along the lines of could this day get any worse, but that would be like the kiss of death.

  CHAPTER 9

  June.

  I always have high hopes for technology class. I figure that technology is my chance to show Lloyd my artistic side. I mean, he’s probably figured out by now that I’m not very academic, so I keep hoping that one day I’ll find out I have an artistic side instead. To be honest, I’m not very good at the whole arty side of things either. There was that time I nearly blew up a saucepan in cookery class and the teacher said that the whole building might have gone up in flames if she hadn’t had the forethought to place me at the work unit next to the fire extinguisher. Or the time that I stabbed myself in the finger during sewing and got blood all over my work, or the time when Debs and I had to bring bars of chocolate in for cookery but we ate them all during IT instead.

  Okay, so maybe I’ll never be very good at technology either, but I’m probably better at it than I am at maths. Although with the mess Debs and I get into most lessons, it’s doubtful.

  Debs and I stick together in technology. We’re both as bad as each other, and we both ended up in the same set. Lloyd Layton must not be very good at technology either, because he ended up in Set Two as well, and he’s usually in Set One for everything.

  At the moment we’re making a box. Just a plain wooden box that will serve no purpose other than to be a box. This is one of the many lessons that I find a complete and utter waste of time. Technology would be so much more interesting if we were actually making something useful. We pull our half-made boxes out of the lockers where Mr Vale makes us keep them, and sit at a workbench with Ceri, because she’s about as good at technology as we both are.

  I always keep one eye on Lloyd Layton during tech lessons, and not just because he looks really hot when he’s intensely sawing wood or anything, but mainly because I want to know why he ended up in Set Two. It’s kind of sadistic, but I want Lloyd to mess something up just to prove that he isn’t completely perfect. It doesn’t look like he’s going to today though. His box is three sides finished and all smooth wood and perfect lines, whereas mine looks like a three-legged cat wearing a blindfold stuck it together.

  Luckily I’m not alone. Debs’ box doesn’t look much better, and Ceri has this knack of looking like she knows what she’s doing when she really doesn’t. She’ll have the kind of box that will look perfect but fall apart if you so much as touch it. This is why I think we should make something that we actually care about. If we were making something that we wanted, then we’d all work hard and strive to get it done well. Personally, I don’t give a damn if my box looks like a box or a pancake, just as long as I don’t get a D or lower for it.

  All of this thinking has meant I’m not concentrating on the block of wood I’m supposed to be sawing, and I don’t even realise I’m still moving the saw until Debs clicks her fingers in my face and says, “Chessie, what are you doing?”

  Oops.

  I look down and the saw is halfway through the workbench. It’s embedded. In fact, it’s downright stuck. I pull and wiggle it but it won’t come out.

  Oh, hell. Why do I always manage to mess something up?

  I stick my hand up in the air and hope the teacher won’t make a scene about it. It was an accident, after all. I really don’t need Lloyd thinking that this is another lesson that I’m totally incompetent in. Is it too much to ask that he might think I’m good at something? Even just one thing?

  “Miss Clemenfield?” Mr Vale asks in his most patronising voice.

  “Sir, I, um, had a little accident,” I say, stepping back so he can see the saw that’s gone right through the wooden workbench.

  “Oh dear. A little overzealous with the sawing, were we?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought I was still doing my block. My mind was somewhere else.”

  “Thinking about boys, no doubt, eh? I know what kids your age are like.”

  I’m just about to put in that I was actually thinking about ways to improve our technology lessons when suddenly Mr Vale’s voice is booming around the classroom.

  “Everybody, gather round,” he’s saying, and gesturing with his hand to come over to our table.

  Thirty students gather around us. I can feel Lloyd’s imposing frame right behind me. If I leaned back a little I’d be touching him. I wish I had the courage to do that. I wish we were friends. I wish he’d comfort me and tell me that it doesn’t matter that I’ve embarrassed myself yet again and the teacher is making a scene about it. But I don’t really get a chance, because Mr Vale prods me out of the way a little too forcefully, and I fall off my stool. I go to grab something to hold me up, and horror of horrors, I grab at the one thing that I never wanted to meet with in this way.

  I have grabbed Lloyd Layton’s crotch.

  Oh, crap.

  The entire class is practically rolling on the floor in fits of giggles, and up until now, I would have thought it humanly impossible to turn red so fast.

  It occurs to me that it might be a good idea to let go, and I drop my hand and jump back like I’ve been burnt.

  Even the teacher is laughing. I don’t dare to look up at Lloyd, but I would imagine he’s gone bright red too. At least he’s not laughing like all the others.

  “Sorry,” I mumble in an upward direction, and settle myself back on my stool, trying in vain to hide my head in my hands.

  “That’s enough excitement for one day,” Mr Vale says finally, even though he’s still giggling himself. “I just wanted you all to see what happens when someone like Miss Clemenfield pays more attention to Mr Layton’s work than to her own.”

  Crap. He noticed that?

  Oh well, I don’t see what it matters because my face cannot get any redder right now.

  Eventually the class file away and Mr Vale removes the saw from the bench and hands it back to me with a grin. I sneak a glance over towards Lloyd. There is a definite hint of a blush in his cheeks.

  Great, not only do I embarrass myself beyond belief but I make him feel bad too.

  Perfect.

  “At least you can’t say he hasn’t noticed you anymore,” Debs whispers.

  “Thank you. That makes me feel so much better.”

  CHAPTER 10

  IT is one of our best lessons of the week. Mr Hayes, the teacher, is really laid back. Either that or he’s so old that by the time he makes it up the four flights of stairs to the computer room, he’s in danger of keeling over with a heart attack. Debs and I always get a computer next to each other, and Mr Hayes always gives us a simple task like setting up a spreadsheet or sending an email. It never takes more than ten minutes, and Mr Hayes either disappears for the rest of the lesson or sits with his feet up on the desk reading a book. Debs and I spend the rest of the lesson playing Minesweeper. He never gives us anything else to do.

  I have never been very good with computers, but here is not the place to learn.

  Lloyd is a genius with computers. When the teacher is out of the room, it’s always Lloyd who goes around fixing everyone else’s machines when they crash. And he’s always being really productive in the lesson. Not that I think playing Minesweeper or Solitaire is not productive, but Lloyd is always like “Sir, can I do the next page in the textbook?” or “Sir, can I read this magazine about computers?” or the worst one, “Sir, can I do my homework early to get ahead?”

  Now I come to think about it, Lloyd is a real overachiever. It’s quite unattractive really. There’s no excuse for finishing your homework before you actually get home. I can’t imagine me ever doing that. After all, why is it called homework if not for the reason that it allows you to play computer games in class b
ecause it should be done at home?

  Today’s lesson goes as expected. Mr Hayes gives us a spreadsheet to do; Debs and I copy off each other and finish within ten minutes. Debs says she wants to go online and chat on Robbie Williams message boards. I’m not a fan, so I decide to amuse myself by playing with the graphics program on the computer. If anyone asks, I can say I’m practising for art next term. I’ve never used the program before, and once it’s open, the only thing I can think of to draw is Lloyd Layton. What else would you do when you’re bored in lessons but draw a picture of your crush who’s sitting right across the room?

  The result is, well, if I thought I was bad at drawing on pen and paper, I’m absolutely horrific at drawing with a mouse. My interpretation of Lloyd looks like a cross between a troll and a Tyrannosaurus rex. I’ve given him long legs, short arms and big hands. I’ve even added a caption to my masterpiece. I wrote, “My name is Lloyd Layton, and I’m the tallest, coolest guy in school!” in a little speech bubble. I can’t help giggling at the drawing because it’s so awful. As an afterthought, I add, “And I look down on everyone!” to the picture.

  I look over at Debs to show her, but she’s still caught up in her message boards, so I decide I’ll email it to her instead. I might not be an artist, but it’s a fun way to waste an IT lesson. Maybe next week I’ll try doing Ewan. I click on the send button and mail it over to Debs. I know she’s online so she’ll get it straight away. I sit back and wait for her to laugh.

  I see her look up at the ping of the new email sound. It’s strange though, because that ping was so loud, it sounded like every computer in the room pinged. I’m about to tell her to turn the volume down when I notice a few people are looking at me. Ewan has burst out laughing, and someone across the room shouts out, “Nice one, Chessie!”

  “Are you insane?” Debs hisses at me.

  “What?” I ask, offended. “You can surf Robbie bloody Williams websites in a lesson, but I can’t mess around with PaintShop?”

  “No, Chess. What are you doing? You sent this from the school email address, not your own.”

  “So?”

  “Didn’t you bother to log in?”

  I shrug. “No, I just sent it.”

  “We’re on a network, Chessie. Every computer in the school just got this.”

  What?

  “What?” I splutter. “Every computer?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Even…” I gulp and point behind me to where Lloyd is sitting.

  “Even him.”

  “No way.”

  “I thought you knew about the internet and stuff now,” Debs says.

  “I do… well, I thought I did.” I’ve sunk down so far in my chair that it’s fifty/fifty whether I can get up again without falling on the floor. Actually, falling on the floor, crawling under the desk and hiding for the rest of the year sounds good right now. I want to look around and see if Lloyd has opened his email yet, but I’m too scared to see his reaction. Who am I kidding? Of course he’s opened it. His buddies are still rolling around and slapping their thighs. I wish you could un-send email. Someone should invent that. But it’s too late for me. The whole school has seen my interpretation of troll-like Lloyd Layton, and everybody knows it came from me because like a total idiot, I signed the damn drawing like a proper artist would. I have to be the stupidest girl who ever lived.

  All I can do is hope that Lloyd can take a joke. I hope he understands that the comment was about the picture of him, not about him himself. And then there’s the whole trying to explain why I’m drawing pictures of Lloyd Layton in IT lessons in the first place, regardless of captions. Why, oh why, did I sign that stupid picture?

  “What’s going on in here, then?” Mr Hayes asks, coming back into the room. “I can hear you laughing from down the hall.”

  “Oh, please sir, you have to see this,” Leigh says, beckoning him over.

  Mr Hayes looks at the screen over her shoulder and laughs.

  “Well, Chessie,” he finally says. “I hope your art teacher appreciates what a fine artistic talent you have for graphics.”

  “I don’t think he does, sir,” Leigh interjects, laughing. She always has to get her word in, stupid bitch.

  Blessedly, the bell rings at that moment. The class begins a stampede towards the door. I briefly consider jumping out of the window to get to the bottom. We’re only four floors up, I probably wouldn’t smash many bones. Even if I did break a few things, I’d get a few weeks off school, and that would suit me just fine right now.

  I slink towards the door with Debs. Lloyd is still at his desk, gathering up his books as I pass. He doesn’t even look at me. I think that I should probably stay behind and apologise or something. Explain that the caption was just a joke and I didn’t mean it nastily. I didn’t mean that he thinks he’s better than everyone else, just that he literally looks down on everyone because of his height. If I was suave and sophisticated and not a bumbling idiot, I could be all clever and make a joke and turn the whole thing into a chat up line. I could hang back, walk down the stairs with him and say something smart like, “I don’t know about tallest, but you’re definitely the coolest guy in school.” He’d thank me and say he found the picture hilarious, and he’d blow off his boy mates and hang out with me at lunchtime and show me how to do the maths homework we were given last lesson. Except he’s probably already done his on the computer, and my face is still so red that I think I’ve got a temperature, and I’m too much of a wimp to face him anyway. So I run out of class and as far down the stairs as I can get before Debs shouts at me for going without her.

  The next morning as Debs and I walk into the cafeteria to get a flapjack for breakfast – flapjacks are the only good thing about our school cafeteria – guess what is pinned up on the notice board? My picture of Lloyd.

  Of course it is. I should have known that it wouldn’t be forgotten about overnight as I was hoping it would. I should have known that someone would print it out and put it somewhere public. Judging by the way Leigh is grinning at me, it was probably her.

  I rip the picture down.

  “Francesca Clemenfield, I’m surprised at you,” Miss Gleave says, coming over. “You know better than to touch school property without permission.”

  Why does there always have to be a teacher roaming the cafeteria when you least want one, but the time that Leigh accidentally on purpose tipped coffee over my bag, there wasn’t one in sight?

  “Miss Clemenfield, do you have permission to remove that notice?” Miss Gleave asks.

  I shake my head. “No, but…”

  “Then please put it back. Only teachers and students with permission are allowed to touch the notice board.”

  “But I…”

  “Put the notice back, Miss Clemenfield, or we can go over the school rules in detention.”

  I reluctantly pin the picture back on the board and watch as Miss Gleave reads it. I can tell that she’s suppressing a laugh.

  “Thank you,” Miss Gleave says. “You know the rules better than that, Francesca.”

  I want to yell after her as she walks away. I want to yell, “Please let me take it down, wasn’t it bad enough that the whole class, Lloyd himself and God knows how many other people saw it?” But I don’t yell anything.

  Usually Debs and I go to sit at a table with Ewan and some others who get here early, but today Leigh is sitting there, so while Debs queues up for our flapjacks, I go and find the darkest corner of the room, throw my bag on the floor and sit on it. I want to disappear into the wall behind me. The worst part is that I know Lloyd will come in soon. It’s another good reason for coming to the cafeteria in the mornings – Lloyd always comes in with his buddies. Sometimes he even comes and sits at our table to talk to Ewan, but he ignores me. I’m like Invisible Girl to him. Unfortunately, I won’t be invisible this morning when he realises that I’ve basically told the whole school that he looks like a cross between a dinosaur and something out of The Three Billy Goats G
ruff.

  The only thing I can hope for is that Lloyd doesn’t read the notice board. Which actually could happen, because now I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him read it. That’s promising.

  Right on time, Lloyd and Darren come in the doors and walk over to our table. Lloyd sits in my seat. Usually this would make me jump up and down in excitement (He’s sitting in my seat!) but today it makes me feel so queasy that I give my flapjack to Debs.

  Leigh looks over at me, winks, and then I watch her lean over the table, tap Lloyd on the hand and point him in the direction of the notice board. I should have known she would never let him walk out without seeing it.

  I follow Lloyd’s gaze as he looks. He actually looks angry. He throws his bag down onto the floor, shoves his seat back, stalks over to the board, rips the picture off and tears it into little pieces before throwing the pieces on the floor. Only Lloyd could get away with a dramatic display like that. Where is Miss Gleave now? Isn’t she going to dive on him out of the shadows and tell him to glue it back together or something? Of course she doesn’t. Lloyd gets away with everything, and I really am just that unlucky.

  CHAPTER 11

  July.

  I have decided that I believe in karma. I am being punished for all the times I faked having a sprained ankle to get out of cross-country running in games. The one activity that I hate more than all the others is cross-country running. It’s when the teacher divides you into groups and makes you go for a forty-five minute jog through the forestry that surrounds the school. We have to do it once a month and almost every month Debs and I fake each other notes from our parents saying that we have sprained ankles preventing us from physical exertion that week. Then Miss Raine, our form teacher and head of the PE department, either lets us stroll along while the rest of our group runs, or even better, stay in the gym unsupervised.

  This week, however, I have a genuine sprained ankle along with a genuine note from my mum, because I really did fall up the stairs at home yesterday. Most people fall down stairs, but not me. I manage to fall up them. I’m covered in bruises and, for once, my ankle is genuinely painful. We’re gathered in the yard outside the gym, and I’m just about to limp over to Miss Raine and hand her the note when she starts calling out our groups.