What's a Girl Gotta Do?

by Holly Bourne

“I’m sure,” I said, brandishing the pie. “Anyway, Teddy needs to let it go.” I held it up and FemSoc went totally nuts, high on group hysteria. I squinted back at the boys – they were so close to the college doors that if I didn’t go now, I’d lose them.

  Now or never. Let it go, or fight fire with pie.

  Sensing my hesitation, Amber slapped me on the back.

  “Go get ’em, Lottie,” she said, encouragingly.

  So I ran, and I did.

  sixteen

  I felt distinctly more stupid sitting in my English lesson alone, covered in lipstick. No one from FemSoc was in my class. And Will had film studies with Evie and Oli first thing, so I didn’t even have him.

  It was just me, sitting in a roomful of people, holding a horn, with lipstick all over my face.

  To be fair, I didn’t get a huge amount of stares. People at college were…used to me. After the college jukebox thing last year, Evie, Amber and I had been labelled those crazy feminist girls, which we took as a huge compliment…when we weren’t alone in lessons.

  I pulled out my textbook as we waited for our teacher, Mrs Roslyn, to arrive, and read through my essay notes. If I was likely to not get an A in any subject, it would be English lit. I wasn’t very good at just examining other people’s writing without going off on my own tangents. But Dad had told me Cambridge like it if you do “traditional” subjects, so I sucked it up. And used it as a bartering point to get out of doing my extra A level. I’d only just got away with doing art, but I pleaded needing a “creative outlet”.

  A girl I vaguely knew, Jenny, who I was quite sure didn’t like me, leaned over and asked me, “Umm, Lottie. Why do you have lipstick all over your face?”

  “I do?” I cracked up laughing while she stared at me like I really was mad. All the adrenalin of throwing the pie was soaking through me, making me feel light-headed. I hadn’t even paused to see Teddy’s reaction. I’d just flung it in his direction and run to class – Evie chasing after me singing “We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted To Be” from Bugsy Malone.

  “Sorry.” I snorted myself out. “It’s for a project I’m doing. For FemSoc.”

  Jenny nodded, like it all made sense now. “Riiiiight.”

  I beamed at her. “You’re welcome to join us. You know that, right?”

  Maybe I imagined it, but she pulled her chair a little bit further back.

  “Yep. I know.”

  I’d invited her to join many a time, but Jenny was…well it was hard to find a way of describing her without me having to honk a horn at myself…but she was a girl’s girl. All pink and make-up and posting Disney stuff on her profile pages. Not that those girls can’t be feminists – but, umm… well Jenny hadn’t always said nice things about me in the toilets. I’d overheard her calling me “an attention seeker” once while I was peeing.

  I leaned back in my chair and tried to make my breath catch up with the rest of me. I focused on copying a technique Evie had taught me once that helped her when her OCD “came out to play” as she described it. In for five, out for seven…in for five…out for seven… I wonder if the pie actually hit Teddy? In for five, out for seven… I hope it did…in for five, out for seven, in for five, out for seven… My heart had just about returned to normal when Mrs Roslyn strode in, carrying a stack of poetry books in a wobbly pile.

  “Hi, everyone, sorry I’m a bit late.” She passed out the books. “I had to make two trips to the storeroom for these.”

  I studied the front of the book. Last week we’d been given Philip Larkin. And two weeks before that Walt Whitman…

  I was all alone in this class… Everyone would stare… I didn’t want to honk the horn but…but…oh no…this was going to be so embarrassing!

  The loud quacking noise of my novelty horn vibrated off the walls of the English classroom.

  I felt my face go bright red.

  Mrs Roslyn spun, trying to find the source of the noise. So did the other twenty people in my classroom. They all turned to stare at me. I waved my horn sheepishly.

  “Lottie, what on earth?”

  I had to speak. I had to speak now before I lost my nerve. Come on, Lottie, it’s okay. This is the first hurdle. The first time you’re doing this by yourself. People will get used to it. They’ll have to… Think of where male domination gets us… Think of Megan… Think of those men in the van…

  “Umm, why aren’t we studying any female poets?” I asked – my voice gave me away by shaking slightly.

  “What? What are you talking about? Why do you have a horn?”

  “That’s neither here nor there,” I found myself saying, even though I’d never used that phrase before. “But I’ve looked through our reading list for the whole A-level course and, like, over eighty per cent of the books, plays and poems we have to study are written by men. Over eighty per cent… Don’t you think that’s a bit…well…sexist?”

  At the word sexist I heard at least three separate groans, including from Jenny. As I said, after last year, I’d got a bit of a reputation.

  “Lottie, you can’t go around disrupting my class.” Mrs Roslyn ignored my question to focus on my discipline. Just for once, I longed a bit for my posh old school. We were always encouraged to speak out there – to challenge what we were told. It was one of the things that made me think I wanted to get into Cambridge.

  “I’m doing a project, for FemSoc,” I said, holding up my horn with one hand, and pointing towards my war-painted face with the other. “Where I’m honking a horn” – and various other things – “whenever I see sexism.”

  Mrs Roslyn looked like she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes. “Are you now?”

  “Yes. And, well, I know this isn’t your fault, but this reading list is total bullshit.”

  There was a hum of oooohs at my swear. I hadn’t meant to. But eighty per cent! Come on! For the national curriculum! What was wrong with women’s writing? It’s not like they hadn’t written a lot. Was it not smart enough? Unless the woman had been dead for over two hundred years? Are books not essay-worthy if a vagina sat under the writing desk? What’s that telling us, hey? That women’s voices, what women have to say, the words they want to leave behind – that they’re only twenty per cent important?

  I didn’t realize I was saying this out loud. Loudly. I also didn’t realize I was standing up until Mrs Roslyn told me to sit down.

  “Don’t you agree it’s wrong?” I pulled my chair in – wanting her to understand…to be on my side. Because otherwise – judging by the expressions on the faces around me – I looked beyond nuts, like let’s-put-her-in-a-straitjacket-and-add-in-some-padded-walls crazy crazytown.

  Mrs Roslyn looked like she had no idea what to do – her mouth just opened and closed, like a fish.

  “Well?” My heart thudded so loud in my chest, every single inch of my guts were tight.

  She shook her head, then opened her book, like none of this had happened. “Now, if we all turn to page twelve you’ll…”

  I couldn’t believe it! Was I invisible? I couldn’t be invisible. Everyone was still giving me strange looks. I had lipstick all over my face, for Christ’s sake! My inner uber-cringe morphed into anger. I watched Mrs Roslyn start reading the stupid poem written by a man, with his stupid privileged poetry penis, simmering and boiling. THIS – this was why I was doing the project. Yes, it was embarrassing, yes I felt stupid – but I’d just raised a perfectly valid point (one I’d been sitting on for months come to think of it, ever since we got the extended reading list) and, rather than talk about it, I’d just been ignored and silenced.

  I scowled down at my page, biding my time…waiting…waiting…

  Finally, Jenny put her hand up. Good old Jenny, though she didn’t know it yet.

  “Mrs Roslyn?” she asked…and before she could even ask her question, I’d got to my feet and honked my horn louder than ever before. There was no choice.

  “LOTTIE, WHAT ON EARTH?”

  I honked longer t
han was necessary. It really was spectacularly satisfying. Everyone turned to me in stunned horror.

  “Your title,” I said…knowing the moment I finished talking, I’d be chucked out of class… Maybe I should’ve warned college after all. “It’s sexist,” I stated, hearing the whole room breathe in sharply. Mrs Roslyn’s face drew in on itself. “Why ‘Mrs’?” I continued. “I mean your husband is born a Mr and lives his whole life as a Mr. But not you. No, you have to declare to everyone whether or not you’re married. Society dictates that you have to become a MRS now, instead of a miss. It’s the twenty-first century and yet the first thing women are asked on any form is to define their marital status.”

  Silence. Silence before the storm.

  Her face turned red. The class was more silent than prayer-time at church. Then, because I was still pissed off, I shrugged, smiled, and for laughs, honked my horn one more time.

  The last toot of the horn did it…

  The rage visibly seeped through every part of Mrs Roslyn’s body. She shook…she opened her mouth…to explode at me…to send me out…to God knows what…

  She took a big breath in… “Lottie.”

  I braced myself…

  We were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the door. We all turned as one of the college secretaries strode in, smoothing down her cardigan with the self-consciousness of someone who has a whole room staring at her.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, Mrs Roslyn… But we need Charlotte Thomas in the head teacher’s office.” She paused for impact, or maybe I imagined it. “As soon as possible.”

  seventeen

  Teddy told on me. Of course he did. He stood – grinning – outside the head teacher’s office, leaning against the wall. I noticed a tiny bit of cream on his neck which he’d obviously missed in the clean-up. Good.

  After being kept waiting for almost an hour, watching Mrs Roslyn go in and out of the office to complain about me, our joint meeting with Mr Packson didn’t last very long. All the trouble I was in quickly dispersed when I explained Teddy had called us sluts. And we had the same Oh dear, are we really back here again? talking-to we’d had so many times last year.

  “I can’t believe you’re not suspending her!” Teddy pulled his collar up even more to try and assert himself. “I mean, she threw a pie!”

  Mr Packson sat back in his chair and put his fingertips together. “Yes. But you verbally assaulted her. If I’m going to start suspending people, then I’ll have to suspend you both.”

  I held my breath, trying not to give myself away. My insides flashmobbed with nerves – suspension would ruin me. It would ruin my chances of Cambridge. Dad would go totally nuts.

  Suspension wouldn’t ruin Teddy… As far as I knew, his only upcoming life goal was a gap year in Thailand for some “tight poon” – as he’d so delightfully called it, loudly, in the college cafeteria. The Teddy I briefly knew would never have used the phrase “tight poon”, though I guess I hadn’t really known him very well. Especially as I never could’ve predicted his huge reaction to our break-up.

  “Sir,” I said, so much desperation shoved into that one syllable.

  Teddy gave me a side-glance, and smirked. Mr Packson raised his hand to stop me, and I bit my lip. How could it have got this real and backlashy and scary in just one morning? And I still had a month to go… I watched him deliberate and prayed to Buddha, even though he’s not a god and doesn’t really do prayers. My only hope was that Mr Packson needed me as much as I needed him. It made the college look good, if they got students into Oxbridge. And I was one of just five in this year group with a shot. Finally he said, “I’m not going to suspend either of you.”

  I almost doubled over in relief.

  “But you’ve got to stop antagonizing each other…”

  Teddy and I gave each other a look. It was never going to happen. For some reason, he was never going to forgive me for breaking up with him…

  “And, Lottie, violence is never the answer.”

  “It was hardly violence, it was a cream pie!” I blurted out.

  “And it ruined my shirt!”

  “You have eight million other Lacoste polo shirts exactly the same.”

  “STOP IT!” Mr Packson shouted. “If the two of you are ever in this room at the same time again, I really will suspend you both. Teddy, go to class. Lottie…” Uh-oh…he wasn’t finished with me. “Stay here.”

  Teddy shot me a smug grin before sauntering out and I glared at him then stood up straighter for Mr Packson. I wasn’t so scared now… I had Mr Packson in the palm of my hand. He was the one who let us start FemSoc and who organized all my extra A-level stuff. He was even the one who encouraged me to drop history.

  But, right now, he was levelling me with a stare.

  “What’s going on, Lottie? A cream pie? I’m not even going to begin to understand. Are you trying to start a fastmobby, is that what they’re called?”

  “Do you mean ‘flashmob’?”

  “Never mind. And Mrs Roslyn just came in to say that you made personal comments about her in your lesson. About her title or something?”

  “I have an explanation.”

  He leaned back further, a tiny smile at the very corners of his mouth. “Ahh, I thought you might.”

  So I twirled my hands and explained my project to him – the rules I’d come up with, why I started it, how long it was running for. His face slowly morphed from a wry smile, to disbelief, then horror. His grey hair got greyer, if possible. By the time I’d brought him up to speed on my cream-pieing of Teddy and honking of Mrs Roslyn he was actually standing up.

  “Lottie, I can’t allow you to do this at college.”

  I took a sharp breath in. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…Lottie…” He stumbled on his words and I knew then how freaked out he was. “FemSoc was one thing. That was hard enough to get through the college governors.”

  I crossed my arms. “It shouldn’t be.”

  “Charlotte, you will not interrupt me.”

  Uh-oh, he’d called me Charlotte. I was in trouble. I nodded with subservience. I couldn’t get suspended…

  “Charlotte, you have to agree the college has been very” – he coughed – “accepting of your extra-curricular behaviours.”

  I wanted to interrupt again, but felt I couldn’t. That I’d lose my shot at winning him over, and then I’d lose my shot at doing this in good faith. I was going to do it anyway, with or without his say-so, but it would really help my entire life if I didn’t get suspended.

  “But you can’t physically attack other students. Especially not with…I mean…cream pies? This isn’t Bugsy Malone!” I tried not to smile. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this project means a lot to you, but I absolutely cannot allow you to carry it out on college property.”

  “But what if I stop pie-ing people?”

  “Charlotte, it’s not just about the pie!” He raised his voice and I imagined my hair being blown back. “I mean, it goes without saying that the pies break college rules. But it’s more than that… Do you not see how being this…pedantic… may upset people?”

  I opened my mouth then closed it again – freaking out.

  “Take poor Mrs Roslyn for instance. You have no right to go around attacking people…not teachers, not students.”

  “But I…I’m not attacking her! I’m attacking sexism!” I was flabbergasted. Flummoxed. Totally and utterly bamboozled. He sat down, in a way that suggested the conversation was over. But it couldn’t be over. He hadn’t even tried to understand. All the shit that happened in his very own college that had caused me to take such action. “I…” I stumbled again.

  He looked up, like he was surprised I was still there. “That’s all, Charlotte.”

  I’d lost him. I’d lost my chance. I needed to win this, but I’d used up so much of my energy already – with the humiliation in English, with the anger at Teddy, with being totally blanked at the bus stop. My inner fight was flagging at the worst possible
time…

  A loud knock at the door.

  “Come in,” the head teacher bellowed. The door swung open and we both turned to look.

  Will stood there – his eyes shining bright behind his glasses. His arms crossed. He bowled through, pushing past the secretary who was trying to announce his arrival.

  “What now?” Mr Packson asked, his voice sharp in response to Will’s arrogance.

  “Will,” I said in wonder, at the same time the secretary said, “William Chaplain, he says he’s Charlotte’s partner in this project.”

  Will didn’t even make eye-contact – he just strode up to the desk.

  “You can’t stop us from doing our project,” he said. “Well, you can try. But you’ll regret it.”

  Mr Packson peered down his nose through his glasses. “Excuse me?”

  Will took another step forward. “I’ve rung the local newspaper. They’re running a story on Lottie. Full page. She’s being interviewed within a week. Just think what they’ll make of it if the college isn’t behind a campaign for basic human equality.”

  I stared at him in utter astonishment. The local paper? What? Since when? And how did he even know I was in here?

  Will carried on, before Mr Packson had a chance to respond. “Think about it. Why is Lottie even compelled to do something like this? What’s happened to her, as a student under your guardianship, that she’s been forced to take such drastic action? She was verbally assaulted today. In broad daylight, on your grounds, and you do what? You give him a ticking-off and think that will solve it? I’ve got the entire thing on film. We’re uploading it to our video channel tonight…”

  Yikes – Will really did not come across as an anti-feminist at all. There was no sarcastic drone in his voice like normal, no smugness – just passion and fire and, mmm, yummy yummy, but I couldn’t really afford to get distracted by that just now.

  “You have a choice, sir. You can either support Lottie on this, and come out as a college that doesn’t tolerate sexism, one that instead champions students who fight for equality…or you can be the head teacher who lets girls be verbally abused on campus and tells them off when they complain.”