by Grace Dent
Sometimes the penchant to attack Fleur with my school bag just for being so flipping gorgeous is especially virulent.
“ ’Bout time, slowpoke,” Fleur smiles. “Thought you were a no-show.”
“Me too! Hurray, you’re here!” says Claudette in the midst of cleaning her specs. Today Claudette looks like ... well, just like a girl who could adorn the cover of the Blackwell School prospectus depicting a wonderful example of a model pupil. All bushy tailed and eager of manner in a nicely pressed uniform.
“Hmmm, sorry, girls,” I say sheepishly. “Look, let’s go, shall we? Let’s get today over with.”
Claude and Fleur didn’t always come to collect me for school every day. However, as my attendance became slightly more “erratic,” the LBD decided I needed extra incentive. I actually cut out only once, but they seemed to think it was a real big deal. I don’t recommend cutting, by the way; it quickly transpired that hiding by myself in the local municipal library from 9 to 4 was even more tedious than double algebra. Not glamorous and wild-childish at all. Sigh. That’s the problem with hating school: I haven’t quite worked out where I want to be instead. Oh, and Magda doesn’t know about any of the above (as you may have guessed by the fact that I’m still in possession of a head).
“So,” says Fleur, putting her phone into her bag, “what did your mum say?”
“What?” I say, playing stupid.
“Your mum ... about Astlebury? You promised to ask her last night.”
“You did ask her, didn’t you?” says Claude, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“Yesss, of course I’ve asked her,” I lie blatantly, as it seems like the easiest thing to do. Look, I’ve been awake only thirty-eight minutes! I’m not proud! You try tackling the wrath of these two demons when you’re half asleep.
“Yeah, ’course I asked her. I did it just then, er ... just before I came out—that’s why I’m late.”
“And!?” trill Claude and Fleur in stereo.
“She ... er, said that she’d ... think about it and get back to me.”
“Poo. That’s totally rubbish,” says Claude glumly. Then she checks herself. “Ooh, sorry, Ron, no offense to your mum and that. We could just do with getting a move on. The tickets are, like, ninety-five percent sold out. We’re really leaving it late now.”
“I know, I know,” I sigh.
“And, look, I don’t want to be the harbinger of doom here but... ,” Fleur says, sounding slightly rattled, “but ... oh, nothing, it’s not important.”
“What?” I say, grabbing her arm, stopping her.
“Tell us, Fleur,” says Claude.
“Oh, it’s not that bad, it’s just irritating,” frowns Fleur. “You see, I heard yesterday that Panama Goodyear and her moron disciples already got sorted for tickets ... they’re all going to Astlebury.”
“Wah? Ugggggggggh!” I groan. This news feels like an ax between my shoulder blades. “But ... but ... noooooo! That’s so unfair! Are you sure?”
“Yep,” nods Fleur. “I walked back from school with Liam last night. He’s a surprisingly good source of gossip for a bloke.”
“Oh, well, that’s just great, isn’t it?” huffs Claude, pursing her lips smaller than a rat’s ass as she speaks. “And I suppose Panama’s daddy’s lending them his Land Rover to drive down in, is he?”
“Hmmm,” says Fleur, rolling her eyes. “You mean the £60,000 bad boy with the cast-iron rhino repellent stuck on the front?”
“Pghh ... ’cos Mrs. Goodyear needs that diesel-guzzling safari truck to get to Safeway and back, doesn’t she?” I hiss. “Flipping eco-fascists.”
“Huh, well, ‘Crush anything in our path’ is the Goodyear family motto, isn’t it?” tuts Claude. “They need that rhino prod to scoop away peasants.”
The LBD have agreed on many occasions that bitching about Panama is a waste of time and just playing into their hands ... but sometimes it’s just so flipping necessary.
“So, so,” I say, taking a deep, steadying breath, “are all of Panama’s clique going? What about Abigail? And Leeza? And what about Zane Patterson!? Old orange-faced Zane must have got his nose into this one, has he?!”
“You’ve forgotten Derren,” sighs Fleur, naming a particularly loathsome individual who flounces around Blackwell with a Prada sweater wrapped around his shoulders and spray-on pants that you can virtually see the outline of his nether dangly parts through. Derren spends all day sneering and jeering at anyone not as aesthetically blessed as himself.
“Y’know, I think I actually hate him,” says Claude, clasping her hand in front of her mouth at the outburst. “Er, mmm, in a good-spirited Christian way, of course.”
“You’ve not heard the worst bit yet,” Fleur winces. “Apparently Panama’s dad bought all five of the gang tickets as a little present. Liam reckons another of the Goodyear’s great-uncles has died, leaving them even more cash and property. He reckons they actually own most of Wales now.”
“Right, enough! Enouggggh!” says Claude, pushing us all along. “I don’t care about them anyway. It’s us we need to worry about. We need to get permission from our folks and our own tickets tout de suite! Oh, and that means really quick, for those of us who’ve snoozed through French all year,” deadpans Claude, looking straight at me.
“Hmmm,” I sigh, trudging along beside her. Astlebury seems a million miles away now, in a distant fun-filled cosmiverse.
We turn the corner to Blackwell Road, at the top of which lie the school’s playing fields and red-brick buildings. Quickly we notice something gooey splattered all over the pavements. Eggs.
“Eggs!” shouts Claudette.
“Yak!” sneers Fleur, stepping over oodles of shell and sticky mess.
“Uh-oh, here we go ... ,” I groan, with a sense of impending doom.
In the distance, I spy more smashed eggs, and recognize a Year 7 kid trying to climb out of a large trash can, where he’s been deposited by his friends. The air’s becoming hazy, and a floury taste is coating the back of my throat. On the floor a smashed-up bag of self-rising flour is being pecked by a disappointed pigeon.
“Watch out!” shouts eagle-eyed Claude as another egg propels through the morning air toward us, narrowly missing my head and splatting the blazer of a lad coming up behind us.
“Gonna get you, retard!” squeals the kid, pulling out a water pistol and running past, drenching my back.
Ker-spllllat! goes another egg, narrowly missing Claude’s head and landing by my feet.
The LBD stare at it, then carry on walking in silence.
It’s going to be a very long day.
“So what did Paddy say then?” I ask Fleur as we walk through Blackwell’s black wrought-iron gates. “You were commencing Stage Two hasslement last night, weren’t you?”
Fleur shakes her head a bit, then raises her little snub nose huffily skyward. “Hmmm ... well, news isn’t good,” she confesses. “Remember I first asked him on Monday when he was in his study? Y’know, ringing and e-mailing all his James Bond Society web-nerd buddies and all that dead important stuff he gets up to in mission control?”
“Yeah, he said he needed time to think, didn’t he?” I say.
“Mmm, sort of. Actually, to be more specific, I showed him the NME advert, and said we all wanted to go to Astlebury Festival, and he looked at it, then he sort of stared at me for a bit ... and then he started crossing his eyes and dribbling ... then he began slapping his forehead and rocking backward and forward in his swivel chair, shouting, ‘Saskia! Saaaaskia! Agghhh, it’s all happening again! I’ve fallen through an anomaly loophole in the time-space continuum! The events of last year are replaying and I’m powerless to stop it. Harness the laser! Agghhh! Hellllp!’ ”
Fleur carries on walking, not even cracking a smile. I can’t help sniggering. He makes me laugh, Paddy Swan ... well, for a grown-up anyway.
“He is verily a comedic genius,” Fleur says witheringly. “So anyway, I pestered him again last night, a
nd this time he claimed he needed time to ‘research the proposal.’ Pah! Research?”
“What sort of research?” I say. “Does he want to check if there are segregated male and female camping facilities? Snogging police? What?”
“Huh. More likely that the fascist pig clearly knows that ever since Carmella Dupris confirmed she’s headlining on Saturday night, tickets have almost sold out. There’s a countdown running on the official Astlebury website.”
“Oh, surely he’s not that clued in,” says Claude.
“Huh! Well, I’ve been snooping on his Mac and Astlebury.com is bookmarked on his Internet favorites. I’ve got him sussed ...” Fleur flicks her blonde locks and rolls her eyes. “I absolutely loathe him,” she concludes.
“Awww, no you don‘t,” says Claude. “And besides, Fleur, try not to lose your rag just yet, ’cos if we get the go-ahead, we’re going to need his credit card to book the tickets. I mean, who else would trust us to pay him the cash back?”
Claude’s right. Paddy might be a right royal James Bond-obsessed pain in the butt, but he’s stuck his neck out for us before. The crazy fool. “S’pose so,” mumbles Fleur.
We walk through the main gates heading for the central entrance, joining the happy throng of 1,000 other inmates gearing up for their final day of term. The stench of rotten cabbage and decaying animal is ripe in the air: end-of-term stink bombs, I hope, although it could be a delicious dining hall stew being reheated for the final time before being frozen for autumn term. In the main cloakroom, Deputy Head Mrs. Guinevere and Ms. Dunn the scatty religious studies teacher are prowling the floors wearing looks of perpetual suspicion. As we pass the back of the administration corridor, past Mr. McGraw’s office, I spot our headmaster’s beaky, depressed nose poking through the blinds, surveying the brewing end-of-term disorder.
“Anyway, Claude,” I say as we reach our homeroom, “how’s it hanging with Mrs. Cassiera? Does it look hopeful?”
“No. Still waiting,” frowns Claude. “Only now, she says she’s going to ask ‘him upstairs’ what he thinks she should do. What with Astlebury being such a potentially dangerous place and, y’know, with it being my first time at a pop festival, she needs some ‘divine guidance.’ ”
“Who lives upstairs?” says Fleur, looking confused. “Is your uncle Leonard staying? Does that mean you and Mika are sharing a room again?!”
“She means God, you great numpty,” I say, shaking my head. Claude’s mum is très religious. She’s got a hotline straight to heaven ... y’know, a bit like the pope. Well, except I imagine the pope probably asks God dead important stuff like, “Why, oh Holy Father, do the Ethiopian orphans suffer so much?” and probably not random trivia like, “Will it rain next week for the Ghanaian Methodist Church chicken cookout?” or “Should I have a demi-wave on my hair for Sandra’s wedding or just buy a big flamboyant hat?”
The Lord, Gloria Cassiera often says, knows all within this kingdom, as well as the next.
“Oh, well, flipping great,” says Fleur dramatically, sashaying through the classroom doors and finding her seat. “That’s us totally stuffed then. Let’s just forget it all, should we?”
Claude says nothing. She just thins her lips.
As I pass, I poke Claude in her flat belly and wink, as if to say, “Ignore Miss Huffypants, Claude, we’re all in the same boat here.”
Claude winks back, as if to say, “I know, don’t worry about me. Oh, and by the way, Ronnie, I’m still hopeful. We could still go.”
I really want to believe her.
arrivals
No matter how much I stare at the clocks during double English, the hands won’t shift around any faster. We’re spending the last lesson before summer break comparing our creative writing assignments, although in reality this has mainly been Mr. Swainson, our English teacher, dissecting and applauding Claude’s “stunning composition,” or, as I see it, 900 words of pretentious codswallop titled “Arrivals.”
“Claude’s work brought a tear to my eye,” bleats Swainson, dressed in his trademark sludge-colored suit jacket worn with faded denim jeans that he tries to pass off as trousers. “It was so moving!”
Claude bristles with pride.
“Bravo,” I mutter, by now on the verge of stabbing myself to death with my pencil.
At some juncture, in the eyes of the Blackwell staff, I can’t pinpoint when exactly, Claude Cassiera made the leap from everyday pupil to Blackwell royalty. I think they had a crowning and anointing ceremony that day I was cutting. It’s all very weird.
“You see, the female lead character in Claude’s story woke up one day and found she’d laid a egg,” coos Mr. Swainson. “And when the egg hatched, it was an identical version of herself, wearing the same school uniform and everything!”
“Wow!” gasps the entire front row. “That’s really clever!”
“It worked on so many levels!” confirms Mr. Swainson. “So I had to give Claude the class’s only A star.”
Another A flipping star? Gnnngnn!
I don’t know what I’m more angry about: the fact that Claude got an A for basically rehashing one of the mad dreams I told her about when my mother was pregnant, or the fact that I got only a C for my quasi-pathetic ramblings about a madcap badger.
“The theme was supposed to be ‘new life,’ you great clot!” hisses Claude.
“Well, no one told me that!” I grumble.
“I told you,” snaps Claude. “It was written on the board too!”
Claude’s narked because she knows I was too busy moping about Jimi to pay attention to such trivialities.
“If you just tried a bit, you could get A’s too!” huffs Claude, sounding exactly like a less fun-loving version of my mother.
Thankfully, the lunch bell resonates through the building, meaning I can escape.
“Gotta go, I’ve got an appointment,” says Claude, squeezing my shoulder reproachfully. In a flash she’s got her bag and gone, I’m not sure where. The teachers probably want to carry her shoulder high around the yard or something.
I pack my bag moodily and trudge off toward the dining hall to eat cheap cupcakes with Fleur.
As I turn into the middle-school corridor, I get the most peculiar sensation.
I just know Jimi Steele’s waiting for me.
I know it before I actually know it, if you know what I mean. My radar picks him up, his eyes drilling into me. There’s an unmistakable way Jimi holds himself, with his shoulders back and his hands in his pockets, propped up against the Year 10 notice board, his big bag with his art projects in it over his shoulder.
My stomach lurches.
“All right?” Jimi says, wincing a bit, as if he’s expecting a smack, either verbal or physical.
“Oh, hello,” I say, trying to be curt, while trying desperately not to smile. Somehow a small grin fights its way past my molars.
We stand staring at each other while a posse of Year 7 kids wanders past nudging each other, whispering and grinning.
Ugh. Does everyone in this entire school know we’re in the middle of rough patch? It seems so.
And why didn’t I make more of an effort to look nice today?
Jimi, of course, looks his typical seriously windswept yet gorgeous self. A tad tired, perhaps, but still dead sexy in a pale blue baggy T-shirt with stripes and his slate gray oversized jeans with the ripped left knee. A small amount of sandy hair is protruding from his T-shirt top.
Sigh.
“Nice chest wig, wereboy,” I say dryly.
Jimi chortles slightly bashfully. “Ugggh, I know, it’s getting worse, isn’t it,” he moans. “Naz says I look like a strategically shaven chinchilla.”
“Hmmm ... ,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “Naz has a salient point there. There are depilatory creams for your sort of problem, y’know?”
“Mmm ... well, if it begins to grow on the backs of my hands, I’ll look into it.” Jimi smiles, holding up both of his hands like big claws.
We g
aze at each other.
There’s a small awkward silence.
“You look good today,” he says, a tiny bit resentfully.
“Do I?”
“Yeah ...” He nods. “Well, y’know ... you just look like you.”
Jimi looks majorly upset now. With a small amount of prodding I could probably get him blubbing. But the stupid thing is, I don’t want to make him feel any worse. In fact I want to wrap my arms around him right then and tell him that ...
Woooooh, hang on! This sort of airy-fairy girlie behavior will not do at all! There’s a good reason I’m not talking to this nincompoop. I must, must, must remember that.
“So anyway, Jimi,” I say slightly officiously, “what exactly can I do for you?”
The change of tone seems to startle him. “Errrr? Well ... I ... ,” he says, grappling around for something to say.
“‘Cos I gotta go,” I say, beginning to move past him. “I’m meeting Fleur, y’see?”
I’m just calling his bluff, really.
“No, Ronnie, hey, don’t go!” he says, grabbing my shoulder gently. “Look, babe, I’ve come to talk to you. Y’know, about stuff. This is so stupid! And you won’t pick your flipping phone up!”
“Well, I’m not just dropping everything to speak to you now,” I huff. “I’ve got plans.”
“Oh, c’mon!” Jimi pleads, grabbing for my hand. “Look, let me buy you lunch?”
I stop in my tracks. Despite being highly principled, I’m broke and hungry. “By lunch, do you mean actual lunch lunch?” I ask witheringly. “Or do you mean buy me a pie and let me sit on a wall watching you sprain stuff?”
Jimi rolls his eyes. “No! I mean actual, proper, real, sit-down, knife-and-fork lunch.” Jimi smiles, rooting around in his brain for a venue. “At, er, Ruby‘s! You like Ruby’s, don’t you?”
Gnngnn... I looooove Ruby’s! It’s a fab little cafe just off the high street where all the coolest sixth formers go. The hippies who own it sell amazing organic cakes and play break-beat CDs and hip-hop.
He’s not making this very easy, is he?
