Announced by a thump on the door, Mrs Myers walked in briskly, waving her hand in an impatient gesture telling the class to sit down before they could say a word. Unnerved, they looked at each other anxiously.
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Sarah.
‘Well, everyone, we can safely say that wasn’t your greatest performance. I take it you haven’t enjoyed algebra this term?’ she asked menacingly, in her lilting Welsh accent. After no reply from the roomful of pupils fidgeting uneasily in their chairs, she continued regardless.
‘Results in the usual manner, read out according to the register.’
They all hated this, some hid their faces behind their books. Their marks were revealed with groans and grimaces. For once, no one had more than 65% and that was Julia Hunt, the maths genius. Alice was red-faced and panicked. Her name had not been called – had she been left out for a reason, was her mark that bad?
‘Have I missed anyone?’ asked Mrs Myers.
‘Er, just me,’ said Alice quietly, her hand only half raised as if she were expecting it to be bitten off.
‘Oh, yes, yours...’ She smiled and held her clipboard to her chest. ‘Alice Parker 100%.’
A brief, stunned silence was followed by an outburst of noise, exclamations of amazement and disgust, one or two congratulatory comments and Lawrence attempting to stick his fingers down his throat and be sick. Quinton lifted the lid of his desk and pretended to be Alice, a mock-look of surprise on his face like that of a winning beauty queen, bowing to left and right, then blowing kisses in the direction of Mrs Myers. The coven had turned around and was looking at her scornfully, shaking its three heads. Even Sarah looked as though she had been slapped in the face by an invisible hand, her mouth partly open ready to say something, but seemingly unable to get the words out. Alice had her crimson face in her hands, elbows on her desk. She was absolutely horrified. How could this happen? She had only ever been average at maths and now this, even without revision?
‘Don’t be embarrassed Alice,’ said Mrs Myers calmly. ‘We’re all over the moon for you. You should be proud of yourself, you’ve clearly worked hard for this.’
Alice cringed and wished the floor beneath her chair would open and swallow her up. She glanced cautiously at Sarah, who finally managed to release the words that had been stuck in her throat.
‘Well done. You are a brain box, aren’t you?’
‘I just can’t believe it,’ whispered Alice. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Anyway, Year 8,’ Mrs Myers continued. ‘Now that someone has set a precedent for what can be achieved when you put your mind to it, let’s start the next chapter. Circles, arcs and sectors for the last week of term.’
There was a widespread moan and a voice from the front piped up, ‘Can we make the circles into Christmas baubles, Miss?’
‘Grow up, Sebastian,’ she snapped.
When the buzzer finally rang for break, Alice had never been so relieved. She packed her rucksack as quickly as she could and rushed off without waiting for Sarah. She headed for a dark corner of the locker room, where she tried to pull herself together and munched thoughtfully on the jelly beans that Thomas had bought for her.
‘Only art and English to get through now,’ she whispered aloud, giving herself a pep-talk. ‘No marks or test results due.’ She sank back into some coats hanging on pegs and reached into her bag for the mince pies.
*
Alice looked forward to art. She considered the lessons a fun part of her timetable. They didn’t even have to stand up for the teacher - Mr Sheldon was always there already, enjoying life in his light, airy art room. Alice had wondered if his hair and beard were white because the sunlight in there had bleached them, he spent so much time there. The class sat around two huge tables, which had been prepared with a neatly arranged bowl of fruit at each end. Sarah threw down her bag on the chair next to Alice.
‘And where did you get to at break?’ she demanded, sounding miffed.
‘Can I have your attention, please,’ began Mr Sheldon in his usual, quiet manner. Alice was grateful for the interruption. They settled down.
‘No prize for guessing what you will be drawing today,’ he said with a grin. ‘The purpose of this exercise is to study the shape of the objects, notice where the light falls and where the shadows are cast. Paper and charcoal will be passed round by Sebastian and Julia, please.’ They got up to do as asked. ‘And before any prankster considers it – DO NOT TOUCH THE FRUIT! This is a still life exercise – it’s called still life for a reason.’
Sebastian knew that was aimed at him and turned his nose up. ‘This paper smells like sick,’ he informed everyone as he handed it out. He had a point.
Alice set to work immediately, hoping that the look of concentration on her face would deter Sarah from asking any more questions. It worked. She soon had the outline of the fruit piled in its bowl on her paper and prepared to draw each item in detail. Starting with the orange on top, she drew the fruit carefully but quickly, adding shading to each piece as she completed it. Several times she tried to chew the end of the charcoal. It was a bad habit, chewing pens and pencils when she was focussed on something. She even drew the shadow cast by the whole bowl upon the table. When she had finished she sat back and assessed her work. ‘Not bad,’ she thought. She looked around to see how everyone else was doing and, to her surprise, they hadn’t accomplished much. Sarah was still drawing the outline, Quinton and Lawrence were painstakingly putting dots on the first orange to convey its texture.
Fortunately, no one had noticed that Alice had finished. She could feel the colour rising in her cheeks as she began to panic – the last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself again. She leaned forward positioning her left arm around her work, adding a few tiny strokes to make it look as though she were still working. She stared blankly at the fruit. After a couple of minutes time-wasting, the smell of the fruit seemed so strong to her, it was almost overwhelming. She licked her lips. It did look good. Her mouth watered at the thought of the juicy orange, or better still, that slightly speckled, over-ripe banana. Without realising, she had begun to rock backwards and forwards in her chair, overcome by desperation for sugar and fear of what was now inevitable...
She lunged across the table and seized the banana, tearing it open and eating great chunks of it as fast as she could. It was so sweet, she felt happier with every bite. Immersed in the pleasure of consuming her prey, Alice was oblivious to the shrieks and cries of annoyance that erupted from her classmates. Mr Sheldon stood at the far end of their table, arms folded, shaking his head.
Sarah thumped the table in temper and bellowed, ‘ALICE!’ in her face.
Alice blinked several times, looking around with a dazed expression. One by one, she saw the furious faces of those who had been drawing the same bowl as herself, then the amusement of the rest of the class. Looking down at the banana skin in her hand, the reality of what she had just done sank in. She felt a tear run down her burning red face and wiped it briskly with the sleeve of her jumper.
‘I’m sorry everyone,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Perhaps hunger got the better of you,’ suggested Mr Sheldon. ‘Make sure you’re eating enough, Alice.’
Sarah snorted and turned her face away. ‘No fear,’ she muttered. Alice hung her head in shame.
‘There’s another banana here,’ said Mr Sheldon. ‘Julia, would you attempt to rearrange the fruit as it was, please. The rest of you, back to work, the show’s over.’ He leaned over Alice’s shoulder and studied what she had drawn.
‘That’s actually your best piece of work yet. Pretty good, considering we’re only twenty-five minutes into the lesson. Have a go at something else.’ He reached up to one of his many shelves of arty junk and chose another object which he placed in front of her. It appeared to be a dog’s skull. Nice.
‘Rover will keep an eye on you for the rest of the lesson,’ whispered Quinton
with a smirk. Alice had already noticed that it did, indeed, have one bony eye socket on her and one on the fruit bowl.
*
Lunch passed without incident, thankfully, apart from the predictable mockery over the banana episode. As they queued in the canteen, Alice daren’t even look at the desserts, as she could hear muffled giggling and chuckling behind her.
‘Just ignore them,’ said Sarah. She seemed to have forgotten her annoyance earlier. Alice chose a jacket potato with baked beans and a carton of orange juice. She slid her tray reluctantly to the cashier, grumpy because she had deprived herself of pudding, but as she reached this rather rotund, jolly dinner lady, a bowl of apple crumble was pushed onto her tray.
‘There you go, my dear,’ she said kindly. ‘That’s on me.’
‘Really?’ queried Alice, surprised but very pleased. ‘Thank you very much.’ She paid for the rest and hurried off to find a spot for her and Sarah at a table away from their year.
‘I take it you want to eat in peace,’ commented Sarah. Alice nodded. She tucked in to her potato, making a conscious effort to slow down, although she was impatient to start the crumble.
‘Please tell me you didn’t read the chapters for English,’ said Sarah, ‘because I didn’t.’
‘No, I didn’t. I flicked through the book and thought I’d better do as you told me, so I put it down and went to sleep. In the same way as I didn’t revise for that flippin’ maths test. I promise.’
‘Oh, great. In that case, I expect you know the book inside out,’ groaned Sarah, chasing her lumpy soup around the bowl.
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Nothing would surprise me with you at the moment.’
They finished their lunch in silence, both dreading the next lesson, though for very different reasons.
Their fears were justified. As Mrs Knight chose people at random to summarise those chapters they had read, Sarah was found out. She clearly hadn’t read her three and stuttered her excuses shame-facedly. She was given another four to read by Wednesday. Alice was also picked on, in spite of trying to hide behind Olivia, but as she opened her mouth to confess that she too had not done her homework, an impressive account of her chapters flowed out. Only when it had finished could she slam her mouth shut like a trapdoor.
‘Where did that come from?’ she asked herself, flabbergasted.
‘You shocking liar,’ hissed Sarah, furious.
‘Excellent, Alice,’ observed Mrs Knight. ‘A commendable précis.’
As soon as she turned her back to write on the blackboard, Lucinda spun round in her seat. Twisting her ponytail, she had made a bun on her head like Mrs Knight’s and was blowing kisses at Alice. Even Sarah couldn’t help smiling at this.
‘Charming,’ said Alice. ‘I’m telling you, I never read it.’
‘You must be possessed then, since you’ve no control over your tongue,’ Sarah pointed out.
‘Un..be...lievable! Do you honestly think...’ Alice began to rant.
‘No, not really. You’re just a lucky cow, being brainy and not working for it.’
‘Quiet girls,’ barked Mrs Knight. ‘Unless you want more chapters.’
*
After a slow walk home, contemplating her bewildering day, Alice opened the front door to be greeted by Jack, who had been waiting for her. Barking and wagging his tail, he jumped up and licked her face, towering above her on his hind legs.
‘Hello boy,’ said Alice, dropping her rucksack to give him a hug. ‘At least someone still likes me.’
Thomas appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘That good, was it?’
‘Yep.’ She wandered into the kitchen followed closely by Jack, took a carton of apple juice from the fridge and skulked up to her room. She threw herself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Why did she have to be different? Would she never fit in?
There was a knock at the door and Thomas came in with a packet of Jammy Dunkers.
‘What happened?’ he asked, offering her a biscuit.
‘Why do you care, all of a sudden?’ snapped Alice defensively.
Thomas raised his hands in defeat and retreated to the door. ‘Only asking, grumpy.’
‘You can leave the biscuits.’
‘Yes m’lady.’ He put them on her desk and tiptoed out backwards.
‘Weirdo.’
‘I heard that.’
She thought it was strange that he was spending less time in his room lately and more time sticking his nose into what she was doing. More to the point, what wasn’t strange at the moment. Hardly sleeping, aches and pains, eating loads, suddenly doing well at school and even knowing the content of a book she hadn’t read. Not to mention the visions outside her window, or the secret kidnapping that Grandad knew about. And now Thomas being nice to her! Where he was concerned, being normal wasn’t normal.
For Alice, that night proved as rotten as the day had been. Wide awake, she was turning things over and over in her mind, searching in vain for answers. Then came the usual headache followed by a hot, itchy back. Only tonight it was worse. Far worse. There was a deep pain in her upper back and shoulders as well as the itching. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get comfortable. At ten past two in the morning, she couldn’t stand it any longer and went for a shower. Holding the cool jet of water on her back she breathed deeply as it brought relief to the soreness. She stayed there for twenty minutes or so, then wrapped a towel around herself to return to her room. But first she turned her throbbing back to the mirror and craned her neck to look over her shoulder. It seemed rather swollen and the skin was very red and angry-looking.
‘Please, no!’ she gasped. ‘I don’t want my back to be as spotty as Richard Pickel’s face!’ Anxious and dismayed, she tiptoed across the landing.
‘Pssst.’
Alice jumped, startled, and saw Thomas’s head poking out from his bedroom door. ‘What’s up?’ he asked in a low voice.
‘Just my back playing up again,’ she replied, trying to sound brave.
‘Wait a sec,’ he said, disappearing into his room. He came back with a small, royal-blue glass bottle. ‘Spray some of this on before you get back into bed. It’s really good.’
‘What is it?’
‘Just something I was given by a friend, for skin problems.’
‘Okaaaay,’ agreed Alice reluctantly. She took it and closed her door.
The antique-looking bottle may have looked suspicious, but since the itching had started again, Alice sprayed plenty on. ‘Worth a try,’ she muttered to herself. To her surprise, her skin instantly felt calmer and the pain subsided. Finally! She got back into bed and fell asleep.
Chapter 3
The Metamorphosis
‘So, how was the spot spray?’ asked Thomas.
‘Very funny,’ said Alice, as she stood up from the kitchen table after another mammoth breakfast. ‘Actually, it was really good. There aren’t any spots yet though, just redness.’
‘Well, that’s something. Can you do me a favour and post this in the first letter box you pass this morning? It’s urgent.’ He handed her a small envelope addressed to a Dr. I. Darnell of Oak Tree Way, Wipfin Village.
‘Will do,’ she said. There had been a sprinkling of snow during the night, so Alice put on her winter blazer, scarf and gloves. She wiggled her arms backwards and forwards, finding her coat a little tighter than usual, but shrugged her shoulders and stuffed the envelope into her pocket. Perhaps all the extra food was catching up with her. She’d have to be more careful.
After a few minutes of brisk walking in the snow, she noticed that the same two birds as yesterday seemed to be following her again. At the end of the road she saw a letterbox next to a tree and dropped in Thomas’s letter.
‘Funny, I don’t remember that box being there before,’ she said to the two birds, who were now sitting on top of it. The birds looked at each other, then flew off, chirping loudly.
Alice continued on her way. On the other side of the road sh
e spotted a group from her class outside the newsagents. They were looking in her direction, laughing. Richard Pickel waved a banana above his head, calling her name and whistling her like a dog. Enraged, Alice saw a gap in the traffic and charged across the road. She stormed over to Pickel and snatched the banana. Pointing rudely at the mass of bulging, puss-filled spots on his chin, she blurted out,
‘Looks like you’ve got plenty of custard to go with this.’ Head held high, she walked away, but quickened her pace before anyone else could mock her in the street. Shrieks of mirth could be heard from the group she left behind as Pickel became their new verbal punch-bag. She felt a bit cruel and lowered her head, which caused her nearly to collide with someone as she turned the corner. It was bandana lady from The Coffee Cauldron.
‘Ooh, slow down! Oh, morning love, how are you today?’ she asked.
‘Er, fine thanks,’ mumbled Alice, hardly lifting her head and hurried on. Bandana lady wrinkled her brow in concern and paused on the corner for a moment, watching as Alice scuttled away.
Once inside the school entrance, Alice dashed up the stairs, but hesitated at the top, dreading her welcoming comment from Sebastian. To her relief, as she looked over towards her form room, she saw that Sarah was standing with him. She waved and beckoned Alice over. Sebastian stood aside looking disappointed, his arms folded. ‘I was going to give you that,’ he stressed, nodding towards a banana that Sarah had attempted to hide up her sleeve.
‘How long did it take you to think of that one?’ asked Alice, forcing a smile.
‘Thanks, Sarah,’ she whispered as they walked to their seats.
‘No problem. I’ve got something for you as well, to make up for yesterday. I wasn’t very nice, was I? Anyway, I thought you’d like these.’ She handed Alice a small, but heavy, white paper bag. It was full of coloured jellies, large ones in the shape of fruit, coated in sugar. Alice beamed.
‘Thanks!’ She lifted the lid of her desk to hide and started scoffing them hungrily. While she was eating, she had a familiar sensation. Similar to the fruit bowl experience yesterday, but now the whole room smelled incredibly strong. She could smell bad things, like sweaty socks and identify which individual it was coming from, but also pleasant smells. ‘Can you smell strawberry jam?’ she asked Sarah.
Alice Parker's Metamorphosis (Book 1 of the new adventure series for children) Page 3
