Wicked!

by Jilly Cooper

The boy’s looks set him apart, thought Hengist. He has the same sad eyes, pallor, long nose and greyhound grace of Elaine, and I bet he can run away from life just as fast.

  And Paris was bowled over like the rest.

  Hengist was so good at putting people at their ease: he fired questions and used names to punctuate a sentence, to illustrate how clever he was to remember you out of the thousands of people he met. He had reached Kylie and rocked everyone by asking after little Cameron.

  Kylie blossomed like the mauve pansies on her pretty dress. ‘He’s very well, fank you, sir.’

  ‘Must be hard looking after him and getting your homework done, Kylie, but I gather you’re coping brilliantly.’

  Janna couldn’t fault him. He had screwed up, but as she watched the antagonism and fear melt out of her children, she could only forgive him.

  ‘I’m going to leave you in the large, capable hands of Mr Davies who, until he wrecked his knee, used to play rugger for Wales, which won’t impress you, Feral, but will our Welsh Graffi, look you. Everyone wants to be taught history by Mr Davies. His classes are hopelessly over-subscribed. He’s easily our most popular master, and has taken the afternoon off to organize your fun and games.’

  Emlyn, who’d just been told that Rufus, who’d set up the entire team-building activity, had ratted, refused to be mollified. He was also brick red with hangover and not nearly as attractive in daylight, thought Janna.

  Emlyn, in fact, had got wasted last night because he was worried sick about Oriana. God knows what the Taliban might do to one so fearless and beautiful. Then Sally had had the gall to email him first thing. Oriana was safe and sent love. Why the fuck couldn’t Oriana call him herself instead of ducking out, like her father, leaving someone else to break the news to the kids.

  ‘Mr Davies will take you over to Middle Field to meet our Bagley lot,’ Hengist was now saying. ‘He’s got some rather vigorous game to help you get acquainted. Randal Stancombe is jetting in during the afternoon, so you’ll get a chance to thank him for that splendid bus. Then you’re free to explore the school; someone will show you round. Don’t forget the library, Paris. I’ll see you all later. I better get back to my prep.’

  ‘Isn’t he awesome?’ sighed Kylie Rose.

  29

  ‘I’m afraid I won’t remember any of your names,’ said Emlyn sarcastically as he led them out of the quad, past the lake and the River Fleet in the distance, down to a little white cricket pavilion. Behind this lay Middle Field, which divided Pitch One from the first holes of the golf course and consisted of four acres of rough grass dotted with little copses. Middle Field was also used by the CCF for training exercises. Bagley pupils enjoying peaceful smokes or snoggings were often disturbed by flying balls or invading armies.

  On Pitch One, the armies of Larks and Bagley now lined up glaring at one another.

  Feral, to appear more menacing, had, like Paris and Graffi, left up the hood of his black tracksuit. Then he clocked the three Bagley Babes, who looked as though they’d been fed on peaches and fillet steak all their lives, who had glossy hair cascading from side partings to below their boobs and gym-honed bodies in cobalt-blue tracksuits and pale ochre T-shirts, which evoked the sea and sand of endless holidays.

  Nodding haughtily at Amber, then Milly, then Jade, Feral murmured, ‘I am going to have that one, that one and that one.’

  ‘No doubt yelling Sharpeville at the moment of orgasm,’ murmured back Paris.

  Then Feral reached for the knife in his tracksuit trousers as he recognized sneering, supercilious Cosmo Rannaldini flanked by his two heavies.

  ‘I am Anatole from Russia,’ announced the first heavy in a voice as deep as the Caspian Sea, as his narrowed, dark eyes slid over Kylie, Kitten and Pearl.

  ‘And I am Lubemir from Albania,’ said the second, whose black hairline rested on his thick eyebrows like a front on the horizon and whose Slav face was rendered more sinister by dark glasses and even darker stubble.

  ‘And we’re Lando France-Lynch, Jack Waterlane and Junior Lloyd-Foxe, from the broom cupboard,’ quipped Amber’s mousy-haired, merry-faced twin brother.

  ‘Those three are nice,’ whispered Kylie, who was also vastly relieved that some of the Bagley contingent were quite plain. There was a boy called Spotty Wilkins who had more spots than face and a geek in granny specs with buck teeth and a huge air of self-importance, who, humming and swaying back and forth, introduced himself as: ‘Bernard Brooks from East Horsley, but most people call me “Boffin”.’

  ‘Boffin from leafy East Horsley,’ murmured Paris, catching Boffin’s singsong curate’s voice so perfectly, the Bagley Babes started giggling.

  ‘Look at the knockers on that one.’ Graffi gazed at Primrose Duddon in wonder. ‘Stick out more ’n Boffin’s teef.’

  ‘And this is Xavier Campbell-Black,’ announced Emlyn because Xav was too shy to introduce himself.

  Remembering Rupert from the prospective-parents’ evening, all the Larks girls swung round in excitement, which faded as they realized the heavy, hunched, sullen Xavier bore no resemblance to his gilded father.

  Next moment the mighty unbeaten first and second fifteens pounded past.

  ‘Sir, Sir,’ they shouted to Emlyn, ‘we’ve been dragged out on a fucking cross-country run. We’re supposed to be practising ball skills.’

  ‘Buck up, keep moving,’ shouted Denzil Harper, head of PE, running effortlessly beside them. A recent Alex Bruce appointment, sporting a snow-white T-shirt and earrings, Denzil had a shaved head and a chunky, muscular body.

  I’ll kill Hengist and Rufus, vowed Emlyn, if that woofter Denzil injures any of them.

  ‘I want you to split into groups of six,’ he told the waiting children, ‘mixing both schools as much as possible.’

  This meant everyone chose their best friends. Instantly the Wolf Pack drew together, determined to show those fucking Hoorays (Lando France-Lynch indeed) how thick they were.

  ‘Come on, Rocky.’ Kind Kylie pulled him into their group.

  ‘We don’t want him,’ hissed Pearl, ‘Rocky couldn’t build a team if it sat on his face. Grab Aysha.’

  As Jade was Cosmo’s girlfriend, the Bagley Babes automatically teamed up with the Cosmonaughties. Johnnie Fowler, who wouldn’t let sexy Kitten Meadows out of his sight, formed up with four members of Larks Year Ten; the Chinless Wanderers – Lando, Junior and the Hon. Jack – with Bagley mates from the form above. Rejects like Spotty Wilkins and Xavier edged miserably together for comfort.

  ‘A fat lot of mingling that is,’ roared Emlyn and proceeded to number members in each group from one to six, and to their outrage ordered the ‘ones’ to form one group, the ‘twos’ another, and so on until crimson sweatshirts and sea-blue tracksuits were totally mingled.

  Outside the cricket pavilion on a trestle table lay a building pack for each group.

  ‘These packs contain simple – depending on your intelligence – instructions on how to build your own hot air balloon,’ shouted Emlyn, ‘and as you can’t fly a balloon without a control tower, here are newspapers for you to create one.’

  ‘This is going to be fun.’ Janna smiled anxiously at the mutinous, contemptuous, incredulous faces as Mags Gablecross and Jason rushed round handing out copies of the broadsheets.

  ‘I can’t understand papers like this,’ grumbled Kitten, unenthusiastically opening the Observer, ‘too many long words.’

  ‘To build your balloon,’ continued Emlyn, ‘you’ll also need coloured sheets of tissue paper, cardboard and scissors, which are assembled here on the table. But you win these by passing a number of tests.’

  Then, as Janna and Gloria handed out pads of crosswords, puzzles and teasers, Emlyn explained: ‘Every time you solve a page of these, you race up to us in the cricket pavilion and if it’s correct you’ll win yourself either cardboard, scissors or glue, or a sheet of coloured tissue paper. You’ll need at least six of those to build your balloon.’

  Like the lab
ours of Hercules, thought Paris.

  ‘The other way you can win the stuff you need,’ called out Mags, who’d been reading the instructions, ‘is by taking part in an orienteering treasure hunt.’

  ‘We’re not in the bloody Lower Fourth,’ grumbled Cosmo.

  ‘One would not know from your behaviour,’ snapped Emlyn. ‘You may not have noticed, but amid the autumn colour of Middle Field are hung fifteen orange flags with staplers and directions to the next map reference attached. Here are the maps.’ He lobbed them at each team. ‘In the frames round them you will find fifteen boxes which each need to be punched with the appropriate map reference. These will entitle you to more tissue paper, glue, etc.’

  ‘Are we going to find treasure?’ Amber eyed up Feral.

  ‘Once you’ve built your balloons,’ added Emlyn, ‘and you’ve got an hour and a half, members of the staff will provide hot air.’

  ‘Again,’ shouted Junior Lloyd-Foxe to shouts of laughter.

  ‘OK, joke over. Provide hot air to enable them to fly. And there’ll be a competition to see whose balloon flies farthest, and for the prettiest and the first finished.’

  ‘And to think I could be curled up in a nice warm classroom learning calculus and being molested by Biffo Rudge.’

  ‘Shut up, Cosmo. Anyone undertaking the treasure hunt must go round in twos in case you get lost.’

  ‘Sounds fun,’ Amber smouldered at Feral. ‘Shit, I forgot to ring Peregrine.’ She groped for her mobile.

  ‘Put that away,’ roared Emlyn, ‘we’re about to start.’

  ‘What is the matter with Attila?’ sighed Amber.

  Graffi, meanwhile, was immersed in the Telegraph racing pages.

  Peering over his shoulder, Junior said, ‘Singer Songwriter’s a good horse.’

  ‘Shining Sixpence’s a better one,’ said Graffi. ‘My dad does work for his trainer. We orta have a bet.’

  ‘I’ll ring Ladbrokes,’ murmured Junior. ‘Hear that, Lando and Jack?’ he called out. ‘Shining Sixpence in the three o’clock.’

  Next moment Lubemir and Anatole were also on their mobiles.

  ‘Shall I put a tenner on each way for you?’ Junior asked Graffi.

  Aware it would feed the family for a week, Graffi said yes. He’d have to become a rent boy. That Milly Walton was hot.

  ‘Blimey. “He left pubic hair on my mouse”,’ read Kitten, now engrossed in the Observer. ‘I didn’t know posh papers wrote about this sort of fing. What’s “coprophilia”?’

  ‘A kind of cheese, I fink,’ said Kylie.

  Janna turned on her angrily. ‘Concentrate.’ Emlyn’s increasingly short fuse was getting to her. How on earth had she found him so attractive? With his gut spilling over too-tight chinos, blond hair like an electrocuted haystack, heavy stubbly jaw and angry bloodshot eyes, he looked more like Desperate Dan.

  Seeing his beloved Kitten in the same group as evil Cosmo, Johnnie Fowler grabbed Cosmo’s collar.

  ‘Don’t you lay a finger on my woman.’

  ‘Don’t insult my libido,’ said Cosmo icily.

  ‘Yer wot?’ Johnnie clenched tattooed, ringed fingers.

  Nonchalantly, Cosmo sidled off whistling Prokofiev One. Separated from Anatole and Lubemir, however, he felt vulnerable. He was, in addition, outraged to be teamed with not just Kitten but also Amber, who was making eyes at his arch enemy, Feral, and Lando, who was so thick he made pig shit look like consommé.

  Deeply competitive, accustomed to automatic victory, Boffin Brooks was even more outraged to be lumbered with Lubemir, the Hon. Jack, Kylie and the unspeakable neanderthal Rocky, who refused to leave Kylie’s side.

  ‘For Christ’s sake keep Rocky away from any glue or he’ll sniff it,’ warned Kylie. ‘And the scissors too. If his Ritalin wears off, he’ll cut your head off.’

  Like a vicar doorstepped by the News of the World, Boffin shuddered.

  Paris, icier and more remote by the minute to hide his shyness, was in a group which included the even more shy Aysha, monosyllabic Xavier Campbell-Black, Anatole who was reading Pushkin and swigging vodka out of an Evian bottle, and Jade Stancombe.

  As Cosmo’s friend and his girlfriend respectively, there was no love lost between Anatole and Jade, who made no secret of the fact she had joined the worst group.

  ‘“Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain, Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies . . .”’ murmured Paris, who’d been reading Keats. Jade was beautiful, but what a bitch.

  How he envied Graffi who, oblivious of class difference, was creating his usual party atmosphere, laughing with the ravishing Milly Walton and Junior Lloyd-Foxe, whose father Billy worked for the BBC and brought home riveting gossip about celebs (‘Richard and Judy are so nice’).

  Also in their group were Pearl and Spotty Wilkins.

  ‘You could use a concealer on those spots,’ Pearl was telling him kindly as they waited for the off.

  ‘You start on those puzzles, Junior,’ suggested Graffi, ‘and win us some sheets of paper. Pearl’s clever, she’ll help you.’

  ‘Five, four, three, two, one,’ yelled Emlyn, brandishing the starting pistol, then as the chapel clock struck two he pulled the trigger, making members of both schools leap out of their skins, thinking the other had opened fire.

  ‘You have a go at these brainteasers, Feral,’ suggested Lando France-Lynch.

  ‘Ain’t got a brain to tease, man,’ said Feral.

  ‘Nor have I,’ agreed Lando.

  Amber smiled at Feral. ‘Why don’t you and I do some orienteering? Hand over the map,’ she added to a furious Cosmo, ‘you and Lando can work out the puzzles with Kitten and wind up her jealous boyfriend.’

  ‘Ven two people stand on the same piece of paper in the same house and can’t see each other, vere vould they stand?’ A perplexed Anatole looked up from another page of puzzles.

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Jade in a bored voice.

  ‘If they put the sheet of paper under a door, shut it and stood on the paper on either side, they couldn’t see each other,’ suggested Aysha timidly.

  ‘Brilliant,’ chorused Paris, Xav and Anatole.

  Admiring her sweet blushing face framed by its black headscarf, Xav wondered what Aysha would look like with her hair unleashed. Not liking attention off her for a second, Jade announced she was going to build the control tower.

  ‘Daddy’s got several around the world,’ she boasted, picking up the Sunday Telegraph business section. ‘Oh look, there’s a picture of Daddy.’

  Ignoring her, Paris was whipping through the crossword even faster than Boffin Brooks.

  ‘Despicable person, five letters beginning with “C”?’

  ‘“Cosmo”,’ volunteered Lando.

  Paris smiled faintly. ‘Nice one, but I guess it’s “creep”. Pleasant facility, seven letters beginning with “A”.’

  ‘“Asshole”,’ drawled Lando.

  Aysha blushed. ‘Could it be “amenity”?’

  ‘Could indeed, well done, Aysha.’ Paris tore off the page, sending her and Xav scurrying off to claim more tissue paper.

  The Threes were being held up by Graffi’s desire to build a round balloon, rather than one in the recommended cylinder shape.

  ‘It’s the wrong way,’ protested Junior.

  ‘No it ain’t.’

  ‘Bloody is,’ said Pearl. ‘Graffi’s so wilful.’

  ‘Trust me, give me the fucking scissors, and go off and win some more tissue paper in case I screw up,’ ordered Graffi.

  Tempers and papers were beginning to fray. Under Boffin Brooks’s fussy guidance, his team had concocted a scarlet and black cylinder from five sheets of paper, and were now trying to attach round ends to top and bottom.

  ‘You stupid idiot,’ screamed Boffin as Rocky’s big fist went straight through the tissue paper.

  ‘Don’t pick on him, you great bully,’ screamed Kylie.

  Jade, bored of building her control tower, was putting the
boot in.

  ‘You stupid cow,’ she cried as Aysha, trying to join their balloon’s two emerald and royal blue sides together with trembling hands, also tore the paper.

  ‘Don’t talk to her like that,’ yelled Xav.

  Jade turned on him. ‘I can talk to anyone however I like. You know who my boyfriend is.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ lied Xav defiantly.

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ hissed Jade.

  ‘Kill each other later,’ said Anatole, who was now immersed in the Sunday Times business section. ‘Ve have balloon to build.’

  ‘You’re not being much help.’

  A full dress row was quelled by the descent of Mags Gablecross, who chided them for wasting their human resources.

  ‘You’ve completed the puzzles. Anatole and Jade, go off orienteering; Paris, get on with the balloon and Xav and Aysha, help him after you’ve finished the control tower.’

  Janna and Jason stood at the trestle table handing out tissue paper and cardboard, checking maps to see if each box had been punched correctly.

  ‘You’re cheating again, Lubemir, go back and get two to eight punched properly and you too, Rocky, these have all been punched with the same staple. You need fifteen different ones.’

  Feral and Amber raced hand in hand through Middle Field, their footsteps muffled by the thick yellow and orange leaf patchwork. They had punched nearly all their map references and collapsed on the roots of a big sycamore to catch their breath.

  Amber’s tousled mane was falling over eyes the rich ochre of winter willows. Her breasts heaved beneath her sand-coloured T-shirt.

  ‘Lovely tan,’ said Feral.

  Amber stroked his cheek. ‘Not as lovely as yours.’

  Feral laughed, clapping her hand to his face.

  ‘You been away,’ teased Amber.

  ‘Inside,’ said Feral.

  ‘Poor you, was it hell?’

  ‘Hell, being banged up.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Mugged a stuck-up bitch; only took her bag and her mobile.’

  ‘My father was always in gaol for hellraising on the showjumping circuit in the old days. You should compare notes. You’re so sexy, Master Feral.’