Charm School

by Anne Fine

  ‘Well, they don’t,’ Bonny said stoutly. ‘None of them. Flowers and jewels and stars. They just sit there, looking pretty, and twinkling and glowing. That’s all they do, and it must be terribly boring.’

  ‘But they’re beautiful!’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Bonny. ‘I agree they’re all nice to look at. What I’m saying is that it’s probably a lot more fun to look at them than to be them.’

  They were all staring at her, open-mouthed.

  ‘After all,’ Bonny finished up determinedly. ‘Even the lady who could walk in beauty like the night couldn’t have been going anywhere very interesting or the poet would have mentioned it.’ She was about to switch off the microphone and get on with reading the Handbook of Sound And Lighting she’d found in a heap of cassette tapes, when Sarajane spoke up.

  ‘Well, obviously this lady couldn’t have been going anywhere very exciting, or she wouldn’t have stayed looking nice.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Pearl. ‘If she’d been climbing up a mountain, she would have got all sweaty.’

  ‘And if she’d been at a funfair, her hair would have been blown about,’ said Cristalle.

  ‘And if she’d been on a beach, her make-up would have melted and smudged,’ put in Suki.

  They were all at it now.

  ‘You can’t do very much at all if you want to stay walking in beauty.’

  ‘No, you certainly can’t. You might get grubby.’

  ‘Or ladder your tights.’

  ‘Or break a fingernail.’

  ‘Or get stains on your blouse.’

  ‘Or scuff your heels.’

  ‘Or—’

  Just as, exasperated, Bonny reached forward to fade out this catalogue of woes, a hand came down to stop her. It was Toby, who had once again slid in silently and was standing behind her.

  ‘Oh, don’t turn them off,’ he begged. ‘I’m listening. This is more exciting than any adventure story. What else could possibly go wrong with their poor clothes?’

  He pushed Bonny’s fingers so the volume shot up again.

  ‘Or the pleats in your skirt might fall out,’ Angelica was fretting.

  ‘Or you might lose one of your earrings,’ warned Amethyst.

  ‘Or your hem might—-’

  But Bonny couldn’t stand it. Jerking her hand under his, she cut Cooki off in mid-wail, and swung round to face him.

  ‘Is it time for lunch yet?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Nearly. I just came by to pick up your tea cup.’

  Their hands collided on the way to pick it up. The cup spun off the ledge, splashing dregs on his jeans.

  Clutching his head, the tea boy reeled dramatically round the little back room. ‘Oh, no!’ he shrilled. ‘A spot on my pretty trousers. Now I shall have to go all the way home to change, and I’ll be late for the party!’

  Seeing Bonny giggle, he stopped, satisfied, and rubbed the dregs of tea into his trousers, where they disappeared. ‘Good colour, grey,’ he said. ‘Hides everything.’ He nodded through the glass window. ‘Not like all those girly lemons and pinks.’

  ‘Men do wear yellow shirts,’ argued Bonny. ‘And pink ones.’

  ‘But they don’t have to go with anything. When one gets dirty, you just pull the next out of the cupboard. You don’t have to waste half your life standing in front of the mirror, worrying.’ He plucked at the shirt he was wearing and squeaked at Bonny. ‘Now tell me the truth! Does this shirt look exactly right? Does the green go with the grey of the trousers?’

  ‘Everything goes with grey,’ Bonny said. But he wasn’t listening. He was still doing his imitation. ‘No, don’t spare my feelings! If they’re not an absolute match, I swear I’ll trail round twenty shops till I find a colour that’s perfect.’

  ‘Twenty shops is nothing,’ scoffed Bonny. ‘Suki in there went round forty to find the right choker.’

  ‘Really?’ The tea boy peered at Suki through the glass. ‘I think I’d just pick the one I liked best in the first shop, then go off fishing.’

  ‘So would my dad,’ said Bonny. ‘Mum says that’s why men’s clothes are always the first things you come to in big stores. Because, if you had to drag them any further, they wouldn’t go.’

  ‘Too busy,’ said the tea boy. ‘Better things to do than trail round shopping every time the fashions change.’ He picked up the microphone and pretended to make a news announcement. ‘To no-one’s astonishment, men’s favourite trouser colours will remain the easy-to-match, stain-hiding dark range, and their hems will stay at ankle length for yet another season.’ He grinned at Bonny. ‘And, believe me,’ he added, ‘no-one will even notice.’

  ‘Unless you forget to put them on.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He snatched up Araminta’s shawl. ‘Or if they’re all spangly, like this.’ Swirling it round, he held it flat against his body. ‘Toby, the Glittering Man!’

  ‘Very flash,’ agreed Bonny, thinking how odd he looked. When Araminta wore the shawl, she’d just looked special – all dressed up and fancy. But Toby immediately looked like a clown, or an actor in a pantomime, or the comedy star of some Christmas Variety Spectacular. Bonny was used to seeing women glitter. (Just look at Mrs Opalene.) But men don’t go round glittering unless they’re inviting you to share a laugh. No-one takes seriously someone who is twinkling. Bonny realised for the first time why lawyers and bankers went to work in sober suits, and police officers and traffic wardens wore dark uniforms. It would be hard to pay them nearly so much attention if they were dressed in frothy clothes, with flashing rhinestone earrings. Trousers that twinkle say only, ‘Look! Look at me!’ Plain skirts and jackets (like Mrs Sullivan’s at school) say, ‘Now listen carefully. This is important.’ Or—

  The spell was clearly working overtime, because the next thing Bonny heard Toby say was, ‘Hey! You’re not listening!’

  ‘No, sorry,’ Bonny said. ‘I was too busy watching you twinkle.’

  ‘What I was saying,’ repeated Toby, draping Araminta’s shawl over the chair, ‘is that lunch will be ready in five minutes.’

  ‘Goody. I’m starving. I’ll be first in the queue.’

  ‘Which queue?’ he asked. ‘The queue for the smallest heap of beans? Or the thinnest slice of bread? Or the tiniest dab of butter?’

  ‘Don’t they even eat at mealtimes?’

  ‘Eat!’ Toby said. ‘Eat? Oh, you’ll see one or two of them pushing the odd shred of lettuce around their plates, and nibbling at stalks of celery. You might even spot one of them looking longingly at a sliver of grilled fish; or gingerly dipping her spoon into a tiny tub of non-fat, low-calorie yoghurt. But what you and I would call eating? No, you won’t see any of that.’

  ‘They will, though,’ Bonny said drily. ‘They’ll see me.’

  They didn’t simply see. They sat and stared. (All except Araminta, who stood as far from Bonny as she could in the long canteen queue, then took a seat at the far end of the table.) None of the rest of them could take their eyes off Bonny’s double slice of pizza and her tossed salad.

  Bonny took her first mouthfuls, and looked round in hopes of seeing her mother. But, clearly, the victims of Bookkeeping (Advanced) were kept miserably hungry as well as horribly busy. And, anyway, Pearl was tapping her on her sleeve.

  ‘You do realize,’ she was saying kindly, ‘that that dressing you’ve put on your salad is mostly oil?’

  Bonny gave it some thought. ‘I can taste vinegar in it,’ she said after a moment. ‘And a little bit of garlic.’

  ‘Yes,’ chimed in Cindy-Lou. ‘But Pearl is right. It’s mostly oil.’

  Bonny was mystified. ‘What’s wrong with that? Olive oil tastes nice. And it’s good for you.’

  ‘It’s a hundred and fifty calories a table-spoonful,’ said Cristalle firmly, as if that settled the matter. Simply to keep the peace, Bonny shifted her fork across to her pizza.

  Suki’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you really going to eat that?’ she couldn’t help asking.


  ‘Yes.’ Bonny stared at her. ‘That’s why I took it.’

  Now everyone was chiming in. ‘All of it? Both slices?’

  ‘As well as the salad dressing?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Those croutons look to me as if they’re fried,’ added Cristalle, as if the word meant ‘poisonous’.

  Bonny tried to ignore them all. Keeping her head well down, she watched the food on their own plates. Toby was right. All that they seemed to do was shuffle it round and round, making a giant great fuss of it, but never actually putting any of it in their mouths. Bonny watched, fascinated, as Esmeralda made a great show of reaching for a slice of bread, then unwrapping her butter pat. It took her twenty times as long as it would have taken Bonny to peel the shiny foil off the tiny yellow square and fold the foil up neatly. Then Esmeralda picked up her knife and started to mash the butter on her plate.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just softening the butter.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It spreads better,’ said Esmeralda.

  And thinner, too. Bonny watched Esmeralda smear the tiniest fraction of butter onto her bread, and make a great display of spreading it around, though there was so little of it, it was practically invisible.

  ‘Aren’t you using the rest up?’

  ‘Gosh, no.’ Esmeralda looked horrified. ‘This is tons.’

  She still wasn’t actually eating it, Bonny noticed. Now she was neatly cutting the slice into quarters. And, after that, each quarter into strips. And then she trimmed each crust off, one by one. Anyone glancing her way would be left with the impression that she was bent over her plate tucking in happily. But she still hadn’t eaten anything.

  Bonny leaned over the table and tapped her fork beside Esmeralda’s plate. In a nannyish voice, she said to her, ‘Stop playing with your food, dear!’

  Esmeralda looked up, startled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just what I say,’ said Bonny, still in her nanny voice. ‘Stop messing, and eat it.’

  ‘I am eating,’ said Esmeralda.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Bonny said, going back to her normal voice to explain what she meant. ‘What you’re doing is shunting and mashing and smearing and slicing. But you’re not actually eating anything. So, apart from the fact that you’re doing it so daintily, you’re just messing with your food like a giant great baby.’

  Esmeralda went scarlet. ‘I am not! I am eating. I have eaten tons.’

  ‘What? Tell us what.’

  ‘I ate most of the lettuce. And the fishcake. And the beans.’

  ‘You didn’t eat the fishcake,’ Suki said. ‘You hid it under the lettuce. With the beans.’

  Bonny reached over and lifted Esmeralda’s lettuce with her fork. Esmeralda blushed as the evidence was displayed around the table. But several of the others were blushing too. Bonny turned to her right and lifted Amethyst’s largest lettuce leaf with the fork. Out peeped two fish fingers and some mushrooms. She turned to her left, and Serena snatched her plate away.

  ‘It’s none of your business!’

  ‘You have to eat,’ said Bonny. ‘If you don’t eat, your brain doesn’t work properly, and you get all tearful and crabby.’

  There was a whisper further up the table, and everyone giggled.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Bonny.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Sarajane. ‘Angelica just made a little joke, that’s all.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Bonny asked Angelica.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Angelica.

  ‘No, go on,’ insisted Bonny. ‘Share the joke.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten,’ said Angelica.

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Serena, getting her own back on Angelica for being so spiteful about the smell of her perfume. She leaned towards Bonny. ‘When you said that people who don’t eat get all tearful and crabby, Angelica said, “Better than getting all fat like her”.’

  ‘All fat like who?’

  Everyone was silent. Even Araminta was watching now. And Angelica looked very embarrassed.

  Bonny looked down at herself. ‘Do you mean me?’

  Still no-one spoke. Bonny pushed back her chair and looked at herself. She was the exact same shape she’d been when she left home that morning. She wasn’t built from match-sticks, it was true. Her legs weren’t thin glass rods. You couldn’t have spread your hands round her waist and touched your own fingers.

  But she wasn’t fat.

  She was perfectly normal.

  Pushing her chair back even further, Bonny looked round the table.

  ‘You should stop worrying about how much you have on your bodies,’ she told them. ‘And start worrying about how little you have in your heads. No wonder the tea boy calls you all Twinks.’

  ‘Twinks?’

  ‘Toby?’

  They were outraged.

  ‘He does not.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her. She’s just saying mean things to upset us.’

  Bonny pointed a finger at Lulu, who was the last to speak. ‘Oh, no, I’m not! Toby agrees with me. He thinks you’re all silly and vain. And you are,’ she added fiercely. ‘You spend your whole lives trailing round shops, and parked on your bums trying to look prettier than the person beside you, and strolling round being spiteful to one another. So why should anyone think you have more than half a brain between you?’

  Now Cristalle was shaking her finger back at Bonny. ‘You’re wrong!’ she snapped. ‘Quite wrong! Toby actually thinks that we’re something rather special. That’s why he spends as much time as he can watching us through the glass window.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s not,’ said Bonny. ‘He watches you because he can’t get over how daffy you are.’

  ‘How wrong can you get, Miss Clever Sparky? I tell you, Toby likes us.’ Cristalle gave an arch look across the table to Sarajane. ‘Especially one of us,’ she added meaningfully. ‘There does happen to be one of us he really likes …’

  At this, everyone turned to look at Sarajane, who blushed bright pink. But Bonny barely noticed. ‘You’re the ones who’ve got it wrong,’ she was too busy insisting. ‘He doesn’t like you all. You just amuse him.’

  Sarajane’s blush turned fiery red, and Esmeralda said loudly to no-one in particular, ‘Talk about other people being spiteful! She should try listening to herself.’

  There was another giggle and more whispering at the other end of the table. This time Bonny was quicker swinging round, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Araminta dart a look at her, then hastily shut her mouth and wipe an amused smile off her face.

  Bonny was astonished at how upset she felt – as if a real, true friend had turned against her. She felt tears gathering and her voice was shaky. ‘I suppose you’re being nasty about me now.’

  Araminta looked horribly guilty. But it was Lulu at her side who broke the awkward silence. Putting on that sugared poison voice Bonny had heard so often that morning as people said their horrid things, she explained very kindly to Bonny: ‘Oh, no. Minty was trying to be nice. You see, she was explaining to us all why you can’t help being so rude and disagreeable.’

  Minty! They all had one another as friends, and she had none! Miserable as she could be, Bonny said crossly, ‘Oh, really? Why is that, then?’

  As she spoke, she tried looking Araminta straight in the eye, but Araminta hastily stared down at the table. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she mumbled very uncomfortably. ‘I’ve quite forgotten what I said.’

  Once again, Miss Pass-on-the-Spite Serena pitched in to help someone who’d lost her memory. She leaned over to Bonny.

  ‘I haven’t, though. Minty was just explaining that you were simply jealous.’

  ‘Jealous?’ Now it was Bonny’s turn to be outraged. ‘Jealous? Of all you noodle-brained ninnies? Of all you flopsy-mopsy beanbrains? Oh, I don’t think so!’ Then, suddenly remembering you couldn’t trust what any of them said when they were causing trouble, she leaned across the table and said to Araminta, ‘Is that true?
’

  Araminta flushed even redder than Sarajane had earlier. ‘Is what true?’

  ‘What she just said. That you told them I was jealous.’

  Araminta didn’t answer. Bonny rose to her feet. ‘Is it?’ she demanded again. ‘Is it true? Is that what you said?’

  Again, Araminta took refuge in mumbling. ‘I’ve quite forgotten. I can’t remember what I said at all.’

  ‘You can’t remember?’ Bonny leaned over the table. ‘Well, I did warn you, if you don’t eat, your brain stops working properly.’ She picked up her plate. ‘What you need, Araminta, is a proper meal, and I’ve got one here for you!’

  All Bonny’s fury and upset boiled up in her. And boiled over. And before Araminta could even twist her head aside, Bonny had slapped the lukewarm plate of pizza in her face, and ground it round.

  Everyone squealed, and Araminta clawed at the dripping mess of cheese and tomato and onion. Her huge shocked saucer eyes peered out in horror, like two rounds of pepperoni.

  ‘There!’ Bonny snapped. ‘Feeling any better?’

  And off she stomped, in a foul temper, out of the canteen and up the back stairs, all alone, back to Charm School.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘YOU HAVE TO hand it to Mrs Opalene,’ Toby remarked on his next visit. ‘You start a riot, and before she’s even finished ticking you off properly, she’s somehow managed to turn it into a class about taking off make-up.’

  And so she had. As soon as it became clear Bonny was stubbornly going to stick to her story of tripping as she so kindly cleared away Araminta’s unfinished meal, Mrs Opalene had simply given her one last, helpless, reproachful look, then turned to poor dripping Araminta.

  Holding her at arm’s length, she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster:

  ‘Marvellous! The perfect opportunity to try out some cleansers! Thank you, dear Araminta, for giving us a chance to do some real testing.’

  Bonny felt terrible. She’d been so rude about poor Mrs Opalene. Yet here she was, valiantly making the best of things, scraping the worst of the pizza off with little balls of cotton wool till, gradually, Araminta’s tearful face emerged through the tomato-stained cheese streaks.