My tongue is dry, my heart heavy. ‘I’m sorry, OK?’ I tell him. ‘I let you down, let myself down. I let myself be pushed around by Shannon, but that was the last time, Sam, I swear. Things are going to be different with me and Shannon from now on. That’s if there is a me and Shannon at all.’
Sam shrugs. ‘So?’
‘So… can we start over, you and me?’ I ask.
Sam pays for his lunch, studying me with soft brown eyes. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Totally sure. I left you a message, down by the canal. Did you get it?’
‘I saw some random letters spiked on to a bramble bush,’ Sam admits. ‘I’m not sure they made any sense… maybe some blew away?’
I narrow my eyes. ‘What did the letters say?’
‘Um… it wasn’t very friendly. I think it said, SAM U GO.’
‘No, no, that wasn’t it! Try again!’
‘SAM U GOAT?’ he guesses. ‘SAM U GIT?’
‘It said, SAM TAYLOR WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?’ I tell him, exasperated, and Sam just smiles.
‘I knew that,’ he says. ‘Just checking. The answer is yes… probably!’
Relief floods through me, and I wish I could grab Sam Taylor right here in the lunch hall and check out his lip action one more time. I settle for a grin, instead. ‘You have to say yes,’ I tell him. ‘I caught a falling leaf, OK? I made a wish, so you have to say yes. You have no choice.’
‘I never have had, when it comes to you,’ Sam says, his eyes twinkling, and my insides feel all warm and melty.
We sit down with the others, and Sam launches into the story of how his ankle got broken. ‘We went off early to empty the tanks and fill up with petrol and water,’ he explains. ‘I was opening a lock gate and I tripped over my bootlace and slipped into the canal, bashing my ankle on the way down.’
‘Oh, no!’ I gasp.
Sam just laughs and props his plaster cast on a chair so that Robin, Sarah, Josh, Jas and Emily can take turns to sign it. ‘I had to go straight to A & E, obviously,’ he adds. ‘Dad tied the boat up along from the lock gates, and we grabbed a taxi, me still dripping wet. I was there till all hours, getting X-rays and then the plaster, but it’s just a simple break. Should heal OK. We took the Cadenza back to her mooring this morning.’
‘I’ve warned you about those laces,’ Mr Hunter says. ‘Still, good job it was your ankle and not your wrist or your arm. At least you can still play sax.’
‘You’re glad about that?’ Sam asks, wide-eyed. ‘Seriously?’
Mr Hunter sighs. ‘You’re good at it,’ he says. ‘Very good.’
Sam laughs. ‘I’ve got an idea for a new band, Broken Bones. The sound is all chaos, anarchy and pain, with a bit of sax thrown in…’
‘Sounds… different,’ Mr Hunter says doubtfully.
Miss Randall, the school secretary, strides into the canteen and looks around, frowning. She makes her way over to our table, her high heels making a click-click sound on the parquet flooring, her thin lips a pursed-up magenta pink.
‘Ginger Brown?’ she says. ‘You are wanted in Miss Bennett’s office, immediately.’
I blink. ‘Me?’
Miss Randall turns her steely glare on Mr Hunter. ‘You too,’ she tells him. ‘I’ve been asked to escort you there myself.’
‘Is it about the magazine?’ Mr Hunter asks, but Miss Randall just snorts in disgust and stands with folded arms while he gets to his feet. I follow, baffled.
‘What have you been up to now?’ Sam asks me with a grin.
‘Nothing!’
‘Nothing to worry about, then,’ Mr Hunter says brightly, and we set off after Miss Randall. The red light is still on outside the office, and Shannon and her parents are sitting on the hard vinyl chairs outside.
‘Oh, dear. Everything OK, Shannon?’ Mr Hunter asks. Shannon turns a startling shade of pink, her mum snivels into a tissue and her dad brings his fist down on to the coffee table with an ear-splitting crash, muttering something very rude beneath his breath.
‘Maybe not then,’ Mr Hunter says politely. Miss Randall ushers him into a side room to wait. Me, I’m delivered into the office. I throw Shannon a searching look over my shoulder, hoping for clues, but she seems edgy, evasive. She can’t quite meet my eyes.
The office door clicks shut behind me, and I turn to face Miss Bennett. The head teacher looks grave and weary, but that’s not what stops me in my tracks – beside the big oak desk, their faces pale and drawn, sit my parents.
Why are they here? Something is wrong… very wrong.
‘Sit down, Ginger,’ the head teacher says. ‘Don’t look so worried. Nobody is cross with you.’
I sink down on to an orange vinyl chair, and Miss Bennett smiles at me, a thin, tired smile. ‘Ginger… a very disturbing photograph has come to my notice. A photograph of you and… well, I expect you know who I’m talking about, don’t you?’
My mind races. A photograph? I remember Jas Kapoor’s paparazzi shots from Shannon’s party, the picture he took of Sam and me sitting on the stairs. My cheeks flare. It was embarrassing, sure, a private moment… but Sam and I weren’t even kissing. Surely I’m not in trouble for sitting too close to a boy at a party?
Miss Bennett pushes a colour print across the desk towards me. ‘Do you remember?’ she asks gently. ‘Ginger?’
I pick up the print, and suddenly I’m cold all over. I have never seen this photograph before. I don’t remember it being taken. I don’t even remember it happening, and I know that I would remember something like this, because the photograph shows Mr Hunter with his arm round me, his face leaning close to mine. It looks seriously dodgy – and it makes no sense at all.
I look at Mum, her lower lip quivering, and Dad, his hands balled into fists, the knuckles white.
Miss Bennett takes a deep breath. ‘You’re not in trouble, Ginger,’ she says. ‘We’d just like you to tell us, in your own words, exactly what happened on Saturday night.’
‘I believe this picture was taken at your friend Shannon’s party?’ Miss Bennett asks gently. I look at the photo again, registering details from the background, kitchen cupboards, a bottle of Coke.
‘Maybe,’ I say.
‘Ginger, are you saying you don’t remember what happened?’ Miss Bennett prompts. ‘You don’t remember Mr Hunter – erm…’
‘He didn’t!’
Miss Bennett sighs. ‘Ginger, the camera doesn’t lie. You can see the evidence as well as I can. I know this may be upsetting – you certainly look distressed in the picture – but it would be the best thing all round if you could just tell us the truth.’
‘I am!’ I insist. ‘Nothing happened between Mr Hunter and me. He’s a teacher!’
Miss Bennett pushes another print across the desk towards me, and this time I do recognize it. It’s Shannon, her arms round Mr Hunter’s neck, just after he arrived at the party. I remember Jas taking the picture, and Mr Hunter asking him to erase it.
‘You’re not the only girl this man has taken advantage of,’ Miss Bennett says.
‘Nobody took advantage of me!’ I argue. ‘Nor of Shannon, either! I remember Jas taking this picture – poor Mr Hunter was terrified.’
‘Poor Mr Hunter?’ the head teacher echoes. ‘Ginger, can you tell me why Mr Hunter was at Shannon’s birthday party in the first place?’
‘It wasn’t just a birthday party. It was a celebration party for the whole magazine team!’
‘At Shannon’s house,’ Miss Bennett clarifies. ‘I have to tell you, her parents were not aware that a teacher would be present. A young male teacher. It’s not usual, is it, that a teacher would come along to the birthday party of a thirteen-year-old girl?’
‘We made him come,’ I argue miserably. ‘We pestered him until he agreed.’
‘I see. You like Mr Hunter, obviously?’
‘He’s a good teacher,’ I say. ‘Everybody likes him.’
‘I believe he likes you to call him Steve?’
&nb
sp; I sigh. ‘I call him Mr Hunter,’ I say. ‘Jas and Shannon are the only ones who call him Steve.’
‘You’ve worked late with him, after school, a number of times?’ Miss Bennett prompts. ‘On the magazine?’
‘Lots of us have. In a group,’ I explain. ‘Never alone.’
Mum reaches across and takes my hand in hers, squeezing softly. I try not to think of the fact that my parents should be at work right now, Mum in a clothes shop, Dad at the office. They have never been called into school before, not once.
Miss Bennett looks at me, her eyes regretful. ‘I think you know what it is I am trying to say,’ she tells me. ‘Shannon Kershaw’s parents found these photos on her computer. They are understandably very concerned, just as your parents are concerned for you. Shannon has told us how Mr Hunter liked to flirt with the girls. She’s told us that you had a crush on him…’
Mum makes a choking sound and covers her mouth with her hand. ‘Just tell the truth, Ginger,’ she tells me. ‘Please. We’ll understand. We’re not blaming you!’
But it seems to me that everyone has decided already what happened on Saturday night, no matter what I have to say. I close my eyes, take a deep breath. In my mind I can see the woods down by Candy’s Bridge, crisp and golden in the October sun, a quick red fox running lightly through the trees.
I look again at the photograph, and slowly I realize what I am looking at. It is not a clinch between a scared pupil and a pushy teacher, something forbidden, something wrong. It’s a teacher trying to help a pupil. The photo must have been taken just after Sam walked out on me, after Shannon made me choose between them and left me crying in a darkened garden. Mr Hunter found me, took me back to the house, handed me over to Emily…
My head whirls. I remember Shannon’s hurt and anger when Mr Hunter didn’t respond to her flirting, her fury at me later on because I called her parents. I think of Jas Kapoor’s photographs, the lost camera, of pictures turning up on Shannon’s computer and being ‘found’ by her worried parents. Even the look on Shannon’s face a few moments ago, outside the office – I can see now it was a mixture of triumph and fear, malice and guilt. And even after this, I know a part of her will still expect me to be loyal, to go along with the crazy, cruel story she has created.
I think of all the times I did that, did things I wasn’t sure about, things I didn’t want to do. So many times I did what she expected, said what she wanted me to say, even when it felt uncomfortable… I guess I always knew that was the price of staying friends with Shannon.
Well, not this time.
‘Shannon was the one who liked Mr Hunter,’ I tell Miss Bennett, calmly and clearly. ‘She’s liked him since the start of term. That’s why she wanted him to come to her party – so she could flirt with him, see if something might happen.’
Miss Bennett blinks. She leans across the big oak desk, frowning slightly. ‘Shannon liked Mr Hunter?’ she says.
‘Yes. He wasn’t interested, because he’s a teacher and she’s just a kid,’ I say. ‘He made that clear, and Shannon… well, she was kind of upset.’
Miss Bennett frowns. ‘I see.’
‘I remember the photograph too, now,’ I admit. ‘Although I didn’t know it had been taken. It’s not what it looks like, truly. I’d had a row with Sam Taylor, a row Shannon caused, and Mr Hunter was trying to help. He found Emily for me, helped me calm down…’
‘Really?’ Mum asks, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘Really.’ Mum hugs me tight, and Dad sighs as if he’s been holding his breath for a long, long time.
‘The camera does lie,’ I tell Miss Bennett. ‘Because this picture is so not what it looks like. We were in a crowded kitchen. Emily was right next to me – look, you can see part of her sleeve at the side of the picture. Do you think anything dodgy would have happened with her right there? Ask her! Ask Jas Kapoor too, he probably took the picture. He certainly took the one of Shannon.’
Miss Bennett nods slowly. ‘Thank you, Ginger. This puts a slightly different slant on things.’ She buzzes through to reception and asks Miss Randall to bring Emily and Jas along to the office. We’re sipping hot sweet tea from bone-china cups when the two of them appear.
‘Hey!’ Jas exclaims, picking up the photographs. ‘You found my camera! Man, who cropped this one? It looks well dodgy!’
‘This picture has been cropped?’ Miss Bennett echoes. ‘Can you remember what the original was like, Jas?’
Jas frowns. ‘It was Mr H. and Emily comforting Ginger in the kitchen,’ he says. ‘I was doing some shots to show the truth behind teen parties, and there’s always some girl crying, isn’t there? The shot has been cropped right in, though, which makes it look totally different… kind of sleazy! The power of the paparazzi, huh?’
Miss Bennett takes a deep breath in. ‘Jas, Emily, have you ever had any reason to believe that Mr Hunter has behaved in a way that could be seen as inappropriate to either Ginger or Shannon?’ she asks.
‘Who, Mr H.? Steve? No way,’ Jas says.
‘Never,’ Emily says firmly.
‘I believe you,’ Miss Bennett says. ‘Thank you, Jas, Emily. I’m sorry, Ginger, that I’ve had to put you through this. Thank you for your honesty – and your patience. You too, Mr and Mrs Brown. You must see that allegations of this nature must be taken very seriously indeed… but I’m most relieved to find that things are not what they seemed at first. Now… I’d better speak to Shannon again. And Mr Hunter.’
‘He’ll be OK?’ I ask, but Miss Bennett just smiles and pats my arm and tells me not to worry.
We walk out of the office, past Mr Hunter, sitting alone in a side room, not knowing yet what he’s been accused of, past Shannon and her parents. She shoots me a dark, scornful look, her eyes skimming over Jas and Emily, guessing that they had a slightly different story to tell. I think of the little red fox and hold my head high. Shannon has no hold over me any more.
‘You did the right thing,’ Mum says, slipping her arm round me. ‘Telling the truth is all anyone can ask of you. Things will be OK now, Ginger, I promise.’
The trouble is that even when you tell the truth, it doesn’t always cancel out the lies that went before. And sometimes you can’t make a promise come true, no matter how hard you try.
I guess I thought Mr Hunter would be OK. I thought that once the truth came out, Shannon’s accusation would be forgotten, but it seems that it just opened up one huge can of worms. Mr Hunter had made mistakes, Miss Bennett explained to me, and that’s something that can be dangerous for any trainee teacher.
I think that all he really did was try a little too hard to be liked by his students, and that shouldn’t really be a crime. We all want to be liked, don’t we? Still, for Mr Hunter, getting friendly with his pupils was a risky business. Asking kids to call him by his first name, staying late with students after school, calling in to a teenage party, it turns out that none of those things were such a good idea.
Putting an arm round a crying girl, though, that was a real mistake. He was just being kind, but that doesn’t matter because Jas took a photo of it, and Shannon found that photo and didn’t like what she saw.
It doesn’t matter that the picture wasn’t quite what it seemed.
Miss Bennett may be satisfied that Shannon’s story is fantasy, but somehow the scandal remains. Questions are asked, rumours spring up from nowhere and parents who’ve never even met Mr Hunter complain that they don’t want him teaching their kids. Mr Hunter takes a week’s leave to let the stories die down, and right away, fresh rumours sprout up that he’s been asked to go.
Shannon watches the lies unfold. She tells everyone that Mr Hunter flirted with her, led her on, asked her to be the editor of the magazine so that he could spend more time with her. When he didn’t get anywhere, according to Shannon, he turned his attentions on me.
It doesn’t matter that I deny this.
‘Well, she would, wouldn’t she?’ Shannon says. She has an answer for everything. It
’s funny how the tiniest seed of doubt can change the way people see things.
‘He was a bit full-on,’ Faiza Rehman says. ‘I always wondered about him.’
‘He tried too hard,’ Lisa Snow agrees with a shudder. ‘Turning up at a kid’s party, what was that all about?’
She seems to have forgotten that she was one of the kids begging him to come, and nobody reminds her.
One day towards the end of that nightmare week, I’m with Sam and Emily in the canteen when Shannon walks in with Andy Collins. I watch them queue for their lunch, laughing, flirting, acting like nothing is wrong at all. It’s like watching a stranger. I can’t believe I was ever friends with Shannon, ever imagined she was cool or fun or clever.
‘Do you think she knows?’ Emily wonders aloud. ’Do you think she has any idea what she’s done?’
‘She knows,’ Sam says. ‘She just doesn’t care.’
Andy gets sidetracked, talking to a friend, and Shannon walks towards us, grinning. ‘Mind if I join you?’ she asks, her smile as sweet and bright as ever.
Well, yes, I mind. I mind a lot.
I push my lunch away and get to my feet. ‘Why did you do it, Shannon?’ I can’t help asking. ‘All those lies and accusations… what a mess. Was it really worth it?’
Surprise flashes across Shannon’s face. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong!’ she says, indignant. ‘I just happened to find Jas’s camera in the bushes, the day after the party. I couldn’t resist taking a look at the pictures, so I loaded a couple on to my PC–’
‘And cropped the one of me and Mr Hunter so it looked like something it wasn’t,’ I say. ‘Nice.’
‘It looked pretty iffy to me,’ Shannon says. ‘But of course, if you say there was nothing in it–’
‘You know there wasn’t,’ I snap. ‘You have to stop this, Shannon. Stop saying all that bad stuff about Mr Hunter.’
‘He can look after himself,’ she says sourly. ‘Besides, I didn’t know my parents would find those pictures, did I?’
‘Didn’t you?’
Shannon rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, Ginger, you always make such a fuss about things. Lighten up! This is no big deal… it’ll all blow over. Tell her, Emily!’
GingerSnaps Page 14
