Posh and Prejudice

by Grace Dent

  Carrie said that in her exam paper she didn’t even argue that Florida was that good or nothing ’cos she went once with Barney and Maria in Year Eight and it wasn’t no way as good as Dominican and the only thing she remembers was that there was tons of mosquitos at Wacky Water World and one of them bit her on the lady garden.

  I said, “’Ere, Carrie, you never wrote that in the exam did you?” and Carrie says, “Yeah, course I did, Shizza. I was keeping it real.”

  We are DOOMED.

  FRIDAY 22ND AUGUST

  So I got home from work tonight and gave my hair a lather-rinse-repeat-wash to get out all the smell of fry grease and I began ironing it straight and putting on some blusher and finding my charm bracelet when my mum shouts, “Wooooo-hoooo, Shiraz, LOVER BOY is here!” So I go look out of Cava-Sue’s bedroom window and Wesley is outside parking up his banana-yellow Golf.

  He gets out of the car and he’s got on his black Kappa trackie pants and his navy Hackett sweatshirt and his pink Hackett shirt underneath and his hair’s got styling wax in it like he always does when it’s the weekend and he’s proper making an effort. I watch him lock up the Golf, turn to walk away, then turn around and check it out for a bit, then walk back to it and examine a mark on the hood. Wesley loves his car.

  My stomach still feels a bit funny when I see Wesley. Not as much as it used to when I first ever met him, but I still reckon he’s buff and all that in his own way. He’s a well lovely person too. And it’s not like everyone can go out with someone proper choong like Ashton Kutcher can they?

  Everyone in my house loves Wesley. The minute he walks in our house my mother—who can be a right old puffadder—is up making him a cup of tea and my dad is asking him what he reckons about the new West Ham soccer trade and my brother is trying to get him to play Decapitation Nation on PS2 and even Cava-Sue takes her clonking great clown’s feet off the sofa and lets him park his bum.

  “’Ere, Wesley, you couldn’t have a look at our khazi could you?!” my mum was shouting through from the kitchen as I came downstairs. “It ain’t filling right up when you flush!”

  “Mother! Wesley don’t wanna look at our khazi!” I said, looking around for my other hoop earring.

  “Oh, I don’t mind, innit,” Wesley said smiling. “I got some tools in the trunk too if need be.”

  “In the trunk, Wesley!?” shouted Mum. “You don’t wanna be carrying those tools round with you in yer trunk! They’ll get stolen round ’ere.”

  “Well he never knows when he’ll need them, Mum,” I said, trying not to sound narky. “He never knows when we might have a bloody toilet emergency.” Wesley laughed and started to go upstairs.

  “’Ere, Wesley love, do you want a sandwich?” shouted Mum. “I got a can of corned beef opened here for the dog.”

  “Nah, Mrs. W!” shouted Wesley. “I’m taking Shiraz for some nosh before we go to the AMC Loews, innit.”

  “Oooh! Out for a meal!?” gasped my mum. “Very posh. ’Ere, you’ve got a good one there, Shiraz! I never got taken for no food when I was courting, did I, Brian? You never bought me a meal.”

  “You’d never have shut up long enough to eat it,” muttered my dad from behind his Daily Star.

  “What’s that?” shouted my mother.

  “I said, I was so in love I never felt like eating,” said my dad.

  After half an hour of Wesley crouching in our bathroom with his head in the toilet tank we finally left.

  Me and Wesley went to Shanghai Shanghai in Romford Plaza for the All You Can Eat buffet, then we went to see TurboChase Terror II starring The Rock and Carmen Electra. The movie was about some geezer who had stolen a diamond but he didn’t know he’d stolen it until he was being chased by The Rock and was being propositioned by Carmen Electra who spent the whole of the film lying about on car hoods wearing tops that didn’t fit her. I didn’t really want to watch TurboChase Terror II, but Wesley was proper keen. I wanted to watch this film called The Magician’s Maze that I saw a thing about on telly the other night. It’s about these kids who are left to run the world after a big nuclear war. Proper creepy it looked. But Wesley saw on the poster that it had subtitles and he was like no way.

  “Aw, Shiz, I just wanna watch something. I don’t wanna read too, innit,” he said, when we were choosing our buffet. “I don’t wanna feel like I’m back at school.”

  “Oh… S’alright,” I said. “I ain’t bothered.” I tried to pull my face like I wasn’t bothered but Wesley could see I was a bit so he paid the extra two quid a head so I could eat stuff from the duck section.

  Like I say, he’s well lovely like that, is my Wesley.

  MONDAY 25TH AUGUST

  Today was PROPER WEIRD.

  On Mondays Mario always gets obsessed with bleaching the teacups. Don’t flaming ask me why. He seems to think it’s well important that the clientele always get a proper sparkling white teacup, when obviously BACK IN THE REAL WORLD it totally isn’t. Half the geezers who come in Mr. Yolk for Set Breakfast C wouldn’t give a monkey’s if you served them tea in one of my Nan’s old fluffy slippers with a corn bandage that fell off in the toe. They ain’t fussy. But I don’t argue with Mr. Yolk as to be honest it’s quite nice having a bit of time out back faffing about with my yellow rubber gloves on, listening to KISS 100.

  So anyway, it’s 10AM and I’m at the sink up to my elbows in Clorox when Mario comes in and he goes, “Hey Shirelle, your little friend is here to see you.” So I’m like, “Which one?” And he goes “One with all pink mouth and surprise face,” so I know right away he means Carrie ’cos Mario has never understood what’s going on with Carrie’s eyebrows, which she plucks into proper thin arches these days.

  Carrie has been really experimenting with her look ever since she got this book for Christmas called Butterz to Babe in Thirty Days! by this girl called Tabitha Tennant from Dagenham who got kicked out of Big Brother for cheating but now runs a beauty academy in Covent Garden in London. Tabitha is Carrie’s heroine. Tabitha is the woman who started off the “cupid-bow” lips trend this summer where you paint your lipstick on in hot pink in dramatic arches like a doll. Carrie does that a lot at the moment.

  So I take off my gloves and come through and right enough there’s Carrie all made up, cupid-bow lips, two tone eye shadow, wearing a stripy off-the-shoulder top with a pink bra strap showing and jeans and big hoops looking like she’s off to a club in Romford to see DJ Platinum. She looks at me and pulls a proper annoyed face and goes, “Shizza, are you mental or something?”

  And I’m like, “What?” and she’s like, “You were supposed to be taking this morning off! I been calling your phone since 8AM? Why you not showing me no love?”

  So I go, “I’ve been frying eggs, you clown, I’m at work.”

  Carrie laughs and says, “I know you’re at work, but you’re supposed to be picking up your GCSE results!” and suddenly I remember and I feel all sick and proper anxious again just like when I finished the English exam and looked back through all that crap I’d scribbled about the dolphins.

  “Oh God, yeah,” I said to her. “I’ve been blocking it out mentally.” Carrie just shook her head and sighed.

  “Oh come on, Shiz,” she said quite impatiently. “I wanna know what we got.”

  “But I’m busy,” I mumbled, “I’m bleaching cups.”

  “Mmm… yeah, whatever,” said Carrie. “Leave it to me.”

  Then Carrie wandered over to Mario who was sitting in the corner studying the racing section of the Sun with a pen in his mouth.

  “Mr. Yolk?” Carrie said, making her voice even softer and tilting her head to the side. “Mario?”

  “What you want, sweetheart?” he said.

  “Mario? Is it OK if I borrow Shizza for a while? She has a doctor’s appointment that she’s clean forgotten about. I said I’d go with her… for moral support…” Carrie was doing a loud whisper now, “Shiraz is a bit EMBARRASSED to ask you, y’know? It’s one of those downstairs things.�
��

  Carrie pointed in the region of her thong.

  “Downstairs?” said Mario, then his face proper crumpled, “Oh… Go! You women and your bits. It never end. I have enough of you. You got an hour. Then Shirelle she come back and do lunch busy time. Go!”

  I grabbed my pink hoodie and pulled it on over my apron and we skipped out of the door.

  “I can’t bloody believe that always works,” I said to Carrie.

  “I know, why do men always fall for that?” Carrie laughed. “That Mr. Cleaver who did gym at Mayflower actually thought I was on the blob four times a month.” We both laughed well loud then ’cos just the thought of it was bare jokes.

  Me and Carrie got the bus down to Mayflower Academy, listening to the new Dizzee Rascal on her Nokia and eating Whoppers which to be honest felt like stones in my gob ’cos I was feeling proper nervous. When we got to school we had to go to the brand new assembly hall which had just been re-opened after the fire at Christmas. We got in the line for our results. Everywhere you looked there was all my old year with cells clamped to their ears, holding brown envelopes. Sean Burton was there dancing about waving his envelope in the air making a squeaky sound which didn’t actually mean he’d passed or nothing ’cos he’s proper flamboyant at the best of times. Kezia Marshall was sitting on a seat with her envelope resting on her bump looking at her result slip looking proper sad.

  “’Ere, Shiraz, did you see Luther on your way here?” she shouted, and I shrugged and said no.

  Coming in the door behind us were Chantalle Strong and Uma Brunton-Fletcher, stinking of ciggies, and in the corner was Nabila Chaalan being filmed by her dad opening her results and looking well pleased. By this point I was feeling seriously like I was going to have runnybum right there in my knickers.

  “I’m Shiraz Bailey Wood,” I said to Dora, the headmaster’s secretary—as if she didn’t flaming know—I saw more of Dora than I did of any of the teachers during Year Nine. She winked and got me my envelope. I stuck it under my arm and wandered off by myself outside to this little bench by the teachers’ parking lot.

  I could hardly breathe by this point. This is what it said:

  CANDIDATE STATEMENT OF PROVISIONAL RESULTS

  GENERAL CERTIFICATE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

  CENTER NUMBER: 64276

  CENTER NAME: mayflower academy

  CANDIDATE NUMBER: 2987

  CANDIDATE NAME: wood, shiraz bailey

  UNIQUE CANDIDATE IDENTIFIER: 6427568798768Q

  TYPE SUBJECT RESULT

  GCSE English Lang. A+

  GCSE English Lit. A+

  GCSE Mathematics C

  GCSE Religious Stu. A

  GCSE History A

  GCSE French B

  GCSE Geography B

  GCSE Applied Sci. E

  GCSE Art D

  I stared at the paper for ages. I could NOT bloody believe it.

  I got two A pluses!! And another two As! And some Bs and Cs! I got results like a proper bloody boffin would get! My heart was jumping about in my chest and I kept reading the name part again and again to double-check it weren’t a mistake but it WEREN’T A MISTAKE! There was my name on the top and there ain’t any other Shiraz Bailey Woods in the world ever! Go and stick my name in Google if you want proof! I’d passed a load of GCSEs! I PASSED ENGLISH AND MATH AND HISTORY AND RELIGION! I felt proper dizzy and sick and like I really needed the loo again. Then I stood up and sat down and stood up again and then I felt all floaty. I got my cell phone out to call my mum or someone. Then I put it back in my pocket again.

  Just then a black 4×4 Jeep pulled into the parking lot with the windows down, playing some proper old skool R&B from the ’90s. There was a dark-skinned lady wearing trendy thick-rimmed glasses in the driver’s seat. Ms. Bracket! She got out and slammed the car door, spotted me, and gave me a wave.

  “Well, good morning, Miss Wood,” she said. “I was hoping I might see you!”

  “All right, Ms. Bracket!” I said, but my voice was all crackly now like I was going to cry or something which was well shameful but I couldn’t stop it.

  “So, go on, then?” she said, nodding at the exam slip.

  “I passed them!” I said. “I got two bloody A-pluses too! S’cuse my language, sorry! Look! I got loads of them…”

  She took the sheet and looked at it and her face all lit up.

  “My word, Shiraz Bailey Wood!” she said. “This is WONDERFUL news. Totally. You absolutely deserve this! Well done!”

  “Thanks very much!” I said and I was proper beginning to cry now, like a right loon. Ms. Bracket put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Now, Shiraz, in my capacity as the new Head of English,” she said, “I’m really hoping you’ll be joining us in the brand-new Mayflower Sixth Form. I’m looking forward to teaching you. Actually, hang on a minute. Take one of these. They’re just back from the printer.”

  Ms. Bracket reached inside her briefcase and pulled out a booklet that was titled “Mayflower Sixth Form—A Center of Excellence.”

  Just then Mr. Bamblebury, our headmaster, appeared looking all depressed and told Ms. Bracket he needed to talk to her about schedules.

  I shoved my results in my hoodie pocket and walked slowly back to Mr. Yolk’s where Mario had run out of both beef and chicken pot pies and the customers were staging some sort of revolt.

  I got the rest of the teacups well white with no stains or anything. It took a lot of scrubbing though. As I say, it was a proper weird day.

  TUESDAY 26TH AUGUST

  The reason I didn’t call no one yesterday when I got my results was ’cos to be honest I didn’t want the hassle.

  But I get home tonight to find Cava-Sue has organized a special dinner round at our house for the family and invited Nan and Wesley. Cava-Sue even went to the supermarket and got me one of them cakes where they use their computer to stick your face on the front which was proper sweet of her even if she had taken my old school photo from Year Eight where I’ve got my hair scraped back and a big spam forehead going on and a bit of a cross-eye and I look like a mental.

  So I walk in the house and Nan and her mate Clement are in the living room drinking tea. Nan and Clement go everywhere together these days since their other mate Gill died proper sudden this year. I reckon they like seeing each other every day to make sure one of them can’t go and cark it when the other one’s not looking. Clement is a well funny old dude. He comes from the West Indies and he has this proper thoughtful way of saying everything like he knows a little bit about everything in the world. He always wears a hat. He’s about eighty or something. He loves cakes. That’s all I know about Clement really.

  “So I hear we have a genius in our midst, young Shiraz!” Clement says when he sees me.

  “Oh, not really,” I say to him. “I dunno how I did it really. Proper fluke it was I reckon.”

  “Don’t be daft!” says my Nan. “She’s always been sharp as a tack this girl! ’Ere, Diane? Do you remember when she tried to donate our Murphy to the school’s swap meet? Oh my life! I laughed and laughed.”

  “Nan, I was only seven,” I said.

  “Oh, but it was pure comedy,” Nan said proper chuckling. “Your teacher said bring in stuff from home you’re sick of and you don’t want no more! So you tried to give ’em Murphy! You don’t miss a trick, you!”

  My mum walked in the living room then, carrying a teapot, still wearing her work uniform, laughing her head off.

  “So I gets a call from the school, Clement,” she says. “Saying ’ere Mrs. Wood your Shiraz in Primary Three has got your Murphy out of his Primary One class and she’s sat him on a chair in the assembly hall with a price tag on his neck and he’s doing his nut crying and had an accident in his trousers!! Oh, I shouldn’t laugh but it were funny, bless ’em!”

  “I weren’t laughing,” Murphy said proper grumpily ’cos he was trying to watch a Regis and Kelly rerun. Me and Murphy have both heard this story so many times now we could sing it like a
song.

  In the kitchen Cava-Sue and Lewis were sticking Iceland mini-sausages on sticks and pushing them in a melon to make a porcupine.

  Next up my Wesley arrives and he’s only gone and been to Kay in Ilford mall and got me a passing my exams pressie! It was a big gold heart-shaped locket on a chain with room for two photos.

  “The woman in the shop says you gotta put me on one side and you on the other side and then when it’s shut we’ll always be kissing, innit,” Wesley told me.

  “Aw, isn’t that smashing?” said my mum, looking at it proper jealously.

  “Thanks, babe, you’re a star,” I said to Wesley.

  I couldn’t stop staring at it ’cos it was well big. Even bigger than Uma Brunton-Fletcher’s clown pendant. Ginormous.

  At that point Dad got back from work so we were all allowed to start eating. ’Cept we couldn’t ’cos Cava-Sue wanted to make a speech, ’cos ever since she did that AS-Level in Theater Studies she can’t do nothing without it turning into a big show.

  “I just wanted to say on behalf of everyone,” said Cava-Sue, clinking a glass with a spoon, “How proud of our Shiraz we all are that she’s passed so many GCSEs! Shiz, I think you’ve got a really amazing future ahead of you. So here’s to you! Cheers!”

  Cava-Sue raised up her glass of Peach Lambrella wine.

  “Cheers!” shouted everyone and we clinked our glasses together.

  If we’d all just said goodnight then and gone our individual ways then we might have avoided the fight.

  “So what’s the plan now, Shiraz, is it next stop Downing Street?” said Clement, who was tucking into a piece of cake with my nose printed on it.

  “Oh well, dunno really,” I said to him, though I did know really. I was proper faking it.

  “Yeah you do, Shiz,” jumped in Cava-Sue. “You’re going back to Sixth Form!”

  “She’s what?” said my mother. “No she ain’t! She’s got a job!”