Posh and Prejudice

by Grace Dent

I’m quite enjoying History, but I don’t go about telling folks. The only reason my mother is off my back right now about doing A-Levels is ’cos I always make a proper painful face when I mention school as if every day is like having your skin peeled off and rolled in toilet cleaner. If I hate it she’ll keep making me go.

  Today we were learning about Martin Luther who was this bloke in the 14th century who started the Protestant faith by writing this notice to the pope saying something like, “Oi Bruv, you are bare jokes mate. This Catholic faith malarkey is a right old ripoff.” Then he hammers it up on a door and before you know it all sorts of beef has kicked off and there’s this totally rival crew to the Catholics started up called the Protestants. I like History ’cos it proves you can do one little thing and the world can change forever. A bit like when Tabitha Tennant invented cupid-bow lips.

  FRIDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER

  11PM—I can’t bloody believe what happened today. CAN’T BELIEVE IT. Right, so today me and Carrie and Sean and Joshua and Saf are all sitting in the Audio Visual room in the dark watching this film called Secrets and Lies for Film Studies which sounds like a right old doss but believe me it ain’t ’cos you have to concentrate proper hard and try to work out how the filmmaker is “creating tension” and “building characters” which is NOTHING LIKE going to the AMC Loews where everyone chucks popcorn and farts and talks on their phones the whole way through.

  So we’re all in the dark and it’s totally quiet aside from Carrie snoring and suddenly there is this well loud BANG outside. Like, BAAAAAAANG! Like a car backfiring proper loudly. Then seconds later loads of screaming and shouting. Then doors slamming and loads of noise in the halls and thundering feet and yelling and shrieking. So we all stand up and run to the window and look down onto the path up to the school gate and suddenly there’s loads of Year Ten and Year Eleven kids outside all waving their arms and looking frightened and sickened and excited all at once like something proper amazing had just happened.

  So I open the window and shout down to Tariq who is one of Murphy’s friends, “Tariq, what’s happened?”

  And he shouts “Clinton Brunton-Fletcher has been shot! Someone has shot him, man! Brap Brap Braaaaaap!” And Tariq is waving his hands in the air giving gun signs looking sort of happy but sort of disgusted at the same time.

  So I said, “What do you mean? Where’s Clinton?”

  Tariq said, “Dunno man, he’s gone! Whoever shot him is well gone too!”

  I backed away from the window, suddenly feeling well cold and sick, and by that point the bell was ringing and outside turned into total bloody chaos ’cos suddenly there was like a thousand kids all flocking around the main gate and everyone telling everyone else the tale that Clinton had been shot and Uma was in the center of it trying to talk on her cell phone looking proper upset. And then the police arrived blaring their sirens and then even more police arrived and then some news reporters arrived and then loads of parents arrived and then loads of passersby started loitering and everyone was shouting at each other and Mrs. Radowitz and Ms. Bracket were trying to push the kids back indoors. And by this point people were saying that they’d DEFINITELY seen the car and they’d definitely seen Clinton covered in blood and it weren’t a small gun, no it was a big gun, in fact it was one of them proper gangster MAC-10 submachine guns and the gunman were on a moped, no in a Audi, no in a Benz Jeep. And there was four of them. No, five. Five gunmen in ski masks doing a drive-by shooting! Except one gunman took off his ski mask and a Year Seven lad saw it was DEFINITELY JANELLE.

  This was all crap. No one had really seen anything, in fact the only people who’d seen anything at all was two Year Nine kids, Olivier and Mikey, and they were now saying that they saw Clinton on his BMX, then they just heard a bang, which was maybe just a car backfiring and then Clinton shouting out then pedaling away. But by this point that story seemed pretty BORING and everyone wanted to believe the gun story more and everyone wanted to be part of the drama, except Uma who now seemed to have disappeared, and there were girls crying and boys giving it the big one saying Clinton deserved to get merked and everyone was talking about gangs and guns and by this point Sky News had arrived on the scene and my mother called my cell and said that Mayflower was live on the telly on one of their big flashing News Flash bulletins that said, “SHOOTING AT SUPERCHAV ACADEMY.”

  Mum said I had to come home straightaway and I shouted, “Mum, I don’t even think there’s been a shooting!” and Mum shouted, “Well there’s been something going on! It’s all over the news! I’m watching your bloody school now! There’s a police helicopter circling the school! Get yourself home RIGHT NOW!” So I says to her, “Mum I don’t think that is a police helicopter I think that’s maybe the Sky News helicopter filming the pictures that you’re watching.” Then she told me to stop being so bloody clever and get home before I got my head blown off.

  I didn’t go home. Me and Carrie hung about around the film crews for a while listening to news reporters do their reports. Loads of kids were trying to get into the camera shots and people who knew NOTHING about Mayflower School were suddenly turning up being a world flipping authority on the place which was making me proper angry. I was listening to this one guy wearing a suit and tie holding a microphone and he was going live on BBC and he was obviously just making up crap as he went along going something like…

  “Well, Julia! Here I am, outside Mayflower Academy! Now, this is a school that has been DOGGED BY CONTROVERSY for a long time and it had seemed recently as though there had been some VAGUE IMPROVEMENTS, but now it’s more of the same: weapons, gangs, violence, drug-dealing, and antisocial behavior! What a sad example of the youth of today this school is! I mean, to set the scene, this was the school that was once called the WORST SCHOOL IN BRITAIN providing some of the lowest standards in education in the country. In turn it gained a nickname in media circles as “Superchav Academy”—chav being a term for the very underclass, FERAL, out of control children we see all too often in Britain today. Well the nickname CERTAINLY FITS TODAY, Julia, because here I am on the scene of what is looking to be a drive-by-shooting incident! More news as we get it, this is me, Max Blackford, reporting for BBC news, now back to the studio…”

  This made me really really mad. Max Blackford didn’t mention that this maybe weren’t even a shooting. Or if it was it HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MAYFLOWER KIDS, it was caused by somebody who left years ago. Max didn’t say there were lots of really good kids at Mayflower. Or mention Tonita’s ice-skating or Manpreet’s Countdown prize or the time Year Eight made that Diplodocus out of egg cartons to give to the children’s hospital or the lad in Year Ten who got scouted for West Ham youth soccer squad last week! Or the fact that loads of kids at Mayflower got proper GCSEs this year or the fact that we WEREN’T ALL BLOODY CHAVS WHO WERE INTO SHOOTING EACH OTHER, RIGHT????

  So when Max bloody Bratford asked me and Carrie if we wanted to go live on the six o’clock broadcast for forty-five seconds and give an interview about “What Life is Like as a Superchav” I decided I’d wait till the cameras were filming and tell him exactly what I thought. Go and look on YouTube—the clip is up already. His face is a proper picture.

  SATURDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER

  9AM—Ms. Bracket has just sent me a text message saying that Mr. Bamblebury wants to see me in his office at 8:30AM SHARP on Monday morning to discuss my comments about Mayflower Academy.

  Oh my days. Now I’m in SERIOUS BOTHER.

  OCTOBER

  WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER

  Clinton Brunton-Fletcher is not dead. IT’S OFFICIAL. But he’s not living at Thundersley Road anymore either. Uma says he’s “gone away for a bit.” Uma didn’t say where but I reckon Portsmouth as that’s where the bloke he calls his dad lives. It said on the news tonight that there definitely was a gun fired outside Mayflower, but whoever fired it probably just fired one shot up into the air then drove off right away. The evening news said police are investigating claims that drugs are being sold aroun
d the school gates, which is “fueling gang tension.”

  So I go to my appointment with Mr. Bamblebury on Monday, and sit on a hard chair that hurts my arse amongst his dying potted plants and he starts quizzing me about Clinton Brunton-Fletcher and saying like, was Clinton really drug dealing, ’cos he’d heard this from several parents who were all calling up giving him an earache.

  So I said, “I don’t know NOTHING!” and I said it loud ’cos the honest to God truth is that I don’t know much and what I do know for sure is that I’m no bloody grass. I mean WHAT’S IT GOT TO DO WITH ME if a gang of rudes want to roll up the school acting like big men? What’s it got to do with me if Clinton wants to sell weed? For once in my life I was in the headmaster’s office for something that had NOTHING to do with me at all! I just wanna read King Lear.

  Mr. Bamblebury said all this has got something to do with me, ’cos I can HELP. Mr. Bamblebury said that Mayflower Academy is on the brink of turning a corner and it’s important that we stay focused and on a positive track.

  So I said, “WELL I’M STAYING POSITIVE, didn’t you see me on BBC news?! I was representing big time, mate!”

  So Mr. Bamblebury said, “Yes, Shiraz, thank you, and your comments were very spirited… although there was no need to call Max Blackford an ignorant-ass knobhead, was there?”

  “Yeah, sorry ’bout that, Mr. Bamblebury,” I said. “I got a bit worked up.”

  Mr. Bamblebury said that the Mayflower Sixth Formers already hold a “considerably weighty influence” around the school and that we needed to “take prime advantage” of this and “set a good example.” So I said, “What does that mean in normal English?” and that’s when Ms. Bracket stepped in and said that maybe the Sixth Formers could think about starting a little “Increase the Peace” campaign? Maybe I could plan a little assembly telling the Year Sevens to Elevens about the dangers of becoming involved with gangs and weapons and persuading them to go to Sixth Form instead and “be just like me.”

  BE JUST LIKE ME!?

  I stared at them both like they were a pair of mentals for a bit. Then I said, “Eh? Why me? Why do I have to do it?” and Mr. Bamblebury said that the great thing about me was that I could really speak to the kids “at their level” and get through to them. Mr. Bamblebury said most of the time he can’t understand what any of the kids are even saying, like earlier that day he’d heard some Year Seven boy shouting, “Dat Bracket woman is nang, bruv” and he didn’t know whether to tell him off as he didn’t know what “nangbruv” was.

  So I told Mr. Bamblebury that “nang” was good ’cos it means Ms. Bracket is good, she’s like, cool. Mr. Bamblebury looked proper pleased then. Then he said that he’d also heard that the Year Tens had all started calling him “Mr. Bumbleclot” instead of Mr. Bamblebury and he didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing either? And at that point I decided to do the “Increase the Peace” campaign for Mr. Bamblebury ’cos to be honest I felt a bit sorry for him.

  FRIDAY 3RD OCTOBER—SHIRAZ BAILEY WOOD’S BIRTHDAY!

  I am seventeen today. Seventeen! Proper ancient! I thought seventeen might feel different, like suddenly I’d wake up feeling well mature and start watching Emmerdale and enjoying brussels sprouts and doing word-searches but it ain’t like that at all. Seventeen just feels like sixteen.

  When do you suddenly start feeling like a grown-up, I wonder? When do you suddenly get all your grown-up brain cells and know whether you’re doing the right thing with your life and where you’re going? When does that all come?

  I asked my mother about it this morning and she said the moment she knew she was a grown-up was this day in the early ’90s when she found herself in ShopRite in Romford and Cava-Sue had just started school and I was only a toddler and Murphy was just born and her mum had just died and suddenly she was in charge of everybody and she still felt like a kid herself but she weren’t no more and she was staring at this packet of rice pudding like her mum used to make her and she realized she didn’t know how to cook it and there was no one to tell her anymore and she had a panic attack and the manager had to take her to his office and make her a cup of sweet tea.

  “Anyway,” my mother said, chucking me a card in an envelope. “Don’t worry about that now. Happy Birthday.” Mum gave me a card on behalf of everyone in the family with a £20 gift card for TJ Maxx, then my Wesley came round tonight and took me out to Pizza Hut.

  Wesley bought me a gold bracelet from Elizabeth Duke which sort of matches my locket. He is such a nice person. It’s proper chunky though. “’Ere, Mum,” I said to her once he’d gone. “You don’t think this is a bit too bling if I wear it with the locket and the hoops is it?”

  “Don’t be soft,” Mum said, “You can’t never wear too much gold.”

  MONDAY 6TH OCTOBER

  I’ve started recruiting people to take part in the Mayflower Academy: Increase the Peace campaign. Well, when I say “recruiting” what I mean is I stood on a chair in the Sixth Form common room today and said, “’Ere, everyone, listen!” and told them what Mr. Bamblebury wanted. Everyone just stared at me pulling the same “Are you a mentalist?” face that I did last week.

  Finally Sean Burton, who was spending his study hall sewing glitter patches onto a silver bomber jacket to go and see Kylie Minogue, spoke up and said, “Shizza, have you seen some of those kids out there? There’s one lad in Year Ten who calls himself Meatman who’s got gold teeth and a tattoo of Tupac Shakur on his arm? He shouts ‘Kill da fairy!’ everytime he sees me!” Lots of folks nodded like they knew him. “Y’know, Shiz,” Sean said, “I ain’t overly concerned with increasing Meatman’s peace. In fact, I’m sort of hoping someone shoots him soon.”

  “Thank you, Sean, that’s ever so helpful,” I said, although to be honest I could see his point. I started to panic a bit then. What the bloody hell was I going to do? But suddenly, Joshua Fallow stands up and says, “OK, Shiraz Bailey Wood, put my name down. I want to increase the peace!”

  So I say, “Are you serious, Joshua?”

  And he says, “Yeah, it’s a good idea. We should do something…. I’ll help you organize it. Just tell me what you want to do and I’ll do it.”

  I wrote his name down and gave him a little smile ’cos despite him being proper up himself he had totally saved my life. Joshua gave me little wink and I felt a bit funny.

  Of course, the moment Joshua says he’ll help, lots of other people like Saf and Sean and Luther and Sonia and Carrie said they’d get involved too. We are the “Mayflower Academy: Increase the Peace Initiative.”

  Crapping hell—now we really have to do it.

  WEDNESDAY 8TH OCTOBER

  Studying at my house is proper impossible. IMPOSSIBLE! I’ve told our Murphy a thousand times that he can’t play bloody Dubstep in his room when I’m reading my Shakespeare but he just don’t get it at all. I hate him sometimes.

  In the end I went over to Carrie’s house as we’re supposed to have finished Henry IV Part One by tomorrow. Carrie wasn’t much use at all. In fact she was a proper distraction. When I got to Draperville, Carrie was lying on her bed staring at the beauty section of In Touch.

  Carrie said that eyes are going to be very big news next spring/summer season NOT lips like in autumn/winter. So I said, “Bloody hell, Cazza! You love your cupid-bow lips! What are you going to do!?” So Carrie says, “Doesn’t matter, Shizzle, I’m going to start doing smudge kohl eyes instead like Tabitha Tennant did at the TV Quick awards.”

  So I said, “Wooo, dat is well nang, Cazza, but do you think we should read Henry IV Part One now?”

  And Carrie said “Mmm… yeah, but first, what do you reckon about Saf? Do you reckon he’ll end up snogging me if we do “Increase the Peace” campaign together? Man, he is well choong!”

  The only time Carrie really picked up her Shakespeare was when we heard her dad on the landing shouting, “Carrie? I’m back!” Barney walked in and saw Carrie pretending to study and looked really happy. “Would the future CEO
of Draper Hydration and her best friend fancy some Chinese food? ’Cos I’m putting a takeaway order in,” he asked.

  “Ooh thank you, Dad!” Carrie said. “Can me and Shiz share a Set Meal A? But change the pork balls to chicken in black beans and get shrimp crackers too… THANK YOU DAD, YOU’RE THE BEST!”

  The second he shut the door she picked up In Touch again and started reading an article called “Hollywood Tips for Heavenly Eyelashes.”

  FRIDAY 10TH OCTOBER

  We had our first “Increase the Peace” meeting today in the Audio Visual room. I was well nervous ’cos I’ve never been in charge of anything before EVER and suddenly loads of Sixth Formers are all up in my face expecting me to have a plan and be all responsible. SCARY MARY.

  Luckily Joshua Fallow showed up and he was proper confident and had loads of ideas in a folder with a sticker on it that said “INCREASE THE PEACE.” Joshua had even been on the Internet and found this video by this bloke from Hackney called Wootbouy for a track called “Rude, U R Dead to Me.” He made it as part of an anti-violence initiative just like ours.

  The video is about how easy it is to start rolling with a gang and end up putting your whole family’s life at risk. The video starts all exciting with boys and girls all dressed going to a shubz having a laugh and getting off with each other acting like mini-gangsters but then suddenly things start to get proper heavy with people getting shot and it ends up well upsetting with mums screaming by hospital beds and police dragging away one kid to jail after someone’s been killed over some stupid beef over a stolen iPod. HEAVY.

  We’re going to show the Year Sevens to Elevens the video, then do a skit about how to “walk away from violence” and “increase the peace” then finally we’re going to give some little speeches about how we all ended up in Mayflower Sixth Form and how bloody whoop-di-doo fantastic it is.