St Grizzle's School for Girls, Ghosts and Runaway Grannies

by Karen McCombie

  Out of the long window, I can see Miss Amethyst on the back lawn. She’s wafting about in her usual elegant, purple layers while pegging up lots and lots and lots of pairs of pants on the washing line. She’s obviously getting stuck in with the helping-out duties already.

  “Don’t ask me. I never know what’s going on in my mother’s mind,” Swan says casually as we come to the bottom of the staircase and see Toshio sliding across the hall tiles with dusters tied around his hi-top trainers.

  “I skitter and floor get clean, yes?” he says, holding his thumbs up.

  Toshio is a Japanese student who’s taken on the job of temporary receptionist at St Grizzle’s in exchange for English lessons. Sadly, he’s not very good at either working or English yet.

  “Er, I think you mean skate,” I correct him as we pass but he can’t hear cos of the music blaring in his headphones.

  I hurry along the right-hand corridor after Swan, and soon we’re sinking into the beanbags Lulu keeps in her office for visitors. Zed is already here, parked by Lulu’s desk.

  “Well, what an action-packed morning!” says Lulu, from the comfort of her swivelly chair.

  Behind her is the spray-painted rainforest mural that Swan did to brighten up the room. From this angle, it looks like a toucan is pecking at Lulu’s head.

  “So, Dani,” she says, slapping her hands on the desk. “Swan and Zed have told me that the first film meeting went a bit … whoopsie.”

  “Whoopsie?” I repeat in a small, uncertain voice.

  “You know…” says Lulu, tumbling her hands in the air and pulling an “erk!” sort of face.

  Actually, that IS a very good way to describe the meeting.

  “But all I wanted to say was that having things go whoopsie and then sorting them out is an important Life Skill,” says Lulu.

  Ah, Lulu is big on Life Skills and how to learn from them, the way my old head teacher was big on detention if you forgot your PE kit.

  “So, I just want you to have a rethink, Dani,” says Lulu, “and then get back on with this project, because I have every faith in you! OK?”

  “OK,” I repeat, blushing quite a lot. Being told someone has faith in you is really quite, well, blushy stuff.

  “Good! Great! So any of you young brainboxes got suggestions as to how I can find a new Mrs Hedges?” Lulu asks with a hopeful smile, staring round at the three of us.

  “You don’t think Mrs Hedges will change her mind then, Mum?” asks Zed. “Maybe if she goes home and cools off…”

  “Sadly, she sounded very, VERY sure that she’s had enough,” says Lulu. “And look what she did to Blossom and the girls’ apology!”

  Frowning sadly, Lulu picks up two torn halves of a letter from her desk.

  Put together, they read:

  “They put a lot of thought into it, too,” says Lulu. “Look at all the decoration!”

  Hmm. There does seem to be more decoration than actual apology in the letter. It’s covered in glued-on spangles and feathers and coloured teeny pom-poms.

  “Well, we should be OK for a while. I mean, you know everyone will help out, right?” says Swan.

  “Yes, but what if it goes on for weeks, and … oh dear, I’m not sure what to do first!” Lulu sighs, her shoulders sinking down. (So it’s not just ME having a bad morning.) “There doesn’t seem much in the fridge or kitchen cupboards for a start.”

  “Well, then, YOU’RE going to get on to the supermarket website and put in a food order,” Swan says matter-of-factly. “If you do it quickly, they might be able to deliver it tonight.”

  “Yes! Put in a food order, deliver it tonight, fingers crossed,” Lulu repeats, perking up and pulling her laptop towards her. “But what about lunch?”

  “Me, Zed and Dani could go into the village and buy a whole load of pizzas,” says Swan. “And at the same time, we can scout around Huddleton for good spots to use in our Why We Love Where We Live film. Is that OK, Dani?”

  “Um, sure,” I agree, happy that one of the production team has had an actual idea.

  “Perfect!” says Lulu. “But I’m meant to be teaching circus skills, not doing online shopping. What about the Conkers, Otters and Newts?”

  “They want to scout around on their own,” says Swan. “I’ll tell them that they can only go as far as the school grounds and the woods beyond and have to stick together in their classes. What’s Mademoiselle Fabienne doing now?”

  “The breakfast dishes,” says Lulu.

  “Well, why don’t you ask her and Miss Amethyst to oversee them, since filming is artistic and wandering around the grounds and the woods is practically a nature study lesson.”

  Lulu blinks at her daughter in wonder and awe.

  “Swan Chen-Murphy, you really will be Prime Minister one day,” she tells her.

  Instead of blushing like me, Swan blows a giant “whatever” pink bubble of gum.

  POP!

  We should’ve probably done our scouting-for-locations BEFORE we did our shopping.

  Zed has two big bags of pizza dangling from each handle of his wheelchair while me and Swan carry two more each. And mine keep whacking against my legs with every step. *ouch!*

  We should’ve left Twinkle at home, too, or at least found her a muzzle – she’s not fussed that the pizzas are frozen and keeps trying to nibble them through the bags. But then again, maybe she just enjoys the taste of plastic.

  “It’s just down here,” says Zed, who wants us to check out an interesting old bridge across the river that’s kind of, well, interesting and old.

  I sigh – not because it’s not a good suggestion, but because its dawning on me that we only have till the end of the day on Wednesday to put a film together. And the way we’re going, we won’t have anything to submit at all…

  Swan hears the sigh sneak out.

  “Why are you all gloomy around the edges?” she asks. “We’ll find some locations today, OK?”

  “Well, that would be great,” I tell her. “But how do we get all the Conkers, Otters and Newts back on board? How do we make it a team effort if they’re all off shooting their own random films?”

  “Don’t worry, Dani,” she reassures me. “Their films will not just be random, they will be rubbish without a director to organize everything. But let them get it out of their systems. We’ll watch all their films together tonight and then when everyone sees how bad they are, we’ll tell them what we’re REALLY going to do!”

  “Including giving them proper jobs to do on the project,” I add, now I’ve learned my lesson.

  “And by then we’ll have chosen all these amazing locations from around the village,” says Zed, turning down a side street.

  This side street isn’t too amazing. It’s pretty ugly, actually, with rows of small industrial units crouched behind an ugly metal fence.

  We passed quite a few not-terrifically-lovely buildings on our way into the village as well – a concrete car park, a doctor’s surgery that looked like the architect had based it on the shoebox of his trainers and a new block of flats with tiny windows that reminded me of a documentary I once saw about prisons. Maybe all this ugly modern stuff was why the local council wanted to try and remind people of the nice parts of the area that still exist.

  “Uh-oh…” groans Zed, and he begins to slow his wheels.

  “Great…” snarls Swan.

  OK, now I see what they do. A pretty, tree-lined river, a historic and very scenic bridge – and a bunch of kids from the village school.

  A bunch of kids I’ve come across once before, on my first visit to the village a couple of weeks ago. This lot were so Meanie McMeanpants that I wasn’t in a desperate hurry to see them again.

  “Hey, look, everyone!” says a tall boy with a floppy blond quiff and a clipboard. “It’s some smelly Grizzlers!”

  I remember what his name is – Spencer. His little gang, in their black and green Huddleton school uniform, snigger like he’s a comedy genius.

  Swan ke
eps walking straight towards them, staring them out, blowing the biggest I-don’t-care pink bubble imaginable. Me and Zed shyly pad and roll behind her.

  “So, what are you doing here? Let me guess?” says Spencer, tapping a pen against his lip and doing a comic-book exaggerated frown. “Hmm... Looking for places to shoot your Why We Love Where We Live film. Right?”

  “Maybe,” Swan says with a shrug. “So what?”

  “So,” Spencer suddenly sneers at her, “you can’t film the bridge. WE got here first. AND we’re doing the market cross, the old church, the duck pond on the green and the WWI memorial. EVIDENCE.”

  Spencer holds up the clipboard, and we can see some scribbled notes on it.

  “Now we’ve decided on our locations, we’re coming back tomorrow to do our filming, using the school’s BRAND-NEW VIDEO CAMERA, then editing it on the school’s BRAND-NEW EDITING SOFTWARE, so don’t even think about doing the same stuff, cos we’re going to nail it. OK, losers?”

  I shuffle closer to Zed and I think he’d shuffle closer to me, only that’s quite a complicated back-and-forth manoeuvre in a wheelchair.

  Swan POPs! her ginormous bubble, which makes snidey Spencer and his gang of twonks jerk in surprise.

  “You think we’re bothered?” she says, once she’s wrapped the pink strands of gum around her finger and sucked the whole lot back in her mouth with a defiant slurp. “We only came this way cos we were walking the goat. We have LOADS of better location ideas than this…”

  Swan spins round effortlessly on her heel, her waist-length black hair flipping behind her, and begins to walk off, giving a casual tug at Twinkle’s extendable lead.

  Passing me and Zed she winks, and we both immediately try and turn just a fraction as coolly as she did.

  “What location ideas do we have that are so much better?” Zed hisses at his sister as we catch her up.

  “We don’t – yet,” Swan replies, as if finding prize-winning locations is as easy as opening a bag of crisps.

  “No! Gerroff! Give that back! Oi…!” I hear Spencer yell behind us.

  I nearly turn around to see what’s up but then Twinkle clatters up beside us and contentedly falls into step with our walk. Chewing on a clipboard.

  “Bring it on…” I say with a grin as a little bubble of possibility and excitement fizzles inside me once again.

  We had a “surprise” tea this evening.

  With no supermarket delivery slot available till later tomorrow, Lulu and Toshio had to get inventive, cooking every single food item they could find in our nearly empty cupboards and freezer.

  No one had the same thing – we each just got a plate of randomness handed to us. Mine was a fish finger and spring onion sandwich, Swan’s was baked bean and corned beef hash and Zed ended up with cauliflower cheese on toast. It was a LOT of fun, especially when we had a vote about whose was the most disgusting. One of the triplets won with her burnt bacon ’n’ Brussels sprout mash.

  And now tea’s over and the dishes are done and put away, it’s time for the film showings. Everyone’s gathered in the art classroom, from Lulu the head right down to the smallest Newt.

  Yas suggested we do the screening in here because Mademoiselle Fabienne has a really big, deliciously soft, fluffy rug on the floor in front of her whiteboard to sit on.

  She also has flowers in a vase on her desk, plus a pretty fringed lamp and some framed photos of Antoine, her pet lizard back home in France. It’s very cosy and relaxing, especially with all the artwork up on the walls.

  Though the thudding of Twinkle’s horns on the other side of the door is kind of distracting. Still, she has to understand that bad behaviour has consequences. Until Twinkle learns that it’s plain wrong to eat teachers’ shoes and random art supplies, she’s banned.

  “Turn the lights off!” someone shouts out and Blossom jumps up to flick a few switches, leaving it just bright enough for me to see what I’m doing at the computer, under the fringed lamp’s soft glow.

  It feels strange being in charge of school equipment, while actual teachers are sitting on chairs in the back row. But it would probably have taken grown-ups like Lulu, Mademoiselle Fabienne and Miss Amethyst five years to figure out how to download the vids the younger classes had filmed on their phones on to Mademoiselle Fabienne’s laptop.

  I guess Toshio might have managed, since he’s about eighteen and is technocentric but he’s been too busy serving up mugs of sugary popcorn to everyone to go with the evening’s entertainment.

  “OK, so here’s film number one, from the Conkers!” I announce.

  Once the pop-concert-level shrieking and yelling ebbs away, I hit PLAY.

  And up pops Yas – “It’s YAS!” squeals a Newt – on the whiteboard. Yas is standing beside the statue of St Grizzle, who’s been tidied up for filming and is no longer sporting a shower cap and clutching a pine cone.

  Some music starts. It’s dark and grungy-sounding. The camera turns a little to the right and we see May-Belle holding up a novelty mini-speaker in the shape of a panda’s head.

  “No, Klara! Don’t turn it on me!” May-Belle hisses, and the phone gets roughly shoved back round to face Yas.

  “Hi, there!” says Yas, holding a microphone to her mouth, though on closer squinting, I see from the shape of it that it might be a tube of sweets that’s been covered in tinfoil. “We love where we live – quite literally. Because we are lucky enough to go to school in this incredible building, which must be one of the most beautiful in the area. St Grizelda’s School for Girls is over a hundred years old and its first ever head teacher, Miss Augusta Wilberbuttle, had this to say about it…”

  Up till now, apart from the pretty gloomy music, the Conkers’ vid has almost gone all right, especially since it’s obvious that Yas has done some research. She now holds up a piece of paper and begins to read.

  “Every girl who walks into the hallowed hallways of St Grizelda’s will be treated as an individual. Because at St Grizelda’s, we believe that girls should be as free to grow as the trees in the woods that surround us. A St Grizelda girl will be valued. Her talents will be appreciated, whatever they may—”

  New music blasts in suddenly, Bollywood-style bhangra, which is MUCH louder than May-Belle’s gloomy goth tune. The camera moves round to the left, where Angel – in the most glorious pink-and-gold-beaded sari – puts a large boom box down on the grass and begins to dance.

  Her dancing is brilliant but above the music you can hear a cross-sounding Yas yelling, “Not yet! Not yet, Angel!”.

  And then the camera goes all wobbly and there’s Klara, excitedly hissing, “Here, take it – take it!” and May-Belle answering, “But this isn’t what we decided!” before the camera is lifted and straightened again and Klara is caught merrily cartwheeling past Angel, while Yas holds her head in her hands.

  The film ends.

  “Hurray! Yay!” yell all the Newts, who I think have all had extra sugar on their popcorn. (I’m pretty sure the bump under Blossom’s T-shirt when she came in was the sugar bowl from the kitchen.)

  As for the Conkers, they’re all looking a bit sheepish after the screening, to be honest.

  “I was meant to finish reading out Miss Wilberbuttle’s words, and then introduce Angel and Klara,” Yas starts to explain. “But everything got a bit rushed...”

  I peek at Swan across a darkened room, and just make out her giving me a subtle “told-you!” eyebrow raise.

  So far, she’s been so right. It’s all going horribly, brilliantly wrong.

  On to the next film…

  “Next, we have the Otters,” I say, “telling – I mean, showing us what is so special about where we live…”

  Cue more crazy yells from the Newts as I press PLAY again.

  The triplets must have their phone propped up on a branch, because all three of them are standing facing the camera, in a clearing in the woods.

  There is no musical background.

  No grungy tunes, no bhangra beats.<
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  There is no presenter, with or without a pretend microphone. No one talks. No one moves.

  The triplets just stare at the camera, while some crows squawk-squawk menacingly in the distance.

  It’s pretty creepy. In fact, it’s pretty creepy for about two whole minutes – which feels like quite a long time when you’re being creeped out – till Lulu cheerfully shouts out, “How wonderfully atmospheric! But how about stopping it there so we can see what the Newts have been up to?”

  I can’t tell how the sitting-here-now triplets feel about their film being cut short (and I know it runs to nearly ten minutes, since I checked when I uploaded it), as they are just staring at themselves – freeze-framed – on screen.

  I risk a quick peek at Zed, who gives me a double thumbs up, then seems to think that people might spot him and changes it into a fake popcorn-stuck-in-the-throat cough.

  Quickly, I flip to our last film. The Newts.

  They give themselves the BIGGEST cheer yet, and look round at Miss Amethyst, who went out with them while they did their filming.

  Miss Amethyst claps madly while they grin at her but as soon as they all turn back to gawp at the screen, she slaps her forehead and has to be comforted by Mademoiselle Fabienne.

  PLAY

  The first image is of a big, blurry nostril.

  “You’ll have to step back further than THAT, Blossom,” we hear Miss Amethyst say.

  The big, blurry nostril moves, and turns into a big, blurry nose.

  “Further,” Miss Amethyst orders.

  “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” cackles Blossom, retreating fast, so that the nose becomes a crazed-eyed face.

  A gaggle of Newts are behind her, holding their hands to their faces as they snigger.

  “So,” says Miss Amethyst from behind the phone’s camera. “Why don’t you girls tell us what’s so special about this wonderful old oak here?”

  The only response is ten Newts disappearing up a tree.