Leap of Faith

by Candy Harper

  ‘I can vouch for Faith’s commitment to the debating club,’ Mrs Lloyd Winterson said.

  ‘You’re certainly very eloquent,’ Governor Lady said.

  I nearly said, you should see me when I’m talking my Dad into giving me the last piece of cheesecake, but I got a hold of myself and smiled instead.

  ‘If you were to become a perfect,’ Mrs L-W said, ‘what changes would you like to make at Westfield High?’

  I controlled the urge to let the power go to my head and instantly dismiss Miss Ramsbottom.

  ‘I’d like to build on the partnership that exists between the prefects and the teachers, perhaps by increasing the role of the student council. I think it’s important that students feel they have a say in the running of their school.’

  Governor Lady put down her pen. ‘Now Faith, we’ve heard a lot about your leadership skills and your influence with your peers, so we would like to ask if you are interested in being considered for the position of head girl?’

  I was a little bit surprised by this question. Obviously, I’m a natural choice to run this school. But up until this point it had seemed like maybe the school hadn’t noticed my talents. In fact, Miss Ramsbottom is always putting me into detention for my impressive leadership skills, or what she calls ‘being a bad influence.’ Still, Miss Ramsbottom wasn’t there and I could see that if I used my best persuasive powers, I was in with a good shot at being head girl. I opened my mouth to share my marvellousness with them, but for once in my life that’s not what came out.

  Instead, I said, ‘I don’t think I’m the best girl for the role.’

  They exchanged nervous glances.

  ‘But I’ll tell you who is: Angharad Jones would make an excellent head girl. Angharad is the one who first got me interested in applying to be a prefect and her commitment to the school really is inspirational. I’ve talked about debating club, choir, and the Christmas boxes for the elderly; Angharad has been fully immersed in those projects and she also took a lead role in the Green Schools conference. She’s also captain of the netball team and a student mentor.’

  Miss Linnie and Mrs L-W exchanged glances. Governor Lady frowned a little. ‘Well, thank you for the recommendation, Faith, but I’m sure Angharad can tell us about her achievements.’

  ‘But that’s just it! She won’t, she’s too modest. She won’t tell you that she’s likely to get the highest marks in the mocks, or that, unlike most of the girls you see today who have both friends and enemies, Angharad is universally well liked and respected. And that includes the younger girls because she takes an interest in them and gives up her time to help tutor the ones who are struggling in maths.’

  ‘I see.’ Governor Lady made some notes. ‘It certainly has been very interesting to hear this. Thank you, Faith, it’s been a real pleasure meeting you.’

  I’m not sure that you’re supposed to start promoting other candidates when you’re in an interview, but I have always been quite good at telling people what to do.

  Anyway, Angharad has always supported me and it’s obvious that she’d be a great head girl.

  SATURDAY 7TH JULY

  This morning I tried not to think about Ethan. I would have preferred to distract myself by wearing a prom dress and a million pounds worth of jewellery, while attending a film premiere, but instead I was stuck with memorising the carbon cycle. This afternoon I revised with the girls at Ang’s house. I got more done by myself but it was more fun and more chocolatey with the others.

  SUNDAY 8TH JULY

  Mocks start tomorrow.

  I don’t know who first thought up mock exams. I’m pretty sure that Miss Ramsbottom had something to do with it.

  We all know that GCSEs are big scary exams that affect your whole future and just to make sure you don’t forget this, you get to sit in the tense, silent hall with teachers scowling to remind you how serious and important it all is. Who thought that recreating that scenario a whole year before the real thing was a good idea? Basically, we’re practising for being stressed out and terrified by being stressed out and terrified.

  Great.

  I’m stressed out and terrified.

  MONDAY 9TH JULY

  Biology exam this morning. At lunchtime we collapsed in a heap.

  ‘I don’t think my brain is designed for memorising the structure of a cell and all that sort of thing,’ Lily said.

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself from asking, ‘What is your brain designed for?’

  She screwed up her face in concentration. ‘It sort of sends me pictures.’

  ‘Pictures?’

  ‘Yeah, like what I’m going to have for lunch, or how cool my new socks would look with green baseball boots.’

  ‘So you’re saying you’ve got a mind for leisure rather than the book stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t we all,’ Megs said.

  ‘I’m pretty sure Angharad thinks in numbers,’ I said, pointing at Ang who was measuring the angles of her Dorito with a protractor.

  ‘That’s not any weirder than thinking in socks and sandwiches,’ Megs said.

  Lily rubbed her temples with her fingers. ‘You’re good at revising, Faith. How do you get your brain to work?’

  Angharad looked up to hear my answer.

  I wriggled to get comfy. ‘Are you sure you’re ready for a scientific explanation? Because, after this morning, I am expecting an ‘A’ star in biology.’

  Megs poked me in the ribs. ‘Just tell us.’

  ‘So . . . the way I see it, the brain is this amazing piece of equipment with the capacity to take in, er, stuff and to send it out again. Essentially, it’s a sausage machine. If you just keep cramming it with meaty information, when you get to the exam you’ll be able to crank out a long string of prime answer-sausages.’

  Megs gave me a long look. ‘I’ve just wasted a minute listening to that. I could have learnt something in that time.’

  Angharad had already gone back to calculating the square on her Doritos’ hypotenuse, but Lily was staring at me open-mouthed. ‘Wow,’ she said slowly. ‘Now I get it.’

  And she looked genuinely enlightened.

  I couldn’t help feeling quite pleased. ‘Maybe I should be an educator,’ I said.

  Megs groaned. ‘No way, it’s bad enough having one of you. If they let you get your hands on impressionable young minds you’d only fashion yourself an army in your own image.’

  ‘What’s not to like about that?’

  Megs walloped me with her bag.

  Lily had opened her History textbook and was muttering ‘Sausage machine, sausage machine.’

  It’s going to be a long week.

  TUESDAY 10TH JULY

  Exams. Revolting.

  WEDNESDAY 11TH JULY

  More exams. The highlight of the day was Icky falling off her chair during the maths paper. She pretended she’d fainted, but it was interesting how she managed to time it so that she fell at the feet of that fit student teacher. He looked horrified. Obviously, Icky couldn’t see this because she had her eyes closed.

  So after the exam I told her.

  Several times.

  THURSDAY 12TH JULY

  During the French exam Miss Ramsbottom stood on the balcony and watched us. For an hour and a half. Without moving. She was definitely up to something. My bet is that she was using her vampire powers to drain us of our energy while our defences were down.

  No wonder I’m exhausted.

  FRIDAY 13TH JULY

  After a miserable week of exams we agreed we should have a break and meet in the park tonight. When Megs and I got there, Ethan was sat on a bench staring into space looking both superhot and a bit miserable. Westy and Lily were pretending to be horses, with Elliot and Angharad as their jockeys and Cameron was bellowing at them to go faster. I think the exam stress is getting to everyone.

  Still, there’s nothing wrong with letting off steam so I placed a bet on Lily and Ang winning the obstacle race (it’s probably
a good thing they don’t make real horses get on see-saws) and I won a Mars Bar off Cameron.

  There was a lot of micky taking and laughing and a bit more pretending to be animals, so obviously I was having a pretty good time, but I thought Ethan still seemed a bit offish with me. He’d hardly said anything sarcastic to me all night.

  Then I remembered that thing that Megs is always saying about how the world doesn’t revolve around me, so I came at it from a new angle. And once my big head had deflated I thought that maybe there was something bothering him. Something non-me. So I went and sat on the swing next to him and said, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You seem a bit down.’

  ‘Oh, you know, the oppressive nature of the universe, global warming, Westy’s run out of Jaffa Cakes. It’s all weighing on me a bit heavily.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Also, I’m a surly teen. I don’t go in for cheerful much.’

  I didn’t want to push it, but I didn’t want to give up so I said, ‘I’m a surly teen too, doesn’t that mean that we cancel each other out like two negative numbers?’

  He half smiled.

  ‘I’m just trying to say that you don’t have to be hilarious every minute that I’m talking to you.’

  ‘So that means that up until this point in our friendship you consider everything I’ve said to be hilarious? Well, that’s cheered me up considerably.’

  I put my hand on his arm. ‘Why do you need cheering up?’

  He didn’t say anything for several seconds.

  ‘My parents are getting divorced.’

  And suddenly a lot of stuff made sense. His moodiness, the aversion to arguments, what Cam had said about him having a bad time at home.

  ‘Oh. That’s rough. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, I mean, I’m not an idiot, despite what my form tutor says. It’s not like I hadn’t noticed that they weren’t getting on brilliantly.’ He picked at a thread on his jeans. ‘I didn’t expect us all to live happily ever after, it’s just . . .’

  ‘You kind of wanted to?’

  He nodded.

  I thought really hard about what to say next.

  ‘I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through and I don’t want to say anything stupid like “you’ll get used to it”, but I feel bad for you, I really do.’

  He bit his lip.

  ‘Sorry, that’s not much help is it?’

  ‘It sort of is.’

  ‘You know Lily’s parents split up last year? Maybe you could talk to her.’

  ‘I like talking to you. Unless you’d rather I shut up?’

  ‘No. I like listening to you. You can talk as much as you like.’

  And he did. He told me a lot of stuff about how horrible the last few months have been. How he’s had to listen to his parents bickering all the time and how his dad has started trying to get him to take sides and how he wished he had a brother or sister because at least they’d understand.

  It was the most serious conversation I’d ever had with him, but it was a really good one.

  When we were walking home Megs said, ‘That was an intense chat you were having with Ethan. You two didn’t even stop to join in with the horsie hurdles, which Angharad won by the way; I had no idea she could jump that high. It would have been Lily but she couldn’t stop laughing because Westy managed to get his trousers caught on the first hurdle and showed us all his Bugs Bunny boxers.’

  ‘I didn’t even notice.’

  ‘I was sure you two were going to snog.’

  Actually, I hadn’t even thought about kissing Ethan. Well, maybe just a tiny bit when he said goodbye and squeezed my hand and I didn’t want to let him go. Anyway, the rest of the time I was just thinking about Ethan.

  There are more important things than kissing. Not many, but there are some.

  SATURDAY 14TH JULY

  Revision. I keep checking my ears to make sure my brain isn’t dribbling out through them.

  LATER

  Ethan sent me a text. It said, Thanks for cheering me up.

  It made me feel quite cheerful myself.

  SUNDAY 15TH JULY

  Today Mum made me some revision brownies. I let her into my room because she brought a delicious chocolatey smell with her.

  She smiled at me. ‘These should keep you going over the next couple of days.’

  I’d already eaten two in the time it took her to put the plate down and say this.

  ‘Well,’ I said, spraying her with crumbs. ‘They might keep me going over the next half hour anyway.’

  ‘You’re doing really well,’ she said. ‘Your dad and I are very proud of how hard you’re working.’

  I wished she hadn’t said that, because now there was no avoiding the fact that my parents haven’t actually been all that horribly annoying in the last week. In fact, a couple of times I’ve suspected them of being supportive.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Thanks. That’s nice. Actually, I’ve got something to say to you. I’ve thought about it a lot so hear me out.’

  Mum sat down.

  I took a deep breath. ‘So about this baby business: I’d just like to say that despite your advanced years and tendency to get a bit screechy when the smallest little heirloom gets broken, you are actually a fairly adequate parent. I mean, obviously you’ll be too old to run around with the little one, but believe me children get more than enough sport rammed down their throats at school. You’ll probably embarrass it with your dreadful clothes and your outdated views, but you were doing that to me even when you were in your twenties. Also you and Dad seem to have a really . . . sturdy marriage and while I’m still banning you from expressing your affection in front of me, in any form other than a firm handshake, I do appreciate that you and Dad are, you know, together and stable. So all in all, I’m saying that if we ignore Sam, you have been pretty good parents and any baby would be lucky to have you. And I would help look after the baby as long as it wasn’t early in the morning. Or late at night. Or when I’m watching something good on TV. But if you ever need me to miss school to play with it that’s fine.’

  There was a strange look on her face. I couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or burst out laughing. She did a little gulpy thing. ‘Oh Faith, I can’t tell you how lovely that is to hear.’

  ‘That’s all right, you old prune.’

  ‘The thing is that while you’ve just reminded me exactly why having children is so lovely, I don’t think that we’ll be adding to our household.’

  Good grief. You would have thought that she could have let me know that before I felt moved to be nice.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t realise that you’d given it so much thought. I wasn’t really that serious when I said it. Most mothers when they hold a new-born feel a bit broody and start thinking about how wonderful babies are. But I realised afterwards that I wasn’t thinking so much about a new baby and more about you and Sam when you were tiny. You were amazing. And you still are. I think our family is marvellous as it is, don’t you?’

  I popped another brownie in. ‘Yeah, you’re not bad.’

  And then I let her hug me.

  MONDAY 16TH JULY

  History exam this morning. I’ve never written so much in my life. Towards the end I was going so fast that I didn’t even have time to take the pen off the paper between words so my answer was just one big long series of loops.

  I pity the person who has to mark that.

  Surely they can just tell by how spidery my handwriting is that I’m an ‘A’ star student?

  TUESDAY 17TH JULY

  I feel like everything I have ever known has been scooped out of my head with a melon baller.

  WEDNESDAY 18TH JULY

  There was no debating club today because of the exams. It’s crazy; I half expected McDonald’s to have a sign up saying ‘Closed due to exams’ but fortunately the world outside Miss Ramsbottom’s warped mind doesn’t think that everything revolve
s around the exam hall.

  We just popped into McD’s to say hello to the boys. They’ve got their mocks too and obviously they wanted their morale boosting by some stimulating chat with us. Actually, Cam just slumped into Megs’s arms muttering about their maths exam while she patted him on the head, but that seemed to cheer him up as well. We’ve all agreed that we’re going to the ‘Festival on the Farm’ on Saturday to celebrate the end of term. The bands are mostly old hippies, but just the idea of being outside in the sun seems really appealing at the moment. In fact the idea of being anywhere where I don’t have to remember loads of facts seems like heaven.

  ‘How are the exams going?’ I asked Ethan.

  ‘You know me, I prefer it when people recognise my genius just by looking at me. If they really need convincing then I’m happy to say something bitingly witty, but being required to put things down on paper and back up my arguments by using facts, seems as if people are doubting my brilliance. Also, I’m quite lazy, but not quite enough to not care what marks I get. Which means . . .’ He leant in close and lowered his voice. ‘. . . I’ve actually had to do some work. Don’t tell anyone or my reputation will be in shreds. Overall, the whole thing is making me quite irritable. You?’

  ‘Pretty much the same.’

  He smiled. He looked tired and I had this sudden urge to put an arm around him. Everything with his parents must be making all this exam stress ten times worse.

  ‘And how’s . . . you know, things with your mum and dad?’ I asked.

  He twisted his mouth. ‘Oh yeah, great. I’m thinking about breaking into song any minute.’

  ‘I can keep a secret remember?’