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Just this summer we’d talked about how great it would be that we’d all be in a class together, because drama is taught across lower and upper sixth.
So much can change in a heartbeat.
‘Hey, Barb,’ they say, all sweet smiles as I try to shrink to nothing and pass between them.
Barb as in Barbra Streisand. As in you wouldn’t expect it, but the girl can sing. As in look out for that barbed tongue. I never mean to, but sometimes I just say the one thing that will hit someone right in the gut.
My friends said it was a talent, but it seems to have faded with our friendship.
The tall blonde one is Princess. As in Princess Diana: beautiful, benevolent. As in watch me smile, watch me sparkle. As in I’m so nice, I’m so so so nice. Watch me choose not to crush you.
She watches me without a blink.
The boy, taller and blonder than Princess, with hazel eyes and a lopsided smile, the one who looks like a film star, that’s Don, as in the greatest batsman of all time, Don Bradman. He’s Princess’s brother in the year above.
Don gives me a wide grin and leans towards me, like maybe he’s going in for a kiss. It’s stupid but my heart pounds as I look into those sparkling eyes. I bite my lip and look away.
The one with reddish-brown hair and a puckered pout and eyes like a Persian cat, that’s Spanish. As in who on God’s Earth will ever know why this very English girl is called Spanish? She yawns and studies her nails, chipped lilac today.
And standing with liquid black hair, arms crossed, head cocked, whispering into Princess’s ear, is Whip. As in quick as a. Sharp as a. She gives me a grin to match Don’s.
And then, when I’m almost past them, I hear what I was expecting: ‘Nice to see you, Baa Baa Barbra.’
As in baa baa black sheep. As in quit following us. As in why don’t you curl up and die already?
I so don’t mean to, but I open my mouth to say something back… but before it comes out I’m flying, books up in the air, a squeak escaping.
Someone tripped me. It was Whip. Her foot out in a flash. And I land hard on my palms, my cheeks flushing red.
I want to snap something about originality, or growing up, but I can’t find anything witty.
And then the worst happens: Miss Smith runs in. ‘Oh! What happened here?’ She crouches and puts an arm round me. Like, actually draws me to her, giving me a hug. ‘Are you okay?’ She gives me such a soft smile that I have to clench my teeth to stop from crying. I want to hit her.
Whip drops down and slips an arm under mine, and together she and Miss Smith help me up. Don gathers my books. ‘You poor thing!’ coos Princess, still behind me.
‘What a blunderbuss,’ says Whip in her gentle voice, and laughter rings through the hall.
Why are you laughing? I want to yell. What even is a blunderbuss?
Miss Smith will think they’re laughing with me, but they’re not. I know they’re not. And I wish my burning cheeks could take the whole school down with me.
10
AFTER
Eat, read, exercise, bed. Plain food, bare breeze blocks, cold showers. No phones. No internet. Most of the time, no talking.
There was a mother when I worked at Redmoor College who was always leaving her children for weeks on end to go to minimalist Buddhist retreats and coming home enlightened. ‘Oh, but Miss Smith,’ she used to say. ‘You simply must go. You deserve it.’
As if ‘deserve’ had anything to do with a teacher’s salary.
But now here I am and it’s all for free.
For years I taught in state schools, where intelligence was a shameful thing and punishments were worn with pride; where university might as well have been another planet. I saw it as my duty. Private school teachers were sell-outs.
There was the school where we had to find excuses to get certain kids into showers at least a couple times a week. One where we had a weapons amnesty, and in among the switch blades and kitchen knives I found a handgun with its serial number filed to nothing.
The thing that got me, though, the final straw that had me searching for positions in schools with swimming pools and organic meals, was a boy called Furo Adeyemi.
