Polly

‘Jelly?’ traded Kate, with her mouth full.

‘Please,’ said Polly, accepting blueberry jam without raising her eyebrows.

A very different taste to good old Marmite. A rather pleasant surprise.

You have to try new things.

The next morning, with her body clock just about reset for Vermont, it was time for Polly to go to school. The John Hubbardton Academy was more impressive, more beautiful than either the brochure suggested or Polly had imagined. Neat pathways cut through well-tended swathes of lawn and led to the various buildings which made up the school. It was evident that they varied greatly in age, and therefore style, but the uniformity of the copper-red brick with creamy-grey stone windows and detailing gave the campus a homogeneity. Kate named each building and its resident faculty, and introduced Polly to practically everyone who passed by. Polly absorbed names such as Brentwood, Stuyvesant, Peter, Finnigan and Stewart though she forgot immediately which was architecture and which was human – and which was teacher and who was the pupil.

‘This is me,’ Kate said, clasping the pillar on the porch of a small but noble building, ‘this is where art matters.’

‘Where do I go?’ Polly asked. ‘Where’s “me”?’

‘See that place directly opposite,’ asked Kate, pointing to a majestic three-storey building with a great furl of steps leading up to it, ‘that’s Hubbardton Hall. That’s where the fundamentals are housed: English, Math, History – also the admin offices. Go up the stairs and knock on the first door to your left. They’ll be waiting. They know you’re here. They’ll show you to your class. Enjoy!’

Dutifully, Polly crossed the lawn (via the path, of course), climbed the stairs (twelve) and knocked on the first door to her left.

‘Enter!’

It was a woman’s voice. Polly popped her head around the door.

‘Hullo?’

The woman sat at a word processor and smiled broadly at Polly without taking her eyes from the screen.

‘Hi there. He’ll be right with you.’

Sure enough, whoever ‘he’ was appeared from a connecting door and bowled over to Polly with his hand outstretched; a substantial figure with dark curls and an opaque beard.

‘Powers!’ he boomed, shaking her hand with both of his clasped around it.

‘Fenton!’ Polly replied, loudly and hastily and as she thought she ought. They observed each other, both slightly puzzled. The man continued to shake her hand while he cocked his head, said ‘hmm’.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘you have a class to teach.’

He led her along the grand entrance hall, clad with portraits of Great J.H. and reverberating with the echo of footsteps and chatter. No one appeared to be looking at her and there were too many of them for her to focus on. It was just another day at school. And now she was part of it. She was the new girl. She had to fit in.

I have to fit in. People have expectations. I was chosen.

‘Your first class, lit crit, are freshmen and sophomore together.’

‘I see,’ said Polly, clueless, ‘what years are they?’

‘Ninth and tenth grade.’

‘I see,’ said Polly, none the wiser, wondering how Jen Carter was fairing with Upper Third and Lower Fourth.

‘Jackson!’ Polly’s chaperon called to a good-looking man with a goatee beard and John Lennon spectacles, ‘come over here!’

‘Hey Powers, how are you? Hi there,’ he nodded to Polly, ‘I’m Jackson Thomas, I teach English too.’

‘Hullo,’ responded Polly, trying to sound casual and look at ease, ‘I’m Fenton, Polly.’

The men regarded her and, while Jackson Thomas still wore the perplexed look that had been Powers’s previously, Powers suddenly burst out laughing, slapped Jackson on the back and patted Polly’s shoulders liberally.

‘What?’ laughed Polly with a little discomfort.

‘Hey?’ enquired Jackson.

‘Fenton!’ Powers laughed.

‘Yes?’ said Polly.

Suddenly Jackson roared alongside him.

‘Sorry?’ asked Polly, now a little irritated and her eye colour saying so. The joke was on her but what on earth was it?

‘My name,’ said Powers, ‘is Powers Mateland. This is my colleague, Jackson Thomas.’

‘Mateland,’ mused Polly, thinking it an odd Christian name, but there again, this was America.

‘My name,’ Powers repeated, slowly and theatrically, ‘is Powers. And his name,’ he chuckled, wagging his thumb at the bespectacled one, ‘is Jackson. Your name, unless I’m very much mistaken, is Polly. We don’t subscribe to the formality of using surnames here at Hubbardtons. I hope that’s cool with you?’

Polly looked hard at her shoes and tried to shuffle in a nonchalant manner.

Idiot girl!

She looked up at the men.

Powers and Jackson.

‘I see,’ she said cautiously before warming to the unaffected smiles the men bestowed on her, ‘I thought—’

‘I know – kinda weird to meet people christened Jackson and Powers when you’ve lived your life in a country of Johns and Henrys?’

Polly looked at the men’s shoes. Powers was wearing well-worn moccasins; Jackson had a pair of highly polished classic penny loafers. She looked up, shook her head and raised her eyebrows, obviously at herself.

‘What a twit I am, please excuse me,’ she said, while a delighted Powers mouthed ‘twit?’ with twisted eyebrows at Jackson. ‘May I cordially introduce myself? I am Polly Fenton and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.’

Her voice came out more clipped than usual, but only she was aware of it.

Mind you, that’s probably what they’re expecting. I won’t let them down. I’ll play along.

They all shook hands anew and Jackson led Polly to her classroom.

‘I have the class next to yours,’ he reassured her, ‘so if you need me, just holler.’

‘Righty ho,’ said Polly, though she’d never used the phrase before.