Sugar and Spice

The rest of the row was empty, as Mr Kirk had made everyone move further down to the front. (Everyone except Brett Thomas. Nobody moved him anywhere.)

I waited for Mr Kirk to tell Shay to come closer, but he was still busy bawling his way through the register and didn’t seem to notice. Karina sniffed and went, “Huh! Who’s she think she is?” I didn’t bother answering. I was thinking to myself that once Shay got put in the register we would be next to each other…Ruth Spicer, Shayanne Sugar. I wondered if Shay would notice this and think it was neat. Sugar, Spicer: Sugar and Spice! It made us sound like a TV programme!

Our first class that day was English, with Mr Kirk. After he’d banged on his desk with a book and got a bit of peace and quiet, he started handing back last week’s homework, which was an essay on “The Night Sky”. As usual, most people hadn’t actually done it. When Mr Kirk demanded to know why, one of the boys said he couldn’t be bothered, another said it was a waste of time, and Arlon Phillips, the boy who’d been fighting with Brett Thomas, said what was the point? Brett agreed with him. He said that it was a girl’s subject, anyway.

“What’s to write about? The night sky is black. Wiv stars. And sometimes the moon, when it ain’t cloudy. That’s about all there is to say.”

“So why didn’t you say it?” said Mr Kirk.

“Just have,” said Brett.

“Would it have been too much trouble to write it down?”

Brett said yeah, it would. “I don’t do homework, man.”

“Well, I’m happy to tell you,” said Mr Kirk, “that some people do. And that some people have found rather more to say on the subject than you have. For instance, how about this from Ruth Spicer —”

Oh, horrors! He was going to read it out! This is what I mean about being different. I don’t ask for my essays to be read out. I don’t want them read out! Already I could hear the sounds of groaning. That Ruth Spicer! There she goes again. I knew if I turned round I’d see hostile eyes boring into me.

“Ruth has very creditably managed to write two whole pages,” said Mr Kirk.

Oh, no! Please. I felt myself cringing, doing my best to burrow down into the depths of my prickly school sweater.

“I’ll give you just two examples of imaginative imagery…the clouds drifted past, like flocks of fluffy sheep.”

Behind me, Julia made a vomiting sound. Pleeurgh! Jenice Berry immediately did the same thing. I could feel my cheeks burning up, bright red and hot as fire. Please let him stop! Why did he have to do this to me?

“The other example,” shouted Mr Kirk, above the rising din of sniggers and vomits, “ARE YOU LISTENING?The moon hung in the sky, like a big banana.”

It sounded completely stupid, even to me. I’d been so proud of it when I wrote it! I’d thought it was really poetic. Now I just wanted to curl up and die.

“Moon’s not a banana,” yelled Julia.

“Can be.”

Heads all over the room turned, in outrage. Who would ever dare contradict the great Julia Bone?

“Crescent moon,” said Shay. “That’s a banana.”

Julia glared and muttered. Mr Kirk said, “Precisely! Very nice piece of writing, Ruth.” (Cringe, cringe.) “As for the moron who wrote this—” He held out a sheet of paper with just the one line on it. “The night sky is too dark to see.” He scrunched the paper into a ball. “I have only one thing to say to you, and that is, grow up!” And then he handed me back my essay and said, “Excellent!”

When I was at juniors I would’ve prinked and preened all day if Mrs Henson had said excellent. But at Parkfield High it wasn’t clever to be clever. It was just stupid. Now they would call me names even worse then before. I could already hear the two Js, sitting behind me, making bleating sounds under their breath.

“Ba-a-aa, ba-a-aa!”

I did my best to ignore them, but I’m not very good at blotting things out, I always let them get to me, and then I want to run away and cry. Fortunately I do have a little bit of pride. Not very much; just enough to pretend that I don’t care, or haven’t noticed. I’d be too ashamed to let my true feelings show in front of people.

At the end of the lesson Mr Kirk set us some more homework. The subject was: My Family. He said he wanted it in by the day after tomorrow.

“Thursday. OK? I will accept no excuses! Anyone says they forgot and I shall send them for a brain scan. You have been warned!”

I muttered, “Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn’t find any brain.”

I know it wasn’t very nice of me, since people can’t help not having any brain, any more than I can help having to wear glasses, but I don’t think it’s very nice to make fun of someone who’s just trying to fit in and be ordinary. I didn’t ask Mr Kirk to read out my essay. Unfortunately, Karina caught what I’d muttered. She gave this huge shriek and swung round in her desk.

“D’you hear what she said? Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn’t find any brain!”

If looks could have killed…well, I’d be dead, and that’s all there is to it.

“Big banana moon!” said Julia.

“Ba-a-aa,” went Jenice.

They carried on all through break.

“Why d’you have to go and tell them?” I said.

Karina tossed her head. She hates anything that she thinks is criticism.

“Not much point saying things if you don’t say them to their faces!”

I expect she was probably right; I just wasn’t brave enough.

“Look,” said Karina, “there’s the new girl.”

Shay was leaning against the wire mesh that fenced us in. As well as wire mesh we had big gates with padlocks and brick walls with bits of broken glass on top. Most schools have security to keep people from getting in, but at Parkfield they had it to keep us from getting out. Well, that’s my theory.

“Look at her! What’s she doing?”

Shay was just watching. I saw her eyes slowly swivelling to and fro, same as they had in the classroom. She caught me looking at her and I very hastily turned the other way and began to study some interesting clouds that were drifting across the sky. They did look like sheep. Flocks of fluffy sheep. I felt my cheeks begin to burn all over again. If Mr Kirk was going to keep singling me out I’d just have to stop doing his stupid homework. Either that or do it so badly-on-purpose that he’d be rude about it and treat me the same as everyone else. One or the other. But I couldn’t go on being humiliated!

The bell rang and we trundled back into school. First lesson after break was maths, which isn’t one of my favourite subjects, though I do work quite hard at it, as far as you can work hard at Parkfield High. I used to think that I’d need it if I was going to be a doctor, cos of having to measure things out and knowing how much medicine to give people; but in fact, after one term at Parkfield I’d pretty well given up on the idea of being a doctor. I could understand a bit better why Mum and Dad had laughed when I’d first told them. Dad had said, “Well, and why not be a brain surgeon while you’re about it?” Mum had said that I could always be a nurse. But I didn’t want to be a nurse! I wanted to be a doctor. Well, I had wanted to be a doctor. Now it seemed more likely I’d end up in Tesco’s, with Mum. But I still struggled and did my maths homework.

At least Mrs Saeed never embarrassed me by making comments in front of the class. Even when I’d once – wonder of wonders! – got an A-, she just quietly wrote “Good work!” at the bottom and left me to gloat over it in private.

Most people crammed as far back as possible for maths classes because Mrs Saeed was too nervous to make them move closer. Me and Karina were the only people in the front row. We didn’t have to sit in the front row; there were empty desks in the row behind. But I liked Mrs Saeed and it seemed really rude if nobody wanted to sit near her. She might wonder why not and start to think that there was something wrong with her. It’s what I would think, if it happened to me.

Shay didn’t arrive until the last minute. This was probably because no one had bothered speaking to her, or told her where to go. Including me. I told myself that it was because she looked so superior and, like, forbidding, but really it was because it had never occurred to me. Even if it had, I still wouldn’t have done it because I’d have thought to myself that I was too lowly and unimportant to go up and start talking.

“Here’s Miss High and Mighty,” hissed Karina. “D’you think she’s looking for her throne?”

She was looking for somewhere to sit. Her eyes flickered about the room, as they had before. And then, to my surprise and confusion, they came to rest on me. Next thing I know, she’s plonking herself down at the desk next to mine. She said, “Maths, yeah?”

I said, “Y-yeah.”

“My favourite subject, I don’t think!”

“Mine neither,” I said.