Chapter 8
The lesson was over and Shona sat opposite Miss Cavani in the place that Miss Cavani laughingly called her “suite”. In truth it was a cupboard at the edge of the drama studio.
And Miss Cavani was not really in a laughing mood; she was being “firm”. She was sitting as upright as the pillar by the school gates and repeating the word “no”.
“No, no, no, no, no!”
This was to try to impress on Shona that she had got it completely wrong about Rory, that she, Miss Cavani, had had a long talk with Rory and was quite certain that Rory didn’t mean anything whatsoever to do with Shona’s mother for the very simple reason that it was quite clear to Miss Cavani that Rory didn’t know that Shona’s mother had died. His gestures were, it seems, said Miss Cavani, something to do with how Shona was in trouble or going to get in trouble or some silly stuff that was in Rory’s head.
“Sometimes,” said Miss Cavani, doing her best not to sound too contemptuous, “boys can’t – how shall I put it – express their feelings of affection or admiration for girls – and, er … so, do the opposite.”
Shona didn’t know how to respond to all this. As far as she was concerned, Rory was laughing at her and at the fact that she had no mum and this was bad, totally bad, and there was no way back from that. Even so, the hard truth of what Miss Cavani was saying was, bit by bit, filtering through to her un-angry, un-raging self. Perhaps Rory was just being an idiot. Is that it? And she had strangled him for that? OK, not strangled, but damaged.
“You know I could have given you a D8 or a D2, Shona,” Miss Cavani said. “If I had really wanted to, I could have had you excluded. But look here; I think it’s more important we go forward together on this. I don’t want to lose you. If I bring the full weight of the system down on top of your head, I can well imagine that you’ll go off the rails, start hanging out with – well, I won’t say – but as I’m sure you know there are some types in the school who it’ll be very much in your interest to steer very clear of. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Shona only half-heard this. Speeches from teachers were hard to hear. Well, you could hear them, but you couldn’t always “get” them. What did “steer clear of” actually mean? Where do you steer to? Who’s doing the steering? And what were the “rails”? Where are the “rails”?
“Now you’re late,” said Miss Cavani, cutting into Shona’s daydreaming. “You’d better let your dad know where you are. Have you got a phone?”
“Yeah,” said Shona, pulling it out, “but it doesn’t work.”
“Doesn’t work?” said Miss Cavani, her antennae bristling. She knew about phones that didn’t work all right. Oh yes, she knew about phones passing hands, phones that mysteriously appeared and disappeared even if she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure where they came from.
She feigned ignorance. “Oh dear,” she said, “will you take it to the shop to get it sorted?”
“No,” said Shona, unaware that she was walking into the great big hole that Miss Cavani had carefully dug one second before, “there’s a … er … a … I’m… I’ve…” Her voice petered out as she realized for herself that there was something odd about a boy higher up the school giving out a phone and then saying that he could get it to work.
“Oh, you know someone,” Miss Cavani said with as little suspicion in her voice as she could conjure up. “I’ve heard there are one or two boys in the upper school who are good at phones.”
“Yes,” said Shona.
“Yes,” said Miss Cavani.
But that was it. Miss Cavani could see that there wasn’t going to be any more coming from Shona on this.
And Shona knew that there was something going on in the room that made her uneasy. She liked Miss Cavani. She liked her a lot, but not so much that she was going to risk not having YouTube, Snapchat and the rest at her fingertips.
“For the next two weeks, Shona, at the end of the day, I want you to come and see me in my suite here, and you’re going to tell me about all the good things that have happened in the previous 24 hours and – if there are any – any bad. Now that’s going to be better than a D8 or a D2, isn’t it?”
Shona nodded.
“How are you getting on with the Oliver book?”
“OK,” Shona said.
“Right, a little tip for you here so that you can jump on ahead: Oliver is badly beaten by Mr Sowerberry, so Oliver runs away. We’ve all had dreams of doing that one day, haven’t we, eh?” Miss Cavani laughed.
Shona looked puzzled. Miss Cavani had dreamed of running away? She, Shona, definitely had, but Miss Cavani? Didn’t she have it all just right? Nice job, nice clothes, nice looks.
“So Oliver gets himself to London, he’s starving, freezing cold and, well, he’s nearly dead. He’s lying by the side of the road … as I say, nearly dead. There,” said Miss Cavani, handing Shona the next printout of the book, “carry on from there.”
CLASS X10 READING COMPREHENSION
“Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?”
The boy who addressed this inquiry was about his own age, but one of the queerest-looking boys that Oliver had ever seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short for his age: with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly that it threatened to fall off every moment – and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, halfway up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in half-boots.
“Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?” said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.
“I am very hungry and tired,” replied Oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. “I have walked a long way. I have been walking these seven days.”
“Walking for sivin days!” said the young gentleman. “Oh, I see. Beak’s order, eh? But,” he added, noticing Oliver’s look of surprise, “I suppose you don’t know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.”
Oliver mildly replied that he had always heard a bird’s mouth described by the term in question.
“My eyes, how green!” exclaimed the young gentleman. “Why, a beak’s a madgst’rate; and when you walk by a beak’s order, it’s not straight forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming down agin. Was you never on the mill?”
“What mill?” inquired Oliver.
“What mill! Why, the mill – the mill as takes up so little room that it’ll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when the wind’s low with people, than when it’s high; acos then they can’t get workmen. But come,” said the young gentleman, “you want grub, and you shall have it. I’m at low-water mark myself – only one bob and a magpie; but, as far as it goes, I’ll fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins. There! Now then!”
Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf. Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentleman turned into a small public house, and led the way to a taproom in the rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer was brought in, by direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, falling to, at his new friend’s bidding, ate a long and hearty meal, during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention.
“Going to London?” said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length concluded.
“Yes.”
“Got any lodgings?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No.”
The strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, as far as the big coat sleeves would let them go.
“Do you live in London?” inquired Oliver.
“Yes. I do, when I’m at home,” replied the boy. “I suppose you want some place to sleep in tonight, don’t you?”
“I do, indeed,” answered Oliver. “I have not slept under a roof since I left the country.”
“Don’t fret your eyelids on that score,” said the young gentleman. “I’ve got to be in London tonight; and I know a ’spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot’ll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change – that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you. And don’t he know me? Oh, no! Not in the least! By no means. Certainly not!”
The young gentleman smiled, as if to indicate that he was being playfully ironical; and finished the beer as he did so.