12

Drama

First thing after registration it was drama (snore, snore) so we all trudged off to the English block. I hung back with Nadima, because I was so angry with Kara. I don’t know if Nadima had actually understood what Kara had said, but she obviously knew she’d had a go at me because she smiled and shrugged sympathetically. I tried to smile back.

As soon as we walked into the studio Mrs P, our drama teacher, literally pounced on Nadima. She isn’t a particularly large woman, but she wears these enormous multicoloured kaftans. She looks like a circus tent on legs – and she never stops talking.

‘You’re new!’ she trilled.

‘She doesn’t miss much, does she?’ whispered Lily. I grinned. It would be hard to miss Nadima, since she’s the only one in our form wearing a hijab.

Mrs P ploughed on. ‘Hello, hello! And how absolutely lovely to have someone new,’ she gushed.

Nadima shot me a startled look, but there was no escaping Mrs P in full flow.

‘I know it’s probably a bit difficult moving schools in the middle of the year, but actually it’s perfect timing because we’re starting a really exciting new project today and everyone has to be in pairs,’ Mrs P went on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kara nod at Lily to indicate they were a pair. I ignored them.

‘But we had an odd number of pupils in the class, and so someone was either going to be left out, or we’d have to have a group of three,’ carried on Mrs P to Nadima, ‘but now that you’ve joined us everyone can pair up, can’t they? So that makes it nice and neat. Excellent! So, welcome, welcome and … sorry, what did you say your name was?’

Nadima didn’t answer. Her eyes slid to me and then back to Mrs P. The entire class was desperately trying not to laugh.

‘Hmmm?’ prompted Mrs P, staring questioningly at Nadima.

I stepped forward to rescue both of them. ‘This is Nadima. She doesn’t speak much English,’ I said flatly.

Poor Mrs P. Her entire welcoming speech had been a complete waste of time. We knew it, she knew it and – worse – she knew we knew it. Her face fell – and the whole class exploded in laughter.

Anyhow, fyi, the ‘really exciting new project’ turned out to be a really boring storytelling thing, which we were going to spend the whole of the rest of the term on. We had to make up a story about ‘A Box’ for some reason. A box. Why? Honestly, where do they get their ideas from? And then we were going to have to perform it for the whole class at the end of term.

Oh, how absolutely brilliant.

I don’t like stories. I don’t like acting and I’d rather eat deep-fried maggots every day for the rest of term than stand up in front of 7R and act out some rubbish story.

Again, how absolutely brilliant.

By now the rest of the class was busily sorting themselves into pairs. Kara had nabbed Lily, and Chloe and Elly had paired up. So I grabbed Nadima’s arm and took her off to find a space. We sat cross-legged on the grubby floor. We were meant to come up with the basic idea for our stories, so everyone around us was chattering away and writing stuff down.

I looked at Nadima and she looked back at me.

She had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what we were meant to be doing, and I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to explain.

Oh, how ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. Not.

Mrs P was going around checking that everyone was actually working on their stories – rather than gossiping, texting and watching YouTube. (Yup, she’s got a pretty good handle on 7R.)

‘How’re you getting on?’ she asked, bounding over to Nadima and me, like a puppy in fancy dress.

‘Are you coming up with lots of brilliant story ideas?’ she went on hopefully.

Nadima looked at her blankly. Politely, but blankly.

I took a deep breath and said, ‘It’s a bit hard to do that since, as I said earlier, Nadima doesn’t actually speak much English.’

‘Well, perhaps you can mime something,’ Mrs P said brightly. ‘Use your imaginations!’ she trilled, and then whirled away in a swirl of colour, to talk to superstar Kara and her supporting actress, Lily.

Fyi, Kara’s been in a drama club pretty much since she was born – as far as I can make out. Possibly even earlier. She’s got an agent and everything, and last term she was in a TV ad. Yes – those are her legs you can see, giving an award-winning performance, running up a flight of stairs in the advert for Spot-It-Off carpet stain remover. (Next stop, Hollywood. Well, they have Really Big Carpets over there, don’t they? Red ones.)

I waited until Mrs P had moved on to another pair, and then shuffled over to Kara and Lily to see what ‘the expert’ was doing. Nadima followed me, dragging our bags with her.

‘We need somewhere really dramatic,’ Kara was saying, and then she gasped melodramatically and flapped her hands at Lily. ‘Oh, I know! How about she finds the baby – in the snow?!’

‘Oh, that’s a really good idea.’ Lily nodded.

‘Or in a public toilet?’ I cut in.

‘A toilet. Why would you leave a baby in a toilet?’ snapped Kara.

‘So that someone would find it,’ I replied, with stunning logic, if I say so myself. ‘Plus, it’s less likely to freeze to death.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ spluttered Kara. ‘It’s a dramatic storytelling. Not an episode of EastEnders!’

I shrugged.

‘What’s your story about?’ asked Lily.

‘We haven’t actually come up with one yet,’ I said.

‘You mean, you haven’t,’ said Kara. ‘You can’t expect Nadima to, can you?’

Nadima looked up at the mention of her name and gave Kara a questioning stare. Quite a hard questioning stare actually. And she held it for an uncomfortably long time. Go, Nadima! I thought. I knew she was going to be someone who could stand up for herself!

Kara flushed pink. ‘I hope you haven’t come over to nick our ideas, Jaz,’ she said, obviously deciding that attack was the best form of defence.

Huh, I thought, we’d have to be pretty desperate if we couldn’t come up with something better than finding a baby in the snow.

‘I’ve got plenty of ideas, thanks. And I bet Nadima has too. Just because she can’t speak English doesn’t mean she’s stupid.’

‘She didn’t say she was!’ said Lily.

‘Yeah! You used the s-word – not me,’ said Kara smugly.

By now Lily was looking dead embarrassed because Nadima had folded her arms and was giving them both a challenging look. At which point the bell went. Lily shot me an apologetic look, but she still followed after Kara as they got their bags and left. Nadima handed me my bag and we trailed after them.

Somehow I’d managed to end up rowing with Lily and Kara again. Oh, how absolutely brilliant. How does that even keep happening?