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It was the penultimate day of term. Lessons were still operating on the normal timetable, but many of the teachers had organised some less rigorous activities, perhaps a quiz, games or a light-hearted topic and everyone was feeling more relaxed. However, Patsy couldn’t fully relax as she had to keep her wits about her. She had taken care to avoid being isolated as Harriet and Eugenia were now back in school, taking every opportunity to suggest that it had been her cakes that had made them ill.
‘Shitty cakes, shitty cakes!’ they chanted as she passed them in the corridor with her friends. ‘Put a turd in them did you?’
‘I wish I had! Then you would have ended up in hospital!’ shouted Patsy back to them.
‘We could go to the police, have you arrested,’ shouted Eugenia.
‘Piss off. It’s not my fault that you ate so many! You are greedy pigs,’ she said to them with her face right up to Harriet’s, making snorting pig noises just before ducking into the classroom where the teacher was already present.
Patsy had popped into the cloakroom at morning break and found that “kick me” had been scribbled all over her blazer in chalk. She’d tried to wash the worst of it off but had found it hard to remove much of it. Her parents would be furious as school uniform was expensive and there was no guarantee that dry cleaning would remove the marks. She was in a foul mood and longed to teach Eugenia and her crew a lesson.
Patsy took her place at one of the desks about midway in the classroom, in front of two timid girls who weren’t a threat. However, to her horror when she turned around, Harriet and Eugenia must have forced them to move as she found herself and Susan sitting right in front of her two arch enemies.
Miss Pugh was calling the form to order, ‘Salvete puellae!’ she customarily greeted them.
‘Salve magistra,’ they replied, almost in unison. The lesson was about to start, so it was too late to start changing desks, she would just have to soldier on.
**
‘Angela, I’m fine,’ said Roger into his desk phone. ‘Yes, I got here OK, I didn’t feel dizzy, and I’m managing at work perfectly well.’ He tutted to himself and cast his eyes heavenward. His wife had wanted him to take the day off as he was getting used to the tablets for his heart arrhythmia, but he was reluctant to do so as he wanted to make a good impression in view of his impending promotion. He was conscious of the need to work on some sort of cost-saving initiative, but currently, any inspiration for the task was woefully lacking. Roger was good at fine-tuning a plan and had an eye for detail but he lacked a creative spark to suggest innovations or to think laterally. Some had described him as a plodder, a safe pair of hands but hampered by a lack of originality.
‘No, I won’t forget to take my next tablet. I’m due to take the next one before lunch. Look, I’ve got to go, I’m very busy.’
Roger replaced the phone in its cradle rather harshly, bemoaning his wife’s tendency to fuss. He had hoped that at work, at least, he would be able to concentrate on something other than his heart. The focus on his medication was making him even more stressed, and that wasn’t good for him, it was a vicious circle. The doctor had questioned him about his lifestyle, drinking and smoking habits and he had lied about both, dismissing them as occasional pleasures which he would have no trouble forgoing, should he so choose. Once back home, he had promised Angela that he would seriously try to reduce his smoking habit but with his impending promotion, that was likely to be even more difficult than under normal circumstances.
Earlier in his career, working as a technician in the laboratory, his vice was limited to break times but now he enjoyed the luxury of his own office, he constantly had to resist the temptation to light up. Working at his desk, it was so easy to smoke one cigarette after another, so he had vowed only to smoke at breaks and lunchtime during the working week.
He looked at the paperwork for a completed batch of material which was due to go off-site that afternoon. All looked to be in order but the figures and data before him started to swim in front of his eyes and he felt the beginnings of a headache. His heart felt like it had missed a beat which caused him to panic slightly. He pressed his fingers to the pulse in his neck and counted carefully. Was that an irregular beat? He realised he was now holding his breath and that was making the situation worse. Now that he had received a proper diagnosis of a heart arrhythmia, his attention was drawn to it even more and at times he felt himself counting his heartbeats. Hopefully, once the tablets had reached their full effectiveness, the strange feelings in his chest would subside.
‘God, it’s hot,’ he muttered to himself. Even the fan wasn’t making much difference, apart from creating an inconvenience of having to weigh down all his paperwork. His window faced south and with the hour approaching midday, it was already beginning to heat up like a greenhouse, in fact, sometimes it seemed hotter than his greenhouse at home. Cerebral tasks were becoming an uphill struggle. Roger felt he simply had to take a break so loosening his collar he picked up his sandwiches along with his pouch of rolling tobacco and headed outside to find some shade and hopefully a cooling breeze.
**
The Latin class was in progress, and Miss Pugh had divided the form down the middle into two teams, left and right, or sinistra and dextra as she named them.
The girls on each team were numbered, and when a number was called, that pair went to the front, the teacher read out a question and the girls scribbled down the answer on the blackboard. The first to write it correctly won a point. There was a cheer from the appropriate team when a question was answered correctly. The mood was buoyant and the questions reasonably easy to give everyone a chance.
Sophie walked up to the front when her turn was called, and as she passed Patsy, she landed a glancing blow on Patsy’s head with her elbow, then feigned a stumble and apologised profusely.
‘Oh, sorry, Patsy, are you OK?’ she asked solicitously.
Patsy glared without commenting. Sophie rubbed her ankle, and as she bent down she whispered, ‘We are going to get our own back on you.’
‘Come along Sophie, we are waiting,’ called Miss Pugh.
As the next question was called out, Patsy’s chair shot forward causing her to grab hold of the desk to prevent herself being thrown to the floor. Eugenia had hooked her feet around the legs and was pushing it back and forth. Patsy was furious.
‘Stop it!’ she said, menacingly to Eugenia as she stood up and faced her.
Her opponent shrugged.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Miss Pugh.
‘I’m fed up with her,’ said Patsy. ‘She won’t leave my chair alone.’
The class sniggered.
‘She is a bully and I want to move seats!’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Miss Pugh, wandering over.
‘She’s making it up, Miss,’ said Eugenia. ‘I didn’t do anything. Patsy was tipping her chair backwards and that’s why she almost fell off, now she’s trying to blame me.’ Eugenia smiled sweetly.
‘Eugenia, stop messing about and you, Patsy, sit down, we are in the middle of this game and you are holding everyone up. Now, where were we? It’s number ten’s turn now.’
As the teacher walked back to the front, running her finger down her list of quiz questions, Eugenia slid down in her seat and kicked Patsy hard from behind, where her bottom was exposed by the gap in the seat. Patsy thought about protesting again but realised she would be wasting her time. She swatted at Eugenia’s leg but missed.
‘Get up and sit on the desk,’ hissed Susan.
Eugenia kicked again, pleased that her first attack had provoked a response and this time her foot made contact with the base of Patsy’s spine, right on her coccyx. Patsy winced in pain. It was becoming too much to bear. She was no longer aware of what was happening in the lesson, the sounds were distorted, and she felt detached from it all. An invisible bubble surrounded her. Someone tapped her on her arm but she ignored them, her brain couldn’t cope with any interventions at that precise moment. Something landed on her head, and she felt a wetness soak into her scalp. Automatically, her hand reached up to feel the liquid, it felt slightly sticky as she rubbed her fingers and from the smell suggested orange squash.
Still in her blurry world, Patsy unzipped her pencil case and fumbled inside, selecting her item by touch, her eyes fixed on the front of the class. She waited for the inevitable third kick, which soon made contact with her lower back but this time Patsy was prepared and scratched Eugenia’s leg with the compass she had removed from her pencil case. A cheer went up from the class when the number eleven girl from the dextra side scored the point, masking Eugenia’s cry when she realised her leg had been injured. The pair of number twelve girls in the teams advanced to the board for their turns and Eugenia stood from her seat, walked up to Patsy and slapped her hard across the back of her head.
Miss Pugh observed the confrontation and shouted out, ‘Girls! Stop that!’ as she bustled over. But Patsy wasn’t listening. Her ears were deaf to the commotion around her. Tunnel vision descended upon her, obliterating the rest of the class. Now it was just her and Eugenia. The final bout in the long-running saga was going to finish, here and now.
Patsy stood, looked Eugenia in the eye and stabbed her in the arm with her compass.
‘Ow!’ shrieked Eugenia. ‘My arm!’ Eugenia ran towards the back of the classroom as the others stared open-mouthed at the ruckus. Patsy followed her target and lunged at her, stabbing her repeatedly in the arm. Eugenia collapsed to the floor in shock, crying and kicking. A group of girls surrounded Patsy, securing her arms, one of the other girls receiving a slight scratch in the process. Miss Pugh, ran over, flailing her arms and crying out, completely aghast by what had unfolded in her lesson.
Blood was now seeping into the sleeve of Eugenia’s summer uniform, down her arms and some had transferred to her face as she had held the initial wound, then put her hands to her face to protect herself. A girl ran from the room to seek assistance from neighbouring form rooms, whilst Miss Pugh slumped in a chair, holding her head and willing herself not to faint with shock.
