The Best Girls

In Miss Wilks’s class, the best girls are: me, Chloe, Ruby and Zofia. That means we are the most hard-working, polite and helpful girls in Class 4. There are thirty children in my class. And everyone has a square table made of wood with a lid that hides a place where you can keep your exercise books and your pencil case. Miss Wilks’s desk is a rectangle, and it has three metal drawers that slide out one at a time. They have green folders inside and so many books that I don’t think she could carry them all by herself even though she is very strong. That’s why me, Chloe, Ruby and Zofia sit closest to Miss Wilks, because we are her best helpers. Miss Wilks gives us jobs to do because we pay attention in class and finish our work quickly and quietly. We get stickers and stars for doing good work because we hardly ever make mistakes. I have to wear a yellow badge on my tie that says ‘prefect’ because I set a good example for the rest of the class. My dad has never asked me about my ‘prefect’ badge, but my mum says she is really proud of me.

Miss Wilks sits at the front of the class so she can see who is being good and who is being bad. She always writes the date at the top of the blackboard because every time we do a new piece of work, we have to write the day, month and year in the top right-hand corner of our exercise books. After the last break before home time, the hands on the clock above the blackboard move really fast. That’s how I know my dad will soon be waiting outside in the car to pick us up. If Miss Wilks forgets to wipe the chalk from the blackboard, I always wipe it for her so it is clean for the next day.

I wish we could wear pink jackets at school, like the Pink Ladies from Grease, but because we go to Sacred Heart, we have to wear a school uniform. If you go to Sacred Heart, you basically have to wear a white shirt, a navy blue jumper and a grey skirt in winter with a navy blue and white and yellow striped tie. That’s if you are a girl. In the summer, we wear blue and white checked dresses. The boys wear grey shorts in the summer and grey trousers in the winter. Our jumpers have a badge that tells everybody who sees us that we go to Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School in Brixton. There are so many lines in our skirts that have to be folded and ironed so you can be as neat as possible. When my dad ironed my uniform, he used to make the lines really neat and tidy. It’s hard for me to iron my skirt the same way my dad used to. That’s because it’s really hard for children to know how to iron exactly on the lines. If we were allowed to dress up like the Pink Ladies, we could wear black trousers and a black T-shirt with a pink jacket that says ‘Pink Ladies’ on the back. We could even wear sunglasses and any shoes we wanted, like high heels. Miss Wilks could be Rizzo and I would be Sandy, even though I’ve got short hair and it’s always in cornrows.

 

When we have a supply teacher, she never knows how to say Saoirse’s name when she is taking the register. Saoirse is from Ireland. We have to tell the teacher, ‘It’s Seer-sha,’ otherwise Thomas and Tolu and Tyrese will never be able to say ‘yes, Miss’. We have to be really kind to Saoirse, especially if she’s sad, because she is in foster care. Saoirse has an older brother but she hardly ever gets to see him because he is in another foster home and he goes to a different school. Saoirse can’t be a Pink Lady because she doesn’t always know the answers to the questions that me, Chloe, Ruby and Zofia know, but Miss Wilks still calls her ‘sweetheart’. Saoirse never has to see her mum again if she doesn’t want to, but only Miss Wilks knows why.

When Saoirse gets told off for swearing in the playground, Mrs Giannino tells her, ‘I wash-a your mouth-a out-a with soap, you un-astan!’ Saoirse says she doesn’t care. Her tie is not tied properly, and her top button is missing. I am worried that Mrs Giannino is going to strangle Saoirse before they get to the sink. I am not allowed to follow them inside because it isn’t wet play and I haven’t done anything wrong. Mrs Giannino is a helper in the playground. She is from Italy. When she is feeling kind, Mrs Giannino gives Saoirse a carton of milk at break time even though she doesn’t pay for it. I wish Saoirse would stop talking back to Mrs Giannino. And I wish Mrs Giannino would not be cross with Saoirse anymore so she can give her a bath with lots of bubbles instead.

 

One day, when we come back to class after a fire drill, someone has written ‘S-E-X’ on the blackboard in green chalk. It’s Cyril. I know it is. He is laughing at the back of the class with Spencer and his hands are dirty. Cyril is always doing bad things like that. He never sits still in class and he makes Miss Wilks cross at least once every day. She is really cross when she sees the rude word on the board. That is not the type of behaviour she expects from Class 4. When Miss Wilks asks, ‘Who is responsible for this?’ I put my hand up to tell her that it was Cyril. That is why he has to go to Mr Whiteland’s office.

 

Mr Whiteland is the headmaster. He is seriously scary and I don’t think he likes children. Mr Whiteland has a really red face and he walks with a limp. His neck looks like it is being strangled by his tie and there are always white spots of dandruff on his suit jacket. I never want to go to Mr Whiteland’s office because that means you are in serious trouble. Your mum or dad might get called into the school or you could even get suspended. Once Cyril was so bad that Mr Whiteland smacked him on his bum in assembly – in front of the whole school. When Mr Whiteland can’t hear, everyone calls him Mr Tomato Face. Cyril didn’t even cry.

In another assembly, as soon as we finish the Hail Mary, Mr Whiteland says, ‘At Sacred Heart, we do not wear Christmas tree decorations in our hair!’ Sol doesn’t know why Mr Whiteland said ‘we’, because his head is like a shiny egg and he couldn’t wear hair clips even if it was Christmas. Mr Whiteland says the word ‘not’ really loudly. It makes me jump even though I am sitting cross-legged on the floor. Mr Whiteland makes everyone turn around and look at Shereen’s twists. Her mum puts yellow and green beads at the ends which make her sound like a rain maker when she moves her head. I don’t think Shereen looks like a Christmas tree, but I am going to make sure my mum never puts beads in my hair. Sometimes, in assembly, everyone has to say ‘Sacred Heart School is a very special school’ at the same time, like it’s a prayer or something.

‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

 

When Shereen’s mum hears what Mr Whiteland said to her, she calls him a ‘bomb-o-claat’. That is a really bad Jamaican word. Shereen’s mum says the next time she sees Mr Whiteland, she is going to ‘run him down’. Shereen tells everyone that her mum is ‘proper vex’ the next day in the playground.

Sol told me that Charlene wore gold hoop earrings to school once and Mr Whiteland made her take them off and give them to him in the playground. They weren’t even that big. Mr Whiteland put them in his pocket and told Charlene that if she wanted them back, her mum would have to come to his office and see him. Charlene was crying for the rest of playtime because her granny gave her those earrings for her birthday and she lives in Jamaica. Mr Whiteland found Charlene’s mum in her car at the end of the day and started shouting at her as if she was in Class 2, ‘Plain studs only!’ All the other parents heard and turned around to look. Mr Whiteland was being so rude that Charlene’s mum used the electric button to wind the car window up. Mr Whiteland’s face went seriously red because there was nothing he could even do. Charlene is in Sol’s class. Sol thinks Mr Whiteland is scared of the Jamaican mums, especially when they speak Patois.

I know that when the Ofsted people come to do their inspection, Mr Whiteland will choose me and Chloe and Ruby and Zofia to be the ambassadors of our class. That week everybody will have to be on their best behaviour, especially Cyril. And Shereen better not wear Christmas tree decorations in her hair. Mr Whiteland says our parents are only allowed to speak English in the playground when they come to collect us. I think he will be patrolling after school. He wants nothing less than an ‘outstanding’ report and everyone has to play their part.

 

Sometimes, when we are at home, Sol pretends to be Mr Whiteland. He walks around the living room with a pretend limp and says things like, ‘We do not eat fufu with a spoon in this house, we eat it with our hands!’ When he says the last word, he puffs out his cheeks and makes his eyes go really wide as if he is going to explode. Then he puts his hands on his hips, leans forward on his tiptoes and pretends to be cross-eyed. That’s when we roll around on the floor laughing until our stomachs hurt – or my mum says, ‘Stella, Sol, come and get your dinner.’ Or my dad comes into the room.

Sol is always making people laugh, especially my dad. My dad laughs so much when Sol sips his Guinness and then pretends he can’t walk in a straight line. Sol always says, ‘I thought it was Coke, Dad!’ My dad laughs even harder and lets Sol have two more sips. Sol even makes my mum laugh. Sometimes, when we are eating, Sol pretends that he has swallowed a whole peppeh and that his mouth is on fire. My mum gets really worried when Sol starts spluttering and choking. She rushes to the kitchen to get him water. When she comes back, she pats him on his back and says, ‘Solo, are you okay? Solo? Solo?’ When my mum remembers that she didn’t leave a whole peppeh in the stew, Sol throws his head back and laughs like a clown. My mum smiles and shakes her head and tells Solo not to be so silly.

The only time my mum told me not to be silly is when she saw me giving Sol cornflakes from a bowl, and heard me say, ‘Body of Christ’. Instead of saying ‘Amen’, Sol sang it, the way the priest does when he says the Latin mass. My mum told me to put the cornflakes back in the cereal box immediately. ‘Transubstantiation is not a thing to be mocked.’

 

At parents’ evening, Miss Wilks says that I make her proud every single day. I smile so much I feel like the sunshine. Miss Wilks tells my mum that I am ‘an exemplary student’ and ‘a joy to teach’. ‘Exemplary’ means when you are the best at something and the teacher wishes that all the other children in the class were just like you. My mum’s smile shines when Miss Wilks says that. I wonder if she will let me go and live with her now. My dad didn’t come to my parents’ evening even though he went to Sol’s. I don’t really mind because I don’t think he would have believed all the good things Miss Wilks said about me. And he would probably have called her a ‘damn liar’.

The best thing about having a square desk made from wood next to Miss Wilks’s desk is that I can touch it three times before I go home every day and no one can even see me. It is the last day of term and I am not going to see Miss Wilks for six weeks. When I come back to school in September, I will be in Year 5. I don’t know if there are wooden desks in Miss Montague’s class, I really hope so.

I make Miss Wilks a card and draw both of us on the front cover, holding hands. We are dressed like the Pink Ladies. Miss Wilks is wearing pink lipstick and yellow hoop earrings. I draw love hearts on the border and keep all my colouring in the lines. At the end of the day, Miss Wilks kisses my forehead and tells me not to cry. She gives me a blue stone from her desk. It is shaped like a heart. I know that I will keep it forever. I want to tell Miss Wilks that I love her more than anyone else in the world.