CHAPTER
THREE
Invisible Rule #3:
If a pupil doesn’t do their work, they get detention. If a teacher doesn’t mark work, nothing happens. There is no such thing as teacher detention.
Hannah sits down next to me on the stairs as I rub my sore backside.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “Shall we tell Mrs. Carroway?”
I give her a look. “I’m not going to a form tutor about anything. We are not Year Sevens. I’ll get my own back on her somehow, don’t you worry.” With that, I hoist myself back up, my ego hurting more than my bum. And THAT is killing me.
Other girls filter past, some with soft whispers, others calling out, “Okay, Jess?”
Sporty Amy T. jogs by. “Don’t worry, Jess. I’ve got General PE with Zara this afternoon. I’ll take her down then! She can run but she can’t hide.” She trots on with a wink.
The three of us look down at my ripped leggings. The intake of breath from Hannah and Izzie confirms that it’s worse than I thought.
“Shall we try the Textiles room?” Izzie says hopefully, but I can see straight away that the material is too frayed to sew back together properly. There is just a sea of bare white leg. I didn’t think the leggings were that tight.
Then a thought hits me like a thunderbolt. A calorie-laden, carb-enriched, fat-loaded thunderbolt. What if Zara is right? What if I’ve just gone from “Well, I can just about live with that” to “We don’t stock your size here. Why don’t you try the FAT shop next door for FAT people”?
While I’m thinking the unthinkable, my friends are attempting to sort out my problem. “Let’s ask around. Someone’s bound to have something spare to wear, and leggings, well, they fit anyone,” Izzie says helpfully.
I look at the legs filing past and notice, not for the first time of course, that they’re all a lot thinner than mine. The difference is that this time I care.
The school bell rings and now we’re officially late for attendance, but that’s okay because Mrs. Carroway is always late. So I go to the toilets and take off the leggings. I wish I’d worn my jeans. As I look in the mirror, I feel horribly exposed. This skirt is too short to wear without tights or leggings. I can live with my legs when they’re covered up. But au naturel? I think not.
The door of the loo bangs open, and who should come in but Catamaran Caroline (so-called because she was once overheard saying, “Daddy’s thinking of buying a catamaran this weekend” in the same way your or my dad might think of buying a Meatloaf album. In case you don’t know, a catamaran is some kind of weird boat that not even idiots can capsize. They cost A LOT). She gives me the once-over, then makes a face like she’s seen some sick. How many more people are going to look at me like that today?
As a result of all this, I am three minutes late for attendance.
And guess what? Just this once, Mrs. Carroway’s on time. She usually swans in ten minutes late with a Starbucks in her hand, but today, she’s already sitting at the computer, logged on and ready to go. She attempts to give me (queen of the stare) a hard stare.
It fails.
She starts calling out the messages for the day and doesn’t seem to notice the amount of leg that I’m showing. So, I just sit down.
That’s when she calls on me. “Jesobel, it’s not like you to be late. I’ll let this one go but you’ll be getting a letter home if it happens again.”
Oh God, I’m quaking in my Vans. A letter. In the twenty-first century, the school attempts to communicate our sins to parents via paper letters. They don’t seem to notice that no one ever replies to these letters. Because parents never actually get them. Cos we steal them. There you go: School–0, Students–1.
My other friends try to offer help. There’s Sana — small, huge eyes, constantly readjusting her headscarf and trying to copy homework. She’s always drawing manga when she should be studying. Then Suzie — funny, long legs, never hands her homework in on time. Never listens to her parents from what I can see. Finally, Bex. She finds school hard. She finds life hard. Give her a hockey stick and she’s transformed. But even she feels sorry for me today.
The bell rings. So, with naked legs, it’s off to English. I hope it’s not one of those lessons where you’re made to put Post-its on the board.
There are generally two kinds of teachers — young ones who’ve been on courses and try to make you do stuff in an “interesting” way, and old ones who just get on with it with as little fuss as possible, unless the inspectors are in. Fortunately, Mrs. Lewis is one of the old ones. She just puts some questions on the board and leaves us to work through them, so my legs can stay safely hidden behind my desk.
Unfortunately, this gives her time to check who’s done their homework.
“Jesobel, I’m still missing an essay from you from last week.”
What I really want to say is, I’ll hand it in when you mark my controlled assessment, which you’ve had for four weeks. I mean, I’m in trouble for not doing my work, but I’m not allowed to say to her, “That’s not good enough, Mrs. Lewis. You’re in detention.”
I just don’t buy that line teachers give us about being so busy. I whisper to Izzie, “Funny how when we walk past her house, she’s always drinking white wine and watching Come Dine with Me. Busy, my aching arse!”
I might have whispered this too loudly, because now Mrs. Lewis is looking at me as if I’ve just said Shakespeare is overrated.
“What did you just say, Jesobel?” she snaps.
“I was just saying how moving I found this poem,” I lie. Then I put on the wounded puppy expression. “Sorry about the homework, miss. I’ll hand it in tomorrow.”
“I expect better from one of my prefects,” she says sharply.
And I feel like screaming, cos today’s been quite trying and it’s not even nine o’clock yet. But I smile sweetly while I imagine her drowning in a vat of crisp white wine, her little arms waving as she bobs pathetically, sinking deeper and deeper into the alcohol. Just cos I’m a prefect — a dubious honor at the best of times — I’m supposed to be bloody perfect.
“Well,” she says with a cold smile, “if I can’t mark your work, I can’t tell if you’re on target for your predicted grade. So, you’d better go and sit with the girls who are below target.”
The whole class draws in a deep breath.
Thing is, in our school you sit in order.
Those who are pretty perfect — you can tell by their neat handwriting and beautifully selected stationery items — and are going to get A’s or A-pluses are in one group. I’m always in this group, partly because I work hard and partly because I really do love those cute Japanese erasers shaped like kittens. Then there are the more normal girls who are going to get B’s and, hell, maybe a few C’s. And there’s the rest — D’s or below. The lost causes. The girls who just don’t get it. They look sad, like rescue puppies that no one wants. This system is supposed to encourage us to stay out of the bottom group.
I can feel words bubbling up inside me like lava in a volcano. But I don’t say a word. I just move myself, my books, my bag, my pencil case with all its lovely color-coded pens, and sit down at the Fail Table. With Ellie Unwin, who smells, and not in a nice way. And Rosie Sherwood, who cries all the time. Shall we review the situation?
- I’m wearing a skirt that makes me feel ridiculous. #fashionfail
- Most days I don’t feel fat. Today I do.
- The hypocrisy and double standards today have gone from “mildly annoying” to “this place is driving me crazy.”
- Normal Me would just go, “Hey, having a bad day? Then eat an amazing cake!” Current Me doesn’t want cake.
This situation is going from bad to worse.