She winked at me. Just with one eye.
I didn’t wink back.
I so wanted to.
Today we’re having Sidone’s “Mistress class on The Taming of the Shrew.” Monty was already at the lectern when we went in. He had his dance tights on.
Flossie said, “Let’s sit at the back in case there’s any ballet dancing from Monty.”
Monty was very excited and as we took our seats he was practically doing the conga. Clapping his hands together for our attention, he said, “Girls, today we have the amazing, the astonishing, the divine . . . Ms. Sidone Beaver with her mistress class.” And he tinkled with laughter. “Did you see what I did there, girls . . . did you? It’s usually a master class, but I said mistress class because Ms. Beaver is, well, she’s a woman!!!”
I said, “Should we act surprised? I mean, I’d guessed she was a woman all along, didn’t—”
And, on cue, Sidone entered stage right in a pussycat mask.
She walked in a pussycat way to the desk and growled at Monty, who practically split his tights with delight. He was saying, “Oh, oh, madam, desist, desist!!!”
Sidone took off her mask and fanned herself with it. She addressed us. “What we are striving to reveal to a modern-day audience, girls, is that the battle of the sexes is as savage as it was in the Bard’s day.”
There was a swift intake of breath from Monty as he tried to sit down on his chair.
Sidone went on. “Kate is depicted as a shrew because she thinks that men seek to disempower her. As indeed she might. You have only to think of me, girls, last term, a delicate woman pitting herself against the bullying male forces of darkness, Mr. Smitheebottom, the assistant tax inspector.”
Monty started sighing, “Aaaaaah, me. Madam, the plague that is my sex.”
Sidone wafted herself with her pussycat mask and smiled coyly from behind it, glancing at Monty.
Monty tried to cross his legs carelessly. Sadly his legs were willing, but his tights were not, so he changed it to a sort of scissor-legs effect.
Sidone said to him, “Nay, nay, Mr. de Courcy, you are not as other men!”
We all looked at each other and raised our eyebrows.
Sidone went on pacing up and down. “So, girls, how do we stage a play like this? In a modern way. In our way. Mr. de Courcy and I will improvise on the theme of male versus female, to give you some ideas.”
Monty started to strut around. Puffing his chest out. Vaisey said quietly, “Why is he being a chicken?”
I said, “Perhaps he’s feeling a bit peckish.”
Sidone stood on the other side of the room, facing Monty. Just watching him and doing acting laughing. He was still chickening about.
Sidone yelled, “Desist, you larrikin! You man!!!”
Monty did a comedy double-take and mid-strut put his hands on his hips. He shouted back, “Fie, madam, a curse on your bustle!”
Sidone stepped towards him shouting, “My bustle? My bustle!!! You rapscallion in tight trousers!”
Monty stepped nearer. “Aha!!! My tight trousers?! A shiny groat for your hard and straining stays, MADAM!”
We watched in amazement as they got nearer and nearer to each other. Shouting insults all the way.
“Prancing poltroon!!!”
“Wittering wench!”
“Lumpy lout!”
“Prattling primpbottom!”
Until they were nose to nose.
And both yelled together, “Touché!!!” and fell into each other’s arms.
Sidone said, “Oh, my Petruchio.”
And Monty said, “Ah, my sweet Kate.”
Flossie whispered, “They’re not going to snog, are they?”
And they started to waltz.
Then it was our turn. Half of us had to be boys and half girls. Sadly I’d got Jo as my partner and she said, “I’m the bloke.”
She joined the other “blokes” and I joined the “ladies.” Insults began flying backwards and forwards across the room. Everyone was really getting into it.
Jo took an enormous step forward and shouted, “I can see your corkers from here!”
I shouted back, “You’re not supposed to take such a big step, you loon.”
She shouted, “Oh, shut up, going on, you lanky streak of lard.”
I shouted, “I’m not going on actually, you criminal.”
Jo shouted, “I’ll give your nose a big lick in a minute.”
Oh. Oh.
In a quiet shout I said, “Don’t you dare start that.”
Jo yelled, “Or what? Show us your corkers!”
I yelled back, “Shut up, you big, you big black crow!”
Jo had got a glint in her eye now. She was so close I could see it. She said, “You know you love it!”
Right, that did it!
“You beast, you animal in trousers!”
Cain, er, I mean Jo, yelled practically nose to nose with me. “If you don’t like the animals, don’t come into the woods and get hailstones on your nose!!”
I grabbed her round the head. And I was shouting at her. “I’m not a shrew, I’m a human being!!!”
I literally went a bit mad. Even Jo looked frightened. Thankfully Monty rang a bell for time-out. Sidone and Monty were very excited by our performances. Sidone said, “Truly, truly wonderful, girls. The Bard would’ve been proud of you. Now then, after all that fighting let’s all make friends as lovers do.”
Jo and I were very red. Jo said, “Erm, I don’t really know where that came from, Lullah. I think I’ve got cabin fever. I’m sorry.”
I said, “Well, I’m sorry for, you know, squashing your head and everything.” And we shook hands.
Sidone said, “Right, my girls, I want you to come up with a four-minute piece to be performed in next Friday’s lunchtime performance slot. These pieces will make up a third of your marks for the term. Choose different partners. Dig deep, darlings, and come to the banquet with the fruits of your psyches!”
Fruits of our psyches?
As we walked out to lunch, Vaisey came up to me and said shyly, “Lullah, you know this performance assessment piece . . . well, would you do it with me? I’d really like us to do something together, you know, because, well, the clown thing was good, wasn’t it?”
Oh, this was nice, people wanting to work with me.
Vaisey said, “Let’s go for a little walk on our own and talk about everything.”
We got togged up and went out. Jo had gone off to the potting shed and Flossie was in the music studio, so it was just us.
Vaisey said, “Jo has made a shrine to Phil in the potting shed. She eats her biscuits in there and looks up at the boy-shaped hole in the roof.”
I said, “Does she offer him a biscuit?”
Vaisey said, “No, but she sometimes tells him about her day.”
As we got into the woods, Vaisey burst out, “Tallulah, something happened that was so, so nice. Well, after supps last night, I went out to get fir cones for my Taming of the Shrew collage and guess what, Jack was in the woods!!!”
She was beside herself with excitement.
“He said he came . . . in the hope that he might see me!! He jogged over to the woods and jogged about for ages and he said he felt my presence. . . . And there I was!!”
Ahhhh.
“What happened?”
Vaisey blushed. “Well, he told me about some new tunes he’s been practicing and then he told me that The Jones are coming to our music studio on Monday to rehearse for their gig.”
I said, “Oh.”
Vaisey carried on. “Only nobody must know because of, you know, the trouble there’s been. Jack’s got special permission from Hoppy to be there. It’s a big secret. So we’re sworn to secrecy, aren’t we? Flossie and Jo have already promised.”
I said, “Yeah, of course. Did you just talk to Jack then? Or was it a bit more physical than that . . . ? Was there any progress on the Lululuuuve List?”
Vaisey went double red and no
dded. I put my arm round her and squeezed her.
She said, “I think we’re getting good at kissing now. It’s all practice, isn’t it? I mean, at first you don’t know where to put your hands, do you? And you don’t want to knock teeth or anything.”
I said, “Hmmm, that’s a good point. Where should they go, do you think?”
Vaisey was chewing a curl. “How do you mean, Lulles? Where should your teeth go? I—”
“No, Vaisey, I mean HANDS. Where were Jack’s hands when you were snogging?”
“Erm, I think they were, well, on the top of my top bottom.”
“On the top of your top bottom—where’s that?”
Vaisey turned round and put her hands on her bottom. “Here, not on the bottomy sticky-out bit, just as it begins to stick out.”
I must remember the hands position for the future. Maybe I should have a bit on my list about hand positions.
Vaisey said, “What else do you want to know?”
I thought and then said, “Has Jack done, I mean, does he ever, you know, do open mouth and tongue stuff at the same time?”
Vaisey said, “Not so far. Should he, do you think? Did you do that with Charlie?”
I stammered, “No, not with Charlie but . . .”
Uh-oh.
Vaisey looked puzzled. “Then who . . . ?”
And it all came out in a rush. “It was out on the moors last term, and it was, well . . . he kissed me, properly, with tongues and everything.”
Vaisey said, “On the moors? Tongues? Whose tongues?”
I looked down at the ground. She put her arm round me. I had to tell someone.
I said, “The nose-licker’s tongue.”
Vaisey shouted, “Cain?! Cain??!”
I nodded.
She looked at me and shouted, “Cain!”
I said quietly, “Vaisey, that’s not the worst of it. . . . It was so nice, I thought I was melting.”
Vaisey said, “Oh noooooo, Lullah—no—the Rusty Black Crow of Heckmondwhite. Did you get that thing about not knowing which way up you were or where his mouth starts and yours ends and . . .”
I was nodding. “Yes—but I hate Cain. He’s hateful. He laughs at me and humiliates me.”
Vaisey gave me a hug. “His bark’s probably worse than his bite. He says things he doesn’t really mean. Jack says he’s got an artistic temperament.”
“Vaisey, he’s not doing a dance or painting when he says horrible things to me—he just says them. I think he hates me.”
“How can he not love you, Lullah? You’ve got lovely hair and your eyes and everything.”
“What about my legs?”
Vaisey paused for just a bit too long. “Yes, yes, and your legs.”
“Vaisey, do you mind if we don’t talk about this anymore? It’s making me feel sad and strange.”
Vaisey said, “Look, no one needs to know anything about the Cain thing.”
I said, “Accidental Number Six on Lullah’s Lululuuuve List?”
Vaisey said, “Yes. When The Jones come to college you can act like a normal person, you know, all casual.”
I said, “Oh, I see what you mean. Sort of cool—I mean, it’s just a band, isn’t it? Everyone knows what I think about Cain.”
Vaisey bounced her curls around, gave me another big hug, and said, “Exactly—I won’t tell.”
As we walked back to Dother Hall, she said, “Hey, I’ve got a secret Curly Wurly we can share. I wanted to ask you something special. About the duet.” She handed me a bit of Curly Wurly. Yum yum.
I said, “Fire away.”
She was pulling at her curls like mad. I was glad we were changing the subject to something more cheerful. “What did you have in mind, little curly pal?”
Vaisey said, “Well, Jack says that when he drums he puts all of himself into it and he doesn’t hold back . . . he . . . feels the rhythm in his soul.”
I began to get worried.
“We’re not, I mean, you don’t want me to do a drumming duet, do you? Because you remember the last time when we did ad hoc drumming and my leg went through the stage and there was a . . .”
Vaisey put her hand on my arm and smiled. “No, not drumming . . . he says we’ve all got something inside, like a secret that we feel vulnerable about. But that can be our best bit.”
I said, “For a boy, Jack is very wise.”
“Oh, I knew you’d understand, Lullah. I think you’re the best pal I’ve ever had. You’ve always understood me. Do you remember when we first met and I showed you how I used to ride my pretend horsey to school?”
I laughed. “Yeah, that was bonkers. . . .”
“And you didn’t laugh at me, you sort of understood.”
I changed my face to an understanding one.
Vaisey was quite worked up. “And so I want to do something that’s about my childhood, something that really means something, something other people might not understand. And I thought of you.”
I hugged her. “Yes, you and me, Vaisey. This will be an opportunity to put the Sugar Plum Bikey fiasco firmly behind us.”
She said, “I wondered if you’d be Merrylegs in my Black Beauty piece.” Doomed, I am doomed.
As I walked home later, I thought, Everything is coming back to haunt me. The Dark Rusty Crow of Heckmondwhite is back, and now so are my long lanky legs.
Held up to the cruel audience of life.
And what is more, this time when I show them in public . . . there will be four of them!
See you there, cheeky miss
ON MONDAY I ARRIVED at Dother Hall desperate to go to the loo. Dibdobs gave me some of her special foraging tea that’s made out of dried dandelions and squirrel poo or something. I haven’t been able to stop going to the loo since. And my pee is green. But thankfully not full of acorns.
I can see why Mr. Barraclough calls it Dither Hall. I couldn’t get into the loos for girls putting on lipstick and hitching their skirts up this morning.
What was going on?
Milly said, “Exciting, isn’t it, about The Jones coming?”
How did she know?
I said, “They’re not.”
Milly said, “Oh yes, they are. Flossie said.”
It wasn’t just in the loos, it was all around the school that The Jones were coming. When I met up with the Tree Sisters in the café, I said to Flossie, “Everyone I asked said you and Jo had told them about The Jones.”
Flossie said, “Oh yeah.”
Vaisey said to Jo, “But it was a secret. . . . Jack might get into trouble . . . because Hoppy said . . .”
Jo said to Vaisey, “Hoppy smoppy!!! You don’t understand what it’s like to not see boys for ages and ages. I haven’t seen Phil; I’m like a nun. I’ve got excess boy energy to work off. I’ve had to listen to Bob tell me about his new drum solos for a week, in between unbunging drains and . . . Come on . . . if you’re so upset about Flossie and me telling people, let’s fight!! I’ll take you all on.”
And she pushed Vaisey over and then leapt on my back and started giddying me up like a donkey.
As we all went into assembly, Jo was still on my back. I started my casually disinterested plan. I said to Flossie, “Honestly, don’t you think it’s pathetic? It’s just, just the Hinchcliffs and Jack when it comes down to it. Just you know, just a bunch of boys, playing songs and moaning about life. They’ll probably fall out by about half past two and break Bob’s sound equipment.”
Vaisey squeezed my hand and gave me a secret look.
And Flossie said, “I completely understand, Miss Lullah. But ditch the small mad person on your back and get your lip gloss out! I’ve run out and that Seth boy is in for a meeting he won’t never forget!”
I shoved Jo off and whispered to Vaisey, “I don’t—I can’t—I don’t want to see him.”
Vaisey squeezed my hand again. “Look, we can hide at the back and creep off. . . .”
After second period, I was walking along to the art studio
s and passed a mass of girls screeching outside the front door. Flossie came out of the loos again; how much lip gloss can one person apply? She grabbed my hand and dragged me along with her. I said, “Flossie, what are you doing? I don’t want to . . .”
She dragged me to the front of the crowd just as Seth appeared through the front doors with his guitar over his shoulder. He stopped right in front of her. She stood there looking back at him. Someone, I think it might have been Milly, shouted, “I love you, Seth.”
Without looking away from Flossie, Seth said, “You’re only human, love.”
Milly said, “Thank you.”
I tried to get my hand away from Flossie’s but she held on tight. She’s big and wasn’t going to move. The girls hushed. Seth put his head down and swished back his dark hair. He looked up and licked his lips.
“My, looking good, Florence. Where’s tha been hiding tha sen?”
Uh-oh.
The girls around them edged away slightly. Flossie took off her glasses and thrust her face towards him as if she was going to kiss him. Blimey. Then she said, “I’ve been hiding from you, you big rough thing.”
And she clicked her fingers and turned away.
Haha! That’ll teach him.
I followed her through the crowd of girls as the bell rang for musical drama. I said, “Yeah, yeah, good work, see how a Hinchcliff likes that.”
I went on. “Yeah, you showed him, the way you said you’d been hiding from him. That’ll be the last time Seth bothers you.”
Flossie said slowly, “Oh no, no . . . you’ll see, he loves that sort of thing.”
What sort of thing?
Jo said, “Where was the Dark Black Crow of Heckmondwhite then? Has Mrs. Bottomly shot him?”
Vaisey said, “Oh no, Jack says he’s always late. He’ll be here. Did you see me pretending I hadn’t seen Jack? He was pretending that he hadn’t seen me and I was pretending I hadn’t seen him and—”
Monty came bustling by and interrupted us. “My girls, my girls, what larks today!!!”
I didn’t know that Monty knew the whole of “We Will Rock You” but he does.