“Don’t you have quite a lot of jeans?”
“Yeah, but only two pairs of skinnies,” I lie: I have five. “I want some maroon ones. Like Miss Mint’s.”
I plonk myself down at the table with my cereal bar which, to be honest, is so sickly it’s probably making more holes in my teeth than cake.
“Your English teacher wears jeans to work?”
Well, they’re technically jeans, but not the way Mum thinks, ‘cos Miss Mint wears them with high boots and silk cardies. But I can’t explain the intricacies of fashion to my mother who lives in cords and tunic when she’s not at work and cords, tunic and a white coat when she is.
“Yeah,” I mutter and leave it at that. Mum sighs and I can tell she’d rather go back upstairs than talk. But she tries.
“How was school?”
“Awful.” It wasn’t but I always say that, like when you’re asked how you are, you say, ‘fine’ automatically. I switch it to her.
“How’s the study?”
“Ooh, I need your help with the pluperfect after tea.”
Brilliant. Mum’s taken it upon herself to do French GCSE next year, at the exact same time as me. In the same hall , for gods’ sake. I don’t mind her taking exams ... but the same one? She shows off to anyone who’ll listen that we’re doing the same thing ‘just 27 years apart,’ and then starts doing some really random ‘doo, doo, doo, doo’ sound like it’s mysterious or something. When actually it’s just annoying.
I’m good at French; that’s why I’m taking it in year 10. But I’m not much good at other things. Not sciences, like my mum and my sister Emily, who’s escaped to Bristol to be a proper dentist. Not English like Josh or dance like Rach. Not art like Erin. I wish. But I’m ok at French.
“Well, back to it,” Mum says. “No rest for the thickhead.” She gives me a cheesy grin. “Tea in an hour?”
I give her an odd look. She’s never in this much of a hurry to get back to the books. “You ok, Mum? You’re back early.”
“Of course,” she smiles brightly, then fades. “Are you?”
Apart from having a weird mother and a gay best friend with a crush on the same boy as me? “Fine,” I say, and swing my bag up in a heavy arc. Just fine.
Chapter 2: Friday
Next day during biology, Courtney and I are in the middle of tracking fingerprints in pig’s blood up our arms when Mr Morlis glides over, making us jump.
“If you’re into branding, try Danepak,” he says gravely.
He doesn’t use his scooter much since the Ofsted inspectors saw it peeping out from under his desk and he got in trouble. Plus the Aerosmith soundtrack kind of drowns out noise.
Mr Morlis is a legend.
He’s bald, but shaved bald not proper bald, and he wears the coolest trainers. Sometimes he does experiments with things that smell and coloured smoke which impresses the boys but I’m more interested in the way he can get the whole class quiet to explain things that can make your head explode, let alone whatever’s on the Bunsen burner. I wish I was better at science. A Levels with Mr Morlis would be wicked. The multicoloured cress moustache he’s done on a massive piece of blotting paper hangs over a poster of someone he says is called Alan Partridge and looks awesome. Other male teachers are doing it too but on their faces, which is unoriginal, desperate, whereas Mr Morlis just gets it.
“Sorry, sir,” I mumble.
“She’s working out what to wear to the party,” Courtney offers. “My fifteenth,” she says, applauding what she thinks is Mr Morlis’ interested expression with mascara-ed lashes.
“Chop up the pig or leave. Your choice.” It’s said and accepted and he scoots away. We move through the rest of the dissection silently: that’s just how it is with Mr Morlis: you don’t mess about.
Later, washing our hands, Courtney squeezes between Josh and me with a hip-bump. Josh is sulking; stuck working with Olly Goddard, a boy with the worst acne you’ve ever seen in your life and great, sack-like arms with pits that smell like the games block. He’s taking ages at the sink, scrubbing under his fingernails like Kate Middleton’s on her way.
“Thirty two hours and counting!” Courtney shakes at the thought of nearly the whole year group at her party. Sometimes her whole body goes into spasm when she’s excited, like when she got tickets to Master Chef. Her brother’s just left Fairmere. He’s captain of the college rugby club and hired the hall out for her. One of his fit friends is DJ-ing ‘for practice’; a lot of year 11s are going including Kai Swanning. It’s going to be carnage.