The clock is at five and Dominic’s arms will be flailing and doors will be slamming if Josh’s not home. I think of his mum, of Edward’s soft head and how it needs toughening to cope with the new baby.
“Maybe I should go over now.”
She watches me rub her engagement ring, which I’ve taken to doing instead of shoving my nails in my mouth, and doesn’t say anything. So I get up and put her shoes on, but not the heels this time; she’s got Uggs by the door, which help make me feel solid.
I open the door and Josh’s there, walking home. I close it again, not all the way, but so he doesn’t see us, and watch as he swings his bag right up. He stands
for a millisecond
while it splays its straps, hangs like a penguin chick, awkward then
falls.
He goes into the house.
“Well,” says Miss Mint, “that’s one less thing to worry about.”
Chapter 11: Wednesday, third night
Alicia Payne doesn’t have to hate me. I’m just saying.
But last year in the woods behind school, she decided she did. It wasn’t my fault Tao barked and went bonkers, she shouldn’t have picked up that stick. I know it’s irrational; there’s no need to fear her but even with Miss Mint’s skin on something inside that girl’s fired up and furious and I see it.
I’m back at school and it’s Wednesday and Miss Mint’s Wednesdays are fine, she says. But that’s ‘cos she’s used to it. Year 11 English double, periods 5 and 6, might be her idea of fun but Alicia is making it hard. And ‘cos we’re deep down, proper sworn enemies in real life, it’s harder.
The Menagerie ’s moved on so they’re on to fragility. Miss Mint prepped me, explaining the characters and themes and how relationships can get so intense things can break.
“Like glass animals might,” I’d said, “or friends.”
“Yes,” said Miss Mint. “But also like partners,” and that had been when I was rubbing the diamond and she’d looked at it like it might evaporate.
So anyway, Alicia Payne is maybe the least fragile girl in Fairmere, the south coast or maybe the world.
“Miss, this play’s fucking shit.”
“Thank you, Alicia. Outside.”
I’m learning to stop things before they spiral and leave the class unpicking fire escapes.
She properly hates me, Miss Mint or not. It’s there in her nose stud, taped over; gross. It’s there in her mouth, which is down-turned, primed for battle. Once in the corridor, she starts to volley.
“You can’t make me do this,” her eyes slide.
She’s served. “Make you do what, Alicia?” Pause.
But she heard.
“You’re well out of order.” She knuckles the wall.
“I’m not the one swearing,” I say.
Thirty-all.
She hesitates. Presses the stud in her nose. She winks at Lloyd Parker, then stares at her toes.
She looks at me sideways, then says quietly,
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok.”
It’s forty-forty.
I open the door and we traipse back inside. She fist-balls her eyes like I’m mean and she’s cried.
“Sit down, Alicia please. Take your book out now, hon.”
She settles; obliges.
I think the game’s won.
It’s all going well, though the sun’s slipped away and with it the will to live in the case of a significant few, whom I have come to rely on for answers to questions I have no idea of the answer to. Ten minutes from the bell we need something else. I think quickly.
“Donna. What are you wearing on Friday?”
Donna stops scoring the back of her hand with compasses and raises traced-on eyebrows, which if I didn’t know humans had, I would not think existed.
“Miss, that’s weird.” Felix, whose head’s been buried for a while in his jumper, uncoils.
“Head up please, Felix.” A Miss Mint bangle shake and he’s back in his box. “No, it’s not. It’s a perfectly ordinary question. Friday’s non-uniform day, in case you’ve forgotten.”
They haven’t; none of them have. You don’t forget non-uniform day; no one does. You sometimes forget your pound but you never forget to wear different stuff. It’s for some local homeless charity I think, but I’m not sure ‘cos I wasn’t really listening in year group meeting this morning.
“Um,” Donna looks around, making a ‘WTF?” face and a few girls lip-curl their support.
I wait.
Today, I’m wearing a pale grey, three quarter length cardigan coat from Jigsaw, made of the lightest silk wool that ever existed and underneath a scoop-necked, bronze top. My nails are silver. And my classroom’s cold.