Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (5 page)

Miss Thorn’s eyes ran swiftly through Jess’s comic masterpiece, her face betraying no reaction whatever. After she had read it, she handed it back with delicate disdain, as if it was a prawn sandwich that had gone off.

‘One of the things we have to learn as we grow up,’ said Miss Thorn in a preachy voice, ‘is that comedy is not always appropriate.’

Hmm
, thought Jess.
I must have overdone the tragedy and toppled over into the farcical
. She’d known her essay was a bit far-fetched, but she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation.

‘I want you to rewrite this by tomorrow morning,’ Miss Thorn went on.

Standing up close like this, Jess could see that Miss Thorn had designed her eyebrows to be deliberately frightening. Although she already hated her deeply, she had to admire her skill with cosmetics.

‘All I want is a simple description of your actual family, not all this nonsense.’ Miss Thorn tossed a kind of sneering glance at Jess’s work. Jess decided not to get into an argument. There was something else on her mind.

‘OK. Er, is it true that we’re not having a Christmas Show this year?’ she asked, trying not to sound too indignant.

‘We
are
having a Christmas Show,’ said Miss Thorn. ‘
Twelfth Night
.’

‘I meant a revue like we normally have,’ said Jess. ‘With sketches and songs and stuff.’

‘No,’ said Miss Thorn. ‘
Twelfth Night
is Mr Fothergill’s favourite play, apparently, and he’s hoping to be well enough by then to come and see it. And Shakespeare actually wrote it to be performed at Christmas.’

‘We did
Twelfth Night
with Mr Fothergill all last term,’ said Jess. ‘I expect he’s bored to death with it.’

‘There’s no such thing as being bored to death with Shakespeare,’ said Miss Thorn. ‘Except, possibly, for the very immature.’

Jess decided to ignore this insult. She would have her revenge later.

‘Ah well,’ she said, beginning to think about going, ‘maybe I should audition for it.’

‘Yes, why not?’ said Miss Thorn. ‘The auditions are every lunchtime this week – starting tomorrow.’

Jess quite fancied the lead role: Viola. She got shipwrecked, dressed as a boy, was pursued by a lovesick countess and got involved in fights. The girl had what you could call a lifestyle.

‘Viola seems kind of a fun part,’ said Jess.

‘Oh, I don’t see you as Viola,’ said Miss Thorn. ‘You’re a bit too short. But we might find something for you – a sailor, perhaps. Or a messenger.’

Jess managed, with a supreme burst of self-control, not to hit Miss Thorn smack in the mouth. Too
short
?

Jess gave what she hoped was a sarcastic shrug, and walked out. But all the way down the corridor she was seething. Too short? Too
short
? How dare the icy witch make wounding personal remarks! Just because she was so ridiculously tall herself!
Let’s hope one day some obliging dog will mistake her for a lamp post and do the honours
, thought Jess. Anyway, it made sense for Viola to be short – because if she was a tall sort of ‘boy’, her voice would have broken, wouldn’t it?

And speaking of tall boys whose voices had broken, where was Fred? If only they hadn’t had that stupid row in the park, she could have texted him right now. But if she texted him, it would look as if she was apologising. Jess knew she’d been totally out of control when she’d stormed off, telling Fred to get lost. She would apologise about that one day. But Fred had started the whole thing off. He was the one who should be apologising! Maybe Miss Thorn was right after all about one thing. Maybe there were times when comedy was not appropriate.

What a dire day this was turning out to be. Perhaps Mercury was retrograde or something. Jess decided her best plan was just to keep out of trouble and try to get through the day minute by minute. On the way home she could decide whether to drop in at Fred’s or not.

‘I think I might audition for
Twelfth Night
,’ said Flora at lunch. Jess was tucking into a pizza, even though she had eaten about 3,000 calories at mid-morning break. Flora was picking daintily at a Caesar salad – and leaving the croutons on the side of her plate.

‘I wouldn’t audition for that woman!’ said Jess. ‘Not in a million years. It’s so harsh that we can’t have a Christmas Show. Fred and I had got so many ideas for sketches.’

‘Oh, go on, Jess, please! Let’s audition together,’ pleaded Flora. ‘It would be so cool if we could both be in it.’

‘Forget it,’ Jess growled, gnawing at the bald bits round the edge of the pizza. ‘As far as I’m concerned, that would be sleeping with the enemy.’

Flora shrugged and shook her head, and looked sadly away. She always did this when they disagreed about something. Jess preferred a glorious head-to-head blazing row, but Flora’s family never had rows and Flora just didn’t know how to begin. It was quite frustrating really.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a dull blur, and when the bell rang for end of school Flora and Jess met by the drinks machine.

‘I’m going to the music department,’ said Flora. ‘I want to book my clarinet lessons. Come with me? Then we can walk home.’

‘I can’t, sorry,’ said Jess. ‘I’m going to call in on Fred. I’ve got to sort out this stupid mess we’ve got ourselves into.’

‘Oh right, well, good luck. Hope it all works out OK,’ said Flora. ‘Give me a ring tonight and tell me how it went. Yeah?’

Jess nodded and strolled off. She wasn’t surprised to find it was raining and blowing a gale. Just her luck. She hesitated by the school gates and got out her umbrella, but the stupid thing kept flapping about as if it was alive.

‘Hi,’ said a voice. ‘Want a hand?’

Jess squinted through the rain. It was Ben Jones. He took her umbrella and held it above her, rather like a courteous fellow in a 1940s musical.

‘I thought you had football practice?’ she said.

‘Rained off,’ said Ben. Jess felt like an idiot.

‘How very delightful to have a gentleman carry my umbrella!’ she said in a posh old-fashioned voice. ‘Perhaps chivalry is not dead after all!’

Ben laughed. They set off down the road. It’s hard to walk under an umbrella with somebody without sort of snuggling up to them in a way, and you feel kind of private under an umbrella, too. A few months ago, Jess would have fainted with joy at the thought of sharing such a romantic experience with Ben Jones.

‘I’ll see you to your, er, place, if you like,’ he said. ‘Nothing else to do.’

‘That was not quite so chivalrous, Benjamin!’ said Jess. Secretly she was abandoning her plan to go to Fred’s. She could hardly turn up at his house with Ben Jones being chivalrous under an umbrella. She felt relieved in a way. She wasn’t looking forward to having an awkward and embarrassing scene with Fred. Although until they did sort things out, she knew there would be a heavy weight somewhere in her insides.

They came to the Dolphin Cafe. A delicious smell of doughnuts drifted out.

Jess’s tummy rumbled, rather like a distant roll of thunder.

‘Just a minute,’ she said. ‘I have to have a doughnut!’

‘I thought you were in a hurry to get home tonight?’ said Ben.

‘It’s OK – just a quick doughnut and a Coke,’ said Jess. ‘You’re my partner in binge eating, you’ve got to keep me company. You don’t have to actually have anything yourself if you’re in training or something.’

They went inside. The cafe was kind of steamy and cosy. There was a tiny table in a corner by the till. They grabbed it and immediately got stuck into an apple doughnut each.

‘Not on some kind of athlete’s diet, then?’ said Jess. ‘I would have thought you had to eat steak and raw eggs all the time. Call yourself a footballer!’

‘No, I’m just a, well, sugar junkie,’ said Ben. ‘I live on chocolate brownies at home.’

‘Nibbling away at cakes all day, and calling off your football practice just because it’s raining!’ Jess grinned. She put on her old-fashioned 1940s film voice again. ‘In my day young men were
real
men. They had fabulous muscles and divine moustaches lightly dressed with mayonnaise!’

Ben laughed and finished his doughnut. ‘Yeah, well . . .’ he said. Jess waited for him to complete his observation. But it seemed he had.

‘You guys are just so limp-wristed!’ she said. ‘I bet I’m stronger than you anyway.’

‘Oh yeah? How about a bit of arm-wrestling, then?’ suggested Ben.

They clasped hands and anchored their elbows to the table. Just for a split second, at the back of her mind, Jess realised that this was the first time she had held hands with Ben Jones. Although it didn’t mean anything, of course. His hand was rather nice – warm, but not sweaty, and big. And strong. Ben forced her hand down with stunning speed. It was humiliating, but kind of wonderful as well.

‘Best of three!’ said Jess. This time she gritted her teeth and put up a gigantic struggle, but eventually Ben won that one, too.

‘Best of five!’ demanded Jess. She was determined to prove she was as strong as he was. They clasped hands again.

Then Jess became aware that somebody was standing by their table. A green raincoat was too close to ignore. Jess looked up, her hand still firmly locked into Ben’s.

Aargh! It was Fred’s
mum
! This was the worst moment of Jess’s life so far.

Chapter 6

‘Mrs Parsons!’ squeaked Jess, and struggled to her feet, hastily letting go of Ben’s hand. She felt a huge blush sweep up from her toes and break out across her face. Fred’s mum smiled, but there was something about her smile which was less than divine.

‘Hello, Jess. Wet, isn’t it? We just came in to shelter from the rain – so we thought we’d award ourselves a cup of tea.’

Another middle-aged woman, evidently Mrs Parsons’s friend, was standing nearby, carrying a tray.

‘Yeah, we did, too,’ said Jess. Fred’s mum looked down at Ben and smiled at him, but there was just a hint of reserve about it, as if she somehow suspected he was not worthy to lick the feet of her beloved son Fred.

‘This is Ben Jones,’ said Jess, breaking into a sweat. ‘Mrs Parsons is Fred’s mum.’

‘Hi,’ said Ben, nodding and smiling. Then he scrambled to his feet, as if realising he ought to make more of an effort to be polite. ‘Sorry. Yeah.’ He shook hands with her, awkwardly. It wasn’t much help. Ben could have represented his country at arm-wrestling, but when it came to conversation, he really needed a personal coach just to get off the starting blocks.

‘I was just coming round to your house, actually,’ said Jess. ‘To see how Fred is. Has he got a tummy bug or something?’

Mrs Parsons frowned.

‘A . . . tummy bug?’ she faltered. ‘Why?’

‘I thought he must be ill,’ said Jess. ‘Because he wasn’t at school.’

‘He wasn’t at school?’ Mrs Parsons’s eyes widened with alarm and just a tiny dash of outrage. ‘Well, he certainly left for school this morning, at the usual time, in his school clothes.’

‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Jess. ‘Well, he didn’t turn up.’