I slid into the leather seat in Harry’s 1969 Boss 302 Mustang. Despite the fact he was completely my best friend since our moms drank non-alcoholic cocktails by the poolside when they had barely hints of baby bumps I never understood how he liked cars. And why did his dad not get him the new Boss 302? It looks like bumble bee and isn’t ancient. When I told harry and his dad this they shook their heads then pointed and laughed at me making me feel like a complete dumbass.
He was “carpooling” me to school seeing my lack of a car and inability to catch a bus on time as a chance for him to be the dashing hero to my damsel in distress.
“Hey” I said looking over at him. His hand put the car in gear and the other turned the wheel smoothly. We made it onto the main road and headed for Avermond High. It used to be called St Something but its all “new age” now. The only new age people in the town seem to be the politicians, everyone else is a conservative Christian.
“Why didn’t you text me back Millie?” He said not taking his eyes from the road. He was a cautious driver. It was the car’s fault, it was a present from his dad for his 17th and he was not even gonna scratch the black paint. Even if he did get every single 69 joke there was, which is a lot since he got caught with Mark Keys at Viv’s party.
“Did you get my maths homework? It was really hard.” It was a mean rhetorical question. He didn’t because he was in a lower class than me; it was his turn to feel like a dumbass. “I had to cancel on April last night.”
“And you’re still alive? How?” he smirked. We were going round a round about, just about the only one in the country, so I decided to put my seat belt on and try not to distract him. I didn’t normally wear my seat belt because it snagged my collar bone. Don’t worry once I get caught by the police I’ll wear one but that hasn’t happened yet.
“No. April created a zombie formula that brought me back to life. You’re safe from a zombie apocalypse though.”
“Why am I safe?” His mouth was folded up at the corners like a pile of washing, dipping in the middle. His eyebrows smudged into one bendy charcoal squiggle. That’s Harry’s way of trying not to laugh really hard.
I looked at him as innocently, “Because you don’t have any brains for me to eat,” He was laughing as we pulled into the school parking lot.
When he carefully parked in our space Courtney showed up in her yellow Porsche Carrera Convertible and parked next to us. She got out of her car, leaving the roof down, stared menacingly at us then glided off to join some other mini-skirts.
I wish I could say that she was “Miss Popularity” and my sworn enemy but: no. In fact my next move was to get out of the car then lean down and check my reflection in the wing mirror, add some more red lip gloss that stained my lips as if I’d been kissed roughly and say seriously:
“Harry your sister is turning into a cheerleader.” He ignored me and went to get his shoulder bag out of the trunk. Then I picked up the oversized brown leather hand bag that served as my rucksack and dig deep, as if I had a never ending carpet bag like Mary Poppins, for my Nokia Lumia and text Spencer Winston, also known as Harry and Courtney’s dad. “court left the roof down again on car i staying for tea please tell mary xoxo” Harry looked over my shoulder and laughed. He ran his hand through his short hair and loosened it. I preferred it when it had been long. I said he looked like Oskar Wilde or some bad boy of the olden days which he said was the reason he cut it.
“You are mean. Are you still upset she borrowed your lipstick?” Harry’s perfect black eyebrow on the left side of his face crinkled into a wavy line again.
“She had a cold sore Harry. A cold sore. On her lip. I had to chuck it out. She did it to annoy me I swear.” He put my arm around my shoulders as we walked up the steps. Harry’s eyes scanned the white, grey and silver hallway for the black skin and blacker hair of April Adams but April was always late to school so I didn’t bother looking around for her.
As we entered the large hall the swarm smothered me and I peeked to make sure I didn’t stand out in the world of fitting in. There were no side ways glances and no leering looks so I held my as high as an ugly duckling might in a place full of ducks masquerading as swans.
“Obviously she did. She gets kicks from stuff like that. You have met my sister right?” We were laughing again as we reached our homeroom and the bell buzzed as if waiting for us.
Mrs Kennel was away on maternity leave so we’d been through a different sub each day for about two weeks. No offence but substitute teachers always annoy me. It’s not their fault but they just don’t fit in. This one was called Ms Banks and she had actually written her name on the white board. Neat handwriting and everything. The bell rang and the rest of the class dribbled in. Harry and I sat in the middle of the room at desks side by side; as she stood up we shared a knowing look with each other.
“Hello class 4B I am Ms Banks and I will be filling for Mrs Kennel for the duration of her maternity leave.” I tried not to groan but like the rest of the class I failed. I’ve got to hand it to her Ms Banks didn’t even flinch.
“I’ll do the role call to get to know you all. Are you sitting in alphabetical order?” No-one answered and she’d already started looking at the computer, like she hadn’t expected an answer in the first place. Joyce passed a note to Harry who turned around in his seat to look at the back of the class. When he turned around he was smiling and my note was almost finished. “who that from?” “David” “what he say?” “nothing just stuff about this summer” “Oh. ” “dont tell any1” “k” “thanx” I found it funny that we only used text talk when we were writing notes. My actual texting was just horrible grammar and no punctuation.
“Jemillie Ianto?”
“It’s Jamille Ianto Miss.” I said very politely. Everyone gets my name wrong. Mom’s fault for giving me the stupidest name ever. My sister got called Sara, unfair. It means beautiful or graceful or something like that. They seem to think the “ja” is a “je” which I don’t even get and add an extra “i” into the “mille” part. Okay my nickname is Millie which is cool but it’s a nickname, not my real name. Ianto most people get when they are talking but when they try to write its crazy what awesome spellings some people come up with.
“Sorry Jamille. I’m terrible with names and pronunciation.” A sickly sweet look was on her face. It did not suit anyone who’d left kindergarten.
“Everyone does it. It’s fine Miss.” I said looking down at my desk, picking with my nail at the tipex marks. Sadly for me she kept on talking.
“I blame my accent. My dad’s from Texas and my mom from Louisiana and I grew up in New York. I was too scared to talk when I first moved there.” She laughed in a kind way, like making fun of herself was something she did a lot. It broke the ice; people began talking and notes were flying under desks. Mine wasn’t the only name she said wrong; I could tell she did it on purpose though.
Just before the bell Viola asked if the Charity Committee members could leave early. Technically we aren’t supposed to abuse our privileges but who really cares if we’re five minutes early to decorate the hall? I put my pen in my bag and chucked it over my shoulder. Viola walked out of the room with me and we looked sympathetically back at everyone who would be going to classes today. We walked mostly silently through the corridors. Charity Committee was a way to get extra credit but it was a lot of hard work. We’d all signed up thinking it would be easy. The charity fete was tomorrow and the hall wasn’t even half finished after two months of planning and on average two meetings a week.
As usual Courtney and a couple of other people were already there. Courtney was head of the Charity Committee and, annoyingly, our boss. She was a slave driver.
“We can do this without her so why the hell is she still so bossy?” Joyce mumbled in her pissed-off voice. Courtney and Joyce were actually close friends but it didn’t mean they had to like each other all the time.
“’cause she’s Courtney Winston and she is really good at planning these things,” David whispered diplomatically, “and she actually cares about this stuff. We’re all here for extra curricular.” True. We dumped our bags in a pile outside the hall and entered through the painted white, double door gate into Hell.
“Seriously?” Uh oh: Courtney, “Guys what are you doing? This is a fete! a bazar! Not an office job. No chairs behind the stalls, we’ll need everyone looking busy and helpful.” Imagine bossy, pushy, a little bit of arrogance and the desire for every single detail to be perfect in a fake blonde, fake tanned, fake nailed, real anorexic body. I give you: Courtney!
“Standing up Courtney? Really?” Some guy who’d been pushing chairs around looked up at her defiantly. I imagine once she’s talked to him he will fall through a black hole in the floorboards at his feet.
She answers in tones of sarcasm - even the most annoying teachers would find it hard to be more patronizing. “Who would rather be served by: someone sitting down looking bored or someone standing up ready to help? Answer. The. Question. Don’t you agree with me? Now stop lazing and get back to work. This will be spectacular people.” She’s standing on the stage with her hands on her non-existent hips and the black curtains opening behind her. A banner taking up almost all of the stage is being hoisted up, it proclaims: “Welcome to Avermond High’s Charity Fete!”
Harry sniggered beside me. “Someone learnt a new word today. Daddy’ll be so proud.” Everyone who hears laughs and smiles secretly. Courtney has the ability to be completely dumb (her terrible speech just then is one of many examples) but so scary everyone just goes with it.
Our group’s just finished the banner that goes outside over the entrance. God help the janitor if he doesn’t put it up properly. Due to endless boredom I go over to the school’s speaker system. I think it’s from the eighties but someone had the brilliant idea of connecting a docking station to it. David comes over to help as last time I did this I blasted Radioactive over the school tannoy. I got away with it. Who knew the headmaster was an Imagine Dragons fan? My iPod Classic is connected and, eventually, Happy crackles into the hall after the optimistic/hopeful pressing of many brightly coloured buttons.
It would be great to say that later on Back-Ops guys came in and held Courtney at gun point, then disappeared with her, freeing us from servitude! Unfortunately as you probably guessed we set up stalls and painted stuff through break until the lunch bell rang.