Bindi Babes (4 page)

“Morning, girls.” Mr. Attwal was unlocking the minimarket. “I hear your auntie's coming to live with you.”

So he knew as well. That meant everyone else for miles around knew. You can't keep anything quiet round here. If you sneeze, everyone discusses it.

“How do
you
know?” Jazz asked.

“Your dad told Mr. Dhaliwal yesterday, and he told Mr. Chopra and he told me.” Mr. Attwal frowned. “Or was it Manjit from number twelve?”

“Did he say
when
she was coming?” I asked.

Mr. Attwal shook his head. “Can't wait, eh, Amber?” he smiled.

“That's right,” I said bitterly.

“You must really be looking forward to it,” Mr. Attwal went on. I don't know where he got that idea from. Did we look pleased? “What does she do?”

“She teaches English in a girls' school,” Geena replied.

Oops.

“Ah, a teacher.” Mr. Attwal's eyes took on a faraway look. “Many years ago, when I was at school in Delhi—”

“Got to go or we'll be late for school,” we gabbled, and fled.

“Sorry, guys.” Geena was kicking herself. “He caught me off guard.”

I glanced at my watch. “Let's get a move on. It's quarter past eight.”

There was no way we could be late. We were never late for school, or anywhere. How could we show how well we were coping, unless we were perfect in almost every way?

“About Auntie,” Geena said as we speeded up. “What are we going to do?”

“Well, show her she's not wanted, for a start,” I said. “I mean, we do our own cooking, cleaning, washing—”

“It might be nice to have someone else do it,” Jazz offered. Then backtracked quickly when she saw our faces. “Not Auntie, though.”

“Amber!”

Kim was scuttling down the street toward us. As usual, she was carrying her overstuffed rucksack, which bent her in two and made her look like a giant tortoise.

“I thought we were getting the bus this morning,” she panted.

“Sorry.” I'd forgotten about Kim. I did that quite a lot, without meaning to. “We've got problems.”

“Oh.” Kim's face was always pale, but today she looked totally colorless. “Me too.”

I tried not to look irritated. Kim's always got problems. She has a panic attack if she loses her pencil case.

“No,
real
problems,” I said. Kim's face fell, but I ignored her. “Our auntie's coming over from India to live with us.”

We all looked expectantly at Kim.

“And?” Kim said, looking expectantly back at
us
.

“That's it,” I said.

“That's it?” Kim looked puzzled. Then she saw my face and finally got it. “Oh. That's terrible. Really, really terrible.”

I sometimes wonder why I'm friends with Kim. She started hanging around with me in the Infants because I stopped George Botley from painting her face blue once, and she's hung around ever since. A bit like a piece of chewing gum stuck to your shoe.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “She's going to interfere and boss us around. Like we're
really
going to put up with it.”

“Is she awful?” Kim asked.

Jazz and I looked at Geena. She was the only one of us who could possibly remember anything about Auntie's visit all those years ago.

“Hmm.” Geena wrinkled up her nose. “She's sort of …
pretty
.”

“
Pretty?
” Jazz and I shrieked. If Geena had said Auntie was a serial killer, we couldn't have been more shocked.

“Wow,” said Kim. “That sounds bad.”

I looked at her suspiciously, but let it go. Kim doesn't usually do sarcasm.

“Sorry,” Geena apologized. “That's all I can remember.”

It wasn't really much to go on.

“I bet she'll interfere all the time,” I said. “She'll have too much makeup on, and she'll keep hugging us.”

“Or pinch our cheeks,” Jazz added. Cheek-pinching is something our relatives love to do. It's embarrassing. Painful, too.

“She'll be really strict and she won't let us go anywhere or do anything,” Geena grumbled. Dad was strict too, but he was never there so that was all right.

We walked toward the lower-school playground. Someone had written I LOVE GEENA in blue chalk on the wall, and underneath, in yellow, was written I LOVE AMBER. To the side of that, someone had drawn a big pink heart, and chalked JAZZ 4 EVER inside it. There were some much ruder comments about us as well, but we hardly took any notice. We were used to the
attention, good and bad, and we weren't stupid enough to think that everybody liked us. Two years ago, Geena had smacked a girl who called me a Paki on my first day.

“I've got another present for you, Kim.” George Botley was on the watch for us, grinning all over his face. “Come and get it.”

He held out his hand, which was curled tightly shut.

“Keep away from me, Botley,” Kim sniffed, trying not to look petrified.

“Oh, go on.” George winked. “You know you want to.”

He unfurled his fingers. A large, fat snail sat wetly on his palm.

“You pig, George Botley!” Kim howled, running behind me.

“Give me that.” I took the snail, which retreated into its shell, and put it down carefully on the grass. “What a slimy, nasty, horrible thing.”

“Snails aren't horrible,” George protested.

“Who said I was talking about the snail?” I said, eyeballing him. George roared with laughter and sauntered off.

“He fancies you,” Kim said gloomily. “That's why he keeps picking on me.”

“Maybe he fancies
you
,” I pointed out.

“Nobody fancies me,” Kim muttered. Once she starts her “poor me” routine, there's no stopping her. The only solution is to ignore her.

“So what
are
we going to do about Auntie?” Jazz asked impatiently.

“I don't know yet,” Geena said. “We need to think about it. We need to discuss it. We can't make our minds up just like that.”

“In other words, you don't know,” I said.

“That's right,” Geena agreed. “But we'll think of something.”

“The important thing is not to
worry
about it,” Mr. Grimwade boomed, glaring round the lower-school assembly hall. “The inspectors are simply coming here to
help
and
advise
us. The headmaster has asked me to reassure you again that there's nothing to be afraid of at all.”

We were getting our weekly pep talk about the inspectors visiting Coppergate. Despite his brave words, Mr. Grimwade never fooled anyone. The pupils didn't look worried at all, though. It was the teachers who were as white as ghosts.

“As you can see, the teachers aren't worrying at all,” Grimwade went on, baring his teeth, the closest he ever got to a smile. “They're very relaxed about it.”

Mrs. Murray, who was at the piano, twitched nervously and knocked over a music stand. It crashed heavily down on a member of the orchestra sitting next to her.

“There's nothing
at all
to worry about,” repeated Mr. Grimwade savagely, as the injured recorder player was helped from the hall. “But we
do
expect every one of you to be on your best behavior when the inspectors arrive.”

“Here we go again,” muttered George Botley, who was sitting two down from me, Chelsea and Sharelle. “What's in it for us?”

“There are some of you who are certainly a credit to the school.” Mr. Grimwade's gaze targeted Jazz, who was sitting with Year 7 several rows in front of me. His eyes met mine briefly, and then moved to the back of the hall. I didn't need to look round to know he had singled out Geena. “But there are some of you who really need to pull your socks up and do a whole lot better.”

He eyed George Botley belligerently.

“Remember, we are all part of the great community which is Coppergate School, and I'm sure everyone wants to impress the inspectors with our hard work, dedication, good manners and school spirit.” Mr. Grimwade leaned forward, sweeping the hall with a single glare. “Know now that I shall personally make it my mission in life to seek out and destroy anyone who steps out of line while the inspectors are here. That is all.”

We stood up. The Year 7 classes went out first, from the front. I noticed Jazz was flanked by two boys, one on either side of her like bodyguards. They were both smiling proudly. They'd probably had to bribe or fight the other boys in the class to get to stand next to her.

“Off you go, Eight D,” said Miss Thomas, whose class was next to leave. As always, I said a silent prayer of thanks that Mr. Arora was our homeroom teacher, and not Thomas the Tank Engine.

“No, no,
no!”
Miss Thomas hissed, as 8D began shambling out of the hall. She rolled her eyes. “Like we practiced
yesterday.
Lead with the right foot, and keep in time. March, Eight D,
march.”

“Thomas is going all out to impress the inspectors,” Sharelle whispered in my ear, while the rest of the school waited patiently for their turn to leave.

Cursing sulkily under their breath, 8D tried to get into step. They failed spectacularly.

“Right!” Miss Thomas snapped. “Back up, Eight D, and start again.”

“I think we'd better go, Eight A,” Mr. Arora said mildly. “It looks like Eight D might be some time.”

“Amber, a word with you, please.” Mr. Arora caught up with me in the corridor, as we went back to class.

“Yes, sir?” I put my speaking-to-teachers mask on. It was smiling and helpful, but cool and slightly reserved at the same time, so the other kids didn't think I was a creep. It took a lot of doing, but I was an expert by now.

“Ms. Woods wants to see you sometime today.” Mr. Arora smiled at me, and half the girls in the corridor
sighed longingly. It created a noticeable breeze. “She's planning a special assembly for the day the inspectors arrive, and she'd like you to be involved.”

“Doing what, sir?” I asked. Ms. Woods was the head of drama. I'd been a favorite of hers ever since I'd played Aladdin in the lower-school pantomime last year. George Botley had hidden a stink bomb inside Aladdin's magic lamp, but I'd found it in time and lobbed it out of the window like a member of the SAS commandos. Ms. Woods had been very impressed.

“She's not sure yet.” Mr. Arora frowned, which, strangely, only made him look more gorgeous. “But both the lower and upper schools will be taking part, so it will be held in the big new hall. Ms. Woods is thinking along the lines of a pageant about the history of the school. Or maybe a musical introduction to some of the world's great religions. Something like that.”

“Just a normal Monday-morning assembly then” was what I wanted to say, very sarcastically. But I didn't. If Ms. Woods wanted a West End extravaganza of singing and dancing to greet the inspectors when they arrived, it wasn't up to me to complain. After all, I'd probably have a starring part. So, very likely, would Geena and Jazz.

“As Mr. Grimwade said,” Mr. Arora went on, as we reached our classroom, “we'll be expecting everyone to do their best when the inspectors are here. Some, of course, will do better than others.” He smiled gently at me, then switched it off like a light to glare at
George Botley, who was making rude noises with his hand in his armpit. “Let's just say that we'll be relying on those people to show Coppergate in its best possible light.”

“Yes, sir.” I knew exactly what he meant. If the school was on show for the inspectors, Geena, Jazz and I would be expected to perform, and perform brilliantly. Like we always did.