Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (22 page)

She also used being On Report to postpone any further meetings with Mackenzie and Ben. She promised them she would be back in action the following week, and they would really get stuck into the comedy show then. The thought depressed her terribly, and was a kind of sickening undertone to the whole week.

However, the first four days of the week went by OK. Thursday night always felt kind of promising, because there was only one more day left before Saturday. Jess had finished her schoolwork, and Granny was out playing cards again, so while Mum gave Mr Nishizawa his lesson, Jess watched a DVD.

Eventually she heard her mum seeing Mr Nishizawa out, and then Mum came in and sat down beside her.

‘Turn that down for a minute, Jess.’

‘But, Mum! This is my favourite bit!’

‘Just turn it down.’

Jess hit the mute button, feeling rather aggravated.

‘What?’

‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

Jess felt a sudden qualm of fear.

‘What? Is somebody ill? Is Dad OK?’

‘No, nobody’s ill,’ said Mum. ‘It’s just that, well – I’m going to go away again this weekend.’

‘Oh, OK,’ said Jess, still secretly watching the DVD, even though the sound was turned down.

‘I’m going to the Peak District,’ said Mum.

‘Fine,’ said Jess, hardly listening.

‘With Nori,’ said Mum.

‘With Nori?’ repeated Jess, gobsmacked. ‘What are you going with him for?’

Her mum hesitated, and looked at the carpet.

‘Mum!’ cried Jess in sudden horror. ‘You’re not
going out with him
, are you?’

‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘that’s really what I’m trying to tell you. Yes.’

‘You’re having an affair? With
Mr Nishizawa
?’

‘It’s not an
affair
,’ said Mum. ‘It’s more of a relationship. It’s mostly meditating. It’s very spiritual. Anyway, why shouldn’t I have a relationship with Nori?’ She suddenly sounded rather like a rebellious teenager.

‘But he’s totally unsuitable!’ yelled Jess, acting the disapproving Victorian parent.

‘Why?’ said Mum. ‘You said yourself you thought he was cool. And sweet.’

‘Yes, but, Mum, he’s way younger than you!’

‘Only fourteen years younger,’ said Mum. ‘You wouldn’t bat an eyelid if Dad had a boyfriend who was fifteen years younger than him.’

‘Yes, but, Mum! When you were my age, he was – he was two years old, for goodness’ sake. You would have been, like, his babysitter.’

‘Don’t be silly, Jess. This is now. Anyway, I’ve told you all you need to know. I’ll be away in the Peak District next weekend. I’m sorry, but these things happen. I thought you’d be happy for me. I’ve hardly had a date since Dad and I split up. I’ve been living the life of a nun.’

‘I don’t want you to have dates!’ Jess yelled. She knew she was being really childish but she couldn’t help it. ‘Go back to being a nun! Hang on . . . Last weekend, when you went to Brighton – you were with him, weren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘I’m sorry I had to lie to you, but I wasn’t ready to tell you then.’

‘Does Granny know?’ Jess demanded.

‘Not yet. I’ll tell her tonight. She’ll be pleased for me.’

Jess wasn’t so sure.

‘Isn’t he going back to Japan soon?’

‘Yes – in mid-October.’

‘So then what?’

Her mum shrugged. It was a ghastly sight, somehow. Jess got up, full of rage and guilt. She went upstairs and slammed her bedroom door behind her. The thought of her mum and Mr Nishizawa, well, dating, was too awful for words. But she had to control herself. She just mustn’t lose it. She had to stay calm and not go crazy. There was only one more day of being On Report. Then she could explode.

There was a bit of an atmosphere at breakfast on Friday. Granny looked slightly pale. Mum must have told her. But of course nobody was going to mention it.

‘Would you like some scrambled egg, Jess?’ asked Mum with a strange friendly smile which was somehow not genuine, like a mum in a TV advert.

‘No, thanks,’ said Jess. ‘I’m not hungry. I’ll get something later.’ She kissed Granny and left the house.

She wasn’t going to kiss Mum again for some time. Mum was getting enough kisses anyway, from other sources.

Jess saw Fred briefly in the corridor on her way to Mr Powell’s room at break. He was with Tom again. He paused.

‘How’s things, then?’ he said. ‘Dare one hope that your life is endless torture?’

‘It certainly is,’ replied Jess. ‘I’ve just discovered that my mum is having an affair with a Japanese schoolboy. Still, these things are sent to provide plots for novels. Gotta go – Mr Powell will be waiting with the electrodes.’

‘Shocking!’ said Fred, and they parted. Jess wasn’t sure which was worse – meeting him alone, or meeting him when he was with somebody. Their comic banter, which used to be so much flirtatious fun, now felt like poisoned arrows.

She arrived at Mr Powell’s office and went in. He was on the phone, but he nodded to her, received her mobile and put it in his drawer.

‘Good, good!’ he said, sounding rather frantic. But not bad-tempered.

Jess sat down at her desk and got out her French vocabulary book. She had to learn some words for a test.

‘Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ said Mr Powell again. ‘Just as soon as I’ve sorted it out with Sheila. Bye!’ He rang off, stood up and pulled on his jacket.

‘I’m going to be away this lunchtime,’ he said to Jess, in a whole different tone of voice: stern and horrid. ‘But I want you to come here as usual and do your work. I’ll see you at the end of afternoon school if I’m back in time – otherwise, first thing Monday morning. Then I hope we can wind up what has been a distressing episode.’

Jess nodded dumbly. If Mr Powell thought just having to sit in his office all the time was a distressing episode, he was mistaken. Why, it had been the high point of her week. Being alienated from Fred, finding out that her mum was making a fool of herself with a toy boy, having her comedy show hijacked by that bigheaded talentless idiot, Mackenzie – that was distressing. Compared with the rest of her life, being On Report was a walk in the park.

The day unrolled. By lunchtime, Jess was absolutely starving. She ran straight to the tuck shop. There was a queue, of course. You had to queue in a corridor overlooking the school field. Suddenly her heart lurched. Fred and Jodie were down there! Fred was kind of swaggering around Jodie, kissing his hand and bowing. Then – oh vile moment! – he moved in on her, took Jodie’s hand in his and kissed it, and then kind of rubbed it up against his face.

Jess was almost sick on the spot. In fact, she probably would have been sick if she’d had anything at all to eat recently. She could quite happily have killed Fred, Jodie and indeed Shakespeare – if he hadn’t been already dead. She knew they were only rehearsing – but wait!
Were
they? And why the need for all these extra, private rehearsals on the school field at lunchtime? Weren’t the scheduled rehearsals enough?

Jess realised with another sickening lurch that if Fred got interested in another girl, Jodie would be just the type he’d go for. She wasn’t particularly pretty, in fact she was quite spotty most of the time, but she was lively, funny and glamorously temperamental.

‘Yes?’ The girl serving in the tuck shop asked Jess for her order.

Jess was suddenly confronted with the idea of food. Although deeply sickened by what she had just seen, she knew she badly needed something to eat. She felt weak and her legs had gone shaky.

‘Oh – a pasta salad and a chocolate milk, please,’ she said.

‘Hi, babe!’ Flora had appeared. Never had her appearance been more welcome. ‘What’s the matter?’ She looked shocked at Jess’s expression.

‘Where to begin?’ said Jess, paying for the food and putting it in her bag. ‘My life is in total, total ruins.’

‘Tell me! What’s wrong, babe?’ Flora put her arm around her. But Jess caught sight of her watch.

‘I can’t stop – I’ve got to go. I mustn’t be late for Mr Powell! It’s my last LOL! See you after school?’

‘Oh – I’ve got a run-through then,’ said Flora. ‘Talk to you tonight, maybe?’

‘I’ll call you!’ said Jess, running off. On the way she remembered that Mr Powell wasn’t actually going to be there this lunchtime. She was so tempted to go back, grab Flora and tell her all her troubles.

But she had a funny feeling that this last LOL was a kind of test. Maybe Mr Powell had installed CCTV to find out if she would turn up and do her schoolwork properly even if he wasn’t there. Well, she was going to deliver. She wasn’t going to spoil it all at the last minute.

She knocked – even though she knew he wasn’t there – and went in. She sat down at her desk and got out her biology project. She reached for her pen. But her hands were shaking. So were her legs, in fact. She knew what this was. Low Blood Sugar. The shock of seeing Fred and Jodie cavorting on the field had been too much on an empty stomach. She had to eat something,
now
.

But Mr Powell had a strict rule about not eating in his office. Jess peered intently at every inch of the ceiling and the walls. There was just no place on earth you could hide a CCTV camera. He’d never know. Jess got out her chocolate milk, and had three delicious gulps –
GLUG, GLUG, GLUG
. She felt better already. She put the bottle down on her desk, and got out her pasta salad. It came with a fork and a paper napkin. She opened the plastic container and ate two mouthfuls. It was delicious. Already she felt better.

Then, suddenly, her mobile rang. It was in Mr Powell’s desk drawer, but she recognised the horrible raucous ringtone. She must have forgotten to turn it off before handing it over. Even though Mr Powell wasn’t there, she felt embarrassed and panicky. With a kind of instinctive lunge, she jumped to her feet.

And as she got up, she jolted her desk, and the open bottle of chocolate milk rocked horribly, perilously – Jess threw out her hand to stop it, but she was still holding the pasta, and instead she knocked the bottle right off the table. It did a kind of somersault and then landed in the middle of Mr Powell’s immaculate cream carpet.
Glug, glug, glug,
went the chocolate milk, flooding out cheerfully in all directions and creating a small lake in which a flotilla of penne pasta floated, thickly coated in tomato sauce.

Jess stared at the carpet in shock and horror. She was tempted to run away and not stop until she came to Scotland, but unfortunately her legs had turned to jelly.

Chapter 27

Jess grabbed a handful of tissues and mopped up the worst of the mess, but there was still an enormous brown stain. Mr Powell’s cream carpet was ruined. Jess picked up the pieces of pasta. She didn’t dare throw them in Mr Powell’s waste paper basket, which was immaculate and made of cane. The only place for them was in her bag. But how to protect her books?

Hastily Jess removed one shoe, took off her sock and put all the pasta in there. Then she had an idea. Maybe her socks would be more absorbent than the tissues! She took off the other sock and scrubbed the carpet with it. It had little effect. What she needed was a bucket of carpet shampoo and a sponge.