Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (23 page)

Jess ran barefoot to the school cafe. She went round the back, to where the kitchens were, and asked one of the cooks if she had anything that could work as a carpet cleaner. They looked in the detergent cupboard, but there was nothing actually designed for carpets. The only thing available was a small bowl of washing-up suds and a sponge.

‘Thanks very much! You’ve saved my life!’ said Jess, and carried the bowl carefully back to Mr Powell’s office. But as she arrived, the most ghastly thing happened. She heard the unmistakable sound of Mr Powell, talking on the phone, inside! He must have come back, after all – and been faced with the most horrendous mess in history!

Her heart lurched in terror. She wheeled round and tiptoed away as fast as possible, still carrying the bowl of suds and trying not to spill any. Later Jess would realise that this could form an entertaining event in an alternative Comedy Olympics, but right now she could only form urgent plans to go and live with her father in St Ives.

First, though, she just might hurl the soapsuds over Miss Thorn. If Miss Thorn hadn’t been so nasty and inhuman, none of this would have happened.

Jess headed straight for the girls’ loos, where she tipped the bowl of soapy water away. A small girl was washing her hands.

‘Do me an immense favour and agree to swap lives with me,’ said Jess. The little girl looked startled and ran off without answering.

Jess went into the loo at the far end, locked herself in, sat down and dropped her head into her hands. She imagined the sight that must have greeted Mr Powell when he made his unexpected return to his office.

A huge brown stain on his carpet, plus several small red ones (from the pasta). Two socks, one containing penne pasta and one soaked with brown liquid, lying on the floor. Two shoes, probably smelly, just kicked off anywhere. Maybe she could pretend she’d been sick! No, the stain didn’t smell right. And that would have been even worse. Or would it? For a minute or two Jess agonised over the respective merits of a lunch that has been hurled over the carpet before being eaten, and one hurled afterwards.

Either way, she was finished. All her hard work had been ruined. She had tried so hard to be in control. She had followed her schedule religiously. She had attended every lesson on time and done her homework, and the extra work set by Miss Thorn, in beautifully neat handwriting. She had even, in a fit of religious zeal, vacuumed out the inside of her school bag.

And now this. Dust and ashes. Or rather chocolate milk and pasta. It was appropriate, somehow, that her downfall had come through food. Satan knows our weaknesses, apparently, and weaves his wicked plans accordingly.

But no. She couldn’t really blame Satan. And anyway, she was sure he was far too busy running his worldwide empire to bother with Ashcroft School. Although there was a boy called Jason Cooke in the year above Jess who was rumoured to be Satan’s agent on earth.

From now on, Jess would probably be regarded as spawn of the devil, too. The utter hopelessness of her situation overwhelmed her and she dissolved in tears. She was still crying when she heard the bell go for afternoon lessons. The vague sounds of people coming in and out and going to and fro eventually subsided. She was still crying. She cried and cried and cried.

Eventually she ran out of tears – probably because she hadn’t had enough to drink that day – and just kind of slumped against the wall of the loo in a kind of hopeless, helpless stupor. She almost wished Mr Powell and Miss Thorn would come and hunt her down with a pack of bloodthirsty bloodhounds, and tear her to pieces, so it could all be over. Her bare feet were freezing. She took off her jacket and wrapped her feet in it, but then her back started to feel cold.

After a while she started to want to wash her face. The tears had dried, leaving an unpleasant salty stretchy feeling. Thank goodness she hadn’t been wearing any mascara, because of being On Report. She let herself out of the cubicle and went over to the washbasins. There was a mirror by the hand drier. Jess could not believe how awful she looked. Her eyes had turned into raw meat.

She was washing her face when the bell rang for the end of lessons. People came into the loo, cheerful and noisy because it was Friday. Jess ignored them. Then she heard a familiar voice.

‘Jess!’ It was Jodie. ‘Where are your shoes? Are you OK?’

‘Not really,’ said Jess, leaning on the washbasin.

‘Have you been sick?’ asked Jodie. ‘What colour was it?’

How could Fred spend the lunch hour kissing the hand of a girl who cared about the colour of vomit?

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Jess. ‘Get Flora over here, will you? Right now.’

‘But we’ve got a runthrough of
Twelfth Night
.’

‘Just for five minutes. I’ve got to see her.’

Jodie ran off, and Jess went back down to the cubicles – a more secluded corner. She didn’t want to be visible in case Miss Thorn walked past and looked in. One of the lessons Jess had missed this afternoon was English. If Jason Cooke was indeed Satan’s representative at school, he was certainly doing just fine and would probably be awarded a star.

‘Jess?’ she heard Flora’s voice call from out by the door.

‘In here!’ called Jess. Luckily the loos were almost empty now – everybody had left. Flora appeared, looking anxious. At the sight of Jess she bit her lip, looked shocked and held out her arms like a mother.

‘Jess! Babe! What’s the matter?’

Jess collapsed in Flora’s fragrant embrace and wept all over again – quite copiously, all over Flora’s shoulder and into her hair.

‘Oh, Flora! I’m sorry! I’m in the worst trouble ever!’

‘Tell me!’

Jess embarked on the whole story.

‘Last night – last night my mum told me she’s having an affair.’

‘What! With a married man?’

‘I don’t think he’s married. It’s her pupil – Mr Nishizawa. He’s almost young enough to be her son! If she was our age, he’d only be two! Imagine it!’

They both imagined the horror of having a boyfriend whose only small talk was ‘
Wanna bikkit!
’ and ‘
Teddy says boo!
’

Jess resumed her tragic tale: the missed breakfast, the low blood sugar, the glimpse of Fred kissing Jodie’s hand, the panic attack and the race to Mr Powell’s office. The desperate, on-the-point-of-fainting hunger, the horrid phone ringing in the drawer (that would have been Satan, obviously), and then the ghastly, ghastly moment when the chocolate milk had taken to the air. The spill, the clearing-up panic, the race to the kitchen, and then the most agonising moment of all, the sound of Mr Powell’s voice in his office, and the realisation that he had come back.

‘And since then,’ said Jess, ‘I’ve been crying for England in the end loo, all afternoon. So I’ve missed three more lessons.’

Naturally this saga took a long time to explain. Jess provided additional reasons why her emotional state was so terribly fragile right now. There was the awful way Mackenzie was trying to hijack her comedy show.

‘Mackenzie is a total control freak,’ agreed Flora with a shudder. ‘He was like that when we were going out.’

And then there was the painful misunderstanding with Fred. Jess confessed she had literally NO IDEA whether he still liked her or not, but she had run out of hope. She had run out of everything: courage, self-belief. And she had run out of tears. Again.

‘First thing you must do,’ said Flora, ‘is go to Mr Powell. Now. Or it’ll be torturing you all weekend.’

‘Come with me!’ pleaded Jess. A look of furtive terror flashed briefly over Flora’s face.

‘I can’t, Jess! I’m supposed to be at a runthrough right now! I’m twenty minutes –’ she glanced at her watch, and gasped, ‘no – half an hour late! Oh no! I’ve gotta go, babe – but listen – go to Mr Powell now, and just apologise for England.’

‘I’d rather die,’ said Jess. ‘Anyway, he’s probably gone.’

‘Take my advice,’ said Flora, ‘and go to his office.’

‘I’ll wait for you, till you’ve finished your run-through,’ said Jess.

‘No, Jess – it’ll take hours. Just go and see Mr Powell and fess up. It’s the only way. Crawl and grovel and offer to do all sorts of remedial thingies. That’s what I do with my dad. And do it with captivating feminine charm. That always works on Dad. I stroke his hair. It never fails.’

‘I can’t stroke Mr Powell’s hair, for goodness’ sake!’ A horrible hallucination flashed through Jess’s mind.

‘No, but – you know, he’ll be waiting for you, probably!’ Flora looked at her watch again and went pale. ‘I have to go. Sorry, babe. But I’m majorly late.’

Flora went. Jess washed her face again. She had never looked less attractive. It would take her two hours’ intensive work with cosmetics to come anywhere near to radiating captivating feminine charm. All the same, she did understand Flora’s advice. She had reached some kind of crunch point. All the lies in the world wouldn’t get her off this hook. She simply had to go to see Mr Powell – now.

Chapter 28

Jess walked to Mr Powell’s office, her legs shaking and her feet frozen on the cold stones of the corridor. She knocked softly on the door, praying ardently for him to be out.

‘Come in!’

She opened the door and crept in. The first thing she saw was the carpet. It was immaculately clean. For a moment she thought it had all been a bad dream. Then she glanced over to the desk where she had sat, and there was her school bag. There was a plastic bag lying on the desk containing her murdered socks. At last she raised her eyes to Mr Powell. She must look like one of those dogs which has led a life of abuse and stares sullenly up with doleful eyes, expecting punishment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she croaked. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

Mr Powell regarded her soberly from his desk. His fingers were steepled, the fingertips touching his lips, as if in prayer.

Her face twitched madly, longing to cry again. So much for captivating feminine charm.

‘I’ve been crying all afternoon in the girls’ loos,’ she went on, her voice quavering madly like an old lady in a cartoon. ‘I missed my lessons, I’m sorry. I’ll never do this kind of thing ever again. Living like this is no good. It’s insane.’

The ghost of a smile flickered across Mr Powell’s lips. A
smile
. He unsteepled his fingers and brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his desk.

‘You’re a very lucky girl,’ he said. ‘My wife gave birth at lunchtime to a boy, so I’m in a very good mood. So good that nothing can spoil it. Not even a foul and disgusting mess like the one you left.’

‘I was coming back with a bucket of soapy water,’ said Jess. ‘Then I heard your voice and I couldn’t face you. I ran away. I was scared to death.’

‘I was at the hospital at lunchtime,’ said Mr Powell. ‘So what you heard must have been the outgoing message on my answering machine.’

Jess’s heart sank. If she hadn’t been in such a rush earlier she would have realised it wasn’t really Mr Powell, and gone in and cleaned up.

‘So I’m frightening, am I?’ said Mr Powell. What an odd conversation this was.

‘Very, very frightening indeed,’ Jess admitted.

‘How very reassuring,’ said Mr Powell.

‘Even more frightening than God,’ Jess went on. ‘His beard makes him look kind of cuddly.’

‘I won’t grow a beard, then,’ said Mr Powell.