Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (4 page)

‘OK, cool,’ said Ben quickly. ‘Gotta go now –geography, yeah? See you!’ He gave her a brief nod, turned and strolled off down the corridor. Jess watched him go. A couple of girls passed him, and she saw the look of adoration that filled their eyes, and the crazy giggles of excitement which overwhelmed them as he passed.

A few months ago, she’d been like that. And now, here she was turning down his invitation to watch football practice. A year ago, she would have dug an underground tunnel from her home to the sports field just to catch a glimpse of his divine white boots. Now . . . now things were so different.

She’d have to be really friendly and appreciative to Ben next time they met. Despite being the school love god, he seemed strangely vulnerable sometimes. He’d told Jess, last term, that he didn’t want a girlfriend – didn’t feel able to cope with the idea. Perhaps it was because so many girls were throwing themselves at him. What a strange life it must be, as a heart-throb.

Jess didn’t have time to think about it now though. She just had to get back to worrying about Fred. Plus she was already late for English. Oh no! It would be Miss Thorn again! Jess broke into a run, and raced towards the English department. And where on earth was Flora? Had a first day of term ever been so stressful?

Chapter 4

Jess sprinted to Room 10, where they always used to have English last year. There was a sign on the door:
PLEASE GO TO ROOM 16
. Nightmare! Jess whirled round and hurtled off in the opposite direction.

Room 16 was up two flights of stairs. Jess charged up them, aware that all around her the school had settled down quietly. She was mega-late for Miss Thorn
again
. And in the privacy of her gut, the crisps, chocolate bar and fruit smoothie were kind of jostling together with the Coke in a way which was far from pleasant. Here was Room 16! Jess barged in, and stood panting in front of Miss Thorn.

The room was icy and silent again. Miss Thorn’s eyes glittered with annoyance.

‘Late again, I see,’ she observed sourly.

Jess’s mind whirled. She had to conjure up a fabulous excuse. She would play the period pain card. Jess opened her mouth to begin her tragic account of agonising cramps, but no words came out – only a huge, deafening burp:

‘
Waaaaaaarp!
’

Miss Thorn’s eyes flared with indignation.

‘I’m so sorry!’ stammered Jess. ‘I’ve got a bit of a tummy upset!’

‘Is that why your face is covered with chocolate?’ enquired Miss Thorn acidly.

Hastily Jess wiped her face with her hand. There was indeed chocolate – on her fingers now. Ben should have told her, the idiot.

‘I’m giving you a yellow card,’ said Miss Thorn coldly.

A yellow card? What was that again? It sounded quite nice. Yellow was a cheerful colour after all.

‘I see myself as a kind of football referee,’ explained Miss Thorn. ‘For bad behaviour, you get a yellow card. That means you’re on a warning. One more offence and you get a red card. That means a trip to the head of year. Plus you lose some very important privileges.’

Jess nodded and tried to look humble. She didn’t want to be sent to Irritable Powell. When he shouted, all the windows in the school vibrated.

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Jess, looking at the floor.

‘Go and sit down,’ said Miss Thorn, turning back to the blackboard. Jess fled to her place next to Flora. Miss Thorn was writing something on the board.

‘Where were you at break?’ whispered Jess.

Miss Thorn whirled round.

‘Quiet!’ she snapped. Jess tried to look as though she had no desire to speak ever again, and shuffled her feet about as if it might have been her feet that had done the whispering.

Flora wrote something on the cover of her rough book.
I was talking to Miss Thorn
, it said.
There is
n
’t going to be a Christmas Show this term.

‘What?’ gasped Jess aloud. Miss Thorn turned round again.

‘Jess Jordan, come down here and sit at the front.’

Jess got up and gathered her things, trying not to look too satirically weary, though she was so, so tempted just to blow her whole school career and yell, ‘WHATEVER!’

However, the thought of Mr Powell’s terrible roaring voice and awful, hairy quivering nostrils was too much, so she sort of slunk down to the front and slid into one of the many empty seats down there. Nobody had wanted to be anywhere near Miss Thorn.

Down here at the front, you could even smell her perfume. It was quite classy in a cool kind of way. Her own mum never used classy, cool perfumes. She couldn’t afford them. She used those tiny bottles of essential oils. It was usually coconut. And she hardly ever used scent at all, so the bottles of coconut oil were, to be honest, a bit past their smear-by date. So most of the time Jess’s mum smelt a bit like a rather rancid tropical lagoon.

‘Right,’ said the fragrant but frightening Miss Thorn. ‘Your essay title is on the board. I want absolute silence.’

The title was ‘My Family’. Jess thought this was rather impertinent. What business was it of Miss Thorn’s? Why should she tell her anything at all about her family? After all, Miss Thorn hadn’t confided any details of
her
home life. If indeed she had a home life. Jess was beginning to think that, when she went home, Miss Thorn climbed inside a cast-iron coffin and was fed intravenously with the blood and milk of Transylvanian she-wolves.

Jess was deeply bored by the idea of writing about her family. Then suddenly she had a thought. If she created a really tragic family history, Miss Thorn might stop being irritated with her and start to feel pity and admiration. OK, then, she would lay it on extra-thick.

I do
n
’t like talking about my family
, she began, trying to make her handwriting brave and disadvantaged.
I
t
’s a sensitive issue. My dad grew up in total poverty. His parents could
n
’t afford proper food and once they even had to make a stew out of their own dog, Bruno. Luckily Bruno was a Newfoundland. If h
e
’d been a chihuahua, Dad probably would
n
’t have survived into adulthood.

A poor diet as a child meant that Dad grew up over
weight, with grey, pasty skin and chronic bad breath.
(Actually Jess’s dad was tall, fair and quite handsome, with breath as sweet as a spring day.)
Da
d
’s breath is really embarrassing. We were at the cinema one day and the man sitting in front of us turned to his wife and said,
‘
I can smell gas
!
’

Because of his troubled childhood, Dad has phobias. H
e
’s afraid of dogs (i
t
’s the guilt about eating Bruno). H
e
’ll cross the street to avoid a dog, but i
t
’s worse than that – h
e
’ll even cross the street to avoid a person who looks like a dog.

H
e
’s not just afraid of big, horrible things, like wars and earthquakes, h
e
’s afraid that I, his only child, am in danger from household objects.

‘
Do
n
’t go near the microwave
!
’ he yells, even when i
t
’s off.
‘
Do
n
’t sit too near the TV! Rays come out of it
!
’ And food is a minefield.
‘
Do
n
’t eat burgers
!
’ he begs me.
‘
They can kill you in five different ways
!
’

When I was little and
I
’d gone to bed, he would wake me up every twenty minutes to make sure I was still alive.

Dad is always imagining h
e
’s ill. I once caught him in the bathroom, trying to look up his nose with Mu
m
’s make
-
up mirror.

‘
Sorry, love
,
’ he said.
‘
Just hunting for polyps
.
’ I ran screaming from the house, and shortly afterwards my parent
s
’ marriage ended.

Miss Thorn would surely feel a pang of sympathy on reading this. And because Dad lived too far away to attend parents’ evenings, Miss Thorn would never know that, though slightly nervous about his health, Jess’s dad wasn’t a bad old stick really.

Now, what could Jess say about her mum? She thought for a minute. It would have to be subtle, because there was always a chance that Miss Thorn might meet her mum one day. Jess’s mother was always first in the queue at parents’ evenings, and even made horrid notes for herself in an exercise book, underlining phrases such as ‘Check on
homework
– and make sure Jess has not
forged my signature
in homework record book’.

My mother appears normal
, wrote Jess.
But her mild manner hides a ferocious temper. Anything can set her off. Thursday is my usual day for a beating. She has thrashed me with a whole range of household objects, including, on one occasion, a whole frozen haddock.

(In fact Jess’s mum was a pacifist who worked as a librarian, and was so opposed to violence she even found it hard to set mousetraps or swat flies. In the summer she usually just opened windows and implored the wasps to leave.)

When not in a rage, my mum is more tolerable. But she is frighteningly absent
-
minded. Her life revolves around gardening and books. Cooking for me, her beloved daughter, is not a priority. While halfway through preparing supper recently, Mum rushed out into the garden because sh
e
’d noticed that one of her shrubs was looking a bit sickly. I smelt something odd and came downstairs to the kitchen, where I found a large steak in the bookcase and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole frying gently with onions and garlic.

But my grann
y
’s the really dangerous one
, Jess finished with a flourish.
Sh
e
’s obsessed with murder. In fact, I sometimes think sh
e
’s planning one. I
t
’s a bit like living with a twisted version of Miss Marple, where the old lad
y
’s not the sleuth, sh
e
’s the homicidal maniac just waiting to strike.

The bell went, and Jess sat back with a satisfied sigh. She looked up and found Miss Thorn’s strange piercing eyes fixed on her.

‘Place your essays on my desk as you go out,’ said Miss Thorn. ‘Except for you, Jess Jordan. You can stay behind for a moment. I’ll read yours
now
.’

Chapter 5