Jelly Cooper: Alien (6 page)

Agatha
can see that my nerves are jingle jangling.  “Maybe we should leave it for tonight.  We can talk more tomorrow.”  She pulls Humphrey to his feet and pushes him towards the door.  “Maybe you’ll get a good night’s sleep now that you’ve got it off your chest.”

Yeah, right.

“One more thing,” Agatha turns at the door.  “When you were calmly explaining why you couldn’t involve your parents in this whole thing –

That’s as close to sarcasm as Agatha gets.

– you said something odd.”

“Odd?”

Agatha nods.  “Yeah.  You said that you couldn’t tell your parents that some nutcase had chased you half way across the galaxy, or something like that.”

I flinch at the word nutcase, but try and gloss over it.

“And?”

“Well, it’s just that, in your dream, you’r
e on a far away planet where this hunter has been waiting for you to return, so that he can kill you.”

“And…?”

“In your dream, he’s been
waiting
for you - you’ve gone to him. 
In your dream
.”  Agatha falters.  “But earlier, you said that he’d followed you half way across the galaxy to kill you.  That’s what you think when you’re awake, that he’s followed you here.”

What did I tell you? 
Scary-astute.

Chapter
Five

I stand, make that sway, in assembly.  I don’t think that I’ve ever been this tired in my entire life.  The last dream seemed particularly threatening and real and I spent most of the night hyperventilating.  I am almost sobbing with gratitude that Humphrey has managed to squeeze forward a couple of rows to stand beside me.

He hasn’t said a word.  One look at my face has told him everything he needs to know about last night’s sleep, or lack of it.  He grips my hand
and gives it a squeeze and, as tired as I am and as emotionally unstable, I can’t help but smile.

At least the flames flickering in my eyes
have gone.  I’m not sure I can deal with
Bright Eyes
on top of everything else.

“Ca
n I have your attention please?”

Mr. Pickle, the headmaster of our adorable school
, stands and addresses the assembly.  As usual, my eyes go straight to the moustache.  Mr Pickle has a big bushy moustache that’s mostly brown but has some curly white hairs sticking out at all angles and, when he talks, it puffs in and out with every word.  It’s like watching performance art, watching Mr. Pickle’s moustache dance when he speaks.

Mum doesn’t like moustaches.  She won’t let dad grow one
and avoids Mr. Pickle when she comes to parent’s evening.  She says that hair on the face hides secrets beneath and you just can’t trust a man with a moustache.  But mum also says that hairdryers can give you a brain tumour, so I take the moustache thing with a pinch of salt. 

“Before we get started this morning,
I have an introduction to make.”  Pickle gestures to a man sat behind him on the small podium.  “This is Mr. Fletcher, who will be teaching Mathematics until the end of the year while Mrs. Jeffries is recovering.  I am sure that you will extend a warm Seabrook welcome to Mr. Fletcher.”

Mr. Pickle is such a suck.  My eyes flicker to the
new Maths teacher and my stomach clenches. 

Something is very, very
wrong with Mr. Fletcher. 

My pulse quickens and the tips of my fingers start to
sweat.  It’s like nothing I’ve experienced before.

Mr. Pickle
discusses the program for the end of term event, but I hear none of it.  My eyes are locked onto Fletcher and, for one horrific moment, I fear that I’m going to be sick, right in the middle of assembly.

I feel Humphrey’s elbow in my side. 

“Jay,” he whispers.  “You OK?  You look like you’re going to spew.”

Sour jets of spit squirt against my back teeth and I
clamp my jaw shut.  I will
not
be sick in assembly.  I’d rather die.

Humphrey holds my arm in a tight grip. 
“Just hold on, it should be over soon.” 

Thankfully, assembly ends without me losing my breakfast and my dignity.  I
wave a hasty goodbye and rush towards the exit.

S
omeone shoves past.

“Out of my way, gummy bear.”

Rhiannon.  Fantastic.  The world can be a perverse place, I swear.

“Rhiannon,”
I sigh.  “Your timing is spot on, as always.”  Trisha and Melissa, hearing my voice, flock to the side of their leader like little yappy lap dogs.  Thinking of them as dogs makes me feel a little better.  “What now?”

Rhiannon steps forward, doing her best to look menacing.  She’s not forgiven me for
the whole bimbo thing then. 

“
We were wondering if you wouldn’t mind disappearing from the face of the earth,” she hisses in my face.  “That would do nicely, wouldn’t it girls?”  She glances at the lap dogs and, finding them nodding as expected, turns back to me.  “To never have to set eyes on your pathetic face again would be nothing short of heavenly.”

Ever the melodramatic.
  Melissa twitters and once again I am reminded of hyenas.  They travel in packs, don’t they?

“Oh shut up Melissa,”
I snap, turning to Rhiannon.  “That it?  Right then …”

I’m
not in the mood for this.  Rhiannon, however, must be having a slow day.

“You just don’t get it, do you freak show?” Her face is inches from mine, firmly within spit-spray zone. 
Yuck
.  “You don’t belong here, you or your two misfit friends. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”

That’s it.  I’ve had it.

“Get out of my face, you stupid cow, before I punch you in that malicious mouth of yours and send your dentist bill through the roof.”

Rhiannon blinks, her face slack with astonishment
.  She steps back, but catches sight of her outraged entourage waiting for a reaction.  She changes tack and moves towards me.

“Is there a problem?”

Mr. Fletcher emerges from the shadowy doorway of the hall.  Rhiannon, as predictable as ever and not wanting to get on the wrong side of a new teacher, goes into overdrive, smiling and fluttering her mascara-laden eyelashes.  It’s enough to bring on another bout of nausea.

“No Sir.  There’s no problem, just
a difference of opinion.”  More eyelash fluttering. “Welcome to Seabrook, Sir.”

Good Grief!

Mr. Fletcher smiles.  “On your way to class or you’ll be late.”

With one last searing
look in my direction, Rhiannon saunters away with a toss of her expensively-maintained head, Melissa and Trisha hot on her heels.

Mr. Fletcher turns to me and
the spit in my mouth dries away.  He looks closely at my face.

“You OK?”

I nod, once.

“Hmm.
  They looked like they were giving you a hard time.”

I find
a voice.  When it comes out, it sounds nothing like my own. 

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

He smiles, his blue eyes twinkling from behind his specs. “Good for you.  If it gets too much, you know where you can find me.”

With
a last look, he turns on his heel and strides off towards the staff room.  I stare after him like an idiot.

In all my time at this hellhole of a school, not one of the teachers has ever made a move to stop Rhiannon.  New kid on the block is here ten minutes and he’s not only got things
figured out, but has apparently decided he’s on my side. 

Mind blowing!

***
              ***              ***

Twenty minutes later I am in my own personal hell and it’s called PE.  Well, track to be specific.  400 meters to be absolutely, hellishly, precise.

Let me set a few things straight.  I have what you might call a healthy aversion to school.  I don’t excel at any of the subjects, except for maybe English and Art, but
I am not the village idiot.  The thing is; I flounder badly on the sports field.  I am talking serious humiliation and usually in front of a large crowd.

So here I am, at the edge of the athletics track, shivering more from nerves than cold, with a face like a
kid being forced to watch the news when there’s a perfectly good cartoon on the other channel. 

I am
so
not looking forward to this.  I may as well have a big neon sign above my head flashing ‘Jelly’s crap’.

“Come on Cooper,”
Mr. Davies bellows (have you noticed how games teachers are incapable of talking quietly?  I’m sure it’s a bet they have with each other: who can shatter an eardrum at ten paces?).  “Get yourself in gear girl.”

Mr. Davie
s’ skin has the unfortunate mottled look of raw meat.  The man just doesn’t tan.  In his too-tight shorts and shirt, he looks like a link of uncooked sausages.  It’s distracting. 

I roll my eyes, put
on my best snooty face and hunker down into the starting position.

How I hate this;
waiting for the starter’s pistol, trying to make a quick getaway, then watching with frustration as the rest of the field steadily pull away no matter how hard I run.  Like I said, I’m not the world’s greatest student, but I’m a long way from being the worst.  Coming last, all the time, is killing my pride and that won’t do.  Something’s got to be done.

This time, I say to myself with gusto
, like every time before, things will be different.

“On your marks.”

Mr. Griffith’s deep Welsh baritone booms inside my head.  I try to focus.

“Get set.”

Poised at the starting line, my heart going crazy, I have no idea why getting it right this time is so important, but it is.  It must be my technique, I think to myself, and jump as the pistol goes off.

“GO.”

Damn it.

The other runners shoot
from the blocks.  I make my own start, too late as usual.  I will myself towards the finish line, to run faster.  It doesn’t happen. 

The other girls pull away. 
Trishia is out in front, as usual.  She has great technique; another reason to hate her.  Why do the nasty girls always do so well?  I focus on Trishia.  Nasty, nasty Trishia.  Look at her arms pumping up and down, left arm up, right leg down, right arm up, left leg down, pumping like pistons in an engine.  She’s a machine; a matter of parts, all working in sequence, like it should be.

Click
.

Blood rushes to my legs.  I feel every part of me connect.  I start to run faster.

My legs reach out in front of my body and my arms move up and down in a rhythm that matches.  I glimpse the pointed toes of my trainers flicking out, one, two, one, two, onetwoonetwoonetwo.

My breathing changes.
  I take in breath through the nose and let it out of my mouth.  I’ve never done this before.  I don’t know why I’m doing it now.

I seem to be passing
Charlotte Handslow.

But she’s slow anyway; slower than me, sometimes.

But she’s a sprat and I’m after the big fish.

My legs move faster.

My arms pump harder.

I pass
Delyth and Marie and Sarah.  They glance at me as I fly by.

The rhythm of my legs finds its way into my head and I absorb the deep booming bass of it.  My speed picks up and I focus on the bass.
  I focus and I
run
.

Out of breath and half out of my mind, I cross the line
and turn.

Trishia
is ten meters away.  Still running.

I bend and take in breath after breath.  Not because I need to, because weirdly I don’t, but because I know something really wrong has just happened and I don’t want anyone to know.

Plonking down on the grass at the side of the track, I try not to look at the other girls.  They, however, are all staring at me like I’m a freak. 

I rub at the scuffmarks on my worn trainers
and do my best not to show how much I’m starting to agree with them.

Mr Davies bounds over and stands over me, blocking out the sun.

“I knew it!” he shouts, triumphantly.  “I knew you had speed in you girl.  Just a matter of technique, just like I said.  Marvellous.  Come and meet the rest of the team tomorrow lunch time and then we’ll see about getting you a trial.”

“Sorry?”

Mr Davies waves his hands in the air.  “Seabrook High Athletic Team, Cooper.” 

He checks
his watch and turns to the other girls.  “Showers girls.  Come on, chop chop.”