Leap of Faith (10 page)

Which seemed a pretty fair assessment of my personality.

‘You know it was Vicky, don’t you?’

She smiled again. ‘I did not think it was Delphine.’

‘So why did you say they were yours?’

She shrugged. ‘So you don’t get trouble from my mother.’

‘It sounded like she gave you a lot of trouble.’

‘I am used to it. I don’t want for her to say you are . . . how do you say? That your bad will make me bad. Then she will say I cannot go to your house.’

‘But she doesn’t mind if you make me bad?’

‘She says if I do that she will . . .’ she pulled a hooked finger across her throat.

‘Your mum reminds me of my mum sometimes.’

Supper was a little bit quiet to begin with, but Delphine and I kept up a fairly cheerful conversation about whether French animals have a French accent. (They definitely do; I heard a hen yesterday that sounded just like Madame Badeau when I tell her that there may be a slight problem with my homework.) After a bit Josette and her mum joined in. Mr J never seems to have much to say, and Icky, for once, kept her trap shut.

Afterwards, I volunteered me and Icky for the washing up and as soon as the others had left the kitchen I turned on the taps and started on her.

‘Putting those cigarettes in my bed was a new low, even for you, Icky. I suppose the only way you can get people to like you is to make everyone else look bad.’

She pushed past me to dump a pile of plates in the sink. ‘You’re so ugly you always look bad, you don’t need my help.’

‘Yet, still you’re trying to get me into trouble with Josette’s parents. Why do you dislike me so much?’

‘I don’t dislike you.’ She turned her hard little eyes on me. ‘I hate your guts.’

‘I know that comprehension isn’t your strong point, but I was actually looking for something I don’t already know, like a real reason. Why do you hate me?’

‘Because you’re an idiot.’

I scrubbed a cup vigorously and slapped it down on the draining board. She makes me so angry. ‘If you dislike stupidity it makes it all the more strange that you manage to love yourself so much. I suppose you couldn’t find anyone else for the job.’

‘I’ve got loads of friends and you know it.’

‘Ha! See, some people say that you’re a moron, but you’ve just proved what I’ve always said, which is that you’re a moron with a vivid imagination.’

‘You think you’re so clever.’

‘Don’t take my word for it – we’ll have the GCSE results to prove it next summer.’

‘Sucking up to teachers doesn’t make you a genius.’

‘Which is a shame otherwise you’d be getting some “A” stars.’

‘You do realise that people are laughing at you, don’t you?’

I didn’t say anything but my stomach tightened.

‘You’re always making such a fool out of yourself. Slobbering all over Finn, getting stood up by poodle–boy Ethan.’

I clenched my fists. ‘That’s not what happened!’

‘You might as well face up to the truth: you’re always throwing yourself at boys and trying to get everyone to look at you. It’s pathetic.’

‘Just shut up you pigging cow!’ And then I poured a glassful of soapy water all over her. It wasn’t very mature, but it felt really good. And then I fled before she had chance to retaliate. I sidestepped around Mr Josette in the hallway and ran up to Josette’s room. I was shaking; Icky is just vile. What the hell does she mean, throwing myself at boys?

I lay on my bed for ten minutes taking deep breaths and waiting for my heart to stop thundering. I really wished I could phone Megs. My eyes might have got a bit leaky at that point.

The door slammed open and Josette came barrelling in with a big grin on her face.

‘It is all good. My father, he knows the truth.’

I wiped my face with my sleeve and sat up. ‘He knows the cigarettes were Vicky’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘He is listening to you and Vicky talking and he hears it all.’

I couldn’t believe it. ‘But he never . . . I thought he didn’t speak English.’

‘Ah, he is a quiet one. He doesn’t speak so much, but always he listens.’

‘So he knows that she did it?’

She nodded.

‘What are they going to do to her?’

Josette shrugged. ‘Nothing, she is not their daughter, but I say to you this: I do not think Vicky is their favourite girl and I do not think that Delphine will go to stay with her.’

‘And you’re not in trouble anymore?’

She grinned. ‘Not this day.’

I was so pleased that me and Josette weren’t in trouble. Although, I couldn’t help wishing that Josette’s parents had chosen to punish Icky. Maybe by sending her home and making her swim the channel to get there.

I gave Josette a hug. She squeezed me back.

‘Faith, my father he knows the English, but he asked me to ask you to tell to him one thing.’

‘What’s that?

‘What is a pigging cow?

WEDNESDAY 23RD MAY

This evening we are going to an ‘entertainment’. The thing I’ve discovered about leisure activities planned by teachers is that you really shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. A bit like life really. I’m just hoping that Philippe will be there.

LATER

Our entertainment was in the French equivalent of a village hall.

It was folk singing.

Seriously. When Josette’s teachers sat down to plan how they were going to entertain a load of teenagers, I can’t begin to imagine what made someone say, ‘How about folk singing?’ and I’m at even more of a loss to understand why the other people in the room didn’t first, laugh at the ridiculousness of this suggestion, and then shoot the suggester just to make sure they never had to listen to any of their insane ideas again.

One of my Granny’s boyfriends has a nasty habit of bursting into traditional Devonshire ballads when you’re least expecting it. They’re pretty bad. But at least they seem to have some sort of story to them, tonight I couldn’t even understand what this lot were singing about. Which means I was just left with the melody, or lack thereof. Terrible.

I sat there with the old men warbling in one ear and Angharad in the other, explaining to me about how it was a cultural experience. She even tried to get me to help her look up words in a dictionary, until I reached my breaking point.

‘When’s this torture going to end?’ I asked Angharad.

‘Well, I think there’ll be a bit more,’ she said. ‘They’re only half way through the first song.’

It was like that stupid mountain all over again.

If Megs had been there, at least she would have told me a few beard jokes. When I’d taken as much as I could stand, I suggested that Josette and I treated ourselves with a trip to the loos.

The loos were not that treaty.

But on the plus side, when I flushed I could hardly hear the singing at all.

Back out in the corridor, we found Philippe and Ollie hanging about, looking tall and attractive.

‘Hello, Faith,’ Philippe said.

I didn’t have a smart reply for that so I went with, ‘Hi.’

‘It is not so good, hey?’ He nodded towards the singers.

‘It’s terrible,’ I agreed.

‘You want to go? Now? With me and Ollie?’

I wasn’t sure there was anywhere else to go, but the not-being-in-the-same-place-as-the-singers part really appealed to me. I looked at Josette. She nodded. A lot.

I wondered if I should try to slip in and extricate Angharad, but when I peered back into the hall I could see her head bobbing about enthusiastically. She seemed happy where she was.

‘There are teachers on the door,’ Ollie said.

I could hear voices coming from outside the entrance door, which was ajar. It seemed unfair that the teachers got to skulk about in the cool night air. Were they there to keep us in or where they just distancing themselves from the ‘music’?

‘We can go like this . . .’ Philippe pointed to the stairs at the end of the corridor.

We went down the stairs and into some sort of storage space that was full of stacks of chairs and dusty cardboard boxes. ‘Here,’ Philippe said and cracked open what I couldn’t help noticing was a pretty titchy window.

Josette swung herself up and through, and Ollie followed behind. Philippe looked at me and made a ‘you first’ gesture.

Well, it’s not that I disapprove of using windows to escape a situation (or, you know, cat flaps or any decent sized hole) but I wasn’t sure how to do it gracefully.

I climbed up on a chair and stuck my head through. The window came out just above ground level. I put my right foot on the wall inside and took hold of the hand Josette was offering me. I pushed myself upwards off the chair. At least, I went up until everything above my hips was out the window, and then I stopped.

I was stuck.

‘What is it?’ Philippe said. His voice was a bit muffled due to the window being stoppered up with my backside.

So there I was, trying to work out the French for, ‘I’m afraid my womanly behind has become lodged in your unfeasibly small French window’ but all that came out was,
‘Saperlipopette!’

Angharad and Tintin would have been proud.

Finally, with some tugging from Josette and Ollie I managed to wiggle my way through. When Philippe climbed out, all I could think was that he had been treated to the sight of my waggling bottom for the last few minutes, but it didn’t seem to stop him smiling at me.

Or maybe that’s
why
he was smiling at me.

I think the main thing we can learn from this is that even being stuck in a window is better than folk singing. Someone ought to tell Granny’s boyfriend this. I would, but whenever I see him I find myself robbed of speech, because the whole of my being is consumed by wondering how anyone could possibly have so little hair on their head but so much up their nose.

Anyway . . . we crept over the grass and through a line of trees into a field, making sure to stay out of sight from the bunch of teachers on the door.

People say that teenagers aren’t very good at using their imaginations anymore and that we stay inside playing computer games and posting stuff on social media, and that we never get any fresh air and have lost the art of real life conversation. But that’s really not true; once you introduce the opposite sex, I think you’ll find that any teenager is happy to sit in a field and have a chat.

I really enjoyed the art of conversation with Philippe. We had a long chat about the differences between France and England.

‘But even with all that,’ I said. ‘We’ve still got stuff in common. French teachers like forcing teenagers to listen to nonsense just as much as English ones, don’t they? At home they make us listen to the teachers’ barber shop quartet sometimes. It’s nearly as bad as this.’ I nodded in the direction of the singing.

‘Yes, it is bad. I am listening many times because one of these singers is the friend of my father.’

‘Which one?’

‘With the nose like this . . .’ he mimed a hooked nose. ‘And the beard.’

‘Oh, you mean the lady in the front row.’

He laughed. ‘You are a very funny girl.’

That pleased me.

In fact, everything about Philippe pleased me. He was smart and nice and funny and fit.

‘Hey,’ he said touching me on the arm. ‘Do you want to see Josette when she was climbing up the school?’

Inside, I was bashing cymbals together because he’d just touched my arm, but outside I did a very cool nod.

He shifted closer to me, and pulled out his phone. He actually did have pictures of Josette scaling the side of their school.

‘What did your teachers say?’ I asked. I put my hand on his as if to steady the phone so I could take a closer look, but to be honest I think we were both perfectly aware that no phone steadying was required.

‘Oh, they say lots of things. Lots of loud, angry things. They say
Josette! Get down or you will be killed! Josette come down to us and then we will kill you!
’

I laughed.

He slipped an arm around me.

I turned to look at him and I knew neither of us was thinking about Josette anymore. Then I leaned towards him and he leaned towards me and I knew there was going to be kissing.

Every part of me was tingling and then my lips met his. Wow. I think it’s amazing how alive a bit of lip pressing can make you feel.

The wonderful thing about kissing is that it works whatever language you speak. The United Nations should bear that in mind.

THURSDAY 24TH MAY

This morning Mrs Josette asked us how the entertainment was last night. I was about to remark on how it’s interesting that hairy old men manage to inflict their singing on young people no matter where you go, but Icky piped up with, ‘Faith ran off with some creepy French boy.’

Mrs Josette looked as if a stream of quite frowny questions were coming my way, but Josette stopped her before she could get started by launching into a long explanation. I couldn’t follow exactly what she was saying. There was a lot of gesturing. I think she was pretending to be a donkey at one point. Anyway, whatever she said, in the end Mrs J gave me a smile and said, ‘I am glad you are making friends.’

‘Yes, I do enjoy being sociable,’ I said. Icky mimed vomiting into her cereal.

I stuck a croissant in her ear.

Quite a productive morning really.

LATER

Icky came barging into the bathroom while I was cleaning my teeth before bed.

‘When I’m head girl,’ she said, as if anyone was listening to her. ‘I’m going to ban you from all school trips.’

I said nothing.

Icky twitched. ‘And I’ll make sure you’re always on litter pick-up duty.’

I calmly popped my toothbrush back in my sponge bag and sauntered towards the door looking straight through Icky as if she wasn’t there. Just before I walked out, I sniffed the air, ‘I must tell Josette’s dad to take a look at the drains. There’s suddenly a horrible smell in here.’

FRIDAY 25TH MAY

Tonight there was a disco at Josette’s school. I don’t know why anyone tries to hold a social event in a school. No one ever says, ‘You know where would be nice for your birthday party? A prison.’ Or, ‘Why don’t you have your wedding reception at the factory where you work your fingers to the bone, all day, every day?’ So why do they think that teenagers want to have fun at the place where they are incarcerated and worked into the ground? It’s pretty twisted.