What We Hide (3 page)

“It would poison a hog,” said Penelope. “The baked beans are like someone else’s spew.”

Spew
must mean “puke.” I was quickly assembling a glossary.

“The cook’s name is Vera Diarrhea,” said Kirsten. “Which tells you everything you need to know. She boils her moldy knickers in the tea urn, in case you’re savoring the flavor.”

“Let’s go,” said Penelope. “I want to see if the townie-boy selection has miraculously improved over the summer.” She and Kirsten bounced from their chairs, scraped their plates into the bin, and headed for the door. Was I supposed to follow?

“Oh,” said Kirsten. “You coming, Jenn?”

An afterthought.

But of course I was coming! What else would I do?

“It’s Jenny, actually.” Jenny sounded more English. “Call me Jenny.”

“Do you
have
a boyfriend?” asked Penelope, on the way up the many stairs to the Austen dormitory. I had a flash of Matt’s brown face, the black velvet buzz of hair, the half kiss, his startled face when I’d begun to leak tears against his chest at the airport.

“You
do
!” cried Penelope. “Are you … all
missing
him and heartbroken?”

“I … uh …” What did she want to hear? “I mean, yes, I’ll miss him, of course, but … I’m in England, right? And he’s not.”

“I’m liking you more every minute,” said Penelope.

Matt would never know. Illington Hall was on a different planet from where he was.

“Matt’s older. Nearly four years,” I said. “He’s in Vietnam.” The wobble in my voice sneaked out, bringing tears that I quickly blinked away.

Kirsten stopped on the stairs. “You mean he’s a soldier? In the war?”

I nodded.

“Doesn’t that make you bonkers? That he’s in the army?”

“Yes,” I said. Yes, yes, yes.

“I went to a protest last summer in Birmingham,” said Kirsten. “One smart thing our prime minister did was stay out of that war. You must be … Oh my god, you poor thing.”

“Mental,” said Penelope.

I’d done it. They were impressed.

In the dorm, ten cots stood in two rows, almost like in the picture book about Madeline. A bare lightbulb dangled in the center of the ceiling. The gray wool blankets made my skin itch without my having to touch one. The dingy walls; tall, narrow windows; battered trunks; a glimpse of a huge tiled bathroom—it was
perfect
!

Penelope and Kirsten had claimed the two window beds and now expertly pinned up their gray blankets to block out the faint sun. Each pulled a duvet from the top of her trunk and transformed the cots into cozy nests. I watched with a diving heart. Everything in Kirsten’s trunk seemed to be black. Penelope’s clothes, flying in several directions as she dug deeper, might have belonged to the singer in a hippie blues band.

I realized that the clothing list we’d thought so hilarious back in Philadelphia would now be the cause of resounding humiliation. The list must have been printed in 1938 and never updated. Apparently the uniform regulations had been abandoned. But Mom and I had sewn labels in everything according to the rules:
4 dark skirts, preferably A-line … 4 white blouses with plain collars … 4 warm vests …

I hadn’t known what a vest was, other than the sleeveless sweaters that Grampy wore. “Undershirt, silly,” said Mom. “You’ll be grateful all winter.”

The idea of a school uniform had been so appealing, but now that I was here … I’d look like a freaking idiot! Too late to pretend that my trunk had been lost. Could I explain to Mom what to send from home? She had the fashion sense of a missionary. And it must cost a fortune to ship clothes overseas. I’d have to wear my one pair of jeans until they shredded.

Shredded
. Why not? I lifted the lid of my trunk just far enough to retrieve my toiletry kit and one garment, which turned out to be the navy one of
4 dark-coloured V-neck sweaters
. I rummaged through my mini bottles of shampoo and lotion. Nail scissors.

I quietly began to snip at the neckline and then at the cuffs and the bottom edge. Within minutes I’d created fringe. I gave the sweater a shake and pulled it on. Penelope had now changed her clothes four times. Kirsten’s eye makeup was seriously enhanced.

“Great jumper!” Penelope ran her fingers along my newly fluffed hem.

Jumper
means “sweater.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s kind of my thing,
adapting
. Clothes and stuff.”

“We get expelled for thumbing,” said Kirsten. “But sometimes a lorry will give us a lift without us asking.”
Thumbing
means “hitching,” I noted.
Lorry
means “truck.”

We walked the three long miles to town. They peppered
me with questions about the States. And Matt. We went into a pub where Penelope bought fags.
Fag
means “cigarette.” I could have been writing entries for a phrase book. We went to a chip shop where Kirsten made me try malt vinegar. It looked like brown pee, but tasted sharp and delicious.
Chip
means “french fry.” Penelope pounced on two local blokes she knew from last term, Robbie and Alec.
Blokes
means “guys.”

“I dunno how you ever snogged either of them,” said Kirsten.
Snog
means “kiss.”

“Are you joking?” said Penelope. “Did you
see
Robbie’s bum? But Alec should
not
have shaved his head.”

“Sooo,”
said Penelope as we headed back to the school. “Have you slept with him, this Matt bloke?”

“Well, yeah.” In the same house, about a thousand times.

I used to squish right between Tom and Matt on the carpet in front of the television where they’d be watching
Get Smart
or
Hogan’s Heroes
, with a plate of celery sticks dipped in Cheez Whiz and a foil bowl of popcorn. I’d lie there wriggling until the boys shifted just enough for my scrawny self to lie between them. Peanut Butter ’n’ Jenny, they called it. Sometimes we’d fall asleep that way, waking up to find that Mom had covered us with a blanket and turned off the television.

“And?”

“What do you mean,
and
?” Treacherous ground for a virgin.

“You don’t have to answer her,” said Kirsten. “She’ll keep poking away till you show her naked photos.”

“No naked photos.”

“I
mean
 …” Penelope leaned in closer, bringing wafts of clove oil and No. 6 cigarettes. “You said he was black, right? So is it true about black blokes?”

“Oh.” I aimed for a sassy grin. “I’ve never slept with a white guy, so how would I know?” True statement. For a change.

“Whoa.”

A moment of silence while I climbed to the next rung in Penelope’s estimation.

“Do you mind telling me about his hair?” she said. “How it
feels
?”

“Pen,
shut
it!” said Kirsten.

A car horn tooted. “Super-perfect timing!” called Kirsten. The art master, Leonard, was offering us a lift.

“Happy to be back?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Penelope.

“And how are you liking it so far?” To me.

“Super!” I tried to sound like Kirsten. “Perfect.”

“Isn’t it grand.” He invited us, with a sweep of his arm, to gaze on the autumn fields, spiky and golden as the sun smoldered near the end of its day. Penelope rolled her eyes and slouched down next to me in the backseat.

“So many greens,” said Kirsten. “Endless.”

“Suck-up,” Penelope mouthed at me.
Grand
means “grand,” I thought.

One hundred and twenty-two other students had arrived
and were jammed into the front hallway in frenzied reunion, tripping over luggage and generally hurling themselves at each other in passionate embrace. Hairy Mary was corralling the younger forms, sending the boys off with a teacher called Kirby and marching the girls up the stairs. Kirsten and Penelope were instantly swallowed by a crowd of their real friends and I was the new girl again. Loads of kids in clusters of three or four, a sound track of unfamiliar accents and new words.

“Who are
you
?” The girl had a cloud of blond hair with a serious frizz situation.

“She’s Jenny.” Penelope was miraculously nearby. “Jenny, this is Oona. Sorry, Oona, Kurse and I have dibs. She’s in Austen dorm, not Brontë.”

“Won’t take you long to be utterly sick of them,” said Oona. “Penelope’s mouth will drive you away in no time.”

“Charming as ever, Oona.”

A twinge of worry. What if I’d landed with the wrong people, right off the bat? Should I be avoiding Penelope? Or Oona? Possibly both?

But they had a distraction. “Wow, Nico!
Ha
llo!”

“Is that fresh Mediterranean swarthiness?” Oona was practically salivating. The boy had a total honey tan, plus dark wavy hair and, oh my god,
green
eyes.

“This is Jenny.” Penelope played her card. “New girl. American. Yes, she has a boyfriend,
and
he’s a soldier in Vietnam being bombed in some jungle as we speak, which is deeply traumatic, as you can imagine.
Plus
, he’s
black
, so even
you
pale—get it,
pale
?—by comparison.… ”

Nico raised his eyebrows and shot me an awkward smile.

“Uh, hi.”

Penelope had turned my one little lie into a whole drama.

Which was exactly what I wanted, wasn’t it?

And so term began. With me in disguise.

robbie

I knew before he did that he was queer. That’s why I was watching him in the shop when he nicked the stupid mints. Mints, for Chrissake. Nothing else in the whole shop worth nicking?
He’s new at this
, I thought.
Just trying it on. Maybe there’s other stuff he’ll try
. So I followed him. Good thing he didn’t get stopped for the mints.

He was one of that boarding school lot. Easy to tell, even apart from being strangers. They had a style about them; you knew they didn’t buy gear in this widge of a town. He was cute as hell, eyes like a girl’s, great bum in jeans, hair falling every which way, like he’d just rolled over in the sack.

So I followed him along the main road. He was clipping it, shoulders up, till he took a quick look back and didn’t see any coppers pulling their sticks on him for a packet of
bleeding mints. Then he slowed down, hands in pockets, looking in windows, checking out the runners at Smyth Sports like any boy on a Saturday afternoon. A couple of girls came out of Bigelow’s with ice creams, girls from his school. He ducked into a doorway that led up to the flat above the shop. He closed his eyes, like if he couldn’t see
them
, they wouldn’t notice
him
. And they didn’t. They giggled on by, giving me the up and down as they passed.

I stepped in next to him and his eyes popped open.

“Hey,” I said.

“Oh, uh, hi?” He glanced into the street.

“They’re gone,” I said. His face was even nicer up close. A bit tan, a few freckles, hair flopping across his eyes.

“Oh.” He seemed freaked that I knew he’d been hiding from the girls.

“You want one?” I offered.

He shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”

I put the packet away. Didn’t want ciggy breath if this was going to work out the way I hoped. “Have you got a mint?” I said.

He jerked back, the git, bumped into the doorframe, hitting the bell with his shoulder. We could hear it ring inside. We stared
—click
—into each other’s eyes for half a second and then pelted along the road, laughing as if we’d broken a window at the very least, not just blipped a doorbell.

We turned off the shopping street, down Tupper’s Lane and around the back of the chip shop where there’s a picnic table outside. We dropped onto the benches, panting.

“You saw me?” he said. “Take the candy?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a tosser.”

“Not really.” I was going to add,
I only saw because I was staring at your bum
, but maybe it was too soon for that. “Chance.”

“Lucky it was only you.”

“Only me,” I said.

“I didn’t mean …”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Hey, boys.” Suze, from the chip shop doorway. “Table’s for customers only.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re off,” I said. “Unless, do you want chips?”

“No,” he said. “I should get back.” He tapped his wrist where a watch would have been, if he’d had one. Funny how no one has watches except old men, but we all know what that means, tapping a wrist.

“I’ll walk with you,” I said. “I’m going that way.”

He likely wouldn’t know, not being from here, that there was nowhere out that road except the school or the woods, unless I was completely barmy and going to visit bubble-lips, cushion-hips Daisy Danforth at her dad’s farm next to the school.

My brother Simon used to get with Daisy Danforth when I was little, around nine or ten, and him nearly four years older. We hiked out there one time toward the end of a summer term so he could meet her, despite the heat lying over us like a woolly blanket. I remember how suffering hot it was. Simon must have been in charge of me that
night, since I had to tag along with his pals Benj and Felix. Daisy was meant to be at the back of her meadow where it meets the school property and there’s a grove of trees around a pond. It was dark by the time we got there, and no Daisy in sight.

But there were lanterns strung from trees and some of the teachers were having a swim. Men and women both, and every one of them stripped to the skinny. No wonder the school’s got a reputation for being a bit of a loony bin.

“ ’Allo, ’allo, what have we here?” said Simon, quiet and laughing. This was his kind of heaven, and the others were pretty stoked too, all those bums gleaming and splashing. Even I could see the joke of it, naked grown-ups flitting about. Simon started cawing, harsh and phony, so they clambered out after a bit, grabbing for towels and hooting back and forth as they stumbled off through the trees like plump and pasty wood sprites.

“Our turn!”

Simon was out of his jeans and into the water bare-assed before you could say “Lick me.” The rest of us were close behind, hurtling off the planks set up as a dock. The air being hot, I didn’t expect the water to be frigid. Knocked the breath out of me. The pond was murky and reedy too, bloody scary in the dark. I scrambled up the bank—no towel—and back into my clothes, nearly crying with the shock. The others faked it a little longer but not much.