Reflecting on that last visit to Neill and his sweetly indignant face of concern etched in her mind’s eye, Natalia still couldn’t stomach the idea of telling him about Marcia. Her new confidence was pricked like a deflated, wrinkly bubblegum bubble, that she just wanted to stuff back into her mouth, so that no-one could see it had ever been there.
26Please respect copyright.PENANApiJyGm7Sxj
Wednesday morning, Natalia misfired her milk for her Cheerios as it splashed over the floor.
‘Fuck’s sake!’
‘What’s wrong wi’ you?’ her mum frowned, sitting at the table in her love-heart dressing gown.
‘You don’t usually care,’ Natalia muttered back.
‘Tsk. You were all excited going into school t’other day. I can’t keep up. Just don’t go bloody skiving again will ya. Last thing I want is the police turning up ‘ere.’
Natalia mused on her words. She felt more tempted than ever right now to play truant again. What would be lax Neill’s punishment if she did? A chocolate bar tossed at her with a cheeky chat and cup of tea?
‘They don’t do report cards at school anymore.’
‘I don’t care, you can’t be running away from yer problems,’ as she flicked back a greasy strand of her dyed auburn hair. ‘Don’t be like your dad for god’s sake. Face up to it like I’m gonna face up to this bastard Rob who won’t pick up his calls - ’
Natalia glanced up to see her mum squinting into her phone.
‘All cos I welled up when Coldplay came on in’t pub,’ she frowned. ‘That stuff should be banned like asbestos. Rob couldn’t get out fast enough even slipping over after eight lagers!’
‘Maybe prank him,’ said Natalia.
‘You mean like Jeremy Beadle?’
‘What, the old TV prank show you always talk about?’
‘Have a fucking alien rise up in his garden? That’ll make Rob leg it faster!’
They both laughed.
‘I meant prank call him,’ said Natalia. ‘Withhold your number.’
‘I already tried that. 1471 innit?’
‘No, on mobiles it’s 141. Depends what network you’re on.’ Natalia stepped over and googled on her own phone. ‘Yeah on BT it’s 141.’
‘Oh no bloody wonder.’
She tapped into her phone and brought it to her ear.
‘Hiya, Rob! It’s Mary - ’
Natalia tried hard to stifle a grin watching her mum’s face screw up indignantly.
‘He’s ‘ung up! The bastard!’
‘Well at least you know now,’ Natalia shrugged.
‘Men, all’t fucking same! I’m going round his! Still lives with his mum, the big soft twat, he’ll be crying to her for a cuddle by’t time I’ve decked him!’
‘Please don’t,’ Natalia groaned. ‘I’d rather you go shopping instead. There’s no milk, in fact the entire fridge is bare - ’
‘Yeah, yeah, I will.’
‘Get salted caramel cookies,’ Natalia added.
Her mum pulled a face. ‘Caramel? Salty? Must taste as bloody disgusting as what Rob gave me last time we - ’
‘Jeez, mum,’ Natalia recoiled. ‘I’m going.’
‘One way to get you moving,’ cackled her mum.
26Please respect copyright.PENANA2yBleYIzBr
That day Marcia was nowhere to be seen, which had Natalia optimistically fantasising that she was gone for good. Even weasel Stacey backed off without her partner-in-crime, so Natalia breathed a sigh of relief.
She caught sight of Neill engaged in buoyant chatter from afar a couple of times that afternoon, and the next day on her way into Yoga, spied him dropping papers off to Miss Barnes before disappearing in a flash with a sly nod to Natalia. Clearly he was beavering away on his latest mission, and she could sense a countdown to the moment he would seek her out to unveil its results… and how soon would that be, she wondered?
Arriving at school in the rain on Friday morning, Natalia was pulling her wet hood down at the bottom of the stairs when a genial call came:
‘Good morning, or rather, bleak morning!’
She looked up with a smile growing, knowing full well who it was. She glanced around to check no-one was in earshot and replied:
‘It will be if you’re delegating Assembly to Dinkey Donk again. The whole school nearly fell asleep last time.’
‘Ohhh! Well you’re in luck, the school will be indeed cattle-prodded with my voice,’ he beamed, ‘and there’ll be news, too!’ as he leapt for the bottom step, adding the fading words as he disappeared up the staircase:
‘It might make you blush!’
She bit her lip, wondering what he meant as she went ahead to form class. Still no sign of Marcia; she inwardly rejoiced that she’d made it to the weekend without her spirits soured - may she be ill for as long as possible - as her mind now turned to ponder what news Neill was going to announce.
Shortly filing in for Assembly, a few minutes of Neill welcoming and hollering through the various pressing matters for each Year, Natalia watching him, enchanted, holding her breath as he raised his tone with a drumroll air, and the blush he had presaged already becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
‘Now, uniforms! As some of you know we’re making changes to your school attire. I am keen to make the uniform more comfortable for all, and going on wide user feedback and extensive discussion, I have a big announcement to make.’
Excited whispers crepitated across the rows.
‘The main change is there’ll be no more ties.’
A gasp went across the school. Even some of the teachers stared as though they hadn’t been privy to the information, or were somewhat unclear on it.
‘We’re taking the uniform out of the Dark Ages,' Neill declared victoriously. 'Ties are for businessmen!’
Natalia stared. To hear him repeat her words made blood shoot as though from a syringe - right from her heart, straight into her face - only going deeper crimson as he continued:
‘No more jumpers hanging like potato sacks, and shirts with larger sweat patches than the Yorkshire Ripper.’
Natalia’s heart raced like a pony watching the hall resound with cackles at her jokes. She swallowed hard, her eyes going to Neill’s, whose eyes had rooted hers out. He was looking right back at her.
She shook her head softly, unable to arrest a massive smirk, before blinking the other way.
He continued. ‘I am pleased to announce a sample batch is arriving today and I will be updating you in due course on how and where to purchase the new garb. Clothes, that is.’
He rapped on the pod to settle down a growing murmur.
‘And now! I have been consulting with each Head of Year with regards to upcoming school trips, but I have decided to take Year 11’s choice for myself. Sorry, Mrs Coleman’ - he glanced to her apologetically as the school chuckled - ‘but I did consult the fine literary mind of a friend of mine, and I think you will rather like the choice…’
Natalia blew out her cheeks silently to herself.
‘Year 11 will be going to visit the famous Parsonage Museum and quaint Brontë town of Haworth. Perfectly apt for both English GCSE and the upcoming yuletide spirit.’
There were coos of intrigue and Coleman called out: ‘Oh, very nice Neill!’
‘That will be on Monday 27th November, less than three weeks away. Permission slips will be sent out and there’ll be a small charge of around £10 to cover coach and museum entrance. As well as my seven pints of ale at the Black Bull whilst you lot study the mangey couch that Emily Brontë died on!’
A sprinkle of laughs was heard around, including Coleman’s, whilst Natalia noticed Miss Doris and Mrs Williams looking perplexed at each other.
Natalia caught Neill’s eyes again on hers, holding the cockiest expression she’d possibly ever seen on him, before his prompt bark dismissed the hall.
Following Assembly on Fridays was 45 minutes of RSE, during which Natalia could only replay on loop in her head, Neill announcing ‘ties are for businessmen!’ as though her words had impregnated him, and he was rebirthing her, multiplying and spawning her all over the entire school… ‘the fine literary mind of a friend of mine!’ Dear god. The whole Assembly had been like some offering to her, from God himself at the front, to some unlikely appointed Goddess sitting meekly amongst the rows.
Was this some wacky dream she was having? The prank shows she watched like Punk’d or Trigger Happy TV? Or was her mum’s favourite, Jeremy Beadle, about to pop out from behind the moth-eaten, shit-coloured old curtain on the stage and wave his anatomically-undersized hand in a wanker gesture at her?
How did some genie with endless wishes, an ear and eye seemingly only for her, land in her miserable school in Killingbeck in Leeds in her grey, grim dreary life of all places?
At the bell for break, walking down the corridor deep in thought, Natalia felt a tap on her shoulder.
She yelped in surprise.
‘Oh, did I scare you?’
It was Neill himself, all jacket flaps and hair breezing behind him.
She laughed. ‘Sorry. I thought you were Jeremy Beadle.’
He guffawed. ‘Why Jeremy Beadle!’
‘Because my life feels like one big prank at the moment,’ she smirked, whilst she felt his hand come softly upon her back, motioning her to turn back other way with him.
‘Beadle’s About was back in the eighties,’ he remarked as he ushered her along, ‘when you weren’t even a twinkle in your dad’s winkle. Why in the world would a whippersnapper like you worry that old Jezza’ll come a-waddling?’
‘My mum always goes on about him. She’s shown me old clips.’
‘Well she should know then, Jeremy Beadle’s got a tiny cock!’
Natalia blushed. ‘Why my mum?’
‘But on the other hand, it’s really big.’
‘Such a bad joke,’ she shook her head at him, as he grinned and held open the next doors for her. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she added, half in a bemused trance of being led along.
‘To be just like our Jeremy and give me a little hand with another 80s classic, The Clothes Show. It’s new uniform time,’ as he gripped her arm, sending a new current of blood to her face as he gestured her through the doors, dropping his grip as a huddle of pupils fell around them, and she continued toward his office with his footsteps and breath behind her.
He opened his office where she saw two large open boxes.
‘So how is it all?’ she asked.
‘Would you like to take a look through?’
She put down her coat and bag and knelt by the boxes opposite him. Both now crouched in line of sight of each other, she blinked away from his magnetising line of sight and hurried her hands through soft polo tops, new sweaters and cardigans, all emblazoned with the school badge.
‘They look great!’ she smiled.
‘The fabric is a bamboo blend, so it’s better on acrid adolescent armpits. It still needs to to be semi-synthetic to be affordable,’ he sighed as he arose, and then beckoned his hand: ‘Take some for yourself.’
‘Oh, thanks!’ as she pulled some out in her size, and bundled them under her arm. ‘Is this payment for plagiarism of my words?’ she added with a raised eyebrow.
He chuckled. ‘I improved upon them. Yorkshire Ripper is far more relatable to you Northern folk.’
‘Isn’t Jack the Ripper the same?’
‘No, he was 1800s! Yorkshire Ripper was in the 70s. Murdered some bird just up at Roundhay Park where Jimmy Savile lived. They say he was probably the Ripper himself, god knows he spent a lifetime sweating.’
‘Oh,’ she grimaced. ‘Yeah.’
‘They say he was even involved in some kind of Satanism. But not near as bad as what Mrs Williams thinks I’ve precipitated. She railroaded me after Assembly pointing out my error of announcing this on a Friday just before Bonfire weekend. Claims I’ve incited a local inferno that will bring us national public disgrace to the formal traditions of higher education descending us from Byker Grove to Bohemian Grove.’
‘Pupils are setting fire to their ties? You’ve incited mass pyromania?’
‘No, you have.’
She shook her head bemused.
He crooked his head down at her. ’Mrs Williams is going to be very angry when she finds out,’ he whispered in a taunting sing-song.
Natalia giggled. ‘Oh, fuck her!’
‘Personally I’d rather not. But you, plonk your clothes on that chair.’
‘Huh?’
‘Sit.’
‘Oh. You need my… fine literary mind for something else?’
‘Quite! Because the next thing in the pipeline is, we’re recruiting a new…’
His hand rummaged around his desk, more and more exaggeratedly, as she smiled at his crestfallen face, his clown-like act, as his hands madly splaying through his papers as he now let out a long sigh, slammed down his palms and moaned:
‘It was round here somewhere. A sheet of faces. Help me out Natalia.’
She spied and plucked out a stapled set of papers rucked up behind his keyboard.
‘This?’
‘Oh wow!’ as he took it. ‘Can I recruit you?’
‘You already have, haven’t you?’
He chuckled at her. ‘Now that’s the spirit,’ as he brandished the papers, ‘but not the kind of spirit I need in one hand to take in some of these phizogs.’
‘Phizogs? Oh, physiognomies - ’
‘Faces of prospective new receptionists. Fortunately, they are all affordable. Especially as I’m cutting three epsilons down to one alpha.’
The bell went. They both looked up.
‘It’s RE now, I have to - ’
‘Your lesson’s RE alright,’ talking over her as he passed the papers back to her. ‘Royally Exterminated. And so are your sour puss, pissed sow receptionists, lucky girl. So leaf through these and tell me which should be the new one. Take your time.’
The sense of sudden responsibility was smothered by the flattering feeling that he was sharing this matter with her.
‘Make me tea then.’
‘Sorry darling, today I have no milk, and no water. Do you want some of this coffee?’
He held up his takeaway cup. She didn’t care for coffee, but she gazed at the rim where his lips had been, and took it to her own. It was tepid and bitter. He tittered as he watched her wince.
‘Um, thanks,’ as she handed it back, and glanced down at the top sheet.
‘Oh dear, not the one with pink and yellow hair.’
‘Already meant to cross through that one but couldn’t find a black pen thick enough.’
She giggled. ‘Obviously I er, need to read the captions here about them too - ’
‘No. First just cross off any other faces you can’t stand,’ as he rummaged through his drawer, muttering, ‘ah, gotcha!’ He chucked a Sharpie at Natalia which landed in the dip of her skirt, parallel inside her thighs, cueing a corresponding throb in her privates right where it pointed.
She looked down in surprise, then up at him.
‘Go on,’ he beckoned with a cheeky squint.
‘Cross off faces I don’t like the look of,’ she repeated, scooping the pen up into her hand, ‘you mean, judge a book by its cover?’
‘No-oh,’ he said in a drawn-out teacherly tone, ‘it means putting you in a good mood every time you arrive late to school, young lady.’
Her eyes raised. ‘I’m not late that often.’
‘I’ve seen the records. Almost every other day. Trouble getting out of bed in the morning, Natalia?’
Her eyes widened. She felt the dregs of the last day of her period beckoned by another, bigger throb. His eyes briefly fell to her shifting, re-crossing legs.
‘I might bring back report cards specifically for lateness, specifically for you,’ he said sternly.
She feigned a serious face back. ‘You’d better fucking not. I’ll set fire to them myself.’
A satisfied chuckle seemed to rumble through him. ‘Now eyes down and get swiping that black pen to find us a new welcome doormat.’
She was now choosing a new receptionist. If this was all a prank, it was the best one she could ever hope for.
_________________________________________
How does their meeting end? How much chaos will the kids cause on Bonfire Night? Follow the next chapter, Smart Arses!
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