Charm School (2 page)

Along the corridor came the tea boy, pushing his trolley. ‘Are you lost?’ he asked Bonny.

‘No. I just stopped to look.’

‘Choosing your favourite?’

Bonny stared at him coolly. ‘I don’t think so. I’m a bit old for dollies.’

The tea boy nodded at the pictures. ‘Never too old to look like a twink.’

Bonny took a closer look at Miss Cute Candy. ‘Are you
serious
? Are you telling me she’s
real
?’

‘
Real
?’ said the tea boy. ‘She’s a tiger, that one. She just this minute bit my head off for running a trolley wheel over one of her diamanté shoes.’

‘What’s diamanté?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ he shrugged. ‘That’s what she called it when she threw her little tantrum.’

‘Where is she now?’ asked Bonny, a little nervously.

‘Where do you think?’ said the tea boy. ‘She’s behind that door with the others, spending the day in Charm School.’

Bonny was horrified. ‘It didn’t say!’ she wailed. ‘It didn’t say anything on the pink sheet about dressing up like dollies!’

The tea boy shrugged. ‘So? It doesn’t say anything on the Woodwork I sheet about needing sticking plasters. Or on the Practical Parenting sheet about bringing your aspirins.’

‘It’s going to be
awful
, isn’t it?’ Bonny said.

‘It’s going to be
worse
than awful,’ said the tea boy. ‘It’s always awful. But usually on Saturdays it’s just Mrs Opalene’s Charm School girls. They’re bad enough. But on the one day a year she does the Curls and Purls
Show
, we get a flood of dippy twinks from The Little Miss Pretty Circle. So it’s
worse
.’

‘The Little Miss Pretty Circle?’ (It didn’t just sound
worse
. It sounded
frightful
.)

He nodded at the photos on the walls. ‘You’ll see,’ he warned her. ‘Just go in and see.’

Bonny pushed open the door, and peeped inside. A dozen girls her age were sitting on chairs facing a little stage. Their backs were straight. Their hands were folded in their laps. And they were listening.

Up on the stage, a large, round, glittering lady strolled up and down.

‘You’re all
Stars
,’ she was telling them. ‘Every one of you. But when you come up on this stage, you’re going to be
Superstars
!’

Bonny slid in the room and closed the door behind her. Nobody turned to look.

‘All day I want to see your Prettiest Eyes and your Prettiest Smiles!’

Bonny took a seat on a chair in the back row, and nobody noticed.

‘All day,’ said the glittering lady, ‘I shall be watching you. And do you know what I’m expecting to see?’

‘Yes, Mrs Opalene,’ chirruped a dozen little voices, quite drowning out Bonny’s baffled, ‘No.’

‘I am expecting to see you walk as if you were on the brink of dancing.’

‘Yes, Mrs Opalene.’

Mrs Opalene lifted a hand to her ear. ‘And all day long I shall be listening. And do you know what I’m expecting to hear?’

‘Yes, Mrs Opalene,’ chirruped everyone except Bonny.

‘I am expecting to hear you all talking as if you were about to burst into song.’

‘Yes, Mrs Opalene.’ Nobody sniggered. Nobody made a face. Nobody even turned to
look
at the person next to them.

‘And when you’re singing,’ said Mrs Opalene. ‘What am I expecting?’

‘To hear an angel trying to get it absolutely right,’ came the reply.

‘And when you dance?’

‘To be dazzled by our delicate footwork.’

‘That’s right. Lovely!’ She clapped her hands together. Her rings flashed. ‘So now we’ll just go ahead and do everything we usually do on Saturday mornings in Charm School. But in the afternoon we’ll have our special Curls and Purls Show.’ Her eyes shone with excitement. ‘And, just before you go home, we’ll have The Crowning of The Supreme Queen, who gets to choose her very own pretty name to wear all year. And haven’t we had some lovely ones!’ She pressed her hands together, remembering. ‘Miss Perfect Pearl! Miss Treasure! Dazzling Miss Daisy! Miss Sparkling Sue …’

All round, everyone was clapping delightedly, except for Bonny, who sat with her head in her hands, even more sure now that she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. Should she get up and run? But there was something about the
rising
chatter round her, like sparrows squabbling on a fence, that made her feel even more homesick for her old friends.

So she’d give it a go. Someone would have to speak to her some time, after all. And maybe, even in this unlikely cluster of goody-two-shoes, she might find some company to keep her going through the long, lonely summer, till she could make some proper, sensible friends in her new school.

So when Mrs Opalene told everyone to take a little break while she set out her table for Beauty Tips, Bonny looked up. And when a girl she recognized from the photographs on the wall outside sailed past her, flashing a sparkling smile, Bonny said to her hopefully, ‘Hello, Rosebud.’

The pretty vision twirled around. ‘Who said that?’

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

Bonny stared. ‘Because I don’t know anyone here,’ she said. ‘And you just smiled at me.’

‘I didn’t smile at you,’ the pretty vision snapped. ‘I was just practising being
charming
.’

And off she went.

Rude, horrid
baggage
, thought Bonny. But it didn’t seem fair to judge the whole lot of them by one bad-mannered, haughty girl. So when the one that Bonny recognized as Miss Sweet Caroline strolled over towards her, smiling, Bonny tried again.

‘Hi, Caroline.’

The smile vanished instantly. The eyes flashed sparks of fire. And Miss Sweet Caroline said to Bonny, ‘You say that again, and I’ll stick your head in a holly bush.’

She swung on the heel of her shiny satin shoe, and stalked off, scowling. Bonny stared after her, astonished, until another of the girls came up behind. Though her hair was even longer and glossier than on the photograph outside, Bonny could tell it was Miss Stardust.

‘Brilliant!’ she said to Bonny. ‘You certainly showed her!’

Bonny was baffled. All that she’d done to Miss Sweet Caroline was say hello.

‘Showed who?’ she asked.

‘Silly old Sarajane.’ Miss Stardust nodded after Miss Sweet Caroline. ‘That was a smart way to remind her of the last time she won anything – about a million years ago! And she certainly needn’t expect to win the glistering tiara today.’

‘What glistering tiara?’

Miss Stardust waggled her pretty head from side to side in impatience.

‘Why, the glistering tiara of Miss Supreme Queen, of course. Weren’t you even
listening
?’

Suddenly Bonny couldn’t even see her. A cloud of candy-floss hair had stepped between them. ‘You can’t be
Miss
Supreme Queen,’ it corrected Miss Stardust officiously. ‘You’d have to be “Your Highness, The Supreme Queen”.’

‘Well, thank you so very much, Cristalle,’ snarled Miss Stardust. ‘For wasting a whole corner of my brain by filling it up with something I don’t need to know.’

‘No,’ snapped back Cristalle. ‘I suppose you don’t, Angelica, since you have absolutely no chance of winning it.’

Like Sarajane, she stalked off, just in time to pretend not to have heard Miss Stardust’s cross-patchy hiss of, ‘Neither have you!’

Bonny stared. Were they
all
horrid? Why had she thought they were like sparrows
squabbling
merrily on a fence? These girls were more like vultures, all hovering unpleasantly over the next glistering tiara to be won.

‘Tell me,’ she said to Angelica. ‘Do you only get a photo on the wall outside if you’re the winner?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And, if you lose, do you have to wait a whole year to try again?’

‘Yes,’ said Angelica. ‘And, if you win, you’re crowned for the whole year.’ Coughing politely, she modestly inspected her perfect fingernails.

Bonny took the hint.

‘So are you still Miss Stardust?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Angelica firmly. ‘I am Miss Stardust until four o’clock this afternoon. That gives me six hours, three minutes and—’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Fifteen seconds.’

Either she was a whizz at maths, thought Bonny, or she kept track by the second. Still trying to be friendly, she said to Angelica, ‘But you might win again.’

Somehow, Angelica suddenly looked horribly anxious, and Bonny found herself adding
hastily
, in order to comfort her, ‘Not that it matters. After all, winning isn’t all that important.’

Angelica gasped. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes travelled up and down Bonny as if she were inspecting her properly for the first time: hair, face and clothing. She looked confused. ‘Why are you here anyway?’ she asked curiously after a moment. ‘You’ve never come before. And look at you! You obviously haven’t fallen to earth from Planet Fashion.’