Charm School (8 page)

If she were the meanest girl Araminta had ever seen, Bonny couldn’t help thinking an hour or so later, it was against some pretty stiff competition. In between five-minute visits from each of Mrs Opalene’s ‘Superstars’ explaining exactly what it was she wanted later in the Curls and Purls Show, Bonny switched up some of the microphones dangling from the ceiling in the big mirrored room, and found herself overhearing one catty conversation after another.

Take Miss Stardust and Miss Rosebud. They both seemed nice enough when they were in with Bonny. But, as Serena walked past in the big room, they wrinkled their noses.

Curious, Bonny turned up the microphone over their heads.

‘Poo! What’s that awful smell?’

‘So
sickly
. With just a touch of flower stalks left rotting in a vase.’

‘I wonder where it’s coming from.’ Miss Stardust suddenly pretended to notice Serena glaring. ‘Oh, golly!’ she said. ‘Is it your perfume, Serena? I had no idea. I’m so sorry if Esmeralda and I upset you.’

‘Yes, so sorry,’ chortled Esmeralda. She turned to Miss Stardust. ‘We think it’s a nice smell really, don’t we, Angelica?’

‘Oh, yes!’ said Angelica, in a voice that meant, as clear as paint, ‘Oh, no, we don’t. Really, we think it smells about as pleasant as fresh manure’. But Serena was already hurrying away to the corner of the room, where she stood looking angry and upset for a moment before turning to Pearl, who was standing beside her in a faded old slip, unzipping her big plastic dress bag.

Bonny switched over to the microphone above Pearl’s head.

‘Pearl!’ she heard Serena say. ‘That is the nicest dress you’ve ever worn to Charm School!’

Pearl looked up, baffled. ‘But you haven’t seen it yet. I’m only just getting it out now.’

Serena’s voice dripped with false innocence. ‘Isn’t that it, what you’re wearing?’

‘This?’ Pearl stared down at the faded, raggedy old slip in which she stood. ‘This is some old thing I borrowed from my mum because it doesn’t show round the neck when I’m wearing my new outfit.’

‘Really?’ Serena clapped her hands over her mouth, and acted horrified. ‘Oh, I am sorry! I thought it must be your new frock!’

Pearl plucked at it, horrified. ‘You didn’t mean that, did you? You didn’t really think this was the nicest dress I’ve ever worn?’

Her face was crumpling with unhappiness.

‘Of course not!’ said Serena in a voice that clearly meant: ‘Oh yes, I did. But I had better not admit it’. It was, thought Bonny, exactly the same mean trick to make someone feel bad that Angelica and Esmeralda had just played on Serena herself. Would Pearl catch
on,
and tell Serena off for spitefulness? Or would she run in tears to dear, kind, marsh-mallow-hearted Mrs Opalene? Surely she’d care if all her precious, charming girls began to claw at one another like cats in a sack.

But Mrs Opalene was busy sewing up a fallen length of Cristalle’s hem, while comforting weeping Amethyst about a fleck of white in one of her perfect fingernails. So all Pearl did was drift away from Serena, looking very unhappy. Bonny’s eyes followed her across the room, till she came to a halt behind Cooki.

For a while Pearl stood watching Cooki brushing her hair in front of the long wide mirror. Then she said kindly, ‘Never mind. No-one will notice.’

Anxiously, Cooki spun round. ‘No-one will notice what?’

‘Your hair.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

Again came that same wide-eyed stare and pretend voice of innocence. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter.’

Cooki turned back to the mirror. ‘Yes, it does. I want to know what you meant. What
can
you see? What’s gone wrong with my hair at the back there?’

‘Nothing. I
told
you.’

‘But you just said—’

‘Honestly, Cooki,’ Pearl interrupted her sweetly. ‘It looks
wonderful
. Especially from the back.’ But even through the glass panel, Bonny could see the little smile on Pearl’s face that clearly meant, ‘But I’m just saying that. It doesn’t really’.

And Cooki saw it too.

‘It doesn’t, does it? It looks silly. Or wrong. Or
something
.’ Cooki was panicking. ‘What is it, Pearl? Tell me!’

‘It’s nothing. Honestly.’ And off floated Pearl, leaving poor Cooki staring in the mirror in dismay. Bonny felt like rushing out of the control room to slap Pearl hard. But then it would only be fair to go and slap Serena, too, for upsetting Pearl. And, after that, she should go after Esmeralda and Angelica for starting the whole thing off. What was the matter with them all? The children in Bonny’s first playgroup, when she was three, had all behaved better than this. And what was Mrs Opalene thinking of, caring more about fallen hems and fingernails than about
them
all roaming around being hateful to one another? Was this what she meant by having to suffer to be beautiful? But why would it help to have everyone round you feeling totally crummy?

Unless, of course, it was some horrible way of passing the unhappiness on, like a plate that was too hot to hold. It couldn’t simply be to do with wanting to be the Supreme Queen and walk off the stage crowned with the glistering tiara. Bonny had been in plenty of competitions. There’d been the canoe race at club camp. And the climb-a-rope contest at the sports centre. And even that poetry speaking final in the school hall. Admittedly, nobody burst into noisy sobs of grief when George’s canoe rolled over, tipping him into the water on the last bend. And she doubted if anyone was really very sorry when, in the rope climb, Gillian lost her nerve and her grip at the same time, and cascaded down the rope to the floor. And everyone burst out laughing when Martin forgot the last line of his poem, and just stared bleakly into space. But no-one had actually gone around beforehand, trying to make that sort of thing happen. No-one had taken the time to think
up
ways of making all the others lose their confidence, before things even got started.

Perhaps they’d all been too busy. After all, canoeing and climbing ropes and learning poetry use up your energy, and take up time. But things were very different here in Charm School. The problem with trying to win the glistering tiara was that you weren’t kept busy actually
doing
things. You were just trying to
be
. Be neat. Be graceful. Be ladylike. Be more beautiful. To end up being the Supreme Queen.

So they had too much time to stand and fret. There was Serena, wrinkling her nose over and over, as if she were still trying to work out if her perfume really did smell like rotting flower stalks. Pearl was fingering her new frock, clearly still wondering if Serena would think it was as horrible as all her other ones. And Cooki, worried stiff, couldn’t stop craning to try to see the back of her head in the mirror. Bonny was really relieved when Mrs Opalene stepped up to the microphone, and called them all back to their places in the circle. As Araminta tripped daintily across the room towards her seat, Bonny held up the shawl, to remind her she’d left it. She didn’t
want
to admit it to herself, but she was really hoping that Araminta would rush back, just for a moment, to fetch it and make peace.

But Araminta just glanced coldly in her direction and then turned away. And then she crossed the circle to whisper something in Suki’s ear, and, to Bonny’s embarrassment, Suki, too, stared coldly at her through the glass.

The two of them exchanged places, so Araminta had her back to Bonny. Bonny felt terrible. She was quite glad when Mrs Opalene chided both of them.

‘Now hurry up, dears,
please
. It’s time for our precious
Words About Beauty
.’

Everyone looked delighted. ‘Oh, goody!’ trilled Amethyst. ‘I
love
Words About Beauty!’

‘Who’d like to start?’ asked Mrs Opalene. ‘Who’s found some lovely and inspirational words they’d like to share?’

‘I have,’ said Esmeralda. She stood up, clasped her hands and cocked her head winsomely to the side, and started declaiming:

As far as yon dark, whispering pines
.’

‘Enchanting!’ cried Mrs Opalene, clasping
her
own hands to her glittering bosom. ‘Enchanting!’

‘Can I be next?’ begged Cristalle. ‘I have two lines from a lovely poem we did at school.’ Like Esmeralda, she clasped her hands before saying it aloud.

‘
My lady is a jewel; her pretty eyes

Sparkle, as on her velvet couch she lies
.’

Mrs Opalene’s rings flashed as she flattened her hand over her heart. ‘Oh, that is nice!
My lady is a jewel
. I do like that. Isn’t that nice, girls? Don’t you all agree?’

Everyone nodded. Cooki’s hand went up. ‘I’ve just remembered one.’ Making sure her knees were together and her feet tucked away neatly, she laid her hands in her lap and flicked her hair back, just like Amethyst.

‘
Shimmering in loveliness
,’ repeated Mrs Opalene. ‘Doesn’t everyone think that’s beautiful? I do. I think that’s quite inspiring. Thank you, Cooki, dear. Now, who else has a little gem to offer?’

‘I do,’ said Cindy-Lou, jumping to her feet. ‘I found it in a book of verses my granny gave me.’

‘Lovely, dear.’

Cindy-Lou spread her hands, and quoted,

‘
She walks in beauty, like the night
.’

‘Oh!’ cried Mrs Opalene. She seemed to Bonny to be in the seventh heaven of delight. ‘Oh, how we would all like to hear someone saying that of us!
She walks in beauty, like the night
. Wouldn’t that be something lovely to aim for? Thank you so much, Cindy-Lou, for sharing that with us. Now, who would like to be next?’

She was still looking hopefully around the circle when Bonny’s voice resounded through the loudspeaker.

‘So where was she going?’

Hearing her own voice booming back at her, Bonny clapped her hands over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud, let alone with her own microphone channelled through to the big room. But now Mrs Opalene was peering, a little baffled, towards the glass window.

‘Is that you, Miss Sparky? Did you have a question?’

Well, Bonny thought, my mother did buy a ticket. I do have a right to ask one. And to get an answer.

‘I was just wondering where she was going,’ she told Mrs Opalene.

Mrs Opalene was baffled. ‘Who, dear?’

‘This woman walking in beauty.’

‘
Lady
, I think, dear,’ Mrs Opalene reproved her. ‘And what does it matter where she was going?’

‘I was just interested,’ Bonny defended herself. ‘Perhaps Cindy-Lou knows.’

Cindy-Lou didn’t. ‘The poet doesn’t say. He just goes on a bit about how beautiful she was while she was walking there. He doesn’t say where she was going, or why.’

‘Shame,’ Bonny muttered. ‘I started out quite liking that one. But that makes it quite as boring as all of the others.’

Everyone stared. Shocked to the core, Mrs Opalene gathered the floaty matching wrap of her gown closer around her shoulders as if a chill wind had run through the room.