It's a Girl Thing (6 page)

Kids can be cruel, eh? That's what grown-ups always say. Unfortunately most Blackwell kids mistake this for one of the school rules, i.e., “Kids are required to be cruel at all times during the school day and even more so at breaks and lunchtime.”

Okay, between you and me, what terrifies me most about asking for help is being officially certified “dumb.” Don't tell me it doesn't happen, I've seen the special stickers they put on your personal files to signify “borderline retarded.” I've skated pretty close to this with a few school reports too. Not in cool lessons like English or religious studies, no, I tend to A grade them. I'm talking about maths and science. That's where I blow, big time. Those snidey little remarks written on my end-of-year report cards really keep me awake at night:

“Ronnie is a capable girl but loses all interest when the going gets tough. Grade: D,” my science teacher bitched last year.

“Pah, that's what you're like with everything. You've always been a quitter,” snapped my mother helpfully.

“Gnnnngn,”
I grunted, grasping around for one really difficult thing in my life I've actually finished. And failing.

I am such a loser.

Worse still was my maths card: “Veronica is quite simply a waste of my time and her own in this lesson. I have grave concerns for her future employment if she persists on lagging behind the year group. Grade: E.”

I cried when Mum and Dad got home from that Blackwell's report evening. Because at some points during that term I'd even tried, a bit. Eventually Loz came upstairs and told me not to fret because if I ended up with no qualifications at all, I could get a job with him as a barmaid. “Those new computerized cash registers work all the sums out for you,” he said.

This made me cry even more.

But I'm certainly not telling anyone I can't understand science, it's not worth the hassle. One good thing about science lessons, I suppose, is that Mr. Ball is typically so busy distilling stuff, pipetting and mucking about with test tubes that you can usually grab a good, lengthy, albeit whispered, chatter. Today, however, I'm feeling more than a little subdued. I'm glad I've got the LBD there so I can get a few things off my chest.

Something fishy is afoot back home at the Fantastic Voyage, I tell Fleur and Claude as we crowd around the microscope, looking for whatever it is we're looking for. I'm more than slightly bummed that neither Mum nor Dad will tell me what's going on. I know for certain they're not speaking to each other, that's for deffo, not that I've even seen them in the same room over the last week to confirm their silence.

I can just tell. Despite my scientific deficiencies, I'm flipping cleverer than they give Ronnie Ripperton credit for.

Take last night, when I moseyed home from Fleur's and was rooting around in the laundry room for a clean school shirt to iron. Innocently I yelled through to Mum, who was prepping parsnips in the kitchen: “Oi, Mum! Do you know where my short-sleeved school shirt is?”

“No . . . not really sure,” Mum shouted back. “I know where all of your long-sleeved ones are, they're over the drying horse. Why do you want the short one?” she asked.

All was well so far.

“Well, Dad says it's going to be red-hot tomorrow—”

Big mistake! Blastoff! Mum's lips puckered, her nostrils flared and her eyes thinned to venomous slits.

“
Hmmmph . . .
well, you had better listen to
your father
then, seeing as he's got that hot line to the BBC meteorological department,” she sniped, hurling silky slithers of parsnip into a vast pan of bubbling water.

Whenever Mum and Dad row, “Dad” suddenly becomes
“your fath-er,”
almost as if Loz hatched me all by himself in a bin around the back of the Fantastic Voyage and Magda had nothing physical to do with the whole process. It's almost as if Mum can distance herself from him, and by default from us, the Ripperton clan, with just a few strangely chosen syllables. This time, however, seemed far more serious; there was a real hurt in her eyes, like Dad had done something so heinous that I wouldn't even want to know.

This really gave me a jolt. It was at this point I realized that home has been pretty weird and miserable over the last week. And that I'm not coping very well with my parents' long morbid silences and blatant irritation at each other. Or their midnight mumblings and shoutings the very second they notice my light is switched off. I even had a stupid nightmare last night that Dad had died suddenly, and I was running about trying to plan a funeral while Mum was laughing maniacally and making a fancy cake. That was hideous.

But whatever is going on, neither side are giving anything away.

“What's up, Mum?” I said, anyhow.

“Nothing,” she said, forcing a thin smile. “Nothing at all. If you want me to iron a shirt, then leave it on top of the dryer, I'll do it once we've sorted the cash registers out.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but what is up with—?” But I was interrupted by the kitchen order phone ringing.

Then, earlier this morning, on my way out of the pub to school, I tapped Dad for my lunch money. Dad was sitting in the saloon bar, still in his pajamas, slurping a big mug of tea, reading
The Daily Mirror.
I had decided to forgive him for his Jimi faux pas yesterday, on account of his extreme cack handedness in most social situations like that, it's all I can expect, really. Oh, and the fact that I wanted my lunch money with minimum fuss.

“So, Ronaldo,” he asked. “What's on the agenda today?”

“
Phhghh . . .
double science,” I sighed. “And then I think I've got religious studies . . . dead boring. We're doing theology at the moment. Y'know, the meaning of life and all that.”

“Ooh, the meaning of life? How good's that, eh?!” muttered Dad as I slung my schoolbag over my shoulder, trudging toward the door. “Hey, Ronno, do me a favor,” Dad shouted. “If you find out that meaning of life thing by, say, four-ish, give me a quick call on my cell phone, will yer?”

“Will do, Pops,” I yelled. “See ya. Love yer.”

Dad continued in a voice only just loud enough to hear: “It'll give me something to think about in prison after I've strangled your mother. . . .”

At some level, I think Dad was only half kidding.

 

 

“Ooh, that's awful, Ronnie,” squeaks Fleur, tweezering turquoise crystals under a microscope so we can all share in its holy wonderment. Mr. Ball is hopping from bench to bench, trying to prevent the stupider kids from tasting the crystals as they're, like, poisonous.

“What you need is some counseling,” whispers Fleur earnestly. “You're, like, practically an abused child. Do you find that Loz and Magda take their aggression out on you when they're arguing?” she asks. “You might need a social worker.”

“No, not really,” I say, shaking my head, gazing out the window at the pouring rain. Dad's hot line to the BBC weather department must have been faulty. “In fact, I got five pounds lunch money this morning instead of two fifty. Dad told me to go spend his profits on false eyelashes for all he cared. I don't think that's really child abuse, Fleur.”

Fleur looks disappointed.

“You might still need a bit of therapy, though,” Fleur says hopefully. “Like that sort where you swim with dolphins in Israel and cry a lot. I saw it in
Marie Claire
magazine.”

“What you need,” interrupts Claude, “is to just let your mum and dad get on with it and try to keep yer shneck out of things.”

(NB:
Shneck
is the LBD's word for nose. Say you see someone with a big nose. It's the LBD rule that you've got to go “Sherrrrneckkkkk!!” really loudly in a squawky way . . . praying that the person in question with the “biggen shnecken” isn't conversant in LBD.)

“Mmm . . . I know what you're saying,” I reply. “Probably I should.”

Claude looks extra authoritarian at the moment in her lab specs.

“Definitely,” says Claude. “They're having a row, just let them argue it out. Your mum and dad are a right pair, Ronnie. They love each other to bits, anyone can see it. This time next week they'll be trying to dump you at your granny's again because they want to go on one of their romantic weekends.”

We all giggle then, fake putting our fingers down our throats, grimacing. I don't even want to contemplate what my parents get up to on the “romantic weekends” they occasionally take in Parisian hotels and suchlike, but I hope it involves a lot of examining the in-room trouser press and looking at the River Seine and NOTHING too “romantic.”
Bleeeeeughhh.

“Anyhow, I need your full attention over the next week.

We've got a
very
full schedule . . . you're going to be my righthand chick.”

Oh, dear, I know EXACTLY what Claude's talking about here. I knew she wouldn't leave our little LBD conversation about the Blackwell fete last night as pie in the sky for too long. That's just not Claude's style.

“Oh, Claude, we can't,” I say.

“You're not being serious?” says Fleur with a look of growing anxiety.

“It's impossible . . . isn't it?” I say.

But Claude has that scary, unstoppable look in her eyes.

“It IS possible,” Claude affirms. “We're going to see Mr.

McGraw at first break to put our plans to him about Blackwell Live.”

Claude pauses a moment to enjoy the sound of her new title; she invented the phrase “Blackwell Live” at 3:15 A.M. this morning, sitting up in bed at Flat 26, Lister House.

 

 

You see, late last night, long after the LBD had giggled, fantasized, danced and gossiped till we were exhausted about how totally, unbelievably fantabulouso it would be to turn Blackwell fete into a full-scale local pop/rock extravaganza; long after I'd toddled home, encountered Magda and fallen asleep; and hours after Fleur had finished her vitamin E deep-impact face pack and turned on her
Whale Sounds Power Snooze
CD, Claudette Cassiera was awake until at least 4:00 A.M. . . . plotting. As you can imagine, Claudette plotting is a very scary thing indeed. It involves numerous sheets of paper, spider diagrams, doodlings and scribblings out. It also involves the emergence of one of Claudette's infamous “THINGS TO DO” lists.

Oh my Lord. I can see one being produced from Claudette's rucksack right now. Point one says:

It has a big tick against it. She's only gone and done it!

“Oh, I have GOT to see this one.” Fleur smirks.

“That's good,” retorts Claude, “because you're coming along too. I need full LBD backup to swing this one in our favor.”

That wipes the smile right off Fleur's chops.

“Of course, Fleur,” continues Claude, “this will require you to act pleasantly, schoolgirlish and, well, almost like a normal human being for over twenty whole minutes . . . Swanno, can I count on that?”

Fleur giggles and sticks her tongue out. “Huh. It'll take a lot more than me saying a few pleases and thank-yous for McGraw to start liking me again.” Fleur laughs.

“Perhaps,” says Claude. “But it wouldn't hurt to try.”

“Do you think I should apologize again for that massive bill he got from . . . ooh, what was it called? . . .” Fleur thinks deeply. “Oh, yeah, Castles in the Sky, the bouncy castle company?”

“Well, yes, you could . . .” Claude stops, then changes tack. “Actually, Fleur, I've thought about that now. DON'T mention the bouncy castle incident. In fact, Fleur, don't speak at all. Just smile.”

Fleur crosses both eyes and gives a big smile with all of her teeth and gums showing, made all the more eerie by the fact she has plum-colored lipstick smeared on her front teeth.

“That's very pretty, Fleur,” says Claude. “Very genuine.”

Claude turns her attention to me.

“Right, Ronnie, you're my only hope here. Once we're all in McGraw's office, we have to work together tightly to get the outcome we want.”

“What, like a Good Cop-Bad Cop sorta routine?” I ask, suddenly feeling very devious.

“Well, no,” corrects Claude. “More like Nice Schoolgirl-Even More Crawly Bumlicky Schoolgirl.”

“Oh, well,” I say. “Can I be the first one?”

“For sure.” Claude smiles.

As far as an LBD planning meeting, this is highly civilized. We've got a smidgen of a plan together, and no one has felt the need to call each other a “total durrbrain” or get personal about the other girl's hairstyle. Sadly, our good progress is brought to a halt by minor classroom chaos.

Mr. Ball has left the front of the classroom and is striding around the benches, inhaling deeply.

“Has somebody got sweets?” he says. “I am certain that I can smell chocolate. And it's a milk chocolate too.”

Mr. Ball's highly sensitive nostrils are twitching.

“C'mon, hand 'em over, whoever you are!” says Ballsy. “You all
know
how I feel about sweets in the chemistry department.”

Yes, Mr. Ball, we all know how you feel about sweets in general. You adore them. It's rumored that the local newspaper seller Mr. Parker bought a new Volvo last year on the strength of your minty humbug, chocolate raisin and cola cube addiction.

Poor Sajid Pratak, a tiny pip-squeak of a boy perched on one of the back benches, is caught mid-chomp.

“Sajid!” yells Mr. Ball.

“
Mggghp
sir!” goes Sajid.