Sugar and Spice

It was that same morning, when Julia yelled “Slugface!” at Karina, and Brett Thomas mashed my glasses into my face, that Shay arrived at Parkfield High.

Mr Kirk was at his desk, bellowing out names and trying to mark the register, which wasn’t easy with all the hubbub going on. Brett Thomas and another boy were bashing each other in the back row, and some of the girls were shrieking encouragement. Mr Kirk would bawl, “Alan Ashworth?” at the top of his voice and someone thinking they were being funny would yell, “Gone to China!” or “Been nicked!” and everyone would start screeching and hammering on their desk lids.

Karina had told me last term that sometimes the teachers at Parkfield High went mad and had to be taken away in straitjackets, and for once I believed her.

Well, almost. I didn’t think, probably, that they went actually mad, but you could definitely see them getting all nervous and twitchy. Some of them got twitchy cos they were scared, like Mrs Saeed who taught us maths. She was so tiny and pretty looking, and Brett Thomas was like this huge great ugly hulk looming over her. I used to feel really sorry for Mrs Saeed.

But Mr Kirk, he twitched cos he was frustrated. What he’d really have liked, I reckon, was to hurl things. Books and chairs and lumps of chalk. Only he knew that he couldn’t – he could only hurl his voice, and nobody took any notice of voices, least of all Brett Thomas. Karina said that Mr Kirk went home and beat his wife instead, but I think she may just have been making that up.

Anyway. The door opened and Mrs Millchip from Reception came in. She had this girl with her and everyone suddenly broke off yelling and hammering and turned to look. Even Brett Thomas stopped bashing, just for a moment. Mrs Millchip walked over to Mr Kirk, but the girl stayed where she was, leaning inside the door, with her hands behind her back, and this kind of, like, bored expression on her face.

If she hadn’t looked so bored and so…supercilious, I think that’s the word, meaning above all the rest of us, like we were rubbish and she was the Queen of England (except the Queen would be more gracious, having been properly brought up). Even as it was, with this scowly kind of sulk, you could tell she was totally drop dead gorgeous.

She looked the way I look in my daydreams. Tall. (I’m short.) Slim. (I’m weedy.) Heavenly black hair, very thick and glossy. (Mine is mouse-coloured and limp.) Creamy brown skin and a face that has cheekbones, like a model, and these huge dark eyes. (My skin is like skimmed milk, plus I wear braces, not to mention glasses.)

Mrs Millchip left the room, but the girl just went on leaning against the wall. Into the silence, Mr Kirk bellowed, “This is Shayanne Sugar, who’s just joined us. I’d like you to make her feel welcome.” Just for once there wasn’t any need for him to bellow, but I expect by now he’d forgotten how to talk normally. I didn’t really believe that he beat his wife when he got home, but he probably did bawl at her. She’d say, “You don’t have to shout, dear, I’m not deaf,” and Mr Kirk would bellow, “I AM NOT SHOUTING!” Well, that’s what I like to imagine.

He told Shay to find herself a seat, while he went on with the register. Immediately everyone lost interest and went back to what they were doing, which was having private conversations and rooting about under their desk lids, eating things, or, in Brett Thomas’s case, bashing. Shay stood there, letting her gaze move slowly about the classroom, like she was summing people up, deciding which would be the best person to sit next to.

There were several spare seats as it was the second week of term and the people who usually bunked off had already started. There was a spare seat next to me, but I knew she wouldn’t choose that one. Why would a person who looked like a model want to sit next to an insignificant weed with braces on her teeth? And glasses.

“Talk about picky,” muttered Karina. (She was sitting next to me on the other side.) “What’s her game?”

“It’s important,” I said, “where you sit.”

There was a seat next to Millie, and another next to Jenice Berry. I’d choose Millie any day, but that’s because she used to be my best friend. The new girl might look at her and think she was just someone who was a bit plump and podgy and go for Jenice, instead. She wouldn’t know that Millie was clever and funny, and that Jenice (in spite of looking like an angel) was as mean as could be.

Karina was still buzzing in my ear. “Why’s she started so late, anyway? Why didn’t she come at the beginning of term?”

I never really found out why Shay started so late. There were lots of things about Shay I never found out. Of course, she might go and sit next to one of the boys, if she wanted to be different. I wouldn’t! But then I spend my life trying not to be different. Unfortunately it seems that I just am. I hate it! All I want is to blend in and be the same as everyone else. I don’t know why I can’t be, but it’s always like there are people going, “Oh, her,” or, “Well, of course, Ruth Spicer.” Like, she would, wouldn’t she? You have to be bold to enjoy being different. Like Shay. Shay was the boldest person I’ve ever known.

Just for a second, her eyes met mine and my heart went bomp! inside my ribcage.

I really thought she was going to come over and sit by me. But she didn’t. Instead, she stalked off to the back row and settled herself in solitary splendour, not next to anybody. The nearest person was Brett Thomas, right at the far end.

The rest of the row was empty, as Mr Kirk had made everyone move further down to the front. (Everyone except Brett Thomas. Nobody moved him anywhere.)

I waited for Mr Kirk to tell Shay to come closer, but he was still busy bawling his way through the register and didn’t seem to notice. Karina sniffed and went, “Huh! Who’s she think she is?” I didn’t bother answering. I was thinking to myself that once Shay got put in the register we would be next to each other…Ruth Spicer, Shayanne Sugar. I wondered if Shay would notice this and think it was neat. Sugar, Spicer: Sugar and Spice! It made us sound like a TV programme!

Our first class that day was English, with Mr Kirk. After he’d banged on his desk with a book and got a bit of peace and quiet, he started handing back last week’s homework, which was an essay on “The Night Sky”. As usual, most people hadn’t actually done it. When Mr Kirk demanded to know why, one of the boys said he couldn’t be bothered, another said it was a waste of time, and Arlon Phillips, the boy who’d been fighting with Brett Thomas, said what was the point? Brett agreed with him. He said that it was a girl’s subject, anyway.

“What’s to write about? The night sky is black. Wiv stars. And sometimes the moon, when it ain’t cloudy. That’s about all there is to say.”

“So why didn’t you say it?” said Mr Kirk.

“Just have,” said Brett.

“Would it have been too much trouble to write it down?”

Brett said yeah, it would. “I don’t do homework, man.”

“Well, I’m happy to tell you,” said Mr Kirk, “that some people do. And that some people have found rather more to say on the subject than you have. For instance, how about this from Ruth Spicer —”

Oh, horrors! He was going to read it out! This is what I mean about being different. I don’t ask for my essays to be read out. I don’t want them read out! Already I could hear the sounds of groaning. That Ruth Spicer! There she goes again. I knew if I turned round I’d see hostile eyes boring into me.

“Ruth has very creditably managed to write two whole pages,” said Mr Kirk.

Oh, no! Please. I felt myself cringing, doing my best to burrow down into the depths of my prickly school sweater.

“I’ll give you just two examples of imaginative imagery…the clouds drifted past, like flocks of fluffy sheep.”

Behind me, Julia made a vomiting sound. Pleeurgh! Jenice Berry immediately did the same thing. I could feel my cheeks burning up, bright red and hot as fire. Please let him stop! Why did he have to do this to me?

“The other example,” shouted Mr Kirk, above the rising din of sniggers and vomits, “ARE YOU LISTENING? The moon hung in the sky, like a big banana.”

It sounded completely stupid, even to me. I’d been so proud of it when I wrote it! I’d thought it was really poetic. Now I just wanted to curl up and die.

“Moon’s not a banana,” yelled Julia.

“Can be.”

Heads all over the room turned, in outrage. Who would ever dare contradict the great Julia Bone?

“Crescent moon,” said Shay. “That’s a banana.”

Julia glared and muttered. Mr Kirk said, “Precisely! Very nice piece of writing, Ruth.” (Cringe, cringe.) “As for the moron who wrote this—” He held out a sheet of paper with just the one line on it. “The night sky is too dark to see.” He scrunched the paper into a ball. “I have only one thing to say to you, and that is, grow up!” And then he handed me back my essay and said, “Excellent!”

When I was at juniors I would’ve prinked and preened all day if Mrs Henson had said excellent. But at Parkfield High it wasn’t clever to be clever. It was just stupid. Now they would call me names even worse then before. I could already hear the two Js, sitting behind me, making bleating sounds under their breath.

“Ba-a-aa, ba-a-aa!”

I did my best to ignore them, but I’m not very good at blotting things out, I always let them get to me, and then I want to run away and cry. Fortunately I do have a little bit of pride. Not very much; just enough to pretend that I don’t care, or haven’t noticed. I’d be too ashamed to let my true feelings show in front of people.

At the end of the lesson Mr Kirk set us some more homework. The subject was: My Family. He said he wanted it in by the day after tomorrow.

“Thursday. OK? I will accept no excuses! Anyone says they forgot and I shall send them for a brain scan. You have been warned!”

I muttered, “Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn’t find any brain.”

I know it wasn’t very nice of me, since people can’t help not having any brain, any more than I can help having to wear glasses, but I don’t think it’s very nice to make fun of someone who’s just trying to fit in and be ordinary. I didn’t ask Mr Kirk to read out my essay. Unfortunately, Karina caught what I’d muttered. She gave this huge shriek and swung round in her desk.

“D’you hear what she said? Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn’t find any brain!”

If looks could have killed…well, I’d be dead, and that’s all there is to it.

“Big banana moon!” said Julia.

“Ba-a-aa,” went Jenice.

They carried on all through break.

“Why d’you have to go and tell them?” I said.

Karina tossed her head. She hates anything that she thinks is criticism.

“Not much point saying things if you don’t say them to their faces!”

I expect she was probably right; I just wasn’t brave enough.

“Look,” said Karina, “there’s the new girl.”

Shay was leaning against the wire mesh that fenced us in. As well as wire mesh we had big gates with padlocks and brick walls with bits of broken glass on top. Most schools have security to keep people from getting in, but at Parkfield they had it to keep us from getting out. Well, that’s my theory.

“Look at her! What’s she doing?”

Shay was just watching. I saw her eyes slowly swivelling to and fro, same as they had in the classroom. She caught me looking at her and I very hastily turned the other way and began to study some interesting clouds that were drifting across the sky. They did look like sheep. Flocks of fluffy sheep. I felt my cheeks begin to burn all over again. If Mr Kirk was going to keep singling me out I’d just have to stop doing his stupid homework. Either that or do it so badly-on-purpose that he’d be rude about it and treat me the same as everyone else. One or the other. But I couldn’t go on being humiliated!

The bell rang and we trundled back into school. First lesson after break was maths, which isn’t one of my favourite subjects, though I do work quite hard at it, as far as you can work hard at Parkfield High. I used to think that I’d need it if I was going to be a doctor, cos of having to measure things out and knowing how much medicine to give people; but in fact, after one term at Parkfield I’d pretty well given up on the idea of being a doctor. I could understand a bit better why Mum and Dad had laughed when I’d first told them. Dad had said, “Well, and why not be a brain surgeon while you’re about it?” Mum had said that I could always be a nurse. But I didn’t want to be a nurse! I wanted to be a doctor. Well, I had wanted to be a doctor. Now it seemed more likely I’d end up in Tesco’s, with Mum. But I still struggled and did my maths homework.

At least Mrs Saeed never embarrassed me by making comments in front of the class. Even when I’d once – wonder of wonders! – got an A-, she just quietly wrote “Good work!” at the bottom and left me to gloat over it in private.

Most people crammed as far back as possible for maths classes because Mrs Saeed was too nervous to make them move closer. Me and Karina were the only people in the front row. We didn’t have to sit in the front row; there were empty desks in the row behind. But I liked Mrs Saeed and it seemed really rude if nobody wanted to sit near her. She might wonder why not and start to think that there was something wrong with her. It’s what I would think, if it happened to me.

Shay didn’t arrive until the last minute. This was probably because no one had bothered speaking to her, or told her where to go. Including me. I told myself that it was because she looked so superior and, like, forbidding, but really it was because it had never occurred to me. Even if it had, I still wouldn’t have done it because I’d have thought to myself that I was too lowly and unimportant to go up and start talking.

“Here’s Miss High and Mighty,” hissed Karina. “D’you think she’s looking for her throne?”

She was looking for somewhere to sit. Her eyes flickered about the room, as they had before. And then, to my surprise and confusion, they came to rest on me. Next thing I know, she’s plonking herself down at the desk next to mine. She said, “Maths, yeah?”

I said, “Y-yeah.”

“My favourite subject, I don’t think!”

“Mine neither,” I said.

“Well, there you go,” said Shay. “That’s one thing we got in common.”

I was, like, really flattered when she said that. I couldn’t have imagined having anything in common with someone as bright and bold as Shay.

After maths we had PE, in the gym. PE was one of those lessons that I absolutely dreaded, the reason being I’m just so bad at it. Karina was every bit as bad as I was, which meant we usually spent our time skulking in the corner, trying not to be picked on, while people like the two Js barged madly about, swinging to and fro on the ends of ropes and hanging off the wall bars, shrieking. Today, Miss Southgate, our big beefy PE teacher, made us all jump over the horse thingy. Oh, I hate that! I really hate it!

I always end up bashing myself or going flump across the top and not being able to get over. And then everybody sniggers and Miss Southgate tells me to try again.

“And this time, take a real run at it!”

So I do, but it isn’t any use cos I still can’t get over. Most probably what I do is catch my foot in the edge of the coconut matting and go sprawling on my face.

And then my glasses fall off and I hear them go scrunch underneath me, and Miss Southgate sighs and says, “All right! Next person.” If the next person is Karina, she’ll go flump just like I did. But if it’s the two Js, they’ll go hurtling over with about ten metres to spare and land on their feet the other side.

Until now they’d always been the star performers when it came to PE; them and a girl called Carlie who was in Millie’s gang. They all belonged to the junior gym team and could bend themselves double and walk on their hands and balance without any signs of wobble on the parallel bars. Karina, in her sniffy way, said who’d want to?

“It’s just stupid! Just showing off.”

I didn’t say anything to Karina, cos she’d only have got the hump with me, but I’d have given anything to be able to show off. Sometimes I had these dreams of hanging at the top of a rope, right up near the ceiling, and everybody being madly impressed and going, “Look! Look at Ruth!” Unfortunately I’m scared of heights, so it wasn’t really very likely to happen. All I could do was watch, in a kind of awe. I wouldn’t have minded if I never got an A- again, if I could only have whizzed up a rope or done the splits, like Julia. Cos she was absolutely THE BEST, it has to be said.

Until now. I couldn’t believe it when Shay started up. She’d been doing her leaning thing, against the wall bars, silently observing everyone. And then it was her turn to run at the horse and she just, kind of, loped up to it, sailed over like it wasn’t even there, and did a somersault with a handspring on the other side to finish off.

Everyone gaped, including the two Js. Karina muttered, “Who’s she think she’s impressing?” but it wasn’t like Shay had done it to impress; more like it was just something that came naturally to her. “This is the way you jump over a horse.” I got the feeling she didn’t care one way or the other what anyone thought of her. She was Shay, and that was how she was, and they could take it or leave it. Which is the way that I’d love to be!

Afterwards, as we were leaving the gym, I heard Miss Southgate talking to her.

“Well,” she said, “it looks as if we have a new recruit for the gym team! How about it? Would you like to join us?”

To my utter astonishment, Shay shook her head and said no. I couldn’t believe it! How could she say no, just like that? To a teacher!

I could tell Miss Southgate wasn’t pleased. She said, “Well! That sounded pretty definite,” and her voice was all sharp and prickly. I thought Shay would apologise, but she didn’t: she didn’t say anything. I asked her later – I mean, like, weeks later – why she hadn’t wanted to join, and she just said, “Not worth it.” She was such a mystery!

That evening, after tea, I shut myself away in the kitchen to do my homework. The kitchen was the only place that was warm enough since the central heating had been turned off. Mum said we couldn’t afford to heat the whole flat, so now we just had it on in the front room, but I was allowed to have the oven on low in the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly quiet out there cos I could hear the television blaring in the next room, and the person in the flat that joined ours had music on, really loud, but I didn’t mind that so much as the way Sammy and the girls kept crashing in and out.

“We’re playing!” yelled Lisa.

When I complained to Mum she said that it was nice the girls played with their little brother, and then she sat herself down at the kitchen table to ring one of my nans on her mobile. They started to talk and I really couldn’t concentrate cos of listening to what they were saying. After a bit Mum put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Get Sammy off to bed for me, will you? There’s a good girl!”