The Yearbook Page 5

  “Oh, hi, Ms Gordon,” Amelia called.

  They clattered to a halt at her desk. She grinned and tweaked her fringe. “Oh, hey, girls. What can I do for you?”

  Amelia slapped a piece of paper on the desk. “Can you photocopy this for us? It’s for the yearbook.”

  Ms Gordon picked up the sheet. “Well, I’m…”

  “I reckon we need about fifty? For the whole school.”

  As far as I was aware, Ms Gordon was not a photocopier. Yes, there was a printer in the library that we paid five pence a sheet for photocopies. SHE didn’t photocopy for you. You were supposed to get a card and…well…

  “I guess I can take it out of the budget and…”

  “Fab,” Grace said brightly. Her hair was pulled into the perfect ponytail, crowned with a brown polka-dot headband. “The bell’s going in a few mins.”

  “Umm. Sure, okay. I’ll do it now.”

  My face scrunched up as I watched Ms Gordon head over to the photocopier. The distant hum and whir of the machine didn’t drown them out.

  “Have you noticed Chloe’s not been in today?” Amelia said.

  Grace laughed cruelly, tossing her ponytail back. “Oh God. The rabies has got to her.” They fell about laughing like the three witches cackling over a cauldron in Macbeth, and I wondered how Shakespeare knew about secondary school before it was even a thing.

  Ms Gordon returned with a stack of A4. “There you are, girls. Have you checked if it’s alright with the head to put them up?”

  “Oh yeah, sure,” Amelia said, with hardly any conviction.

  “Can we put one up here?” Grace asked.

  “Of course. Maybe on the door?”

  “Brilliant.” Amelia leaned over her desk and snapped off a piece of Sellotape. Then, without saying thank you or goodbye, out they went, as the warning bell jerked me from my chair.

  “Right, Paige. Off to lessons you go.” Ms Gordon shooed me with her hands. “Careful with your back carrying those books.” She winked at me like we were best mates.

  I couldn’t wink back. I shut the library door and stood still to collect myself before maths. Must be calm. Empty. Vacant. Push out the emotions. But curiosity got the better of me and I twisted to see the poster.

  REMEMBER THIS? it said, above a picture of a girl with glasses.

  AND THIS…? This time it was three girls laughing in a fountain.

  WHAT ELSE?

  We’re collecting photos for the Year 11 yearbook!!!!???!

  Please send your funniest/ugliest/most embarrassing and incriminating photos to school dropbox no. 22.

  Help us make our school days something we will never forget!!!!!!!

  Love, Grace, Amelia and Laura

  Yearbook committee

  xxxx

  I stared at the poster for one full minute. There was so much wrong with it, you could’ve analysed it in a psychologist’s office for several sessions.

  I mean, of course they’d put up a photograph of Lisa from Year Seven, when she wore those insane thick glasses and yellow anorak, and carried a plastic bag full of pitta bread around with her. It looked innocent enough, but it was a deliberate choice. Lisa’s swan-like transformation had been noticed by our whole school. She started Year Ten a completely different person. Glasses replaced with lenses to showcase big green eyes with fat lashes. Anorak replaced with biker jacket, rarely worn, all the better to showcase the body puberty had gifted her over summer. And no bags of pitta bread to be seen ever again. Instead she carried around the hearts and badly-timed erections of every boy in our year – shooting up the social ranks based on hotness alone. Grace and the Awfuls were forced not only to acknowledge her, but to accept her. Have her sit with them occasionally at their lunch table – pretending they were besties but then spreading it around that she was a slut. Lisa’s sluttiness was confirmed when she started dating Travis Williams, an Upper Sixth, dumping Grace and co, and leapfrogging over them into the sixth-form common room. Here was her punishment. Under the guise of a joke. Of course, they’d used a stunning photo of themselves as a juxtaposition. The three of them, soaking wet, on the school’s Year Eight trip to Disneyland Paris, after Joe had dared them to jump into the water fountain.

  Help us make our school days something we will never forget.

  I fought the urge to rip the poster down. Most people would love to forget their school days because of students like them.

  I made my way to maths under the weight of my book-laden bag, head down, weaving out of everybody’s way. I passed another poster carelessly stuck on a locker and fought another destructive urge.

  I slunk into class just in time. My bag thunked as it hit the carpet, but not loud enough to drown out the cascade of whispered rumours started by the Awfuls the day before.

  “Did you hear about Chloe?” Guy, one of the music people, asked his friend, laughing.

  “That she has rabies? I know. Hilarious.”

  “I didn’t even know you could get it from a hamster.”

  “Dude, I kissed her at the dance last year. Do I have it too?”

  They burst into macho waheys of laughter, before Mr Sanders clapped us to attention and tried to make us care about simultaneous equations. My pencil snapped against my equation. Such a stupid rumour. But its stupidity didn’t make it any less painful. It didn’t matter if it was one old picture, or a silly rumour, or a detention that everyone really knew wasn’t your fault. It was the mindlessness of the cruelty I couldn’t handle. They hurt you because they could. For minor entertainment. A small suck of power to carry them through till the end of the day, certain they’d be able to get another hit from someone else tomorrow. They were like vampires and no one dared to slay them, no one held garlic up to their cruelty, no one threw open the curtains to watch them wither under the light of the truth of what they were really like. And it wasn’t like I was going to do it. Because, just like everyone else at the school, I was scared of them… I hated them, but I was scared of them. In fact, when I watched someone like Chloe suffer, my instant response wasn’t anger, but relief. Relief it wasn’t my turn. Not my day ruined, reputation ruined. Someone else had unwillingly taken the bullet for me.

  If you’re not scared, then it’s not courage.

  I sat and steeped in the humiliation of my cowardice, like a teabag brewing in a yellow-bellied mug. I could solve simultaneous equations okay but I couldn’t solve how school made me feel. Terrified and tragic at the same time. Yes, I wrote stories for the paper, but it was always safe stories about uncontroversial things like fundraising concerts or canteen food. I never actually held anyone truly to account.

  You do, at least, note it down, I reminded myself. In my notepads.

  That night, after I saw my Aunt Polly, I would get out my book and I would write it down.

  It wouldn’t be forgotten, I soothed myself. I had recorded it. Everything they’d ever done, I’d recorded it. But then again, maybe it would be forgotten? Because, really, what was I ever going to do with those notepads, when I was always so scared?

  My Aunty Polly greeted me with a giant smash of a hug. “Come on in. It’s so weirdly hot today. I have a fan! I bought one for the cats.”

  “Not for yourself?” I joked. A sense of humour was something I only got to express once a week. Polly was my mum’s sister and the opposite to her in every way. Independent, warm, interested, fearless, and she seemed to genuinely care for me. As a result, huge hidden parts of my personality unravelled themselves over our weekly dinners. I probably used ninety per cent of my spoken words at her house, over cups of tea, unconditional love, and the warmth of a Keanu-Reeves-themed cat on my lap.

  “Neo is a big fan of the fan, bless him.” She led me through to the back conservatory, past her “hallway of fame”, decorated with framed photos of all the weird and wonderful adventures she’d had. It was even hotter inside – not like October at all – with Wick, her ginger cat, dozing happily in front of her new purchase.

  “Sit yourself down. It’s a Dyson fan. I KNOW. Fancy-pants. Nothing but the best for the children. Right, tea? Bickies? Why am I even asking? Coming right up.”

  I dumped my heavy bag and took up residence in front of the cool air. I squealed as Ted, a tabby (and her secret favourite) jumped on my lap without announcement. He circled for a second, using my school skirt to sharpen his claws, then settled. His purring lulled me out of my bad mood and I was smiling and mellow when Polly returned with a laden tray.

  “Ha, he’s found you.” She plopped it down on the table and handed over my cup. “I love that he’s napping NOW when he was up at four a.m, howling outside my door like a furry lunatic.” She took her own mug, with a photo on it of her jumping off the top of a waterfall in Thailand.

  I gratefully sipped the tea. “His body is already creating a furnace on my lap.”

  “Push him off whenever you want. You know what cats are like, they respect you more the more aloof you are.” She took a slurp of her drink. “How are you anyway, Paigey? How was school?”

  “It was school.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “It’s okay. It’s just…ergh…you know I’m on the paper?”

  She nodded through the steam of her tea.

  “Well, Ms Gordon just let these horrid popular girls completely hijack us out of the blue to help them make the Year Eleven yearbook. They’re awful people, and now I have to work with them all year.”

  Polly’s face scrunched up. “Why would it take a whole year to make a yearbook? Surely you just shove in the Year Eleven headshots and some disgusting inspirational quotes.”

  “Not this year. This year they want to make it a yearbook to remember.”

  She threw her arms up at that. “What’s there that anyone WANTS to remem
ber? It’s more about what you wish you could forget.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Paigey. That sucks.”

  “It’s okay. Well, it’s not, but it’s school. What else should I expect?”

  She grinned. “The fact that you hate school is a brilliant indicator you’re going to turn out marvellously. Just look at me. Hated it. Worst five years of my life, and I’ve had freakin’ breast cancer.”

  I laughed, dislodging Ted, who let out a yelp and leaped down off my lap. “Surely that was worse than school?”

  She shrugged, smiling. “I dunno. I mean, I didn’t have to do PE lessons on the chemo ward. Or algebra. Or go to any stupid assemblies. Or get called a ‘dyke’ at least once a day.”

  “Sounds like a blast.”

  “Well, that’s what chemo is, isn’t it? A big blast of chemicals.”

  We both laughed, though mine was a little forced. Polly may’ve been the most cheerful cancer patient the world had ever known but, for me, it was the worst time in my life. Ruby had gone only two months before. And Mum and Dad fought non-stop about Mum needing to go to the hospital.

  “She’s got no one else, Glynn.”

  “She should’ve thought of that before she made all her wacky lifestyle choices.”

  “I can’t let her get the bus back from hospital.”

  “I don’t see why not…”

  And crossed arms and crying and silent treatment and Dad acting like he was the one with cancer, not Polly. And Mum being torn, and me being terrified, and Adam attempting to be peacekeeper. Finally it was Golden Boy who convinced Dad his wife should perhaps care for her potentially-dying sister. I’d had to stay quiet throughout, knowing if I took Mum’s side, Dad would dig in even more.

  “So, are you going to do it?” Polly asked, offering me my third chocolate Hobnob.

  “It didn’t occur to me that I could say no.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “That’s the impact those sorts of people can have. But you can always say no, you know that, right?”

  “I guess…” I watched Ted rotate on the floorboards, figuring out which comfortable surface to sit himself on next. I could’ve said no. But that would’ve meant drawing attention to myself. Nobody notices you more than when you’re saying “no” to them.

  Polly examined me and smiled. “Sorry, I should stop trying to make you into a mini-me.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She laughed widely. “You always apologize in response to somebody else’s apology. Your mother always used to as well. Still does probably…” She let out a sigh and stared out at the unusually-summery day. “Maybe you should chat to your mum about school?” she suggested delicately, as she always did whenever she mentioned Mum. “They were the best days of her life, or so she says.”

  “She still says that a lot.”

  “Well, it might be good to get a different insight on it, rather than from Ms Bitter over here?”

  “Maybe.” I reached out to stroke Wick’s ginger fur before my mind went again to my vandalized copy of To Kill A Mockingbird.

  “Polly?” I asked.

  “Yup?”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  She grinned over the rim of her drink. “What do you mean?”

  “Like in general? In life? You’re an adult. Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing?”

  She burst out into her trademark cackle. “Oh my God, what a question.”

  “Well, do you?” I stopped stroking Wick and he pushed his head into my hand.

  “Of course I don’t. No one does. Not really. I manage though. I’ve got my charity, haven’t I? My mates. My holidays. My cats.” Her eyebrows drew downwards. “Your parents? Your dad. Is he…”

  “Oh, no no. He’s fine,” I said frantically. “They’re both fine. It was just something somebody said at school, that’s all.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That the end of childhood is when you realize adults don’t really know what they’re doing.”

  The glass conservatory wobbled in its panes as she let out another huge cackle. “That’s very profound from a teenager. Who said that?”

  “Umm…someone from my English class.”

  “Well I’m glad you’ve found someone at school you click with. I know it’s been hard after Ruby…” She sensed me clam up. “But, yes, I guess there is something in that. Growing up is great too, though. Painful sometimes, but generally better.”

  We slurped at our tea in companionable silence, breaking it only to make inane comments on the weather, or to ask who wanted the last biscuit. My heart was still pounding from Polly asking about Dad. One of our unspoken rules was never to talk about my parents’ marriage. It hung in the air at all times but we never addressed it. I couldn’t tell if she just assumed things were fine, as so many people did, or if she just wanted me to have some time where I didn’t have to think about it.

  Polly popped a lasagne in the oven and the whole house started smelling of bubbling cheese. We ate it comfortably in front of a movie. The Matrix – her choice.

  “Look, baby, it’s you,” she said to Neo, plucking him off the carpet. She swung him through the air before he yowled and twisted out of her arms, running from the room.

  I laughed and my whole body laughed with me.

  “You want more lasagne?”

  “Please.”

  She picked up my plate. “Coming right up. Hang on, let me just watch him storm this building.”

  We ate seconds and then thirds as Keanu blew up multiple things while dressed in black leather.

  By the time she drove me home, I felt new again. Like I’d had a gulp of oxygenated air before stepping back into toxic fumes. My bag felt heavy with books filled with red pen, my body with lasagne belly. I leaned my head against the window and, when Polly was concentrating on driving, I wrote an invisible message with my finger in backwards writing.

  I exist.

  The words would stay dormant until the next time it rained and the windows steamed up. My mark on the world hidden from view, a secret silent scream, but it was better than nothing.

  “Polly?”

  She turned the radio down. “Yep?”

  “Is it possible to feel connected to someone you’ve never met before?”

  “You’re too young to be going on dating apps.”

  I laughed. “No. I’m not doing that. I’m just…” I didn’t know how to explain it. “I just…have you ever felt like you’re really going to get on with someone you’ve never met? Like…er…” I reached for an old-fashioned way of explaining it. “…a pen pal?”

  “How the hell do you know the term pen pal?”

  “Mum had one when she was younger. She talks about her sometimes. Some French girl, called Gert.”

  Polly whacked both hands on the steering wheel. “Oh my God, GERT. I’d totally forgotten about Gert.”

  “They never met, did they?”

  She indicated left to the end of our road. “No, they didn’t. Your mum was going to go over the summer after exams, I think. They’d been writing for years. God, I was jealous. I kept trying to make my friends be my pen pals, which makes no sense as we saw each other at Scouts every Friday… But yeah, they wrote for years and planned this big meet. But then she got with your dad in Year Eleven…” There was never any need to explain anything else beyond that sentence. “But I’ve made friends with people I didn’t know online. I mean, I met Gillian in a Keanu chat room. Why? Have you got a pen pal?”

  I shook my head, smiling. “No. No one writes letters any more.”

  “God, that’s depressing.”

  We ground to a halt outside my house and stopped talking. If Polly stayed chatting to me too long outside, Dad would notice the car and complain about the noise of the engine, and how rude it was she hadn’t come inside to say hello. But, if she did come in, that was rude too, because you can’t just drop in on people like that.

  “It was lovely to see you as always.” Polly pulled up the handbrake so she could lean over and give me a hug. “Sorry, I would come in, but, er, I need an early night. Big breakfast meeting tomorrow and everything. It’s very hard being such an important CEO.”

  I nodded and played along. “Yup. Those cats won’t protect themselves.”