Forbidden Lessons Part 2

"You don't look underweight. I don't want you getting that way though, so be careful. You can have a note today, but it won't be possible every Tuesday."

Laura thanked her.

"What about registering as vegetarian? Would your parents agree?" the nurse suggested.

It was an idea. Laura tried to think of meat dishes she would actually miss. Beyond cottage pie, there weren't many. "I'll write to them this evening." She wondered why she hadn't thought of it before.

Thanks to the note she could safely avoid the dining hall altogether, and so she decided to sit and read in a sunny spot overlooking the tennis courts. For some time she lost herself in Rebecca, one of the approved novels in the school library.

"Isn't it lunch time?" She heard a voice behind her and froze. It was him. He seemed even taller outdoors in the sun, his shoulders broad, forming his body into a triangle shape as it narrowed to his hips. He looked so strong. She wondered wildly what it would be like to be crushed in his arms.

"I have a sick note."

"Are you ill?" She realised there was actually concern in his voice, which made her feel embarra.s.sed, particularly given her very healthy train of thought.

"Actually no, but it's liver today." This time he raised his eyebrows fully, and for a moment she wondered if he would smile, but he didn't.

"I haven't yet experienced that delicacy."

"I hope you manage to enjoy it when you do," she said. He continued to look at her, his gaze inscrutable, and then - still unsmiling - he left.

"Where were you at lunch?" Charlotte demanded, as they went to the Maths cla.s.sroom.

"I managed to get a note."

"You're lucky you were looking pale before. It was even more of a struggle than usual, it really stank," Charlotte said.

"Actually Nurse guessed it was liver, but let me off anyway which was nice. She's suggested going vegetarian."

"That's still pretty awful you know. Very dull - grated cheddar one day, and a hard boiled egg the next. And you'd still be stuck with cabbage," Charlotte warned.

"At least I could eat that."

"If you did diabetes you could probably get off puddings too," said Margery. "But I think you'd need an actual doctor's note for that."

"And syringes and things." It wasn't a great idea.

The last lesson that day was Double Art - it was always two lessons back to back, due to the time taken setting up and clearing up. Margery hated art, but Charlotte and Laura regarded it more as fun than work.

Today they had to practice shading gradients with different hardnesses of pencil, then sketch a still life object from the art room. Laura chose a terracotta vase, made and abandoned by a long-ago sixth former. The Lower School didn't get to use either of the pottery wheels.

Mr Lanaway was in despair trying to help Margery. He was a very thin, pale man and a brilliant sculptor. Margery simply had no sense of light and shade. The fact that she despised art, considering it a waste of time that could be spent more profitably on academic subjects, didn't help either.

Having finished her sketch Laura wandered around the pottery room, looking at damp lumps of clay-in-progress under cloth on various trolleys. Cla.s.sroom discipline was quite different in Art, they were encouraged to explore what other people had been making. She saw that one cla.s.s - probably A-Level Ceramics - had been trying to sculpt human figures.

There was a huge block of clay on the table, ready for Mr Lanaway to cut up. It was solid, square and dark grey. Laura suddenly imagined pulling a form from it: sinewy shoulders, flat pectorals, a strong, well shaped neck. She wanted to make something she could touch.

"Sir, could you teach us how to sculpt this term?"

A lot of girls didn't like ceramics because of the sticky, muddy feel of clay, and getting it stuck under their fingernails. Art in terms of drawing or painting was considered less messy and physical. So it was an unusual delight for the art teacher to get such a request. Mr Lanaway was also delighted to find interest shown in his own area of talent.

"By all means. We'll start next week, those that are interested."

"Dear Diary, he stopped to talk to me today. Did he stay longer than he needed to? I feel like this must be all in my head, but it's as if there is no one else in the world when he's there. I have to get over this. There's the whole of the sixth form before me."

5. Lost in translation.

Charlotte was no fool. She knew she had put backs up through her new zeal for Latin and that it would be socially strategic to make amends.

She put her hand up in cla.s.s. "Sir, I was wondering if it might help bring our Caesar text to life if we visited the Welchester Roman Museum one day? Perhaps on a Sunday afternoon?"

Seeing the Latin teacher's expression start to open to the idea she fired the killer shot. "And of course it could be very useful to those of us thinking of doing Latin for A-Levels."

Fewer and fewer girls every year took Latin in the sixth form, much to Mr Tyrrell's despair. The prospect of having Charlotte and some of these other bright girls in his cla.s.s next year was the perfect carrot.

"I should think that would be a splendid idea!" he said. One of the girls in the back row m.u.f.fled a sn.i.g.g.e.r. Only Mr Tyrrell could get excited about a town museum.

What Mr Tyrrell didn't know but what Charlotte and every other girl was keenly aware of was that St Duncan's boys were taken to Welchester Museum nearly every weekend, as their school was in the same town. Even if there wasn't a contingent at the museum itself that day, there was a good chance of seeing some of the sixth form boys down at the shops.

"I'll see about getting the school coach for next weekend," he told them.

Charlotte's crown of popularity was restored.

"If only we could wear mufti," Laura sighed. The days they were allowed out of school in regular clothes were extremely rare. Francis Hall's school uniform, which was nearly head-to-toe maroon wool in the winter term, was not considered fetching by any of them.

"I'm going to borrow Mary Rudge's skirt," said Charlotte. Mary Rudge was the shortest girl in Michaelmas house.

"But she's half your height!" said Margery.

"Exactly. Her skirt will be above my knees, and if Gi-Gi or anyone else tries to get me to roll it down it won't be possible. I'll put it on it at the last minute so there's no time to change." Rolling skirts up at the waist was a popular way to shorten them but you could get a demerit point if you were unlucky.

"We can manage some make up too, if we put it on in the coach," Laura said. "Depending on who's coming to supervise, of course."

"It will probably be one of the teachers who can drive the coach if Jenkins is off," Margery pointed out. Jenkins was the school handyman who doubled up as a coach driver, but a few of the teaching staff also held bus licences.

"That's ok then, it's all the gimpy ones that do that. They never notice stuff like that. Nor will Tyrrell."

They had Double German that day which Laura had been waiting for all week. She had obsessed about her perfecting her homework while trying to conceal her efforts from the others. Mr Rydell was wearing a tie with grey stripes today that matched his eyes.

Laura had long ago learnt to suppress laughter by digging her nails into her thumbs. Getting a fit of the giggles in certain situations was a lethal route to detentions and other punishments, but sometimes it was hard to help it. Particularly when the choirmaster's toupee slipped while conducting a particularly vigorous anthem in chapel.

Now she used her nails to try and control her lurching stomach and the blushes she was certain kept coming to her face whenever she caught his eye. Which she was sure was more than normal, but was it because she kept looking at him too much? She tried to concentrate on staring down at her textbook.

Teresa Hubert had tried quite a different homework strategy to Laura. She had deliberately messed hers up so she could beg Mr Rydell for extra help. This met with short shrift.

"If you require more study time I can arrange it with your housemistress for Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and you can redo this week's exercises and give them to me on Monday," he told her.

Teresa looked horrified. This was practically a voluntary detention.

"No, I won't need that, I have enough time in the evenings," she said.

"Be sure you use it."

He turned away from her and started on the subject of German's compound nouns. The textbook gave some examples, and Mr Rydell wrote another couple of unfeasibly long examples on the blackboard which he a.s.sured them were genuine words.

Laura looked up. "Are they like Old English words?" she said.

He was surprised by this. "Are you studying Old English?"

"Mr Peters showed us some Anglo-Saxon verse at the end of last term."

"Those tend to be called kennings, they're used in a more figurative, poetic sense, but yes. German shares certain features with older forms of English than it does with more modern English." He smiled at her. It was the first time she had ever seen him smile, certainly at her, and it dazzled her. To keep herself focused she dug her nails into her thumbs so hard they nearly bled.

The Geography teacher Mrs Ayers loathed Michaelmas girls. Some years ago she had applied to be housemistress of what was considered to be the best house in the choicest location but had been turned down. She had later managed to secure the equivalent position at the smaller Whitsun House, but the rejection still rankled.

Woe betide any Michaelmas girls with lost garters or untidy hair around Mrs Ayers. Whilst she might show leniency towards Advent or Lammas girls and always turned the blindest of eyes to her own Whitsun inmates, anyone under Grace Grant's care could expect the full force of her venom in a slew of demerits. No wonder she was nicknamed "The Axe".

"Your socks are down - both of them. Double demerits!" she snapped at Charlotte when she pa.s.sed them in the courtyard.

"Oh come on, that's unfair, it's never more than one for both, they're not separate offences," Charlotte protested.

"Would you like a third demerit point for answering back?"

Charlotte had no choice but to bite her tongue. Three demerit points meant Sat.u.r.day detention, which meant no hockey matches. Which was not only disappointing but would bring the wrath of Miss Partridge upon her as well.

When the Geography teacher had finally gone the others offered their sympathy. "I'm almost surprised she didn't just give you the third," Laura said.

"I'm not. Giving someone three points in a single day, so that they get detention, might be scrutinised. It's pretty harsh. Gi-Gi might even protest it," Margery said.

"Still not worth the risk though. I absolutely have to play in the match against Everleigh College or Hubert will get my position as right wing and even keep it if she sucks up enough."

Laura had written to her parents but it would be a wait until their permission slip for her dietary change came through. Until then she was doomed to force down the foul school chow, doing her best to slip what she could to Charlotte. She had tried secreting something awful in her blazer pocket the other day which she had pre-lined with A4 paper.

But it leaked everywhere and she got a scolding from Matron, who ironically thought she was smuggling out extra food to eat later. "You finish your meal at the table and nowhere else. Snacking only makes girls fat."

Thank G.o.d for her tuckbox. Maybe she could try to replenish its stores in Welchester. She hoped a diet of predominantly Mars Bars wouldn't make her break out in acne.

"Dear Diary, he smiled at me today. Me and only me. It felt like the sun came out. Oh I wish we had German every day. I wish every single lesson was German. Why can't I be in the sixth form already, doing German for A-Levels? They get to see him daily, sometimes twice. Whereas I'm languishing on starvation rations."

6. In the rain.

It poured that afternoon: wet and grey and grim under a leaden sky. One of the staff had asked Laura to fetch a pile of books from one of the English cla.s.srooms at break-time, not realising it was raining so heavily. Laura obliged as you often got bonus points this way. These would help offset Mrs Ayers' endless demerits towards the overall House total.

As good luck or ill Fate would have it - she wasn't sure which, afterwards - she came back up around the corner to collide straight with The Axe. It was a pure accident - not helped by the rain in her hair and eyes - and Laura slipped up on the wet path and fell, with the books scattering. The dumpy Geography teacher maintained her own balance quite well. Less so her temper.

"You stupid girl!" she shrieked. "Why can't you look where you're going? You've bruised me and damaged all those books. A triple demerit and detention this Sat.u.r.day!"

Laura, whose knee was throbbing with pain, could only look up at her in misery.

"I think that may be unfairly harsh, it's wet and slippery and she was carrying a large load." It was Mr Rydell. Amid her shock, Laura braced herself for The Axe's fury. She would never suffer to be corrected by a newer and thus junior member of staff.

"She should look where she's going when carrying valuable school property. She crashed into me quite deliberately! These Michaelmas girls have no consideration or discipline."

"With respect, I witnessed what happened and it was a clear accident. I would be happy to make a report as such to the Head," he told her. He had lowered his voice as though he was only addressing the other teacher, but Laura could still hear. Realising her defeat, Mrs Ayers stormed off. "Now let's get out of the rain. Are you hurt?" he asked, turning to Laura.

"I'm fine." She clearly wasn't, her knee was grazed and bleeding. Her blood was mixing with the rain, streaking down her leg and making it look worse than it was.

"I expect you'll need to see the nurse for that. I'll carry the books for you. Where were you taking them?" Laura told him. "Very well." They picked them up together.

She turned to head towards the nurse's room, which was back in the direction of the English rooms.

Then he called after her.

"Laura?"

She turned back. "Yes sir?"

"I'd like to see you in my cla.s.sroom after lessons finish, if you have time before prep."

There was usually a break of around twenty minutes between cla.s.ses and first prep, when they did an hour of homework before supper.