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And sure enough...
He was the cause of the noise.
He had his head buried in his arms on the desk, and the white wires of earphones could be seen coming out of his ears.
Frustration boiled inside of me. What was this kid’s problem? Jesus! Did Mummy and Daddy drag him away from America and he was trying to punish them by being a total dipshit at school?
Boo-hoo!
At least they hadn’t left him there. I’m pretty sure my parents would have left me if they flitted countries. And hey, let’s not rule the possibility out. There was still time for total and complete abandonment.
Scowling, I looked up at Ms. Baker to find she was doing the same. Her hands flew to her hips. “Mr. King.”
Nothing.
Of course not.
His music was too loud.
Our teacher turned her attention to Tobias’s neighbor, Becky Ford. “Miss Ford, could you please nudge Mr. King?”
Becky looked like she was wishing she’d sat anywhere else as she gently nudged him. He didn’t budge.
“Harder, Becky.”
She shoved him.
Tobias’s head flew up, whipping around to glare at her.
Becky glared back and pointed to the front of the room.
Confused, he followed her direction. Upon realizing he’d been caught, he stared blandly at Ms. Baker, who mimicked taking earphones out of her ears. Rolling his eyes, Tobias did her bidding.
“What’s up?” he said.
I thought Ms. Baker’s head was going to explode. Instead she held out her hand. “Give me that.”
“Give you what?”
“Whatever device you’re using to listen to music while you’re in my class.”
“It’s my phone.” Tobias shook his head. “No way am I giving you my phone.”
I swallowed a gasp. His attitude was the kind I’d expected to put up with in years one to three. But in fifth year, I was in classes with other driven people who needed good grades to achieve whatever their future ambitions were. I did not expect to have to put up with this crap from someone in my class, and I was sure Ms. Baker was thinking the same thing.
“I don’t know how things are done in the US of A, Tobias, but here, when a teacher confiscates something from a pupil for good reason, that pupil does not refuse.”
“This one is.”
The class shifted collectively in their seats.
“If you don’t hand over your phone, you can just get up out of that seat and walk yourself to Mr. Jenkins’s office.”
“And who the hell is that?”
Really?
Attracted to that? I thought to myself.
“Mr. Jenkins is an assistant rector here, and watch your language.”
“Assistant rectum? That’s an unfortunate job title.”
Someone snickered at the back of the room.
“I’m sure you’ve already been made aware of this, Tobias, but rector is our term for principal. An assistant rector is a vice principal. Perhaps you understand how much trouble you’re in now.”
“Whatever.” Tobias stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. “Just point the way.”
Ms. Baker marched toward the classroom door to open it for him, and the door happened to be in front of my desk. She stopped him at the door and gave him directions to Mr. Jenkins’s office.
“And Tobias,” she said quietly, but I was right there, so I heard every word, “despite your grades and test scores, you will not last in my class with this attitude. If you’d like to remain in Higher Mathematics, you better rethink your behavior. Do you understand?”
His answer was to salute her and stride out the door.
Ms. Baker stared after him, looking concerned and peeved at the same time.
Finally, she slammed the door closed and continued with class as if nothing had happened.
* * *
“What are the plans for the weekend, then?” Steph said as she sat down at our table in the cafeteria. Despite the fact Vicki and Steph both had friends outside of our circle, only the three of us ate together at lunch. I had a feeling this was deliberate on their part and for my socially awkward benefit. Either that or I embarrassed them. Neither reason made me feel great about myself.
The cafeteria was the hub of the school. Glass doors ran along either side of it, but could only be accessed from inside. A massive staircase spiraled into the center of the cafeteria and led to the upper floor classrooms like English. Ground-floor classrooms were dedicated to subjects like Home Economics, Graphic Communication, Engineering, Chemistry, Biology and Physics.
At one end of the cafeteria was the lunch counter, where our lunch ladies and gentlemen provided okay meals. A new health program had been instituted in the school so, along with burgers and chips, we had fresh salads and soups.
There were never any burgers left, but there was always plenty of salad.
At the opposite end of the room were vending machines—soft drinks, water, chocolate bars, packets of crisps. And along from them, pool tables. I didn’t know who’d had the bright idea to give us the luxury of pool tables in the cafeteria but I wasn’t sure how long that luxury would last.
Tobias, Stevie and their crew were playing on one table while their dinner plates were scattered over the other.
“Earth to Comet?” Steph waved a hand in front of my face.
I jerked my gaze away from Tobias and tried not to blush.
I failed.
“What were you staring at?” she frowned and glanced over her shoulder.
Vicki saved me. “The idiots at the pool table.”
There was a loud hoot from the boys, and Stevie playfully shoved Tobias as they all laughed.
Steph rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised they’ve even lasted the week. Stevie got kicked out of two of my classes.”
“The new guy got kicked out of one of mine,” I offered.
“Why even bother coming to school?” Vicki wondered.
“To wind up the teachers and piss the rest of us off.” Steph shrugged. “Anyway, this weekend?”
“My parents left yesterday for a long weekend in Montpellier.”
Both my friends’ heads jerked up from their plates. “Seriously?” Steph said, sounding excited about it in a way I didn’t understand.
I nodded cautiously.
They looked at each other and grinned.
“Okay, what’s with the evil mastermind smiles?”
“Party at Caldwell’s,” Steph explained.
My stomach dropped at the thought. “No.”
Their expressions fell.
“No way.” I shook my head. “My parents would kill me.”
“It’s not like you owe them anything, Comet,” Steph grumbled. “They practically ignore you.”
That stung but I didn’t let it show. “Actually, I’m pretty certain I owe them my existence. An existence they would snuff out if I let strange teenagers into the home where they work. You know...expensive artwork and unfinished manuscripts lying around.”
Vicki slumped. “She’s right.”
“Oh come on,” Steph huffed. “That house is perfect for a party. It’s a mess, stuck in some time warp. The only reason it’s even clean is because Kyle is obsessive about cleaning it.”
Irritation flexed its muscles within me, curling my fingers tight around the bottle of water in my left hand. “Are you trying to say I’m filthy? Unclean?”
Steph’s eyes widened at my unfamiliar tone. I rarely got pissed off with my friends. Correction: I rarely revealed when I was pissed off with my friends. “No, I didn’t mean that. God, Comet, I’m sorry. You know I say stuff without thinking.”
“No, you say mean stuff when you don’t get your way.”
Vicki’s jaw dropped and I couldn’t work out if that was horror, amusement or respect in her eyes or even a mixture of all three. Steph flushed.
An awful silence fell over our table.
We stared at anything but each other as the noise of the cafeteria faded into the background. The impulse to apologize, to make things all right, clambered up my throat, and the determined stubbornness within me tried to stop it. However, the truth was my friend had apologized, and it just made me an ungracious arsehole to not accept it.
“I’m sorry.” My gaze flitted to Steph, who looked ready to cry. “You apologized. It was mean of me not to accept it.”
My friend looked up at me in relief and gave me a tremulous smile.
“Phew!” Vicki relaxed back in her chair. “Okay, now that’s done with, back to this weekend. Before you say anything, Comet, I get it. We can’t have a party while your parents are away. But we could have a sleepover and not tell our parents your parents are away. Instead we could go hang out with Jordan and his friends.”
Jordan as in Jordan Hall? The nineteen-year-old almost boy next door Vicki had been crushing on for two years? I raised an eyebrow and she laughed. “We ran into each other this morning, and he mentioned his friend was having a party on Saturday and I should come.”
Steph’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “Oh my God. Oh my God!” She squealed and reached across to squeeze Vicki’s arm in excitement. And then she swung her gaze back to me. “Comet, come on! We have to do this for Vicki.”
I didn’t want to hang out with a bunch of college boys.
I didn’t want to go to a party where no one knew me and wouldn’t care to know me.
I wanted my friends to just sleep over at my house so I wouldn’t be alone the entire weekend.
No doubt seeing the thought in my eyes, Vicki’s expression fell, disappointment clouding her features. She gazed at me in reproach, as if to say, You promised you’d try. And I had promised, hadn’t I?
Feeling angry butterflies at the thought, I nodded. “Sure. Let’s do it.”
While Steph practically bounced in her seat with excitement, Vicki’s disappointment melted into gratitude. “Thank you.”
I smiled in return, but inside I was already dreading this weekend more than I dreaded end-of-term exams.
* * *
When the girls asked me if I wanted to hang out with them after school the plan had always been to lie and tell them I had a dentist appointment. Before lunch I would have felt bad about the lie, but after stewing over our conversation in the cafeteria I didn’t feel guilty about heading into the city without them. Being corralled into doing something I didn’t want to—being made to feel guilty for not wanting to go to some party with strangers—made me feel resentful. It also made me feel even more insecure than normal. While most days I could argue that wanting to live inside the world of books more than I wanted to live in the real world was perfectly rational considering how boring and sad my life was, there were days like today when I couldn’t. Because Vicki and Steph made it seem like it wasn’t normal. And maybe they were right.
Maybe there was something wrong with me.
Maybe I really was a weirdo.
Good thing I was going to the one place I didn’t feel that way.
After school I hurried home and changed out of my uniform, and then I caught the bus from Portobello High Street in the center of town. It took me into the city, to Edinburgh University, and from there I walked to Tollcross where my favorite café was. Pan was this almost ludicrously hipster café for poets and artists. There was a mishmash of murals painted on the walls, and a gallimaufry of furniture, including tables and chairs, sofas, armchairs and beanbags. Rugs of all sizes and colors had been thrown across the scuffed hardwood floors, and the café counter was discernible as such only because of the coffee machine behind it and the cake stands on it. At the far end of the room a small stage with a mic awaited poets and musicians. While I ordered my usual—a hot chocolate with whipped cream on top—a young guy, around college age, was onstage reading a poem from the crumpled piece of paper in his hand.
Taking a seat at the back of the room, loving how no one here paid attention to me or my ruby-red Dorothy shoes, I took a sip of my hot chocolate and listened. The guy’s voice trembled and his hands shook, but it was hard to tell if it was from nerves or because of the subject of his poem.
“It was like a knife of white heat
Plunged into my chest
Exploding in a myriad of pain and anger.
Like a long lost letter unopened,
Its pages waiting to bring
