“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