Class of '19 (A Steps School AU)

19 - Lessons and Performances

Faye's point of view
Luckily for me, or alternatively unluckily for Lee, the following week it ended up raining really heavily on Tuesday and the school football practice he was meant to go to ended up cancelled. Which meant I got to teach him how to use a sewing machine. It was slightly awkward because I had to get Lisa to tie my hair up for me again, though this time into her favourite pigtails (or as they looked on my hair today just two giant balls of curly fluff) because my hair had got so wet it had basically exploded into an even bigger mess of curls than normal, as my shoulder still wasn't right (not helped by the fact that last night I'd been doing very intensive dance practice so I could try out for the top group in the summer so to be fair most of me ached and I really needed a nap). Sitting so close to Lee - to the extent that I was actually sat mostly off my chair and instead perched on the very edge of his - was never not going to end in humorous comments from H who was learning how to stitch something, it appeared to be buttons this week, from Lisa. He kept glancing over at us and when I wasn't talking to Lee he'd make a joke, which often got him told off by me or Lee or, when we were mature enough to ignore him, he got kicked under the table by Claire (who was patiently sewing up a hole in a tiny dress belonging to a teddy) or hit by Lisa. The way he was going he was going to have a lot of bruises, although I wasn't exactly innocent as far as abusing H went either. I'd already thrown an empty plastic bobbin at his head and I was really trying not to throw anything else.

It turns out Lee had known how to thread a sewing machine which was a good step, it was just everything else about them that didn't seem to have stuck in his brain. "Okay so first press the leaver on the back of where the needle is so the little foot pins the fabric down."
"That's common sense." He replied, as he then set the needle so it was in the fabric without me needing to prompt him.
"Right. Well so's all of this and you seem to have failed it all quite well before now." I laughed, grabbing his hand to remind him of the grazes on them. "Okay anyway next step, I've seen you drive a go-kart so you know how to gently use a foot peddle right... well thinking on it, I'm not sure gently would have been the best word I could have chosen there but you get it. And don't let go of the fabric." I told Lee.
He nodded, and very gently started a run of stitches. Just like you did in year 7 I'd given him a series of lines to sew, the first one straight and they got more and more curved and bendy as he went along the set. And he did well, his fabric didn't crumple, his thread didn't tangle, and every time his hand got near to the needle I'd remind him to move it, though by the end he was doing it on instinct.

"See that's not so bad is it?" I asked him as he completed a line of stitches without any pointers from me.
He looked at me and smiled. "I guess learning from you's not." He replied.
I blushed and looked away from him. "I... I meant the sewing machine." I replied.
"Oh... well that's not too bad either then."
I blushed even more and when it was all I could do not to hide my face in my hands, I excused myself from next to Lee to go outside for a minute in the hope that taking some time out in the cool afternoon rain would make me feel less warm, fuzzy and embarrassed. It didn't work all that well.

When we got on the bus home together (because if you stayed after school there was only one that went round the whole part of the town the five of us lived in), I insisted Lisa sat in between me and Lee because I was a little bit scared if we sat next to each other I'd do something irrational like ask him out. It didn't stop me looking over at him intermittently throughout the journey though.
"You like him. It's obvious." Claire whispered from next to me.
"What? No!" I replied. "I mean maybe... but..."
"Who wouldn't?" H teased.
I rolled my eyes, H was proving to be a right idiot when it came to Lee and I.
"You should ask him out." Claire said.
"Of all the things that are meant to be happening, that's not one." I told her.
She sighed, but thought better of pushing the matter.

The bus took forever to go round to the part of town Lee, Lisa and I lived in, so Claire and H on this occasion got off before us - because yes our school's late bus always took a different route round the estates at the top of town - and we got peace for a few minutes on the bus as a trio. Lee decided he really couldn't be bothered to stay on the bus any longer and got off at Lisa and I's stop instead of his because it wasn't raining so much and it wasn't like he lived really far from us (he probably only about 10 minutes walk from me, if that). So we'd walked Lisa home and had a group hug together by the benches right next to her house, then he'd walked me home because he had to walk past it anyway and he smiled at me and hugged me at the bottom of the garden path. I had to try my best to hide the grin and blush as I went into the house so my sisters didn't tease me too much.