Long Tall Sally

Got To Get You Into My Life

Julia's face lit up. "What? Are you serious?"

I nodded back.

"He's gorgeous! Where can I find a Paul McCartney?" She laughed, as did I. Julia could always make me feel better.

"Good morning class. I trust you're all ready." The teacher gave Paul a deathly glare and he sunk into his chair a bit. "I'm Hugh and I'll be your English teacher for the year." English was always Julia and I's favourite class. I didn't think I'd enjoy it with this guy so much though. "As it is autumn and Halloween dawns close, I've decided to choose Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as the book we are going to study this term."

My face lit up again and Julia smiled at me. Everyone was given a copy of the book, even though I already owned two at home.

The next hour or so of the class went by quickly, we read the book together chapter by chapter, stopping every now and then to analyse quotes. Julia spoke as the part of Mina and a geek who I didn't catch the name of spoke as Jonathan. Every time he spoke, Julia glared at him knowing that even a fictional character wouldn't date him. The girl who looked exactly like the popular ones from school who introduced herself as Cindy Wheeler voiced Lucy, again much to Julia's disgust given that she hated Cindy already. I sat quietly the whole time. I was so induced by "Dracula", I forgot I was even in the classroom. I forgot about Paul McCartney the teddy boy sitting behind me. I was soon broken of my trance by a folded up piece of lined A4 glided onto my desk. It was Julia. We'd been passing notes since we started high school; we considered ourselves "masters of disguise." I unfolded it:

Paul is staring at you. Julia xxx

My cheeks flushed and my eyes widened. Julia had to be messing with me. She liked playing a joke and when she had a serious moment, nobody could believe her. It was something about the way she scribbled it, almost as though she did it so fast in fear that he'd look away if she waited. I turned around and she was right. Paul sat at his desk, his copy of "Dracula" being kept open by his soft hand and his eyes, fixated on me. We made eye contact for a moment before he winked at me then looked back down at his book again and began to scribble some notes. I wrote back to Julia:

Oh my god, he was! But why? Sally xx

He must like you xx

Julia couldn't be right. Why would an interesting, handsome teddyboy like Paul like a plain, average looking girl like me? He was probably looking at me and thinking 'well, looks like she made it here in one piece.' I wrote back to Julia:

No he doesn't! xx

You should talk to him xxx

All I could think was, is she out of her mind? He literally knocked me off my feet this morning, I couldn't talk to him. I threw the paper on Julia's desk.

"Is there a problem Miss Doyle?" Hugh asked from behind his desk.

"No, sir." I said, quietly. Sniggers circled the classroom.

He turned to face Julia. "Do you have anything to say Miss Matthews?"

"No, sir." Julia still spoke loud and clear.

"Good." Hugh nodded as he got up from his desk and took his place in front of the blackboard. "Now class, after further analysing Jonathan's description of the Castle, what does it tell us about..."

Hugh continued to talk and a few nerds at the front answered his questions. I started to write down the answers from the board into my notebook as another piece of paper slid onto my desk. I reluctantly unfolded it. It was from Julia, of course.

You're the one who told me to speak to the other one. Julia xxx

I hate to admit it but Julia had a point. I did encourage her to speak to the other one and I would be such a hypocrite if I didn't talk to Paul. Plus, I knew if I didn't talk to Paul then she would never speak to the teddyboy from this morning and they would just watch each other forever. I didn't want to talk to her cause I didn't want to be confronted about this. I could feel her smug smile beside me even though I didn't look at her.

"Well class," Hugh looked at his watch, "feel free to start packing up and head off to your next class."

The whole class let out a sigh of relief and began to frantically pack their bags. They made no efforts to disguise their happiness. I was the only person who appeared to be patient with that class. I felt content, as I always do when I read. I probably liked it so much cause "Dracula" was my favourite book. Julia and I were only halfway through packing up when Paul strode past us with his bag. He turned around and smiled at me then he walked into the hall, blending in with the hundreds of others.

"Am I right or am I right?" Julia said with her hands on her hips.

I laughed her off, not wanting to be confronted about it. We both had maths class next but Julia was a level higher than me. I was one of the people who was better at English than maths. Whereas Julia was one of the very rare lucky people who are good at both. I walked into the plain white classroom, exactly like the last one and took a seat at the back. There were very few teddyboys in maths class. I kept my head down and studied the whole lesson. No matter how much I focused on equations and Pythagoras Theorem, I couldn't get my mind of Paul McCartney. I spent the whole lesson dreaming about Paul and counting down the minutes to lunch.

Eventually, the lecturer who introduced herself as Hayley dismissed our class. I met Julia in front of the steps going down to the canteen. We got food and started to talk about our day so far.

"How was maths?" I asked Julia, eating one of my chips.

"It was okay, difficult. Paul is in my class!" Julia smiled to me.

"Really!?" I grinned at her brightly. "What was he like?"

"Well, he sat on the opposite side of the classroom from me. He just did his work and kept himself to himself. He didn't even look at me." Julia laughed. This was strange. Usually it was Julia who guys who couldn't keep their eyes off and I was 'the funny one'. Julia took a sip of her juice. "Also, speaking about Paul and teddyboys, I was speaking to a girl in my maths class, she told me that all the teddyboys go to the Casbah Coffee Club after college."

"Is that the one on Hayman's Green?" I took a sip of my juice, skeptical of what Julia was saying.

"Yeah. Its not that far from here and it might be where the guys we like go. If not there'll be some other nice ones!" Julia laughed, smiling suggestively. I laughed too.

I thought seriously about what Julia said. I was somewhat drawn to Paul and any chance of seeing him made anything worth it.

"Right I'll go." Julia clapped.

"What's your last class?" Julia asked.

"Human biology."

"Great, I'm in that class!" I was more than relieved to hear that.

We arranged to go straight to the Casbah from college. Before we went up to class, I joined Julia outside while she had a cigarette. She straight away looked to where her crush stood his morning and he was there again. Except this time, there were even more teddyboys with him. Paul stood beside him. Paul and Julia's favourite waved to us and I waved back, blushing. It looked as though Paul was explaining to a younger boy beside him who I was. His friend was pretty attractive too, he was a lot slimmer than Paul. He wore a leather jacket and drainpipe trousers, just like all the others. He had a very toothy smile.

Knowing that Paul was friends with the other teddyboys made me worried. The boy who Julia liked seemed nice but what about the others? Teddyboys had a reputation and I worried Paul was like the rest. I knew that would be on my mind until we got to the Casbah. I had to know. I had to get Paul into my life.

With that, Julia and I walked to our next class, counting down the minutes till the end of the day.