St. Mallory's Forever!

9. HELEN: The Odd Habits Of Teachers

Well, biology was a wash-out. The proper teacher was pulling a fast one and had taken the day off, and the replacement, poor old biddy, didn't have a clue, so we just sat there twiddling our thumbs.

Music was a breeze. Well, for me, anyway. Not sure Mum enjoyed it, and I know for sure no-one else did. Well, apart from Xuan.

After music was over I hung out with Mum through break, since I didn't really fancy spending twenty minutes with Abby. I mean, she seemed all right and all that, and she'd tried her best to be nice, but she really didn't know how to talk to normal folk, did she? I mean, get this. heard her and her friends wittering on about Shakespeare.

O. M. G.

All I've ever learned about him was in Year 7 Drama – I was Puck for a whole three lessons. "Lord, what fools these mortals be." See, am I cultured, or what?

I know we have to do Shakespeare for GCSE. But I'm really not looking forward to it.

Anyway, back to the music room. Mum was sorting through a storage box full of sheet music while I inspected the instruments. Mum looked up at me and let out one of those sighs that meant she was going to talk and I should listen and sympathise. I hoped it wasn't about Dad. Or the school.

"I thought these kids were supposed to be good at music?" Mum opened, absently flicking through some sheet music. "I cannot believe some of them had never heard of Tchaikovsky."

Phew. Not about Dad. But I guess you knew that already, unless you don't know who Tchaikovsky is either.

"Not everyone's lucky enough to have the world's best music teacher for a mum," I said. And actually I did mean it, though I only said it because Mum had had such a hard time with the girls. I mean, Mum asked me just about every single blooming question. Thanks. Just because you know my name, and you know I know the answers because I read them on the way up here.

"They'll probably recognise the tunes when they hear them," I said, without much conviction. I'd glimpsed the note Abby had scrawled to a friend – who the hell is this Chykovski bloke anyway? – and I knew we were in for a tough time.

"I expected better from a private school," Mum was saying. "God knows what their previous teacher was doing with them, but it certainly wasn't instructing them in music appreciation."

"Give them a chance," I heard myself saying. Fast rewind! What? I'm defending them? This was the perfect moment to ram home to Mum how much I hate it here and maybe get back to London. Instead I picked up an oboe and played part of the solo from the Second Movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. And suddenly St. Mallory's wasn't quite so bad after all.

"Yeah, but they chose Music," Mum said as I finished, acknowledging my virtuoso performance with a polite handclap. "They didn't have to take it."

"For most kids it's Music or Art. And no one wants to get caught up in acrylic paint and mod roc, not when the skirts cost as much as this." I sighed, taking comfort from a bassoon and a cor anglais, one in each hand as I debated which one to try out first. Seriously, the woodwind range in this school alone was worth whatever it was they charged. And I knew there was a ton more instruments in the back room. "They probably thought music would be an easy ride," I said.

"Then they've got another think coming," Mum said firmly. "My salary here is almost twice what I was getting at the Chaucer and I intend to earn every penny. I've taught kids music in some of the toughest schools in the country. They won't scare me off the way they did the last music teacher."

"Scare him off?"

"Her off," Mum said. "Apparently they drove Mrs. Walters doo-lalley and she just never came back. But that's strictly between you and I, Hels," she added, a stern glare warning me she'd said more than she'd intended.

Of course I was desperate to know more, but a glance at the clock told me I had to somehow find my way to the other Science block, which not only appeared to be separate from the Biology Lab, but on the other side of the campus.

There's one very important truth about schools, and that's that the maps they give you are useless. I know I've mentioned this before, but it's soooo right! At every place I've been I've ended up looking like a year seven – sorry, Lower Fourth – because I've been standing there with the map upside down trying to work out where I'm going.

"Mum?" I said, just before I left. "That man at the window, who was he?" Mum knows him, I know she does, because she just went pale.

"You don't want to be late for your next lesson," Mum said in that voice. You know the one. Conversation over. Wherever you are going next, just go.

I went.

But it took me so long to get to the other side of the school that what do you know, I ended up sitting next to Abby again. Xuan had been carted off for an ESL lesson, and Abby had kept a place especially for me and called me across as soon as I opened the door.

So what was I supposed to do? Ignore her and sit somewhere else?

I think they must have assigned Abby to be my "buddy" or something. At least, Abby seemed to think they had, since she immediately started explaining all the equipment to me.

Er, hello? Earth calling Abby Posh Girl. We do have science labs in comprehensive schools, you know? But I just nod my head as Abby drones on. Admittedly the Chaucer science lab was nothing like this one, which is probably pretty cool if physics rocks your boat. But I'm still trying to work out why they have separate lessons for each science. Apparently there's a Chemistry lab somewhere too. I mean, what's all that about? It's all just science, right? I hope we're not going to be given separate exams or anything silly like that.

But I refuse point blank to ask Abby. The last thing I want if for her to feel I need her. And O.M.G., now she's only telling what a Bunsen can do. I'm sorry, that's it. I've had enough.

"Thanks," I said, "but I know a Bunsen burner when I see one. Even grotty London comprehensive schools have Bunsen burners, you know."

That made her blush. I began to keep a tally of all the times I managed to annoy her throughout the lesson.

Okay, so that was slightly mean But it was incredibly funny watching Abby get more and more het up, and exclaiming what she must have thought were insults in this long-suffering posh voice, and all the time I was just cracking up inside because she sounded so stupid. Abby couldn't insult Yoda's backside if it was right in front of her. If she'd been at my old school for even an hour, she'd have been lost in the other kids' rich and varied vocabularies of four-letter words.

At the end of the lesson, by when I'd managed to trick Abby into making a right fool of herself, a ploy we used to reserve for new teachers at Chaucer, I went up and apologised. I mean, this place is getting to me. I was out of order. But Abby just smiled at me and accepted it, and said she wondered if we could be friends.

Can we be friends?

Ha! Like we're six year olds in the playground again.

But actually I could do with a few friends. Heaven knows I've got few enough of them here. It's only the odd followers on the internet – and thanks to anyone that's commented already – that convince me that I've not slipped into some parallel universe floating in an alternate time-stream.

Yeah, that's one thing I've learned from all the travelling up and down the country every couple of years. Sci-fi books tend to be longer, and are much better for boring journeys. So there's a tip for you, if your parents ever decided to uproot you every time they change jobs.