St. Mallory's Forever!

13. ABBY: Truce?

I am so confused. And I don't just mean about this RS prep, which is itself bringing a whole new meaning to the word "stretching".

Remember the Helen problem? Well, I think it's fixed. It's either that or she's decided to make it her life's ambition to confuse me so much I explode.

She's been all surly and rather distant with me all this time, then suddenly in Physics she came out and started trying to embarrass me to death!

I was only trying to be helpful – though, I have to admit, it was a pretty lame ploy trying to explain the purpose of a tripod to her just to strike up a conversation. But that's not the point – it's like she's turned from a Weeping Angel into a Dalek! Doctor Who refs there, btw, in case anyone is confused.

One moment she won't move whenever I look at her and just glares at me balefully across the room, and the next she's hell bent on destroying ... well, not me per se, but my brain anyway. Words cannot explain how awkward it is trying to do intricate scientific experiments with someone taking jibes at you every other second.

\so no surprise I was swearing under my breath. St. Mall's style, of course!

Fun fact: Don Pedro had a real problem with swearing in her Lower Fifth year (being Spanish she didn't understand which swear words were acceptable in polite company and which not), so we made a deal to help her stop – we'd use nonsense words instead.

Unfortunately, they've rather worked themselves into my normal vocabulary ... Helen nearly burst out laughing when I started muttering "Oh, pufflesnuffle" to myself in an attempt to pretend I was frustrated with our titration experiment instead of her.

Mortified? Oh yes.

And I won't even mention what she made me do at the end of the lesson. I've even made the Don swear to silence on that one, or I'll produce that video of her doing the Hamster Dance at our last disco. This event must never ever see the light of day again. Ever.

Ever!

Beware my emphatic abuse of HTML...

But then, suddenly, just as I feel my dignity is about to go right down the drain, out goes the Dalek and I'm left with a surprisingly social Ood. I got so desperate to try and mend the mess I made (and avoid another session like The Unmentionable Embarrassment, as that little mess is forever to be known), that I actually asked if we could be friends.

Did she laugh in my face?

Did she give me a funny look and go back into Statue Mode?

Did she smash a flask of hydrochloric acid over my head and run out of the room singing La Vida Loca in Swahili?

No.

She just smiled and nodded and walked off. Which, I'm hoping, means a tentative "yes?" Or maybe it's something more akin to "anything to get you to stop stalking me like a demented puppy."

But it's a start, right?

~

However, onto the second source of my bamboozlement (gosh, that's a really good word). Why, in the name of all things logical, is the bursar stalking the Music department? I heard some of the Sixth Form talking about him over break – apparently he's been hanging about there during their lessons too! I asked Alyssa Bayne in the Upper Fifth about it (Alyssa was my assigned shadow when I first arrived, so it wasn't as awkward as asking Ye Lofties of the Sixth Form), and – surprise, surprise – he's been there as well!

I can't say I know much about the bursar – does anyone ever know anything much about bursars? I swear they're hired on the basis of their camouflaging abilities. The only times we see him normally are when we pass by the Administration Office in the main school block, or at the governor's table at the end of year Assembly. He doesn't look like much – small, kind of newt-like, the middle-part, slicked-down hair that seems to be favoured by most male staff at St Mall's ... you know, nothing more suspicious than bouncing eyebrows (which are so entrancing at times that you hardly hear anything he says).

But I'd best get going – I need to write three pages of notes on the fundamental differences between Plato and Aristotle by tomorrow lunchtime. Though I swear if I ever meet the man in whatever afterlife may exist, I'll bash him over the head with his wretched Republic.