St. Mallory's Forever!

15. HELEN - Let The Nerds Unite!

I actually think I've made a friend. That's not something I thought would happen here. Well, I hang out with Xuan some of the time, but we really need someone else, because we both get as lost as each other when it comes to things like locations and timings and all that palaver.

It happened kind of by accident. I've already mentioned how I treated Abby in science — which I guess was sort of mean — but later on I was walking down the corridor that holds all our little cubies (confession: I was actually looking for Xuan to get her to help me with maths homework) and I overheard music.

Music I knew, coming through tinny laptop speakers. Voices I knew, speaking lines I'd quoted so many times... I knocked on the door, and Abby opened it. She looked surprised and a little wary to see me. I guess that's understandable, I'm not someone you'd want to have leaning over you when you woke up in the morning. Not with my eyes.

I blurted, "You're watching Doctor Who? Which series?" Like I needed to ask — I could name the episode.

"Series One, with Eccleston." She stared at me for a minute, evidently confused. "You're a fan?"

"I have a Dalek alarm clock."

Abby's eyes went wide, though I'm not sure if she was impressed or slightly freaked out by that little gem. Then she asked, "Want to join me? I know it's prep time, but I've finished all my work."

"Really?" In fact that was a double-whammy "really?" Both 'Really, I can come in to your cubie?' and 'really, you've finished prep already?'

I hadn't. Nowhere near. As well as the maths, which was compulsory, I'd made the mistake of taking Latin to please Mum, something I'd never studied before, and these other kids all knew three years' worth of vocab' and complicated grammar that I hadn't a hope of ever remembering. I was desperately trying to learn the basics before my next lesson so I didn't look too idiotic, but the thought of doing Latin instead of watching one of my favourite TV shows was just absurd.

"Come in, come in," Abby said with a beaming smile. "You'll have to sit on the floor I'm afraid. Or the bed."

And there I was, in Ms. Abby Posh-Girl's private cubie, watching my favourite TV show!

Before I left that evening, we even managed to have a conversation.

"You're on a music scholarship, aren't you?" she said, surprising me. I guess I gave it away by my list of instruments in our lesson earlier, but I hadn't realised anyone knew.

"Yeah, I am. It's about the only thing I'm good at."

She hesitated. "So, are you here because of your mum or because of the scholarship?"

I laughed. "Both. As soon as Mum got accepted to work here, I sent in a video audition for the scholarship — it was all rather last minute, and a bit unconventional, but the school said they'd work around it. If I hadn't got it, I would've gone to live with my dad, as we can't afford the fees here, not even with the discount Mum's entitled to. Needless to say, she didn't like the idea of me going to Birmingham, so it was just as well the school liked my playing and gave me the scholarship."

"Your parents are split up, then?" Though she spoke neutrally, I had the impression that wasn't quite so common here as it had been at my old school.

"Yeah. Just one of those things." It wasn't a problem to talk about it by now — the whole thing had been going on so long that I didn't remember anything else. Even so, it wasn't exactly my favourite topic of conversation, and I quickly changed the subject. Back to Doctor Who.

With the tone of somebody making an awful confession, Abby told me how she'd compared me to a Dalek in her head in science that time. Sorry, biology. This having three separate science disciplines malarkey really irks me. But I was more intrigued by Abby thinking of me as a Dalek. Surprisingly, that was not something anyone had ever said to me before. Well, not and lived to tell the tale.

Abby also explained the use of her "unusual" (cough 'ridiculous'cough) cursing. Some of it had sounded like Shakespeare to be fair, but I didn't entirely buy her explanation. She was trying to get out of the fact she didn't know what she was doing when it came to swearing and I was something of an expert.

In turn, I told her about one of my foul-language-expert friends back home in London.

Oh, and if you're reading this, Caitlin, I do forgive you for introducing me to YouTube. Well, sort of. You've wasted about three months of my life just on videos, but I'm sure I didn't need them anyway. Though if I die at ninety-nine years and nine months and miss out on the Happy Hundredth Birthday telegram from the Queen I shall never forgive you!

Sorry. Slight digression there. Back to St. Mall's.

So Abby was looking at me a little oddly when I mentioned a few of the videos I'd seen, but soon we were chatting about things we had in common. Then Abby asked me if I had a blog. I could hardly say yes after what I'd been writing about her, so I pretended to mishear.

"Captain's log? I love Star Trek."

Phew! That was close. And I'm glad to have found another sci-fi fan. Though interestingly she's not a fan of Star Wars, despite being a bit of a Trekkie. Hmmm, mostly I've found it to be the other way around...

I decided not to mention the Yoda's backside thing to her, though. Nerdiness can only explain so much, after all.