Moonford Manor

1 - Quality Time

It was the 16th of June. Exams had finally finished the previous week, which brought about a palpable aura of relief amongst the year 11 students of Staunton Court secondary school. With our newfound freedom from the shackles of compulsory revision, summer had burst into action; the week following the end of exams was alight with celebratory excitement. Night after night the town roared with the sound of rap and indie rock emanating from some house party or another. All talk of algebra or mitosis or literary techniques had ceased, and the girls spoke only of which dress they were planning to wear to the ball. After the long arduous year of study and stress high school had come to a close. Our checkered skirts had been haphazardly cut to outrageous lengths and our shirts scribbled with curly signatures and goodbye messages. At long last, we could bid farewell to the confines of school and branch out to the liberating territory of sixth form. The independence of the adult world had come so close within reach we could almost taste it. Life had become colourful again for everyone.
Everyone, it seemed, except me.

I too, was grateful for the solace that came with the end of exam season. However, contrary to what I'd previously thought, my non-exam-related problems remained. Having told myself every day of year 11 to just hold on until the end of the year and then everything will be perfect, it felt like quite an anticlimax when the time actually rolled around. For some reason, I didn't feel the same exhilaration as the rest of the students did. On the 16th of June, while the rest of the teenage population of the town were happily cracking beers open in the midday sun, I was spending some quality time with Danielle. As she would have undoubtedly corrected me, were she here, that's 'my best friend in the world, Lady Princess Danielle', to be exact.

Quality time with Danielle almost always consisted of being talked at, having to listen (or pretend to listen, as was often the case) to her tales about her life as something of a celebrity in the world of high school, or so she would have everyone believe. Another of these less-than-fun afternoons was taking place, and rather than listening, I found myself simply waiting for her to stop speaking until I could offer up a response which sounded like I was vaguely interested in what she was saying.
While she spoke, sprawled across my bed, I studied her face. Beneath overworked eyebrows were enormous, cleopatra-esque wings of eyeliner which she applied religiously every day to achieve an Amy Winehouse look, and the irritation on her upper lip was still visible beneath heavy amounts of concealer that had desperately tried to hide evidence of her weekly facial waxing appointments. The top of her dark brown hair had been scraped into a half-up top knot in order to show off that her parents were cool enough to let her get a tattoo on their holiday to Spain that read 'Primadonna', behind her ear, which was so fresh it still bore signs of inflammation. Danielle's made-up face wasn't purely for the purpose of looking catwalk-worthy in every selfie. She constantly wore a strained pout wherever she went and waited for someone to compliment a particular feature of her makeup, and then took great pleasure in telling anyone who'd listen that her parents had reserved her a place in the most prestigious beauty school in London since birth, and while we lowly mortals were penniless university students, she'd be earning half a bar's salary on an apprenticeship for Lisa Eldridge.

'Laurie?'

'Earth to Laurie, are you listening to me?'

Somewhere among the white noise of bland conversation, my mind had wandered. As I continued to examine her appearance, I realised once again that this was more like Danielle had been delivering a monologue than holding an interactive conversation.

'Yeah, course,' I muttered.

'What did I say, then?' she said sternly, raising an over-plucked eyebrow.

Desperately racking my brains for something relevant to say, I landed on one of her most frequent monologue topics.
'You were talking about David?'