The bad news is, of course, that we lost.
By 'we' I mean the school. The famous rugby- obsessed academy, St Euclids lost the Daily Explorer Gold Cup to its evil opponents Bullerhorns School, a private academy for the stinking rich.
Dr Beeter and I made it in time to see most of the match (bar the first thirty minutes) and I am still none the wiser about what those grasping, groping, grunting boys were doing making their crab formations and diving for each other's legs. Kicking a ball over a bar or into a net I can cope with but the rest is like sumo wrestling: just a bit of pointless hefting and humping.
Dr Beeter (I can't get used to calling him James) and I struggled our way through the throng of obsessive bodies towards Miss Moon who was keeping a one-centimetre square of space for us on the terrace. (You cannot fail to see Miss Moon in a crowd: particularly as she was holding a white bedsheet banner with St Euclids are the Champs painted on in giant racing green letters.
The key to being a successful charlatan cheerleader is to copy what everyone on your side is doing. Moonie is my role model. Every time a player (dressed in colour coded green) did something clever, she leapt up and down, pumping the air with her fist and wiggling her banner and I did it too.
When things went wrong and she started swearing, that was my cue to grip her arm and squeeze it sympathetically, eyebrows raised knowingly, tears in my eyes raised by turning my face into the wind and plucking the hairs in my nostrils.
Two hours later – there was extra time – I was knackered and couldn't wait for the daarn thing to finish. Moonie harrumphed crossly at the final score of 60 - 45 in favour of Bullerhorns and threw her banner on the floor.
'What a waste of a bed sheet! I bought it specially too.'
The pub is heaving. This local around the corner from school does seriously good business, particulary on Friday nights, parents' evenings and after rugby matches. The coach disgorged us in the school car park and all the staff trooped straight over the road into the Cap and Gown bar. We each put ten pounds into a kitty and I make sure I get my fair share so I have a glass of wine for each hand. After the dry week of purgatory and stress caused by bloody Anneliese, I so need this drink.
Charlie is standing by the bar talking to Bill. He looks stunningly shower-fresh with his blonde hair is sticking up slightly like a tellytubby and he's wearing a pale blue polo shirt with the school crest which matches his eyes – the shirt, not the crest. Such loyalty. No wonder the boys all love him and want to be in his team. I hope he notices me here sandwiched between Mr Slurpy aka Ralf Dobbs and Mitzi. There's no sign of any physicists so I presume she has put them to bed after reading them a story about atom bombs and neutron wars and how the great hadron collider really did find the Piers Brosnan particles it was looking for.
Everybody is talking about the match – and I'm joining in like a real pro. I can comment on the captain because he's the only one on the team that I know. Edwin Huxley Hartburn, my little indigestion problem, has been voted man of the match by his teachers' who are lamenting the fact that the Bullerhorns captain was twenty stone heavier and did some shockingly foul things which were not picked up the by a very biased referee. Such scandal. I hope it will be reported on the BBC news tonight for the whole of the UK to learn about this heinous crime against an innocent school.
I'm just starting my third glass of vino red-o when my mobile tinks.
Incoming text message from Pippa...Where R U Cammie. Need 2 speak. Are U in pub or school?
I send an instant reply relaying my position and the phone tinks again.
Don't leave. Am on way over. C U in 25.
YOU ARE READING
Studs and Stilettos
ChickLitIts Camilla's first teaching job in an all male school and hunky Head of Science Charlie is helping her settle in. Teaching boys the facts of life is more challenging than she's imagined but it's all going quite well until Camilla is caught kissing...
