Looking after Mum: Part II: Chapter 10

Chapter 10
It was seven in the morning on the first day back at school after the summer, and I felt all the groggy misery that went with that fact. My alarm was still blasting a morning talk show on my bedside table, but I was too lost in the fatigue of just waking up to walk over and turn it off. I wouldn’t be required at the breakfast table for another few minutes, so the allotted time was now for a school day preparatory self-examination.
I squinted at my reflection, standing there in my pink and blue nightie with discarded laundry at my feet. My dark brown hair was an unkempt bob sticking up around my head, and my face was still blotched with shadows from slumber. Letting out a heavy sigh, I tried to straighten up, glaring back at my image as I did.
I bent down and picked up a pair of dark trousers. It was war time, when trousers were hoisted up and buttons fastened.
Yanking up the zipper and just squeezing into them, I eyed myself critically again. Now all the bulk was squeezed into a tight space, I had more of a form, but nevertheless, it was still FAT FAT FAT.
Who was I kidding? What was the point of going to school? What was the point, when everyone despised me and I didn't have a single friend, and all the teachers thought I was useless? Well, except in English. I think that's really pushing me to go to school. I don't want to become a failure. And also, Dad, of course. He wouldn't have wanted me to give up school, I just know it, so I have to keep on trying, however hard it is. But, oh, Kirsty. Oh, Kirsty.

In the morning, registration was havoc. It was the same back-to-school scene as normal. There were girls hugging, squealing, catching up on the summer, exchanging stories of holiday flings. There were the boys, less affectionate, giving each other friendly punches and engaging in their usual conversation centred around a Playboy magasine hidden inside a copy of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. Shakespeare would have turned in his grave.

As usual, I just sat alone at my desk and stared into space. Sooner or later, I caught sight of an equally solitary pupil, sitting engrossed in a book. He wasn’t that tall for a boy, nor with chestnut-tinted hair and a few freckles on his nose and cheeks. His eyes had flecks of green and grey swirling around in his pupils. He looked utterly serene and comfortable, and didn’t seem to notice or care that people were already staring at him and judging him.

Suddenly, he looked up from his book, and instantly caught my eye before I had a chance to avert my gaze elsewhere. I felt mortified about the fact that he’d caught me staring at him and must have thought I was some gawky loser. Even worse, he closed his book, got up from his seat, and walked across the classroom to stand in front of my desk. I stared up at him, looking like a rabbit caught between the cross lights, waiting for an insult, a taunt. It didn’t come. He just smiled at me and said, “Hiya. I’m Douglas. I’m the new guy.”

His accent was unmistakably American.

While I was trying to calm myself and thinking of what to reply to this angelic presence that was standing in front of me, I noticed that Kirsty was ignoring her Mini-Ks and watching us. Watching us with extreme interest, a pout hovering on her lips.

It had been obvious she liked the look of Douglas from the start, seeing the way she was simpering over him when he entered the room. The sight of him reading had probably put her off at first, but when she had seen the self-respect he harboured, this had most likely changed her mind.
I didn’t know how he was so confident. He wasn’t reading and thinking to himself, “Oh my God I look like a nerd and everyone else is going to think I look like a nerd and maybe I better stop now.” Probably what I would have been like, hence the fact I never read in public, I thought to myself with a sad smile.
No, he was reading, uncaring of anyone else’s opinion and not fearing people’s reactions and thoughts.

Anyway, before I could answer, Kirsty sidled up towards us.
“Ooooh, am I interrupting the two love-birds?” Kirsty cooed. “Isn't that sweet? Amelia's finally managed to get herself a boyfriend. Though, um...” she whispered loudly in a confidential manner to Douglas, "Watch out. She smells.”

He raised an eyebrow, looking at her like she was a UFO that had happened to plant herself in the middle of our conversation. But I didn’t notice the way he was looking at her. I was too ashamed to meet his glance. It was such childish teasing, so immature. But I couldn’t face it.
"Sure!" I muttered, becoming redder and redder in the face. I turned on my heel and stomped out. I dared to hope I looked aloof but I knew inside that I'd always look ridiculous to Kirsty.

In double maths, I made a fool of myself again. We were doing algebra, and I was scribbling away in a notebook hidden under the desk. I was engrossed in a story I was writing, partly based on the girl I had dreamt up that night I had been window watching.

Mr Graves, a portly, moustached man of about fifty who obviously hated teaching more than anything else in the world, singled me out for an answer.
H “Um...” I said, still wrapped up in my thoughts, “Flashlight?”
The class, chiefly led by Kirsty Brightman, exploded with laughter, until they were stopped by a chilling glance from Mr Graves.

He marched up to my desk before I had a chance to hide my notebook, which he grabbed from me furiously. “What,” he puffed, “may I ask, is this?”
Fortunately, I was saved by the bell, signalling break time, and the end of this lesson. As pupils desperate to leave the classroom, grabbed their bags and filed out, Mr Graves beckoned me to his desk, where he was now seated.
“Do you know why I kept you after the bell, Miss Harper?”
I sighed. “Because my attention is being diverted by the writing of ludicrous stories that suck me into an unrealistic world that is both unhealthy and improper for a young lady to dwell on,” I said, almost verbatim minus a few ands or thes to the spiel I heard once a week at the minimum.
Mr Graves looked up from my notebook in his pudgy hands, cocked his mouth open slightly with disapproval, and stared at me over his over-sized horn-rimmed glasses. “Yes,” he said, drawing out the word for exaggeration with a ridged voice weighted by forced composure. “You obviously remember we’ve been over this before.” He leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowing.
“This is starting to become a real issue, Amelia. Your inability to cope with the real world.” Mr Graves stared at me, waiting for some sort of response, but I refused to give him the satisfaction. What he had said was so true that it had gotten right under my skin and was giving me goose bumps and prickly eyes. I gazed around the room, sinking back into another daydream.
After a few seconds of silence, Mr Graves let out an enormous sigh, and then said, “I’ll be notifying your father after school. I mean, um, your mother...um, I mean...” He went extremely red and coughed throatily into a handkerchief. “I’m sorry, Amelia, I didn’t mean anything like that. I understand the situation is hard at home, but the fact that you seem like an able student should warrant a good performance in class. I would excuse it were it apparent to me that you were not a particularly bright pupil, but it is obvious that you are competent, if you tried and did not put yourself down so much.” I nodded, not feeling the need to protest or to contradict him. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand anything.
***

To finish off an unbelievably bad start to the year, the last lesson was P.E. I was emotionally drained and to have to participate in sport was too much for me. Miss Griffiths, the sports teacher, was a woman who resembled a celery stick and walked around in tracksuits all the time. I approached her, clutching my stomach exaggeratedly.
“Um...Miss Griffiths? I’m sorry but I really don’t think I can do P.E. today. I’m having awful stomach pains. They think it’s...um...appendicitis.”
Miss Griffiths sighed. “Amelia, I am beyond sick of your pathetic contrives to excuse yourself from my P.E. lessons. There is no good reason why you should not play sport today, so I suggest you go and get changed before I lose my temper.”

Ten minutes later I was standing at the top of the playing field, in an oversize rugby jumper and tracksuit bottoms, freezing myself to death. To make matters worse, now was the moment where the teams were going to be organised.

Team member picking was a mortifying and embarrassing experience which happened every time we started a new sport. And hip hip hooray, today Miss Griffiths had started football season, because it was September, the first month of school. After Christmas, for we'd play bench ball and mess around with beams and rackets for the rest of the year. But football was to be taken seriously, and played till Christmas. That meant we stayed in the same teams for three months, more time than any sport we ever played. This also meant that team member choosing was very serious, because you'd be stuck with those people for three whole months.

Kirsty, this year, as usual, got nominated for team captain, and Wendy Haskins, amazingly-fit athlete, for the other team. Kirsty used every opportunity she could to steal all the best players. The Mini-K's were average, fairly good in some sports, but not as skilled as Kirsty or Wendy.

It was sickening to see the Mini-K's, looking at Kirsty as if she was some kind of goddess, waiting for her to choose them. They were standing there on the field, shivering in the September wind in their tiny black cycle shorts and tight white t-shirts, fashionable as always. But she never picked them. Maybe loyalty to friends didn't exist in the Kirsty world. Rhiannon, Lucy and Martine all ended up in Wendy’s team, much to their disappointment. The circle of us waiting grew smaller and smaller, and soon I was left there alone, freezing and embarrassed, the two team captains looking at me reluctantly.

And it was Kirsty's turn for another team member.
"But Miss!" she squealed in a high-pitched voice that would have broken glass. "Can't Wendy have her? We have enough, yeah? I don't want another member in our team!" I wished the field would split open and swallow me up.
She was getting really frustrated, jumping about in the cold air and protesting against having me in her team. Miss Griffiths saw this, and so perceptive and understanding as ever, guess what she did? Refused to send me to Wendy's team because, "Wendy already has enough people."
Teachers. They understand children so very well.
Kirsty looked at me in a rage. Her green eyes got really shiny and mean, and her mouth went into a thin pink line.
"I'll get you for this, Amelia Harper. Watch out, worm," she muttered underneath her breath, digging her long, pointy fingernails into my palm so hard I flinched. I looked down at my hand and there was already a red bruise starting to form.
We started playing. I got positioned at the far end of the field where I didn't see how the ball would ever get to me, so I thought I was safe. Kirsty wouldn't get angry because I wouldn't have the ball at all. So I just stood there, pulled my sleeves out as far as they would go to cover my fingers that were stinging so much with the cold it was agony, and started dreaming. Dad would come right into this P.E lesson, driving straight across the field in a Mercedes Benz, and then he'd park in a cloud of smoke, punch Kirsty Brightman right in the nose, and then pick me up like I was as light as a feather and we'd drive off together, away from the school, away from the flat, away from -
"Kirsty!" Yeah! How'd they know?
"Ball! Ball!" Oh. Football. Hi-ho.
"Can't! Too late! The ball’s out there!” Kirsty yelled. "Amelia, hello-o?"
My head jerked up from my daydream. "Huuuh?"
"Amelia, you idiot, the ball!" she yelled.
I looked down and sure enough, the ball was coming towards me. No. Go away. Go away, ball...
Kirsty Brightman kicked it at me, a blooper. I missed, and fell over backwards, winded. The hard football had hit me right in the stomach. The other team got the ball right under control, easy peasy. Most people were laughing and jeering at my mistake, but Kirsty started screaming at me. "You idiot!" she shrieked dementedly. "You stupid fat idiot! You're crap at football, you're crap at everything!"
All I could do was gasp. I have started to feel very faint. The ball had winded me.
"Kirsty, after-school detention for behaving in that appalling manner. Letter home if it happens again. I’m warning you, Kirsty. Are you alright, Melia?” the teacher asked.
My stomach made a faint gurgling noise, and I groaned.
I heard Kirsty whisper, "God, she sounds like a sick elephant,” of course bringing on a fit of laughter.
"Kirsty, take Amelia down to the nurse's office, please," said Miss Griffiths calmly.
"Miss!" Kirsty squealed. "I'm on centre."
"That's quite alright. Rachel can run for you."
"But..." she squeaked.
"Go on now. Help her up," Miss Griffiths said evenly.
Oh, she helped me up alright. She dug her horrible nails into my shoulders as hard as possible and yanked me up, muttering, "Get on with it, saddo."
She frog-marched me, nails still in shoulders, all the way across the field. By the time we'd got to the end and were nearing the building, I finally decided to ask the ultimate question.
"Kirsty?" I burst out abruptly, "Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you, apart from not being your perfect type of person?"
She missed a beat then, and stared at me with a confused but not completely bewildered expression on her face, her hands dropping from my shoulders. Then she completely changed, gained back her composure, turned away and smiled disdainfully. "Amelia," she said, "How could I not hate you?"