Girls Out Late Read online

  OK. What about in the dark? In the park. Me in the park with Russell, and the moon above and the poplar trees? Yes.

  I write. I forget this is my English lesson and Mrs Madley is in a mood and my tights are all skew-whiff because I pulled them up too quickly after P.E. and my hair has gone even wilder than usual so it’s spiralling up and out like there’s been a minor explosion in my head.

  I’m not here at all. I’m back in the park with Russell, and the key words form on the page, my hand writing as if it’s got a will of its own.

  ‘Time’s up, girls,’ says Mrs Madley. ‘Right, you’ve all been very busy. I hope the fruits of your labour are mellow. Who’s going to read first?’

  Oh no. She wants us to read them out loud! I sit, heart thudding. She picks Jess first and she reads out this neat little poem about flowers, simple and safe. Then Stacy gets chosen and she gushes on about the sea, the wild white horses and the flying foam until she’s practically foaming at the mouth too. It is a totally phoney poem with Absolutely Awful Annoying Alliteration but Mrs Madley goes a bundle on this too. She picks poor shy Maddie next, who blushes and says hers is rubbish and then she whispers it so we can barely hear. Stuff about mills and fields and harvests and yields. Mrs Madley doesn’t look impressed but says very good, dear. Then she picks Nadine.

  ‘Mine’s about night, Mrs Madley,’ says Nadine.

  It’s good too, very Gothic, a total stormy night with bats flying and cats stalking and trees tapping on windows and flashes of lightning like spears from hell and the crash of thunder as the devil rides out.

  ‘You’ve really tried hard, Nadine. Well done,’ says Mrs Madley. ‘Now . . . Ellie.’

  Oh God. My eyes flash over the page. No, I can’t.

  ‘Ellie?’

  ‘Er – mine’s about the night too. It’s similar to Nadine’s. It’ll be so repetitious, night after night. Can’t we have a day poem instead?’

  ‘Ellie, I’m used to you girls being repetitious. Now start reading.’

  ‘Night in the park

  The pale moon bare

  Luminous above the poplar trees –

  Tall thin dark

  A giant feather frieze

  Surrounding the soft square.’

  I stop and swallow. I feel my face going red.

  ‘Go on,’ says Mrs Madley. ‘It’s good, Ellie.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘I’ve finished.’

  ‘No you haven’t. I can see there’s another verse. And I stipulated a bare minimum of twelve lines. I can count, Ellie.’

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘Hold me in the park

  Your paleface intent

  Luminous above mine

  Tall, thin, dark

  Around me twine

  Surrounding, savouring, spent.’

  There’s a gasp and then the entire class explodes. Mrs Madley stares at me, and then she sighs. Heavily.

  ‘Quieten down, you idiotic girls. Eleanor Allard, what did I ask you to write?’

  ‘A poem, Mrs Madley.’

  ‘What sort of poem?’

  ‘On Nature.’

  ‘Did I ask for adolescent soft pornography?’

  ‘No, Mrs Madley.’

  ‘That’s right. It seems to me unbelievably stupid to waste your poetic talent and my valuable lesson time on such nonsense. You will do double homework. An essay on Nature Poetry and another nature poem – and on Monday you will read it out aloud and if anyone so much as titters at the content you will start all over again. Do I make myself plain?’

  As plain as a pikestaff. What is a pikestaff? Some sort of weapon? She’s a deadly weapon. A member of staff with the features and ferocious nature of a pike. It’s so unfair. I wasn’t trying to be insolent – I just got carried away thinking about Russell and me in the park. And it was a poetical comment, contrasting Nature with human nature. Mean old bag!

  Nadine and Magda are mouthing messages at me but I daren’t respond with Mrs Madley in this mood. What’s the matter with all the teachers today? I can’t stick school. I go off into a private dream about when I’m grown up and I have my own little studio flat and I can draw all day. Maybe it could be a big studio flat with two desks. I could work at one end of the studio, Russell at the other . . .

  I am mad, I’ve only just met him and already I’m thinking about living with him. I wonder what it would be like spending all the day with him. And then all the night too . . .

  I jump when the bell goes, startled right out of Russell’s arms. Magda and Nadine pounce on me the moment we’re outside the classroom.

  ‘Tell us what happened with Russell, Ellie!’

  ‘Your poem! God, you really spelt it out. How could you read it out in front of the entire class?’

  ‘I didn’t want to. She made me.’

  ‘But you wrote it in your English book, you idiot.’

  ‘Yes, well, the words just came.’

  ‘Like Russell!’ says Magda, and she and Nadine hoot with helpless laughter.

  ‘So you actually did it with Russell?’

  ‘I can’t believe it when you’ve only just met him.’

  ‘And you lectured me like crazy about not going too far with Liam.’

  ‘You were careful, weren’t you, Ellie?’

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Tell us absolutely every little detail.’

  I stare at them like they’ve gone bananas.

  ‘OK, OK, he kissed me. Once. Several times.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that’s it.’

  ‘But you made it out in your poem you did it.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘You did, you did. Here, give us it.’

  Magda snatches my English book and fumbles for my poem. She reads the last line – and she and Nadine curl up laughing again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You put spent.’

  ‘Yeah, I know it sounds a bit odd.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘But, I wanted an s word to make it alliterative, right, seeing as Mrs Madley’s so hot on it – and it had to rhyme with intent and it was all I could come up with.’

  ‘Can you believe it, Nadine!’ says Magda, sighing and raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Oh Ellie! You mean you didn’t mean “spent”?’

  ‘I meant – well, we spent time together, the evening was spent – it was the end. What else could I mean?’

  ‘It sounded like you and Russell – you know. So then he was spent.’

  ‘Oh my God, I didn’t mean that. No-one thought I meant that, did they?’

  ‘That’s what we all thought you meant. Including Mrs Madley.’

  ‘No wonder she’s given me all this extra homework.’

  ‘So you and Russell didn’t really do anything,’ said Nadine, sounding disappointed. ‘The way your dad was creating you’d have thought you’d both eloped.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I feel awful about him harassing you.’

  ‘No problem. I just wish I could have invented some satisfactory excuse for you. I didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘Neither did I. He’s still really mad at me. He says I’m not allowed out at all now.’

  ‘What – ever?’

  ‘For the foreseeable future. Of course I’m not taking any notice. I’m seeing Russell tonight.’

  ‘Really! Wow, he must be keen.’

  ‘So are you just going to walk out or what?’

  ‘Well, Dad’s not going to be at home so it’s simple.’

  ‘What about Anna?’

  ‘Oh she’s no problem,’ I say lightly – hoping it’s true.

  ‘You’re so lucky, Ellie. My mum’s my big problem,’ says Nadine.

  ‘So you’re really stuck on Russell?’ says Magda.

  We’re sitting down in the canteen by this time, eating school pizza. Magda’s licking up her melted cheese strands. Her little pink cat tongue is very pointed. Her tone is a little pointed too.

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