Love Lessons Read online

  I couldn't believe the question. Do you think this scene was written recently? Give reasons for your answer. Maybe this was a trick too? I decided to write a proper essay for Miss Wilmott to show her I wasn't a total moron.

  I wrote three pages about Shakespeare and his times and the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. I commented on the difference between courtship in Elizabethan times and nowadays, though I knew little about girl/boy relationships in my own time. It had been love at first sight for Romeo and Juliet. She was only fourteen, my age. I tried to imagine falling so headily, instantly in love t h a t I would risk everything and kill myself if I couldn't be with my beloved.

  I conjured up Tobias and wondered what it would be like if he stayed with me until sunrise.

  I wondered what he'd say, what he'd do . . .

  I started violently when a very loud alarm bell rang and rang. I jumped up and grabbed Grace, looking round wildly for flames and smoke. But it wasn't a fire alarm, it was simply the school bell.

  'It's break time now,' said Gina, bustling back.

  'Time's up, girls. Pass your booklets to me.'

  69

  'But I haven't finished! I haven't done any of the stuff on the last two pages,' Grace wailed.

  'Never mind. It's not like a real exam. It's just so we can assess you properly,' said Gina, snatching the booklet away from Grace.

  I hugged mine tightly to my chest, feeling sick.

  I'd done far worse t h a n Grace. I'd answered only a quarter of the questions. I just had to hope my essay would be taken into account.

  I felt I'd let Dad down. I saw his face screw up with rage and frustration as he tried to berate me.

  'There's no need to look so tragic,' Gina said to me. 'I'm sure you've done very well, dear.

  You've written heaps.'

  I'd written heaps of rubbish. I was put in a remedial class.

  They didn't call it that. It was simply Form 10 EL. I pondered the significance of EL.

  Extreme Losers? Educationally Lacking?

  Evidently Loopy? I discovered they were merely the initials of our form teacher, Eve Lambert.

  But it was obvious that we were the sad guys in the school, the hopeless cases. Some could barely speak English and were traumatized, looking round fearfully as if they expected a bomb to go off any minute. Others were loud and disruptive, standing up and swearing. One boy couldn't sit still at all a n d fidgeted constantly, biting his fingernails and flipping his ruler and folding the pages in his notebook. He 70

  hummed all the time like a demonic bee. Most of my fellow pupils seemed scarily surly. The only girl who gave me a big smile had obvious learning difficulties.

  I was the girl supposedly intellectually gifted.

  This was the class considered appropriate for my abilities. It was totally humiliating to find I could barely keep up. It was like being back with Miss Roberts, only worse. I still couldn't get to grips with maths, though the teacher spoke very s-1-o-w-l-y and CLEARLY, as if superior enunciation would enlighten everybody.

  Science was only a fraction easier. I thought I would do well in history and geography but I was used to reading a book and then imagining what an era or a country would be like. I hated this school approach where everything was divided up into topics a n d you needed to memorize little gobbets of information.

  I found French h a r d too, though I knew enough of it to guess my way through simple books. I discovered I mispronounced all the words. When I was asked to recite the numbers between one and twenty t h e class s t a r t e d sniggering as I said each number. By the time I said dix-huit as 'dicks-hewitt' they were in tears of laughter.

  I hoped English would be my saving grace, but I didn't like the teacher, Mrs Godfrey, at all.

  She looked stylish, tall and thin, almost like a fashion model, and she wore black, with big black glasses framing her dark eyes. She was 71

  alarmingly strict, making sarcastic comments about all of us, even the clearly unfortunate.

  She told us to write about a poem, 'Adlestrop'.

  I knew it by heart already so I cheered up. I knew I could write pages. I didn't have anything to write in, so I went up to Mrs Godfrey's desk at the front of the classroom.

  'Feel free to wander at will around my classroom,' she said.

  I gathered I shouldn't feel free. I didn't know what to do. She didn't look up from her marking.

  I shifted from one foot to another, not sure how to address her. She made dismissive waving gestures at me while I was making up my mind.

  'I haven't got an English exercise book,' I blurted out.

  She sighed. 'I haven't got an English exercise book, Mrs Godfrey,' she repeated. 'So what have you done with your English exercise book? Have you torn it into strips and scattered it down the lavatory? Have you hurled it frisbee-fashion over the nearest hedge? Have you fed it to a goat for breakfast?'

  The class were sniggering again. I waited, crimson-cheeked, for her to complete her comedv routine. She looked up at last.

  'What is your name?'

  'Prudence King.'

  'Prudence King, Mrs Godfrey!'

  I repeated the ridiculous phrase.

  'And you've mislaid your English exercise book?'

  72

  'I've never owned an English exercise book,' I said. 'Mrs Godfrey,' I added, emphasizing her name.

  This didn't please her. Her eyes glittered behind her glasses. 'Are you being intentionally insolent?' she asked.

  I wasn't, but she certainly was. I wanted to slap her. She gave me a wretched exercise book and dismissed me back to my desk with another imperious wave of her long white fingers.

  I couldn't understand why she was being so deliberately unkind. I decided I'd show her. I started writing reams on 'Adlestrop' – and lots of other Edward Thomas poems, bringing in some of the First World War poets too, and mentioning Helen Thomas's lovely book As It Was, which I'd found in a dusty corner of the biography section in the shop this summer. I'd read the bit where Helen and Edward go to bed in a lavender-smelling four-poster in a country inn again and again. I had just enough sense to leave this bit out of my essay, but I put everything else in, my h a n d hurtling down the page.

  I thought we'd have to h a n d our books in to be marked but after twenty minutes or so Mrs Godfrey clapped her hands and went to sit on top of her desk, her long legs dangling, her feet elegant in black high heels.

  'Right, class, who shall beguile us first?' she said. 'Daisy, perhaps you'd like to read out your essay?'

  73

  Daisy was a very large girl with wild tufty hair. 'Ooh not me, miss, I can't, miss, don't want to,' she said, giggling bashfully.

  I could understand why she didn't want to when she read her piece out loud.

  '"This is a poem about this place called Adlestrop. It sounds like a nice place. It's a short poem. It's got some funny words like unwontedly."'

  That was it. I expected Mrs Godfrey to stamp all over her with her high heels, but she was relatively kind.

  'Short, but sweet, Daisy,' she said. 'There's no h a r m in being concise.' She peered over at my scribbled pages and raised her eyebrows. 'All right, Prudence King, perhaps you'd like to share your words of wisdom with us?'

  My hands were shaking but I read in a loud clear voice to show her she didn't really scare me. The class started sniggering again. I didn't understand why. This wasn't French. I knew how to pronounce all the words. I only realized why after I'd heard the others mumble through their pieces. It clearly wasn't the done thing to project your voice and read with expression. It was as embarrassing as my tablecloth frock.

  Even Mrs Godfrey had a smirk on her face.

  'That's enough,' she said, long before I'd reached my conclusion. 'It's very kind of you to share your erudition with us lowly mortals, Prudence King, but I think we've had a tad more information t h a n we can absorb.'

  74

  So t h a t was it. I couldn't win. I was humiliated in maths and