Keep the Faith (11 page)

It was like one of those scenes in a film when everything goes into slow motion and someone shouts, ‘
NOOOOOOOOOO
.’ and throws themselves in front of something precious.

Like a pair of River Island shorts.

Only it was too late to save the shorts. They had already been contaminated by geriatric bottom and now they were back. I clutched my shorts.

‘I didn’t have time to wash them,’ Granny said.

I dropped my shorts.

‘When you say borrow . . .’ I asked in a very reasonable way, with only a hint of screech about my voice.

‘Are we still here?’ Dad said. ‘I hate to hurry you, Faith, but in a few decades I’ll have my own funeral to go to and I’d like to get some tea in before
then.’

I ignored him. He thinks about nothing but his stomach and he can’t even spare a thought for important issues like short-theft by an OAP. ‘Because when you say
“borrow”,’ I went on, ‘it sort of implies permission from the person you are borrowing off. Otherwise, it’s taking without consent. I could phone the police about
that.’

‘If she’s really been wearing them, you could phone the police about indecent exposure,’ Dad said in a very low voice.

‘I didn’t wear them outside!’ Granny snapped. ‘I just put them on for my Jump ’n’ Jive class.’

Oh dear God. There was Granny-sweat involved now.

‘And maybe for a while in the bar afterwards,’ she said.

‘You might as well have them,’ I said, pointing at the poor scrumpled things. ‘They’re dead to me now.’

This must be what it’s like when someone you love leaves.

I’ll never look at another pair of shorts again.

Although there was quite a nice pair with pockets in the New Look sale.

Today, in Music, Mr Millet split his trousers. It was brilliant. It’s like the universe wanted to make up for the trauma I suffered yesterday.

At lunchtime a Year Seven with a ski-jump nose and sticky-up hair told me Miss Ramsbottom wanted me in her office. I said, ‘I’ve told Miss Ramsbottom before
that I cannot sacrifice my education just because she’s trying to cure the sickness in her soul by surrounding herself with youth and beauty at all times.’ I leant towards the Year
Seven, whose mouth had fallen open. ‘My looks are a curse to me. Be thankful that you look like one of those little troll dolls.’

She backed away from me, swivelled on her tiny troll feet and fled.

I decided I might as well brighten Ramsbottom’s day and headed off to her office.

‘I hear you’ve been causing trouble in the PE department,’ Miss R said, without so much as offering me a biscuit.

‘What? That business about me suggesting we wear padded suits for gymnastics? If you’d ever had Megs’s rear end coming at you as she did what she thinks passes as a cartwheel,
you’d agree with me. It’s an issue of health and safety, Miss Ramsbottom. I know you take that sort of thing very seriously because I can think of any number of exciting activities
I’ve suggested that you’ve said no to, just because they involve a few explosives or a bungee jump.’

Miss Ramsbottom made a noise in her nose. ‘Just leave these matters to the PE staff in future. They’re a good deal more qualified than you are.’

I doubt that will still be true by the time I reach the end of Year Eleven. I’m pretty sure that the PE department haven’t got a Maths GCSE between them to bounce about with a
ping-pong bat. I think the reason they disallow so many of my goals in netball is because they can’t count past six. But I didn’t say any of this to Miss R because, like all delusional,
middle-aged women who think they can get away with a blunt-cut fringe, the truth pains her.

Miss R wasn’t done with me. She sat down regally on her spinny chair like it was a vampire throne and said, ‘I hear from Mrs Lloyd-Winterson that you’re keen to set up a
debating club.’

‘Oh yeah, really keen. It’s all sorted now. Nothing for you to worry about.’

‘On the contrary, Faith, I find that keeping an eye on your exploits always turns out to be a time-saver in the end.’

I really don’t need Miss R watching me. ‘I’m sure Mrs Lloyd-Winterson knows what she’s doing.’

‘Nevertheless, before we go ahead with the club, I would like you to understand that I will be monitoring its progress. I look forward to watching you perform.’

I frowned. ‘When you say “watching you”, do you mean “you” as in the whole wonderful bunch of teen debaters or just wonderful me?’

‘I will be watching
your
performance, Faith. Whether you are wonderful or not will help me to assess how seriously you’re taking this endeavour. It will also have a bearing
on my comments on your end-of-term report.’

Which is hilarious because being good at arguing has never got me a good report before. I just smiled politely.

It must have been a good polite smile and not the one that Granny keeps telling me she expects to see on a ‘wanted’ poster one day, because at home time we saw that a sign-up sheet
for debating club had been pinned on the activities noticeboard. The first meeting is after half-term. I’m glad that things are moving along, but I’m not sure that I approve of this
free and easy membership approach; we could end up with any old Icky in the club.

I said to the girls as we walked home, ‘There must be some way that we can keep Icky away from the sign-up sheet.’

‘Or maybe we can keep the sheet away from Icky!’ Lily said triumphantly.

I thought she might be on to something until she said, ‘We just need some kind of spell . . .’

‘What if we covered the sheet up?’ Angharad asked.

‘That’s not bad,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we could find someone to stand in front of it every time Icky walked past.’

‘I’m not sure anyone has got that much time on their hands, Faith,’ Megs said.

‘I don’t know about that. I’ve never seen the cleaning lady do anything other than tut. She could do that at the same time as blocking the sheet, couldn’t she?’

‘That’s not going to work, Faith.’

‘Or Limp Lizzie – she’s not exactly an asset to any of her lessons, is she? If she’s going to quietly mope for the whole school day, there’s no reason why she
couldn’t do it where I tell her to.’

No one replied so I went on.

‘Or the Food Tech teacher. I’m sure she’d enjoy an actual purpose to her miserable existence for once or . . .’

At that point I realised that I was talking to myself. It seems that people can only cope with a small amount of my mind-blowing wisdom at a time. I should be gentler with my stupid friends.

We never did solve the problem of how to keep Icky away.

Maybe some sort of bug spray?

I went into school this morning in a very businessy mood. I can be businessy if I want to, especially if the business is nice stuff for me. At break time I said to the
girls, ‘We need to discuss my birthday.’

Megs sighed. ‘We never talk about anything else at the moment.’

Angharad patted my arm. ‘We’re not going to forget your birthday, Faith. You wrote it in all our planners.’

‘And you sent us a reminder last week,’ Lily said.

More evidence of how efficient and businessy I am. I don’t know why my mother ever calls me disorganised.

‘The problem is that my birthday falls in half-term,’ I said.

Lily grinned. ‘That’s good, you’ll be able to have a lie-in and get your little brother to bring you breakfast in bed.’

There are many things that Lily gets completely wrong and one of them is little brothers. She’s always thinking that Sam could be of use to me or that I’ve got some sort of
non-aggressive feelings towards him.

‘I’m not saying that I won’t enjoy the extra snooze time,’ I said. ‘What worries me is that I won’t be able to milk my birthday for all it’s
worth.’

‘What do you mean milk it?’ Angharad asked.

‘Oh, you know how it goes: “Can I have one of your crisps? It’s my birthday,” or “Can I push in front of you in the lunch queue? It’s my birthday,” and
“Please don’t scald me with the molten lava of your hatred, Miss Ramsbottom. It’s my birthday.”’

They nodded. Everyone knows that you can ask for a few cheeky favours on your birthday. I mean, I ask for cheeky favours all the time, but I find that you’re much more likely to actually
get them on your special day. ‘So you can see how unfair it is that my birthday is in half-term. I won’t see anyone to extract my birthday offering from them.’

‘You’ll see us,’ Lily said. ‘We’ll come round.’

‘Yeah, but most people won’t bother about my birthday unless I’m there to rub their faces in it.’

‘Maybe your birthday won’t be in half-term next year,’ Ang said, as if that was the end of it.

‘I’m going to be more proactive than that. I’ve decided that this year . . .’ I paused for effect. ‘. . . I’m going to have a pre-birthday day.’

I waited for a round of applause.

‘That’s nice,’ Lily said, then she got out her Maths book. ‘Ang, can you explain this algebra to me?’

‘Wait a minute! Don’t you want to hear about my plans?’

‘Do we have to do anything?’ Megs asked in what I felt was quite a whiny way.

‘No. You can just encourage others in their generosity.’

Lily turned back to her Maths book.

‘Although, obviously, you’ll need to purchase a gift.’

‘I’ve already got your birthday present,’ Ang said.

‘Yes, but you’ll need a pre-birthday day present.’

‘What, another one? I’m saving up to take a tourist trip into space,’ Lily said.

‘Won’t that take forever?’

Lily shrugged. ‘I’m young. There’s plenty of time. But it would quicker if I didn’t have to buy extra birthday presents.’

I pursed my lips. ‘It doesn’t have to be much, just a token.’

There was some more muttering. Honestly, they want to watch it or I’ll dump them for some friends who are more giving. In both the spiritual and the birthday chocolates way.

Tonight’s the club night. Although I’m not sure that anything they can do with lighting or smoke machines is going to make the hall look like a club, so they
may as well call it a school disco.

For once, my jailers are allowing Megs, Ang and Lily to come round and get ready here. They did make up all sorts of ridiculous rules about not shrieking or bouncing on the bed so hard that
plaster falls from the ceiling in the sitting room. Honestly. I mean, what’s a gathering without a bit of bed bouncing?

My parents’ fascism aside, I’m really looking forward to tonight. It is a completely official date for me and Finn.

So much happened last night.

The girls came round early and we all got ready. As we were coming downstairs, Dad called, ‘Let’s see your party frocks then! I’ve got the camera out.’ He went a bit pale
when he saw what we were wearing. I think he thought that we’d be in satin and frills. He looked at Mum.

‘It’s perfectly normal,’ she said. ‘Or at least as normal as teenagers get.’

Which is a bit of a cheek coming from a fully grown woman who owns a china unicorn.

Dad managed to keep his grieving over the maturing of his only daughter down to a low muttering and he drove us to school without doing anything else embarrassing.

It turns out that whoever was in charge of decorations knew exactly what you need to convert a school hall with wooden floorboards and floral curtains into a cool and sophisticated club
environment: signs. There were signs about chewing gum, signs about not spilling drinks, signs about where the loos were. The overall effect was more like an optician’s than a club. Not that
I’ve ever been to a club, but I imagine black velvet sofas and fancy mirrors. We were stuck with gym benches and posters about basketball. But what’s important is that everyone was
there.

Everyone.

And they all got to see me on my date with Finn. There was even a bunch of St Mildred’s girls.

‘Who let them in?’ Megs asked when she caught sight of Cherry.

‘They let in anyone with a ticket,’ Angharad said. ‘The money’s for charity.’

Megs sniffed. ‘You’d think orphans would have higher standards.’

‘Actually, it’s for guide dogs,’ Angharad said.

‘That explains it,’ Lily said. ‘They can’t see.’

I was going to attempt to explain guide dogs to Lily, but I was interrupted by Icky who yelled, ‘Hey, Faith!’ from the table where she was sitting. ‘Just because it’s for
charity doesn’t mean that you have to dress in clothes that came from the Cancer Research shop.’

I gave her a hard stare. ‘I hope we raise enough money for a lot of guide dogs; we’re going to need them if you keep blinding people with the glare off your pound-shop
jewellery.’

Then my lovely friends formed a huddle round me and we completely ignored any further squeaking from Icky until Megs said, ‘Oh my God, look!’

We all turned round.

‘No, don’t look!’

We all pretended to admire the ceiling.

‘Just don’t be obvious,’ Megs hissed. ‘You’ll start her off again.’

‘What is it that we’re looking at, but not looking at, Megs?’ I was expecting to see Mrs Webber tongue-duelling with Mr Millet by this point.

‘Icky’s feet.’

Icky had stood up and made her way round the table so that we could now clearly see that she was wearing the most ridiculous pair of high heels. I really do mean high. Six inches at least. They
almost doubled her height. She must have had to climb a stepladder just to get into them.

‘They look painful,’ Ang said.

Lily nodded. ‘They’re not even nice.’

They weren’t. There was a ring of spikes around the ankle. They looked like something a Viking would use in battle.

‘Maybe she’s trying to keep people away from her toes,’ Angharad suggested.

I nodded. ‘That’s understandable. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s got trotters instead of feet.’

Just at that moment, Icky topped things off by deciding that she wanted a drink. She left her band of annoying girls and walked off to the refreshments hatch. I say walked, but actually she had
to bend her knees and throw out her arms just to keep her balance. She tried to use speed to suggest confidence, but it was more of a trot than a strut. Essentially, she looked like a drunken pony
on a tightrope. I laughed so hard that I hope I haven’t spoiled my phone footage with all the shaking.