Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,137

for the boys to clamber onto the bus in front of her, bashing one another with their satchels as they fought to get on first.

I was tired. My mother, increasingly immersed in her wedding preparations, was keeping very irregular hours. Despite my best efforts, it was hard to sleep when she was thundering up and down the stairs all night. When I looked at Amanda, though, I realized that she seemed tired herself, her hair greasy and a little bedraggled; there were dark circles under her eyes.

“Jesse’s fine,” Tracey said, launching herself between me and Amanda. “Just sick of having to get up at the crack of dawn for school. I know I am.”

In a way, I was glad of Tracey’s interruption. Although Amanda had continued to be friendly enough toward me, I’d felt a new distance in her—or at least I thought I did. It was hard for me to know for certain, however, since I now found it almost impossible to talk to her. I’d felt self-conscious enough in her presence before revealing my terrible feelings for her. Now I was tongue-tied with my shame.

“I wasn’t asking you, Tracey,” Amanda said. “I was asking Jesse.” She peered around Tracey. “You all right?” she asked again, looking into my face.

For a moment, I felt a thrill at her concern for me and wanted to shove Tracey out of the way. But then the memory of what happened when I actually tried to hold her came back to me.

“I’m fine,” I said. Then, limp and unprotesting, I let Tracey take my arm and pull her with me onto the bus.

We had a grim day ahead of us—religious education and physics in the morning, an afternoon of maths followed by PE, which I found particularly excruciating these days, since our teacher had recently acquired an enthusiasm for country dancing. That afternoon, after trying to execute a swivel in the Gay Gordons and getting caught up in my partner’s legs and falling flat on my face only to lift myself up to see my fellow dancers doubled up in laughter, I was relieved to make my way to our final lesson of the day.

Chemistry was taught by Mr. Matthews, who was probably the least-liked teacher at Liston Comprehensive. He had been nicknamed Adolf because he bore an unfortunate resemblance to Adolf Hitler, a resemblance that might have been significantly mitigated had he not insisted on retaining a toothbrush mustache and strutting around the chemistry lab delivering his lessons in a shrill, military bark. It was not unusual for the boys to goosestep through the door of the lab and, while his back was turned, perform Sieg heil salutes. But no one ever challenged him directly. Mr. Matthews kept a cane on his desk, and it took only the slightest movement of his hand toward it to command complete silence from his pupils.

That afternoon, Mr. Matthews had assigned us an experiment through which we were supposed to extract chlorophyll from a plant. We were to work in groups, and while I arranged the test tubes, Bunsen burner, and beakers, the Debbies were huddled around an article about the Bay City Rollers in the latest issue of Jackie and Tracey was busily decorating the cover of her chemistry exercise book with love hearts and “TG luvs GEL” (Edward, Tracey had recently discovered, was Greg’s middle name) in big block letters. Mr. Matthews had disappeared into his office, which looked out on the chemistry lab.

“God, I hate chemistry,” Tracey said, pushing her book away and watching me light the Bunsen burner. A fierce blue flame burst from its end. “What do we have to do this for, anyway? I mean, Adolf already told us what’s supposed to happen. What’s the point of us having to mess around with all this stuff?” Her eyes alighted on the small stack of filter papers I’d placed at the edge of the bench. Her face brightened. “You know, you can smoke those things.”

“What?” I asked vaguely.

“The filter papers, you can smoke them.”

“That’s daft,” I said as she picked up one of the filter papers, rolled it into a cylinder, and popped it between her lips, like a fat, empty cigarette.

“It’ll be a lark.” She pretended to take a drag from the empty filter paper, threw her head back, and exhaled loudly. “And, look, Adolf is tucked away in his office. He won’t see a thing.”

Through the open door, we could see Mr. Matthews thoughtfully leafing through a book. He