Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,138

seemed completely absorbed.

“Tracey,” I said urgently, “if he catches you, he’ll—”

It was too late. Tracey had already placed the end of the rolled-up filter paper over the Bunsen burner. At first the flame merely singed the paper’s edges, but then it caught alight. Tracey pulled it away, blew out the flame, then promptly stuck it into her mouth and began puffing away.

“You’ll choke yourself,” I said as Tracey burst into a sputtering cough. The Debbies giggled.

“No, no, it’s just like a ciggy,” she said, her eyes red and watery as she waved the smoke in my direction. “You should try it.” She took another puff and coughed again.

I looked at her skeptically. She didn’t look as if she was having fun.

It was foolish to think that any kind of misbehavior might escape Mr. Matthews’s attention, especially anything so brazen as smoking (even if it was only a filter paper) in his class. It took less than a minute for him to look up from his book, furrow his brow, and march out of his office.

“Oh, bloody hell,” muttered Tracey. “I’ve gone and done it now.” She looked around in alarm. The Debbies dived into their exercise books and feigned avid concentration. Tracey turned to me. “Here, Jesse, get rid of it, can you?”

On another day I probably would not have taken it from her, but in the wake of my humiliation in PE and my exhaustion, my reflexes weren’t as sharp as they should have been. When Tracey handed the paper to me, instead of knocking it away I took it, so that, as Mr. Matthews approached, there I was in a cloud of smoke. I looked about, desperate to find somewhere that I might dispose of the burning filter paper.

“Jesse Bennett!” he barked. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” His face was a startling shade of red. Two ropy blue veins pulsed visibly in his neck on either side of his bobbing Adam’s apple.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Really?” He snatched the filter paper from my hand and dunked it in a beaker of water that stood on the bench. It was extinguished with a loud hiss and a thick ribbon of dark gray smoke. “And since when, I ask, did the process of extracting chlorophyll demand that you set light to a filter paper? I’m surprised at you, Miss Bennett. I wouldn’t put this kind of behavior past your friends here.” Tracey was making a concentrated study of the formulas chalked on the blackboard. Everyone else in the classroom was staring at me. “Perhaps they’ve infected you with their idiocy? Or perhaps you think chemistry is just one big joke, Miss Bennett?”

“No, sir.” My face was burning. Surely Tracey wasn’t going to let me take the blame for her stupid prank.

“I’m surrounded by morons. Everywhere.” Mr. Matthews swung around to indicate the group of boys sitting in the very rear of the classroom. While he was yelling at me, they had been making Sieg heil gestures in the air. As he turned, they dropped their arms stiffly to their sides. “Morons,” Mr. Matthews repeated, eyeing them fiercely. “Any more from you lot and you can join Miss Bennett for detention tomorrow evening.”

“Detention? But, sir …” I looked at Tracey again, but she was still frowning at the blackboard.

“Would you like to make that a week of detention, Miss Bennett?”

“No, sir.”

“Good,” he concluded. “So we’ll see each other here tomorrow at four o’clock sharp.”

“Yes, sir,” I said quietly, letting my eyes drop to the bench.

“GOD, JESSE, I CAN’T believe Adolf gave you detention for that,” Tracey said as we exited the chemistry lab after the lesson. “I mean, it’s not like it was anything serious….”

I spun around to look at her. “I told you not to do it. I told you not to light that bloody filter paper.” I could feel tears, hot and stinging, behind my eyes. “And you didn’t need to get me into trouble, you could have—”

Tracey gave an amiable slap to my arm. “Oh, come on, Jesse, don’t go getting your knickers in a twist over nothing. It’s just detention, for God’s sake. It’s not like he’s going to chop your head off.”

“But now I’ll miss the school bus. I don’t know how I’m going to get home.”

“Oh, you can get a bus from Liston that goes to Midham. It comes by the school at half past five. Of course, it goes all over the villages round here, so you won’t get home till half past