Charm School

by Anne Fine

  And then, in her exasperation and frustration, she startled herself by answering her own question rudely. ‘You just choose to sit on your bum and hope you look prettier than everyone around you!’

  Tears sprang to Araminta’s eyes and glittered like the shawl. ‘That is so horrible! And so unfair.’

  Bonny felt terrible. But still, instead of saying she was sorry, she muttered sullenly, ‘What’s so unfair about it? Isn’t it true?’

  ‘No! No, it’s not!’ Araminta glared through her tears and cast round for some way of hurting Bonny back. ‘And you’re only saying it because you’re jealous.’

  Now this was irritating. ‘Jealous?’

  ‘Of course!’ Araminta curled her lip. ‘You’re only being horrible because you know that never in a million years could someone like you win Mrs Opalene’s beautiful glistering tiara!’

  Bonny said scornfully, ‘And what on earth would someone like me want with some stupid, blistering tiara?’

  The colour rushed to Araminta’s cheeks. ‘Oh, right! Nothing!’ She took a deep breath, and rushed on. ‘Because it certainly wouldn’t look right on someone with your cheap, raggedy-looking haircut, and your dull face, and those jeans that do absolutely nothing for your figure!’

  ‘Because I prefer to spend the hours of my life actually living, and not just waste them fussing about every silly square inch of my body?’ Bonny said loftily.

  ‘And it shows!’

  ‘Who’s being horrible now?’ taunted Bonny.

  Araminta went scarlet with frustration. ‘You started it!’ she practically screamed. ‘You said that I was crazy.’

  Bonny knew only too well that this was her last chance to back down. And maybe she would have tried to make up again with Araminta. But, looking away for a moment, she caught sight of Pearl, still patiently standing waiting in the middle of the stage, her face quite blank, and, for all Bonny knew, her mind quite blank as well.

  Oh, they were all the same, these silly, silly, empty girls.

  ‘And so you are! Quite crazy!’ she ended up shouting back in her impatience. ‘Sitting for hours in that lolly-dolly circle, with daft Mrs Opalene, learning about cucumber slices and oatmeal face packs.’

  She’d gone too far, insulting gentle, friendly Mrs Opalene. Instantly, Araminta sprang to her beloved teacher’s defence.

  ‘It’s better than being—’

  She broke off. And Bonny knew she ought to let it go. But something made her push Araminta into saying it, like some tired, miserable toddler who, not allowed to have the toy she wants, breaks the one that she’s holding.

  ‘What?’ she asked dangerously. ‘Better than being what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ snapped Araminta.

  ‘Go on! Spit it out!’ jeered Bonny.

  And Araminta cracked. ‘All right!’ she shouted. ‘You’re snooty and mean about all of us, and horrid about dear Mrs Opalene. So I will say it! It’s better than being a nasty little scruffpot with no looks at all!’

  They stared at one another, shocked, their fresh new friendship in tatters.

  ‘Oh, go away!’ said Bonny, close to tears. ‘Go back to your pretty little circle and learn something really important, like how to moisturize between your toes.’

  Forgetting her shawl in her upset, Araminta rushed to the door and wrenched it open.

  ‘You act so superior,’ she hissed. ‘But if it didn’t mean we’d have to have you back in the class, I’d tell Mrs Opalene right now that you’re nothing but a fake. You go round so sure you know how everybody else ought to live. But you ought to try looking in a mirror. It’s obvious you don’t bother to do it very often, but you should, because you’ll see something really interesting.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Bonny icily. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘I’ll tell you!’ shouted Araminta. ‘Oh, yes. I’ll tell you! I absolutely guarantee that, staring back at you out of that mirror, you’ll see—’

  She darted forward. Down went her pretty painted fingertips to push up the volume and flick on the echo switch before she finished up triumphantly,

  ‘—the meanest girl I ever saw!’

  Round flew the echoes, round and round, bouncing off walls and curdling the air.

  ‘The meanest girl I ever saw!’

  ‘Ever saw!’

  ‘Meanest!’

  ‘Meanest!’

  ‘Meanest!’

  ‘Meanest!’

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS SOON AS the door shut behind Araminta, tears sprang to Bonny’s eyes.

  ‘That’s it!’ she muttered. ‘I’m not staying here!’

  Tugging at the door in her turn, she rushed out in the corridor. Where was her mother? She’d find her if she had to burst into every single room in the building, waking the babies in Practical Parenting and sending pens skidding in Copperplate Handwriting.

  Hurrying round the corner, she bumped into Toby and his trolley.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, and held out one of her favourite Scoobydoo biscuits.

  The stars on the wrapper winked at her temptingly. But Bonny was in no mood to be cheered by treats.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘I can’t pay for it, anyway.’

  ‘It’s already paid for,’ he told her, thrusting it in her hand. And it was only then she noticed the rubber band round it, holding in the folded note.

  FOR SALE

  One whole day in ghastly,

  difficult, slave-driving, no-breaks

  Bookkeeping (Advanced).

  Will swap for one day being charming.

  (Roll on 5pm)

  Love, Mum

  Bonny unwrapped the Scoobydoo and took a massive bite.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, when her mouth emptied. ‘I really, really needed that.’

  ‘I know,’ said Toby. And Bonny noticed he was looking at the note in her hand, not the chocolate bar wrapper. She guessed he’d seen her tears. She didn’t care, though. She felt so much better. Good enough to grin at him cheerfully as he gave her a ride on his trolley back to her little room.

  If she were the meanest girl Araminta had ever seen, Bonny couldn’t help thinking an hour or so later, it was against some pretty stiff competition. In between five-minute visits from each of Mrs Opalene’s ‘Superstars’ explaining exactly what it was she wanted later in the Curls and Purls Show, Bonny switched up some of the microphones dangling from the ceiling in the big mirrored room, and found herself overhearing one catty conversation after another.

  Take Miss Stardust and Miss Rosebud. They both seemed nice enough when they were in with Bonny. But, as Serena walked past in the big room, they wrinkled their noses.

  Curious, Bonny turned up the microphone over their heads.

  ‘Poo! What’s that awful smell?’

  ‘So sickly. With just a touch of flower stalks left rotting in a vase.’

  ‘I wonder where it’s coming from.’ Miss Stardust suddenly pretended to notice Serena glaring. ‘Oh, golly!’ she said. ‘Is it your perfume, Serena? I had no idea. I’m so sorry if Esmeralda and I upset you.’

  ‘Yes, so sorry,’ chortled Esmeralda. She turned to Miss Stardust. ‘We think it’s a nice smell really, don’t we, Angelica?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ said Angelica, in a voice that meant, as clear as paint, ‘Oh, no, we don’t. Really, we think it smells about as pleasant as fresh manure’. But Serena was already hurrying away to the corner of the room, where she stood looking angry and upset for a moment before turning to Pearl, who was standing beside her in a faded old slip, unzipping her big plastic dress bag.

  Bonny switched over to the microphone above Pearl’s head.

  ‘Pearl!’ she heard Serena say. ‘That is the nicest dress you’ve ever worn to Charm School!’

  Pearl looked up, baffled. ‘But you haven’t seen it yet. I’m only just getting it out now.’

  Serena’s voice dripped with false innocence. ‘Isn’t that it, what you’re wearing?’

  �
�This?’ Pearl stared down at the faded, raggedy old slip in which she stood. ‘This is some old thing I borrowed from my mum because it doesn’t show round the neck when I’m wearing my new outfit.’

  ‘Really?’ Serena clapped her hands over her mouth, and acted horrified. ‘Oh, I am sorry! I thought it must be your new frock!’

  Pearl plucked at it, horrified. ‘You didn’t mean that, did you? You didn’t really think this was the nicest dress I’ve ever worn?’

  Her face was crumpling with unhappiness.

  ‘Of course not!’ said Serena in a voice that clearly meant: ‘Oh yes, I did. But I had better not admit it’. It was, thought Bonny, exactly the same mean trick to make someone feel bad that Angelica and Esmeralda had just played on Serena herself. Would Pearl catch on, and tell Serena off for spitefulness? Or would she run in tears to dear, kind, marsh-mallow-hearted Mrs Opalene? Surely she’d care if all her precious, charming girls began to claw at one another like cats in a sack.

  But Mrs Opalene was busy sewing up a fallen length of Cristalle’s hem, while comforting weeping Amethyst about a fleck of white in one of her perfect fingernails. So all Pearl did was drift away from Serena, looking very unhappy. Bonny’s eyes followed her across the room, till she came to a halt behind Cooki.

  For a while Pearl stood watching Cooki brushing her hair in front of the long wide mirror. Then she said kindly, ‘Never mind. No-one will notice.’

  Anxiously, Cooki spun round. ‘No-one will notice what?’

  ‘Your hair.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  Again came that same wide-eyed stare and pretend voice of innocence. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter.’

  Cooki turned back to the mirror. ‘Yes, it does. I want to know what you meant. What can you see? What’s gone wrong with my hair at the back there?’

  ‘Nothing. I told you.’

  ‘But you just said—’

  ‘Honestly, Cooki,’ Pearl interrupted her sweetly. ‘It looks wonderful. Especially from the back.’ But even through the glass panel, Bonny could see the little smile on Pearl’s face that clearly meant, ‘But I’m just saying that. It doesn’t really’.

  And Cooki saw it too.

  ‘It doesn’t, does it? It looks silly. Or wrong. Or something.’ Cooki was panicking. ‘What is it, Pearl? Tell me!’

  ‘It’s nothing. Honestly.’ And off floated Pearl, leaving poor Cooki staring in the mirror in dismay. Bonny felt like rushing out of the control room to slap Pearl hard. But then it would only be fair to go and slap Serena, too, for upsetting Pearl. And, after that, she should go after Esmeralda and Angelica for starting the whole thing off. What was the matter with them all? The children in Bonny’s first playgroup, when she was three, had all behaved better than this. And what was Mrs Opalene thinking of, caring more about fallen hems and fingernails than about them all roaming around being hateful to one another? Was this what she meant by having to suffer to be beautiful? But why would it help to have everyone round you feeling totally crummy?

  Unless, of course, it was some horrible way of passing the unhappiness on, like a plate that was too hot to hold. It couldn’t simply be to do with wanting to be the Supreme Queen and walk off the stage crowned with the glistering tiara. Bonny had been in plenty of competitions. There’d been the canoe race at club camp. And the climb-a-rope contest at the sports centre. And even that poetry speaking final in the school hall. Admittedly, nobody burst into noisy sobs of grief when George’s canoe rolled over, tipping him into the water on the last bend. And she doubted if anyone was really very sorry when, in the rope climb, Gillian lost her nerve and her grip at the same time, and cascaded down the rope to the floor. And everyone burst out laughing when Martin forgot the last line of his poem, and just stared bleakly into space. But no-one had actually gone around beforehand, trying to make that sort of thing happen. No-one had taken the time to think up ways of making all the others lose their confidence, before things even got started.

  Perhaps they’d all been too busy. After all, canoeing and climbing ropes and learning poetry use up your energy, and take up time. But things were very different here in Charm School. The problem with trying to win the glistering tiara was that you weren’t kept busy actually doing things. You were just trying to be. Be neat. Be graceful. Be ladylike. Be more beautiful. To end up being the Supreme Queen.

  So they had too much time to stand and fret. There was Serena, wrinkling her nose over and over, as if she were still trying to work out if her perfume really did smell like rotting flower stalks. Pearl was fingering her new frock, clearly still wondering if Serena would think it was as horrible as all her other ones. And Cooki, worried stiff, couldn’t stop craning to try to see the back of her head in the mirror. Bonny was really relieved when Mrs Opalene stepped up to the microphone, and called them all back to their places in the circle. As Araminta tripped daintily across the room towards her seat, Bonny held up the shawl, to remind her she’d left it. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she was really hoping that Araminta would rush back, just for a moment, to fetch it and make peace.

  But Araminta just glanced coldly in her direction and then turned away. And then she crossed the circle to whisper something in Suki’s ear, and, to Bonny’s embarrassment, Suki, too, stared coldly at her through the glass.

  The two of them exchanged places, so Araminta had her back to Bonny. Bonny felt terrible. She was quite glad when Mrs Opalene chided both of them.

  ‘Now hurry up, dears, please. It’s time for our precious Words About Beauty.’

  Everyone looked delighted. ‘Oh, goody!’ trilled Amethyst. ‘I love Words About Beauty!’

  ‘Who’d like to start?’ asked Mrs Opalene. ‘Who’s found some lovely and inspirational words they’d like to share?’

  ‘I have,’ said Esmeralda. She stood up, clasped her hands and cocked her head winsomely to the side, and started declaiming:

  ‘My evening star! Laura, your beauty shines

  As far as yon dark, whispering pines.’

  ‘Enchanting!’ cried Mrs Opalene, clasping her own hands to her glittering bosom. ‘Enchanting!’

  ‘Can I be next?’ begged Cristalle. ‘I have two lines from a lovely poem we did at school.’ Like Esmeralda, she clasped her hands before saying it aloud.

  ‘My lady is a jewel; her pretty eyes

  Sparkle, as on her velvet couch she lies.’

  Mrs Opalene’s rings flashed as she flattened her hand over her heart. ‘Oh, that is nice! My lady is a jewel. I do like that. Isn’t that nice, girls? Don’t you all agree?’

  Everyone nodded. Cooki’s hand went up. ‘I’ve just remembered one.’ Making sure her knees were together and her feet tucked away neatly, she laid her hands in her lap and flicked her hair back, just like Amethyst.

  ‘Oh, Flora! So well-named! You are a beauteous flower,

  Shimmering in loveliness through every shower.’

  ‘Shimmering in loveliness,’ repeated Mrs Opalene. ‘Doesn’t everyone think that’s beautiful? I do. I think that’s quite inspiring. Thank you, Cooki, dear. Now, who else has a little gem to offer?’

  ‘I do,’ said Cindy-Lou, jumping to her feet. ‘I found it in a book of verses my granny gave me.’

  ‘Lovely, dear.’

  Cindy-Lou spread her hands, and quoted,

  ‘She walks in beauty, like the night.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Mrs Opalene. She seemed to Bonny to be in the seventh heaven of delight. ‘Oh, how we would all like to hear someone saying that of us! She walks in beauty, like the night. Wouldn’t that be something lovely to aim for? Thank you so much, Cindy-Lou, for sharing that with us. Now, who would like to be next?’

  She was still looking hopefully around the circle when Bonny’s voice resounded through the loudspeaker.

  ‘So where was she going?’

  Hearing her own voice booming back at her, Bonny clapped her hands over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to s
peak aloud, let alone with her own microphone channelled through to the big room. But now Mrs Opalene was peering, a little baffled, towards the glass window.

  ‘Is that you, Miss Sparky? Did you have a question?’

  Well, Bonny thought, my mother did buy a ticket. I do have a right to ask one. And to get an answer.

  ‘I was just wondering where she was going,’ she told Mrs Opalene.

  Mrs Opalene was baffled. ‘Who, dear?’

  ‘This woman walking in beauty.’

  ‘Lady, I think, dear,’ Mrs Opalene reproved her. ‘And what does it matter where she was going?’

  ‘I was just interested,’ Bonny defended herself. ‘Perhaps Cindy-Lou knows.’

  Cindy-Lou didn’t. ‘The poet doesn’t say. He just goes on a bit about how beautiful she was while she was walking there. He doesn’t say where she was going, or why.’

  ‘Shame,’ Bonny muttered. ‘I started out quite liking that one. But that makes it quite as boring as all of the others.’

  Everyone stared. Shocked to the core, Mrs Opalene gathered the floaty matching wrap of her gown closer around her shoulders as if a chill wind had run through the room.

  ‘Sorry, dear? Did I mishear? Could I possibly have heard you say the word “boring” about our lovely, inspirational Words About Beauty?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ admitted Bonny, wishing to heaven that she’d kept her mouth shut.

  ‘Beauty that shines like a star?’ reverberated Mrs Opalene, as though the switches on the sound panel had all pushed themselves right up to FULL. ‘Eyes that sparkle like jewels? Flowers that shimmer in loveliness? You call those—’ Her bosom trembled. ‘—boring!’

  Bonny was trembling too, now. But still she tried to explain. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that none of those things the poets are writing about actually do anything, do they?’

  ‘What do you mean, none of them do anything?’