My Friend Miranda

by Im Griffin

  All became clear when Mrs Donaldson distributed a mismatching selection of pans. We got a battered old frying pan with a wobbly handle.

  “What are we cooking Miss?” asked Geeta Khan.

  “Sausages!” Mrs Donaldson replied triumphantly.

  Packets of sausages were passed from bench to bench. They were beef so that the Jewish girls could eat them, and there was a packet of vegetarian sausages as well, for Honey and Geeta. Mrs Donaldson came round to pour a splash of oil into each pan and then the serious business of sausage-cooking began.

  We were still cooking sausages on our table when everyone else had finished because Miranda insisted on having hers burnt practically to cinders. She said that was how sausages are supposed to be. After that the crisps and the cakes came round and all of my chocolate cake got eaten. I think Miranda was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t much uptake on her banana cake but the icing was rather off-putting, and it had brown stringy bits as well. I pointed out that we’d be able to polish off the remains on the bus home and she cheered up a bit.

  Mrs Donaldson said that as it was a party we all had to do turns or sing songs. She went first and sangThe Welly Boot Song, which was a surprise for some people but not for those of us who travelled to Hilton House with her and knew all about her Billy Connolly obsession. Then she called for volunteers from the class. Inevitably, we got Vikki and Trisha singing the Wham Rap, as they did most mornings before registration, but there were also some surprises: Louise Evans played her flute and Jasmine Allardyce did a tap-dance. Miranda threatened to dance too but in the end she tucked her skirt into her knickers and did a headstand for ages, until her face was bright red. She could probably have kept going for the rest of the lesson, but Mrs Donaldson started a round of applause and called out, “That’s enough now Miranda! We can’t have you spoiling the party by fainting!”

  Miranda came down slowly and pretended to look disappointed, but I could tell she was pleased with the clapping from the way she smirked at me as she bounced back to her place.

  Vikki and Trisha wanted to regale us with a few more Wham numbers, but Mrs Donaldson was looking at her watch.

  “Maybe later girls, but we’ve got some dancing to do first.”

  She pressed a button on her tape recorder and the room was filled with lively jig music. “Who knows how to Docie Do?”

  We looked at her blankly.

  “They don’t teach us country dancing in England Miss,” Lynn Docherty said knowledgeably. She was Scottish and was going to a big ceilidh in Aberdeen for the New Year.

  “Lynn! I knew there was a fellow Scot lurking in there somewhere. Up you come and we’ll show this useless lot how it’s done.”

  Lynn and Mrs Donaldson skipped nimbly about the lab, spinning each other round and clapping hands together. By the end of the song Mrs Donaldson was out of breath and Lynn was flushed with pleasure and embarrassment. Mrs Donaldson clutched hold of the fume cupboard to steady herself and indicated that we should all rise.

  “Everybody up then, and form a big circle round the edge of the lab.” She saw the alarmed expressions. “Don’t worry, it’s easy. I’ll go over the steps again.”

  We shuffled into a circle and Lynn and Mrs Donaldson did the first bit of the jig again, this time with Mrs Donaldson calling out the steps:

  “And forward two three four, back two three four...turn...and Docie Do!” She made us all practise it and explained how we would swap partners at the end of each set, and then she rewound the tape recorder and we were off.

  To start with it was rather chaotic. People kept turning the wrong way and crashing into one another, and when it came to the partner-swapping bit as often as not there would be two confused-looking individuals left on opposite sides of the room, one of whom would have to bomb it across to make up a pair just as the next set started. Still, by about half-way through we were beginning to get the hang of it, and when the music finished there were collective sighs of disappointment, even from Vikki and Trisha who had sneered at the beginning.

  We prepared to go back to our seats but Mrs Donaldson held up her hand to stop us. “You surely don’t think I’d let you go without singing Auld Lang Syne?”

  So then we had to cross our arms and hold hands with the people on either side, and warble our way through Auld Lang Syne. I had Miranda next to me and she belted it out furiously, getting half the words wrong in the process, but Mrs Donaldson just smiled at her.

  The bell went just as the last notes finished, and there was a big flurry to collect up the cake plates and put the Bunsen burners away, to avoid missing our buses home. Before we parted in Piccadilly Miranda and I did a quick blast of the chorus of Auld Lang Syne, and Miranda made me promise that we would sing it every year at Christmas.

  Except for needlework, we were allowed to do something special in every last lesson. Some teachers, like Mrs Donaldson, had organised a treat, others didn’t really care and just let us play charades or sit around chatting. Prior to our last maths lesson, there was much speculation as to what Miss Heaney would have in store for us. The general feeling was that she would treat it as a normal lesson, but Vikki and Trisha were having none of it.

  “She can’t make us work. I’m just going to sit there and do nothing.”

  “Yeah, we’ll go on strike.”

  “D’you hear that everyone? You all have to strike in Miss Heaney’s lesson!”

  Miranda and I were sitting on the radiator, writing the French play that we, Rachel, Sinead and Geeta were going to perform in the last French lesson. Vikki and Trisha regarded us with scorn.

  “Janet and Sturdy are a couple of swots, they’ll never do it.”

  “Oy, Janet! I don’t suppose a swot like you will stand up to Miss Heaney.”

  I looked up wearily. “We won’t need to. Miss Heaney’s not that bad.”

  At times I found it difficult to keep the loathing out of my voice when I spoke to Vikki and Trisha. They could just be so pathetic and sodim. They now fell into some tired old routine about the ‘special relationship’ Miranda and I had with Miss Heaney, but we quietly ignored them and they eventually lost interest and wandered off.

  We arrived at the classroom to find Miss Heaney laying a work-sheet face down on each desk.

  “What are we doing, Miss Heaney?” Katherine demanded perkily.

  “Looks like work to me,” muttered Vikki.

  Miss Heaney overheard her and shook her head vigorously as she distributed sheets to the last row. “No, it’s a special maths quiz. You can work in pairs if you like. There’ll be a prize for whoever gets them all right first, and runners-up prizes for everyone who finishes before the bell.”

  “Oh great,” Vikki muttered in a voice heavy with sarcasm.

  The general feeling among the class was not one of great enthusiasm. Having spent the rest of the morning eating and chatting, we were little inclined to concentrate on anything remotely demanding. Still, the prize might be good. Miranda pulled her desk over to mine and we placed our arms protectively around our sheet to ensure that no one could copy.

  In fact, the quiz had little to do with maths; it was simply a list of twenty phrases with numbers in that we had to write out in full. The example at the top was that ‘15 P in a RUT’ stood for ‘15 players in a rugby union team’, and the first question, which we got straight off, was ‘26 G in 1M’ or ‘26 girls in 1M’. Most of the early ones were quite easy; we got stuck on ‘18 H in a GC’ for a while, but after much feverish pencil chewing, Miranda triumphantly shouted “18 holes in a golf-course!” and everyone around us immediately wrote it down as well. I poked her and suggested she should whisper the answers in future.

  The questions from about ten onwards were really tricky; I suspected that ‘22 B on a ST’ might be another sporting one, but I had no idea for ‘9 S by LVB’ or ‘6 S on a G’. Miranda had given up altogether and was devoting her energies to eavesdropping on other people, which was actually quite productive (we got three that w
ay) but hardly seemed very sporting.

  We were just arguing over whether ‘9 UK N1 for A’ could possibly be ‘9 UK Number Ones for Abba’ when there was a commotion in the other corner of the classroom. Gillian Mailer and Lynn Docherty were calling for Miss Heaney and waving their arms around excitedly, and it was soon confirmed that they had all twenty correct. Miranda slumped down in her chair.

  “Oh well, that’s that then.”

  “There are still the runners-up prizes...”

  Everyone was turning round to see what Gillian and Lynn had won. However, Miss Heaney had positioned her large bulk between the winners and the rest of the class and was being very secretive. “No one else need look! Just get on with your quizzes.”

  She had bent down and was whispering and pointing to something on the desk in front of her.

  Before long the runners-up began to announce themselves, and again they were dealt with in high secrecy. However, we soon worked out that they weren’t actually receiving much; it even seemed as if Miss Heaney was just showing them something. There was no evidence of anyone chewing, and Miranda announced that she wasn’t interested anyway if it wasn’t food.

  At the end of the lesson Miss Heaney twinkled out of the classroom wishing us all a very happy Christmas, which was returned with varying warmth depending on whether people had finished her wretched quiz or not. Vikki marched over to Gillian and Lynn. “So? Let’s see what you got then!”

  They sheepishly produced a photograph showing a baby hedgehog curled up on a brown rug, which on closer inspection emerged to be Miss Heaney’s cardigan.

  “What the hell is that?” Trisha exclaimed.

  “It’s one of Miss Heaney’s hedgehogs. She’s got a whole family living in her back garden. This one was only about a week old when she took the photo.”

  “Oh...” Miranda had wandered over and was staring transfixed at the photo. She was a sucker for baby animals.

  “So that’s it?” Vikki demanded. “One sodding photo of a miserable hedgehog? What did the rest of you get?”

  Katherine snorted contemptuously. “Oh, we didn’t even get to keep the photos. She just showed them to us.”

  Vikki pulled a disgusted face, but the rest of the runners-up were chattering enthusiastically.

  “Did you see the one where they were all around the bowl of milk?”

  “What about them playing in the birdbath?”

  “The baby isso cute!”

  Vikki and Trisha stalked out of the classroom in disgust.

  “All that for a bloody hedgehog photo!”

  The rest of the class began to gather up their possessions, and Miranda turned to me, eyes glowing. “Do you think if I went to see her she’d show them to me?”

  “What, the photos? Probably not, seeing as we didn’t finish the quiz.”

  “I know, but...” Miranda sensed my lack of interest. “Oh, come with me Janet. I’ll feel stupid on my own. The dinner queue will be massive by now anyway.”

  I sighed wearily. “Alright then.”

  We trudged up to the staff room corridor. You were supposed to wait outside until a teacher was going in and then ask them to fetch whoever you needed to see. Miranda practically tripped up Mrs Donaldson in her eagerness.

  “Mrs Donaldson, please could you see if Miss Heaney’s in there?”

  “Not in trouble I hope?” Mrs Donaldson enquired jovially.

  “Oh no, it’s just that...” Mrs Donaldson winked and vanished inside. A moment later Miss Heaney appeared.

  “Haven’t I just taught you Miranda? What is it that you want?”

  “It’s about your hedgehog photos, Miss Heaney. I mean, I know I didn’t finish the quiz, butplease could you show them to me anyway? I’m sorry for interrupting your lunchtime.”

  Miss Heaney’s face softened slightly. “Oh. Well all right then. Hang on a moment.” She disappeared back into the staff room and emerged with a large brown envelope.

  “This is a photograph of all of them. They’ve been living in my garden for about three years now. I sometimes don’t see them during the day, but they always come up to the back door at around six o’clock for their bowl of bread and milk. There – that’s the grown-ups having their milk – I call them Horace and Hetty.”

  “Can you tell which is which?”

  “I can tell between them, but I don’t actually know which is the male and the female!” Miss Heaney laughed throatily.

  “Can you pick them up?”

  “It’s funny actually, the baby ones like being picked up and don’t seem at all scared, but the older ones are much more wary. They won’t even eat if I’m standing too close.”

  “And do they still come out in the winter?”

  “Oh no, they go into hibernation somewhere. November the second was their last visit this year, but they’ll be back. I’m expecting them sometime in March.”

  “Wow! You’re really lucky.”

  Miranda was practically fluorescing with envy. Her mangy old guinea pigs were nothing on Miss Heaney’s hedgehogs, and it was with the greatest reluctance that she managed to drag herself away.

  “I suppose we should go to dinner. Thanks for showing us them, Miss Heaney.”

  “That’s all right, Miranda. Have a nice Christmas! You too, Janet!”

  Chapter 11

  The Christmas holidays were marred by the prospect of exams when we came back. I was determined to come top in as many subjects as possible and I followed a taxing study regime, rising each morning at seven thirty and getting an hour’s work in before my morning toast and peanut butter. As the day progressed and my siblings lolled in front of the television consuming endless packets of crisps, I worked my way through Latin vocabulary, the Great Fire of London and the definitions of a solid, a liquid and a gas. It wasn’t difficult, just boring, memorising pages of notes I had taken as dictation or copied off the board, and then muttering them back to myself under my breath.

  When I had memorised all I could bear of a particular subject, I would recite the whole lot, and then return the exercise book to the pile on my bed. By way of a break I played songs from the Paul McCartney album I had taped off Miranda, and chewed at the skin around the edges of my fingernails until they bled and needed plasters. The rituals of food and drink served as further breaks to the monotony: morning coffee at eleven, lunch at one, several cups of coffee in the afternoon, and a walk up to the newsagent at around four thirty for a quarter of sweets.

  “Can I have a quarter of toffee bon-bons? Oh actually no, make that sherbert lemons please.”

  I loved toffee bon-bons but they were always gone too fast, so it was better to get sucky sweets that would last me all night.

  At dinner I was uncommunicative; I found I had little to say after my day of solitary frenzy, and in any case I had no desire to join in the bickering about the evening’s proposed television viewing. I cleared the table if asked but otherwise escaped as soon as possible, heading back to my room for the final revision stint of the day. In the evening I generally worked through maths problems, which I actually liked in comparison to my other subjects, because at least it was active rather than just memorising stuff.

  I knew it was pathetic, but I used to get really worked up if I was stuck on a maths problem. It didn’t happen very often because they weren’t that hard, but when it did I would weep and swear and chew my fingers more than ever. On one occasion I got so angry that I slammed my fountain pen down into my rough book, causing the nib to split in two. This was tremendously upsetting because I was very proud of the fountain pen: it was transparent plastic with little pink hearts on and a pink plastic nib, and represented the pièce de résistance of my stationery collection.

  When I saw the damage I sobbed harder than ever, until my dad came in to see what was wrong, and then I refused to be consoled unless he showed me how to do the maths problem. After that I sulked because it was a stupid badly worded question and I could have done it perfectly well if it had been explained
properly.

  Later that night my mum came in and sat on the end of my bed, interrupting the final chapter ofPenelope’s Passion (It was a Mills and Boon; Nancy and I had rescued a whole stack from the attic of my grandparents’ house, and I found them very comforting in moments of crisis). Penelope had just discovered that the cruel rumours about the man she was madly in love with were completely untrue, but it was too late because he had already left to get the ferry back to the mainland (it was set on a remote Scottish island; he owned it, naturally). The only chance she had was to ride her black mare across the moors to reach the ferry before it sailed...

  Still, Penelope would have to wait because my mum wanted to talk to me.

  “We’re worried that you’re working too hard.” She said that exams for one term’s worth of work couldn’t possibly be that important, and that perhaps when we went to our little house in Yorkshire after Christmas we should take Miranda with us. She had guessed correctly that that Miranda would be doing sod-all on the revision front, and clearly hoped that some of her laissez-faire attitude would rub off on me. I agreed reluctantly; I wouldn’t achieve much when I had to share a bedroom with the others anyway, and at least if it snowed we could go sledging and build igloos and things.

  Christmas Day itself was a bit of an anti-climax. We went to church and then trudged round Heaton Park in the rain.

  “No one else I know has to go for a walk on Christmas Day,” Nancy moaned, and my dad rolled his eyes and said that she needn’t come next year. That didn’t stop her going into a mood when we got home, because she had worn her new suede boots despite all advice to the contrary and they now smelt of wet dog.

  Next we went to my grandma’s and she gave us some money and a box of chocolates each. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful but I was pretty disappointed that I got liquorice allsorts again – I hate them and no one else likes them much so they won’t swap with me. You could see the visible signs of relief on their faces as they cradled their Thornton’s fudge and cast furtive sideways glances at my liquorice.