by Beth Garrod
“Look, there’s NO WAY you lot are taking the blame for this. It was me who started it, and I’m just going to tell Mr Lutas that.”
AS IF. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine for ever getting involved with Luke, not hers for sticking up for me. I corrected her.
“And it was us who backed you up, ’member? You didn’t squirt those condiments unaided, so don’t even think about it. We’re in this together, that’s what we just agreed, right, Rach?”
Rachel nodded.
“Ms Fisher. Ms Allen. Ms Waters. Mr Jackson.”
CRAPFLAPS. Surname address meant one of two things. We’d time travelled to Victorian England, or Mr Lutas was at the front steps, and he was calling us, in front of everyone.
Sadly (not that sadly) my uniform hadn’t turned into bloomers, so I had to concede to the latter. Mikey was scanning the scene, assessing who had heard. Luckily it was just the trickle of latecomers. He hated people being reminded he was called Michael Jackson.
We walked over to Mr Lutas.
“You may or may not know that I have news for you. Thanks to the stunt you pulled in the canteen yesterrrrrday, Mrs Hitchman has decided that you are to spend thrrreee of yourrrr rrrremaining evenings this term in DETENTION. A letter will be sent out to your parents.”
Thank goodness Mikey had warned us, or I’d be in serious danger of yelling ‘AAAARRRGGGGHHH, YOU MANIAC GIBBON’ in Mr Lutas’s face and spending every evening for the rest of my life in detention. Instead I shot Tegan a look that said ‘don’t you dare say anything’, trying to reinforce our earlier agreement with a complicated combination of squinting and slo-mo nodding.
“Underrrstand?” Mr Lutas growled.
Relieved that Tegan stayed silent, we all nodded, unenthusiastically, ignoring the nosey looks of everyone walking past. Mum was going to FREAK (a zen freak is still a freak) when she finds out.
“However, after a long discussion with the headmistrrress I have a prrrroposal for you.”
My brain accidentally pictured Mr Lutas proposing. Shudder.
“End of term prrrom is fast approaching. One week. Two days away. Correct?”
Thanks, Mr Lutas. As if we hadn’t been counting down ever since term started.
“Ya, richtig.”
As I realized what I was saying, my jaw sprung closed like a mousetrap. A mouth-trap. It really couldn’t be trusted. This is what happens when you don’t do your German homework. All the tiny bits of knowledge you have come popping out at the wrong times instead. It was the wurst.
“Parrrdon?”
“Sorry – yes. I meant, correct.” First rule of Mr Lutas – do not deviate from the most standard and formal response possible. He glared at me.
“As I was saying. I need some help. Apparently everyone is more than happy to attend and enjoy the end of year parrrties, yet no one is willing to put any effort towards making it happen. And your prrrrom is in parrrticular perrril.”
I had no idea where he was going with this. Although I couldn’t help but be hopeful that he hadn’t said anything about docking points.
“So I have asked that instead of doing detention, you could help me with the prreparration for that instead. You may have not rrrrrealized it,” he made an unnecessarily long r-roll, “but it’s what my deparrrtment does, every year. With little to no thanks. From anyone.”
What? Time spent slapping some paint on a banner instead of writing detention essays? Hello, gift horse, I am definitely not going to look in your mouth.
“Mr Lutas, that sounds great, thank you. Although –” I felt I should manage his expectations – “although you do know that we’re, well, I am not exactly the world’s greatest artist?”
“I am awarrre.”
Quick, someone nominate him for Supportive Teacher of the Year.
Ever the reliable friend (except the one time she wasn’t), Tegan came to my rescue and spoke up.
“What do you need us to do?”
“Well, there’ll be three sessions. Two this week and one next week, starting tomorrow. You’ll be in my arrrt room making and painting scenery. Ms Fisher, we’ll need that camera you won to take photos as we go.” I nodded, as I didn’t really have a protesting-leg to stand on. “All of you will need to bring some good ideas, but don’t brrring any of that attitude you had yesterrrday. Underrrstood?”
Nodding a lot more enthusiastically than last time, we looked around at each other, clearly thinking the same thing. Maybe, just maybe, this could turn out OK?
“Excellent.” He turned to walk off. “Oh, one last thing. It goes without saying that Mrs Hitchman –” he smiled to himself at the mention of her name – “has also decided to dock you all your rrremaining behaviourrr points, so decorrrating for the prom is the closest any of you are going to come to it. So, make the most of it! Or you’ll have the other students after you as well.”
WHAT THE WHAT?! I looked up to see if I could spot any asteroids careering towards us. Surely this was the end of the world? But all I could see was a pigeon, and it didn’t look like it was about to unleash fury on mankind.
Mr Lutas strode off. We stood in silence letting the news seep in. Our prom dream was over. Someone should email the Queen (or whoever it is that decides) to ask them to erect (note to self, must learn to use that word without laughing) a commemorative plaque where we were standing. ‘Site Of Worst News Ever Delivered At St Mary’s (Except When 1D’s ‘Hiatus’ Was Announced In Geography).
As the others began to work out whether there was any way we could redeem ourselves, and how it was no one’s fault (even though I felt like it was all mine), I could only picture one thing. Luke’s smug face. Not helped by the fact that when I managed to yell at my brain enough to get rid of it, the real-life smug Luke face came round the corner, followed by his posse of pathetics. He barged his way past Mikey and walked right up to my face.
“Sorry, girls. I might have let slip to Mr Lutas about the food fight. Guess you’ve heard?”
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t risk a repeat of yesterday.
“Guess we have.”
“Got to admit, I’m kind of looking forward to detention. More time to check out Rach.”
Luke and the idiots (which would be a good band name, if it didn’t make me want to hurl) burst out fake-laughing, and swarmed off into school. This detention proved he really would stop at nothing to ruin my life.
Moaning about what a crime against oxygen Luke was, the rest of us trudged off to lessons racking our brains for a way out of our predicament, and back into prom. Despite the three of us spending our entire lunch hour crouched in a human tower behind a leaflet stand, trying to catch a glimpse of Zac from afar, we still didn’t come up with anything.
When I finally got home that night, I didn’t breathe a word of any of it to Mum. That could wait until the letter arrived. Instead I headed straight to my room and begrudgingly packed up all my camera kit. I even included my brand-new lens I’d got for Christmas. Look, Mr Lutas, BONUS EFFORT!
But as well as being my pride and joy (everything else I owned was broken, or as I called it ‘vintage’), my camera also dredged up another feeling. One I tried to ignore. Guilt. Maybe that’s why, when I opened PSSSST, I decided to share a proper secret. About how I’d really managed to win the camera that the whole school was after. It was something nobody knew. Well, no one except Luke, who was with me when I sent in my entry. It was the night he met my mum and she told him it was never too early to check for prostate problems. Probably the only time I’ve seen him speechless.
I took a deep breath, and confessed.
As I pressed post, I felt a tiny sense of relief, the guilt lifting a little. Was it weird to feel better now I’d told someone? Even though they were strangers, and no one could trace it back to me?
I skipped dinner – instantly alerting my fam that something major was up – and fell asleep messaging the others ridiculous ideas to help win back points. Day one of getting Zac back and going to prom
hadn’t gone exactly to plan. But I still had seven more school days and two awesome friends to try and turn things around. And with them on side, how bad could things be?
But the answer was ‘very’.
Because I was about to discover a secret that was going to make my head explode.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
EVER WONDERED WHY ONLY ONE OF MY
TEACHERRRS GETS TO TAKE HIS STUDENTS ON
FORRREIGN TRIPS? COULD IT HAVE ANYTHING
TO DO WITH HIM PAYING EXTRA CURRICULARRR
VISITS TO A PERSON WHO HELPS HIM GET
AHEAD? (COUGH, I MEAN, A HEAD)
(AS IN ‘A HEAD MISTRESS*’)
(AS IN I THINK THEY’RE SNOGGING)
(*INSERT GROSS TEACHER CRUSHING
ON EACH OTHER EMOJI*)
I looked at my phone. 3.34 p.m.. Crapballs. Detention started four minutes ago. How was I late for everything? Oh yeah, cos I’d been hiding in the loos posting the scandal the world needs to hear. But my PSSSST followers had loved the last Mr Lutas one. LilDrummerBoy said it made him ‘crease like a T-shirt you’ve left in your bag for the entire summer’. Maybe it’s because all art teachers are weird and it’s part of the job description:
Can you draw a hedgehog? Tick.
Can you stare at a picture of dots for hours AND
look interested? Tick.
Can you not laugh at statues with small man-dangles on? Tick.
Are you massively weird? TICK TICK TICK.
I pushed open the door to the art room. Voices were coming from the storeroom at the back – the others must already be here. Remembering that ‘others’ also meant Luke made my breath catch in my chest. Well, it was that or the smell of spray glue.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr Lutas – there was a queue for the toilet.” Kind of true, as there was – once I’d finished getting reception, posting on PSSSST, reapplying deodorant and quickly squeezing a spot at the bottom of my neck that had been bothering me all day.
Mr Lutas didn’t look impressed.
“I will expect you to make the rrrest of the sessions on time. . .”
He looked annoyed he had nothing else to threaten me with. But the only thing left now was being suspended, and that seemed like an excellent way of avoiding Zac-Luke-gate and all lessons. Plus, I’d get to eat loads of biscuits.
I slung my camera on the table in front of Mr Lutas to remind him I wasn’t all bad. He peered at it, nodded an acknowledgement, and cleared this throat to address the group.
“The fate of this year’s prrrom is in the hands of you. This sorry bunch.” He pointed at us, just in case we weren’t clear on what sorry bunch he meant. In fairness, we did look as unenthused as a bunch of people who had had to give up their evenings to decorate a prom that they couldn’t go to would look. “So, it’s going to be all hands on deck.”
Tegan jumped in.
“Of COURSE, Mr Lutas – we can all work together really well, right guys?” She managed to simultaneously both smile at Mr Lutas and glare at us. I’d forgotten last night’s agreement to play the extra-enthusiastic card in an effort to get him back on side. She probably wasn’t delighted that I’d been late then. Oops. Rachel and Mikey twigged on to the plan at the same time, and we all made slightly too late ‘deffos’ and ‘uh-huhs’. Luke just scowled. Guess being a bitter loner is to be expected when your evil plan backfires and you’re made to spend your evening in a room full of people that want to impale you on paintbrushes.
“Excellent. Thank you, Ms Allen. So, first things first. You need to know the theme.” Mr Lutas cleared his throat, as if it was a big reveal. “The theme this year is . . . YEARBOOK.” He turned round a massive piece of card that had lots of scrappy bits of paper and bad school photos and pictures of yearbooks from the 90s stuck all over it. It was officially the world’s most underwhelming mood board. More of a bored-mood. It really was baffling what teachers thought was cool. “As you can see, I’ve made a grrrreat start. But I’m looking for a big idea to tie it all together. A rrreal feature in the hall. Once we have that, you can get cracking.”
The only thing I wanted to crack was Luke’s annoying face. Into an easel.
We huddled round the big communal desk at the back, Tegan doing the talking for everyone. The smell of sworn enemies was almost as suffocating as the paint fumes. Mikey occasionally said something to help her out but his body language screamed, ‘Luke, this cooperation is not for you, and this time I’d throw an entire brie at you if I had one’.
Mr Lutas quickly got frustrated with the lack of input.
“Come on, please. You’re intelligent people.” He looked round with a fake smile. “Just.”
I hope that one was aimed at Luke. I smiled straight at him to show I thought it was.
“We need some better ideas. . . Bella, Luke, that means you too.”
Crapballs. I guess the one thing I can normally be relied on for is to talk, even if my ideas are terrible. But Luke beat me to it.
“I guess we could make it themed on sports year? Like alternative, you know. Fill the room with props and games?”
“What, like darts and curling?” Mikey deadpanned back, obvs not bothered about getting into more trouble.
“Mr Jackson – let him finish.”
Luke smiled at Mr Lutas, loving Mikey being put in his place.
“As I was saying, I’m currently building some new ramps for the BMX trails, and Tegan’s into gym or whatever. And Michael Jackson’s probably into, I don’t know, knitting.” Mikey mouthed ‘ha ha’. Mr Lutas ignored it and waved Luke to carry on.
“So we could have loads of different areas for what people are into? Recreate the highlights from this year?”
Mr Lutas looked vaguely impressed. “Well, that’s certainly the best idea we’ve had so far.”
Correction. It was the only idea. An evening of hanging out inside a room that had been made to look like the playing field we hang out at for the rest of the year – I don’t think so?! Everyone would hate us. And the netball team already hated me, so they’d hate2 me. I had to think of something.
“Erm, Mr Lutas. I do have one idea.” C’mon, Bella, this could be your time to shine. “So you know we don’t actually get a Yearbook until Year 11?”
He nodded.
“Well, I was thinking – maybe we could make like . . . a virtual one?” I hadn’t really thought this through.
“I don’t think I understand.”
Neither do I, Mr Lutas, I’m freestyling here. And neither did anyone else judging by the confused looks.
“Er, yes. Like something to do with that. Like, erm photos and words and things.”
Well done me, that narrowed it down to EVERYTHING.
Enthusiastic Tegan enthusiastically nodded with enthusiasm.
“No – I get it! I think it’s genius!”
Mikey pushed some paper forward on the table and started drawing.
“A bit like this?” He gestured to the picture of a stick man holding up a sign. “Like a makeshift photo booth, where we can all write messages on signs and hold them up in the photos?”
“Er, yeah?” That worked, I guess. We’d all been in a photo booth just like that when we’d gone out for pizza for Mikey’s birthday and they were doing a competition to suggest a new topping. Mikey had written down ‘Chips and gravy’. He hadn’t won.
“Or –” it was Rachel turn to join in – “or it could be like that thing we did last year in the cinema when we watched that film about that killer vet?”
YES, Rachel, YES! I nodded with so much enthusiasm that Tegan smiled approvingly, even though I didn’t think Mr Lutas would have seen a film where someone got suffocated to death with a stuffed chinchilla.
“Basically, you get your picture taken on a posh camera – we could use yours, right Bella?” I shrugged my shoulders in a ‘guess so’ way, careful not to look at Luke and give away any reminders that might jog his memory about the thing only he knew. “And like M
ikey said, we’d all hold up slogans and signs. Then the picture goes straight on to a projector and is beamed up so everyone can see it – really huge, on wall.”
Oh yeah! Maybe my idea was genius after all.
I joined back in.
“The big wall above the piano would be perfect! We could make the whole thing look like a real page in a yearbook? A one-night-only yearbook! A nightbook?!”
Mr Lutas mulled it over.
“It sounds an interrresting idea. But do you think you have the time . . . and skill, to make it work?” Motivational teacher strikes again.
“Totally!” Tegan had a point to prove. I knew how her mind worked – if she could make our idea better than Mr Lutas could have hoped, then maybe, just maybe, he’d let us go to prom after all. She carried on. “It’s PERFECT. Luke – you know how to make ramps and stuff, so maybe you could use all your woodwork skills to make, like, a giant real-life frame for people to step into and pose in?”
Wow. Talking to Luke – she really was pulling out all the stops. Even he looked surprised.
“I g-guess I could?” He seemed reluctant, but didn’t want to say ‘no’ in front of a teacher. Shame he didn’t, though, as the last thing I wanted was for him to get in Mr Lutas’s good books. If there were blank pages to be taken, it was going to be us that got them.
Tegan wasn’t finished. “Cool – maybe you could make the signs to hold up too? We’d just need big bits of wood, covered in whiteboard paint for people to write on. They’d need to be big enough to read and able to be wiped clean and re-used through the night. They could have cool handles, or be on sticks . . . or be in speech bubble shapes, or have decoration round the edge to make them look a bit nicer?” She paused for breath. “Sound doable?”
Luke looked a bit overwhelmed, but shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘why not?’. But Tegan had enough momentum for us all.
“Bella, you’re on point with your photography, so could you work out what other props we need to make the photos look good – maybe lots of funny cut-out shapes to hold up?” I nodded. She glared at me. I nodded more enthusiastically.
“Deffosoundsamazing. Like, er, big cardboard moustaches, and tiny hats, and er, tufts of nasal hair. . .”