Crushworthy

by Sara Lawrence

  She hadn’t seen Liberty or Chastity or any of them when she’d emerged from her bedroom, but it was half past eight at the time and she presumed they’d all gone off to lessons or chapel happy in the assumption she was busy dealing with Igor. None of them knew she’d seen him the previous evening and she decided she preferred flying this mission solo. This way, she could take her time thinking about what she should say to Mrs. B. without factoring what anyone else thought into the equation. Although, to be honest, the only thing she’d decided was to tell the truth. And she intended to tell it in as clear, sane, and unexcitable a way as possible.

  At the same time Jinx was standing next to Jo’s desk outside Mrs. Bennett’s office, halfway down the main school corridor, Daisy Finnegan was standing by the entrance to the chapel, waiting to buttonhole Katie Green and take her off for a little chat about things. Daisy craned her neck to better peer over the top of the crowd at the stragglers crawling along behind, fast becoming frustrated by a sea of lower school girls cracking gum and hitching up their skirts right in front of her and before they were hardly out the chapel door.

  Jinx, meanwhile, was becoming frustrated by Jo’s relentless questions as to what, exactly, Jinx wanted to see her boss about, and Jo was becoming frustrated with the lack of information.

  “I just want an appointment as soon as possible please, Jo,” Jinx said firmly. “It’s, um, personal. Sorry.”

  “Katie Green?” Daisy asked imperiously as she spied her quarry a few feet in front of her, stunning Katie and all the second-years around her into a shocked silence.

  None of them could possibly imagine what a lower-sixth would want with one of their humble lot.

  “If I could just have a word,” she continued, gripping Katie’s arm and ushering her towards the courtyard. “This way.”

  “What on Earth is it, Jinx?” Mrs. Bennett pushed open her door and stuck her head through the gap. “I can hear you haranguing poor Jo from all the way inside! Come in, come in, I’ve not got a huge amount of time but I can spare you ten minutes before my meeting.”

  Jinx retrieved her book bag from where she’d casually flung it on the floor, smiled apologetically at Jo and dashed after her headmistress. Mrs. B.’s office was usually a peaceful place, but as she seated herself in one of the red velvet hard-backed chairs opposite the vast mahogany desk, Jinx felt a lot less than calm. Mrs. Bennett leant her elbows on the desk and linked her fingers, her forearms making a pyramid shape in front of her. This was Jinx’s cue to swallow, take a deep breath and start talking. And talk she did, without stopping, for the next ten minutes. Mrs. Bennett’s spectacles slipped practically to her jaw, but she was too entranced by what Jinx was telling her to even notice.

  “So the thing is,” Daisy said to a dazed Katie, “all you had to do was write me a note and put it in my pigeonhole and I wouldn’t have had to go to all the trouble of making a new one. Do you understand that?”

  “But…” it was slowly filtering into Katie’s befuddled, panicky mind that Daisy was not accusing her of having anything to do with knocking on Mrs. Bennett’s door that fateful night. Eventually, a good few minutes after most people would have cottoned on, it became clear the older girl just assumed she had found the revision aid and pocketed it. Katie had no idea, of course, but she was currently experiencing a classic “fingering.” Daisy was adept at moving between anger and sorrow during an uncomfortable encounter, therefore negating the need to go into any situation with more of one than the other and invariably confusing her opposing number to her own advantage.

  Mrs. Bennett stared at Jinx, marveling at how on Earth the girls had managed to find out all this information, why the hell she herself had heard not even a whisper of anything, and the bursar’s amazingly treacherous duplicity.

  All finished now, Jinx regarded her headmistress somewhat warily across the gleaming expanse of desk. As Jinx talked she had watched Mrs. B.’s face register a huge variety of expressions and still had no idea what the end result would be. Initial shock at what Jinx was telling her had given way to bemused disbelief, which in turn—and as Jinx had expounded on Daisy’s theories and what Igor had told her—gave way to a grudging acceptance. Now, however, was the turn of pure rage.

  “Right,” Mrs. Bennett said eventually, standing up and pacing back and forth behind her desk. “Right.”

  Jinx didn’t say a word. She felt beyond relieved just to have shared the information with her headmistress. Keeping things to oneself was a most tiresome business indeed, it really was. She hoped Mrs. Bennett believed her and would do something to sort the whole damn mess out.

  “Jinx Slater,” Mrs. Bennett said, one hand on the back of the desk chair she had stopped behind, the other pushing her glasses back up her nose, fixing Jinx with a very serious look indeed. “I told you last term that you were a credit to this school, and once again you have proved me absolutely correct. You might,” she continued in a much softer voice, smiling warmly at the squirming girl in front of her, “just have saved the school from a fate worse than death.”

  Jinx blushed and looked down at the toes of her silver Top Shop pumps. She absolutely adored Mrs. Bennett, but she found all this gushing both unnatural and hard to deal with. Her blush swiftly became a magnificent magenta when Mrs. B. enveloped her in a huge hug and whispered “thank you” in her ear.

  “So you see, Katie,” Daisy was saying to the second-year, “it’s okay to be a geek. I mean, look at me. I’ve never been involved in the so-called popular crowd, but I’m still having the best time of my life at Stagmount. I’ve got plenty of friends who are just like me and I’m getting the best education in the world.”

  “But…” Katie mumbled, still not quite able to believe Daisy Finnegan was giving her an unasked for pep talk like this and deeply wishing she was anywhere in the world but sitting here on this bench in the cloisters.

  “No, don’t interrupt.” Daisy cut across her imperiously, quite taken with her current agony aunt pose. “As I was saying, Katie, it’s only natural to be fascinated with us older girls when you’re in the second year. I can remember being quite obsessed with a girl called Annette Walker when I was your age. You can’t let it take over your life though, Katie, or the other people in your year might make fun of you.”

  Daisy scowled as she remembered Jinx making her life an absolute misery by sending her a load of faked letters purporting to be from the aforementioned Ms. Walker, a beautiful blonde American-cheerleader-type who’d been in the lower sixth when they first arrived. Daisy had made a right fool of herself when she’d lovingly, innocently replied to them on a despicable pink, heart-shaped notelet and the others had laughed long and hard at her about it for ages—oh, until the end of the bloody third year at least.

  Katie was feeling so pole-axed, appalled, and furiously embarrassed by the whole goddamned thing, so freaked out by Daisy’s speech and so longing to get the hell out of there that all her crushes on the older girls died an immediate, irreversible, and largely painless death on that surprisingly sunny March morning. As long as she lived she never wanted to have a single other thing to do with any of them. It would be a long time before she could even see one of them passing in the corridor and not squirm involuntarily, remembering the hell of Daisy Finnegan telling her they were alike. Sparks practically flew out from under her Clarks brown lace-up shoes, in such a hurry was she to get away when Daisy indicated their cozy chat was at an end.

  Daisy, meanwhile, sat on the bench a few seconds longer. So many interesting things had happened to her this term, and she’d forged alliances she’d never even dreamed about. As she ran through the events of the term in her mind, Daisy realized she’d never even come close to discovering the door-knocking-in-the-middle-of-the-night saboteur. She turned her face to the winter sun and decided to give that one up as a bad job.

  Jinx watched in awe as Mrs. Bennett buzzed Jo and told her to get the bursar in to see her as soon as possible, like yesterday her steely tone implied, and wo
ndered what would happen to the triplets.

  “And let’s not forget, Jinx,” Mrs. Bennett said, “none of this has anything to do with the triplets. If their father wants them to continue their education at Stagmount—as I hope he will—then of course they must. I know I can count on you girls to keep this episode as quiet as possible and not to treat them any differently because of it. Igor, of course, will have to leave, but I’m sure he’ll be absolutely fine.” Her eyes twinkled as she said this—she’d found it very hard indeed not to laugh when Jinx was breathlessly recounting the love story of Cathy and Igor earlier that morning. “And Jinx, I think we should forget the vodka business. I won’t mention it again and neither will you.”

  Finally released, Jinx smiled at Jo and began walking slowly, thoughtfully, in the direction of the modern languages department, blissfully unaware of the nasty French vocabulary pop quiz that awaited her. Mr. Christie had finally decided to toughen up and sort his act out. She was pondering Mrs. B.’s promise to call a meeting of the school governors, investigate—and immediately get rid of—the bursar, and wondering how Igor’s romance mission was going when she heard someone running up behind her and yelling her name.

  “Hi, Dais,” she said, turning round to see Daisy, ginger pigtails flying behind her, pink with exertion and gaining on her fast. “What’s up?”

  “Did you speak to Igor?” demanded Daisy as the pair fell into step and paused at the foot of the DOWN stairs. “What happened?”

  Jinx immediately recounted everything that had happened the night before, naturally hamming up the bits about Cathy, and finished with leaving Mrs. B.’s office a few minutes before. Daisy stared at her open-mouthed. She’d known something was up but, super sleuth as she was, she could never have predicted all of this. Jinx held up her hand and the pair of them awkwardly high-fived before beginning the trudge to French. Daisy had never knowingly walked up the DOWN stairs before, and the thrill it gave her caused her to throw caution to the wind and ask Jinx if she had anything planned for the weekend.

  “Um,” Jinx muttered, thinking it was one thing to talk to Daisy on school property but quite another to take her out on the freaking town, “we’re going to, like, this skateboarding contest on the seafront on Saturday. Do you, um, want to come?”

  “That’s really kind of you, Jinx,” Daisy replied with a surprised smile. She could hardly believe the great Jinx Slater had actually just invited her to a social event and for a moment she did consider accepting. After another second, however, she decided against it. Calling a halt to hostilities was one thing. Spending their weekends together was another entirely. Daisy wasn’t sure they’d quite reached that stage, or indeed if they ever would. It was best all round, she decided, to keep things on an even keel.

  “I can’t, I’m afraid,” she finished decisively. “But thanks anyway.”

  “S’all right,” Jinx said as they stood outside the classroom door, feeling relieved as hell that Daisy had declined and liking her all the more because of it. “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t realized anything was up God knows what might have happened to Stagmount.”

  The pair of them smiled sheepishly at each other, locked for a second in a mutual understanding, before Mr. Christie threw open his door and ushered them inside, loudly wondering what on Earth had kept them for so long. They took their seats amidst a chorus of winks, raised eyebrows, and hissed questions. They gave nothing away, but smiled at each other once more before turning to their books.

  25 Hanging Ten

  Staurday morning dawned bright and sunny, although a biting wind blowing off the sea meant it was still business very much as usual as far as fluffy-hooded parkas, overlong scarves, mittens and the occasional beanie hat. The girls, milling about waiting for a Days of Our Lives rerun to start in their common room, had witnessed the bursar’s quiet exit from Stagmount life yesterday lunchtime. He climbed into his Volvo Estate, put a cardboard box filled with the contents of his desk on the passenger seat, started the engine and quietly drove off, never to be seen again. Needless to say, nobody was there to wave him off.

  Not a great deal had been seen of the triplets, but Liberty said they’d assured her they would meet up with the rest of them on the seafront later that day for the Skate Fest. The others were pleased—the triplets were a hell of a lot of fun and anyway, it wasn’t their fault their dad was a grasping asshole who’d tried to turn the school into the world’s most exclusive gated community, was it?

  As far as Igor’s conversation with Mrs. C. went, she appeared at lunch on Thursday sporting a massive smile plastered across her face and an even bigger diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. Mimi Tate had seen her skipping—yes, skipping—out of Mrs. Bennett’s office yesterday morning. None of them had seen her since, and they could only assume she and Igor were already en route to Gretna Green. Mimi also swore blind she’d been wearing a silver lame skirt and a hot pink jumper. This was simply way too hard to envision, a step too freaking far for sure.

  Katie Green, although none of them had noticed of course, was being much more assertive since her little chat with Daisy. She’d discovered a couple of the girls in her own year were not as boring as she’d imagined them, and had even started a surprise alliance with Betsy Johnson. The pair of them bonded over a petition Betsy had started to extend their weekend curfew, and they became thick as thieves as they planned to hand it to Mrs. Bennett at the end of term.

  Liv and Charlie had hardly been seen at all recently, but they’d been surprisingly enthusiastic about the Skate Fest. Although they were nowhere to be seen when the others were getting ready that morning, they told Chastity they’d wanted to go all along and were very insistent about them all meeting dead on two o’clock by the main ramp. Wandering along the seafront in a throng of dudes and rudes, Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity were in a state of high excitement as they pushed through the jostling crowds, keeping one eye on the huge setup about a hundred metres ahead of them, just across from the volleyball court, and the other eye out for their friends and various love interests.

  “Fucking hell.” Chastity gripped Jinx’s arm as they passed one of the ubiquitous Redbull stands and pointed towards the top of the ramp, where all the competitors were massed around a list and a man with a can of Red Stripe in one hand and a loudhailer in the other. “Is that who I think it is?”

  The three of them stopped where they stood, nearly causing a pileup with the people behind them, and shaded their eyes from the winter sun as they peered over to where Chastity was pointing.

  “Oh my God,” Jinx exclaimed, covering her hand with her mouth she’d suddenly turned rather pale. “I think you’re right. Fucking hell!”

  “What?” demanded Liberty, who couldn’t see a freaking thing from this angle. “Is it Jamie?”

  “No,” Chastity replied, folding her arms and leaning back in amazement. “It’s Liv and Charlie. Look!”

  The three of them, by now pushed to the side of the path by the insistent crowds coming in both directions, stood where they were and stared at their friends in shock. Liv was wearing the baggiest jeans they’d ever seen, teamed with huge pink and grey Etnie trainers with a pale pink T-shirt with a white fairy on the front. Charlie was wearing what looked like green board-shorts with equally huge trainers in bright white and a black T-shirt. Around her waist was looped a tough-looking chain belt; her knees and elbows were covered with protective pads just like all the boys hovering around them, and she was clutching a bright pink helmet with a black chin strap in her hand. Liv’s short hair was gelled close to her head and Charlie’s bright blonde hair was pulled back into a sporty-looking ponytail. They looked fresh-faced, cool as hell, and ready for anything.

  “Bloody hell,” Liberty whistled admiringly. “I’ve never seen them wearing any of that skate shit before, but it really suits them. What are they doing up there, though?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jinx, gripping Liberty with one hand and Chastity with the other as the crowd alo
ng the top of the ramp thinned out and it became apparent someone was about to throw themselves off the side of it into the bowl beneath. “But I think we’re about to find out.”

  At that moment the man with the loudhailer pushed a button on the sound system next to him and Avril Lavigne’s “sk8ter boi” blasted out into the sea air. They watched agog as Charlie turned to Liv, clasped her left hand to her chest and raised her right arm in a salute before she placed the tip of her board at the edge of the bowl, rocked back and forth as if thinking about something very mundane and then shot off at great speed into the center of it. The crowd held its collective breath for a couple of agonized seconds until Charlie’s jubilant face appeared above the parapet of the other side. The girls gasped as she landed on the rim and jumped up, spinning her board beneath her feet to great applause from the male competitors, until she launched herself off the side once again. She did this about five or six times more, each more impressive than the last, until she performed a perfect somersault to rapturous applause from the crowds of hot boys watching.

  Impressed hardly does justice to how Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity were feeling as they finally reached the side of the bleachers and managed to get Liv’s attention above the roar of whopping and cheering in Charlie’s honour.

  “I thought one of you dumb bitches would eventually put two and two together, but you’re dumber than we thought,” Liv yelled rather impolitely over the heads of about fifteen people in between them.