No, sorry, my little joke. There was certainly a complaint at about that time concerning a group of boys ‘messing around’, as the lady put it, with a girl in the park. As the newest officer at the station, I was asked to investigate.
Steve Forrester
She was a force for good, that Sam Lopez. Mrs Cartwright had warned me that she had had a chequered educational career in the States and had hinted that the family background had been unstable. Well, all I can say is, there must have been something in the London air that changed her character.
I’ll admit she was a bit feisty, albeit a little lippy sometimes. But she was always eager to contribute to the class discussions. Although she wasn’t a particularly brilliant student – her view that punctuation ‘sucked’, grammar was ‘for the birds’ and spelling ‘bummed her out big time’ suggested a motivational problem in English – she had energy and confidence which soon communicated itself to the other girls in the class.
A particular problem with this age group is that a small number of boys who are generally uncooperative and unhelpful in class can drag the keener girl students down to their level. Sam dealt with this brilliantly. If one of the boys was chatting or sniggering while she was answering a question, she would give him that special Lopez look – a full, direct burn-out of a stare – and the words or laughter would fizzle out. This, after all, was the girl who had put Gary Laird in his place.
With anyone else it might have been called threatening, but with this little American girl it was something different. Confidence, self-assertion. A positive attitude.
No, I’m happy to say that Sam Lopez was already on her way to being one of the star pupils of Year Eight.
Charley
When Elena breezed into class with this el massivo sports watch, we thought she was having a laugh.
But here’s a thing about El. She doesn’t do laughs, particularly when there’s a danger of the laugh being on her.
‘Everyone’s wearing them in the States,’ she said. ‘Big watches are the next big thing. Isn’t that right, Sam?’ Sitting next to her, Sam raised her left arm and pointed slowly and dramatically to her own sports watch. ‘Need I say more?’ she said.
‘But they’re boys’ watches,’ said Katie Farrell, another Year Eight girl who had been earwigging the conversation.
‘Not Stateside they ain’t,’ said Sam. ‘All the Hollywood babes are wearing them these days.’
‘Where did you get it, Elena?’ Katie asked.
El shrugged, suddenly the fashion icon of Year Eight. ‘Sports shop,’ she said.
I glanced at Zia. There have been some weird crazes at Bradbury Hill, but big, clunky sports watches?
That was the Sam effect. Suddenly all the girls wanted to be like her.
And there was no doubt about it – she liked the attention. That day she started telling us all sorts of things about the way things were in America.
Basically her message was that girls are the new guys. They were learning that the best way of dealing with boys was to be like them – talk to them in the only language they understand.
‘Check this.’ Sam was talking to a group of us in the playground that morning. ‘The way you girls stand is way too apologetic, too’ – she gave a sort of joke sneer – ‘female.’
‘What’s wrong with female?’ Elena asked.
Sam gave her the look.
‘Sorree,’ she said.
‘See what I mean?’ Sam smiled. ‘Give someone the old eyeball and suddenly you’re in charge. You should try it sometime.’
‘If we go round staring at boys, they’ll just think we fancy them,’ said Elena.
A couple of Year Nine boys were wandering past, chatting. When one of them glanced at Sam, she gave him the look. He seemed to wince as if he had been hit by a paper pellet, then hurried on. ‘See?’ said Sam. ‘Do it right and they get the message. Now, standing.’
She stood, legs slightly apart, arms hanging loosely at her side. Then she twitched her shoulders and sort of grabbed herself at the front of her skirt as if she were adjusting herself down there.
We laughed.
‘No way can we do that,’ I said. ‘It’s beyond vulgar.’
‘Vulgar is good,’ said Sam. ‘Vulgar is the new polite. Now, how many of you can belch?’
Jake
Suddenly all the girls in Year Eight were coming on like Robert de Niro. It was weird. Two days at Bradbury Hill and already Sam was a damned role model and the girls, even shy ones like Zia Khan, were swaggering about, hitching their crotches and staring threateningly at any boy who dared to look at them.
Matthew
Something was going badly wrong with Operation Samantha. The idea had been that Sam would find out some really useful secrets from the girls – stuff that we could use against them.
Instead, he had gone over to the other side. He hardly bothered to talk to us now. There was no doubt about it – he was having a ball as a girl.
At first I thought it was just the crazy novelty of the situation that had put a spring in his step, a new and unfamiliar smile on his face. Then it occurred to me that dressing up in a skirt and pretending to be someone that he wasn’t had done something else for Sam.
Suddenly, he was no longer this tragic kid whose mother had died and whose life had been turned upside down. Girl Sam was happier, more straightforward and open than Boy Sam, and had virtually none of his problems.
Then again, maybe the reason why he was having such a good time was simpler. He was getting away with it. Time and again he would say or do something in class which, if he had been a boy, would have landed him in big trouble. But, now he was a girl, it was all fine. ‘Excellent, Sam,’ Steve would go. ‘Good work.’
As Sam himself would say, ‘Go figure.’
Jake
You know what I think? It was his new breasts that did it. They were the final straw. As soon as Sam put on that fake bra and filled out my sister’s shirt just like he was a real girl, he was gone. He just grew into himself with those breasts.
Elena
The watch thing was wild. I’m one of those people who likes to set trends. Now every girl in my year had only one thought – where can I get myself one of those hot sports watches that Elena Griffiths has got? Of course, Sam had one too but, much as I loved her, she wasn’t a Bradbury Hill fashion icon like me.
Another great thing about that second day. Sam looked terrific in the padded bra I gave her. She seemed to blossom – like her face was no longer closed up and she was laughing and joking as if she had been at the school for years.
I was pleased about that. I like to give. The way I saw it, Sam was part of our gang, but I was her real best friend. Sharing a bra creates a special bond.
Mrs Cartwright
Most mornings I make what I call a tour during breaktime – to show my face, as it were.
On this occasion, I was rather taken aback to see that the girls of Year Eight were assembled in the centre of the play area, engaged in what appeared to be some sort of game. They stood in two lines, crouched forward in a distinctly unladylike pose. As I approached, I heard a high-pitched American voice scream a series of numbers. The group then ran in different directions. Charley Johnson emerged at the front carrying what appeared to be a ball. She threw it hard at someone at the back of the group whom I now saw was the American girl, Sam Lopez.
Sam gave a whoop as she caught the ball, jinked her way through the girls, sprinted to the science-block end of the play area and then screamed like a banshee, ‘Touchdooooooown!’
The spectators – most of the school, that is – seemed to find this inordinately amusing and began to applaud.
One of the older boys – Mark Kramer, I think – shouted, ‘Way to go, Sam baby!’
I had seen and heard quite enough. Walking briskly towards where the Year Eight girls were gathered, making a fuss of the American girl, I asked them, in none too gentle a tone, what exactly they thought they were doing.
/> It was Sam Lopez who stepped forward to answer. ‘Football, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Real football. American football.’
Frankly, I was less than impressed by the tone in which she addressed me. She stood, what I call limbering slightly, arms hanging by her sides, looking me straight in the eye.
I said firmly, ‘You all know that there is a strict regulation that no ball games are allowed in the play area.’
Elena Griffiths picked up the ball and handed it to Sam.
‘Ain’t no ball, ma’am,’ said Sam, with an unmistakable smirk on her face. ‘It’s a jacket taped up in a plastic bag.’
Briefly, I was lost for words and, in that moment of hesitation, something odd and rather distasteful happened.
Sam Lopez gave a sort of twitch of the shoulders, then seemed to…well, adjust herself in the crotch area. She looked around her and, as if at a signal, the other girls performed similar gestures, so that soon the whole of Year Eight’s girl contingent was twitching and scratching at themselves like monkeys, all the while staring at me in a way that I found quite what I call disconcerting.
‘Jackets are not for playing football, Sam,’ I said eventually. ‘If you wish to play sport – and I’m all in favour of girls taking exercise – I would ask you to book the sports field in the normal manner.’
Sam tugged at herself again. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said. Point made, I turned back to the main entrance, looking neither left nor right at the crowd that had gathered. The impromptu game of football broke up, but I had the odd sense that my authority had been undermined.
I was going to have to keep an eye on that little Sam Lopez.
Mark
It was the coolest thing you ever saw – this crazy blonde girl in Year Eight could run and throw like a guy. She had all her friends playing American football. Then, when old Carthorse came grinning with fury into the play area, they stood up to her like some kind of wild bunch, totally hard, totally cool. It takes a lot to impress Mark Kramer, but I was impressed.
At the end of break, I wandered over to Elena Griffiths, the weirdo who had once stalked me when I was out with Tasha.
‘Hi, Ellie,’ I said.
She blushed sweetly. ‘My friends call me El,’ she said, going into full eyelid-batting mode.
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘I have a little personal request.’
She smiled, as if she knew what I was going to ask.
‘Mention me to Sam, will you?’ I tried not to sound too keen and full-on. ‘I’d like to talk to her sometime.’
‘Sam, why Sam?’ Elena sounded annoyed.
‘She’s your best friend, isn’t she?’
Elena gave a little snort. ‘Yeah, and that’s why I want to keep her away from people who behave like dorks!’
She stormed off.
What was that all about?
Mrs Burton
I got the call that morning at the office. Mr Durkowitz sounded worryingly apologetic. There had been a breach of security, a snafu, he said.
‘What precisely was a snafu when it was at home?’ I asked.
Durkowitz said it stood for Situation Normal: All – and then used a swear word which I never thought I would hear from the lips of a lawyer.
‘Go on,’ I said coldly.
‘Tony Lopez, the father of Sam, has been in touch with the office. It seems he’s a free man.’
‘Ah.’
‘Someone in the office appears to have told him that the kid was living in London with his aunt.’
‘That was the snafu.’
‘Not exactly. The person also confirmed that Sam was in line for a big inheritance.’
‘What exactly are you telling me?’ I asked.
Durkowitz made a clicking noise with his teeth. ‘My guess is that our friend Crash Lopez will soon be on his way to London.’
I was letting the bad news sink in when Durkowitz filled the silence.
‘He’s not violent or anything,’ he said. ‘He’s just a small-time hood.’
‘Oh, that’s fine then,’ I said, hoping he would pick up the sarcasm in my voice.
‘But, maybe just to be on the safe side, you might have a word with the police in London,’ said Durkowitz. ‘Tell them to keep a lookout for a small, swarthy guy with an American accent and a bad attitude.’
Coldly, I thanked him for his help.
‘You’re welcome, Mrs Burton,’ he said, and hung up.
Jeb Durkowitz
Hey, I was only trying to help. I wasn’t too crazy about the idea of Lopez flying off to Europe, but there’s a limit to what a lawyer can do. There was no need for Mrs Burton to give me that old British cold shoulder.
The way I saw it, I had done my duty. I closed the file. Of course, if there was some kind of custody battle upcoming, my firm would be ready and willing to represent their interests.
Mr Burton
I was ironing when Mary called from the office. She is not easily moved to panic, so when she told me to double-lock the front door, I knew that we had a serious problem.
Crash Lopez would soon be on his way to London, she said. We needed to decide what to say to him and, equally important, what to tell Sam.
It was time for a family conference and Mary said she would come home early that evening.
Elena
A lot of people would have been upset if the boy they thought happened to like them quite a lot came up and said he wanted to hook up with their best friend, who was a lot less good-looking than them and totally flat-chested into the bargain.
Luckily, I’m not like that. I’ll admit that when Marky Mark asked me about Sam and tried to get me to set him up with her, I was a bit, shall we say, peed off at first. Then I realised that, ever since the Cameron Diaz thing, I had been thinking about him less.
Obviously, he had just used me to pull Tasha. If he could be that mean – that sad – there was no future in any relationship between us anyway. I was so over Mark. End of story.
So I took Sam aside and mentioned, casual as you like, that Mark Kramer fancied her.
Her reaction surprised me. She was actually rather angry. She said she didn’t know who this guy was and didn’t care anyway. He could just butt out and mind his own business.
When I asked her if she had a boyfriend back in the States, she got even angrier, storming about the place, saying that she didn’t have boyfriends, and never would have, that having boyfriends was totally gay and ridiculous.
Er, gay? I’m like, huh?
It was only later, when first Charley and then Zia told her that every girl at Bradbury Hill wanted to go out with Mark Kramer, that she began to lighten up. When some of the girls asked her if it was true about her and Mark, she shrugged in a way that any sane person would take as a yes. I think she quite liked the idea that a boy who was good-looking (admittedly in a vacant, stupid, floppy-haired sort of way) was interested in her.
The three of us went round to Charley’s place that night. I told them that I had set up the Sam and Mark thing, that it was all down to me. They were impressed by how well I had dealt with the situation and I have to admit that, looking back on it, I handled it all pretty well.
Call me Cupid.
9
Matthew
Sam was having such a good time as a girl that he was almost out of control.
As the four of us made our way home that evening, he was running on at the mouth about how great Zia, Charley and Elena were, how talking to them was just so different from talking to guys.
‘Like, feelings,’ he suddenly said. ‘It’s OK to talk about what’s really going on inside. I really dig that.’
‘We do that too.’ Jake was walking ahead, hands in pockets. ‘I talk to Ty about feelings all the time, don’t I, Ty?’
‘Yeah,’ Tyrone muttered unconvincingly. ‘We really share.’
‘And old Zed – she is just totally ace,’ Sam went on. ‘I told her about some of the sixties rock bands I like and, you know what? She’s heard of Jim Morri
son. She’s into Hendrix. She’s got a Doors playlist. How cool is that?’
‘Doors?’ said Jake. ‘What exactly are the Doors?’
‘Only the best band in the history of time,’ said Sam. ‘Another thing. We’ve agreed that we’re all going to keep diaries this term,’ Sam went on happily. ‘Everything that happens, all our secrets – it’s all going to be in there.’
‘Diaries?’ A look of real disgust crossed Tyrone’s face. ‘That is such a girl thing, Sam.’
‘What kind of secrets?’ I asked.
Sam gave what can only be described as a giggle as we entered the park. ‘Oh, only, for instance, that a certain Mark Kramer wants to meet me.’
‘Kramer? The Lower-Sixth guy?’ Jake asked.
‘Yup,’ said Sam. ‘And the word is that he is hot-hot-hot for a certain Sam Lopez. The other girls are sooo jealous. Everybody wants to be Mark’s girl but he has only eyes for me. Talk about romantic.’
‘Sam,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘Sam, he’s a boy.’
‘Correction,’ said Sam chirpily. ‘He’s a hunk – the hunk of the Lower Sixth. Mark and Sam. Sam and Mark. It even sounds right.’
‘But what do you want to go out with a boy for?’ Tyrone asked.
Sam shrugged. ‘Fun. Laughs. Sharing things. And, after that who knows?’
We were so shocked by what we were hearing that none of us noticed the policeman walking towards us.
PC Chivers
The three boys and a girl, fitting the description I had been given, were in earnest conversation with one another in the vicinity of the playground shelter. I walked up to them and, to my surprise, they kept on talking.
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