Lottie Project (2 page)

‘I’m Charlotte Enright, Miss Beckworth. But I’ve never been called Charlotte at this school, only Charlie.’

‘Well, I’m going to call you Charlotte, Charlotte. Because in my class we do things differently,’ said Miss Beckworth.

You’re telling me we do things differently. (Well,
I’m
telling
you
, but you know what I mean!) I wasn’t allowed to go and sit with Angela. She’d promised to get to school ever so early to grab the best desk (and the one next to it for Lisa) and she’d done well. The desk right next to the window, with the hot pipe to toast my toes on when it got chilly. But all in vain.

‘No, don’t go and sit down, Charlotte,’ said Miss Beckworth. ‘I was just about to explain to the whole class that while we get to know each other I’d like
you
all to sit in alphabetical order.’

We stared at her, gob-smacked.

Miss Beckworth spoke into the stunned silence, holding her register aloft.

‘So, Anthony Andrews, you come and sit at this desk in the front, with Judith Ashwell beside you, and then—’

‘But Judith’s a girl, Miss!’ Anthony protested in horror.

‘Cleverly observed, Mr Andrews,’ said Miss Beckworth. ‘And kindly note, I call you Mr Andrews, not plain Mister. I would prefer you to call me Miss Beckworth. Not Miss.’

‘But boys and girls never sit next to each other, Miss,’ said Anthony. He’s as thick as two short planks –
twenty
-two – but when Miss Beckworth’s forehead wrinkled he rewound her little speech inside his empty head and took heed. ‘Er, Miss Beckworth, Miss. I don’t want to sit next to Judith!’

‘Well, you needn’t think I want to sit next to
you
,’ said Judith. ‘Oh Miss Beckworth, that’s not fair!’

Miss Beckworth didn’t care. ‘I said things would be different in my class. I didn’t say they would be fair,’ she said. ‘Now, get yourselves sorted out and stop fussing like a lot of silly babies. Who’s next on the register? Laura Bernard, right, sit at the desk behind Anthony and Judith, and then . . .’

I hovered, signalling wild regret with my eyebrows to Angela, who’d got up half an hour early for nothing. Angela’s surname is Robinson, so obviously we wouldn’t sit together. But Lisa is Lisa Field,
right
after me on the register, so it looked as if we were OK after all. It wasn’t really fair on poor Angela if I sat next to Lisa two years running, but it couldn’t be helped.

But it didn’t work out like that.

‘James Edwards, you sit at the desk at the back on the left,’ said Miss Beckworth. ‘With . . . ah, Charlotte Enright beside you.’

Jamie Edwards! The most revolting stuck-up boring boy in the whole class. The whole year, the whole school, the whole town, county, country, world,
universe
. I’d sooner squat in the stationery cupboard than sit next to him.

I thought quickly, my brain going whizz, flash, bang. Aha! Sudden inspiration!

‘I’m afraid I can’t see very well, Miss Beckworth,’ I said, squinting up my eyes as if I badly needed glasses. ‘If I sit at the back I won’t be able to see the board. Sometimes I still have problems even at the front – so if Lisa Field can come and sit next to me again, then I’m used to her telling me stuff in case I can’t read it for myself. Isn’t that right, Lisa?’

This was all news to Lisa, but she nodded convincingly.

‘Yes, Miss Beckworth, I always have to help Charlie,’ said Lisa.

But Miss Beckworth wasn’t fooled. ‘I’m not convinced that you’re short-sighted, Charlotte. Quick-witted, certainly. But until you bring me a note from your mother and another from your
optician
I’d like you to sit at the back beside James.’

That was it. I was doomed. There was no way out. I had to sit next to Jamie Edwards.

He moved his chair right up against the wall and shuddered elaborately as I flopped down furiously beside him.

‘Charlie Cakehole! Yuck!’ he said. But under his breath, because he knew Miss Beckworth was watching.

Jamie Edwards is the smarmiest little swot, and always wants the teachers to have him as their pet. Which he is anyway. Because he’s such an infuriating Clever Clogs, always coming top top top.

Well, who on earth wants to be top of the class?

‘Why can’t you try harder at school, Charlie,’ Jo always says. ‘You’re bright. If you’d only stop messing about and work hard you could do really well. You could come top if you really tried.’

I asked Jo why she always nagged so about my boring old education.

‘Maybe you’re not so bright as I thought you were,’ Jo said. ‘Can’t you work it out for yourself?’

That made me feel bad. But it’s hopeless. Maybe I could do better. I’m not bottom of the class, mind you. Just a nice comfy middle. But I suppose if I worked like stink then I could do better. I can generally beat Lisa and Angela if I want. Maybe I could come top of all the girls. But I couldn’t ever beat Jamie Edwards. And I’d far sooner be bottom than second to Smarty Pants.

So I slid down in my seat and sulked for most of
the
morning. It was hot but Jamie kept me well-fanned, waving his hand frantically all the time because he kept wanting Miss Beckworth to pick him. Pathetic. I wouldn’t put my hand up even when I knew the answers. Even in English, which is my best subject. I’ve always got ticks and stars and
Very Goods
all over the place for my stories.

Miss Beckworth started a poetry lesson and it was actually quite interesting and then she read this poem by some dippy American lady and you had to guess what it was about. Like a riddle. And no-one knew. Jamie guessed it might be about a river and Miss Beckworth said it was a very good guess – but it was wrong. Ha.
I
knew what it was. Easy-peasy, simple-pimple. It was a train. And I sat there with this pleased feeling throbbing through me, though I acted all cool and bored, slumped in my seat, arms folded . . . waiting. Waiting until she was just about to give up and then I was going to put my hand up after all and maybe yawn a bit or fiddle with my hair and then I was going to go ‘It’s a train’ like it must be obvious to everyone. One up to me. And ya boo sucks to Jamie.

‘Think really hard,’ said Miss Beckworth. ‘Can’t anyone guess?’

And she looked straight at me, almost as if she could see inside my head and look at the train going puff puff puff round my brain.

I still waited. I waited just a fraction too long.
Because
she stopped looking at me, and just as I was unfolding my arms ready to put my hand up she said, ‘It’s a train!’

And everyone else said, ‘Oh, a train’, ‘Of course’, ‘
I
get it’, and Anthony and those of his ilk scratched their heads and said, ‘You what?’ and ‘Why is it a train?’ and ‘I hate this soppy poem stuff.’ I drummed my fingers on the desk in irritation and muttered, ‘I knew it was a train.’

Jamie looked at me with those snooty eyebrows of his disappearing right up under his floppy fringe. ‘Oh, sure,’ he said sarcastically.

Well, I wouldn’t have believed me either. But I
did
know. So I felt even less like joining in now and I drew trains all over the back of my new school jotter – large looming trains about to mash and mangle small snobby boys tied to the railway tracks.

Then we had to write our own poem about trains. I can usually write poems quite quickly so I did a silly one first on a piece of paper torn out of my jotter.

Puff puff puff

Can’t stand this stuff

All about Trains

It gives me Pains

(Prize Pain to me is Jamie E)

And Miss B is a Bore

Her train theme’s a chore

Want to sit with my friend

I’m going round the bend

I feel so Blue

Choo choo choo!

I folded it up and put
TO ANGELA AND LISA – PASS IT ON
– and then quickly passed it on myself while Miss Beckworth’s head was turned. It got about halfway across the class. Miss Beckworth looked up at the wrong moment. Uh-oh.

‘Ah!’ said Miss Beckworth, pouncing. ‘Someone has written a poem already, and they’re so proud of it they want to pass it round the whole class.’

She glanced at it. ‘Who is the author of this little rhyme, hmm?’

I put my hand up. I had to. Half the kids were craning round to look at me already.

I thought I might be in dead trouble. Miss Beckworth was such a funny old-fashioned teacher. I didn’t know what she might do to punish you. Maybe she had a cane tucked up her skirt and she’d whip it out and whack me one.

But all she did was crumple up my poem and say, ‘I don’t think this is quite Emily Dickinson standard, Charlotte. Now write me a proper poem please.’

I decided she maybe wasn’t such a bad old stick after all – so I tried hard with my poem. I decided to be a bit different. I chose to write about a tube, because they’re underground trains, aren’t they,
and
it was all about the dark in the tunnels and how that weird voice that says ‘Mind the gap’ could be the voice of the Tunnel Monster.

Jamie peered rudely over my shoulder. ‘You’re writing rubbish,’ he sneered.

‘Yours is the real rubbish,’ I snapped back, reading his pathetic twee twoddle about the Train going through the Rain, in the Midst of the Storm, the Train will keep you Warm . . . Yuck!

But when Miss Beckworth walked round the class to see what we’d written so far she said he’d made a Good Attempt. And do you know what she said about
my
poem?

‘Try to stick to the subject, Charlotte.’

That was
it
!

‘Told you you were writing rubbish,’ said Jamie.

So I put down my pen and didn’t write another word. I had Angela and Lisa and all the other girls in hysterics in the cloakrooms after lunch doing my Miss Beckworth imitation. Even back in class I just had to put my front teeth over my bottom lip to have all the girls in giggles.

‘Settle down, please,’ said Miss Beckworth sharply. ‘Now, History. I thought this term we’d do the Victorians.’

I ask you! Who wants to study the stuffy old Victorians? Well, guess. Jamie Teacher’s Pet Edwards.

Miss Beckworth began telling us about the Victorians, starting off with Queen Victoria herself – that fat little waddly Queen with the pudding face
who
said, ‘We are not amused.’ Well, I wasn’t amused either, especially when Miss Beckworth started on about the Queen Vic pub down the road and Albert Park and how she lived in these old Victorian mansion flats, and did any of us live in a Victorian home by any chance?