Pants on Fire

Part 1.

Avery (ii)

I’m not going to lie, I was dreading that. Starting a new school can be daunting, even when you’ve done it twice before, like I have. There is just so much to think about, even if you only stick to the obvious stuff: new surroundings, new teachers, new rules, new friends. You just get used to one place and then you have to start all over. It’s harder than you think, just remembering that different places have different ways of doing things. Maybe at your old school it was OK to illustrate a story you wrote in your literacy book and maybe your new school considers that to be vandalism of the highest order, ‘This book is for writing, Avery. The clue’s in the name. Save your drawings for art class.’ Ugh – I’ve been there. I’ve learned that if you pay attention to what other people are doing around school, you can avoid that sort of mistake.

Then there’s the less obvious stuff: who’s in charge of the class, who’s their second-in-command, who will sit and eat their bogies opposite you in the lunch hall. This is the kind of stuff you won’t find out on a pre-visit tour of the school. It’s the kind of thing you find out by watching, listening and by understanding how people are with one another. This takes time, but you’ve got to be careful not to waste too much time, or you’ll always be that kid on the outside. I’m not an outside kind of a person – I like to be in on it all, right in the thick of it. To get there quickly, you have to make some snap decisions about who to hang out with and after that you have to watch and listen. The rest I know from Sailor-Rose, who said it was just like that when she started modelling. She says work is a lot like school, when it comes to making friends and knowing who to trust. I’m lucky to have a big sister who takes me seriously and tells me this stuff. It helped my third first day to go better than I imagined.

‘We had meatballs for lunch.’ Budgie’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

‘Sounds delicious,’ says Mum, glancing at B in the rear-view mirror. We’re in the car, on our way home from school.

‘Hmm,’ B replies. ‘They were pretty good but the best thing was someone accidentally dropped one on the floor and the kid behind them in the line slipped up on it and skidded across the floor.’

‘Oh no! Was that child OK? Did they hurt themselves?’ Mum is not seeing the comedy here.

‘No. He was fine. He didn’t fall. He did this,’ Budgie, sat on her booster seat with her seatbelt on, mimes someone leaning backwards and throwing their arms in the air. ‘His tray went up in the air and landed on the boy behind. There were meatballs everywhere.’ She delivers this with a whooping snort of laughter.

‘Oh,’ says Mum. ‘Well that does sound kind of funny.’

‘It was hilarious – I almost snorted my drink of water right out of my nose!’

‘Budgie, you are disgusting!’ I protest. B just giggles.

‘That is the most I’ve ever heard you talk about a school day!’ Mum says, grinning into the mirror. ‘Who knew it would take a shower of meatballs, hey? How about you, Ave?’

Over the noise of Budgie demonstrating how to laugh-snort things out of your nose, I reply, ‘I made friends, my teacher seems nice, we did grammar, my friends like drama.’

‘Handy for you,’ says Mum, raising a questioning eyebrow.

‘Not that kind, I scowl. ‘The acting kind – we did scenes from Annie.’

‘Good to know.’

I slouch in my seat. Mum thinks I can be a bit of a drama-queen, which is totally unfair on me. I’m still in a bit of a huff when we get home. I make myself a drink and a snack and skulk off to my room to look at my shoebox.

I keep my shoebox under my bed. It’s probably my most treasured possession. I keep all my information in there and I like to look through it whenever I’m unhappy. It reminds me of the good things in my life. Mostly, it reminds me of my dad.

My mum and dad don’t live together. They never have. My family tree is kind of complicated. I’ll try and explain it:

My mum and dad had me. My dad already had Sailor-Rose, but her mum isn’t my mum. When I was five, my mum had Budgie. Budgie’s dad isn’t my dad. My dad is married, but not to my mum or Sailor-Rose’s mum. He has two more children: a boy and a girl. I think this means I have three half-sisters and a half-brother. If we all got together at Christmas, we would need…we would need a bigger house. We could use my dad’s house, because it is HUGE! Seriously, it’s a mansion. I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen pictures. I have pictures of it in my shoebox: proper pictures, not just drawings. His house is a real thing and not just some childish fantasy. You should see it. You could, if I let anybody look through my shoebox, but I don’t. It’s in magazines though. You could just buy a magazine and there’s a good chance he would be in there, with his house and his new wife and my half-brother and sister. That’s where I get my pictures and my information from: magazines. Mum buys them, I guess to keep up with what her ex is doing, and then gives them to me. I go through them, carefully cut out the articles and photos of my dad, and store these in my shoe box.

I sit on the floor, my back resting against my bed and look through it now. Before opening the lid, I think about which category I want to look through. When I first started collecting information about him, I just used to bung it in the box, but there’s so much now that I had to upgrade to a bigger box and work out a way of organising the information. I got some coloured card and used it to make dividers. I’ve labelled these with headings, like, House, Beach house, D – for Dad, but I can’t write that on there. I’ll explain that in a minute – and Family. There’s a small section for Sailor-Rose too, but she’s harder to find in magazines because most models don’t have their name beside their picture, unless they are a supermodel and she’s still too young to be one of those. You just have to look out for her in the background of pictures taken at celebrity parties, or sometimes you spot her in an advert for a shampoo or something. My sister has really beautiful hair. It’s long and sleek and if you wanted to persuade someone to buy your shampoo, you’d definitely start by persuading them that she uses it too.

I decide to look at pictures of just Dad. Sometimes I like to look at my half-siblings, but I have to be in the right mood for that. It’s not easy to look at photos of other kids living the high life with your dad, when you’re in a small flat on the other side of the world and you can’t even see him in real life. I mean, I have seen him, obviously, and we talk on the phone sometimes, but it’s not easy with the time difference between here and New York (he has a house in the Hamptons), or with his busy career as an internationally famous Rockstar . When we do talk, Dad tells me that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. He says he wishes he could keep his younger children out of the limelight, the way he can with me. To be honest with you, I’d like a bit of that limelight, but he reminds me that anonymity is my most precious possession, which I guess is kind of like his tenet. He says if the world knew, there would reporters sniffing all round mum and I and my education would be all interrupted. Between you and me, my education gets interrupted all the time and if my millionaire Rockstar dad could let the world know about me and send Mum a bit more money, we might be able to stay in one place for a bit longer and I wouldn’t be stuck in stupid schools like the last one, where I got bullied. I look at a picture of him and stick my tongue out. It’s alright for him!

While I’m looking, I do what I always do and try and spot any similarities between us. Dad has long hair, like Sailor-Rose, but his isn’t as nice as hers. His is a bit more straggly, which is definitely something he and I have in common. Mum says mine will thicken out as I get older. I hope she’s right, because I want to be a famous actress or performer and I will need gorgeous hair to get the best roles. His eyes are blue-green, with each iris having a dark grey outline. Mine are more blue-grey, like Mum’s. He often accentuates his with black eyeliner. I learned that word from Sailor-Rose. It means to make something stand out. If I use that word at school, Miss Swift might think I’m a genius.

I wonder if I could accentuate my eyes with some eyeliner? I wander into Mum’s room and find her eye liner. I trace an outline as carefully as I can and then step back to admire my work. I look like I’ve been punched in both eyes. Not good. Taking a wipe from the packet by her bedside, I wipe it away and the eyeliner smudges and streaks over my face. I look a mess. I wish Sailor-Rose was here to help me, instead of swanning around in fancy clothes, making people want to buy shampoo. I wipe the smudges away as best as I can, replace the eyeliner in Mum’s makeup bag, ball up the wipes and throw them in the bin. I go back to tidy up my shoebox and hear footsteps outside my door. Budgie pushes open the door and I have to hastily stuff everything under the bed. She pauses in front of me for a second, before climbing the bunk ladder into her bed. I claimed the bottom bunk as soon as we moved in, just so I’d have somewhere to keep my things. Budgie thought she’d hit the jackpot, getting the top bunk, so it was an easy steal.

She leans over the side of the bunk, her hair falling down over her face.

‘You look weird. What’s up with your face?’

‘None of your business is what’s up with my – hey! Nothing is ‘up with’ my face, OK?’

She shrugs, pulls her head back over the side of the bunk, then reappears a second later, to pelt me with a Barbie doll. I take it to throw it back but then I have a better idea. Walking over to the window, I open it slightly, chuck out the doll and go back to my bed. Budgie is wearing a look of total outrage. I’d laugh, but that would delay things, so I make my face as deadpan as possible. She climbs back down the ladder, shoots me a disgusted look and marches past me to retrieve the doll, which has landed in the shared gardens outside. With B out of the way, I have a few minutes to retrieve the box and carefully file my pictures, before sliding the box back under the bed, so it’s out of the way by the time the inevitable happens.

‘Avery!’ Mum, obviously. ‘Just what do you think you were doing? You could have broken B’s doll, which could have hit someone on the head on the way down, and I’ve just had to question a small, angry girl on why she was high-tailing it out of the flat. What’s got into you, Avery? We need this flat and that means making a good impression, do you understand?’ I shrug. ‘And what is up with your-‘

‘Nothing! Nothing is up with my face! Leave me alone, OK?’

She sighs, looks as if she’s about to say something, changes her mind and walks out. B is wailing in the kitchen, so I guess she’s got to go and deal with that.

I wish I lived with my dad.

[TS1]

Pants on Fire

Part 1.

The only way to have a friend is to be one. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 

Avery (i)

My name is Avery Shakespeare. I am 11 years old. I am starting a new primary school this morning. I am nervous. This is the absolute truth.

I have to go to a new school because we moved house and because I got bullied at my last school. In fact, I got so badly bullied, I ended up in hospital. I was really ill because of it. The doctors told my mum I was lucky I made it. It was kind of touch and go for a while. My big sister wrote to my favourite pop star and asked her to send me a card but she went one better than that and came to see me.

No, I don’t want to tell them that story. Maybe the kids at my new school will think I need bullying again. I don’t want that. I want them to like me. I want them to find me…interesting – no, fascinating. It’s the first Monday after October half-term. I’m too late for all the Halloween parties and Trick or Treating parties, but just in time to have missed out on being deliberately missed out. It might work out. Mum looks at me in the rear-view mirror,

‘OK? Everything’s going to be OK, Avery. Just remember-‘

‘I’m precious to you, I am unique and that is my power,’ I repeat our mantra.

Mum smiles. ‘You got it, kiddo! B?’ B is for Budgie, my little sister. Budgie isn’t her real name, obviously. Nobody calls their kid Budgie! It’s her nickname, from when she was a baby. ‘B?’

‘Uh-huh,’ Budgie nods. She’s a girl of few words, which is the exact opposite of me. I am a girl of many, many words and I’m trying, now, to pick the right ones to make the best first impression. We’re pulling up outside the school now. Mum parks the car and turns around in her seat to look at me.

‘No tales OK?’

‘Heads you win, tales you lose,’ I say back to her. It’s another mantra of hers.

‘You going to be OK? You sure you don’t want to come to the office with Budgie and I?’

I shake my head. Going to the office with your mum and your little sister is for babies and I don’t want to look like a baby. I get my school bag, give mum a kiss, Budgie a ‘look’ and get out of the car. I can see the bigger kids milling around, just the other side of the gate, so I head for there. In the split second after I got out of the car, before I started to walk towards the gate, I had to pick a ‘walk’ – an entrance. I picked the one I think my big sister has. Sailor-Rose is a model, so I sashay in like I own the place. I’m nervous and I want to look at my feet but I force myself to hold my head up, so I can clock people noticing me. I’m like a million dollars, walking in like that, and I can see the other kids notice it. Well, some of them. I take a quick glance around, to see who I should stand by. There are a few groups milling around but I don’t want to join one of the lesser ones, so I stand alone. I keep my head high though, and smile at anyone who looks my way, provided they look OK. I can see the other kids looking my way and I know Sailor-Rose would be proud of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a couple of girls looking straight at me. They speak to each other and then walk over to me. I smile at them graciously.

‘Hi,’ says one of them. She has blonde hair and one of those ‘flicky’ ponytails, which she flicked all the way over here. That kind of thing gets annoying but it’s also something to watch out for in the popular girls, so I’m interested. This could be who I need to hang out with. ‘You must be the new girl, Ava, right?’

‘Avery,’ I correct her. ‘I’m named after the actor.’

Blonde-flicky nods. ‘I’m Olivia, this is Sophie.’ Sophie nods. She has dark hair, a serious expression and looks like she might be Olivia’s second-in-command. ‘You’re in our class – Miss Swift said. C’mon, we’ll show you the way.’

I’m so relieved: first day and I’m in with the cool kids. I must remember to thank Sailor-Rose later.

Sophie shows me my peg in the cloakroom, while Olivia gestures this way and that, pointing out the pegs of the kids worth knowing and the kids worth avoiding. Then Sophie shows me the girls’ toilets and Olivia tells me about the time Kira got locked in. They’re like tour guides with two very different roles: Sophie is the practical information guide and Olivia is the social guide. I’m trying to take it all in.

After register, Miss Swift introduces me.

‘Welcome to Granite Class, Avery.’ The classes are all names after rocks, apparently, which is weird. She’s telling me how Granite Class works hard and looks out for each other and I’m only half listening, because I’m trying to work out who else I should talk to, when she says something I tune in on, something about a tenet. ‘…we have a new one each month and this month’s is…’ she pauses.

‘The only way to have a friend is to be one,’ the class chant back to her.

‘By?’ There’s a pause. ‘Who said it?’ Another pause. I glance at the wall behind Miss Swift.

‘Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ I say. It’s written on a chalkboard, right behind her! How dim are this lot?

‘Well done, Avery!’ Miss Swift beams. ‘I can see you’re very well read.’ Yeah, of information that’s right in front of me! She goes on to explain tenets. ‘They’re like rules to live your life by. Well, more guidelines than rules.’

‘Oh, like a mantra? My mum has those,’ I say.

‘Yes, sort of. What kind of thing does your mum have?’

‘Er…you are unique and that is your power.’

‘There you go,’ says Miss Swift, ‘and we can all use our unique talents to support our friends.’

After register we have Literacy. There’s a timetable on the wall and I’m finding it hard to concentrate on fronted adverbials, because I’m too busy thinking about break time, which I can see is next on the list. Break time is the most important part of the school day, especially when you are the new kid. It is absolutely critical for me to link up with Olivia and Sophie and I’m not on their table. Worse still, their table is by the cloakroom door, so there’s a good chance they’ll be coated-up and out the door before me. I glance at the other kids on my table. There’s a curly-haired girl opposite me, bent carefully over her work. She won’t do: looks like a teacher’s pet and not at the centre of the action. Next to her there’s a boy with Spiderman glasses. He’s alternating between chewing the end of his pencil and pressing way too hard when he writes. He’ll wear himself out like that! To the right of him, there’s a boy who stares into the distance and then says, ‘A-ha!’ before furiously scribbling something in his book. If I wasn’t already distracted by the thought of break time, I’d be distracted by him. Around the corner from him, on my left side, there’s a girl with a really fancy pencil case. I’m using school stationery today. I brought a pencil case but I kept it hidden in my bag, in case everyone went for a particular type and mine wasn’t good enough. Everyone on my table is working really hard: everyone except me. Miss Swift looks over and notices this.

‘How’s it going, Avery?’ she asks, kindly. ‘Did you cover fronted adverbials in your old school.’

I nod, blushing a little.

‘I’ve put you on that table because everyone there can help you if you’re unsure, OK?’ She gestures to a sign on the wall, that instructs the class to seek help from, Three before me. ‘Don’t be afraid to ask anyone for help, OK? I can go over it at breaktime if you’re still stuck.’

I shake my head, before bending it over my book and hastily writing some fronted adverbials, using the vocabulary on the sheet. Thankfully, the literacy lesson seems to stretch on forever, so I’ve time to finish.

‘Later on,’ I write, ‘Jenny washed up.’ How boring! I carefully put a line through that and change it to, ‘Later on, Jenny rehearsed for the talent show.’ That’s a much better use of her time! I carry on, changing the sentences to make them more interesting and I’m just finishing my sixth one when Miss Swift says it’s time for break. We are to leave our books open so she can check our work. I’m trying to leave it with my pencil neatly beside me, while craning my neck to see what Olivia’s table is up to. Miss Swift says our table can get our coats on first, which is perfect. I just have to dawdle a little in the cloakroom, then hurry up when Olivia and Sophie arrive. Hopefully, she’ll announce their table soon, so I don’t get caught dawdling. People think grammar is complicated but it’s not half as complicated as making the right friends on your first day.

I’m in luck – Olivia and Sophie appear in the cloakroom soon after. I hurry into my jacket and smile at them both.

‘Do you want to play with us?’ asks Olivia. ‘We’re making up a play if you want to be in it?’

Yes! My life is perfect!

‘I love drama!’ I say, which is absolutely true. ‘I used to be in a stage school where I used to live. I was in a production of Annie – do you know it?’

Sophie nods. ‘I saw that at the cinema. Pepper is my favourite character.’

‘Oh, Pepper’s cool,’ I say. ‘I was going to play the part of Annie, but I got a throat infection right before the big night. I know all the songs though.’

‘Too bad,’ Olivia says, sympathetically.

‘It’s a hard knock life,’ I reply and we laugh, link arms and go out to the playground, singing hits from Annie.