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‘It’s Mocks tomorra. Mocks start tomorra!’ Sam was unusually talkative at form that morning. Natalia wondered at the anxiety her classmates showed toward their work ever since SATs years ago. With her competence, she’d never felt that anxiety - was that what made her quiet? The fact she was quietly confident, and all she was wondering right now was if the roof of the Headmaster’s mouth was as sherbet-sore as hers.
She’d find out. Flying through drill revision at French, at break she chanced a knock at Neill’s door.
No answer.
Slipping down to the teachers’ pigeonholes, she stuffed a small, fat pink-striped paper bag inside Neill’s. Even if another teacher saw them, she trusted he’d have no trouble bullshitting it away. Oh, she’d tossed and turned for two hours last night, poring over every moment of the school trip like indigestion after an exquisite mental meal. Beyond sweet-shop stomach, it was sweet-shop head, shoulders, knees and toes. The badboy Headmaster marching her around Haworth, planting a Marlboro in her mouth and a sack of sweets into her lap, bringing that Sally Mann candy cigarette girl right into life. But there he was lining up beers and crosswords grunting a gentlemanly ‘good day’ to fellow men, and her Prince Charming, rescuing her from snide prattle in the pub! And then, fairy godmother turning coach to carriage, appointing wrinkly Mark as reptilian footman to chauffeur ‘just this girl’ home. Back to being Cinders, back to being a pumpkin, but having danced with feelings she’d never had before!
Passing a huddle of whispering Year 11 boys, she caught a snigger of Neill’s name.
‘Teacher’s pet!’ - She looked up, spying a sheepish Adam trailing behind Luke and Bernard. The bitter Judas, she thought, no biggie. Oh, her honey-pitted pelvis warmed at how he’d made her say ‘yes sir’ to take it all: properness and impertinence, enmeshed with him in a mountain of mischief. Fake stomach aches, forgotten packed lunches; faintly touching fingertips that withdrew when Dinkey arose, oh, the way he exhaled and cleared his throat at that moment! That breathy grunt that came from the same place as Banana-Stare. Rewind and replay just that breathy grunt, oh that breathy grunt, oiling the pulleys in her pelvis till oil ran into overflow, a sixth or seventh heave-ho… you cockily cock-shock Dinkey with how rude my pen-is! And I’ll show you where you can hang it!
Did something tell her she didn’t deserve it? Or that he has an ulterior motive? Yet he was so frank about it! Tell your mum your Headmaster bought you presents to cheer you up. She imagined him walking in right now demanding her mum get on with fixing the broken bath tap; come on, come on girl, how else can Natalia practice being a mermaid?
‘You alright?’
Now there was a smiling Ryan, who’d loitered to throw Natalia an almost-gentlemanly mumble.
‘Er, yeah.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Enjoy the school trip?’
‘It were alright.’
‘Yeah. See ya.’
With conversation like that, life was going places! She had Neill speaking up for her, and Ryan speaking! Now, what could she do next to give thanks to the Lordier one? She’d given up her swag-bag bait to knock again. Damn. But from Food Tech’s bake list that afternoon, Victoria Sponge caught her eye. His favourite, Neill had said in the tea shop, so Victoria it was! Let’s make sure she gets this one right. Maybe she could scoot some up to him at home time? Flop it onto his desk, even if it was all soggy inside and say, this was me last night! Your daintiest master-baker!
Thoughts of delaying her hometime bus filled her mind, till they were promptly dispelled by the twittering teacher at the door.
‘I could check but Neill’s gone for the day, so…’
Natalia sighed into tomorrow instead. Break time cake? The crumb will be firmer by then.
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*
Stacey, back from her suspension to find herself bereft of her partner-in-crime, passed by Natalia the next morning with a placid smile like the weak wag of a hopeful dog’s tail. Every lesson that day was replaced with a Mock Exam in the classroom. Writing the causes of flooding in Geography and trying not to write Neill, she got to break time, hurried to slice and secrete a piece of her sponge cake from her Food Tech cubbyhole and creep up to knock at Neill’s door.
No answer.
No Neill. Still Neillless, in needless Neilllessness she pondered and wandered, off to a bench to eat the cake herself, book in the other hand, when all of a sudden:
‘Well, that looks very nice!’
Her face shot up to see Angel Gabriel in an azure-blue pressed suit who had had a haircut. Hands in pockets, that familiar softly-frowning inquisition, as deliciously sinful as the buttery crumbs caught in the corners of her lips.
‘Your self-reward for your first Mocks this morning?’
‘Oh, this was for you,’ she frowned with hamster cheeks.
‘Really? You’re doing quite well with it by yourself.’
‘No, no, I have some more—’
‘Bring me a slice at lunchtime then.’
‘Oh! Er, I don’t have a packed lunch so I’m going to the canteen, and then I’ll come—’
‘No no, I’ll trade you. I’m off to Waitrose right now. What would you like?’
‘Oh! Er, whatever they’ve got, I don’t mind,’ trying to sound as casual as she could be, whilst pondering that she’d never been to Waitrose in her life.
‘Right. See you at 1.’
Dashing off to slice more cake, she spent the next two Mocks in English and French trying to calm her hurrahing head from spinning like a globe, till the timer on the desk buzzed for the end of the paper.
‘A few minutes yet till the bell goes,’ Williams called. ‘But as soon as you hand your paper in you may leave.’
A rare reprieve from Williams. Natalia got hers in before a single other pupil had arisen, and then out of the room before a single one had exited their classroom - risking looking too keen to Neill - who cares! This was guaranteed, swift-safe dispatch into his office, unless of course there was anyone else in there?
No time to worry, her hand is knocking!
‘Come in!’ He said it with such tantalising flourish, three dancing syllables in upwards intonation. Cam, Eee-n! Whereas Yorkshire would give you a brusque two syllables: coohm-MIN! Like they didn’t want you there. Neill’s admittance was the first two notes of a musical score, and how long might this score be?
He was working at his desk whilst two boys sorted through boxes of packaging, putting items into piles. As soon as Neill raised his eyes, he rose and exclaimed:
‘Natalia! So prompt!’
‘Oh, the bell hasn’t gone, sorry to disturb y—’
‘No no. You are my bell. Philip and James!’ Neill clicked his fingers and gestured to the door. ‘Thank you very much, you’ve done enough. Take this tenner each for your lunch. And a couple of these.’ He rolled something else into each tenner.
‘Thanks Neill,’ they grinned, and passed by Natalia as Neill’s mischievous face now landed on hers, happy enough for her to thoroughly take in this scene of iniquity.
‘Year 8s,’ he said, standing with his hands in his pockets as the door clicked closed again. ‘They were sitting sick off their PE lesson so I had them help prep for the Grotto like my dutiful elves. And it seems another one dropped me a gift yesterday. I trust that was your good elf self?’
‘Well, you paid for them,’ she smiled back.
‘But you held back from eating them and went to the trouble of practically blocking my pigeonhole with them, all the while continuing to refrain from temptation to make the bag smaller to fit it in. That couldn’t be easy.’
She laughed. ‘Well, I also made Victoria Sponge, which I know is your favourite, but I wasn’t sure it was too much indulgence in one d—’
‘Who do you think I am, Miss Barnes? Goodness her face earlier when I offered her a chocolate lime. She’s even against having desserts in the canteen.’ He sighed back down into his chair. ‘Such decadence for adolescence!’ he imitated.
‘But you said about the calories - you know - in the café…’
‘What? I was surrounded by three dieting veggie girls and I needed an excuse for why I wasn’t offering cake with their tea. We didn’t have a spare three hours to query the ingredient list and request an ethically-monogamous, plant-biased, gluten-extinct cake, with no face but enough legs to be free fucking range.’
She laughed again, bringing out the wrapped slice onto his desk. ‘Here’s your full-face decadence. But you haven’t had your dinner yet have you?’
‘Cheeky. It’s for afters. I told you I will trade you.’ He rummaged in a plastic bag.
‘So,’ she tried to stop herself fidgeting excitedly, ‘the new canteen meals have started downstairs, and here I am waiting for something out of your Kwik Save bag…’
‘The only Kwik Save I know of is the one I delivered the fiendish black sheep in the Black Bull. In fact when I do come to check out the new cuisine downstairs, I may grab ten kids again as a way to pin you down for your verdict.’
‘Really!’ she grinned, then coughed: ‘So what are you offering that’s going to beat the new, er, cuisine downstairs?’
‘Hoisin duck wrap or chicken tzatziki?’ He pulled up two packages.
‘Er, chicken.’
‘You don’t look very sure. They’re each split in two, so do you want half and half?’
‘Ok.’
Clicking back onto his computer, he’d already bitten into half the length of a wrap whilst Natalia hesitated her teeth over the first nibble. Somehow, despite this being inordinately less tension than the banana moment, there was more surrealism in the present casualness of sharing lunch with the Headmaster.
‘Er, Neill?’
‘Mm?’
She turned to the door. ‘What if someone knocks and walks in to see me eating lunch with you?’
‘And?’
‘Well, they might have seen me on the coach with you and all that, and wonder why so much time together…’
’I’m the Head darling,’ he said smoothly, looking at his screen in the moment before opening his mouth wide for another bite of wrap. ‘You’re the sad loner who needs company like a corpse needs a pulse.’
She scoffed and smiled at the same time.
‘I can call up and talk to who I want, when I want,’ he munched and frowned. ‘If anyone has a problem with that, I can bring them up here to explain who’s Head and then take the time I’ve spent explaining that out of their pay packet.’
She laughed incredulously, then caught her breath. ‘Thing is,’ she began, as he raised his eyes, ‘the boys were whispering at me yesterday. Calling me a teacher’s pet.’ With a second of hesitation she added: ‘Your pet.’
He chortled as he swigged his juice. ‘Well you are, aren’t you?’
‘Glad you find it funny. Isn’t it a bit… worrying?’
‘Why?’
‘In case they think…’
‘What?’
‘Well you know, it’s not nice having people whispering and wondering at you…’
‘Why? Most people in this school are nothing, Natalia, nothing at all,’ he went looking back at his screen. ‘One day, when you’re grown up like me, you will understand that. You might look them up - on Google or LinkedUp or whatever they use these days - and find that they did absolutely nothing with their lives. You will wonder why you spent so much of your boundless teenage energy fretting over who are, essentially, NCPs.’
‘NCP? A car park?’
He frowned. ‘I meant NPCs.’
‘What are those?’
‘Non Player Characters, the soulless extras that hang about in a video game. My techie friend Ed told me the term, the wanker. Anyway, the point is, to use more fittingly literary hook for you and I: ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow!’ he leaned forward, reciting into her eye with a shine of hoisin sauce on his bottom lip: ‘Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a passing shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.’’ He glared on the last word.
‘Isn’t it walking shadow?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Well, all that sounds easy enough when I’m grown up like you on the way to dusty death’ - he frowned - ‘but for me now, these petty poor players are my daily plight.’
‘You told me you’re a little old lady that’s passed caring.’
‘On some days,’ she said glumly.
‘Well if you’re worried, go lock the door.’
‘Huh?’
‘The key’s in there. Go lock it.’
She turned to see. ‘But people might look through the keyhole?’
‘They can’t see through it. It has a shutter on it.’
‘But what if they hear you inside?’
‘I shout them to bugger off. I’ve done it before.’
‘But… locking is a bit… well it looks dodgier don’t you think?’
‘Why, what do you think we’re going to be doing in here together?’
She blinked. ‘Dodgy government proposals?’
There was a knock at the door.
‘Neill?’
‘Come in!’ he cried.
Natalia’s heart sparked a fuse as she pulled all her food right into her skirt.
‘Miss Barnes, how are we!’ Neill smiled up.
‘Good, Neill! Oh hi Natalia,’ Barnes’ voice lilted. ‘Here as promised, I’ll leave them with you—’ She passed a sheet over Natalia’s shoulder to Neill’s outstretched hand.
‘Thank you darling, I’ll take a look.’ His eyes fixed on Barnes right up until the door clicked closed again. He quickly resumed. ‘Right, I’ve seen Miss Barnes’ arse now, and I don’t want any more arses disturbing us. Go lock the door.’
‘Er—’
‘Now, whilst no-one’s there!’ - the excited tempo of his cajole she couldn’t resist as she sprung up, turned the keys, and coyly set them on the table.
‘Pass them to me.’ He held out his hand.
‘No way!’
‘Come on, girl. I won’t drag you round the room by your wrist.’
‘So why do you want them?’
‘Because I like the idea that you are a curious sort of bird held in the close-set bars of a cage, and that only when I’ve finished with you here, may you soar cloud-high.’
‘So you have been reading it. Very good,’ she grinned and pushed the keys across to him as he pocketed them smugly.
‘Are you finished with your wrap?’ He glanced at the abandoned tzatziki.
‘Er, yeah. Not keen on the sauce. I’m not a massive eater anyway.’
‘You put the fish and chips away quite well at the pub for such a dinky thing,’ as he reached for it.
‘That was different. Air of the moors and besides, it was a point of celebration to see justice served to a cocky NPC, by a man who’d rather have been parked in the NCP, but instead became some kind of one-man NSPCC.’
He guffawed. ‘And you wonder why I want to lock you in here for a whole hour of you!’ He threw her remaining wrap into his mouth whilst gazing at her admiringly.
‘Oh, a whole hour?’ she blinked.
‘Mm-hm.’
‘Talking about what exactly?’
‘Anything you want. I kept you company on the coach, now keep me company doing this boring admin.’ He looked back at his screen with rocket leaf sprigging from his mouth. ‘Bloody school applications.’ He took a swig of his orange juice then passed it over as though sharing drinks was now customary. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I’ve started to reject any unruly characters trying to transfer. Ones who’ve been expelled, done for drugs or smoking before—’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ she frowned, ‘I just saw you rolling fags into the money you gave those boys for helping with your Grotto stuff.’
‘How did you see from the door they weren’t candysticks?’ as he swivelled round to fill the kettle.
‘Oh, er…’
‘I’m joking. They were fags alright,’ as he swivelled back. ‘And? Loads of kids smoke. No biggie. But the ones who get shoved from school to school with it on their record, are usually the types to avoid because they only got done for doing something nastier.’
‘Well I won’t tell anyone of course, but what if the boys do?’
‘No-one will believe them.’
‘Isn’t that the kind of morality our Satanist Jimmy Savile lived by?’
‘I gave the boys baccy, not badges for a buggering. The only Satanist we had to worry about was Marcia, and retribution has been duly delivered. To save that debacle happening again I’d rather not let tramps like her in at all. Older kids shouldn’t really be changing school above Year 10 anyway, which is a red flag in itself unless it’s for a house move.’ He poured and passed the teas. ‘Time to shut my cake hole and eat yours.’
‘Oh you want the cake?’
‘Yes, Natalia. You bought some for yourself, I hope?’
‘No.’ She unwrapped and pushed it over.
‘Oh heavens. Well mine is quite big, so we can share the calories. I have canteen cutlery stashed somewhere… here you go.’
‘Well, thank you,’ he smiled, as their two silver forks cornered the jam-splodged slab and they mmmed on their first mouthful of slightly undercooked crumb.
‘What about the Open Day last month?’ Natalia continued with a mouthful of cake, suddenly feeling like a staff member. ‘Any difference in demographic since your input?’
‘Not until I can fill the school with the social ilk of Mrs Tracey and Miss Barnes, and physically uproot the school building into Haworth High Street.’
‘Well Miss Barnes is definitely in a different league. She goes for a run round a farm every morning. I admire that, but I also like my adolescent decadence,’ Natalia smiled.
‘Meanwhile I just run the farm. She brought me in a sample ingredient list from a healthy snack caterer.’ Neill picked up the sheet he’d dumped to the side. ‘It’s basically fifteen derivations of coconut. Coconut oil. Coconut flour. Coconut milk. Christ, I didn’t know they had nipples. Dessicated, pulped, shredded? She’ll hate me when this sheet ends up the same way.’
‘But I did hear her raving about how you’re starting a salad bar, so she sounds like your biggest fan to me.’
‘Really?’ His eyebrow raised. ‘So she likes me?’
‘When she walked in earlier, she did that funny little shoulder shrug that adult women do, like a child, when they like someone.’
‘The one you’re doing now?’
She frowned and sat up straight. ‘I’m unconsciously demonstrating. And technically I am a child.’
‘Good answer.’
‘But it’s debatable because she hates cigarettes, so for her, you might be too much of a smoker.’
‘Quite. And for me, she’s a bit too well-built. Watch from the east side gym door when she’s doing her morning star-jumps, squint and she looks like the lovechild of Streisand and Schwarzenegger.’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t sound seedy at all.’
‘No, but this does,’ as he leant toward her. ‘How much do you want to bet that I have her before the weekend’s out?
She stared and swallowed. ‘Well, er, I have no money to put on bets…’
‘You can pay in cake. For this is delicious,’ he leaned back, tossing the last piece into his mouth, ‘and Miss Barnes needs to learn what delicious tastes like. So if you lose the bet, you have to bake me a whole one.’
‘Oh god,’ she laughed. ‘And if you lose?’
‘Then I give you whatever the cake would cost,’ he shrugged.
‘I can’t take your money. And you’ve already bought me enough.’
‘Something you need then. Ah!’ His eyes widened. ‘A new phone!’
‘No way!’ She glanced to the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘That’s too fricking expensive!’
‘Fair enough, Miss Fricking Frugal. I’ll pay to fix your horrible cracked one. But it doesn’t really matter because you’re not going to win.’
‘Oh,’ she pouted back. ‘And how will I know if you’re telling the truth about the… outcome? Fuck,’ she muttered, ‘wish I’d picked a different word.’
‘What, outcome or fuck?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘How will I know it’s a fair deal?’
‘Oh I’ll find a way. Besides, if I don’t fix Barnes’ crack then fixing yours will be a satisfying enough consolation.’
She shook her head wryly. ‘Neill’ll Fix It?’
‘If you want to think of it like that.’
‘So are you going to give up fags for the weekend to improve your chances?’
‘No chah-nce, chuck. I’ll be avin’ my chufty right before, and one right aff-tah! How’s about that then?’
Her face wrestled with laughter, as he inclined toward her, resuming in his normal voice:
‘Quite literally, Natalia, I will have my cake and eat it.’
A fiendish grin overtook her disapproving frown. ‘A whole Victoria Sponge?’
‘Nah. I’ll have something different.’ He typed, scrolled, then swivelled the screen round.
‘Banana Pound Cake,’ she read cynically - just as the bell rang, with them both looking at each other for the whole five seconds.
‘Well. I’ve never made one of those…’
‘Better get practising. When’s your next Food Tech?’
‘Friday. But we only bake what we’re putting into our coursework—’
‘Well you’d better get this one right in there,’ as he clicked off his computer, and turned his eyes on her: ‘As will I.’
She blew out her cheeks. ‘Keys, now.’
He stood up and slowly rummaged in his pocket. ‘I’ll let you out, if you ask nicely.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Go on. Say please, Mr Neill.’
‘Plee… just fucking open it.’
He laughed as he stepped over, jangling into the keyhole. ‘Where are you headed?’
‘To Art. You?’
‘To nicotine,’ he patted his pocket.
‘To nick a teen? Didn’t you just do that?’
‘Ha! Not for long enough.’
She patted her bag. ‘Well, I’m drawing from the gorgeous book of mermaids someone so kindly bought me.’
‘Ah, I’m sure he’s a gentleman!’
‘Bye, you fruitcake.’
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She drew well-built mermaids, nice bottoms, long brown hair. Quite literally Natalia, I will have my cake and eat it! It was the direct opposite of mumbling Ryan. Would this man ever know how much he swelled her wank library like cake mix in the heat?
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Read new chapters first on headmastersflame.com. Free, slick reading experience, tailored for mobile phones, where you can subscribe your email for a free Kindle book. - LS x
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