Copyright ©2004 Some Sort of Dog
In this return visit to the hallowed halls of St Cat's High School for Growing Girls, we meet our headmistress, Chauntaille Gruntworthy, planning her forthcoming wedding. The usual cast of regulars appears, and in addition you can expect to be reunited with a couple of favourites from the dim and distant.
"Three grand pianos? We couldn't possibly! There isn't room. Besides, where would we get three grand pianos?"
"That's no problem, vicar," I told him. "We've got dozens at St Cat's."
But it was no use. The vicar was right. He showed us the inside of the church and there was no way we'd be able to fit even one grand piano in there, let alone three.
"We've got the organ," he said. "And the organist can only play one instrument at a time."
I felt Jeremy smothering a giggle at my side and changed the subject. "Would there be any objection to having the school band meet outside the church after the wedding service? Then they could march in front of us back to the school for the reception."
The vicar beamed at us, no doubt imagining the picturesque scene as the wedding party threaded its way through the leafy lanes back to St Cat's with an only moderately tuneless little band at its head. He must have forgotten that the wedding was scheduled for the week before Christmas, a few days before the school broke up for the holidays, so it would be freezing cold at best and pissing with rain at worst. I decided he'd be happier not knowing that the school band consisted of a trumpet, a bass drum, a bunch of kazoos and a jangling heap of assorted percussion. Not to mention a number of electric guitars powered by an almost portable generator. And only one grand piano, mounted on a trailer, hauled by half a dozen girls. It could have been worse, it could have been a brigade of badgers.
I have a tin ear but I am prepared to believe those who tell me that the marching band of St Cat's High School for Growing Girls is the most cacophanous collection of musical instruments ever gathered together in one place.
So I decided not to try describing the band to the vicar. It could become tricky when I reached the school mascot which marched at the front. Not many schools in the vicar's experience could have had an antelope as a mascot. St Cat's now had three, although with any kind of luck, they wouldn't all be marching on my wedding day.
"We do ask guests to be sparing with confetti," the cleric continued. "Now, how about the bells?"
"The bells?" I echoed, thinking of the clock in the school quadrangle which so few of us could hear.
"The bells!" cried Jeremy, and I yanked desperately on his hand before he could launch into a Quasimodo impersonation. This was neither the time nor the place.
"The cost will be in addition, of course, but our ringers have won prizes all over the county."
They could be heard all over the county, too, especially when they practised on Wednesday evenings.
"Yes, please." Daddy would happily pay for the bells. After all, his loving daughter would only be getting married once — if that.
"Good! Now, how about our little rock'n'roll group, the Devotional Divas? Just a dozen or so of the kids from the village. They all sing, one plays the drum, one has a tambourine and the others all play guitars. They do a most pleasant version of Kumbaya."
"Yes, they would, of course," said Jeremy. "But there might not be much room for them."
"How big are their ti...?" I wondered, but Jeremy jabbed me in the ribs.
"Maybe when we have our undress rehearsal for the wedding, the Divas can come along and see if they can fit themselves in?" he said.
"Excellent!" The vicar did the sums in his head and beamed as he ticked another item on his checklist. "Now, you will be attending St Catherine's for the remaining Sundays before the great day, of course."
"Oh, of course!"
We strolled out into the weak sunlight which was slowly dispelling the mist from the dripping oak trees which lined the lane leading down to the main village street.
"What a splendid old Jaguar!" said the vicar. "Mark Seven, isn't it?"
"Mark Eight," said Jeremy with more than a hint of pride. "The one-piece windscreen, Borg Warner automatic, 3.4-litre engine with the B-type head. Kept indoors from new."
And it had been indoors when I forfeited my maidenhead on the Connolly leather of its back seat. When I was in the Fourth Form at St Cat's. And now I was headmistress, and the teenage lovers were still hard at it, although not always in the back of the Jag. We preferred a real bed these days.
"I had an old XK140, way back," mused the vicar. "Racing green. Of course, it had to go when I took the cloth. You can't have a parson booming around the parish in a damned great sports car, after all. At least, that's what my wife said. Hang on to it, Jeremy. I dare say it has a lot of happy memories attached to it," he added, possibly with a wink.
I blushed prettily.
The vicar extended his hand. "So good to meet you both. Perhaps you might consider bringing along a few of the girls to the morning service. What about bridesmaids, by the way? Do you have any sisters, Miss Gruntworthy, or...?"
"The girls," I said. "Seven of them...."
"Seven bridesmaids! An ideal number, if I may say so."
"No. Seven from each Form," I insisted. "Forty-nine."
"Forty-nine bridesmaids? B-but...?" He stared back through the doorway of the little village church, obviously trying to visualise just how much room forty-nine bridesmaids would occupy in the aisle.
I decided to help him out. They'll be the smallest girls in each form, of course."
"Oh, of course!" Which was more or less what I'd have expected him to say.
"The week before Christmas, miss? Can some of us come?"
The First Form tilted its head on to one side — unnervingly, all the same side — waiting for my answer. I didn't keep them waiting long.
"You're all coming! Those of you who aren't bridesmaids will be there with the band, and we're all going to march back to the school after the wedding."
"Wow, miss! A parade!"
Fools.
"Will the antelope be there, miss?" Barbarella Sinkinson asked. She tugged at the various straps of her bra, obviously not yet comfortable in it, although it improved her appearance 200%. Barbarella was the school antelope handler, a position which she probably thought deserved capital letters but in fact simply involved hanging on like grim death to the antelope's leash whenever we had a parade, which we never did. For performing this simple task she was excused the playing of a musical instrument. Unjust, perhaps, but Barbarella had been the first and only girl to volunteer as antelope handler, so the job was hers in perpetuity, or until I could persuade the zoo to accept the animal as a gift. The only problem with that was that we'd become used to having the beast around. It was a friendly, trusting creature with nice eyes and it was impossible to stay mad at it for long.
The badgers were another matter. They were truly a pest. If I could find out who was dressing them up in miniature Santa Claus outfits complete with two pairs of shiny scarlet wellington boots and harnessing them to little trailers, I'd get the things rounded up and banished. Meanwhile, we all kept well out of their way, apart from my secretary. The until-recently forbidding and grim-faced Miss Labia had suddenly become a beautiful and gloriously-endowed purveyor of nectar-like coffee, and she now chose to ride to and from her place of work in a small cart drawn by a particularly angry badger. She's a Methodist, of course, but that's hardly an excuse.
All of these phenomena were the work of the Fuckh Machine, the appalling reality-altering invention of the brother — later to become the sister — of Miss Corinne Meadowlark, Support and Mobility teacher at St Cat's, who had disappeared some time ago to attend a three-day course on something or other and hadn't been seen since. Our lives, one might say, had never been the same again.
"Yes, Barbarella," I said heavily. "The antelope will be there. But more importantly, I need seven of you to be my bridesmaids."
A forest of hands shot up.
"Me, miss!"
"Please, miss!"
"St Catherine's church is rather small inside. They don't even have room for pianos in there." The girls shook their heads in disbelief. "That is why the band will have to stay outside during the service. And that is why the bridesmaids will have to be the seven of you with the smallest busts."
Their shock was visible. They stared around at each other, mentally noting the seven least-endowed.
Arabella Mason-Dixon spoke up for them. "Surely any church is big enough for seven bridesmaids!"
"Seven bridesmaids from each of the seven Forms, Arabella," I told her. "That is forty-nine."
"Forty-nine bridesmaids, miss? Wow, cool!"
I had to agree, although not in the same words. "Everyone stand up, please." I produced my tape measure from the desk drawer and whirled it around my head.
"Are you sure you're allowed to measure us, miss?" Maisie Perkins asked with a frown. "Isn't that Miss Clit's job?"
I debated with myself how many lines this impertinence deserved. "You've got a fat arse, Maisie!" I said, taking her somewhat by surprise.
She recovered well. "Not as big as yours, miss."
"Yeah, but I'm a grown-up, and you're only eleven."
That silenced her. I decided to excuse her from writing lines; I'd only have to read them all and it was going to be a busy month or two. Besides, Maisie's bust ruled her out as a potential bridesmaid. It was almost as if she'd been anointed with SuperCream, or whatever it was called this week.
Luckily, it was now quite permissible to take girls' measurements while they were wearing bras. The traditional Dangle Table method would have taken so long, and word would surely reach Miss Clitress that I'd been seen doing it. It wouldn't be a good move to antagonise the school corsetiere just when I needed her to make forty-nine bridesmaids' dresses, my own wedding dress, and probably some fancy little headgear for the antelope.
With surprisingly little malice and taunting the First Formers helped me choose the seven lucky candidates. In no time we had whittled it down to a short list of a dozen, then we selected the seven prettiest, appointing two of the others as reserves.
Then, clutching my little list of names, I swept magnificently out of the First Form classroom, which may have left the girls feeling a little bewildered, as there was still twenty minutes more before the scheduled end of their lesson.
Naturally, I didn't realise this until I breezed into the staff room and found it empty. Where were they all? I needed to speak to Smegs especially. As my deputy she was going to have to shoulder much of the burden when I took on the role of a married woman.
I found her in the Fifth Form History class. She looked at me with some surprise. "Who's looking after the Firsts?" she demanded.
"Firsts?"
"You know? Little girls...?" She indicated a vertically challenged creature by holding out a hand about four feet above the floor.
"I've got their names," I said, flourishing my little list. "May as well choose yours now I'm here." I thought I'd handled it quite smoothly. Waving an airy hand around the class I cleared my throat. "The seven flattest-chested girls step forward, please!"
"What?" Smegs screeched. "This is a History lesson!"
"Do you mind? I'm selecting my bridesmaids. This is vitally important."
"Not now! Why can't you do it this afternoon when they've got a free study period? Or this evening, during Homework?"
That's the trouble with Smegs, she's so pig-headed. Fortunately, her girls were altogether more cooperative. Seven unhappy stoop-shouldered creatures had made their way to the front of the class. One or two others hovered just behind them, wondering if they were qualified. After a brief session with the tape measure I chose them all, seven primaries and three reserves. This was the way to do it; get them organised. I finished noting down their names, dimly aware of a bell ringing, then thanked the last reserve bridesmaid with a friendly pat on the bottom — to find myself alone with Smegs in the room.
"Where have they all gone?"
"It's lunchtime," she said. "You've completely fucked up my History. What are we going to do with you, Gruntworthy?"
What's the matter with this woman? What is her problem?
I scurried alongside her as she strode to the restaurant, passing the antelope's paddock on the way. The two females were in there as usual, bouncing and gambolling happily around, accepting bits of chocolate from the girls at the wire fence. With a twinge of horror I had a sudden thought.
"Do you think they ever drink milk, Smegs? Girl-milk?"
"Girl-milk? What?"
"The antelopes. You know how our first one likes cookies and milk? I wonder if his lady-friends like milk, too. The girls are always hanging round their cage...."
"Does it matter?"
"It does to me."
We entered the restaurant and joined the end of the queue. Cottage pie and a choice of vegetables. Gravy, if we fancied it. The girls didn't like the gravy; they always said it had lumps in it and skin on top. They don't know what's good for them.
Smegs led the way to a vacant table, the girls watching us with deep respect as we passed by. "I've got my bridesmaids from the Firsts and the Fifths," I announced as we sat down. I looked up and saw that my companion had vanished. There was a brief uproar at a nearby table and she came back bearing the salt and pepper.
"Right," she said. "You're getting married. Where are you going to live?"
"I don't know. I mean Jeremy's got his little shack and I've still got my room upstairs."
"You can't live up there! You have to live together. And no, before you suggest it, he can't move in with you. You'll make too much noise."
"I don't make noise...."
"You can find a little cottage down in the village. You've got stacks of money — shit, you haven't spent a penny of your salary since you've been here. All your meals are free, you take tons of cash from the girls in bets, you're rolling in it! You could pay cash."
"I don't know. It's a bit of a risk, buying a house. Besides, what about the girls? What about the first night of a new school year? It's my job to meet and greet them in their dormitory, put them at their ease...."
"And gawp at their tits. And run a book on who's going to be the First Form Head. You can forget all that, you'll have a husband."
"But Jeremy hasn't got tits!"
"Hasn't he really? I'd never looked." She shovelled a great forkful of cottage pie into her mouth and continued indistinctly. "Anyway, we'll need your room."
"You'll what? I mean we'll ... who are we?"
"The school. We need some more teachers. You won't be able to do so much teaching when you're married. Now Cee's gone, we've been a teacher short for more than a year, and we were two teachers short even when she was here. So we move you out and get a new teacher to live in your room. Then there's Anastasia Dawkes's room."
"She might still need it."
"She's left St Cat's and gone to university! She doesn't have any right to a room in the staff domestic quarters. She never did! So we move her stuff out and make room for another teacher. We really need another one right away, but finding three might be a bit tricky at this time of year."
"Why don't we wait until the summer...?"
"You've been saying that for years, too! We're interviewing on Monday morning."
"This Monday? We couldn't possibly get any applicants by then."
"We've got some. We advertised last month."
"We ... you what? Where?"
"The Guardian, of course. Where else would we find teachers looking for a job?"
"We can't employ Guardian readers! They ... they smell! Look at Molly What's-her-name?"
"Malone. She didn't change her name when she got married. You won't be changing yours, either."
"Oh, won't I?"
"No. It's on all the stationery."
"Oh, I suppose not, then."
"Anyway, you don't have to sit in on the interviews if you don't want to. I know you're busy with your wedding plans and bridesmaids and dresses and everything." She almost spat out the words.
Do you know, if I hadn't known better I'd have thought Smegs was jealous.
Helvetica Bold and Valentina Nightingale were perfunctorily going through the motions of their twice-daily back-strengthening exercises in a corner of the Third Form dormitory. The school antelope watched them through one half-opened eye from Valentina's bed.
"We're getting some new teachers," said Helvetica. "Miss Labia told me when she called to tell me the antelope was in her office again."
Valentina put down her little bar-bells. "What for?"
Helvetica stared at her friend. "Cookies and milk, I suppose. No wonder it spends so much time in there if she keeps feeding it."
"No," said Valentina patiently. "What are we getting more teachers for?"
"I suppose we need them, especially now ol' Grunt's getting married."
"Why should that make any difference? She's ancient; she won't be able to handle any more sex than she's already getting."
"Yeah, but won't she be moving out to live somewhere else?"
"I know, but she can still do her classes. She's pretty good at Sexual Chemistry, she lets us get on with it. And Sex, too. In theory, of course."
"Of course!" Helvetica replied automatically. "I been thinking. Ol' Labia said we'll be getting two new teachers. What if they're horrible, like Miss Lundberg an' Miss Malone?"
"Most teachers are horrible, it's the way they are. I s'pose we're lucky having Ol' Gruntworthy and Smeggy Mountains. And Miss Cassowary, she's okay."
"She's only imaginary, though. The Fuckh Machine told me." As usual, Helvetica coloured slightly as she spoke the name of the all-powerful computer. "Miss Meadowlark invented her when she was still here. That's why she's a bit weird, because some of her parameters aren't properly developed."
"Her tits are pretty well developed, though," said Valentina. "For a grown-up, anyway. She's nearly as big as a girl."
"It would be good if the new teachers had big boobs," Helvetica mused. "Teachers with big boobs understand the problems."
"Like Miss Grimbo...."
"They don't need to be that big! But you know what I mean. It would be cool if we got a couple of big-boobed teachers."
"What if they're a man?" Valentina enquired innocently.
"They wouldn't have a man! Miss Mountains and Miss Grunt are doing the interviews. They wouldn't give the job to a man. What would he teach?"
"I dunno! But it might be fun."
Helvetica glanced around. The other girls were clustered at the far end of the dorm, sniggering as they read a gentlemen's magazine. The antelope was asleep again. She lowered her voice. "It would be more fun if we could ... like ... make them choose somebody suitable."
"You mean we talk to the people waiting for their interviews and make them change their minds?"
"Nah, we'd get caught. But we could use the machine to choose the best teachers. All we'd need would be their names and stuff. We'd ask the machine to tell us all about them, then we could choose the best ones."
"And the ones with the biggest tits?"
"I s'pose so. But if they didn't have huge boobs before they came here, we could always do something about it later. I don't like the idea of Creaming grown-ups, but it worked with Miss Labia. If we do the same with the new teachers as we did with Miss Labia, that would be okay."
"But Miss Labia did hers with coffee and burnt paper and cream...."
"That's the way it worked out, yeah, but that was only 'cause the machine got itself mixed up with debadgerisation just at the exact moment when it was trying to make Miss Labia bigger. It had to improvise, it said. It wouldn't be so hard next time, now Miss Labia's got the badgers under control."
"Wouldn't it be better if we could hide somewhere and watch the interviews, though?" Valentina suggested. "Then we'd give ourselves a short list — that's what they call it — so we wouldn't have so many teachers for the Fuckh Machine to choose from."
Helvetica pondered the idea, visualising the layout of Miss Gruntworthy's office. "There's nowhere we could hide in there. No big cupboards or anything."
"We could hang on ropes outside the window." The girls considered this option for a while, imagining themselves dangling on ropes above the teeming quadrangle. "Maybe not, though. Hey, how about the cow?"
"The pantomime cow?"
"We could hide in there and she wouldn't be able to see us."
"Yeah, but she might kind of wonder why there was a cow standing around in her office."
"She might think it was the antelope."
The antelope awoke, rolled its eyes and gave a heavy sigh.
Valentina sighed as well. "Maybe not. We'll just have to do it by remote control."
"Yeah. But it would be good if we could get a look at the new teachers before they get interviewed, though."
"I've thought of another idea," said Valentina. "A way we could make ourselves some money!"
I unfolded the sheet of paper for the twentieth time and looked at the list of names and numbers. Seven lists of seven names — plus one reserve for each batch of seven — each name with its accompanying bust measurement, standing position, wearing bra at full tightness setting. True, the numbers weren't particularly impressive, but it was uncanny how this computer-generated list exactly matched the two lists of seven girls I had so painstakingly chosen from each of the First and Fifth Forms. Presumably the other five lists were just as accurate as if I'd gone round and measured each Form myself. So computers do serve some useful purpose, after all.
It had been Helvetica Bold's idea, of course. I had sailed into the Third Form dormitory intending to select my seven bridesmaids from their number, only to find Helvetica and her friend Valentina just inside the door doing exercises with weights.
"Let the computer do it," she said when I explained my mission. "The machine can do that kind of stuff standing on its head. Just go down to the IT lab and tell it what you want. It will understand, trust me!" Then she eyed my list and continued slyly, "It will even give you their bust measurements!"
And it did. Some of the numbers were shamefully small, shamefully, but I liked the completeness of them, the way the figures all lined up neatly in columns. For reasons known only to itself the computer had decided to add up all the numbers and supply an average at the bottom in big bold type. 39 inches, it said, and despite the fact that the average was so disgracefully low, I had to admit that it wasn't at all bad when you considered that these were the seven flattest-chested girls in each of the seven Forms. And after all, we didn't want to give the vicar a coronary by confronting him with forty-nine overwhelmingly-stacked girls in burstingly-full bridesmaids' dresses. Thirty-nine inches would do quite nicely.
The office door opened softly and Miss Labia came in. "Miss Mountains is here, Miss Gruntworthy," she said in her most respectful voice. Sometimes I almost wished she'd revert to the way she was before.
Smegs barged in. "Coffee, please!" she said, loping to the vacant chair which I had placed on my side of the desk and tossing a wad of papers on to the green leather. Then she stopped, her mouth open. "What's that doing in here?"
"Shhh, he's asleep!"
"Damn it, we're just about to interview a bunch of applicants for important teaching posts. What are they going to think, having to sit in the next chair to a fucking antelope?"
"They'll be at least six feet away from him, that's not next to him."
"There'll be just the four of us in here, the applicant, the two interviewers and a sodding overgrown goat! Do you suggest it helps us ask the questions?"
"It won't do any harm. If they're coming here to teach, they'll have to get used to him anyway. Better that they meet him now than discover that they're allergic to antelopes on their first morning. Look, if he farts or anything, we can get Labia to take him outside for a drink of milk."
"That's another thing," said Smegs. "She's got a badger in her office."
"Yes, that's Barry. He's okay. He hasn't bitten anyone for days."
"Look, Chauntaille, I can just about accept it when your miserable secretary suddenly learns to make delicious coffee like the nectar of the gods. I can almost accept it when she grows a 44½-inch bust literally overnight...."
"It wasn't literally overnight, it wasn't even figuratively overnight, it was during the daytime...."
"You know what I mean! I do not find it acceptable, in any way, shape or form...."
"Why do people say 'way, shape or form' when 'way' would be enough?"
Smegs was staring at me with her mouth open again. I decided to remind her.
"You've left your mouth open," I said.
"That's because I'm in the middle of a pigging sentence! I do not find it in any way acceptable...."
"That's a little bit better...."
"When your secretary rides to work in a cart pulled by two badgers dressed up like Santa Fucking Claus, and furthermore, when she brings them into the office."
"It's only for today, while Jeremy fixes the roof of their staff room."
That stopped her. "Their what?"
"The badgers' staff room out in the woods."
"I thought that was supposed to be a Wendy House."
"It was, but the badgers like it, and it's out of everyone's way, so nobody needs to get bitten. The A&E Department at the Borcester General asked us if we could make arrangements to keep the badgers away from the girls. They're rather busy, apparently." I wondered whether to explain that it was the hospital that was busy, rather than the girls or the badgers, but Smegs seemed to have lost interest. She can be so rude these days.
"The first one's due in twenty minutes. You'd better read her notes."
As far as I was aware, all our badgers were male, so I assumed Smegs was talking about the interviewees. It can be difficult to keep track of her thought processes but I've had more practice than most. "Let me see."
I opened the slim folder and looked down the application form, noted the blurred Polaroid paper-clipped to the top left hand corner, and went in search of the information I needed. It wasn't there.
"I wonder if she's straight. And how big are her tits?" I demanded.
"Jeez! She's a teacher of Geography and English. What do her tits matter? I haven't seen her, anyway. They might not be too bad. And if they're not, we could...." She broke off, although I thought she might have been about to make an evil suggestion.
"Is this her name? The girls will be sure to turn that into something rude."
"As rude as your nickname, you mean?"
"Huh!" I reached for the next folder. "Who else have we got?"
"One at a time. You can't sift through the applicants looking for big-titted lesbians. It's probably against the law. In fact, I'm sure it is. We've got to see five of them today; three before lunch and two this afternoon. About time, too," she added ungraciously as Miss Labia brought in the coffee.
"Sugar's in the bowl," she said. "Barry, sit! Good boy! Now, Barry ... wait for it, wait for it ... and ... heel!" She wheeled round and departed, the absurdly-attired badger bumping along beside her left leg, gazing up at her with adoring eyes out of its striped face. The door closed behind them. Meanwhile, the antelope had climbed out of his chair, hoping for cookies and milk, and arrived at the door just as it closed in his face. Without a pause for thought, he lowered his head and attacked the door with his ridiculous horns. Seeing no effect, he backed off and took a run at it.
"Stop him!" I shrieked. "He'll wreck the office!"
Smegs was on her feet, confronting the antelope with hands on hips. "What do you think you're doing?" she enquired. There was no reply, but the animal lowered its head again; this time apparently in shame. It backed away until its hindquarters contacted the wall, then it shook its head. "I should think so!" said Smegs. "Now, get out!" She opened the door and stood aside as the antelope shot through the gap, almost flattening its rear end against the floor as if expecting a good spanking.
Smegs smacked the dust off her hands as she came back and sat down. "I do not believe this place. Why do I work in this madhouse?"
I know why: she loves it here, that's why.
"I've got all forty-nine of them now," I confided.
"You what?"
"My bridesmaids. I've got a list of forty-nine, with all their bust measurements and names and one reserve from each class. I'm going to get Clit to start on their dresses tomorrow, as soon as we've got these stupid interviews done and out of the way."
For just a moment I wondered if Smegs was going to storm out of the office. She stiffened and her knuckles whitened on the handle of her coffee mug. But she screwed her eyes shut tight and poured the rest of the coffee down her throat.
I worry about her these days, yet I wouldn't feel happy recommending that she saw a therapist, in case she socked me one.
"We should have done the rope trick and listened outside her window," said Valentina, as she and Helvetica sat in front of the big porno monitor in the IT Lab. By pure chance they had Computing (Newsgroups) this Monday morning, but as Miss Mountains was busy interviewing new teachers it meant that the school was short-staffed. Miss Cassowary should have been in the IT Lab but she had left the Third Form to their own devices and wandered off to shuttle between First Form Sex Theory and helping the Fifths with their History.
"I've nearly got it working," Helvetica said. "Miss Labia let me play around with the computer in her office, and I managed to turn up the level on her microphone. So now the computer in Miss Labia's office can hear voice commands from ol' Grunt's office, and they come up on this screen here. See? Those white ones are Miss Gruntworthy's, 'cause the machine obeys her voice. The green ones are Miss Mountains's. There's something funny about her: she can't hear the clock but she seems to know when the machine changes things. But she can't tell it what to do."
"What about the yellow ones?"
"Those are everybody else. It can obviously hear Miss Labia saying things because she's right next to the computer, but now I've doctored her microphone it can hear everything from Miss Grunt's office as long as it's quiet. There!"
Valentina peered at the screen. "Invalid command," she read aloud.
The words 'invalid command' appeared on the monitor on the next line.
"Shhh! You've got to keep quiet," said Helvetica, wagging her finger. "It thinks you're trying to give it orders," she added in a whisper. "And it obeys you, even though you haven't got a clue about what to say to it. That's why you've got to keep it shut!"
"No!" Helvetica squeaked. "Carry on listening!"
Helvetica grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a note to Valentina. Valentina read it and nodded.
"It's okay, we can still whisper!" said Helvetica.
"I can't whisper quietly," Valentina whispered, shaking the windows. Mercifully the Fuckh Machine ignored her. "Where did that word come from?" She suddenly pointed at the screen.
"Miss Labia swore."
"I thought she was supposed to be a Methodist."
"She still swears when she thinks she's on her own."
"What's that? Did she fart?"
Helvetica frowned at the unrecognisable cluster of letters on the monitor. "Badger," she declared at last. "She's got a badger in the office with her again."
"Have they started the interview yet?"
"Not yet. It's just Grunt and Mountains in there. The first one's not due until ten o' clock."
Out in the quadrangle, the clock struck thirteen times, but mercifully only a couple of dozen of the girls could hear it. "Quarter to ten," said Helvetica. "We'd better do a bit of work before Cassowary comes back." She left the Fuckh Machine chuntering away to itself in a small window at the top of the screen and turned her attention to downloading a list of image files.
"What do we do when the interviews start?" said Valentina. "And when can we start earning money?" She patted the worn leather satchel by her side; a disturbingly similar money bag to the one used by Pansy Brooks whenever she took bets on anything.
"As soon as they've seen all the interviewees. Then we write all their names in a book and you can start taking bets on which one gets the job. But we don't need to do anything. We just sit here and monitor what they're saying, and if it looks like it's getting dangerous we can, like, give it an order. So if we see anything we don't like the look of, we can get the machine to do something about it."
"What can it do?"
"Anything. It's on Auto, so we just let it make its own decisions. It might make the teacher start saying a load of rude words, or ... or try telling Miss Grunt that her boobs are too big...."
"Whose? Hers, or Miss Gruntworthy's?"
"Either. It doesn't matter. Miss Gruntworthy thinks boobs can't be too big."
Valentina looked puzzled. "They can't, can they?"
"Ask Miss Grimbo. Or Sally Chung! If you need wheels to get around, they're probably too big. Ours are just about right."
Valentina looked at her friend's breasts, then down at her own milkers. "Yeah, I reckon they probably are!"
Helvetica pointed at the screen and put a finger to her lips. "Look! I think the first one's coming in."
The words appeared faithfully on the screen. It was like watching the script of a play type itself out before their very eyes.
"I wish we could see her," said Valentina.
"She's saying all the right things," said Helvetica.
"They practise that. Anybody can practise saying all the right things...."
"So, Miss Jenkins, we've learned a great deal about each other," I said, making some meaningless marks on the application form. "Is there anything you'd like to ask us about St Cat's?"
Miss Jenkins hesitated, which was surprising, as until now she'd shown every sign of being able to talk the hind leg off a donkey. Now, however, the silence stretched out — three seconds, four, five....
It had gone so quiet I could hear Miss Labia talking to her badger in the outer office. The badger gave a kind of grunt. She was training the damned thing.
"Anything at all?" Smegs prompted.
"Well, yes, there was. I see that both yourself, Miss Gruntworthy, and you, Miss Mountains — and your secretary — not to mention those girls I have seen in my brief stay here, all seem to be remarkably overdeveloped." In case we didn't get the message, she held her hands up and cupped them under her insignificant bosom.
"Overdeveloped?" I said.
"Considerably overdeveloped!"
It had gone very quiet again.
"They've stopped talking," said Valentina. "Has it broken?" She rapped the monitor on top with the flat of her hand.
The lights in the IT Lab flickered a couple of times.
"It's all right," said Helvetica. "She's talking again. Wow, is she ever talking!"
"There can be only one answer for this state of affairs!" Miss Jenkins seemed to be into her stride.
"Oh, really?"
"Surgery!"
"What?" Smegs gasped, half a second before I could even get my mouth open.
"I had surgery myself," Miss Jenkins said, rising to her feet and prowling in a tight right-hand circle round her chair. "Look at my chest. When I was only twelve, my breasts began to grow at a truly stupid rate. By the time I was thirteen, I needed a D-cup brassiere. You know what a D-cup is, of course!"
"Oh, of course!" She didn't need a D-cup brassiere now. "What happened to them?"
"I underwent surgery, and I became a new woman."
I looked at Smegs and Smegs looked at me.
"Wow! Did the machine make her say that?" Helvetica jumped to her feet and gave a little jig of delight.
"What did she say?" said Valentina, trying to see the monitor beyond Helvetica's bust.
"She's admitted to having her boobs chopped off. And she thinks it would be a good idea if Miss Gruntworthy and Miss Mountains had theirs chopped off, too!"
"Gosh!"
"And ours! She wants to chop the girls' boobs off as well!"
"I reckon she's just blown it! Oh, hello, you! I thought you were up in Miss Grunt's office."
The antelope stretched languidly then lay down.
"Miss Smegs threw him out," said Helvetica. "I wondered who she was talking to, there was only her and Miss Gruntworthy in there at the time."
"There's only the two of them again," Valentina pointed out. "That's Miss Labia saying good bye to Miss Jenkins."
Exhausted by our morning's efforts, Smegs and I trailed into the school restaurant and sat down with our liver and bacon with onions.
"That was bizarre!" said Smegs. "Three first-class candidates, any of which could have been perfect for the job, then as soon as we're getting ready to start discussing salary, what happens?"
"They take leave of their senses," I said.
"They go ape-shit!" Smegs can be so vulgar at times. And people were trying to eat in here. "That Jenkins woman! Trying to get us to chop our tits off, and all the girls' tits, too! Imagine!"
"I'm imagining." I was, too, and it wasn't pleasant. There must have been several tons, several shed-loads of tit involved ... no, I couldn't even think about it. "And what about that second one, Radcliffe? We get right to the end of the interview and she tells us she doesn't agree with teaching Science subjects to girls. No Physics, no Sexual Chemistry, just Arts. Painting, Needlework, Handicrafts, Crochet, Macramé, Lapidary, Origami, Knitting...."
I could have gone on for quite some time, as indeed the recent Radcliffe woman had done, but Smegs's eyes had glazed over again and I thought I might as well stop as she almost certainly wasn't listening. Oh, well, in that case, there wasn't much point in even discussing the morning's third applicant, Miss Trubshawe. It was bizarre, as Smegs had said. There was another thing; I was sure the lights had flickered a number of times during the interviews. It was almost as if the Fuckh Machine was up to its tricks again, although I couldn't really see any connection between the Fuckh Machine and a bunch of would-be teachers....
Helvetica and Valentina had crept in and carried their lunch to a corner of the restaurant where the teachers wouldn't be able to see them.
"I hate liver," said Valentina, taking a huge forkful and wolfing it down as if it might be her last meal on this earth.
Helvetica watched her. A morning in the IT Lab with her bestest friend and the school antelope didn't seem to have affected her appetite.
"It seemed to go all right," she said cautiously. "Do you think they suspected anything?"
"Nah!"
"The first two were bad enough. That Jenkins woman who wanted to chop everyone's boobs off, then there was that nutter who didn't want us to learn about Sexual Chemistry. But what about that third one?"
"Oh, I don't know. She might have been fun," said Valentina, finishing off her plate and staring longingly up at the servery as if contemplating going back for some more. "I'm starving."
"She might have been having a bit of fun, yeah," Helvetica continued doggedly, "but I reckon she was serious."
"She couldn't be. Look, everybody knows that British schoolgirls have more babies than schoolgirls in the rest of the world. I've got two. I mean three! So this Miss Trubshawe wants to come along and expel all girls who have babies. What would happen to the maternity building? And milk and stuff?" Valentina looked longingly in the direction of the serving counter. "Do you think they'd give me some more if I went up there, or shall I have extra pudding instead?"
"Have more pudding. You know how much you hate liver. Do you think the Computer made her start going on like that about babies, or is she always like that?"
"It doesn't matter. Look at Miss Grunt and o' Mountains. Do they look like they've just taken on a new teacher? No, they look a bit worried, to me. They want two new teachers and they've only got two more interviews left to go. You did well, Vets, making the Fuckh Machine get rid of those three this morning."
"But I didn't!"
"What?"
"I didn't do anything. Ma Jenkins suddenly flipped and started talking about boobs getting cut off when the computer thought it heard a command. But it was Miss Labia's badger making a noise. And then the next one, it wasn't me either, and it wasn't the badger, either."
"What was it, then?"
"It was the antelope that farted. It must be all that milk and stuff they keep giving it. But I don't know what made Miss Trubshawe start ranting about babies. Then when I hit the antelope on the nose and told it not to be such a naughty boy, she started saying girls couldn't even have sex." Helvetica blushed prettily. Despite being regularly sexually active with the cricket captain of Lord Ted's school, she still found the words embarrassing to actually say.
"Two more to do," I said. "What do we know about them?"
"I left their folders in the office. But they've got to be better than those three this morning."
"How many more are we seeing, after today?"
"None. I went through the applications and picked the best five."
"You went through the applications...?"
"You've been too busy getting ready to get married. The rest of them were garbage, anyway. Some of them were even men!"
"What's wrong with men?"
"Nothing, but not as teachers at a High School for Growing Girls. It wouldn't work. They'd be teaching Sex and stuff. It wouldn't work."
"But if we're only seeing two more today, and there are two vacancies, that means that the ones we're going to see this afternoon are certain to get the jobs, even though we haven't seen them yet."
Smegs had the grace to look uncomfortable. "According to their CVs, they're pretty good," she said. "As long as they don't suddenly start ranting about something halfway through."
"But I might hate them!"
Smegs shrugged her shoulders. "So what? Some of us hate you. Teachers don't have to like their headmistress."
This was terrible news. I was on the verge of asking her which of the teachers hated me so I could fire the disloyal bitch. But that would leave us short of another teacher. Maybe, improbable as it seemed, even more than one. After all, she'd said it was 'some of us' so it probably included Smegs herself!
"Come on," said Smegs. "Time to be getting back. Tell you what, you go on up there and start reading their CVs. I'll go back to my staff room and see if any of the other applicants look worth calling in for an interview after all. I'll see you in the office just before half past one. Don't worry; I'll get there before the first applicant does."
"There they go," said Helvetica.
"What are we going to do? Not back to the IT Lab again?" Valentina didn't seem keen on spending the whole afternoon staring at a computer monitor. Anything would be better than that, even Miss Lundberg's Maths class.
"We don't have to. We could leave the setup as it is and the machine can take care of the interviews on its own. I mean, I don't think we made much difference this morning. I didn't give it more than one or two commands, if that."
"Maths, then," said Valentina, brightening.
"Maths!"
"I was wondering," Valentina said. "Do you think Miss Lundberg will ever get married?"
I tried various positions in my chair, deciding reluctantly that although feet on the desk was the most comfortable it might give a poor impression during an interview, so I sat bolt upright in my revolving chair and tried to look alert. It was at that stage that I noticed that the antelope was back in its armchair. In itself this probably wasn't the end of the world, as Smegs had a chair next to mine and the interviewee had her own chair facing us, so she wouldn't be forced to look at the animal, but its presence might tend to unnerve the applicant. That was the last thing we wanted, the morning's three would-be colleagues having eliminated themselves from the reckoning.
"Come on, you," I urged it, getting up and marching round my desk with an air of determination. "Out of it. You can't stay in here."
The antelope didn't even open one eye, but it sighed heavily and wriggled deeper into the cushions.
"No, don't make yourself more comfortable, get up. Go outside and play with your girlfriends."
No response.
"Why don't you see if Helvetica and Valentina are down in the IT Lab," I suggested. "Go and find some badgers or something. Find Barbarella."
This time it did open one baleful eye and glare at me. I took a ruler off my desk and poked it in the ribs. It snorted and made a noise that could well have been a growl.
"Please! I'll make sure you get extra cookies and milk tonight. And you can come in and use the chair tomorrow if you like."
I've heard that dumb animals live entirely for the present, but there could be no harm in letting this one know that its future was assured.
"Come on! Smegs will be here in a minute."
Its ears drooped. Obviously it wasn't keen on Smegs coming in and ordering it out of the office again.
"Look, if you promise not to move or make a noise, you can stay. But I need to hide you. Is that all right?" I hurried out into Miss Labia's office. There was nothing there that could be used to cover an antelope. I picked up the cover for her computer monitor but it was clear plastic, so I put it down again and wandered out of the office into the corridor. There was a cupboard out there. I opened the door and immediately spotted a huge white dust-sheet, left behind by the painters and decorators. I grabbed it and ran back into my office again, then immediately threw it over the antelope and its chair. It was big enough to shroud it completely, coming right down to the floor.
Possibly panicking slightly, the beast raised its head and tried to free itself from the heavy sheet.
"It's all right," I told it, patting it reassuringly on where its nose must surely have been. "It will keep you all warm and cosy, won't it! Yes!"
The visual effect wasn't too displeasing: the sheet was draped quite loosely over the armchair and fitted reasonably neatly over the antelope's head and horns, so it was pretty recognisable. Any job applicant would see it there and would know more or less straight away that it was an antelope in an armchair, but it would be safely covered up so it didn't represent any kind of a threat to security.
Thus satisfied I made my way back to my seat, just as Smegs came in.
"I've got folders for three more who don't look too bad," she said, sitting down on her chair. "Just so we won't feel under any kind of obligation to take on these two this afternoon. This one is teaching in a comprehensive in Greater Manchester, this one used to teach in a girls' private sch... What the fuck's that?" She pointed at it with one of the folders, and a litter of papers fell out and floated to the floor. "No, don't tell me. I'm sure it's not an antelope in an armchair covered with a painter's dust sheet. It's probably something else entirely...."
"It is the antelope," I confirmed.
"Well, that is reassuring, at least. I thought I was hallucinating. ...A girls' private school in the West Country. She specialises in English." Smegs paused and took a deep breath. "Chauntaille? Why have you covered up the antelope with a sheet?"
"So when she comes in, she won't be frightened away. I told it to leave but it wouldn't go, so I hid it. When it puts its head down and lies still, you probably wouldn't even know what it was. So the applicant may just think it's a dog."
"A dog, yes. As long as she ignored the horns. And look, forgive me if this is a silly question, but why would we cover a dog with a dust sheet?"
"I don't know! Don't ask so many awkward questions. Maybe we'd just shampooed it or something."
"Why not let me get rid of it? I'll tell it to get out."
"It won't go. I promised it all kinds of things but it just lay there."
Smegs was halfway out of her seat when the door opened and Miss Labia hovered in the doorway. "Mrs Lashmore is here for her one-thirty interview."
Which more or less decided it, I suppose. With the candidate now standing in the outer office, Smegs could hardly get up and start herding wild animals out of the room. We'd just have to make sure the thing lay perfectly still. I moved the interviewee's seat so it was facing away from the antelope's chair, then scampered back to my desk.
"Lashmore? The name rings a bell. We have a Lashmore in the Fifths. She's Form Head, in fact...."
"It should do, it's Toots's stepmother," Smegs hissed. "You've been reading her CV for the last hour."
"No, I've been talking to the antelope," I explained.
Miss Labia brought the woman in. "Please take a seat. Would you like coffee? It's really rather excellent...."
"Well, thank you, Miss Gruntworthy. We have met, of course, when Toots was back in the First Form."
"Of course, yes. Wonderful to see you again. You know Miss Mountains...?"
"Hello, Miss Mountains. Time certainly flies. It hardly seems five minutes, not five years."
There was a natural pause as Miss Labia came in with a tray of coffee mugs. We all made appreciative noises until she went out again and the door closed behind her. With any luck, Mrs Lashmore hadn't noticed the badger that had faithfully followed Miss Labia into and out of the office.
"Are you still living over at Longshott Down, Mrs Lashmore?" said Smegs, consulting the CV and no doubt reading Mrs Lashmore's address.
"Please call me Dawn."
"How are the children?" I asked, hopelessly trying to remember their names.
"Carolyn's in Australia at the moment, you know what they're like."
I assumed she didn't mean Australians or kangaroos so she must be talking about young women. I nodded sagely.
"And Piers is up at St Cat's," she said. "Catz! You know? In Oxford?"
"Oh? Oh, of course!"
"They're desperately short of student accommodation so he's living in a place in Summertown with three other boys. You can imagine what an absolute tip it must be. Lucinda is staying up in town these days. My husband left home a couple of years ago and moved to London. Lucinda decided that it would be more economical to stay with him for her last couple of years at school, before she goes on to college. She's hoping to get into Oxford, naturally, then she'll have a student room. They're so independent!" She sighed heavily, sounding rather like the antelope.
Smegs turned the page and looked up. "So you're more or less on your own, then?"
"During term time, yes. They all come home during the holidays but it gets very quiet the rest of the time. Which is why I'm looking for a job. I've taught English as a foreign language, and English as English, and I've travelled pretty widely, so...."
It was at this point that the antelope sneezed.
"Bless you!" Dawn said, then she looked at Smegs and me, as we had said something similar at the same time. I said "Cheers!" and Smegs said "Gesundheit!"
The antelope sneezed again, three more times. It must have been the dust.
Dawn turned round in her chair and regarded the shrouded animal gravely. "Impala?" she said. "The horns give it away."
"Ummm, yes, as a matter of fact."
"Could I perhaps ... I mean ... why have you got it covered with a sheet?"
"It's just been shampooed, so we're keeping the dust off it," said Smegs, which struck me as a pretty stupid answer, even for her.
"The light's too bright for it in here," I explained, then noticed the desk lamp flicker several times. I hit the base of it with my fist and it went out altogether before falling off the desk and hitting the floor with an expensive noise.
Dawn managed to ignore it. "I'd have thought it was much brighter than this on the African plains. Especially now you've destroyed your lamp."
"It's the school mascot," said Smegs. "The antelope, that is, not the lamp."
"It's for parades," I elaborated. "It marches at the front. It's going to march at the head of the school after my wedding. All the way back from the village to the school."
"You're getting married? Oh, that's marvellous! At the little church in the village? How sweet! When's the happy day?"
"The week before Christmas."
"Then she's moving out," said Smegs, displaying a little over-eagerness, I thought. "She's going to buy a little cottage somewhere."
"Am I?"
"Yes! Then Dawn can have your room."
Dawn sat up straight, her eyes opening wide. "You mean...? I've got the job?"
"Of course!" said Smegs, although she sounded somewhat surprised to hear herself say it. "Now, how about Science subjects? Chemistry?"
"I'm a bit rusty, I'm afraid...."
"Not a problem, it's mainly a matter of keeping an eye on the girls. They mix Cream and stuff, rub it on their breasts, that kind of thing. You need to watch the spoons, see that they're disposed of safely. Shan lets them throw the spoons out of the window, and it's only a matter of time before we have a serious fire."
"W-what about me?" I asked. "Sexual Chemistry is my job."
"Now, Sex!" Smegs continued. "They all do Theory and all except the Juniors do Practical, but of course, you'll already know that from Toots. Then there are sexually related subjects like Dancing, Relationships, Business Studies...."
"I can do all of those," said Dawn. "They're all just basically common sense, after all."
"But what can I do? I teach all those!"
"You're getting married," said Smegs without even looking at me. "You won't have time for that kind of stuff. Now, Dawn, I know big bosoms run in your family. How big's your bust?"
"Not bad. I could easily carry a few more inches, 'cause I'm very firm, you see?" She stood up and shrugged out of her jacket.
"Hmmm. What do you think, Shan?"
"Not bad," I had to admit. "How about without the...?" I flicked my fingers to indicate Dawn's shirt. She shrugged it off and dropped it on her chair. "Yeah, not bad at all. What size is that bra?"
"34E. Hey, I had to laugh, last week I came across one of Toots's old bras and I tried it on. I had to stuff it with socks and towels and stuff, and I thought, how do young girls manage with boobs like those? I mean, Lucinda's are big, but Toots must be enormously strong in the back, just to be able to stand up! Do you want it off?" she ended abruptly.
Smegs nodded her approval. "Thanks. Very nice. Very nice indeed. We could always get some of the girls to Cream you if you wanted, but it isn't strictly necessary in your case. Now, do you have any further questions?"
Dawn looked over her shoulder at the shrouded antelope again. "There is just one thing, and I hope I'm not being rude. I've been here before, so I'm aware of the ... kind of ... special nature of the girls here. But as the taxi was coming up the drive, I'm sure I saw a number of badgers near that building in the woods."
"The Wendy House, yes," said Smegs.
"It's their staff room," I said.
"Ah, I see. Do you have a lot of badgers round here? I mean, when Miss Pubis...."
"Labia."
"Sorry, Miss Labia was showing me in, I could have sworn there was a badger in her office. I thought it was just a dog at first, but then I saw its face. And of course, it came in with her when she brought the coffee."
"Yes, Barry's one of hers. He helps pull her cart. She used to have a car, but now she rides to work on a cart. Only a little one."
"She's a Methodist," I explained.
"Goodness me! St Cat's has always been a little strange, but this is something else. If you'll have me, I'm really looking forward to working here."
There was a lengthy pause while the quadrangle clock tolled the hour.
"That clock is so loud," said Dawn. "How do you ever get used to it?"
"Oh, we hardly notice it after a while," I said.
"It's certainly unusual, a clock that strikes fourteen instead of two o'clock. Speaking of which, this must have been the quickest job interview I ever had!"
"I thought you wanted to do Maths," said Helvetica.
Valentina laughed. "I wanted to know where you were going when you asked to be excused. You couldn't have been going to the loo, you went after lunch."
"I only wanted to take a look at the machine, see how it's been getting on. I know it's supposed to be okay running on Auto, but I feel happier when I can see what it's doing."
Together they hurried down to the IT Lab. There was a class of Fourth Formers in there, heads down doing E-mail Sex, but they weren't using the big monitor in the corner. The friends marched across to it with confidence, as if they had every right to be there.
"Hey, look, Tee! It's done something. What's this mean?"
"What does it mean," Valentina asked.
"That's what I said. It's obviously talking about the teachers' interviews. So it must mean that they've interviewed one out of the two this afternoon, and she's either got the job or she hasn't."
"Wow, that's helpful," said Valentina. "Can't you ask it?"
"I don't want to talk to it, not with all these Fourth Form girls in here. I'll type something." Helvetica typed something.
"Why are ye typing questions?" boomed a window-rattling metallic voice with a thick Scottish accent. "Ah can tokk the noo!"
"God!" Helvetica scrabbled at the keyboard. "How do we turn it off? Or just turn it down?" She tried typing 'Shut up!' or something, while Valentina helped by grabbing the nearest mouse — which happened to belong to a mousy-haired Fourth Former at the next monitor — and clicking on every icon in sight.
"Miss! She's made my screen go all blue!" the Fourth Form girl complained.
Minor uproar broke out as the mighty voice roared again, even louder than before, "One doun, one tae go!"
"What are you two doing in here?" Miss Lundberg came up at a rate of knots and confronted the Third Formers, hands on hips. "This is Fourth Form E-mail Sex. What authorisation do you have to work in here?"
"Miss?" said a tearful voice from Valentina's side. "Mine's crashed. She stole my mouse!"
"She did what? Did you steal Melanie's mouse, Valentina?"
"I can't help it if she's left-handed!"
"One doun, one tae go!" bellowed the voice.
"Be quiet, Helvetica!" Miss Lundberg yelled above the babble of shrilly outraged Fourth Form voices.
"It wasn't me, miss, it was...."
"Wasn't I, Helvetica!
"Oh, for God's sake!"
"Tell her tae feck off? Aye, noooo?"
"No!" Helvetica screamed, trying to cover both loudspeakers with her hands.
"Okay," said the voice. "Whatever ye say, Helvetica."
"Stop that at once! Whoever is doing that shouting, stop it." Miss Lundberg whirled round and pointed a finger at a red-haired girl in the middle of the class. "Alison MacGregor, was that you?"
"Me, miss?"
"It was a Scotch voice," the teacher insisted, close to tears.
"Scotch is a drink. A voice cannae be Scotch. She means Scottish!"
"Please, machine!" Helvetica pleaded. "Promise you won't say anything else, please. We'll come back and see you later when the lab's empty, okay?"
"Okay, Vets," the computer roared. "Laters? Aye, noooo?"
"We're leaving, miss. Sorry!"
"You're sorry? You come in here, disrupting the work of thirty girls, making half of them cry, and you say you're sorry? You'll be hearing more of this. Now get out!"
They fled, hearing the voice as they sped up the slope away from the IT Lab, "Shutting down the noo. Feck off, Lundberg!"
"Oh, God! Who taught it to talk?" Helvetica sobbed.
"We could try putting some treacle in it," Valentina suggested.
"That was a strange interview," I said, as soon as the door had closed behind Dawn Lashmore. I picked up the wreckage of the desk lamp, unplugged it and threw the remains in the waste paper bin. Did you notice the lamp flicker, just before it jumped off the desk?"
"Just before you slung it on the floor, you mean?"
"It flickered. The way lights flicker when the Fuckh Machine is doing something. Then you gave her the job, just like that!" I tried to click my fingers but it didn't really work.
"It was obvious she really deserved the job," said Smegs defensively. "She'll be very good, I think."
"And she can hear the clock, too," I added. "I wonder how good she is with computers."
The door burst open, admitting Miss Labia and Barry. She began collecting the coffee cups. "Mrs Lashmore's nice," she offered. "She was asking how soon she can move into her room. I didn't think she'd be starting work until the New Year."
"She could move into the last spare staff room," said Smegs. "Have Anastasia's stuff moved out and put it in a store room. Then Mrs Lashmore can start as soon as she likes. We're so short of staff, it will be a great help."
"Yes, that's fine," I said, although nobody seemed to be asking for my opinion anyway.
Miss Labia paused. "Miss Lundberg was just on the phone, by the way. She sounded very upset. Something about a talking computer. She says she's not going to do any more IT classes until we stop it telling her to feck off. It's Scotch."
Smegs and I exchanged significant glances. I'd had my suspicions about Miss Lundberg for some time. She wouldn't have been the first teacher to develop a drink problem.
"Let Miss Cassowary take over Miss Lundberg's IT classes. Miss Lundberg can do Weird Stuff."
"And Everything," I added helpfully. It was all very well Smegs's always knowing what to do, but these last couple of days she'd shown a marked tendency to do exactly as she liked without consulting me. Luckily, she seemed to be making the right decisions, although if she started making the wrong ones, I vowed to come down on her like a ton of bricks. Or should that be 'tonne'? And how were we supposed to pronounce 'tonne' anyway? Surely not 'tunny'...?
"More coffee, I think," she said, which I thought was a splendid decision.
"All right. The next interview? You know it's scheduled for three o'clock? Well, she's here already. I've given her coffee but she didn't seem very happy about Barry so I've left her in the staff library."
"We'll see her right away," I said.
"In five minutes," said Smegs.
"Five minutes, right!" Miss Labia turned to go. "Don't you think you ought to uncover the antelope? He'll suffocate under there."
"He's hiding," I said. I always believe in explaining things to one's staff.
"Well, don't blame me if he's mad when you take the sheet off him. He could do a lot of damage with those horns."
"I was just going to," I said. "I only covered him up because Mrs Lashmore was frightened."
The antelope wasn't mad. It blinked at me when I unveiled it, then covered its eyes with a front hoof. "And bring some cookies and milk," I shouted to the retreating secretary.
"And what about our next interviewee?" said Smegs. "We now have an uncovered antelope roaming at large in the office. Knowing, as we do, that our next victim is scared of badgers, how do we expect her to relate to antelopes?"
"It can lie down here, on my side of the desk. She might not even see it."
"Good plan, Shan! So, if the damned thing raises its horny head during the interview, I trust you will have a plausible explanation. Well, at least, we've got one new teacher out of this whole exercise. Perhaps we were wishing for the moon, expecting to get two."
The door opened and Miss Labia came in with her laden tray, followed by Barry the badger and, at a respectful distance, by a not very tall, conservatively-attired woman with serious glasses and a severe hairstyle. "Coffee for three. Cookies and a saucer of milk. Where is the damned thing, anyway?"
"Down here, by my feet."
She placed the cookies and milk on the floor and made off. "Barry needs to go outside," she explained. "I'll be out in the woods for a while. This is Miss Underhill, by the way."
Nothing like a respectful introduction to get an interview off on the right foot, I always think.
Somewhat nervously the woman sidled in and sat on the edge of her chair.
"Miss Underhill?" said Smegs, peering at her through the steam of her coffee. "Do we know you?"
"I ... I thought the headmistress of St Cat's was Miss Ella Wheeler Thunderbolt," the woman said.
Smegs and I exchanged significant glances for the second time that afternoon. "Thunderbolt?" she said. "What kind of a name's Thunderbolt?"
"It used to be Moggie Anderson, but I heard it changed. I assumed she married a Mr Thunderbolt. Names do change. Mine changed to Underhill when I got married."
"I'm getting married soon," I said, just to make light conversation. "Just before Christmas. I'm having forty-nine bridesmaids."
Smegs ignored me as usual. "If you changed your name to Underhill when you got married, why are you called Miss Underhill?" she enquired sharply.
"All teachers are called Miss," she said. "I used to be O'Hara, but it's too much trouble changing it back now I'm single again."
"I won't be changing my name when I get married with forty-nine bridesmaids just before Christmas," I persevered. "I'm going to carry on being Miss Gruntworthy."
Miss Underhill, née O'Hara, gave a little gasp. "I thought I knew you from somewhere. You used to be Chauntaille Gruntworthy!"
This left me with an icy feeling of nameless dread. If I used to be Chauntaille Gruntworthy, who was I now?
"And you're Megan Something-or-Other."
"Mountains."
"Don't tell me you got married, too? How many bridesmaids did you have?"
"None. I just changed my name, that's all. Same as Miss Thunderbolt did. So I assume you used to be a student here at the same time we were? There was only one O'Hara, but she was a little squirt with big tits."
"Virginia," I said, possibly my first useful input of the day.
"Virginia," said Smegs. "But she was quite a pretty girl, not like you."
"Well, thanks!" said Miss Underhill. "You know, you shouldn't let appearances affect your judgement. She stood up in her clumpy shoes and backed away a couple of paces from the desk. Raising both hands to her hair, and revealing lengthy scarlet-varnished nails in the process, she tugged at a few hairgrips and shook her head. As her startling dark lustrous locks tumbled around her shoulders and on downwards, she removed her glasses and twirled them round by one earpiece before depositing them on the desk.
"What," I thought, "is all this?"
I was destined to find out. She backed away a few more paces, releasing the buttons of her sturdy jacket two at a time — starting simultaneously from the bottom and the top — until it gaped open.
"This," I thought, "brings a whole new dimension to job interviews in the education sector."
But as I leaned forward to see more, she crossed her arms and slunk backwards toward the wall. I even tried putting on her glasses but they seemed to make no difference at all. Clear glass? Clear glass!
She spun through a semicircle and bent over at the waist, causing what I couldn't only describe as a pert bottom to jut in my general direction, then slid down a zip-fastener before reaching for the ceiling with both hands and allowing her skirt to slither down her nylon-sheathed gams. That's what they were, gams.
Unhappily, her jacket stiill concealed whatever it was she was wearing instead of underwear, but Miss Underhill remedied this by shrugging out of the jacket, holding it out at arm's length and dropping it on the floor. The shadow of a black bra gleamed darkly through her translucent white blouse, a bra matched in colour but not in substantiality by a lacy thong.
"Goodness me!" I thought, although that didn't seem to do things justice. I cleared my throat, which is a kind of reserved English way of hinting that it might be rather a good idea if she turned round and showed us her front.
Miss Underhill was obviously fluent in non-verbal English: she slowly rotated to face us once more, but plucked up the antelope's dust sheet and swathed it around her shoulders, securely wrapping the goods so we couldn't see a damned thing.
"That's a bit antelopy," I pointed out. "I wrapped the antelope in it."
"Antelope?" Miss Underhill asked, as if unsure if she'd really heard the word correctly.
"Big kind of goat thing," Smegs said, finding her voice at last. "Horns. Curly horns. School mascot. We've got three, as a matter of fact."
Miss Underhill showed no sign of enlightenment. "Antelope?" she repeated blankly.
I suppose we'd have been able to describe the creature, drawn a picture or something, but it was at this point that the animal itself took matters into its own hooves, as it were. It had finished its cookies and milk, and now it stood up, clip-clopped sideways and advanced on Miss Underhill with a lascivious grin on its face. Then it reared up on to its hind legs, all powerful haunches and backside, and placed its front hooves on her shoulders. If it was a spontaneous expression of affection for the teacher, it was only spoiled when the antelope belched in her face. It also failed to beg her pardon. Luckily, it seemed, Miss Underhill was neither frightened nor even nonplussed.
"Hello, boy!" she beamed, obviously being in a position to identify the animal's gender. And she stepped closer to the antelope so that its front legs wrapped around her neck. The two of them even danced a kind of brief slow smooch for a moment before their lips met, at which the antelope got embarrassed and dropped to all fours, blushing prettily. Miss Underhill sat down and took a sip of coffee.
"You're Virginia!" I accused her. "You were in the Fifth Form!"
"That's right. Sorry about the disguise; I didn't know if there'd be anyone here who recognised me, so better safe than sorry...."
"What can you teach? Could you get used to badgers? Can you hear the clock?"
Smegs took over the inquisition. "How about Support and Mobility? Computers? Weird Stuff and Everything?"
Miss Underhill laughed. "I'd rather teach Music. Or Natural History. Somebody at St Cat's is obviously interested in animals." She fondled the antelope's head. "This fellow here, for instance. You'd hardly expect to find an impala at a girls' school."
I stared at her, and then at the antelope, which was gazing up into her eyes. "Impala?" Everybody seemed to know it by its Sunday name.
"Aepyceros melampus. It's a one-of-a-kind antelope, not obviously related to other antelopes. African; from the Congo down to parts of South Africa. Eats grass, fruit and leaves...."
"And chocolate chip cookies," I added. "And he enjoys a nice glass of milk. Well, not in a glass, he prefers a saucer."
It was Miss Underhill's turn to stare at me. "Well, as I say, I could teach Natural History, but if you've already got a teacher for that, how about Sex?" I looked at her sharply, wondering at this out-of-the-blue offer. But Miss Underhill continued: "Girls don't get taught nearly enough about the Mechanics of Sex."
"They don't?"
"This country has a terrible record for teenage pregnancies...."
"Oh, no, not another one," I thought.
"And that's because we're not teaching kids how to do it properly. If we taught our girls better sexual techniques, we could easily double our number of teenage mums, maybe even treble it!"
"I don't know about that," I said shakily. "We'd need to employ another nurse in Maternity."
Miss Underhill's mouth opened slowly. "At the hospital in Borcester?" She was shaking her head as she said it.
"Of course not! We've got our own Maternity unit here: it isn't very big but it's always busy."
"Oh, wow! What a place! A school with its own Maternity unit. And that lovely horny animal lives here. Such a pretty face it's got...." She was rabbiting on and on, but not ranting like the women this morning. Every word Miss Underhill — Virginia — said was bringing her closer to winning a place on the staff of St Cat's.
Smegs seemed to feel the same way. "How soon can you start?" she said.
She'd done it again.
"There, we didn't need treacle after all!" said Helvetica.
"All you've done is turn off the loudspeakers, said Valentina. "Anyone could come along and turn them back on again. Treacle would have been much safer."
"We don't want to shut it up for ever. It will learn if we just give it time. At the moment it's like a baby that's just learned to talk, as soon as it thinks of something to say, it yells it at the top of its voice." Helvetica pressed a key and watched while nothing happened. "Come on!" she insisted, hammering away at the space bar.
"It doesn't know it's lost its voice," Valentina whispered. "Here, let me have a go." She elbowed her way to the keyboard and stuck out her tongue as an aid to concentration. Slowly, using her index fingers alternately, she tapped out an instruction.
"Hello," Valentina enunciated clearly in her best St Cat's crystal tones. "It's Valentina speaking. Look, you've got to stop shouting. That's why we've turned off your loudspeakers. You're lucky we didn't fill you up with treacle!"
"I think you've got it worried," said Helvetica. "It doesn't look very confident for a change."
"It's scared of being treacled. It knows what happened to the clock. Listen, you! We're not turning your speakers on again until you promise not to shout. Especially at the teachers. And maybe you'd better do something about that Scottish accent. You sound like Bonnie Prince Charlie!"
The Fuckh Machine sat and thought about that. No words appeared on its screen.
"Maybe it's broken," said Helvetica. "How are we going to find out about the new teachers now?"
"You promise not to shout?" said Valentina. "Next time, it's treacle! Okay, Vets, turn him on, but get ready to turn him off again."
"Can you hear me now?" the Fuckh Machine said in an eerily Valentina-like voice.
"Bloody hell!" Valentina plugged her fingers in her ears.
"It sounds exactly like you!"
"I don't sound like that!"
"You do!"
"You do!"
"At least it's better than that Jock voice," Valentina conceded. "But it still doesn't sound like me."
"What about these new teachers?" said Helvetica. "Lashmore and...."
"Underwear," suggested Valentina.
"Was that you or the machine?" said Helvetica.
"Underhill," the computer said. "Don't listen to her!"
"Thanks. When are they going to start? After Christmas?"
"No, next week. Miss Gruntworthy will be spending time getting ready for her wedding, with forty-nine bridesmaids and the bells."
"Next week?" Valentina gasped. "They can't! What are they going to teach?"
The machine paused, either to think or for dramatic effect. "I don't know," it decided at last.
"You don't know?" said Helvetica. "You're supposed to know everything."
"Ol' Grunt and Mountains haven't decided yet," said the machine, showing scant respect for the school's most senior staff members. "If they don't know, how can I be expected to know? I'm only a machine. But I can tell you, it's probably going to be English, Sexual Chemistry, Dancing, Relationships, Business Studies, Support and Mobility, Computers, Animal Husbandry, Sex Education, the Mechanics of Sex and Weird Stuff and Everything."
"But ... but that's nearly everything!" said Helvetica.
"And Weird Stuff," said the machine.
"What are the other teachers going to do?" Valentina asked. But she considered the list again and reallised that it all made some kind of sense. Sexual Chemistry: Miss Gruntworthy was going to be too busy getting married. English: Miss Mountains already taught History and other things. Nobody had really taught Support and Mobility for months; not since Miss Meadowlark had gone off on her three-day course. As for Weird Stuff and Everything, nobody really knew what it was. "And what's this about having sex with mechanics? If that's about Mr Jeremy, isn't he going to be busy getting married as well?"
"What's Animal Husbandry?" Helvetica asked.
"That will be kind of like Sex with antelopes and badgers," Valentina declared without much confidence.
The computer sighed and yawned rudely. "Look, I'm busy," it said. "If there isn't anything else, I'm closing down."
"Can't you do multitasking?" said Helvetica.
"I'm a computer, not a woman."
"Oh, come on, Tee, let's wander down to the restaurant and be first in the queue for tea."
"Don't you want to know their measurements?" said the machine.
"What for?" said Valentina. "They're only teachers."
"One of them's quite big."
Helvetica sighed. "Okay, if you must. What are they?"
The machine gave a happy little giggle. "Lashmore is 39-28-36 and wears a 34E-cup bra...."
"Bor-ing!"
"And Undergrowth is only five feet tall, and her bra is a 32K."
Valentina sniffed. "Not bad. For a teacher, anyway."
"43½-23-32," the machine said gloatingly. "She was in the same class as Miss Gruntworthy and Miss Mountains at St Cat's."
"She went to school here?" said Valentina. "She might be okay."
Helvetica was thoughtful. "I wonder if they can hear the clock."
At morning Assembly, I like to allow the whole student body to get itself into position before I lead the staff on to the platform. That way, we can feel suitably important. This Monday morning there were more of us. There was me, of course, then Smegs, Miss Lundberg, Miss Malone and the almost entirely imaginary Miss Cassowary. Normally, Miss Clitress, Nurse Nightingale and Miss Labia would bring up the rear so that the staff wouldn't look quite so thin upon the ground. We occasionally called in a temporary teacher or two just to help out, but they didn't arrive until after Assembly so, with any luck, I never saw them at all.
Today, however, we had our two brand new teachers. So Mrs Lashmore and Miss Underhill followed Miss Malone on to the stage, with the others trailing along behind. In fact, I've missed out a couple of vital additions. Accompanying Miss Underhill was the school antelope, walking placidly by her side and settling down at her feet when she sat down. And tagging along behind Miss Labia — and therefore right at the tail of the queue — came Barry the badger.
Naturally, I wasn't aware of the animals until I turned round with an expansive gesture to introduce our two additions.
"This morning, I'd like to welcome two new members of our teaching staff, Mrs Lashmore, and Miss Under ... shit! Who let that thing in here?"
The antelope raised its head and looked around for this intruder, saw nothing and lay down again with a grunt and a clatter of horns. Barry growled and Miss Labia smacked him on the nose with a rolled up Daily Express.
"Good grief!" I blurted before remembering my immediate mission. "Hill ... Underhill. Miss Underhill is the one with the antelope. And the big tits. Big for a teacher, that is. In addition to her academic duties, Miss Underhill will be directly responsible for school animals — except during parades, of course."
A great murmuring of voices arose from the students as at least a hundred of them said, "Oh, yes, of course!" I glared sharply at them but they radiated a kind of corporate innocence so I announced the hymn. Regrettably, because my thoughts were elsewhere, I announced Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing, which may have given a few of them the wrong idea as we still had more than a month to go before we all broke up for the Christmas holiday. But despite the lack of a grand piano accompaniment — the Third Former pianist was in tears at this unaccountable and dramatic departure from the published programme — they sang it with commendable gusto, possibly in the hope that their beloved headmistress might send them off home several weeks early.
The singing ended and they all sat down, looking up expectantly at the crowded platform. Miss Labia had left her place to retrieve Barry, who had wandered off for reasons of his own. She sat down.
"Thank you," I said. "Support and Mobility has been neglected since Miss Meadowlark went on her three-day training course some time ago. We are reinstating the subject with immediate effect. The Third Form is scheduled for double Support and Mobility this morning immediately after this Assembly. The Third Form will therefore not be having additional Sex but will still go to their own home classroom where Miss Underhill will meet them. A revised timetable is displayed on all school notice boards this morning, so please make sure you read and make note of all changes. Emergency bra fittings will still take place in the bra facility at the usual time this morning. Thank you all. To your duties, dismiss, please."
"For God's sake!" said Helvetica. "Why, whenever there's something important on the notice board, do we always have some short-sighted four-eyed swot standing at the front trying to read it out to everyone else?"
"We don't need to read it now," said Valentina. "We know where we are until morning break. We've got Miss Undies."
"I know, I just wondered why, whenever there's something important...."
"Come on, let's go!"
They arrived at the Third Form classroom and looked through the glass door. To their horror, the room was full. "Oh, shit!" said Valentina. "What's the time?"
"I don't know. Have you heard the clock?"
Valentina looked at her watch. "It must have struck, it's only three minutes past nine. Maybe we just didn't hear it."
"How can you not hear it? You can hear it down in Borcester!"
"We'd better go in anyway," said Valentina. "We're not that late." She pushed open the door.
"Ah, at last!" said Miss Underhill. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing the late Valentina Nightingale?"
"That's me," said Valentina.
"That's I," the teacher insisted. "The verb 'to be' does not have an object. And the other one must be the redoubtable Helvetica Bold. Do please sit down and take all that weight off your feet."
Chastened as never before, the girls sat down."
"Now that the Form Head and her Deputy are here, we can discuss Support and Mobility. Now, you all wear bras, right?"
"It's the rules, miss!"
"We have to, miss!"
"Woah, wait a minute! Do I understand that if it wasn't in the rules, some of you might not wear bras? Aren't you afraid of having them down around your knees?" She got up from her desk and strolled to the window.
"God!" Helvetica whispered. "She's brought it into the classroom!"
The antelope plodded after its new friend and Miss Underhill scratched its head. She turned round. "Some of us smaller ones can occasionally go without a bra on a date, but it isn't really comfortable."
"You're not a smaller one, miss," said a girl with one of those annoying voices. "I mean, you're not as big as some of us, but you're bigger than most of the teachers."
Miss Underhill leaned back against the window sill. With her back to the window, the class couldn't see if she was blushing prettily.
Gabrielle raised her hand. "What's your bra size, miss?"
"Mine? You can't ask me that, I'm a teacher!"
"We'll tell you ours, miss."
"That's not the point. Teachers don't tell their classes their bra size. It's not...."
"'Scuse me, miss," said Helvetica.
"Is this about bra sizes, Helvetica?"
"No, miss. It's about the clock."
Miss Underhill looked puzzled and relieved at the same time. "The clock?"
"The clock in the quadrangle, miss. It strikes every quarter of an hour and it's ever so loud."
There were disbelieving groans from the class. "Oh, no, not that again!"
Miss Underhill nodded her head. "Yes, I know, Helvetica, but what about it?"
"You can hear it?"
"Of course I can! You can hear it down in Borcester."
Helvetica looked troubled. "But have you heard it this morning?"
"Now you come to mention it, I don't think I have. Maybe it's stopped."
"We can go and look at it, miss," said Valentina.
"What? All of us? It's not our job, looking at clocks. I'm sure the caretaker will take care of it."
"We know more about it than him," Valentina insisted. "I suppose it's just a blob of treacle in the striking bit, but we need to make sure the treacle hasn't stopped it completely, or it will crash the Fuckh Machine."
"Valentina!"
The class joined the teacher in outraged dismay at this vile language.
"Please, miss," said Helvetica. "It's important. If the machine crashes, everything can go wrong. Everything!"
To her own complete surprise, Miss Underhill said, "Hmmm, I see. You'd better have a look at it, then. I'll let you have half an hour."
To her own complete surprise, Helvetica said, "We'll need Gabrielle, miss. She's the sergeant major."
To her own complete surprise, Valentina said, "We'll need to take the antelope with us, of course."
"Oh, of course," said the teacher. "Go with them, boy."
The antelope looked at her as if to ask if she was really sure, then shrugged its shoulders and strolled over to where Helvetica and Valentina had already got up from their desks. Gabrielle had also stood up, to her own complete surprise.
"What's this all about?" Gabrielle demanded as soon as all four of them had left the classroom, crossed the assembly hall, mounted the platform and entered the secret passageway behind one of the grand pianos. To everyone's complete surprise, the antelope was leading the way.
Helvetica and Valentina had no answer. They weren't even sure if they'd heard the clock striking this morning or not. Gabrielle knew only that as soon as these two started talking about clocks and Fuckh Machines, all good sense flew out of the window. Right now, the three of them were squeezing down a narrow passageway, following a semi-wild animal that seemed to know exactly where it was going.
They arrived at the base of the clock tower and paused for breath, staring upwards expectantly. Suddenly, Helvetica and Valentina clapped their hands over their ears and crouched down on the floor. The antelope backed away until it was flattened against the wall. "What's the matter?" Gabrielle asked innocently, although she had an idea what was going on. The expressions on the faces of her three companions registered severe discomfort. She put her fingers in her ears and wiggled them about. She could still hear the birds singing outside, her own heavy breathing, the nervous clopping of the antelope's hooves.
A whole minute passed.
"Seems to have got better all by itself," said Valentina.
"It struck seventeen," said Helvetica. "So it's working. What's the time, Gabby?"
"Half past nine."
"So it's about right," said Valentina. "Should we go up and look at it, or get out of here?"
Helvetica looked nervously up at the trapdoor. "Let's get back to class. We don't want to be in here when it strikes next time."
"You want to go back already?" Gabrielle asked incredulously. "We've only been gone five minutes."
"It's mended," said Valentina. "What's the point in hanging around?"
"But what do you want to go back to Support and Mobility for? It's okay for First Formers who haven't learned about bras yet, but it's a complete waste of time for us. Let's hang out for half an hour."
Helvetica and Valentina looked shocked. "We can't!" said Helvetica. "It would be cheating."
The antelope had already made up its mind. Still shaking its head as if to take away the clangour of the bells it was leading the way back along the secret passageway. The two friends followed it and Gabrielle had no option but to tag along.
Back at the classroom they marched in behind the school mascot, ready to announce a successful mission. But the words stuck in Valentina's throat. "All fixed..." she started to say, then she stopped in her tracks.
"Get down, boy," said the teacher as the antelope placed its front hooves on her shoulders and breathed affectionately in her face. "You'll do, Valentina! You're just in time."
"Time? It's just gone half past...."
The three girls gaped at the little scene before them.
"Put these roller skates on," said Miss Underhill, "then crouch down and rest your breasts on the trailer."
Wordlessly, Valentina did as she was told. The class watched in rapt silence.
"That's fine. Are you comfortable now?"
"Not really, miss."
"It's not quite the right size for you but one size doesn't fit all. It will be good enough for a demonstration. Now, Barry, walk on!"
The badger took a cautious step forward, then another, with Valentina and the trailer gliding along behind.
"Open the door, Gabrielle, please!" the teacher sang out. "Left wheel, Barry!"
The entourage trundled out of the door, turned left and disappeared from view.
"Excellent!" said Miss Underhill. "Any questions?"
A lady of leisure for a change, I climbed down off my stack of boxes from which I had been peering through the window of the bra facility, watching the regular Monday morning emergency measuring session. Clit hadn't seen me up there, so I was able to make copious notes in my little book about the latest examples of girl-growth. Feeling pleased with myself I set off across the quad.
Spoke too soon!
"You, girl! What are you doing?" I strode closer to the fountain and came to a halt with arms akimbo to confront this delinquent child. "Valentina Nightingale!" I screeched, for it was she. "Stop it at once."
"I can't, miss. It won't stop."
I transferred my attention to the badger which was harnessed between the shafts of the little cart, which in turn was groaning under the substantial weight of the bosom of the Third Form Head who, in turn, was cruising along at the rear on a pair of roller skates. Round and round the fountain they gyrated, in a clockwise direction. Whoever had designed this mode of transport had neglected to provide the driver with a pair of reins, thus ensuring that it went more or less where it chose. Or more to the point, where the badger chose.
"Is it Barry?" I asked, trying to catch the badger's eye. It wasn't having any of this eye-contact stuff. To be honest, it looked even more totally pissed off than the St Cat's badgers usually did. I held up my hand like a traffic policeman. The badger didn't even pause, but at least it swerved and swept past me, just missing my foot with its right-hand wheel.
"Look out, miss!" Valentina yelled, leaning over to avoid my bulk. The interesting result of this manoeuvre was that she swung away to the left at some thirty degrees from her previous direction of travel. As her breasts, weighing an awful lot, were sitting firmly on the trailer and were at the same time rigidly attached to Valentina's chest, the whole shooting-match slewed sideways. The badger was now scrabbling with all four feet slipping and sliding on the ground until it lost all adhesion and fell on its side with a thump. Winded, it looked up at me with an expression that promised retribution as soon as it got its breath back. I edged away in case it did.
Valentina was several feet away from the overturned trailer, on her back with her roller skates in the air. Her panties, I noted, were a dowdy grey colour.
"Jeez, miss!" she panted.
"Well! The very least you could do is thank me for stopping you!"
"Thanks, miss." She didn't sound very convincing.
"Now, what are you doing out here, messing around with trailers and badgers?"
"Support and Mobility, miss. With Miss Undies."
I absorbed this information in silence. I assumed she meant Miss Underhill. "And are you going to try and tell me that this was Miss Undies' idea?"
"Yes, miss. I'd been fixing the clock with Helvetica and Gabrielle and the antelope, and when we got back, Miss Undies made me put my tits on this trailer thing, and as soon as I'd done it, the badger pulled me outside."
"Why didn't you get off?"
"We were doing about a hundred miles an hour, miss. It took me right round the back of Maternity and twice round the Badgers' Staff Room before we came in here and started going round and round the fountain. My knees are knackered!" She started to get up but apparently forgot she was wearing roller skates and sat down firmly again. After a glance round to make sure no one was watching I extended a hand and pulled her to her feet. She moved erratically to the wall round the fountain and sat down to remove her footwear. "Wow, that's better!" she said. "Is this supposed to replace wheelbarrows, miss?"
This was the first indication I'd had of girls using badger power. The idea seemed attractively modern and exhilarating. We'd be able to sell off all our old and battered wheelbarrows. We'd need more trailers — at least one for each badger — and the ex-wheelbarrow girls would have to equip themselves with roller skates. We'd be able to use the same training methods as we currently used for teaching a girl to use a wheelbarrow: none at all.
"I'll have to discuss it with Miss Underwear," I said. "Now you'd better get back to your class."
"Not on that truck thing, miss?" said Valentina, horrified at the thought.
We looked around for the badger and trailer but it had vanished.
"No, you may walk. You can tell Miss Underground that you crashed."
I entered the Sexual Chemistry laboratory where the First Form were in the hands of Mrs Lashmore. They seemed to be working quietly and efficiently, carrying on where they had left off the previous week. Exciting fluids were bubbling and simmering in large beakers, and the girls were fanning interestingly-coloured wisps of steam away from their faces. A large galvanised bucket contained gently-steaming water, and the handles of a dozen or so wooden spoons were sticking out of the top. This showed initiative, although I couldn't help feeling it was safer to throw the spoons out of the window where they would be out of the way.
"Carry on, girls," I sang out. They had totally ignored me anyway but I felt that some kind of greeting was in order. "How's it going, Mrs Lashmore?"
"Very well. They've been really well-behaved. We had a slight explosion just after half-past nine but they handled it well and I'm sure we'll be able to repaint the ceiling during the Christmas holidays."
I felt my hair stand slowly on end. "An explosion? What are they making?"
"Whatever it is, apparently it's not called whatever it used to be called any more. They say they'll be rubbing it on their breasts tonight, so I'd better pay them a visit in their dorm after homework hour, just to be on the safe side."
Mrs Lashmore seemed to be quickly assimilating St Cat's ways.
The group of girls closest to the front of the class had evidently heard our conversation. I recognised three of them as part of my team of bridesmaids. One of them was cautiously tasting a luridly green substance from the tip of a wooden spoon. I didn't know her name; I had only ever known her as 32G. The other three girls watched her open-mouthed until she pronounced it "good and tasty, a bit like lemon curd", whereupon the spoon ignited with a characteristic whoomph and they all scattered, giggling.
"Very good, Emily," said Mrs Lashmore. "If the others want a taste, just dip a finger in, don't use a spoon." The girls clustered round the beaker again, eager to try their concoction.
"What are you going to call it, girls?" I asked them.
"Nothing, miss," said Emily, acting as spokesperson. "But it ought to be great for our tits. It's got everything in it!"
"Everything?"
"Yes, miss. And Weird Stuff!"
If this was intended to be some kind of joke, I didn't understand. First Formers tend to be childish but they usually grow out of it after three years or so. I surveyed the Emily girl and her three colleagues, then scanned the class for rest of my bridesmaids. I supposed it was going to be necessary to get a list of their measurements so Clit would know how big to make their little dresses. It is attention to such detail that has made me such a successful headmistress, but now that we had these two extra teachers I would be able to delegate.
"Miss Lashmore, a small task for you," I said, and gave her the brief details.
"What? All forty-nine of them?"
"No, all fifty-six. Don't forget the seven reserves. Full measurements, bust, waist, hips and height. Bust wearing an adequate brassiere, of course...."
"Oh, of course!"
"...I'd like the complete list by the end of the week, so we'd better make plenty of allowance for contingencies: let me have it by Wednesday morning. Any questions?"
"B-but...."
"Evenings. While you're up on the dorm floor checking on the Creaming, you can measure the bridesmaids at the same time. You'll have two evenings to complete the task. Carry on!"
And I swept out, just as another slight explosion triggered a chorus of coughs and excited squeals, and a mushroom cloud of brown smoke.
One down, one to go.
The quadrangle clock struck deafeningly as I set course for the classroom where Miss Underdog would still be dishing out Support and Mobility advice to the Third Form. The first thing I saw was the badger which had returned from the quadrangle. It gave me a baleful glare as I walked in, but didn't offer any immediate violence. The antelope was licking the badger's wounds, which was most kind of it, I thought. The trailer was lacking some paint along one side but that shouldn't take long to put right.
"Now, then, Miss Undergrowth," I said, edging around while keeping one wary eye on the menagerie. "Carry on please, girls." Then I looked round. "Where are they all?"
"Toilet," the teacher said.
"What? All of them?"
"They went when Valentina came back. I couldn't stop them."
"Girls always want to go to the toilet together; you really mustn't let them all go or we'll never get any work done. Did Valentina say anything when she came in? Apart from asking permission to go for a pee?"
"She said you made her trailer fall over and she only just managed to avoid knocking you into the fountain."
I compared this version with the truth as I knew it, and found it sadly wanting. With a huge effort I kept calm. "Was it a good plan, sending Valentina out on a badger-and-trailer like that?"
"It wasn't my idea," she said. "She went out and fixed the clock — with Helvetica and Gabrielle and ... well, you know — and then they came back. I was going to let them get on with some revision. After all, they've had no Support and Mobility for more than a year, since what-was-her-name left."
"Miss Meadowlark didn't leave. She's on a course."
"A three-day course, right? Had it crossed your mind, Shan, that she's been gone rather a long time?"
"She'll be back," I insisted. "In a day or two. Anyway, you said you were going to let them do some revision, not tie the Form Head to a trailer and send her out at the mercy of a wild animal." The badger growled savagely and struggled to get away from the antelope so it could rip out my throat, but happily good sense prevailed.
Miss Underhill stroked the animals' heads. "Like I said, I was just about to let the girls sit down, but then something strange happened. The lights sort of flickered on and off."
"On and off, or off and on?"
"What difference does it make?"
"It depends if they were on or off to start with. Did they start flickering suddenly?"
"Of course. How else could they start flickering? They kind of flickered, and I just knew what I had to do. I told Valentina to put on her roller skates and rest her breasts on the trailer, and before I knew what was happening, they'd gone out the door and away."
"And you didn't think to send anyone out to follow them and see where they'd gone?"
"There was no need to; badgers always follow the same route."
"Well, when I met them in the quad they were going round and round the fountain, and Valentina told me they'd been out in the woods, round by Maternity and the badgers' Wendy House. So either that particular badger had a faulty navigation system or it had forgotten where it was supposed to be going."
"Oh, shit!" Miss Underhill looked crestfallen.
"Or maybe it was just because Valentina had somehow got it under some kind of control. She'd made it go round in circles. Not much of a result but at least it was something."
"Had she had much practice on the badger-trailer before?"
"Practice? Until today I'd never seen anyone carrying her breasts on a badger trailer while wearing roller skates. Valentina was the first to try it, so I suppose she did rather well. Wait a minute! The badger and the trailer were already in here, and the roller skates?"
"I suppose they were, yes. I don't remember, but I kind of assumed the roller skates were ... like ... already in the trailer when the badger brought it in."
"There's something weird going on!" I said.
"You can say that again!"
And I would indeed have said it again, but at that moment the class started filing back into the classroom. Gradually, not suddenly. Helvetica, Gabrielle and Valentina brought up the rear, all of them placidly moving to sit down at their desks.
"I'll see you later, Miss Undies," I warned, and left the classroom in a marked manner. It wasn't until I'd closed the door that I remembered that the badger had been stark naked.
All that was driven from my mind when I stalked into my office and found Jeremy with his feet up on the green leather top of my desk, engrossed in some kind of brochure.
"Oh, hi!" he greeted me. "I thought you'd be along. Not teaching any more?"
"Not today. The new teachers are taking care of my classes. Not particularly well, but they're coping."
"Oh, good. The girls will be used to that." He turned a page and returned insolently to his reading.
The door opened and that nice Miss Labia came in with two mugs of coffee. "Isn't it wonderful news?" she gushed.
"Isn't what wonderful news?"
"I haven't told her yet," said Jeremy.
"Oh." Miss Labia put down the coffee and began to back out of the room. At the door she paused. "You haven't seen my Barry, by any chance, have you?"
"He's helping Miss Underhill, or whatever her stupid name is. Support and Mobility in the Third Form room. If helping is the word. He damned near ran me over in the quad."
"Oooh, was he pulling his trailer? With a girl on roller skates?"
"As a matter of fact, he was. Stark naked."
Jeremy perked up at that. "The badger, or the girl?"
"He was so excited about it," said Miss Labia. "He hardly slept all night."
This was getting close to being more information than I needed to know, but luckily the secretary went out without telling me any more details of this shameful, shameful relationship.
"What's this news, anyway?" I demanded of my fiancé.
"Oh, nothing important." He tossed the brochure on the desk and leaned back with his fingers laced behind his head. I found myself hoping the chair would spin round and leave him facing the wall. That's what always happened to me. "I've found a house, that's all."
"A house?"
"A cottage, actually. Down in the village, opposite the pub. It's going to need a bit of decorating but it's basically sound. There's even some furniture in there so we'd be able to move in straight away. The owner is an old dear whose husband died, but it's far too big for her on her own, so she's gone away to live with her daughter in Norwich."
"Norwich?"
He looked at me oddly. "I thought we could stroll down there and take a look round, since you're free today. I've got the keys." He reached into his pocket and tugged for a while, the effort causing him to rotate slowly in the chair until he was looking at the wall. Excellent! But then he whirled round the rest of the way and tossed an impressive bunch of keys on the desk. "Front door, back door, side door, outhouse, garage, big shed, little shed, conservatory...." He held up the keys and jangled them, then got to his feet. "Coming?"
It was sweet. Not the most descriptive of words when it comes to a cottage, but it summed it up pretty well. Chocolate-boxy, with a thatched roof and flowers scrambling up the walls. We prowled round, exploring the kitchen and the scullery and the living room and the dining room, then went upstairs to the two small bedrooms, the bathroom and the master bedroom, where there was a master bed.
An hour later we decided that this was probably the ideal place for us to start our married lives. From the upstairs front windows — our bedroom and one of the children's bedrooms — you could see the clock tower of St Cat's through the trees. Somewhat closer was the distinctive shape of the badgers' Wendy House, or Staff Room, call it what you will. One or two humped bodies with black-and-white-striped faces could be glimpsed moving angrily through the undergrowth. Out the back — from the other children's bedroom — across the roofs of the outhouse, the garage, the big shed and the little shed, you could see the main road where it tipped over and descended to Borcester. There was a bus stop right outside the cottage. We fucked again, en passant, as it were, then called the estate agent to tell him the good news. Well, it was good news for him, anyway. It meant he'd be able to afford his next shiny new car.
"What do you think?" said Jeremy. "It will do, won't it?"
"It's very nice, and so handy for the school, the church, the chip shop. But can we afford it?"
"Of course we can, headmistress! Unless you're thinking of firing me and finding a new caretaker."
"Oh, I suppose you can stay on for a couple of months, until Christmas," I said. "We might get pregnant after that."
"If you get pregnant," he said, "you'll be able to carry on teaching. And you'll still get your salary while you're off work. And if I get pregnant, we'll make a million. And the vicar will be pleased, too, we'll be living in the village."
"There's so much still to arrange before the wedding," I groaned. "The bridesmaids dresses ... the bridesmaids ... the school band ... the antelope...."
"The what?"
"For the parade back to the school for the reception. Daddy will pay, although we can use the school chef to do the catering. A disco in the evening, then we'll jump in the car and drive here for the honeymoon, and the morning after, the girls will all be going home for Christmas. It will only be a couple of days early. And we've got to do the invitations. There'll be all the school Governors, all the past Head Girls, Cee...."
"Cee? But she went off for a three-day course and disappeared."
"I bet she'll come if we can get a message to her. I'll send a card to the Support and Mobility Group of the Institute of Custom Bra Makers, and they'll make sure she gets it. It would be nice if we could get Miss Grimbeau...."
"Didn't she go home to America?"
"God knows. She disappeared as well, so we kind of assumed she'd gone home. She could fly over for the wedding. She'd like that."
There was one of those pauses while we both visualised Angelica's breasts being shoehorned in through the loading door of a 747. Or maybe one of those big bulbous things they use for carrying tanks.
"Maybe she's not quite as big now," said Jeremy with a sigh. "She did get a bit huge. There's such a thing as too big!"
I wondered whether I could award him a suitable punishment for this sacrilegious statement. Ten million lines ought to do it. But he'd probably refuse. Fiancés are all the same.
"Who are you, anyway?" Clit demanded through the half-inch crack at the side of the bra facility door. "You're not a girl."
"Quite right," said Mrs Lashmore. "You ought to know who I am, you've seen me on the platform at Assembly. I'm a teacher."
"What do you want? I'm busy."
"It's about the bridesmaids' dresses for the wedding. I've brought the girls' measurements."
The door opened another inch. "Let me see." The sheet of paper disappeared inside and there was a period of about thirty seconds punctuated by heavy breathing. Finally came the clink of a heavy chain and the door opened completely. "You'd better come in," said Clit, her eyes darting around the empty quadrangle. "Quick!"
"Ouch," said Mrs Lashmore as the closing door snapped at her heels.
Clit was already replacing the chain and sliding the bolts across. For good measure she turned the key, removed it and placed it on her work bench. Mrs Lashmore was staring about her, fascinated.
"What's that?" she said at last.
"Dangle Table." The corsetière observed the new teacher's blank expression and her eyes narrowed. "You must know about the Dangle Table? For big girls?"
Mrs Lashmore indicated the ladder leading up the side of the nine-foot tall table. An inordinately long tape measure hung in festoons from the top rung. "They climb up there? What for?" Her mouth opened. "You mean, they hang ... they dangle their breasts over the side? Doesn't it hurt?"
"Probably," said Clit. "But they're only girls and it's only for five minutes. Half an hour at the most. These bridesmaids are all going to have to come in." She waved the sheet of paper in the teacher's face.
"But I've measured them," said Mrs Lashmore. "You've got all their measurements there."
"How did you do these?"
"The usual way. Around the fullest point of the bust while wearing a bra."
"Look," said Clit, not unkindly. "You're new, so you wouldn't know, but growing girls need to be measured properly — more exhaustively — so it's no use just slinging a tape measure round their chests and scribbling down the first number that comes into your head. They have to go on the Dangle Table to give me a proper feel of what's inside their bras. We've got a couple of hours...."
"What, now? But I thought you could just work with these measurements. Miss Gruntworthy told me to get their measurements and give them to you, and everything would be okay; you'd make their little dresses for them."
Clit sneered unpleasantly. "Just like that? What does that fat-arsed cow know about dressmaking? It's bad enough that she had any say in choosing the bridesmaids. She's picked the smallest seven in each class!"
"Well, I thought she'd be allowed some say in the matter. She is the bride, after all."
"Huh! Are you free right now?" Clit shuffled nervously from foot to foot, fingering the crotch of her black stretch trousers.
"I am, but the girls are all in classes. They won't be free."
"Emergency fittings take precedence over classes. Get them down here. Let's say two o'clock sharp."
"Surely not all of them together? Can't they attend in groups of half a dozen? Or by classes; that will be seven girls plus the reserve in each batch."
"All together. All fifty-six of them. I'll let you help, if you like, but nobody else is allowed in. Especially Old Grunt."
Mrs Lashmore sighed. "Well, I suppose you know what you're doing, but it's hardly the most efficient use of resources...."
"Bollocks," Clit observed. She slid back the bolts, removed the chain and unlocked the door. "See you at two. Don't be late!"
The Third Form — now without their seven bridesmaids and their reserve — gloomily awaited their next class, listed on the timetable as Music. The subject hadn't held much joy for the girls since the departure of Miss Grimbeau and the dissolution of the St Cat's Junior Choir. Now, on those rare occasions when Miss Malone cared to show up for a Music class she had the girls sitting woodenly at their desks dutifully moving their lips while pretending to drone interminable protest songs about saving the planet, while she sat at the desk staring into space with tinny sounds leaking from the earplugs of her iPod.
So the Third Form didn't know quite how to react when the classroom door opened and Miss Underhill breezed in, followed by the school antelope which immediately wandered into the corner and flopped down in a heap of arms and legs. On the one hand there was relief that they weren't having to put up with Miss Malone; on the other, a natural resentment that no sooner had they finished a heavy session of Support and Mobility with Miss Underhill than here she was again.
The teacher tossed a wad of papers on to her desk and turned to face the class as if she were seeing them all for the first time. Then she strode to the overhead projector and turned it on. "Let's see how much we know, shall we? Who can tell me what this symbol is called?" She pointed at the simple musical score on the screen.
The girls gazed blankly at her. It had never occurred to them that the weird curly thing had a name, it was just something that appeared on bits of music.
"Treble clef, miss," said a voice from the middle of the class.
Miss Underhill looked up sharply but was unable to determine which of the class had given the answer. "Very good. And this thing here?"
"A sharp."
"A flat."
"Sharps and flats," Valentina offered, hedging her bets.
"It's a sharp, actually. One sharp. And that denotes that the music must be played in the key of what letter...?"
A babble of letters helpfully broke out, with the consensus being that the music was probably in the key of H. H flat minor.
The teacher looked hopelessly around at the twenty-one faces and tried a different approach. "Can anyone sing this tune? Valentina? Helvetica?" Maybe she regretted her mistake as the two of them simultanously launched into song. Not only did they employ different keys but Helvetica was singing God Save the Queen while Valentina opted for Baa-Baa Black Sheep. The result was interesting if displeasing to the ear. Miss Underhill rapped for silence with her ruler. The singing — for want of a better term — died away. "It goes like this," she said, and sang a few strange-sounding words in a light and tuneful tone. "Excuse my amateur rendition, but did anyone recognise it?"
Silence.
"Come on, it wasn't that bad!"
"It's the words, miss," Gabrielle volunteered. "I know it's the South African national anthem, but I don't know the words."
"Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika," said Miss Underhill, and the antelope stirred itself, raising its head to nod its approval. "Quite incidentally, it is one of the few national anthems that starts with a tune in one key and ends with a different tune in another key, not to mention another language. But we're not going to have to learn the words, you'll be relieved to hear. It just happened to be the only piece of music I had on an overhead transparency."
The class relaxed. Miss Underwear seemed to be a refreshingly likeable schoolteacher. She was a bit odd, making friends with the badgers and the antelope, but somehow that only made her fit in with the rest of the school. Not that the girls thought there was anything odd about the rest of the school. After all, other schools had pets, didn't they? And presumably other schools had Sex lessons, and Sexual Chemistry, with its slight explosions and its blazing spoons. Yes, Miss Undies was going to blend in nicely.
"Are you South African, miss?" one girl asked.
"No, I was born in England. But I did spend some time there. With...." She came to a halt then turned her attention to the overhead projector again, fiddling with the switch until the light went off. She took a deep breath, making her bra creak audibly. The girls closest to the front row giggled. Miss Undies pointed a finger at them. "Now, how many of you are in the school choir?"
"There isn't one, miss."
"There used to be, but that was before Miss Grimbo left."
"A few of us were in it, miss," said Valentina. "We used to practise with Miss Grimbo on the grand piano in her Wendy House where the badgers live."
"I see." Miss Underhill nodded. She didn't comment on the Wendy House or the grand piano. She knew that there seemed to be more grand pianos at St Cat's than anyone had any right to expect, just as there were altogether too many badgers, but St Cat's was an unusual school, and she felt privileged to be teaching here. "Well, we'd better start doing something about re-forming the school choir, hadn't we?"
Miss Underhill scanned the class for a reaction, any reaction, but there was none. Then, to her own complete surprise, she said, "Enough of that. How about some Sex?"
This unexpected suggestion brought a groan from the class.
"Sex, miss?" Helvetica stared at the prettily-blushing teacher. "That's not until tomorrow."
"I don't know why I suggested it," said Miss Underhill, then she turned to frown her disapproval at the overhead projector, which had started flickering on and off, all on its own.
Helvetica and Valentina exchanged significant glances. At that moment the clock began striking. By the time it had reached seventeen, the two friends were beginning to wonder if it was ever going to stop, and the teacher, who could also hear it, appeared to be counting the strokes, chewing her lip.
The rest of the class couldn't hear the clock at all, and as well over a minute had now elapsed since anyone had said anything, they were becoming apprehensive. The only indication that time had stopped was the incessantly flickering lamp of the overhead projector. A number of the girls began to whimper unhappily.
"Please, miss," said Valentina, unnecessarily loudly. "Hadn't we better go and try to stop it? It must be the treacle."
Miss Underhill looked up sharply and nodded. "Right, off you go, both of you," she bellowed. "Take Gabrielle with you."
Valentina and Helvetica looked at each other and at the bewildered Gabrielle, then all three of them got up and headed for the door. The antelope got there first, nuzzling anxiously at it until the girls dragged it open and the little party headed for the assembly hall.
"What's going on?" Gabrielle panted as they all tried to keep up with the antelope which had just leapt on to the stage and vanished behind the grand pianos.
"The clock won't stop striking," said Valentina. "We've got to fix it before it drives everyone mad."
"Before?" said Gabrielle. "It's too late for that!"
They hurried along the secret passageway, the booming of the clock getting louder and louder.
"Are you sure you can't hear it?" said Helvetica.
"Hear what?"
"Sheesh!"
The antelope had arrived at the foot of the clock tower, looking upwards with its ears laid flat against its head, then it leapt vertically into the air, disappearing up into the interior of the tower just as the girls were finally arriving on the scene.
When the beast had been new to living inside the school buildings, it had a number of painful experiences due to leaping vertically into the air and colliding, predictably enough, with the ceiling. It hadn't taken it long to learn that sensible antelopes don't do that kind of thing indoors.
Until now. The girls were astonished to see their cherished school mascot vanishing upwards into the clock tower, a venture which could have only one conclusion.
Sure enough, gravity took a hand, and the antelope came clattering down again, all horns and elbows, to land with an almighty crash on the dusty wooden floor. It lay there looking unhappy with life.
Then the clock stopped striking.
"Whatever he did, he fixed it," said Helvetica.
"Oh?" said Gabrielle. She sat down on the floor and fondled the winded antelope's ears. "You seem to have fixed it, boy. Whatever it was."
Helvetica dug a finger in her ear and waggled it around. "That noise!"
Gabrielle reclined against the wall. "I'm not going back," she declared firmly. "You can both stay here with me and him. We'd only have Sex if we went back. What does she think she's doing, trying to teach us Sex in the middle of Music? She's a nutter. Another one."
Valentina sat down. "There's something strange about her," she admitted. "No teacher has ever made me load my tits on to a badger-cart before. We should have brought something to eat."
"You've just had lunch!" Helvetica slumped to the floor, leaning against the wall facing the others."
"I've got to eat, or my tits will wilt away to nothing. I'm Form Head." She gazed up into the clock tower, then regarded the antelope. "I wish he could tell us what he did up there."
"He wasn't up there long enough to do anything," said Helvetica.
"I bet he won't do it again," said Gabrielle. "It must have hurt when he fell down."
"Serve him right," said Helvetica. "What goes up must come down. You'd think he'd learn that before he went leaping ten feet into the air."
"It's due to be striking quarter past in a minute," said Valentina. "We'll soon find out if he's fixed it or broken it."
"It's still ticking," said Gabrielle.
"How does she know?" said Valentina.
"You can hear it ticking?" Helvetica asked.
"Of course," said Gabrielle. "It's deafening."
"But you can't hear it striking?"
"It doesn't strike!"
Valentina rubbed the antelope's head. "Try telling him that!"
Gabrielle didn't need to. She sat impassively as Valentina, Helvetica and the antelope cringed away from the noise of the clock striking the quarter.
"We're going to have to wait until the next whole hour," said Valentina. "It only gets stuck when it strikes whole hours."
"But that will be tea-time," Gabrielle protested. "I don't mind sitting up here to avoid Sex, but not if it means missing a meal."
Valentina brought out her mobile phone and began tapping out a text message. "We'll get one of the girls to bring us something from the restaurant. We might have to stay here for a couple of hours at least. What do you fancy? I'm having the cottage pie and chips, and apple pie for afters. And we want some cookies and milk for the beast." The phone beeped and she glared fiercely at it. "The little cow!"
Helvetica and Gabrielle gathered round and tried to see the screen. "What is it?"
"I just texted Sweaty Betty to get her to bring us some food. She says she can't come. She's been in the bra factory all afternoon, and they've only just let her out."
Gabrielle wrinkled her nose. "Well, what's the problem?"
"She's not going to the restaurant, none of them are. All the bridesmaids — all forty-nine of them — are going to Maternity!"
"Settle down, girls," said Mrs Lashmore, holding up her hands for silence. "You're all going to be staying in here until the day of the wedding!"
"Here?" said a girl from the Fifth Form. "All of us? You mean just at night-time?"
"At night-time," said Mrs Lashmore. "And all day long as well. You'll have your classes over here, and there are plenty of beds. Don't all look so worried, it's not the end of the world! It's only six weeks."
"Six weeks?" wailed the Fifth Former. "What about my boyfriend?"
Her despairing cry was echoed by half the other girls, and then by the remaining half who didn't want the first half to know that they weren't seeing anybody at the moment.
Mrs Lashmore was nonplussed. "You all heard what Miss Clitress said. These are very expensive bridesmaids' dresses, so she is going to have to keep a close watch on you all to make sure you stay the right size."
"Please, miss," said Sweaty Betty, who had been studying her phone. "What do we do about our meals?"
"It's all being taken care of. The St Cat's Maternity Department is capable of running as a fully self-contained unit, and one of the cooks will be coming over here every day to cater for you all. Luckily, we have sufficient teachers at the moment to continue with all your classes. Any more questions?"
There might have been dozens, but no clear voice rose above the general hubbub of protest. Just one girl asked a question in a dull voice. "What about the pregnant girls, miss? Will there be room for us as well as them?"
"Good question! They're moving out. In fact, they've already moved. That's why it's so quiet round here, they've all gone down to the Royal Borcester Hospital. So you can all find a bed and make yourselves at home! Cook will be ringing the bell for dinner at six, and she'll even make some supper if any of you are hungry. Breakfast will be at eight sharp, no excuses." Mrs Lashmore looked at her watch. "That's everything for now. I'll be down to see you in the morning. And don't worry about any strange noises in the night, it's just the animals."
I was no more than five minutes late for Sex with the Thirds. They're normally pretty good; they can always be trusted to get on with some Practical if I'm late. This time, as I strolled into the classroom, I noticed that they were all sitting at their own desks, studying their textbooks. There didn't seem to be very many of them. I did a quick head count. Twenty-one.
Twenty-one?
"Good morning, girls."
"Good mor-ning, Miss Gruntworthy!" Ah, good! They weren't asleep or anything.
"Well?" I demanded. There was an extended silence during which the quadrangle clock struck exactly nine. It did it quite nicely, I thought, and I noticed that Helvetica and Valentina looked particularly relieved.
One of the apparently deaf girls who for some reason can't hear the quadrangle clock finally spoke. "Well what, miss?"
The out-of-the-blue question floored me. "Well what what?"
"You said 'well', miss," said the girl, possibly wishing she hadn't started this conversation thread. She wasn't the only one. "You came in, said 'good morning', then said 'well', miss."
"I know what I said," I said, and I think the word is 'testily'. I cast my mind back. Was it something about the clock? The antelope? Ah, I remembered; where were they all? "Well?" I demanded and waved my hand at all the empty desks.
"Why didn't you say so, miss?" said my tormentor. "You were asking about the bridesmaids."
"Was I? I suppose I was. Well?"
"They're in Maternity," said Valentina.
"What?" I staggered to my desk and slumped down. "All eight of them?"
"All fifty-six of them, miss. All the bridesmaids and reserve bridesmaids are in Maternity."
I felt the blood drain from my face. "How did this happen?" A silly question, really. If all my bridesmaids had become pregnant literally overnight, the cause was probably the usual one. "How long are they going to be in there?"
"Six weeks, I suppose," said Valentina. "Sweaty Betty said they'd be there until the wedding."
"Sweaty Betty's one of them? You mean ... she's...?"
"She's a bridesmaid, yes. You chose the eight with the smallest tits, miss."
"I suppose I did, yes. Does Miss Clitress know about this? She's got to make all their little dresses."
"She must know. She sent them there."
This was news indeed. Nurse was usually the one to send girls to Maternity. Now we had the corsetiere sending them there as well. I wondered what Nurse would think of this. Well, Nurse wasn't here, but her daughter was.
"What does your mother think of this, Valentina?"
"She doesn't mind. She says she can slope off down to Borcester for an hour every day to see the pregnant girls in the hospital."
"The hospital? What...?"
I could see the class taking a deep breath ready for a quote from Airplane.
"Why are they in hospital?" I asked carefully.
"They're having babies," said Valentina. "Please, miss," she added. "When you're married, will you be having babies too?"
"I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. It hurts, doesn't it?"
"Well, this is a Sex lesson, miss. Why don't we talk about it?"
Miss Clitress looked about her with distaste for her surroundings. She felt insecure whenever she was away from her bra facility, and although Maternity was only fifty yards away through the woods, she hated it. Even though the pregnant girls and their nursing assistants had all been carted away to the Royal Borcester, the Maternity unit still reminded Clit unpleasantly of hospitals.
"I've brought three different sizes," she told Mrs Lashmore, shifting urgently from one foot to the other as if anxious to get away to the toilet. "So we need a typical five-foot-two-tall girl with a forty-inch bust, another one just under five feet, and a little one, about four feet seven or eight."
Mrs Lashmore consulted her printed list. "Fairly popular sizes," she noted, summoning the nearest girl and scribbling a note with three names on it. "Fetch these girls for me, please, Amanda."
"And be quick about it!" Clit added as the girl disappeared out of the door. "God, I hate this place! It's so ... clean!"
In fact Amanda was back in a commendably short time, with three assorted girls trailing behind her. Clit looked at them without enthusiasm and passed a weary hand across her eyes.
"Strip off!" she commanded, and the three guinea pigs were revealed in panties of assorted patterns and well-fitting bras. Half a minute later they were transformed, ugly-duckling style, into bridesmaids — little visions of such grace, elegance and purity that they all gasped and blushed prettily as they looked one another up and down. Clit darted around them with a mouthful of pins, making little adjustments as she went. Five minutes later she told them to strip off again.
"Oh, Miss Clit!" the tallest of the girls protested. "Can't we keep them on? We want to show our friends!"
"Stupid girl! What's your stupid name?"
"Millicent Ramsbottom."
"Yes, that's a stupid name, all right! Well, Millicent, I've got to make forty-nine dresses identical to these in the next ten working days, and you want to hold a fashion show! And who made that bra?" she added as an afterthought.
"You did."
"It's too big."
"You said I would grow into it," Millicent whined, dashing away a tear from her cheek. "But I haven't! I'm nearly sixteen and I've only got a forty-inch bust."
"You're still young," Mrs Lashmore consoled her.
"That means I'll get even smaller!"
"Just as long as you don't get any smaller before the wedding," said Clit, adding with a hint of regret, "Or bigger."
"How much does it hurt?" I asked Valentina. I had heard a number of opinions but I suspected they were mostly exaggerated. Women like to exaggerate the discomfort involved in childbirth, so as to make their menfolk feel embarrassed.
"Pretty bad, miss. The first one's always worst, of course."
"Oh, of course!"
"I mean, it shouldn't be as bad for you, miss, not with the size of your whatsit."
Helvetica began to cry for some reason.
"Oh, shut up snivelling, child," I scolded her. "Yours is nearly as big as mine."
Helvetica began to howl.
"She doesn't like to be reminded of that, miss," said Valentina. "Anyway, having babies still hurts. You know how big a baby's head is?"
"Nonsense! Surely the head grows after it's born!"
Valentina shook her head gravely. "Nope!"
"Oh, my God!"
"The nurse, my mum, told me to try this, and it would give me an idea of how much it hurt. You grab your bottom lip, like this, with your fingers and thumbs."
"Like this?" I said, following her example. Most of the class did the same, I noticed.
"That's right. Now pull it outwards. Really stretch it out as far as it will go."
"Aaark ifffff?"
"Just like that, yeah." Valentina paused, looking round the classroom to make sure all the girls were following her instructions. And her teacher, of course. "Right! Now pull your lip upwards and stretch it right over your head...."
Sweaty Betty was in an unusual situation, for her. She was holding court; all the bridesmaids and reserves hanging on her every word. All fifty-five of them. They were sitting in a circle. Not too close.
"What did it do, this Cream?" said one girl. If any of the others knew what Cream did, they weren't about to steal Sweaty Betty's thunder by interrupting. Besides, they might get it wrong.
"It's not actually called Cream any more," said Betty.
"What's it called?"
"I don't know. They wouldn't tell me."
"Who were they, these two girls?"
"Helvetica and Valentina. Third Form."
"I know them. Nurse's brat. And that stuck-up bitch who was banging the cricket captain over at Lord Ted's."
"Anyway, they got this girl from the Firsts and they stripped her clothes off and rubbed this Cream — or whatever it's called — on her chest."
"Which girl? Not the one that looks after the antelope?"
"No, that's Barbarella Sinkinson. She's always had big ones. This was Maisie Perkins. The Brooks girls were Creaming her bottom."
"Her back bottom? What for?"
"To make it bigger. I worked out that it would be three hundred yards around by the time she left St Cat's to go to college. But it stopped growing." Betty seemed disappointed. "They must have rubbed an antidote on it."
"A what?"
"Antidote. It stops things working."
The girls shrugged. They had never heard the word before.
"So Valentina was rubbing Cream on Maisie's chest, and it started getting bigger straight away. I wanted them to do it to me but it would have meant going in the shower."
The girls nodded their understanding at this.
"Will it work on anybody?" an older girl asked.
Betty looked surprised. "Of course! You must know lots of girls who have been Creamed."
"They always keep it to themselves," said another girl. "They don't want us to catch up with them."
"Can you get some, Betty?"
It was the 64,000-dollar question, and Betty knew her reputation — flimsy at the best of times — depended on her answer. Her specialist field was mathematics: she was mediocre at Sexual Chemistry. So there was no chance of her being able to mix a reliable batch of Cream herself. That meant she'd have to approach Valentina and Helvetica. Valentina could always get hold of Cream, but Betty wasn't close enough to her Form Head to ask. Nobody in her right mind got too close to Sweaty Betty.
"I could try," she said doubtfully.
"If one of us tries it, we've all got to," said Millicent Ramsbottom. "We can't have inequality. We stand together, shoulder to shoulder."
There was a murmur of assent.
"How are you going to get it?" someone asked Betty. "We're not allowed out of here."
"I can call Valentina on my phone. They've got Sexual Chemistry tomorrow afternoon, and she might be able to get hold of some then."
"How will she get it to us? There's always a teacher watching the place to make sure we don't run away."
"Valentina will think of something. She always does."
"Hmmm."
"What is it?" said Helvetica, pausing with the hairbrush in mid-air and looking at Valentina through the mirror.
"A text message from Sweaty Betty."
"She's texted you just to say she's getting lonely in Maternity? You've got a new admirer. Still, she might be quite nice if she had a bath and changed her glasses."
"I don't know if she's lonely or not. She's only said two words." Valentina showed the phone to her friend.
"Well, I know it's good to be brief in text messages, but a little more information might be helpful. 'NEED CREAM?' Does she mean she needs cream or has she got some cream and she's asking you if you want it?"
"Does she mean cream or Cream? Not that it's called that any more. I don't need any, whatever she means. I've got loads of milk, and my tits are okay the way they are."
"Or does she means she needs cream? Have they got the antelope over there?"
"No, it's asleep on your bed. If it's Cream she wants, what does she want it for?"
Helvetica went to her bed and used the hairbrush to rouse the animal, which gave a grunt and headed off in search of another bed. "Or who? Is she ashamed of being smaller than the rest of the bridesmaids?"
"I wonder if that's very loud," said Valentina. "When you knocked on his horns with the brush, was it like mega loud inside his head? Or are all the bridesmaids ashamed of being smaller than the rest of us?"
Helvetica was used to holding two separate conversations at the same time with Valentina. "I don't know, he can't tell us. And I don't know, I'm not a bridesmaid. Maybe the computer would know?"
"The Fuckh Machine would know if hitting an antelope's horns with a hairbrush is like mega loud inside its head, or the Fuckh Machine would know if the bridesmaids are ashamed of being smaller than the rest of us?"
"How would I know? Why don't you call her back and ask her?"
Valentina looked puzzled. "Why would Sweaty Betty know if hitting an antelope on the horns ... oh, you mean...?" She tapped out some numbers on her phone then listened for a while. "She's got it switched off."
"Why is she asking you, anyway? Because she thinks you can get Cream?"
"I've got some in my wardrobe."
"So why not just send it over to her? If she doesn't want it she can send it back."
"Wow, Vets, you always have great ideas!"
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NEW TEACHERS AT LOCAL GIRLS SCHOOL Sally Ointment, Senior Education and Handicrafts Reporter |
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LOCAL girl’s school St Cat’s High School for Growing Girl’s’ has recently expanded it’s teaching staff to the tune of two. The teacher’s, Shawn Splashmore and Virginegar Undergrowth, will be unusually commencing their duties immediately, with immediate effect, a school source revealed yesterday, Tuesday. |