Higher Learning Page 4

  Celia and I made our way through the front door. Inside was white walls and cream carpet (tiles in the kitchen/bathrooms/laundry) with expensive, tasteful furniture that had come with the house. That was lucky, because there was no way we would have been able to furnish it otherwise. IKEA just wouldn’t quite cut it in a house like this.

  Stacey rushed out from her bedroom (located on the ground floor) to say hello to us. “Yay! You’re here! OK, Charlie, I’ve got your outfit laid out on your bed. You go and get changed, then we can sort out your face.”

  (It was best to just go with it. When you’re dealing with crazy people, arguing will only put you in danger.)

  I walked upstairs to my room. I had the master bedroom, since I was the one who’d struck the deal for this house (and I’d nearly been shot getting it). On my bed were a little black dress, maroon tights, a necklace, a cardigan and black faux-suede ankle boots. I figured I should probably enjoy wearing plain clothes while I could, since tomorrow I’d be back to wearing the Gerongate High school uniform. (I’d had to buy a new one while we were out shopping since I’d ceremonially burned my last one upon graduation.)

  After a quick shower (only twenty minutes), I pulled on the clothes, sprayed on some perfume Stacey had given me and headed downstairs so the others could ‘sort out my face’. As I descended the stairs, I could see that they’d set up shop at the kitchen island, with a hair straightener and a curling wand heating up on the marble countertop. There were bottles of hair and face goop galore, and I suspected just about all of it was about to be slathered on my face and head. Stacey sat me down on one of the stools by the breakfast bar and got to work, and by the time she was done I looked nothing like myself. Brilliant. Maybe I could get her to help me come up with a makeup look for school so that no one would recognise me. (Sometimes madness and genius are very closely linked; what can I say?)

  Lea and Celia walked into the kitchen, both having apparently showered and changed out of their work clothes. They were each allowed to do their own makeup and hair. Apparently I was the only one who was ‘severely incompetent’ when it came to cosmetics and somehow made myself look ‘simultaneously marsupial and crocodilian’.

  Once we were finally ready, we piled into my car since it was by far the coolest, being a Mustang convertible. Of course, C and Lea, who were in the back, had to sit with their legs crossed due to the lack of legroom and we couldn’t put the top down because it would ruin our hair (not to mention be so cold we’d develop actual icicles on our faces), but it was awesome all the same.

  I parked as close to the pottery studio as I could and we all rushed inside, not because we were late but because the air had in icy chill tonight and honestly, leggings and a cardigan just weren’t cutting it. Personally, I didn’t understand why the others never let me wear my thermal onesie out. I mean sure, it was a bright orange one-piece that made me look kind of like a giant baby, but it was SO WARM.

  Inside, there were a number of long benches set up with potters’ wheels spaced at intervals along them.

  “TWO PEOPLE PER WHEEL!” screamed the teacher as my friends and I filed in, startling me so much with his volume that I tripped over the garbage bin by the door and tore a huge hole in the knee of my tights.

  “This is why you can’t have nice things,” murmured Stacey, staring forlornly at my now bare knee.

  “Sorry,” I whispered as we made our way over to one of the benches, ensuring there were TWO OF US PER WHEEL!

  “That’s OK,” said Stacey. “I should have known better than to try dressing you in stockings. You’re not quite at that level yet. Although I must say that I’m proud of you for not tearing them when you put them on.”

  I didn’t want to burst her bubble, so I decided not to tell her that I’d managed to put my entire hand through the upper thigh when I’d been struggling to wriggle into them.

  “I’m getting better,” I lied.

  C and I took one wheel while Lea and Stace took another a little further up the bench. The teacher began to drone on and on – mercifully in a quieter voice now – about the many merits of clay, instructing us to take a piece from the packet in front of us and start playing to familiarise ourselves with its ‘personality’.

  “Speaking of ‘familiarising’ yourself with someone’s ‘personality’...” C said quietly.

  “Yes?” I said, as though I didn’t know exactly what she was getting at.

  “How are things with you and James?”

  “Weird,” I said.

  She exhaled exasperatedly. “Really? It’s still not happening?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. And since he’s undercover at the high school as a teacher, I don’t think anything’s going to happen for a while.”

  Her mouth dropped open and her eyes filled with glee. “He’s what?”

  I frowned. “He’s pretending to be a PE teacher.”

  “So you mean you’re finally going to have to stop avoiding him?”

  “I haven’t been avoiding him,” I lied.

  “I know you’re lying,” said Celia, punctuating the word ‘know’ by slamming her fist down into her piece of clay. I flinched. “Remember, I was with you that day you saw him across the grocery store, dropped to all fours and scuttled away like a naughty crab.”

  “A naughty crab?”

  “You know that that’s exactly what you looked like,” she said. “I don’t get why you’re being so awkward. You kissed each other. That’s a good thing. It’s a mutual acknowledgement of feelings for each other.”

  “It’s too strange,” I whispered. “He and I have always fought. I don’t know what my life is without that feud in it.”

  She frowned at me. “I think not having a feud makes your life more normal.”

  “But our history’s so weird. And all the stuff with my brother... It’s just a bit much, you know? Ever since The Incident...”

  “You can say kiss, you know. It’s really not that gross. Normal humans do it a lot.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I replied. “Unfortunately, I am not a normal human.”

  Celia frowned. “So it hasn’t happened again? Not even once?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. We haven’t really been alone since the first time,” I replied.

  “But that was ages ago.”

  “I know,” I responded.

  “You sound frustrated.”

  “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

  “You know perfectly well what I’m implying,” she said. “Well, maybe if you haven’t naturally found yourselves alone together since The Incident, you’ll have to force the situation.”

  “What do mean?” I asked, frowning.

  “Ask him on a date.”

  “I’m not asking him on a date,” I hissed. “I can’t eat dinner with him in a public setting. What if someone sees us?”

  Celia looked at me in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly,” I said.

  “Would that be such a bad thing?”

  “Yes,” I said. “For starters, he’s my teacher at the moment.”

  She rolled her eyes. “He’s a fake teacher and you’re a fake student. It’s not actually illegal.”

  “It’s unprofessional,” I said. “Besides, we could run into anyone and if word gets back to Jo...”

  “Are you worried that your body will wash up in the Tanner the next day if she finds out you’re dating?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And you know that fear is not totally irrational.”

  “So invite him over for dinner at your place.” She caught my look of utter disbelief. “Why are you looking at me like I just said the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard?”

  “Surely you’ve noticed by now that people don’t exactly call ahead before they show up at my house,” I said. “Anyone could walk in and find us. Besides, I have housemates.”

  “Lea and Stace are cool,” said C. “They won’t care.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t have a date over with
someone else in the house.”

  Celia wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Oh, wow.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that! I just don’t want to feel like someone might overhear our awkward first date conversation.”

  Celia pulled an over-exaggerated facial expression and nodded. “Right, sure that’s what you meant.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Even if I did mean it the way you think I did, which I didn’t, that just adds another problem.”

  She shrugged. “So have the date at his house.”

  “I can’t ask him on a date to his own house!”

  “You’re asking someone on a date?” said Jo. “Who?”

  I panicked. “A guy from work. Maybe.”

  “You mean your hot boss?”

  “No, not Adam. Someone else. Someone you don’t know.”

  “What’s his name?”

  I wracked my brain, trying to think of the name of someone from work – anyone. “Old Sport,” I said finally.

  Argh, why did my brain let me down so badly so often?

  Jo narrowed her eyes at me. “His name is Old Sport?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s the problem. I’ve forgotten the guy’s name, so I can’t ask him out.”

  “Can’t you just ask someone else what his name is?”

  “No,” I said. “What if they tell him?”

  Jo nodded, deep in thought, as she cut another piece of clay off her block. C and I shared a relieved look. Jo had bought the story. Thank goodness. Seeing the way that piece of fishing line sliced through the clay left me with no doubt that Jo could have severed my neck with it. Or at least made a very good start.

  Once Jo turned back to her own wheel, Celia looked me square in the eye. “Are you still just embarrassed because you pincered his arms?”

  “No, that’s not it,” I lied, squeezing my clay and thinking about how much the brown sludgy mass looked like a visual representation of my love life.

  “Right. Sure,” she said. “But you’re not going to be able to avoid him if you’re both at school together. Sooner or later the passion is going to overflow.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes it is, and you’d be better off sorting it out outside of school hours,” she said. “Otherwise things could get complicated.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day, I was greeted at my front door in the early hours of the morning by Old Sport. Eek. OK, never mind. I wasn’t going to have to know his name for exercise classes. Mostly I’d just be calling him ‘Satan’ or ‘you bastard’ if my usual vernacular when working out was anything to go by. I shouldered my school backpack, cursed my skimpy tracksuit as my teeth chattered from the cold, and got to running.

  I’d never exercised with Old Sport before, and it seemed to me that he was for some reason labouring under the delusion that I was good at exercise. He was pushing me to run faster than my other trainers did – including Adam, who was usually the harshest instructor I got.

  “Have I – started – a new – routine?” I wheezed.

  Old Sport turned to me, looking concerned. “Are you OK? You sound kind of sick.”

  I nodded. “I’m just not used to running – quite – this – fast.”

  “You sound like you’re about to cough up a lung.”

  “That’s always a risk when I exercise.”

  “We can’t slow down, I’m sorry,” Old Sport said, giving me a sympathetic look. “We have to get there early or you’re going to miss the dance class.”

  I felt my left eye twitch. “The what?”

  “Dance class,” he repeated. “Spider said that you have to do it to help with your undercover work.”

  My twitch intensified. Not only would I have to humiliate myself by cheerleading at school, but now I also had to make an idiot of myself by learning to dance at work. This was ridiculous. Were dance classes really going to help me with cheerleading? I doubted it. This seemed like the kind of thing Adam would do just to mess with me.

  I stopped attempting to talk then, partly because I was lost in my own thoughts and partly because I was afraid if I kept wasting oxygen on speech I’d pass out before we arrived at the gym. Old Sport kept a punishing pace.

  When we arrived, Old Sport signed me in at the desk and handed me over to Tim.

  “Morning, honey,” said Tim. “How are you?”

  “I didn’t think you were meant to be exercising yet,” I said. “Aren’t you still recovering?”

  “I’m well, thank you,” he said pointedly. “In answer to your question, I can exercise. Just not quite at the same level as I used to. I’ll get there soon.”

  I didn’t doubt it. Tim had been injured worse than anyone else I’d ever seen – and that’s coming from someone who’s been run over multiple times. However, he was both incredibly determined and easily bored by desk work, so I knew he’d be back to peak performance as soon as humanly possible. Maybe earlier.

  “So, are you teaching me to dance?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Unfortunately, that’s slightly too vigorous for me still. I’ll just be sitting up the back of the room, watching you.”

  “That sounded a little creepy, Timmy.”

  “Sorry. It was meant to sound embarrassing.”

  I cocked my head and thought for a moment. “Yeah, there’s a chance it’s that too.”

  He grinned and we made our way to one of the rooms that led off from the main gym floor. These smaller rooms were used for exercise classes. I didn’t recognise the instructor, but I did know some of the other people in the class. It appeared that apart from the instructor, I was the only woman in the class. That wasn’t so unusual here – at Baxter & Co., men vastly outnumbered women. There were also fitness requirements for all employees that required that we attend a certain number of group classes a week depending on our job and fitness level. Tim had explained that the reason for this was that lots of the guys would focus on lifting weights and neglect cardio and flexibility training. These requirements got around that. Plus the group classes embarrassed people into being better. Except me – I was all but immune to embarrassment at this point in my life. One of the perks of being incurably clumsy, I guess.

  The instructor started us off by having us stretch before beginning to teach us individual steps and eventually making us perform a whole routine. I was solidly in the bottom half of the class, but I wasn’t the worst. Tim confirmed as much afterwards.

  “No, there were at least two people who made more mistakes than you.”

  “And that was just my first class,” I said. “I’m going to make an amazing cheerleader.”

  While Tim went back to his office to grab all the equipment we needed to take to the school, I headed off to the showers. When I emerged – now in my school uniform – I was amazed to find that none of the guys I worked with passed any comment about my schoolgirl disguise. In fact, they all seemed to be averting their gaze as I walked by. Maybe they’d all had traumatic high school experiences as well. I said hi to Panther who simply waved back and then ran away. I frowned. Wow. He must have been dunked a lot of times to be that scared of the mere memory of high school.

  After grabbing a tray of food (bircher muesli and a date/cacao/banana smoothie for breakfast, plus a tempeh and lemony kale sandwich on spelt bread to go for my lunch), I spotted Adam in the cafeteria and sat with him.

  “No one has said anything to me about the uniform,” I said, taking a sip of the smoothie. These things were so good. Maybe tomorrow I’d just get two of them for breakfast.

  “Of course they haven’t,” Adam replied.

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They know if they say anything inappropriate they’ll be fired immediately.”

  I nodded. “Right, of course. Sexy schoolgirl or whatever.”

  Adam shrugged. “I guess, although I can’t think of anything less sexy than school.”

  “Were your school years traumatic?” I asked.

  “Not part
icularly.”

  “Really?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Why the tone of surprise?”

  “I guess there weren’t as many bogans at your school as mine.”

  Adam shrugged. “I went to a private school.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “Plus I was a black belt by high school.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And everyone loved my twin brother so they put up with me.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Say what? “Twin?” I repeated. This was new information.

  He nodded, glancing at his phone. “You better eat up, Charmander. You’ve gotta get yourself to class.”

  Trust Adam to just drop a bombshell like the twin thing and move on without saying any more.

  “It doesn’t matter if I turn up late,” I said. “In fact, most of my teachers prefer it.”

  “Not on your first day,” he said. “You have to meet all the other kids and make friends.”

  I shuddered. This was going to be terrible.

  I was meant to meet Tim in his office, but first I decided to head to the front desk. Not exactly on the way, but I wanted to introduce myself to the replacement receptionist. Just to be friendly. Not to size up the competition or anything. Cough.

  I walked into the reception area and saw the new guy behind the desk eating an apple. Even though he was sitting I could tell that he was tall. Was that what people looked for in a receptionist? Was that how this guy was going to sink me? Wait, no. That was ridiculous. I decided to try and be polite.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Charlie, the usual receptionist.”

  “Hi. I’m John, the new receptionist.”

  My eye began to twitch. “Well, I was just dropping in to introduce myself and see if you needed help with anything.”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Charlene.”

  “Charlie.”