I’m copying down the essay question when Miss Taylor comes and sits next to me. She leans in close enough that I can smell the vanilla perfume on her cream silk blouse and see the tiny lines around her eyes. She has a small brown mole on her right cheek, which has a couple of hairs coming out of it.
‘Ms Jones would like to see you this morning, Neena,’ she says. ‘Now’s a good time; you can finish this at home.’ She smiles, but it’s a tight smile, and my stomach goes hard. I want to ask her what it’s about, but she stands and walks away before I get a chance. You only have to see Ms Jones if you’re in trouble. The last time I was in her office, I was in Year Seven and we all got called in for doing the Mexican wave every time our maths supply teacher turned his back.
I force myself to get up. A feeling of dread swishes around in my stomach. As I walk past Raheela’s desk, she glances up at me. I ignore her. The last thing I need is another disapproving stare from her. Why is everyone always so judgemental?
Ms Jones’s office is down a narrow corridor with a rough red carpet. I have a worrying thought as I walk towards her room: Has Dad told her about me drinking alcohol? Am I now in trouble for being underage? I feel a bit sick as I stare at the gold plaque that says: MS E. L. JONES, ASSISTANT HEAD TEACHER. But then I push the thought away. No, no, he wouldn’t do that. I’m being paranoid. Aren’t I?
Either way, standing here worrying about it isn’t exactly helping. I breathe in deeply and knock on the door. It’s quiet and for a moment I think I’ve managed to escape, for now at least, but then there’s an irritated: ‘Yes? Come in.’
The tiny office smells of strong coffee and toast and there are books absolutely everywhere, not just packed on the bookshelves, but towering up from the floor and piled on the desk that Ms Jones is sitting at by the window. She’s deep in concentration, staring at a textbook. She looks like she forgot to brush her hair this morning and her thick eyebrows are furrowed so that they join in the centre like a long, furry caterpillar.
‘Just a minute,’ she says without looking up.
‘Yes, miss,’ I say quietly.
I seem to be standing there forever. To distract myself from worrying, I imagine plucking her eyebrows. One, two, three – who am I kidding? – one hundred plucks, until we can see more of her eyes and forehead. It’s a satisfying thought, her wincing the way she makes kids wince if they’re even slightly disruptive in assembly. But also the idea that afterwards she might actually look human, instead of like an angry owl.
She finally raises her head and stares at me blankly.
‘You wanted to see me?’ I say, and I try a smile that I hope is totally charming and doesn’t look like I’m sucking up.
‘Oh! Neena.’ She slams her book shut. ‘Yes, yes, please sit.’
I perch on the edge of the cracked leather chair opposite her. She leans back and takes off her glasses. Her eyes are grey, matching her shirt, and she looks kinder without glasses, even with her humongous monobrow.
Pluck, pluck, pluck.
‘How have you been, Neena?’ she asks. ‘I just wanted to … check in.’
Oh! I relax a bit. It’s one of those talks. They seem to come every couple of months, though usually my art teacher, Mr Butler, does them. He sort of took me under his wing when everything happened and he really seems to care. Fi’s super cynical about him though and says it’s just so they can tick off some criteria to continue being considered a good school.
‘Oh yes, I’m …’ I pause. I never really know what to say when people ask me how I am. Some days I’d like to say: Pretty shit. I mean, my brother disappeared – how do you think I am? But I’m sure that would get me into all sorts of trouble. Or, worse, they’ll look at me like Miss Taylor did earlier: Poor girl. But I also need to be careful not to go overboard and say I’m ‘great’ or ‘good’: they won’t believe that.
‘I’m … well, you know, I’m OK,’ I say. ‘Thank you for asking.’
I expect her to go on, asking how everything is at home, and if there’s anything I want to talk about (there never is) and if they can do anything to help me (they never can). But instead she says: ‘Your dad called me this morning.’
I hold my breath. Oh God. She knows about the drinking. Are they going to tell the police? Can I get into serious trouble? Surely not. I mean, practically every teenager I know has drunk alcohol by now. Maybe not Raheela, but most other people, I reckon. I focus on Ms Jones’s eyebrows as a lump swells in my throat.
‘He wants to know how you’re doing in your lessons,’ she continues. ‘I told him I’d check – and that’s why I wanted to speak to you.’
‘Oh!’ I breathe again. ‘I see.’ Of course. This is typical of Dad. He’s checked up on me in the past, in the days before I started taking my antidepressants and wasn’t keeping on top of schoolwork. I really should have guessed.
She nods. ‘Yes. Hmm. So I followed up and spoke to some of your teachers this morning …’ She looks down at her desk and frowns, searching for something. Her face relaxes as she reaches for a piece of paper and her eyes glide over it before she looks back up at me. ‘Are you having difficulty concentrating in lessons, Neena?’
I fidget in my seat. ‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Sometimes.’ Then I shrug. It’s hardly surprising, given everything, is it?
The furry caterpillar on her forehead wiggles up and down. ‘It’s been a hard year,’ she says.
‘Ten months,’ I say.
‘Hmm?’
‘It’s been ten months.’ Not that I’m counting or anything.
‘Yes. Right. Well …’ She pushes the piece of paper towards me across the desk, dodging a pile of books that look like they’ll tumble down if they’re touched. There’s a column listing the subjects I’m studying for GCSE on the left, and then loads of marks and months beside them with arrows pointing up and down. There are so many numbers that it’s hard to focus and I zone out. I look back up at her face.
‘So,’ she says, ‘what I’ve noticed is that after the initial dip in your marks when you came back to school last June – absolutely understandable – you improved in September and kept more or less steady until January. But over the past few months your marks have dipped again. Is there anything we should know about?’
I stare at her and try not to roll my eyes. OK, so I might not be the most focused person in the world right now, but I try. I definitely try. It’s just that everything feels a bit pointless most of the time. But that’s got to be normal, right?
‘Mr Butler is especially concerned too …’ she continues. ‘About your art projects?’
I frown. Mr Butler knows how hard I’ve worked in art to improve my marks. It’s OK to have an off day, isn’t it? Mostly, I’m doing so much better in art.
‘So is there anything you’d like to share, Neena?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Everything’s fine. I’ll … I’ll try harder.’
She seems deep in thought. ‘Hmm. OK. So what I’ve decided is that we’re going to watch you from now until the exams. Nothing formal, but with the exams so close we don’t want … I mean, we want to support you the best we can.’