Alice in Time by Penelope Bush Read Free Book Online Page A

glance over at Imogen but she’s got her tongue poking out a bit, a sure sign that she’s concentrating, so I make an effort and start drawing, though I’m not really sure where to start. Do I start at the bottom and work upwards or at the top and go down? What if I get to the bottom (or top) and find I’ve run out of paper and can’t fit the thing on? I can feel a headache coming on.Eventually I decide to start in the middle with the seat bit, but the whole thing is so boring that I go off into a daydream.
    It’s not a full-blown daydream yet, I’m still evolving it. It involves me being so brilliant at art that the headmistress decides that I can do extra lessons after school. If you’re thinking that’s not much of a daydream, just wait. She decides that I need to do some life drawing, from a real-life nude, and when I turn up there is Seth sitting on the chair – with nothing on. I’m concentrating really hard on imagining this when Miss Shears comes up behind me and says, ‘It could be a bit bigger, don’t you think?’ It takes me a moment to realise that she’s talking about my drawing.
    Having been round and looked at everyone’s work, Miss Shears hands out more paper and says, ‘Right, I want you all to start again, only this time stop thinking of it as a chair. Start looking at it as a series of shapes. Don’t draw the legs; draw the space between the legs.’ She goes up to the chair and pokes all the airy spaces with her finger. ‘Does anyone know what these are?’
    Of course, nobody does. They’re just nothing; I mean, how can you draw air?
    ‘These,’ she says, ‘are Negative Shapes. Don’t ignore them. They are just as important as these.’ Now she’s poking the metal legs. ‘If it was a solid object, what shape would it be?’
    Now I’m deeply confused but Imogen’s hand shoots up. ‘A rectangle.’ She looks strangely happy.
    ‘Exactly,’ says Miss Shears. She’s drawing a three-dimensional oblong on the board and then she fits the chair into it. I see what she means now and my second attempt comes outmuch better, even if I say so myself. By the end of the lesson, everyone has a pretty good drawing, except Sasha and a few of her friends, who were just messing about most of the time and passing each other notes.
    When the bell rings, we go off to maths. Imogen is in the top group so I don’t have this lesson with her and I traipse off with the middle group. Thankfully Sasha is in the bottom group for maths so I don’t have to put up with her. I’m hopeless at maths, but I work really hard at it, mainly so that I don’t get put in the bottom stream with her.
    I sit down next to Lauren Hall. We usually sit together in maths and while she’s quite nice, she is very shy and it’s not that easy talking to her. But today she seems to be making an effort, because she asks me if I’m going to Sasha’s party.
    ‘No,’ I tell her, ‘I haven’t been invited.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think it matters,’ she says, ‘everybody’s going.’
    I’m just wondering whether or not it’s worth explaining to her that I have actually
not
been invited, rather than just overlooked, when Mr Green comes in and we have to stop talking and get on with the lesson.

Chapter Five
    At lunchtime I meet up with Imogen by the lockers. We’re supposed to go outside at lunchtime and ‘get some fresh air’. Just to make sure we do, they have Sixth Formers patrolling the school to throw us out. This is mean on so many levels. Firstly, we’re too old to run around like the Year Seven and Eight kids, so we just stand around freezing to death. It’s not so bad for the boys; at least they can play football. Also, it’s not fair on the Sixth Formers. They get a nice common room to hang out in at lunchtimes and they hate it when they have to patrol the school, so they take it out on us if they find anyone inside. Today Imogen says, ‘Come on, let’s go to the art room. If Burty’s not here today she