Bindi Babes by Narinder Dhami Read Free Book Online Page B

asked.
    Kim put her hand up to the bruise on her temple. It was half hidden by her floppy blond hair. “Oh, nothing.” She shrugged. “I walked into a door.”
    “Kim, you're so clumsy,” I said, amused. “Did it hurt?”
    “A bit,” she muttered sheepishly.
    “Well, your weekend still couldn't have been as bad as ours,” I went on. “Auntie stuck her big fat nose into
everything.”
    “So what are we going to do about it?” demanded Geena.
    “I don't know yet,” I said. “But she's not getting away with it.”

    School was a chance to forget about Auntie for a while, but you couldn't call it relaxing. All the teachers were infected with inspector fever. The symptoms were a worried look, a frantic manner and a tendency to freak out at regular intervals. We'd only been in our form room for ten minutes, and by the time the assembly bell rang, Mr. Arora had already handed out four detentions. George Botley got three of them.
    Assembly was Mr. Grimwade reading out the booklet of school rules in a deadly, monotonous voice. This was accompanied by many, varied threats about what would happen to us if we didn't behave while theinspectors were here. Then it was off to classes, where all the teachers immediately set us work to do, while they sat and wrote notes all through the lesson. Geena said it was because they had to have files of lesson plans to show the inspectors, and a lot of them had fallen behind. There was a rumor going round that Mr. Lucas, who taught history, hadn't written down any lesson plans for the last six months, and was having to make them all up. Chelsea said someone had told her that Miss Patel was going to pretend hers had been stolen.
    There was a meeting at lunchtime about the over-the-top assembly, which was to impress the inspectors. Jazz, Geena and I went across the road to the new school hall, which was an amazing construction of glass, steel and concrete with a huge stage at one end of it.
    Ms. Woods, the drama teacher who was organizing the assembly, was rushing round the hall with a tragic face. She fell on us as if we were her long-lost daughters.
    “At last,” she declared, sweeping her big, black hair off her face. “Someone I can actually rely on.”
    We smiled calm and trustworthy smiles.
    “What would you like us to do, Ms. Woods?” Geena asked in a businesslike manner.
    “Anything and everything,” Ms. Woods replied. “There's plenty of scenery to be painted, and I need someone to operate the CD player and the overhead projector, as well as change the scenery. And, of course, you'll be taking part in the assembly itself.”
    Of course.
    “The trouble is, the feng shui in here is all wrong.” Ms. Woods looked round the hall in a demented way. “It ought to be
completely
rebuilt from scratch.”
    We stood there in polite silence. Ms. Woods would just have to accept that it was unlikely that the brand-new school hall could be knocked down and rebuilt before the inspectors arrived.
    “Right, this is the plan.” Ms. Woods fought her way through mounds of paper in her bag and pulled out a list. “The six major religions of the world will each be represented by words, music and a specially painted backdrop. So the Buddhist section will have a large golden Buddha, the Christian section will have a church and so on. And,” she went on, dropping the list on the floor and scrambling to retrieve it, “I thought it would be fantastic if each religion were represented by pupils who actually practice it at home.”
    “Where's she going to find a Buddhist at Copper-gate?” Geena whispered in my ear.
    “Now, as you three girls are …” Ms. Woods squinted at us as if our religion were branded on our foreheads.
    “Sikhs,” I said helpfully.
    “Yes. Exactly.” Ms. Woods looked relieved. “I thought we'd have a large scenic backdrop of the Golden Temple. The three of you will stand in front of it, and read out some information about Sikhism.”
    “Fine,” Geena agreed.