Polly by Freya North Read Free Book Online

Ma’am?’
    â€˜Miss,’ said Polly. ‘What are you doing?’
    â€˜I’m just logging “Miss Polly Fenton” into my file, Ma’am.’
    â€˜Miss,’ said Polly.
    â€˜Miss,’ said the girl, closing the lid of the machine and giving Polly her undivided attention, prefixed by a shy smile and then a beaming, glinting grin displaying a mouth with more metal than enamel.
    â€˜Okey dokey,’ said Polly, surprised at her choice of phrase, ‘you now know me, but who on earth are you? Plural!’
    The students delivered their names.
    Oh that they could wear name badges too! How ever am I to distinguish between AJ and TC? Lauren and Laurel? And two Bens, would you believe, not to mention a Heidi, a Forrest and the two others whose names I’ve completely forgotten?
    â€˜Super!’ Polly declared instead. ‘And could you let me know which of you are the semaphores?’
    The class laughed politely and AJ, who turned out to be the boy wearing the baseball cap, corrected her kindly and informed her that
he
was a sophomore and sixteen years of age, and that TC, Forrest, Lauren and Ed (ah, that was it, Ed!) were as well. Laurel, the girl with the lap-top, explained that she was a freshman and had just turned fifteen. Polly deduced that the remaining freshmen were both Bens, Heidi and the boy with no name, who was rather overweight but wore the sweetest smile Polly had ever seen in a fifteen-year-old.
    â€˜Splendid,’ said Polly and, as she did so, she observed ten pairs of eyes glaze slightly while the smiles stretched at her vocabulary. ‘Let’s crack on. What’s so funny? Lauren?’
    â€˜It’s just, like, your accent’s so neat, I guess we’re gonna have a bunch of fun learning English from an English lady.’
    It was the first time Polly had ever been referred to as a lady so she chose to go easy on Lauren’s command of the English language.
    â€˜Thank you, Lauren, but I’d rather you spoke of a
bunch
of flowers tied with a
neat
ribbon – and perhaps an
accent
that is, for example, jolly nice, and English
lessons
which, I assure you, are to be tremendous fun.’
    The class gave her a swift round of applause; Polly bowed graciously, somewhat mystified by her unpremeditated plumminess and her employment of the forbidden adjective,
nice
.
    â€˜Now,’ she said, rummaging in her large bag, ‘now, have I a treat for you. Where the Dickens—? Ah, here we are. Pumblechook!’ she declared suddenly, fixing a wild smile on Heidi and making her jump. Silence rapt the students. Polly left her table, on which she had been perched, and walked slowly around the semicircle of desks in front of her, distributing books. ‘Snodgrass!’ she whispered to TC; ‘Sergeant Buzfuz!’ she declared to Forrest. She walked behind Ben (
with the blond hair, must remember
) and cried ‘Pecksniff!’ above his head as she clasped his shoulders. The class were captivated, Lauren looked positively frightened as Miss Fenton approached her, held on to her eyes and uttered ‘Uriah Heap!’ in sombre tones. Miss Fenton placed both hands on Ed’s desk and growled ‘Chuzzlewit!’, before going to AJ, removing his baseball cap and replacing it, backwards, while she cried ‘Mr Tappertit!’ The second Ben (
curly hair, snub nose; curly hair, snub nose
) she greeted with ‘Bumble!’ before singing ‘Mrs Fezziwig!’ to Laurel. Just the nameless boy. Polly stood in front of him and tipped her head, ‘Dick Swiveller,’ she declared, after some thought.
    â€˜No, Miss Fenton,’ he said, slowly and ingenuously, ‘I’m Dick Southwood Junior.’
    Thank goodness for that.
    â€˜Miss?’
    â€˜Yes, AJ?’
    â€˜Who
are
these guys?’
    â€˜Dickens!’ brandished Polly, ‘Charles Dickens Esquire. Born the 7th of February 1812, died on June the