Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido Read Free Book Online Page B

against the walls downstairs for a bit and then they’d go back home to the bus.
    Her bedroom in the bus is just about big enough for her bed with drawers under it, plus with about forty centimetres running down the side, so that she has to keep all her ‘hanging-up’ clothes in her mum and dad’s room, but at least the bus is kind of stylish-looking inside and her friends really like it.
    Doing the headstands was fun and now Zoe’s really sorry that she wouldn’t sleep in the house with her dad, because she’s not going to see him for ages and ages until they both get back. She’s quite good at headstands and so is her dad. She used to be scared of doing gym, but when she was six he’d taught her to do forward and backward rolls on this big trampoline they’d found on a rainy beach in Devon and after that she’d got much braver about it.
    Anyway, about Gran and the embarrassing birthday party, she said all Zoe’s friends had to eat up the sandwiches first before they were even allowed any cake, so no one had room for it by then. Emily’s mum’s a widow and she’s a doctor who works with people who’ve had head injuries, so revolting Sadie once passed this note around the class saying that Emily must have had a head injury, which was where her mum had got all the practice. But, instead of passing the note on, Zoe just shoved it into her desk, because it was so mean and horrible. Sadie had only written it because Emily’s a bit goofy-looking and her ears are quite sticky-out. And just because she’s got this quite big sort of a mole thing on her chest, Sadie’s note also said had anybody noticed Emily had got ‘three nipples’.
    Then, later on, one of the senior girls, who must’ve been snooping in Zoe’s desk during geography, had gone and found the note and given it to the head and Zoe’d got the blame for it, just because she wouldn’t tell who’d sent it. Well, you can’t tell on people, can you? Even if it’s someone gross, like Sadie. Then afterwards Sadie thought it was all dead funny about the head and all, and she started behaving like she and Zoe were kind of ‘together’ because of it.
    But, anyway, about the boy thing and the French exchange, Zoe’s already tried getting her mum to go up and have a word with Mrs Mead, but Caroline’s refused, because she says Zoe should learn to fight her own battles, and anyway she thinks it’s ‘a bit silly and bigoted’ of Zoe to mind having a boy. And, worse luck, her dad, who’s usually better at understanding about when you’re scared, was staying over in Bristol all of that week, though he’s usually only there over three nights. It’s because of some funny little opera thing he’s putting on together with the music department, which is all about this lechy old tutor who’s in love with his beautiful young orphan pupil, and everyone ends up getting married to the wrong people. Her dad says this is fairly unusual for a comic opera, but that it’s maybe a lot more like real life.
    Anyway, Zoe’s even tried doing something she’s never done before – i.e., going up to Mrs Mead on her own and pretending that her mum wants her to try and swap things round, so she can have a girl – but there’s nothing Mrs Mead is prepared to do about it. That’s except for producing a whole lot of soft soap in a letter that she tells Zoe to pass on to Caroline, which is really embarrassing. I mean as if it wasn’t hard enough telling Mrs Mead a lie like that in the first place.
     
    Dear Mrs Silver
    Please be reassured. Zoe is such a sensible girl. She is always so dependable and resourceful that you really need have no fear with regard to the French exchange. I know that she will cope splendidly.
     
    Then she’s signed it ‘Regan Mead’, which is really weird. I mean for teachers to have first names at all, even though her own mother’s a teacher of course, but that seems different. Anyway, isn’t Regan one of the daughters from hell in that