El sat in an uncomfortable plastic seat, staring at the stage. She ignored the growing numbness in her bottom and watched Scott take the stage as Kenzie didn't show up. El wondered what had happened to her. Maybe she was stuck somewhere with stage fright, or had simply decided not to show up. Either way, it didn't matter. Waterloo Road's last attempt to save itself wasn't going well.
The ship was capsizing, and there was no sign of lifeboats.
At the sight of Scott getting up on the stage, many people got up and started to make their way to the exits. People obviously thought that Waterloo Road had nothing more planned- nothing more to offer- if a student tried to make the speech. El, though, stayed in her seat. She wanted to hear what Scott had to say.
"Lock the doors," Scott shouted, holding up a pair of handcuffs. El almost laughed, it was so shocking. What was he going to do? Mr Fitzgerald looked horrified, but didn't try to stop anyone. Perhaps he knew it was his last chance.
All around the hall, there were the sound of doors bolting shut, of keys being turned and the sounds of people being told that they couldn't use the door. El saw Lenny, stopping people from leaving with only his body, stand with Darren. El's head turned and she smiled, trying to take everything in. It was brilliant. All around her, people trying to get out weren't allowed to move, either, due to the fact that Waterloo Road pupils and teachers were physically blocking the doors. It was like something out of a hostage scene in a movie, El thought.
"Hey, Hey, Hey! Where do you all think you're going? We aren't finished with you yet. In fact, we haven't even started, so you might as well sit down." Scott told the crowd. Now, Mr Fitzgerald and some of the other teachers in the audience, like the history teacher Miss McFall, weren't frowning, but were smiling and wearing looks or amazement.
"You can't lock us in against our will." Said the lady from the council.
Scott just laughed. "Do you wanna bet?"
She shook her head, obviously thinking it was all just one big joke. "Vaughn, what is this?"
Vaughn moved closer to the microphone. "This?" He asked, moving his hands around the whole hall area, as if she might be talking about something else. "This is Waterloo Road."
A cheer went up, and El grinned. Yes. It certainly was.
Scott then launched into his speech. Whilst he was talking, the whole hall fell silent. The speech, El though, was brilliant. The silence probably meant that the adults thought so too. What made the speech so good wasn't that it was partially beautifully worded or academic in its teachings, but because the speech was eloquent and full of passion. That's what gave everyone in the room a feeling of inspiration- not mere words.
Scott's speech talked about all the children that Waterloo Road had helped. Children that had potential. Some of them might not have been that gifted, but the school could see a seed of potential in them, and they were determined to nature it- even when other schools wouldn't.
Scott then made the speech more personal, at first going into more detail about some of the children Waterloo Road had helped and their behaviours. Then he talked about something even closer to home- Kenzie. El knew who she was vaguely, from Mr Fitzgerald calling her to come up to the stage and a few snippets of gossip during science class.
It became less of a talk about the school and more a talk about the pupils. Scott called on some of the students to talk, but the only thing that filled the hall was silence. El started to feel uneasy- tension filled the room like a gas cloud. She hoped someone would speak soon.
In the end, it was Lisa who broke the silence. She took a step forward, a determined look on her face that said if no one else was brave enough to speak then she bloody well would. El respected her a little bit for that.
"Waterloo Road took us in," Lisa began. "When we had nothing and no one." Everyone in the room turned to look at her, but then Lenny started to talk.
"They've been amazing. We'd be on the streets or locked up if the school hadn't of done that." El saw Maggie smile at Lenny- it was the kind of gaze a loving parent bestowed upon their child. It made sense; all of the children living in the school house, were, to an extent, Maggie's children. They were her family.
"This place is my home." Rhiannon started. "Always had been and always will be." She gave a small chuckle on the end, before Darren started to talk beside her.
"The truth is, I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for this place. I didn't have… the best start. And then when my mum I thought that was it. But Waterloo Road was there to pick up the pieces and turn my life around. Now everything… everything's great."
In the middle of the hall, clutched in her mother's grasp, Kerry stood up. She disobeyed her mother's intentions and values- those of the Havalock persuasion- just so that she could defend her school. If that wasn't dedication, then El didn't know what dedication was. "It's not just about education," she mused. "It's about the people you meet, and the friends you make- for life."
El turned around to look around the room. The sight of Mr Fitzgerald caught her eye. He looked so different to hat he'd looked like only a few minutes ago. Gone was the worried and tired face, the tell- tale sign of the stress of the merger taking its hold. Now, Mr Fitzgerald looked at his students with nothing but pride. It was wonderful to see.
Then a familiar voice made El tuned back around. It was Dale, and El was shocked by what she saw. But it was a good shock. Dale looked brilliant. Whatever he'd been doing at that centre, it was working. He looked so much better- he looked fuller bodied, stronger, and, most importantly, happier. Dale obviously had a long journey ahead of him, but he looked to be well on his way. Looking at him, El burned with pride and her stomach buzzed with the same strange feeling she hadn't felt since Dale had left.
The visit was a surprise- Dale hadn't told her he was coming back! He obviously had a flair for the dramatic. As he walked into the room, he patted Lenny on the shoulder, surprising him, then turned towards the crowd. Lenny's face was a picture- it was like he was so surprised he couldn't process what he was seeing. El thought she probably look the same.
"I took a few wrong turns as well," Dale told the audience. "Did some pretty stupid things, but they didn't turn their back. They got me help and now things are much, much better."
Abdul started to talk, but El wasn't listening. She was watching Dale, still a bit in shock at his sudden arrival. Was he back for good now?
Dale seemed to be searching for someone in the crowd. He scanned through member of different schools and council members until he came to the person he was looking for. It was El. The two made eye contact and El's face broke into a massive grin.
Dale gave her a small wave, and El waved back.
Dale smiled.
Later, El and Dale were leaning against the refreshments table.
She had her bag between her legs and they were both clutching plastic cups full of lemonade. Dale was telling her somethings about the centre he'd been in, the people he'd met and the progress he'd made. El thought he was a bit uncomfortable- maybe he just didn't want to talk about it in public. El could understand that. It was like having the most intimate pictures of your life given to a stranger- there were some things in life only your inner circle should know. Was El part of that now?
"I talked through some things with my councillor, Phillip." He looked at her. "You know, about the cycling team and stuff."
El nodded. "What did he say?"
"He told me that there were bigger things in the world than a cycling team. That I shouldn't ruin myself over something that small- because I'm bigger than that. It took me a few days to get my head around it, though. I mean, cycling was my whole life- it was the biggest thing in my life. But I realised that I'm bigger than all of it. All of the spiff, dealers, cycling, eating disorder. That's the trick, Phillip said, knowing that you're bigger than your issues."
El grinned at Dale. "This Phillip sounds good. Can you give me his number?"
Dale laughed.
"Seriously, though, Dale, it's amazing what you're doing. I'm so proud of you, I really am. Keep it up and you'll be amazed at what you're doing." She told him.
Dale relaxed against the refreshment table. "Thanks El." Then he shot up, as if someone had electrocuted him with a high voltage of electricity. "I nearly forgot! How did the competition go?"
El sighed, stooping low and pretending to hand her head in shame. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask."
"That good, huh?"
"We lost," El said, rubbing her still- bruised cheek. "Well, I lost it. I gave the last answer to Kerry."
"Why?" Asked Dale, looking very confused.
El shrugged. How could she begin to explain it, without explaining about Kerry, about her parents, and about the pressure? There was an easy answer- she couldn't. So she didn't. "She needed a win more than me."
Dale seemed to sense that was as far as El would go, like him, she wasn't comfortable speaking about certain things. A silence fell upon them, as they watched their friends dance, lost in the joy of Waterloo Road being kept open. Dale felt it as well, but not as strongly as the others. He'd only been there for one term and for part of that he'd been at an eating disorder clinic.
He looked at El. She was looking at the others as well, clutching a not empty lemonade cup. Her brown hair was messy, she had a bruise forming on her cheek and frowning slightly (obviously deep in concentration) and she reminded him of the day he'd first met her. The only difference was the lack of a satchel on her shoulder.
The feeling was growing in his shoulder, stronger than before. He needed to ask the question that had been on his mind since he'd been in the car and had been comforted by El.
"Have you made up your mind, then?" Dale asked.
El turned around, a little bit startled for his sudden talking. "About what?"
"You know… about whether or not you wanna go out with me." It came out in a rush, and Dale could feel his cheeks from going red.
"If I recall, Mr Jackson, I told you that you had to ask me first." She was smiling now, teasing him.
"Okay, El." Dale took a deep breath, as if he was asking her to marry him, not just to go out with him. It was nerve- wracking either way- Dale had to go out with El. He just had to. She was funny, clever, and she didn't care about his faults. He could talk to her about his problems and she'd try to make them better, even if she didn't always succeed. He didn't mind her quirks- like the fact that she sometimes seemed to have no filter and said some pretty ride things. There weren't many girls like El, Dale had decided a while ago- they were special and you had to let them know that before they were gone.
"Will you go out with me?" He waited, his heart pounding.
"Not here!" El joked, grinning. "A school hall isn't very romantic, is it? If you want to ask me out, come round to Havalock tomorrow at four. School will have finished, and you can ask me out on the field. I'll be swept off my feet."
Dale was sort of disappointed that he hadn't gotten his answer, but El's response hadn't been a no- and his had been pretty funny.
"How is a school field better than a school hall?"
"Atmospheric."
Dale laughed. "You're unbelievable."
"Well then," El said, back to her happy, grinning self, "would you like to dance with an unbelievable girl?"
Dale shook his head, protesting, but allowed himself to be dragged into the crowd, where they danced (badly) with his friends and each other. Tomorrow, Dale thought. He'd have his answer tomorrow. That was something worth celebrating.
Tomorrow was bright with promise.
After finishing his first day at Waterloo Road without the merger hanging over their heads, Dale left Lenny, Lisa, Rhiannon and Darren to make their way back to the school house without him. Dale walked in the opposite direction- towards Havalock.
He trekked through short cuts of fields and muddy paths, not caring in the least if he got his uniform mucky; he had bigger things on his mind. It was weird, Dale mused. All of last night and today Dale had been excited to finally get an answer, excited for all the things that might be on the horizon. But now, the thought of asking El to go out with him filled his with dread. What if she said no?
Dale didn't know what was wrong with him- he'd asked out loads of girls before but he'd never felt the same nervousness as he felt now. Then again, he'd never asked a girl like El out before, never asked a girl who was helping him through his problems like El was. He'd never asked a girl out that had cared enough about him to bring a spoon and a yoghurt in just so that he could eat.
Dale trudged on, nerves mixing with the other, more familiar feeling in his stomach.
After a few more minutes, he saw the dark, foreboding shape of Havalock. Dale had known he'd been close to the school due to the fact that the houses had started to become posher and posher the closer he got. He'd even seen some wheelie bins that looked posher than some of the houses near Waterloo Road; something that Dale had thought was impossible.
The gate to Havalock was still open- some kids were probably doing a club or something. Dale walked onto the school grounds and had a good look for El (and the school, too, with all its glittering glass and modern metal) before spotting her near the edge of a school block. He could see that she was wrapped up warm in a yellow coat and a green woollen scarf, her head buried in it for warmth.
Dale waved and she spotted him, waved a gloved hand at him and walked towards him.
"Hey." El said when she was next to him.
"Hi," Dale replied, shivering a bit in the cold now that he was no longer moving and the mud and water on him from the short- cut started to feel freezing. "You been waiting long?"
"A bit, but I bet I don't feel nearly as cold as you! Don't you have a coat or some gloves or anything to ward against the cold?"
"Ward?" Dale laughed. "What are you, a medieval dictionary?"
El laughed. "I'm from Oxford, Dale. Our vocabulary is a bit different from Greenock."
"Medieval Oxford?"
El playfully shoved him. "No, you idiot," she joked. "Modern Oxford. Anyway, you're avoiding the question. Don't you have anything warm to wear?"
Dale looked down at himself. He wore a hoodie on top of his uniform, which was now soaking wet, right down to his jeans. His shoes were canvas trainers (Vans) - none of which was any good against the cold. Truth be told, Dale was freezing.
"I guess this is it."
EL softly said: "Idiot," before talking off her scarf and, standing on her tip-toes, wrapped it around his neck.
"El, you didn't have to-"
"Nonsense. I have a coat and a very effective pair of gloves. I don't need a scarf. Besides, green suits you." She shrugged. "You should wear it more often, instead of red."
"Why- doesn't it look good on me?"
"Not the best." El told him, and there it was, the rudeness that El didn't seem to know she was sprouting. Dale let it pass, as the kindness she'd shown him with the scarf outweighed the rudeness of her comments.
"So, are you god at fashion?"
"No, I'm terrible." El told him. "But, in a relationship with me, you get terrible fashion advice as well as the regular things."
Dale's heart skipped a beat as he went over what she'd said. "Is that a yes, then? You'll go out with me?"
El started at him. "I want to be rushed of my feet first, Dale, whilst I think about it."
Dale scratched his ear. "How do I do that, then?"
"Well, I'm very hungry, and I told my parents that I wouldn't be back in time for dinner."
"Oh, okay." Dale said, understanding. "Fish and chips then?" He said the last part in an imitation of a very posh Oxford accent, like El's.
El said her answer in a cockney accent. "Exquisite."
They both laughed and started to walk out of the school, Dale's borrowed green scarf clashing against his red jumper and shoes. Their footprints were clearly visible on the wet grass where they'd been standing, the trodden on grass lower than the rest. It was if Mother Nature had tried to preserve something just for them in a world that was constantly changing.
Neither El nor Dale saw this, though. They were too absorbed in each other's company.
Later, they walked into town. Before going anywhere to eat, they went into a few shops that they came across on the way. They looked at DVD's in a shop selling just that, where Dale found out that El wasn't a fan of horror films- not because she didn't like them, but because she managed to figure out the plot before the end and got bored. (They also scared her.) They looked at some of the newer films, including the Theory of Everything. El gushed that she'd loved the film and that it was one of her favourites. Dale hadn't seen it, but had heard that it was supposed to be good. El didn't elaborate on any of Hawking's theories- something that Dale was thankful for.
Dale liked most films; he'd watch anything, really. He'd always been too busy for films, biking most of the time. At the thought of biking, his stomach dropped, but he pushed it out of his mind. He did, though, particularly like films with good plots (who didn't?) like Inglorious Dastards. When he told El this, she said that she'd liked it- eve if it was a bit violent.
Then they went into a few clothes shops, ignoring the sports ones. Dale tried not to even look at them. They fooled around, trying on different outfits. There were now loads of pictures on Dale's phone of El in different outfits, from wearing funky cowboy hats, to wigs to overalls. Likewise, Dale had put on funny outfits and the pictures were now on El's phone.
It was fun. They continued to do it until the shop assistant that they'd been annoying with all their messing around finally kicked them out, running them both out of the shop. They ran up the length of the street, Dale slightly ahead of El, laughing the whole way.
"Do you see her face?" Dale asked, keeling over with laughter.
El burst out with fresh laughs. "She looked like she was going to eat us!"
After they recovered from their fit of giggles, they decided it was as good a time as any to eat and started to look for a place to do so.
They soon found somewhere. It was a shabby, small, fish and chip shop. It had a few dingy tables and chairs in front of the counter for them to sit, with bottles of cheap ketchup on them. It looked nasty even to Dale, so he'd thought at El, with her posh accent and nice clothes would through a fit when they got in there.
But she didn't. El took off her coat and put it on the greasy chair and put her gloves on the equally greasy table. She didn't seem to notice the dirt, simply mentioning for Dale to sit down. They picked up a menu which had ground in food on it and decided what to eat.
The restaurant shouldn't have bothered spending money on making the menus, Dale decided. There were only three choices: not enough to bother printing out. You could either have: Fish and Chips (duh, Dale thought), Fishcakes and chips and Sausage and chips.
"Dale, I don't know whether to have chips with my meal," El joked. "What do you think?"
"I think you don't have much choice," Dale replied. Then he sighed. "Sorry it's not exquisite."
"What do you mean?"
"Um, you said you wanted it to be 'exquisite'…" Dale trailed off.
"Dale, I was joking!" She flapped a glove at him. Besides," she spread her arms out. "Fish and chips are great."
"Can't argue with that."
A man that was on the large side (putting it mildly) came to take their orders.
The man had tattoos up and down his arms, complexly covering them. It was hard not to look.
"Orders?" He said, then coughed on his hand, wiping it on his grubby apron. Dale pretended that he hadn't noticed.
"Um, fish and chips, mate."
"Fish and Chips too, please."
"Drinks?" the man croaked.
"Coke." El replied.
"Same here." Dale told the man.
After they'd ordered, the man walked off, hopefully to prepare their food after washing his hands.
After a few minutes of chatting, they got their food, which, surprisingly, wasn't bad. It was nice, actually. It was real chip shop food- it was automatically great. After they'd eaten, they both paid equal parts of the bill and walked along the pier near the end of Greenock docks. He felt like he was in a romantic movie, with the sun setting behind him and a girl beside him.
Once they'd gotten to the end of the pier, they both sat down. Dale rolled up his socks to put his feet in the water, but El sat cross legged. Dale noticed their hands were resting next to each other.
He and El started out into the sunset for a while before he remembered that he could speak.
"That food was actually quite good. I'm surprised."
"Told you, you can't go wrong with fish and chips."
"Say that when you've got food poisoning."
El laughed. "Have you ever had that before?"
"Course," he told her.
"No, really bad. Have you ever had it really bad?"
Dale thought. "Once, when I was a kid. My aunt has undercooked so meat or something like that- I was throwing up all over the place. She didn't even help me- it was Simon that did that." Dale smiled at the memory. It has been soon after he'd moved into his aunt's, and Dave had made him feel loved, standing in for his aunt.
"He sounds like a good man. Is he still around?"
Dale shook his head. "Nah, my aunt drove him away."
El didn't say anything for a while. But when she did, she was quoted, serious. "I'm sorry, Dale."
"Not your fault." He sniffed. "Anyway, have you decided?"
There was a pause. "Yeah, I have."
Dale's stomach filled with butterflies. What if it was a no?
El, though, didn't give him time to wonder. She scratched at her nail, almost drawing blood. She seemed uncomfortable.
"It's a yes."
A yes! Dale was ecstatic. El was his girlfriend! His actual, real girlfriend! He let out a whoop, and El laughed. He could hardly believe it was really happening.
They lay basking in the sunset, side by side, enjoying the piece. Dale would have to be getting back soon, or else Maggie would worry, but for now, he was content. He was on cloud nine! His life seemed good. His eating disorder would soon be a thing of the past and he had friends and a girlfriend- a clever, wonderful girl who made Dale's heart flutter.
He wished things would stay like that forever.
Of course, life is rarely that simple.
Dale tried to take El's hand, but she pulled it away! "What are you doing?" She Asked.
She looked uncomfortable, and Dale wondered if she'd held someone's hand before. He took it gently, not letting her shoo it away. She didn't. Her skin was soft, like Cotton. Dale couldn't wipe the smile off his face- and whilst El looked uncomfortable for a while, after a time, a small soft smile spread across her face.
They lay back, their hair spread out behind their heads and their hands touching, staring up at the darkening sky.
Yay! They're finally together- it seems like it's been ages for that to happen. Anyways, what did you think? Pleas review if you liked it and give me some feedback. I hope you like it- a review would make my day!