SPOW
'So what did you sat to her?' Tawni laughed after I'd repeated Zora's question. We were waiting for Mr Whitehead to arrive for our lesson, first thing. She had the usual turrets sticking out of her head and I was trying to unknot the drawstrings of my bag without much success. 'Said there were some things even I didn't know yet and best to ask mum.'
'Oh, you little liar!' Tawni teased. 'Eh, have you brought your money for the French trip?'
'Er . . . no. I forgot,' the little liar lied.
'I've got to save up half my own spend!' she said indignantly. 'And I have to but mum some Chanel perfume on the ferry. Talk about mean. She's pushing it, that woman.'
Another girl from our set, Miley, joined in. 'Yeah, I know. I've got to use a hundred pounds of my savings if I want to go.'
A light bulb switched on in my head. Savings! I had savings. Somewhere, in a passbook, in The Important Papers/Where's the blinking passports? Drawer in mum and dad's bedroom, I had savings. Money Granddad Alan had left me when he died. Money I wasn't supposed to touch, until I was eighteen and ready for college. But this was educational, wasn't it? And I'd still have loads left over.
I felt elated. Even the sight of Chad Dylan Cooper, swaggering in with Nico, joining top set under very false pretences until the end of term, couldn't burst my bubble. Not even when he slapped a cheque for the full whack in Mr Whitehead's hand, staring at me all the time as if to say 'Take that, you stuck- up tart'.
'Any more deposits for the trip before I begin the lesson?' Mr Whitehead asked.
My hand shoot up in the air. 'I'll bring mine by Friday,' I said loudly, mentally taking into account mum going into town, withdrawing the cash, bringing it home etc.
Mr Whitehead smiled, marking my name down on his list. 'At the latest, Sonny,' he warned. 'Any more? What about you, Nico? Aren't you joining your friend Chad?'
'Nah! Can't afford it- we're skint,' he said. There was a ripple of laugher round the room; not at him, but with him, for his openness. If I had to choose which one I'd rather be stuck in a lift with, Chad or Nico, it would be Nico. At least he had a brain. I remembered in Year Seven, when the class actually cared if we got merit marks or not, being neck and neck with him to be the first to achieve 'gold'. He beat me to it by delivering this tremendous speech in English about human rights and the teacher awarded him a record five merits in one hit. He had all the markings of a major boff-head but seemed to fade out in Year Eight and by Year Nine the conscientious Nico Harris had been replaced by the drongo Nico Harris on behind me. Punishment for hanging out with Cooper, I guessed.