The Midnight Pianist. Julia Osborne

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      Three minutes to bell time.

      Several girls crowded into the toilet block. Last cigarettes were puffed, stubbed and flushed. Voices echoed:

      – Who took my comb?

      – Move over ... give us some room!

      – The bell’s gunna go ...

      – Hurry up!

      Sandra waited until the door banging water rushing noises ceased, tidying her long fair hair in slow motion. As the last girl hurried out, she leaned across the basin to the mirror, wet one finger and smoothly arched her eyebrows. She looked critically at her reflection, then breathed Hah on the cold glass surface. Her finger traced his name in looping letters ~ Nick ~ then she palmed it away and left the room to its silence.

      The weatherboard school buildings bordered a quadrangle edged with shelter-sheds and a struggling garden where bits of rubbish, crumpled sweet bags and discarded drink bottles hid beneath fallen leaves and marigolds.

      Sandra soft-shoed along the path as the bell finished ringing. Better hurry, she thought, swinging her case in time with her black lace-ups. Nick Nick Nicholas Nick. There was Emilia, always late, always arriving at exactly nine o’clock, looking rather like she’d dressed in a hurry.

      ‘Hey, Em, wait up.’

      She caught up with her best friend and they joined the Second Year girls and boys going into English with Miss Pearce. Sandra and Emilia were last to be seated, finding desks closer to the front than they liked. Too much under the teacher’s eye. But Sandra didn’t mind English, and didn’t have to work very hard to be good at it. She often wove her fantasies into the lessons, especially free topic compositions. If she finished ahead of the others, she pretended to keep working as she doodled endless arabesques and treble clefs – filigrees of hearts and flowers that disguised her initials intertwined with Nick’s: SA~NM. It was her secret.

      Teachers wrote on their reports: A conscientious, quiet student. Good Work. But sometimes they wrote: Concentration in class would achieve higher results. Or worse: Not achieving her potential. That dreadful word everyone used! Achieving, underachieving, like the story of the terrible bed that fitted all who lay on it. Those who were too tall had their feet cut off; those who were too short were stretched on the rack.

      But Maths was another story. You couldn’t dream in Maths! Last week, for instance ...

      ‘Sandra Abbott!’ The Maths teacher had suddenly pinned her down with his beady stare. He wasn’t called ‘Crow’ for nothing. ‘What’s the cubed root of eight?’

      ‘Two?’ Sandra blurted, hiding her drawing under the desk and hoping she’d heard his question correctly.

      ‘Right. Pay more attention, girl, you were lucky this time.’

      Miss Pearce rustled her papers on the desk. Young and pretty, she was a target for smart remarks from some of the boys so that she tried to keep a stern expression. A hard worker, she expected the same from her students.

      ‘This СКАЧАТЬ