Polly. Freya North

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СКАЧАТЬ hall, Polly couldn’t wait to describe it all to Megan. Suddenly, she had an overwhelming surge of sympathy for The Jen Carter Person as she recalled the BGS gym; its frayed ropes, plastic-covered mats that clung cruelly to sweaty legs, and the floor with the varnish chipped into tessellations by squadrons of nimble-fingered games-wary girls. And the ceiling that served to amplify their squawks and protestations. She also realized with some guilt that she had quite a lot to recount to Megan, having been most uncharacteristically lax in her correspondence.

      ‘Righty ho!’ called Polly, positioning her class and some bystanders who wanted to join in, into some semblance of two netball teams. ‘Blast, no bibs!’ Hastily, she scribbled capital letters on to paper and safety-pinned them to the students’ shirts.

      ‘What’s “ga”?’ asked blond-hair-Ben suspiciously.

      ‘Goal Attack,’ Polly explained, pinning a large ‘C’ to Laurel and deciding that Dick would be safest as ‘GD’. (‘Cool,’ he said, to her relief.)

      The game lasted twelve and a half minutes before the players went on strike.

      ‘What?’ Heidi exclaimed, squinting at Miss Fenton to make double sure it was English she was speaking, ‘you can’t run? With the ball? You gotta stop and pass it on?’

      Whistles of incredulity and snorts of disbelief ricochetted around the hall.

      ‘Hey Miss Fenton,’ Lauren called to save the day, ‘how about we teach you basketball?’

      ‘It’ll be the best twelve and a half minutes of your life,’ AJ assured her, flipping his cap round back to front.

      ‘Yes, siree,’ confirmed Forrest.

      ‘Game on!’ TC chanted and clapped.

      After quarter of an hour, Polly had to admit that basketball was a ‘far superior’ game to netball (‘Does that mean she likes it?’ asked Lauren quietly. ‘I guess so,’ said Ed). ‘However,’ she continued, ‘my leg is killing me – so I shall bow out gracefully and watch from the sidelines.’

      ‘I sure am sorry ‘bout that,’ said AJ, who had collided with her at high speed and, being big for his age, had come off scot-free. Polly brushed away his apology while he shook his head gravely.

      ‘Stiff upper lip and all that!’ she explained, wondering how to make hers rigid because the pain from her leg was causing it to quiver.

      ‘Go see Mr Jonson,’ Heidi suggested. ‘That’s what he’s, like, here for – his office is off of the weights room through there.’

       You can’t be Mr Jonson, the athletic trainer. You’re a film star, surely?

      ‘Mr Jonson?’

      ‘Yes?’

      You are Mr Jonson? Wait till I tell Meg!

      ‘Um, I’m Polly Fenton.’

      ‘Hey,’ Mr Jonson smiled, beach-blond and brawny, and looking fantastic in his jogging pants and cosy sweatshirt, ‘I’m Chip.’

      ‘Chip?’ Polly repeated, wondering, but only as an aside, if he had actually been christened that way, ‘I’ve never met anyone called Chip. I’m Polly.’

      ‘Ditto Polly,’ Chip laughed, walking towards her and shaking her hand. ‘Aren’t you the chick who puts the kettle on?’

      Polly put her hands on her hips and smiled wryly.

      ‘Ah yes,’ she countered slowly, ‘I remember you, you’re Fish-and!’

      Chip held his hands up in surrender and nodded.

       She is cute. I had no idea. It’s a whole month into term and I had no idea.

      ‘Pardon?’ said Polly.

      ‘I was thinking, you must have been here a month and I had no idea,’ he shrugged.

      ‘’Bout what?’ Polly asked.

      ‘’Bout who’s standing in for Jen Carter,’ Chip explained. ‘I guess I just don’t have much cause to go to the main buildings, being the Athletic Trainer. Hell, Stuyvesant House could burn down and I’d probably not know. I’m kinda out of the way here.’

      ‘What does an athletic trainer do exactly?’ Polly asked, perusing the walls of Chip’s office. ‘We don’t have such things in our school, in England full stop, I don’t think,’ she continued, admiring the array of photos depicting him excelling in a variety of sports. A cabinet full of medals and trophies too. What a hero!

      ‘Well,’ said Chip, ‘I’m on call if there’s a sports-related injury. Or if a kid’s training, I’ll devise a programme. If they have a bad back, or whatever, I see to it. I administer physio, rehab, hydrotherapy – you know?’

      ‘Really!’ Polly gasped in awe, pitying poor Miss Henry who looked like a man but preferred women and was head of P.E. at BGS. ‘Hydrotherapy?’

      ‘Sure,’ shrugged Chip. ‘We have a couple of whirlpools,’ he explained, as if they should be no more eye-opening than a couple of table-tennis tables. ‘So what can I do for you? Or did you just come by to say hi?’

      ‘Hi, hullo. Actually, it’s my leg,’ Polly stressed. ‘Young AJ and I collided.’

      ‘Not on some fine detail of Shakespeare, surely – I know the kid’s opinionated but hey!’

      ‘No no!’ Polly laughed, warming to Chip’s wit and smile. ‘Basketball. And anyway, it’s Hardy at the mo’.’

      ‘Kiss me?’ asked Chip, turning his head and looking at Polly through slanted eyes.

      ‘Pardonwhat?’ Polly reacted whilst struggling against being swallowed whole by his gaze.

      ‘Kiss me Hardy?’ Chip illumined, the picture of innocence.

       Look at that picture of him finishing the Boston Marathon. How can anyone look that composed and, um, pleasing, after twenty-six miles?

      ‘And 385 yards,’ said Chip, reading her mind.

      ‘Thomas,’ she stressed, leaping back on to safer ground, ‘Hardy. Thomas Hardy.’

      ‘I gathered,’ Chip said, motioning Polly to a chair while he drew another up close.

      ‘Far from the Madding Crowd,’ Polly continued vaguely, wondering if Chip’s tan was genuine.

      ‘Yup,’ said Chip, ‘as I said, I’m pretty cut off out here. Now, let’s take a look at this leg. You want to take your pants down?’

       What!

       No!

       Yes?

      ‘Your trousers?’ he spelt out with a ‘w’ СКАЧАТЬ