Charm School Read online

  Angelica gasped. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes travelled up and down Bonny as if she were inspecting her properly for the first time: hair, face and clothing. She looked confused. ‘Why are you here anyway?’ she asked curiously after a moment. ‘You’ve never come before. And look at you! You obviously haven’t fallen to earth from Planet Fashion.’

  Bonny couldn’t help staring. If one of her old friends had said something like that, she would have thought that they were trying to be horrible. After all, it was the rudest thing that anyone had said to her in quite a while. But Miss Stardust somehow said it as if she were making a simple judgement of the facts, like ‘Your eyes are more blue than green’, or, ‘It’s really too wet for a picnic.’

  And it was the truth. No way round that. There’s nothing amazing about a pair of blue jeans and a faded shirt, and plain blue canvas sneakers. So Bonny was about to explain about her mother and the bookkeeping, and Dad stuck in the lay-by, and being new in town, when up sailed Miss Cute Candy, walking for all the world as if she were on the brink of dancing, pointing her pretty, sparkling shoes like a ballerina fairy, and waving her fingers elegantly in the air, as if the polish on her nails were still not dry.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she demanded of Angelica, staring at Bonny.

  ‘How should I know?’ Angelica responded petulantly. ‘I only just met her.’ She turned away, making it clear that the last thing she wanted was to be caught up in conversation with Miss Cute Candy. Why were they all so scratchy with one another, Bonny wondered. And then she realized. If the whole day was a sort of competition, and they were rivals, then each time they even looked at one another, all they would see would be one more person who might snatch away that delectable, desirable, glistering tiara. What tiny-minded pains they were clearly going to be, even for a few short hours.

  Now Miss Cute Candy was eyeing Bonny up and down.

  ‘Where’s all your stuff?’

  ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘What, none? No make-up? Nothing for your nails? No stuff to fix your hair?’

  Poor Bonny’s heart was sinking. ‘No. None of that.’

  ‘Well, what about music tapes for your routine, and instructions for the lighting?’

  ‘I haven’t got those, either.’

  Miss Cute Candy stared. ‘Well, surely you’ve brought a gown for the catwalk parade, and an outfit for your song-and-dance routine?’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t.’

  ‘I don’t see why you’re even here,’ said Miss Cute Candy. ‘What’s the point of showing up if all you’re going to be is One Big Nothing?’

  It was another really rude remark, though Bonny could tell that, just like Miss Stardust, she wasn’t trying to be nasty; she was just curious. But, even so, the idea of being One Big Nothing wasn’t nice. It was quite obvious that showing up at Charm School without a pile of the right stuff was just about as hopeless as turning up at Practical Parenting without a baby. But what was so special about dressing up? These girls were all swanning about as if just looking your prettiest gave you the right to act as if other people were just grease spots on the carpet. You’d have a whole lot more right to strut around, Bonny thought sourly, if you could actually do something clever.

  Do something clever … Her brain was ticking over fast now. She’d have a horrible day if she let anybody know that she was here for Charm School, that was for sure. They’d already spotted her for a total loser. Even the man who stepped in the lift had thought she must be wandering around on the wrong floor, unless she had come to help someone called Maura with—

  Bonny stared down at Miss Cute Candy’s beautiful twinkling dancing shoes, and her own plain old sneakers. And in one brilliant diamanté flash came inspiration.

  ‘I’m not here for the same reasons you are. I’m only here to give a hand with the sound and the lighting.’

  ‘Oh, you’re just one of Maura’s little helpers!’ Miss Cute Candy didn’t just manage to make this sound as if she found it a much more likely idea than Bonny on a catwalk. In her keenness to let Bonny know exactly what she wanted in the lighting line, she spoke as if Bonny were some little garden gnome brought to life, just for the day, to be useful. ‘Now look here, quick!’ Grabbing Bonny’s arm, she spun her round to face the mirror that ran the whole length of the wall. ‘See all those horrible lumps? Well, what I want you to do is fix up the lighting so—’

  ‘What horrible lumps?’ asked Bonny, mystified.

  ‘Those!’ Miss Cute Candy said, pointing.

  So Bonny looked again. All she could see in the mirror was herself, the flat grey wall behind, and Miss Cute Candy in her silky yellow dress and diamanté slippers, like an exotic spring flower rising, willowy and graceful, from a spangled pool.

  ‘I can’t see any lumps.’

  Miss Cute Candy patted at the folds of her skirt.

  ‘These,’ she said. ‘The lumps on these great ugly tree stumps.’

  ‘Are you talking about your legs?’

  ‘Legs!’ scoffed Miss Cute Candy. ‘They’re so huge, they’re more like pillars in a multi-storey car park!’

  Was she serious? One minute, she’d been lording it over Bonny as if she were Miss World and Bonny were some little goblin. And the next minute, she was panicking about the size of her legs.

  And really panicking. This was no joke. There was a tremble in her voice, Bonny could tell. And she was close to tears.

  Bonny suddenly felt sorry for her, just the same way she’d felt sorry for Angelica for worrying about winning.

  ‘Don’t be so silly,’ she tried to comfort her. ‘You look—’

  But Miss Cute Candy was too upset even to listen. ‘I look horrible. Horrible! I’m fat and hideous. My nails are a sight. My hands would look more delicate stuffed inside oven gloves. I’ve got the worst legs in the world. My stomach sticks out like a pig’s belly. My hair’s turned to straw. I’m ugly, ugly, ugly.’ She made a face at herself in the mirror. ‘Ugly!’ she jeered again. ‘I’m a horrible little gnome and my clothes look like jumble.’

  ‘Jumble?’ This was beyond ridiculous. ‘How can you say that your clothes look like jumble? That dress looks to me as if it comes from one of the smartest shops in town. And those sparkly slippers must have cost a fortune!’

  But Miss Cute Candy was still staring despairingly into the huge wide mirror.

  ‘It’s not the clothes. They’re all right, I suppose. It’s what they look like on me. They do look like jumble. I bulge out all over, I’m so fat.’ She started beating at her thighs with bunched-up fists. ‘Fat, fat, fat! That’s what I am. Fat!’

  Bonny was mystified. Was this one of the little tantrums the tea boy had mentioned when he called Miss Cute Candy a tiger? But she didn’t seem at all tigerish to Bonny. She seemed desperate. So maybe Bonny should rush down to Bookkeeping (Advanced) and fetch her mother, who could come up and say what she always said to Bonny when she was being silly about her hair, or her face, or the shape of her body.

  Or Bonny could just try saying it herself.

  ‘Don’t be so soft. You know you’re beautiful.’

  ‘I am not! I am not!’

  But how could Bonny go on and say the next bit? How could you say to someone whom you hardly knew, ‘Well, you are to me! And even if you weren’t, I wouldn’t care. Even if you were the worst-looking person in the world, with a face like a squashed tomato and a body like a car wreck, I’d still love you so much I could burst, and so will everyone who ever gets to know you.’?

  You can’t make a speech like that to someone you’ve only just met, even if you know it backwards. And Bonny did. She’d heard her mother saying it a thousand times. She’d heard it when she came home from nursery school crying because Robert said she had a face like his toy bath duck. She’d heard it after she won the painting prize, and Estelle was jealous and whispered to everyone that Bonny looked like a maggot. She heard it from her mother over and over the year she was in Mrs Hamilton’s class, because Mrs
Hamilton never bothered to stop people being mean to one another, and Flora and her gang picked on all the other girls, giggling in corners, and saying horrible things about their hair and their clothes and their faces. And, now she thought about it, she’d heard it only a few weeks ago, when she came home from her music lesson.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ her mum had said. ‘You look like a wet afternoon in Wolverhampton. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Bad lesson?’

  Bonny shook her head. ‘It was all right.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re not feeling well.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  She’d tried to get away to her bedroom, but Mum had caught her as she rushed past, and turned her round to look at her.

  ‘Well, something’s not all right,’ she’d said. ‘Or you wouldn’t be looking as if you’re about to spill teardrops on my freshly mopped floor.’

  And Bonny had burst into noisy sobs, and told her all about Mr Spicer poking his head out of the teaching room, and saying, ‘You’re a big beefy girl. Be an angel, and carry this cello along to the hall for me.’

  ‘Yes …?’

  Mum was still waiting, Bonny could tell.

  ‘That’s it!’ she wailed. ‘He called me a big beefy girl!’

  ‘He meant strong enough to carry a cello.’

  ‘Beefy, he said!’

  And Mum had had to swivel her round and point her at the mirror. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘See that stranger? Is she so big that people step off the pavement when she comes along?’

  ‘No,’ Bonny said sullenly.

  ‘Do people point at her? Or even stare?’

  ‘No,’ Bonny admitted unwillingly.

  ‘Listen,’ said Mum. And then she’d made the exact same speech she’d been making since Bonny was four, finishing up, as usual: ‘You may not be perfect, but you’re perfectly normal. And only dolls are perfect.’

  Well, Bonny could at least say that to Miss Cute Candy. ‘Only dolls are perfect.’

  Miss Cute Candy rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, really? Well, what about all those photos of the Curls and Purls Girls on the wall outside?’

  The Curls and Purls Girls! The very sound of it made Bonny want to stick her fingers down her throat. ‘Oh, please!’ she said. ‘Little Miss Airhead! Sweet Miss Empty-Brain! It’s out of the Ark, this idea of dressing up for the afternoon as Miss Baby Perfect, with a frozen dolly smile and concrete sprayed hair. Who cares which one of the Little Miss Dippy Circle—’

  ‘Little Miss Pretty Circle,’ Miss Cute Candy corrected her sharply. ‘Get it right.’

  ‘Why? Are you in it?’

  ‘I’m not just in it,’ Miss Cute Candy said. ‘I’m Cindy-Lou Brown, the secretary! And you needn’t be rude about it. It’s been going longer than any club you’re in, I’ll bet. My older sisters were both in it. And so was my mother. And so were both my aunties. One of them was even Miss Sparkling Sue.’

  ‘But that’s what I’m saying,’ said Bonny. ‘Who wants to worry about who wins some silly competition that was started way back when dinosaurs were roaming the earth, and Mrs Opalene was young? It doesn’t have anything to do with real people living real lives. I bet there’s no-one, even in this room, who could look perfect all day every day. Because, like I told you, only dolls are perfect.’

  ‘Well, that’s just where you’re wrong!’ snapped Cindy-Lou. Irritation fought with envy, and won. ‘Because Amethyst’s perfect. And she’s not just good at winning practically every Little Miss Pretty Circle competition. She’s also one of Mrs Opalene’s pets in Charm School as well.’

  ‘Which one is Amethyst?’ Bonny asked curiously.

  Cindy-Lou pointed to where a girl with a shimmering waterfall of hair was putting chairs in a circle round a sign that said, in bright gold lettering:

  MRS OPALENE’S

  HANDY HELPING HINTS

  ‘That’s her. She’s getting ready for the Beauty and Grooming tips.’

  ‘Why would she bother with those,’ Bonny tried to catch Cindy-Lou out, ‘if she’s already perfect?’

  ‘You’ve got to keep up,’ Cindy-Lou told Bonny sternly. ‘Fashions and styles keep changing so people who aren’t paying attention get left behind. That’s why some of the girls from our Little Miss Pretty Circle come here to Mrs Opalene’s Charm School every Saturday, and not just for her big Curls and Purls Competition. Mrs Opalene’s really good at giving people all those special little tips that make the world of difference.’

  The world of difference! Bonny stared. But just at that moment, as if to show how very keen she was not to miss any of these quite amazing tips, Cindy-Lou abandoned Bonny and rushed off to take her place in Amethyst’s perfect circle of chairs even before Mrs Opalene had clapped her hands for attention.

  ‘Girlies! Girlies, it’s Beauty Tip time! Now I’m starting today with a small variation on that old idea of bleaching your elbows by sticking them in two halves of squeezed lemon.’

  Bleaching your elbows? Bonny crept closer, fascinated.

  Mrs Opalene waved a stern finger round the circle of girls who had hurried to their seats and pulled out their notebooks and pens. ‘And I hope I don’t have to remind anyone here that, contrary to what we read in some cheap and nasty little magazines, we don’t use up our leftover lemon juice in the last clear rinse of our hair wash. And why not, Amethyst?’

  Amethyst flicked her hair shyly. ‘Because it strips it of the natural oils?’

  ‘That’s right, dear.’

  Amethyst flicked her hair again, pleased.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Opalene, twinkling with enthusiasm. ‘Some very clever person has worked out that, while you’re sitting with your elbows in your lemon halves, you could be doing something inordinately useful at the same time.’

  She gazed around at them. ‘Can anybody guess what that might be?’

  It seemed an easy enough question. ‘Reading a good book?’ suggested Bonny.

  Mrs Opalene waved a beringed hand. ‘Do try not to be silly, dear. This is seriou—’ She broke off, inspecting Bonny properly for the first time. ‘You look a little …’ She paused, puzzled, as she eyed this newcomer to her class up and down from plain old top to plain old toe. ‘Dear, you don’t seem quite …’Again, she stopped, and peered even more closely. ‘Are you supposed to be here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bonny said, fingering the ticket in her pocket. She was about to explain when Cindy-Lou called out from her side of the circle.

  ‘She’s here to help Maura with the sound and the lighting.’

  At once, she was the most popular person in the universe and everyone was calling out.

  ‘Oh, please! May I just tell you something?’

  ‘I have to explain to you exactly what I need.’

  ‘Listen, there’s a bit in my music where—’

  ‘When Maura gets to the lighting for my bit—’

  ‘You see, I have this problem with—’

  ‘Girls! Girls!’ Mrs Opalene clapped to hush them. ‘Everyone will get their turn to visit the back room.’ She turned back to Bonny. ‘Well, dear,’ she said. ‘You do look awfully young to be dealing with expensive equipment. But I suppose if Maura thinks it’s all right—’ She gazed around. ‘Has anyone seen Maura this morning?’

  Most of the faces looked blank, though one framed by a mass of midnight blue ribbons began to crease, as if some worrying, half-remembered message was drifting to mind.

  ‘Don’t screw your face up, dear,’ Mrs Opalene reproved her. ‘It will only encourage early wrinkling.’ And then, as if this reminded her of all she had to get through that morning, she impatiently waved Bonny out of the circle. ‘All right, dear. Off you go.’

  And Bonny, equally reminded of all she wanted to miss, sprang to her feet, delighted at this chance to flee from all their drippy lectures about bleached elbows and natural hair oils. The tea boy was right. They were ridiculous, perched in a circle on their little chairs, like fairies waiting for
some wonderland party.

  But Miss Stardust had jumped to her feet as well.

  ‘Oh, please let me go with her,’ she begged Mrs Opalene. ‘Just so I can explain about my flashing lights.’

  ‘Not yet, dear, because I’m sure Miss—’

  She stopped and peered at Bonny, waiting for a name.

  ‘“Sparky”,’ bossy Cristalle insisted, nodding her puffy hair. ‘You always call electricians “Sparky”. It’s a theatre rule.’

  ‘Miss Sparky,’ reproved Mrs Opalene. ‘I’m sure we don’t ever want to forget our manners.’ She turned back to Bonny, still peering, and started rooting in her bag. Bonny was sure that she was searching for her spectacles, and when she put them on she’d see at once that, even for somebody’s helper, Bonny was terribly young – no older than everyone round her.

  But then Miss Stardust started up again. ‘About my flashing lights—’

  ‘No!’ said Mrs Opalene. ‘Right now we’re busy with our Handy Helping Hints. And since no-one’s seen Maura yet, Miss Sparky had better start getting everything set up and ready for our rehearsals for the Curls and Purls Show.’

  Bonny was horrified. What she’d been hoping to do was sneak away to find her mother. Vanish and never come back. Mum might have given her that stern look over her spectacles, and ordered her back with a lecture on not wasting money – warmly applauded, probably, Bonny thought bitterly, by all the other people in Bookkeeping (Advanced). But even then she could have spent the day lurking in some cupboard, out of sight.

  But now they were expecting her to walk the other way – to the door at the back of the room. And then start up lights and music by herself! She was no expert in anything like that. She knew how to use her own music equipment, of course. And she was as good as anyone else at flicking on a light switch. But running the sound and lighting for the rehearsals for a Curls and Purls Show – even making things flash for Miss Stardust – well, that was different.

  Better confess that she was really here, like all the rest, to listen to the Handy Hints.