Year 10 At Tibcot - A Mel, Tab, Mewla & Cathy story

Chapter Two


   Tibbicca left, and we started to pack up. We quickly put all our papers away into our plastic wallets, (which we keep in our binders, which we had left in class) shut our pencil tins and put the books away, then scarpered out of the library. It had started to pour down with rain, and a huge clap of thunder echoed round.
   We hurried out of the library, and across to the Humanities block.
  "Oh, my hair!" Cathy yelled, as we raced down the wet steps. We all raced across to the Humanities block door, but Cathy slipped on the wet slabs and fell down on her bottom with a bump.
   Mewla stifled a giggle, and Tab and I bent down to pick up Cathy's pencil tin and papers, while Mewla helped her best friend up.
  "Oh, blow!" Cathy said, rubbing at the huge wet patch all over the back of her trousers. "I'll have to go into the toilets and dry it under the hand dryer."
   We hurried in through the door and into the toilets. We dumped our things on the floor, and Cathy turned her back to the hand dryer, and started it up. The heat of it soon began to dry her trousers, while the rest of us re-touched our make-up as we waited.
   When we were all sorted and dry, we picked up our things and left the toilets, looking as radiant as we had done before we had got wet. We walked down the corridor and into the large area of the Humanities block where all the geography classrooms were. The classrooms were all situated round a large square carpeted area, where the Year 8's ate their packed lunches.
   We went into the classroom, and Mrs Fisher looked sharply at us as we hurried across to our seats.
  "You're late." she said."I sent for you lot ages ago."
  "Cathy fell down outside, Miss, and we've been in the toilets drying her trousers." Tab explained truthfully.
  "It didn't take four of you to dry her trousers." Mrs Fisher said. "Go and sit down. I'm displeased with all of you."
   We sat down and banged our pencil tins down on the desks. Tab and I were sharing a desk, and Cathy and Mewla were sharing one in front of us.
   Mrs Fisher started to talk about the rainforests; information we could possibly use in our projects, she said, and the whole class sat back.
  "Cor - I'm so thirsty." Tab whispered to me.
  "Have a sip of your drink then." I said.
  "But it's a carton." Tab whispered back. "It'll make a row when I slurp it."
  "I'll cough while you have a sip." I said. "Go on."
   Tab slid off her seat under the table and took her carton of juice out of her bag. She pierced the hole with the straw, then nudged my knee to let me know she was going to drink. I started to cough loudly, and stopped when I thought that Tab had had a long enough sip.
   But when I stopped coughing, there was an almighty slurping noise from under our desk! Tab hadn't finished! How I stopped myself from bursting into giggles, I'll never know. Tab looked up at me from under the table and gave me a horrified look. Cathy and Mewla had their paws clapped over their mouths in an attempt to try and stop laughing, and the rest of the class were looking at each other and smirking.
  "What was that?" Mrs Fisher turned round from writing on the board. "Tabitha - what are you doing under the desk?"
  "Sorry Miss." Tab put her carton away and got up. "I was just having a drink."
  "How many times have I got to tell you lot not to eat or drink in my classroom?" Mrs Fisher said. "MEL! Stop looking in your mirror! And why have you packed your things away already?"
   I clicked my compact mirror shut and put it away quickly.
  "You four today have been awful today!" Mrs Fisher said. "You didn't come back on time, you have been drinking and messing about with your make-up in my lesson, and you were playing about outside. You will report to me at lunchtime in the Humanities office for a lunchtime detention. I will not have this behaviour in my classes! Now - I have written some homework on the board. Copy it down, then you may go to your next lesson. I'll see you four at lunch!" and she stormed out of the room.
  "Old bat." Cathy said.
  We wrote down the homework, then put our books and folders away, pulled on our jackets and left for Music, giggling and chatting.
  All through Music I can't exactly say I was concentrating. Mr Harmew, our Music teacher, was getting us to write music on manuscript; we were supposed to be composing simple tunes that we could possibly use in some group performances that we were meant to be doing in a few weeks' time. I think we all had our minds on the detention, and Tab was so exasperated with her composition that she screwed it all up into a big ball and ended up throwing it away in the bin, then getting told off by Mr Harmew, and getting a lecture on "Why we never throw away our work, no matter how bad it is". As soon as he had finished, Tab, Mewla, Cathy and I set off to our detention with Mrs Fisher.

***

  "Is she there?" I said, as Tab peeped round the door of the Humanities office.
  "I can't see." Tab peeped round a bit more and Mewla shoved her so that she went stumbling into the office. I hit Mewla and we giggled. Tab came out of the office quicker than she went in.
  "Idiot!" she said, and shoved Mewla backwards into Cathy, who fell against a wall display and knocked a poster down. We all giggled.
  "She's not there." Tab said. "It's unlike her to be late, isn't it."
  "Hmm, maybe she's forgotten us." Cathy grinned. "We can hope, I suppose."
  We stood there for five minutes.
  "This is silly." Tab said. "Lunch is passing by, we won't have time to eat and stuff if we stay here much longer."
  "Shall we go?" Mewla said. "I mean, we've waited, and there's no sign of her."
  We looked at each other.
  "Come on." Cathy said. "Let's go. I'm making an executive decision."
  So we left. We went outside to the picnic tables. In cold weather, no-one really likes to brave the cold to eat on the tables, so we had the entire place to ourselves. There were six picnic tables altogether, in the little area of grass, with a small wooden fence running round it and flowers in the beds at the back. Tab and I sat down first, and Mewla and Cathy started to brush all the fallen berries off their part of the seat. That's the only trouble with having trees overhanging the tables - all the berries and leaves fall off onto the seats.
   I don't think I have ever enjoyed a lunch like I enjoyed that one. Mum had packed me large white rolls with a delicious chicken spread plastered on them, and then I had two packets of crisps, an apple, a yoghurt, two chocolate biscuits, and a Thermos flask of cocoa, as it is winter. I also had some strawberry sweets which I had bought on the way to school from the papershop.
  "I don't think I have ever eaten as much!" Tab sat back, after drinking the last of her second carton of Ribena. "I think Mum must have put Tom's lunch in with mine and given the whole box to me - there was a TON of food!"
  After lunch, we quickly went into the toilets to re-touch our make-up, then just walked round the school field watching the boys playing football until the bell went. We then walked slowly back to class and sat down, waiting for Miss Mewola to come and call the register, so we could go off to French, which was our last lesson. It's always a nightmare having French last because we are all tired and not in the mood to concentrate on a foreign language.
   Miss Mewola came in at two minutes past two and opened the register. She peeled a note written on a sticky yellow Post-It note off the register and came over to me. She handed it to me. I read it. It said -
  "Melanie Winters, Tabitha Reynolds, Catherine Mewphon and Mewla Winters - missed Geography detention - come to Humanities office at quarter past two to collect extra coursework and essay as punishment"
  "I'm not sure what it's about, but I'm sure you lot know." Miss Mewola said. "You'd better go along now. It sounds grim."
   Tab and I exchanged glances as we all walked along to the Humanities office. I couldn't believe that we had all been so stupid as to go to lunch without waiting for Mrs Fisher. True, she hadn't been there at the time, but what harm would it have done to wait for a bit longer?
   We all stood nervously outside the office. In about five minutes, Mrs Fisher looked out of the door and beckoned us in. We trooped in in single file.
  "Now." she said. "As you know, I was late for your detention at lunch, but that was no excuse to just walk off and forget about it. You will each get some extra homework. Tabitha, you were drinking, and therefore, tonight you will do me an essay on undersea life in the Mindanao Trench in the Phillipines, and Melanie, you packed up without permission and were messing about with your make-up, so you will do me an essay on the Temples Of Angkor in the Cambodian jungle.  Before that, I am sure you were all acting the fool, because one of you fell over, causing you all to be late for class. Then, Catherine, you were rude to me when I went out of the classroom, so you will do...."
   Cathy's mouth dropped open. "Me? Rude?" she said. "I..."
  "Yes. You thought I didn't hear you call that nasty name after me, didn't you Catherine?" Mrs Fisher said. "As I was saying before you rudely interrupted me - you will do me an essay on the city of Petra in Jordan. nd as for you, Mewla, you have just been a pain. You've been cheeky today and didn't come back on time when I sent for you. You will do me an essay on the coniferous forests of the Baltic lands. You will do all this tonight and return it to me at morning registration tomorrow, and if you do not, you will get an afterschool detention and a letter home to your parents. I'll just get you some paper..."

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