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

Chapter Four


  "Bye!" we yelled, as we went out of the door.
  "See you later!" Mum called, from somewhere in the house.
   The air was freezing, and we were glad of our fitted wool coats and our scarves. We skidded off down the snowy path in our platform boots.
  "Meet you at Tab's in five minutes." Mewla said, as we stepped out of the gate. I nodded, then crossed over to Tab's house while Mewla went up the cul-de-sac to call for Cathy.
   I made it up the path to Tab's house, and stood in the porch, shivering. I rang the bell with a shaking paw. Tom opened the door. He was chewing a piece of toast.
  "Hi Mel!" he opened the door wider and I stepped in.
  "Don't talk with your mouth full." I laughed. Tom punched me jokingly and went off to the kitchen.
  "Is that you, Mel?" Tab called me from upstairs.
  "Yeah!" I called, putting my bag and folder down on the carpet.
  "Come on up then!" Tab yelled back.
   I went up the stairs, across the landing, and into Tab's bedroom, where she was sitting at her dressing table, putting in her earrings.
  "Hi." I said.
  "Hiya." Tab grinned. Her hair lay in a shiny sheet down her back, and her eyes were made up beautifully, as usual.
  "Ready then?" I said, when Tab got up and pulled her fitted wool coat out of her wardrobe.
  "Yeah, I guess so." Tab said, wrapping her scarf round her neck and picking up her bag and folder.
  "Mewla said she'd meet us here in about five minutes." I said. "We can wait outside if you like."
   We went down the stairs, and I picked up my bag and folder.
  "Bye Mum!" Tab called.
  "See ya'!" Tab's Mum called back.
  "Has your Dad gone to work already?" I asked, as we stepped out into the snow.
  "Yeah, he went early. Had a conference somewhere." Tab said.
  We met up with Mewla and Cathy, and walked slowly along, giggling and talking.
   We got to school at twenty past eight, and we hurried in through the entrance. We trudged across the snowy yard, and in through the big heavy doors. The school felt as warm as toast, and we pulled our scarves from our faces, brushed the snow off our coats, and set off along the corridor to our tutor room.
   Because we were quite early, (the bell for register goes at ten to nine) we were the first ones there. We dumped our bags on our cosy corner desk (the four of us share a desk by the heater) and then took off our jackets.
  "Let's see your work." I said to Cathy. She opened her folder and took out two neatly-written A4 pages. I looked at them.
  "Cool." I handed it back to her. She tucked it back into her folder, then went to lean on the heater with Tab, rubbing her paws together.
   At half past eight, Tibbicca Falkmew and Purla Lane came stalking in, their pretty faces red from the cold.
  "Morning!" Tibbicca dumped her mini Kangol bag down on her desk and took off her wool coat. "Brrrrr! It's freezing out there!"
  "Shove up, Mewl!" Purla came skipping over in her chunky platform shoes and squeezed past Tab and I to get to a spare bit of heater.
  "Hi, you lot!" Tibbick and Mewbellan Johnson came in soon after, and Purbelle and Mewfal Kendall, and Mewlarka Tomlinson followed them.
  "Why is there only one heater in here?" Mewlarka said, rubbing her gloved paws together. "If they can't provide sufficient heat, school should be closed!"
  "There's a radiator over there." Tibbicca said, re-tying her scarf and tucking the ends into her woolly sweater. "Whether it's on or not I don't know."
  "Very funny." Mewlarka said. "Well, Miss Mewola can tell me to take off my gloves if she likes, but I won't!"
   Mewlarka has always been one for complaining and being difficult. Up till we went on the North Sea camp trip, she never really had a close friend, and she always felt poor and inferior, but when she stole lots of our friends' jewellery to make herself feel good, we all got really cross with her and we wouldn't speak to her, so when she apologised, we saw that she was decent after all, and she and Purbelle Kendall have been best friends ever since.
   By just after twenty to nine, the whole class had arrived. Miss Mewola came hurrying in at quarter to nine. Her face was red, and her coat, which she still had on, was covered in snow.
   The chattering grew quieter, and as soon as silence enveloped the room, she called the register. When she had finished, we pulled on our coats, picked up our bags, and set off to our first lesson, which was Drama. I was quite looking forward to it because we have all been working on plays in small groups.
   That morning, we were all continuing acting out our plays.  Mewla, Tab, Cathy and I were working together as usual, and our play was really good, set in and around a trendy nightclub in town.
   We all crowded into the Drama room and put our bags down behind the double doors, then sat down in the circle of chairs around the room. Miss Philmew, our trendy young Drama teacher, hurried in soon after we all arrived, and closed the door.
  "Morning class!" she said. "All ready to carry on acting out your plays?"
  "Yeah!" we all chorused.
   Miss Philmew looked pleased.
  "Right then." she smiled. "Now - who did I say could go first this morning? Mel - it was your group, wasn't it?"
  "Yes." I got up. We pushed our chairs away to the corner of the room, and the rest of the class got up and took their chairs over to the other side of the Drama room, to give us all the space we needed. Mewla and Tab quickly began to set up the few props we had, while Cathy and I unfolded our wads of speeches and checked through them to make sure we knew our lines.
   Tab stood up the board which we had made, with the nightclub sign on it, then took her place. We had the large Drama room table at the back of the room, with a few glasses and bottles on it, as it was the 'bar', a few chairs in a circle around an area which was the 'dancefloor', and various other props, which made it look very real.
   We had also asked Miss Philmew to operate the lights for us, as our Drama room is equipped with flashing coloured lights.
   Cathy nodded to Miss Philmew, who switched off the normal lights and switched on the flashing ones. There were a few giggles and gasps from our audience, but we just laughed and carried on.
   The play was going really well, and the rest of the class was enjoying it, when there came a knock at the Drama room door.
  "Stop a minute, girls." Miss Philmew switched off the flashing lights and switched on the normal ones. "Mewlarka, see who that is."
   Mewlarka got up and went to the door. She opened it, and outside stood a small Year 8, with two plaited pigtails and big wide eyes. She looked around nervously and smiled shyly at Miss Philmew.
  "Hello Alice." Miss Philmew said. "What can I do for you?"
  "Are Melanie Winters............." Alice stopped and looked at sticky yellow Post-It note that she had in her paw. "...........Tabitha Reynolds, Catherine Mewphon and Mewla Winters here?" she said quietly. We exchanged glances.
  "Yes." Miss Philmew said. "Why, Alice?"
  "Mrs Fisher wants to see them about some work." Alice said. "I...... I've got to go - we're in the library this morning." and she hurried out, closing the door behind herself.
  "You'd better go now." Miss Philmew said to us. "You can carry on when you get back."
  "Okay." we got up slowly and went over to the door.
  "Done some good work, have you?" Miss Philmew smiled, as we opened the door again.
  "I hope so." I said, as we went outside and closed the door with a soft click.
   We went in through the door and along to the Humanitites office, shivering with the cold.
   Mrs Fisher looked up as we walked in.
  "Ah." she said. "I believe you have some work for me."
   "Yes." Cathy stepped forward and handed over her work, and we did the same.
  "Good, Thank you." Mrs Fisher said. "Let's not have any more silly behavious, eh girls? You're four of my best students and I hate telling you off but yesterday you did ask for it a bit. Now, I'll read these and mark them, and you can have them back next lesson. Go on, back to class."

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