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

Chapter Seven


   It ended up with Mrs Mewlham seeing that we were all having her on, and I can tell you now that she was not pleased. We were very lucky that she did not keep us in at lunch - she just gave us some extra Chemistry work for homework. She had had to repeat it five times, as we were all in such hysterics that we didn't hear a word she was saying. After Chemistry we had History, and our teacher was away, so we just copied notes from books, and after that, when the bell went for lunch, we pushed or things into our bags and went to have our food.
   We went out to the picnic tables and sat down. We all had huge, delicious lunches of thick pate-covered rolls, crisps, chocolate, and the usual stuff, and we all tucked in heartily. The hilarious Chemistry lesson had given us real appetites.
   After lunch, we re-touched our make-up in the toilets, then went back to our tutor-room, as it was too cold to stay outside. Mewla and Cathy had decided against another snowball fight, as they had nearly frozen all through Chemistry with their wet snowy clothes.
   When we got back to the tutor-room, there was no-one there except Tibbicca, Purla, Tibleau, Purbelle, Mewlarka, Tibbick and Mewbellan. Everyone else was outside. It's really nice when there's just a few of us in at lunchtime - we have a real laugh.
  "Hiya!" Tibbicca looked up and grinned at us.
  "Hi!" I said, closing the door behind us. We took off our jackets and hung them on the backs of our chairs, and put our bags down on our desks. "What's going on?"
   Everyone was all sitting huddled round Purbelle and Mewlarka's desk, giggling and laughing.
  "Oh, Purbelle's showing us her holiday photos." Purla said. "Come and see!"
   Tibbick, Mewbellan and Tibbicca moved up so we could drag our chairs over to the group. We sat down.
  "Are these from your last holiday?" Mewla said, taking the photo that Purbelle was holding out to her.
  "Yeah - we went to Barbados." Purbelle said. "We were originally going to Spain, but Mum thought she'd like a change, as we went to Spain the year before. That photo is of me on the beach. That was the day I was sunbathing with my arm across my stomach, so when I got up, I had this pale arm mark across myself!"
   We looked at the photo and giggled.
  "Whooo!" Tibbick laughed, picking up a photo from the packet. "What's this about then, Purbelle?"
  "Let's see! What is it?" I said, craning my neck. Tibbick showed me the photo. It was of Purbelle kissing a tom-kitten about our age.
   Purbelle looked, and snatched it from us at once, laughing.
  "You weren't supposed to see that one!" she said. "I thought I took it out, actually!"
  "Who took it?" Tab laughed.
  "My annoying brother, of course!" Purbelle said. "The only trouble with Barbados is that the beaches are so small that you've got no room to yourself!"
   We all laughed.
   We looked at all the photos and had a great time. There were some really funny ones of Purbelle, pulling faces and posing in her bikini, and some hilarious ones of Mewfal that he didn't know she had taken.
  "Purbelle - Purbelle." Tibbicca said. "You know how Mewfal is always annoying you? Well, why don't we put one of those embarrassing photos of him up on the notice board?"
  "Yeah!" Purbelle said. "Which one shall we use?"
  "This one!" I said, picking up a photo. It was of Mewfal, lying asleep on his hotel bed, with nothing on apart from a towel round his waist. Purbelle's hotel room had been next to his and they had had an adjoining balcony, so she had crept out of her French doors and across the balcony to his room, and taken the picture.
  "Okay!" Purbelle laughed.
  "I'll pin it up!" Purla took the photo and ran across the room in her chunky platform shoes. She pulled one of the coloured push-pins out of the cork notice board, and pinned the photo up right in the middle. She giggled and ran back to us to see how it looked.
  "Brill!" I said.
  "Oh no!" Cathy said. "Have we got Maths last?"
  "Yeah." I said. "Why?"
  "Oh God - I forgot to do that Trigonometry homework!" Cathy said, clutching at her damp bleached hair in despair. She looked at her chunky watch and raced over to her desk. She flung open her folder and pulled the sheets out. She pulled a pen out of Mewla's bag, and quickly but neatly began to answer the questions.
   Purbelle put her photos away, and the group around her desk dispersed. Tibbicca and Purla ambled over to their desk and sat down. Tibbicca pulled her 'Vogue' magazine out of her folder and she and Purla began to look through it. Tibleau sat down beside them and began to sort her folder out.
  "Do you want any help?" I ambled over to Cathy, who was writing like the speed of light.
  "Erm.... I guess." Cathy didn't even look at me. "God - how could I have forgotten to do this? Ms Purrworthy will kill me!"
   Our Maths teacher, Ms Purrworthy, is very sharp and can turn nasty if someone annoys her. If she finds something funny she'll laugh with us, but only if it's really something hilarious. She has long brown hair and a sharp nose, and is brilliant at Maths.
  "Well, you've got half an hour." I said, looking at my watch.
  "Mel, this is Trigonometry, not adding and subtracting!" Cathy said, pushing her hair off her face. "It takes me HOURS at home!"
  "Tibleau!" I called. Tibleau is a sheer genius at Maths and can do anything. Tibleau looked up from her folder.
  "Yeah?" she said.
  "Can you come and help Cath with her Trig homework?" I said. "My brain's dead at the moment!"
  "Yeah, sure!" Tibleau said, shutting her folder and getting up. She is such a warm friendy person, and always happy to help anyone.
  "Mel!" Tab called me. "Come and see this gorgeous eyeshadow of Tibbick's!"
  I went over to where Tibbicca, Tab, Tibbick and Mewlarka were looking at the contents of Tibbick's make-up bag. Tibbick is another one who is friendly to everyone - she asked me to be her best friend once, but I have been best friends with Tab since we were tiny kittens and I wanted it to stay that way.
   It turned out that Cathy did finish her Maths homework easily within the half an hour left of lunch, and she was very grateful for Tibleau's help. She promised Tibleau that she would buy her a chocolate-filled doughnut from the tuck-shop the next day, and Tibleau smiled and said thanks. Cathy then came over to join us for the last ten minutes of lunch.
  "What's going on here?" Purbelle and Mewbellan came back into the tutor-room. They had been to get some food from the vending machine.
  "We're just looking at Tibbick's make-up." I said. "Nothing major."
   A few minutes after that, the boys came clattering in, muddy and wet from playing football on the snowy field. Mewbile was bouncing the wet soily ball on the floor, and he pretended to lob it at me as he went past. I laughed and slapped his back. Cathy and Tab laughed as Mewfal came in. We wondered how long it would be before Mewfal noticed the photo.
   He came in with Francis, Mewlip and Tom. All three of them were wet and muddy, with slush on the backs of their coats.
  "Miss Mewola will go mad if she sees all this slush on the carpet." I said, as they trudged past.
  "Yeah, I know." Tom said. "Brush it off, will you Mel?"
   I began to brush all the slush off their coats and they trod it into the carpet. By the time I had finished, and the other boys had caught on, the whole carpet was soaked.
  "Right, you lot!" Miss Mewola came in with her bag and the register. "Sit down and be quiet now."
   We all sat down. Mewfal still hadn't noticed the photo on the cork board, and Purbelle, Tibbick, Mewlarka and Mewbellan were stifling their giggles as they sat.
  "I've got a notice here about the girls' hockey matches." Miss Mewola said, holding up a sheet of paper. "I'll pin it up here on the...... oh, very nice, Mewfal!"
   We all burst out giggling.
   Mewfal presumed that Miss Mewola was referring to his caricature of Francis that he had pinned up there a while ago, and he smiled.
  "Thanks Miss." he said. "I am rather proud of it."
   Tibbick and Purbelle collapsed in shrieking heaps on their desks. Mewfal looked over at them, wondering what they found so funny. Even Miss Mewola was smirking. She knew that Mewfal meant the caricature, and she suspected that he didn't know about the photo, and, by the way Purbelle and Mewbellan were laughing, that they put it there.
  "We could photocopy it and put it on all the notice boards, if you like." Miss Mewola seemed in the mood to have a little joke. "We can put your name on it."
   That was too much for Tibbick, who fell off her chair.
  "That'd be great!" Mewfal said. "Then I could have all the little kids admiring it."
   Tibbicca and Purla clutched at each other, hardly able to sit upright.
  "What IS so funny?" Mewfal asked.
  "Nothing, nothing!" Tibbica, said. Purla pushed her paw into her mouth to stop herself from laughing, and Mewbellan hauled Tibbick up off the floor.
  "I tell you what, Mewfal." Miss Mewola said, trying desperately not to laugh. "I'll photocopy it this afternoon for you and bring the copies up to your Maths lesson."
  "Thanks." Mewfal said, eyeing us all warily.
   The bell went and we disappeared from the room in a giggling crowd.
   We went out to the Maths block.

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