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

Chapter Eleven


  Mewbellinne looked thoroughly embarrassed. She pouted even more than usual and her cheeks were getting redder and redder. She knew that Cathy was right really.
  "I........." she began to say, but Mr Purrleck came back in at that second and she shut up and looked across at the door as he burst in, his lab coat flapping as it always did.
  "How are we getting on?" he said, looking enquiringly round at everyone.
  "Pretty well, since you ask!" Cathy grinned.
  "Hmmm." Mr Purrleck smiled at Cathy, knowing that she was bound to be up to some sort of mischief. His gaze then averted to Mewbellinne.
  "Mewbellinne, aren't you a bit squashed on the end of that desk? Look - you're crowding the other girls."
  Mewbellinne opened her mouth to protest but she was drowned out by Mewla and Tab shrieking with laughter as they looked at her and actually took in the situation - she was sitting right on the corner of the desk, with all her stuff in a little pile in front of her, and her arms folded tight so as not to crowd Cathy.
  "Yeah, Mewbellinne! I told you that I'm squashed here!" Cathy spoke up, a wicked grin on her tanned face.
  "Move to that side bench, Mewbellinne." Mr Purrleck said, pointing. "There's lots of room there."
  Mewbellinne gathered up her things and stomped over to the bench, dragging her stool behind her. I don't think any of us felt sorry for her. We are never usually nasty to people like that, but she really deserved it, the way she was acting. And she knew that she was being funny with us. So if she wasn't going to stop, neither would we!
  She banged her folders down on the bench and sat down, with her back to Mr Purrleck and the rest of the class.
  "Can you face this way please, Mewbellinne?" Mr Purrleck was getting a bit fed up with her bad manners.
  Mewbellinne let out a disgusted sigh and turned herself around a little bit.
  "All the way round, please!" Cathy was getting cheekier.
  Mewbellinne scowled at Cathy and Cathy jumped back as if someone had punched her, all the time trying desperately not to laugh.
  "Alright Cathy, that'll do." Mr Purrleck said.
  "OK, OK." Cathy grinned, holding up her hands as if Mr Purrleck was aiming a gun at her. Mr Purrleck couldn't help smiling.
  "I can't believe the way she cheeks you, Sir." Mewbellinne said, trying to win favour with Mr Purrleck. "If we'd have done that at my old school we'd have had detentions for a week."
  "Well we're not, are we, Mewbellinne?" Mr Purrleck said. Cathy shot a glance at him and nudged me. I could tell he was trying to be polite.
  "Yes, but all the same - she's just so cheeky!" Mewbellinne insisted.
  "And you're just so spoilt!" Cathy retorted, leaning across to Mewbellinne.
  Mewbellinne got up off her stool. I thought for a moment that she and Cathy were going to fight.
  "Alright girls!" Mr Purrleck said, stepping forward. "Calm down. I think I'll end this class now - it's been quite an interesting lesson in some ways, I think! At least your communication skills don't need developing! Go on - go off for a break before Art."
  "Art? She wants to watch I don't ram a paintbrush somewhere." Cathy muttered, shutting her bag. She looked at us. We were all staring at her, waiting for the next outburst. She laughed. "It's OK - I'm not going to have a mad fit. Let's go and get some food."
  As we walked out of the room, with Mewbellinne behind us, Mr Purrleck stepped over to us.
  "Mewbellinne, if you need some stronger glue for your lashes, I'm sure I could concoct something in the chemical room." he grinned at her. "Just a joke."
  "Well I don't think it's funny!" Mewbellinne pushed past us and stomped off down the corridor.
  "Nice one Sir!" Cathy clapped him on the back. "See ya!"
  "Bye girls." Mr Purrleck smiled knowingly at us. "See if you can knock some sense into her before next lesson, eh?"
  "We'll try." Tab smiled.
  It was still snowing as we crossed to the tuck shop. It was nice to be able to get some food between morning classes - usually we don't have time and we have to get straight to the next class.
  "Chocolate doughnuts all round, I think!" Cathy said, as we went in.
  "Oooh yes." I smiled, delving into my bag for my wallet.
  We set off to Art with two huge chocolate filled doughnuts each.
  "Oh dear." Tab said with mock worry, as we walked along to the Art block. "Mewbellinne's gone off somewhere and she doesn't know where the Art room is. What a shame - I don't think!"
  When we got to the Art block, most of our class were just going in. There was no sign of Mewbellinne.
  "Trouble's not here yet I see." Purbelle said to me as we went in, brushing the snow off our coats.
  "No." I said, looking outside. "Won't be long before she is, though."
  Mr Thomson settled us down with our art folders and told us to sort through them and get rid of anything we didn't want, while he assembled some more still life for us to draw. We were quite content to do this, and we all sat, chatting quietly while we did it. Mr Thomson started to set up the table of still life.
  Twenty minutes after the lesson started, the outside door was flung open and someone clomped in. Cathy and I exchanged amused glances. Mewbellan leaned forward and tapped me on the back. I turned round and she winked.
  The door to our art room was thrust open and Mewbellinne came in, covered in snow and looking thoroughly annoyed. She obviously didn't realise that the art room floor was quite slidy, and she stomped in, slipped in her wet boots, and fell straight into the table of still life! Mewbellinne hit the floor and so did all the still life. Mr Thomson had set up a collection of art materials for us to draw - pallettes, brushes in a jar, tubes of paint, a few pencils and a big rubber, etc. Now they were all rolling round the floor.
  The whole class burst into hysterics, and even Mr Thomson was trying not to laugh. He bit his lip furiously as Mewbellinne scrabbled on the floor amongst brushes and pencils.
  Mewla and Tab were almost falling off their seats in hysterics and Cathy looked as though she was dying. Mewbellan clutched at me from behind as she laughed, and I turned round, just as hysterical.
  Mewbellinne grabbed hold of the edge of the table and pulled herself up.
  "Are you alright?" Mr Thomson said, trying his best to be concerned, holding out his hand to steady Mewbellinne. Then his next line just about did it. "Who are you, anyway?"
  Cathy fell off her chair.
  The whole class was in absolute uproar. Everyone was hysterical. Mewbellinne just stood and looked at Mr Thomson, not even the slightest smile on her face. If she had laughed it off, maybe muttered "Oh my God" and giggled, jokingly told us to shut up, we wouldn't have laughed so much, and would have probably laughed with her and liked her more, but her cold, angry glare and refusal to laugh at herself made it even funnier.
  "Oh... God... my... stomach!" Cathy clutched at herself, hardly able to breathe. "Oh... God!"
  I think that Mewbellan and I were the only ones who noticed Mewbellinne step on a pencil and almost  go flying again as she wrenched her arm away from Mr Thomson and tried to make her way to a desk.
  "The floor is quite slippery in here." Mr Thomson said. "I'd watch it if I were you."
  None of us could be quite sure if he was joking and being funny with her or if he was genuinely trying to be helpful. Mr Thomson was one of these easy-going teachers who was always ready for a laugh and who had a laugh with us winding someone up. Mr Purrleck was the same. And they had all found a good target in Mewbellinne! She couldn't see that they were joking with her, which made it even funnier.
  "Fancy helping me pick up all these art things?" Mr Thomson said amiably.
  "Pick them up yourself!" retorted Mewbellinne, and with that, she picked up her bag and stormed out of the art room, shaking the entire room as she banged the door. Mewbellan got up and ran to the window. Mewbellinne was storming off into the snow.
  "Right - that's definitely a report going to Mrs Mewberick." Mr Thomson sighed. He bent down and began to pick up all the pencils and brushes.
  I felt sorry for him. He is one of our favourite teachers and we all love his lessons, and Mewbellinne had just stormed in and been so rude.
  "I'll help you, Sir." I said, getting up.
  "Yeah - me too!" Cathy followed me, and soon, practically the whole class had followed our lead and was hunting round for pencils. Mr Thomson left us to it and went back to his desk, and started to write out a report form about Mewbellinne.
  When I went back to the desk to put all the still life things back, I walked round behind Mr Thomson on purpose to try and see what he was writing. His writing is very spidery and I couldn't make out much, but I did see the words 'thoroughly disruptive, rude and obnoxious'. I had to hide a smile. It would serve her right. Little spoilt madam!
  "You know, it's not just the teachers that can put in a complaint about another pupil, is it?" Cathy said, with a glint in her eye, as I sat back down.
  "What?" I said, swivelling in my seat to face her. "You mean - you're going to...."
  "Yep!" Cathy said. "She's annoyed me so much today and disrupted all our classes! I think it's time we spoke up!"
  "OK!" Tab said. "I'm all for that!"
  "Yeah - us too!" the Johnson sisters called.
  "And us!" Purbelle and Mewlarka added.
  "Right then!" Cathy said, pulling some paper out of her folder. "Everyone who wants to complain, come and write your name here!"
  The whole class crowded round our desk.

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