Year 10 At Tibcot (summer term) - A Mel, Tab, Mewla & Cathy story (may add to original book)

Chapter One


  It was one of those mornings in early May where the sun is lovely and warm, you know the summer is practically here and you can walk to school in a t-shirt instead of jumpers and jackets. Don't get me wrong, I like the winter, and every summer I find myself looking forward to dark mornings, snow, and Christmas, but by the time we've all been walking to school in the rain for a couple of months, the warmer weather is much anticipated and welcomed by all of us.
  Cathy was round at our house at ten past eight, in her black flared trousers and a tight white v-neck t-shirt. (not really the uniform but the teachers seem to let us get away with wearing them)
  "Morning!" she waltzed in and put her handbag down after Mum let her in. Mewla and I were just finishing breakfast. Mewla looked up and promptly dripped egg yolk down her jumper.
  "Oh damn it." she grumbled as Cathy shrieked with laughter.
  "It's OK, you won't need that on anyway." Cathy said. "It's lovely and warm out there."
  Mewla got up and went over to the sink and started to scrub at her jumper with a wet tissue.
  The doorbell rang, and as Cathy was nearest to the hall, she went through to answer the door. I heard Tab's voice.
  "You two are getting later and later every morning." Tab came into the kitchen and grinned when she saw Mewla furiously scrubbing at her jumper.
  "I think it must be you that's early." I said.
  "Nah - Cathy's here too so that just proves it's not us." Tab said. "Dare I ask what Mewla's done to her top?"
  "Cathy made me drip egg yolk down it." Mewla threw away the tissue and then frowned when she saw all the bits of shredded tissue on her jumper. "Oh for God's sake."
  "I did no such thing!" Cathy laughed. "Can I help it if you're so overcome by my wonderfulness when I walk into a room?"
  Mewla made a rude noise at Cathy and when she had finally finished getting all the bits of tissue off her jumper, we went upstairs to get ready to go.
  Cathy was right, it was a wonderful morning, and we all felt very happy as we strolled along to school in the warm sun.
  "Cath, you're going to get shot." I said, suddenly noticing that Cathy was wearing trainers underneath the wide bottoms of her flares. "If Mrs Mewberick sees them you'll be in detention for a week."
  "Well I look at it this way." Cathy said. "There are certain rules that you can flout slightly, and certain rules that you can't. As the no trainers rule is one you can't, it's just as well that I know where all the hidey holes are that I can dodge into when I see Mrs Mewberick coming down the corridor."
  We all laughed.
  "Anyway, what's she going to do?" Cathy grinned. "Give me a detention and send me to Mr Mewan?"
  We laughed. Mr Mewan is the deputy head of our year and also Cathy's on-off boyfriend. Yeah, it sounds weird I know and is wrong, but he is young, gorgeous and has taken a real shine to Cathy so he and she have been having a kind-of fling since December just gone. The whole class knows about it and Mewbellinne is very suspicious that something is going on, but she fancies Mr Mewan herself, so Cathy and the rest of us take great delight in using it to our advantage. For instance, if Cathy goes off out of the lesson for something, Mewbellinne is convinced she's gone up to see Mr Mewan, so Mewbellinne goes off up there to try and catch them, but Cathy has usually only gone out deliberately and is hiding somewhere so when Mewbellinne has gone, Cathy comes back and when Mewbellinne gets back she feels a fool.
  It's also a standing joke amongst us that whatever Cathy does wrong she'll be sent to Mr Mewan so most of us try quite often to get her into trouble, which usually ends up backfiring on us.
  When we got into school, Purla and Purbelle were, as usual, outside the back of the tutor-room in the little yard, having a sneaky cigarette. The little concrete area is completely enclosed by walls and the only way to get to it is through our tutor room, so it's like our own little sunbathing place and somewhere to sit and gossip in the warm weather.
  Cathy flung the tutor-room door open and Purbelle jumped a mile and spat her cigarette out across the yard. We and everyone else who was in there squealed with laughter.
  "Only us!" Cathy laughed.
  "I hate you!" Purbelle laughed, coming in and closing the door. "I thought you were a teacher!"
  "Serves you right, you dirty rule-breaker you." Mewla grinned.
  "So who's looking forward to PE today?" Cathy grinned, sitting herself on a desk and crossing her legs. She put on a silly voice to do an impression of Ms Hapmew. "Come on girls! Keep running! Knees up! Mewla, stop dawdling!"
  "I have to admit, I quite like rounders." Tab said.
  "Yeah, I like it." Cathy said. "Except when we have Mewbellinne on our team, that is."
  "I know - she never notices when it's her turn to run!" Tab said. "She's so busy looking round at everyone else that she doesn't notice that someone's running round to her post!"
  "Anyway, talking of Mewbellinne." Cathy grinned wickedly. She went over to the tutor-room door and promptly proceeded to pile up a stack of chairs against the door. A minute later Mewbellinne came in and the chairs fell to the floor with an almighty crash. That was funny enough, but Mewbellinne got in a rage and threw one of the chairs down on the floor in a temper, and Miss Mewola happened to come in behind her and then told her off for throwing school furniture about. We were, of course, nearly dying laughing silently over in our corner.
  "Where are the boys, as if I need to ask." Miss Mewola smiled knowingly.
  As if on cue, the boys all came trooping in, Tom with the football under his arm. He pretended to lob it at Cathy's head as he went past. Cathy aimed a punch at him and they both grinned. Mewbellinne gave a sigh of disgust. Cathy and Tom are the best of friends and partners in crime - they're like a double act in class.
  "Right." Miss Mewola said. "Settle down. I've got something serious I want to talk to you all about this morning. Cathy, get off the desk and sit down properly please."
  Cathy grinned amiably and got down.
  "So what's so serious Miss?" Tibbicca asked.
  "Well I've had three reports already this week from Mr Thormew that when they have their tutor-room windows open round behind our yard they can smell cigarettes." Miss Mewola said. No-one moved. I could tell that we were all dying to look at each other but no-one dared to in case it made them look guilty. "I'm going to come straight to the point. Who has been smoking out in the yard?"
  No-one said anything.
  "Well I'm disappointed in you all." Miss Mewola said. "I have been your tutor since you were all 12 and I thought I knew you all really well. I consider you all my friends as well as my students and I was hoping that you could at least be honest with me. Obviously not. In that case I have no choice but to put the whole class in an after school detention. I'll talk to you about it after lunch. Go to your lessons." and she got up and walked out of the room.
  We all sat silently for a few seconds.
  "Well." Mewbellinne said haughtily. "I wish I'd spoken up now. I'll be damned if I'm going to sit in a detention just because you're too scared to own up to smoking outside."
  "What do you mean - spoken up?" Purla turned on Mewbellinne. "Tell tales, you mean?"
  "It's not telling tales." Mewbellinne said. "It's..."
  "That's exactly what it is!" Purbelle said. "I know smoking is wrong but there's no need for someone who isn't involved to start tittle-tattling to teachers just to gain brownie points!"
  "Huh - with an attitude like hers she certainly need some brownie points!" Purla said in disgust, and she gathered up her bag and folders and stormed out of the room.
  The rest of us said nothing, but picked up our things and set off to Art.
  "God, Mewbellinne can be such a cow sometimes." Cathy said, as we walked. Cathy's phone beeped in her bag and she stopped to take it out to read her text message.
  "I know." I said. "And Purbelle was right - she was only going to tell on her and Purla just to try and win favour."
  Cathy giggled.
  "What's funny?" I asked.
  "Greg just texted me to say he could see me out of his office window and that I've got a nice bum." she laughed, showing me the message. We looked up to the main building and Mr Mewan waved from out of his window.
  "God there's got to be some gossip going round somewhere about you two." Tibbicca caught up with us and saw what was going on. "Waving, messing and joking around when he comes into class, not to mention the six dozen times a day you go up to his office for no reason..."
  "Shut up - I don't!" Cathy laughed, putting her phone away. We carried on walking.
  "Seriously though, I'm amazed no-one's noticed anything." Tibbicca said. "I'm surprised Mrs Mewberick hasn't had words about his behaviour."
  "You only notice it because you know what's going on." Cathy said. "He's friendly with all the students, he's that kind of confident outgoing guy. I think it's nice that the teachers can have a joke with the students."
  "A joke is one thing." Tibbicca laughed. "But you two are..."
  "Shut UP!" Cathy laughed, and stopped to pick up a handful of dead blossom from the grass verge, which she promptly threw over Tibbicca's head. Tibbicca spent the rest of the walk to the Art block fussing and pulling bits of blossom out of her silky blonde hair.
  When we got to the Art block, Mr Thomson was outside on the grass with the rest of the class, who were all trying to find somewhere decent to sit.
  "Morning girls." he said. "Sit down with the others, please."
  "Ooh, are we having a picnic?" Cathy laughed, sitting down comically. Everyone laughed.
  "No, Cathy." Mr Thomson said. "We're starting our nature project today. I want you all to do some sketching of things around us outside."
  "What - like Cathy?" Purla asked, as she was sitting quite near Cathy.
  "No, Purla, not Cathy." Mr Thomson said, smiling. "I'm sure Cathy would make a wonderful subject..."
  "Well, yes, of course..." Cathy fluffed out her hair and we laughed.
  "...But we're sticking to the natural world today." Mr Thomson said. "So take pencils and paper and get sketching! This project is going to run for several weeks and during those weeks you will be creating masterpieces from the natural world in lots of different mediums."
  "Only mediums, no larges?" Tom asked cheekily. He grinned at Mr Thomson, who grinned back.
  "No, Tom, no larges."
  Tab took the paper and pencils that Mr Thomson was handing out and we all settled down on the large grassy area.
  "I don't know what to draw." Tom was saying. "I think I'll draw that spider on Cathy's back."
  "Aaaaarrgh!" Cathy shrieked and leapt up. She started to claw wildly at her back. "Where? Get it off, get it off!"
  Tom and the other boys fell about laughing. Cathy is only scared of one thing and that's creepy crawlies and Tom always knows how to exploit her weakness.
  "Oh look - there it goes!" laughed Mewbile. Cathy looked daggers at the boys and flung her rubber at Tom. He threw it back, almost crying with laughter. Cathy couldn't help but smirk as she sat back down with us.