Cathy Cassidy

Extract - Sundae Girl

Nobody likes Parents Night, do they? It’s when the truth comes out. Your parents discover that you haven’t been wearing your nice maroon St Joseph’s blazer, you’ve only handed in one maths homework since September and you’re hanging out with a gang of scary Year Tens who have LOVE and HATE scrawled across their knuckles in black marker pen.

That’s the kind of stuff most kids are stressing about, anyhow. Not me. I have a pretty good record when it comes to tests, homework and school uniform. My friends are sensible, reliable, hard-working. My teachers like me.
What do I have to be worried about?
Where do you want me to start?
I’m not worried that my family will find out the truth about school – I’m more anxious that school will find out the truth about my family.
Parents’ Night? I hate it so much that when I was in Year Seven I threw away the letters inviting my family along and told them that St Joseph’s didn’t do them.
‘Are you sure?’ Mum had asked, doubtfully. ‘That seems very strange.’
‘Seriously. They think it’s old-fashioned.’
Mum had raised an eyebrow, but I got away with it. I thought I might get away with it right through secondary school.
Of course, I was wrong.
Yesterday, my form teacher, Miss Devlin, booked herself into the hairdressing salon where Mum works for a shampoo and set. ‘Special occasion?’ Mum had enquired, rolling a sliver of Miss Devlin’s mouse-brown hair onto a pink plastic curler. ‘Going somewhere nice?’
‘Well,’ Miss Devlin had replied. ‘Just the Year Eight Parents Night at St Joseph’s tomorrow.’
That was that. My cover was blown, big style.
‘Why didn’t you tell us they’d reintroduced Parents Night?’ Mum wanted to know. ‘Just think, we might have missed it!’
Mmm. Just think.
‘Poor Miss Devlin would have thought we didn’t care!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Don’t you worry, Jude, we’ll be there!’
And they are here – all of them. Nightmare.
I’m here too, watching the whole thing, fascinated, horrified. Being here is a kind of torture, obviously, but when Mr McGrath asked for volunteers to make the tea and coffee, my hand shot up instantly like the good Year Eight teacher-pleaser that I am. It’s a bit like the way moths get drawn to a flame. I can’t help myself, even though I know it will end in disaster and frazzled wings.
Still, dishing out the tea is one way to keep an eye on things. I take a deep breath, steady my tea-tray and stride off into the scrum, handing out a few cups of milky tea and some dark, ominous flapjacks baked earlier today in the Home Ec department. I glide to a halt beside Miss Devlin’s desk.
‘Tea?’ I ask brightly.
Miss Devlin shoots me a helpless, wild-eyed look, but I have no sympathy. So far, she’s only met Mum. Worse is to come.
‘Ah, Jude,’ Mum says, flicking her blonde razor-cut bob so we all get to see the dark red layer beneath. ‘Miss Devlin was just telling me that she runs the school drama club. Why ever didn’t you tell her I was in show business?’
‘You’re a hairdresser, Mum,’ I mumble.
‘Now I am,’ Mum says, exasperated. ‘But what about my musical past? I’ve played all the top venues – Filey, Minehead, Clacton-on-Sea.’
She is talking about the weekly talent shows at various Butlins holiday camps where she holidayed as a teenager, but she leaves out that little detail.
‘Mum,’ I hiss, dumping a cup of tea and a crumbling flapjack down on the tabletop. ‘I thought I’d better tell you that Dad and Victoria are here. They’re in the queue behind you.’
‘They are?’ Mum squeaks. ‘Oh! Nice chatting to you, Miss Devlin. I have to go now.’
Mum and Dad are no longer together – they haven’t been for 12 years, but that doesn’t stop Mum from turning all drama-queen if she happens to spot Dad with his girlfriend.
Mum leans across the desk, dazzling Miss Devlin with her showbiz smile. ‘If you ever need some professional input with the drama club, I’d be only too pleased to offer my expertise!’
Miss Devlin shuffles some papers. ‘Well… thanks, Ms Reilly,’ she says, weakly. ‘I’ll be sure to let you know if we need any… um, professional input.’
Mum stands up, flinging a pink pashmina scarf over her shoulder and almost taking out the eye of the woman behind. She stalks out of the hall without a backward glance.
I swing back through the crowd, clutching my tea-tray. I come across Gran and Grandad arguing with Mr McGrath. I’m not sure why. He’s not even one of my teachers.
‘Hello, dear,’ Gran says blankly as I edge past. ‘D’you know, you look just like my grandaughter!’
Perhaps because I am? I give her the last flapjack and hope it doesn’t get stuck in her teeth.
Back at the tea-urn, Kevin Carter from my English class is sipping tea from a PTA bone china cup. He dunks a flapjack, unsuccessfully. The tea turns into beige soup, or perhaps some kind of wholemeal porridge.
‘Hey, Jude,’ he says. ‘Want a hand?’
‘No thanks, Carter. Keep it to yourself,’ I retort.
‘Call me Kevin if you like,’ he grins.
‘OK. Thanks, Carter.’
‘Suit yourself. I’d be a good waiter, y’know. Careful. Fast.’ He sticks out a leg and shows me a huge, clunky rollerblade boot, then does a fancy turn, slopping tea all over his jeans.
‘I’m just learning,’ he says. ‘Brendan Coyle is setting up a street hockey team.’ He points through the window, where some Year Eight lads are skating about in the floodlit playground, battering each other with hockey sticks.
‘Nice,’ I say.
‘Are your parents here?’ Kevin Carter asks, pouring himself another cup of tea.
‘I think they’re around somewhere,’ I say vaguely.
‘Will you look at that?’ he guffaws, looking out across the hall. ‘Who does he think he is, Elvis Presley?’
Dad and Victoria have reached the head of the line for Miss Devlin. Victoria looks neat in a dark city suit, but Dad is wearing a grey raincoat over his white rhinestone catsuit. He has a gig later, an 80th birthday party at some old folks home. He smoothes his black quiff and sideburns as he sits down.
I should explain – Dad is an Elvis impersonator. This is not a fact I tell many people. I have no intention of telling Kevin Carter, obviously.
Miss Devlin glances up, does a double-take and gives Dad a forbidding look over the rim of her teacup.
‘Think he’s someone’s dad, or just the floorshow?’ Kevin Carter muses.
‘No idea.’ I let my hair swing forward to camouflage the blushes as I prepare a new tray, piled high with flapjacks and dishwater tea, and Carter lets out a low whistle as Year Eight siren Kristina Kowalski wiggles past. She is wearing something that might have once belonged to a Barbie doll, but has now shrunk in the wash. Scary.
‘Kristina Kowalski is hot!’ Carter breathes, executing a perfect figure of eight on his rollerblades before crashing into the tea-urn. Hot is not a word I’d use to describe Kristina. She is wearing so little, she may be in danger of frostbite.
Just as I think Kevin Carter is safely distracted from my family, Gran and Grandad join the end of Miss Devlin’s queue. Grandad is wearing his yellow tartan waistcoat with the Marilyn Monroe tie, and Gran is knitting as she waits. It’s the green scarf, today. At only three metres long, it is easily the most portable.
‘Who are they?’ Carter gawps, following my gaze. ‘Unreal! I wonder what poor kid has to put up with grandparents like that?’
My heart plummets. Carter is going to guess the exact identity of that poor kid, unless I take evasive action – and fast.
‘Actually,’ I tell him, ‘They’re Kristina Kowalski’s mum and dad.’
Carter just about chokes on his tea. ‘Parents?’ he yelps. ‘They can’t be. They’re way too old.’
Kristina only joined the school this term, and so far she’s a bit of a mystery girl – if a girl who wears shrunken skirts and lashings of shimmering lipgloss can actually qualify as mysterious.
‘Oh, yes,’ I lie. ‘Very strict, too. Mr Kowalski used to be a championship boxer. Last month, Kristina’s dad came home and found her smooching with Martin Peploe from Year Nine, when she should have been babysitting her seven little sisters. Mr Kowalski threw Martin Peploe out of the house. He landed in a rose bush – terrible scratches, and greenfly.’
‘Seriously?’ Carter marvels. ‘I never heard that!’
‘Would you broadcast it, if you were Kristina?’ I ask. ‘Or Martin Peploe, for that matter?’
‘S’pose not. Maybe they grounded her, and that’s why she’s kind of a recluse? Seven little sisters. Wow!’
Mr McGrath looms up, and I try to look busy, setting out clean cups and saucers on a new tray.
‘Ah, Carter, good to see you helping out at this kind of function,’ Mr McGrath beams. ‘Not like those young thugs out there with the hockey sticks. Now, Mrs Yates was just saying she’d love a nice, hot cup of tea – perhaps you’d take one over to her?’
He lifts the loaded tray and hands it to Carter, nodding encouragement. Needless to say, he hasn’t spotted the rollerblades.
Carter takes the tray, throwing me an anxious grin. He glides off across the polished floor, the tea tray balanced on one hand. He makes amazingly good progress, to start with at least, but disaster is inevitable. Suddenly, he gets tangled up with the end of Gran’s green scarf and falls headlong into the crowd, showering everyone with tea and flapjacks.
‘Oh dear,’ says Mr McGrath.
He’s not as bad as I thought, that Kevin Carter…