Aurelia Rowl - Popping The Cherry

‘Come on, Malice, you can tell us,’ I said, raising my voice so that everyone in the rapidly filling foyer could hear. ‘Have you ever actually said no to anybody?’

Alice looked at the crowd gathering around us, then stared back at me with eyes filled with hatred. I’d really made it into her bad books this time.

‘I don’t have to put up with this,’ she spluttered, putting on a good show for the audience. She leaned in closer to me and dropped her voice. ‘You might just want to watch your back from now on, Virginia. Nobody pisses me off and gets away with it. Capiche?’

Did she really just ‘capiche’ me? Like she’s some hotshot gangster now? I would have laughed if her cloying perfume hadn’t already attacked my nostrils, giving me an instant pounding headache.

‘Yeah, whatever, Malice. You know, there’s a name for people like you, too, but it’s not nice so I won’t say it. You’ll just have to figure it out for yourself.’ I didn’t think her eyes could get any wider, or wilder, but, if looks could kill, I’d be a corpse already. To be honest, I was past caring. I just wanted to be rid of her and her revolting perfume so that I could draw breath again. ‘Now will you please get out of my way? Some of us are actually here to get an education.’

Gemma timed her entrance to perfection, the crowd parting to let her through, with Chloe and Piper in position as her wingmen. Gemma looked formidable, and ready for battle. There was no love lost between Gemma and Alice, not since Alice had made a move on Ben and fallen flat on her face. Ben had not only rejected her, he’d gone straight to Gemma and told her all about it.

‘Quick, somebody call the caretaker!’ Gemma’s stage voice rang out loud and clear. ‘There’s some trash here that needs to be taken out.’ She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. ‘Christ, it reeks, too,’ she said, pinching her nose. ‘What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don’t expect you to have heard of the adage “less is more”.’

Outnumbered and outwitted, Alice liked confrontation only when she had the upper hand. With a toss of bird’s-nest hair, she and her crones took off, strutting towards the canteen. Rushing from the same direction, Flick dashed into view, red in the face as if she’d been running. She arrived at just the wrong the time, shoulder-barged aside, bearing the brunt of Alice’s frustration.

‘Hey,’ Flick protested, giving Alice daggers before joining us at the lockers. ‘Don’t tell me I missed it again!’

I shrugged. ‘Yep, sorry, Flick. The show’s over.’

‘Oh, man!’ she said, flopping back against the locker theatrically.

After Gemma, Flick was my second-best friend, which was handy, seeing that she was taking two of the same subjects as I was, but even thinking in those terms was too much like primary school and wreaked havoc with my newly acquired ‘adult’ mentality. A grin broke out on my face when I knew just what to say next to cheer her up.

‘Don’t worry, Flick, I’m sure there’ll be an encore. Alice did the whole gangsta capiche thing on me.’

‘No way. She actually capiche ‘d you? Damn it, I miss all the best bits.’ Flick fixed her huge doe eyes on me before taking in the rest of the group. ‘Please tell me I wasn’t the only one to miss it this time.’

‘You weren’t,’ Gemma said. ‘None of us saw that one. Alice would be sporting a black eye if I’d been here for it.’

‘That would go down well on your college record.’

‘Be worth it, though,’ Gemma mumbled.

Finally able to get into my locker, I grabbed the textbooks I’d need for the morning classes as the girls swapped theories about what they would like to do to Malice. I tuned out, noticing only when they fell silent, the collective weight of their expectant stares boring into my back. I closed the steel door and slowly turned to face the people I considered my closest friends.

A ricochet of pointed glances darted around the group until Gemma stepped up as spokesperson, as usual. ‘So what did she want?’

Time to face the music, then …

‘It turns out Damian went straight off in search of her—’ I nodded towards the corridor Malice had stormed down ‘—straight after dumping me. She was just gloating, that’s all. Trying to wind me up.’

‘Well that sucks.’ Flick said.

The other girls murmured their agreement and all four of them placed their hands in a line on my uppermost arm—I didn’t even remember having crossed them in a show of solidarity and friendship.

‘Thanks. You guys are the best,’ I said, forcing a smile onto my face. ‘So Gemma—’

The bell went, cutting me off before I could resume my interrogation. Thanks to Malice, I’d run out of time and lunch break was hours away. I very nearly screamed. Aside from Flick, the others were in different classes from me, which meant more waiting. Just what I needed.

After a hasty goodbye, Gemma, Chloe and Piper set off in their variations directions, leaving Flick and me to wander off to our French class. Walking beside her, I could swear she’d grown even taller since Friday. I shot a glance down at her feet but she was in her usual flats, going for Mary Janes today rather than ballet pumps. Her long legs were encased in skinny jeans teamed with a floral floaty top, and her ebony hair was tied loosely in a bun to highlight her long neck.

Yep, Flick was the epitome of your typical ballet dancer. There had to be some Latino in her family somewhere: the girl had a permanent tan to make us all jealous. Her natural grace and elegance was misleading, though, and, if you went by appearances alone, you’d think of her as aloof and snooty, when in reality she was more like a tomboy trapped in a dancer’s body. Between her and Gemma, it’s a wonder I had any self-esteem at all, yet somehow it worked, and we all complemented each other.

Gemma was the cutesy bombshell with the wicked tongue and quick temper, most likely to marry rich and become famous some day; Flick was the elegant dancer with a mischievous streak and a steely ambition to get into the English National Ballet; Piper was the brainy academic, complete with designer glasses, and could easily become prime minister one day if she overcame her shyness; Chloe was the cuddlier maternal figure with a heart of gold, the one most likely to be married and surrounded by children before she was twenty-five; as for me, I had somehow fallen into the role of sporty, not that I was affiliated with a club any more, nor did I have a clue what I would end up doing when I was older.

The five of us could have been the newest girl band, a rival group to the Saturdays or Little Mix, apart from the fact half of us couldn’t sing. Or dance. And certainly not perform in public, since Piper would have a coronary. That thought alone was enough to put the grin back on my face as I took my usual seat and pulled out my books.

‘ Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs ,’ said Madame Clarke, the last to arrive as usual, calling the class to order. She wore a particularly flamboyant chiffon scarf around her neck today that didn’t go with the rest of her outfit at all. Yet more of her eccentric charm on display. I caught Flick’s eye and we shared a knowing smirk as Madame Clarke scurried between the rows of desks to take up her position at the front of the class. ‘ Pouvez-vous tourner à la page deux-cent-soixante-dix-neuf, s’il vous plaît? ’

French went well, even though I didn’t give two hoots about what Chantal and Jean-Pierre got up to in La Rochelle, and I scored the top mark of eighty-seven percent in my last essay. Result! English was next up, language rather than my preferred literature, but we were learning about the iambic pentameter, which meant dipping into Shakespeare, another of my favourites, finishing up with Romeo and Juliet .