Teach Me Dirty

“A list of potentials.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. It was scrumpled and scribbled on and looked a tatty mess, but there was a list in the corner.

“Terry Edwards… no way! He’s in the football team.”

“So?”

“So, no.”

“Fine.” She grabbed it off me. “Gary Eaton?”

“Arrogant.”

“And hot.”

“Arrogance wins. No.”

“Stuart Belcher?”

“He would never look at me. And there was that rumour that he kicked Wendy Ree’s cat.”

She shrugged. “Fair point.”

“Keith Perkins.”

“I’m not even going to answer that.” Keith Perkins was crude, and disgusting. An all-round idiot.

“Fine.” She gave me a look like I was the most difficult customer in the world. “Harry Sawbridge?”

“Harry? No way.”

“No?”

“Just no. That would be weird.”

“Why weird?”

I stared at her. “He’s in my art class.”

“Yeah, duh. That’s good, no?”

“No. It’s just weird. I just… he doesn’t even like art.”

“But he’s doing art for A-level.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t like it. He never listens to anything.”

“But he is doing it. And Roberts will see him with you. All the time…” She smirked. “That’s kinda the whole point of the jealousy thing.”

“I’m not even convinced about this jealousy thing…”

“He’s the best option. He’s kinda cute. Nice eyes.”

“He’s got no artistic talent whatsoever.”

“But he’s cute, right?”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

She folded the piece of paper back up then tapped her nose. “Leave it with me.”

“What are you going to do?” My heart sped up. “Don’t do anything, Lizzie!”

“I won’t do much… just scoping the lay of the land…”

“Lizzie!”

She smiled so brightly. “So, Hels Bells, how do you fancy Harry Sawbridge as your winter ball date?”

My jaw dropped. “My winter ball date? I’m not even going to the winter ball… I never go to that kind of party stuff…”

She handed me the dregs of her cigarette and I smoked it to the butt. “I think you might change your mind,” she said, and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Hell would have to freeze over. For real. Demon penguins and everything.”

“That’s your stance is it? Definitely not? No way? Not in a million billion years?”

I threw the cigarette butt in the hedge. “That’s my stance.”

“Such a shame,” she said, and there was mischief in it. “Because a little birdie told me that somebody’s favourite art teacher is chaperoning this year…”

***

Helen

Maybe Lizzie really did have a voodoo witchcraft bottle, because the next day in art class the unthinkable happened. I had taken my usual spot, keeping my back to Mr Roberts in fear of looking like some sad little girl all over again, when I heard a rustle of bags and the scuff of a stool over floor tiles. I always sit alone. Always. It’s been that way forever in art. I just don’t like many people, and they don’t like me. Plus, I love art, I live for art, and company and art don’t usually work out so well.

There was whispering and laughing behind me, and my hackles prickled, just knowing it was about me. And then there was Harry Sawbridge’s voice, interrupting my thoughts like a sledgehammer.

“Hi, Helen. Mind if I sit here?”

He was already sitting here. I moved my sketchbook a little to the side to clear some space for him. Manners don’t cost anything, after all.

“Sure.”

The laughter was growing more raucous, and my heart did a stutter as Mr Roberts barked out an order for quiet.

He sounded unusually grouchy.

I didn’t look at him, but I did look at Harry, and Harry was looking right back at me.

“Nice painting,” he said, which was ironic considering it was probably the worst painting I’d done in my entire life. The lines were messy and erratic, and not in a good way. It was sloppy and lazy and dull, and terrible. It was a terrible painting.

“Thanks.”

He turned his canvas towards me and his was worse.

“Nice work,” I lied.

“Thanks. It’s inspired by Dali.”

“Picasso,” I said. “Guernica was by Picasso. I finished mine the other week.”

He didn’t look bothered by my correction. “Yeah, can’t really get into it. I don’t like painting like other people. What’s the point in it?”

I could have launched into an impassioned monologue about the beauty in the masters and hoping to learn through even the slightest successful emulation of their work. Normally I would have, but my soul had dried up. I said nothing, just smiled and carried on jabbing paint on top of paint.

He didn’t stop looking at me, and I felt myself burning up. “Guess you like Picasso, then?”

“I love Picasso.”

“Yeah, so do I. He’s cool. I like all of them… Picasso, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello… Michelangelo…”

I couldn’t stop the smile. “The artists or the turtles?”

“Both. I like the rat, too. Used to watch them when I was a kid.” I had nothing to say to that, and he grew twitchy, flicking his paintbrush back and forth between his fingers. “Say, Helen, are you going to the ball?”

My heel tapped against my stool, knees juddery. “I, um… don’t know.”