Schoolgirl Secrets

Chapter Four: Cars, Catastrophes And Carriers

"It's classroom B3 on floor two!" she gasped, clutching at the stitch in her side. "It's on fire and I just rescued a little girl from the room! She looks bad, I think we need an ambulance!"

Miss Brightlight leapt to her feet and hurtled from the room.

"Well, it seems like Amanda has that all under control," said the headmaster, smiling unnecessarily. "And in the meantime; you'd better get off to your first classes!"

Jenifer stared incredulously at Mr. Maple.

"Get to our classes... Someone is dying, the school's on fire and you expect us to just merrily pack ourselves off to school and just ignore the situation do you?" she shouted. "I just risked my life for that kid and you're just going to leave her with a ... a... a sub-standard teacher who;"

"That's enough Jenifer," said Mr. Maple sharply. "Be quiet now or I will have to put you in detention."

Jenifer fell into a stubborn silence, her arms folded, scowling and glaring. She stomped back over to Jane and began to tell her story of what had happened in room B3.

****

When Jenifer and Miriam got home from school they returned to their house to find their mother in a state of hysterics.

"I thought you'd died!" she yelled, flinging her arms around her children and collapsing into them. "When I heard the school had gone up in flames! I... I..."

"Don't worry mum we were all in assembly," said Jenifer.

"Except Jenifer," said Miriam, unhelpfully. "She ran into the room when it was on fire."

"What?!" hollered Mary. "You did what?!"

"I ran into the burning classroom to save someone's life," said Jenifer. "What would you have done?"

"Called the fire brigade," said Mary, with an abrupt return to her usual bossy, busy self. "Now, we need to go shopping in five minutes. Miriam go upstairs and brush your hair and Jenifer feed the dog."

As the two girls obeyed their mother's orders Mary went outside and put some shopping bags in the car.

Once the whole family had fastened their seatbelts, driven away and parked in Sainsbury's car park; Mary got out of the car and gave her children their instructions.

"You are to stay in the car, for half an hour, until I get back," she said, patting her hair and picking up her bags. "You are not to touch anything, attempt to get out of the car or anything of that sort. Just sit still and behave yourselves." And she clipped and clopped towards the shop doors.

Miriam took a comic book from the pocket of her door and began to read. Jenifer stared out of the window and looked around at the people getting in and out of cars in the row in front of theirs. An old man was swearing loudly, attempting to force an overfilled, bulging bag of shopping through the door of his miniature Mini. A tall boy and girl were kissing over the gear stick in a smart grey Peugeot. And, someone who looked suspiciously like Jenifer's form teacher was getting back into a car which looked suspiciously like Jenifer's form teacher's car. Jenifer sat bolt upright. Miss Brightlight was getting into her car accompanied by a man Jenifer had seen on the television only yesterday evening on the News. He had broken out of some kind of prison but Jenifer couldn't remember why, or what he had been imprisoned for. She looked anxiously over at Miriam who was still absorbed in her comic book. Jenifer took a deep breath and stood up, bending over to avoid cracking her head on the roof of the car. Slowly, Jenifer shuffled towards the front of the vehicle until she was leaning over the operating pad. She looked at it. Feeling very confused and wary Jenifer pushed a random button, which was both very brave and very, very stupid. Nothing happened.

Jenifer frowned and reached out to press it again to try and unlock a door or something. The car bonnet exploded. Flames erupted from the front of the car and completely obscured the view out of the front windscreen. Jenifer screamed and leapt back from the driver's seat, landing right on top of Miriam, who yelped, shut her book and yelped even louder when she saw the car.     

 "What the heck is going on!" she yelled.

"I don't know!" lied Jenifer, equally as loudly. "But we have to get out of this car now before we're cooked alive inside!"

"But mummy locked us in!" said Miriam desperately, starting to sob into her sleeve. "We can't get out, we simply can't!"

"There has to be a way," said Jenifer firmly.

The temperature inside the car had already risen by at least ten degrees. Jenifer could feel herself sweating, both from panic and the heat. She started to hammer her fists hard on the windows, to try and break the glass, but she was fighting a losing battle. Miriam was now wailing dispiritedly in her seat, sitting stock still and doing nothing to help herself. Meanwhile, Jenifer was kicking the doors, tugging on the handles, punching the floor, scratching at the ceiling, everything and anything she could think of. A little while later, the roof of the car had caught fire too. Jenifer scalded her hand when she brushed the ceiling by accident. The car was now so hot inside it was starting to make Jenifer feel ill. She twisted the air conditioning knob hopelessly for some cold air but the whole car had shut down and anyway, Mary had locked it. Miriam leant out of her seat and retched onto the floor, spattering Jenifer's shoes with vomit.

"Nice Miriam. Really nice," said Jenifer sarcastically.

"I can't help it," whimpered Miriam. "I'm just so hot and frightened!"

 A few minutes later; Jenifer was starting to freak out herself. Miriam was leaning against the window, trying to absorb some cool air from outside with her face. Jenifer however was randomly pushing buttons again. Bang! Four wheels rolled across the tarmac floor outside and the car gave a horrible jolt and dropped several inches. Miriam vomited again, Jenifer leapt out of the way and collided with the operating pad. The car shot backwards with a whoosh and smashed right into a large Land Rover in the row of parked cars behind them. Jenifer and Miriam were both screaming their heads off in the passenger seats, having been thrown backwards and forwards by the wild swaying and swinging of the demolished used-to-be car. Jenifer stood up, feeling like she was going to faint. She looked out of the window.

Storming towards them with a face like thunder, with several large shopping bags clutched in each hand; was Mary Carrick. Jenifer's heart sank and then started beating very fast indeed as her mother approached and threw open a door. The two terrified children scrambled out and stood to face their mother.

"What the blazes have you two been doing?" bellowed Mary, her voice rising to a scream all through her sentence. "When I saw... When your father finds out... You could have been killed! How on earth are we going to get home?!"

"We could walk?" suggested Jenifer.

Mary gave her a look that could have melted ice and continued.

An hour later she was still yelling.

"You should never, ever, whatever the circumstances; press buttons at random, especially in electrical vehicles!" hollered Mary.

"I know, I know mum," said Jenifer, exasperated. "You've said that three times already."

Mary glowered at Jenifer with daggers in her eyes.

"Well I'd better call Richard," said Mary, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Maybe he can give us a lift back home, if two unruly mutts haven't blown up his car too." She put great emphasis on the word 'his'.

Five minutes later; Richard was the one ranting at Jenifer and Miriam whilst driving his smart Jaguar. The tow truck was behind them transporting what was left of the wreckage of Mary's ex-car.