This Still Happens

Chapter Twenty-Five - Feast: Gordon

There's a small crowd of us outside Mrs Paulson's office, the next morning. Don't get me wrong; when I say "a small crowd", what I mean is "a number of people more enormous than can fit into this little neck of the corridor". I'd say we were packed in like sardines, but I know it'd only be misconstrued. People would think of a small tin of fish. The sardines I'm referring to—the ones we currently resemble—are the people who willingly jam themselves into cupboards, wardrobes, and spaces underneath dining tables, at parties. In massive number.

We're not crammed into this bit of hallway like a handful of sardines into a tin. We're crammed into this but of hallway like a larder full of drunken teenagers pretending to be a handful of sardines in a tin.

With all the uncomfortable, sweaty closeness, and none of the electrifying, steamy intimacy that implies. It's June. We're at school. There's nothing electrifying or steamy about being at school in June.

So we're outside Mrs Paulson's office, having knocked, and now we're waiting—and we definitely wait for at least four hours, which I have on the very good authority of my extremely great patience—and waiting and waiting for her to answer the door.

"Are you sure she's even in there?" Tetty says, scratching her neck as she leans on the nearest bit of painted brick.

I snort with laughter and stick up two fingers in her general direction. "I think you should save questions like that for your chaperone next time you're at the gynecologist, don't you?"

She aims a kick at me, but I skip out of the way, and into Scott's waiting arms.

"Don't make me put you in my rucksack for the rest of the day, Gordy," he murmurs so that only I can hear, "Be a good chap, now."

I wink at him, feeling like I should say something to the effect of "oo-er", but not knowing exactly what.

And then Mrs Paulson opens the door of her office, and her eyebrows zoom up her forehead. "Goodness me, so many of you!" She looks at her watch. "No, it really is only quarter to eight! Are you all here for the same thing?"

A buzz erupts across the crowd, adolescent voices all at different stages of breaking or sweetening, none of them elegant or coherent. I'm glad I know everyone's saying "yes", because I doubt I'd be able to work it out otherwise.

Mrs Paulson looks bewildered enough to confirm that little guess of mine. "Come in, come in!" she says, holding the door open and counting under her breath as we all clamour into her office.

"Gosh, I'm not sure I have enough seats for everyone," she says, "It's not often I have so many visitors at once. Tell you what I do have—sit down, sit down, where you can—enough of, enough to go around..." She closes the door behind the last of the crowd, and reaches a tin down from the highest shelf of her bookcase. "Take a biscuit and pass them along, won't you? I've decided to keep biscuits for my visitors." She smiles and winks at someone I can't pick out.

Who's she looking at? I crane my neck to try to see, but I'm met by a pair of startled brown eyes.

That makes her sound like a deer, which... of course... she's nothing like. A deer would be scared of whatever appeared in its path. Ffion just looks like she wasn't expecting me to look at her, like I made her jump, but like she knows I was just a false alarm. But I don't know if I can liken her to anything else. Everything else I can think of right now is rude, and I've decided I'm not going to be rude about her anymore, no matter what she says to me.

Anyway. I'm the one who should be startled. I wouldn't have expected her to come to this meeting if my life had depended on expecting just that.

If. Hmm.