Puberty Blues Read Free

moving in on her territory.
    As customary, we broke out our oranges, half-peeled them and began to suck. The juices ran down our chins and trickled down our school uniforms.
    â€˜Give us a suck,’ asked Sue.
    If you peeled a whole orange at once, you were a goner. Everyone asked you for a segment.
    â€˜K’niver bit?’
    â€˜Give us a bite.’
    â€˜You owe me some.’
    So we all sucked together, saliva, orange juice and cigarette smoke mingling.
    â€˜Shit!’ I cried. Half an orange had hit me in the head. Tracey Little was up the back of the bus laughing.
    â€˜Get up the front were you belong. Ya goody-goody!’
    I hurled the rest of my orange right back at her. She stormed up the aisle and shoved me. ‘Gutless wonder.’ Tracey started pulling me up by the hair. She didn’t think I’d stick up for myself but I dug my nails into her long, blonde hair and yanked. We were caught in a headlock, flashing our brief, black hip-nippers at the whole bus.
    â€˜What’s going on?’ boomed the bus driver, pulling on the brake at the uproar. ‘ Yews can get orf! ’ he shouted.
    â€˜Ya gunna stop?’ I asked, tough but almost in tears. Tracey loosened her grip. We went back to our seats. My head was ringing. The last thing I felt like was an exam.

2
gang girls
    THE bell rang. Mr Fairburn directed us in long files from the front to the back of the auditorium. A row of boys. A row of girls. A row of boys. I rushed to sit behind Sue. Cheryl Nolan was behind me. The papers were handed out.
    â€˜Keep them face down.’
    A deadly hush descended on the hall.
    â€˜Thirty seconds to go.’
    The air was thick and tense.
    â€˜Fifteen seconds to go.’
    Mr Fairburn raised his hand, index finger extended towards the ceiling.
    â€˜Ten … nine … eyes to the front, Basin … seven … six … five … pens poised … three … two … one …’ his arm released like a guillotine. ‘ Go! ’
    There was a rustle of paper and a bowing of heads.About fifteen minutes into the exam, a few of the girls got itchy legs.
    The boys had no easy means of cheating. Jeff Basin, who was sitting across the aisle from me, got stuck on number sixteen.
    â€˜Deb …,’ he whispered out of motionless lips, ‘Hey … Deb. Sixteen?’
    I glanced over.
    â€˜Sixteen,’ he mimed, his eyebrows puckered.
    I casually consulted my thigh. The answer was way up under the elastic of my pants. Without answering straight away, I gazed at the ceiling, crossed my legs, chewed my pen as if in thought, glanced at Mr Fairburn, then hissed the answer across the aisle.
    â€˜Nineteen twelve.’
    Cheryl leant forward to whisper a question. I held up my paper, a little to the right so she could see it. We were all going for it up the back of the hall. Answers were being whispered. Tunics were pulled up. Mr Fairburn was pretty deaf and pretty blind. He was way up the front.
    â€˜One more, Deb?’ pleaded Jeff.
    It was near the end of the exam.
    â€˜Forty-six?’
    I checked the answer and scribbled it on my rubber. I waited till Mr Fairburn’s back was turned. He was pacing up the front aisle saying, ‘Five more minutes.’ My rubber thudded softly into the aisle between us. Jeff waited a while and retrieved it with his foot. He’djust written down the answer on his paper when his neck was seized in a strangling clamp. A big hairy hand crashed down on his desk. It was the deputy head.
    â€˜Hand it over, Basin.’
    He gulped and tried to wiggle out of Mr Berkoff’s grasp. Berkoff hauled him up by the neck. ‘Get to the office boy!’ he said. He turned and began to tap the other culprits on the head with his Bic biro. ‘And you, you girls—Susan Knight, Deborah Vickers. Headmaster’s office, right this minute. Pronto.’
    Sue and I slunk out to the quadrangle for lunch. The Greenhills