voice was bawling. “Guys! You will not believe this! Guys! This is seriously weird, man!”
Shiela spun around. “What?” she cried. “What did he say?”
Jezza dropped the crowbar and the noise of it clanging on the stone floor made her scream.
“Don’t do that!” she yelled.
“Calm down, baby,” he muttered, gazing admiringly into the open crate. “Calm down.”
“That was Miller,” she said. “He might need help.”
Jezza chuckled. “I think our flatulent friend has merely discovered my conservatory,” he told her. “Nothing to worry about.”
Shiela stared at him. “How do you…?”
He grinned up at her and beckoned with his cigarette-stained fingers. “Come look,” he said. “Look what we found.”
“I don’t want to see,” she told him. “I’m so out of here.”
Jezza dipped his hand inside the crate.
“Don’t be scared, my honey, my pet,” he said.
In spite of herself, Shelia remained. Jezza was always bizarre and never behaved as society expected him to. That was part of the attraction. But this was different. She had not seen this side to him before.
Now he stood before her, holding something that caused his eyes to widen, and he drew in a marvelling breath.
“Look at this,” he whispered reverently. “There’s plenty more in the box. Each one is packed with them.”
Shiela lowered her eyes to the thing in his hands and the surprise and relief almost made her laugh out loud.
“It’s just a book!” she exclaimed. “Just a… kids’ storybook!”
His grin grew wider as he gave it to her. In the stark glare of the bare bulb she could see it was old, but had never been read. The dust cover was in mint condition, with only a few foxed marks speckling it. The illustration was an outdated style, but it had a certain period charm and she read the title aloud.
“Dancing Jacks.”
Jezza pressed his face against hers. “Yes,” he said, breathing damp and decay upon her as he smiled. “It’s just a book, my fair Shiela… bella.”
And so: those rascally Knaves, who set the Court cavorting. How they do behave, it’s really worth reporting. The Jill of Hearts, a hungry temptress, she’ll steal a kiss from lad and lass. The Jack of Diamonds prefers shinier pleasures, gold and jools are his best treasures. The Jill of Spades is coldly cunning, a secret plot and you’re done in. The Jack of Clubs, beasts and fowl adore him, all raise a shout and sing aloud — four Dancing Jacks have entered in!
“SIT DOWN AND settle down,” Martin Baxter said in that practised tone that only experienced teachers ever seemed capable of. It was loud enough to be heard above the scuffle and din of thirty kids flooding into a classroom, yet it wasn’t shouting and it required no great effort on his part.
“Coats off. Hurry up. Glen, do that tie up properly. Keeley, take your earphones out. If I see them again, your MP3 player is going in my little drawer till the end of term. Don’t think I won’t – it’ll be company for the mobiles.”
Surly young faces stared back at him and he beamed pleasantly in return. That always annoyed them. He hated this Year 10. Yes, actually hated them. They were just as bad when they were in Year 9. Actually, no, not all of them; some of the kids were OK. There were some genuinely nice, bright ones. But most of them, even the most naive and idealistic of the new staff had to admit, were hard work and there were one or two that he had long since classified as downright scum. Unfortunately that very scum were in his lesson right now.
In the far left corner, Keeley slid on to her seat in front of her two friends, Emma and Ashleigh. The three of them immediately began singing a Lady Gaga song and only stopped when they caught sight of Mr Baxter staring at them.
“Where do you three think you are?” he asked.
“In a boring maths lesson,” the hard-faced Emma answered.
“We’re going to enter the next X Factor, Sir,” Ashleigh explained.
“Don’t you need even a modicum of talent for that?” he inquired.
“Yeah, so we’ve got to practise,” Keeley argued.
“We’re going to blow that Cowell bloke away!” Ashleigh said. “We’re going to be famous and be in all the mags.”
Their teacher looked surprised. “Are there many specialist publications just for gobby imbeciles then?” he asked. “Actually that’d be most of them,” he murmured under his breath.
“You’re mean and sarky, Sir,” Emma grumbled.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he retorted with a fixed grin. “You’ve got as much chance of being singers as three cats yowling in a dustbin.”
The girls pouted and fell to whispering to one another.
“‘When shall we three meet again?’ probably,” Mr Baxter muttered, although he knew he was slandering Macbeth’s witches. Over the past few years he had come to realise that these three girls had no redeeming qualities and were getting worse. They had absolutely no regard for anyone except themselves and constantly showed their displeasure at having to attend school instead of being allowed to stay at home watching Jeremy Kyle.
“And who do you think you are?” Mr Baxter told one boy who came traipsing in with his trousers hanging down over his backside, displaying his underwear. “Pull them up!”
“You can’t discriminate against me, Sir,” came the rebellious reply. “It’s my identity, innit. I’m doing it to support my brothers. I won’t yank up my saggys.”
Martin raised his eyebrows. “Your brother works in Halfords,” he said with a weary sigh. “And I didn’t realise bright purple pants with Thomas the Tank Engine on them were very hip hop.”
“Yeah, well, my best ones is in the wash and I wouldn’t wear them to this poxy school anyways.”
“Be that as it may,” Martin said, above the titters. “The fact remains, that’s not how you’re supposed to wear your uniform so pull them up or you’ll be staying behind every night this week and every night after that until you do pull them up.”
“You is well bullying me, Sir.”
“Owen,” Martin said with a weary sigh. “Why do you insist on speaking like that?”
“It’s who I is, innit.”
“No, it isn’t. For one thing, you’re ginger, for another – you’re Welsh.”
“I is ghetto.”
“You’re as ghetto as Angela Lansbury, only nowhere near as cool and I’m sure she doesn’t reek of Clearasil and athlete’s foot powder. Now save who you is till you get outside the school gates, then you can drop your trousers down past your bony knees for all I care.”
Owen hitched his trousers up and sat down noisily, slinging his bag on the desk before him.
Martin Baxter groaned inwardly. He didn’t mind what cultures the kids tapped into. It was normal and healthy to seek for an identity, but in recent years he’d become aware just how homogenised that identity had become. Was it any surprise though when just about every other television programme was fronted by presenters with forced mockney accents, as if working-class London was the centre of the cool universe and nowhere else mattered. It made him wince whenever he heard the kids here in Felixstowe trying to mimic the cod East End accents that grunted around Walford. Whatever happened to quirky individuality?