Do You Remember the First Time?

upright.
    ‘Nothing! Nothing! I didn’t mean it! I’ve just … I’ve never said it before. I just wanted to see what it was like.’
    ‘It’s a big old week of firsts for you, isn’t it?’ I said.
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘Try not to say it unless you mean it,’ I said.
    ‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
    ‘Well done,’ said Miss Syzlack, looking up and down my marks.
    I’d lingered at the end of the guidance session. I wasn’t even quite sure why.
    ‘You’ve caught up much better than I thought you would with the art.’
    ‘People can, you know,’ I said. ‘Sometimes, academia isn’t the only thing you should be pushing people towards.’
    ‘Are you trying to tell me how to do my job, Flora Jane?’
    ‘No, miss,’ I said. ‘When you started out, did you think you were going to hate it?’
    She smiled and I remembered those awful tears and discipline problems.
    ‘I’ll let you into a little secret,’ she said. ‘When I started, I hated it.’
    ‘I know,’ I said.
    ‘You don’t,’ she said. ‘It was awful. I used to cry in the classroom.’
    ‘Did people used to lock you in cupboards?’
    ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘It was dreadful. I wanted to give up every day. I couldn’t sleep. My doctor was going to prescribe me something.’
    ‘You’re much better now,’ I said. ‘What happened?’
    ‘Well, I realised that we only have one life. And thatthis was what I’d chosen. And that it is a good thing to do, it is worthwhile, so I’d better just make the best of it. And I found once I’d done that, I started to get better at it, and I even started to enjoy it. I know what you’re thinking, Miss Scurrison, but there are a lot worse things I could be doing. Stuck in an office all day, for example. I couldn’t bear that.’
    ‘Didn’t you ever … you know, want to get married? Have your own family?’
    She laughed. ‘You know, I was thinking you were an old head on young shoulders, Flora, but I’d at least have thought you’d have been up on school gossip. I’ve been living with Miss Leonard for ten years.’
    ‘The gym teacher?’
    ‘Run along now, little girl.’ And she shot me a big smile.
    ‘Has Tashy called?’ I asked, for the nineteenth time.
    ‘No,’ said my mother, looking over. My dad was helping her cook. Wonders would never cease. There’d been another afternoon of shouting, tears, and my mother slamming doors, while I hid upstairs, eyes tight shut.
    Then finally, amazingly, it was like the clouds had parted and the world had become calm. They were definitely, definitely making an effort – to talk to each other, for him to do things for her. I was keeping my fingers crossed that my mother just might have a willing slave for life.
    ‘You better not have annoyed your guidance counsellor,’ said my dad.
    ‘What are you going to do, get me into trouble?’ I said. ‘I’m her bridesmaid, Dad, OK? Just checking.’
    Stanzi looked at the large Galaxy ice cream I’d bought her with undisguised suspicion as we sat on the wall outside the house.
    ‘You try to make me fat so no man will ever love me again so I never get sad no more, yes?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘Can’t I do something nice for my friend?’
    ‘Your best friend you always leave behind.’
    ‘My best friend,’ I said, sending up a silent apology to Tash, from whom I’d heard nothing since our phone call days ago. I’d called her again, but she wasn’t in work or picking up her phone. Or at least, picking it up to me. She must be lying low. Or just panicking. But I’d have thought, before her wedding, she might have wanted to talk to me. Maybe she was just too furious that I was making her go through with it after all, that I wanted to go home.
    ‘You’re the best friend anyone could ever have,’ I said. ‘And I am so, so sorry for leaving you behind.’
    Stanzi sighed. ‘Life is hard.’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘I hate him.’
    ‘He won’t be the last.’
    ‘No. You’re right. I shall hate all of them.’
    ‘You won’t,’ I said. ‘Wait and see.’
    ‘We will find nice boys together, yes?’
    ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘Come here.’ And I gave her a big cuddle, just in case I was saying goodbye.
    ‘Friends for ever?’ she said.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For sure.’
    We ate the ice cream. Then I went home and cried for two hours.

Chapter Sixteen
    The rain was beating down on the windscreen as my dad damply tried to navigate the wet road.
    ‘I think it’s up here,’ I ventured.
    ‘That’s right,