Obsessed by Liza North

Author:Liza North [North, Liza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

She’s never warned me against beauty before. It’s almost a compliment.

I’m still thinking about Laura’s mum as we practise the Dance at the Gym. I don’t realise I’m getting the steps wrong until Mr Balmore yells at me. I don’t realise I’m still doing it until the whole group stops.

‘Hope Mitchell,’ he says, ‘are you in a different show? You do know the point of being a team is stay in the team?’

The mums look up from their lists. Even Mrs Henderson seems surprised. My face blazes. Laura stops mid-spin with Rick, glances over her shoulder at me. She’s surprised too. But I’m not, and I know Rick isn’t.

I don’t know how Rick feels, but I’m angry.

I wait all afternoon, enduring classes. Then I stand outside Balmore’s classroom, out of sight, until I see him strutting off to rehearsal.

The corridor empties and I dive in. The room is as the students left it, chairs akimbo. I skirt desks, heading for the cubbyhole at the back. It’s unlocked, like I hoped it would be. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or perhaps he thinks his students love him too much to pry. Well, he can think again.

Inside, I flick on the light, push the door shut and look around. It’s barely more than a cupboard. Lots of books. Plays mostly, but novels too. A pile of essays. A smell that I trace to a bowl of apples, browning by the essays. Coffee and a mug, clean. A chair, which I stand on to scan the upper shelves.

I don’t know what I’m looking for. Something incriminating, I suppose. Pictures of Laura’s bum or Stacy’s breasts, snapped furtively in rehearsal. He spends enough time looking at them. Or, failing that, actual porn. But there’s nothing like that. There are two photos, but they’re on display on a lower shelf. One is his wife. Thin, like a pretty ferret, simpering in a yellow dress.

She picked him up from rehearsal once. She’s just as skinny now, and even more ferrety. Less pretty, though.

I’m more interested in the other photo, mainly because it’s old and hopefully irreplaceable. It was black and white once, I suppose, but now it’s brown and bumpy behind the glass. It’s a family – two boys, a woman and a man – on a park bench. The smaller boy is on his mother’s knee. The father has his arm around the older one. They’re all beaming.

I stare at this a long time. I don’t know which of the boys is Mr Balmore. Technically, I don’t know if either of them is. But I feel sure it’s the younger one, smug against his mother’s breast. I knock the frame, sweeping it with the back of my hand, jump when it hits the floor.

It lands face down. I lift it by a corner, but the glass is unbroken.

I hear footsteps. For an instant, I am held still. Then I move, quicker than I thought I could. I stand against the door, holding the handle. It’s a flaky ruse, but it’s all I’ve got.

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