The Gifted, the Talented and Me by William Sutcliffe

Author:William Sutcliffe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408890202
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Me versus drool boy

Next morning, at registration, something extraordinary happened. I walked in and Jennifer spoke to me.

That’s it.

OK, it doesn’t sound like much, but as far as I’m concerned this was my personal moon landing, Olympic gold medal and World Cup-winning penalty strike all rolled into one.

Amazingly, there’s more. She’d didn’t just say hi. She told me that a notice was up and I had a recall.

‘Wow!’ I said, mirroring her smile despite having no idea what on earth she was talking about.

‘I got one too,’ she added, clapping her hands together in that I’m-so-happy-I-have-to-applaud-myself way I’ve never really understood.

‘Great!’ I said, hoping my eyes weren’t giving away my ongoing total incomprehension of what we were discussing. ‘That’s excellent.’

‘It looks like I’m down to the last five for Miranda, and you’re up against three or four others for Caliban.’

‘Brilliant! And Miranda is … ?’

‘The female lead. Opposite Ferdinand, which Felipe’s up for, obviously. He’ll definitely get it.’

The play! She was talking about the play!

I concentrated hard on pulling a face which wouldn’t give away that I’d only just understood the topic of our conversation.

‘Caliban’s like a monster-type thing?’ she added. ‘But my mum says it’s a really cool part. Go and look at the notice.’

‘OK. Good idea. And I guess I’ll see you at the relay.’

‘The recall.’

‘The recall. That’s what I meant.’

‘It’s in batches. For each part.’

‘Oh, batches. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I always forget the batches. Batches, eh.’

Realising I was seriously overplaying my familiarity with recall batches, I turned and hurried from the room, bumping into Just Call Me Tony in the doorway.

‘Hey hey hey! Less haste more speed,’ said Just Call Me Tony. ‘Where are you going? It’s registration.’

‘I need to see the drama noticeboard. Jennifer says I’ve got a replay.’

‘A replay?’

‘A recall,’ said Jennifer.

‘A recall! Wow!’ said Just Call Me Tony, putting down the felting kit he was carrying and giving my shoulder a fatherly squeeze. ‘That’s great. You must be feeling really proud right now.’

‘Well, I need to see the notice.’

‘OK. Off you go. And it’s great to see you beginning to find your wings. I think you’re on the cusp of some interesting personal developments, Sam.’

I darted out of the room, pausing to stick two fingers up at Just Call Me Tony through the wall, out of sight of the teacher I was insulting, but not, unfortunately, of Mrs Florizel, who was standing right behind me.

When I turned and we found ourselves face to face, she gave me a severe teachery stare, though a hint of a smirk seemed to be playing at the corners of her mouth. I’m pretty sure I could see in her eyes something along the lines of I have to tell this kid off, but I also think Just Call Me Tony is a dick and I can’t wait to tell everyone in the staff room what just happened.

‘I saw that,’ she said.

I looked at the ground, faking remorse.

‘It’s healthy to express hard-to-verbalise emotions through physical movement, but gestures can be just as hurtful as words,’ she said.

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