Читать книгу Feather Boy онлайн | страница 2

Anyway, there we all were in that dead time just after lunch, a little pale sunlight trying to push its way into Class 7R. Miss Raynham had set out a chair for Catherine and patted its seat to make her sit down. She’d said “ahem” and begun to scratch her head. None of us likes it when Miss Raynham scratches her head. Her thin grey hair barely covers her very white scalp. The merest touch of a fingernail on that creepy skull showers her shoulders with dandruff. Niker says if she ever loses her job as a teacher she could earn a living making snowdrifts for the movies. When I told my mum that story (and I made the story mainly about Niker) Mum said: “that’s nothing.” Apparently, when she was at school, they had a teacher called Miss Cathart, who used to spit down the sleeves of her cardigan. Miss Cathart’s cardigans, Mum says, were the crocheted sort. Loosely knitted. With holes in. So the spit ran out.

This is the problem with stories. They run on. So – to begin again: Miss Raynham says: “Ahem.” And then. “This is Catherine. Catherine erm…”

“Deneuve,” says Niker.

“Of Aragon,” says Derek.

“Parr,” says Weasel.

You can see we’ve been learning about Henry VIII. Well, everyone but Niker has.

“Class,” says Miss Raynham and she shifts downwind – fast. She’s big, Miss Raynham, corpulent, a blob on legs. But she moves like a spider. One minute she’s standing at the front of the class with a smile and a piece of chalk and the next thing you know is she’s zigzagged to your desk and the chalk is in your neck. Or Niker’s neck in this case.

“Catherine Fenn,” continues Miss Raynham without a pause, “has come to speak to us about the Elders’ Project. Catherine?”

Attention transfers at once to the front of the class. Catherine is youngish, in her twenties probably, little, dark, and she seems at rather a loss. Her long hair is piled up on her head and held in place with a moon and stars clip. Only the clip isn’t doing a very good job and most of the hair is making a bid for freedom down Catherine’s back. She’s wearing those brightly coloured clothes that look like you’ve dipped them at random in three different vats of dye and – as yet – she hasn’t said anything.