Read Online The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson - Free Book Online Page A

be unclean and drip-drip-dripping in his blood.

serena
    October, 1985
    History is the most boring subject on earth. On earth .
    It has nothing to do with me and I really wish I didn’t have to do this lesson. ‘ Srrenna, Srrenna ,’ Veronica Bell, who sat behind me in History, kept calling at me under her breath. She wasn’t even saying my name properly. She wanted to me to take the note she’d written out of her hand and give it to Liam Ruthers who sat in front of me. I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to get involved in her trying to get Liam to notice her. I knew I’d get caught, and end up in detention or something. I’d seen it happen to other girls who’d tried to help Veronica. The teacher always got the note, read it out to the class, Veronica pretended she knew nothing about it and the note-passer got detention. That wasn’t happening to me. Especially not in this class. Veronica didn’t even like me. Most of the time she ignored me or called me names behind my back: like maps – spam backwards – because, according to her, I had a big, shiny forehead that was just begging to have someone hit while they yelled ‘SPAM’ in my face. She wouldn’t dare try it, though. She wasn’t sure what I’d do in return. She was all talk when I wasn’t there, but nothing to my face. And despite all that, she wanted me to help her to get Liam to go out with her.
    I stared down at the page in front of me, shutting out Veronica’s hisses. I was so bored I could yawn. I hated this classroom as well. It was smaller than the others, the windows weren’t as large and Sir never opened them, so we all seemed to be crammed in here, and the boys smelt. They all wore their dads’ aftershave even though most of them didn’t shave. And most of them kept a can of BO basher in their lockers so they could have a quick spray between classes. ‘Girls like boys to smell nice,’ that’s what Medina told me when I asked her why they did it. The girls were just as bad with their Yardley and Charlie, but the boys sprayed on loads and loads and I always felt sick afterwards.
    ‘Miss Gorringe, perhaps you would care to tell the class why policemen are sometimes called Bobbies?’ asked the new History teacher, out of the blue. He wasn’t like other teachers. He was only a little bit older than us. And all the girls said he should be a film star because he was good looking. His class was the worst for the smells: all the girls rushed to their lockers to spray on perfume before his class and the braver ones put on make-up and wore their jewellery, despite it being forbidden. I’d even seen Veronica pull up her skirt so her legs above her knees were on show.
    I didn’t like him much. He was always picking on me. Always asking me questions, like there was no one else in the class whose name he could remember so if there was a question to be answered, he called mine.
    ‘Because they were created by Sir Robert Peel. And Bobby is a shortened version of Robert.’
    ‘What year did he form the police force?’ Sir asked.
    ‘1829, Sir,’ I replied.
    ‘What else was Sir Robert Peel famous for?’
    ‘Abolishing the Corn Laws.’
    ‘Year?’
    ‘1846.’
    ‘Show off,’ Veronica hissed loudly and a few people in hearing distance laughed.
    She didn’t understand: I had to do extra reading because Sir was always picking on me and this was the only way to not give him a reason to give me detention.
    ‘Miss Gorringe, I’d like to see you after class,’ Sir said. My heart sank. If I got in trouble, they’d tell my parents and that was when the real trouble would begin.
    ‘But, S—’ I began.
    ‘After class, Miss Gorringe,’ he insisted.
    ‘Lucky cow,’ Veronica hissed, causing more laughter around me.
    ‘What was that, Miss Bell? You want more detention? What?’ Sir cupped his hand around his ear. ‘You’re desperate for it? OK, if you insist, Miss Bell. If I hear another word from you, I’ll make sure you have