Posh and Prejudice (3 page)

“’Ere, Shiraz, did you see Luther on your way here?” she shouted, and I shrugged and said no.

Coming in the door behind us were Chantalle Strong and Uma Brunton-Fletcher, stinking of ciggies, and in the corner was Nabila
Chaalan being filmed by her dad opening her results and looking well pleased. By this point I was feeling seriously like I
was going to have runnybum right there in my knickers.

“I’m Shiraz Bailey Wood,” I said to Dora, the headmaster’s secretary—as if she didn’t flaming know—I saw more of Dora than
I did of any of the teachers during Year Nine. She winked and got me my envelope. I stuck it under my arm and wandered off
by myself outside to this little bench by the teachers’ parking lot.

I could hardly breathe by this point. This is what it said:

CANDIDATE STATEMENT OF PROVISIONAL RESULTS

GENERAL CERTIFICATE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

CENTER NUMBER
:
64276

CENTER NAME
:
mayflower academy

CANDIDATE NUMBER
:
2987

CANDIDATE NAME
:
wood, shiraz bailey

UNIQUE CANDIDATE IDENTIFIER
:
6427568798768Q

I stared at the paper for ages. I could NOT bloody believe it.

I got two A pluses!! And another two As! And some Bs and Cs! I got results like a proper bloody boffin would get! My heart
was jumping about in my chest and I kept reading the name part again and again to double-check it weren’t a mistake but it
WEREN’T A MISTAKE! There was my name on the top and there ain’t any other Shiraz Bailey Woods in the world ever! Go and stick
my name in Google if you want proof! I’d passed a load of GCSEs! I PASSED ENGLISH AND MATH AND HISTORY AND RELIGION! I felt
proper dizzy and sick and like I really needed the loo again. Then I stood up and sat down and stood up again and then I felt
all floaty. I got my cell phone out to call my mum or someone. Then I put it back in my pocket again.

Just then a black 4×4 Jeep pulled into the parking lot with the windows down, playing some proper old skool R&B from the ’90s.
There was a dark-skinned lady wearing trendy thick-rimmed glasses in the driver’s seat. Ms. Bracket! She got out and slammed
the car door, spotted me, and gave me a wave.

“Well, good morning, Miss Wood,” she said. “I was hoping I might see you!”

“All right, Ms. Bracket!” I said, but my voice was all crackly now like I was going to cry or something which was well shameful
but I couldn’t stop it.

“So, go on, then?” she said, nodding at the exam slip.

“I passed them!” I said. “I got two bloody A-pluses too! S’cuse my language, sorry! Look! I got loads of them…”

She took the sheet and looked at it and her face all lit up.

“My word, Shiraz Bailey Wood!” she said. “This is WONDERFUL news. Totally. You absolutely deserve this! Well done!”

“Thanks very much!” I said and I was proper beginning to cry now, like a right loon. Ms. Bracket put her hand on my shoulder.

“Now, Shiraz, in my capacity as the new Head of English,” she said, “I’m really hoping you’ll be joining us in the brand-new
Mayflower Sixth Form. I’m looking forward to teaching you. Actually, hang on a minute. Take one of these. They’re just back
from the printer.”

Ms. Bracket reached inside her briefcase and pulled out a booklet that was titled “Mayflower Sixth Form—A Center of Excellence.”

Just then Mr. Bamblebury, our headmaster, appeared looking all depressed and told Ms. Bracket he needed to talk to her about
schedules.

I shoved my results in my hoodie pocket and walked slowly back to Mr. Yolk’s where Mario had run out of both beef and chicken
pot pies and the customers were staging some sort of revolt.

I got the rest of the teacups well white with no stains or anything. It took a lot of scrubbing though. As I say, it was a
proper weird day.

The reason I didn’t call no one yesterday when I got my results was ’cos to be honest I didn’t want the hassle.

But I get home tonight to find Cava-Sue has organized a special dinner round at our house for the family and invited Nan and
Wesley. Cava-Sue even went to the supermarket and got me one of them cakes where they use their computer to stick your face
on the front which was proper sweet of her even if she had taken my old school photo from Year Eight where I’ve got my hair
scraped back and a big spam forehead going on and a bit of a cross-eye and I look like a mental.

So I walk in the house and Nan and her mate Clement are in the living room drinking tea. Nan and Clement go everywhere together
these days since their other mate Gill died proper sudden this year. I reckon they like seeing each other every day to make
sure one of them can’t go and cark it when the other one’s not looking. Clement is a well funny old dude. He comes from the
West Indies and he has this proper thoughtful way of saying everything like he knows a little bit about everything in the
world. He always wears a hat. He’s about eighty or something. He loves cakes. That’s all I know about Clement really.

“So I hear we have a genius in our midst, young Shiraz!” Clement says when he sees me.

“Oh, not really,” I say to him. “I dunno how I did it really. Proper fluke it was I reckon.”

“Don’t be daft!” says my Nan. “She’s always been sharp as a tack this girl! ’Ere, Diane? Do you remember when she tried to
donate our Murphy to the school’s swap meet? Oh my life! I laughed and laughed.”

“Nan, I was only seven,” I said.

“Oh, but it was pure comedy,” Nan said proper chuckling. “Your teacher said bring in stuff from home you’re sick of and you
don’t want no more! So you tried to give ’em Murphy! You don’t miss a trick, you!”

My mum walked in the living room then, carrying a teapot, still wearing her work uniform, laughing her head off.

“So I gets a call from the school, Clement,” she says. “Saying ’ere Mrs. Wood your Shiraz in Primary Three has got your Murphy
out of his Primary One class and she’s sat him on a chair in the assembly hall with a price tag on his neck and he’s doing
his nut crying and had an accident in his trousers!! Oh, I shouldn’t laugh but it were funny, bless ’em!”

“I weren’t laughing,” Murphy said proper grumpily ’cos he was trying to watch a
Regis and Kelly
rerun. Me and Murphy have both heard this story so many times now we could sing it like a song.

In the kitchen Cava-Sue and Lewis were sticking Iceland mini-sausages on sticks and pushing them in a melon to make a porcupine.

Next up my Wesley arrives and he’s only gone and been to Kay in Ilford mall and got me a passing my exams pressie! It was
a big gold heart-shaped locket on a chain with room for two photos.

“The woman in the shop says you gotta put me on one side and you on the other side and then when it’s shut we’ll always be
kissing, innit,” Wesley told me.

“Aw, isn’t that smashing?” said my mum, looking at it proper jealously.

“Thanks, babe, you’re a star,” I said to Wesley.

I couldn’t stop staring at it ’cos it was well big. Even bigger than Uma Brunton-Fletcher’s clown pendant. Ginormous.

At that point Dad got back from work so we were all allowed to start eating. ’Cept we couldn’t ’cos Cava-Sue wanted to make
a speech, ’cos ever since she did that AS-Level in Theater Studies she can’t do nothing without it turning into a big show.

“I just wanted to say on behalf of everyone,” said Cava-Sue, clinking a glass with a spoon, “How proud of our Shiraz we all
are that she’s passed so many GCSEs! Shiz, I think you’ve got a really amazing future ahead of you. So here’s to you! Cheers!”

Cava-Sue raised up her glass of Peach Lambrella wine.

“Cheers!” shouted everyone and we clinked our glasses together.

If we’d all just said goodnight then and gone our individual ways then we might have avoided the fight.

“So what’s the plan now, Shiraz, is it next stop Downing Street?” said Clement, who was tucking into a piece of cake with
my nose printed on it.

“Oh well, dunno really,” I said to him, though I did know really. I was proper faking it.

“Yeah you do, Shiz,” jumped in Cava-Sue. “You’re going back to Sixth Form!”

“She’s what?” said my mother. “No she ain’t! She’s got a job!”

Cava-Sue tutted well loudly. “Shiraz ain’t got a proper job, Mum! She works at Mr. flaming Yolk!” she said, and she poked
me in the arm well hard. “Shiz, have you not told Mother what you’re doing?”

“Well I didn’t know what I was doing!” I moaned.

“Well you do now,” said Cava-Sue. “You’re doing Sixth Form! You can’t just stop now. You wanna get a proper education!”

Murphy and Wesley started to try to leave the room.

“Oh, bleeding wonderful!” said Mum, pointing at me. “Another one of my kids farting about after school instead of earning
a living!”

Cava-Sue looked annoyed then.

“I was NOT farting about!” shouted Cava-Sue, “I took bloody AS-Levels in Theater Studies and General Studies. I passed them
both too! I was in London when the results came so NO ONE THREW ME A PARTY!”

“Oh well, that may be, Cava-Sue!” shouted Mum, “But I thought you were doing them exams so you’d get an important job afterward
and earn some cash! But you ain’t got jack! Just floating about from one thing to the next! I’m still footing the bill!”

“Right! Come on,” said Nan. “We’ve all had a drink! Let’s just pipe down!”

We’d only had bleeding half a bottle of Peach Lambrella between nine of us!

“Me and Lewis are going traveling!” shouted Cava-Sue, pointing at Lewis, who was trying to hide behind the sausage porcupine.
“That’s why we’re not starting our careers yet! And to be quite frank, Mother, it ain’t all about getting a proper flashy
job anyway. What about education just for education’s sake!? What about just bettering your brain!?”

Mum looked well hacked off now.

“Well, my brain is fine thank you and I didn’t do any of these AS level thingies!” shouted my mum, “I got myself a job the
very second I could. I wasn’t even sixteen! I was fifteen! Clive, the manager at Edmund Bosworth Bookies—God rest his mortal
soul—had to pay me out of the petty cash float ’cos I was too young to legally work! But I was on the doorstep at 8
AM
every day and I went there with PRIDE.”

“Oh really, Mother?” sighed Cava-Sue proper snarky like. “Do tell me that again. I’ve only heard it EIGHT MILLION NINE HUNDRED
AND TWELVE TIMES since I was born.”

Suddenly, I had to say what was burning up in my head, ’cos it was dying to get out.

“LOOK, EVERYONE! SHUT UP A MINUTE,” I shouted. Everyone shut up and looked at me. “I WANNA GO BACK TO SIXTH FORM, RIGHT! I
WANNA DO SOME A-LEVELS!”

No one said anything. They all stared at me with their gobs open. Mum just pursed her lips. My dad gave me a wink. I could
see him trying not to smile.

When I got home from Mr. Yolk the next day I went in my room and Dad was fitting together a desk in the corner. It’s only
a little one from Target with a fold-up chair, but it’s a proper place for me to study.

Ha! “A proper place for me to study.”

Oh my days, listen to me, I am such a flaming boffin.

SEPTEMBER

TIME FOR A FRESH START, SAYS
“
SUPERCHAV ACADEMY
”
HEAD

—reporter Mark E. Taylor

A brand new Sixth Form “center of excellence” and banner GCSE results spell a fresh start for Mayflower Academy, claims optimistic
headmaster Siegmund Bamblebury.

Mayflower Academy—nicknamed “Superchav Academy” by the national press following a catalogue of antisocial behavior issues—has
recently received a multi-million-pound cash-boost from central government. The funds have been plowed into renovating and
extending the school, as well as employing new teaching staff and restocking the library.

“I want to draw a line through the old days. It’s time the media stopped harking back to the negative,” said Mr. Bamblebury,
making reference to the widescale drug use, joy-riding, bullying, and low exam grades which led to a 2004 Ofsted inspection
to term the establishment “The worst school in Britain.”

“It’s important to look ahead, not backward,” said Mr. Bamblebury. “The past two years have seen massive improvements.”

When asked about last December’s Mayflower Winter Festival, which resulted in the assembly hall being destroyed by fire, Mr.
Bamblebury put the phone down and curtailed the interview.

I wandered over to Carrie’s tonight ’cos Carrie’s mum Maria was having a party for Carrie passing her GCSEs. Carrie didn’t
do quite as well as me, but she still got three A’s, which is well good ’cos she didn’t do nothing to prepare as far as I
could tell.

Maria wanted to celebrate last week but then Carrie’s dad Barney got this big old contract fitting Jacuzzis all over Chigwell.
This geezer called Malik who works in the city had got a ginormous cash bonus through so he’d bought EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF
HIS FAMILY a Jacuzzi for their garden. Barney was over the moon. He’s not been home for days except to sleep. “You gotta make
hay when the sun shines!” That’s what Barney Draper always says. “I ain’t gonna keep my little girl in daft shoes and lip
gloss sitting about on my ’arris contemplating my navel!” he says.