After the fourth time Sandy tried and failed to thread the sewing machine, Anastasia moved her chair sideways and did it herself.  “Thanks,” said Sandy gloomily.

“Well, it was starting to depress me,” she replied with a shrug, “Sandy versus Machines, coming soon to a cinema near you.”

“If it acts up again, I’m throwing it in the river.”  The sewing machines were all on tales around the edge of the room, which meant that, when you were using one, you had your back to the rest of the room.  This had its advantages and disadvantages.  On the one hand, it meant that you didn’t have to look at Mrs Ingram all lesson.  On the other, it meant that she could sneak up on you whenever you least expected it.

No-one in Year Eight knew exactly how old Mrs Ingram was.  She couldn’t have been much more than sixty (“otherwise she’d have retired by now, right?”), but she looked as if she’d been around for centuries, like a bog mummy preserved in the mud for future generations.  Her face had shrivelled into a permanent scowl, and she looked at every pupil in the class as if they’d just thrown litter into her garden.  Sandy glanced around, just in case, and saw her behind the desk, flicking through some paperwork.  They were safe for now.

Sandy looked up at the display on the walls, about a foot above the sewing machines.  They’d spent most of this term making tea towels with their own personal designs.  Actually, they’d spent most of this term writing about how they were going to make the tea towels, then writing about how they had made the tea towels, with the actual making bit kind of a rush job in between.  Anyway, Sandy could see hers from here, and she wasn’t totally satisfied with it.  “I don’t think you can tell that they’re supposed to be bananas,” she said, pointing at the yellow shapes sewn onto the material, “They look more like moons.”

Anastasia stretched up for a better look.  Sandy noticed that she was wearing a kind of glittery blue eyeliner today, and wondered if she’d deliberately picked it because it matched the jewels in her earrings, or if it had just been a coincidence.  “Nothing wrong with moons,” she told Sandy.

“Yeah, but if I’d been doing moons, I’d have picked a dark blue background, not a green one.”  Her eyes wandered over to some of the other projects.  “Yours is meant to be like a ladybird pattern, right?”

“Yeah.”  A genuine grin came to Anastasia’s face when she looked at it.  “The giant ladybird tea towel, that’s me.”

“It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

If they’d been listening to the sound of flickering paper from Mrs Ingram’s desk, then they might have heard the decisive thump as she dropped all of it onto the desk, all done with.  Then it might not have been such a surprise when Mrs Ingram called out, “Anastasia Dunn.  Come here.”

Anastasia came here.  Sandy turned around on her chair, so she could have one eye on her sewing and one eye on what was happening at the desk.  She couldn’t risk turning any further.  Mrs Ingram looked ready to skin someone alive.

She waited for Anastasia to walk all the way to her desk (about two and a half metres, give or take), before demanding, “Where is your evaluation essay?”

“Um…” mumbled Anastasia, “I handed it into the marking cupboard on Monday…”

“No.”  Mrs Ingram didn’t yell it, exactly, but she managed to stretch the word out so that it sounded like it had four or five extra vowels in it.  “If you had, it would have been in this pile with the others.”  She tapped the pile with her whole hand, as if she was smacking it on the nose for misbehaving.  She stared expectantly at Anastasia for a few seconds, then added, “Can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth, can we?”

Anastasia didn’t seem sure of how to answer that.  Sandy wasn’t sure who “we” were.

All of a sudden, Mrs Ingram blinked, and said in a voice that could have shattered glass, “What on earth is that on your face?”

Anastasia touched her sparkly blue eyeliner, as if she’d forgotten that she had it on until right this second.  “It’s… um…”

“How dare you wear that to school?”

“Um…  I’m sorry…”

Mrs Ingram pointed to the door with a trembling hand.  “Go straight to the toilets and wash it off.  This minute.” 

She seemed to be wavering over the next bit, taking a breath and then thinking better of it, pressing her lips together as if her whole mouth was having an argument with itself.  But finally, just as Anastasia was halfway out the door, she added, “You can plaster yourself with as much makeup and you want, but we can all see what you are.”

Mrs Ingram was old, Sandy reminded herself.  She said strange things sometimes, and only she knew what they meant.  There was no reason to get upset.

(To be continued)