I woke up this morning with this in my head :

Which is the second in a series of ditties entitled "Young Zeddy's Guide To The (B)Or(e)chestra". The first was:

Sunday 16 May 1999

My eraser shaped like a London bus which I've had since I was six had an unfortunate accident during Physics the other day. In order to prevent the evil Chris from throwing it into a sink or at Alice and Helen Wo's desk (yes, I've convinced my teacher to let us sit together again), I clung onto it so tightly that it snapped in half.

My student planner is suffering also. I used to be weeks ahead with my colouring in of its rectangles, but on 13 May, only the rectangles up to 12 May were coloured in. Does this mean I have actually found Other Less Geenic Activities In Which To Indulge?

Of course not. I've simply rediscovered the joy of string. Throwing knives at the dartboard (as invented by Tim [Chris's brother]) is quite good fun too.

In a fit of extreme boredom, Roe and Chris took to graffiti-ising my student planner in anti-Smillic ways. Fortunately, when Smilosevic discovered these pleasant messages, she simply collapsed into Mad Hysterical Laughter (tm).

Monday 17 May 1999

1. Today, in Physics, I discovered that Smill spells "Cure" "Kewr" like I do. Well, you have to learn something in Physics.

2. My Physics teacher is now trying to kill me in order to make Chris get on with some work. This makes little sense, since I am the one more likely to get an A. (Chris's practicals are in the same non-state as mine.) However, his logic is I am easier to kill because I am smaller. Mimph. In response to his, "Do something useful", I decided that I was breathing which is v. useful, so I don't know what his problem is.

3. I have no idea when I'll do my Physics practicals since the computers at school are not working (what a surprise) and will not be until after I finish School Life As I Know It on Friday. And:

I must spend the rest of tonight night practising de clarinet, since I'm playing a solo in a concert tomorrow (ayp!)
I won't get home until something past nine tomorrow, owing to said concert.
On Wednesday I must do immense quantities of driving (hrm, guess when my test is? All my acquaintances know anyway since I made the mistake of telling Chris, blarg.)
On Thursday I am going out. Yes, you did read that right. However, I will be beneath the eyes of two teachers, so don't worry, I won't do anything that you wouldn't. Or anything you would, for that matter. (I'm 86% pure, according to The Spark's purity test. The missing 14% bothers me. Don't drink, don't smoke, what do I do?)
And on Friday the practicals are to be handed in. Ayp.

Why oh why did I spend the entire weekend reading and stoof?

4. Smill is coming to my house on Friday afternoon to get ready for the leavers' dinner. I am going to force her to listen to some decent music (ie. Teh Kewr, Teh Smiffs, Madness, Teh Stranglers and Rochette De La Crypte.) Bwahaha!

5. Why do I always look at my watch when I need to know what the date is, when I have never possessed a watch that tells me the date?

6. Why do I wear my watch on my right hand when I'm right handed and possess a left hand that is, as a rule, very undextrous?

7. I am getting totally and utterly pants at pool. I blame the cue, which is lacking both chalk and a tip.

Tuesday 18 May 1999

The concert was ok. My piece went better than I expected. Then again, I expected my music to evaporate, my clarinet to be incapable of producing sound, my fingers to stick themselves to the keys for the entirety of eternity, and the chapel to fall down. None of the above happened, but I couldn't do the second page-turn. Luckily, the music was rescued and I didn't need it anyway (since I know the entire piece off by heart). Unfortunately, my beloved accompanist (Dad) played more pantsly than ever, but hardly anyone could tell.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is: No More School Band Ever. No More Solos Ever. Yoj! And, for that matter, no more General Studies or Religion lessons. Good riddance! Only three days of school remain! Heech!

Saturday 22 May 1999

The weather has been warped lately. On Wednesday night, the heat was stifling. I drove around Carlisle with my mother for two hours and by the end, my eyes were so fried by the sunlight that all I wanted to do was go to bed. After my driving lesson the following morning, I removed my school jumper and downed a beaker of orange which did nothing to quench my thirst. And after the test (which I failed, reversing round an aevil corner) there was no way I could satisfy my thirst or take off enough clothes without getting arrested. On Thursday night at the "party" (a trip to a restaurant with a few of my classmates and two teachers), the heat remained, but on Friday I woke up to greyness and rain. A beautiful start to the last day of school ever. It brightened up as the hours passed, was very windy in the evening, but at 2am I wasn't remotely cold outside a night club in my flimsy dress. As I lay awake on Alice's bedroom floor in the early hours of the morning, I watched white fluffy clouds scudding across the sky, but when Alice went out to walk her dogs while the rest of us lazed around, the wind and rain returned in full force. But it's brighter now.

Yesterday was a strange day: nothing was the way I expected it to be and others agreed. It didn't feel like the last day of school, but it didn't feel like a normal school day either.

On arriving, the Upper 6th congregated in the chapel in preparation for our leavers' assembly. The music we wanted was Missing Presumed Dead, but we managed to find some other suitable stuff. We eventually let everyone else enter after causing an almighty traffic jam in the corridor outside, while we lined up in alphabetical order of surname.

Our names were read out, two at a time, and we walked to the front of the chapel together. As a 'V' and a 'W', Will and I were a couple. Only instead of giving everyone the satisfaction of seeing us walking down the aisle together, he carried me. I hadn't thought he'd be strong enough, but a practise run in the carrels indicated he was mightier than he appeared. (I could be lighter than I feel, but I doubt it.) Naturally, everyone burst into Mad Hysterical Laughter (tm), but it changed direction when Herman (a 'Y') entered. The previous afternoon, he'd had the majority of his hair shaved off and most of the school had yet to see him. (Later that day, he had the rest removed.) "Weird" would be an understatement for the effect.

We each read a line from the Sunscreen song. The assignment of the lines deliberate: Smill's, for example, was along the lines of "Forget the insults you receive / Remember only the compliments." (She decided that if that was an insult - which, no doubt, it was - she would ignore it.) Then a prayer, then "Jerusalem" which sounded strangely pants. Then teachers and Lower 6th members took millions of photographs of us; it was hard to smile.

After I left the chapel, I encountered my old science teacher, who had been at the "party" the previous night. He had learned of the existence of The Song and The Poem and wished to read them. I had printed them out, so I gave him copies.

[The subject of The Poem was less than thrilled when I left it on his desk the previous day. He hasn't spoken to me since - and I write this some years later! - but the rest of the staff enjoyed it thoroughly.]

Next, I had a double free; Marion (who was in school for once) asked me to assist with her personal statement type thing for her application to college next year. So we spent the next hour in the careers' room, making up all this beep about how she loved playing the flute, but didn't have time (she hasn't played it in years and spends her spare time simultaneously watching TV and making paper cranes).

However, little did I know what was going on in the Chemistry lesson at that point in time. The teacher had read out The Poem And The Song (to Smill's humiliation) and then Chris had given him the URL for "Verbal Voodoo" (the story).

VV recap: Roe and Chris read it as soon as it was published (July 98); Will read it when he obtained Internet access (November 98); Alice read it at school on Entrance Exam Day (February 99); and I later discovered that Lord David Brackley Of Civil Engineering was also acquainted with it. They all loved and worshipped it (although Roe only really liked the aevil ending), but I was aware that Smill would be less than happy to learn of her role. She couldn't fail to know about VV's existence, but had no desire to read it. "I don't like stories about me," she once said. "At my old school, my 'friend' wrote this story where . . ."

But now she had no opportunity to avoid it. Part 1 was read out and she was not a happy camper. "Whaddya mean, I've got no sense of humour?" she demanded.

She remained on speaking terms with me, alas. "Smill is AEVIL!" Noj declared, later, after the ride home from school. "She won't shut up." Tell me something I don't know. "She wouldn't let me get a word in edgeways," Mum said, of the ride back to school.

She resolved to find the next two parts though. I assured her that she exacted her revenge on me in Part 2.

Next up was Physics, which was rather a non-lesson, since all we did was fill in the cover sheets for our practicals. (Note to self: finish them this weekend or die!) Then Maths, which was incredibly boring, because I couldn't be bothered with it. So I counted the minutes until the end of the lesson.

At break, I moved my Physics practicals from the school computer system to a disk (how terribly thrilling!) and then it was more Maths - two lessons of, to be precise. I asked if we could do some more "fun" questions (yes, such things exist - they're of the problem-solving nature, with practical applications, rather than mouldy olde exam papers). The teacher agreed readily, so that's what we did, and the lessons flew by.

At lunchtime I had a tutorial in which nothing of note happened. Then it was the Physics party. Which sounds really pathetic: the very expression "Physics party" evokes images of grinning electrons with arms and legs dancing and socialising. But it was good! We spent the first lesson eating copious amounts. The second lesson was devoted to playing Physics Hangman, which is v. sad, but Roe's diagrams of the Physics teachers oscillating in Simple Harmonic Motion on the ends of a string and a spring respectively compensated somewhat. The third lesson was spent playing consequences in which there were far too many references to Verbal Voodoo, Physics, Uganda (the location of Smill's gap year) and organs.

Sample: Michael met Mrs Q in the land of Bloxed. He said, "Can I have a 20 pack?" She said, "Suck on my chocolate salty fingers." He cried. She poured water into it, and he had to blow harder. They went to Uganda and got shot by paramilitary terrorists. The world said, "They just weren't made for each other."

After that and a bit of smilling around in the carrels with Mill, the two of us set off for the Merrie Olde Lande Offe Bloxede aka my house. We spent the next two hours getting ready (read: she spent two hours getting ready, it took me fifteen minutes). Then the mothership took us back to school via Alice's house, where we deposited our stoof.

At school, we went into the library where there were smillions of photos of our year, dating back to 1992. For some reason, all the ones of me were at least four years old. "You will remember how awful you really looked."

Then we travelled on the long and arduous journey to the refs. (Or "reffs" as Alice spells them.) Actually, both adjectives were complete lies, but I have to practise being descriptive, I think. It only took about a minute and wasn't painful in the slightest. (Oddly enough, by the end of the night, every other girl's shoes were killing her, but mine weren't, despite the fact that I hate my shoes whole-heartedly - or whole-footedly. They're pants.)

The seating arrangement was meant to be completely coincidental. This would explain why I ended up sitting with Smill, Will, Roe and Paul, as well as three teachers. Naturally, Smill and Roe were less than plussed (minussed?) by this arrangement. I tried to persuade them to sit next to each other, but this suggestion was met by a unanimous No Way. So they sat opposite each other, gazing lovingly into each other's eyes. Well, I can dream.

After dinner, there were three speeches. The first one, by Katie and Chris, was hilarious. (They recounted the article I wrote about a trip to Hadrian's Wall and various Roman museums four years ago. I wrote: "Matthew proved to be an excellent model of the armour. Unfortunately, it was very good armour and none of the weapons injured him." He still hasn't forgiven me.)

The second speech, about boarding life was fairly entertaining, although probably for the wrong reasons. The third speech, though, by the headmaster was altogether too serious and boring. I was desperate to pay attention, since it marked the very end of Upper Sixth, but it was difficult.

After that, everyone piled into the pub across the road. We didn't stay long - the taxis arrived when my glass of water was still half full. (Or half empty. Or both.) I ended up in one with Smill, Dave (not to be confused with Lord David Brackley) and Chris, which was a somewhat interesting combination. "You two were married in 'The Boyfriend', weren't you?" I said to Smill and Dave, who were sitting next to each other. "Yes," Smill replied defensively. "You like things like that, don't you?"

I confess, I do. I enjoy nothing more than harassing Smill about her love life (or lack thereof).

It was an entertaining ride anyway. The driver was probably inclined to take us all to the nearest mental hospital instead of the nightclub. Dave had been in the Chemistry lesson so he asked for a part in Verbal Voodoo Part 5. "I'll be this knight," he said, "who kills Bagot and steals his bird."

"That's Alice," I pointed out.

"Alice . . . well, that's ok," he said.

"But you also have to be part of a threesome with Dave," I informed him (meaning Lord David Brackley. Why are all my acquaintances so confusing? A quarter of the female contingent of my year is called Helen, for example, one of whom is going out with another Dave!)

Smill and I had been very worried about getting into the club. We had originally assumed it would be simple: we would be with a heauge crowd of people most of whom would be eighteen. (Smill is still seventeen, like myself.) However, on the way home from school, we had been informed that last year half the leavers hadn't managed to get in after the dinner: they checked for ID since all the Carlisle schools finished on either Thursday or Friday, so they didn't want the place filled with potentially underage drinkers. Luckily, we were really early - it was only about 10pm and there were only about two people there - so we got in no trublem.

At this point, I have a slight problem. Well, I've had one of those forever, and "slight" isn't the most accurate adjective I could apply to it, but here's another one: half of you lot are too young to enter nightclubs. Therefore, I can't easily take you inside with me so we'll have to skip the next few hours.

When I relocated the rest of the girls in my year at closing time, they'd been wondering where I'd gone, but they didn't ask. I retrieved my coat and got in a taxi with Alice and her sister Frances.

The taxi driver chatted to us. "Had a good night?" she asked.

"Brilliant," Frances replied.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"It was ok," Alice said. Then she explained her and Frances' differing opinions: "Her boyfriend was there and mine wasn't."

I just smiled to myself.

When we reached The Palace Of Everything, we found no one there except Alice's other sleeping sister. Katie, Natalie, Sarah and Liz had probably gone for a pizza, but what about Smill, Helen Wi and Les? They were meant to come straight back here and had set off before us - had they not been able to get in and gone elsewhere? There was no way of finding out: you can't exactly make phone calls at 2.30am.

I sat at the kitchen table while Alice made pizzas. We discussed sleep (or lack thereof) and aural work for music exams. At 3am, all the other girls arrived, having all been out for a pizza. (Apparently it's a tradition, but I don't know how they work that out. How many times have we left school in the past?)

We began to discuss the night's escapades, which centered around Sarah. "I did not get off with ten people!" she protested again and again.

"Yes you did!" Natalie insisted. "We counted them on the way back. There's Shohei-"

"I like Shohei!"

"Well, obviously!"

"No, I mean-"

Since I was feeling sorry for her (and was a tad tipsy - I'd only reluctantly consumed one glass of vodka and orange, but bearing in mind it was the first alcohol I'd ever imbibed and I'd done so in, oh, three seconds, it worked its charm), so I said something sure to make the conversation turn momentarily.

"I have a confession to make."

Just as I'd expected, eight sets of ears pricked up. "What?"

"I got off with someone."

As you may have guessed, this has never happened before.

Mad Hysteria ensued.

After five minutes, it subsided enough for Alice to yell, "Was it Bagot?" Everyone had seen us doing a rather warped version of "YMCA" earlier: slow dancing but with him lifting me several feet in the air at appropriate moments.

"Yes."

Mad Hysteria Part II.

[And I was aware that it wasn't the best of ideas, given that we'd just left school - the only convenient way we had of seeing each other - and we were headed for towns a hundred miles apart in September. But my hormones wouldn't listen to sense. Not only had I liked him for Far Too Bleeping Long, against my better judgement, but I was fed up with being Nearly Eighteen And Never Been Kissed.]

It was Smill's reaction that I feared most. Smill hates Chris and thinks that anyone remotely normal should do likewise. After knowing me for two years, she should have come to the conclusion that I am not normal in the slightest, but taking hints is not one of her strong points. This, though, in her opinion would definitely earn me a place in the loony bin.

However, she was absolutely thrilled. And you know why? Because I have spent the last two years teasing her about Chris, Roe and any other male with whom she has any communications whatsoever. And now, she can do the same to me. Except her accusations will be justified.

Isn't that a wonderful ending to the Smill saga?

Natalie was stunned. "I've never been stunned before," she said, over and over again, reeling.

Katie couldn't stop asking questions. "Do you fancy him?" she asked.

Eek! Sitting on a step in an alley outside the night club, we had agreed that fancying had nothing to do with it, it was love. [I was mistaken, but didn't see that until much later.] But I wasn't about to tell anyone *that*. On the other hand, there had to be some aspect of a "yes" in my answer, or it wouldn't make sense. "I do now," I said.

A chorus of "Awwwwww!"s ensued.

It didn't stop when we went up to Alice's room. Katie wanted a complete account and if I refused any information, everyone started singing "Zed and Bagot sitting in a tree."

"You must have fancied him before, right?" she persisted.

"No comment," I answered, but naturally, everyone took that as a "yes" and hooted with glee.

"So is he going to phone you or are you going to phone him? I've got his number if you want."

"I already know it off by heart," I said, bringing further yoj. It's a trade secret, you see, apparently because his Dad's an optician and doesn't want people asking him for free eye tests at eleven o'clock at night. But I'd demanded it a few weeks earlier, which made him extremely happy - "I've got women asking for my phone number? Cool!" - although my only motive was to have the number of a fellow sufferer in case my Physics practicals made me feel suicidal. As to remembering it, I've just got an incredibly good memory for numbers. Still, it was considered incredibly Woog and no one paid the slightest bit of attention to my protests that We Weren't Necessarily Going Out.

"I'm going to have really cool dreams now!" Katie declared.

"Me too," Natalie said, as they snuggled up in bed together.

This morning, Sarah whined, "I wish I knew where my yearbook was." She'd discovered it Missing In Action last night.

"In my dream, Bagot had it," I volunteered.

"Aw, she's dreaming about him," Natalie said.

"Romantic it wasn't," I protested. "We were at a flipping cricket match!"

Flink will argue with me that cricket is incredibly romantic, especially since she first became addicted on Valentine's Day. In fact, one could argue that it was Flink and her starbois who sparked the entire thing off.

But that's another story. In the meantime, I need to do my Physics practicals and hope that I don't need any assistance, since my, um, whatever, really is at a flipping cricket match.

Tuesday 25 May 1999

By 3.30am on Saturday, I regretted telling people. By 11.30am on Monday, I REALLY regretted telling anyone.

He phoned while I was revising for my General Studies exam that afternoon. "How can you do that?" he asked.

"I'm reading the encyclopaedia and hoping for the best," I explained. We proceeded to have a perfectly normal conversation concerning cricket, encyclopaedias and scank dodgy PCs.

Then he said, "The reason I'm ringing is to let you know there are rumours are all over the school about us." He'd been in that morning to drop off his brother, who isn't driving right now owing to a rather amusing accident involving a fence. "People think we're going out." He found that rather funny.

"Oh dear," I said. "I'm afraid I may have played some part in that."

"How?" and I told him what I'd said on Friday night.

So I travelled into school at midday, trying to mentally prepare myself. As I walked up the drive, I passed Noj and his classmate James walking down (they had an exam in the morning, so they were making use of my Mum's taxi service). Noj greeted me heartily, which he never does when anyone else is around.

The day had started as it meant to go on.

As I walked into the school building, a group of fifth year boys surrounded me, yelling my name as usual, but with even more enthusiasm. "Did you get off with Bagot?" one of them yelled. I made no response, but they knew it to be a yes anyway.

Fortunately, the carrels were more or less deserted when I entered. There were only two moles and one non-mole member of the lower sixth present. Moles never talk to anyone, but the non-mole, who never talks to me in the normal run of things, asked me if I'd had a good night on Friday. I answered in the affirmative.

Members of the upper sixth began to enter. Herman and Sarah and Chris himself. I busied myself writing in Sarah's yearbook (I believe the PE teacher had it), but she couldn't stop talking about it, so I wrote, "Please shut up!!! Other than that, good luck in your exams . . ."

She more or less shut up then. "But you're the babe of the year," she told me. "And you're the stud of the year," she told Chris. "Isn't that wonderful?"

Marion came in. Naturally, she hadn't been there on Friday night (why break a habit of a lifetime?) but she knew as well. And so it continued. Abigail stopped me on the way to my exam to ask if what she'd heard was true; third years who I never talk to greeted me enthusiastically and wished me luck in General Studies; Matthew approached me while waiting for the exam to start and asked if it was true; Will declared his jealousy; and so forth. Needless to say, I spent about an hour hiding in the toilets.

The exam was ok. The Maths was amazingly simple, the multiple choice was ok, my Arts essay could have been better, my Social Science essay was fine, and the science comprehension was aevil initially but it got better.

A question concerning haemophilia asked why Rasputin had managed to gain influence over the Russian Royal Family. Naturally, I knew this straight away (I knew there had to be some advantage in being obsessed with Rasputin) but one option was, "He was a communist." Land, peace, blood, freedom? Hrm.

After the exam, Chris and I were standing on the same side of the carrels, and Will said, "Here's the lovers." I made a Marge Simpsonic noise and said, "Shut up and die." Will found this funny. Chris handed me a rolled up piece of paper, and I hit Will on the head. He shut up then.

That evening Will phoned me, desperately concerned over whether he'd got a question worth 0.16% right (he had) and we discussed Friday evening. "(Take it easy take it easy take it easy girl. Take is nice and slow.) Does your mother know?" he asked.

"No," I said. He then threatened to tell her, but luckily I dissuaded him.

This morning, I had the second General Studies paper. "Are the rumours true then?" Paul asked.

"Which rumours?" I asked, carefully.

"I think you know," he said.

"Yes, but some people have got the wrong idea," I explained.

"So, what WAS it like?" Luckily, Will found this rather amusing and cut the conversation short.

The exam was somewhat pants. Spatial and Mechanical Relations, which I thought would be plain sailing turned out to be all about kayaks (I know, weird!) and impossible. Why didn't I do Duke Of Edinburgh? All the people who'd done canoeing for it had no problems. The case study was ok, the English comprehension was all right, the science essay I messed up since I ran out of things to say about Global Warming (I thought I could talk about it for hours, since I did a heauge Chemistry project about it four years ago, for which I got an A+, but I'd forgotten a lot), and the French was on the pants side.

Afterwards, Matthew asked me if my mother knew. I replied in the negative and he threatened to tell her. Why oh why did I write that aevil report about him at Hadrian's Wall four years ago?

Because he broke my scissors in first year. Ni!

[That wasn't the end of the involvement, but I'd rather not write about the rest. Suffice to say: desperate to catch up to my peers and in the absence of confidence, I did some f00lhardy things, but I learned from them.]