Page 8 of Kiss Me at Christmas
“How did you know we were here?” asked Billy.
“I followed Leo.”
Groans of “Leo!” and “Fuck’s sake, mate!” from his peers made Leo wince.
“What?” he retorted hotly. “How was I to know Miss Smith was a super spy?”
“That’s pretty badass, miss!” laughed Carly.
“Yes, well, this badass needs you to get back to school before you all get slapped with discipline points.”
Billy, the only one of them who had remained resolutely in his seat, sparked up another cigarette and asked, “What does it matter? What’s the point?”
“Put that out, please, Billy, it’s a fire hazard.”
“Your mum’s a fire hazard!” said Leo.
“That’s not even funny!” Isabel sniggered.
“Then why are you laughing?” he retorted.
“Billy, I’m serious.” Harriet gave him a challenging stare; she’d never lost a stare-off with a student yet. Sure enough, Billy looked away first, conceding defeat by angrily stubbing out the cigarette in one of the old metal ashtrays attached to the back of the chair in front.
On the outside, Billy was a tough nut. He’d had to be. Most people saw a kid with a bad attitude because that was the persona he projected. What they didn’t see was a boy who had spent the biggest part of his life yo-yoing between foster placements and care homes with his younger brother, Sid. Harriet saw through his projection because she’d lived that experience too.
“You didn’t answer the question, miss—what’s the point?” Ricco picked up Billy’s mantle.
“Yeah, what’s the point?” parroted Leo, who was always braver when riding on someone else’s coattails.
“Look. These exams are a stepping-stone, nothing more, but having the qualifications will make it infinitelyeasier for you to move on to the next stage of your lives, whether that’s an apprenticeship or the workplace or university.”
Billy snorted derisively at her mention of university, but she’d included it on purpose. Just because the likelihood of them going into higher education was small didn’t mean it was impossible. And sometimes, along with keeping it real you needed to offer nuggets of possibility. If you gave them nothing to aspire to at all, then you were confirming what they already saw as a foregone conclusion and sending them out into the world with no hope at all of charting new paths for themselves. Her job was a fine balance of facilitating positive change and managing reality.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you will regret not using this time to make life easier for yourselves down the line. Everything is going to be harder if you leave the school without taking advantage of what’s on offer there. Even if it’s just for the sake of making your CV look better, it’s a competitive job market and every little bit helps when you’re applying for jobs that a hundred other people are also going for.”
“I can’t imagine you young, miss,” said Ricco contemplatively. He clearly wasn’t listening to a word she was saying.
“Well, I can assure you that I was, and as someone who is nowoldI am offering you the benefit of my wisdom.”
“It’s weird how nothing ever shocks you,” Billy pondered. “Most teachers would have freaked out about us being here.”
“Maybe I’ve just seen it all before.”
“Doneit all before, more like,” Carly sneered, opening a bag of crisps.
Harriet didn’t argue. Instead, she made her way to the end of Billy’s row and, pushing down the seat pad and scraping off the dust bunnies, sat down.
“Why here?” she asked, waving an arm to encompass the decrepit theater.
“Why not?” Carly challenged.
“Where else are we supposed to go?” asked Ricco.
“You mean besides school?” Harriet asked dryly.
“There is nowhere else,” said Billy, snapping open a can of shop’s-own-brand soft drink. Harriet saw the truth in his words. There was a run-down mall in the center of the town, but she didn’t imagine the security guards would stand for gangs of kids hanging around. Or the park or the forest, not so much fun when it was barely two degrees outside. Not that it was much warmer in the theater.
“We don’t only muck about here.” Leo was uncharacteristically defensive. “Sometimes we do homework, discuss books we’ve read. Carly likes to sing on the stage.”
