Centre Stage: A Novel

Harriet. Kelly’s eyes swept over them but before she could say anything more the door opened and Mr Davey walked in.
    He was tall and quite young for a teacher. He’d told us he taught Science and PE. He was followed into the room by a girl with long dark hair and a lady who looked like another teacher.
    I quickly hurried to my desk and squeezed in beside Harriet.
    ‘Good morning, class,’ Mr Davey said with a smile.
    ‘Good morning, sir,’ we all chorused.
    ‘Sit down,’ he told us. There was scraping of chairs as we all sat down. The girl and the other teacher stood by Mr Davey’s desk. What were they doing there? As far as I could tell every desk in the class was taken.
    ‘Now,’ Mr Davey said, looking around at us all. ‘It seems we have a slight rearrangement to make.’
    What did he mean? I shot a look at Harriet. She looked as confused as me.
    ‘This is Sunita Modi,’ Mr Davey said, smiling at the girl beside him. ‘She and her twin sister have just enrolled at the school and seeing as their parents wish them to be in different forms, she will be coming to join you lot and her sister will be in 7MF — Mrs French’s form,’ he said, looking at the teacher. ‘However, seeing as this form is full, this means one of you lucky things can escape having me as a form tutor and move across to Mrs French’s room.’ He looked down at a note stuck to the top of his register. ‘And the winner is… Alexandra Swannick. Alexandra, would you stand up, please.’
    Ally . My heart seemed to stand still. No, he couldn’t mean Ally . My eyes flew to Ally’s face. She had gone as pale as a ghost. She stared at Harriet and me, her eyes wide with alarm.
    ‘Alexandra?’ Mr Davey said, looking around.
    Shooting Harriet and me a desperate look, Ally slowly got to her feet.
    Mr Davey smiled at her. ‘Well, your luck’s in, Alexandra. Meet Mrs French — your new form tutor.’
    ‘Hello,’ Mrs French said warmly. ‘Pick up your bag and come with me.’
    ‘But… but…’ Ally started to stammer.
    I looked frantically at Harriet. Ally couldn’t move forms! Harriet looked as frantic as me.
    ‘Yes?’ Mrs French said to Ally.
    Ally bit her lip and then shook her head and didn’t say anything more. But then what could she say? No, I’m not going? Somehow I didn’t think that would go down too well.
    ‘Sunita, if you sit where Ally was sitting,’ Mr Davey said.
    Sunita came down the aisle and Ally had no choice but to leave her desk.
    Mrs French smiled at her. ‘Your new formroom is just across the corridor.’
    Ally threw a last desperate look at Harriet and me, and then Mrs French ushered her out of the door and she was gone.

Chapter Two
    ‘Right, then!’ Mr Davey said, clapping his hands together. ‘Let’s start with the register.’
    My mind was in a whirl. I couldn’t get my brain round what had just happened. Ally was going to be in a different form. Harriet and I would never see her — at least not in lessons.
    ‘What are we going to do, Sophie?’ Harriet whispered in dismay as Mr Davey opened the register.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back. This was a total nightmare. We’d never been separated — not ever.
    ‘No talking, please,’ Mr Davey said.
    After Mr Davey had finished the register, he gave us out our homework notebook and we had to write our weekly timetable down in the back.
    ‘Look, we get a double Maths lesson on Monday and Thursday,’ Harriet pointed out.
    Harriet loves Maths. Actually she loves all subjects. She’s mega-brainy. She got to do all the extension papers when we did our SATs last term. Seeing Harriet’s eyes positively shining at the idea of double Maths, I suddenly missed Ally. ‘Great,’ I sighed.
    ‘You never know,’ Harriet said optimistically. ‘You might start liking Maths here.’
    ‘Yeah, right.’ There was about as much chance of me liking Maths as there was of me demanding maggots for breakfast every day.
    The bell rang.
    ‘OK — class dismissed,’ Mr Davey said as we all began to put our homework books away in our bags. ‘Your first lesson is Maths. Go out of here and turn left. The Maths block is just across the courtyard.’
    Harriet jumped eagerly to her feet. ‘Come on.’
    I followed her slowly.
    It was strange having to walk to a different classroom for our first lesson. In primary school we’d stayed in one room most of the day with the same teacher, but now we had to take all our books with us and go to see a