"THERE'S A PIANO in there!" Suzanne gasped.
"What colour is it?"
Suzanne stared at her cousin. "What difference does it make what colour it is? There's a grand piano in the Wendy House. A white one."
"It can't be Cassandra's. She couldn't play the piano. She couldn't reach the keyboard."
"This isn't Cassie's Wendy House, it's in the same place, but it's not the same one. This one's bigger, somehow."
"Whose can it be?"
The cousins looked at each other and shook their heads. Pansy was kneeling on all fours outside the window and Suzanne was crouched on her back.
"This isn't very comfortable, you know," Pansy complained. "Why can't you just stand up and look through the window?"
"Someone might see me. It's safer down here."
Pansy sighed in resignation. Suzanne's weight was being taken partly by Pansy's arms and partly by her colossal breasts squashed against the leafy ground. At least, Baby had been fed before they came out this morning, so there wasn't any leakage going on. "Can you see anything else in there?"
"Just the usual stuff. Nothing I can recognise. No clothes hanging up, or anything. I suppose we'd better be getting back to classes. You know what old Titlark's like when anybody bunks off her S & M class."
"Let me get up, then. You're heavy."
They began disentangling themselves, then became uneasily aware that someone was watching them.
"What ya doing?"
Three First Formers stood there, staring curiously down at them.
"What's it to you?"
Valentina peered through the window. "There's a white piano in there," she said, "Look."
Helvetica and Geraldine joined her and looked inside.
"I told you," said Geraldine.
The Third Form cousins struggled to their feet with as much dignity as they could muster.
"What were you doing on the floor, Pansy?" Helvetica asked politely.
"Fuck off! Come on, Suze."
"I'm coming." They stuck their noses in the air and lumbered off between the trees.
"Middle school girls aren't very bright," said Valentina. "They were trying to see through the window. Why couldn't they just walk up to it and look through?"
"She's not in there," Helvetica said. She wandered off round the side of the little house, looking through the other windows.
"She'll be in the lab, waiting for us. I suppose we ought to get over there, it's nearly half past nine." Valentina grabbed Geraldine's wrist and looked at the time. The quadrangle clock struck the half hour distantly but still unnecessarily loudly.
"We'll be late," Geraldine quavered.
"No, we're already late," Valentina corrected her. "You'll be okay, you're with us. We'll tell her we had to see Old Floppers for being naughty in the dorm. She can check up if she likes. She won't, though. She never does. Come on. Let's get back."
The three Juniors set off along the winding pathway. Some way ahead, the two cousins were rounding the corner into the quad, arguing furiously as usual.
"I wonder what they were looking for," Helvetica wondered.
"Just looking. Curiosity killed the cat."
"Which cat?" Geraldine asked.
Valentina had stopped. The other two looked back at her. "I've had an idea," she said. "We could get off classes and homework and everything."
"Everything?"
"How?"
"We could start a First Form choir!"
"A choir? Who would be in it?"
"Us, mostly. And few of the others. And we could come over here and practise with Miss Grimbo in the Wendy House. Then we wouldn't have to do homework and we could get off early for choir practice. It would be great. We could spend hours over here, just drinking lemonade and toasting crumpets in front of the open fire. They always do that with their favourite teacher in girls' school stories."
"Do they have sex with their favourite teachers, too?" Helvetica asked.
Geraldine blushed prettily and farted.
"Probably. It doesn't say so in so many words, but what else would they do after the lemonade and crumpets? And chocolate cake."
"After all that, they wouldn't feel much like sex," said Geraldine, then blushed deep scarlet as the other two stared at her.
"How would you know?" Valentina said scornfully. "Anyway, food always makes me feel extra sexy."
"You're always extra sexy," said Helvetica. "At least, you were last night." She blushed at the recollection and tried to touch herself on the flimsy pretext of adjusting her clothing.
"You big horny bugger, your nips are sticking out like chapel hatpegs! And I can smell you from here! If you want to come back to bed now, we could skip classes altogether. My mum would give us both a sick note if I promised to do the washing up."
"What about me?" Geraldine whimpered.
Valentina sighed. "Shit, I suppose we'd better go to school. Still, let's think about this choir idea. Then when we've thought about it, we can see Miss Grimbo, and she can go and see Miss Gruntworthy, and Bob's your uncle."
The girls looked expectantly at Geraldine, but she seemed too preoccupied to enquire about Helvetica's Uncle Bob. "Come on, stick close to Auntie Valentina. Let's go and face the music. Hey, music! Get it?"
"When are you moving in, Miss?"
"We can help you carry your stuff over there, Miss."
"If we do it during the daytime when the girls are in class, we can borrow some of the wheelbarrows..."
"Wait a minute, hang on!" Angelica stared at Valentina and Helvetica as they clustered round her desk. The rest of the class had fled to lunch. "What's going on? Who told you the Wendy House had been delivered?"
"We saw it earlier..." Helvetica stopped as Valentina thrust an elbow in her ribs.
"She means we saw it earlier than the rest of the girls. Geraldine told us she saw the fishermen delivering the grand piano."
Angelica wanted to ask about the grand piano. She assumed Smegs had ordered it for some reason best known to herself. It was a lovely piano, but she hoped it wasn't going to cost her a fortune in rental.
"So we took a quick look through the window on our way back from jankers," Valentina continued. "Old Floppers made us collect up two whole barrow-loads of leaves from the woods and take them to the compost heap behind Mr Jeremy's shed."
"She's talking about the Duty Prefect. We call her Old Floppers because she's old and she's got huge floppers."
"She hangs down to here," Valentina explained, standing back from the desk and holding her hand some way below the hem of her skirt, halfway down her thigh. Then she flounced forward again and leaned on the desk confidentially. "Go on, Miss, you can tell us! When do you move in?"
Angelica tore her eyes away from Valentina's monstrously compressed cleavage. Her eyes had nowhere to go except down the front of Helvetica's blouse. Was that the edge of a pale pink areola? Surely not! No girl had puffies as big as that!
"Can we help you set up house, Miss?" Helvetica glanced sideways at Valentina and leaned forward, exposing still more of her heroic young chest.
So who said nobody had puffies as big as that, Angelica thought, transferring her gaze back to Valentina again. Valentina grinned and dropped her eyes briefly to her own cleavage. She wet her lips and heaved her bosom extravagantly with both hands. "Wow, Miss! I think I've started growing again!"
"Bitch!" Helvetica muttered, jabbing at her friend with three fingers and taking a deep breath that popped the top button of her blouse, which happened to be the fifth one from the top. "I'm bigger than her, Miss," she gloated, "and I'm not even feeding a baby!"
"Stop it, you two!" Angelica crammed her fingers in her ears.
The girls waited in politely smiling silence until she took them out again.
"Can we help you move in, then, Miss?"
"This afternoon, Miss?"
The lascivious display of cleavage was about to restart. "Okay. All right. You can help. Get yourselves a couple barrows and come up to my room after lunch."
"We mustn't bring barrows upstairs, Miss," Valentina said reprovingly. "There's a school rule about wheelbarrows upstairs. They're not allowed."
"Girls who need a barrow upstairs have to use one of the upstairs barrows." Helvetica sighed. "I suppose when I'm big enough for a barrow, maybe when I'm in the Fourths..." She turned to show off her improbable profile and began to swell again...
"There aren't any upstairs barrows in the Staff Domestic Quarters, silly! Teachers aren't anywhere near big enough for wheelbarrows! Are they, Miss?"
Valentina herself turned sideways, facing in the opposite direction. Angelica thought the girls looked like a pair of bizarrely overdeveloped bookends.
'Just you wait,' she thought. 'When my dream comes true, you'll see who needs a wheelbarrow. Or a chariot!'
"What's an Angelic-O-Glyde, Miss?"
Helvetica had turned to face the front again. Obviously the effort of breathing in was getting to be too much of a strain for her. She asked the question and leaned on the desk top, chin in hands, waiting for an answer.
"A what? How do you know...?"
"An Angelic-O-Glyde, Miss. I don't know what it is. You mentioned it just now."
"I most certainly did not ... I did?"
"Yes, Miss." Valentina had copied Helvetica's pose. The two bookends had become four prize pumpkins at a home-grown produce contest.
"I..." Had she spoken out loud? Was it possible? Nobody knew about the Angelic-O-Glyde. Nobody apart from Smegs, and she had been away since Sunday, shagging Mr Crabfart. "Who told you about it?"
"You did, Miss."
"Have you got it yet, Miss?"
"'Cos if you have, it will make it easier moving everything into the Wendy House. We can just leave the barrows outside and load everything on to the 'Glyde, then sort of 'Glyde it indoors."
"Will we ever be big enough to need one of those, Miss?"
"How soon before you get big enough, Miss?"
"And a Chariot?"
"Sweet Chariot?"
"How long before you swing low enough to need a Sweet Chariot, Miss?"
"Stop it at once! Get out! You're giving me a headache. See me at one pm..."
"She's got a headache, Vets, come on. Let's get our lunch."
"If we see Jeremy, should we tell him about your headache, Miss, or will you...?"
"It's not that sort of headache, Vets! Is it, Miss? We'll tell him if we see him anyway." Valentina dragged Helvetica away from the desk. "You'd better do up those top half dozen buttons if you don't want to get raped on the way to the restaurant."
"Who would rape me in broad daylight?"
"Me! C'mon."
Who could she see about this? Who could she turn to? Jeremy wouldn't understand. Miss Gruntworthy would be too busy. Mee-gan, no she still hadn't appeared after coming back from servicing Mr Crabfart. No. How about Miss Meadowlark? She could catch her now if she hurried. Skip lunch. Angelica stood up shakily, clutching at the desk for balance.
"Sheesh! These things are so heavy!"
The stairs were getting longer and steeper. She had to pause at the landing halfway up to get her breath and adjust her shoulder straps. This bra was getting way too tight. Moving into the Wendy House was a good idea. No more stairs to climb. And those two sweet girls offering to help her move in.
"I'll have to repay them, of course. Perhaps if I invite them over for tea and toasted crumpets and chocolate cake. They could toast the crumpets in front of an open fire. What am I saying? What are crumpets anyway?"
"Come in, it's open!"
Angelica pushed Corinne's door and edged inside. Corinne looked up at her and frowned slightly. She was marking a pile of dog-eared exercise books. "Hi, Angel! Sit yourself down." She scribbled a long message in red ink and closed the book she was working on. "Sex!"
"What?"
"Third Form Sex. I've still got another half dozen to mark. Look at this one." She riffled through the pile and opened a book. "This girl: 'the average length of the erect male penis is eleven inches or twenty-eight centimetres.' Is she ever in for a life of disappointment?"
"What other sorts are there?"
"What?" Corinne had already picked up the next book and was placing precise ticks in the margin with her red pen. "Other sorts of what?"
"Penises. Penes. Aren't they all male ones?"
"I suppose so." Corinne looked doubtful. "I suppose some girls think they're all erect, too. Looking the way our girls do, they'll never see a flaccid one, that's for sure! Hello! Here's a girl who thinks the average is five inches. A bit nearer the mark!" She scrawled an A-minus and closed the book, slipping it on top of the pile, then took a gulp of coffee. "My lunch," she explained. "Coffee and a doughnut. The doughnut's gone. You not eating?"
"Not today. I'm worried about my ... about putting on weight."
Corinne suddenly put her mug down and looked closely at Angelica. "What's the matter, Angel?"
Angelica bit her lip and tried to speak. Nothing came out.
"Come on, love. What's the matter? Tell Cee!"
"It's ... I'm ... I've been getting so big. My boobies!"
Corinne looked at them as if for the first time. "They look great to me!"
"Great? Great big enormous things. Look at them! It's as well I'm moving into the Wendy House. I had to climb the stairs by instalments. Where's it going to end? Am I going to be riding around in a Sweet Chariot or an Angelic-O-Glyde?"
Corinne gave no sign of knowing what these devices were. She took Angelica's strong hands in her own. Smaller, but just as capable. "There are worse things in life than having enormous boobies. Look at our girls. Riding around in wheelbarrows, showing four feet of cleavage. Loving every minute of it."
"That's them. This is me. I can't handle it, Cee!"
"You can. You're a lovely size now. Not too big. What are you?"
"Ninety-three inches yesterday morning. A bit more now."
"See? Less than three figures. We have Third Formers with hundred inch busts. If they can handle it, surely you can. And they need you for support. If they see you wilting under the strain, it will get to them, too."
"That's just it." Angelica squeezed Corinne's fingers until tears almost came into the blonde girl's eyes. "That's just it. Some of the girls never even seem to notice how big I am. It's as if I'm growing all the time but not getting bigger."
Corinne frowned slightly again. Something wasn't right. "Some of the girls? Which ones?"
"Most of them. Why?"
Corinne hastily put down her notepad. "Oh, nothing. I could have put them down for extra observance tests. Most of them, you say?"
"Only one or two have noticed it at all. Look at me. Ninety-three inches, plus. Since I came to Saint Cat's, I must have doubled in circumference, but nobody ever mentions it! Except..."
"Except who?" Corinne picked up her notepad again.
"Whom?"
"Who are the girls who have noticed? The clause is the subject of the verb, so it's who."
"Nobody mentions it except them, so it's the object of the verb. Whom."
Corinne dragged the subject back on course. "Which girls have noticed?" The red pen hovered over the page.
"Valentina Nightingale and Helvetica Bold. Maybe little Geraldine as well, but I couldn't be too sure."
Corinne was writing busily. She paused and looked up. "Any more?"
"No, just those. There might be more in the other classes, but..." Angelica let go and rubbed her eyes with both hands. "Another thing. They offered to help me move into the Wendy House this afternoon."
"The Wendy House? Your Wendy House? It's not been built yet."
"It has. It's there now. And there's a grand piano in it. A white one."
"A white grand piano? You don't happen to know ... you didn't see it delivered, did you?"
"The girls said something about fishermen." Angelica shrugged. "The other thing they said, they asked me about the Angelic-O-Glyde. Did you tell them about it?"
Not even the hint of a blush. "Tell them about what?"
"Shannie! A breakthrough!"
"A what? Oops, excuse me!" I discarded my immediate plan of hiding the girl under the bed covers. If it was a long meeting with Corinne, she might suffocate under there. Or with any luck, Corinne might lie on top of her and do her some damage. Corinne was certainly big enough now to do damage to a fragile Junior, especially one with a seventeen-inch waist. "Felicity, would you like to come back a little later, dear. Bring your maths homework and we can work on it again.
The girl clambered out and reached for her bra.
"You can dress outside in the corridor," Corinne said sharply to her. Wisely, I think. If I'd had to watch Felicity loading those immense jiggly jugs of hers into her ScatBra, bending over at her reed-slender waist and tensing those delicious little choirboy buttocks, I would probably not be responsible for my actions.
"Woo-woo-woo," I said.
"Now look what you've done, girl! Get out. Come back later!"
Felicity gathered up an armful of school uniform and lush breasts and backed out of the room.
"Sweet girl," I commented. "Second Form."
Corinne ignored me as usual. She can be so rude at times.
"46-17-26," I elaborated, consulting my bedside diary. "And her mother and all her aunties are well over fifty inches. She says she's miles bigger already than they were when they were twel..."
"It's one o'clock," snapped Corinne sharply. Quite unnecessarily, too, as the quadrangle clock confirmed the time.
"I'm sure that clock's getting louder," I said as soon as I was sure the clock had finished striking. "I wonder if Jeremy could do something about it. He could put a damper on the bell. Do you think Felicity needs her jiggle dampers resetting? She's very bouncy. It must be something to do with having a bust twenty inches bigger than your hips..."
"Like Angelica's! Except that hers is fifty-five inches bigger than her hips."
At least she had come round to a more pleasant subject. "Oh, woo-woo-woo!"
"That's who I wanted to talk to you about. Not some skinny Junior with oversized boobs!"
I chose to ignore this heresy. I could have had her dismissed for this and she would never work again. I think she realised. She sat on the edge of the bed, her breasts resting on her thighs. A foot or more of cleavage yawned before my eyes.
It was fragrant in there, and quite dark. Corinne's voice came distantly to me. "We've got a breakthrough on the Angelica question. It's all tied in with other anomalies. Did you know, her Wendy House has already been delivered and built? She's moving in now, with two First Formers helping her with barrows."
"First Formers with barrows? Woo-woo..."
"Not their own barrows, silly! They're borrowing them. Have you heard a single word I've said?"
It began to sink in. "Wendy House? Built already?"
"Yes! And it's got a white grand piano in it."
"What on earth for?"
"Delivered by three fishermen in oilskins! Ah, I thought that would make you sit up and take notice!"
Actually it was cramp. I had been in an awkward position before Corinne came in, with one of Felicity's surprisingly weighty breasts on my thigh. Weighty for a Second Former, anyway. "Woo-woo-woo!"
"I'll come back later when you've recovered! Corinne flounced out. She actually flounced! God, she's so big these days.
"These suitcases are so heavy! What's in them?"
"Bricks, probably. Whose stupid idea was this?" Helvetica wiped her brow with a scrap of soggy industrial paper towel. "There's no industrial paper towel in here," she complained. "What sort of a Wendy House is it without any industrial paper towel?"
"Look in the kitchen cupboards," said Valentina, lugging the last suitcase from the wheelbarrow on to the bed. They must have put some in here somewhere. There!" She played with the catches of the case until it sprang open."Wooo! It's not locked! Look, Vets!"
Helvetica, still grumbling, came over. Then she instantly forgot her grievances. "Bloody hell. No wonder it was so heavy." She dived her hand in and came up with an almost fluorescent scarlet latex cat-suit. "Look at this one. Would it fit me, do you think?" She held it experimentally against her chest. Interesting bulges showed through. She found another. "You'd look nice in black, Tina."
Within seconds, their school uniforms were lying on the warm salmon (with lemon floral motif) carpet. "It's a bit tight around the boobs," Helvetica grappled with the scarlet latex.
"They must be her old ones. How's this look on me?"
"Wow! Great! I wonder why she keeps all her old stuff, even though she's growing all the time." She examined her friend critically. "You're a bit saggy round the bum. How's mine?"
"Just right except for your tits. You could try taking your bra off."
"What difference will that make? I'm just as big without it. In fact, it helps to hold me in a bit now I'm this big."
"How big, Vets?" Valentina ran her hands down her squeaky black sides. As if with a will of their own they diverted into her crotch. "How big are you now?"
"Fifty-six!" Helvetica blushed prettily. "When I stopped growing, it must have been the time of the month. I feel ever so full now."
"Not as full as that cat-suit must feel. Come here!"
"I'm already here. I can't get any closer!"
"You wanna bet?"
"What's that noise?"
"How would I know, you've got your fat legs wrapped round my ears?"
Considerately, Suzanne spread her thighs a little. "That squeaking noise."
Pansy listened. "Not mice. Mice wouldn't make as much noise as that. Anyway, there wouldn't be mice in the Wendy House yet, it's only just been built. Mice need time to move in."
"Somebody's moved in." Suzanne nodded towards the two empty wheelbarrows, clearly marked:
"Has Miss Grimbo got visitors?"
"I can't see. Can't you kneel a bit higher?"
"I don't know why we can't just stand up and look through the window. Those First Form brats were right."
"We don't want to get spotted creeping round the place, acting suspiciously. We'll get into trouble."
"Look. You're sitting on my shoulders in the middle of the afternoon beside the main driveway out of St Cat's. I'm kneeling in front of the Wendy House windows. And you talk about not wanting to act suspicious?"
"Suspiciously. We're less likely to be seen like this."
A horn tooted gaily and an orange Transit drove past. It was the weekly delivery of industrial paper towel. The cousins waved to the driver.
"He's a great fuck, is old Barry" Pansy commented, blowing a kiss after the retreating van. "I might use him next time."
"You're like a dog in the street," sniffed Suzanne. "You do it with anybody."
"I'd rather do it with anybody than not do it at all. Ouch! Have you finished looking in there yet?"
"Just about." Suzanne climbed off with dignity.
"I wish Barry had left a few rolls of industrial paper towel out here. Considering you're a confirmed virgin, you certainly flooded your knickers when Barry drove past. I'm drenched. Look at my blouse! That's all you, that is."
"I can't help it if I lubricate a lot," Suzanne mumbled.
Together, stiffly, they stood up and looked in through the front window. Nothing. Round at the side, the squeaking noise was louder and more insistent.
"This is the bedroom," Suzanne whispered, peering in and shading the glass with her hand. "Look!"
"Look!"
They both looked.
"The dirty little buggers! Look at them!"
They both looked some more. Half an hour was enough. Third Form girls can only stand watching two Juniors dressed in almost-fitting latex cat-suits wallowing around on a warm salmon bedroom carpet — with floral motif — for so long before they become Uncontrollably Horny themselves and have to head back to their dorm for manual or labial relief.
"Come on, Suze. And since you made my blouse all wet, you can push me back in one of those barrows."
"GOODNESS ME, MEGAN! I'm almost worn out. I'm not as young as I used to be, you know."
"You're doing very well, Mr Crabfeet. In fact, you're standing up to it magnificently."
"That's the trouble. I'm having no problem standing up. I just can't seem to finish any more. We've been at it for three hours. I'm rubbed nearly raw."
Smegs shifted her position slightly. Mr Crabtree was blocking the bedside lamp and his shadow kept falling across her magazine. Next time, she'd bring a book to read. She had worked her way through the old bugger's pile of erotic magazines three times already. She knew the vital statistics of every one of the models by heart. Idly, she began to translate the text of one of the stories into French.
"It must be so frustrating for you, my dear," panted Mr Crabtree as he pounded painfully into action again, wincing at every stroke. How can I make it up to you?"
Smegs consulted the notepad by the bed. "We've finished furnishing the Wendy House," she said through gritted teeth. "We've refitted my bedroom: a new carpet..."
"Warm salmon's a lovely colour..."
"I prefer dark red," Smegs insisted firmly. "And the dressing table in antique pine, hand polished..."
"They can supply that from stock..."
"Good, now what were you saying about a deal on my car? You can get me four thousand against the latest 3-Series?"
"Oooh, I don't know about four thousand..."
There was a moment of tension.
"But perhaps I could get four, maybe four-five, if you didn't mind a bright yellow one with white leather upholstery." Pant, pant, pant. "Oh, fuck it, I'm getting soft again!"
"How's that, darling? Better? Yellow sounds okay. Yes, why don't we go for a yellow one? My old one's outside. If you get them to bring it round in the morning, they can take mine away." Smegs peeled a clementine by way of celebration. "You will be finished by morning? Shit, I thought these were supposed to be seedless."
"God, I don't even know if I can finish tonight." He rolled off limply and lay on his back, inspecting the damage with two fingers.
"Funny thing about seedless fruit," Smegs mused. "I mean, without seeds, how can they reproduce?"
Mr Crabtree was beginning to understand more or less how seedless fruit must feel. His eyes began to close.
"Don't fall asleep for a minute, sweetie!" Smegs put the phone in his hand. "Call Borcester Classics and tell them they can bring that yellow Bimmer round in the morning. And when you've done that, just lie back and let little Megan take over. Okay?"
'...and is expected to be completed by the end of next year. Mr Bradley Hilditch, a spokesperson for O'Raffety, Redmond, Leahy, MacClusky, Donoghue, Goldblatt and Partners, the road-building contractor, said that the revised route of the road will now skirt Borcester on its North-West side, passing through...'
"Is anyone listening to that shit? I'm trying to do my Maths homework." Valentina was being unusually industrious. If she could hand in a perfect batch of homework, she would feel more justified in suggesting some time off to organise her St Cat's Junior Choir...
"I'm listening," said Geraldine, "it's about the new Borcester by-pass."
"Load of garbage. If you must listen to the radio, at least find some music."
'...for Growing Girls. In Australia, bush fires have devastated whole areas of...'
"There's music on this station as soon as the news has finished. They're talking about the road Miss Malone went out to protest about. At least," Geraldine said as the news ended and a continuity announcer began blathering about the weather and suggesting that listeners would be far better off curling up in bed with a nice warm something or other and listening to Radio Busty-Busty-Boogie Ninety-Six-Point-Twooooooo! "At least, they were telling us about the new road. Something about it being moved. Maybe Miss Malone's protest was successful! Gosh!"
"Bor-ing!"
"It wouldn't have been boring if they'd built the road clean through St Cat's. You'd have been bored on the other side of your face, wouldn't you?"
"They can pull the whole place down for all I care. I could leave school tomorrow and become a model."
"You can't be a model at your age! You're eleven."
"I don't look eleven. I could get a job anywhere. Pass that mag over again, Geri. No, the other one. HUGE Ones. Huh! Huge! I'm bigger than all of them. So's Helvetica."
"Who's taking my name in vain?" Helvetica came in from her shower, glowing with good health, towelling her hair. She had another towel wound around herself. She had just spent ten minutes in front of the mirror in the bogs, arranging the towel so it displayed nine inches of cleavage.
"I was saying you've got bigger tits than any of the girls in this magazine." Valentina looked up as Helvetica swept into the dorm and performed a massive pirouette. She had to clutch at the towel as it began to unwind itself. An improbable areola appeared. Geraldine realised it was as big as one of her breasts on its own. And Geraldine's breasts were comfortably more than a C-cup. Or possibly uncomfortably more.
"Miss Malone's stopped the road being built," Geraldine summarised. "It was on the news."
Helvetica retrieved the end of the towel and tucked it into her cleavage. It produced an interesting effect and she sashayed over to the full-length mirror to study it. "Does that mean Molly Malone's coming back? Oh, Yuck!"
"She was all right," Geraldine said. "And she'll be famous when she comes back. She'll be a hero. The television will probably be here."
"Will they?" Helvetica began inflating her chest. The towel gave up the unequal struggle and she clutched it to her and retreated to her bed.
"The television?" Valentina began preening herself.
Geraldine turned off the radio. "The news, yeah. It's always on the news when the environment is affected. We need to save the planet. More roads mean more cars."
"I don't see why," Valentina sniffed. "Could I shorten my skirt any more, do you think?"
"Not unless you shave your pussy," said Helvetica rudely. "When will the television be here, anyway?"
"I don't know. It won't be long, though. It's only news for a couple of days, then they have to think of something else."
"Hmmm. I wonder how big my bust will be by then." Helvetica rearranged the towel and took a cautious breath. Valentina and Geraldine watched, their eyes widening by the second as Helvetica expanded beyond all reasonable limits.
"You'd better breathe out, Vets, you're starting to go all red."
Helvetica relaxed and her chest subsided a little. She seemed to have retained some of her size. "I must be up to fifty-seven inches now at least. Hey, just call me Miss Heinz. Watch out, Sally Chung!"
The three girls held their breath, but nothing happened.
"Another new bra tomorrow, I think," Helvetica gloated, after twenty seconds or so of unbearable suspense. "Tell Old Grimbo I'm going to the bra facility first thing in the morning."
"Don't be late coming back. I want to talk to her about the choir and I need you to help me."
"I'll help you," Geraldine offered. "Hey, I wonder if Miss Malone would be interested in running the choir."
Valentina turned pale. "She wouldn't, would she?"
"She would if we asked her. Think of the publicity. 'I Saved School, Now I Just Want To Get Back To Teaching.'" Geraldine spelled out the headline in the air.
"She wouldn't dare. Would she?" Nobody answered. "I'm seeing Miss Grimbo tomorrow. If there's going to be a St Cat's Junior Choir, Miss Grimbo has to be in charge of it."
"Shannie! Did you hear the news?" Corinne burst into the bedroom. I stuffed Felicity and her friend under the covers and grabbed my compact from the bedside table. She stopped short. "Not again!"
"My nose is shiny," I explained. "Not what again?"
"You've got girls in here." She sniffed the air. "Junior girls!"
How does she do that? "I'm helping them with their Maths again." Two tousled heads appeared, gasping for fresh air. "Don't leave, girls. Miss Meadowlark won't be long." I remembered what she had been shouting as she barged into the room. "What news, anyway?"
"I don't know! That's why I asked if you'd heard it. It was on the local radio news. I heard him say 'St Catherine's High School for Growing Girls', then he started some rubbish about Australia being burned to the ground. He never mentioned us again. It's not on again for another hour."
"News on the hour..." sang Felicity.
"From Busty-Busty-Ninety-Six-Point-Twoooooo...!" warbled Felicity's friend.
"Air Fairm, Miss," Felicity completed the jingle. Surely it didn't end with the word 'Miss'?
"Air Fairm?"
"She means FM, Shan. You know what these local radio announcers are like. They all think they have to pretend to be Americans. Anyway, you'll have to listen again at ten. You'll have finished your Maths coaching by then, won't you?"
"Ten? That means we've only got another quarter of an hour!"
Felicity and her friend wailed in dismay.
"Hardly worth starting again, is it?" Corinne had a nasty grin on her face. "Come on, you two. Off you go and finish your homework in the dorm."
"Oh, Miss!"
"Yes! Out! You can finish what Miss Gruntworthy's been teaching you in your own beds. That's beds plural!"
"Oh, Miss!" They looked at each other, blushed and started giggling.
"Out of bed, I said!"
I'm sure she only did it so she could get a close look at them without their clothes on. I can't think why Corinne would do this. Surely she's seen naked girls before. She got a good eyeful of Felicity's tits earlier, and Felicity's friend is only the same size. Or perhaps slightly bigger. Not such a slim waist and what could eventually turn out to be a shamefully huge bottom. Shameful. Meanwhile, though, a nice contrast to Felicity's slender figure. A different shape to her breasts, too. Altogether softer and more pendulous, with the most amazingly large...
"Shannie. Stop staring at the door. They've gone." Corinne sat on the edge of the bed. God, she was huge these days! "Don't worry, love! They'll be back tomorrow, or any time you want them. I must say, young Dierdre's getting an enormous bum on her. And I didn't realise how large her..."
"Cee! We are not here to discuss the size of Second Formers' amazingly large areolae!"
"Of course not. There's lots more we need to talk about. While we're waiting for the news to start..."
"News on the Hour. On Busty-Busty..."
"Shan! Please try to concentrate! This is important. Let me tell you all about Angelica and the Wendy House."
"It sounds like a fairy story." I snuggled down in the girl-fragrant sheets and patted the bed for Corinne to move closer. She sighed a bit, but slid her cute little bottom along the bed. I just failed to get my hand underneath in time.
Angelica bounced her bottom on the bed. Not even a squeak of springs. Just softness. The covers were downy and welcoming. Time for a shower before bedtime. A bit of television — telly, they called it over here — then nice warm bed for the first time in her little Wendy House.
"All mine," she whispered, looking round wonderingly. It was perfect: pictures on the walls, the curtains drawn to keep out the night, although the Wendy House itself was snug and warm inside. All double-glazed windows. No draughts. Or drafts. Angelica giggled. "I must say thank you to Mee-gan for all this. She's done a great job. I wonder where she is. There's room enough for two in this huge monster king-sized bed."
She plucked an armful of fleecy towels from the airing cupboard and padded into the bathroom. The shower gave an instant soft spray of hot water with none of the dramatic sound effects of the plumbing in the main school buildings. The temperature was just right, although she adjusted it anyway, then stepped into the shower cubicle and drew the curtain closed.
"There's room enough for two in here, too. Well, almost! Two normal girls, perhaps, or one like me and a little tiny one!" Even the soap suds seemed more soapy and sudsier in here than in the school. Angelica's hands strayed freely over her shoulders, down her sides, her thighs, her calves — lift them up one at a time these days, no bending over any more — then her thighs, her shoulders, between her thighs, up to her shoulders again. Then her breasts.
"I can't reach my nipples," she gasped, wrestling with a gigantically soapy breast. "Oh, man! I'm hee-yuge!"
Breasts again, underneath, and by a great feat of squeezing and grappling, the nipples. Then between her thighs again, round to her bottom, then she parted her legs.
"Oh, man! Sheesh! Mee-gan, where are you when I need you most?"
"It's so quiet out here."
Angelica sat up in bed. It wasn't easy. The bed was soft and her breasts were so huge she had to hang on to the headboard of the bed to pull herself up. It was so quiet she wondered if she had gone deaf. Then the quadrangle clock struck eleven. So much for that idea, she thought.
The ridiculous noise of the clock finally died away to echoes coming back from the hills. Out here in the woods, one was closer to nature. She began to imagine little furry animals wandering around outside, trying to burrow their way in.
"Don't be silly!" But she scrambled upright and felt for the floor with her toes. There it was, the warm salmon carpet with floral motif. The pile was velvety and toe-deep. The window looked out on to woodland, the school being away over to the left. By holding the curtains back and pressing her face to the glass, she could just see the lights of the buildings. That would be the back of the bra facility, with Jeremy's shed in front, now in darkness. Jeremy would be sleeping elsewhere tonight, she assumed.
Further over to the right, visible without having to contort herself and press her breasts against the window sill, a single light marked the door of the maternity building. Beyond that would be the perimeter of the school grounds. She had never ventured over that way. Perhaps in the summer, it would be nice to take a walk over there.
"If I can still walk by then! Perhaps they will pull me over there in the chariot. The Sweet Chariot." Angelica laughed softly to herself. What was over there? Wasn't it where Mee-gan had said the old battlefield was? The place in her battle dream? There seemed to be a glow in the sky in that direction. It wasn't the lights of Borcester, they were more over to the right. Yes, there they were, the orange streetlights reflected off the cloud. The light she could see was more bluish, ghostly. Cautiously, hesitating, she opened the window. Just a little way. Wow, it was cold out there! But as the night air crept into the room with a scent of dank vegetation, she fancied she could hear something from the direction of her dream battlefield.
"Tanks?" It sounded like one of those old wartime movies when the Germans were advancing and you could hear the tanks in the distance long before you could see them. A roaring sound of high powered engines, mixed in with a squeaking of tracks. "It can't be tanks. Not in the middle of England. Tractors? Bulldozers?"
That was it. It was the sound of heavy earth moving machinery. Working at night? Presumably they had a schedule to keep and they were were working overtime before the weather became too wintry to carry on. It must be an important job.
Angelica shivered and closed the window, shutting out the noise completely. The curtains swished shut with a tug of the cord. There was a heavy wooden knob on the end. Mee-gan had such good taste.
And that made her giggle, too!
The news was all round the school by breakfast time. Two hundred and thirty girls had four hundred and sixty different versions of it.
"The Borcester by-pass has been stopped."
"Molly Malone stopped it."
"They're going to make a film of the life of Molly Malone."
"St Cat's is going to be on the telly."
"It hasn't been stopped, so there. It's being diverted."
"What's that mean?"
"It's going somewhere else."
"How can it go somewhere else? If it went somewhere else, it wouldn't be the Borcester by-pass."
"It's still by-passing Borcester. It's just not going where they said it was going."
"Where is it going?"
"They said it's coming through St Cat's!"
"They're going to pull the school down?"
"Or build one of those great big bridges over the top?"
"A flyover..."
"All the drivers will be able to look down at us when we're sunbathing."
"Wow!"
"All right!"
"Who would want to look at you?"
"I've got bigger tits than you!"
"Yeah, but you're fat. Look at the size of your arse."
"Huh!"
"Is it really going to come through the school grounds?"
"That's what it said on the news. A revised route, they said."
"Avoiding the site of the battle of Borcester Down."
"What are we going to do?"
"Do?"
"To stop it coming through here."
"We could chain ourselves to big concrete blocks like Miss Malone did."
"A lot of good that would do. She chained herself to a concrete block and she's diverted the road right through the middle of St Cat's."
"We've got to do something."
"Yeah!"
"Pass the toast, please."
"Sure and you're holding the fockin' map upside down, Mr Hilditch!"
"I am not! Here's North, and here's the site of the battle. There's the path of the road, through there. That's where that tart is sitting on top of the concrete block, just there."
"She's in the wrong fockin' place. The road doesn't go anywhere near where she is. I told her last week. Sure and she's from fockin' Dublin?"
"What's that got to do with anything? She's right where the road goes. That dotted line goes bang-slap through the middle of the path with her concrete block on it."
"That dotted line is the old railway. It was dug up in 1937. The fockin' by-pass comes through here, I keep tellin' you."
"Look, Riley, you stick to earth moving, okay. Leave the thinking to the engineers. Just get on with it or we'll have another penalty clause round our necks. We're a fortnight late already." Hilditch turned on his heel and marched off. Several seconds later, he came past again, his nose in the air, this time marching in the right direction for his car.
"An' whose fuckin' stupid fault was dat?" Paddy Riley spat in the yellow mud. "May the Holy Blessèd Virgin save us from engineers. Not that She could from where She is right now. Rhoight, lads! Start 'em up! Mister High and Mighty Bloody Bradley Fockin'-Hilditch wants the road to head dat way." Paddy Riley crossed himself and set off across the site as the giant earth movers roared into life.
MOLLY MALONE SAT UP and dragged her dank poncho round her shoulders. She ran the claws of her right hand through her matted hair and took a deep breath. "Me last orange," she sighed, raking through the detritus at the bottom of her paper sack. She delved deeper and came up with a doubtful hunk of cheese and a huge cooking apple with two bites out of it, one on each side. "What a lovely mornin', to be sure, an' all an' all, so it is." The slanting sun levered itself above the horizon, struck her full in the face, then instantly extinguished itself behind a cloud.
It began to rain. "Fock this for a lark," said Molly, erecting her leaky umbrella. "Another day, another soakin'." She added a scratch to the long line of dashes on the top of her concrete block. Groups of four dashes, each with a bold stroke through them. "Dat's how many days oi've been up here...?" She stopped. Something was wrong, but she couldn't quite place what it was. The usual sounds: the now constant drumming of the rain on her umbrella, the drip of the leaks on to her meagre belongings, the clinking of her chain, the distant hum of the earth movers...
That was it! The machinery was so much quieter this morning. Where was it all? Normally by now the bulldozers would have been churning past every couple of minutes, the giant dump trucks with their loads of clay and chalk, the — special treat — the digger with the long extending bucket that offered her a greasy bacon doorstep sarnie from its quivering jaws every day at eight sharp.
"Where are they all?" The grunt of a diesel engine came faintly to her every few seconds or so, but there was no doubt about it, while work on the Borcester by-pass was proceeding, it wasn't proceeding where Molly was. The rain eased for a moment and she sat up, listening.
A voice called. "Hoy, Moll! Yer up there?"
She stared round. "Paddy? What took yer? An' what you doin' over there?"
Paddy Riley squelched out of the trees and came over. He stood at the base of the concrete block and kicked it to shake the mud off his boots. "Lovely mornin'", he said doubtfully.
"Never moind dat!" Molly's accent tended to become thicker when talking to the road gang. "What's happened to yer road?"
"Sure, an' it's goin' the other way. The engineers have changed the route suddenly. Last night. It's goin' through the woods. Bastard trees! It's going to slow us down rotten, choppin' down half the trees in Borcestershire..."
"Hang on! You mean it's moved? It's not coming down this track at all? Me concrete block's not in the way?"
"I guess not. Sure an' you'll be able to get some sleep at nights every mornin'!"
"But..."
"Anyway, oi can't hang around here all day chattin' to you. We've got a road to build. Wherever it goes." He began to plod away into the undergrowth. "See ya," he called over his shoulder. The imprints of his big boots faded almost instantly into the yellow slurry of the churned-up track.
"Paddy! Don't ..." The dripping bushes closed behind Paddy like a curtain. "Don't go!" Molly's voice fell to a hoarse whisper. "What about me bacon sarnie?" Nobody heard her. The rain was teeming down again, harder than ever.
"It's through here, I'm sure. There's like a path that leads to the old battle site." Geraldine pushed through the bushes and stared at the unfamiliar landscape ahead of her.
"We must be mad," wailed Valentina. "What a waste of a perfectly good Saturday morning."
"You call this perfectly good?" Helvetica followed the others in single file. There was a dreamlike feeling about all this. Could she really be plodding through the woods in the pissing rain, carrying a Tesco's carrier bag full of goodies. Why her? Valentina followed Geraldine between two stout bushes. Even the sight of Valentina's delightfully cleavaged bottom in the obscenely tight black latex cat-suit failed to excite Helvetica. The bushes sprang back in her face. If she hadn't been soaked before, she certainly was now.
The other two were waiting for her in a little clearing, a faerie grotto in the woods. Apart from the steady rain in the treetops above them, all was quiet.
Geraldine was a compact and snug figure in her natty blue and green weather gear. She shuffled her expensive little walking boots in the wet leaves, waiting for Helvetica to catch up.
"I thought you were supposed to be the fit athlete, Netball Ace," Valentina grinned at the bedraggled Helvetica. Valentina was presumably warm and dry in Miss Grimbo's borrowed cat-suit, her incongruous school straw hat dripping from all round the brim. Her well-muscled legs gleamed rubberily in the dim light.
Helvetica glowered at her friends. Her tracksuit wasn't the ideal garment for this weather, but it was all she had that still fitted her round the bust. Her mighty breasts thrust arrogantly at the sodden grey material, stretching it into an improbable shape. She pulled off one muddy Reebok and banged it against a tree, balanced on one leg like an overdeveloped stork.
"This is fucking ridiculous!" she complained. "Whose idea was this?"
"Geraldine's," said Valentina, generously giving credit where it was due.
"We're only taking some food and stuff to Miss Malone," Geraldine whined. "How would you like it, living outside, chained to a lump of concrete?"
"She can't be any wetter than I am," muttered Helvetica.
"You ready, Vets?" Valentina said softly. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back to school and get warm and dry. Tell you what. You can lead the way and we'll follow. Then you won't have to struggle to keep up. Those things must be heavy."
Helvetica blushed prettily and wetly. She dragged a handful of hair out of her eyes. "How much further is it?"
"Only about half a mile," encouraged Geraldine. "Come on, Vets."
"The things I do for my friends. Come on, then, gang!"
The little convoy splashed on its way, finally emerging into the open at the same time as the rain attained cats and dogs status, with a few pitchforks thrown in for good measure. Ahead was a forbidding grey concrete block with what looked like a pile of rubbish on top, surrounded by a sea of mud.
Helvetica regarded it resignedly, then led the trio across the sucking slime. It came up to their ankles, their calves, their knees. The last twenty yards took five staggering minutes.
Too exhausted to be grateful, Helvetica huddled against the block, getting some sort of shelter from the rain which was now approaching the horizontal, borne on the rising wind.
"Where's your other shoe?" Valentina came to a halt by her side and pointed at Helvetica's foot.
"Oh, fuck it!" Helvetica gazed out across the mudbath, then removed her remaining shoe and hurled it as far as she could. It floated on the surface for a second, then disapppeared. Helvetica watched it sadly. "They were my favourite trainers."
Geraldine arrived at the block, looking fresh and unflustered. What right did she have to look so pretty on a day like this? "I found this," she said, offering a muddy shoe to Helvetica.
"Bastard!" Helvetica howled, and flung the shoe out into the storm.
"Don't you want it? I thought they were your favourite pair." Geraldine peered out at Helvetica with concern from beneath her hood.
"Let's get rid of this stuff and get out of here," Helvetica snarled.
"Is she up on top of this thing?" Valentina took a step back and looked upwards at the enormously tall block. "How do we get up there?"
"She's up there," said Geraldine. "She's sheltering from the rain. She won't be able to hear us. We'll just pass the food up to her and go."
"Oh! I see." Helvetica's voice dripped sarcasm. "We just hand it up there. It's as tall as three of us; there's no ladder, nothing to hold on to. We just hand it up there. Then we can go home."
"Throw it up there?" Valentina suggested.
"In this wind?"
"I'm smallest. You can lift me up." Geraldine didn't sound terribly enthusiastic.
They looked at her. "That will get you about halfway up," said Valentina. "Any more brilliant ideas?"
Together, they all surveyed the problem. The solution was becoming obvious. "Okay," said Helvetica wearily. "I'll get down and Tina gets on my shoulders. Then Geraldine climbs on Tina's. Then I stand up."
It sounded so simple. "Let's get on with it," sighed Valentina. She patted Helvetica on the shoulder. "Squat down."
The black latex squeaked as Valentina mounted Helvetica's shoulders. "I can't stand up, balanced up here. We'll all fall over."
"Just sit on my shoulders. Then Geraldine can stand on yours. But make it quick. I won't be able to hold you both up there for long."
"How do I climb up there?" Geraldine quavered.
"You're the one with all the mountain-climbing gear! Just get on with it before I pass out." Helvetica was shouting. Her ears were blocked by Valentina's black rubber thighs.
Geraldine gave a dainty hoist to her weatherproof pants and clambered delicately up Helvetica's strong back. For a moment, the three of them wobbled, threatening to splash into the mud.
"Hold it! Let me lean against the side of the block. Then we'll be more stable. Right. That's better. Get up on Valentina's shoulders, quick!"
Geraldine made it, and wobbled upright, her fingers clawing at the wet concrete for balance.
"Right. Now I'll stand up slowly..."
"Wait a minute! Not yet."
"What the f..."
"Why not, Geri?"
"I forgot to bring the carrier bag."
The Tesco bag lay in the mud, mocking them. "I can't reach it," said Helvetica.
"What can we do?" Valentina couldn't see a thing. Geraldine's wobbling mountain boots were digging into her latex shoulders. Lower down, Helvetica's powerful neck muscles were beginning to do unfortunate things to her pudenda. What a time to get horny!
"You'll have to get down and try again," said Helvetica. "Take the bag with you, this time, dog-brain."
Geraldine scrambled down and stood dejectedly in the mud. She began to cry. "Oh, God!" said Helvetica. "Turn off the waterworks, somebody!"
"Come here, Geri," Valentina said, holding her arms out. Geraldine's head flopped gratefully between Valentina's big welcoming breasts. "Grab the carrier bag. Hook it on your jacket somehow. Don't cry, baby! Just a minute and we'll be on our way home. We can all have toasted crumpets in Miss Grimbo's Wendy House!"
It seemed a million miles away.
But Geraldine looped her arms through the handles of the carrier bag, and began her ascent of the North Face of Helvetica Bold. It wasn't any easier than the first time, with the ungainly carrier bag banging against her bosom as she finally stood with trembling knees on Valentina's shoulders. "Okay, I'm up here!"
"Okay, hold on tight, Tina. I'm going to stand up." Helvetica grunted with the effort and strained to stand. Nothing happened. Her legs wouldn't respond.
"What's happening?"
"I can't do it, Tee!"
"Come on, Vets! Her boots are digging into my shoulders."
"I'm trying!"
"Would it help if I jumped up and down?" called Geraldine.
"No!"
"No!"
"I'll have one more try. Here we go." And Helvetica closed her eyes, concentrating hard. Her two friends willed her to succeed. "Woooff! Come ooo-ooonnn!"
"Come on, Vets!"
"Eeek!"
"Push, Vets!"
"Yessss! Yessss!"
For a moment, they wobbled and teetered. They had an image of themselves falling sideways. If they landed in that mud, they might never get up again. But Helvetica was winning the battle. Her amazing netball-player's thighs rippled beneath her sopping tracksuit.
"Yes! Yessss!"
And up they all came. Once her knees reached a certain angle, Helvetica had more leverage. With a howl of triumph, she straightened her legs and locked herself, panting, squashing her breasts against the concrete.
"Quick," she screeched. "Get up there!"
"I can't quite reach!" Geraldine's voice was whipped away by the wind. "I can just get my fingers over the edge.Owwwow!"
"What's up?"
"I broke my nail!"
"Get your fucking arse up on top of this fucking block, you little shit!"
Valentina's screamed order had the desired effect. Geraldine's fingers clawed at the top edge of the block, gripped, pulled. Below her, Valentina felt the weight on her shoulders diminishing.
"You can do it, Geri! Go on, kid!"
"What the fock?"
Molly Malone was wrapping her poncho round her again. Faint squeaking sounds reached her. She began to crawl toward the edge of her block, dragging her chain behind her. "Aaach!" she exclaimed as a hooded face appeared in front of her face, peering over the edge. Two little hands clung on, knuckles whitening.
"Who the fock are you?"
"I'm Geraldine, Miss. First Form. Can I ... may I get up, please?"
"What the fock for?"
"We've brought you some food."
"What's going on up there, Geraldeeeen?"
"Get up, you little cow!"
"Could you pull me up, Miss? Please?"
Molly Malone thought about it for a while. The girl's pretty face was showing signs of panic. She reached over and grabbed her by one wrist, then pulled. The chain helped. It gave her something to pull against.
"Thanks, Miss!"
"Now the other hand." Molly seized Geraldine's other wrist and leaned back. The girl was gradually clambering up the side of the block, her booted toes trying to dig into the solid concrete.
"Quick, Geri!" Helvetica's voice trembled.
"She's doing it, Vets, just another minute!"
"It's no good, Tee! I'm going!"
"Hang on, Vets...!"
Geraldine came up with a rush, over the edge, landing with her face in Molly's lap. She had an immediate impression that the teacher was seriously and deeply unwashed. But she lay there, trembling, recovering her breath. From somewhere below came the muffled sound of a heavy splash.
Molly had no idea why the girl had come here, or how she had climbed the side of the unscaleable fortress. But she was the first visitor Molly had seen since Paddy Riley. The first friendly face.
"Come on, Baby!" She hugged the surprised girl. "Whaddiya say yer name was?"
"G-Geraldine! We brought you some food."
"We?"
"Me and my friends. Valentina Nightingale and Helvetica Bold. First Form, Miss."
"Oi remember them. Where are they?"
"We stood on each other's shoulders. Well not on each other's shoulders exactly. I stood on Valentina's and she sat on Helvetica's. Then Helvetica stood up. She's ever so strong, Miss!"
"She must be." Molly crawled to the edge and looked down. At first, there was no sign of the two girls. Then the yellow mud parted like the Red Sea, revealing two figures locked in a passionate embrace. "Oi t'ink dey're all roight," said Molly. "Now, what's in the bag?"
"Just some food, Miss. From the tuck shop."
"Let's have a look, den..."
Molly dipped into the bag and came up with a packet of biscuits. "Chocolate Digestives," said Geraldine. "I got plain chocolate. I hope you don't prefer milk. There's a pork pie, Melton Mowbray, of course, and some Cup-a-Soup. Have you got any boiling water?"
"Sure an' where would I get boiling water on top of a concrete block in the middle of the jungle, child?"
"Oh." Geraldine looked so crestfallen, Molly hugged her again.
"It'll be okay. We can sprinkle it on some of this bread and butter." She hauled out a sliced loaf and a tub of Clover. There was a jar of marmalade, a packet of spaghetti, forty Red Label teabags, an apple with only a small bite out of it, a Mars bar, a can of baked beans, a packet of three condoms, a jar of instant coffee, three miniature boxes of assorted breakfast cereal, a sausage — rescued from breakfast — half a dozen clementines, and a raw carrot. Molly bit the end off it and spread the assortment out on the rain-swept concrete.
"Is it all right, Miss?" Geraldine asked anxiously.
"It's wonderful, girl! Give us another hug!"
And as she drew Geraldine's warm little body into her arms, she felt the tears trickling down her cheeks.
"Should we have left her up there, do you think?"
"What else could we do?" Helvetica shrugged.
"Did you see Miss Malone?" Angelica asked. The three of them sat beside the roaring fire in the Wendy House. A hot shower had restored the girls' spirits slightly and they had dressed more suitably for a visit to their Form teacher on a Saturday night. Agonisingly tight jeans and deeply low-cut T-shirts.
Helvetica sipped at her mug of hot chocolate. "Miss Malone looked over the edge after she pulled Geraldine up on top. I saw her, 'cos I was lying on my back."
"On your back? Wasn't it muddy out there?"
"Ooh, yes, Miss!" Valentina's eyes sparkled. "Actually, the mud was quite warm after a while." She giggled. "By the time we came home, it must have been nearly boiling!"
Angelica raised an eyebrow but no further explanation came from the girls. Their fingers intertwined and they gazed into each other's eyes. Angelica coughed loudly. "What were these things you said you'd brought? Crumpkins?"
"Crumpets, Miss."
"You toast them and spread them with butter."
"Then you eat them."
"I'd never have guessed." Angelica inspected a crumpet, bending it between her fingers. It looked a singularly unappetising object. It was about half an inch thick and seemed to be made of some kind of synthetic rubber compound.
"Where's the toasting fork, Miss?" Helvetica sprang to her feet, breasts bouncing. "No, don't get up, I'll find it." She plodded into the kitchen and started rummaging through drawers.
"I'm not sure we have one," Angelica frowned, but Helvetica came back from the kitchen, brandishing a three-pronged fork like King Neptune.
"Here it is. En garde!" She held the fork horizontally and Valentina impaled a crumpet on the points.
"Now we do this, Miss," said Valentina, taking the fork and plunging it into the flames.
After a moment, she withdrew the fork and looked at it curiously. They all sat and watched the crumpet blaze briefly before turning into a blackened disc.
"Is that it?" asked Helvetica.
"How do we eat it now?" said Angelica.
"I don't think it's supposed to do that. It caught fire, then fell off the fork." Valentina looked puzzled. "That's what happened last time we tried it, in Miss Gruntworthy's room."
"Try another. Don't hold it so far in." Helvetica speared another crumpet for her and watched as Valentina carefully aimed it at the fire. This time it was more successful. After a couple of minutes, she plucked the smoking crumpet from the flames and pulled it from the fork. It was only slightly crisp round the edges. It was also extremely hot.
Helvetica retrieved it from the floor in the corner of the room and brought it back, wiping the dust off it with her hankie. "Who wants this first one? It's pretty clean," she said, loading a knife with butter and dobbing it on the centre of the crumpet. It melted instantly into yellow mud. "Here y'are, Miss."
Angelica had no choice. She took the crumpet, held her breath, closed her eyes and took a bite.
Valentina wiped the butter off the teacher's bodice with a handful of industrial paper towel.
It didn't taste too bad, in fact. Well, it didn't taste of anything, really. They had one each, then Helvetica went foraging in the kitchen again. "It's full of interesting stuff," she reported, coming back with a jar. "What's maple syrup?" she asked.
"Miss Mountains arranged to stock the larder. I don't know how she did it," said Angelica. "You have it on bacon at breakfast. You mean you've never tried it?"
"You can't have jam on bacon!" Valentina sniffed at it. "I wonder what it's like on crumpets. Miss Mountains? I haven't seen her for days." She took a bite. "Hey, it's not bad!"
"I don't think I'd like it on bacon, though." Helvetica borrowed Valentina's crumpet and sampled it. Their cheeks touched and they giggled.
Angelica was finding all this unbridled lust embarrassing. "You took some food for Miss Malone?"
"Just some stuff. Bread and butter. A sausage."
"Some more stuff as well," said Helvetica hurriedly, seeing the teacher open her mouth in horror.
A sudden gust of wind lashed rain against the window and the fire flickered brightly. They huddled closer to the warmth.
"I wouldn't like to be out there on a night like this."
"Poor Miss Malone!" said Angelica.
"Poor Geraldine."
"Should we call the police, do you think?" Valentina rubbed her hands together in front of the fire. "They could bring a ladder and get her down."
"Or the fire brigade..."
"They can't get Miss Malone down," said Angelica. "She's chained to the block."
"More bread and butter, Miss?"
"Not now, Geri, thanks! I'm not used to eating this well. It's been a while since. Are you warm enough, love?"
"My fingers are a bit cold, but this stuff keeps me nice and dry."
"We can keep each other warm. I'll show you how I've been doin' it, although it's gettin' colder now winter's on its way. Put your hands in here. There you go. How's dat?"
"That's nice. Thanks, Miss. Do you get lonely up here?"
"I get time to do plenty of thinkin'. It's not too bad."
"What do you think about, Miss?" Geraldine rested her head on Molly's shoulder.
"All sorts of t'ings." She giggled, an unfamiliar sound. "I mean, why did you bring me the condoms?"
"Valentina bought them. They sell them in the tuck shop. She thought they might come in handy..."
"The little divil! What would I be doin' wid them up here? Or anywhere, for that matter? Oi'm not allowed to use them, anyway?"
"Not allowed, Miss? But you're a teacher. You're allowed to do anything."
"Not quite, love." She squeezed Geraldine's shoulders. "Your hands warm, now?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Good. Now, when are your friends coming to get you down from here?"
"I don't know. We hadn't really thought about it. I suppose they went back to St Cat's to get a ladder. Jeremy's got a long one. Not that the length matters all that much. For a ladder, I mean. It won't take a very tall ladder to get up here. Ooh, Miss, you didn't think I meant something else, did you?" Geraldine bit her lip in the wet darkness and blushed.
"I had a boyfriend once," Molly said softly.
Geraldine waited for her to continue. The silence lengthened. "Do you prefer boys or girls, Miss?"
"I don't know, really. Neither, I suppose."
"Oh. Most of my friends seem to like both. Valentina and Helvetica do. Valentina's done it with a boy, 'cos she's got a baby. I don't suppose I ever will, though. They're all prettier than me."
"Don't be silly, child! You're a lovely girl."
"My tits aren't very big." She stuck out her chest. It didn't look too bad to Molly.
"Sure, they're bigger than moine."
"All the others are getting huge. You know how big Valentina was. Well, Helvetica's miles bigger than her now. She'll never play netball again."
"Big as that, huh?"
"Yeah. Then there's Sally Chung, of course. We mustn't forget her."
The darkness was briefly lit by a series of flashes. "Is that lightning?"
They waited for the sound of thunder, or gunshots, but the wind whipped the sound away before it reached them.
"Miss Meadowlark says the present First Form could well turn out to be the biggest of all time!"
"And dat's saying somet'ing, at St Cat's High School for Growing Girls!"
"Miss. When they come to rescue me, will you let them cut you loose as well? Please, Miss?"
"I'm here for a purpose, Geri, love."
"But they've moved the road now, Miss." Geraldine sat up straight, animated. "It was on the news. The road's got to avoid the old battlefield. It's going through the woods, down that way." She pointed into the darkness where the trees rushed and swayed before the gale.
"But that's towards the school."
"I know. They haven't mentioned exactly where it's going. Maybe it will sort of swerve round St Cat's."
"It couldn't bend as sharp as dat, Geri. If it goes that way, I t'ink it's going to go straight through St Cat's woods."
"Wow!"
"Wow?"
"Yes, Miss? Where would it go?"
"Round past Maternity and behind Mr Jeremy's shed, then maybe it would be bending round to the left to cross over the main road..."
"But what about the Wendy House?"
"The what house?"
"Miss Grimbo's got a Wendy House in the woods. It's got a white grand piano in it. We're going to have a choir, just the Juniors, and we'll all go to Miss Grimbo's Wendy House and have toasted crumpets. They won't pull it down, will they, Miss? They can't take all that away, can they, Miss?"
"No, we can't let them take all that away, Geri."
The wind howled and the rain beat horizontally against the concrete block. "We even had some crumpets for tonight. Helvetica bought a dozen. I wonder if they're eating them tonight. Just the three of them."
"So we can have our first choir practice tomorrow, Miss Grimbo?" Valentina hopped up and down in her excitement.
"Sure, why not?" Angelica wished she could hop up and down like that. Never again. She got up with difficulty. "Although I think it might be as well if you could find a girl who can play piano. Could you do that?" Angelica's voice faded as she made her way out of the room.
The girls nudged each other. "God, she's rilly-rilly huge!" Helvetica gasped. "She must be even bigger than yesterday."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. You can see how wide she is now. Even with that double door to the loo, she had a job getting through."
"Maybe she's got a new bra on, holding her up a bit more."
"Maybe..."
"We're going to have to Shrink her, Vets. It's a pity. It would be nice to see how big she gets."
"We'll mix some Shrink and bring it over on Monday?"
"That's the idea. We've got another day to think about how we're going to cream her with it. Not now, she's back..."
"Man, I shouldn't be telling you girls this, but you'll both understand how I feel. Wow! My bust is reelly reelly full these days! "
"It is, Miss?"
"That's why I said you'd better find a girl who can play piano while while you sing. Somehow, I don't think my arms are long enough to reach the keyboard."
"Your arms don't seem any shor... Ouch, Tina!"
"We never noticed your bust was growing that much, Miss!"
Angelica narrowed her eyes. "You didn't? I'm getting so big, I nearly got stuck in the doorway. And that's without a bra. I just had to take it off earlier. I couldn't breathe."
"You did?"
"You couldn't?"
"That's right. Before you arrived. Sheesh! I shouldn't be telling you all this!"
It's all right, Miss!" Valentina assured her.
"You sure you didn't notice?"
"No, Miss!"
"No, Miss!"
Two pairs of fingers were crossed behind two First Form backs.