ST CAT'S WOODS is normally such a tranquil place. In summer, the only sound to disturb the peace is the gentle woo-woo-woo-ing of orgasming girls as they sit or squat by the sparkling stream fondling each other's private parts. In autumn, as now, the woods are silent apart from the harsh squawking of song birds.
On this Friday, with the dappled sunlight tinted a misty orange through the last of the leaves not yet dispatched by the gales of November, the scene was anything but peaceful. Apart from the thumping of an invisible military band — and Corinne was going to have some explaining to do about that — there was the chattering of two hundred and thirty excited girls, the squeak of wheelbarrows and the occasional hollow thump and yelp of pain as they collided with trees.
And added to it all, something far more sinister: the relentless clatter of tracked vehicles, the grunt and throb of powerful diesel engines, the occasional hoarse male voice.
"I can hear men, Smegs," I said.
She looked agitated about something, rattling her car keys anxiously. "If they come through here, I'd better move my car. I don't want it scratched in its first week. Or squashed flat under one of those things."
'Those things' were a pair of gigantic yellow machines, big as dinosaurs, nosing their way along just on the other side of the stream. They had huge chunky wheels and they bent in the middle to go round corners. Not that they seemed to be very interested in going round corners. They were heading in the general direction of the school.
Closer, on the very banks of the stream itself, men in gaily coloured safety helmets and rumpled muddy lounge suits were hammering stakes into the ground, which had already turned into yellow mud around their feet. One of them had a referee's whistle which he blew randomly every minute or so, waving frantically at one of the machines. Elsewhere, joining in the ballet, were still more vehicles, ungainly yellow trucks and several sluggish bulldozers that were responsible for most of the noise and the mud.
"What are they doing, Smegs?"
"It's the new road, Shan. You must have heard about it?"
"Of course I have. But it was going to go the other way, avoiding the site of the Battle of Whatever."
"They seem to have had a change of plan." Smegs broke off as Dawn Chorus bustled past, festooned with cameras. For some reason, and quite bizarrely, she had changed into a bikini, and the straps of her various cameras and canvas bags cut deeply into her pale flesh. The girl really ought to get out more. Her choice of clothing was probably a wise one, as she was able to splosh through the mud without messing up her school uniform, and it was really quite a mild day for November.
"Should I have a word with Dawn about the colour of her bikini, Smegs? Yellow isn't official school colours."
"You can have a word with her if you like. You'll learn a few new words in exchange. Anyway, by the time she's been through that mud-bath a few times, her bikini won't be the only thing that's yellow."
"What are we going to do?" Smegs always knows what to do.
"God knows! Catch the bus to Borcester? There's going to be no stopping this lot. What would you suggest? Lying down in front of them?"
"There must be something we can do. Can't we chain some of the girls to the trees?"
A harsh whirring noise started up, and a man attacked a tree with a chain saw, just on the other side of the stream. With a tortured creaking, the tree toppled slowly into the mud, and was thrust to one side by an impatient bulldozer. It was only a young tree, as well, no bigger around than a girl's waist.
"There won't be any trees to chain girls to at this rate." Smegs was edging away towards the car park. They've only got another ten yards and they'll be at the stream. Once they get over that, they'll be off and running, and it will be bye-bye Wendy House!"
"The Wendy House! They're going to go right through it! Angelica's in there!"
"Of course she is. It's hers."
"What's she going to do?"
Smegs shrugged. "I dunno. Toast crumpets? She's probably giving Jeremy a good seeing-to. At least, when she goes, she'll go happy."
"Don't be so heartless! I thought you were keen on Angelica."
"Huh!" Smegs snorted and turned away. "I'm going to move my car. See you later!"
A bunch of Senior girls wandered up, wringing their hands in despair. "You've got to stop them, Miss! They're killing all God's lovely innocent trees."
"We can't stop them. They won't listen."
"Can't you chain yourself to a tree, Miss?"
"Certainly not!"
"It has to be you, Miss. We have all our lives ahead of us. You've lived yours."
"I'm not that old!"
"Someone has to make the sacrifice, Miss! You'll be famous. You'll go down in history."
The expression sounded vaguely disgusting. "If I go down in that mud, history is what I'll be. It's no use. We'll have to evacuate the school. We'll need a fleet of buses. Where's Miss Meadowlark? She's the Support and Mobility Mistress. Find Miss Meadowlark and bring her here."
The girls seemed pleased to have something to do. They hurried away, although I noticed that they took the long way round, thrusting out their immense chests and trying to catch the eye of the man driving the nearest bulldozer.
I began making my way between clusters of weeping girls to the Wendy House. Where was Jeremy, come to think of it? Was Smegs right? Was he in the Wendy House giving Angelica a good old-fashioned English rodgering?
The curtains were drawn at the front windows, so I went round the side. Outside the back door was a pony and trap. Well, not a pony and trap. Just a trap without the pony. A smart little horse-drawn vehicle with its empty shafts resting at an angle on the ground. Jeremy must have been doing it up in his spare time: it was beautifully painted in dark chocolate with fine gold and red lines curving round the sides and extending down the shafts. It was a lovely thing, with its little mudguards and its leather trim inside. There was even a whip stuck in a special holder, its leather thong swinging gently in the breeze. A lovely little vehicle, but what was it doing here? Jeremy certainly hadn't brought it over here to get it out of the way of the road-builders. His shed was safely out of the line of the road.
A resounding crash jerked my attention away to the scene of controlled destruction. Another tree had come down, a much bigger one. Screams came from the girls who were now edging away fearfully, looking over their shoulders. Many of them were crying and wailing in fright as they retreated between the trees.
It was useless.
Corinne appeared, with Cassiopæia tagging along behind. "Is she in there? We're going to have to get her out, Shannie."
"Smegs says she's in there with Jeremy. Doing it."
"Doing what?" Corinne seemed distracted by something. She turned back to me. "Jeremy's over by his shed, starting the tractor. Cassiopæia had the idea of getting him to drag that big log across and try to block the way. Although I think they'll just push it out of the way with the bulldozer. But it will give us another ten minutes."
"What's the good of ten minutes, Cee?"
"Not much. I've seen Megan and sent her off to Borcester in her car to round up some of the school governors and get them out here. Not that they'll be able to do much, they're only tin-pot little business men. We're going to need some bigger guns than that, but any big enough guns are bound to arrive too late to do any good."
We fell silent and watched as Sally and Vanessa galloped past. Sally had her gun out but seemed to be out of ammunition. She waved it hopelessly at Vanessa then threw it away. It landed at our feet, hissing and steaming gently on the grass. The two of them leapt over the stream and threaded expertly between the road-building machines. The drivers waved to them as they went past.
A haze of blue smoke marked the appearance of the school's little Ferguson tractor, edging through the woods from the direction of Jeremy's shed. It was making slow progress: towing an enormous tree trunk behind it on a length of stout chain, it could only move at walking pace. But it seemed to represent hope for some of the Middle girls. They cheered and fell in behind, waving and yelling defiance.
"Look at them, Cee! Doesn't it make you feel proud?"
"I know! But it's hopeless. We're going to need more than brave gestures. Megan is going to take half an hour at least before she gets any of the governors out here. Those bastards will be across the stream in twenty minutes. We need a miracle." She clenched her fists and beat a frustrated tattoo on the side of the chocolate-coloured pony trap. "What's this thing?" she asked curiously.
"Something Jeremy's been doing up. I don't know why it's over here."
"It's funny," said Corinne, "I had a weird feeling I'd seen it before somewhere. Like a spooky dream." She shook her head. She had her hair down and looked about twelve. A very determined twelve. "Look, I'd better get over there and see those girls don't get hurt. Can you try and wake Angelica? She's probably asleep. This Wendy House is all double glazed, so she won't be able to hear all this noise out here." Corinne laid a hand on my arm. "We'll come through okay, Shan. I've got a feeling." And in a curiously girlish gesture, she took Cassiopæia by the hand and set off, moving swiftly across the uneven ground, both of them huge but beautifully supported. As they walked, the sun peeked out and turned Corinne's hair to spun gold. Cassiopæia's was shiny like freshly-mined coal. The two of them were in animated conversation, laughing together at something Cassiopæia said.
I turned and pounded on the door of the Wendy House. "Angelica? Angelica, darling! Wake up, it's Shan! Please wake up!" Bang, bang, bang, with the flat of my hand on the door. Then I tried the handle. It opened.
The kitchen was neat and tidy and just like home. It was the first time I'd seen it. There was everything anyone could need, a cooker, washing machine, fridge-freezer. I looked inside. Three pints of milk; cow, not girl-milk; a carton of real double cream, lots of fresh farm eggs and smoked bacon. Rilly-rilly well-stocked. I closed the fridge door and turned my attention to the calendar on the wall. Jeremy must have provided it, it was one of those big glossy ones from motor spares dealers with a different girl for every month, those strange spherical silicone girls with breasts even smaller than their heads. It takes all sorts...
"Miss Gruntworthy? I must've just woke up. I didn't hear you come in..."
I hastily hung the calendar back on the wall. Angelica had appeared silently, floating into the kitchen on a kind of sledge thing piled up with cushions. She came to a halt and my jaw dropped. I mean, it literally dropped.
It's hard to explain something when you can't shut your mouth between the words. Angelica ended up doing most of the talking; asking questions while I nodded or shook my head. Fortunately, she was draped in an enormous sheet of some sort of filmy, lacy material. If she hadn't been, I would probably have suffered an endless chain of spontaneous orgasms. As it was, I only had five, and I didn't really suffer them: they were quite enjoyable.
"Come through to the bedroom," she said when I was halfway through the fifth one, and thrusting at the carpet with her umbrella she shot off at indecent speed. I followed, noticing the mountains of flimsily-draped wobbling chocolate breast flesh that overhung the sides of her sledge thing, brushing the sides of the doorways as she slithered along — and those doorways were wide even by St Cat's standards.
"What is this machine?" I asked as she dug in the point of the umbrella and spun to a halt.
"The Angelic-O-Glyde," she said, already reaching into the wardrobe and coming out with a pile of clothes. She tossed them on the floor beside her and poked at them critically with the end of her umbrella. "It's all garbage, all this stuff. Nothing fits. Is it cold outside?"
"No, it's quite mild for the time of year," I said, then blathered on, "they reckon the weekend could be quite nice, but turning colder on Sunday night. Of course, you can't believe a word they..."
"Good. I'll go like this. Was my Sweet Chariot still out there?"
"Your what?"
"Sort of a brown cart thing with shafts like for a pony...?"
"That's yours?"
"Ah, it is out there, then! Jeremy made it for me. Well, he painted it all up nice and smart. He's a sweetie, Miss Gruntworthy, you ought to marry him. Now, could I ask you, would you mind getting me some girls? Six ought to do it, but they have to be the right height. Three tall, three medium and three short. They're to pull the Chariot. They have to be different heights because the shafts are at this funny angle. Okay? Give me five minutes and I'll be ready. Pity about the Wendy House, but Mee-gan can get another one and we'll build it somewhere safer..."
"Five minutes? Six girls?"
"You can do it? Isn't the whole school out there?"
"Yes, I suppose so. But they're all rather upset..."
There was a pounding on the door.
"You go see who that is, Miss Gruntworthy, and I'll get ready, okay?"
"Oh. Okay." Why was everyone telling me what to do? I plodded through to the kitchen, noticing how wide the doorways were. I wasn't remotely near brushing the sides with my breasts. I even went back and forward two or three times to see. I had a yard to spare. That meant Angelica was vast. "Woo-woo-woo." I could feel another unscheduled orgasm coming on. How inconvenient.
"Is that you, Miss?" A Third Form girl had pushed open the door and come into the kitchen. I took my foot off the kitchen table, hung the rude girls calendar back on the wall and adjusted my clothing. "Sorry to interrupt, Miss, but Miss Meadowlark said could you please come quickly. She says they're crossing the stream."
"They're what? Already? Oh no, we're all doomed!"
I followed the girl outside, pausing only to take a look back at July, the prettiest of the girls. "Isn't it exciting, Miss! And all those men driving those enormous machines! It's better than Sex!"
I made a mental note to have a word with Megan and take her to task over this. Sex is supposed to be one of the more interesting subjects on the curriculum. If adolescent girls found the sight of men driving road-building machinery more exciting than Sex, Smegs's teaching methods obviously needed spicing up.
"There, Miss!" She pointed rapturously to the bulldozers. Jeremy's tractor was looking sorry for itself, its nose almost in the stream. "Mr Jeremy tried to stop them, but his tractor got sort of out of control and fell in the river. He's ever so brave, Miss. You ought to marry him. He's great in bed, too, Miss," she added. "But you probably know that, of course."
"Oh, of course."
The road-builders had swept the tree trunk aside, dismissing it from their presence. The nearest bulldozer was poised on the top of the stream bank. Ahead of it was a narrow valley — the classic V-shape of a river valley as opposed to the U-shape formed by a glacier — about twenty feet across and six feet deep. At the bottom ran the stream, its bubbling waters knee-deep and perhaps eight or ten feet wide. No obstacle at all to a machine as determined as a bulldozer, but the driver had paused to consider his course of action before plunging down the slope.
He climbed down from the cab, leaving the engine throbbing. Wisps of acrid blue smoke drifted across, catching our throats as I approached with the Third Form girl and joined a curious crowd on the nearer bank. Corinne was there, and Miss Lundberg. Jeremy was there too, his overalls soaking wet; and thirty or forty girls.
"Wow, look at him!" My messenger from the Third Form was obviously very much into road-builders. She thrust out her not inconsiderable bosom and turned sideways, casting occasional glances to see if her hero had noticed her. He hadn't. Sadly, he didn't seem very interested in girls. Nor women, either.
"Shannie?" Corinne was looking at me critically.
I hastily adjusted my pose to one more suited to the headmistress of a respected girls' school.
"It's no good flashing your tits at them, Shan, we've tried it already. Including quite a few girls with breasts a lot bigger than yours. If Anastasia getting her kit off could only stop them for three minutes, you're not going to have any effect at all."
"We could send for Nurse's Jenufa," I suggested hopefully, but without much hope.
"Thought of that already. Nurse says she's got a cold on her chest. Right, here's the plan. Jeremy's going to have one more try at getting the tractor out of the brook. He's going to slip one of the other dozer drivers a brownie to get him to pull it out. Then he's going to drag his tree trunk and wedge it across those two big trees in front of the Wendy House. It will take them ten minutes to move it from there. By then, Megan will be back. She's spoken to Mr Crabfart, and three more members of the Board of Governors are on their way. They're our best hope."
I could see Jeremy setting off in the direction of the new road, waving at one of the bulldozers. It came to a reluctant halt inches in front of him and a head poked aggressively out of the window. To our relief, money appeared to change hands, and the bulldozer, looking rather guilt-ridden, diverted towards the tractor.
"Good, that seems to have worked, at least," said Corinne. "Good old Jeremy. You ought to marry him, you know!"
"So everyone keeps telling me."
The driver of the leading bulldozer had apparently seen enough. He began clambering up on to his machine again, pursued by howls of derision and disgraceful gestures from the girls. Even some of the Juniors were doing things with their fingers I hadn't seen before.
A gout of smoke burst from the exhaust and rolled up into the trees, and the machine ground slowly back from the edge of the slope. For a second, I almost dared to believe we had routed the enemy. Over to the left, Jeremy's tractor was back on an even keel and hitched to the tree trunk again. Its big wheels spun intermittently as he tried to urge it forward. A little cheer went up from the girls of the Jeremy supporters' club as the huge log began to move through the mud, churning up a bow-wave of muck-brown leaves.
"If only we had elephants," I found myself saying.
Corinne looked at me sideways. "Don't even think about it, Shan. I've already had one or two near misses with my thoughts. We nearly had the Army down here a while ago."
"What, all of it?"
"What's left of it, yes. Shit, what's he doing now?"
The bulldozer had gone back about ten yards and stopped. Now it lowered its blade into the soil. Its tracks churned and the engine roared as it ground slowly forward. And a thick slice of earth began to peel off the top of the blade, thicker and thicker as the blade angled downwards. The nose of the machine tilted up and the engine note became more furious, then the thing pivoted sideways and flung its swathe of topsoil off to the side. Then it backed off for another go. Where it had already been was a freshly scraped surface of dry yellow clay, sloping down halfway to the stream. The machine repeated its performance, doubling the width of the scrape. It was digging out a ramp to carry it smoothly down to the level of the stream bed.
Later, no doubt, the stream would disappear into a culvert beneath the road; but meanwhile the dump trucks and the horrid yellow machines that bent in the middle when they went round corners would be able to come and go, splashing through the stream as if it wasn't there. The scraped ramp was now three times the width of the bulldozer blade and the enemy was backing off for a fourth bite. But then he stopped and climbed out of the cab, looking decidedly agitated and waving at something behind him.
"What's going on?" Corinne was jumping up and down, trying to see. It was a most disturbing spectacle, and some of the girls had noticed it, too.
"Cee, control yourself. The girls are looking at your tits."
"Never mind my fucking tits," she growled rudely. "Look over there!"
I looked, and felt my hair beginning to stand on end. In a day of scary sights, this was the scariest sight I had seen today.
SOMETHING HUGE and square and off-white was coming this way. It slithered along the footpath between the trees, occasionally bouncing from one tree to another, not travelling along the course of the new road, but angling in towards us from the left.
"What is it, Cee?" I covered my face with my hands and peered through the gaps in my fingers. Whatever it was, it was still coming.
"I know what it looks like, but it's impossible. It can't be, unless something is pulling it along. Even so, it's too heavy..."
At that moment, I realised where I had seen this thing before. "You don't mean...?"
"Yes."
The appararition came closer and topped a slight rise in the pathway. It seemed to hesitate from time to time in its progress, coming to a halt then hurrying forwards. It thudded into a particularly solid tree and stopped. Even from a hundred yards away, even above the rumble of powerful machinery, we heard the banshee wail of the thing propelling this terrible object.
And at the same time, the square thing became disentangled from the tree and we saw it clearly.
"Molly Malone," I breathed, and found I was crossing myself. "Holy Mother of..."
"Shan, stop it! Don't get religious on me now. There has to be a logical explanation."
"Logical? What's logical about a woman and a Junior girl dragging a hundred and fifty tons of solid concrete through the woods?" And I returned to my interrupted devotions while there was still time.
"It doesn't weigh anything, look at it!" Corinne was shaking her head in disbelief. At that moment, the concrete block fell on to its side and bounced along as Molly Malone — with Geraldine, who I could now see clearly — became annoyed with it and yanked extra hard on its chain. It followed them like a reluctant dog on a leash.
Girls had seen it, too and reacted in different ways. Although few of them had seen the concrete block for themselves, they had all seen it on the news. Two of them, Fifth Formers, approached us.
"It's a rotten cheat, Miss! That was supposed to be a lump of solid concrete."
"A hundred and fifty tons, Miss. They were lying all the time."
These girls would never trust the television news again.
"Something's happened to it," said Corinne. "I climbed on top of that block. It was solid concrete."
The thing lumbered closer, dragging the block behind her. We stood in something of a clearing, where the trees were more scattered. Molly Malone and Geraldine made better progress now, and the concrete block positively gambolled along behind them as they came up to us and stopped, breathing heavily.
"Hi, Miss," said Geraldine. She had leaves in her hair and looked indescribably filthy. The two Fifth Form girls moved away upwind.
"Sure an' thanks for all your help getting this thing through the trees," said Molly Malone ungraciously. "You'd have stood there all afternoon, so you would?"
Corinne approached the block, which was rocking slightly in the breeze. She patted the side of it. It made a faintly hollow papery sound. "Polystyrene?" she said, disbelieving.
"Sure an' what else would it be made of? It's a film prop." Molly Malone tugged at her chain. At least, the chain was metal. It clinked realistically. "We've wrapped for the day. Call time tomorrow is seven thirty in the morning. The light goes early at this time of year."
"You're in a film?"
Geraldine answered. "Yes, Miss. It's so exciting. I wanted to get the stars' autographs but they wouldn't come near me, for some reason."
I didn't like to tell her, but she was a little ripe. So was Molly Malone, but that was only to be expected.
"What have you brought it over here for?" I asked.
"Jeezus, we're locked on, why d'ye think. The director won't let us have the spare key. He's one of these Stanislawsky guys. If we're going to be road protestors, we've got to feel like road protestors, then we'll act like road protestors. Stupid bastard."
They certainly smelled like road protestors.
"But you locked yourselves on there," said Corinne. "Why can't you unlock yourselves?"
"Sure an' I swallowed the key, I told you. An' oi've swallowed it again six times since then."
I had a sudden bout of stomach awareness. "What are you going to do over here?" I asked with an effort.
"We're having a night away from all that mud out there," said Geraldine. "Besides, they reckon the wind's going to get up, and if the block gets blown over, we'd get plastered in shit. That's mud, Miss," she explained. I noticed she was standing closer to Molly Malone than was necessary or even advisable, but the two of them probably smelled as bad as each other. God, they were were even holding hands! "Wow, Miss. Miss Grimbo's Wendy House looks lovely, doesn't it! How does she like it?"
The Wendy House! I'd quite forgotten it. Poor Angelica would be needing those six assorted girls to help her out of the door and into her Sweet Chariot. And the bulldozer was even closer. "Let's get over there and see if we can stop them again. Can you two bring your concrete block over here?"
"We just pulled it half a bloody moile," Molly Malone complained.
"Oh, come on, Moll," said Geraldine with a playful tug of the teacher's hand. "Let's drag it over there. And later on, I'll..." and she whispered something lengthy in Miss Malone's ear. To my horror, Molly Malone blushed prettily and stood with her toes turned inwards. Then she giggled girlishly and leaned on the chain. The block slithered along and the two of them toiled up the slope to the Wendy House, stopping between it and the bulldozer. To my surprise, Molly Malone took a pace or two backwards and sprang lightly on to Geraldine's cupped hands, took one step on to the girl's shoulder and vaulted lightly on to the top of the block, arriving with a neat forward roll. Well, she had been the PE mistress, I realised, as she hauled Geraldine up by her chain. The watching girls held up cards:
|
5.9 |
5.8 |
5.8 |
5.9 |
5.1 |
5.9 |
5.7 |
5.9 |
5.8 |
5.9 |
"Which bastard gave her 5.1?" I asked Corinne.
"The Chinese judge. She's probably sore about substance abuse."
Whatever else it did, it slowed the bulldozer. The machine seemed to pause for a moment of consideration, then diverted slightly and began levelling a track slightly to one side of the block.
"Is Angelica still in there?" Corinne rubbed at one of the windows of the Wendy House and looked inside.
"She hasn't come out," I said. "You couldn't miss her."
"Big as that, huh?"
"Bigger!"
Corinne's eyes opened wide. I nodded.
"I wonder if things have gone a bit too far round here, Shannie."
"It all seems like a perfectly normal day at St Cat's," I said reassuringly.
"That's what I mean." Then her eyes opened even wider. My hair, which hadn't really recovered from standing on end last time, did it again. Slowly I turned to see what had grabbed her attention. In fact, it was quite a pleasing sight. Four Senior girls had been pushing Jeremy's tractor, which had become stranded in the muddy bed of the stream again. They squealed as the wheels suddenly found grip and the thing shot forward up the bank, leaving the girls floundering on hands and knees in the muddy water. Laughing, they stood up and without hesitation, began tearing off their clothes. Within seconds, they were naked apart from their shoes and socks.
"Woo-woo-woo," I began.
"Shan, not now! You ought to stop them. It's not good for girls with such full breasts to play around without bras on. They will regret it later in life."
"Oh, don't be a spoilsport, Cee! Live a little. Look at them; aren't they just sweet?"
The girls varied in height between almost six feet and a little over four and a half. So, as far as I could judge, did their bust measurements, although the different parameters were not attached to the same girls. I licked my parched lips and studied the finer details of their bodies; besides pure breast size, there were the subtleties of nipple length, moon diameter and pubic hair — profusion, colour and spread.
"They'll catch cold, Shan. Their mothers will sue."
"Look at the little blonde one, Cee! You'd never expect her to have so much pubic hair, would you? And it's so dark, too! I wonder if she's using..."
"Shan, please! Make them get dressed at once. That little blonde one is Sir Isaac's daughter. If he sues us, we'll be paying until we're two hundred years old."
"She is? Why didn't you say sooner?" I began picking my way through the mud and slime to the stream.
"No, Shan, stop!"
"What is it this time?"
"Don't make them get dressed! Look!"
I looked. The bulldozer seemed confused. It was weaving backwards, its blade rising up from the ground like an erection. Elsewhere, other road-making machines were behaving similarly. One of the huge yellow things that bent in the middle when it went round corners had stopped on the other side of the stream, apparently to watch the frolicking girls in the water.
"It's stopped the machines," Corinne yelled. "They're all looking at the girls!"
Hoarse shouts came from across on the other side, and a burly man in enormous boots and a filthy suit came sploshing down to the lead bulldozer. He yelled something into the cab. Whatever he said evidently carried some weight, as the blade detumesced into the topsoil and the machine lurched forward. The foreman turned his spleen on to the huge yellow thing that bent in the middle when it went round corners. With a burst of noisy smoke, it got on with whatever it was supposed to be doing.
"Shannie. Come back, I've got an idea."
"What is it?" I joined Corinne again. Her face was flushed.
"It just came to me," she gasped excitedly.
"You complained when I started coming just now..."
"Not that. You saw what happened when the machines saw those girls. We've got to do it again!"
"But they've started digging again. That bloke made them get on with it."
"There's only one of him. He can't be everywhere at once. If we get little groups of girls stripped off in different places..."
"You mean, some of them take their tops off, and others bare their bottoms...?"
"No, some over here, some over there. And the most spectacular ones right in front. The machines will have to stop to look at them. The foreman won't know which way to turn. Shannie, it might just work!" Corinne slapped the side of the concrete block.
Geraldine's startled face appeared over the side. "Yes, Miss?"
"No, Cee! Don't make Geraldine strip off. She's only a Junior."
"Strip off, Miss? Me? Up here? Wow!" The idea seemed to appeal to the child.
"We might as well let her, Shan. She'll certainly be seen, up there. Molly, too!"
"Molly? Are you crazy? Molly Malone, stripping her clothes off in public?"
"She'll do it, Miss," shouted Geraldine. "She's not got a bad little figure, Miss! A bit small, but a nice tight bum." Her face disappeared over the edge and there came a sudden rumble of Irish cursing. Then silence, and not twenty seconds later, Molly Malone's face appeared, purple as thunder.
"This is under protest, Headmistress," she squawked. "Oi'm doing it for Geraldine, nobody else."
And as the block began rocking insecurely, the two of them took off their clothes right there in the full view of the road builders. Everywhere we looked, bulldozers and huge yellow things that bent in the middle when they went round corners came to a shuddering halt.
"It worked, Shan!"
"It must be because she's Irish," I mused.
"Never mind why, it won't last for ever. Round up some more girls and get them ready to strip off. Groups of three or four ought to do it. Spread them out along the banks of the stream, and get a few bunches of the biggest tits you can find and put them in the middle here. Don't let them strip off until the machines start moving again."
But the girls had ideas of their own. Seeing the effect of the girls in the stream, and the success of Molly Malone and possibly Geraldine, several dozen girls were already discarding their clothing right where they stood.
"Stop them, Shan!"
I tried, damn it. The girls wouldn't take any notice of me. I ran around waving my arms at them, but they just beamed at me and carried on stripping.
"It's stopping the machines, Miss!" they shouted with joy.
"No, you've got to spread yourselves out a bit," I yelled at one group of Fourth Formers.
Good as gold, they lay obediently on their backs and parted their creamy thighs.
"Wider!" I found myself shouting. What was the matter with me?
But it was as Corinne said. Within five minutes, bulldozers were again grunting and straining into motion, and although several girls were still disrobing, we had shot our bolt too soon.
Cassiopæia came panting up. "I've got it, Miss Gruntworthy," she said, her mammoth bosom heaving. "I've been watching them through binoculars." She indicated a powerful pair of binoculars slung round her neck on a lanyard. "I've formulated a plan. Where's Cee?"
"Over by the Wendy House. Plan? What is it?"
Cassiopæia looked at me doubtfully. "You probably wouldn't understand. But ... okay. Fetishes!"
I started guiltily. "What do you mean?"
"The men. The road builders. They've all got a fetish."
"So what? Who hasn't?"
"That's the point. It's not the same one. Look at that bulldozer, the one at the front. It's stopped a couple of times when the driver has been distracted. A couple of minutes later, it's started again."
"Well...?"
"I've studied the men. Every time the front bulldozer stops, that referee bloke, with the whistle, he's been changing the driver."
"Has he?" I hadn't noticed. I had been too busy staring at the girls.
"And that explains why they only stop for a couple of minutes each time. I think the referee's worked it out. Each time they stop because the driver is turned on by blonde girls, or girls in underwear, or..."
"Girls wrestling naked in mud...?"
Cassiopæia nodded. "Or girls wrestling naked in mud, the referee changes the driver. And off they go again. Right, I'm going to organise things a bit better." She slapped me on the upper arm. "Keep up the good work!"
And she strode off, bellowing through a megaphone. Strange, I hadn't seen the megaphone before.
I made my way back to the Wendy House. Corinne had to be told about this latest idea of Cassiopæia's. And I still had to do something about finding six girls for Angelica's sweet chariot.
That was when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to tingle, and there was the sound of a jungle rhythm, carrying clearly and insistently above the throb of diesel engines. It was indistinct at first, and the sound of girlish voices was reedy and thin, but gradually as other girls heard it, they understood, and joined in. Tears sprang to my eyes as they appeared from the other side of the Wendy House.
"Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp!"
"Look at them, Shan! They're magnificent!"
They were. That was exactly the right word for it. Never had the Junior Cheerleaders looked quite like this, not in all the netball courts and sports halls the length and breadth of the county.
"Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp!"
The cheerleaders had changed in some subtle way. Or not very subtle. Their little costumes were just that. Little. They were now stuffed with so much moon, so much sheer breast, so much girl, it was a wonder the material didn't split asunder right there before our eyes.
"Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp!"
On the last Stomp, Stomp, a distinct rip could be heard. "Oops!" The girl in question clutched a hand to her chest in a futile effort to cover her suddenly exposed cleavage. She added another hand, but by then her poor little cheerleader's top had burst its seams and become instant cleaning rags. She tried to cover her breasts, her moons, and failed. All she succeeded in hiding were her nipples, and they were threatening to poke right out through the palms of her hands. "Oops!" she said again, not entirely adequately, as her skirt gave up under the pressure of another Stomp, Stomp, and fluttered daintily down her chunky thighs. She rolled her eyes and stepped out of it, continuing like a seasoned trouper wearing only shoes, white socks and tiny non-regulation panties with nine and a half teddy bears on them.
The rest of the cheerleaders glanced at her out of the corners of their eyes, and their movements became more reckless and abandoned.
"Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp! Eat em up, suck 'em off, lick 'em out, give 'em shit, fuck 'em all, Stomp Stomp!"
Two simultaneous rips saw the appearance of four more spectacular moon-tipped breasts. Their owners lacked the patience to let the things emerge into the daylight in their own good time. They seized the flimsy material and ripped it off, following it up with their skirts as they bumped and ground their way sideways across the path of the lead bulldozer.
"Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp! Chalk 'em up, chuck 'em up, knock 'em up, puff 'em up. Get their poo-ey knickers off ... Stomp, Stomp, Stomp!"
Off came another top, peeled upwards over the girl's head, so a halo of blonde hair emerged almost at the same time as a pair of juddering melons capped with halved grapefruit and black grapes. It was the most appetising fruit salad seen at St Cat's for many a day.
Only one girl remained inside her cheerleader's costume, and dozens of panting girls gathered round, aware that this cheerleader was perhaps even more outrageously developed than her team mates. All that prevented her from bursting out was the presence of a no-nonsense ScatBra.
"Is that allowed, Cee?"
"I think she needs it, Shan!"
The girl had a preoccupied expression on her face as she continued stomping and gyrating while reaching behind her back to release the fastenings of her bra. Fifty girls growled in their throats, desperate to offer a helping hand. Yet if any one girl had stepped forward, the others would have hauled her back. An unspoken agreement had been reached: this last cheerleader was going to have to get naked without help, even if it took her a week.
The bulldozers seemed prepared to wait, too. Cassiopæia 's theory was holding true. The present bulldozer driver was evidently a cheerleader fetish man. His engine died and stopped. The silence was broken only by the clanking of cooling machinery, and the panting and chanting of slightly unfit girls with breasts several sizes larger than they had been last time they performed this demanding routine.
"Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp! Get 'em out, toss 'em off, wipe 'em dry, put 'em back, Stomp, Stomp!"
"Do they know what those words mean, Cee?"
"You probably taught them most of them, Chauntaille."
Off came the cheerleader's skirt, without missing a step. She even kicked off her shoes and peeled her socks off while hopping on one leg at a time to an accompaniment of howls and girlish squeaks. She eased her panties down, her gaze fixed on her audience.
"God, Cee! She's shaved!"
"It's a disgrace, Shan. You're going to have to speak to these girls!"
"That reminds me. Wasn't there a very hairy girl that was one of the cheerleaders? What was her name? Amanda?"
"Miranda," said Corinne. "I ... erm ... she probably got a bit too big for the cheerleader's costume."
"Too big for it? How big? Woo-woo-woo..."
"Not as big as Sally Chung, or she could have worn her top. But certainly too big for one of those ordinary Junior ones."
"Oooh, no! Describe her to me, Cee!"
"There isn't time. Descriptions have to be done properly, or not at all. Miranda's around somewhere, but she's probably keeping all her clothes on. Every time she strips off , the girls all pretend to be sick. Never mind, Shannie," she must have noticed my crestfallen expression, "why don't you just watch the cheerleaders we've got. They're pretty large."
Even the foreman, or referee, was watching, transfixed, standing on a mound of earth and mopping his face with a polka-dotted handkerchief. The cheerleaders continued their routine, the bouncing becoming more exaggerated as each of the girls tried her best to divert attention away from the girl in the overloaded top. The stomps became stompier. Things were getting out of hand as whopping Junior bosoms lolloped around in the autumn sunshine.
"How long do you think they can hang it out?" Corinne glanced at her watch.
"I wish that last one would start hanging hers out," I muttered. "She's mammoth. Funny how we've never noticed her before."
Corinne bit her lip pensively. "That might have been me again, Shannie. You can't tell out here, there aren't any lights to flash. But I did have a teensy-weensy little wish about her getting herself a bigger pair."
"Well, she'll be pleased, at least."
"She won't even know," said Corinne gloomily. "She's always had them. That's the trouble with this Fuckh Machine thing, nobody ever thanks me. Anyway, here goes. Off it comes!"
The last of the cheerleaders climbed out of her top, held it at arm's length between her fingers, then tossed it away. Two Third Formers pounced on it and fought silently and savagely until it tore into two more or less equal halves.
Meanwhile, the girl pranced on in her mighty bra. Clit would not be pleased with that, I thought. The girl was pooching out of the bottom of the cups.
"Are you still growing her, Cee?" I asked suspiciously.
"Only a little bit," Corinne whined. "She looked so good in that bra I wondered how much more we could get into it. At a rough guess, no more than another six or eight inches!"
"Cee, you mustn't..."
"Why not?"
The girl came to a panting halt, hanging on to her rebounding frontispiece. The others danced on, snarling at her to keep up. "Eat em up, Puffies, eat em up, Stomp, Stomp!"
She caught up on the second of the stomps. Corinne had been more or less right. At a guess, the diameter of the girl increased by two or three inches before she flung her arms up and out and back as the whole troupe sprang into the air like starfish. Not that starfish spring into the air, of course. But when the cheerleaders did their starfish impersonation, she suddenly flopped out of the undersides of both cups in a nicely timed move. Realising that the bra was no longer doing anything and she wasn't going to get her charms back inside it, she tossed that away, too. Twenty or thirty girls fell in a heap, trying to get a piece of the bra while it was still warm.
"Wow, Cee! It's rilly-rilly good, being the only ones who can see these changes."
"Not quite the only ones. Talking of which, I wonder where those Woods girls have got to. I always feel on edge if I can't see those two."
"And what about Valentina Nightingale and Helvetica Bold? It seems very quiet when they're not about the place." I looked around, but they were nowhere to be seen. Worrying.
"That's the least of our worries," Corinne groaned. Engines were starting. The foreman had turned, still standing on his grassy knoll, and was encouraging his troops into motion. The leading bulldozer awoke from its trance and began lumbering forward again.
Whatever we did, it seemed the enemy was not going to be denied.
"NICE ONE, Miss Gruntworthy, was it your idea?" Cassiopæia approached just as the bulldozer dug its blade into the ground again.
"What...?"
"Cheerleaders. Not many people would have thought of that as a fetish, but you scored a bullseye." She raised her megaphone and her voice rang out through the trees. "Now hear this, now hear this! Listen very carefully. Miss Gruntworthy has had a brilliant idea, and we're going to implement it. Do as I say and we'll all be sleeping in our own beds tonight."
I could have told Cassiopæia that this wouldn't be a universally popular notion. Already, groans of dismay could be heard.
"Cheerleaders, please re-form over by the road, get dressed and stand by for further orders. Thank you! Now, I want girls with big puffies to go and assemble next to Miss Lundberg. Off you go, now. Very tall girls, please, especially tall blonde Nordic types, go and wait by the concrete block. Girls with twin ponytails, and pregnant girls, over there with Miss Meadowlark. Hirsute girls, come to me, please. Stand by to remove skirts and panties."
"What about..." I started.
"Good, I was coming to that. All crossover girls come to Miss Gruntworthy for selection."
"Whaaaat?"
"Any girl who doesn't fit into a category, or fits into more than one. You're going to have to decide which group she goes in. Here they come now."
They were, too. As girls scurried hither and thither, gigglingly forming up into groups, an increasing number were gathering round me: tall, blonde Nordic girls with fat puffies, pregnant girls with twin ponytails, hirsute cheerleaders...
Corinne was by my side. I had already classified her as a short twelve-year-old with a ponytail and very large breasts indeed when she spoke. "This was your idea?"
"Of course not. It was Cassiopæia's."
"I thought so. In fact, it was possibly one of mine. I remember thinking it might be a good thing if you weren't quite so useless. I've organised my preggo girls and ponytails into three groups." She laughed at my suddenly blank expression. "Group One, pregnant; Group Two, ponytailed; Group Three, both. So, what's going to happen?"
I thought back over the intricate details Cassiopæia had given me. "Cassiopæia will be watching the front bulldozer to see which driver is in it. Then she'll call up the right fetish group. Each time, we gain another three minutes of breathing space. And Megan will be back soon with the Fifth Cavalry. Or is the Sixth?"
"Either would do at a pinch. It's brilliant. Breathtakingly simple. You're a genius, Shannie!" She reached up on tiptoe and placed a wet little kiss on my cheek. "Now, you'd better get on with sorting out these girls. Here's poor Miranda, looking lost." Corinne wiggled away into the middle distance. She was really enjoying herself.
"Miss Meadowlark is really enjoying herself, Miss," said Miranda, from quite close beside me. So close, I had to back away with a little cry of surprise. "Which fetish group are you going to put me in, Miss?"
"Fetish group? Whose idea was it to call them that?"
Miranda waved her hand around the busy scene. All the girls, Miss, it's obvious, isn't it? But some of us don't fit in one category. I mean, I've got simply immense tits now, and puffies a mile across, but I still think of myself basically as rilly-rilly hairy, Miss. When it comes down to it, I mean. I'm probably the hairiest girl in the whole school. Maybe even the whole world! Miss?" She sounded suddenly worried. "What if men don't like me? What if men don't like girls with giant tits down to here, and moons like dustbin lids and the hairiest front bottoms in the universe, Miss?" She looked up at me with anxiety on her innocent little face.
"I'm sure there's a man somewhere who is looking out for a girl just like you, Miranda. Meanwhile, though, you'd better join the hairies. You'd like that, won't you? You have to be ready to take your skirt off and show the nasty men just how hairy you are, though."
"But that's the whole problem, Miss. They won't be able to see." Miranda hung her head. "Ever since my tits grew, and got down to here," she waved a hand in the general direction of South, "they cover up my front bottom altogether. So if I take my skirt and knickers off, all the men will be able to see is a pair of gigantic tits and moons like manhole covers. I could flash my armpits, though," she offered helpfully.
It was time for an executive decision. "No, dear. You'd better join the puffies group." I indicated a straggle of girls with curiously misshapen shirt-fronts. With one exception, they were First Formers. The exception was a timidly bespectacled Upper Sixth Former who seemed to be wishing she were elsewhere.
"Oh, must I, Miss? They don't like me very much. They all pretend to be sick. Maybe it's because my tits hang down so far and my moons are as big as that round table in the common room, and I'm the hairi..."
"Miranda! I've just thought of something. You know Miss Grimbeau, don't you?"
"Miss Grimbo? Of course!"
"Good. Find another girl the same height as yourself, then two shorter ones, and two taller ones. Tell them I said you're to do this. When you've found them, go to the Wendy House and tell Miss Grimbeau you've come to pull the Sweet Chariot."
Miranda's lips moved silently as she memorised the details, a little frown on her face. "Does it matter how big their tits are, Miss?" she asked.
"Not at all. Any size you like."
"I wouldn't want to show them up, Miss," she said, getting back into her stride. "With mine being so long and huge, Miss, especially for a Junior. Couldn't I make..."
"Find five girls with breasts the same size as yours, Miranda. And quickly! Shoo!"
She was still protesting as she hurried away, shaking her head. I looked round, trying to locate Corinne. I wanted to tell her about my latest brainwave, finding a group of horses for Angelica's Sweet Chariot. Ah, there, over by the driveway. I plodded up the hill to stand by her side.
She seemed preoccupied. "Hoi! You!" It was Corinne's best fishwife voice. "Where d'you sodding well think you're going with that fucking van?"
A square boxy-looking black van was reversing jerkily off the drive and backing down towards the Wendy House. What a ridiculous time to be making a delivery. As if Angelica needed more furniture at a time like this.
Corinne banged on the side of the van with her hand and it stopped with a lurch. It stood there, rocking gently on its springs. What was that noise? I stuck a finger in my ear and wiggled it about. The noise was still there; in fact, it was even clearer. It was, unless I was very much mistaken, music!
Suddenly, Corinne jumped back in alarm as the back door of the van opened. It was one of those doors like a roller blind, like the ones on mum's kitchen windows. It shot up like a jack-in-the-box and an incredible sight met our eyes. The interior of the van was pitch dark at first, then four great big lights came on inside.
Let me try to describe it. Truth, after all, is stranger than fiction.
In the middle of the van was a shiny black grand piano with its lid raised. The keyboard faced the open back door of the van, silhouetted by the lighting. Someone was sitting on the piano stool: a girl in a floaty, filmy white lace dress. Grouped round her with their heads together; in similar dresses, each in a different pastel shade, were four other girls. Lit entirely from behind, the figures of the girls were shadowy, but it was clear that beneath the filmy lace there was a great deal of extremely substantial girlhood. Although all of them had their backs to us, there was something uncannily familiar about them.
The girl at the piano began to play. "What is it, Cee? What's she playing?"
"It's the St Cat's school song. At least, I think it's the St Cat's school song. It sounds a bit different. Nice, though."
It sounded much the same as any other song to me, but it seemed to have a lot of sha-la-la-la-laaa's in it, and I'm sure the St Cat's school song never had those. But as the music swelled, it had a curious effect. It even affected me. The powerful lights began to pulse and throb in time to the beat of the music. And there was a powerful beat to it. It wasn't much like a school song at all. It was more like the kind of thing you heard on Lusty-Busty-Ninety-Six-Point-Twoooooo. Air Fairm. But it was certainly infectious. I found my foot tapping on the damp ground. And those pulsing lights, constantly changing colour through pink to purple to blue to green. They gave the whole thing such a festive feeling.
The voices of the girls were becoming clearer, stronger. At the same time, something remarkably strange was happening to the van. It was an ordinary enough van when it arrived, but now both sides of the van body were opening up as if on hinges. They moved back in a massive and ponderous way until they were at about forty-five degrees, forming a kind of stage set, and at the same time, the piano — and the group of girls — was rotating on its axis, as if it was all mounted on a huge turntable.
"Wow, Cee! Will you look at that...?"
"I'm sorry, Shannie. I just thought it would be nice to get a better view of them."
"You mean, those flashing lights? They were ... you...?
"I'll put the van back together afterwards, I promise. I'll have to; it's part of the anomalies list."
But I had other things to think of besides scolding Corinne for her mischievous dismantling of the piano-delivery men's van. The music rang out clearly across the woodland glade. And the lights were now picking out the girls, who were delivering their song with well-rehearsed professionalism. So that was why they looked so familiar! It was the Junior choir.
I glanced anxiously at the bulldozers. Would this stop them? Worryingly, the girls were fully dressed, even if they were only draped in almost transparent lacy dresses.
"Those lacy dresses are almost transparent, Cee! Woo-woo-woo."
She licked her lips. "I know," she sighed. "And I think it's working. Another lucky fetish. That bulldozer's stopped again."
The lead singer, Miss Helvetica Bold, stepped forward to take a solo. If anyone could stop a bulldozer, a fetishist bulldozer or not, it was the new Form Head of the Firsts. It was pleasing to see that she wore the White Sash tied proudly round the waist of her lacy dress. In fact, it wasn't tied round the waist. It sat low on her broad hips. It had to if it was going to be visible at all: Helvetica's bust, innocent of any support, descended majestically to a significant extent below her waist. The lower extremities of those twin monsters were capped by moons the size and colour of family-sized Christmas puddings. Perhaps they were family-sized Christmas puddings. If they were, they would certainly be heavy enough to drag her breasts right down there. I almost mentioned it to Corinne, then bit my tongue in case it gave her an unscheduled thought.
The girl had a thrilling voice. Even I could tell that much. It made my skin prickle and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It was quite a pleasant experience, really. A bit like sex. A girl approached and stood by my side. I was aware of her by the warmth of her nakedness as much as by the muskiness of her.
"Isn't she marvellous, Miss!" she said, offering me a handful of only slightly used industrial paper towel. "I know she's only a Junior, but when this is all over, I'm going to see if she wants to go with me." Then, as if embarrassed at having said too much, she melted away, leaving a profound muskiness behind her.
The girl certainly had a point. Two, in fact. Third Form, I guessed: she didn't have that chemically-enhanced mooniness of this year's First Formers. My mouth went dry as I admired the mighty moons of the choir. One of them looked a little odd, somehow. At first, I couldn't quite think what it was, then I worked it out. I nudged Corinne.
"That pianist's got one red breast and one green one." Not much gets past Chauntaille Gruntworthy, let me tell you.
"I noticed." Not much gets past Corinne Meadowlark, either. "That's what happens when you don't exercise adequate supervision, Shan. She's wearing water balloons."
"Why?"
"Perhaps her real breasts aren't big enough ... wait a minute! Last time we had this conversation, it was you who knew Candelabra Liberace was wearing water balloons and I didn't. What's happening?"
"Is that her name? Candelabra Liberace? How cute. I wonder how her parents thought of a name like that."
The song was reaching a climax. So, if I'm any judge, was the lead singer. Sobbing passion crept into her singing, and with an eerie chill, I realised that the piano was no longer the only accompaniment. I could hear violins. And at that moment, rising up from behind the piano like whales surfacing from the ocean, three trawlermen stood up, rain and spray glistening on their black oilskins as they fiddled furiously away at three violins. That's one each, of course.
The rest of the choir joined in the chorus. Sha-la-la-la-laaaa, they sang, their moons threatening to burst clean out of their lacy dresses. Without missing a beat, Valentina Nightingale picked up a pathetic bundle wrapped in swaddling clothes from inside the piano, ripped open the top of her frock and applied her baby to her breast. The poor wee mite must have been half deafened in there. Sha-la-la-la-laaaa. The three fishermen stopped playing and lowered their instruments. Doo-wop, showaddy-waddy, they sang in powerful leathery voices.
But even the power of male voices could not overcome the sinister sound of a bulldozer engine snorting into life. Once more, we had been overtaken by the eagle eye of the referee. He had brought in another bulldozer driver.
Corinne groaned. "No, not yet. Cassiopæia hasn't got her next fetish group ready. It's too soon." She waved to attract Helvetica's attention. "Take your clothes off," she said, mouthing the words exaggeratedly.
Helvetica frowned, concentrating, then shook her head and launched into the third verse; the one about The Pride of England's Girlhood, The Vastness Of Our Breasts. Sha-la-la-la-laaaa.
Corinne tried again. "Get them off!" She mimed a striptease, which was quite diverting but might have been better if she had actually stripped off herself.
Helvetica frowned, shook her head and consulted Valentina briefly. The two of them looked at Corinne and shrugged.
"Get your fucking gear off!" Corinne yelled at last.
The result was immediate but not quite as expected. As Helvetica's voice soared bell-like around the arena, the three trawlermen carefully put down their violins and removed their big black rubber hats. Swaying together to the plaintive melody, they shrugged off their weatherproof coats and their great black clumpy sea-boots and dropped them on the ground. Underneath, they wore waders, which came right up to their armpits. They fumbled with the strings and straps then began to work them down their bodies, past their hips and thighs, then their knees, until they could finally step out of them.
Helvetica's eyes were the size of saucers, but she sang on like a true pro. Valentina, What's-her-Name and Santa Claus were giggling into their lace hankies. Candelabra looked disapproving.
In vain, Corinne shook her head and pointed at Helvetica with a stabbing finger. Doo-wop showaddy-waddy, sang the trawlermen as they stripped to their curiously old-fashioned bathing costumes, made of stripey wool, with long sleeves down to the elbows and leg pieces that reached their knees.
One or two girls gave catcalls and howled, "Get it off!" at the men. I made a mental note to make them write out fifty thousand lines tomorrow. I would think of something for them to write later.
Just one of the earth movers had stopped working to watch the trawlermen's striptease. It takes all sorts to build roads, I suppose. The rest of the machines, seeing that Helvetica — despite the shadowy image of her Christmas pudding areolae — wasn't going to get naked, had restarted their engines and resumed work. This time, the leading bulldozer was only a few yards from the door of the Wendy House.
There was no sign of Smegs and the Governors. We were defeated. We had failed. So near, yet so far.
Helvetica sang on, accompanied by the choir and the trawlermen, looking strangely vulnerable in their one-piece swimwear. They bulged interestingly at the crotch, but the men didn't seem particularly keen to take them off. Even trawlermen, used to living with danger every day of their lives, drew the line at doing the Full Monty in front of two hundred horny schoolgirls.
It had been a fine effort on the part of the girls, the cheerleaders, Molly Malone and Geraldine, Jeremy and the tractor, the Junior choir. All wasted. All had come to naught. At any moment, the Wendy House would fall like a house of cards beneath the awesome blade of the bulldozer. I could only hope and pray that Angelica had escaped while we had been otherwise occupied.
My eyes swam with tears. Then Corinne gripped my arm.
"Do you hear that?" she whispered.
"Hear what? What is it, Cee?"
"It's still the school song, you fool. Can't you even recognise it after they've been singing it for five minutes?"
"So why did you...?"
"Listen!"
I listened. And I heard.
So did the girls of St Cat's, scattered around the woodland, mostly pretty well naked. So did the Junior choir. So did Candelabra Liberace at the piano, red and green balloons and all. She did something noisy and percussive and highly complicated with the piano which seemed to make Corinne have convulsions. She gripped my arm tighter and clung on.
"Listen! Oh, listen!"
And as Helvetica's voice now struggled to reach the topmost notes — in response to Candelabra's having changed key, or something — a new sound was heard, infinitely beautiful and thrilling. It echoed and rang around the treetops, stilling even the birds. I had never heard such a wondrous sound in my life.
It inspired the Junior choir. It brought lumps to the throats of every girl present. It brought lumps to the groins of the trawlermen as their voices added their Doo-wop showaddy-waddies to the glorious mix.
We all turned to see the source of this spine-tingling sound. I think we all had an idea where to look. We all looked to the door of the Wendy House.
And there, on the threshold, perched amid pillows on her Angelic-O-Glyde, holding on to both sides of the door frame, was Angelica, her head thrown back as she sang the words which brought tears flooding down our cheeks, "Sint Ketherins for evvah!"
She even made a pretty good attempt at the accent.
One by one, the bulldozers stopped, their engines dying away. The choir detached themselves from the collapsible van, forsook the piano and glided over to the Wendy House to join their teacher and mentor. They formed up on each side of the doorway, content to provide vocal backing for their very own Miss Grimbo. Their positions were well chosen: they stood to the sides, so as to allow Angelica to be seen by the road builders. The Junior choir had at last realised what it was that caused road-building plant and machinery to cease working. Helvetica realised, and blushed prettily. Valentina realised and hoisted plump little Arthur in the crook of an arm, uncovering the whole of her fairly stupendous right breast for the insatiable child.
You can say what you like about sexual fetishes, but the only one that rilly-rilly matters is gigantic tits.