French for Kissing

A gong bangs. A siren rings in my ear, followed by a shouting foghorn. Oh joy, it’s Ann.

‘Wakey wakey, rise and shine, hang your knickers on the line. It’s seven o’clock, girls. Porridge for breakfast. Dress suitably – you’ve got a day of team activity.’

There are not many things that make me want to get up in the morning, but porridge and Ann’s voice I know AREN’T two of them.

‘I need more sleep, my brain hasn’t stopped growing – it’s a medical fact.’ It took me forever to go to sleep in this strange room last night. I make like a pillow, but Ann pulls my cover off.

‘Come on, girls.’ She’s got streaks of cruelty running through her, as subtle as lightning.

I pull the mop off my face. When it behaves I can call it hair. ‘OK, OK, bully, I’m up. Help me, someone!’

Ann leaves and two strangers come over and have the cheek to say, ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Lily, that’s Maya. Were you the ones they said were lost in the pothole?’

‘Yup, they got us lost. Again. I’m Isabelle, by the way, but everyone calls me Belle. Oh, and this is my cousin Izzy – she’s called Isabelle as well. It’s confusing.’

‘Hurry up, otherwise the boys eat everything and there’s nothing left but cold porridge lumps,’ says Izzy.

Maya moves at double the speed of sound and is out the door before I can find my knickers, let alone my hairbrush.

‘Hey guys. Wait for me,’ I say. But they are gone.

Whoever invented mornings should be shot. Official.

What does suitable dress mean? I wish I was home, curled up in bed, but who am I kidding? Bay usually wakes me by six-thirty a.m. to show me his potty contents.

I put my jeans and flip-flops on and a T-shirt that says, ‘Just Say NO!’ Good advice for anyone here. Suitable for every occasion. The hairbrush is playing hide and seek, so I take my hair, wind it into a bun and stick a pencil through to hold it in place, therefore looking très chic et très artistic. Voila! Matisse himself would have approved.

Not that anybody notices downstairs. There are loads more people in the canteen than the night before. I can’t see what their faces look like, apart from the obvious similarities to pigs at a trough.

Izzy was right about the food. What is left is bacon fat swimming in – hmm, is that bacon fat or dandruff scum? No need to bother with lip-gloss today. The sausage is directly related to last night’s dinner, some cold, hard cardboard is trying to impersonate toast – but I think in a crisis it could double as paving slabs – and the porridge looks like liquid concrete. I don’t mind porridge made my way but this is something else. All porridge should be made with milk. Add golden syrup until it starts to separate. Eat until stomach splits from pleasure, not pain.

‘Is there any orange juice?’

‘No. Here’s an orange, squeeze your own,’ Cook says, giving me a banana. He laughs. Comedian.

I take a piece of cardboard, plastering it with marmalade – if it could do for Paddington Bear, I could survive on it. I get a cup of tea and sit down with Maya, Belle and Izzy.

‘I told you so,’ Izzy says, smirking as I chew the slab of ‘toast’. Why do people always have to prove they are right? It’s so annoying.

It looks like I was right about the food here. My dreams of dieting are coming true – but I should be careful what I wish for. I write a Post-it Note in my head for later.

Dear God,
I know you do lots of nice things, but can’t you take a joke? I’m starving. I really don’t want to do a diet DVD – ever.
Lots of Love
Lily xxx
Conference

Our post-breakfast meeting is held in the Common Room. This is the first time we see who is in our team. Apart from Maya, William, Blake and me, there is also Izzy and Belle. The others are Rosie and Fiona, who are best friends and whisper in a corner together constantly like Siamese twins, Ian, who’s quite chatty, Tony, very quiet, and Ben and Sam, who are nerdy male versions of Rosie and Fiona.

Apparently, we have to do this every day. ‘Get together for a Confab’, says Gordon, the rock climbing guy. I know that’s what he does because he wears a badge that says, I ♥ climbing rocks. He has a beard. He reminds me of the FishMan and that makes me feel a little sick.

I ♥ climbing Gordon says, ‘Call me ClimbMeister’. He sits us all down and says, because some of us are new, we will have to have an induction day. ‘Let’s see how well you can swim, shoot, fly, die, that sort of thing. Only kidding, you’re all safe with us.’

Funny guy! Has he not heard humans have a natural fear of dying?

The other leader for our team of twelve is Jackie, who can’t stop jumping – I am wondering if she is ill, or has a pogo stick inserted up her bum.

Jackie is Australian and, obviously, the JumpMeister – ‘Hey guys, let’s jump to it, run down to the lake and splash around. Yeah! Who’s for getting out canoes? Let’s hear it for the canoes! Jump if you love canoes!’

It’s exhausting just looking at her. Realistically, how is it possible, or normal, to get that excited over a canoe? What if Ann, the Prof, ClimbMeister Gordon and JumpMeister Jackie were normal when they first arrived? I start to worry that this freaky place has an evil spirit that turns everybody backward. Help! In three weeks I might regress to being Bay’s age but stuck with my enormous bosoms, backside and hair, and tiny shrivelled brain the size of walnut. Is that scarier than joining the white slave trade as my dad suggested? I’m not so sure.

‘Lily, have you been listening to anything I’ve said?’ Jackie asks, blinking at me like she has an eye infection.

‘Yes.’ How can I tell her I switch automatically to DDM (Day Dreaming Mode) if not suitably entertained?

‘What have I said?’

‘That we should…We should all try to love…jumping? More?’

Everyone laughs, including Maya.

‘Calling Lily to planet Earth? Go get the canoeing stuff with the others, and change into your swimsuit.’

‘D’accord, très bien!’

‘Lily, why are you speaking French?’