Best Served Cold

An original short story featuring characters from See You in September

Charity Norman

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781760638542
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

When Tara farewells her older sister, Cassy, on a trip to New Zealand, she waves goodbye as Cassy calls out, 'See you in September.' But it's many years before Tara and her parents see or even hear from Cassy again. And with her sister's disappearance, Tara's happy family falls apart. Working as a waitress in a strip club has its benefits. It's the people you meet. Like the drunken, red-faced fiancé of Tara's old French teacher, Adele Roberts, a bully who relished humiliating the class misfit, a boy called Rex Jones. Tonight Tara can finally see how to avenge him. As she hunches over her laptop, her index finger hovering over 'send', Tara remembers everything that has led her to this moment. Includes a preview of Charity Norman's highly anticipated novel, See You in September!

Payback is just a click away. In exactly one minute, she’s going to avenge Rex Jones.

Tara sits cross-legged on her bed, in a London attic room with hideous floral wallpaper. Her index finger hovers three inches above the trackpad. She’s staring at the screen. Summoning her courage. Counting down.

Sixty seconds. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.

But. But.

Now that the adrenaline has worn off, in the sober chill of morning, there are so many buts.

Fifty-five. Fifty-four.

It’s begun to rain half-heartedly, drops spattering onto the skylight directly above her head. She doesn’t look up.

Fifty. Forty-nine.

Gotta do this.

•

When Tara was at school, there were teachers who did the job because they liked young people; maybe they even had a passion for Maths or Chemistry or whatever dire subject they peddled. Mr Bradley, for example, who had his English class reading war poets and almost enjoying it, or Mrs Librarian Pugh, with her pervy smile. Then there were the power-crazed sadists. They didn’t like children, they didn’t like teaching, they didn’t even like their subject. What they craved was power. Case in point: Miss Adele Roberts.

Miss Roberts burst upon the third-form French class more than seven years ago—funny, fast and furious. Dark brows shaped into a permanent expression of irony, lips a study in crimson perfection. She had a habit of widening her eyes as she talked, as though unveiling some wicked and delicious secret. The scent of leather boots and sophistication lingered in a room long after she’d left it. Miss Roberts was the talk of the bus-stop crowd.

‘How old d’you reckon she is? Twenty?’

‘Nah, thirty at least.’

‘My dad’s got a crush on her. Says I have to do French GCSE.’

It wasn’t just the dads. Half the third form, including Tara, had a crush on the woman. The other half wanted to be her.

Then there was Rex Jones.

He sat in the back row, by the window. Rex. Funny name for a kid. Funny name for anyone except maybe a dog, although, come to think of it, he was a bit like a starving mongrel. It was as though his body had forgotten to grow—except his ears, which stuck out like satellite dishes on the sides of his head. Bony hands and arms, ugly patches of eczema. His clothes never seemed clean, he never had a biro or calculator that worked and his school bag was falling apart. According to Tilly, Mr and Mrs Jones were hopeless gamblers who spent their days down at the betting shop. Tilly’s mother worked in the school office. She was famously indiscreet, which was how Tilly came to know everything about everyone.

Rex wasn’t bullied, but he didn’t have any friends. People left him alone. He had pulled his desk away from everyone else’s; made himself into a little island of awkwardness. Tara sometimes tried to talk to him, but it was hard work because he blushed and replied in monosyllables. He loved oranges. Sometimes he brought one to school and spent lunchtime sitting on the wall outside the gym, eating it in slow motion, piece by piece. On his birthday he proudly produced a box of oranges for the class.

One break time he caught Tara sobbing over some stupid argument with Tilly. He thought for a while, then went to his desk and came back holding something.

‘You can borrow these tonight,’ he said, putting it into her hand. ‘But they’re a secret. Okay? You won’t tell anyone?’

It was a cloth bag about the size of a packet of crisps, striped brown and blue with a drawstring top. Tara looked inside and saw a family of wooden dolls, each the size of her little finger. Painted-on faces, knitting wool for hair and scraps of cloth sewn into tiny clothes.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Um, what are they?’

‘Worry dolls.’ Rex was twisting from side to side, not meeting Tara’s eye. ‘My gran made them for me. She’s dead now. Tell ’em your troubles, put them under your pillow and they’ll do all your worrying for you.’

She’d never heard him string so many words together. The bell went and people burst into the room, chucking a ball around. Rex immediately sat down at his desk while Tara shoved the precious bag into her pocket.

She took the dolls home that night, although she and Tilly had made up that afternoon. She didn’t mention Rex’s secret to any of her friends. God no. They’d be like a pack of wolves. The only person she could trust was her older sister, Cassy.

Cassy was perfect. Everyone said so. She’d finished school already, had a place at Durham to study Law next year, and was working in the local Oxfam shop. She cared about the flotsam and jetsam of life. She cared about people like Rex.

Cassy sat on Tara’s bed, her hair in a plait over her shoulder, gently arranging the dolls in a row on the pillow. There were seven of them. Tara told her about Rex: how he ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTENTS
• BEGIN READING
• EXTRACT FROM SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER
• PROLOGUE
• ONE