Friday Barnes 2 (7 page)

For the next couple of weeks, life continued as normal. A rumour did go around that a mining company had placed a spy into the teaching staff and they were digging holes to try to find under ground oil reserves. This in turn set off a craze amongst students. They started digging holes in the school grounds themselves to get to the oil reserves first, but that fad wore off when all anyone ever found were old bottle caps and the occasional Chapstick.
Students gradually drifted back to their regular pursuits, which, in Friday's case, meant standing knee-deep in swamp mud as she peered into a hollow log, observing moths. She was researching a paper on autumnal hibernation patterns.

‘Hello!' called Rebecca Rodriguez.

Friday was concentrating so hard on the larvae that she was startled. She turned quickly, but because she was standing in thick mud, her rubber boots did not turn with her. ‘Oh no,' said Friday as she over balanced backwards and fell into the mud, completely submerging in the thick brown slime.

‘Are you all right?' asked Melanie, from the safety of the wooden walkway where she was sunbathing.

‘Of course I'm not all right,' said Friday as she struggled to pull herself out.

‘I know,' said Melanie, ‘but I had to say something, and I thought if I offered to help you might say “yes”. And I don't really want to do that.'

Friday was sitting up now and trying to use a mangrove branch to pull herself to her feet.

‘I'm sorry,' said Rebecca as she hurried down the path to join Melanie. ‘I didn't mean to startle you.'

‘It could have happened to anyone,' said
Melanie. ‘Friday's off in a world of her own when she's observing disgusting creepy-crawlies.'

Friday was laboriously wading back to the walkway. Each step produced a loud squelch as she fought the viscosity of the mud and heaved her foot forward. ‘I'm covered in mud,' complained Friday. She was not a vain girl but she disliked stinking like an overripe compost heap as much as the next person.

‘Yes, but on the bright side,' said Melanie, ‘the mud almost perfectly matches the colour of your cardigan, so you don't have to worry about it staining.'

Friday made it to the wooden walkway, and Melanie grabbed hold of the straps of her backpack to help pull her out. Rebecca Rodriguez took several steps back while Friday made her messy transition to dry land.

Neither Friday nor Melanie would have dreamed of asking Rebecca to help. She was not that kind of girl. It's not that Rebecca wasn't kind. She was just very neat and precise. As much as possible in her immediate vicinity, she liked her clothes and her hair to be perfectly clean, ironed and arranged at all times.

Finally, Friday got to her feet. There was no point dusting herself off. The only way she could improve her appearance would be with a high-pressure hose.
She would have to ask Mr Pilcher if she could borrow his, later.

‘Now,' said Friday, gathering as much composure as a mud-covered girl can manage, ‘how can I help you? I assume you need help. Like the vast number of students at this school, you have never spoken to me voluntarily. And since you have sought me out – and in the swamp of all places, a location that must be repugnant to someone of your fastidious nature – I must conclude that you require my professional services.'

‘Yes, I do,' said Rebecca. ‘Would you mind terribly if I hold my nose while we talk?'

‘Not at all,' said Friday. ‘My clients with broken noses do it. So it would be petty of me to complain when clients of a delicate nasal nature would want to do the same.'

‘Judith Wilton has beaten me on the last three home economics assignments,' said Rebecca.

‘I see,' said Friday. ‘But I don't understand how I can help you. Do you need coaching?'

‘I do not need coaching!' declared Rebecca, who had clearly been insulted by the inference. ‘I am the best home economics student at this school.'

Friday wasn't sure why Rebecca would be proud of this statement. If she had gone home and told her own parents that she was top of home economics they would have given her a long and exhaustive lecture, possibly using a powerpoint presentation, on how disappointed they were that she was even studying the subject. But Friday's parents were theoretical physicists, so they thought all subjects other than physics and advanced mathematics were silly.

‘If you're the best,' said Friday, using reasoning cautiously, as she had discovered that the use of logical arguments could sometimes offend the girls at her school, ‘then why didn't you get top marks for your last three assignments?'

‘I don't know!' wailed Rebecca. ‘I think Judith must have cheated.'

‘How can you cheat on a home economics assignment?' asked Friday. ‘Surely the proof is in the pudding – literally, if the assignment is to make a pudding.'

‘I don't know how she's doing it,' said Rebecca. ‘That's why I've come to you.'

‘Let's go back to the dorm,' said Friday. ‘I need to clean up. We can talk as we walk.'

The girls started heading up through the pathway.

‘Explain from the beginning what's been going on,' said Friday.

‘Last term Judith didn't do particularly well at all,' said Rebecca. ‘Her cakes were dry and her pastries limp. She was just as bad as all the other girls. My work was always, by far, the best. I got A++ for everything.'

‘You can get A++ for home economics?' Friday whispered to Melanie. Melanie just shrugged.

‘But since the beginning of this term Judith's work has suddenly become brilliant,' continued Rebecca. ‘The first week back she made a Swiss roll that was perfect.'

Melanie leaned close to Friday and asked in a lowered voice, ‘Is she talking about rolling a Swiss citizen along the ground?'

‘I don't think so,' said Friday. ‘A Swiss roll is also a sponge cake with a jam and cream filling that is coiled into a cylindrical shape. I think it's more likely that's what she's referring to.'

‘Then, in week three, she made a chicken and leek pie that didn't just look beautiful,' said Rebecca, ‘it was also delectable.'

‘Perhaps she practised her cooking in the holidays?' suggested Friday.

‘No-one could improve that much,' said Rebecca. ‘Besides, being a good cook isn't just about practice, it's about attitude. The discipline of precise measurement. And the art of combining organic products that are never exactly the same twice. You can mimic the greats by following their recipes, but you will never be great unless you have the right attitude. It has to be in your blood.'

‘I am gaining an increased respect for home economics,' said Friday. ‘It is clearly a much more complicated subject than I imagined. I may take it next year. There is evidently a lot to be learned. A great deal of applied carbon chemistry, for a start.'

‘We've got another assignment due tomorrow,' said Rebecca. ‘We have to make a quiche. I'm going to do my goat's cheese and spinach quiche. It's mouth-watering. There's no way Judith can beat it. Not without cheating, that is.'

‘But surely you make all your assignments in class,' said Friday. ‘Can't you see what she's doing as she cooks it?'

‘No,' said Rebecca, ‘I sit in the front row. She is at the very back table, directly behind me. There are three workstations between us. With the other students buzzing around, I can never see what she's doing.'

‘What do you want me to do?' asked Friday. ‘I  can't take off a whole double period to come and watch your home economics class.'

‘Just be there at the end,' said Rebecca. ‘The finished quiches will be presented and judged by the teacher in the last ten minutes of class. That's the best time to denounce Judith and her quiche.'

At ten minutes to eleven the following morning Friday told her history teacher, Mr Singh, that she was suffering from a bout of benign positional proximal vertigo. Since Mr Singh was tired of having all his dates corrected, he gladly allowed Friday to leave the class with Melanie on the pretext of going to sick bay.

Friday and Melanie immediately hurried across the school, crunching through autumn leaves as they
cut through the gardens, to the home economics classroom.

No-one noticed as Friday and Melanie slipped in the back. It was the first time Friday had been inside this classroom. There were five large benchtops with built-in stoves and hotplates. They were all littered with dirty dishes, utensils and bowls, apart from the last bench, where the cook had apparently finished in such good time that they'd been able to do their dishes, which were now neatly stacked. At the other end of the classroom there were big picture windows looking out on the school's impressive vegetable garden.

At the front of the room a line of eight quiches had been set out on a table, which the students gathered around. Friday could immediately see there was a large disparity in the quality of the quiches.

Six of them looked terrible. One was entirely blackened and still had globs of fire extinguisher foam on top, where it had evidently been doused. Another was wildly undercooked and had collapsed in a puddle all over the table. One was concave in the middle. Another was purple and smelled bad. One was limp and unappetising. And another had a slimy
sheen on it that almost looked like botulism. The last two, however, were an entirely different matter.

They were beautiful. Sunny and golden on top. High and deep with a crisp pastry casing. The vegetables coyly poked out of the eggy filling.

The teacher, Mrs Piccone, had passed judgement on the first six quiches and was standing in front of the final perfect two.

‘Rebecca and Judith,' said the teacher. ‘Well done, girls. You've done a lovely job.'

Friday and Melanie edged closer to get a better look. The teacher was inspecting the two quiches very closely. Friday inspected the two girls. Rebecca looked her normal immaculate self, not a hair out of place, her apron spotlessly clean. But her face looked anxious. She wanted this. She wanted to win very badly.

Judith, on the other hand, was the polar opposite. She looked a mess. Her hair was dishevelled, and there was flour all over her apron, her hands, on top of her hair and even the middle of her back. And she looked happy, like she was pleased to have made such a lovely quiche and had enjoyed the process.

Mrs Piccone carefully cut into Rebecca's quiche. ‘Good texture,' she said, placing a slice on a plate.
‘Excellent colour on the inside.' It looked lovely, the green spinach and white goat's cheese all in cross-section. Mrs Piccone took out a spoon and scooped up a mouthful and tasted it. ‘Mmm,' she said. ‘Nice balance of veg and cheese. Good spring in the egg mix. Perhaps … could do with a tad more salt, though.'

Rebecca looked crushed. She hung her head and nodded, taking the criticism on board.

Next, Mrs Piccone cut a slice of Judith's quiche and laid it on a plate. It was gorgeous. Sticks of asparagus interlaced the mix alongside plump green sugar peas. ‘Stunning!' said Mrs Piccone.

Judith beamed with pleasure. The other girls smiled and congratulated her. Except for Rebecca. She just looked pale.

Mrs Piccone tasted a mouthful of Judith's quiche. ‘Mmm, oh my goodness,' she said. ‘That is fabulous. What an intriguing blend of flavours. The egg mixture complements the vegetables perfectly. What is that condiment you used?' Mrs Piccone tried another mouthful. ‘Is it … truffle oil?'

Judith nodded. ‘Yes, miss.'

‘How did you get the idea to make this wonderful combination of flavours?' asked Mrs Piccone.

‘I was inspired by the garden,' said Judith, indicating the school's extensive vegetable patch beyond the window. ‘I wanted everything to be fresh. I picked all the vegetables this morning.'

‘An inspiration!' said Mrs Piccone, putting another and even larger spoonful into her mouth. ‘Girls, you should all try this. You could learn a lot by following Judith's example.'

‘Not so fast!' declared Friday. ‘The only thing these girls can learn from Judith is how to be a cheat.'

‘Excuse me! Who are you?' asked Mrs Piccone. ‘And what are you doing here?'

‘My name is Friday Barnes,' said Friday, ‘and I am here to investigate the suspiciously brilliant cooking of your student Judith Wilton.'

‘You saddo,' said Judith, turning on Rebecca. ‘You can't handle being second best so you hired a detective.'

‘Rebecca may well have an unhealthy and irrational desire to be better than everyone else at cooking,' agreed Friday, ‘but in this instance she was entirely justified in her suspicions.'

‘Miss,' said Judith, ‘Friday needs to go to the sick bay, her brain has become unhinged.'

The other girls sniggered.

‘Girls,' snapped Mrs Piccone, ‘you know making mean comments about another person's mental health is against school rules.'

‘I'm only trying to help her, miss,' protested Judith. ‘Just look at her clothes. She clearly doesn't fit in here – or anywhere outside of a charity clothing bin. That brown cardigan is a cry for help.'

‘I wish I'd brought a voice recorder,' said Friday, turning to Melanie. ‘Judith is putting on an impressive display of teenage verbal bullying clichés.'

‘You mean she's being a cow?' asked Melanie.

‘I wouldn't use such a crude term,' said Friday, ‘no matter how accurate. But her abuse is enlightening. It is a typical behavioural response to lash out and attempt to demean your accuser when you've been caught cheating.'

‘What are you talking about?' asked Mrs Piccone. ‘There is no way anyone can cheat in home economics. The students have to make their quiche right here in class, where they can be seen at all times.'

‘Improbable but not impossible,' said Friday. ‘Certainly not if the entire class was in on the charade.'

‘What?!' exclaimed Mrs Piccone.

‘I believe the entire class conspired to beat Rebecca at quiche making,' said Friday.

‘But that's delusional,' said Mrs Piccone.

Friday eyed the entire class. They looked unusually smug for a group in which all but one had failed disastrously.

‘I know,' agreed Friday. ‘But there is no-one more petty and delusional than a teenage girl. And when you get a whole group of them together, their pettiness and delusion combine to form hysteria, and once teenage girls whip themselves up into a hysterical frenzy they are capable of any merciless act. The Salem witch trials are a prime example.'

‘Miss, she's bullying me,' complained Judith. ‘I want to call my father, to have him consult our lawyer.'

‘Nobody will be consulting their lawyers,' said Mrs Piccone. ‘This whole thing is ridiculous and there is no evidence to support your wild accusation at all.'

‘On the contrary,' said Friday. ‘I have three pieces of evidence, and I am sure when I investigate I shall find more.'

‘You're going to be finished at this school after this,' said Judith. ‘No-one will ever talk to you again.

‘Nobody much talks to her now,' said Melanie.

‘You do,' said Friday.

‘Yes,' said Melanie, ‘but I'm your best friend. Besides, no-one talks to me either. If I didn't talk to you I'd have to go back to talking to the wall, which is always a very one-sided conversation.'

‘Just tell us your evidence and get on with it,' snapped Mrs Piccone.

‘I draw your attention to Judith's hair,' said Friday. ‘You will see there is flour all through it.'

‘So? The girls made the crusts from scratch,' said Mrs Piccone. ‘They had to use flour.'

‘Not all of us are clean freaks like Rebecca,' said Judith.

The other girls sniggered.

‘I can see how an unfastidious person could get flour on their apron, and even on their face and the hair around their face during the cooking process,' agreed Friday. ‘But I cannot see how you would get flour on the top of your head and the middle of your back, unless you or someone else deliberately put it there.'

‘Why would she do that?' asked Mrs Piccone.

‘To make it look like she had been cooking,' said
Friday, ‘when she had not been. She had merely reheated a quiche she had brought from home.'

‘That's absurd,' said Judith.

‘Then there are her dishes,' said Friday. ‘If you look to the backbench where Judith works, you will see that her dishes are clean, whereas everyone else's dishes still have congealing egg mixture or pastry dough crusting on.'

‘So I did my dishes,' said Judith. ‘There's nothing wrong with that.'

‘You can't have done your dishes because your hands are still covered in flour,' said Friday. ‘Even if you wore rubber gloves, the flour would have rubbed off. Your dishes are clean because they were never dirty in the first place.'

‘It's all just circumstantial evidence,' said Stacey. She was Judith's best friend and her father was doing five to ten for insurance fraud, so she was able to use big words like ‘circumstantial evidence' accurately in a sentence.

‘Yes, perhaps,' agreed Friday. ‘But there is no explanation for Judith's lie.'

‘What are you talking about?' asked Judith.

‘You said you picked the vegetables for your quiche by hand this morning,' said Friday. ‘But there is asparagus in your quiche and asparagus is a spring vegetable. It won't be ready in the garden for another eight months.'

‘That's not true,' protested Judith.

‘It can be easily checked,' said Friday. ‘If you all look out the window you will see the asparagus patch down the far end of the garden. It is the big patch of dirt with nothing growing in it.'

‘So I used canned asparagus,' said Judith.

Friday shook her head. ‘You are digging yourself into a deeper hole, revealing how little you really know about cooking. For asparagus to be canned it is cooked and stored in brine, which has a significant effect on its texture and colouration.'

‘Canned asparagus doesn't look like fresh asparagus,' said Rebecca. ‘It is soft and smaller and a greyish yellow tinge in colour.'

‘This is a terrible allegation,' said Mrs Piccone.

‘Yes, we shall need some supporting evidence,' agreed Friday, ‘but now that we have a working theory, let us extrapolate. Mrs Piccone, what is the next cooking assignment for this class?'

‘We are going to make apple pie next week,' said Mrs Piccone.

‘And your students are aware of the assignment schedule ahead of time, I presume?' asked Friday.

‘Why, yes,' said Mrs Piccone. ‘I give them a list before the holidays so they can practise.'

‘So if Judith brought a stash of pre-made baked goods from home at the beginning of term, where would she have hidden them?' asked Friday.

‘They'd have to be frozen,' said Melanie. ‘So I guess, in a freezer?'

‘Good deductive reasoning, Melanie,' said Friday. ‘You're improving.'

‘Thank you,' said Melanie. She so rarely listened to conversations, it was nice to have the extra effort pay off.

‘Shall we check the deep freezer?' Friday asked Mrs Piccone.

‘It's over here,' said Mrs Piccone, leading Friday to the corner of the classroom.

Friday opened the lid of the enormous chest freezer and saw that it was full of plastic bags containing vegetables, stocks of various flavours, sauces and
cuts of meat. She took the packages out, one by one, and laid them on the floor.

‘She's letting the food ruin, miss,' complained Stacey.

‘Stop complaining,' said Mrs Piccone. ‘If you absorbed any of the information I taught you about home economics, you'd know it would take a leg of lamb more than a few seconds to thaw.'

Friday kept digging. ‘A-ha!' She had bent over so far she practically tumbled headfirst into the freezer. Friday grabbed something from the bottom and pulled herself upright. She was holding a large white cardboard box. The box had a handwritten message on the lid.

 

Purrcy

(Dead Cat)

 

‘Don't open that,' warned Mrs Piccone. ‘That's Purrcy the school cat. We're storing him here until the end of term, when Mrs Henderson is taking him back to her home to bury him in her sandpit. Purrcy loved a sandpit.'

‘Really?' said Friday. ‘Do you believe in reincarnation, Mrs Piccone?'

‘No,' said Mrs Piccone.

‘Then how do you explain Purrcy's transformation into an apple pie?' Friday opened the box and revealed a perfect-looking apple pie.

Mrs Piccone gasped. All the girls looked guilty except for Rebecca, who looked angry and smug all at the same time.

‘I think if you ring Judith's home you will soon discover a maid, a cook or some other member of the domestic staff who will confess to making this dessert,' said Friday.

‘Girls, I don't understand,' said Mrs Piccone. ‘How could you? Why would you?'

‘We were so sick of Rebecca's smirking superiority,' said Judith. ‘We just did it as a joke, really.'

‘Yeah, that's right,' agreed Stacey. The other girls nodded as well. ‘It's a joke. Just like Rebecca is a joke.' The girls sniggered. Rebecca looked hurt.

‘You should make sure you enjoy every last moment of high school then,' said Friday. ‘It is the last place you'll find where a person is scorned for caring about what they do and working hard to be good at it. Rebecca may well be an obsessive freak but in the real world she has all the makings of a top-class
gourmet chef, once she learns to swear like a sailor, that is.'

‘Home economics has always been a subject rife with vitriolic rivalries,' said Mrs Piccone. ‘But bringing a dead cat into it? That is a new low. You are all going to have to go and see the Headmaster.'