Rise Up Singing You do get hot summers in Bolton and we had one that year, for weeks on end as I remember it although it may just have been a fortnight or so. This was 1990, I think, and it was a Friday afternoon because we had double English with Mr Howard. Lisa and Claire had both taken a full tab, but Janey and I just had half each. "Who or what do you think is causing the friction between Jane and Elizabeth?" asked Mr Howard. His hair was aglow and the walls pulsed gently. Lisa put up her hand but then pulled it down slowly and shot it up in the air again. She did this a few times, mesmerised. Claire sat to Lisa's left, giggled and swooned. "Lisa?" said Mr Howard. "Mr Rochester," said Lisa, beaming. It was impossible to know whether she had forgotten Mr Howard's name or whether she was simply talking about the wrong book. Claire was stroking her copy of Pride and Prejudice and crying. "There's no need for any of this," she said, her voice quiet and bleak. "Sir," my voice came out too loud. "Annie Marshall." He used my full name, and it made me feel important. "I'm taking Claire out of class. She's not well." But then the bell went, and class was over anyway. I had no idea where those eighty minutes had gone. Janey and I were free now, heading away from our classes and classmates. We were only a little bit trippy - I noticed my ears slipping gently and endlessly towards my neck while Janey was tapping her arm with her forefinger to see if it was solid. We started walking into town, down long empty Deane Road. The pavement smelled dusty in the sun, the terraced houses watched us, friendly. We waved at cars, who occasionally honked back at us, and we sang. "Say it's only a paper moon," at a passing Volvo Estate, "Hanging over a cardboard sea," at an XR2i. We'd been playing my parents' Ella Fitzgerald CD for weeks, all sophisticated. Excerpted from Yes Yes More More by Anna Wood All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
