Chapter 11

A nervous Ms Duncan squeezed through the barely-open flat door and looked around. “So this is where you live? You rent this?” she enquired of Tiff.

“The company rents this,” Tiff clarified.

Ms Duncan sunk into the sofa seat beside us. Charlie and Tiff were somehow both sitting on my lap and there was plenty of room. The TV was showing ‘live’ coverage from our arrival at the airport an hour earlier, but the volume was turned down low.

“The press are interviewing shoppers leaving the BigSaver. You can see them from your balcony. Do they know you’re here?”

“No,” Tiff said flatly. “What else?”

“Your parents called. Apparently they miss you and just want to know that you’re okay”

Tiff snorted derisively. “Yeah, right.”

“Wait, do people know that you’re involved?” Charlie checked with Ms Duncan.

“I’m afraid so, I’m the company secretary on the joint venture with Jim, so it’s a matter of public record. I’m being bothered by the press as much as you three are.” Ms Duncan paused and stared out the window, “I think I gave them the slip coming her, but...” she shrugged apologetically.

“If we hide here, how long until it just dies down?” Tiff was sounding thoughtful.

After we talked it over and made no firm plans, I called my mum to assure her we were well, that we’d landed safely and that we were hungry but didn’t dare go out to buy food. Of course, an incredulous mum had been called by a dozen reporters already. She’d even seen us ‘live’ on the tele a few minutes ago. She really didn’t know what to think. In the end, she came up with the excellent idea of sending Sarah – whom the press hadn’t hounded – around to us with pizza. Sarah, apparently, thought the whole situation most entertaining! But we could trust her.

It was an intrigued Sarah who rang the bell half an hour later. In her hand she had a stack of pizzas so we could fill the fridge and avoid going out for days. She looked around excitedly. “So, is this where you keep your harem, Sam?” she giggled. Then her face fell and I looked behind me to see what she was staring at. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn’t realise there were more visitors,” she apologised to a flustered Ms Duncan.

“Harem?” Ms Duncan said it so quietly and in such a high-pitched voice that it underlined how shocked she was.

“It’s more a time-share,” Tiff giggled, “We take turns. I’m good at scheduling.”

Ms Duncan and Sarah both looked so awkward they didn’t dare say anything more. Then I remembered to introduce them.

Sarah made polite conversation about our holiday, while Ms Duncan listened open-mouthed. Then, finally, they left us alone. We sank into the sofa, the pizza ignored, and fell sleep clothed and cuddling.

Our usual taxi driver had, miraculously, not said anything to the press. We gave him a generous tip to buy his continued silence. But it was only a matter of time before someone trailed us.

“No comment,” Charlie barked as we walked through the school crowd. The crowd pressed in on us, the hum of a hundred whispers as we were swept towards the end of the corridor where the headmistress was standing, waiting for us. She ushered us into her office and the bell rang and everyone else had to head off towards their lessons. Ms Duncan slipped in as soon as the crowed dispersed.

“So, quite the celebrities,” she smiled. “See, I always was a fan of computer students studying business! Don’t you agree, Ms Duncan? We really ought make a point of getting more cross-pollination next year, ummm?”

“Don’t talk about pollination!” Ms Duncan went red, her eyes zig-zagging between us suggestively.

“Oh! Oh!” the headmistress went red, too, as it sunk in. “I see.”

She sat in her swivel chair and spun around playfully. It kind of set us at ease. She leaned forward. “I think we have a problem,” she sighed, and clasped her hands together. “You’re a disruption to your classes, I’m afraid. I can keep the press off the school premises, but I can’t stop them standing around the gates.”

“Can’t you report them to the police? Grown men hanging around school gates certainly sounds bad...” Tiff tentatively suggested.

“Fun though that sounds, that’s not really going to work, is it?”

“No, I guess not.”

“I was more thinking along the lines of allowing you to study from home this term,” the headmistress continued.

“Hmmmpf,” Ms Duncan exhaled loudly, and we all looked at her. She seemed surprised by the attention, as though she hadn’t meant to interrupt.

“It’s just that,” she started, then cast around awkwardly. “It’s just that ... nowadays they live together” she finished.

“Oh?” The headmistress looked surprised all over again. “Really? What about their parents?”

“Estranged. Well, Tiff’s are, so the company bought a flat”

“In fact, the whole company is just a smoke screen for my emancipation,” Tiff clarified. “We only went into business so I could run away from home in style.”

“Oh,” the headmistress studied us, alarmed. “Does the school counselor know?”

We shook our heads. “The police know. We are not involving Social Services,” Charlie clarified, holding out the policeman’s business card. The headmistress turned the card over in her hands carefully, clearly completely surprised.

“Anyway, if they study from home, they’ll probably only study each other,” Ms Duncan smirked, “You know, all that cross-pollination you talked about!”

The headmistress straightened in her chair and tried not to smile, too. Then she reached down for the buzzer on her desk and pressed it and talked into the microphone. “Silvia, dear, can you get me the phone numbers of their parents?”

“What are you going to do?” Charlie asked, carefully. In these kinds of situations Charlie was proving to be the most proactively defensive.

“I think we need an impromtu parents’ meeting to discuss the best way forward”

“But Tiff’s estranged, we just said that.”

“Oh. Yeah. Hmm.” the headmistress turned the policemen’s card over in her hands again. “How did the police become involved?”

“Tiff’s parents reported her missing, and they came to school to collect her.”

“Really? Does nobody tell me nothing?”

Ms Duncan diplomatically didn’t answer.

“The police agreed not to tell Tiff’s parents her whereabouts. They were satisified she is safe,” Charlie continued.

“Hmmmf,” the headmistress sighed again. “You other two, I can talk to your parents though, can’t I?”

We nodded.

“Hmm, very well, I’m going to have to talk to district about my duties to inform your parents, Tiff. You are sixteen. You can leave home, I know, but I’m not sure if you can stop your parents knowing about your schoolwork. If you were truant, I’d have a duty to inform them, for example. It’s complicated. I’m afraid that it will all be out of my hands. I might just call this policeman too. He’ll remember you? And I can keep this card?”

We nodded in unison again.

The secretary slipped in and handed the headmistress three files. Our files. The headmistress took them and thanked Silvia and then hummed again, thoughtfully.

“Very well. I have some calls to make. I’ll try and get everyone to meet this morning, if that’s okay? If you can just wait outside, I’m sure Ms Duncan can show you where the tea is. You are all old enough to like tea, right?”

And so we filed out and awaited our fate as the headmistress picked up her phone and started to dial the school district office.

Mum hadn’t met Charlie’s parents before. Neither had I. We all shook hands carefully. Apparently, Charlie hadn’t really been very specific when explaining where she kept sleeping over. Her parents thought she had an active night life, clubbing, or something. Somehow, they were more worried about her being in a three-way relationship with Tiff and me than the idea of their underage daughter frequenting nightclubs and staying out all night with delinquent friends! But I had to admit they were quite nice, in a rich, distant kind of way.