Revenge is sweet, even decades later, by Elizabeth Kay

That's me in the middle, with my two besties. And yes, I was called Midget.
We're standing outside the school canteeen, having no doubt been up to no good.

I have got my revenge on several people over the years – not the ones picured here – disguising them as characters in stories. The funniest one was someone who really admired one of my villains, without realising on whom it was based. Anyway, as I'm off on holiday I thought I'd cheat a bit by using an old story of mine this month, originally published in Magnet magazine, which was getting something off my chest about my own schooldays.  Looking back, I now realise that I did in fact have a few very good friends, with whom I have stayed in touch, but there were also loners who didn't have any at all. I simply didn't notice them, just like the rest of the class.

This story is called Flaming June. I chose it because of the tropical weather we've been having here in the UK, and I've only updated the ending a little to make it topical.

FLAMING JUNE

Flaming June has retired. Flaming June with the plucked eyebrows; the office bully, the tickbox tyrant, the middle manager who made everyone’s lives hell. Was she always such a nasty piece of work? Are middle managers born, or made? There really was a Flaming June in 1976. The playing fields at St. Theresa’s were parched to Naples yellow, and the girls sought shade in the woods. The playground was virtually deserted at lunch-time, save for a few fifth and sixth-formers who were too sophisticated for the natural world.

            There were paths running through those woods, paths which led to leafy glades where fourth years made daisy-chains and talked about boys, and third years looked for toadstools and stag beetles for biology projects. Second years played noisy chasing games, and fine-tuned their gangs.

But the first years? The Year Sevens, these days? The first years built houses.

They started amateurishly enough – a depression in the ferns, and a pile of leaves to delineate the perimeter. Gradually branches were bent over to make a frame, and a few attempts were made at weaving twigs together. It was the oddballs who were good at it – the ones who never got asked to join the ruling gang.

            Bridget was one of the outsiders. Bridget the Midget; smallest in the class, and cursed with a squint. She had two friends. Skinny Ginny from the council estate, and Snail, who wore a caliper on one leg. They designed their house with some care, using graph paper and the principles of Elizabethan wattle-and-daub structure.

Fifty yards away the ruling gang were working on a village, no less. It was a big gang, so they needed several houses. Their constructions undulated like Gaudi architecture. Branches freed themselves from their constraints now and again and whipped back into place, taking the occasional hair-slide and sliver of skin with them. The walls were made of leaves, which withered and shrivelled  to nothing the following day.

The leader of the ruling gang was called June. Dark hair, and eyebrows so thick and heavy they almost joined at the bridge of her nose. A face with no refinements, a face that bludgeoned before it even opened its mouth. Susan, her second-in-command, was games captain. By sheer force of numbers the gang elected the form captain, the vice captain, the games captain; they voted for their own team in the speech-making competition, they controlled the class play at the end of term. They understood corporate mentality already.

Their teacher was two years away from retirement. Miss Marple; what a gift. She became The Sleuth within a day. A doctor of divinity, she had no inkling of the sheer spite that was rampant amongst her charges. Five foot nothing of brittle Christian charity, and a dab hand at detentions. But Bridget got on with her; The Sleuth reminded her of her mother. Skinny and The Snail tolerated her – neither of them actually liked Miss Marple, but they didn’t have anything specific against her.

“When we’ve finished our house,” announced Midget, “we’ll invite The Sleuth to tea.”

Skinny thought that was going a bit far, but The Snail had no objections, apart from the lack of a kettle.

“Lemonade and biscuits,” declared Midget.

They had a roof on their house now – a roof made of ferns, which lasted longer than horse chestnut leaves, and even kept out the rain. The construction did have an Elizabethan feel to it – they chose the site because of the four saplings that provided proper corners from which to build. They tied branches to them with strands of ivy, and interlaced twigs between. Inside was an old wooden bench the caretaker let them have, and an orange box which made a good table. The Snail covered it with her swimming towel. Skinny made a sign that said, Tudor Vila. Private Propperty. Keep Out, and hung it from one of the saplings.

“You can’t build there,” said June.

“What, here?” queried Midget. “This precise spot?”

“Why not?” asked Skinny.

            “Who says?” demanded The Snail.

            “Me,” announced June, whose father worked on the council. “I’m the planning officer.”

            “Ignore her,” said Midget.

            “I wouldn’t advise it,” said June.

            Friday lunchtime was chosen for Miss Marple’s visit. They led her through the woods, feeling grown-up and sophisticated. This was the sort of thing parents did, inviting people to tea; it was a try-out for adult life, the same way their fluctuating relationships with one another were try-outs for future liaisons.

            They turned the last corner on the twisty little path. And there, in front of them, was a heap of branches and a mess of ferns. The Tudor Vila sign was lying on the ground, and the saplings were splintered and broken.

            “What shame,” said Miss Marple. “The rain last night was really heavy – the first in such a long time. The weight of all that water must have brought the roof down.”

            The girls knew it was no such thing; it was sabotage. But they weren’t going to split on the ruling gang, it wasn’t worth it.

Their lives would be hell if they did. 

Flaming June. She never recognised Bridget the Midget, who wore heels nowadays and whose squint had been corrected with surgery.

And no one ever found out who sabotaged June’s leaving cake, leaving just a heap of melting icing and a mess of sponge in the flaming June of 2026.

And we stayed in touch for decades!