Free The Girl With No Past by Kathryn Croft Page A

him.
    Once he’s delivered a lecture about the school field being out of bounds when it’s raining, Mr Faulkner leaves, letting the door slam behind him, and we all stay quiet, waiting to see what Miss Hollis will say, if anything.
    ‘Um, excuse me, Adam? You’ll be sitting here.’ She points to an empty seat in the front row. It’s Nicholas’s seat but he hasn’t been in school for ages and no one knows where he is.
    Adam’s reply is firm and confident, matching his appearance. ‘No thanks, Miss. I’m fine here.’ He rests his head in his hands and stares at her, daring her to object.
    For a second, Miss Hollis looks shocked. She nervously eyes the class, as if expecting someone to back her up, but most of the students are now beginning to chuckle.
    And then she surprises us all.
    ‘Come back here. Now.’ It isn’t quite a shout, but is louder than I have heard her speak before.
    Scanning the room, I see most of the class is open-mouthed, staring at Miss Hollis. I’m not even sure who she’s talking to, but then she turns to the new boy who frowns and shrugs, but makes no move to give up his seat.
    Miss Hollis stands firm. ‘I didn’t say you could sit there, you need to wait for me to tell you where to sit.’ This is unheard of. She is challenging a student. In all the years she has been my form tutor she has never spoken like this to anyone. It must be her time of the month.
    All eyes turn to Adam Bowden. ‘I’d like to stay here, Miss,’ he says, as if it is his right. He speaks politely but the smirk behind his words betrays his true intention. I normally dislike challenging behaviour, but there is something different about Adam. He is too confident to be just another dumb idiot, using bad behaviour to disguise academic weakness. Again I am impressed.
    ‘Get out!’ Miss Hollis screams. ‘Now! Get out!’
    For a moment, Adam looks stunned, but he quickly recovers and breezes out, not looking at anyone he passes, the way he did just a moment ago. But no matter how surprised he is, it is nothing compared to the bemusement I – and the rest of the class, I am sure – feel witnessing Miss Hollis shout like this. She may as well have transformed into a dragon and breathed fire because that’s how we all stare at her until she goes out to deal with Adam Bowden. Even when she has followed him out into the corridor, closing the door behind her, nobody dares speak above a whisper.

    I don’t see the new boy for the rest of the morning, but at lunchtime he is all Imogen, Corey and I can talk about. We sit on the steps of the art block, shivering because we don’t want to go to the canteen or put on our blazers. Lunchtime is the only time we have a reprieve from wearing them so we can’t miss an opportunity to shed our shackles, no matter what the weather.
    ‘He was in my history class this morning,’ Corey tells us. ‘But Miss Hollis wasn’t being weird to him so they must have sorted it out.’
    ‘She’s not allowed to be weird to any of us, she’s a teacher,’ I say, biting into my cheese baguette. ‘Anyway, you should have seen it, she humiliated him in front of the whole class. On his first day!’ Now that I’ve had the morning to think about it, I am sure that’s what happened. Humiliation. Nothing more, nothing less. I would have been mortified if it had been me, but Adam Bowden had handled it well.
    Imogen nudges Corey. ‘So you sat next to him? What’s he like?’ I’m glad she is the one asking these questions. If I had to ask them myself they would both know how I feel. Or think I feel.
    ‘He’s okay, I like him. Clever, I guess. Why?’ Corey shoots Imogen a glance that I can only interpret as asserting his ownership, or something not quite so dramatic but meaning more or less the same.
    ‘I dunno, he just seems cool. But not like that.’ Imogen grabs Corey’s arm and keeps hold of him while she eats her crisps.
    I watch them both, finding it hard to believe so much has