Free The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne by Barry Jonsberg Page A

effort when there are over eight hundred kids at the school—she then gave the full rundown to the parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, second cousins twice removed, neighbors, casual acquaintances, newspaper-delivery kids and the bag lady who spends her time gibberingand drooling in the city center. I'm surprised she didn't take out a full-page advertisement in the local paper. I couldn't watch
60 Minutes
for months afterward without worrying that my face would appear accompanied by a breathy voice-over: “Pervert Student Stalks Kindly Teacher.”
    [Rachael Smith —
Virgo
in conjunction with Uranus. There is a tendency today to speak without thinking, possibly because you have the brains of a brick. Beware of large-breasted, bespectacled females bearing two-foot lengths of plumbers’ piping.]
    I don't know if you have ever been in a similar situation. Unlikely, I guess, unless you are, like me, gifted with a talent for inviting disaster. But it's hell. Yeah, okay. I know what you're thinking. It'll pass. Worse things happen at sea. Bit of teasing never hurt anyone. Was that what you were thinking? If it was, please go at once and stick your head in a large bucket of pool acid. I know all about treating misfortune with dignity. In theory. But in practice, you wish you were dead. Everywhere I went, there was giggling and immature remarks. Girls would leave the toilets if I went in. I was pathetically grateful that Vanessa still sat next to me in class. She continued to wear boredom like a badge, but there was a subtle change in her attitude. Difficult to be specific. Little things, like the way her body was slightly more closed, as if she was desperate that our legs wouldn't touch under the desk. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought that even the teachers looked at me slightly differently.
    I went straight home from school that day. To be honest, I needed my mum. I wanted to talk things through with her,the way they do on soap operas. You know. All that stuff where the girl says, “Mum, I'm pregnant by the local heroin addict, my best friend's topped herself and the police want to interview me in connection with the arson at the high school.” And the mum strokes the girl's hair and says, “It's okay, Charlene, you know that I'll always be here for you.” I needed that kind of thing.
    Of course, Mum wasn't back from work and the fridge was, as always, strong, silent and dependable, but rather weak in the empathy stakes. So I kicked it a few times, leaving a couple of decent dents, and I felt a bit better. Then I ate the last of the ice cream. I didn't particularly feel like it, but it was Mum's favorite and she often had a bowl between shifts, so I forced it down. Pathetic, I know, but someone had to pay.
    Overdosed on raspberry ripple, I wandered off to Kiffo's place. Funnily enough, I'd never actually been to his house before, but I knew where he lived. It was not the kind of neighborhood that you tended to go into if you could avoid it. Particularly when it was getting dark. Particularly if you were a woman. Particularly if you were a woman with huge boobs. What the hell. I didn't care. I think in my state of mind I'd have been more than a match for any roving gang of hoons.
    I knocked on the door, and after a few moments Kiffo opened it. He looked at me with surprise and then nodded for me to come in. The front room was a disgrace. I've seen some messes in my time—hell, I've created my fair share—but this took the whole packet of biscuits. Crumpled beer cans were scattered around the carpet, if anything so threadbare andfilthy could be dignified with such a name. Old pizza cartons, at least three of them, were also arranged artistically on the floor. Two still contained traces of pizza, though they were clearly so old that any positive identification would have taxed the expertise of the most distinguished forensic scientist. I guessed at thin-crust mold with extra botulism topping. The place stank of old