“Blimey!” Noel gasped as an information tab opened that stated ‘Classical ballet, modern jazz and tap dancing form the core of our dance curriculum’. “I hope for Pete’s sake they’re optional.”
“For Pete’s sake.” Carol grinned. She scrolled back to the top of the page and clicked the gallery link. “Blimey… did anyone optimise this website?” she said as the images loaded very slowly.
“Not by the looks of it.” Noel said. “Same pictures there were last summer.” he commented as they eventually began to appear. “Boys dressed as boys and girls dressed as girls.” he noted.
“Hmm. Pity.” she said. “I wanted to see if they all look as cute as Peter does.”
“He looks anything but cute… he looks ridiculous!” Noel claimed. Carol disagreed. “Well… you do fancy him, so you would say he looks cute.”
“I’m also a girl… and as such, I’m better at judging what looks good and what doesn’t.” Carol stated. The cursor panned along the task-bar before opening the picture again. “If they wore black tights instead of green, that’d be one of the nicest uniforms I’ve seen.” she said.
“For a girl maybe.”
“For anyone.” she claimed. “I bet Mum’d agree.”
“I bet she won’t.” Noel reckoned. Carol disagreed and Noel suggested she show her. “Well I would but we did promise Peter we wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Yeah… but… I might have told Mum before I made that promise.”
“You didn’t?!” Carol exclaimed.
“Well… I hadn’t been sworn to secrecy by that point.”
“Well I’d better go and make sure she doesn’t tell anyone… and you’d better delete this chat.”
“Yeah.” Noel said. He grabbed the mouse and highlighted the entire conversation. “You did get the photo didn’t you?” he asked. Carol nodded and Noel hit the ‘delete’ key.
Carol went to her own room, checked her laptop to make sure that the photograph had been received then went down to the sitting room. Her mother is on the phone. “…well they do say EP schools are outperforming normal schools…” her mother was saying.
“Mu-um!” Carol gasped, putting her finger to her lips. “Peter doesn’t want anyone to know!” she shouted in hushed tones.
“Just a tick Joyce… Carol wants something.” her mother said. She put her palm over the receiver. “What are you saying?”
“Peter doesn’t want anyone to know!” Carol repeated. “Who are you talking to?”
“Maureen, Mark’s mum.”
Carol sighed. “Well… can you ask her to keep quiet?” she asked. “Pete’s coming back down at half term and would rather no one knows that he’s going to an EP school.”
“I see…. just a tick.” her mother replied. She put the receiver back to her ear and explained the situation. “Oh, I see… well, if you could explain it to them.” she said. “I’d better go … See you soon Maureen … yeah … bye.” she replaced the receiver and informed Carol that both Maureen’s husband and Mark probably overheard enough of her half of the conversation.
“Grrrr…. Pete’s going to be really mad if everyone knows. I promised him I’d keep it quiet.”
“Well it was Noel who told me.”
“I know… and you wasted no time in telling Mark’s mum.” Carol stated.
“Well I didn’t know it was a secret.” her mother replied.