Page 64 of Hot to Go

‘Super divertido,’ I tell her.

‘Bien sûr.’

I can’t help smiling when I hear her speak French. Bonjour again, Aurelie. That was fun while it lasted, eh? Maybe that’s the remit of our jobs, we role-play and read out scripts all the time as the kids try and work out what we’re saying. Maybe it all became real life for a while. If anything, it just shows how good we are at our jobs.

The moment is suddenly overtaken by thundering footsteps on the stairs and Lee appears, a little frazzled, like he’s being chased, hopefully not by the students.

‘Thank monkeys for that. I thought I may have missed you. You’re still here…’ he says.

‘Me?’ I tell him. ‘Yeah, the bell has only just gone.’

‘No, Suzie,’ he says. He clings to a desk to steady himself. ‘Fraser…downstairs…’

‘Wasn’t in today. Is he OK?’ Suzie asks. ‘Is it something serious?’

‘Oh god, no…daft prick dislocated his shoulder playingpickleball. How on earth does a person do that? It’s basically badminton with children’s rackets,’ he says, almost a little angrily. ‘But he was due to go on the trip tomorrow and now we’re stuck. We have to take another adult to balance the ratios otherwise we’re screwed. The trips team are pulling their hair out and the parents will lose their shit with us if we cancel.’

We both stand there, taking in all that information. I don’t even know what pickleball is, has he made that up? ‘Could we ask a parent?’ I ask.

‘The safeguarding is the problem. So, I am literally just here, begging you to come on this trip, Suzie. I don’t know if you have plans or a holiday booked…’

‘She was just planning on doing laundry,’ I say, out loud.

Suzie looks at me and smiles. ‘Doesn’t it leave tomorrow though?’

‘Yes, seven thirty,’ Lee says. ‘We’d just have to switch the names on the flight bookings. I’m asking too much, aren’t I? You’re new, I don’t want you to feel pressure to do this. Do you even have a passport?’

‘How long is the trip?’ she asks.

‘We get back Monday.’

She nods then turns to look at me before asking Lee, ‘Who else is going?’

‘Well, there’s me, Jackie from HR…her husband, Mark in site maintenance and Charlie here.’ I put a hand to the air. Yes, I am going to Seville. This might be the killer here, eh? We’ve done a really good job at being grown-up and levelling out what this is so I understand if you want to give it a miss. But there’s a little voice inside that is really hoping she says yes.

‘My Spanish is a little rusty,’ she tells Lee.

‘Mark only knows how to order beer,’ he replies.

She stops for a moment to think. ‘I guess, ¿sí?’ she says. ‘Is that cool with you, Carlos?’

As soon as she says that name I laugh. Are we doing this? Because universe – I don’t quite know what you’re playing at but this feels like a U-turn. It feels dangerous, risky and I quite like it.

‘Yeah. I’m very cool with that.’

PART THREE

SEVILLE

FOURTEEN

Suzie

‘Miss, are those Gazelles? Those are fire,’ Lola tells me, as we all get on the plane, Lee to the front trying to direct people to the right seats. I look down at my red suede trainers and smile.

‘Thanks, lovely. You managed to find something to wear?’ I ask her. When Lola arrived at school, she basically showed up in a crop top and cycling shorts claiming Mr Shaw had told her it’d be really hot and she wouldn’t need much. Mr Shaw disputed this fact quite sternly but it didn’t make up for the fact that all she had in her bag were shorts, crop tops and bikinis.

‘Yeah, Mr Shaw made me wear his hoodie. Does it look crap?’

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