A
spanking— Ella is spanking me. Okay, no,
she's spanking a squash ball, but I can pretend. I don't
really know a thing about squash, so I can't tell you
whether she's any good. From the spanking perspective,
however; well, I know she's good.
But
it's very short-lived: suddenly she puts her hands to
her head and shrieks in pain, and the scene becomes a
flashy series of images: a weird scary chair, a boring
guy (er, I mean Azazeal), a yellow chunk of plastic (oh,
I mean the magical stone thingie). Ella holds her heads
and grimaces and stares at the mirror, mirror, on the
wall, which promptly cracks. Ah, that whole cracked mirror
thing... so deeply symbolic, yet also so over-the-top-'70s/'80s-suspense-film.
Hmm, what does that combination remind you of? Here's
a hint: it starts with 'H' and ends with 'X'.
That
so-called school — Jez is babbling about
diversity and society and difference and the rights of
the individual and other things people like to talk about
when they want to sound intelligent. His babbles are accompanied
by the beeping of Roxanne's cell as she distributes the
picture of Leon tied to a tree — distributes it to
everyone in the class. The cacophony of ringtones is enough
to make me want to strangle myself. Oh, lucky me: Roxanne
appears to be wearing something around her neck that would
assist me in this matter. What is that thing? Never mind:
if it's not a noose, I don't want to know.
Jez
just ignores the phones and splathers on. You're worthless,
Jez: I'd have confiscated all those cells by now. But
what he lacks in technique, he makes up for in timing:
he begins to talk about witches just as Ella walks in.
Ella looks distracted and exhausted as she sits down —
and you'd have to be pretty far gone indeed not to notice
that Thelma is sprawled on the desk, on her stomach, looking
rather... well, like she might like to be Ella's squash
ball.
Jez
mentions the witch who was tried at the corn exchange
in Medenham Village in 1666. Thelma responds appropriately
with a "hmm, who could that be?" face.
After
class, Ella finds Leon at his locker and tries to talk
to him, but he's pouting and feeling exposed and vulnerable
and all of those other things you feel when your nearly-naked
photo has been sent round the school.
So
Ella shuffles off, to where Thelma's perched atop the
bank of lockers, indolently chomping on grapes. Thelma
wonders whether it's Ella's time of the month — "You've
just got that look about you, that's all." She tells
Ella to eat more fruit and veg, and then lobs a grape
at a passing blonde girl. That's so unfair: we all want
to know whether the grape hit the girl, and whether anyone
saw a grape hurtling through the air from some unseen
hand, and whether Thelma's ever going to become a real
ghost. She's the Pinocchio of lesbian ghost land.
The
library — Thelma's chatting with Ella about
the Medenham witch. Well, actually, Thelma's asking none-too-subtle
questions in an effort to work out whether Ella is
the Medenham witch. The rest of us have already concluded
that yes, Ella is the very same, and the larger and more
important question is whether the Medenham witch has a
history of cavorting with lesbian ghosts.
Ella:
"Thelma, go and bug someone else, all right?"
Thelma: [as Ella leaves] "You
know the best thing about being a ghost? No PMT."
And
apparently no trouble operating library computers, despite
a complete inability to touch human flesh. Cybersex indeed.
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