Trying for Love

Chapter 1 - 2009

"She not here yet?" Henry said, scanning over the desk on the raised platform to look for any sign of teacher.

"No," shouted Olivia from the back of the classroom, hardly looking his way so she didn't lose pace with her own conversation.

Henry smoothed down his tie which had flipped up over his shoulder as he had raced across the quad. Only when he had wondered where his best friend Ewan was, did he realise he needed to be in class, not lounging in the common room with his teammates.

It was Monday, so biology was the first lesson and Mrs Ellis was late as usual, so the class was huddled in their clusters. The laboratory was old, with wide wooden workbenches that stretched the width of the room in five rows. Henry had settled on the middle bench, with his feet resting on his stool listening to Ewan describing - in what could only be described as too much detail - his night with Lily from the year below.

"You're disgusting," said Olivia who was seated on the bench behind with Beth and Ellen.

"Stop listening in then," Ewan made a face of incredulity at Henry.

"Hardly call it listening in when you're broadcasting it to the room, you foghorn," Olivia made a good point. Henry and Ewan looked around, everyone was watching, even Katie, the nerdy girl at the front row, was clearly listening.

"Is she even legal?" Jane laughed from the front, making Ewan blush.

"Yeah, course." He looked to Henry for reassurance, who just shrugged in response.

The door then slammed shut, Mrs Ellis stood in front of her desk holding a stack of papers. Bags were moved to the floor and books were taken out and students who'd been sat on the benches quickly moved to their stools. It wasn't that Mrs Ellis was intimidating, it was actually the opposite. She was a small woman, rarely taller than a first year and her petite frame was only as wide as her narrow shoulders as if not to impose on anyone's personal space. The timidity of her voice often misled students into thinking she wouldn't bite back; however her quiet command of a room silenced even the most rowdy. It was her patience, her watchfulness of slight changes in another's demeanour and her ability to distil the most complex of theories to the essence you needed to pass exams, which had earned her respect.

"I have your mock exams here, all marked and graded. Don't be discouraged with your mark, but don't be satisfied either," she warned. "We'll spend this lesson going through them and then that's it, we move on and focus on the next topic so we're on schedule for your exams next year."

Mrs Ellis started walking along the benches, handing back the papers to the respective student with a short remark. "Well done", "Better than expected", "Some areas to improve on there", "If you keep this up, you'll be on your way to the top grade next year". Henry gave her a smile as she handed his exam back, but it quickly dropped when he saw the score inked in red.

"This is worrying, Henry. Have a good read through and as I'm going through the answers, make careful notes in a different colour," and she walked away.

Ewan looked over at the number in red ink, "Oh, mate. Did you open a book?"

Henry had opened a book, he'd opened many books but as soon as he would finish reading a paragraph he'd forgotten the previous and when this had stressed him out, he found he could barely read a sentence without losing all sense of its meaning. So he gave up on the textbooks and tried videos, but they used terms he didn't understand. Mrs Ellis' explanations had become distorted to just out of reach of Henry's memory. So he went through his notes, but they were only half there. In the end, he'd spent much of that mock exam staring at the clock.

Up until then, the year had been going pretty great for Henry Gosforth. Although he'd missed out on the under eighteens' England Rugby Squad, he was the school's top scorer and the team had won the regional cup. He had less than two years left of school and he was confident that he would get a contract for a club by the time he sat his A Levels. Biology therefore, had been pushed to the back of his list of worries, mostly.