Wicked! (2 page)
Authors: Jilly Cooper
Tags: #Administration, #Social Science, #Social Classes, #General, #Education
NON-FICTION
ANIMALS IN WAR
CLASS
HOW TO SURVIVE CHRISTMAS
HOTFOOT TO ZABRISKIE POINT
(with Patrick Lichfield)
INTELLIGENT AND LOYAL
JOLLY MARSUPIAL
JOLLY SUPER
JOLLY SUPERLATIVE
JOLLY SUPER TOO
SUPER COOPER
SUPER JILLY
SUPER MEN AND SUPER WOMEN
THE COMMON YEARS
TURN RIGHT AT THE SPOTTED DOG
WORK AND WEDLOCK
ANGELS RUSH IN
ARAMINTA’S WEDDING
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
LITTLE MABEL
LITTLE MABEL’S GREAT ESCAPE
LITTLE MABEL SAVES THE DAY
LITTLE MABEL WINS
ROMANCE
BELLA
EMILY
HARRIET
IMOGEN
LISA
&
CO
OCTAVIA
PRUDENCE
ANTHOLOGIES
THE BRITISH IN LOVE
VIOLETS AND VINEGAR
This book is dedicated with love and admiration to two great headmistresses, Virginia Frayer and Katherine Eckersley, and also in loving memory of the Angel School, Islington, and Village High School, Derby
| CAST OF CHARACTERS | |
| | |
| A DELE | Single mother who teaches geography at Larkminster Comprehensive (otherwise known as Larks). |
| P ARIS A LVASTON | Larks pupil and icon. Founder member of the notorious Wolf Pack. |
| A NATOLE | Bagley Hall pupil and beguiling son of the Russian Minister of Affaires. |
| R UFUS A NDERSON | Brilliant and eccentric head of geography at Bagley Hall. Henpecked father of two, liable to leave coursework on trains. |
| S HEENA A NDERSON | Rufus’s concupiscent careerist wife – the main reason Rufus hasn’t been given a house at Bagley Hall. |
| M RS A XFORD | Chief caterer at Bagley Hall. |
| M ISS B ASKET | A menopausal misfit who teaches geography at Larks. |
| B EA FROM THE B EEB | A researcher at the Teaching Awards. |
| D ORA B ELVEDON | Bagley Hall new girl. Determined to support her pony and her chocolate Labrador by flogging school scandal to the tabloids. |
| D ICKY B ELVEDON | Dora’s equally resourceful twin brother who runs his own school shop at Bagley Hall selling booze and fags. |
| L ADY B ELVEDON (A NTHEA ) | Dicky and Dora’s young, very pretty, very spoilt mother. A Violet Elizabeth Bottox, drastically impoverished by widowhood, and determined to hunt for a rich new husband, unobserved by her beady son and daughter. |
| J UPITER B ELVEDON | Dora and Dicky’s machiavellian eldest brother, chairman of the governors at Bagley Hall, Tory MP for Larkminster, and tipped to take over the party leadership. |
| H ANNA B ELVEDON | Jupiter’s lovely and loving wife, a painter. |
| S OPHY B ELVEDON | An English teacher of splendid proportions and great charm. Ian and Patience Cartwright’s daughter, and wife of Jupiter Belvedon’s younger brother, Alizarin. |
| D ULCIE B ELVEDON | Adorable and self-willed daughter of Sophy and Alizarin. |
| S IR H UGO B ETTS | Governor of Larks who sleeps through most meetings. |
| J AMES B ENSON | An extremely smooth private doctor. |
| T HE B ISHOP OF L ARKMINSTER | A governor of Bagley Hall. |
| G ORDON B LENCHLEY | The unsavoury care manager of Oaktree Court, Paris Alvaston’s children’s home. |
| H ENGIST B RETT -T AYLOR | Hugely charismatic headmaster of Bagley Hall. |
| S ALLY B RETT -T AYLOR | Hengist’s wife, classic beauty and jolly good sort, hugely contributory towards Hengist’s success. |
| O RIANA B RETT -T AYLOR | Hengist and Sally’s daughter, a much admired BBC foreign correspondent. |
| W ALLY B RISTOW | Stalwart site manager at Larks. |
| G ENERAL B ROADSTAIRS | Lord Lieutenant of Larkshire and governor of Bagley Hall. |
| ‘B OFFIN ’ B ROOKS | The cleverest boy at Bagley Hall, a humourless prig. |
| S IR G ORDON B ROOKS | Boffin’s father, a thrusting captain of industry. |
| A LEX B RUCE | Deputy head of Bagley Hall, nicknamed Mr Fussy. |
| P OPPET B RUCE | His dreadful wife, who teaches RE. An acronymphomaniac, determined to impose total political correctness on Bagley Hall. |
| C HARISMA B RUCE | Alex and Poppet’s severely gifted daughter. |
| M ARIA C AMBOLA | Larks’s splendidly flamboyant head of music. |
| R UPERT C AMPBELL -B LACK | Former showjumping champion and Tory Minister for Sport. Now leading owner/trainer, and director of Venturer, the local ITV station. Despite being as bloody-minded as he is beautiful, Rupert is still Nirvana for most women. |
| T AGGIE C AMPBELL -B LACK | His adored wife – an angel. |
| X AVIER C AMPBELL -B LACK | Bagley Hall pupil and Rupert and Taggie’s adopted Colombian son, who has hit moody adolescence head-on. |
| B IANCA C AMPBELL -B LACK | Xavier’s ravishingly pretty, sunny-natured younger sister, also adopted and Colombian. |
| I AN C ARTWRIGHT | Former commanding officer of a tank regiment, now bursar at Bagley Hall. |
| P ATIENCE C ARTWRIGHT | Ian’s loyal wife – a trooper who teaches riding and runs the stables at Bagley. |
| M RS C HALFORD | Head of history at Larks. A self-important bossy boots who likes to be referred to as ‘Chally’. |
| T ARQUIN C OURTNEY | Charismatic captain of rugger at Bagley Hall. |
| A LISON C OX | Sally Brett-Taylor’s housekeeper, known as ‘Coxie’. |
| J ANNA C URTIS | Larks’s very young, Yorkshire-born headmistress. |
| P.C. C UTHBERT | A zero-tolerant police constable, determined to impose order on Larks. |
| D ANIJELA | Larks pupil from Bosnia. |
| D ANNY | Larks pupil from Ireland. |
| E MLYN D AVIES | A former Welsh rugby international, known as Attila the Hunk, who teaches history at Bagley Hall and coaches the rugger fifteens to serial victory. |
| D EBBIE | Ace cook at Larks. |
| A RTIE D EVERELL | Head of modern languages at Bagley Hall. |
| A SHTON D OUGLAS | The sinister, lisping Chief Executive Officer of S and C Services, the private company brought in by the Government to supervise education in Larkshire. |
| E NID | Lachrymose librarian at Larks. |
| P RIMROSE D UDDON | Earnest, noble-browed, ample-breasted form prefect at Bagley Hall. |
| V ICKY F AIRCHILD | Two-faced but both of them extremely pretty. Cures truancy at Larks overnight when Janna Curtis appoints her as head of drama. |
| J ASON F ENTON | Larks’s deputy head of drama, known as Goldilocks. |
| P IERS F LEMING | Wayward head of English at Bagley Hall. |
| J OHNNIE F OWLER | Good-looking Larks hellraiser; BNP supporter; persistent truant. |
| L ANDO F RANCE -L YNCH | Master of the Bagley Beagles, whose sparse intellect is compensated for by dazzling all-round athletic and equestrian ability. |
| D AISY F RANCE -L YNCH | His sweet mother, a painter, wife of Ricky France-Lynch, former England polo captain. |
| F REDDIE | A waiter at La Perdrix d’Or restaurant. |
| C HIEF I NSPECTOR T IMOTHY G ABLECROSS | A wise, kind and extremely clever policeman. |
| M AGS G ABLECROSS | The wise, kind wife of the Chief Inspector, part-time modern languages teacher at Larks. |
| G LORIA | PE teacher at Larks not given to hiding her physical lights under bushels. |
| T HEO G RAHAM | Head of classics at Bagley Hall, an outwardly crusty old bachelor with a heart of gold. Takes out his hearing aid on Speech Day. |
| G ILLIAN G RIMSTON | Head of Searston Abbey, an extremely successful Larkminster grant-maintained school for girls. |
| L ILY H AMILTON | Aunt of Jupiter, Dicky and Dora Belvedon. A merry, very youthful octogenarian and Janna Curtis’s next-door neighbour in the village of Wilmington. |
| D AME H ERMIONE H AREFIELD | World famous diva, seriously tiresome, brings out the Crippen in all. |
| W ADE H ARGREAVES | An unexpectedly humane Ofsted Inspector. |
| D ENZIL H ARPER | Head of PE at Bagley Hall. |
| U NCLE H ARLEY | Jamaican drugs dealer, lives on and off with Feral Jackson’s mother. |
| S IR D AVID ‘H ATCHET ’ H AWKLEY | Headmaster of Fleetley, illustrious classical scholar. Later Lord Hawkley. |
| L ADY H AWKLEY (H ELEN ) | A nervy beauty. Having numbered Rupert Campbell-Black and Roberto Rannaldini among her former husbands, Helen hopes marriage to David Hawkley means calmer waters. |
| R OD H YDE | An awful autocrat, headmaster of St James’s, a highly successful Larkminster grant-maintained school, known as St Jimmy’s. |
| ‘S KUNK ’ I LLINGWORTH | Deputy head of science at Larks. |
| ‘F ERAL ’ J ACKSON | Larks’s leading truant, Paris Alvaston’s best friend and founder member of the Wolf Pack. Afro-Caribbean, beautiful beyond belief, seriously dyslexic, and a natural athlete. |
| N ANCY J ACKSON | Feral’s mother, a heroin addict. |
| J ESSAMY | A teaching assistant at Larks. |
| J ESSICA | Hengist Brett-Taylor’s stunning second secretary, a typomaniac. |
| J OAN J OHNSON | Head of science at Bagley Hall, also in charge of Boudicca, the only girls’ house. Nicknamed ‘No-Joke Joan’ because of a total lack of humour. |
| M RS K AMANI | Long-suffering owner of Larks’s nearest newsagent’s. |
| K ATA | Larks pupil and wistful asylum-seeker from Kosovo. |
| A YSHA K HAN | One of Larks’s few achievers. Destined for an arranged marriage in Pakistan. |
| R ASCHID K HAN | Aysha’s bullying father. |
| M RS K HAN | Aysha’s bullied but surprisingly brave mother. |
| R USSELL L AMBERT | Ponderous chairman both of Larks’s governors and Larkminster planning committee. |
| L ANCE | An understandably terrified newly qualified Larks history teacher. |
| A MBER L LOYD -F OXE | Minxy founder member of the ‘Bagley Babes’, otherwise known as the ‘Three Disgraces’. |
| B ILLY L LOYD -F OXE | Amber’s father, an ex-Olympic showjumper, now a presenter for the BBC. |
| J ANEY L LOYD -F OXE | His unprincipled journalist wife. |
| J UNIOR L LOYD -F OXE | Amber’s merry, racing-mad twin brother. |
| L YDIA | Another understandably terrified newly qualified Larks English teacher. |
| L UBEMIR | Albanian asylum-seeker and safe-breaker, which makes him an extremely useful partner-in-crime to Cosmo Rannaldini. |
| M R M ATES | Larks science master, almost as old as Archimedes. |
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