Form Photo Tracey Scene: The McAdam Garage – Thursday 30 March 1978
The McAdams’ garage smelled of oil, old ashtrays, and teenage boredom. The snooker table had been shoved to one side, its green felt now the site of a new campaign. Tri-Tactics metal card stands were scattered like abandoned artillery. A cassette recorder hummed Bowie low and distant under the buzz of the strip heater ticking above them.
On the workbench lay the Winder House photo—sixty boys from Sedbergh, arranged in five rows: cross-legged juniors on the grass, suited staff and seated boys on folding chairs, taller boys standing behind, and the oldest boys perched precariously on benches. Every one of them was wearing the same expression: don’t blink.
Tracey sat cross-legged in her school skirt, scissors in hand, not cutting yet. She was studying faces. Calculating. Still bruised from the disco. Still humming with unfinished business.
“What do you call that haircut Jamie’s got?” she asked.
Scott didn’t look up from his New Scientist.
“The Regulation Shag,” he said. “Everyone in the Fifth Form has one.”
“Looks like he lost a bet.”
Scott glanced over, squinting at her.
“Is this about Jamie? Or is this still about Robbie not dancing with you?”
Tracey paused, then spoke coolly.
“This is about choosing, Scott. Not waiting around to be picked like I’m some orphan at the Girl Guide disco.”
“You’ve never waited,” he said. “You’ve just… detonated things.”
“Yeah? Well, this time I’m going strategic.”
She began cutting—carefully, decisively—selecting boys from Gosforth, Tyneside, and Northumberland. She held them up individually and quizzed Scott on their reputations, who they’d kissed, and what buses they took home. She lined the trimmed faces up in a row like suspects awaiting trial.
“You know most of them are idiots, right?” Scott said.
“I don’t need them to win Mastermind,” she replied, not looking up. “I just need them to blink first.”
She held up Robbie’s face. Looked at it for a long time. He was the first she placed in a metal card stand.
“He’s the one I want.”
“Join the queue,” Scott muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll have your work cut out. He’s got a dozen girls writing to him. He collects them. You know how many Valentines he got?”
“How many?”
“Eleven. Nine verified.”
“Verified?” Tracey raised an eyebrow.
Scott sat up straighter, mildly animated now. “Other boys intercept the post. There’s an annual challenge. You’ve got to prove it’s genuine. Envelope and contents cross-checked. It’s a scandal if you’re caught sending yourself one.”
“Do they fake it?”
“All the time. Juniors must send Valentine cards to Seniors from ‘Sally in Morpeth’ or ‘Judy from Rowland’s Girls’, but someone always figures it out. The stamp’s a giveaway. Why would Sally post from Sedbergh? And the handwriting, however minimal, is usually traced to some squirt in the junior common room.”
Tracey stared at Robbie’s face on the card stand.
“They’re not all girlfriends, surely.”
“Penpals. There’s a girl he’s written to since he was thirteen. A couple of girls’ boarding school types. One at Casterton. Three Gosforth girls, maybe. And then ones he met on cricket tours or in school plays.”
Scott put down New Scientist and rummaged through his satchel, pulling out a folded magazine—Spare Rib, creased at the spine, its cover bold and slightly battered.
“Here,” he said, handing it over. “You should read this instead of flipping through Jackie every week.”
Tracey raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you get that?”
“School debate. Sedbergh and Casterton. ‘Should schools like ours go co-ed?’ Supposed to be in the library for forty, ended up with over two hundred packed into the hall. Girls everywhere. Arguing properly. This was on the floor when everyone left. Someone brought Cosmo too.”
He hesitated. “I took both. Contraband. Locked in my tackle box. For research.”
Tracey stared at him, caught between laughter and disbelief.
“This from the boy who used to build Hot Wheels death traps?”
Scott shrugged. “I’m evolving. You should try it.”
She smiled, just for a second.
Then she turned Robbie’s face over, clipped it back into the stand, and placed it on ball six. Robbie Foster, Pocket One. The one she wanted, regardless of chance.
With Scott’s help, she selected five more:
- Jamie Stephens – Pocket Two, her first random ball
- Simon Smallwood – Pocket Three, second draw
- Paul Peters – Pocket Four was not randomly selected, but he’d already targeted her.
- Eddie Elliot – Pocket Five, fourth to land
- Jack Carr – Pocket Six, chosen for his quiet charisma and pub connections
She nudged the cue ball across the table with deliberate aim. It should have ricocheted toward Robbie’s pocket. Should have sunk him clean. But it clipped the lip, changed course, and dropped Jamie Stephens instead.
Tracey stared at the ball.
“Jamie,” she muttered. Tennis club. Lives down the road.”
Scott nodded, adding school intel and stories from the bus. Jamie hadn’t gone to prep school like some others—he came in at thirteen, like Scott.
“Handy,” Tracey admitted. “Not what I’m after. But being someone’s girl matters.”
Scott raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“All the best girls are taken. Everyone knows that. Being taken means you’re in the game. It’s down to the other boys to steal you away.”
She looked at Robbie’s face, resting just above his unclaimed pocket.
“I want to be stolen,” she said.
She rolled the white ball again. And again. Each time, it just missed Robbie’s pocket. Once, it went in—and bounced straight back out.
Someone doesn’t want me to have him, she thought.
Which made her want him more.
Fate could try to keep them apart. But Tracey McAdam had scissors, a cue stick, and a better sense of strategy than anyone else in the game.
She picked up the ball again.
This wasn’t over.
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