“Well, whatever,” I say, my voice coming out screechy and weird. “We’d better get some work done. Where to start? So, erm”—I tap the pen on my notebook—“comedy. If you want to win the competition this time, you—we—need to up our game. We need your routine to be unique, memorable. To bust-out laugh at something you need to be caught off guard. So we know we’re going with your teenage, boyish persona, but we don’t want to pick the obvious stuff, so first we need to start with a list of that, then discard it.”
“A list! Now that’s definitely sexy.”
I’m actually getting used to his random little flirtations I guess you’d call them, so I manage to reply pretty quickly. “I know, right. List-makers are super hot.”
So we spend time coming up with the obvious stuff, and by the end of it we’ve got a really good list. Gaming, hating shopping, blah-blah-blah.
“You’re sure this is stuff we shouldn’t use, right?” says Leo, looking at the list.
“Yep. Or at least, if we do, we should put a new twist on it.”
“Okay, so what can we write jokes about?”
“Something that sounds a bit more real. I mean, in what ways aren’t you a stereotypical teenage boy? Maybe we could kick off from there?”
And then we start talking, really talking, about him, his life, about what he’s into, what he’s not into, and I learn that while he ticks a few of the usual teenage-boy boxes—gaming, social media, and an obsession with sneakers being a few of them—he’s also a stickler for proper spelling and punctuation in messaging, he can’t skateboard to save his life (he takes the bus everywhere), he likes reading P. G. Wodehouse books (I know, right, just adorable!), he’s scared of drugs, and he hates dystopian films. Plus, of course, the fact that he’s trying to get into Cambridge.
Every time either of us laughs, it’s like my insides go all shiny and tingly and I don’t ever want the feeling to end. It’s like we’ve got a genuine spark, a connection. When he eventually says he ought to get on with his homework and I realize I have to go, my heart deflates a little.
“So we’ll both try to think of some jokes based around this stuff before we next meet, yeah?” I say, desperately hoping he actually wants to get together again as already I can’t wait.
“Sounds good. I’m free on Thursday after school. Why don’t I come to yours this time?” he says, leaning in and adding in a whisper, “I’ll promise your mum we’ll keep your bedroom door open.”
My face goes bright red. “Right, yeah, that would be, that would be, that would be cool,” I say, trying so hard to sound casual and in no way utterly, utterly desperate for this whole thing to never end, ever. “My mum will be there, probably asleep after a night shift though.”
“Okay, I’ll try not to make you laugh too loudly with all the amazing new ideas I’m gonna have by then.” He grabs the empty lemonade glasses from the table and takes them to the sink. “So, will your dad be there too?”
“What?”
“Your dad? The bearded guy?”
“OH! No, no. The bearded troll is not my dad and no, he won’t be there, thank God. He and my mum had a little thing—eurgh—but it was nothing and now it’s all over so you don’t have to worry about him.”
“Shame, I liked him.”
“You did?” I say, frowning.
“Yeah, he was cool, and funny, cracked a couple of jokes, made me laugh.”
“He did?” I say.
“Yeah and your mum was laughing too. It was kinda cute—they looked really happy together. Anyway, seems a shame they’ve split up is all.”
I start packing away my notebook and pen into my bag. “I don’t know, I thought he was a bit of a tit.”
“Oh.” He nods and rubs his chin in his hand. “I get it. You don’t want your mum to be with someone else ’cause they’ll never be as good as your real dad, right?”
“No! Believe me, a squashed slug on the pavement would be as good as my dad.”
“Wow, harsh,” he says, hands in the air in surrender.
I get up and sling my bag over my shoulder to the soundtrack of a relieved chair loudly farting.
He wafts his hand in front of his nose and pretends to gag. “Seriously, girl, you wanna see a doctor about that.”
“Oh no, if I actually farted, believe me you’d know about it. So would everyone in the streets. In Moscow.”
He laughs, then says in his most sarcastic voice, “Yeah, you’re right—it’s a mystery why you haven’t got a boyfriend yet.”
“I know, right? I’m all woman.”
This is chuffin’ brilliant. I’ve never flirted with a guy before, but it kinda feels like that’s what we’re doing now.
Then Leo gets serious again. “But you know, just to quickly go back to what we were talking about, before you farted so explosively…my mum and dad split up too. Mum left Dad for Pete—this is Pete’s house. Anyway, I didn’t like him much at first either… But look, I got to like Pete because he makes my mum happy and Dad didn’t. And when Mum’s happy I’m happy, because before she used to get mad at me before I even woke up. But now, well, it’s at least teatime before she starts throwing dishes at my head.”
“Bit clichéd,” I say with a laugh. “Don’t write that one down. Well, my mum is happy—she’s cool with it being just us.”
“Okay, I hear you. I’ll butt out. Anyway,” he says, and as he walks past me he raises an eyebrow, “speaking of dads and butts—”
So he does know I’m the talk of the school. I cringe and cover my face with my hands and look at him through the gaps between my fingers. “Eurgh—I can’t believe I did something that made those two words exist in the same sentence!”
“Don’t worry about it—no one will even remember it tomorrow. Oh, but my dad wants to know when you’re free for your second date?”
“Eurgh! Shut up!” I say, elbowing him in the ribs in a desperate and pathetic attempt at more body contact with him, however violent and sweater-clad.
I gather Noah and his stuff up and we step out of the front door.
Just before we go, Leo suddenly says: “Oh, Haylah, if it’s okay with you, I think it’s best if people don’t know I’m getting help with the comedy writing thing. There’ll be quite a few buddies coming to the competition gig and, I don’t know, they might not laugh so much if they think it’s not all coming from me, yeah?”
“Yeah, erm, okay, makes sense,” I say. And I guess it does.
“Thanks. You’re awesome.” he says, “And, y’know, pretty funny. For a girl.”
Then he actually winks at me.
“Shut up!” I say with a nauseating flirtatious voice I’ve never used before. I will my cheeks not to respond to his wink, but they ignore me and glow hotter than the surface of the sun. I turn away from him and grab Noah’s hand.
“Say goodbye, Noah.”
“Bye, Leo!” he says. Then, looking at me, says very loudly, “Your face looks weird, Hay. All hot and smiley.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Back at home, Mum’s sitting on the sofa, munching her way through a tube of Pringles and staring at a TV that isn’t even on. This can’t be good.
Noah runs in and jumps up next to her.
“Hey, Mum, how was work?” I ask, trying to keep things chipper.
She takes a moment to answer. “Oh, you know, fine. How was school, both of you?”
“I painted a dinosaur and called him Jeff,” says Noah proudly, his mouth already stuffed with chips.
“That sounds great. And you, Hay?”
“Pretty much the same. Dinosaur, yep, Jeff, yep, same stuff. And you got my message about us going over to Leo’s after school, right?”
“Yeah…oh, is it not three thirty then?”
“No, Mum, it’s half five,” I say, collapsing down into the armchair.
“Oh. I guess I didn’t notice the time go. So how was Leo? Are you and him…?”
“No! No, we’re just friends. I’m helping him out with a sch
ool project, that’s all. I mean, I like him, but I don’t think he likes me, not like that. I think. He might though. I’m not sure.” I sigh, staring up at the celling before snapping out of my trance and saying, “Anyway, can he come over on Thursday after school?”
“Yeah, sure love, that’s fine,” she says in a small voice.
“He’s going to Cambridge, you know. The university. When he finishes school. Gonna join the Footlights and everything.”
“Cambridge. Wow. That’s nice,” she says, stroking Noah’s hair.
“Is Ruben coming over again soon?” says Noah.
Mum winces. “No, love. No, he’s not.”
“I miss him!” says Noah before I distract him and my guilt by putting on the TV.
After a couple of episodes of Peppa Pig, I get up to go to my room, touching Mum’s arm as I pass her and Noah who are lying on the sofa together.
“Are you okay, Mum?” I ask.
“What?” She looks up at me. “Yeah, of course. I’ll get some dinner in a bit, okay? Some pasta or something.”
“That would be great, if you’re not too tired?”
“No, I’m fine, babe. I’m fine.”
She’ll be okay, I think, in a day or so. I grab a snack, then head to my bedroom. I pull off my school shirt and “sturdy fit” school pants and dig around in my wardrobe among the mountain of baggy jeans, check shirts, and hoodies and pull on something slightly more comfortable, though just as dull.
After changing, I lie back on my bed, replaying my conversations with Leo from this afternoon in my mind. I think maybe he likes me, not just as a friend but likes me likes me. I smile as I think of us sitting at his kitchen table next to each other, our arms resting on the table, almost touching. Then I think of his smile. His laugh. And his eyes. And the way he’d looked at me like no boy has ever looked at me before. Like I was a girl. A girl worth looking at.
I get up and go over to my full-length mirror, trying to see in myself what he might have. Some womanly, attractive quality that’s crept into my being without me noticing. Some sign that I might be changing from the chubby child-caterpillar I was into the beautiful, graceful butterfly I might become.
But no.
Staring back at me is the same brown-haired dumpling of a girl I’ve always been, the only difference between the me now and the me as a toddler being large bosoms that have sprouted from my chest—and the fact that adults no longer look at me and say things like, “Oooh, she’s just so squidgy—I could eat her right up!” It’s an unavoidable truth that what’s seen as endearing in a toddler—a round tummy, food around their mouth, snot bubbles coming out of their nose, that look of intense concentration as they fill their diaper—does not remain endearing in a teenager.
I sigh as I attempt to change the reflection in front of me. I fold my hair up, trying to imagine what I’d look like if I did cut my hair into a bob, but a pink balloon wearing a helmet stares back at me. Then I pull down the bottom of my sweater as far as it will go and hold it taut at the back to imagine what a dress like Chloe and Kas are always telling me to wear would look like.
But I just look like someone stuffed a pug into a sock.
I’ve never wanted to wear dresses anyway. Dresses are too girlie for me. And I’m not girlie. I don’t even want to be girlie. But I am a girl. And I do like being a girl. Just not the kind everyone else seems to want to see.
We all know it’s legit girlie girls that people want, and we all know what girlie girls should look like. And act like. We see it on the TV. In magazines. In films. They should be sexy yet innocent, gossipy yet sensitive, flirty and giggly, and always pretty and happy with faultless, fatless skin and pouty lips. Any girl different to that is considered inferior, so, if she’s brash or plain or tough or strong or loud or ambitious or clumsy or bossy or sarcastic or big or funny, she is less than girlie, making her less than a girl.
Boys, on the other hand, come in all shapes and sizes and personality types and they’ll still fit the idea of what a boy should be. There just seem to be more ways to be considered attractive for them. Just look at Stevie. Tiny, quiet, shy, stupid—nothing traditionally “boyish” there—yet still, according to Chloe (your classic, pretty girlie girl), a complete hotty.
But there’s only one kind of girl that boys want, and I’m not it. And there’s nothing I can do about that. So surely Leo can’t like me, not like that. After all, what’s to like?
But then he did say I’m not fat. And he sort of said that I’m sexy. Which of course doesn’t mean I’m thin or that I actually am sexy, but still. It’s the nicest thing a boy’s ever said to me. Apart from when Noah once told me he loves me more than ice cream.
I lie back on my bed again. Close my eyes and think about Leo. And imagine him kissing me.
Which is actually a really girlie thing to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Over the next few days at school, I look out for Leo, but I don’t see him. But at least my reputation as a dad-snatcher with destructive buttocks begins to fade. There’s the odd giggle or comment, but now the worst of the humiliation has faded I laugh along with them, giving it the whole, “Yeah, I agree, I am an idiot, aren’t I!” act and pretty soon people lose interest.
The atmosphere between me, Chloe, and Kas stays super awkward though. We’ve been best friends for years and sometimes, like all good friends, we fall out (though not Kas really; she always takes the sensible middle ground). We argue. We make up. It’s all fine, part of being friends, right? But recently we’ve been falling out more, and it feels different somehow. And it scares me that we might be growing apart. As if the differences that were always between us, that started off as tiny insignificant cracks, are widening as we grow up and will soon become huge chasms too wide to cross.
Our friendship used to be simple. It was all about laughing, playing, being silly together. Now sometimes it feels like it’s all boyfriends, fashion, moisturizer, and nail routines, and I can’t keep up with it and I’m not sure I want to. But I can’t imagine a world without these two. We need each other, and we know each other better than anyone.
But perhaps they don’t know me all that well any more perhaps that’s the problem. I don’t let them in as much as I did. I don’t tell them stuff. I don’t tell them I don’t want to wear the clothes they’re wearing, not because I think I’ll look bad in them (though this is true), but because they’re just not me. I don’t tell them I don’t want to be thought of as “hot”—I just want to be thought of as funny. I don’t tell them I like a boy, not because I think me and him would look good together but because he makes me laugh. I don’t tell them because I’m afraid they’ll realize I’m just too different from them and they won’t want me around any more.
But all this is making me think that maybe I should tell them about Leo. I should let them in, otherwise I might lose them forever. And anyway it’s nice to have some “girlie” news to share for once.
So, when we’re sitting outside on the grass, eating lunch, I take a deep breath and go for it. I tell them everything—how I secretly wrote the jokes for Leo, how he came over to my house and asked me to write his set with him. I tell them I went to his house. I tell them about the farting chairs, about how cool he is with Noah, how I made him laugh, how he made me laugh, how he told me I wasn’t fat. I tell them I think he might like me. I tell them I know I like him.
And it’s great—they lap it all up, getting excited and giggling in all the right places, and it feels amazing. I should have told them from the start—it was crazy not to. They’re my friends—my best friends. What was I thinking not telling them about the best thing that’s ever happened to me?
Their mouths are open for much of the story and when I’m done Kas giggles and says, “Well, O.M.Geeesus that’s aMAzing, Pig! You and Leo!”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” says Chloe, actually sounding a bit hurt. “I mean, we all knew you liked Leo—why didn’t you just own up?”
“I kno
w, I’m sorry. I just, I don’t know, I thought you’d think it was hopeless, or stupid, or something. Plus, at the open-mic night, it kinda looked like you were into Leo.”
Uh-oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Chloe’s puppy-dog hurt look changes to she-beast in a split second.
“What? No, it didn’t! It’s not my fault he came and sat next to me, is it?”
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter now, does it?” says Kas brightly, trying, as always, to keep the peace.
“I guess not,” says Chloe. Then her eyes light up. “I can’t believe you’ve been in Leo Jackson’s house. That’s SO FRICKIN’ cool.”
Phew. The she-beast’s back in her cave.
“I know, right?” I say, my heart glowing at their excitement.
Then, after lunch and on our way to a history lesson, the three of us still on a high about my news, Chloe suddenly slaps me in the stomach with the back of her hand.
“Ow! What?” I say.
“Shh—look. It’s LEO, over there!”
My insides flip out. He’s at the end of the hallway, walking toward us with a bunch of his friends, including that tall girl Keesha, right beside him as always, silhouetted apart from a shaft of sunlight from the window lighting up her teeth braces making her resemble a harmonica-playing stick insect.
I back up against the wall, not sure what to do. Chloe and Kas gather around.
“Well, go on then—go and say hi. I mean, he’s your friend now, right?” says Kas excitedly.
Oh God. If I don’t say hi to him, Chloe and Kas will think I’m lying about the whole thing, but if I do say hi to him, in front of his friends, he might not like it and then the whole thing will be off. But then why shouldn’t he like it? I mean, we are friends now, right? Mildly flirtatious friends at that.
But what if he cringes with embarrassment at me? I’m not saying he would… I mean, he probably wouldn’t, but what if he does? I’m not sure I could take that. And it’s probably not fair to put him on the spot like that. Best to just let him walk on by.
“Nah, not now,” I say as casually as possible. “Actually, do you know what? I think I need a wee. Let’s go back to the bathrooms over there.” I point pathetically in the opposite direction to Leo who’s now almost in front of us.
Pretty Funny for a Girl Page 15