by Katy Cannon
Faith passed the pattern to Mum, who said, “I think that’s a lovely idea.”
“Thanks,” I said. I just hoped that Connor would, too.
What you need:
Patterned fabric
Plain jersey T-shirt
What to do:
1. Measure your waist and the length from your waist to your knee.
2. Measure out your ironed fabric so you have a rectangle twice as long as your waist measurement, and as wide as your waist to knee measurement.
3. Using a sewing machine, sew a zigzag stitch all around the edges of your fabric to prevent fraying.
4. Fold in half, right sides together, and sew a 1cm seam along the short side, to give you a wide tube of fabric.
5. Sew a gathering stitch around the top of the skirt, around 1cm in. Pull the threads to gather the skirt together, until it has almost halved in size.
6. Slide your T-shirt inside your skirt upside-down, so that the right sides are together and the bottom of the T-shirt is lined up with the top of the skirt.
7. Pin in place, first at the seam, then opposite it, then splitting the skirt into quarters, then eighths. You may need to adjust the gathers to fit the T-shirt.
8. Stitch together, making sure that the skirt and top are lined up all the way around.
9. Trim any loose threads and turn the right way around.
10. Try on to check the fit, then hem to the desired length.
Monday came, eventually. I made it to school early, and found Connor already in the mostly empty sixth-form common room. I felt relieved not many people were there to watch as I pulled up my chair to sit beside him at one of the study tables.
“You’re here early,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my face.
“I’m here early every day,” he replied, but he was grinning, too. “I get a lift in with Guy. So you’re the one who’s here unusually early today.”
I shrugged and pulled my bag on to the table. “Maybe I had work to catch up on.”
“Maybe you just wanted to see me again.” Connor leaned in closer, his shoulder pressing against mine.
I pulled back, just a little. “Maybe I was worried you’d spent the whole of yesterday pining for me, despite the couple of dozen text messages we sent each other, and I wanted to put you out of your misery.” Very different text messages to the short, impersonal one he’d sent me about New Year. That already seemed like a lifetime ago. He felt more like Connor with every text sent, even when we were just chatting about homework or whatever.
He laughed. “You’re absolutely right, of course. I pined endlessly.”
“Really?” I turned to face him and found him closer than I’d thought.
“Absolutely.” He moved even closer and kissed me, soft and sweet, right on the lips. “Or I would have been if I hadn’t had to spend the day helping Guy look after Lily while Mum had a day out with Aunty Bea.”
“Ah. Sounds … tiring.”
“Very. Her new favourite game is throwing her mushed-up food all over the kitchen. By the end of lunch it looked like we’d been hit with a carrot bomb.” He kissed me again, a little longer this time. I could really get used to this. “But I was thinking of you the whole time,” he added, as he pulled away.
“So glad that carrot mush reminds you of me,” I murmured, and he laughed.
“What about you?” Connor asked. “What did you get up to yesterday?”
I shrugged. “Not much. Some sewing.” I didn’t want to tell him about the blanket just yet. Not until it was finished, and I knew if it was good enough to actually give as a gift, or not. “Jasper came over and filled me in on all his latest relationship catastrophes.”
“Do I want to know?” Connor asked.
I considered. “Probably not.” Seemed to me that Jasper was still freaking out over not spotting something that absolutely everyone else had – that Izzy wanted more than just to be his friend. He’d talked it through with Yasmin, Skyped with Lottie, and then come round to go through it with me again. All without making any significant progress on the matter, since he was still stuck at “Oh my God, she kissed me!”
“Fair enough. Have you got Sewing Club after school?” Connor asked, and I nodded.
“Same as always. Why?”
“I thought that maybe we could get coffee or something.”
“Sorry. But I really need to finish up a few bits of sewing with Izzy before we start rehearsing in costume at tomorrow’s rehearsal.” Never had I wanted to skive off so much. “Maybe tomorrow? After rehearsal?”
“It’s a date,” Connor said, then kissed me again. I floated off to history in a happy cloud of memory-kisses, and managed to keep my good mood through an entire hour of Jasper rehashing the Izzy-kiss. As we entered hour two, however, I cut him short.
“OK, look. I have to spend an hour and a half with Izzy this afternoon, finishing off costumes. I can pretty much guarantee that the first question she’s going to ask me when I walk in there will be how you’re feeling about things. Even if it should be ‘why is he such a complete idiot?’”
“Hey!” Jasper sat up straighter in his chair as he objected.
“Hey, yourself. You ran out on the girl after she kissed you.”
He slumped down again. “Yeah, fair enough.”
“The point is, if you want an easy way of letting her know what you want to happen next, I can help.” Jasper looked up with hopeful eyes, so I quickly added, “Which doesn’t mean you don’t still have to talk to her – and apologize to her, for that matter. But I can lay the groundwork a bit, if you like.”
Jasper was already nodding. “Please. I don’t understand how I made such a mess of all this.”
“Neither does anyone else, believe me.” It had been so simple when he’d got together with Ella the year before. Well, simple apart from her trying to hide her grandma’s dementia, and then moving two hundred miles away, anyway. So not really that simple.
“You really didn’t know she had feelings for you?” I asked.
Jasper shook his head miserably. “Not a clue. Why? Did you?”
“Kind of.” In the sense that she asked an awful lot of questions about him for someone who was just a friend. “Maybe it’s one of those things that’s always easier to see from the outside.”
“Like you and Connor?” Jasper asked.
I couldn’t help myself. A smile spread across my face at just the thought of it. But we weren’t talking about me and Connor. “So, what do you want me to tell Izzy?”
Jasper stared at me, as if he could convey the inner workings of his poor, confused mind through his eyes.
“Yeah, you’re gonna need to work on your telepathy powers.” I grabbed a clean sheet of paper and a pen, then handed them to him. “Will it help to write it down? I could just deliver a letter, if that’s easier.”
Jasper shook his head. “I wouldn’t know what to say, or even where to start.” He sighed, dropping his head to rest on his arms for a moment. I glanced over to make sure Mr Edwards wasn’t watching, but he was far too busy helping someone on the other side of the room with the primary-source exercise we were supposed to be doing.
“I’ve really screwed things up with Izzy, haven’t I?” The words were muffled through the fabric of his school jumper.
“Yeah, you have. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fix it. I mean, you’d been completely oblivious to her as a girl up until Saturday, too, and she still wanted to kiss you then.”
Jasper looked up long enough to glare at me. “I thought you were supposed to be helping me.”
“I am,” I promised. “If I can tell her that you are honestly sorry and that you’re embarrassed by how thoughtless you’ve been, that could go a long way towards getting Izzy to forgive you.”
Jasper sat up. “Really? OK, well, start there. Tell her I’m sorry. And that I know I’m an idiot. Tell her … tell her I really, really didn’t want to hurt her. That’s the last thing I’d ever want. I just … I got co
nfused, and I wasn’t sure what I should want, or what to do…”
“And now?”
“Now?” Jasper blinked at me.
“Do you know what you want now?” I pressed.
A small line formed across his forehead, and I could see his chest expand as he took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. But I need to tell her that myself.”
I wanted to hug him. Maybe boys weren’t always stupid after all.
“I think that’s a brilliant idea.”
“Could you ask her to meet me, though? Tomorrow – no, not tomorrow. I’ve got that stupid French thing all day. Wednesday, then. Second period – we’re both free. In the textiles classroom.” Jasper looked lighter, somehow, now he’d decided what to do. Like he could see the path ahead of him clearly at last.
“I can do that,” I agreed. Suddenly, I wasn’t dreading Sewing Club nearly so much.
“He wants to see me?” Izzy asked, sounding dubious. “Are you sure? And … why? I thought running out on me was a pretty clear answer to the whole thing.”
I shrugged. “I’m just the messenger. All I know is that he’s sorry, he knows he was an idiot, and he wants to meet you here second period Wednesday to talk.”
“What do you think he’s going to say?” she asked.
“I really don’t know.” I tried to be sympathetic. I mean, if it was me, waiting for some big conversation with Connor, I know I’d have quizzed anyone who knew him to find out what it was about. I’m not all that good at being patient.
“But, do you think it’s… Well, do you think it’s going to be a good conversation?”
I looked at Izzy. Her black hair was caught up in a brightly coloured scarf, and she’d changed into one of her home-sewn patchwork dresses after school again. She was the absolute opposite of Ella in almost every way – confident where Ella had been shy, dark instead of blonde, and fiercely individual, while Ella had been happy to go along with the crowd, most of the time.
And yet, I was pretty sure that Izzy was at least as perfect a match for Jasper, in very different ways to Ella. And I had a suspicion that he’d just figured that out, too.
Isn’t it funny how you never know what you need in a boyfriend or girlfriend until you tumble headlong into it, completely unexpectedly? I smiled to myself, wondering if Connor had finally figured that out about me, too.
“Yeah, I think it will be a good conversation,” I reassured Izzy, and she smiled.
“OK. Then I guess I’ll just have to try and distract myself until Wednesday.”
“Good luck with that.”
She laughed. “Yeah. Not easy. Ooh, but I can start by showing you what I came up with for the last of the girls’ costumes.”
She held up a dress, the top part made of jersey T-shirt material, and the skirt a silky, shimmery material. The low waist and sleeveless top gave it a 1920s flavour.
“This is great!” I took it from her and examined it. “Will you have time to make enough of them?”
“Oh, they’re easy,” Izzy said, which I’d learned to translate as easy for her. “I just took a long vest top from an old production and sewed a skirt on to it. There’s loads more of the tops, too, and enough to match sizes to actresses. Think they’ll do?”
“I think they’ll be perfect.”
Finally everything was coming together.
Tuesday’s rehearsal, on the other hand, was absolute chaos. First, we took up half the time getting everyone into their costumes. We’d have to get faster at that before the opening night. But when everything was still new and different it took a while, and even Connor standing at the door glancing at his watch couldn’t hurry things along.
“You want these to be right, don’t you?” I asked, and Connor rolled his eyes at me. I took it as a sign of affection.
Of course, things would be going considerably quicker if I had any help. “Have you seen Yasmin?” I asked him, and Connor shook his head. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Ash, either, since I gave him his costume and he disappeared to put it on. He’d been in a foul mood, too, barely speaking two words to me. Hopefully Yasmin was cheering him up at that very moment.
“Want me to look for her?”
“Nah. I’ll find her when I’m f inished here.” Yasmin had already done me a favour by agreeing to come in on Tuesdays and Fridays from now until the opening night. I didn’t want to push it by interrupting her private time with Ash.
Mr Hughes stuck his head round the door. “Are we ready in here?”
“Almost,” I told him brightly. “In fact, we’re good to go for the opening scenes.” I’d have a little while until the next scene break when I had to change some people’s costumes again.
“Then let’s get on it!” Mr Hughes clapped his hands, and our actors started to drift onstage.
“The costumes look great,” Connor said, when we were the only two left.
“They’ll look even better when we have the military uniforms from the National Theatre next week.”
“They will.” He grinned at me. “I better get out there.”
I nodded. “And I need to find Yasmin.”
But suddenly the question of where Yasmin had got to was answered when the door flew open and she and Ash stormed in. Behind them, I heard Mr Hughes yell, “I don’t care what your problem is, but I want you both to sort it out quickly and privately so I can get on with my rehearsal!”
“Everything OK, guys?” I asked, as Connor and I stared at each other in confusion.
“Ask her,” Ash said, his face dark and stormy. “She won’t tell me the truth.”
Yasmin rolled her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous! You’re cheating on me and I’m being ridiculous?” Ash yelled.
“Hey, keep it down,” I said. The last thing we needed was to interrupt the rehearsal again or we’d have the entire cast weighing in on the situation. “Now, what happened?” Because I didn’t believe, not for one second, that Yasmin had cheated on Ash. There just wasn’t a chance that was true.
And really, Ash should know that, too.
“It’s just some stupid rumour,” Yasmin said, sounding exasperated. “I don’t know why you even listened to it!”
“Because it’s not just a rumour,” Ash replied. I heard a slight wobble in his voice and realized that, for all his attempt at a big, angry-man impression, he was actually truly upset. “It’s an eyewitness account from someone I trust. They saw you, Yasmin. You and him, together.”
“Well, of course we were together! We’re friends!”
“Hang on. Is this about Yasmin and Jasper?” Because, if so, this was getting less believable all the time. “OK, someone start from the beginning. Please.”
“Last night,” Ash said, the words coming out tight. “I had a visit from a friend. They said they’d been trying to figure out whether they should tell me or not, but if it was them, they’d want to know. So they told me what they’d seen.”
“Which was me and Jasper having coffee at the White Hill Bakery,” Yasmin interrupted. “That’s all.”
“If that was all, why would they need to tell Ash?” Connor asked.
“Because they weren’t just having coffee,” Ash said. “They were kissing.”
“No, we weren’t! I told you, Jasper is my friend. We were talking about his ridiculous relationship stuff.” Yasmin’s frustration leaked out from her in waves.
“It’s true,” I added, wanting to help. “Jasper called me first, but I was in London, so I told him to call Yasmin. Connor was right beside me. You heard me, right?”
I looked up at Connor, but his face, so open and friendly since Saturday, had started to close down again.
“If he was just your friend, why didn’t you tell me you were meeting him?” Ash asked, and Yasmin stared at him in disbelief.
“Because I thought you were my boyfriend, not my probation officer.” She shook her head. “Look, if you don’t want to believe me, fine. I don’t want to date
someone who doesn’t trust me, either, so that works out just great for both of us, doesn’t it?”
This was a disaster. I mean, I applauded everything Yasmin was saying, and I was proud of the way she stood up to Ash’s accusations. But she was crazy about him. And as strong as she was being right then, I knew that this was going to break her heart.
Ash stared at her for a long moment, then snapped his gaze away. “I thought I knew you,” he said. And then he walked out.
My eyes widened, and I turned to the one person I hoped might be able to talk some sense into Ash. “Connor! You have to go after him. Convince him that this is stupid, that Yasmin would never cheat on him.”
Connor’s pale eyes were steady. “I’ll go after him because he’s my friend, and because someone needs to convince him that the show is more important than whatever drama you guys have going on.”
Drama. He thought this was drama? This was Yasmin. And she mattered a lot more than whatever issues he had.
As the door shut behind him, Yasmin let out the sob she’d been holding in for who knew how long. I hurried to her side and wrapped my arms around her, but my gaze still focused on that closed door.
Connor would get over himself and help me fix this. He had to.
Within a couple of days, the whole school was talking about Yasmin and Ash. St Mary’s was notorious for gossip, and a story as good as this wasn’t going to be missed. Yasmin might not be hugely well known outside of our year, but she was a member of Bake Club and helping with Drama Club, so that was enough to get people talking anyway. Jasper, meanwhile, appeared to be missing the worst of it – probably because he was single. I’d called and filled him in from the rehearsal that Tuesday night, and his main concern had been what Izzy would think, of course. But no one else seemed to care – they were too busy talking about Yasmin.
It might not have been so bad if Ash wasn’t so popular. He was that unusual mix of sporty, good looking, academic and also nice – at least, normally. Yasmin told me that he’d only joined Drama Club last year because Mr Hughes had needed the help backstage. Getting up on stage this year was a big thing for him.