Stuff

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want her to be my friend.’

  ‘I don’t mean Tracey’ said Dad, and you should have seen his face. S-M-U-G written in big letters right across it. He was so pleased he’d wrong-footed me. ‘Tracey’s got a daughter, Natasha. Same age as you. She knows what it’s like.’

  ‘Knows what what’s like?’

  Dad’s eyes widened and he gave a little shrug. ‘Everything. Splitting up, new parents. You know – everything.’

  ‘Really?’ (This said in my deepest, deep-frozen liquid-nitrogen tone of voice.)

  Dad didn’t look so pleased any more. Good. That’d teach him.

  ‘You’ll like her,’ he said hopefully.

  Well, Dad, you were wrong there, weren’t you, because I don’t like her one bit.

  Natasha is foul. OK, so she looks all right, if she wears plenty of make-up, and she’s got a cute bum, but she scowls all the time and stinks the place out with cruddy perfume. She flounces around, complaining about everything and blaming me or Dad for what’s wrong with her life. She’s driving me nuts and Dad won’t do anything about it.

  Sherry Trifle just smiles sweetly and says things like: ‘We all have to live with other people we don’t like, Simon.’ Yeah. Exactly. She says it with a smile but you feel as if she’s just made you swallow a porcupine. I tried to tell Mum on the phone and all she said was: ‘You think you’ve got problems? Huh.’ I could hear bagpipes in the background, but I don’t think that had anything to with it.

  The only people I can talk to about it are Pete and Delfine. Pete’s my best friend and he thought the hearty-farty pants were really funny, but then he doesn’t like Tasha either. At least I don’t think he does. He doesn’t say much about it, but he frowns and stares at her a lot.

  Delfine’s my girlfriend and she says Natasha shouldn’t be sharing a house with me at all.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s a girl.’

  ‘So?’

  Delfine giggled. She’s got a funny giggle, like someone ringing a little bell that’s cracked, so it doesn’t actually tinkle, it sort of tunkles instead, if you get my drift. ‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘You might, you know …’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ I was bemused.

  Delfine tunkled again and then whispered, ‘She might fancy you.’

  ‘She’s my stepsister.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  ‘And I can’t stand the sight of her.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Delfine smiled and snuggled up to me.

  Honestly, that’s Delfine for you. You may well ask why she’s my girlfriend. Because she’s cuddly and nice and I like her, that’s why. And because I’d already asked three other girls and they’d all said ‘no’. Anyhow, you’ve got to have a girlfriend – bit like having the right trainers. And I’m not being sexist or shoe-ist or anything. I just mean, you wouldn’t be seen out without either of them. Equally important – see?

  So, I asked Pete and Delfine what I should do about Natasha.

  ‘Only one thing you can do, mate,’ said Pete seriously. ‘Leave home.’

  3

  Hugging Aliens

  Badger’s buttocks! It’s all right for Pete to say things like that. He’s lucky. His parents don’t only live miles away from him, they’re on the other side of the North Atlantic. They work in the USA because Pete’s dad is some computer geek and over there he gets paid millisquillions. They didn’t want to take Pete out of school, even though he wanted to go, so Pete lives here with his Aunt Polly, and she more or less lets him do what he likes. He comes and goes when he wants, stays up as long as he wants – he’s even driven her car, which goes like stonk. And he gets to go to America once or twice a year. I mean, life is not fair, is it?

  And then there was Dad. What would he do without me? I know La Trifle was keeping him well organized now, but she didn’t understand him like I did. She’d made him pack all his comics away in the attic, for a start.

  ‘I can’t just leave,’ I said.

  Delfine tightened her grip on my arm. I sensed her panic. Delfine was prone to panic attacks. She’d see a worm – panic (wrigglyphobia). She’d see a tree – panic (treefallcrushmephobia). And that was just going home from school.

  ‘Why can’t you leave?’ asked Pete. ‘You could come and stay at my place.’

  ‘Really?’

  Pete’s place! I suddenly felt like someone was opening the door of my cage and helping me out, like a wee hamster being released back into the wild. This could be great! Freedom! And Dad wouldn’t be so far away – I could keep an eye on things. Then I remembered all those parties Pete kept telling me about, with wild goings-on. I mean, Pete and his aunt really LIVED!

  Pete grinned. ‘No probs. Don’t suppose Aunt Polly would even notice. She’s out most of the time. She’s got a new bloke. Don’t think he’s much older than me.’

  There was a horrified squeak from Delfine. ‘A toy boy?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ laughed Pete. ‘Be good, I reckon, going with an older woman. What do you think, Stuff?’ Pete grinned and winked at me.

  Delfine was staring at both of us. She thought Pete was serious, but I knew he was teasing. Pete’s like that. He likes winding people up.

  ‘Don’t call him Stuff,’ said Delfine.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ I told her, and I don’t. It’s cool. My head’s full of it. I don’t even know where most of it comes from. I just seem to pick it up, like my brain emits a special sort of tracker beam that locks on to pointless information. For instance, do you know how many sausages were on board the Titanic when it went down? I do – about 20,000. Twenty thousand sausages drowned when that ship sank. What a tragedy I like sausages.

  Pete grinned again. He’s always smiling, like life is such a laugh. Well it is, for him. And it would be for me too, if I went and lived at his Aunt Polly’s. Pete said he’d seen her in her undies.

  ‘She was hardly wearing anything,’ he said. ‘It was one of those thong things.’

  ‘A thing-thong?’

  ‘No,’ said Pete, very seriously. ‘A thong thing. Thing-thongs are different. Thing-thongs are very boring and have men with beards and guitars. Women in scanty panties wouldn’t be seen dead at a thing-thong’

  So, going to live at Pete’s was an attractive proposition. In more ways than one. I might even get to drive his aunt’s car.

  Pete’s Car Story

  Aunt Polly’s got a Subaru. Yep. Exactly. I heard your sharp intake of breath. Pretty neat stuff. So, they’re out in the Subaru – Pete, Aunt Polly and her boyfriend. Can’t remember his name. Let’s call him Roberto. Aunt Polly likes Italian men. And Swedes (the country, not the vegetable). Roberto said he’d show Polly how to do a handbrake turn and they go to this deserted car park and roar up and down doing whopping great skid-turns. And then Roberto leans across to Pete and asks him if he wants to try. (I told Pete I didn’t think he could speak Italian. Pete said they used sign language, with sound effects added.)

  Of course Pete wants a try. He climbs in the driver’s seat and they’re off. Pete said it was like being in a rocket! (I asked him how many times had he been in a rocket? He told me to go and do something unspeakable to my rear end, which wasn’t very nice, was it?) Anyhow, Pete drove very, very fast – so fast that when he pulled on the handbrake the car didn’t just do a half-turn, it did one and a half revolutions.

  ‘Wow!’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Pete. ‘It scared Roberto so much he threw up.’ (Pete demonstrated this with more sign language and sound effects.)

  End of Pete’s Car Story

  I was impressed. So, it seemed that living at Aunt Polly’s could be the most exciting thing ever to happen to me.

  ‘You sure she wouldn’t mind?’ I asked.

  ‘She’d be too busy to even notice,’ he repeated, and he turned his back, clasped his hands round himself and did that pretend smooching thing, making revolting noises. Shlurrrrrrp!
<
br />   ‘You’re disgusting,’ murmured Delfine, looking away.

  Pete gave me a despairing glance. ‘It’s too easy’ he murmured. ‘I need someone more challenging.’ He slapped my back. ‘Gotta go. See you later.’

  As soon as he’d gone Delfine got all serious on me. ‘You’re not going to Pete’s, are you?’

  ‘I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘But you can’t. What will your dad say?’

  ‘He’ll probably say, “Where are you, Simon?” But I won’t hear him because I’ll be at Pete’s.’

  ‘He’ll be upset.’

  ‘Deify I’m upset at the moment. Natasha and her mum are driving me mad. For God’s sake, Tasha likes listening to Honzo da Bonzo! How can anyone like listening to Honzo da Bonzo?’ Then I told her about the knickers.

  ‘That’s horrible,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They could have been mine,’ she said.

  Excuse me? Was there any kind of logic in this? Emergency! Delfine’s brain was flatlining – start brain-cell transfusion immediately.

  ‘But they weren’t yours,’ I pointed out.

  ‘They might have been.’

  ‘How come? How would your panties get into my washing?’

  Delfine turned so red her freckles vanished. ‘I meant, maybe one day you might write something like that on my knickers.’

  ‘I might, but only if you’re wearing them,’ I joked. Wrong move. Badly wrong. Bad, bad, bad. It took me ten minutes to calm her down. I had to get on my knees and say: ‘I cross my heart and swear that I would rather die than write on Delfine Smith’s knickers.’ Lower eyes and allow short pause to show respect. ‘Can I get up now?’

  Delfine gave a wan smile and nodded. I sighed. She looked lovely when she smiled. She had such a nice mouth and wonderful, hazel eyes. It reminded me why I went out with her in the first place because, to be honest, it wasn’t for her sense of humour.

  When Delfine and I kissed each other goodbye I was glad we’d made up and I hugged her really tight, so I could feel her pressing into me. That’s a weird sensation, isn’t it? Like holding an alien. Not that I’ve ever held an alien, but you know what I mean. They’re such a different shape, girls, and I never know where to put my hands. I know where I’d like to put them, but I reckon that if that’s where I’d like to put them it’s bound to be one of those interesting but no-go places where girls get all iffy-sniffy and bothered. Then there’d be more trouble. I’ll have to try one day, though, just to see what happens, just to see what it’s like.

  Delfine said, ‘You’re squeezing me.’

  I put on a silly French accent and whispered in her ear, ‘I vont to squeeze you to death becoz you are juz zo ‘uggable.’

  Delfine tunkled. I could feel the warmth of her body smell her skin. Hmmm, school-soap smell. That was … unromantic, but clean.

  ‘You won’t go to Pete’s, will you?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, which was true, because I was already thinking about it and what I was thinking was: I’m going to go to Pete’s. That’d show them. That’d make Dad sit up and think.

  4

  How My Universe was Changed

  Then, next day, school – and something completely changed the universe as I knew it. Pete and I had art first thing – a double period. I was looking forward to it because it’s the only good thing about school as far as I’m concerned.

  I was the last to arrive. I’d had to make a detour to the loos for a spot check. Actually, it was much more than a spot, it was a major nose eruption. Overnight I’d acquired a pimple the size of Mount Etna and ready to blow. How did they manage to appear so quickly, so silently? It was as if great armies of acne lay hidden in dark corners, beneath carpets, behind wardrobes, in cracks and crevices, ready to leap out and ambush your sleeping body at night. They scuttle up walls, slide silently across ceilings and drop down upon prone teenagers. Splip, splap, splop.

  Nasty, horrible stuff. And it had come at just the wrong moment. (Is there a right time for acne? This is the question for today’s television poll. Viewers – phone in your answer NOW!)

  It was certainly the wrong moment for me, because when I got to the art room there was a new student. Sky.

  That was her name. Sky.

  Quiet pause to call up image.

  Close your eyes and think warm, summer thoughts. Think of that deep, deep blue you get on a really clear day, not a cloud in sight, and you can feel the soft warmth in the air, maybe a touch of gentle breeze, and you feel on top of the world and everything is so gorgeous you feel as if you’re actually breathing in beauty. That’s how I felt when I first saw Sky.

  She was stunning. Gorgeous. She was almost as tall as me, willowy, with short, spiky hair the colour of dark straw, and a kind of lopsided, dyed-blonde streak that made her look like some elfin superhero who’d escaped from a computer game. It began at the nape of her neck, curved and climbed up the right side of her skull, over her ear and then angled over towards the centre of the hairline, just above her eyes. I’ll have to draw it so you get the full picture.

  Her face was just lovely. You know that story about Helen of Troy, who was so beautiful her face ‘could launch a thousand ships’? Well, Sky’s could launch ten thousand. In fact Sky’s face could have raised the Titanic and saved all those sausages, if the Titanic had been interested in women. Which it wasn’t, because it was a ship. At any rate, you get the point. My English teacher says that this kind of writing is called a ‘digression’ and it’s pointless and I shouldn’t do it. I said it wasn’t a digression, it was a point of interest. Not to me, she said. But you’re not writing it, I said, all jolly, like. And you’re in detention, she said, for cheek. Bummer. How my life goes.

  Back to Sky and her face: green, exotic eyes that seemed to speak of far-flung places. Her mouth had the most kissable lips on Planet Earth. Her skin was like glowing honey – flawless.

  Pete was already chatting her up. He would be. He was perched on the desk next to her, swinging his legs casually, looking so cool I could have killed him.

  ‘So, where are you from?’ I heard him ask.

  ‘Wolverhampton.’

  ‘Is that on Mars somewhere?’ laughed Pete.

  ‘Is that a joke?’ she answered.

  When Delfine says something like that it usually means she’s cross. But when Sky said it, it was like she was telling Pete she knew it was a joke, but it wasn’t very funny, although she didn’t mind, but please think of something better to say next time. And Pete couldn’t think of anything, so he had to shut up. It wasn’t often that Pete was left semi-stunned.

  I stood at the back, listening and watching. I had to take several deep breaths. Sky really was something. This girl was having a strong physical effect on me. It wasn’t only the way she looked, it was the way she held herself and the calm way she answered all the questions, like nothing could rattle her. She glanced at me a couple of times, probably because her eyes were drawn to my giant spot. She seemed alert to everything.

  Matters were only brought to a halt when our art teacher arrived. Miss Kovak got the picture at once and took control.

  ‘Break it up, everyone. I want the girls here and the boys over there. You’ve obviously all met our new student, Sky.’

  General sniggers from one side.

  ‘Yes, thank you, boys, do try and raise your thoughts to higher planes this morning. Please make her feel welcome. OK, everyone, we shall be working on life studies for the next few weeks.’

  ‘Will that be drawing the human body?’ smirked Nathan Wilder.

  ‘Yes, Nathan, it will, and to answer your next question: no, Nathan, it will not involve drawing naked women.’

  More sniggers.

  ‘What about naked men, Miss Kovak?’

  This came from Hayley Jenks. It set most of the girls whooping. Hayley must be the crudest girl I have ever met, but more on that would be a digression and not just for cheek this time,
so, sorry. Maybe another time. (Let’s just say I wouldn’t like to meet her down a dark alley.)

  Miss Kovak gave a tolerant smile. ‘I have no idea, ladies. Perhaps we should ask.’ She turned to us. ‘Would any of the gentlemen care to pose?’

  ‘Gerroff!’ That was a scandalized Pete.

  Miss Kovak clapped her hands. ‘I thought not. Maybe we can get down to some work instead. Portraits from life – working in pairs, taking it in turns to draw each other. I want girl/boy pairs as far as possible and, since it would appear that the boys rather foolishly all wish to partner poor Sky, we shall sort this out by letting the girls choose their partners.’

  We all protested loudly, but Miss Kovak called on Hayley to make the first choice.

  ‘Pete,’ she said, with a little giggle.

  Pete plunged to his knees, hands clasped. ‘Miss Kovak! This isn’t fair!’ he pleaded. ‘Save me!’

  ‘All you have to do is draw each other,’ Miss Kovak pointed out. ‘Nobody asked you to marry her, Pete.’

  Pete stuck two fingers down his throat.

  ‘Aw, he’s so disgusting, Miss,’ complained Hayley. ‘Can I choose someone else?’

  Miss Kovak laughed. ‘Off you go. Sky – your turn.’

  5

  Behold – Skysurfer!

  That really perked up the boys. Charlie got out his comb. Karl smoothed his hair. Harry ruffled his. They smiled at Sky – well, leered anyhow. There were loud whispers of ‘Me!’ and ‘Hey Sky, over here!’

  I felt like I was being pulled towards her, like she was my destiny. We would meet – it was inevitable. The Hand of Kismet had written it in the Book of Fate. Awesome. I didn’t know her. We hadn’t even spoken to each other. Now she was scanning eager faces. I casually placed my hand in front of my spot and hoped the pulsing glow of radioactive acne couldn’t pass through my skin. Maybe Sky could now see my hand as an X-ray?