I know it’s not exactly the sort of thing most girls do, but I wanted to give Lloyd some sort of apology, and I can’t afford to buy anything fancy, and I’m not artistic enough to make anything.
Debs and I find Lloyd and Darren in their usual spot under the archway the next morning. I have my basket over my arm but I’m about as far from Little Red Riding Hood as you can get. In fact, with the zits that have exploded on my face and the way my hair has frizzed in the July heat, I look more like the big bad wolf today.
“Going to see grandmother?” Darren quips when we walk up.
Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike Darren? It’s not that he’s overtly horrible, it’s just that he’s completely indifferent. Like Lloyd, but less hot.
Lloyd goes to pick up his bag and leave when he sees me, which is very unlike Lloyd because this old archway is his territory.
“Wait,” I call, running up the steps and almost tripping over my own feet.
Almost. That’s an improvement.
“I hope you know that I can barely walk today because of you,” Lloyd says to me.
“What? It was just a scratch.”
“It hurts.”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby.”
Lloyd looks quite surprised. Nowhere near as surprised as I am. Did I really just say that to Lloyd Layton? That’s the sort of thing I would say to Ewan or Debs, certainly not to Lloyd Layton.
Debs snickers behind me.
I glance at his feet. He’s wearing trainers that are clearly brand new. I wish I had money like that. If I got a javelin through my trainers, my mother would either patch the hole up with sticky tape or buy me a pair of three quid plastic plimsolls from Primark.
“I’m sorry about the javelin. It was an accident.”
“I know.” He nods. “I know that you didn’t intend to stab me in the foot with a javelin, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be mad at you. Do you realise that I had to miss out on doing the obstacle course, the long jump and the discus yesterday?”
“Lucky you,” Debs mumbles.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I cannot understand how anybody can be upset about not having to do those things, but boys are weird creatures indeed.
“Anyway, I brought you something to say sorry.” I hand the basket to him. “Cupcakes.”
“Oh wow,” Darren says. “That is so gay.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, no one says that anymore,” I snap at him.
“These look good,” Lloyd says. “You’re not trying to poison me, are you?”
“No,” I say. Although, it’s becoming painfully obvious that some kind of poison might be the only way for me to ever get close to Lloyd Layton.
“You made these just for me?” Lloyd asks.
I nod enthusiastically. “I just wanted you to know that I am really sorry about yesterday. I was really worried.”
“It’s okay,” he says finally.
He takes a cupcake out of the basket and offers one to Darren as well.
They both take a bite.
I briefly consider running away in case they’re horrible or something.
“These are good,” Lloyd says at last.
“They are,” Darren confirms. “I can’t believe you made these. I remember that time we sat across from you two in cookery and the whole lesson ended in a call to 999.”
Thanks for bringing that up, you twit.
“I’m a quick learner,” I mutter.
“Seriously, thanks Chessie,” Lloyd says. “But will you do me a favour?”
I nod.
“Put them in a bag or something and take the basket away. I’m not carrying that thing around all day or people will be taking the piss out of me.”
I nod. I just happen to have brought a bag with me because I thought that boys and baskets might not mix.
“Okay, well,” I say, taking the basket back. “We’d better go or we’ll be late for class. I just wanted to say sorry again. Um, see you around, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Lloyd smiles at me. “If I don’t see you, have a great holiday.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You too.”
Wow. Could that have gone any better?
What a perfect high note to end the term on.
CHAPTER 16
August.
It’s summer and I’ve given up on my chances with Lloyd Layton. He doesn’t live around here so I’m not going to see him for six weeks. I don’t want to waste the whole summer holiday obsessing over him. Maybe in September when we get back to school I can work on him again, but for now, I’ve given up. Instead, I’m determined that Debs and I are going to enjoy the summer holidays. It’s already August, and so far we’ve done very little shopping and very much tanning. Partly because we’ve discovered that the little park in our village is a breeding ground for hot boys. Not that I’m interested or anything, but it’s nice to have something to look at while we’re out sunbathing. I didn’t even know cute boys existed in this village. Its only inhabitants during term time are the over eighty or under five crowd, but now the summer has come, there are cute boys here. We’ve figured out that they must all be visiting their grandparents.
But I’ve had enough of tanning. I want to shop and I have some money saved up. Fifty quid, to be exact. Thirty of it is saved up pocket money, and twenty is a summer bonus from my mother for hosing down the outside of the house and painting the shed.
I phone Debs one evening in early August.
“Want to come shopping in Cardiff with me tomorrow?” I ask.
“If money grew on trees like in Animal Crossing,” she says.
“I’ve got fifty,” I tell her. “And I think I can persuade my mum to let me have next week’s pocket money in advance, you can borrow some off me if you like, and I’ll buy us lunch.”
“Hmm… I don’t know, Chessie. It’s Wednesday tomorrow. That guy with the blue hair always shows up at the park on Wednesdays.”
“I hear there’s a new range out at Topshop…”
“Okay, I’m in,” she says immediately. Debs is so transparent sometimes.
“Great.” I grin even though she can’t see me. “I’ll meet you at the bus stop at nine in the morning.”
“Okay. I’ll see if I can get some money out of my parents too.”
I love shopping in Cardiff. We don’t do it very often because it’s no fun to shop if you don’t have any money, and neither Debs nor I ever have any money, so we usually just go into the nearest little town that’s only a bus ride away and buy a couple of magazines. But when I have money burning a hole in my purse, there’s no better place to spend it than Cardiff. I always complain about living in our village because it’s so quiet and dull, but it would be so exciting to live in a city where stuff always happens.
Debs is practically bouncing when I meet her at the bus stop that morning.
“Do you know how long it’s been since we did this?” she squeals.
“Um…”
“December. Can you believe we haven’t been on a proper shopping trip since December?”
“I know,” I say. “School holidays are good for something after all.”
“You’re not still hung up on the Lloyd Layton thing, are you?”
“No,” I say. “Just because I’ve completely ruined my chances with the love of my life and now he’ll never speak to me again, not that he ever would in the first place, and I won’t see him again for over a month. What makes you think that?”
“Aren’t you a bit young for him to be the love of your life?”
I shrug. “I had a crush on the paper boy when I was younger and he was nothing compared to Lloyd. Lloyd is the love of my life so far.”
“I just think there are better guys out there than someone you’ve been trying to impress for six months when he hasn’t so much as given you a second look.”
“Thanks. I feel so much better now.”
We have an absolutely brilliant morning in Cardiff. I think I should persuade my mum to buy shares in H
&M. I bet we’d get shareholders discount then.
But the best thing of all happens when we’re in the little Sainsbury’s supermarket on the corner (because what trip to Cardiff is complete without a tub of ice cream to share while waiting for the bus home?)
Of all the places that he could possibly pop up, the most unlikely one has to be at the till in the little Sainsbury’s in the middle of Cardiff. But there he is.
He’s wearing a dark blue baseball cap, jeans, and a fitted navy t-shirt. I creep closer to spy on him while Debs picks out our ice cream. At first I can’t figure out what’s so weird about the whole thing. I mean, Lloyd Layton is in Cardiff, in Sainsbury’s, buying a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. What’s so weird about that?
Then it hits me. He’s buying bread and milk. That can only mean one thing. He must live here. Cardiff isn’t the sort of city you come to just to do your grocery shopping, not unless you live here. Nobody in their right mind would come into the centre of Cardiff to buy bread and milk. They’d go to their local shop. Unless this is their local shop.
It’s certainly possible. It’s not that far from school, a bit of a nightmare by bus, but a car journey here wouldn’t take very long, and Lloyd does get a taxi to school every day.
“Chessie, what are you doing?” Debs asks.
“Look,” I whisper. “He’s buying bread and milk.”
“Whoop de doo. Can we go? We haven’t been in Topshop yet.”
“No, wait,” I say. “Don’t you see? He must live here.”
“He must? How’d you figure that one out?”
“Why would he come into the centre of Cardiff to pick up bread and milk?”
Debs shrugs. “Maybe he asked his driver to stop off on their way home?”
Oh. Yeah, that could be a possibility.
But I like to think that I have some sort of extra sensory perception type thing when it comes to Lloyd Layton.
“Go and say hello to him.” Debs prods me in the ribs. “Go on, and then we can get on with our shopping.”
“Noooo,” I hiss. “I’ll look like a deranged stalker.”
“Oh, for the—”
“Quick, he’s leaving,” I interrupt as Lloyd takes his change from the cashier.
“Just go up and say hi, Chessie. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“He runs screaming from the store and calls the police?”
“So ignore him then. You’ll see him in September anyway. And that bloke in a suit is looking at us funny.”
“I think he’s the manager, and we’re hiding behind his display of Pot Noodles. Of course he’s looking at us funny.”
Debs sighs.
“Just go and pay for the ice cream,” I say. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Finally.”
She thinks I’m going to talk to Lloyd, but I’m not. I’m going to follow him. I just want to see if my hunch is correct. It’s not like I’m going to stalk him or anything. I just want to know if he does live around here. If he heads towards a car park then I’ll know that Debs is correct and he’s just got his limousine to stop on the way home. But I think he must live here. No one would come into the centre of Cardiff for the sole purpose of buying a loaf of bread. Not even Lloyd Layton.
I slip out of the shop and keep my eyes on Lloyd. Luckily it’s not hard to keep sight of him in the crowd due to his height. It makes him really easy to harmlessly follow out of curiosity. Although even I have to admit that following Lloyd Layton through Cardiff is not the way I planned to spend my summer holidays. It is quite fun though. I feel like a ninja. I just hope that he doesn’t look round. Lloyd heads down a side street, that if I remember correctly from Googling maps this morning, leads to the outskirts of the city.
The perfect spot for rich people’s houses, my brain whispers to me.
I think I’m definitely on the right track with thinking he lives here. How coincidental is that? We just happen to be in Cardiff – somewhere we rarely go – on exactly the same day that he just happens to be popping out for bread and milk. That just has to mean something, right?
I think I believe in fate, and I think that Debs and I were in Sainsbury’s at exactly the right time today for a reason.
So I could follow Lloyd Layton home and find out where he lives. It just proves to me that I shouldn’t give up on Lloyd yet. Even though in the past couple of weeks I have, among other mortifying things, stabbed him in the foot with a javelin, made him sit on an ants nest and got him stung by a bee.
If nothing else, there’s always next term.
I wish it was raining today so I had an umbrella to hide behind. Umbrellas are excellent tools for hiding. Not that I’m an expert at stalking or anything, I just know that I could hide quite successfully behind an umbrella, but on a day like today, when the sun is beating down, it would make me look more conspicuous.
Lloyd is a very fast walker. I have to admit I’m panting a bit given the heat and the pace. But I never expected him to dawdle, given how fast a runner he is, and how much he loves sports.
I’m not very good with directions, and Cardiff is one place I never fail to get lost in, that’s why I Googled a map of the place this morning, but I think we’re on the outskirts of the city by now. It’s not exactly countryside, but the gardens of the houses we pass are bigger than normal, and it’s very quiet here.
We turn down another side street and hit roadworks. Yikes, that is noisy. They’re drilling and digging and there are yellow machines and red cones everywhere. At least there’s a tree, which I stop behind, because Lloyd turns and casts an unimpressed glance at the roadworkers, and if he turns just an inch more, he’ll catch sight of me. Thank God for this tree.
I stay behind my tree and watch as he walks a little further down the road, and then turns into a driveway that has two posh-looking cars parked in it. This must be it. This must be where he lives.
When he reaches the front door, he takes a key out of his pocket and lets himself in.
I knew.
I just knew I was right.
I make my way back to Debs in town, retracing my steps carefully and trying to memorize the way. I should have left a trail of Skittles. Not that I ever intend to come back here or anything. I mean, really, I don’t. But if Lloyd Layton ever forgets where he lives, he’ll thank me for being able to tell him.
I think.
CHAPTER 17
I don’t intend to go back to Lloyd’s house. Really I don’t. But my mum is in work the next morning, and as I’m getting dressed I count out how much money I have left over from yesterday, and it turns out to be more than enough for bus fares back to Cardiff. I wonder whether I should call Debs and ask her to come with me, but I don’t think she’d really want to go to Cardiff for the sole purpose of stalking Lloyd Layton. I know my mum will kill me if she ever finds out I was in Cardiff on my own, but she’s working until six tonight, and I’ll be back long before then.
It’s not that I intend to stalk him or anything. I certainly don’t intend to go back to his street and stand outside his house. But when I get to Cardiff I grab a doughnut and a hot chocolate from McDonalds, and then I go and sit on the benches near Sainsbury’s and hope that Lloyd Layton comes in for some more shopping. After all, I’ve rationalised that I could just go up and speak to him. It’s not that unlikely that we would both be shopping on the same day.
But after I’ve sat there for about an hour, I’m getting kind of bored. I keep looking down the side street that we went down yesterday, but I don’t see any sign of Lloyd. Then I think that maybe he shops early on a Thursday and could already be in the shopping centre, so I have to keep looking both ways, and after a little while I think I might be on the verge of whiplash.
I can’t sit around on benches any longer. I have to do what I came here to do.
If I win Lloyd Layton’s heart, then I’ll get to be his girlfriend and visit him all the time and then I’ll be able to shop in Cardiff anytime I want to because he only lives te
n minutes outside the city.
The only problem is that I don’t actually know what I came here to do, but I do know where Lloyd Layton lives, and before I’ve even really thought about it, my feet are walking in that direction.
I would never have the courage to go up and knock on his door, that would just be outright weird, and it’s not that I intend to hide behind the tree and spy on him, but really, what other option do I have?
The workmen are still digging up the street – from the smell of things, I’d say they were doing something to the drainage systems – and their truck is parked quite near my tree, which gives me even more coverage from sight.
I can’t see much of Lloyd’s house from here, just the driveway and huge front garden, and I have a view of the door so I can see if he comes out of it. Then I figure maybe I could follow him to wherever he goes, and ‘accidentally’ run into him there, which would make him think that we’re interested in the same things. Unless he goes to Sainsbury’s again, because who really has an active interest in buying bread and milk?
“Hey, are you all right, love?” There’s a bloke in a neon yellow jacket approaching me. “You’ve been standing there for ages,” he says in a thick Welsh accent.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for someone,” I say politely. I try to look nonchalant, flip my hair back and lean against the tree, like I have every right in the world to be there and he shouldn’t be interrupting me.
“Isn’t the noise bothering you?”
“Not a bit,” I lie. I put my hand over one ear, pretending to have an earphone in and shout a little louder. “I have my MP3 player on.”
“Oh, right. Well, you let me know if there’s anything I can help you with, love.”
Thankfully he walks away and leaves me in peace. I kinda wish I did have my MP3 player with me, because the noise is ridiculous. As soon as I think it’s stopped for a blissful minute, they just move the machine and start drilling a different area. I think my ears will be ringing for days. But you have to suffer for true love, right?
Not Pretty Enough Page 8