“Why are there maintenance men in the car park?” yells a snooty voice. I lower my rucksack out of the window and lean my body out after it.
“LOU, DON’T YOU WANT TO GO FEET FIRST?” I hear Aggy yell, helpfully.
Yeah, feet first. That would’ve been a better idea. I’m dangling face first out of an actually-quite-high van window, walking my hands down the door to reach the ground. There’s a jolting feeling beneath my hips.
“THE DOOR’S UNSTUCK!” Aggy bellows happily.
I can’t share her joy as the door swings open slowly, with me draped over it, arse in the air.
I can hear sniggering. Dermot helps me out of the window as best he can. I am long and gangly, he is spindly and I can only imagine how ridiculous we look. My feet finally hit the ground and I straighten up, a bit dizzy.
“ARE YOU OK, LOU?” Aggy shouts, just in case there’s anyone in the car park who isn’t already looking at me.
“Yes, thank you, Aggy,” I say quietly, before she shouts out my surname or year group, too.
“SEE YOU TONIGHT!” She gives me a thumbs-up and speeds off, tyres squealing.
Dermot hands me my rucksack and says, “You know, many of the world’s greatest artists and musicians were bullied at school.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“I thought it might bring you comfort in the next twenty seconds,” he says drily and we turn to see that a sizeable audience has gathered to laugh at us, including the three nastiest (and also the prettiest and best-dressed, it PAINS ME to admit) girls in our class – Cammie, Melia and Nicole. They haven’t bothered to be mean to me in months, and twice now, Melia has said, “Hey, girl! Cute top!”
(Fact check: the top is never cute. My clothes come in packs of three from the supermarket and cost less than onions.)
I knew this friendliness wouldn’t last for ever and I walk towards the school entrance, feeling wary. I see Gabe, Roman and Lavender across the car park, thankfully not near enough to share my shame. Lav and Roman let go of each other once they reach the steps. There’s a rule in this school where boys and girls aren’t allowed to be within twelve inches of each other. It’s not practical. Some of the corridors are so narrow that you’d have to edge along the wall like spies to pass someone of the opposite sex. Plus there is a creepy way to point a ruler at someone – the Year 7 boys have got it down to a fine art. And there’s a kid in Sixth Form who declared themself gender fluid and walks wherever they want.
As I pass Cammie, she’s openly laughing at me and … I don’t know, maybe it’s hormones, temper or the blood that rushed to my head while I was folded over the van door … but I roll my eyes right in her face, and push past her. It’s not rough, but our shoulders definitely brush.
If I’m telling this story later, I’ll say I shoulder-barged her. If I live long enough to tell anyone.
As Dermot and I walk to class, I’m trying to identify his smell. It’s like curtains in an old house that recently had a flood. It’s not too bad – you just have to breathe through your mouth. We chat and I ask him leading questions about stuffed semi-aquatic mammals but he doesn’t offer me one. I may have to be less subtle.
Hannah runs up behind us and grabs me. We exchange a look of Eek! I’m glad she’s not still cross at me. I’ve shoulder-boofed Cammie – I need all the allies I can muster.
“Hi, Dermot,” she says. “Snazzy suit.”
“Thanks.” He shows her the paisley lining and she makes impressed noises.
Are Dermot and I friends now? I feel like if we arrive together every morning, it’ll seem weird to suddenly ditch him and sit separately – and I do want to be nice to him – but I don’t know if I can take the social humiliation that he brings with him. I’m shallow for thinking this, but it’s all happening privately in my head so no one will ever know.
We reach our form room. Hannah and I always sit together, but … should I sit with Dermot cos his mum gave me a lift?
“I’ll sit over there,” Dermot says hastily, and heads to a desk as far from ours as possible. I feel relieved, then mean.
Hannah sits down and turns to me urgently. We always have to talk quickly in the morning before Mr Peters starts the register. She smells of chlorine and her hairline is wet; she’s been swimming and the smell makes me feel nostalgic. I used to love coming to class with my blood pumping from fifty laps in the pool.
“So, your parents…” she says and my heart leaps.
YES! We will make a list and tackle the problem of my parents together and I will stop feeling so queasy and anxious. And who cares about swimming anyway?
“I haven’t come up with any ideas yet,” she says. “I’m sorry! Debs kept me late at training. You know what she’s like. And it’s actually really difficult to be fifteen and earn money.”
“Well, duh, Han! My parents are old and still can’t earn money.”
“But I’ll think of something,” she promises me. “I just need time to think about it.”
Mr Peters claps to get our attention and I nod and face forward. I don’t know why I thought Hannah would have the answers, but a list is a good thing to cling to in bumpy times. My eyes prickle. What is wrong with me? I am a bag of feels at the moment. I wipe my nose firmly. I am not upset, I’m fine. Possibly hormonal or low on sugar.
“Now, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Mr Peters doesn’t seem enthusiastic. I wonder if it’s another Sex Education talk. I found the last one interesting, although Cammie and Melia hijacked it – but they knew a LOT. I’d give anything to know if it was from the internet or real life.
“At the end of term we’re going to have a small prom.” Mr Peters pats his hands downwards to shush the excited hum of chat that springs up from the class. Even I get a bit giddy and say ooh to Hannah. Oh my goodness, I might get to take my BOYFRIEND to PROM. When did my life get so amazing?
“Yes, yes, it’s truly magical,” says Mr Peters. “Oh to be alive and witness such times.”
“Isn’t prom supposed to be after our exams, in the summer, Mr Peters?” Melia looks embarrassed for him – not knowing such basic rules of Life.
“Yes,” he acknowledges. “But between you and me, last year got so swept up in their prom duties that we had a record number of resits. Call me boring, but I’d rather they passed their exams. So prom will be smaller and earlier this year.”
He has to shout over another excited thrum. “And your exams are still VERY, VERY important. If it looks like you’re in danger of forgetting that, there will be NO prom.”
Nicole says, as if it’s a foregone conclusion, “Mr Peters? So my uncle is a DJ and he has contacts in the industry so I can get us a great deal on the sound system and VJs.”
What’s a VJ? I mouth at Hannah, who shrugs.
“And Melia’s family runs a caterers. They’ll do the catering!” butts in Cammie. Melia looks a little overwhelmed by this.
“Hang on a minute,” says Mr Peters. “I’ve been put in charge of this. I need to assign –” he checks something scribbled on his hand – “four people to the Prom Committee. So…”
Three hands shoot up – Cammie, Melia and Nicole. A couple of others follow, but Cammie shoots them a glare and they style it out as scratching their heads, or pointing out a ceiling feature. Cammie eyeballs the whole classroom, to check no one else dares muscle in on her turf.
I get a sudden rebellious urge to put my hand up too, but Hannah, good friend that she is, senses this and grabs both of mine tightly under the table. She doesn’t even look at me.
“One more volunteer?” Mr Peters says.
Cammie has a calculating look on her face, as if she’s assessing who will be most useful to her – someone who’s easygoing and won’t cause trouble. She whispers something to Nicole.
You know sometimes you think you understand your life? And then it throws a big surprise hard at your face.
“What about Hannah?” Nicole says.
Han
nah? My Hannah!? NO!! They only want her because she was off school for months and is still all lost and readjusting!
“Great, and Hannah makes four!” says Mr Peters, happy to be done. “Oh, if that’s OK by you, Hannah?”
Han looks a bit shellshocked. “Uh…” is all she manages.
“I think she’d be great,” says Cammie warmly.
“So great,” Melia agrees.
THIS IS HOW THEY GET YOU.
Compliments. No fool can resist compliments. But don’t trust them – these are mean girls who do not have your best interests at heart. They’re liars and our tops are not cute! This is nothing but revenge for a shoulder-boof.
I am squeezing Hannah’s arm to communicate this but clearly she doesn’t speak Arm. “Yeah, sure.” She smiles. “I’d love to. And my cousin’s in a band, so…?”
“That’s awesome, I never knew!” Melia practically sparkles at her.
Theft. Outright friend theft from beneath my nose. This school is the pits. Hannah looks strangely pleased. She clearly doesn’t realize she’s being used. She’s an innocent prawn!
Actually, I think I mean pawn. Like in chess? This is why I don’t say everything that lands in my head.
“It might be fun!” Hannah whispers. I shake my head firmly.
“Well, not with that attitude,” she tells me, her voice barely a decibel above breathing. “Lou, don’t be so—”
“Girls, stop talking or I will split you up!” our chemistry teacher yells at us from the front. Everyone wants to split us up today.
And don’t be so what, Hannah?
Melodramatic, jealous, pessimistic?
I clamp a piece of magnesium in pincers and hold it above the Bunsen burner flame. It sparkles purple, as does everyone else’s and the room fills with delighted oohs.
I do not ooh. I will not be charmed by purple fire, I have bigger problems.
“Ooh,” says Hannah.
I put the pincers down and try to be mature. It’s just a prom – a couple of meetings a week, maybe on the night they’ll be all “You GUYS! We did it! Group hug!” And that will be annoying, so I’ll go and stand in the toilet for five minutes. But if that’s the worst of it, fine. These girls can never compete with my friendship with Hannah. We’ve been to Accident and Emergency together seven times. That sort of stuff bonds you, and no one can get in between that—
My thoughts are interrupted by a piece of paper nudging my elbow. It’s a note. I take it off the boy next to me and start to open it.
“No,” he hisses, making me jump. “For her.”
Sourly, I hand the note to Hannah. She opens it and nods as she reads it. Even before she gives a little wave across the room, I know who it’s from. I busy myself tidying up the magnesium dust on the desk. There’s barely enough to fill a mouse’s bellybutton so I take my time sweeping it carefully. I’m not jealous, I am sweeping.
When the lesson ends, Hannah leans across the desk to say, “Lou, listen.”
“You have to meet the Prom Committee at lunch,” I say dully.
“Yes, and can you take my rucksack? We’re going to dash to the art and design workshop on the other side of school and see if we can use it as our base for designing decorations. Thaaaanks.”
I nod as she runs off with frankly impolite excitement and I’m left eyeing up two massive rucksacks.
In the end, I have to hook one on the front of my body and one on the back and waddle slowly to the cafeteria like a hippo. I’m glad we’re not allowed phones in school or I bet someone would film this and add some bom-bom-bom tuba tune to it.
As I sway down the corridor, I spot Gabe in a classroom having an animated discussion with his politics teacher. I loiter in the doorway, feet planted wide to spread the weight, but he doesn’t spot me, so I wander off. I admire how keen Gabe is on his schoolwork but I wonder if a more dim boyfriend might think I was the most interesting thing in his life and shower me in single-minded devotion? That would be nice.
I sit down at an empty table and dig my lunchbox out of my bag. I open the Tupperware and stare inside.
You know what no one ever said EVER? “Cheer up and eat couscous!”
Can’t believe Mum packed me off to school with couscous. I dig through the grains and find some vegetables lurking in there that I definitely recognize from yesterday’s buffet. Hello again. I look discreetly around the room for someone to talk to but there’s no one I feel confident in joining. The worst thing is when you sit down next to someone and they ignore you. You feel like a lingering bad smell. I can see Ro and Lav but they’re eating together, just the two of them, and I don’t want to feel like a gooseberry.
A day ago, Hannah was my gooseberry! Life comes at you fast, eh?
I shovel my couscous down, bored and lonely. If this is going to be how I spend lunch every school day till prom, I’m not looking forward to it.
Half an hour later, I wobble into the next lesson and give Hannah back her bag. I am such a good friend, I think to myself as I rub my aching shoulders and ignore her boring prattling. About bunting or something. I do not care.
It’s almost a relief to climb into Aggy’s van at the end of the day – thankfully, she parks right at the bottom of the car park so not many people see me hop in. Aggy clearly doesn’t care about school, popularity or proms. She regales us with a disgusting but hilarious story about a rats’ nest she found inside a sofa in an old house. The rats were poking their heads out of the upholstery and appearing in the guts of cushions apparently. It was like Whack a Mole – except she and Rahul didn’t have the heart to hurt them, so they were shooing them out of the house with socks on their hands. Shoo a Mole.
“No!” Dermot is squirming at this story. “Stop it! I can feel their little feet all over me!”
“Such a sensitive child,” Aggy says, messing up his cravat to annoy him.
I laugh till my eyes water. “When was this?” I ask, wiping at my wet cheeks.
“Today!” she says brightly. “The furniture’s in the back! Don’t worry, I got all the rats out, I reckon. Probably.”
I stop laughing.
“STOP. THE. CAR!” Dermot says.
Seconds later, we’re out of the car, shivering by the side of the road and slapping ourselves all over.
“You’re a mile from home,” Aggy warns us.
“And you’re driving a van of vermin, so…” Dermot spreads his hands like he’s won the argument, and I’m on his side.
“Thanks, though, Aggy,” I say politely around him.
“I’ll see you later.” She waves at us and clanks off in a cloud of exhaust.
Dermot and I walk the rest of the way. We don’t chat much but it’s a comfortable silence, broken up every now and then by one of us shuddering. Aggy’s a great storyteller, but he’s right, I can feel little feet all over my body.
As soon as we get to my house, I race in.
“Go shower!” Dermot instructs me.
“I will. You too!” I say.
Ten minutes later: “You can’t shower twice a day!” Dad is knocking on the bathroom door.
“I can when I travel in a van full of rats!” I shout back. “Blame Mum!”
Lunch the next day is as bad as I feared. As soon as the bell rang, Hannah raced off to another prom meeting and Dermot was nowhere to be seen. I’m so bored I actually rummage through my school bag to find some homework – anything to make the time pass.
I accidentally pull out my old Worry Diary, and laugh again at the front cover – the picture of the cake above the word WORRY. So weird.
As is laughing alone. I stop immediately.
I flick through and find a blank page where I left off, aged thirteen. Without really thinking, I grab a pen to see if I can do any better. It turns out to be as moany as me-two-years-ago, but at least I don’t hate Lavender any more.
WORRY DIARY
Hannah KEEPS calling them Cams, Mell and Nic. Like they’re all too busy for syllables.
Mum an
d Dad are out of work and money’s tight. We’ve had lentils for dinner two days running and I have to keep running outside to fart.
I think Dermot is my new best friend.
I’m running out of that oil that makes my hair calm. If we can’t afford to replace it, I’ll have to shave my head.
Finally, it’s Friday afternoon, and I am so glad to see the back of that week! It was rubbish, beginning to end. I ate alone every day – without my diary I would’ve felt a right loner. At least I look busy scribbling in that. What Prom Committee needs to meet four times a week? It’s a small prom, Mr Peters definitely said so. A bowl of Wotsits, a box of party poppers and Spotify, surely that’s all you need!
I’m not sure if it’s as a result of the loneliness or just that I’d never bothered to spend time with him before, but Dermot is starting to grow on me. I like our journeys to and from school, and we even sit together in a couple of classes. Other boys are constantly trying to trip him up or flick gum at him, and I want to stand up for him but I can’t think quickly enough on my feet so end up saying lame things like, “Heeyyy … GUYS” or “Come on.”
Yes, that is I, Lou Brown, Defender of the Unpopular, Hero to the Shy and Mocked. Someone make me a cape! Oh, thank you, Dermot, a musty moth-eaten paisley cape with a stain. You’re too kind.
Anyway, all week I’ve been looking forward to Friday, when Lav and I are going to Roman and Gabe’s after school to watch films with them and Pete. I hardly ever see Gabe at school, so this is nice. And I never see Pete these days. I text him sometimes.
Hi Pete! How are you? How’s college? Anything new with you? I cut myself a fringe. It looks quite bad!
He never replies.
So by five o’clock on Friday, I’m watching a zombie film (2/5, it’s no Anne Frank’s Diary) and stuffing my face with sweets. Thank goodness for boyfriends whose parents still buy snacks. Roman and Lav are wrapped around each other on a big armchair, Pete is sitting between Gabe and me on the sofa so he doesn’t feel left out. Gabe offered to snuggle him but he declined.
Since Ro and Lavender have been going out, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe their kissing technique and have now decided which one I hate the most. You’d think the full-on snogging where they bend each other’s noses would be the worst, and yes, it’s definitely a low point in my day. But the kissing they’re doing now is my number one least favourite. They’re giving each other little pecking kisses, like they’re teeny tiny birds nibbling at bread.
Lou Out of Luck Page 4