by Holly Bourne
“Like the rules. What does ‘calling out’ sexism mean? How will you identify if something is sexist?” She listed her points on her fingers.
I nodded. “This is useful.”
“We could help you,” Evie offered. “Maybe make this the FemSoc campaign like you said? See if the other members agree?”
I nodded even more furiously. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!” I punched the air. Then, suddenly exhausted, I flopped down on the chair. “Meeting at mine tonight then?”
Both Evie and Amber nodded. “Though I don’t have any cheese left to bring,” Evie said. “You ate it all last night.”
“I don’t think I can handle any more cheese,” I said. “Can we get chocolate instead?”
“Seconded,” Amber said. “I was doing Boursin burps all night.”
“Sexy.” I winked.
“Oh, don’t I know it. I told Kyle about them. He was suitably appalled.”
“He’ll still love you anyway. That boy is OBSESSED with you.” Kyle was Amber’s trans-Atlantic boyfriend. He was worryingly perfect, apart from the fact he lived thousands of miles away.
I looked at the others. Joel had finished his burger but put his headphones in. Jane shared one headphone with him, doing the same half-smile she always did to us when she was only half there. I seriously thought that, after a year of going out together, Jane and Joel would’ve cooled things down. But, if anything, they seemed even more besotted with each other. Only Oli was still paying any attention, with his shockingly green eyes. I could totally see what Evie saw in him. Though I could never put up with his terminal shyness…even though he had some pretty good explanations for it.
“What do you think, Oli?” I picked up a now-cold chip and ate it. “A guy’s opinion would be useful…as long as it’s positive.” I gave him a mock-evil.
He laughed, and held his hands up in defence. “I think it sounds interesting,” he said. “You know what you should do, though?”
“What?”
“Get someone to film it. Make it into an online video campaign. It will reach more people that way.”
I was quiet as I digested what a very good idea that was.
“What a very good idea that was,” I said.
Oli went bright red. Evie looked at him, then he looked at Evie, then she went bright red too.
“None of us can use a camera though,” Amber pointed out.
“We have a few wannabe film-makers in film studies, don’t we, Evie?”
She nodded, still red. “We could ask around?”
“That would be amazing!”
I felt all full of love and meaning and fight and cold chips. I was onto something…I could just feel it…
Until Amber muttered. “Uh oh, Teddy alert. Teddy alert.”
My tummy squidged up. “Oh bollocks, where?”
“Six o’clock.”
I twisted my head around gormlessly. “Amber, where the heck is six o’clock…? Oh…here he is.”
Teddy was heading straight over with a lunch tray. His hair flopped in his eyes, but not enough to cover the huge stinky stinkeye he very deliberately gave me when he realized I was there. He didn’t have his usual bunch of hyena mates with him, otherwise he’d probably have said something.
My stomach turned again. Teddy was this hairy rugby guy I dated last year who seemed fun at first and then got totally intense super quickly. When he told me he was in love with me, on, like, our third date, I freaked out but ended things as considerately as I could. He didn’t take it well though. He still didn’t take it well. Him and his rugby team went totally ballistic when the girls and I campaigned for a rape song to get taken off the college jukebox and made our lives hell.
“I’ve honestly never seen so much hatred in anyone’s eyes before,” Evie marvelled.
“Shh,” I said, before looking up to smile at him.
He saw, he definitely saw. But he just stopped and gave me a very slow and deliberate sneer. Then he stalked off in the opposite direction.
“Wow,” Amber said. “Do you think he came over just to sneer at you?”
Evie chuckled. “That’s what happens when you take an intense person’s virginity and then dump them.”
“Hey!” I said, trying not to smile. I’d felt guilty about Teddy for months, but even with all my apologizing, he still went out of his way to make me feel like a slutty she-wolf. “I didn’t know he was a virgin. Or a vengeful bell-end. All his chest hair confuzzled me.”
Joel, for the first time that lunch, looked vaguely interested in the conversation.
“So virgins don’t have chest hair?” Amber asked.
I shrugged. “Well, you never imagine them having it, do you? Gah. Why is he still at college anyway?”
“He’s retaking his A levels, isn’t he? He failed a few.” She smiled. “It’s your fault.”
I picked up a congealed chip and threw it at her. “It’s totally not my fault! He failed his first year before I was even here, because he spent every spare moment playing rugby rather than revising. And don’t mess with me today, I have a plan.”
“You do indeed, my evil genius.”
I grinned back, slumping in my chair, feeling happy – as long as I didn’t look in Teddy’s direction. I felt strong, I felt unstoppable, I felt ignited. It pulsed through my blood with every heartbeat.
Then I saw Megan leaving her table and carrying her lunch tray to the bin. I stood up quickly.
“Where you off to?” Evie asked.
“I’ve got to go talk to someone. Meet you both at the gates after last bell?”
Amber and Evie nodded.
I turned to Jane. Amber and I were getting better at not leaving her out – though it was still an effort sometimes. “You want to come, Jane?” I asked her.
“Huh?” She still had one earphone in.
“Mine? Tonight? To plan my supersonic feminist social experiment?”
“Oh.” She looked panicked. “Thanks, umm…” She turned to Joel, who’d lost interest the moment we’d stopped discussing virginity. “I’m watching Joel’s band practise tonight though.”
“Oh, okay then.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Joel and his mates were in this heavy metal band called Road of Bones – the very epitome of everything that is bad about local bands. Also, their lead singer, Guy, totally messed Evie around last year – making me hate the band even more. “Right, better go.” I dashed off, trying not to lose the back of Megan’s head in the smush of the crowd.
I bobbed and weaved around people – just about keeping her long brown hair in sight. Then, once I was out of the bottleneck of the cafeteria doors, I launched into a mini-jog to catch her up.
“Megan!” I called. She stopped and turned around. She carried three bright folders in her arms, and wore a bright red jumper, but her face was…dimmer…than I remembered. Or maybe it had been that way since summer, and I was too uninterested to notice.
She smiled. “Hey, Lottie. What’s up?”
“Hey…” Suddenly I wasn’t sure what to say. All the words I’d planned last night garbled in my throat. Was this right, what I was doing? Was it my place? But then I couldn’t know what I thought I knew and not do anything… “So, about yesterday…” I started.
Megan’s face went from dim to dimmer.
“What about it?”
I could tell she’d tried to ask that casually, but it came out all sharp. I chewed on my lip, mulling every word over carefully.
“Umm…well…I was thinking… It’s quite an emotive topic…for lots of people…for lots of reasons…and… umm…well…I’m sorry if we didn’t organize it properly, so that people didn’t know what we were going to bring up…it was stupid.”
Megan shrugged. “I didn’t mind,” she said, in a sing-song voice.
You walked out of the meeting and cried in the toilets…
“Yeah, cool. That’s cool.” A group of footballer guys barged past us, jolting my shoulder. “But, umm, well, I thought you should know I’m doing
a project, maybe for FemSoc. I’m not sure yet. I thought you might be interested?”
“Oh yeah?” Megan shifted her folders from one arm to the other.
“Yeah. It’s a campaign where I have to call out every single incidence of sexism I see, the moment I see it, for an entire month.”
Megan’s eyebrows furrowed, but she was smiling. Her features a teeny bit brighter now we’d changed the topic of conversation. “Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know yet. The point is to try… But, well, you’re in my art class, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“I’ve seen how good you are at graphic drawing, whereas I’m crap. I can only draw real-life stuff, so I could really use your help.”
She chewed on her lip. “Like how?”
“I’m not sure yet. I only came up with the idea yesterday. It still needs a name. Amber and Evie are going to help me flesh it all out tonight. But I was thinking I definitely need campaign stickers and badges and stuff. I thought your graphic style would be perfect.”
Megan smiled, though I could see eight million defence mechanisms orbiting around her, like anti-aircraft missiles. Everything in me ached for her. Why wasn’t she opening up?
“Sounds cool,” she said. “I need some extra stuff for my UCAS personal statement. I’m in.”
“YAY!” I hugged her without warning. She stiffened but then settled into it. “You’re a lifesaver.”
She smiled wider. “This campaign sounds totally bonkers, you know that, right?”
“God, I love the word bonkers!” I said. “But sexism is totally bonkers. I’m hoping this campaign’s bonkersness will be able to highlight the bonkersness of it. Fight bonkersness with better bonkersness, that’s what I say. So, want to meet later this week to discuss plans?”
“Definitely.”
“Hooray and hooray.” I made her high-five me.
Everything we weren’t saying hung heavy in the air between us. But I didn’t bring it up because she didn’t.
All I said was, “Great, see you in art then.”
And all she said was, “Sure…and, umm, Lottie? Why are you dressed like a…erm…child prostitute today?”
nine
I surveyed Amber’s creation in marvel. It towered before her mouth, wobbling slightly in the breeze from my bedroom window.
“You are truly the master of cheesy snacks,” I told her, in serious seriousness. “You should become a cheesy snack yogi, and start a cheesy snack ashram. I will come and worship there until I find your cheesy enlightenment.”
“Let’s wait and see how it tastes first,” Evie said, always the voice of reason.
We’d stopped at the Co-op on the way home from college to stock up on supplies. Now back at mine, we’d barely said hi to Mum before trundling through all the beaded curtains to my bedroom. Amber had just spent the best part of fifteen minutes using some leftover Dairylea to mould together a tower of Cadbury’s cubes.
She hesitated before taking a bite.
“I’m still worried this will ruin two of my favourite things,” she said, eyeballing her creation.
“EAT IT,” Evie and I yelled.
Amber did. Getting most of it in her mouth, but still a considerable amount around her face. She chewed, her eyebrows throwing all sorts of eyebrow dance moves.
“And…?” I demanded, getting closer so I could better analyse her face.
“I’m schtill…schewing…” She sprayed some out her mouth and Evie visibly recoiled.
“Hurry up…I want to try it.”
She chewed and chewed, her face going red from the exertion. Finally she swallowed.
“Weeeell?”
A pause. Her face neutral. Then she gave a huge thumbs up.
“MYGODGUYS, IT’S AWESOME. YOU HAVE TO TRY IT!”
I didn’t need telling twice. I hastily dipped some Fruit and Nut in the leftover cheese spread, and shoved it into my mouth.
I chewed…I grimaced…I grabbed a tissue from my bedside table and spat it out.
“AMBER!”
She laughed manically, pointing with one hand and holding her belly with the other.
“Got you, I totally got you!”
“ARGH! It’s disgusting!” I grabbed her Coke bottle, just as she yelled “Oi!” and glugged down half of it to disguise the taste. Evie, meanwhile, stared at my spitwodge with utter horror.
“Shit, sorry, Evie. I’ll go put it in the downstairs bin.”
Evie shrugged, like it was nothing. But she was still staring at the tissue.
“Blame Amber.” I picked it up and ran downstairs. When I thundered back up, Amber was sitting next to Evie, her arm on her shoulder. Oh no. I’d triggered her with my grossness.
“Oh, Evie, are you okay?! I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’ve put it in the bin and washed my hands and everything.”
They both looked up, smiling.
“Chill, Lottie,” Evie said. “I’m not freaking out. I’m just showing Amber the last message I got from Oli. I don’t understand what it means.”
“I thought my spitwodge had broken you.”
“Maybe last year.” She smiled again. “But today I’m more worried about boys…well not boys…Oli.” She pointed to her phone. “What does this mean?”
I squatted next to them immediately to try and help.
“Both your breaths reek,” Evie complained, showing me the screen of her phone.
“Reek?” Amber answered. “Yet another Evie special, I’ve not heard that word since 1992. And I wasn’t even an embryo then.”
I laughed in one short burst. Evie had the most grandma vocabulary ever.
“Shut up.” Evie swatted us both. “And help me decipher this ruddy message.”
I let the “ruddy” pass, and leaned further over, trying not to breathe on her.
Hey – this film essay is the worst! Last weekend was fun. Oli x
I threw my head back in exasperation. “You two! I can’t believe your interactions haven’t come on in a whole YEAR.”
Amber nodded. “This is a bullshit message. What does it even mean?”
“I don’t know! That’s why I asked you guys. He’s shy, remember?”
I scrunched up my nose. “I thought he was over that?”
Evie turned around and playfully slapped my hand. “Oi. He’s recovered mostly from his agoraphobia, that doesn’t mean he’s not still shy.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever. You mental health people and your excuses.”
Another slap.
“I definitely deserved that.”
To be fair, Evie and Oli had very good reasons for taking it slow. She had her OCD, and last year, we found out that Oli had agoraphobia. They were essentially banned from dating anyone while they focused on getting better. They’d been more like mental health study buddies than boyfriend and girlfriend – chatting through therapy together, going away on some mindfulness weekend. But now they were both in a “good patch”, as Evie called it, they were allowed to act on their urges. And Oli does have very green eyes and very cheekbony cheekbones – he definitely makes girls have urges… After last year’s shared singledom, my fellow Spinster Club friends were on the verge of coupling up and leaving me behind.
Amber grabbed the phone. “He says he had fun last weekend. Does that mean he’s referring to the kiss?”
“Yes,” I declared. “Of course he is!”
Evie took the phone back sadly. “But how do we know? He may have gone…I dunno…kayaking on Sunday. And be referring to that.”
Amber shook her head. “No. He definitely wouldn’t be referring to that. Kayaking is the sport of the devil. Take that from someone who had to do it all summer at an American camp.”
We laughed. Amber’s emails last summer about getting stuck in a canoe were still a highlight of my life.
“How’s it going with Kyle, anyway?” Evie asked. “You missing him?”
Amber went completely red – which I always love. She blushes so b
adly.
“He may be coming over to visit at Christmas actually…” she admitted and we all squealed.
While Amber was shoving her long body into a canoe, she’d fallen stupid in love with this American HUNK and had run away with him, driving across America. It was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me…and it wasn’t even me it had happened to. I was jealous and happy for her in equal measures.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” Evie said.
“Can he bring some fit American mates with him?” I asked, and Amber thumped me.
“There’s no solid plan yet. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“Or your loins…”
She thumped again.
“ANYWAY,” I said, sorting out my hair, which was all messed up by Amber’s thumps. “This is supposed to be my supersonic feminism meeting, and all we’re doing is talking about boys again.”
Evie sighed. “Right you are. Okay. Just give me five more minutes to totally obsess over this message, and then I’ll be with you.”
To save her time, we all read it again, and came to the conclusion that,
a) Oli was shy (and it wasn’t his fault)
b) This was his way of saying he enjoyed kissing Evie at the house party.
And, together, we composed the following reply:
I had a great weekend too. Agreed tho, this essay is the worst x
Then I made Evie send it and turn off her phone for the rest of the evening. “I don’t want you checking to see if he’s replied when you should be listening to my mono—”
“I’m not going to let you monologue,” she interrupted. “You need to learn that every time you get to speak, doesn’t mean you get to monologue.”
“But I’m so very good at it,” I wailed, breaking off another line of chocolate.
“Talk us through this project again.” Amber took the bar from me to help herself to another piece. “And mentally prepare for the fact we will stop you to ask questions.”
“Am I allowed to at least get up and pace?”
Evie sighed. “If you must…”
I finished my mouthful, then got up, and started pacing the length of my bedroom – telling them about all the thoughts I’d had the day before. About the philosophy train question, and how I didn’t want to flick a switch that made a less-bad thing happen if it still allowed bad things to happen. About how maybe sexism was all linked, all the bad stuff. And that by allowing one, seemingly small, sexist thing to pass, you may actually be paving the way for the bigger shittier things to happen.