by Anne Thomas
"Chocolate. Yes. That would be nice," Antal chuckled in response, and John poked me in the side with his biro, muttering something about obviousness. I glared at him but then decided to rise above him and ignore the poke.
At the end of the day, I left my form room later than everyone else after having a conversation with Miss Moore about my IT work. Gareth wasn't waiting outside the classroom, but I knew he'd be outside somewhere so I began to head outside when I heard a yell from behind me.
"Nerys! Nerys, wait a second!" It was Joe West, curly hair tousled and rucksack bulging; nearly bursting at the seams it was so full. A large orange ring binder was tucked under his arm.
"I asked Tyler to tell you to find me at break," he puffed, sounding as if he'd been running. He rested his free hand on his lap and bent over slightly, "but you never came."
"He told me that you wanted to talk to me, but he never told me to come and meet you," I informed him. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just have something to give you." He manoeuvred his rucksack off his back and bent one of his knees as he set about unzipping it with one hand. He thrust his hand inside, rummaging around inside the contents of the bag.
"What the hell have you got in there, Joe?" I asked, frowning.
"Books, folders, PE kit," he shrugged. "Oh, and this." He presented me with a small green carrier bag, and I took it carefully.
"You got me a present?" I said doubtfully, and he laughed, the sound of his bag zipping up ringing around the empty corridor.
"No, it's not from me. Look inside the bag."
I did as I was told. At the bottom of the bag was a small blue box, and then there was a card in a pale purple envelope. I delved my hand into the bag, pulling out the card first and sliding my finger under the flap, tearing it open.
The card matched the envelope, and had lots of teddy bears and balloons and glitter. I opened it, reading quickly through the surprisingly neat message penned inside.
Freckles,
Happy birthday. I'm sorry I'm not there. I've got the flu. Sorry.
But I gave your present to Joe this morning (as you'll probably have noticed).
I hope you like it. It's nothing amazing, but I hope you'll appreciate why I gave it to you.
I can't take the full recognition for your present as I actually got the idea while I was listening to your iPod. You'll see what I mean.
Again, happy birthday. I hope you had a great day.
Love, Billie
PS. I kept the colour chart. The present is more for me than for you, Freckles.
"He's been ill all weekend," Joe explained. "I went over this morning because we walk to school together but he said he wasn't coming in, so he gave me your present. Sorry you had to wait so long to get it. I'm going to kill Tyler when I see him, I told him to tell you to come and find me..."
Ignoring him, I reached back into the bag and pulled out the small blue box. It was the sort of box you kept rings in, I quickly realised, and then I pulled off the lid.
Sat inside was a very simple silver ring with a small, round stone set into it. The stone was a dark purplish blue, and I gingerly took it out of the box and placed it onto my finger. Slowly, it began to change colour, and I giggled. "It's a mood ring," I announced, and Joe just smiled. He clearly already knew that.
I read the card again, eyes narrowing. "Oh my God," I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head. "He's an idiot, isn't he?"
"Just a little bit," Joe laughed. "I just think he wants a warning."
He'd got me a mood ring so, clearly, he'd been listening to Relient K. I knew that part of me should have been offended, but I wasn't. It was a pretty ring and, I suppose the thought counted.
Still. He was an idiot, and I planned on telling him that when he returned to school. Hopefully, my ring would do its job and warn him of this before it happened.
Chapter 20: Fairytale of Llynmawr
What had been a very eventful start to my school year was beginning to draw to a close as we hit the last week of the autumn term. During this term I had gained a stalker, a crush and a kind-of boyfriend, and I had also lost said boyfriend but gained a few new friends to make up for it in the form of the basketball team. On top of this I'd also made friends with Adam and Louis, two very popular boys, and had made enemies of people who, in Year 9 at least, had been friends of mine. So, all in all, it had been very eventful and very interesting, to say the least.
My Drama performance came and went right at the beginning of the week. It had been better than I'd expected: nerve-wracking, certainly, as we sat in the school gym waiting for our turn to go on the stage, but then there'd been the exhilirating rush once the play was over and the curtains were drawn and we all literally ran at each other, laughing and screaming and hugging. And, obviously, there was the elated, easy-going, "I can't believe it's finally over" feeling that overwhelmed for the rest of the evening.
But then that was over and all we had to do was wait for the Christmas disco. The disco always took place the day before the end of term, and that was brilliant because we only had two lessons in school before they let us go for dinner. Well. Not really dinner; you don't eat anything because you're too busy getting ready. That's the case for most girls anyway.
We managed to bribe Miss Moore into letting us use her room to get changed in so we didn't have to share the PE changing rooms with everyone else. Miss Moore and the TA, Mr Stephanopoulos, vacated the room to give us some privacy, and even locked the door to the room behind them so we wouldn't be disturbed.
So, Ann, Siân, Beth, Elisha, Sharon, and me all crowded into the room. After a few moments of rushing around and emptying our bags of our dresses and shoes and whatever, there was a knock at the door.
Siân went to answer it, opening it the tiniest of amounts and peering around the gap with what I imagined to be a look of death upon her face. And then she opened the door fully and Nichola Cryer, Kerry Mully and most of their friends trooped into the room.
"Hope you don't mind if we join you," Nichola grinned, not really giving us much of a choice in the matter, "But Louis told us that Miss Moore had given you the room and well, it was either this or share with the Year 7 idiots or share a room with that awful Gwen Reynolds and her stuck up friends, and we thought we'd choose you."
Thank you, Nichola. We're so honoured that we beat Year 7s and Gwen. It's nice to know.
From us, there were a few mumbles of assent before her friends took over most of the room. We retreated into a smaller corner, not really too bothered. Except for Elisha, that is, who remained with them, adding the finishing touches to her ensemble. She didn't really need to get changed – she'd been wearing her bright pink vest top, pale pink sequinned cardigan, silver leggings and denim hot pants for the entire day, drawing a lot of stares from everyone else. No, she was using this opportunity to do her hair and make up.
When Louis had seen her, a baffled (and generally adorable) look came over his face and he shook his head. "She really confuses me," he confided in me. "Why is she wearing that?"
"I've no idea," I replied, hiding my grin. Personally, I liked Elisha's choice of clothing. Crazy, yes; mismatching, certainly. But it was also fun and colourful, and what's more, Elisha really doesn't give a damn.
Meanwhile, we were all shimmying into our dresses and cooing over everyone else's dresses. Siân was naturally clad in a very daring purple mini-dress that showed off her legs, while Ann had gone for red like she had on Halloween. Her dress was satin with a pencil skirt and she looked lovely – in my opinion, at least.
Beth's dress was plain black but it was very flattering to her colouring. She spent a lot of that dinnertime lamenting the fact that Danny wouldn't get to see the dress. Her and Danny had were now officially boyfriend and girlfriend and Beth was delighted.
I suppose the biggest surprise in terms of dresses was Sharon. Normally, she couldn't care less what she looks like – put her in a bin bag and she's happy. Her dress was pale yellow an
d very cute, revealing the fact she actually had a figure to the world. "You look really nice," I assured her, and she grinned shyly.
"Thanks," she replied. "So do you."
Hmm. I wasn't so sure. Yes, I still loved the dress but it just felt really summery, not the sort of thing you wore for a bloody Christmas disco. And the shoes were a mistake. I could just about stand up in them. I could hear Pascal's voice in my head, the false French accent chastising me; "I told you to practise walking in them, silly girl!" As if I didn't have better things to do.
But I was actually beginning to regret it.
"Let's see your dress, Nesta," Nichola commanded from the other side of the room. She herself was wearing a very short dress with panels of different-coloured sequins, paired with fuchsia stiletto heels. By the way she walked in them, it was clear she was used to walking in heels well over three inches high. Lucky.
Holding onto the backs of chairs and the desk, I stumbled over to her, ignoring the giggles and snorts of Beth and Siân behind me.
"Stupid – effing – shoes," I grumbled.
"Honey, why did you buy them if you can't walk in them?" Nichola clucked, eyes raking up and down my form. "Oh, and the dress is sweet, by the way." Sweet. Huh. Wasn't totally sure what that meant...
"You've never met my brother's fiancée," I told her through gritted teeth. "I meant to pack my smaller heels too just in case but there was no room in my bag, so I took them out."
Nichola rolled her eyes. "Shit when that happens," she said with a sympathetic pat on my shoulder. She turned to Kerry, who had drifted over as Nichola inspected my outfit. Kerry's blonde hair was all pinned up and she wore a white dress that made her look like some kind of angel; it was the sort of outfit that completely contrasted her nature, but she looked lovely all the same.
Then she opened her mouth.
"What's shit?" she asked, popping gum in her mouth.
"When you buy five inch heels but also consider wearing safer heels as a precaution but then you don't and you're stuck wearing shoes that might cause you to break your neck," Nichola said.
"Oh God yeah, that's absolutely fucking shit, that is," Kerry agreed. "I like your dress, by the way. And that ring..." She grabbed my wrist and held my hand up towards the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
It was just my mood ring, and I told her that. "Billie got it me for my birthday."
"How cute," Nichola cooed. It wasn't really; the ring was made out of that cheap kind of plasticky metal and was slowly causing a band of flesh on my finger to turn green.
"Yeah, I guess," I mumbled in response, but then I heard Elisha shrieking and made my excuses, hobbling back over to my friends.
Elisha had been backcombing her hair when the brush got stuck in her hair. I've no idea now, all I know is that I walked over and found this massive brush sticking out from her head and she looked just about ready to cry. That would have been a pity, as she'd done her make up and everything. Sparkly silver eye shadow and really thick eyeliner and mascara; it would have been a mess if she'd started crying.
Siân was told to go away after her blunt suggestion to just cut the brush out. Thankfully, Sharon was on hand with soothing words and careful hands to pull the brush out of her hair.
This was when someone knocked on the door again. Nichola opened it this time, and allowed Evelyn Awbrey to step nervously in. Her dress was navy and, to be fair, she did look really nice, even if the dress clashed with her hair (she'd dyed it a weird shade of red since the end of Year 9). In her hands, she held a set of straighteners, the wire wrapped around her hand and wrist.
"Um, can I use the straighteners in here?" she asked. "Um, it's just that, Mrs Austin won't let us use them in her room for some reason."
"Sure, as long as it's just you," Nichola allowed. "I'm not having that Reynolds bitch or that Folland chick in here, or any of that other lot. I guess I could let Suzanne in, she's all right she is. I'm doing a favour for you because of Ed."
At Nichola's words, Elisha visibly stiffened as she leaned towards the computer screen she was using as her mirror to check her make-up. Nichola was talking about Edward Watts, who was both Evelyn's boyfriend and Elisha's twin brother.
To be quite blunt, we don't talk about Ed because he's a dick. I mean, Elisha's his sister but he treats her like dirt. Needless to say they don't get along so they avoid each other as much as possible when they're at school. Elisha also hates Evelyn with a burning passion, and so does Valerie Watts, their mother. To top things off, Ed is like Gordon's best friend. He also used to get along quite well with Adam and Louis but I'd not really seen them talk to each other since they'd started hanging around with my friends and me.
It appeared, however, that Ed still got along with Nichola.
"Um. Right, okay. When I've, uh, straightened my hair, I'll tell them that they can't, uh, use this room."
"Good." Nichola gave her a sickly sweet smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and practically skipped back over to her gang.
Evelyn very quickly used her straighteners, cast her eyes over us, and then nearly ran out of the room. As she closed the door behind her, Ann spoke up.
"I bet she was sent to spy," she said casually.
"Spy?" Nichola demanded, eyeing Ann.
"Sure," Ann said easily. "Gwen hates our guts, particularly Nerys. She'd love it if we all turned up looking like hags."
Nichola was silent, and then she giggled. "You're Ann, right? Please, tell me you're Ann. I so want you to be Ann right now."
Ann raised a quizzical eyebrow, looking slightly perturbed. "I'm Ann," she confirmed, and Nichola looked delighted.
"Thank God for that," she said, sounding satisfied, before turning towards one of her friends to help apply her lipstick for her.
Sharon then alerted us that we only have five minutes before the bell would ring, so the room literally became a flurry of activity as people added the finishing touches to their outfit (and in mine and Sharon's cases, tried to cram some food down their throats so we weren't starving and begging for a McDonald's by the time we got home).
But then the bell sounded. Whenever we go to the school disco, everyone has to congregate in the sports hall and gather in our year groups before we're sent to the coaches individually. The time spent in the sports hall was basically fifteen minutes of boredom while you waited nervously, feeling like everyone was looking at you because you were a bit more (or a lot more, for most girls) dressed up than usual.
"Ugh, I don't want to go down," I complained loudly to Beth as we walked (or in my case, stumbled) towards the stairwell. I carefully manoeuvred myself down the stairs, gripping onto the handrail with two hands as I went, while Beth had my rucksack slung over her shoulder.
"Suck it up," Beth ordered my unsympathetically, shoving the bag into my arms as we reached the bottom of the stairs. "No pain, no gain and all that jazz. It's only for a few hours, anyway. You can cope."
"I'm not so sure," I grumbled under my breath.
"Well, next time then, don't let Pascal bully you into buying things you don't want to wear," Beth sighed, sounding tired. I glared at her, and muttered darkly under my breath.
I managed to make it to the sports hall without breaking my leg. Unfortunately, we were late, so everyone got to witness my stupid hobbling walk. To make matters worse as we all entered the sports hall, John, Adam and Louis decided it was a fantastic idea to start singing, "Here come the girls!"
I kicked my shoes off; grateful for the fact I could walk again. Dropping my bag at the front of the sports hall, I gathered my shoes into my hands and strode over to my grinning friends of the male variety.
"Don't say a word," I said to John as he opened his mouth, presumably to comment on my hobbling walk.
"I was just going to tell you how nice you look," John informed me but the sincerity of his voice didn't quite reach his eyes. "Especially that walk...Damn, that was one sexy –"
At Louis' guffaws, I reached out and clobbered John's sh
oulder with my heels.
"You try and walk in five inch heels," I grumbled, "And see how you walk."
"I have no desire to walk in high heels, thank you very much," John responded with a smirk.
"I'm surprised, Jervis," drawled a voice from our left, "I thought cross dressing would be right up your street." The voice belonged to Gordon, who stood with his friends sneering at us. He wore a From Autumn To Ashes T-shirt and a pair of baggy jeans, and looked more like he was off to the skate park than to a nightclub. You know, for one of the most fancied boys in our year (bar Adam and Louis) he didn't half look scruffy most of the time.
"Oh, shut your mouth, Morgan," Adam said in a bored voice, while Louis glowered from his other side.
"Don't you tell me to shut up, Lougher," Gordon retorted with a glare of his own. Louis bristled while Adam ignored him.
In comparison to Gordon and his friends (his friends had gone for a similar band T-shirts and baggy jeans look), Adam, Louis and John looked really smart. They'd all gone for shirts paired with cardigans or sweaters with jeans and smart shoes, and the look suited all of them, even John. Okay, so Adam's bright pink sweater clashed hideously with his bright red mop of hair, but he didn't really looked like he cared.
Gordon's eyes then turned to me, and began to rake up and down my form. His smirk, which had been lost when Adam told him to shut up, slowly returned to his face, and I began to feel self-conscious.
He turned to Ed Watts and began to mutter something in his ear. Ed then looked at me, focusing particular attention on my legs, and began to smirk as well. They pulled away from each other and began to laugh.
"Morgan," Adam spoke up, not even looking at Gordon, "If you've got something to say, you might as well say it."
Everyone looked at him, kind of expectantly. Ed opened his mouth to say something, but Gordon elbowed him in the stomach and gave a jerk of his head. "Nothing to say," Gordon muttered, turning his back on us just as Suzanne and Gwen wandered over. Gwen was wearing a very pretty dress – just not very pretty on her – while Suzanne's dress was short, shocking pink and very dramatic, showing lots of leg. Neither Gordon nor John could take their eyes off her.