A Tiny Bit Marvellous

by Dawn French

  Dora

  Lottie was sooo late coming over this evening, she was supposed to be here at like six or something but she didn’t show up ’til after nine. I could tell Mum was stressing but she put on that fake thing for Lotts, sort of like pretending that our house is some kind of easy-come easy-go sort of place where you can drop in any time you like coz we’re all so relaxed. ‘Open-house’ she called it. That is 108% so not true.

  Mum hates people coming over, coz it means she’s got to pretend all evening, and she gets tired from it. She even came up to my room with a tray of hot chocolate and like snacks and stuff … crisps and stuff. She NEVER does that but she was acting like this happens all the time. Yeah she just brings up trays of nice drinks and snacks all the time because, hey y’know, ‘these kids are working sooo hard for their exams’, and like, ‘what is it with all this endless measuring and assessing of kids these days’ – it’s ‘monstrous’ and ‘inhibiting’, they should be allowed to just ‘be kids’ instead of ‘exam robots’ apparently. Then, when people have gone, she goes right back to like, ‘Have you done your coursework?! It’s due in by half-term. You’ve got to do it by yesterday! Switch the TV off immediately!’ And she’s back to being this like totally freaked out stress queen. Like, why don’t you decide who you are and stick to it you psycho.

  Lottie was well happy with the hot chocolate though and when I said it was all fake she said her mum does exactly the same and anyway, who cares because we’ve got hot chocolate so – YAY! That was a bit weird, because every time I’ve been round hers, I always think her mum is like, so cool. I never thought she was faking it atall. She’s just like a normal natural lovely kind person who I wish my mum was more like.

  Think Lotts is just saying that to make me feel better. She’s sooo kind like that. Today I said she was my sister from another mother and she sooo like agreed. I really love her. We’ve got no secrets atall. We share everything. I so know that like, if someone was going to shoot her, like in a bank robbery or something – I would sooo say like shoot me instead, and I would jump on her so no one could hurt her. And she says she would do the same for me. She says that if one day I like, can’t have a baby or something, she would have one for me? That is sooo precious. Like she would use her womb for me?

  We tried to figure out how it would actually work and it seems like she would have to get my husband’s sperm or something somehow. I said I’m not sure I would like that and she said it wouldn’t actually mean anything, she would, like not even look at him or get drunk or something and they would like totally have to promise not to actually feel anything when they do it, and the thing to remember is that they would both be doing it for me. Like a sort of present kind of thing. It wouldn’t mean anything for the two of them atall with each other, not at all, it would only be for me.

  I feel a bit weird about it though, because like I would so love him and I would so think he would totally fall in love with her instead, especially if they’re always doing it, even if it is just to give me a baby. And then, when the baby happens, and I took it home, I would have to keep looking at a baby with her face on it all the time? It kind of creeps me out, so I might say no to that. I didn’t want to tell Lotts that though because she was just being kind.

  She thinks I’ve lost weight, and she’s right because I haven’t been eating any main meals atall, just snacks, so I think it’s gradually coming off now, especially around my hips. I noticed, because my jeans are sitting back down on my hips where they are supposed to because they’re hipsters, but when my belly is bigger the waistband goes under the belly and the flab goes over the top and they hurt. I don’t think jeans should hurt. And anyway, no one cares about hipsters any more, they are like so gone. Lindsay Lohan has got these really great high-waisted blue trousers that are like so cool so I want a pair of those now, so I’ll have to look for that type. No hope in Pangbourne, I’ll have to go into Reading. Maybe me ’n’ Lotts can go at the weekend. Dad will give me the cash and drop us off. Mum will say we can only go if we do our work and ‘earn’ it.

  Maybe I shouldn’t get the trousers now coz I’m obviously going to lose loads more so maybe I should just wait, or at least wait ’til just before the X Factor auditions. That way the trousers will be new and I’ll be thin so it’ll be perfect? I’ll wear them to the audition.

  Omigod, me ’n’ Lotts had to act like we were so doing our coursework but really I was practising my song and she was being Dannii Minogue and like telling me what to do. She loves the Christina song and she thinks I do it even better than Christina because like, Christina actually is beautiful but when I sing it, it’s more true coz I say, ‘I’m beautiful – no matter what they say,’ and that’s more like real life coz no one could say Christina Aguilera isn’t beautiful. But they could say that about me.

  Which reminds me, I’m not going to wear my glasses on the audition day. Lotts says my eyes are my best thing, so I’m going to show them. She’s def going to come with me. I so can’t wait but we’re not telling the parents coz they’ll just freak out. Anyway, we’ve got loads of time coz the exams and the prom and my party happen before that. I am now thinking that maybe two prom things in a row might be a bad thing, so I might change my party to a Bunnies party instead, where all the girls have to dress like cute bunnies type of thing? That would be, like so hot. After Lotts left, I Facebooked everyone and told them about the Bunnies thing. No replies yet but it’s ages away.

  Soooo tired. Going to sleep to dream about Simon Cowell doing that big-eyed surprised face when he hears me sing for the first time and saying, ‘Omigod Dora. You are like, so the best singer we’ve ever heard. You are what this show’s about. You are gonna be a star, little lady. And what’s more, you’ve got gorgeous eyes and Dora, you are beautiful, no matter what they say.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Mo

  I’m so glad Dora has Lottie. For a while she didn’t seem to have any real friends, then up popped Charlotte who broke ranks from the dreadful ‘plastics’ to support Dora when there was a massive fuss about which of the American TV vampire shows was the best. The entire lower sixth form came to a shuddering halt one lunchtime whilst the incendiary stand-off took place. Dora was in a group of one, until cheeky Charlotte took up her cause, and argued the case for Moonlight against the behemoth juggernaut of vampire triumph that is True Blood. Only when Lottie also pointed out that both factions were in total agreement about the unquestionable supremacy of Twilight the movie did the whole brouhaha dissipate, with relatively little collateral damage on either side.

  No lives were lost on that occasion, although many confessed that death via Robert Pattinson’s fangs would always be a welcome end. I sort of get it … but then I don’t. He’s too girly for my liking, as if Jude Law, Orlando Bloom and Bela Lugosi had been melted down to create a wispy vampire offspring from their combined smoke.

  Anyway, Lottie was, and still is, Dora’s advocate and the only one that has hung in there. It’s sweet when she comes round so that they can study together. Not that they study at all, but at least they are together, hatching plans and whispering and giggling, exactly as you’re supposed to when you’re seventeen. Lottie seems an unlikely amigo for Dora at first sight. She is petite and fragile-looking. The type of girl with indeterminate but interminable asthma. She is the physical opposite of Dora and they both, endlessly, pointlessly, wish they looked like the other. Lottie wishes she was tall and strong with Dora’s blossomy skin and sheets of rain-straight hair. Damaged, but straight. Dora wishes she was smaller and more feminine with the mixed-race mocha beauty of the fabulously freckled Lottie. Lottie has the most audacious hair I’ve ever seen, an afro-tousle of tight curls that shoots out in all directions like a firework. She hates it, and complains about how uncontrollable it is, whilst Dora can’t wait to get her hands in it and play – tying it up, plaiting it, slicking it down, putting thirty different-coloured shiny butterfly clasps in it. Anything Lottie will let her do, hairwise, Dora delights
in. Dora wants more hair, Lottie wants less. Lottie always wears funky hats or big fabric flowers in her hair, and Dora falls asleep every night dreaming of such opportunities to be so casually exotic.

  If they were blooms, Dora would be a yellow sunflower and Lottie would be a fuchsia orchid. Of course, neither of these typically adolescent beauties can see the beauty in themselves, only in each other. For this, I am so grateful because Lottie’s bountiful praise is the only type Dora allows to land on her, so it is such a nourishment when I hear Lottie piling it on. Long live Lottie and her generous wonder-working spirit.

  I can’t help it, and I know it winds Dora up, but when the two of them are together, I am overcome with the desire to nurture their friendship with plenty of motherly gestures. I like nothing more than to prepare a tray of treats for them and slide the goodies into Dora’s bedroom. This is what Pamela used to do for me during the dreaded uni revision, and I’ve never forgotten the delicious comfort of it. I suppose I’m trying to pass on some of the care she showed me back then. It’s not entirely altruistic of course. The sense of satisfaction I get from providing like this is enormous and I suppose really, at the heart of it, I’d love them to invite me in to share it all with them. I wouldn’t go in of course, but it would be lovely to think Dora might want me to …

  THIRTY-THREE

  Oscar

  The majority of today was supremely unlovely. Dippy Dora displayed the true dimensions of her monumental ignorance at breakfast when she announced with giant confidence that she was hitherto only eating white food. She claims that she has been reliably informed (Heat Magazine, I suspect) that should one limit oneself to only a singular colour of food, one will certainly lose weight. I suggested that blue might be a wiser choice since she would then be restricted to a diet of blueberries, blue Smarties and toxic Slush Puppies. On second thoughts, these are representative of Delusional Dora’s favourite food-types and she would be sure to gorge ’til the statistics of the breadth, height and girth of the silly girl were shockingly identical.

  I do wish she might demonstrate some restraint, if only because somewhere, under all the paunch and plastic, my sister is hosting the possibility of something akin to beauty. So, Dreary Dora could one day be Dreamy Dora, should she prevail.

  I am well aware that I am no David myself, but I’m afraid the bald unjust truth is that it matters less for chaps. A solid bulky frame such as mine can be viewed as not unattractive. It carries the markings of stature and importance. I am a man of notable bearing. At the risk of pronouncing myself as vain or arrogant, I think I can safely claim that I am a significant person. Physically, at any rate. Dizzy Dora presently appears to be someone who couldn’t care less. The irony is all too apparent because, of course, she cares very much, certainly about what others make of her. I know from some of the louder, more gauche fellows at school that she is thought to be very nearly pretty but far too apologetic.

  If Dreadful Dora could only know her potential, I do believe she could thrive. However, this latest show of madness will not assist her in that respect. White food. What means she? Perhaps she will live on a diet of clouds.

  After that inauspicious start, I had to face the fact that it was Tuesday again and I must inevitably fulfil my promise to George and finish the filing, despite knowing there was absolutely no prospect of viewing my darling. If I were to withdraw from this commitment, I would only alert them all to my passion, so I must needs do these last few pointless, fruitless Tuesdays.

  I could hardly bring myself to connect with Lisa, who insists on yabbering incessantly, blissfully unaware of my failing interest. Today was a particularly gruesome diatribe:

  ‘Right. Listen up. Amputation. Sounds unlikely but, supposing, Peter slash Oscar, that a person was trapped by a limb in a burning wreck, yea? Imagine that. Terrifying. Immediate action is required. One! Application of a makeshift tourniquet using garments as restrictors. Two! The precision of the incisions, to exclude important arteries. Three! The correct severing of the muscles and retraction of the skin are crucial to successful recovery. And you are going to need your buddy to recover fast, mate, believe me, to help you ward off wild animals who will for sure be circling you for the kill once the fire is out and they’ve smelled the blood.’

  All these details were apparently crucial, and had to be explained at length. At spleen-wrenching, vomit-inducing length. I was tempted to tie off Lisa’s arteries and, using all the tricks she’d taught me, relieve her of her tongue. Instead I gradually shuffled my way to the door and finally withdrew to the back room.

  I only had the last five letters of the alphabet’s worth of files to sort, meaning mercifully, not many. I was interested to see two generations of a family of Vickers had been regular clients, with depression and low self-esteem at the centre of their various difficulties. The problems of the Walker family were mildly entertaining also, including one incident of self-harming with a Stanley knife. I had very nearly finished my task when I noticed a file under ‘W’ was out of place. On closer scrutiny I was curious to find the surname attached was ‘Wilson’. Of course, I had to read on, despite the fact that Wilson is a very common name and it would be highly unlikely that these folk would be attached or related to my particular Wilson.

  The case was beyond tragic. It seems that when the boy Luke was three, he and his father were fishing for dabs in the sea when they were cut off on a sandbank by the tide. The boy, at his father’s behest, climbed on to his shoulders to remain above the rising tide. The mother and older brother on the shoreline had called for assistance, but the older brother who was twelve couldn’t bear to wait and had frantically swum out to help. When he reached his father and brother, he discovered that his father’s legs had sunk into the muddy sandbank and he couldn’t get out. Meanwhile the tide was quickly rising and starting to lap over the father’s head. The brother dived down repeatedly to try and extract his father’s legs, to no avail, and gave his life in the attempt. When the rescue boat arrived to gather up Luke, he was still perching precariously on his drowned father’s shoulders.

  I found myself in floods of tears reading this awful account, movingly told to my mother by Luke himself. How would one ever recover from such a disaster? I could see that Mama had been incredibly sage in her analysis of this woeful boy’s long-held guilt. Much of his poor record at school and all-round underachievement, which his distressed mother was so worried about, could clearly be assigned to this tragedy. He was often predicting his own failure, and then living a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was having regular weekly sessions with Mama and was trying to work his way slowly out of the big wretched cement boots of guilt he was clonking about in. Poor Luke. My heart was bleeding for the sad little mite he must have been.

  I then looked at the contact details on the top of the last page of the file. Luke’s mother, who attends the sessions with him once a month, is called Karen, and she’s a dinner lady. At my school. Wilson’s mother is a dinner lady at my school. LUKE WILSON. I’ve never known his first name. Year 9s don’t have Christian names. Luke is Wilson.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Dora

  Right, I’ve GOT to finish my art coursework by the end of this week so what I’m going to do is: I’m going to make a list of all the things I need to get and do for the school prom and for my bunnies party before I start that.

  School Prom:

  Purple Prom Dress (below knee, strapless with netting petticoats)

  Bag to go with dress (small, but must fit phone in)

  Shoes to go with dress (at least 3½ inch heel)

  Strapless underwired bra. 36DD

  Pants to match. Not underwired

  Hairpiece. To match own hair but be able to curl and put up

  Tiara or flower or blingy hair slide

  Short jacket or, like fake fur wrap thing

  Tights (won’t need if legs are tanned)

  False eyelashes with sparkle on

  Jewellery – necklace, earrings, rings (expensive-lo
oking or borrow Mum’s)

  Book a tan session, hairdressers, full manicure and full pedicure with tips

  Book limousine or check if I can go in someone else’s

  Get a camera. Only got the one on my phone and it’s crap

  Charge up and borrow Dad’s video recorder

  Get boyfriend or date for the night

  Own Party. 18th Bunny Bonanza:

  Book a big room in hotel

  Get Bunny outfit. (Ordinary, sexy outfit but with bunny ears and tail)

  Fishnet tights

  Shoes (at least 4 inch heel), ’Black, shiny

  Big earrings (hoops but not chavvy)

  Tiara (with BIRTHDAY GIRL written on)

  Huge cake (with funny but flattering statue of me on top) OR loads of different-coloured cupcakes with like glitter on

  Book DJ (don’t let Mum do this)

  Get flashing disco lights

  Rent karaoke machine

  Book Hummer limo for me to arrive in

  Loads of lager, vodka, coke etc.

  Glasses (with umbrellas, cherries etc.)

  Get badges with ‘Dora is 18’ printed on for everyone

  Try to book a boy band or something. (Like maybe an old one like Blue or something to make it cheaper?)

  Get someone to make a film (get loads of friends and family to wish me happy birthday and say nice stuff about me. I will look surprised and cry when it’s shown on the night – should also film)

  Organize food – (8 family buckets of KFC?)

  Get boyfriend or date for the night

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Mo

  Caught sight of myself today in the window of the bank at lunchtime. For a tiny millisecond, I genuinely did not recognize the reflection. Firstly it was moving very fast and so I only glimpsed it momentarily, the way you sometimes see a bird dart into a bush. Swift, sudden, hardly there. It was only after I had passed and was starting to process what I had just seen, that I realized I was moving fairly fast myself, in fact I was entirely in step with the blurry bundle of grey I had just spotted beside me in the window of the bank. In the window. In the reflection of the window. In the reflection.