by Sue Limb
‘I’m not going!’ she blurted out. ‘And please, please, promise me you won’t go either.’
Ben cocked his eyebrow. ‘Hey, chill! It’s only, like, a bit of, y’know, fun, yeah?’
‘Fun?’ cried Jess indignantly. ‘How would you like it if the girls had fixed up a camera in the boys’ loo, and you’d been in there doing private stuff?’
Ben sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Jess tried to bite her nails, but there was really nothing left to bite. She fought off a desperate urge to rip off her shoes and start gnawing at her toenails.
‘Don’t suppose I’d mind being on CCTV,’ Ben shrugged. ‘It’s just, like, a laugh, right? Whatever it was you – you know, like did, it can’t be bad. You should just … come and have a laugh. That would be well cool. If you don’t turn up, people might think you’d, y’know, bottled out.’
Jess knew that the ability to laugh at yourself was a sign of maturity. But she wasn’t sure that even a 30-year-old could get through this crisis without screaming aloud and eating their own jeans.
‘All the other girls are going,’ said Ben. ‘Flora’s going.’
‘It’s OK for her,’ hissed Jess. ‘She didn’t even go into the freaking loo. Her bladder must be as big as a bus.’
‘She always seems kind of, well, lucky,’ pondered Ben.
‘Too right!’ agreed Jess. ‘She leads a charmed life. You should see her house. Her dad is this, like, megastar in the bathroom business and her mum looks like a movie star. Their house is amazing. You have to take your shoes off when you go in because the carpets are all cream-coloured. And if their china gets chipped, Flora’s mum throws it away. There isn’t a single piece of china in my house that isn’t chipped.’
Ben stared thoughtfully across the cafe. Jess wondered if perhaps talking about chipped china might not be the ideal way to a boy’s heart. But what could she talk about? Movies? Cars? Sport? Music? She couldn’t think of anything for more than a few seconds before her mind went whirling back to the awful subject of CCTV.
‘D’you think she really, like, rates Mackenzie?’ asked Ben suddenly.
Jess forgot about CCTV for a moment. ‘Oh yes!’ she assured him. ‘I think Flora’s always had a bit of a thing about him. Plus we’ve been doing King Charles I in history, and she’s majorly mad about him. And I think Mackenzie reminds her of him.’
‘What? He reminds her of a king?’ said Ben, looking puzzled. ‘That’s weird.’
‘Oh no, I mean, that’s not why she likes him. That was just my idea. Because Mackenzie’s small and dark like Charles I. But there the resemblance ends. Mackenzie does have a head after all.’
‘A head?’ Ben looked even more puzzled.
‘You know,’ explained Jess. ‘Charles I was beheaded. In the Civil War. Roundheads. Cavaliers. Remember?’
Ben nodded. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘I remember, right. History gets up my nose, so I don’t usually listen. But … so you reckon Flora’s definitely, um, got a thing for Mackenzie? You don’t think she’s, er … going to chuck him, do you? He’d be gutted.’
‘Oh no!’ Jess assured him. ‘Definitely not. She’s crazy about him.’
Ben Jones looked carefully at her and nodded slowly. ‘Uh-huh. Good.’
Suddenly an awful uneasiness crept into Jess’s head. Ben Jones hadn’t really wanted to have coffee with her – not for her own sake. Mackenzie had asked him to find out if Flora was serious about him! This wasn’t a date. She wasn’t being wooed – she was being grilled.
Ten minutes ago, Jess had been in agony about the CCTV footage. But at least she had comforted herself with the thought that she was out on a date with Ben Jones. The comfort had seemed rather faint and remote. But at least it had been there. Now, that idea had gone up in smoke.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I gotta go. I’ve got urgent stuff to do at home.’ She got up, fast.
Ben Jones looked startled. He scrambled to his feet.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘So – what about tomorrow? Shall we meet in the burger place – round about 7.30?’
Jess hesitated. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to think about it. I’ll text you, OK?’
Ben nodded, and grinned his slanty grin. Her stomach (which seemed to have returned from Australia) performed a cartwheel.
‘Go for it,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re a star!’
Jess tossed her head in what she hoped was an elegant and mysterious manner, and walked out. She marched down the street, boiling with emotion. He had said she was a star! Maybe he did want to go out with her after all! By going to the party and facing up to everybody, she could become Ben’s star. Not exactly his girlfriend, sure, but it was a start. However, Jess doubted if the CCTV footage would show her in a starring role. Instead she had acted like an idiot. A topless idiot – the very best sort. By tomorrow night, Ben Jones would know that she talked to her boobs and gave them names. He would know about the soup. He would have seen her half-naked. And so would everybody else. Who could she tell? Nobody. Not even Flora. Certainly not her mum.
It started to rain. Jess didn’t mind. She walked on, faster and faster. The rain ran down her face. There was something soothing about it. You could cry in the rain unnoticed. Jess was sorely tempted. When she got home she was soaked. Home had never smelt so homely. She would never leave it again. Her mum had got back with Granny while Jess was at school, and Granny had the TV news on, quite loud. As Jess walked in, Granny looked up with a twinkly smile. She switched the TV on to mute and held out her arms.
‘Jess! Sweetheart! You look so grown-up! Goodness, you’re wet! Have a bath straightaway, lovey, or you’ll get a chill. They’ve found a human head in Grimsby.’
Granny’s character was mostly sweet old-fashioned fussiness but with a strange lust for horror. She trawled through the newspapers for gory details of murder mysteries. If she saw a man digging his garden she immediately suspected he was burying his wife. She had watched the DVD of Pulp Fiction seven times, while knitting pink fluffy baby socks for the charity shop. She was, in her own loveable way, a little bit weird.
Jess’s mum appeared, carrying a pile of Granny’s things. She looked tired. She gave Jess a curious, expectant look.
‘Hi, Mum,’ said Jess. Her mum seemed very far away. Jess felt that her agony about the CCTV footage had imprisoned her in a kind of glass box. She could see ordinary life taking place out there, but she couldn’t join in.
‘Well … ?’ said her mum.
‘Well what?’ answered Jess irritably.
‘What do you think of your room?’
‘Oh, Mum, it’s divine! I’m so sorry! I forgot!’ Jess launched herself at her mum and gave her a massive hug. ‘It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me! Thanks so much! You’re ace! I’m going up to sort it out now. But I’m just going to have a bath first.’
Jess fled upstairs. She locked herself in the bathroom, ran a bath, jumped in, lay back and tried to relax. But her mind was whirling. How could she get her hands on that footage and destroy it for ever? Maybe she could ring Tiffany and try to bribe her. But Jess had no money, and she’d always had the impression that Tiffany didn’t like her much. Jess sighed. Maybe she could feign illness and stay away from school for several days, until it had all blown over. What she needed was something huge to happen which would distract everybody from the CCTV thing. Maybe she should slip out tonight and set fire to the school. No, it would be better to set fire to Tiffany’s house. Then the footage would get destroyed as well.
She poured some of her mother’s oil into the bath. It was lavender – supposed to be soothing. Jess tried hard to be soothed. Setting fire to buildings was just a fantasy. Jess couldn’t even light an aromatherapy candle without burning her fingers. She went back to the idea of pretending to be ill. Maybe there was an illness that lasted about a year. Surely in a year’s time everybody would have forgotten all about the CCTV footage. She would have to ring her dad. He would know. He was working hi
s way through the medical encyclopaedia. He had already got as far as D – dandruff.
‘Jess!’ Her mum knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Fred’s on the phone!’
‘Tell him I’ll ring him back!’ called Jess. It was time to get out of the bath anyway. Her skin was going all wrinkled, like Granny’s. Jess got out and dried herself. But she never said a word to Bonnie and Clyde. That kind of madness can get you into serious trouble. She hoped Bonnie and Clyde would understand, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be speaking to them again for some time.
Jess rang Fred from the study. Her mum was cooking downstairs and listening to the radio in the kitchen, and Granny was still in the sitting room with the TV blasting away. Fred answered the phone.
‘Hi, Mum said you rang,’ said Jess.
‘Yeah,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve left my copy of Twelfth Night in school, and I’ve got to finish the essay or Fothergill will rip out my intestines and turn them into a rather chic pâté. Can I come round and borrow yours?’
‘Sure,’ said Jess. She realised with a sickening lurch that she hadn’t done her Shakespeare essay either, but her mum, being a librarian, had loads of copies of the plays, so Fred could certainly borrow her school one. Although it was covered with her lovesick graffiti about Ben Jones. She’d have to obliterate it. She didn’t want Fred to see how very very doting she had been.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fred. ‘You’re rather monosyllabic this evening. Almost surly. Are you having a film noir moment?’ Fred had just found out about film noir – those moody black and white movies of the 1940s – and he was working on an idea to reshoot Planet of the Apes set in post-war Paris.
‘Oh, Fred, it’s a disaster!’ Jess blurted out. ‘The CCTV footage! That party tomorrow night!’
‘Oh yes,’ said Fred. ‘A tasteless charade, of course, but I suppose I’ll have to drag myself there.’
‘The thing is,’ said Jess, ‘I had to do some really private things in that loo – I had to like, get undressed and wash and stuff, because I’d – I’d spilt some food on myself – and everybody’s going to see me naked. I can’t bear it, Fred! I’ll die of embarrassment! What on earth can I do?’
Fred was quiet for a moment. ‘It does rather put my essay crisis into perspective,’ he mused. ‘My advice is, sit it out with a cool air of superior detachment and a mocking smile. Can you manage that?’
‘I’ll give it a try,’ sighed Jess. ‘Although, to be honest, I’d be more comfortable imitating a chimpanzee.’
‘Well, imagine you’re a chimpanzee, then,’ suggested Fred. ‘The great apes wouldn’t care, would they? Just go through the whole evening in character – as a chimp.’
‘Well, thanks a lot for the advice,’ said Jess with a slight sneer. ‘I wouldn’t go in for a career in counselling, though, if I were you. Don’t give up the day job.’
‘I agree that counselling may not be my major suit,’ said Fred, ‘because basically I am completely self-absorbed and resent a moment of conversation spent on the problems of anybody else. I’ll be round in five minutes for the Shakespeare.’
Usually Jess would have enjoyed half an hour of wisecracking and mutual character assassination with Fred, but this evening she had no appetite for it. She rang off and found her copy of Twelfth Night, then scribbled over all the references to Ben Jones, so that the inside of the cover was adorned with what looked like a mass of black clouds. Quite appropriate, really.
Fred came round and collected the book, and then Jess sat down and wrote the most uninspired essay ever, because all she could think about was that terrible moment which would arrive tomorrow night – when everybody she knew would see her talking to her own boobs.
Chapter 11
Jess sent Ben a text agreeing to meet him in the burger place.
‘Wow! You and Ben are really getting it on!’ said Flora when she heard.
Jess shrugged. Never had a date seemed less tempting. She was so nervous about the CCTV party that her appetite had completely vanished. Having a burger was out of the question. Jess feared she might never eat again. The whole business of putting objects into one’s mouth and making them disappear suddenly seemed impossibly bizarre.
She did manage a hot chocolate, though. It would give her strength for the ordeal ahead. Ben sat opposite her, eating a burger and talking in his usual six-words-a-minute way.
‘Have you seen Deadly Crawlers?’ he asked.
Jess shook her head listlessly.
‘It’s, like, brilliant,’ Ben assured her. ‘It’s, like, these aliens invade the earth and they kind of look like cockroaches and they can, like, shoot killer rays out of their antennae. I’ll lend it to you if you like.’
Jess expressed gratitude. But she was not really listening. Sometimes, when he smiled, she managed to drag the corners of her mouth upwards in response. But it was the kind of smile an alien might have produced. Somebody trying to pass for a human. Eventually, Ben finished the last of his fries and they walked off towards Tiffany’s.
Jess’s legs seemed almost too heavy to walk properly. Her shoulders sagged. And though she hadn’t eaten for hours and hours, her stomach seemed full of bricks.
After about ten minutes they arrived at Tiffany’s.
‘Cheer up,’ said Ben, as they stood on the doorstep. ‘It’s gonna be, like, brilliant!’
That showed how much he knew. It was, in fact, going to be dire.
Tiffany opened the door and Jess stumbled in.
‘Oh, hi, Jess!’ said Tiffany, with a light dash of sadism. ‘Jack says you’re the star turn. He wouldn’t let anyone else see it, so we can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to!’
Jess smiled in what she hoped was a cool and disdainful way, and followed Tiffany down her immense hall.
They entered the palatial sitting room to vast cheers. The whole year group seemed to be here. And Tiffany’s TV was, naturally, a top-of-the-range plasma job.
‘Get a load of that!’ whispered Ben as they sat down in a corner – which was not nearly dark enough, unfortunately. ‘It’s a 55-inch screen!’
Jess was unable to respond. She was just glad she was not a boy and obliged to be excited by such dull detail. She was depressed by the revelation that the TV had a 55-inch screen – so it was more than equal to the task of revealing her boobs, life-size if necessary. Jess was a mere 34A.
Across the room, Flora was sitting cuddled up to Mackenzie. She waved madly and blew kisses in an irritating way. Sitting at the back, crammed on to a sofa with about five other guys, was Fred. He pulled an ape-like face and gave her the thumbs-up sign. Jess raised an eyebrow in what she hoped was an arch and cool way, but somehow it got stuck and kind of twitched insanely, like when the satellite link stops working on the news reports. Jess turned away. She did not do a thumbs up in return. She didn’t think thumbs up was a fair representation of her mood, somehow. Tiffany’s brother, Jack, a rather sinister-looking guy with puppy fat, stood up and the crowd roared in approval. He raised his arms skywards.
‘Enough! Enough!’ he shouted. ‘Let’s get on with it! Nobody’s seen this footage yet except me, and I can assure you, it’s hot, hot, hot!’
The boys howled. The girls screamed. Jess wished she were anywhere else on earth. Oh, for the delicious joys of detention! She would rather do the washing-up for six hours than spend one more second in this hell-hole. But she just had to tough it out.
‘One more thing!’ cried Jack. ‘We wanna tell you girls we really appreciate your being OK about this – and just to show you how grateful we are, we’re gonna show you some motorsport afterwards!’
The boys joined in an animal cry of joy. The girls screamed in disgust.
‘To spare your blushes,’ said Jack, ‘we’re gonna turn down the lights. OK, Sam?’
A boy standing by the door dimmed the lights. Jess’s chance had come. She dived for the ‘Eject’ button. But before she had even managed to touch the set, she felt herself grabbed and dragged backwards by two big
boys.
‘Nice try, Jordan,’ commented Jack. ‘Sit on her, guys.’
Harry Oakham and Joe Marks obliged. Jess could not move. She turned her face to the carpet. And closed her eyes.
Please, God, she thought, in a last-ditch attempt to escape from total shame, help me! Send a guardian angel to arrange a power cut – anything! And I promise if you get me out of this, I’ll never be a bad girl again! It was a tall order, though, appealing for last-minute divine intervention. Knowing her luck, she’d only got through to God’s voicemail.
The moment of her complete humiliation had arrived. Jess heard the DVD player whir into action. But then, there was a blare of Hollywood-type music. Jack swore. Several other boys booed. Something had gone wrong. Jess looked up and saw – to her utter amazement – the opening credits for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!
‘Put the freaking lights up again!’ shouted Jack, floundering about among the DVD collection – most of which was scattered about on the floor below the TV. Jack picked up DVD after DVD, examined it and chucked it aside in a desperate frenzy. ‘Who’s got the disc?’ he demanded finally, looking up in fury, red in the face. ‘Come on, whoever you are, you cretin – give it here!’
‘Burn another copy,’ suggested one of the boys.
‘I can’t, you fool,’ Jack yelled. ‘I had to delete the original in case my parents found it. That DVD was my only copy!’
‘It’s Howells!’ said one of the boys. Gary Howells was pounced on, roughly searched and lightly beaten up, protesting his innocence all the while, but no disc emerged.
‘Let’s have the motorsport!’ shouted John Woodford. ‘Who wants to watch a girls’ loo anyway?’
There was a howl from the boys – part anguish, part agreement. Jack looked resigned, but at least it offered him a way out.
‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘We can watch the CCTV later, when it turns up.’
Jess breathed a huge sigh of relief and prepared, for the first time in her life, to enjoy motorsport as it has never been enjoyed before, even by very fat men drinking lager on sofas. Oh, thank you, thank you, God! she thought in rapture. Thank you, you guardian angel, whoever you are. This is the best moment of my life so far! Only one thing bothered her. A few moments ago, she had assured God that if He got her off the hook this time, she would never be a bad girl again. It was going to be a major undertaking.