Girl, 15: Charming But Insane

by Sue Limb

  You could only chew when Mrs Forsyth was not looking in your direction – and she had the eyesight of an eagle and the hearing of a spy satellite. She could hear people eating crisps in China. Jess’s greatest triumph had been to open a bottle of Pepsi under the table, while Fred blotted out the ‘FFFFFFophphphsttttt!’ sound with an attack of dramatic death-bed coughing. Fred and Jess had had some great illegal lunches there. But would they ever again? Or were they finished as a double act for ever?

  When the bell went for lunch, Flora appeared.

  ‘I’ve told Mackenzie and B.J. we’ll meet them in the gym gallery,’ she said. ‘How are you getting on with Ben? Whizzer says Ben was at your place last night. That’s why he was late for football practice. So what’s going on?’

  Flora was grinning – like an idiot. But Jess didn’t want to tell her anything about it. Revealing what a disaster it had been would mean that Jess had to relive the whole painful story. Instead she would tantalise Flora by revealing absolutely nothing.

  ‘He dropped by to lend me a DVD,’ she snapped. ‘It was a major non-event.’

  Flora’s face changed. Jess could read her disappointment.

  ‘Let’s go to the gym gallery, anyway,’ said Flora hastily. ‘They’ll be waiting for us.’

  The gym gallery had so little going for it. Down in the gym various vain sporty types would be working on their six-packs and polishing their pectorals, while up in the gallery their hordes of fans gawped and drooled: girls whose brains had been replaced by marshmallow. Jess told Flora she would rather be turned into dog biscuits and fed to an elderly German Shepherd with saliva overload than spend five minutes in the gym gallery.

  It suited Jess for Flora to go off there, however. Jess wanted to be alone in her attempt to find Fred in the library and apologise to him. If he wasn’t there, at least being in the library would offer therapy. Jess would find a book with some male nudes in it and draw hideous faces on their rude bits. Her favourite was one of the biology books which had a page called ‘Physical Changes at Puberty’.

  It showed what seemed to be a family group: a girl of about ten, a girl of about fifteen, a woman in her thirties, and two boys and a man of similar ages. As they were all stark naked, there was something understandably embarrassed about the way they were sort of standing in a line with all their rude bits just flapping about: as if they were queuing at a supermarket checkout in a naturist resort. Jess had rescued the girls and women by drawing in tasteful black bikinis, but made the boys and the man look even more foolish by colouring their rude bits violent neon colours and adorning them with strange hairs, warts and spiders’ webs.

  Jess entered the library, and her heart leapt as she spotted Fred in his usual place. She headed straight for his table. She would sit down and write a note saying, Please come outside for a minute so I can express the huge, huge regret I feel about yesterday. But then something awful happened. Fred, who had looked up as she had come through the library doors, suddenly got to his feet, quickly replaced the book he had been reading and marched past her and out of the library without even catching her eye. He totally blanked her.

  Jess was suddenly aware of people watching. She did her best not to betray her horror. She acted as if nothing unusual had happened. She selected a place near where he had been sitting, pretended to scan the shelves and chose a book at random. She opened it and stared at it, and absent-mindedly unscrewed her pen, as if she were thinking of making some notes. But all the time she was praying, Oh please, please, make him stop being angry with me. But was God listening? Or was He relaxing on the sofa with a beer, having switched on His answerphone?

  Maybe she should write a letter to Fred: a crawling, imploring apology offering him her services as slave for life if he would forgive her. She found a piece of paper, but did not write Dear Fred in case anyone casually walking past saw it. Suddenly the library doors swung open. Jess prayed that it was Fred coming back in. But it was only Jodie. Jodie installed herself next to Jess and selected a history book. Then she got out her rough book and wrote: So who was frolicking yesterday after school with Love God Ben Jones?

  Personally I was looking after my granny! Jess wrote furiously in reply.

  Whizzer says Ben was late for football because he’d been at your place, wrote Jodie, with a particularly stupid leer.

  Holy Moly! It seemed this ridiculous rumour about Ben being at her place was already all over the school. Jess had to see Fred right away and put him straight about it all. He had left his bag by his chair, so maybe he would come back in a minute. The library doors swung open again. Jess’s heart leapt. Was it Fred? But no. It was Ben Jones! And he was heading straight for her table! Jodie gave her a knowing wink. Jess froze.

  She had been so busy feeling tortured about Fred, she had hardly given Ben Jones a thought since they had parted last night. But here he was now, approaching her table. He was looking particularly gorgeous today. His hair was flicked up in a very cool style and his trainers squelched glamorously. He sat down at Jess’s table, looked her straight in the eye and grinned.

  Jess was somehow appalled. Normally she would have been thrilled for Ben to sit next to her, but now – what if Fred came back in? If Fred had heard the rumour that Ben Jones had been at Jess’s last night, seeing them together now would only confirm it. And Jess knew that when she’d told Fred that lie about being sick, it had really sounded like a lie. Her voice had gone kind of hollow and tinny. Jodie was smirking. Jess was tempted for a moment to seize the nearest heavy dictionary and hit Jodie with it, quite hard.

  Jess raised what she hoped was an ironic eyebrow in greeting and returned to her book. She had no idea what her book was about, and since Ben Jones had entered the library she wasn’t even sure if it was a book at all. She had to get out of here and away from Ben, or Fred would come back and think the worst.

  Ben Jones reached across for the notepad and pen. So this is where you hang out, he wrote. His writing was bizarre: very small and leaning violently sideways, as if a fierce wind had blown on it. Jess’s only reply was an enigmatic smile.

  Why corals reefs and islands? wrote Ben Jones mysteriously.

  Jess frowned. What??!! she wrote.

  Your book, he wrote.

  Jess looked at her book. It was indeed about coral reefs and islands.

  We don’t actually read in here, imbecile, she wrote. It’s more, like, this is the book I’m wearing today.

  I am not an imbecile, wrote Ben Jones. I am aparently a camall.

  Dimly Jess remembered comparing various boys to animals. But frankly, who cared? Jess had much more important things on her mind. Although she was still a bit disturbed that Ben could not spell ‘apparently’, or, more worryingly, ‘camel’.

  Have you watched the DVD yet? wrote Ben.

  Jess made a split-second decision. She would tell Ben about last night – about missing Fred’s mum’s party. And then she would ask him to clear off so she could sort things out with Fred, on her own.

  Come outside for a minute — I need to explain something, she wrote.

  They got up and left the table. Ben strolled alongside her. Just as they reached the doors, they burst open and Fred came in. As he saw them facing him, he kind of flinched in a horrible way and raised his eyebrows in a parody of a comedy greeting. Jess looked straight into his eyes, and they flashed like broken glass. He walked past them towards the table where Jess had been sitting. She was sure he’d come back to sort it out with her. But, of course, seeing her going out with Ben Jones put an end to any plan of that sort. Jess had a horrible feeling that the mess she was in was just going to get worse, and worse, and worse.

  Chapter 18

  Before Jess could say a word to Ben, however, Flora and Mackenzie appeared.

  ‘Serena Jacobs says her uncle’s got a garage where we might be able to have band practice,’ said Flora. ‘We’re going there after school to do a recce. Wanna come?’

  ‘Do a recce’ was part of Flora’s
new vocabulary. It came from the world of film. Mackenzie wanted to be a film director. He couldn’t just go to the canteen, he had to ‘do a recce’. (In other words, have a look around.)

  ‘A garage? Cool!’ said Ben, and he turned to Jess. ‘You come, too, Jess, yeah?’

  ‘No thanks, I don’t trust myself near garages,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to give them up. Anyway, I can’t come – I’ve got stuff to do.’

  Having Flora, Ben and Mackenzie out of the way would be convenient, in fact. Jess made plans. She would get out of school early and wait for Fred on the wall where he had so often waited for her. And when he appeared, she would pounce and make her apology. It would go like this: ‘I shall never ever forgive myself for yesterday, but please say you forgive me, or I might have to go to India and spend the rest of my life cleaning the pavements of Calcutta with my tongue.’

  Or how about this: she would fall to her knees at his approach and cry, ‘Name an animal – any animal – and I will imitate it in front of the whole school!’

  Jess waited on the wall, and Fred did not appear. She waited until all the school buses had gone, packed with cussing and fighting kids. Thank goodness she lived near school and walked home. She felt really sorry for the bus drivers, although she suspected some of the grumpy ones of being Satan’s agents on earth. She was glad her dad was not a bus driver, but a glamorous artist in faraway St Ives. By the sea.

  She waited until the last few stragglers had dawdled off down the road, fiddling with their mobiles. She began to feel conspicuous. She took out her mobile and sent a text to Flora: HOW’S THE GARAGE? Although really she couldn’t care less. But it gave her something to do.

  She sent a text message to her dad. ARE YOU BY THE SEA OR WHAT?

  Immediately a reply came back: NO I AM IN THE DOCTOR’S WAITING ROOM.

  How typical! There he was, living by the sea, and he was wasting this fine afternoon in the doctor’s surgery. NOTHING SERIOUS I HOPE?

  THERE’S A SPOT ON MY FACE AND I’M JUST CHECKING IT’S NOTHING NASTY.

  YOU THINK YOU’VE GO PROBLEMS! Jess texted back. THERE’S 70 SPOTS ON MY FACE AND THEY’RE ALL NASTY.

  There was a pause. Then came the reply: HA HA! IF I DIE OF BLACKHEADS YOU CAN HAVE ALL MY PAINTINGS. DO TRY AND LOOK GRATEFUL! LOVE YOU BEST IN THE WORLD. This was the best moment of the day so far. Text messaging was probably invented for shy dads who could never say ‘love you’ out loud.

  Still no Fred. Where on earth had he got to? Jess had been waiting for nearly an hour. The problem now was how to give up and go home without appearing to have been stood up. It wasn’t that there was anyone in particular watching. But Jess was watching herself. You know how it is. So she stared at her mobile, as if waiting for a crucial message which would go: SORRY I CAN’T PICK YOU UP OUTSIDE SCHOOL, DARLING – SEE YOU AT THE RITZ.

  Jess was about to get up with the air of one who has just been redirected to the Ritz, when a car pulled out of the school gates, turned left and drove off straight past her. It was the car belonging to the English teacher, Mr Fothergill. Jess recognised it instantly, as it was a yellow sports model. Mr Fothergill, though fat and sweaty in the flesh, was evidently trying for a little extra glamour via his wheels. Jess and Flora called it the ‘Greased Banana’.

  As the Greased Banana flashed past, Jess suddenly saw Fred sitting in the passenger seat. He did not look at her. His eyes were fixed straight ahead. Was he deliberately ignoring her or just distracted? His profile flashed past, like a head on a coin. Gone. But how mysterious! Why was he in Mr Fothergill’s car?

  Chapter 19

  Jess got home to find Granny installed at the kitchen table. Her mum was not home yet.

  ‘How are you, Granny? Any mass murders in the news today?’

  Jess kissed the top of her head. She smelt nicely of lavender talcum powder. Some people’s grannies didn’t. It was touch and go with old people. They could lose it and start smelling of neglected ponds, just like that.

  ‘There’s a mysterious virus sweeping through the hospitals in France,’ said Granny. ‘And they can’t do anything about it. It’s the Auntie Biotics,’ she warned. ‘We’re all becoming immune to our own immune systems.’

  It seemed that Granny shared the family’s rather feeble grasp of the natural sciences. Indeed she might possibly have originated it.

  ‘It starts with vomiting,’ said Granny, looking worried. ‘Then they can slip into a coma and snuff it within 24 hours!’

  ‘Well, let’s be grateful we’re not in a hospital in France,’ said Jess. ‘Do you want some toast, Granny? I’m going to have some. Though you’ve almost taken away my appetite with all that tasteless talk of vomiting.’

  Granny agreed to some toast, and they put the kettle on. Jess was desperate to ring Fred but she had to eat first. If she didn’t, her stomach would start this dreadful hollering: ‘Worra! Worra! Worraworra! Worraworraworraworra!’ Like distant thunder over the mountains.

  Jess banished all thoughts of vomiting by fantasising about the shopping trip to New York. She enjoyed her toast and jam, and then, with a madly beating heart, she rang Fred. The line was engaged. She went back to sit with Granny for another minute.

  ‘I wonder if you’ll do a little job for me, Jess,’ asked Granny. ‘It’s fairly disgusting but I’ll pay you handsomely.’

  ‘I’d do anything for you, Granny,’ lied Jess affectionately. She hoped it didn’t involve anything to do with toilets.

  ‘I want you to put my eardrops in,’ said Granny. ‘Only I’m going to have my ears syringed the day after tomorrow.’

  Instantly, Jess was back shopping on Fifth Avenue, stepping out smartly with a couple of Bloomingdale’s and Calvin Klein carrier bags. However, she agreed to put Granny’s drops in, as soon as she’d made her phone call. Until she’d managed to speak to Fred she was afraid her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. And it would be tragic – and possibly fatal – if instead of putting the drops into Granny’s ear, they went into her eye, mouth or nose.

  She rang Fred again. The number was engaged. Was Mrs Parsons talking to the police?

  ‘My son’s description? Oh dear – tall, well, about 5’10” – fair-haired, thin, er, er, strange staring grey eyes. What was he wearing? What was he wearing? Oh heavens, I haven’t a clue. Wait! It would have been his grey hood thing and blue jeans. And I know I’m his mother, but although his eyes are grey, sometimes I feel that the blue of his jeans makes his eyes look kind of blue. Please, please, officer, bring back my baby!’

  After the fifth attempt to ring Fred, Granny became suspicious. The line was constantly busy.

  ‘Is Flora still on the phone, dear?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not Flora, Granny. It’s Fred.’

  Granny’s eyes lit up. ‘Aha! A boy! Is it the one who called last night? I thought you looked a bit feverish, love. Is Fred your boyfriend, then?’ Granny smiled and winked in a lovable, though slightly obscene manner.

  ‘Certainly not, Granny!’ cried Jess. ‘He’s just a friend. I have no interest in boys, as you know. In my opinion they should all be herded off into wildlife parks. Apart from Flora, Fred is my best mate. I just need to ring him to get some details about homework.’

  ‘Homework?’ remarked Granny, looking a little sceptical. ‘It all seems a bit desperate for homework.’

  Jess felt bad about lying to Granny. She wasn’t like Mum. Mum disapproved of almost everything. Boyfriends were going to be the very worst thing of all. Jess actually dreaded having a boyfriend, because of having to tell her mum.

  Perhaps she would just avoid it until her mum was 80 or something, and in an old people’s home, and then Jess, who would by then be about 50, would drop by and casually remark, ‘Oh, by the way, Mum, I’ve got a boyfriend.’ And even then her mum would probably hurtle out of her wheelchair and smack her hard across the face, crying, ‘You trash! Get outta my house – I mean, my room!’ It was hard, sometimes, being the daughter of a radical feminist who hated men.
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br />   ‘OK, Granny, I admit it – I lied about the homework,’ said Jess. ‘It’s not about that. It’s just a misunderstanding. I really let him down yesterday and he’s mad at me. So I just want to apologise.’

  Granny nodded and winked, and tapped the side of her nose.

  ‘Why are you winking like that?’ demanded Jess. ‘Do you know something I don’t know?’ Or maybe Granny had finally flipped and was sinking rapidly into Alzheimer’s, or, as Jess had mistakenly called it when young, Old-Timer’s disease.

  ‘Just your best mate, eh?’ remarked Granny. ‘Ah well – if you say so.’ And she got up and shuffled off to the sitting room.

  Jess heard the TV being switched on. Granny never missed a news bulletin. There was always something ghastly happening involving body parts.

  Jess reached an instant decision. She would run to Fred’s house. She would knock at the door. She would apologise there and then – handsomely. If indeed somebody can apologise handsomely when afflicted with seventy spots.

  Jess grabbed her jacket, shouted, ‘Just going out for half an hour, Granny!’ and ran out of the house.

  Unfortunately, she met her mum by the gate, and she could tell by her face that she had had one of those days. Occasionally people came into the library and peed, pooed or got drunk and started shouting abuse. Drunks and vagrants went in to sleep in the Reference section. Once, a very old man who lived on the streets had died on the Oxford English Dictionary. You may think that being a librarian would be a quiet, cushy job, but sometimes it seemed that the library was really a nightmarish extension of The Mean Streets and that librarians were just cops and paramedics disguised in tweedy cardigans and long dangly parrot earrings from the charity shop.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ demanded her mum, in cop mode.