by Sue Limb
The next twenty-four hours passed in much the same way – sleep, lots of drinks and weird dreams. Halfway through an awful one in which she had three eyes and grass growing out of her hands, Granny’s face appeared in the sky.
‘Jess, love,’ she said, ‘Flora’s come to see you. With a boy. I think it might be Fred.’
Jess’s grassy hands disappeared and were replaced by the front room. Jess struggled up to a sitting position.
‘Shall I bring them in?’ asked Granny. ‘Are you well enough to see them?’ Oh no! The sofa was covered with sweaty bedclothes! Jess’s own pyjamas smelt like the zoo! She ran her fingers through her hair – it was a bird’s nest. As for her face – well, she hadn’t looked in the mirror for more than two whole days. This was a record, but it was also a disaster. What had become of her eyebrows?
‘Oh, all right, bring them in,’ said Jess.
Granny nipped out again and the next minute Flora came in, not with Fred, but with Ben Jones. Jess felt relieved but also somehow disappointed. They peeped round the door as if they were afraid of what they might see.
‘Welcome to my swamp,’ croaked Jess. ‘Sorry about the stink.’
That was it, then. Ben Jones would never, ever ask her out again, now he had seen her like this.
‘You poor thing, Jess!’ cried Flora. ‘We’ve brought you some grapes. Don’t worry – I’ve washed them.’
Granny bustled about, found a plate for the grapes, arranged them nicely by Jess’s sofa, offered Flora and Ben some juice, and then discreetly went off to her room and shut the door. Flora and Ben sat on the floor, side by side, looking strangely like a pair of twins: both fair, both good-looking, with matching blue eyes. They’re made for each other, thought Jess. It’s only a matter of time before they realise it. I won’t mind. I’ll prepare myself.
‘So, how did it go?’ croaked Jess.
‘Oh, Jess, it was brilliant!’ said Flora. ‘The whole show was brilliant.’
‘What about the band?’ asked Jess.
‘It was great!’ said Flora. ‘I couldn’t believe it. Everybody was cracking up even before we started to speak or anything – just the way we looked. You’re a genius, Jess. It was all your idea.’
‘Um, shame you couldn’t do your stand-up routine,’ said Ben. ‘I was really looking forward to seeing you do it.’
‘Well, some other time, I suppose,’ said Jess. There was a silence. It became, in some curious but definite way, an awkward silence. Oh-oh. Perhaps Ben and Flora had started going out already. Perhaps they had walked here hand-in-hand. Perhaps they had shared a kiss beneath the bus shelter to nerve themselves up for the ordeal of telling Jess.
‘Is something wrong?’ asked Jess. It was a bit much having to take the initiative while actually ill, but somebody had to. Go on, go on, thought Jess. Give it to me straight.
Flora hesitated and blushed. She looked down at the floor. A big, soft, shiny wave of hair fell down across her face. With a gracious, elegant gesture she looped it back round behind her ear. Jess began to write the script for her.
It’s like this … stammered Flora in Jess’s imagination. Ben and I – well, we’ve realised that, well, how can I put it? We have become An Item.
Well, congratulations! replied Jess. She was much better dressed in her fantasy version of things, and her hair, instead of being matted and smelly, shone darkly. And her nose was not at all red and, miraculously, no longer shaped like a cheeky young turnip.
‘It’s a bit awkward, actually,’ began Flora, in real life. ‘I’m really, really sorry, Jess – it wasn’t my fault.’
Here we go then, thought Jess, and she prepared to deliver her gracious congratulations. Flora went red again, looked at the floor and fidgeted.
‘I didn’t feel I could refuse, because Mr Fothergill asked me – he asked me to do your monologue. He’d got a copy, and he said it was a pity that you couldn’t do it, so he asked me to do it instead.’
A huge hole seemed to open up in the earth, and Jess felt herself falling down it.
‘You – performed my stand-up routine – in the show?’ asked Jess faintly. This was not the horrible shock she had been expecting. It was, somehow, ten times worse.
‘I’m so sorry, Jess,’ said Flora. ‘Mr Fothergill introduced it, and he said how sad it was that you were ill and couldn’t be there, but he thought your monologue was so good it was a pity to miss out altogether, so he’d asked me to read it.’
‘Everybody cracked up,’ said Ben. ‘It was fantastic. Then at the end they all clapped like mad, and Fothergill said, “Let’s have a special round of applause for Jess, and hope she gets better soon,” – and the whole school, like, cheered, yeah?’
Jess managed somehow to look pleased, and to carry on talking, eventually, about other things. But it was almost like having an out-of-body experience. She could hear herself talking about everyday, unimportant things, but her real self was somewhere else.
The thought of Flora doing her stand-up routine was just absolute torture. And it made it worse that the feeling was kind of selfish and Jess felt ashamed of herself. It was all her own work, and though she had really loved writing it, she had been looking forward to getting up on the stage and performing it to a live audience, more than she had ever looked forward to anything. She hated Flora for having stolen it. She couldn’t help it. She knew it wasn’t Flora’s fault. Mr Fothergill had asked her to do it. But Jess simply hated her.
About half an hour later, Jess’s voice gave out and she started coughing. Granny came back in and said they should let her get some rest.
‘Don’t kiss me goodbye,’ said Jess to Flora. ‘I might be infectious.’
Then, at last, they were gone.
‘What nice young people,’ said Granny. ‘How sweet of them to come and cheer you up, love.’
Jess nodded. She didn’t feel they’d come to cheer her up. She felt as if she’d been mugged. She pulled the blanket over her head and, in the half-dark, stared at the one face who would never disappoint or betray her – the one face that would be with her for the whole of her life, and never, ever change. Her teddy bear Rasputin.
‘Watch out, Rasputin,’ she whispered. ‘I might have to have a bit of a cry in a minute.’
Chapter 27
The next week, Jess went back to school. The first person she met was Jodie, who was standing by the gate reading a newspaper.
‘Hey, you’re back!’ cried Jodie. ‘Great! It’s such a shame you missed the show! Look – the newspaper’s out!’
Jess saw the headline:
FLORA BARCLAY STEALS THE SHOW
‘Steals’ was right. Jess’s eyes tore through the account of the show, written by ‘Cruella de Vile’ – Fred’s alias, of course.
Flora Barclay triumphed in the school show last week, not only fronting the hilarious cod band Poisonous Trash, but stepping in to rescue her best friend, Jess Jordan’s, stand-up routine when Jess fell ill and was unable to appear.
There followed a detailed description of Flora’s wit, poise and comic energy, ending up predicting a brilliant career for her ‘on TV, or possibly in Hollywood’. Jess felt sick. She really ought not to resent this so much, but she simply couldn’t help it. She felt as if her insides were full of black tar.
‘My eco-piece is on page seven,’ said Jodie. ‘But please don’t read it because it is so dull.’
‘I’ll go and buy my own copy!’ said Jess. ‘My mum will want to read it, too, cos she’s an eco-warrior!’ And she walked swiftly into school, dreading seeing everybody, even the people she was most fond of.
All morning, Flora was in a kind of haze of joy. She was trying very hard to be normal, but everybody was coming up to her and saying, ‘Hey! You made it! You’re the star of the school!’ Everyone was licking her shoes and begging her to carve her autograph in their bare flesh with her nail scissors. Or that’s how it seemed to Jess. ‘Oh, hi, Jess,’ they’d say afterwards. If they noticed her at all. When the bel
l rang for the lunch break, Jess just wanted to get away. She racked her brains for an excuse to walk off and be by herself. But as it turned out, she didn’t need one.
‘Jess?’ said Flora, looking awkward. ‘I need to go and talk something over with Mackenzie. Do you mind? I’m sorry – I’ll talk to you later – but this is quite important, OK?’
Jess nodded. Good. She wanted solitude. Flora walked off fast towards the gym, and Jess went off to the furthest corner of the school field and sat down under a tree. She kept tearing the grass up by the handful and throwing it about. But she couldn’t seem to uproot the awful feelings that were still planted in her insides.
She and Flora had always been best friends. They had made plans to go to college together, to move to New York and share an apartment, to have glamorous holidays and amazing high-powered jobs in the media. But Jess was beginning to feel that she would always be the hanger-on, the dull, dowdy ‘best friend’ who comes along to recording sessions and looks after the star’s handbag while she dazzles in front of the cameras.
‘Hey! So this is where you are!’
A shadow fell across the grass. It was Ben Jones. Jess looked up. The sun was behind his head. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but his hair looked like a halo of fire.
‘Um – mind if I join you?’ he asked.
‘Course not,’ said Jess.
Ben sat down. There was a silence. He certainly wasn’t one of Nature’s conversationalists. But at the moment, unusually, neither was Jess.
‘Do you know where Flora is?’ he asked.
There he goes again, thought Jess. Obsessed by her. Probably crazy about her. Nothing I can do about it.
She shrugged. ‘She said there was something she had to discuss with Mackenzie.’
‘Oh,’ said Ben. He looked as if something was troubling him. ‘They’ve been having quite a lot of, like, rows,’ he said eventually. ‘She seems really sort of irritated with him. Mind you, he is irritating, so possibly that’s why.’
Jess sighed. She could see it all. Maybe Ben could sense it, too. Flora was getting tired of Mackenzie. She was beginning to fall for Ben. Ben obviously felt the same about Flora – looking for her, asking about her all the time. But of course it would be awkward for Ben if Flora finished with Mackenzie because of him.
‘Can we talk about something else?’ asked Jess. ‘I’m kind of bored with all this.’
‘So am I,’ said Ben.
But Jess knew he wasn’t really. They talked about the latest movies. But Ben never suggested they should go and see one together. Oh no, he was never going to ask her out on a date. That was obvious. She was the dark ugly one who held the star’s handbag. He was talking to her to pass the time until his next glimpse of the goddess.
So what, thought Jess. Good luck to them. I just wish they’d get on with it. She felt completely prepared. So when she saw Flora coming towards them, up the path and across the grass, Jess felt that she could have written the whole script. It was so freaking predictable.
When Flora got near, Jess could tell that she’d been crying. Ben scrambled to his feet. Typical male, thought Jess. The first sign of emotion and they’re off. Flora arrived. Her eyes were wild. Tears sparkled in her golden eyelashes. Her whole body was trembling.
‘I’ve split up with Mackenzie!’ she announced.
Ben sort of flinched, and backed off. ‘Oh. Right,’ he muttered. ‘I’d better … See you.’ And he walked off, leaving the stage clear for the girls’ tête-à-tête.
Obviously he had to withdraw for Flora to have her heart-to-heart with her best mate. A decent distance must be observed. But he must know, now, that his time had come. It was going to be tough for him, with Mackenzie. But it was going to be wonderful for him, with Flora.
Flora watched him walk off. She blew her nose and composed herself.
‘It was really awful with Mackenzie,’ she said. ‘We had the worst scene. He’s such a control freak. Just like my dad. He’s been trying to dominate me ever since we started going out. And he’s so, like, jealous and ambitious. He was really really gutted about what it said in the paper. Like I got the headline and stuff. And he said the band was his idea.’
‘Oh well,’ said Jess. ‘Men! Who needs ’em? Just macho, pathetic, massive egos. Throwing their weight about. Waging war. Beating people up. You’re better off without him.’
Flora was silent for a moment.
‘Yeah,’ she agreed. But there was certainly more on her mind. ‘Look, Jess, this is difficult,’ she faltered a bit, and also started pulling up handfuls of grass and throwing them about. Pretty soon this part of the school field would be completely bald with emotional trauma.
‘What?’ asked Jess, though she knew full well what was coming.
‘It’s not just that Mackenzie wasn’t right for me,’ said Flora. ‘Although obviously that was the main thing. But I – the trouble is, I’m crazy about somebody else.’
Yeah, yeah, thought Jess. ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Who?’
Flora hesitated. Whole handfuls of grass went flying into the air.
‘I’m really sorry, because I know he’s always been so special to you,’ she stammered. ‘But I really can’t help what I feel, Jess. I’ve been trying and trying not to feel this way but it’s impossible. The more I try to stifle it, the more intense it gets.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Jess. ‘I’ve seen this coming for ages.’
‘Have you really?’ asked Flora, wide-eyed with amazement.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Jess. ‘It was obvious right from the start that Ben wasn’t interested in me. I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
Flora’s mouth dropped open.
There you are, thought Jess. She’s speechless. She’s dumbstruck by my insight and my gracious generosity.
‘But, Jess,’ said Flora, a huge blush unfolding across her face. ‘It’s not Ben I’m crazy about. It’s Fred.’
Chapter 28
Jess’s world seemed to split apart. Words went peculiar. The word ‘Fred’, for example, stopped having any meaning. Maybe Flora meant something else – or maybe she had said something else. Perhaps she had said ‘Ben’ and it had just sounded like ‘Fred’.
‘Fred?’ echoed Jess. The word came out in a tiny squeak.
Flora’s eyes swivelled around nervously: she looked at the sky, the grass, the tree trunk, her own knees.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Fred.’
It was impossible for Jess to speak. Flora – and Fred? Utterly weird. Jess’s heart was leaping about like a cat in a bag. Flora fancied Fred? This was so totally out of order, Jess could not comprehend it. She just stared open-mouthed at Flora, looking, for a moment, rather unfortunately like a codfish. Flora began to twist the rings on her fingers in a jittery kind of way.
‘It’s not a sudden thing,’ she said. ‘And it’s nothing to do with what he said about me in the newspaper.’
She blushed, and her eyes sparkled, even though they were modestly fixed on the earth. Probably beetles were already looking up and falling in love with her. ‘I’ve always, like, you know, loved the way Fred is so – you know, like, clever and funny. Only I didn’t let myself get, well, like, too carried away because you and Fred were kind of close. So I, just, well, sort of stifled my feelings for him.’
Stifled her feelings! Wow! Heroic! Give the girl a medal!
‘Anyway,’ Flora went on, ‘recently you haven’t, like, spent so much time with Fred, and since you and Ben seem to be getting it together, I thought you wouldn’t, you know, like, mind.’
Mind? Mind? Jess considered the word ‘mind’. It was such miles away from her feelings, she could hardly remember what it meant.
Jess was aware she had absolutely no right to feel anything. She didn’t own Fred. They weren’t even on speaking terms these days. But deep inside, she knew that if Flora started going out with Fred, it was war. Jess could eat all the carpets in the world, tear down all the curtains, break all the windows in the coun
try and still come nowhere near to expressing her absolute horror and fury. She was astonished by her own rage. She knew she wasn’t entitled to it. But there it was, blazing away inside her like a vindaloo curry with extra chilli sauce.
‘Ben and I are not getting it together,’ she said coldly. ‘I don’t know what gave you that idea.’
Flora’s big blue eyes got somehow bigger and bluer in doe-like innocent amazement.
‘Well, you’re always together,’ she said. ‘Everyone thinks you’re going out.’
‘But you’re my best friend!’ exploded Jess. ‘If I was going out with somebody I’d tell you – before I told anybody else. I tell you everything, remember? Though it seems you don’t feel the same way about me.’
‘I only never mentioned it because I didn’t want to hurt you!’ Flora retorted. ‘I realised it might be horrible for you if Fred and I were going out.’
‘Well, rest assured on that one.’ Jess managed to control her anger, but she was shaking. ‘I wish you both every happiness.’
‘Why are you giving me such a hard time, then?’ complained Flora.
‘I just hate it when you don’t tell me things,’ said Jess, between clenched teeth. That wasn’t it, really. The truth had dawned on Jess, and it was something she must keep from Flora at all costs.
‘So you’re really, really OK about it? asked Flora eagerly.
Jess nodded. Flora reached out her arms and gave Jess a hug.
‘Oh, thanks, thanks so much, Jess, you’re such a babe!’ she said. ‘I’ve so dreaded talking to you about Fred. He’s so clever and witty and I think his nose is really cute. And I love the way his hair kind of flops about all over the place.’
‘I hate his hair,’ said Jess. ‘And I wish he would cut it. I’ve told him a hundred times, but he won’t listen.’
‘I suppose he’s always, like, busy thinking about ideas and stuff,’ said Flora. ‘I think he’s a comic genius.’
Jess didn’t say much more. She was too shocked to talk properly. She had wasted so many hours preparing herself for the idea that Flora was falling for Ben, and now she had to go back to square one and start all over again. Except this felt so very different that she knew she would never get used to it.