My Friend Miranda

by Im Griffin

  We all got the seven o’clock bus in, although Nancy made it clear Miranda and I were cramping her style. She and Miz took ages buying chewing gum in Piccadilly, and were very scornful when I fussed about missing the next bus. Despite all the drama over getting ready, they were now on super-cool, don’t-really-care-if-we-go-or-not mode.

  By the time we reached the school I had butterflies, and Miranda said she was feeling sick. We linked arms for moral support as we followed Nancy and Miz past the railings decorated with pink and silver balloons to the main entrance. Nancy pointed out small clusters of boys standing in the alley between the science block and the main school building. “Necking cider.”

  Miranda nodded casually and waited until Nancy had moved out of earshot to give my arm a ferocious pinch. “Do you think they’ll all be drunk?”

  I shook my head. “All the ones whose parents brought them will have gone straight in.”

  Personally I thought it might not be such a bad thing if they’d been drinking; perhaps it would make them a bit less choosy about who they did their snogging with.

  We handed our tickets over to the teacher at the door and crammed our coats onto the bulging rails. The corridor was alternately dark and then bright green and orange as the disco lights inside the hall flashed on and off, and when someone opened the hall door to peer out Billy Joel blasted forth. I gave Miranda a little push, “Ok, here goes.”

  They had done their best to make the hall more salubrious with the disco lighting and decorations, including a big ‘COP TIL YOU DROP’ banner draped across the curtains at the back of the stage. It seemed slightly sacrilegious to have the word ‘cop’ dangling directly above the lectern where Miss Moody did her readings. The front two thirds of the hall were dance floor, looking pretty packed, and the back was taken up with tables and chairs, occupied mainly by gossiping girls; the boys who weren’t dancing lurked in sullen rows against the walls.

  We made the mistake of standing still for a bit too long, and Eileen Fisher spotted her chance and sidled up to us. She was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and stone-washed jeans which strained unattractively across her large bottom. She picked at a scab on her forehead and gestured at the dance-floor. “What do you think of it then?”

  Miranda laughed uncertainly. “We’ve only just got here.”

  I stood behind her and fumed with impatience. This was a disaster! No boy in his right mind would come near us as long as we were stuck with Eileen. Casting my eyes around the hall in desperation, I was fortunate enough to spot Rachel and Sinead dancing near the stage.

  “Sorry Eileen, we’ve got to dash. I promised Sinead I’d do the conga with her.”

  I grabbed Miranda’s wrist and dragged her to the front. She cast an anxious look back at Eileen, who was tackling her spot with renewed vigour, but knew better than to suggest a threesome. Rachel and Sinead were dancing in a big circle with some other people from our class. I prodded Rachel in the ribs and she moved aside to make space for us. “Groovy tie!”

  “Thanks.” It was sometimes difficult to tell whether Rachel was serious or being nasty.

  Sinead leaned across to me. “Spotted any talent then?”

  I shook my head emphatically, “They’re all so small!” and held my hand at about chin height to indicate the average stature of the males in the room. It was true: they were a bunch of midgets.

  Billy Joel finished and the abrasive tones ofBad Boys by Wham kicked in. Geeta Khan muttered “I hate this song,” and stomped off to the toilets, taking Lynn Docherty and Gillian Mailer with her. That left Rachel, Sinead, Miranda and me. I turned away for a moment to look for Nancy, and when I swivelled back there were suddenly four dwarves making up the missing half of the circle. I bowed my head and let my hair fall over my face so that I could stare at them without being too blatant about it.

  On first impressions the outlook was not promising; the two better-looking ones were dancing nearest Rachel and Sinead, and although they were by no means super-hunks, one of them was at least approaching five feet. That left Monkey and Fatboy. Monkey was very small with lots of hair, big sticky-out ears and a protruding jaw line, which had probably developed that way to accumulate his huge mouthful of teeth. Fatboy was even shorter which only served to accentuate his incredible girth – where on earth did he buy clothes to fit him? I couldn’t really tell whether he had the potential to be good-looking as his features were submerged under a thick layer of blubber. It was a hard call, but I decided that Monkey was marginally the less offensive of the pair.

  The boys all smirked and tossed back their fringes while we smiled coquettishly and did our standard stepping from side to side dance. I suddenly felt horribly conscious of my arms, hanging by my sides like pieces of excess baggage. What was I supposed to do with them? Furthermore, what was supposed to happen next? Was I doomed to shuffle from one foot to the other for the rest of the night?

  Rachel and Sinead had now cunningly managed to manoeuvre themselves around slightly, so that they almost had their backs to Miranda and me, thus staking their claim on the two reasonably passable blokes. The music changed to Madonna and I noticed Monkey leaning towards Miranda to gibber in her ear. Dear God, I prayed silently, please tell me this isn’t happening. I shot her a look warning of dire consequences, but it was already too late; she was smiling nervously at me and turning to follow Monkey to the side of the hall. Panic-stricken I turned to my left, only to find that Rachel, Sinead and their prospective partners had vanished too. I swivelled forwards to encounter Fatboy’s doughy face only inches from my own.

  “Fancy a drink?” he said fatly.

  In the split second before answering I weighed up the options: I was being offered a drink by a real boy, and although he looked like Billy Bunter, I could always hide him in a dark and sufficiently large corner. Alternatively, I could escape while I still had some dignity left. I turned and fled, slithering across the sticky dance floor until my progress was halted by Eileen’s Mickey Mouse-clad bosom.

  “Hee hee,” she giggled. “Were you dancing with that fat boy?”

  “Shut it Eileen.” I scanned the hall frantically, but there was a major lack of friendly faces, so I decided a trip to the toilet was in order. I marched off purposefully, not wanting anyone to think that I was a sad case with no friends except Eileen and Fatboy.

  En route to the toilet I passed the medical room, which had been the bursar’s office until she complained about the lack of natural light, and now housed a rickety camp bed and an archaic set of scales where we queued up to be weighed at the start of each term. Shrieks of high-pitched laughter came from within, accompanied by nervous male guffawing. I peered curiously through the gap in the door and in the instant before it was slammed shut I caught sight of Lindsey Norton from 1O dancing precariously on the camp bed with her arms held up above her headand no top on! Roll on Monday when this phenomenal piece of gossip was destined to overshadow any rumours about Fatboy and me which might be circulating.

  In the toilets I caught up with Geeta and Gillian. “Still here?”

  Geeta rolled her eyes in despair. “Every time I think it’s safe to come out they put another Wham song on. I almost puked when that Wham Rap thing started.”

  “Oh dear.” I hadn’t realised Geeta’s Wham phobia was so severe.

  “Anyway,” said Gillian, who looked slightly fed up at having been trapped in the toilets for the past half hour, “What’s happening out there?”

  “Rachel and Sinead have pulled and Miranda’s strutting her stuff with a monkey.” I knew this sounded slightly bitter but I didn’t care, and Geeta and Gillian weren’t to know. Gillian grabbed Geeta’s arm and hoisted her up from the toilet floor.

  “Come on Geet, this I have to see. If there’s any more Wham you’ll just have to dance with your hands over your ears.”

  We trooped out of the toilets and returned to our original spot beside the stage. Miranda and Monkey were nowhere to be seen but fortunately Fatboy seemed to have van
ished as well. There were only twenty minutes or so to go until home time and the atmosphere was reaching fever-pitch: semi-hysterical girls were accosting the remaining midgets in the best ‘my mate fancies you’ traditions; a few boys who’d overdone the cider were staggering around and trying to drown out Prince with Glory Glory Man United; and the edges of the hall were lined with mismatched couples, their mouths glued together and eyes wisely shut.

  Suddenly I heard high-pitched screeching from a group of 1O girls beside us, and I turned to see what they were pointing at. A group of boys had climbed up onto the stage and begun to remove their clothes! The over-enthusiastic one at the end had already discarded his shirt but the others were making more of a drama of it, pulling their t-shirts up until the 1O girls screamed with excitement, and then winking as they let them drop back down.

  “Oh my God!” Geeta shrieked, “Have you seen him?”

  She pointed to the boy at the end, who was wiggling his tongue and performing pelvic thrusts in time to the music, while his hand played tantalisingly with his flies. The other boys realised they were in danger of getting left behind and swiftly removed their T-shirts. By now everyone had pretty much given up dancing as a live strip show seemed infinitely more interesting and even the snogging couples had temporarily ceased saliva-swapping.

  The one at the end’s chinos had just slipped to the floor, revealing Christmas tree boxer shorts (he obviously hadn’t planned on removing all his clothes) when Miss Timpson, Mrs Oldershaw and Mrs Greig marched onto the stage. Miss Timpson looked as if she was trying not to laugh, but the other two wore fixed expressions of disapproval. The audience broke into a chorus of booing and hissing as the teachers grabbed two boys each and began to haul them off. No-trousers managed to break free and he did a victory lap of the hall with his trousers waving above his head like a football rattle, before shooting out of a side door, much to the delight of everyone except Mrs Oldershaw. She looked as if she’d have liked to give the boys a good telling-off but the DJ chose that moment to announce the last song and successfully drowned her out.

  “...And after all that excitement, we’re having a slow one to finish. For you lovebirds out there...this isLady in Red by Chris de Burgh.”

  Geeta made sick noises and I gave her my best Mrs Oldershaw look.

  “Thisis Lady Diana’s favourite song! A little respect please!”

  “Respect!” Geeta snorted. “How can you respect a grown woman who wears blue eyeliner? And did yousee that wedding dress? I mean...”

  She didn’t get the chance to elaborate on this, because a spotty boy in a baseball cap had got a firm grip on her and was slow dancing for Britain. A group of his friends nearby clapped and cheered, and Gillian and I watched with a mixture of envy and amusement. All around us couples were swaying haphazardly, the girls attempting to rest their heads on the boys’ shoulders, although this wasn’t always possible, and the boys with a hand on each female buttock and as many sidelong winks and smirks as they could manage. I wondered if Monkey was still with Miranda, clutching her bottom and singing Lady in Red to her.

  The song finished and Geeta’s date attempted a quick snog, much to Geeta’s disgust. She shouted “Oy! Hands off!” and pushed him back so hard he’d have fallen if his mates hadn’t been there to catch him. Fortunately they had moved in to watch the kiss up close. Gillian and I dragged her away before he had a chance to retaliate and we joined the bedraggled masses making their way to the exit. On the way out we passed Vikki and Trisha being groped by two quite passable-looking blokes (why couldn’t they have been ugly?), Rachel and Sinead swapping phone numbers with theirs, and Mrs Oldershaw supervising some unfortunate boy who was pushing a mop apathetically around a large puddle of sick.

  Miranda and Monkey were waiting for me on the steps.

  “Janet...” Miranda said hesitantly, “This is Michael.” I acknowledged him with the curtest of nods. He’d always be Monkey to me and he was looking more ape-like than ever, standing there with his arms swinging practically to his knees.

  “We have to go Miranda. My dad will be waiting.”

  She cast a forlorn look back at Monkey and he gibbered something and swung off, going to find his jungle cronies no doubt.

  Miranda tried to tuck her arm into mine as we walked down the road to where my dad had said he’d meet us. “What did you think of him?”

  “He was ok I suppose.” I tried not to sound jealous which I wasn’t anyway; I could have danced with someone like Monkey too if I’d wanted to stoop that low.

  “Did you snog him?”

  “Janet!” Miranda gave an embarrassed little squeak, although she was clearly flattered by the idea that she might have. “Of course not! We were just talking. He has guinea pigs too and he was telling me about them.”

  I bit back any number of sarcastic comments and we proceeded to the car in silence. I was just opening the door when Nancy and Miz ran up giggling and piled into the back seat.

  “Sorry Janet!” Nancy yelled victoriously. “You’ll have to go in the front.”

  I didn’t want to sit in the front while the rest of them whispered about their boyfriends in the back, but I didn’t want to offend my dad either. I slumped into the front seat and fastened my seat belt.

  So far as I know there were no lasting romances as a result of the Valentine’s disco. Miranda showed no particular inclination to rendez-vous with Monkey, and in the cold light of day Rachel and Sinead tossed the phone numbers they’d acquired into the bin. Vikki and Trisha had apparently danced with so many boys that they could hardly remember the names of the ones they’d ended up snogging. Vikkithought hers was called Roger, although ‘he could have been the one who kept pinching my bum when we were dancing’, and Trisha suspected she had snogged twins one after the other, because ‘the first one stuck his tongue in and out but the second one kind of moved his tongue in circles’. I tried not to feel hurt that no one had shown any interest in me (except for Fatboy, and he hardly counted); I knew I’d looked better than Miranda in her stupid Andy-Pandy suit, even if Monkey had been too dim to realise it.

  The other outcome of the disco was that the story about Lindsey Norton quickly did the rounds – it seemed that practically everyone had gone past the medical room at some point – and from then onwards she was forever labeled as a huge slag, or ‘No-top Norton’ to her friends.

  Chapter 14

  I went into a bit of a sulk with Miranda in the week after the disco. I didn’t want to be Miss Sour Grapes just because she’d gone off with a boy and I hadn’t, but she chose that week to be particularly irritating.

  For a start, she was still consorting with Eileen Fisher. Eileen had told Miranda that I’d been ‘slow-dancing with Roly fromGrange Hill’, and they seemed to find it highly amusing to sing Lady in Red and mime me dancing with my arms spread wide apart to accommodate my partner’s bulk. At first I protested at the inaccuracy of Eileen’s version of events, but it soon became obvious that this only gave them cause for further amusement and I was obliged to suffer in silence, feigning an interest in the adverts pasted along the inside of the bus which had nobody fooled.

  Then there was the fact that Miranda beat me in a maths test. Now, obviously, I didn’t mind that in itself, although I was severely annoyed that I had misread the main question worth a third of the marks and tackled it in completely the wrong way; and I also felt quite sore that Miranda only did so well anyway because I helped her revise for it. The main thing was just the way that Miranda kept going on about it.

  “Six whole marks more than you!” she repeated over and over again. “You must be losing your touch or something! Shall I offer to lend Miss Heaneymy maths book now?” (She was referring to a habit Miss Heaney had of using my exercise book to get the answers if she couldn’t find the answer book and was in a hurry).

  She went so far as to tell Nancy about it on the bus, and Nancy triumphantly reported at home that ‘even that thicko Miranda did better than Janet in their maths tes
t’. I then had to endure the tedious business of explaining about misreading the question and assuring everyone that I wasn’t bothered in the least by such a trivial affair. I told myself that I should really be flattered by Miranda’s incessant boasting, since it was only of note that she had beaten me in this particular test because I slaughtered her in every other one, but she still grated horribly on my nerves.

  The final straw was when she blabbed about a story I was writing for a competition. I’d seen a poster in the library advertising a creative writing competition for World Peace Day. You had to send in a poem, essay or short story on the theme of ‘Peace in our Time’, and I had hit on the idea of a short story about Frank, Miranda’s favourite man from Hilton House. The nurses had related that Frank used to go on all the time about fighting in the war, but in recent months his senile dementia had got so bad that he didn’t seem to remember anything much anymore. They clucked around him saying ‘at least he’s at peace now’, but forgetting your own name seemed a pretty heavy price to pay for peace to me, and that’s what I was trying to write about.

  I showed it to Miranda when she came to my house. At that point I was still on the first bit, which was what happened to Frank during the war, and seeing as I didn’t really know I was basing it on things my grandad had told me about being in the Navy. I made her promise to keep it a secret, and, all credit to her, she managed for a whole three days before announcing it to everyone in English.

  What happened was that Mrs Langley was talking about improving our writing styles, and asking if anyone ever did any creative writing for fun.

  “You must be joking,” Trisha snorted, although quite quietly because Mrs Langley was scary when she got angry. “I’m too busy having fun in front of the telly.”

  Vikki and Katherine joined in with the witticisms, and it was thus established that writing was uncool, and so no one said anything. No one except Miranda that is, who was wriggling around on her chair like someone with a severe case of piles.