Girls, Guilty But Somehow Glorious

by Sue Limb

  ‘Oh, well, never mind,’ said Mum. ‘They probably haven’t even sorted it yet.’

  ‘We can go into town tomorrow, first thing,’ said Tam. ‘We can be there when they open. I’ll go with you, Zoe. Which shop was it, Mum?’

  ‘Oxfam,’ said Mum. ‘There’s a terrible famine in Africa at the moment.’

  ‘Did you say anything about me in this diary?’ Dad asked. ‘Do I come out of it well? Were my dashing good looks mentioned?’

  ‘Your flab, you mean,’ I said. ‘Of course I never mention you in my diary, Dad. It’s all about boys at school I have a crush on, and sordid stuff like that.’

  ‘Lay the table!’ cried Mum, unpacking the poppadoms with panache. She was doing her best to create a festive atmosphere, but Tamsin, Chloe and I were finding it really hard to think about anything except running away.

  ‘I wonder if they’ve unpacked it already?’ I said, half to myself, as I laid the table.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Zoe, stop fretting!’ snapped Mum. ‘I’ll ring them first thing in the morning if you like! Nobody’s going to be interested in your diary anyway! Now just relax!’

  Relax? I could just as soon have eaten my own feet. OK, nobody’s interested in a teenage girl’s diary. But who isn’t interested in £692?

  We all sat down and the boxes of Indian food were laid out on the table, on newspaper. We like eating it like that.

  ‘Excuse the rough-and-ready style, Chloe,’ said Mum. ‘Those plates should be warm enough now.’

  ‘Presentation is everything,’ quipped Dad merrily, his usual joke.

  ‘Oh, you should see the way we eat at home,’ said Chloe. ‘We eat off the floor – practically!’ She gave a brave little grin and a shrug, for all the world as if she wasn’t unexpectedly bankrupt and looking forward to a summer of No Holiday Whatever except possibly a weekend break under her own bed.

  ‘So, what have you girls got planned for the weekend?’ asked Dad, helping himself to a gigantic piece of chicken coated in red tandoori sauce. I usually adore the colours of Indian food as well as the taste, but tonight nothing looked appetising. I felt more than slightly sick – not just in my stomach, all over. Even my eyebrows felt sick.

  ‘It’s the Earthquake Ball,’ said Chloe. ‘Tomorrow night.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Dad. ‘You were having trouble finding partners – did you sort that out?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ I said, trying to rouse myself out of my sick coma by forcing myself to talk about something really positive. ‘We had so much trouble for ages. We thought we’d never find anybody. We even advertised on a postcard in the supermarket, as you suggested.’

  Mum gave Dad a scolding look. ‘You suggested they should advertise? For boys?’

  ‘Only in a light-hearted way,’ said Dad. ‘Not in any serious sense.’

  Suddenly I realised the only way out was to ring Matthew and invite him to our all-male gang. Oh no! We had to ring horrid Scott as well, and tell him … well tell him something.

  ‘Did you find any?’ asked Dad, ladling loads of rice on to his plate.

  ‘Well, we did get two replies,’ I told him. ‘One was a nerd, and one was an android.’

  ‘What other boys are there?’ asked Tam. She laughed in a mad, hysterical way.

  ‘So have you got partners, or not?’ said Dad, gazing at his dinner with more rapture than I’d ever seen him lavish on Mum.

  ‘The solution is brilliant. We’d always ruled Toby and Fergus out, because they’re so immature and stuff, but we’ve had this great idea,’ I said, conveniently ignoring the fact that the idea had, in fact, been Chloe’s.

  ‘We’re going to go in drag. We dress as boys, and we’ll all go together. It’ll be the All-Male Earthquake Ball.’

  ‘Where are you getting the tuxedos?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I booked a couple,’ said Chloe. ‘From the fancy-dress-hire place. We can go there after the charity shop.’ She gave me a hysterical look. I passed it on to Tam, who choked slightly on a stuffed paratha. The fact was, if our trip to the charity shop drew a blank, there would be no jolly trip to the dress-hire place. We all knew that unless the money was somehow still magically waiting for us at Oxfam, we’d be in the biggest jam in history.

  .

  .

  33

  FRIDAY 9.05 p.m.

  Catastrophe! Another one!

  It was so totally and utterly terrifying, thinking of the people in the charity shop sorting through the clothes and then coming to the nice fat envelope stashed away in the bottom …

  ‘Zoe!’ said Mum, ‘you haven’t touched your supper!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’ I said, picking up my fork and trying to look interested. ‘I was just making a mental note to ring the android. We must ring him this evening, Chloe.’

  ‘You ring him,’ said Chloe, cringing predictably.

  ‘Guess what, Mum,’ said Tam. ‘I’ve brought a whole heap of stuff home to sell.’ She tried to sound reassuring and mature. ‘You know, just to keep the old finances ticking over. I’m going to sell my guitar and my keyboard, too.’

  ‘We bought you that keyboard!’ cried Dad indignantly. ‘For your fifteenth birthday!’

  ‘Yes, but …’ Tamsin squirmed slightly. ‘I’m never going to be a rock star. I mean, am I? I haven’t touched that stuff for more than two years, Dad.’

  ‘Tam’s right,’ said Mum. ‘The guitar and the keyboard are just assets, lying there doing nothing. Sell them if you like, darling – just make sure you get a good price. Pass the dhal, please, dhal-ing!’ she said to Dad in a frisky way. They had a silly little laugh at that. I suppose, in another world, it might have been slightly amusing.

  Eventually the endless supper was over. Somehow I had managed to swallow most of a very small meal, but I had spread it around my plate a lot to make it look bigger. Food had never seemed so strange. I had only managed to eat some by not thinking about it at all. At the odd moments when I had thought about it for a second by mistake, it had seemed to me that I was swallowing the heads of mice, small pieces of sticking plaster, and Christmas tree decorations.

  We escaped upstairs, closed my bedroom door, and put on some music to blot out our conversation.

  ‘What if somebody’s taken it?’ hissed Chloe. ‘What if, when we go in tomorrow, they say they didn’t find it?’ A cold feeling swept up from the soles of my feet and ended up giving me the chills all around my neck. I could so easily imagine it. It was so obviously what could happen.

  ‘An envelope?’ A fat, sinister-looking woman would say. ‘No, dear. Sorry. We done those two boxes yesterday, didn’t we, Monica, and there wasn’t no envelope what we seen, were there?’ Monica would shake her head. She’d have a moustache. They’d both be wearing fabulous strings of pearls and Givenchy perfume, of course.

  ‘I’ve got to stop fantasising about the women in the charity shop,’ I said with a shudder. ‘I’m sure they’ll all pocket the dosh without a moment’s hesitation!’

  ‘Stop it, Zoe!’ said Tam. ‘Look on the bright side. They probably haven’t sorted it yet. It’s probably still there, safe as houses. If they have sorted it and found it, they’ll realise it was a mistake. People who work in charity shops are good people, Zoe. They’ll be keeping it safe until somebody comes in to claim it, right? All we need to do is turn up there tomorrow morning and ask for our money back. We’ve got to stop panicking and try to relax or we’ll never sleep, and then you’ll feel terrible and faint at the Ball.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Chloe. She had had recent experience of fainting in public, and I don’t suppose she wanted to repeat it. ‘You’re right. And at least we’ve got the Ball sorted. It is so brilliant, this going in drag idea. I can’t wait to climb into my tux.’

  Suddenly my mobe rang. I panicked slightly. There was only so much bad news I could take.

  ‘Hi!’ said a deep sexy voice. ‘This is Matt. Everything OK for tomorrow night?’

  ‘Oh, hi, Matt,’
I said, pulling a face at Chloe and Tam, ‘I was just about to ring you. There’s been a slight change of plan. We’re going as an all-male gang, so you don’t have to actually escort Chloe as such. OK?’

  ‘Cool,’ said Matt. He sounded relieved. ‘See you there, then. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you – I’m a Scorpio.’

  ‘Ah, thanks!’ I tried to sound professional. ‘I’ll put it on your file.’

  Matt rang off, possibly to try on something brown or practise shaking hands with himself.

  ‘That was Matt,’ I informed Chloe and Tam. ‘He told me he’s a Scorpio.’

  ‘Watch out for his sting, then,’ said Tam.

  ‘Nah,’ I retorted. ‘I’m going to sting him – wait till he sees my bill. Every time he makes a nuisance call, it’s an extra fiver.’

  We all smiled slightly at this thought. It was kind of on the road to a normal moment. I wasn’t feeling quite so sick. In fact, any minute now I might start feeling hungry, and I’d have to creep downstairs and steal a banana.

  Suddenly I got a text, and what I read made my blood run cold – for the hundredth time today. It was from Toby:

  HI ZO! JUST TO SAY DON’T WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD ABOUT THAT EARTHQUAKE BALL – FERGUS AND I HAVE GOT PARTNERS LINED UP. KIND OF A LAST-MINUTE THING, BUT SOMETIMES THAT’S THE BEST WAY, ISN’T IT?

  .

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  34

  FRIDAY 10.03 p.m.

  I eat my own knuckles in suspense

  ‘They can’t do this! They can’t do this!’ I yelled. ‘Toby says they’ve got partners!’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Chloe, her eyes huge with amazement.

  ‘It doesn’t say. I’m going to call him right now!’

  ‘Wait!’ said Tam. ‘Don’t say anything stupid.’

  I hesitated. What could I say? ‘Yeah, you’re right. What’s the point?’ I said, my heart suddenly sinking deep, deep into the deepest blue depths of torment. ‘They’re not available. That’s all that matters. We’ll have to be an all-male gang on our own.’

  ‘It won’t work!’ said Chloe, panicking royally as only she knows how. ‘We need those guys! On our own we’ll just look weird and pervy! And I’ve reserved the tuxedos and everything! And it was going to be so perfect and funny!’ She was right. My mind raced. We had to get Toby and Fergus to go with us. Had to.

  ‘I’ll think of something in a minute,’ I promised. But my mind was disastrously blank.

  ‘What? What?’ squealed Chloe, jumping up and down in distress. ‘Unless we think of something, we’re just going to have to not go.’

  ‘Not go?’ I screeched at Chloe. ‘When I said that a week ago, you said you’d personally strip all the flesh off my body and make a gigantic cheeseburger of me!’

  ‘Well,’ said Chloe, looking uncomfortable, ‘things have changed. It’s only one evening, for God’s sake. We don’t have to be there.’

  ‘Wait, wait, there’s no need to give up,’ said Tam. ‘What other boys are there? You’ll have Matt, won’t you?’

  ‘It won’t work with just Matt,’ I said grimly. ‘He’s too weird, and nobody knows him because he goes to St Kenneth’s. He’ll only make it worse. We have to have Toby and Fergus. This is so ironical. I mean, we’ve been ruling them out all along because they are so way, way too immature and, well, basically just so NOT the kind of boys you’d ever take to the Ball. Going as an all-male gang was the perfect way of making it acceptable.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Tam. ‘Seems like the tables are turned and it’s Toby and Fergus who have to do you a favour.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Chloe. ‘Weird!’

  I suddenly got an idea. It just might work. OK, it involved major grovelling and went against all my instincts, but it was worth a try.

  ‘Tam, you’ve got to ring Toby,’ I said. ‘I can’t do this. It has to be, like, someone else.’ But I told her what to say. She smiled slightly at the idea.

  ‘I can’t stand the tension,’ said Chloe. ‘I’m going to hide in the bathroom while you make this call, Tam.’ And she went out.

  Tam got out her phone. It had to be her phone. If it was mine, Toby would know right away that it was one of my cunning plots. Tam dialled Toby’s number. I curled up on the bed and rammed my fist into my mouth.

  ‘Hi! Toby?’ chirped Tam, sounding wonderfully offhand and cool. ‘It’s Tam. How are you, young man? Have you been behaving yourself since I went off to uni?’ There was a silence while she listened to a bit of Toby’s banter. Tam and Toby are great mates. We used to go on camping trips together when we were younger.

  ‘Great! You are such a legend!’ laughed Tam, softening him up nicely. (Or so I hoped.) ‘Listen, I’ve got to be quick, because Zoe’s in the shower and I don’t want her to know I’ve rung you. Did you realise that she and Chloe cooked up this idea to go to the Ball dressed as boys? As part of an all-male gang? But they need you to be there with them, guys! They’ve been wanting to ask you for weeks, but they thought you wouldn’t want to go with them because they’re so nerdy and weird – their words, not mine!’ I curled up even more tightly and jammed my fingers in my ears.

  There was a silence while Tam listened. ‘I know, I know! Well, you know Zoe – she seems confident, but underneath she’s really shy.’ I could still hear this, unfortunately. Tam was laying it on thick. I was in several kinds of agony. But she was doing a fantastic job. I was so tempted to join Chloe in the bathroom until this painful act was over.

  ‘But listen, Tobe. Is there any chance – I realise it’s asking a lot – that you could put these other two girls of yours on hold and join Zoe and Chloe’s all-male gang instead?’ Then Tam listened for quite a while, grinning and nodding.

  ‘Do you think so? Do you really think so? I mean, I hate to ask, really, it’s such a cheek, when you’ve already got partners, but according to what Zoe said, it was quite a last-minute thing, so I wondered … ? OK, OK, fine – talk to you soon, then.’ Tam threw her phone on to the bed and grinned at me.

  ‘He’s going to call me back,’ she said. ‘After he’s talked to Fergus and the girls.’

  ‘Fingers crossed, then,’ I said.

  ‘Fingers, toes, eyes, knees and ankles crossed,’ said Tam, crossing her eyes but still somehow failing to look unattractive even for a split second.

  I went to get Chloe from the bathroom and explained that Toby was going to ring back.

  ‘He’ll never dump those two girls,’ said Chloe. ‘It’s too much to ask. I wonder who they are? Maybe somebody from the year below?’

  We sat around in my room basically waiting for Toby to ring back. We started to watch a DVD but nobody was really concentrating. Suddenly my mobe rang. I grabbed it, my heart beating fast.

  ‘Hi,’ said a familiar voice. ‘This is Matthew. Uh … I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to come to the Ball after all. Apparently there’s a family trip tomorrow which I didn’t know about. To Birmingham.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, immensely relieved. ‘Well, never mind.’

  ‘I thought it might not matter so much,’ said Matthew. ‘Because I wasn’t going to have to escort Chloe – you know?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, cool, of course,’ I said, trying to hide my joy.

  ‘I would like to carry on with the life coaching sessions, though,’ droned Matthew. We so had to work on his conversational skills. ‘I’ve bought a brown T-shirt,’ he said. ‘I’ll wear it to Birmingham and see how it goes.’

  ‘Yes! Good idea!’ I assured him. ‘And remember – if you meet anybody – don’t forget to smile!’

  ‘OK,’ said Matthew gloomily. He was such a prune. However, he had now run out of things to say, and after promising to spend most of the weekend practising shaking hands with himself, he rang off.

  ‘Matthew’s dropped out,’ I informed the girls. ‘He has to go and show his new brown T-shirt to Birmingham.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’ sighed Chloe. Things were gradually falling into place. We had got rid o
f the android. Now all we needed were Tobe and Ferg. At last Tam’s mobe buzzed. She answered it with panache.

  ‘Hi, Tobe? … Really? Amazing! Totally amazing! Look, don’t tell Zoe I rang, for God’s sake. She’d hate you to think she’s all needy and stuff – but basically you’ve saved her life, you legend! She’s downstairs now – just, uh … ring her and tell her you’ve been stood up or something, yeah? OK, babe – see you soon. Lots of love and thanks a million!’

  Tam rang off and gave us the thumbs-up. I cheered. Chloe just looked mystified.

  ‘Who were the girls, then?’ she wanted to know. ‘How could they just dump them like that?’

  ‘Who cares?’ I whooped. ‘Don’t let us down by getting all mopey about the losers, Chloe. The thing is, we ARE going to the Ball!’

  Seconds later my mobe rang. I grabbed it, and turned my back on Tam and Chloe, so I wouldn’t be tempted to crack up.

  ‘Hello, my dear!’ said Toby. ‘Guess what? We’ve been dumped again! These two girls we had lined up, well basically … they’ve informed us they can’t go after all. Some Bigger and Better Boys have asked them to a Bigger and Better Ball, apparently. So what was that you were talking about in your text?’

  ‘We just had this crazy idea of going in drag. Chloe and I hire a couple of tuxedos and we go as an all-male gang. But we need you to come with us. Male solidarity, you know! How does that grab you?’

  ‘I think it could be jolly amusing, my dear!’

  That was sorted, then. I rang off, feeling relieved. But the real prob was whether the money would still be in the charity shop. We HAD to get our hands on it, first thing in the morning.

  .

  .

  35

  SATURDAY 10.00 a.m.

  Fireworks, fireworks, fireworks …

  I’d wasted hours worrying about the greedy money-grabbing women who might be running the Oxfam shop, but it turned out to be the nicest person in the world, although she did have a nose like an eagle. She beamed at us, listened to our story (the truth for once) and found the money in a jiffy. Two minutes later we were back out on the pavement with the sacred envelope containing the big bucks firmly grasped in my hot little hand.