by Hayley Long
It was a surprise for me too. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen Dionne on the shop floor.
I said, ‘I’ve brought all this stuff back.’ And then I said, ‘Where’s Gina?’
Dionne smiled. ‘She’s left.’
I was so surprised by this that I forgot about being positive and went a bit blank. But only for a moment.
‘Left? Where’s she gone?’
Dionne smiled again and pointed towards the shop window and straight across the road. ‘She’s gone to work for Keith Bright. They’re madly in love. A couple of weeks ago Keith finally plucked up the courage to come over and ask Gina out, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. And now she’s working for him.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Good God!’ I said. ‘Gina and Keith Bright – good God!’
‘Everyone has their perfect person out there waiting for them. He’s had his eye on her for ages,’ said Dionne.
I looked out of the window and across the road. Keith Bright was no longer staring straight at Sole Mates, hoping desperately for a glimpse of me and Goose. I realized then that he never had been.
I stood there feeling supremely stupid and then I quietly said, ‘When you next see Gina, will you please tell her that I’m not really a thief and I’m sorry, I really am.’
Dionne nodded. I turned to leave, but before passing through the door I paused and said, ‘Oh, and Dionne, thanks for coming to my house the other day and telling me about your friend. I’m sorry I sat in my wardrobe the whole time.’
And then I felt a bit flustered and left.
the truth aBOut eLvis PresLeY
Elvis Presley is a fat man in his fifties who wears a very scruffy black leather jacket and spends most of his time asleep on a bench in the public garden in the centre of Whitchurch. When he’s not asleep he sings Elvis Presley songs into a plastic toy microphone. He’s got quite a good voice, but he doesn’t really sound like the genuine Elvis because the genuine Elvis has an American accent, whereas this Elvis Presley is definitely from up the valleys.
Elvis Presley has been a regular feature of the public garden for as long as I can remember. So have an ever-changing crowd of sixth-form goths, but most of these are fairly ugly, to be honest. Every day I pass the public garden on my way to school, and every day I hear people from my school call Elvis Presley names. I have heard them call him a tramp, a bum, an alky, a homeless, a saddo, a wino, a junkie, a crusty, a madman, a bin-man, a nut-nut, a soap-dodger, a pikey and a schizo. I have heard them call Elvis all of these things. I myself have never called Elvis names because I reckon it’s a better policy to smile at people. However, I am ashamed to admit that I may have thought he was some of these things, but I still definitely never called him any of them.
On my way back home after the shoplifting clean-up mission I passed by the public garden and Elvis Presley was sitting on the bench. As I walked by he called out, ‘Hello, shoe-shop girl.’
I slowed down a bit and said, ‘I don’t work there any more. I got the sack.’
Elvis Presley shook his head and said, ‘That’s bad news, young lady. You don’t want to make a habit of that.’
I said, ‘Since when have you been a careers advisor?’
Elvis Presley laughed and said, ‘I haven’t never, have I? I’m a singer. I’m an entertainer. My job is to bring happiness and joy to the people of Whitchurch. And I do it like this.’ And then he picked up his toy mike and started singing ‘Hound Dog’ to me and whoever else might be passing. But mostly he sang it to himself.
And I walked on then and I was smiling. Elvis Presley had made me smile with his cheery laugh and his toy microphone and his funny Welsh-Elvis singing voice. And he might just be a fat man in his fifties who wears a scruffy black leather jacket and drinks far too much and has no money and sleeps on a bench, and he may well be a little bit mad too, but I reckon it still takes a very special talent to be able to make other people smile. It takes no talent at all to make them feel awful. The kids who walk past Elvis Presley and call him names should remember that.
a Brief wOrD aBOut the eNDiNG
Dear Mr (or Mrs) Examiner
It’s now nine o’clock on the evening of Tuesday 15 July and my personal writing project for GCSE English coursework is due in tomorrow. I’ve spent a lot of hours writing it. A LOT OF HOURS. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I’ve spent more time on this project than any other member of my English class. And I’ve really enjoyed writing it – except when I’ve been totally miserable – and I’ve got really heavily into it. But now it’s nearly finished I have a problem. I don’t know how to end it. When I saw Mr Wood today he suggested I end it with a sentence that begins in one of the following ways:
And that was when I discovered . . .
The most important thing I learned from this incident was . . .
This experience changed me because . . .
These suggestions are all very well and good but, as I explained to him, I haven’t focused on one specific incident; I’ve kind of just written about my life as it’s been happening.
When I told Mr Wood this, he nodded his head thoughtfully and said, ‘The wider approach is OK, Charlotte, but specifics are good for detail, and detail is good for creative writing. I hope you’ve managed to put enough interesting detail in there.’
I said, ‘I reckon so. I’ve written about fifty thousand words.’
When I said that, Mr Wood went very still and very white. For a moment I thought he might actually be having a funny turn. And then he said, ‘Wow! That’ll take some reading. I hope it’s good.’
I said, ‘I think so. I mean, I hope so.’
Mr Wood scratched his head and said, ‘Have you read it all through and checked it for mistakes?’
I said, ‘I don’t need to read it through. I already know what it says.’
Mr Wood bit his lip and smiled at the same time and said, ‘Hmm.’ And then he said, ‘What’s it called?’
I was a bit confused when he asked me this because it seemed like a blatantly stupid question.
‘It’s called Extended Personal Writing,’ I said.
Mr Wood shook his head. ‘No, no, no, Charlotte. If you’ve spent nearly an entire term writing something which is fifty thousand words long, it deserves a proper title, don’t you think?’
And then I saw what he was getting at and, yes, I did think it deserved a proper title.
But the thing is, I can’t think of a good title and I can’t think of a good ending so I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow and hope that something comes to me then.
the Last Bit
My name is Lottie Biggs and a few weeks ago I was fifteen years old. At school, some people like to write Lottie Biggs is Mad on the doors of the cubicles in the girls’ toilets. I don’t find this particularly funny but I’m not going to let it wind me up because, right now, I am learning to deal with much heavier stuff that is happening in my life. I am five foot and half an inch tall and my hair colour is recently applied Melody Classic Ash with Foxy Red lowlights. My eyes are blue, my chin has a dimple in it and my nose is not classically pretty but definitely an interesting shape. My favourite subjects are English, history and art, and I am currently sitting in the school library typing up the VERY LAST BIT of my personal writing project for English coursework. So far I have written just under fifty thousand words. This morning, when I showed Mr Wood how much I’d written, he said, ‘Well, Charlotte, you are definitely something special!’ And then he gave me a commendation for exceptional effort. I asked Mr Wood if I could hand my project in after lunch as I wanted to use the lunch hour to write an interesting ending and that is what I am doing right now.
Before I went to English this morning I had two problems. The first problem was that I couldn’t think of a good title for this project, but then I nipped to the loo during break and the answer suddenly became obvious. I won’t bother telling you what title I chose because you’ve already seen it on the front of my work.
> The second problem was that I had absolutely no idea how I was ever going to end this piece of coursework but now I do. And it’s thanks partly to that poet woman, Stevie Smith. Today with Mr Wood we were looking at a poem right near the very back of the book. It was a poem about a man who has been messing about in the sea and suddenly realizes that he has got out of his depth. He tries to alert the attention of the people on the beach but because he’s a silly, fun character, everyone just thinks he’s waving at them and playing around. Nobody realizes he is in serious trouble until it’s too late. The poem is called ‘Not Waving but Drowning.’
When Mr Wood read this to us, I had an out-of-body experience. My mind floated right up to the ceiling of the classroom and, for a moment, it felt like I was looking down on myself from way up high. Except that the Lottie I saw was sitting in her wardrobe. And then I saw my ex-manageress, Dionne. She was looking a bit upset and telling me about her friend who’d had a problem with her head and got into loads of trouble in order to get the attention and help she desperately needed. Inside my wardrobe I was pretty close to crying because I understood it all too well. And then my mind tuned back into the lesson and I realized with the biggest WOW that me and Stevie Smith are not so very, very different. Stevie might be a famous English poet with a man’s name and I might be a fifteen-year-old Welsh schoolgirl from Whitchurch in Cardiff with a funny nose, but me and Stevie both know what it’s like to find yourself suddenly out of your depth. And as I sat there at my desk I felt a sense of real gratitude that Stevie Smith had written a poem about it. It was like she’d written that poem especially for me and I will remember that poem forever. And unlike the unlucky man in that poem, I’m not going to drown because the people around me will always be watching to see if I wave.
But I said it’s thanks partly to Stevie Smith. The other person I need to thank for helping me with this ending is a certain boy who has a nice face, very big feet and colossal rugby thighs. At break-time I was sitting in the yard eating pizza with Goose when I saw Gareth Stingecombe leaning against the wall of the gym and fiddling with his iPod. I said to Goose, ‘Wait here a second,’ and I walked over and tapped him on the arm.
‘All right, Biggsy?’ he said, flicking one of his earphones out of his ear.
‘Gareth,’ I said, ‘I was wondering – you know the end of term disco on Friday? I was wondering if you’re still going.’
Gareth Stingecombe stopped fiddling with his iPod and gave me a half-playful, half-suspicious look. ‘Might be. Why?’
I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘Well, if you are going, and you’re not going with anyone in particular if you know what I mean, well, it would be really good to see you there.’
I could feel my cheeks burning but, hey, I’d said it.
Gareth smiled. ‘Really good or really good?’
I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling too much. ‘Really good,’ I said.
Gareth smiled even more and said, ‘You know what? It would be really good to see you there too.’And then he gave me a big beaming grin and punched me in the arm. Not hard. Just friendly.
And that was when I discovered that I really, really like being me.
Hayley Long would like to say a big
thank you to
Ruth and everyone at Macmillan,
all the nice people at Pollinger – especially Yeelesy, Gwen Davies and Annes for reading Biggsy first,
Dr Anne Bryan and Professor John Lazarus for being handy medical experts,
Milesy from the Cardiff Boys and Girls in Blue for showing me inside a cell and then letting me out again,
Bethan Batten for giving me some Welsh words,
Graham Tomlinson for being all-round generally fab
and everyone at Paston College, Norfolk for being so totally lush
and finally to Whitchurch High School, Cardiff, for giving me loads of inspiration.
Diolch yn fawr23
aBOut the author
haYLeY LONG was born in Ipswich ages ago. She studied English at university in Wales, where she had a very nice time and didn’t do much work. After that she spent several years in various places abroad and had a very nice time and didn’t do much work then either. Now haYLeY is an English teaCher and works very hard indeed. She lives in Norwich with a raBBit called irma and a husBaND. Lottie Biggs Is (Not) Mad is her first novel for young adults – but there will be more from LOttie (and haYLeY) COmiNG sOON.
fOOtnotes
1 Not the real one but a fat looky-likey from somewhere up the valley.
2 Banging means great. Not to be confused with hanging, which means minging.
3 A fudge grade is basically what Gareth Stingecombe is going to see when he opens his exam results. He’ll have an F, a U, maybe a D and so on. Fudge grades are not good.
4 This word ranks alongside blatant, haberdashery and orang-utan as an all-time personal favourite. It means ‘knowing everything’. For example, It’s pointless trying to convince my mum that I have been working really hard in maths and science because she is omniscient. By the way, my least favourite words are gusset, armpit and grounded.
5 Orang-utans are also non-confrontational animals. This is one of the reasons why I like them so much. Another reason is that they have the most wickedest shade of ginger hair I have ever encountered anywhere.
6 Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a very famous Irish writer whom everyone has heard of. Apparently.
7 Funny peculiar rather than funny ha ha.
8 Although, Mr (or Mrs) Examiner, you know this already because you have already had the pleasure of reading my essay Ten Good Reasons Why Lady Macbeth Needs Behaviour Counselling.
9 This is a quick inkpen interpretation of MY FAVOURITE EVER painting. The original is by a Norwegian artist called Edvard Munch and I’ve spent the last two months copying it for my art project. Mr Spanton, my art teacher, says I should start thinking about drawing something else soon because I’m beginning to make his nerves bad.
10 Mr Wood, on the off chance that you do bother to read this before you send it off to the examiner, please don’t take this comment personally I think you are a very good teacher but it’s important for me to retain a balanced perspective. Otherwise the examiner might think I’m trying to win marks by phoney flattery.
11 Dear Mr (or Mrs) Examiner, I would just like to point out that although art is my favourite subject, I am not particularly skilled in animal portraiture.
12 See footnote 9.
13 Do kestrels have lips?
14 I’m not all that great now.
15 Which, Mr(s) Examiner, I am sure you’re delighted about, as my typing is a lot easier to read than my handwriting.
16 This is Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India. Which just goes to show that money really can’t buy you happiness.
17 Except my mum, who knows what I’m like.
18 Could they really be CHARLOTTE ladies lace-ups in brown? Yes, I think they could!
19 7.0 = A great earthquake which is capable of causing serious damage over a large area. ( I got this out of Mr Thomas’s science book. )
20 adjective 1. having something wrong with the mind; insane; 2. extremely foolish; 3. very keen.
21 This drawing is not to scale.
22 Or in other words, a brain which can only be seen with the aid of a super-strength microscope.
23 Which means Thank you very much in Welsh.