by Candy Harper
‘Sounds terrifying.’
‘The Year Sevens thought so when she chased them down the corridor.’
‘I forbid you to do anything else fun before I come back.’
‘Hmm. That’s not a promise I can make. This afternoon we’ve got Art with that drippy supply teacher. I’m just off to pick up the party snacks now.’
Why does everything good happen when I’m trapped in a small room? All I need to complete this scene is for Ramsbottom’s head to pop up out of the loo.
She can do that you know.
They’ll have finished rehearsal and be heading off to Juicy Lucy’s now. Laughing and joking. Not thinking about me. I hate that lot.
I have always loved my mates. I’ve just received seven text messages. Megs, Ang, Lily, Zoe and Becky all sent their best love and hoped I’d feel better soon. Westy sent me a picture of himself giving Elliot a wedgie. The last one was from Ethan. Megs must have given him and Westy my number. It said, Stop skiving you slacker. We need you here to tell Vicky to shut up.
Strangely, that was my favourite.
I’m feeling a bit better. To celebrate my return to health, people seem to have been setting off fireworks ever since it got dark. How thoughtful.
Mum, Dad and Sam are about to go out to watch a fireworks display in the park. I am still too weak to go with them, besides I am looking forward to being in charge of the remote. I told Dad to think of me while he’s enjoying himself and to bring me back a toffee apple or three. He said he wasn’t sure that a toffee apple was a good idea for someone recovering from a stomach bug. I told him I would accept a cash alternative.
Perhaps he’s right. I should probably ease myself back into eating solid food by starting with something simple. Like crisps or chocolate.
Granny came round today. She didn’t bring me a present, so I’m not sure why she bothered. I said that I should be excused since I’m only just off my deathbed, but Mum just said I could have a blanket on the sofa. I asked if a little light snoozing would be allowed, but she just started tickling me. I told her that tickling a person who has recently been projectile vomiting wasn’t advisable, but she didn’t stop so I was forced to sit on her. In the middle of this family bonding Granny arrived and started blithering on.
She started by telling us about used-to-be-a-politician Pete, who is her latest gentleman friend who she met at her Elderly Support group. This group seems to consist of Granny and her mates (i.e. old people) pretending that they are not old, by organising coffee mornings and mystery tours for people who are even older than they are. It’s disgusting really. That would be like me being friends with Icky just so her repulsive ugliness would make me look pretty.
Anyway, Granny started on about this Christmas box business again, ‘We’ve organised a scheme where volunteers are filling nicely-wrapped shoe boxes with treats—’
I said, ‘What kind of treats?’
‘Oh, toiletries and sweeties and that sort of thing.’
I’m not sure that some Forest Fern talc and a bag of humbugs would make my Christmas.
Granny warbled on, ‘And those lovely girls at St Mildred’s—’
‘Granny, don’t be fooled, those girls are savages in tartan kilts.’
Mum said, ‘Faith! Don’t call them that.’
Granny hadn’t heard me. When she’s talking I don’t think she’s actually interested in getting a reply, she just likes to have eyes on her. If we propped up a few of Sam’s stuffed animals we could probably leave the room.
On she dribbled. ‘Those nice girls are joining in and I hear that they’re planning to pack up fifty boxes of treats for the old folks. You know, for some of them it will be the only Christmas gift they get.’
I said, ‘I could help.’
Mum, Granny and Sam stared at me open-mouthed. Which I thought was a bit rude as I am well-known for my generosity.
I said, ‘I know you’re waiting for me to say something mean, but I think it’s really sad that old people get forgotten about. Everybody should have presents at Christmas.’
I think Mum might have started welling up at this point.
‘I can get the girls at school to help. We’ll do loads of boxes, Granny.’
Mum said, ‘What a lovely idea, Faith. I’ve always thought that your aura suggested a caring nature.’ Then she took Granny out to the kitchen for a cup of tea to steady their nerves after the shock.
Sam elbowed me in the ribs. He said, ‘Why are you being so nice? It makes me feel funny.’
‘One day, Sam, you will be moved by the plight of someone else and you’ll feel a desire to help them. You’ll want to give your time and energy to do something positive. It’s really a very good feeling.’ I twisted his arm up behind his back and gave him a Chinese burn. ‘Besides, if the bimbos in blazers can pack fifty boxes for the coffin-dodgers I reckon we can do a hundred.’
I am such a people person.
Despite still feeling rough I was forced to go to school today.
I decided that we need to press ahead with our plans to ruin Miss Ramsbottom. I thought that perhaps I should pop into Miss Pee’s office to take a look at her diary, but before I’d even had the chance to decide when would be most convenient for me to drop in on Miss Pee, I was sent to her by Killer Bill for attempting to slide the length of the corridor on two banana skins.
I protested firmly, but politely, ‘This is practically sport!’ But Killer Bill wasn’t listening. Sometimes I think a life of sport with all that being hit on the head by a variety of balls has rendered her deaf to my sensible explanations. I said, ‘And I am promoting healthy eating.’ Still she sent me off to the Queen Pee. Because I am a positive person I tried to look upon it as good fortune being invited into Miss Pee’s lair where I could get a good look at her schedule.
Miss Pee said, ‘Faith.’ (Nobody else manages to make my name sound quite so much like a growl.) ‘What is it this time?’
I handed her the pink misdemeanour slip Killer Bill had written out for me. She smoothed out the long strip and read it. Then she paused.
Miss Pee is fond of pauses. I think she imagines that she is building the tension and that I am writhing in anticipation of the dreadful punishment she will hand out. Actually, I was thinking about sandwiches. I was hoping that Dad hadn’t put the tomato next to the bread; you need to sandwich it between the cheese, otherwise it makes the bread all soggy.
Miss Pee said, ‘I have had so many of these . . .’ she dangled the pink strip between her fingers, ‘. . . concerning you, Faith, that I could make myself a hula skirt.’
I’m afraid a snort escaped me. You’d giggle if you were confronted with the image of Miss Pee hula-ing around the desk with a giant cocktail, wearing nothing but a rustling skirt of my pink slips. It wouldn’t even be that immodest; she could tuck her sagging bosoms in the waistband. Ewww, now I have thought about Miss Pee’s boobies. I swear she knows what she is saying; even now she’s conducting some sort of long-distance mental torture. And it is working.
Anyway, midway through her lecture Miss Pee spotted some Year Sevens out the window where no Year Sevens should be. (In fact no one is allowed anywhere near Miss Pee’s window. Which seems odd to me. I do not think that you should become head of an institution full of girls, if just a glimpse of them makes you leap from your chair and shout, ‘Off! Off!’) She flung open her window and started a new lecture to the Year Sevens on the evilness of being in her sight line.
I spun round the leather diary open on Miss Pee’s desk. Quietly, so as to not disturb Miss Pee’s enjoyment of the sound of her own voice, I flicked over a few pages. Goodness, let me tell you how exciting Miss Pee’s days are: meeting with governors, meeting with parents, Presentation Evening, site proposal due in. Boring, boring, boring. Then I found what I was looking for. Friday the eighteenth of November, Miss Pee will be attending a Schools’ Alliance meeting at St Mildred’s in the morning and has to be back for support staff appraisals by half two. So that means sh
e’ll be in school at the start of the day for assembly, then we’ll have a great car-moving window while she’s at St Mildred’s and she’ll be back to discover her space taken before it’s time for Ramsbottom to leave. Perfect.
I got Mrs Webber to let me make a special announcement in tutor time so I could tell everyone about the Christmas boxes. No one seemed very enthusiastic.
Nicola Robson said, ‘I have to buy chocolates for my nan for Christmas, I’m not giving to old people that didn’t even give birth to my mum or anything.’
She expects a lot in return for a pack of Ferrero Rocher.
I’ve only got four groups signed up to do a box.
I won’t be able to manage as many tomorrow as my karate arm is sore from persuading the first lot.
I had a rummage through our house this evening in search of shoeboxes that I can fill with treats for the old people. I found one in Mum’s wardrobe with the most hideous pair of Marks and Spencer’s sandals in. I was tempted to leave the sandals in there and to wrap it straight away. They seemed like the kind of footwear an old person would enjoy. But instead I crammed the shoes behind the folded-up exercise bike (she’ll never look there).
I found another shoebox under Sam’s bed, but the smell coming off it was so bad that I put it straight back. And then there was one in my room that was housing my cracker joke collection, but I’ve moved those into my knicker drawer. Which means I’ve got two shoeboxes. Great. I wonder if the old folks would like their gifts in a cereal box. Or a nice festive carrier bag?
Mrs Webber brought in four empty shoeboxes.
I said, ‘Thank you very much, Mrs W. It’s touching that an elderly person such as yourself finds the time to support other old codgers.’
She said, ‘Faith, I’m thirty-seven.’
‘Try not to dwell on it, Mrs W; old age comes to us all.’
And then I handed out the newsletters for her without being asked, to show her how pleased I was.
Hope she brings something to put in them tomorrow.
Ahhhhhh! and Eeeeeeee! And a bit of can-can dancing. Finn has asked me out!
Yes, actual Finn has actually asked me out. I’m so excited I can hardly write. I met up with the others after rehearsal and we went to Juicy Lucy’s. Finn just happened to be sitting on the table next to us and I just happened to get into a conversation with him about surfing (because, as you know, I have always been a big fan) and he said, ‘There’s this really cool website. Give me your number and I’ll text it to you.’
He wanted my number! Woo hoo!
Which isn’t what I said, what I said was, ‘Sure,’ because I wanted to be cool.
Finn asking me for my number and telling me about his favourite website seemed quite exciting, until just now when I got a text from a number that I didn’t recognise. I opened it thinking it might be one of those scam ones you get pretending to be your bank saying, Just text us your PIN and your date of birth and tell us where you hide the spare front door key, but it wasn’t. It was from Finn. As soon as I opened it I saw his name at the end. I had to steady myself before I could even read the rest of it, but there it was: he was asking me to go to the cinema tomorrow night. Phew, must remember to keep breathing. I waited for a suitable period of time (six and a half minutes) before replying and there we go – I’ve got a date. With Finn. Oh my giant bra-ed grandmother, I cannot believe it.
The problem with going on a date is that there is no one to ring and ask what they are wearing. I rang Megs last night; I could tell she was pleased for me because she screamed. I was quite touched, so I screamed back.
Dad said, ‘Do you really need to be on the phone to do that? She’s only a few streets away. If you put down the phone she’d probably still be able to hear you.’
When he’d finished his meaningless babble, I asked Megs what I should wear. She said she thought casual was best.
I said, ‘Casual by whose standard? Icky thinks a backless cocktail dress is casual. She thinks getting dressed up is remembering to put your underwear on.’
‘Properly casual. Like jeans casual.’
Which I took to mean a denim mini.
It’s only six hours to go. All I have to do is keep breathing till then. It would be just my luck to drop dead just before my very first date. And maybe my first snog. Eeep! Is he going to kiss me? Think I’ve just increased my chances of a heart attack.
I’m ready.
I’d be more ready if I felt better qualified for this. They should offer a GCSE in kissing and a BTEC in flirting.
I’ve cleaned my teeth twice and practised looking attractive in the dark sideways on. Time to go.
That’s it. I am never going to school again.
It was a trick.
Evil Ethan is probably still laughing his stupid curly head off now.
I got to the cinema a little bit early. I didn’t want to look over-enthusiastic, so I sort of skulked about pretending to be interested in the nearest shop. Then I realised it was a chemist’s and I was eyeing up the display of incontinence pants, so I walked very slowly towards the cinema entrance and started reading the posters. I was studying the reviews for The Sunshine Bears’ Birthday Surprise for the third time when suddenly Finn appeared leaning against a pillar, as laid-back and relaxed as ever.
He said, ‘Oh, hey, Faith.’
Looking back, I realise now that he seemed a bit surprised to see me. I should have paid more attention to this and I should not have said, ‘So what are we going to see?’
‘We? Uh . . . I’m actually going with these guys, but you could—’
I spun round in the direction he was pointing and there were two of his mates and three girls. One of whom was Icky bleeping Blundell. At this point I tried to use the heat coming off my red face to power my teleportation, but nothing happened.
Icky skipped up to us with a delighted expression. ‘Oh, poor Faith, have you been stood up? Well, don’t start crying on Finn’s shoulder. Even your poodle-haired loser friend doesn’t want you. Finn’s way out of your league.’
Finn started asking who was a poodle or something, but I was already stalking off. Icky was wrong. That poodle-haired Ethan hadn’t stood me up. He’d set me up. He must have sent me that text and he must have known that this lot were meeting at the cinema. How could he be such a pig? I stormed around the corner and slammed straight into what I thought was a wall, but turned out to be Westy.
‘Faith!’ Then he saw my face. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’
Annoyingly, I’d started to well up with tears. Poor old Westy didn’t know what to do. He went bright red and gave me a pat on the shoulder, except he doesn’t know his own strength so I nearly fell over.
I pulled myself together a bit and said, ‘You can tell Ethan that I didn’t think that his joke was very funny.’
‘Ethan?’
‘Yes, Ethan. He sent me a text pretending to be Finn, asking me out. I bet he thinks he’s hilarious.’
‘Oh, this is bad. Listen, Faith—’
I could see a gaggle of girls from school heading towards the cinema and I didn’t want anyone else to witness my humiliation and blotchy face so I said to Westy, ‘Never mind. See you later.’
He said, ‘Wait a minute, Faith, I hate seeing you upset. Can I . . . Can I buy you a drink or something?’
Oh my, I have sunk so low that Westy was trying to make me feel better. I didn’t want to hear it. I came home and climbed into bed, where I will be living out the rest of my natural life.
Awful day. I don’t want to talk about it.
Queen of the evil gnomes, Icky Blundell, has told the world that I was stood up. The only good thing about it is that she seems to think that it was Ethan who stood me up. Finn obviously didn’t tell her that I was expecting to see the film with him, which makes him a very nice person, but I’ll never be able to be in the same room as him again, so his niceness is wasted. Also, here’s a question: was Finn going to the cinema with Icky? I mean I know they were both ther
e, but were they together together? Because that detracts from his niceness. No one nice could want to spend time with Icky.
All day long I have suffered Icky’s annoying mates telling me they’re not surprised I was stood up because I am so ugly/ginger/flat-chested. Then the word spread and one of the Year Eleven Tarty Party actually took time out of her busy schedule of spot-squeezing and horoscope-reading to come and say to me, ‘Who’d want to go out with you? You’re so minging and . . . brainy.’
Seriously. The fact that the Tarty Party consider brains a turn-off explains a lot about the slack-jawed ape-boys that they like to date.
I said to her, ‘Most people find intelligence attractive.’
‘They don’t put pictures of girls with big brains on the front of magazines, do they?’ she said and walked off smirking.
And then to top it all off, Angharad – little, tiny, never had a sniff of a date – Angharad looked at me sympathetically.
So I said, ‘If you look at me like that again I will strangle you with your own shoelaces.’
Which is no way to talk to a friend who is more mouse than girl and who was only trying to be nice. It’s a good job she didn’t try to put her arm around me. She’d have been hospitalised.
This is Ethan’s fault. What kind of a worm brings people’s emotions into a joke? In fact, where is the joke? I don’t remember Finn laughing. I’m definitely not laughing. Becky did give a nervous giggle when I told her, but that soon stopped when I stood on her windpipe. The only person laughing is Icky. And we all know she laughs at drowning puppies. I kicked her in the shins on two occasions today, but that only stopped her going on about me being stood up for about five seconds.
Nasty, pig-face Ethan. I will never forgive him. I will not forget this till my dying day. I am exhausted by the humiliation, the cruelty and all the punching people in the face that I have had to do today.