Love Bomb

by Jenny McLachlan

  Bill stands awkwardly in the middle of the room and then sits on the end of my bed. ‘She told me what Toby did.’

  ‘What exactly did she tell you?’ If she told him about the four chest hairs or the disaster kiss, I will have to kill her.

  ‘About what happened in assembly,’ he says.

  I groan and flop back. ‘So now everyone knows I was publicly dumped.’ Mr Smokey wriggles out of my arms and jumps back on the wardrobe.

  ‘I brought you this,’ he says, pulling Eric’s Shave a Sheep game out of his rucksack. He knows it’s my favourite Lego game.

  ‘That’s cool, Bill, but did Kat tell you I fell over … and basically Toby didn’t want me in the band because I’m so bad at kissing.’ Bill leans forward, rests his chin in his hands and stares at the wardrobe. I don’t blame him for not looking at me. I’m a disaster. ‘I’m never going back to school, Bill,’ I say. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Betty,’ he says, not taking his eyes off the wardrobe, ‘you are amazing and Toby is just not. You’re a starry sky and he’s just someone gazing up at you.’

  Kat’s right. Bill is the nicest boy in the world. Why couldn’t I have gone out with someone like him?

  I sit on my bed and hug my knees. Bill turns and looks at me. I see his frown and his grey eyes that are exactly the same colour as a stormy sea. Then something happens. Something totally unexpected. For the first time in my life, I see how gorgeous Bill’s face is. Bill has a cutesome face! I’m so amazed my mouth falls open.

  ‘What?’ he says, staring at me.

  I shut my mouth and blink a few times. ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just thinking about …’ I look around the room, ‘this.’ I pick up Mum’s letter from by my bed. ‘This is my last one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I tell Bill all about Mum’s letters, about how she hid them in the attic for me and what she put in them. I say that for the first time in my life I feel like I’ve got a mum, and I don’t want to lose her just when I’ve found her. It’s good to talk about the letters … and it stops me from staring at Bill’s face.

  ‘I’m scared of opening it,’ I say, holding it in my lap. ‘After this there’s nothing left.’

  ‘Do you want another quotation?’ Bill asks.

  ‘No way. I’m never ever going out with anyone ever again.’

  ‘It’s not about him,’ says Bill. ‘It’s about your mum.’ I pass him Dennis and a felt-tip pen. He starts to write. ‘This is Shakespeare and it’s from his most famous love sonnet: “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”.’

  ‘Bill, I said no love!’

  ‘Wait,’ he says, and then he starts to write on a blank page. ‘This is what comes at the end of the poem: “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see; So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” ’ He looks at me. ‘You see, your mum’s letters mean you will always have her, and she will always have you. You’ve got her letters so she’s never going away.’

  I look at Mum’s letter. I can’t say anything. I pick up her photo. Her face beams with life. I’ve always been surrounded by pictures of Mum, but they didn’t make her real. Her letters have made her real.

  ‘Thanks, Bill,’ I say. ‘Your essay has been more helpful than you can imagine.’

  He laughs and opens Shave a Sheep, shaking the Lego bricks over my feet. ‘I’m pleased I could be of assistance,’ he says, then passes me the dice. ‘Are we playing evil rules?’

  ‘No way,’ I say, looking down because Bill’s eyes are doing funny things to my tummy. ‘We’re playing anarchy rules.’

  ‘I’m going to whoop your ass, Betty,’ he says. ‘I taught Kat to play the other night and she beat me. I’m out for revenge on a girl.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I taught Kat to play …’ He looks up. ‘She came round to borrow an old wetsuit.’

  They’re sharing wetsuits? Why shouldn’t they share wetsuits? Or cuddles … or kisses?

  ‘Your go,’ I say, throwing the dice at him.

  He catches it with one hand. ‘We watched Labyrinth,’ he adds.

  What? That is totally our film. It’s about a goblin king stealing a baby and we’ve watched it so many times together. I try to hide my jealousy.

  ‘That’s cool,’ I say.

  It’s not cool. It’s the opposite of cool. I look at Bill through my fringe. He’s concentrating on making wool for his sheep.

  And that’s the moment I realise I totally like Bill. And I mean Flynn Rider like. I fancy my best friend! He looks up at me. A burning blush creeps over my cheeks. In fact, so much blood is rushing to my face that I feel faint. Bill looks at me curiously. Nothing can hide my glowing cheeks … except for a cat jumping off a wardrobe and landing on my head!

  ‘Best cat ever,’ I whisper into Mr Smokey’s fluffy tummy.

  *

  When Bill has gone – I beat him three times – confusing boy-thoughts ping pong around in my head. Seeing Bill has done something to the ache. It’s still there, but it’s definitely losing its power. I feel much more like me.

  In fact, I feel so much like me that I decide to do some Epic Silent Dancing. It’s a good way to celebrate the discovery that Toby hasn’t completely broken my heart.

  I put my headphones on and find ‘I Like to Move It’. I turn the volume up loud and – after checking there are no gaps in the curtains – I press ‘play’.

  At first I just stand there. Then my hands start Doing the Sprinkler, and my hips join in with a bit of thrusting … and then I just can’t stop myself. I Moonwalk towards Mr Smokey, do some Hammer Time and end up Kung Fu Fighting Toby’s imaginary face. At the end of the song, I realise I’m smiling so I Epic Silent Dance all over again.

  Then, because I’m still smiling and because Betty is back, I realise I can read Mum’s last letter and it will all be OK.

  I pull off my headphones and pick up The one where my heart was broken. I drop down on my bed, heart thudding from the dancing, pyjamas all sweaty, and I start to read.

  Dear Plumface,

  So, here’s how it happened. You remember my Werther’s Originals kiss with Carlo? If not, you’d better open ‘The one where I have my first kiss’, because this is the sequel.

  Read it? Good.

  The day after the kiss, Carlo and I arranged to go on a secret walk. I barely slept that night. We met at the pier, really early, and wandered along the seafront and up on to the Downs. As soon as we got into the countryside, Carlo held my hand. It was even better than I had imagined it would be. Eventually, we climbed down a ladder to this secret bit of beach that you can only get to when the tide is out. We lay on the rocks, the sun warming our faces and talked for hours.

  Then we had the picnic I’d brought. I can still remember what I grabbed before I left the house: cheese sandwiches, banana milk, one packet of Monster Munch crisps and half an Easter egg. When the tide was lapping at the bottom of our rock, we climbed back up the ladder. Carlo pulled me up the last few steps.

  It was the perfect first date.

  Because I was sure that’s what it was: our first date. Carlo never said anything, like, ‘I love you. Will you go out with me?’ I guessed that was because Eleanor was our friend and he knew he had to split up with her.

  But as we left the countryside and started to walk along roads, past cars and people, I realised something had changed. Carlo let go of my hand and moved further away from me. Then, when I fell off the kerb, he didn’t laugh. Usually he laughed all the time, especially if I did something silly.

  ‘So …’ I said when we got to my road.

  ‘So,’ he said, looking just over my shoulder. ‘See you at college?’

  All evening, I tried to explain away his behaviour. I knew it must be hard for him. He’d been Eleanor’s boyfriend for so long – he wouldn’t want to upset her. Although, really, she wasn’t the world’s greatest person. When our class were filling shoeboxes up with Christmas presents for children in orphanages, she said she didn’t see
the point of doing it ‘for Romanian kids’.

  After a night of worrying, I went to college and I found Carlo and Eleanor hugging outside the main entrance. Not in an ‘it’s over’ type of way, more in an ‘I totally love you, let me press into your entire body’ type of way. Carlo looked across at me. He was sending me a message.

  That’s when my heart was broken. I was sure he had chosen Eleanor over me because something about me wasn’t right. I just wasn’t good enough for him. I spent hours trying to work out what it was. Maybe I wasn’t pretty enough, or clever enough … had I said something stupid? It was only years later that I realised that I’d got it all wrong: it was Carlo who wasn’t good enough for me.

  Now, Betty, I have to confess something. ‘The one where I fall in love’ … isn’t an entirely truthful title. I should have called it ‘The one where I thought I’d fallen in love’ … You see, sometimes, when you think you’ve fallen in love, you haven’t, not really. It’s only when you truly fall in love that you know what love is. I didn’t want to put that in the letter because you might have thought I was being patronising, a bit, ‘Cheer up, love, there are plenty more fish in the sea’.

  I will put one more letter in the attic and it will be called ‘True Love’. I’ll put it in a Quality Street tin. Save it for when you hit the jackpot, for when you meet someone who loves you for who you are, and who would never settle for anyone else, particularly someone who hated Romanian orphans. You’ll know when to read the letter because true love feels like coming home.

  The other reason it’s in a separate place is because it really is my last letter. I don’t want you to open it unless it’s absolutely the right time. I realise these letters might be hard to read. Sometimes they’ve been hard to write. I’d like to keep writing them forever, but I’ve run out of time. Even Dad, Nanna and Auntie Katie know that now. I’m leaving hospital this afternoon and I won’t come back. Usually going home is a good thing, but not for me. Everyone’s finally accepted that I’m never getting better and that there’s nothing anyone can do except wait, and I don’t want to wait in hospital. I want to be at home, with you and Dad.

  One day, if someone does break your heart, and makes you feel small and insignificant, I want you to remember this: when you were a tiny person, not even two years old, you were so mighty and amazing that you kept me alive. Today, it is you, Betty, who is making my heart beat, my lungs fill with air and my fingers hold this pen. Just so I can leave hospital today and hold you in my arms again.

  Love you always,

  Mumface xxx

  Carefully, I put the letter into Dennis. My throat aches. I wish I could tell Mum that I found her letters and read them, that I’ve felt how much she loved me. When I called my sketchbook the Big Book of Love, I was thinking about Toby, but as I turn over each page, making sure Mum’s letters are in place, and reading Bill’s quotations, I realise that this book isn’t about Toby at all.

  But it is about love.

  It’s about me falling in love with two people who’ve always been in my life, waiting for me: Bill and my mum.

  Mum is right. I wasn’t really in love with Toby. I didn’t feel at home with him, more like I was on another planet. When I’m with Bill, I can be me. I need to tell Bill that I got it massively wrong, but what if I’ve left it too late? What if Bill and Kat got together when I was in a garage gazing at Toby, playing FIFA 14 and learning to sing miserable?

  I lost the chance to be with my mum and now I’m losing Bill too. And this time it’s all my fault!

  Before I go to sleep, I turn on my phone and delete Toby’s messages. There are only seven. I’ve had more texts from O2. Finally, I wipe his phone number.

  I’m about to turn off my phone when I get a new message. It’s from Bill: Just saw this and thought of you. There’s a photo attached. Obviously, I can’t see it. I can’t think what to say to him so I just leave the phone by my bed and wait for the picture to come through.

  As I drift off to sleep, I think about Mum and Bill. It’s good knowing that True Love is up in the attic waiting for me. Then I think about Bill’s lines of poetry, about the night I slept in his bed and how he said something important to me, something that is hidden just out of reach. Whatever it is, I think it might be the answer to everything.

  When I wake up, the room is bright and I can’t hear any sounds in the house. Dad must have gone to work. I lie in bed, staring at the sunlight streaming through the gap at the bottom of the curtains. It’s making stripy lines across my legs. Dreamily I realise that today is the day of the Autumn Celebration. Then, as I’m curled up, all warm and sleepy, I suddenly remember what Bill said to me.

  When I stayed the night at his house, and I was half asleep, half awake, just like now, I asked him how his essay was going. He laughed, and he said, ‘Betty, there’s never been an essay.’

  But if there was no essay, why did he have his love-poetry book all highlighted and studied? I sit up so fast the blood rushes from my head and I feel dizzy. Bill told me why: he said when he read the poems, he thought about me. He said it in his sarcastic voice, but what if he was telling the truth and wanted to hide it? After all, I’d just been going on and on about how much I wanted to kiss Toby.

  I grab Dennis. I’m not the best at English because, although I love reading, I hate analysing. It ruins the story. But this time, I think it might make the story.

  So I can weigh up all the evidence, I draw another love grid in Dennis and I do it just like my English teacher has taught me:

  Evidence: Explain:

  ‘She walks in beauty?, like the night; Of cloudless climes and starry skies’ He’s talking about me! He thinks I am as beautiful as a starry night. I do have a lot of freckles.

  ‘Love is like a child that longs for every thing that he can come by’ Bill went to Brighton with my friends because he thought he might get to see me just for five minutes.

  ‘But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you’ Bill totally gets me — the way I love cycling down hills, how I like my Marmite spread to the edges of my toast, and why I find the word ‘furry’ funny.

  ‘I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams’ Just after he wrote this on my arm, he told me he wasn’t writing an essay. He was saying, I’m about to lay my heart at your feet, Betty, so don’t go and do a riverdance on it.

  ‘So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see; So long lives this, and this gives life to thee’ OK, strictly speaking, this was about Mum, but what if this is the final clue? Bill is just waiting for me to use my eyes, read his quotes, and see what he’s been trying to tell me.

  Dennis has been about Bill and me since I first wrote the words, She walks in beauty like the night, and surrounded it with doodles of silver stars, but Toby’s smile was so dazzling I couldn’t see it.

  But what if I’m just twisting Bill’s words? In my last report, miss did say my English work was ‘wildly imaginative’. I pull out my phone. I need to see Bill’s photo.

  I open the text and slowly the image appears. First, I see a plastic moon hanging from a ceiling. It’s Eric’s ceiling – I can tell by the hot-chocolate spray marks that I was partly responsible for. Next, Eric’s blurred face appears. It looks like he’s jumping on his bed and his hair is shooting up, defying gravity. Then I see stars. Dangling from the moon, bumping Eric on the head, are around twenty blue, green and yellow stars. It’s a starry sky.

  A starry sky that made him think of me!

  Something inside me glows with excitement, but I force myself to calm down. Could Eric have reminded Bill of me? Am I like a six-year-old boy who smells a bit hamstery? There’s only one way I can find out. I have to see Bill. Surely, when I look at him I’ll be able to tell if he’s secretly been fancying me for weeks? Then, if I’m right, I’ll prove to him that I’m totally over Toby and that I’ve finally seen what’s been in front of me all this time. It’s going to have to be something big. This isn’t the sort of thing you c
an sort out with cupcakes or a cuddly toy.

  By the time I’ve had a shower – my first in three days – dried my hair and eaten two bowls of Rice Crispies, I’ve come up with a plan. Before I do anything, I’ve got to speak to Kat. There are only so many times you can steal Jesus before your friend gives up on you.

  She answers her phone immediately. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in geography?’ I say.

  ‘I am,’ she says, ‘but Kabir just made Mrs Ledger cry by pretending she’d become invisible. She ran out and hasn’t come back. Are you feeling better?’

  ‘I’m fine … really surprisingly fine,’ I say, ‘but I’ve two important things to ask you.’

  ‘OK, but speak up. Kabir’s put a violent film on the interactive whiteboard.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘Do you like Bill?’ I ask.

  The line goes quiet. I hear a scream followed by a massive explosion.

  ‘I like him,’ Kat says, ‘and he is ten out of ten, but I don’t like him.’

  ‘But you said he was ripped and his bum looked lush … and that you were addicted.’

  ‘To windsurfing. It’s addictive. Honestly, Betty, the whole world doesn’t revolve around boys.’ Her words make me grin. ‘Bill is awesomely ripped, but he’s not interested in me and that’s sort of lessened the impact of his hottiness. Plus there’s this other instructor, Rob, and he’s got these arms like –’

  ‘Listen, Kat, I’ve got to do something very important and I haven’t got time to hear about Rob’s arms.’

  ‘They’re like Spiderman’s,’ she blurts out. ‘Go on, next question. Make it quick because I can hear a walkie-talkie. Mrs P is approaching.’

  So I ask my next question and, amazingly, she agrees.

  She really is the most incredible friend.

  It’s one o’clock and the Autumn Celebration starts in five hours. I have to see Bill if I’m going to put my plan into action. I’m not sure what I’ll say – I just hope that when I look at him somehow I’ll be able to tell if he likes me or not, if I’ve put the clues together right or if I’ve been a total idiot for the second time this week.