Strawberry Crush

by Jean Ure

  “Well, I can’t work miracles,” warned Mum, “but let’s see what we can manage.”

  Mum was wrong: she can work miracles! It did take a bit of time, though. To begin with she smothered Maya’s hair in conditioner and wrapped her up in a plastic bath cap and a big fluffy towel and made her stay like that for half an hour. We all sat round the kitchen table to keep her company, with Mum and Auntie Megs drinking cups of tea and me and Maya nibbling biscuits, and Auntie Megs asking over and over, “What on earth made you do it?” I could have told her! She wanted to have blonde hair like Hope Kennedy. Now she’d got yellow hair, all gluggy and spongy. No wonder she’d arrived on the doorstep sobbing her heart out.

  Dad looked in at one point, but quickly disappeared again. The sight of a weeping Maya and a teary-eyed Auntie Megs was obviously too much for him. Dad can’t cope with emotion. He leaves all that sort of thing to Mum.

  “What happens next?” I asked, when Maya had obediently sat there for half an hour.

  “Next we shampoo,” said Mum.

  “Is it all going to fall out?” quavered Maya.

  “Not all of it,” said Mum, cheerfully. “Just the ends.”

  “What on earth made you do it?” wailed Auntie Megs, for about the tenth time.

  “I thought it would look nice,” sobbed Maya. The prospect of losing half her hair had brought on yet another bout of weeping.

  “It will look nice,” promised Mum. “Trust me!”

  Mum really is a genius when it comes to hair. First she used some special kind of shampoo that she keeps in her salon for people that have gone and ruined their hair by giving themselves bad perms or by not properly following the directions on bottles of bleach; next she rinsed through with something that would hopefully – as she said – “tone things down a bit”. Then lastly she took the scissors and ruthlessly snipped and snapped until all the frizzly bits were lying on the floor like shrivelled worms and Maya was sitting with her eyes squeezed shut cos she couldn’t bear to watch. I don’t expect I’d have been able to watch, either, if it had been me. I am not in the least bit vain, but who wants to end up bald? Especially when they’re in the clutches of a huge gigantic crush on someone as cool as Jake Harper.

  Maybe, I thought, it would teach Maya a lesson. I tried telling myself that it served her right. Running after a boy of eighteen who wouldn’t even look twice at her! I couldn’t believe he would look twice at her. No matter how tiny and pretty she was. Not that she would look very pretty with half her hair gone. It could actually be called a blessing in disguise, if it stopped her pursuing him. She’d hardly want to draw attention to herself without any hair!

  I had reckoned without Mum and her genius.

  “There!” Mum switched off the dryer and reached out for her mirror. “How about that?”

  A slow beam of wonderment spread itself across Maya’s face as she gazed at her new image. Mum turned, triumphantly, to me and Auntie Megs.

  “So what do you think?”

  “Mum,” I cried, “that’s brilliant!”

  I was lost in awe. My mum could be a stylist to the stars! Maya’s hair was no longer bilious yellow, but a soft golden brown, cut very short, almost like a little cap fitted to her head, with tiny tendrils snaking round her ears.

  “This is something I’ve been itching to do for ages,” said Mum. “I knew a shorter style would suit you! Now you look like a little elf.”

  Mum sounded so proud and happy that I couldn’t make my usual being-sick noise. Little elf … bluuurgh! But Mum was right, like she always is. Maya couldn’t stop admiring herself in the mirror. Even Auntie Megs was full of smiles.

  “You should have done it sooner!”

  “I tried,” said Mum. “She’d never let me. Now! Let’s get back to you and see if we can turn you into an elf as well.” She was only joking, of course. You can’t have middle-aged elves! Though I know, from seeing photos, that Auntie Megs – and Mum – had both been elflike when they were young. I do sometimes wish that I could be elflike myself instead of what Miss Phillips, our PE teacher, once called sturdy.

  I think I must have heaved a bit of a sigh as I looked at Maya with her new elfin cut, cos Auntie Megs immediately said, in kindly tones, “How about you, Mattie? Have you ever thought of changing your hairstyle?”

  Mum laughed and said, “To what? Her hair’s stuck up like a lavatory brush since the day she was born!”

  It really is just as well I am not vain. Hair like a lavatory brush! I thought, Thank you, Mum. Thank you very much!

  “Takes after her dad,” said Auntie Megs. And then, because she had said the word dad, she quickly put an arm round Maya’s shoulders and hugged her and said, “You take after me and your Auntie Ray, don’t you?” And then she glanced at Mum and gave a little warning frown and a shake of the head, like, Whatever we do, we don’t talk about Kevin.

  “So, all’s well that ends well,” said Mum, once we were alone again, “but I have to say that really is quite one of the daftest things Maya’s ever done! What on earth possessed her?”

  “She’s got this thing about Jake,” I said. “She thinks he goes for girls with blonde hair.”

  “Really? That’s why she did it?”

  “It’s kind of embarrassing,” I said. “Ever since he carried her home that day she came off her bike she’s had this mad crush on him. She keeps expecting him to give her lifts everywhere, just cos Mrs Harper said he wouldn’t mind.”

  “He probably doesn’t,” said Mum. “He’s very tolerant.”

  “But, Mum,” I said, “she takes advantage!”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much,” said Mum. “Jake’s a big boy: he can look after himself. I’m sure if he starts to get fed up he’ll find some way of discouraging her.”

  Glumly I said, “That’d prob’ly just make her even worse. She gets, like, obsessed, you know?”

  Mum shook her head. “She’s a sad little creature. Your Auntie Megs was telling me how Maya sometimes cries herself to sleep at night, worrying whether she’s ever going to see her dad again. And if she’s got a bit of a crush on Jake – well! It’s hardly surprising. She’d probably respond the same way to anyone who was sympathetic. It’s just good that it was Jake, and not somebody who’d be unkind to her. Don’t worry! He’s a sensible boy, I’m sure he’ll be able to handle the situation.”

  I must still have looked a bit doubtful, cos Mum laughed and said, “Rest assured, she won’t be the first girl to have developed a crush on him! He’s probably used to it by now. Try not to be too hard on her! We’ve all been there.”

  I hadn’t. Was Mum saying that she had?

  “Way back when I was your age,” said Mum, “me and my best friend both got this huge crush on a Year Twelve boy. He was in the Rugby team. We thought he was wonderful! We used to follow him about, all over the school. Quite embarrassing, now I look back on it.”

  “What did he do?” I said.

  “Oh, he didn’t do anything! Far too grand to notice the likes of us.”

  But Jake had noticed Maya. And with her new elfin haircut he would notice her even more. Any boy would. It wasn’t that I was jealous. I really wasn’t! Just that I couldn’t help wondering where Maya’s daydreams were going to lead her.

  Everyone at school commented on Maya’s hair, saying how lovely it was. I said proudly that it was my mum who had cut it.

  I didn’t tell them how Maya had tried to turn herself blonde and ended up with a head full of bright yellow elastic, all bobbling up and down and breaking off like bits of twig. Maya didn’t tell them, either. She actually tried to take some of the credit!

  “I just felt it was time for a change. I knew it would suit me better if I had it short.”

  I did reckon that was a bit of a cheek. I said so, in private, to Cate. I told her everything – I couldn’t help it. I just had to get it off my chest.

  “If it hadn’t been for Mum she’d be completely bald!”

  “Might have been a good t
hing,” said Cate. “At least it would have stopped her running after Jake. Now it’s made her all madly full of herself. And even prettier!”

  I said, “Hm.” And then, hopefully, “Maybe Jake won’t notice. Boys don’t always. Men don’t. My mum once put silver streaks in her hair, just for fun, and it was weeks before Dad suddenly asked her if she knew she was going grey.”

  “That’s cos he’s a married man,” said Cate. “People stop noticing things when they’ve been married a while. I bet he’d have noticed soon enough when they were young.”

  “I dunno,” I said. “Mum swears he wouldn’t notice if she wore a bucket on her head. She says he’s always been like that.”

  Cate thought about it. “That’s probably just your dad,” she said. “Not being rude or anything, but your dad’s, like … not very stylish, if you know what I mean? Jake’s more kind of modern.”

  I said, “Well, he ought to be! He’s only eighteen. My dad’s forty.”

  “And Maya,” Cate reminded me, “is only twelve.”

  I was quite glad that at that moment the bell rang and we had to go back into school. I didn’t want her telling me yet again that boys sometimes liked going out with girls that were younger than they were. I almost wished I’d never told her about Maya’s embarrassing crush in the first place, though probably by now she’d have noticed for herself.

  At the end of school we were wandering down to the main exit in a big bunch: me, Maya, Cate, Lucy, Nasreen and, for some reason, Linzi. She didn’t usually attach herself, but hey, it’s a free world. You can’t stop people walking with you. Unfortunately.

  We were almost at the gates when Jake overtook us, on his way to the car park. He was dangling his car keys from one finger. So cool! I could understand Maya having a crush on him. I didn’t blame her having a crush on him. It’s just a question of keeping things in proportion – which Maya, of course, can never do.

  As he strode past, Jake glanced back over his shoulder and stuck up a thumb.

  “Like the hair!”

  There was a stunned silence. The great Jake Harper condescending to notice that a Year Eight nobody had had her hair restyled! Maya’s face, needless to say, was lit up like a sunrise.

  Cate dug her elbow into my ribs. “Told you so,” she whispered.

  Even Cate, at times, can be annoying. “It doesn’t actually mean anything,” I said. “Maya’s like his little sister. He’s known her since she was a baby, practically. Well, since she was five years old.” Which was when Auntie Megs had started cleaning for his mum. “He’s kind of, like, protective towards her.”

  “You reckon?” said Cate. “Seems to me more like he fancies her.”

  I said, “Jake?” I was quite shocked. How could she even suggest such a thing? “That’s ridiculous!”

  Cate shrugged. “If you say so.”

  She obviously wasn’t convinced, which was a bit worrying since Cate is usually so calm and sensible about things. I’m the one that that’s prone to exaggeration. Well, according to Mum, that is.

  “Don’t worry,” said Cate, kindly. “I don’t suppose he’d actually snog her.”

  Snog her?

  “That is so disgusting!” I said.

  “Well, exactly,” said Cate. “Which is why I expect he wouldn’t do it. So long as she doesn’t keep throwing herself at him.”

  “How can I stop her?” I said. “I can’t keep an eye on her all the time!”

  “Course you can’t. She’s got to exercise a bit of self-control.”

  “Who?” said Linzi, spinning round. “Who are you talking about? Are you talking about Mr Cool?”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Cate, “we were having what’s called a private conversation.”

  “Oh! Well.” Linzi tossed her head. “Sorry, I’m sure. What I don’t understand is how come he gets to drive to school? Cluttering up the car park! Just cos he’s a prefect!”

  What was her problem? Jealousy, no doubt. Just because he’d noticed Maya’s hair.

  Linzi really does get on a person’s nerves. Always so intrusive. And of course we got stuck with her on the bus; just me and Maya. The others all live in the opposite direction. Fortunately the bus was quite full so I didn’t have to sit next to her, but there was no shaking her off as we walked up the hill. She is someone who never knows when she is not welcome. Maya, needless to say, entirely opted out. Just dawdled along behind us with this big soppy beam on her face while Linzi drivelled on about Jake. Why couldn’t he come by bus? Why couldn’t he cycle?

  “Imagine,” she said, “if he cycled he could get all dressed up in Lycra.” She gave a little snigger. “Think what that would do to her!”

  We both glanced round at Maya, still trailing behind. Still with this big soppy beam on her face. She was obviously lost in some dream world of her own. Probably hadn’t heard a word we’d said. So that, I thought triumphantly, was a wasted effort on Linzi’s part. She might just as well have saved her breath.

  Two seconds later Jake himself drove past us, up the hill. He tooted his horn and waved, and me and Maya both waved back.

  “Well! So he didn’t offer you a lift,” said Linzi.

  “He would have done,” said Maya, “if I’d asked him.”

  “Didn’t think you had to ask.”

  I thought, omigod, this is really going to set her off. I sought frantically for a way to change the subject, but couldn’t immediately think of anything. Maya meanwhile, of course, couldn’t just let it rest.

  “I don’t have to ask,” she assured Linzi. “I’m just saying, if I did. But if he saw I needed one he’d always offer.”

  “He didn’t just now,” said Linzi.

  “That’s cos I don’t need one. We’re nearly home. If he’d seen me at the bottom of the hill …”

  “What?” said Linzi. “What would he have done?”

  Maya opened her mouth to reply, but I got in first.

  “Can we just stop this?” I said.

  “She started it,” grumbled Maya.

  “Doesn’t mean you have to keep on. Let’s just go.” I grabbed Maya by the arm and dragged her off. “There is absolutely no point,” I said, “taking the least bit of notice of anything that girl ever says.”

  Next day, at the end of school, we actually managed to reach the bus stop without having Linzi as an attachment.

  I said, “Phew! We made it.”

  “Made what?” said Maya. And then, no doubt seeing a look of intense irritation spread itself over my face, “Oh! Yes. Linzi.”

  It was only what I’d been talking about for the past few minutes, rushing us down the road with cries of “Quick, quick, before she catches us!” Maya can really be so vacant at times. “I wouldn’t mind so much,” I said, “if you didn’t have this habit of expecting me to cope with her by myself. But honestly, you just wander around in some kind of dream world. And now look what’s happening! It’s starting to rain. I knew it would! I should have brought my umbrella. We’re going to get absolutely drenched!”

  “Hm.” Maya quite obviously hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said. Again.

  “Oi.” I poked at her. “Did you hear me? I said we’re going to get d—” I stopped. “Hey!” I cried. “Where are you going?”

  “I just remembered –” she flung it at me over her shoulder – “I’ve forgotten my maths homework!”

  I watched as she raced back up the road. I had no intention of going after her. No intention of waiting for her, either. The bus was coming and so was the rain! Maya could get drenched if she wanted. I didn’t see why I should.

  But after all that, guess what? At the very last minute Linzi appeared, charging across the road and bulldozing her way on to the bus right behind me.

  “Made it!” she said.

  I gritted my teeth. It was exactly what I’d said myself just two minutes earlier when I thought we’d got away with it.

  “What’s Little Miss Airy Fairy doing, running back into school?”
/>   “Forgotten her maths homework,” I said.

  “Or forgotten something else,” said Linzi.

  I eyed her with distaste. “Like what?” I said.

  “Search me! I’m not her keeper.”

  I didn’t give her the satisfaction of asking what she was talking about. I really didn’t want to know. I really didn’t care. The inner workings of Linzi Baxter’s mind are of no interest to me whatsoever. At least with Maya you can be pretty sure it’s just daydreams. With Linzi it could be anything.

  By the time we got off the bus the rain was crashing down just like I’d known it would. Linzi said, “Ooh, you’re going to get soaked!”

  She had an umbrella. It was only a mini one, about the size of a mushroom. Even if we’d huddled together it wouldn’t properly have protected us, but anyway she didn’t offer. I wasn’t bothered. I don’t really mind a bit of rain, and anyway who’d want to huddle with Linzi Baxter? At least it gave me the excuse to go galloping off up the hill by myself.

  I arrived home dripping and squelching and wet all over. Mum was still at work; she doesn’t usually get back till about half-past five. When I was little I used to go round to Auntie Megs’, but once I was at secondary school Mum said I was old enough to be trusted on my own. She says that on the whole – “on the whole” – I am quite sensible. Maya still comes to us if Auntie Megs isn’t there, but that is mostly because of Auntie Megs being such a worrier.

  I stripped all my clothes off and put them in the washing machine, switched on to spin, then changed into a sweatshirt and jeans and settled down to homework. It’s always a temptation not to settle down, to leave it till after tea, or even till bedtime, or even worse till next morning, but I do believe in getting boring stuff out of the way as soon as possible. I guess this is what Mum means about me being sensible.

  I finished off my maths in double quick time and sat for a minute thinking about Maya, dashing back to school. Forgetting her homework wasn’t anything new: she was always forgetting it. But actually bothering to go all the way back for it? That was new. On the other hand Miss Cowell had been rather unpleasant just lately on the subject of people forgetting their homework. She had said if there was any more of it there would be trouble. She hadn’t said what trouble, but maybe Maya had thought it best not to find out. If, that is, she had been listening, and not dreaming about Jake or writing his name over and over in her rough book.