by Candy Harper
Just as long as Mrs Lloyd-Winterson doesn’t die of old age before we can get it started.
SATURDAY 4TH FEBRUARY
Tonight I went round to Megs’s house for a pizza with everyone. Megs’s parents are so welcoming, unlike my miserable lot. Mum and Dad were having a cup of tea and an unnecessarily large slice of cheesecake when I came to tell them I was off. I pointed to Dad’s plate and said to him, ‘Is that a good idea considering your BMI?’
‘A little of what you fancy is good for you, Faith.’ And then he made a kissy face at my mother.
I gagged.
‘Shouldn’t you be making cutting remarks in someone else’s house?’ Mum asked.
I was going to bash her on the arm, but at the last minute I turned it into a friendly, if firm, pat. ‘Since I’m not allowed a proper party, can I have seven people round for pizza next week?’
‘No,’ Dad said.
‘Why not? Is it because you were shunned as a child so you can’t bear me to be popular?’
‘You won’t be going anywhere for pizza if you take that tone, young lady,’ Mum said.
‘Anyway,’ interrupted Dad, ‘I’m sure we’d be delighted to have all your friends in the house . . .’
My heart leapt at this point.
‘. . . It’s you that we don’t want hanging about making a mess!’ Dad guffawed in a very unattractive fashion.
I silenced him with a look. ‘Have you ever noticed how they always say that serial killers were quiet and kept to themselves? I expect their parents wouldn’t let them have any friends round either.’
‘If anyone ever describes you as quiet, it’ll be me that drops dead,’ Mum said.
Dad nodded. ‘And if you do go on a killing spree don’t be late back.’
‘I’m just saying that you will definitely be blamed for everything I ever do wrong.’
And I swept out in quite a pointed fashion.
Then I stuck my head back round the door and said, ‘Save me some of that cheesecake, will you?’
At Megs’s house it was refreshing to be in the company of people who aren’t idiots. Or at least the ones that are idiots let me tell them what to do.
When I arrived Cam and Ethan were already there. Megs and Cam didn’t have much to say because they were too busy snogging each other’s faces off.
I smiled at Ethan, but he just said, ‘Not out with Golden Boy?’ and disappeared into the kitchen. Honestly, it seems like lately he’s either snapping at me or staring into my soul. Can’t he just have a conversation like a normal person?
Fortunately, Lily turned up soon after that. She was wearing a Star Trek T-shirt that she’s had since she was ten.
‘Whoa!’ I said. ‘That T-shirt’s getting a bit . . . full, isn’t it, Lils?’
Lily looked down at her spectacular bosom as if she’d forgotten it was there. She shrugged. ‘Is Finn coming?’ she asked.
‘Nope. I am an independent woman who can do her own thing on a Saturday night.’ I didn’t mention that Finn hadn’t shown any interest in what I was doing tonight. Apparently, his idea of us being official doesn’t mean that we see each other any more often.
‘I asked Arif,’ Lily said.
I looked around as if I was expecting him.
‘I was really hoping to see him tonight, but he had to go to his auntie’s,’ she explained.
‘But it’s got to that stage, has it?’
‘What stage?’
‘The seeing stage?’
‘That’s not really a very advanced stage though, is it?’ Lily said. ‘I mean, I’m seeing you right now.’
‘You know what I meant. You’re actually talking about meeting up. How come that hasn’t happened before?’
‘It never really seemed practical before.’
I coughed. Practical is not a word I expect to hear Lily say.
‘I mean, I invited him to my last birthday party, but he couldn’t come.’
I said, ‘Right.’ But really I was wondering what it could be that had changed in the last year that has altered Arif’s feelings for Lily. And could the reasons possibly be located down the front of Lily’s Star Trek T-shirt? After the pizza, I brought up some important business with Megs.
‘Have you made any more plans for my birthday?’ I asked. ‘Because if you’re going to find somewhere free and nice to throw me a party you’d better get a move on.’
She grimaced. ‘So far the biggest package at the celebrations will be your self-importance.’
‘I’m not asking for much. Just all my friends gathered round me and maybe a cheese and pineapple hedgehog or two.’
‘Sorry, Faith, my mum said no, Lily’s flat is too small and Ang is too timid to even ask.’
Westy popped up behind Megs. ‘You can have your party at my house,’ he said to me. Westy is very generous and always offering to give people stuff, although usually it’s someone else’s stuff.
‘Won’t your parents have something to say about that?’ Megs asked.
‘Nah, they’ll be fine. They let me have people round all the time. They’re just glad I’ve got mates.’
I didn’t know Ethan was listening, but he called across the room, ‘That’s because you kept beating up the kids at nursery.’
Westy frowned at him. ‘I was trying to play.’ He gave me an appealing look. ‘I didn’t know my own strength.’
I patted his arm. ‘I know, Westy.’ I didn’t want it to seem like it was all about me, so I waited several seconds before asking, ‘Do you really think we could have my party at your house?’
He nodded hard. ‘Yep. You lot can all come.’
‘But surfer idiots are banned, right, Westy?’ Ethan said.
Westy looked like a startled bunny. ‘Erm . . . I mean, Faith can ask who she likes.’
Ethan muttered something that I didn’t hear, but I’m imagining that it was a rude remark about Finn. I didn’t want to get into a fight about the guest list before we’d even settled the location.
‘So your parents will really be fine?’ I asked.
‘Definitely.’
I do find Westy’s mum delightfully welcoming and sane compared to my own bag-of-bats mother.
‘He has got a big house,’ Megs said.
Which is true. You would have thought that when the world was planning things out that it would have chosen a big house for me. I mean, I’ve got a very large personality. I’m emotionally stifled in our three-bedroomed semi.
Megs made Westy ring his mum to check. She said no more than thirty people and yes. Why can’t my parents manage this kind of intelligent and quick response?
SUNDAY 5TH FEBRUARY
It was sunny today so I felt that this should be one of my football Sundays. Megs and I arrived a bit late. Finn only had a chance to say, ‘Hi,’ and then the whistle blew and he ran off with all the other boys.
‘Wouldn’t it be simpler if they were allowed to pick up the ball?’ I asked Megs.
‘That would be rugby.’
‘Why don’t they play that then?’
‘Because they like football.’
I shrugged. People are very uptight about rules in sport. I prefer to mix things up a bit. They’d get better viewing figures for Wimbledon if they let the players break into a spot of pole-vaulting over the net occasionally.
‘Last night was great, wasn’t it?’ Megs asked.
Which reminded me of what I’d been meaning to say. ‘Yes. I assumed you were enjoying yourself snogging Cam because you made the same happy, slurpy noises that you make when you’re having chocolate fudge cake, but now that you’re at liberty to use your tongue for talking, instead of licking Cameron’s eyebrows, we need to have a little chat.’
‘I didn’t lick his eyebrows! There may have been a small amount of eyelid kissing, but that’s nice and romantic, so don’t you dare make it sound all spitty and disgusting.’
‘I have barely begun to tell you how it sounded. Anyway, just for once, this is not about you
r saliva. I want to talk about Lily. I’m worried about her.’
‘We all worry about Lily.’
‘I don’t mean the normal stuff like will she remember to take the teaspoon out of her mug before she drinks her coffee and pokes her eye out? Or will we find her trying to rollerblade down the stairs again? I mean, I worry about boys.’
‘What, that they’ll have their heads scrambled with her chit-chat about badger bathrooms and that?’
‘No, I mean she’s had a bit of a growth spurt, hasn’t she?’
When we started secondary school, Lily was what Granny called a long thin streak of nothing: very tall and skinny and mostly knees and elbows. But recently she’s, ahem, filled out a bit and has got that kind of curvy figure and long legs like ladies in black and white films. Also, she’s finally stopped wearing her long blonde hair in plaits and now it sort of bounces round her face in a rather nice way. Obviously, I’m a flame-haired lovely (or vixen if you listen to Angharad, which, of course, I always do), and I suppose Megs is quite attractive if you don’t have to listen to her talking too much, and Angharad . . . well, Angharad is adorable, but Lily is definitely the gorgeous one.
‘She is quite fit, isn’t she?’ Megs agreed.
‘Yes, and I’m not sure about Arif. It seems to me that he’s only got interested in meeting up with Lily since certain developments have occurred.’
‘Certain developments? Do you mean boobs? Have you turned into Ang and picked up a fear of describing the female form?’
‘All right, all right, the point is that I’m concerned Arif is more interested in Lily’s boobs than the rest of her. Some boys are like that, you know, only interested in looks.’
‘Oh yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it?’ Megs said.
I nodded.
‘Unbelievable the way some people only care about how someone looks.’
‘Disgusting.’
‘It would be pretty sick to date someone just because they had lovely sun-streaked hair, even if you had nothing in common.’
I hate it when Megs tries to be clever.
I said, with great dignity, ‘I didn’t start dating Finn just because of his hair.’
‘No, the fact that he’s gorgeous had something to do with it too!’
‘So you do think he’s gorgeous?’ I said.
‘He’s got a nice face. That’s not everything. I don’t think you should choose your boyfriend just because of his face.’
‘Oh, so Cameron’s face had nothing to do with you wanting to go out with him?’
‘Obviously, I fancy Cam, but I also find his personality attractive.’
‘I find Finn’s personality attractive.’
‘What personality?’
‘Don’t be horrible.’
‘I’m not trying to be horrible. I just don’t want either of you to get hurt.’
I don’t know how Megs managed to twist my friendly concern for Lily into her sticking her nose into my love life. I hardly spoke to her for the rest of the match. Why can’t people just let me be happy?
MONDAY 6TH FEBRUARY
I got a text from Granny this evening. It said, I’m outside. It completely creeped me out. I could probably have her arrested for harassment.
Once I’d finished my magazine, I thought I’d better let her in. She made Dad fetch her a cup of tea and those chocolate digestives I’ve had my eye on, then settled herself on the sofa. ‘Faith, here are those shorts I borrowed.’
I said, ‘What do you mean those shorts you borrowed?’
She handed me a carrier bag and repeated, ‘Here are those shorts I borrowed.’
I pulled out what were undeniably my black shorts, but I still couldn’t stop myself from saying again, ‘What do you mean those shorts you borrowed?’
‘Your shorts. I borrowed them,’ Granny said slowly, as if I was the mad one.
My brain was getting dangerously close to the idea of Granny-bottom in my clothes. In order to divert it I said, ‘What do you mean those shorts you borrowed?’
‘Your shor—’
‘Hold it there,’ Dad said. ‘To save some time and repetition, Faith, I’m going to assume that what your granny means when she says those shorts that she borrowed is that she borrowed some shorts. Your shorts.’
It was like one of those scenes in a film when everything goes into slow motion and someone shouts, ‘NOOOOOOOOOO.’ and throws themselves in front of something precious.
Like a pair of River Island shorts.
Only it was too late to save the shorts. They had already been contaminated by geriatric bottom and now they were back. I clutched my shorts.
‘I didn’t have time to wash them,’ Granny said.
I dropped my shorts.
‘When you say borrow . . .’ I asked in a very reasonable way, with only a hint of screech about my voice.
‘Are we still here?’ Dad said. ‘I hate to hurry you, Faith, but in a few decades I’ll have my own funeral to go to and I’d like to get some tea in before then.’
I ignored him. He thinks about nothing but his stomach and he can’t even spare a thought for important issues like short-theft by an OAP. ‘Because when you say “borrow”,’ I went on, ‘it sort of implies permission from the person you are borrowing off. Otherwise, it’s taking without consent. I could phone the police about that.’
‘If she’s really been wearing them, you could phone the police about indecent exposure,’ Dad said in a very low voice.
‘I didn’t wear them outside!’ Granny snapped. ‘I just put them on for my Jump ’n’ Jive class.’
Oh dear God. There was Granny-sweat involved now.
‘And maybe for a while in the bar afterwards,’ she said.
‘You might as well have them,’ I said, pointing at the poor scrumpled things. ‘They’re dead to me now.’
LATER
This must be what it’s like when someone you love leaves.
I’ll never look at another pair of shorts again.
LATER STILL
Although there was quite a nice pair with pockets in the New Look sale.
TUESDAY 7TH FEBRUARY
Today, in Music, Mr Millet split his trousers. It was brilliant. It’s like the universe wanted to make up for the trauma I suffered yesterday.
WEDNESDAY 8TH FEBRUARY
At lunchtime a Year Seven with a ski-jump nose and sticky-up hair told me Miss Ramsbottom wanted me in her office. I said, ‘I’ve told Miss Ramsbottom before that I cannot sacrifice my education just because she’s trying to cure the sickness in her soul by surrounding herself with youth and beauty at all times.’ I leant towards the Year Seven, whose mouth had fallen open. ‘My looks are a curse to me. Be thankful that you look like one of those little troll dolls.’
She backed away from me, swivelled on her tiny troll feet and fled.
I decided I might as well brighten Ramsbottom’s day and headed off to her office.
‘I hear you’ve been causing trouble in the PE department,’ Miss R said, without so much as offering me a biscuit.
‘What? That business about me suggesting we wear padded suits for gymnastics? If you’d ever had Megs’s rear end coming at you as she did what she thinks passes as a cartwheel, you’d agree with me. It’s an issue of health and safety, Miss Ramsbottom. I know you take that sort of thing very seriously because I can think of any number of exciting activities I’ve suggested that you’ve said no to, just because they involve a few explosives or a bungee jump.’
Miss Ramsbottom made a noise in her nose. ‘Just leave these matters to the PE staff in future. They’re a good deal more qualified than you are.’
I doubt that will still be true by the time I reach the end of Year Eleven. I’m pretty sure that the PE department haven’t got a Maths GCSE between them to bounce about with a ping-pong bat. I think the reason they disallow so many of my goals in netball is because they can’t count past six. But I didn’t say any of this to Miss R because, like all delusional, middle-aged
women who think they can get away with a blunt-cut fringe, the truth pains her.
Miss R wasn’t done with me. She sat down regally on her spinny chair like it was a vampire throne and said, ‘I hear from Mrs Lloyd-Winterson that you’re keen to set up a debating club.’
‘Oh yeah, really keen. It’s all sorted now. Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘On the contrary, Faith, I find that keeping an eye on your exploits always turns out to be a time-saver in the end.’
I really don’t need Miss R watching me. ‘I’m sure Mrs Lloyd-Winterson knows what she’s doing.’
‘Nevertheless, before we go ahead with the club, I would like you to understand that I will be monitoring its progress. I look forward to watching you perform.’
I frowned. ‘When you say “watching you”, do you mean “you” as in the whole wonderful bunch of teen debaters or just wonderful me?’
‘I will be watching your performance, Faith. Whether you are wonderful or not will help me to assess how seriously you’re taking this endeavour. It will also have a bearing on my comments on your end-of-term report.’
Which is hilarious because being good at arguing has never got me a good report before. I just smiled politely.
It must have been a good polite smile and not the one that Granny keeps telling me she expects to see on a ‘wanted’ poster one day, because at home time we saw that a sign-up sheet for debating club had been pinned on the activities noticeboard. The first meeting is after half-term. I’m glad that things are moving along, but I’m not sure that I approve of this free and easy membership approach; we could end up with any old Icky in the club.
I said to the girls as we walked home, ‘There must be some way that we can keep Icky away from the sign-up sheet.’
‘Or maybe we can keep the sheet away from Icky!’ Lily said triumphantly.
I thought she might be on to something until she said, ‘We just need some kind of spell . . .’
‘What if we covered the sheet up?’ Angharad asked.