My Best Friend and Other Enemies

by Catherine Wilkins

  But then in Year Six a few of the girls started swapping posters of Ricky, and learning the dance moves, and planning their joint weddings to Ricky and Baz. And Natalie and I agreed that we still thought they were lame but that we wouldn’t upset anyone by pointing it out. She can’t possibly think they’re good now!

  “You’re not serious!” I cry.

  “Why not?” asks Amelia.

  “MBlaze are so lame!” I say.

  “Oh dear, you’re so immature,” sighs Amelia.

  “Come off it, Nat, you don’t actually like them now, do you?”

  “Well, I think their last one was quite catchy,” says Natalie.

  “It wasn’t,” I assert. “And they’re still going on about being broken-hearted. Remember how we used to say that was rubbish? Remember when we said they should just get some hobbies?”

  “Look, Jessica, people change. And I like them now,” says Natalie defiantly.

  “Not everyone keeps the same views they had when they were nine,” says Amelia unhelpfully.

  “Look, just because I don’t like some stupid boy band doesn’t mean I’m immature!” I say. I can feel my temperature rising. I wonder if I’m blushing. I feel quite hot.

  “Whatever,” says Amelia. “Look, why don’t you just let Natalie get on with her life, stop telling her what she should and shouldn’t like, and leave us alone?” She waves one hand at me dismissively. “Go on, run along now.”

  “Don’t you dare speak to me like that, Amelia!” I’m almost shouting now. “You are such an idiot!”

  “Jess! Don’t speak to Amelia like that!” says Natalie. (What about the way Amelia is speaking to me? Why is that fine?)

  “What?” I say, confused.

  “Do you know what, you are immature,” says Natalie then. “Amelia is right about you.” (No she isn’t!) “I’m glad you’re not in our secret gang!”

  Natalie immediately claps her hands over her mouth, like she didn’t mean to say that. Amelia slowly looks at her. I feel strangely deflated, like all the wind has left my sails.

  “You’re in a … gang?” I ask quietly.

  “Secret gang,” corrects Amelia. “And you’re not joining it.”

  “I don’t want to join it!” I lie. “Honestly, and you say I’m immature. What’s it even called? The Pink Ladies?” I try to sound scornful.

  “God, no. That is so done,” says Amelia.

  “It’s called CAC, if you must know,” says Natalie. “It stands for Cool Awesome Chicks.”

  “That’s cack,” I say.

  “What?” says Amelia.

  “The initials of your gang spell out cac, which sounds like cack. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “You don’t say it cac, you say CAC,” asserts Natalie.

  “No one asked your opinion, actually,” says Amelia.

  “How long have you been in this gang?” I ask Natalie quietly, feeling almost shy again.

  “Well, we’ve been thinking about it for ages, but we made it official today,” she replies.

  I feel like I’ve been dumped, and Natalie and Amelia have just announced their engagement. Which I suppose is kind of what’s happened.

  I feel a bit like I’ve been on the verge of being dumped for ages. In some ways this is better. Oh, this is so not better. I feel sick. I honestly can’t work out if I feel more hurt or angry. Maybe this is the feeling my mum is describing when she says, “This is the living end!”

  Well, you know what, I can be dignified in defeat. Probably. “Well, thanks for giving me the full picture,” I say. “I will leave you two to it.” I get up to go.

  “Oh, don’t be like that, Jessica, we’re still best friends,” says Natalie.

  No, this is the living end!

  “We can’t exactly be best friends if I’m not even allowed in your stupid gang,” I retort.

  “Yes, we can, we just have different interests. I don’t complain about you being in the chess club.” (Actually Natalie has complained about that. She said it was really annoying that she could never hang out with me on Wednesdays.)

  “That’s completely different!” I cry. “You could join the chess club at any moment if you wanted. You are deliberately excluding me from your gang.”

  “Why,” says Natalie, “would I want to hang out with a bunch of chess club know-it-alls?”

  Amelia laughs. “Actually, how come they let you into that? You don’t know anything.”

  I ignore Amelia for now and plough on. “Look. I would never deliberately exclude you from anything I was doing. That’s mean. You’re supposed to be my best friend. You said we were best friends forever.”

  “Oh, boo hoo,” says Amelia.

  “Boo hoo yourself,” I snap. “I don’t need this.” (I’m not sure why I said that.) “Have a nice life,” I add sarcastically, and then I walk out of the room.

  Dignified in defeat. Oh yeah.

  As soon as I’m out of the room I run straight to a toilet and lock myself in a cubicle.

  Oh dear. What am I going to do now? Seriously. What am I going to do? I could stay here in the toilets and cry, I suppose; that’s always an option. But that will only take me up to one-fifteen, and then I’ve still got history.

  What am I going to do? This really is the living end.

  So. I did come out of the toilet, fact fans. I stayed in there for about ten minutes, trying to gather my thoughts. My thoughts were quite unhelpful as it happens. They kept veering from a desire to cry, to a desire to smash things.

  They’ve started a gang without me. They’ve started a gang without me. I just couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. I’m on the bus home now and that sentence is just kind of playing on a loop in my head.

  The afternoon flew by. I can’t remember anything that happened. I wasn’t really paying attention. Now I’m sitting here on the bus, feeling numb about the whole thing. But still kind of angry. I feel belligerent. I think I want revenge. Perhaps I should just exclude them? But I don’t see how not hanging out with them gets me anywhere. That’s what they want anyway. I’d just be playing into their hands.

  What on earth is the universe playing at? Doesn’t it know who I am? I am awesome. I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment. Do you hear me, universe? I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment. I am a nice person. I deserve to eat lasagne for lunch and not muesli bars, and to have a best friend who actually likes me. Ohhh. Life sucks.

  I arrive home to see my mum in the front garden, chatting to the VanDerks over the little hedge. As I get closer I see she has a slightly pained expression on her face, and is doing her fake smile.

  “Hello there, young Jessica,” says Mr VanDerk brightly as I approach. “Just been telling your mum here about seeing your sister in the paper.”

  “Hi, darling. Just the local paper,” my mum adds dismissively.

  (My older sister Tammy has left home already. We don’t see her very much. Tammy and my parents don’t get on.)

  “What’s she done?” I ask.

  “Tied herself to a tree!” exclaims Mrs VanDerk, and then shrieks with laughter. Mr VanDerk allows himself a little chortle as well.

  “She was involved in an environmental protest of some kind,” explains my mum.

  “Crazy behaviour!” remarks Mr VanDerk. “Are you sure you didn’t drop that one on her head when she was little?” Both the neighbours giggle.

  My mum does her fake laugh and then says, “No, on the contrary, we brought her up to fight for what she believes in. We’re delighted she’s doing so well at it.”

  The VanDerks exchange looks. “Oh yes, of course,” says Mrs VanDerk.

  My mum presses home her advantage, “I mean, obviously I’d worry about her less if she was an accountant, but someone’s got to save the planet. And anyway,” (she injects a jokey air into her voice and puts her arm around me proudly, ruffling up my hair) “this one’s normal. How was school today, Jessica?”

  “It sucked,” I reply.

/>   My mum’s smile falters. I’ve ruined her grand victory against the oppressive, regime-loving, planet-hating VanDerks. She plays it cool, but her voice goes a bit high. “That’s one of the words we don’t like you using, isn’t it, Jessica? Do you remember when we talked about that?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, unravelling myself from Mum’s arm and I storm inside the house.

  Oops. I didn’t quite mean to do that. I’m not myself at the moment. I overhear a couple of smug platitudes from the VanDerks about how parenting is so much more complicated these days. I hope my mum’s not annoyed with me.

  My mum is quite annoyed with me. She came inside and started demanding to know who I thought I was. Apparently “Jessica” was not the answer she was looking for. I tried telling her I’d had a bad day, but she replied it was only going to get worse if I didn’t learn to control my temper. My dad had to smooth things over with a cup of tea.

  Now it’s dinnertime and my dad is still in full smoothness mode. “Ah, this is nice,” he says, picking up his knife and fork. Nooo! Don’t say it, Dad! “Nice family dinner.” Oh no, my dad has said the words of doom.

  Every time, and I mean every time, any meal starts with my dad saying those words it’s guaranteed to end with either my little brother or me (usually him) being sent upstairs for messing about. It’s like a curse or something. How can my dad not have realised this? How can he not be aware he has just tempted Fate? Again.

  And it’s not like we started in the best place anyway. My mum is still shooting me dirty looks, and the food is kind of weird. Ostensibly it’s roast beef, which obviously should be a massive treat at this stage of the economy drive, but the beef is an old piece of meat Mum found abandoned in the freezer. I’m sure it’s safe to eat, but it’s kind of dry and chewy, while the “vegetables” are corn on the cob (again, from the freezer). And then the rest of it is instant mashed potato you add hot water to, and gravy. The gravy is delicious. It’s Bisto, and it hasn’t been frozen or anything.

  “Stop pulling faces when you eat that, Jessica,” says my mum, as I concentrate possibly too hard on chewing the beef.

  “I can’t help it,” I reply.

  “Well, you’d better start helping it,” replies my mum.

  “This is a violation of my inalienable rights as a citizen,” I proclaim.

  “Where on earth did you hear that?” My mum looks dumbfounded.

  “Eddie Izzard,” I say with a shrug. (My dad has some Eddie Izzard stand-up comedy DVDs that I sometimes watch with him.)

  “You learned the word inalienable from Eddie Izzard?” says my mum.

  “Yeah, he’s—”

  Mum cuts me off. “Why aren’t you getting much better marks in English?”

  “Because I can’t spell,” I reply truthfully.

  My mum tuts and starts muttering to herself. I can’t believe she’s still so annoyed with me. She got over Ryan and his abandoned toys much quicker than me just saying “sucked” in front of the VanDerks. And I didn’t even make her fall over.

  Finally we get to the end of the meal. (Ryan has said, “Don’t violate my inalienable rights,” twice when he’s been told not to play with his food, which has made my mum glare at me.)

  My dad starts gathering up the plates. I decide to make a joke slightly mimicking him; I reckon it’s the only way to lighten the sour mood. So I say, “Ah, there’s nothing like a nice roast dinner. And that was nothing like a nice roast dinner!” I laugh. Ryan giggles.

  My mum says, “That’s it! I have had just about enough of you! Get to your room!”

  “It was just a joke,” I say. “I thought you’d laugh.”

  “I’m not laughing. Room. Now! This really is the living end!”

  I quickly scramble out of the kitchen and up to my room. What did I tell you about my dad’s doomed sentence? It’s all his fault, if you think about it.

  This is an outrage, I think, as I sit gloomily in my room, staring idly at my dinosaur books. This is all so unfair. I hate Natalie and Amelia. I hate my mum. All right, I probably don’t hate any of them. Maybe Amelia.

  It’s so unfair that I have been treated like this. It’s not right. I want revenge. I have to make a stand. I have to show it’s not OK to do this to me. I am a person. I have arguably inalienable rights … I feel all fired up for a second, then I sigh, and feel deflated again, as I have no idea what I can do about any of it.

  My bedroom door quietly opens, and Ryan’s Lego pirate ship is pushed in, followed closely by a crawling Ryan. He pushes it forwards, as if it is sailing towards me. (My carpet is blue, so it’s kind of realistic.) He arrives nearly at my feet, and looks up at me. “Pirates?” he says. He says it in the same matter-of-fact manner as when my Uncle Bob shrugs and says “Pub?” to my dad.

  Honestly, kids. As if I have time to play Lego pirates. I’ve got all kinds of wallowing to do. Hmm. Maybe we could have a quick game …

  “All right, just for a bit,” I say. Ryan jumps up excitedly and goes off to get his Lego pirate base camp. (To be honest, if my parents really wanted to go on an economy drive, they should go back in time and not buy Ryan so many toys.)

  Soon we have it all set up in my room, and Ryan is explaining when he is going to fire the cannon, and how I have to react. It’s quite cute how serious he is about all this.

  My little brother really looks up to me. I think he is one of the few people who realises that I am awesome. Also, I am a very nice big sister, and I help him with his Lego. I say help, I don’t want to say play, as now I’m in Year Six I’m probably not meant to still play with Lego. I wouldn’t tell Natalie, for example … Oh, what the heck. I like it. I like Lego pirates. There, I said it. It’s really fun.

  “… And that’s when Jimmy comes out of here to ambush them,” Ryan is saying, pointing at a little Lego man with a stripy top and a red bandana. I wasn’t completely paying attention.

  “Hang on,” I say. “I thought Jimmy was the first mate? Why is he going to ambush Captain Blackbeard?”

  “Because they fell out over some money,” explains Ryan seriously. He’s thought a lot about the detail of this pirate back-story, I realise.

  “When?” I ask.

  “When they stole that gold. Jimmy didn’t think he got a big enough share of it, so he formed a rival gang of pirates, and—”

  “Wait, hang on, what did you say?”

  “Jimmy didn’t think he got enough gold, so he formed a rival gang of pirates, and—”

  “Ryan, you genius!” I exclaim. Impulsively I grab him and kiss his forehead. A rival gang of pirates!

  “Urgh!” He shoves me away and scrubs furiously at his damp forehead. “Why am I a genius?”

  “You’re just, um, you’re very good at coming up with clever pirate stories,” I say.

  “I am, actually,” says Ryan proudly. And goes back to spacing out the Lego pirate men for the battle.

  I am brilliant. This could work. This could definitely work. I could form a rival gang to Natalie and Amelia’s stupid load of cac. Ha! That would show them! I’ll form a rival gang, and then they won’t be allowed to join it! I bet they wouldn’t like that at all! It’s simple but fiendishly clever.

  The more I think about it, the more it seems like a brilliant idea. Oh yes, I would like to see that. I would like to see their faces when they get that little piece of news. How do you like that, Natalie and Amelia? Oh look, you don’t. Funny that, isn’t it?

  Yes! I’m doing this! I’m going to do it. I’m so lucky my little brother is into pirate stories. And that I still play pirate Lego with him. See? There is actually a practical application for pirate Lego in the real world. (The same cannot be said of long division.)

  Just wait till Natalie and Amelia see me in my rival gang! Ha ha! I don’t need you any more! I don’t need you! (I won’t actually say that out loud – I won’t have to.) They will rue the day they ever crossed me! (Captain Blackbeard did a lot of rue-ing tonight on my carpet, and believe me, it is not prett
y.)

  OK. So you probably shouldn’t just start a gang out of nowhere, without thinking about it, or giving it a name. That would be ludicrous. I’m not going to be a reactionary idiot about this. I’m going to think about it for at least five minutes, and come up with a really good name and stuff.

  OK. I’ve got it. My gang’s name is ACE. It stands for “Awesome Cool Enterprises”.

  I’m not going to lie to you, it’s probably not the best gang name in the world. But you should know, I rejected literally seven other names before I reached it, including “Fantastic Awesome Gang” (FAG) and “Fully Outrageous Organised Lunatics Society” (FOOLS) so it’s actually a real winner. And, on the plus side, not only is ACE a better acronym than CAC, but it means we sound like we’re probably really ace … Hmm. Anyway.

  This is going to be brilliant. I feel flushed with excitement as I step off the bus and arrive at school on Friday morning. OK, first I need to get through registration with stupid Amelia and Natalie, and then I can start recruiting people to my gang.

  For a moment I’m nervous as I enter 6C, and they are sitting together at our desks, but it all goes eerily smoothly. We just ignore each other. Simple as. I mean, weird, obviously. But simple. They don’t even whisper to each other about me, or giggle. There’s just silence. It’s kind of uncomfortable, but I guess it could be worse.

  I’m not sure what the best approach to recruiting people for a gang is. The only people I know who are in one are Natalie and Amelia, and I can hardly ask them how they did it. I figure I’ll just ask everyone I know if they want to join, and see who’s up for it.