365 Days

by KE Payne

  Saturday 15 September

  Han rang me up first thing this morning and asked me if I wanted to go ‘scrumping’ (???!) I thought scrumping was a sort of dance or something, so I was a bit disappointed when she told me it’s taking apples from someone’s garden but it’s not classed as stealing. Not sure how that works, but never mind.

  Han has this old lady next door who lets Han pick apples from her tree. Han says it’s ever so handy having an old lady living next door, ’cos they can take her down to the DIY store with them and buy hammer drills and shelves and CD racks and the like with her 10 percent off pensioners’ card (that is, 10 percent off purchases, not 10 percent off pensioners). Anyway, in return for using her discount card, this old lady asks Han to go round every autumn and collect apples from her tree ’cos she can’t do it. So Han was exaggerating when she said it was scrumping, ’cos it’s nothing more exciting than doing an old dear a favour, really. I didn’t think EMOs did that sort of thing!

  We took Joe with us ’cos we could hang him by his arms from the branches, pull on his legs, and make all the apples fall down. Result! We managed to pick over 20 lbs. of apples in the end, so we shared them out amongst ourselves, but when I took my 8 lbs. home and triumphantly presented them to Mum, all I got was a sour look from her and a grumpy ‘Do I look like I’ve got time to peel all those?’ for my efforts. This is typical! The government’s always telling us to eat more fruit, and all I get is grief for trying improve my family’s dietary habits.

  Next time I’ll just throw the market’s finest apple pies at her and hope she feels a stab of guilt when I’m struck down with rickets by the time I’m 21.

  Sunday 16 September

  Had an emergency text off Matty telling me that Ben had dumped her. She wrote, ‘You understood him’ (did I??) and ‘Maybe you can tell me why he broke my heart.’ Was tempted to text back and say, ‘You’re well off out of it, love, I thought he was a prat,’ but instead I sent her my sympathies and agreed to meet her in town so she could cry over me.

  When I met her she looked like she’d already been crying. She told me he’d finished with her ’cos he thought he was too young to be tied down to one person, and that he wanted to ‘play the field’ a bit. She kept banging on about what a fabulous kisser he was (must have missed that one) and what an even more fabulous shag he was (definitely missed that one—thank God!). Then she said, ‘You must know what I’m going through ’cos he broke your heart too, didn’t he?’ I didn’t have the guts to tell her that the only person capable of breaking my heart was Han, and that the memory of kissing Ben was so bloody awful that it still makes me shudder just to think of it. Instead I put on my caring face, nodded in all the right places, and thanked God for my Hannah!

  I think she felt a little bit better by the time she left me, ’cos she’d replaced tear-soaked eyes with a determined stare, and had started talking about binning everything ‘that measly little bastard’ had ever given her. I assumed she meant Ben. Hell hath no fury and all that…

  Monday 17 September

  Caroline told me today that she’d had something called a Brazilian wax done at the weekend. I had no idea what this was, so asked Han at lunchtime. Apparently it’s when you have all your lady hair waxed off, except for a neat little vertical line, rather like a goatee beard. I’m not surprised I didn’t know this; I was fourteen before I found out what a scrotum was…

  Brazilians sound like too much hard work to me! I mean, Caroline had to go to a beauty parlour place to get it done! Can you imagine the shame? I go to the hairdressers to have a trim and feel my scalp reddening with the hairdresser’s every touch. No, it would be far easier, less embarrassing and, most importantly, far cheaper, just to shave everything off with your Venus and draw a neat line with a Berol marker. Granted, it wouldn’t be permanent, but it would save a few pennies. Maybe I should approach some entrepreneurs with the idea?

  Tuesday 18 September

  Had a dream last night about Brazilians and Susan Divine. It wasn’t pretty! She handed me a pair of garden shears and told me she wanted some Lady Topiary then hopped up on a snooker table and started knitting scarves. She wasn’t wearing anything either. It was one of those dreams that stays with you all day; every time you shut your eyes, you get images of it, like it’s burned into the back of your eyelids or something. I couldn’t look at her during History today, and I shall never think of hedge-trimming in the same way ever again!!

  Wednesday 19 September

  Am trying to really knuckle down in school at the moment. It’s less than nine months until our exams start and they’re really pushing us in classes. Tonight I had three lots of homework to do, plus stuff for my English coursework, AND we’re having a mock test in Spanish next week so I gotta study for that. It’s not fair. I bet even Einstein wasn’t pushed as much at school as we are!

  Thursday 20 September

  Susan Divine asked to borrow my ruler today. After getting over the initial fear that she was going to try and garrotte me with it or something, I tried to drum up a conversation with her. I noticed she had the name ‘Benji’ tattooed on the fingers of her left hand, each letter on a finger and her thumb, so I asked her if Benji was her boyfriend. She glared at me and said, ‘No. He’s my dog. He died,’ so I asked her what he died of and she glared at me again and said, ‘electrocuted’.

  I told Han, Matty, Caroline, and Ems about it at lunchtime and we nearly coughed up a lung laughing. Ems said she didn’t know what was funnier—that she had her dog’s name tattooed on her fingers, or that Benji’d gotten electrocuted. Han said it was just as well it had a short name like Benji so it could fit on her fingers, and not a long name ’cos she’d have to have it tattooed somewhere bigger. I said she could have it tattooed round her belly ’cos that’s sure as hell big enough, and everyone fell about laughing again.

  I don’t think I’ll bother having my dog’s name tattooed on me. I think if I walked around with the name Barbara on me it would cause a few raised eyebrows!

  Friday 21 September

  Thank God it’s Friday! I’m knackered! We’re only two weeks into term and I’m fed up with it all already. At this rate, I’ll be booking myself into some health spa by Christmas and demanding that comely maidens feed me grapes by the pool. Instead of that, I had to content myself with sitting in my bedroom till 9:30 tonight doing History coursework and answering texts from Ems asking me if Hitler was Austrian or German, and was his moustache real or had someone drawn it on in the book she was reading? If she doesn’t know something as important as this by now, how the hell is she ever going to pass her exams?

  Saturday 22 September

  Had a brilliant day with Han today. Weather was great, so we took a picnic and headed off to the woods at the back of the house and hid ourselves away deep in the copse so we could have some privacy. The sun was shining down through the trees and we spread a rug down and lay out on it and I felt so darned contented, I think I could have cried.

  Han was stroking my hair and telling me how much she loved me, and I felt so wanted and protected by her. I love her confidence and the security she gives me, and I love the fact she loves me and I love her. It feels so real, so grown-up! Han’s like the final piece of the jigsaw. I feel happy. Free, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders ’cos I now know exactly who I am. It’s like all that worry over J, over Ben and, I suppose, over Alice has all been for nothing ’cos at last I’m deeply, madly, in love with someone who loves me just as deeply and madly back!!

  Went to bed feeling VERY loved up!

  Sunday 23 September

  Went bowling at the Multi-Plex with Han, Ems, Ryan, Marcie, Charlie, and Caroline this afternoon. Alice came too but did her best to ignore me all afternoon, I noticed. I can’t say I cared too much, ’cos I was too busy looking at Han, who has recently rediscovered her EMO roots and so came dressed looking like she was the living dead, decked out from head to foot in black, with a studded choke chain round her neck and ma
tching wristbands, joined together by a long chain. Charlie looked dead scared of her, like she was going to bite his head off or torture him slowly or something, the wimp! I think maybe Goth gear isn’t the best thing to go bowling in, though, ’cos I noticed Han getting narked ’cos her accessories were getting in her way. She finally conceded defeat and removed her ankle-length black leather coat, oversized jumper, and the wrist chains, which she said were interfering with her swing.

  Han’s like, still tanned from Portugal and she was wearing this dead tight T-shirt which made her look sexy as hell. I noticed Ryan giving her admiring looks (all this while Ems’ eyes bored into his back like some kind of laser beam) and I felt this flood of smug satisfaction that she was mine and not his!

  Came back from bowling early ’cos had, like, three hours’ worth of homework to get done for next week. It’s so unfair to work us like this; if school kids had a union I’d be a fully paid-up member, I’m telling you!

  Monday 24 September

  Henri asked us in French today whether any of us had been to France during the summer. Bethany Jones meekly put her hand up and Henri flung his arms around in that tiresomely exaggerated Gallic manner of his and shouted, ‘Merveilleux, merveilleux’ at the top of his voice. He asked her where in France she’d gone and she said, ‘Calais, for a day.’ Henri seemed to deflate in front of our very eyes, poor man. So I put my hand up and told him I’d been to Brittany for two weeks, to which Henri replied, ‘en français,’ to which I replied, ‘Oui, en France.’ Fancy a Frenchman not knowing that Brittany is in France! I bet he comes from Paris.

  Tuesday 25 September

  Han asked me if I wanted to go over to her house after school tonight. She said we hadn’t had much ‘quality time together alone’ lately. Which meant she was probably horny and wanted to have a session in her room before her parents got home from work.

  I sent Mum a text and asked her if I could go to Han’s and she just sent one back saying, ‘No’, so I had to make up some story to Han about how Mum wanted me to help her with something tonight.

  I don’t want Han thinking my mother is some trussed-up fascist. I have standards.

  Wednesday 26 September

  Had a mock listening test in Spanish today. It was okay. It helped that the narrator spoke in a really slow voice, and in a really obvious English accent, so I was able to ascertain that:

  Yes, the weather will be nice tomorrow. We will go to the beach.

  Ah, thank you! The train will leave in ten minutes from platform one.

  Pablo wanted an orange juice, please.

  Maria-Theresa’s father is a teacher of Mathematics, and

  Rafael lives in Madrid with his mother, father, sister, and a dog called José (at least that’s what it sounded like—although José doesn’t sound much of a fun name for a dog. I wonder what the Spanish for Barbara is?)

  Thursday 27 September

  Went into town after school tonight to buy a present for Han’s birthday. There’s this clothes shop that she likes to go to called Goths and Cloths, so I went there in the hope of finding something suitably black and scary. The guy behind the counter looked at me suspiciously ’cos I was still wearing my school uniform, but I would have thought he was well used to seeing people in school uniforms (even the 30-somethings). I saw a T-shirt that said, ‘Dip Me in Chocolate and Throw Me to the Lesbians’, which made me giggle. I was sorely tempted to buy it, but then thought it wasn’t really the sort of thing I could wear to do the weekly supermarket shop with Mum!

  Anyway, for Han, I plumped for a black bandana, a new pair of black sweatbands with a skull and crossbones on it ’cos I know that her brother Joe nicked her other ones and she hasn’t had the heart to take them back off him. I also got her a leather necklace with big black, green, and white beads on it. Had a crisis on the way back down through town that my presents were crap, so went into the Virgin Megastore and got her a Green Day CD with my last tenner. Spent a flipping fortune on her, but I figure she’s worth it.

  When I got home, Mum was in the kitchen and asked me what I’d bought her. When I showed her all the Goth gear that I’d bought, she just sighed and said, ‘Y’know, Han’s such a pretty girl. Why does she live in black all the time? A nice bright jumper would show off those lovely eyes of hers.’ I sighed impatiently and said, ‘Mum, she’s a Goth. Goths don’t do colours! Don’t you know anything?’

  She clearly doesn’t [/exasperated/].

  Friday 28 September

  Han’s seventeenth birthday! How I would have loved to have woken up next to her on her birthday, but I had to content myself with sending her a ‘Nappy Birfday’ text first thing. Went over to her house before school to give her her presents. When I got there, she was beaming with excitement, ’cos her mum’s told her she can get her eyebrow pierced! She’s soooo lucky! Mum and Dad would, like, never agree to me ever doing anything like that! The only concession is that Han’s mum said she’s got to get it done during half-term so it can have a chance to heal, ’cos she’s not allowed to wear it in school. Chance would be a fine thing! Old Mother Unwin would have a fit if she saw it anyway!

  Anyway, I gave her the presents and she seemed suitably pleased. She wore her sweatband but made sure she hid it up her sleeve so she wouldn’t be told to take it off by the KGB (Unwin and her henchmen). We bought Han a birthday cake at lunchtime and sang Happy Birthday to her, and she got a bit flustered, which was well cute!

  She’s going out for a meal with her mum, dad, and brothers tonight, but I’ve promised her a slap-up meal at Burger King tomorrow night.

  Saturday 29 September

  Went over and picked up Han from her house at around 6 tonight. Her mum was in the lounge doing her yoga (I heard straining sounds behind the door so I assume that’s what she was doing), so me and Han went to her room for a bit before going out. Her parents gave her a wicked iPod for her birthday, as well as the eyebrow piercing, so we spent some time downloading some new music onto it, then went down to town to find somewhere to eat. I thought Burger King was a bit of a naff place to go for a birthday, so we ended up at Nice Noodles, the Chinese place next door to the Unemployment Benefit office, and had a very grown-up time asking for a table, perusing the menu, and ordering our food and drinks. It descended into childishness when the chopsticks arrived, but on the whole I think we acquitted ourselves quite well over the course of the evening!

  Sunday 30 September

  Had a weird dream about noodles and chopsticks last night. I dreamt me and Han were in Nice Noodles and the chopsticks on our plate were dancing over the noodles, kicking their ‘legs’ like they were a Tiller Girl or something. Then the noodles slithered off the plate like worms and Cliff Richard came in wearing a matador’s outfit and singing ‘O Sole Mio’ while a group of pensioners did the conga behind him. The dream was teetering on the edge of insanity when I woke up needing a pee, so thank goodness for my weak bladder ’cos bugger only knows how the dream might have ended!

  I don’t know why I keep getting these weird dreams. Apparently eating cheese before bedtime can give you vivid dreams, but I only had a handful of jam cookies before I went to bed so I can’t understand it.

  Monday 1 October

  Henri gave us a vocabulary and grammar test in French today. He kept telling us to write our answers down on a ‘piss of pepper’ and got very cross when we kept giggling. Such are the puerile minds of a bunch of seventeen-year-olds!

  Tuesday 2 October

  Spotted Alice in the corridor today and called after her. She stopped and turned to look at who had called her, but when she saw it was me, she just carried on walking!

  Bloody great! I’m really trying with her but it seems she doesn’t want anything more to do with me. I feel a bit sad about it. She WAS my friend, after all, before all that stuff in France happened, and now it seems like I’ve lost her.

  Wednesday 3 October

  We did something about German philanthropists today in History but I got philant
hropy mixed up with philately and spent the whole lesson wondering why we needed to know about German stamp collectors! I’m never gonna to pass my exams at this rate.

  Thursday 4 October

  Have spent the last coupla days thinking about Alice and wondering how she is. It’s been, like, nearly two months since France and she still won’t talk to me properly! She never speaks to me anymore when we’re all at school together, but doesn’t make it obvious enough so that the others will notice. But I notice. I really wish I could talk to someone—ANYONE—about it, but if I do, then everything’s going to come out, isn’t it? And I don’t feel ready for everything to come out.