I did not want Jordy to see me with my little sister and her “Born Cheese” song. If anything would further convince him I’m weirdy-beardy, it would be the unwelcome assumption that little sisters are just undeveloped mini versions of big sisters. I did not want him to notice the sawdust in my hair, the concealer that had rubbed off over the day and given my skin the flaky look, and especially the guinea-pig-poo freckle on my hand that hadn’t been present in last lesson.
He turned our way just as I was about to slide a cube of Always into the trolley. I stumbled, grabbing my sister for support. (Note: never grab someone in a fall if they’re smaller, lighter, younger or less aware of the situation than you.)
She steered the shopping trolley into my heel, making me yelp with pain, and we both crashed into the shelf of sanitaryware, startling a selection of tampon boxes into a cardboard waterfall around us.
It’s bad enough having the sky rain Tampax at the best of times, but in the near sight of the rare and gorgeous fawn that is Jordan Johnson, little could go worse.
“What do these do?” asked Kitty, typically. She fingered a loose, individually wrapped cotton something and went to unpeel it like a McDonald’s straw.
“Uh, never mind…” I said, faintly.
Half of me prayed that Jordy would come to our aid, that at least in part I could feel better about this because it would bring us together – my soulmate more interested in helping me, than what he was helping me with. But no, duty called with his grandma’s shopping bags, and he disappeared tillwards, never to be seen again (that Wednesday).
Once we’d explained ourselves and been gestured to bugger off and pay for our trolleyful, Jordy was nowhere to be seen. We did, though, run into all of our girl group who hadn’t been enlisted to guinea-transport troop or overdue shopping duties. They had been chilling at Burger King while I toiled away.
“Harley,” said Rachel, confuzzledly. “Why do you have a tampon in your belt loop? It’s like a gun in the holster, except … gross.”
Great, I’d inadvertently shoplifted something I didn’t even want to think about.
* * *
“Isn’t he just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”
This was Rindi, squinting at me through the thin, pinky layer of what was supposed to be crimson (i.e. strawberry) jelly.
“Mmm?” I supposed as far as jelly went, it had a pretty adorable rose tint.
Spotting the confused look on my face, she emerged from out of the jelly. “The piggy, is what I meant.”
I grasped it. The little, brown ball of fluff she held in her hands was cute – if you weren’t the one who’d be required to room-service it for the rest of its natural life.
Rindi was the only one who’d remembered her manners at our house. She’d volunteered to help unpack the shopping the very second we got home, and even entertained Kitty while me and Zak tried to make some sense of the packet lasagne I’d picked up. At the same time, Chan, Dani, Keisha and Rachel had lain around in our back garden in the autumn unshine, sipping the Cokes that had kindly been offered to them, and bitching that they weren’t “Diet”.
“I wish my sisters were more like Kitty…” Rindi sulked lightly, unravelling the tight plait her hair had been in all day.
I didn’t say anything. Rindi’s sisters had barely said three words each to me in the two years I’d been going to her house for tea and sleepovers. It wouldn’t be polite to agree, but then again I didn’t really want to say that I preferred them over my own sister either.
“She’s not that great,” catted Chantalle, clunking her mostly full can down on one of the hutches.
Why is she always so horrible? I moaned to myself. Some days, virtually everything Chantalle bothered to say in front of us was an indirect snort of disapproval for me or Rindi.
Rindi gave me a tiny, awkward smile, before changing the subject. “Why won’t my hair go wavy?” she moaned.
There’d been article in one of the magazines about how letting hair dry in a plait will leave it crimpy when it’s taken out. I already knew that. We’d had a craze at our school for one teeny tiny plait way back in Year 4, and I’d used to keep mine in for most of the week.
Keisha nearly spat out her drink, and laid her can also on top of the hutch. “You know nothing about fashion, Rind. That stupid plait makes you look like Lara Croft except ugly, and crimping isn’t even in.”
“Yeah, you have this great hair that you don’t even have to straighten, and you want to ruin it,” said Chan.
“You don’t have to straighten either,” I pointed out, bravely. “Your hair is already straight.”
“That’s what you think,” Chantalle explained. “Your hair isn’t straight either, Harley. Deal with it.”
This conversation was going nowhere. My hair was, too, straight. At least as straight as it needed to be. It didn’t have much of a kink to it, being all one length. Even I’m pretty sure boys aren’t observant enough to care whether it’s ironed.
I opened my mouth to say something about how it was getting nippy, but was gladly interrupted by Kitty.
“There’s a place called New Guinea!” she announced, excitedly, nearly tripping on her way out from the conservatory as she twirled into the garden in a purple denim skirt, blue daisy-patterned tights and her nearly outgrown navy jacket. “Is that where our new guinea pigs came from?”
I could see this going exactly the same way as that time when Zak’s class were doing World War II and he thought people might be worried by Toots because she’s a German Shepherd. (Inconveniently misunderstanding that what with the war having ended well over fifty years ago, we’d kind of stopped avoiding mentioning the Germans.) I understood his reasoning there – plenty of people shied away in the street from such a big dog, but it had nothing to do with the breed name.
“Guinea pigs,” Dani said with a wink, “come from their mummy’s tummy.”
Satisfied with her answer, Kitty moved on. “Oh, so what about gerbils?”
* * *
“So what’re we doing?” wheedled Chantalle, impatiently. She’d been 100% content to sit and sip in the garden this entire time, and was suddenly starting on us for not having a plan.
“Getting rained on!” Keisha grumbled, getting up from the damp lawn and brushing down her black jacket.
“Getting asked what we’re doing…” sighed Rachel.
“Eating jelly?” suggested Dani, looking longingly at the plate still sitting untouched on the white plastic table. A pair of furry, doggy chins had posted themselves over the edge, and if I didn’t move fast, there’d be no chance of jelly for us.
“I mean, for the talent show,” sniffed Chan, retrieving her long white knit cardigan from underneath Rindi’s guinea pig pal with a gigantic lack of tenderness. “Remember?”
“I thought you were over that,” I pointed out. “You were the one sat here doing fat flip all this whole time.”
“It’s wet out here!” grumbled Danielle, putting up her hood.
“Can’t we just go in, stop the jelly getting wet?” asked Rach, swiping the plate from the table just in time to disappoint two snuffly snouts.
After a mound of rose-tinted jelly each, we found ourselves upstairs in my room.
“I reckon on a dance routine,” said Rindi. “Bit Year 4, but we could make it work.”
“Ain’t no party like an S Club party…” I muttered sarcastically. I mean, I had been joking, but the five disapproving looks my friends gave me suggested that they thought I was exactly sad enough to get excited about something like that.
“Well, it would fit us all in,” Rachel pointed out. “And then we wouldn’t all have to sing. But not S Club!”
“Egh, maybe,” said Chan, desperately. Imagination had never been her strong point, and this was painfully clear now that she’d practically signed up for the talent show. “What CDs have you got, Harl?”
All of sudden, I came over extra unkeen on the step-step-twirl idea. Chantalle hadn’t come
into contact with my music collection since Juniors – and this was not accidental. Ever since she’d given me hell for liking the Beatles back in Year 6, I’d hidden my CD basket as far out of the way as I could get it anytime I had actual notice about a matey drop-in.
Keisha spotted the target near-immediately and jumped up to have a flick before I could intercept. “Busted. Busted again. Busted again – and this one’s just a single. Steps, S Club, Spice Girls… Britney. S Club single. Elvis. Beatles, Beatles, ABBA, Vengaboys. Oh… my God!”
OK, so I was occasionally a quantity-not-quality girl. It wasn’t as if I could afford to buy music anywhere trendier than the charity shops anyway, and for some of those CDs I kinda had an excuse. Busted had been a real love of mine for well over a year in Juniors, and S Club and Vengaboys had been given to us for our seventh birthday!
Suddenly I had a brainwave. I dived under the bed and pulled out the cardboard box of things you’d given me before you left. “Wait, I have Now 57 as well!”
Now 57… our soundtrack to leaving Primary school. It was basically the most recent music I owned, so surely some of it would still be considered OK.
“OLD!” shrieked Keish. “What’s it got anyway? ‘The Cha Cha Slide’?”
I felt my face turn postbox red. That was exactly what it had, and I knew it. I caught the shuffled, muffled sound of someone trying to get up the stairs without anyone hearing them so much as breathe. What’s the point? The house breathes…
“Charlie?” I called out, guessing a 50/50 chance that one of my irritating brothers was lurking. “We know you’re there!”
“You’ve got a visitor,” he yawned. “Or stalker…”
I raced downstairs, frustrated that he lacked the consideration to deal with the door himself. “Who’s there?” I growled, dragging it open.
“It’s me,” said Fern, quietly from the doorstep in her pastel cardigan. “I was worried about disturbing you with the doorbell.”
“Isn’t that the point of a doorbell?” I joked, trying to fix a smile on my face and tell myself how truly, giddily stupid it was to hope for anything more than an excellent friend to come knocking.
“Rindi said I could come…” she said, softly.
I was glad she had. Honestly, truly glad. The break in conversation gave the others a chance to move on from ribbing me for my musical poverty, and by the time we’d explained to Fern how we were still very much stuck, and she was still very much welcome to join in, and why I was never returning to that particular ASDA, and how come I had so much Busted stuff, I was forced to leave them upstairs while I popped down for dinner.
On my return, the others had drawn up a fairly long list of less-than-valuable ideas, and in their extreme fickleness had achieved it to a soundtrack that sounded suspiciously like Now 57.
1. Rindi’s idea: that dance routine to Busted / Elvis / S Club / Britney / Vengaboys.
2. Chantalle’s idea: same thing, but lipsynching to “Push The Button”.
3. Fern’s idea: “um”, write a poem each and read it aloud?
4. Dani’s idea: basically Fern’s idea but turning the poems into original songs for a girl band.
5. Keisha’s idea: fashion show. I couldn’t believe she’d betrayed me on the non-participant thing, but it was probably because I refused to iron my hair…
6. Chan’s other idea: short play based on one of those Busted / Elvis etc songs.
7. My idea: maybe watch other people prance around stupidly doing step-flash-twirl as we kick back with a Coke on the last day of term. Fern was immediately in agreement with me, and getting her own share of boggy looks for having an opinion, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before another Chan-on-Keish flareup (due to Angry Chan’s uncanny intonational similarity to Simon Cowell).
#7 The Scale
It’s funny how people change on a school trip. Like that Thursday in Swanage – cramming more than a classful of students into a tin container much smaller than a classroom for even two hours seemed to create some sort of primal undercurrent that pulsed through every one of us. Everyone for his or herself.
The boys battled for the very back row – the girls tussled to sit next to each other. The picking order was, if possible, even more boldly defined than it had been on a normal school day – there’s your best friend in your Geography class, and then there’s your actual best friend. This teenage fart receptacle vibrating with the roar of bickering and moaning and the singing of songs that nobody would be caught dead singing in any other situation. “The Wheels On The Bus” and “Don’t Stop Me Now” chorused by several rows of thirteen-year-olds.
Once in Dorset, we were handed clipboards and beaten verbally about the do’s and don’ts of cliff-walking – spoken as if we were stupid, because someone at some point before us had fallen to their death. Most weren’t even listening, and as morbid as it sounds, those were the people who probably really needed the warning. They were pacing like animals, desperate to roam free and partially unsupervised.
I had ridden up next to Fern. That Shelley-shaped space beside me had been a lucky find for someone still so uncertain of the social hierarchy. I’d sort-of pictured that we’d wander off – maybe actually do the worksheet and then have plenty of time to relax in the coastal air.
No such luck.
“I’ve had the best idea!” announced Keisha, out of nowhere.
Oh no. It had better not have to do with the talent show.
“Oh right?” yawned Rachel, whose band had been split up the middle between Wednesday and Thursday trips.
“Let’s get all the guys to rate us!”
Rate us.
“Out of ten, I mean.”
Something about the way she said it made that sound even more iffy than it ordinarily would. To start with, it was one letter different from the unthinkable – and if I pointed it out, she’d probably laugh.
“Omigod, let’s!” shrieked Chantalle, towing Keisha away. In the excitement of abandoning normal school life for a day, she’d transformed into a banshee.
Good, at least they were probably going to go off and do this together, now. I mean, it wasn’t as if they’d bothered to check with us about whether it was actually a good idea, or, y’know, even something we were interested in.
Wrong.
A half hour of leisurely strolling and tallying later, Keisha and Chantalle reappeared with a handful of folded paper pieces. They looked like something you’d draw from a lucky dip, only each one had one of our names on, specifically.
Everyone else scrabbled to get theirs first, but I was uncertain. Did I really need my suspicions put in writing? I wasn’t convinced that I was about to read anything that would make me feel good about myself. I mean, even if I was an eight or something (fat chance!), wouldn’t I still wonder what it was that made me not a ten?
OK, I knew most of the reasons at least, but those were my private reasons, and aren’t you supposed to be able to think that your personal insecurities are just that? Once you give other people permission to judge, isn’t it going to be very hard to keep telling yourself you’re the only one who thinks you’re fat or goofy?
This was one of those times were it felt like Year 9 was the exam. In the same way that we’d learned barely anything in the previous two years of Secondary, we were being rated – marked up by other people as good enough, or not. As I held the tiny, folded up piece of paper in my closed palm, my hands felt clammy like… clams. On closer inspection, they even looked that way – my right hand still stupidly outstretched in a fist, the shiny wrinkles on my thumb delicate like the lines on a shell. The last few years we’d been supposed to covet teen magazines like the handbook for life – how to make your hair sit flat, or your spots go away, or how to take a good self-portrait. I still couldn’t do any of those things, and it wasn’t for lack of revision. I’d recently started to realise that those magazines were red herrings – there was no handbook for life, and by Year 9 you looked stupid for believing in that and taking i
t with you into the exam hall. Now it was surprise inspection time, and I didn’t want to know my grade.
“I’m a ten!” squealed Chantalle.
“Me too,” said Keisha, smugly. Sure, she was calm! She was the one who’d conducted the whole test. Someone should really have been there to watch the numbers, but I hadn’t wanted it to be me because I’m awful at Maths – and not to mention don’t even support the Scale of Attractiveness.
Rindi winced and unfolded her paper. “Six point five. Oh, what a relief!”
“Seven,” supplied Rach, with a roll of the eyes. “This is obviously rigged. No one’s a perfect ten.”
“Words of a jelly-muncher,” giggled Keisha.
“Six,” giggled Dani. “It’s OK, I know I’m fat.”
“Seven…” said Fern, very quietly. “Is… is that good?”
“Well, it’s better than average,” said Keisha. “Harley?”
I was frozen.
“Harley!”
I couldn’t make myself say it. My throat was stuck because I already knew. I couldn’t make myself say that out of however many people my friends asked, this had been the average. An average lower than anyone else in the group. Probably lower than anyone else in our Year. Charlie probably scored more girl points than me, because he was now a smaller jean size!
“You’ve lost your chance,” Keisha warned. “Now I’m going to announce it. FIVE. God!”
The number one thing you’re never supposed to be told to your face is that you’re not attractive enough. Friends for generations have acted according to the unwritten Girl Code, where you never, ever tell someone that they aren’t pretty – or even that they aren’t pretty right now. Unless you’re a bitch. Finding out my grade average had left me hungry for explanation – WHY was I a five, on average? We’d done averages in Maths, and a five on average had to mean that either everyone thought I was near-about a five, or more likely that one person thought I was a three, and someone else (probably someone who didn’t understand the point) had voted me a seven.
Double Dates & Single Raisins Page 3