“Omigod, see that guy with the blue shorts?” said Keisha, loudly enough that he turned around and we realised he was much less cute in the face.
“What?” he mouthed.
“You’re ugly.”
I felt really sorry for the guy, kiss him though I wouldn’t – he looked… well, for a second, I wanted to say he looked upset, but what he looked was at Keisha’s chest, which was the point where my sympathy for him ran dry.
We turned away from the ogler and got into the pool, my concentration solely on Jordy maintaining unawareness of my chest size (improving but still minimal), stomach size (not fat but slightly Winnie the Pooh) and thigh size (I thought way past ample, but probably not that bad).
When had I started to get unfit? Me and you and Charlie and Andy used to run up and down hills without getting out of breath. We could run on the stony beach without getting our shoes stuck. We never came last in Sports Day – even Andy, with his asthma and all. So when did I get unfit?
I mean, I hadn’t noticed it happen, and for all I remembered it was less than a year ago when you and I stood before the changing room mirrors, trying on age twelve-to-thirteen jeans and trendy T-shirts, and looking alike in skinniness.
Me and Charlie have always been the same size and weight (ish), but these days I bet I weigh a load more than him – he’s not super skinny, but he’s a better shape than I am.
Here and now, I felt horribly like a whale, in that my swimsuit was rather tight on me (it had been bought when I was that girl, before we knew the school didn’t care what swimsuit we had), although pleasantly had finally stopped sagging at the top where my chest had been too small. I didn’t want to look behind me in case my bum turned out to be positively elephantine (and it would be, since the black had faded to a shade halfway between Elephant Grey and Whale Blue), and the badly-shaven top halves of my legs seemed to wobble way more than they used to. I didn’t want to be here near Jordy…
“It’s time to clear off out of the pool!” shooed a lifeguard-type from behind my head, and I realised Keisha and Rachel were looking at me oddly as I stared unattractively at my thighs.
“Why?” I asked, as I climbed out of the pool without using the steps and flopped up on the side like a beached whale, tummy going slap! as it hit the wet tiles hard. I cringed as I remembered how I used to pity Dani for that.
“Because the local team are about to practise for records,” he explained, helping me up.
I blushed, watching Jordy out of the corner of my eye as he chatted to some more boys and fortunately ignored me. “Oh, OK…”
Suddenly three girls burst out of the changing-rooms: one blondey, one brunette, one auburn.
The redhead turned towards us and waved.
It was Chantalle.
She walked over. “Hey guys – I didn’t know you were… oh, right, Jordy’s here. Cheer for me?”
I looked around, “Nobody else has anyone to cheer for them…”
“Exactly.” Chan flashed a smile. She quickly pointing out a rip in the side of my swimsuit before walking over to her lane between the blonde and brunette, both of whom were tall and well-proportioned.
We sat down on the benches just as the race started. She and her obviously team-mate-type friends effortlessly made it to the end of the pool and back, before pulling themselves out and onto the side with not a thigh-slap between them.
Chantalle winked.
I looked down at my legs again, wincing at how spread-out the fat appeared, and lifting them up a bit so I was sat only on the very back of my bum, and so they rounded back to what appeared a humanlike shape.
“Harley, stop staring at your legs, that’s so weird,” Keisha tutted. “Are you watching the hairs grow, or do you actually think your thighs will disappear?”
Yes, I guessed it had been a mixture of the two.
I looked up. “Yeah…”
Someone was commending Chan on her speed, enthusing about a new under-fourteens record.
She made her way over to us, blankly. “I beat the record.”
“You’re not smiling,” Rachel observed.
“Of course not. I’ve just been told I have to join this other team now, ’cause you have to when you get to fourteen. This and my horrible day of Work Shadowing!”
“What happened?” I asked, budging my ample bottom over so that she could sit down. The other girls dove back into the pool, joined by the rest of the group.
“This old guy, right? He came in to get his hair washed, and Minnie –that’s the owner– made me do it, even though I’d only been getting cups of tea all up ’til then for all the normal people, and ugh! Then I asked if he was here for a cut and he was like, offended because he’s a Sikh. I’m on tea and biscuits again tomorrow, and I think if I have to pick up another used coffee cup while some bitch sits and has her highlights done, I’ll walk out!”
“Get this, then!” Keisha snorted. “We were doing door-to-door, and we had to drive to Aldershot in the baking sun and traffic. The bloody business wasn’t even open! We had to drive all the way back!”
“O-K….” I sighed, trying to take it all in. Sure, sitting in the car in the sun was an annoyance, but at least she hadn’t actually had to do anything.
“That’s nothing,” Rachel gasped. “This cute guy walked into the shop and he was only about eighteen, and he wanted to know about a trip to Italy this summer, and the whole time I was treating him really nice, ’cause I really thought he liked me, and then at the end his girlfriend came in and saw how he was looking at me and beat him over the head, all ‘Omigod! That chick is like fourteen, leave off her you twat!’ and I was just dying…”
Then they were all looking at me.
“Oh, uh – Mr Wordsworth had me writing all his stuff up on the board for him, and taking the register and stuff, and at break he shared his lunch with me because he’d just sneaked out to Subway…”
“Ah, registers and lunch from Subway,” said Chan, snidely. “Boo-hoo, what a horrible day.”
“I never said it was a horrible day,” I pointed out, irritated that she had to pick fights with everyone.
“Whatever. I’m gonna go,” she chirped, instantly more cheery for her conversation with us. We followed back through to the changing rooms, and all I could think of was the futility of exercise…
#11 The Mad Hatter’s End-Of-Term Party
“CHARLIE!!” bellowed Zak. “Put the bloody thing away!”
“No! I’m educating Lemmy!”
“Educating a one-month-old baby on parts of a guitar? You’re more retarded than I thought!”
“Oh, shut up, Zacky!”
“I’m not called Zacky, and I wish you’d never called him Lemmy. To me, he’ll always be Wayne!”
“Wayne the Pain? Wayne the Insane? Wayne Pass-the-Blame? Oh, hang on; those all apply to you much better!”
I peered into the hallway mirror – it’d only been fifteen minutes since I was perched precariously on the bathtub, trying to get a good look at my belly in the mirror. I was still convinced there was something wrong with the size of me, and I would really have to pass up today’s Subway if there was one.
This was the last day of Work Experience, and my brothers were again arguing in the living room.
Charlie had been sat on the sofa by the carry-cot with his guitar, serenading Lemmy (as much as a couple of fumbled chords and a whammy-bar can be considered that). Up ’til Zak arrived and started telling him he sucks at it and that he should go to work instead of ruining everyone’s breakfast, even though Hex doesn’t open ’til half nine.
I’d skipped on breakfast, and was about to desert my feuding brothers for the final fun day of watching too much coffee get drunk…
I ran my fingers through my hair and picked up my folder, calling bye to everyone in the house.
Gee, home was becoming way less fun a place to be. I’d expected a wailing baby to be the height of our problems, but Lemmy was surprisingly quiet compared to my other bro
thers. I’d never felt so much friction in the house – well, not since Dad left.
Sure, Harry and Mum were still all over each other, often with Lemmy/Kitty/a dog in the middle, and we now had satellite TV and broadband internet (and a computer to go with it), a father figure of sorts and a not-so-bitchy pregnant stepsister (now looking forward to her baby), but two fractious young lads were turning every creaking floorboard into a potential landmine as the house groaned for loving family life.
As I neared up the school, people were milling in, jostling and kicking balls and trying to smuggle skateboards (did they plan to lock them up in the bike shed or something?) in their undersized, low-slung bags. I heard the faint buzz of the odd mp3 or mobile phone, and the controls inside my head as whichever gerbil was on duty fiddled levers.
Mr Wordsworth was outside the English block. He greeted me with a groan: “Standing in for a Year 11 Tutor, apparently for the rest of the year…”
“Why?”
“Because he had a stroke, and sadly that means he won’t be coming back, erm, at all, as far as I know – which means we have to stand in on their assemblies. And there’s one right now…”
We made our way to the hall, bypassing several grumpy-looking, moshy-haired, slightly-needing-to-shave boys who were taking their time about going in. In fact, they looked pretty stoned.
“Get a move on, lads,” said Mr Wordsworth. “And put your jumpers on; you know the rules!”
“It’s June!” one of them complained, rubbing his greasy face.
“I don’t care – I don’t make the rules; I only enforce them. I mean, look at me here in a suit. Would you guys like to wear a suit to school everyday?”
They grunted in reply, and mooched into the hall, grumbling to each other as they pulled on their sweatshirts.
“Man, I hate having to tell kids off – it makes me feel well old!” Mr Wordsworth smirked, rubbing his little beard. “But then again, I am old and I should probably shave this off…”
“You’re not old,” I mumbled, leaning against the wall where we were supposedly supervising these older kids as their Head of Year (I don’t know who she was) banged on about GCSEs and college applications and other crapola. Mr W muttered that fortunately they’d be gone soon enough.
* * *
“Though to be honest,” said Mr Wordsworth lightly, offering me a chip (he’d been to McDonald’s this time). “I don’t reckon I’d have a problem being a Tutor – I mean, take one more register a day and get a whole class’s worth more Christmas doodads. Ideal job for a lazy bum like me.”
“But you’d have to put up with talking to them,” I reasoned, refusing the chip and thinking of our not-so-chatty feminist Form Tutor, Miss Newton.
“Well, there’s always a couple of kids worth talking to, like you and your brother and Andy and Devon. I’d just have to ignore the Asta-types and attempt to enjoy myself,” he said, offering me the chip carton again.
I refused it again: “I really shouldn’t.”
“Oh but you should,” he insisted, in a silly voice, like we were at the Mad Hatter’s tea-party. “You didn’t bring lunch, and I went to all the trouble of getting a bigger portion of chips than I usually do. Well, actually it was ’cause I got distracted talking to my girlfriend, but y’know…”
“Anyway, about the Tutor thing…?”
“Hey! Don’t change the subject; I want to know why you won’t eat these wonderful chips, lovingly deep-fried and spat-on by some seventeen-year-old!”
“Um…”
“No, wait, let me guess?!” He grinned, under what I suspected to be the influence of too much coffee in a short amount of time. “You’re allergic to deep-fried food? You had a bad experience with a takeaway once? Your second cousin eloped with a McPerson? You’re petitioning against cruelty to potatoes and think I’m an abomination? No? I give up then…”
“I’m on a diet,” I muttered.
“Now, that’s not funny at all…” he said, seriously, accidentally dropping a chip onto his suit leg and dabbing the mark with a napkin. “I just don’t get why everyone your age has to do that. I mean, I’d expect it from the blind followers of the tabloid rags, or maybe someone blatantly tubby, but… you’re not fat!”
“I’m not saying I’m fat; I’m insinuating that I look a little too much like Pooh.”
His head cocked to one side, confused.
“Winnie the Pooh!” I blushed. “Y’know, the honey-obsessed kids’ character.”
“Oh, right, I was beginning to wonder if I needed to have my hat on…”
“Your hat?”
“My guidance counselling hat. I have to wear it or it doesn’t feel like a serious discussion,” he explained, producing a pink, cardboard top hat with a daisy on. “We had a very wild end-of-term party at Easter, and somehow got into the Art block…”
“What I was actually wondering about was how wearing that made the situation appear more formal to the student…” I smirked.
“Well, put in the friendliest tone possible, finish my chips for me or I’ll wear the hat to the rest of our lessons and embarrass both of us!”
He drives a hard bargain…
#12 Uncompanionable Company
Rindi, Fern and Danielle were with me when I eventually got home. I’d been trailing around the charity shops with Devon and Charlie, helping the former select the perfect (cheap) accessories to offset the price of the dress that Eileen hadn’t quite yet agreed to. Just as we exited Mind, Malice had appeared from the piercing shop, trailing behind Ceri and her little mates as if she didn’t have anyone of her own to hang out with.
Charlie picked up on her scowl with a quiver. He couldn’t stop staring at her, blatantly unable to infer how lonely she must be. I wasn’t about to explain to him while Devon was hanging on his arm!
Her eyes were glued too. I knew she didn’t approve of the gaggle of goths at our school, bitter that they dressed head to toe in funeral tones and were more accepted than she was. Bitter that Charlie dropped anything that he was doing to eye Malice up? Probably.
Ceri fell out of step to tie her bootlace, and that was when I realised – Malice was wearing the dress. She must’ve bought it yesterday. The detachable sleeves were detached, it being such a hot day, and her boobs billowed out of the top like cartoon marshmallows. No wonder Charlie was close to drooling, and no bloody wonder Devon looked about to bite someone.
“Charlie, shut your mouth,” she hissed.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“It was hanging open!”
“Sorry.”
“She’s wearing the dress. If you can take your eyes off her breasts long enough to acknowledge it.”
“Oh. Well it’s a nice dress.”
“It’s not a nice dress. It’s a perfect dress. And now she’s got it.”
“I’m sure you can order a different one,” I pointed out.
“I don’t want a different one!” Devon snapped, sounding the spitting audio of her foster gran.
“Fine, the same one. It’s not custom,” I sighed, impatiently. “I saw on the label.”
“I don’t want the same one! The same one as Malice? Never ever!”
Malice stooped awkwardly across the way. The younger kids were bickering over where to go next. I felt quite sorry for her. Part of me wished Charlie would grow some testicles and choose her over Devon as a friend. I could take Devon because I knew how to argue with her, but Charlie would just sulk until she eventually shut up.
“I was only trying to-”
“Oh, bog off, Harley,” she managed, in a high, wavery tone. She grabbed Charlie’s arm just as he looked about to make a stagger for the goth group. “We’re going home!”
Malice and co. disappeared down the alley to the precinct. Devon and Charlie huffed off home together. I was left with the bag of stuff that Devon probably never wanted to see again.
I dithered by McDonald’s, hungry. I’d resolved at lunchtime to stop being daft about my weigh
t, but when I checked in my purse I didn’t have enough for even a 99p burger.
“Harley!” shouted Rindi, who had obviously just come out of the local news office.
“Oh, hi!”
“How was Mr Doubleyou?”
I wished she wouldn’t shout so loud – it was out of character. Maybe she’d gained confidence working for the paper, but her volume was shrinking mine.
“He’s OK,” I mumbled, as we joined up. “What’ve you been doing?”
“They let me research for an article on how there aren’t many things to do round here for young people,” she told me, proudly.
I thought of the leisure centre swimming pool, and being turfed out so that the town’s top swimmers could do a lap. I thought of Malice and her sister wandering aimlessly in black on a warm summer’s day. I thought of Devon and Charlie constantly forking out for overpriced tack in town because they weren’t allowed to go elsewhere.
“Good topic.”
“Yeah – Mr Horton drove me to the park yesterday after school was out so I could interview some teenagers.”
I puzzled at the yicky thought of a grown-up man I didn’t know driving me to a park. I knew I would’ve said no, even if it was Mr Wordsworth. “And how did tha-”
“Hey!” giggled Dani, forcing herself between us from behind. She thumped an arm around each of us and hugged hard.
“How was the Estate Agent?” I asked. She seemed to be in a great mood.
“This lady Cara took me with her to show clients houses,” said Dani. “One of them was up Rachel’s way and had a giant pool. It was loads of fun nosing round people’s homes.”
“Sounds great,” said Rindi. “I got to interview teenagers on how boring it is round here, and I wrote an article for the real paper!”
We headed for the library and linked up with Fern just as the place was closing down. She was also full of bubbles, talking about how the storyteller had cancelled and she volunteered to read “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” to a bunch of toddlers.
“That’s great,” I told her, happy that she’d finally felt comfortable reading aloud.
“I sold book tokens and a set of farmyard rubbers to a mum with twin toddlers who were fighting, and she gave me a fiver for getting her kids to be quiet while she had herself a hot choc from the café!”
An Amicabubble Breakup Page 5
