Pretty Funny for a Girl

by Rebecca Elliott

  “Oh God, I hope it’s dancing,” says Kas.

  “As long as it’s Magic Mike-style dancing,” says Chloe.

  “Of course,” giggles Kas.

  “Seriously, ladies? I mean, how would you like it if boys talked about you in that way?” I say.

  “Oh God, I hope they do,” says Chloe, with a smile that says she knows she’s winding me up.

  “Oooh, me too,” says Kas with an equally evil grin. “I’d love to be objectified.”

  I play along. “Well, it’s good to know Emmeline Pankhurst’s efforts weren’t wasted on you two,” I say in my most over-the-top, sarcastic voice.

  “Emmeline who?” says Chloe.

  “Pankhurst! Suffragette! Women’s Lib!” I whisper-shout. Then, as she and Kas giggle, I realize they’re still winding me up.

  “Oh, ha ha, very funny,” I say, before we all have to stifle our laughter as Mr. Humphrey introduces Leo.

  I bet he’s going to sing too, I think. I mean, a popular guy like that doesn’t even need actual talent. He only needs to open his mouth and bark and most of the audience in here will melt.

  “And next up we have Leo Jackson, who’s going to perform some stand-up comedy for us this morning.”

  Wait, what? I sit bolt upright, like I’ve just been fully inflated, my eyes wide and fixed on Leo.

  “Looks like this is more a show for you then, Pig!” whispers Chloe.

  “Shh!” I say as I edge to the front of my chair, eyes never straying from their target.

  And yes, partly it’s because it’s nice to have an excuse to stare uninterrupted at Leo Jackson who is undeniably (amazingly) good-looking, but mostly it’s because I’ve never seen anyone actually do stand-up comedy live. I’ve only ever watched it—a lot of it—on TV and online before now.

  Truth is, I’m kind of obsessed with the funny. I spend hours and hours with comedy and comedians every day. Watching their stand-up acts on the internet, listening to their podcasts, and reading any book on comedy and comedians I can get my hands on. And, when I’m not watching and listening to comedy, I’m secretly writing my own material, and (even more secretly) dreaming that one day I might have the courage to actually perform it. Which I probably never will, but I’m hoping that, maybe in a decade or so, I’ll have had a complete personality overhaul and be able to stomach the idea of publicly baring my soul onstage only to have it potentially shattered and rejected. And funny is my soul—it’s the core of me. I look for it in everything around me, listen out for it in every conversation. And, when you find the funny in this serious world so often full of pain and cruelty, it’s like discovering a diamond in a cave of crap. It’s precious. Maybe more precious than anything.

  Money, beauty, fame, power? Not interested. I just want to get people laughing. To be able to say something, just words, that shoot into someone else’s brain making them feel nothing but happiness for just a moment…never mind the Amazing Henry—that’s true magic. And suddenly I find that someone else here shares my same love of the funny, and it’s only Leo-ruddy-Jackson!

  “I didn’t know Leo did comedy,” Kas whispers.

  “Shh—shut up, I want to hear!” I whisper-shout back, not taking my eyes off him.

  “Oooh, I think Pig’s in luuurve,” says Chloe.

  “Give up now, Pig—he’s mega popular. He’d never even speak to us,” says Kas.

  “I know that! Now shut up!”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as Leo clears his throat and grasps the microphone. It’s a situation I’ve imagined myself in so many times, and yet even in my imagination I can barely hold the microphone I’m so nervous.

  I feel what he must be feeling as some of the butterflies from his stomach make their way through to mine. It must take nerves of steel to stand up in front of a room of people, with no music, no props, no one else to fall back on if you forget your lines, just you, a microphone, and an audience you hope to God will find you funny. If you’re a bad singer, or magician for that matter, people will still clap at the end, but if you tell jokes and people don’t laugh, no amount of clapping can make up for that.

  To be a stand-up comedian you’re basically volunteering yourself for possible total public humiliation and shame. Which is why I’m sure I’ll never have the nerve to do it.

  But Leo does. And, as I watch him bravely grab the microphone, it feels like someone just scooped out my insides and replaced them with warm, energetic kittens, which is horribly unnerving yet oddly pleasing.

  I’ve never met anyone else who loves comedy as much as I do. I’ve never met anyone else bonkers enough to want to put themselves through this, just to make people laugh.

  It’s ridiculous, I know, but I feel in this moment that I get him, probably more than anyone else ever could, and that, if he knew me, he’d definitely get me too.

  And I realize that if he’s good, if he makes me laugh, I may well fall in love with Leo Jackson right here and now.

  Which, what with him being the most popular guy in school and me being, well, me, probably isn’t the best idea in the world.

  Oh, please don’t be good, Leo. Please don’t be good.

  CHAPTER THREE

  But of course Leo is good.

  More than good. Amazing.

  He must be nervous, but you can hardly tell. With one hand in his pocket, he casually takes the microphone out of its stand and holds it underneath his big warm grin. It’s a smile that starts at one side and then there’s this adorable beat before the other side rises up to join it. It’s a smile accompanied by his expressive upturned eyebrows that turn it from arrogant to vulnerable and mischievous. It’s not a smile that makes you think he’s full of himself, it’s a smile that makes you think he’s full of you. It’s a smile that makes everyone in the room think it’s especially for them and them alone. It’s a smile that makes you think everything’s going to be OK. And it immediately gets the audience on his side. Of course everyone’s already on his side anyway. It is Leo after all.

  He takes a deep breath and unnecessarily says, “Hi, I’m Leo.”

  His friends at the back of the hall break in on cue with whoops and cheers.

  He begins talking slow and low, not rushing it, not tripping up over any words and not afraid to use his arms in massive gestures to emphasize certain phrases or leave big pauses at the end of jokes which the room happily fills with laughter and cheers. I knew Leo was popular, but I just thought it was because of his looks. Where the hell did he get this comedic confidence from? And if he has any to spare can I have some?

  He starts with a few one-liners, funny ones, but it’s when he gets into the anecdotal stuff that he really hits his stride.

  “OK, so recently I turned sixteen…”

  His friends whoop. He nods, encouraging them.

  “Yeah, thanks, but I dunno, I’m not so sure it’s such a great thing. I mean, I’m not an adult yet—that’s eighteen years old, right? So instead I’m in this weird Twilight Zone between childhood and adulthood.

  “I’m like a half-man, half-kid mutant. Like, I still play video games, but I’ve started to tidy up the consoles afterwards.

  “I still eat Coco-Pops sandwiches, but now I’m a little bit disgusted with myself when I do.”

  Oh God, he’s deliciously pathetic and self-deprecating too. If only he’d been totally up himself, then I could have shrugged it off as a lame crush, but this… Now I just wanna crawl into his school sweater with him and be his permanent hug.

  The laughter’s coming thick and fast now from all around the hall.

  “Wow—he’s really good!” whispers Chloe.

  “Yeah, stop drooling, Pig—it’s never gonna happen!” says Kas, nudging me.

  “Shut up!” I hiss, not wanting to miss a word from Leo. And also maybe wiping some drool from my chin.

  “And I have some ‘rights’ now,” he continues. “Like, legally. Yeah, I was checking this stuff out online. I have a list and everything.”


  He delves into his pocket and produces a scrap of paper.

  “It’s exciting stuff. I mean what fifteen-year-old doesn’t desperately look forward to their next birthday when they can finally join a trade union, choose their own GP, and buy premium bonds. Rock and roll, right?”

  He throws a hand in the air, then paces along the front of the stage as if it’s his natural habitat, like talking to a room full of people and trying to make them laugh is the easiest thing in the world.

  “OK, so they’re mostly a bit dull, but there’s a few that are interesting, like this one—I can’t drive a car yet but legally I can pilot a glider. That’s right, I can fly an aircraft in the actual sky above people’s heads. I mean, whoever wrote that law had clearly never met a sixteen-year-old boy. ’Cause I’m guessing that to be a successful pilot—and by ‘successful’ I mean one that doesn’t crash, killing everyone in a huge fireball—I’m thinking you need to be quick-thinking, alert, and intelligent.

  “Hello! Sixteen-year-old boys are the opposite of this! We’re uncoordinated, grunting, hyperactive apes! We take stupid risks—we think we know everything, but we don’t actually know anything!

  “I mean, seriously, does this sound like someone who should be piloting an aircraft? PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!”

  I glance around the room as everyone explodes into more laughter. And even though I don’t know him and have had nothing to do with this I kind of feel weirdly proud of him.

  “But another pretty cool, though completely mental ‘right’ I’ve got now is that when you’re sixteen you’re legally allowed to change your name—to anything, pretty much. I mean, I can just fill out a form and—boom—change my name to Handsome McSexy or Lord Massivepants or Wolverine Lovebeast. Or, just to piss off my dad, I’ve been thinking of changing my name to like the whitest name I can come up with. My dad’s a very proud black man, and I’d just love to see the look on his face when I tell him I’ve changed my name to Horace Ponsonby-Smythe.”

  Everyone’s in hysterics now, and Leo’s friends are whooping and hollering as he thanks the audience for being “so awesome.” He’s smiling and he looks at ease, like this is what he was made to do. Like the laughter is feeding his soul. And, as he walks offstage, I realize I don’t want him to go.

  I want to see more of him, hear more of him.

  I want him to make me laugh again.

  I want to make him laugh.

  An electric shiver runs down the length of my spine at just the thought of his eyes on me, his laughter being the result of something I’ve said. I want to make him laugh more than anyone else I’ve ever known.

  I clap so much my hands sting, and just before he reaches the stage curtain he turns…and I swear he looks right at me. Which seals the deal.

  I’m in love with Leo Jackson.

  Hopelessly,

  stupidly,

  in love.

  Balls.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Of course I remember quite quickly after leaving the hall that this is ridiculous.

  Leo is good-looking, popular, two years older than me, and is no more likely to look at me, let alone talk to me, than he is to sprout wings and declare himself the Fairy King.

  And the thing is, that didn’t bother me yesterday. Yesterday I was quite happy admiring him from a distance like everyone else, but now…now it’s different. And all because…what? He made me laugh? I mean, is that how it’s going to be from now on—I fall in love with every guy who makes me giggle? Because that just sounds exhausting.

  And look, I’m just not that girl—I’m not the girl who has pathetic crushes. I’m not the girl who draws pink love hearts in the back of her schoolbooks with boys’ initials inscribed in glitter pen inside them. I’m REALLY not the girl who fantasizes of a Disney ending where magical sparkles surround my floating body as it transforms into a beautiful princess and the prince puts down his microphone and picks me up instead, passionately kissing me while fireworks explode behind us. Seriously—I AM NOT THAT GIRL!

  But oh, he was funny.

  In fact, he was the funniest person I’ve ever seen in real life. I mean, sure, Mum’s funny, Noah’s unintentionally hilarious, and my friends make me laugh a lot—but Leo was different. He was actually doing comedy successfully and I just, I don’t know, I guess it’s like suddenly this world, the world of comedy that I love and always dreamed of being a part of in the future, when I’m at college or whatever, has just zoomed in closer like a rocket. A Leo-rocket I want to jump on and let it launch me right off into space.

  No wait, that sounds wrong.

  “Are you all right, Pig?” Chloe asks me as she leans over to copy my work.

  “Leo-rocket!” I blurt before my brain tells my mouth to shut up.

  “What?” says Chloe.

  “What? Nothing! I didn’t say anyth—what?”

  She laughs as I look back down at my math book and put all my efforts into my cheeks not glowing red.

  Stupid cheeks.

  I always let Chloe copy my work in math. I’m not great at it or anything, but I’m OK, which is a lot better than Chloe. Kas is really good, so good she’s not even in this class with us: she’s been siphoned off into the advanced math set. In fact, she’s in the advanced set for everything. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s an actual genius or because she just works really hard, but either way we massively tease the hell out of her for it. As all good friends should.

  Mum says I could be in the top set for everything too, if I only “knuckled down” to my schoolwork instead of thinking up jokes all the time. But then where’s the fun in that?

  “You don’t mind, do ya?” Chloe says as she scribbles down into her book exactly what’s in mine. I don’t even think she reads what she’s writing. I genuinely think I could write “I, Chloe Jenkins, smell of rotten hamster poo” over and over and she’d still happily copy it all down and proudly hand it in, possibly with a “nailed it!” wink to Mr. Haynes as she did so.

  “Course I don’t mind. You can’t help being a big old thicko,” I say with a wink.

  Chloe twirls her perfectly styled hair in her fingers and laughs.

  “Oh, don’t look now,” she says suddenly. “Stevie’s looking this way.”

  Of course I do look now, which is exactly what she wants me to do, and sure enough, over the other side of the classroom, staring at Chloe, is the tiny, spiky-haired Stevie. A boy who I don’t believe either of us has ever heard speak, let alone had a conversation with. He’s holding his math book up in front of his face and peeking over the top of it. Dylan, at the desk behind him, seems to be doing exactly the same thing. They both look away sheepishly when I glance over. Pathetic.

  “Yep, you’re right,” I say.

  She gives a tiny squeal of excitement. “It must be working!”

  “What?”

  “My sister says if you want the guy of your dreams…”

  I gape at her. “Hang on. Seriously? Stevie’s the ‘guy of your dreams’?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Little Spiky Stevie?” I glance over at him again, tilting my head to the side, and squinting, trying to work out what it is that Chloe sees, but I just can’t. I’m still just looking at the pocket-sized, nervous boy with ridiculous mountain-range hair on a head hunched lower than his shoulders as he cowers behind his math book. When I look at him, my overriding feeling is not one of passion, but rather one of concern for his welfare as I notice that the window above his head is open and I can only hope that a gust of wind doesn’t rush in and flatten the boy.

  “Yeah! I must have told you I liked him?”

  “I may have chosen to block it out…”

  Chloe sweeps her hair behind her ear, gracefully ignoring me. “AS I WAS SAYING—to get the guy, you do this thing where you kind of ignore them, then give them just a sideway glance every two days. Drives them crazy apparently. Must be working.”

  “Yeah,” I murmur as I look over at him again. And I really don’t think th
is frail boy would have the ability to be “driven crazy” by anything, though possibly, at a push, mildly unhinged.

  I sometimes wonder if Chloe intentionally makes dating more complicated than it needs to be. Unlike me, she’s pretty and popular and could easily go out with whoever she wanted, but where’s the fun in that? Much more interesting to pretend there’s sport in it.

  “The thing is, Chloe, ignoring him, not ignoring him—I don’t think it’s going to make all that much difference to be honest. I think what you’re missing is the fact that you could pick your nose and wipe it on their faces and most guys in our year would think that was just adorable and want to date you more.”

  “That’s rubbish, Pig,” she purrs, glowing from the compliment.

  “It’s not and, FYI, I think Dylan might have the hots for you too,” I say.

  “Eew, not Dylan.”

  “What’s wrong with Dylan? I mean, he’s a bit of a loudmouth, I guess, and he seems to hate me, but he’s kinda funny and he’s gotta be more interesting than Stevie.”

  She waves this away. “Dylan’s way too big for me—he’s like six foot, right? And pretty wide too.”

  “And?”

  “I’m saying that if he was more, you know, smaller he’d be more my type, got it?”

  “Wow,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Just wow,” I say.

  It doesn’t seem to cross Chloe’s mind for a moment that her judging boys based on their size might piss me off a little bit. And this just pisses me off more. Especially now I’ve got the whole Leo thing on my mind. It reminds me that looks, body shape, and size are what matter to most people. I don’t stand a chance. Not with Leo. Not with anyone probably. And Chloe doesn’t get that—how could she? The world of boyfriends and dating: it’s all there for her taking. All the pop songs we listen to about gorgeousness and perfection and love at first sight and being sexy on the dance floor—they’re written for her. She can be a part of that world. Not me. I don’t belong there. Never will. And, thanks to being a strident feminist, I used to be totally fine with that. But now with Leo…