“Yeah, Mum, OK, I’ll do that, yep…”
And then, when Leo is right in front of me, my phone, held to the side of my face, actually rings. Loudly. “La Cucara-ruddy-cha.”
My face burns red as he stops dead and turns to look at me, giving me a quizzical look as I fumble with my phone in a mad panic to shut it up.
Refusing the actual incoming call from Mum, I then bang the phone against my thigh a few times, as if trying to get it to work properly, then examine it again with a frown before looking up at Leo and saying with a shrug, “Weird.”
He shrugs back with a pained smile that says, “Yeah, you are,” and catches up with his friends.
And that’s it. The one and only word I’ll probably ever say to Leo Jackson will forever more be “weird.”
And for a moment I’m mortified. Then I think about him laughing with his friends and wanting to use my stuff in his set and again I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face.
Jokes about fat people and idiotic fake phone calls aside, I feel a little bit fabulous.
* * *
2 (Obviously the answer is “funniest” though.)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I pick up Noah from school and take him home past Leo’s house again. I know I shouldn’t. I know Noah’s stumpy little legs are tired and he just wants to get home. I know I won’t see Leo anyway and even if I did he only knows me as the weirdo with the imaginary phone calls, but still, here we are.
Why? Because I’m an obsessed, idiot stalker, that’s why.
Halfway along Leo’s road, Noah starts dragging his feet slowly along the ground.
“I’m tiiiiiired. I can’t walk properly.”
“You know that will only make it harder to walk, Noah? If you just walked normally, you’d—”
“I can’t walk any more, Haylah—my legs are broken!” he interrupts.
I swallow down my bubbling frustration and, as usual, use my impeccable childcare skills to calm the situation with food-based bribery. “No, they’re not. I’ll tell you what, if you walk normally all the way back, I’ll give you a bag of chips when we get home.”
“Cheesy Puffs?”
“Yep, Cheesy Puffs. Now go, Cheesy Puff Man—fly!”
“Yay!” he says as he starts running. But he’s quite spherical, so the momentum makes his body want to roll over in front of him like a ball.
Uh-oh.
“Noah, don’t run so fast! You’ll fall—”
But it’s too late. He, of course, falls flat on his knees. And, of course, it’s right outside Leo’s house.
“Owwwwww!” Noah wails as he rolls around on the pavement.
And I think I can see someone in the upstairs window of Leo’s house looking out to see what all the noise is about.
Oh God. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?
But I can’t blame the vindictive nature of the world for causing these close-proximity-to-Leo embarrassments. If I will insist on following him around like a psycho puppy dog, knowing that me and my family are prone to muppetry and numptiness of the highest order, I shouldn’t really be surprised if he witnesses some of it. And I vow to avoid Leo from this day forward at all costs. At least until tomorrow.
I run up and crouch next to Noah, wrapping my arms around him, frantically hoping the screaming will stop.
“It’s OK! It’s OK!” I say in desperation. “Be a brave boy—no need to cry. Here comes the ambulance! Nee-nah, nee-nah!”
Oh God, get up, Noah. I really do NOT need Leo to see me doing some kind of demented ambulance impression.
“MY LEGS HAVE SNAPPED OFF!” he hollers, clawing at his pants and trying to roll them up his chubby little calves to see his injuries.
“Your legs haven’t snapped off, you’ve just grazed your knees. It’s OK,” I whisper urgently, stroking his hair, possibly a bit too hard.
He grabs my face, wiping mud, gravel and God knows whatever else into my hair and cheeks. Brilliant.
“THERE’S BLEEDING BLOOD!” he sobs into my face. “I N-NEED A DOCTOR!! I N-NEED AN OPREPRATION!”
“Shh, shh, it’s OK. Come on, let’s get up and go home. See how brave and quiet you can be, please?”
But it’s too late. Leo’s front door opens.
O.M.Giddy-gosh.
I hear footsteps on the path behind me but can’t bring myself to look around. I try to keep cuddling Noah with one hand while combing through my hair with the other, but it’s matted with mud and crap from Noah’s hands.
“Everything OK? Is he all right? Can I…do anything?”
It’s Leo’s. Right behind me. What if he remembers the embarrassing phone thing? What if he realizes I’ve been following him around like a bat-crap-crazy, lovesick lemming?
No. No. No. No. No. No. I take a deep breath and turn around.
“Thanks… No, its fine,” I say, struggling to my feet, though one of them now has pins and needles from Noah sitting on it so I’m fairly wobbly. I swear it’s like my body hates me and takes any opportunity to wreak its revenge.
I hobble a bit and then turn and face Leo, who’s looking utterly gorgeous in a pair of jeans and hoody. Wow. He actually changes out of his uniform as soon as he gets home.
That’s so classy.
I try to keep my weight on my one loyal foot as I say, “He, erm, well, he fell. Obviously. But he’s fine now, aren’t you, Noah?”
“I’M NOT FINE! I NEED MECIDON!” he yells.
“No, you don’t need mecido—I mean medicine,” I say through a forced smile. “I’ll get you a bandage when we get home, OK? Come ON!” And I try to yank him to his feet, but his hands are slippery with mud and tears and I fall backward.
On to my butt. Which makes a heavy oof sound as it hits the pavement and hurts so much I blurt out, “Argh, flump nuggets!”
And that’s when I really feel very strongly that death is the best option at this point, but unfortunately there’s no obvious method of suicide at hand.
As I consider forming a noose out of my own hair, I notice Leo trying not to laugh. I mean I know I want to make him laugh but with me not at me! Then he leaps over and offers me a hand. I reach up and take it. Quickly, so he doesn’t see mine shaking a bit.
Then Leo’s actual hand is in mine. Or rather mine is in his. And time stops for a moment as cartoon deer and rabbits scamper around us and birds fly down from the trees and softly sing, “You’re the One That I Want” before fireworks explode above us.
Stop it!
He pulls me to my feet much more easily than most other people, or for that matter industrial cranes, could.
“Well, this has been wonderful for me, I don’t know about you,” I say as I brush myself down and avoid eye contact at all costs, as that might just make me fall down again.
He laughs. A short, sharp, chesty laugh that almost melts me.
Then he helps Noah up. “Hey, little dude, that looks pretty bad. I can get you a bandage if you want?”
“No, no, that’s OK!” I get in quick, but Noah’s not going to pass up the chance for a free bandage that easily.
“YES! Bandage, bandage, bandage, bandage!” he chants.
“Well, sorry, y-yeah,” I stutter. “If it’s not too much trouble?”
“Totally fine. I’m Leo by the way,” he says, turning to walk back down the path into his house. “Come on in.”
“Leo you say? Nice to meet you!” I say, relieved that the phone thing earlier seems to have left no impression on him whatsoever. “Actually, we’re fine here!”
But Noah’s already trotted off after him, the pain from his mortal wound now fading as the excitement of a new place and person takes over.
So, what else can I do? I follow them in. To Leo’s house. Through his lovely front door. My heart is hopping around my chest like a bunny on a trampoline.
We head through his hall, past the living room, and into the kitchen. It’s a small terraced house about the same size as ours, except with much nicer stuff inside it. The wal
ls are painted white, not pukey peach or bogey green like ours, and they don’t have cracks in them. And unlike ours, pictures are hanging on them rather than a few bad school photos of Noah and me sticky-tacked up in their cardboard frames. The sofa and chairs all look retro and cool, and the kitchen is shiny and white and all the cupboard doors are still attached to the cupboards. Super fancy.
“Take a seat,” he says, waving a hand at some really cool, brightly colored plastic chairs surrounding a wooden kitchen table covered in papers, pens, and notebooks.
Then among the papers I see my handwriting. The jokes I wrote for him are totally there, right in front of me! I concentrate hard on looking anywhere in the room but at those notes. If he knew I’d written them and then thinks I engineered this “accidental” visit, he may well have me arrested for stalking.
I can imagine the trial even now, and for some reason in my imagination the prosecuting lawyer is played by Stephen Fry: “And so I put it to you, Ms. Swinton, that given that Exhibit A, your handwritten and, may I say, deeply unfunny notes, were found in the defendant’s house, you did knowingly and with malicious intent commit the depraved and wicked act of throwing an infant on to a pavement merely for your own romantic gain…”
Oh, shut up, brain!
Noah sits down and the chair creaks under him, making me wonder what on earth kind of noise it would make if I sat down on one.
“Nah, I’m good, thanks,” I say as calmly as possible. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the side of the cooker and can see that my face has a big smear of mud down one side.
Thanks, Noah.
I frantically rub at it with the sleeve of my school sweater as Leo rummages around in a cupboard.
“I know they’re in here somewhere. I’m always scraping my knees playing pirates or hopscotch, you know how it is, so Mum usually keeps us stocked up with bandages—ah, here they are.”
I can’t even tell if the hopscotch thing is a joke, my brain feels so scrambled.
Leo turns around sharply on his heel and sees me rubbing at my face before I have a chance to stop.
Oh, ball-bags.
“You want a cloth or something for that?” he says with a grin.
“Nah, I’m good, thanks. I think it suits me, contours my cheekbones, y’know…if I had any cheekbones.”
He laughs, which is heavenly, then hands me the bandages and an antiseptic wipe.
“Take a seat,” he says again.
And to be honest the idea of not having to try and stand coolly on my shaking legs is a good one so I pull out a chair and throw myself down on it enthusiastically, but of course I’ve forgotten the creak they made under Noah and the chair reacts to my parked butt cheeks with an almighty fart sound.
“Pig farted! Pig farted!” chants Noah with glee.
Noah usually calls me Hay or Haylah, so why oh why has he chosen to go with that name now?
I feel myself burn nuclear-red. “Just so you know, that was the chair,” I say.
Leo laughs and sits down opposite us and his chair also farts.
Thank. God.
I start cleaning up Noah’s knee in the awkward silence, punctuated only by Noah’s giggles at the chair fart. In any other company, it would simply be classed as a normal pause, but here, with Leo in the room and my notes to him staring at me from the table, it’s as awkward a silence as there has ever been in the history of silence. It’s the loudest silence I have ever heard.
What do I say? What do I say? Tell me! What do I say?
Then at last Leo breaks through the crushing dead air.
“We really should do something about these farting chairs,” he says calmly as if he hadn’t even noticed the decades-long pause. “I think it’s just the plastic moving against the metal legs or something. When my grandma sits on them, it’s super cringey. Although at her age it’s probably a good cover, y’know—‘it wasn’t me, it was the chair’ kinda thing.”
“That could be a selling point,” I say, grabbing desperately at the funny that pops into my head and going with it. “Perhaps you should suggest to the manufacturers that they rebrand them as ‘modesty chairs.’” I dab at Noah’s knee with the wipe.
“Great idea,” nods Leo. “Especially if they also had a naturally farty smell about them.”
“Oooh, nice. The slogan could be ‘Modesty Chairs—we take the blame so you don’t have to?’” I say, thanking God for the silence-busting gift of humor and looking Leo in the eyes for the first time.
“Yeah! Or ‘Chairs that have mastered the fart of misdirection,’” he says with that smile that he does, the one that makes my knees go weak.
“Very strong, or how about ‘They’ll never know when you let one go?’” I say, actually starting to enjoy the conversation.
“Nice!” he says.
“IT STINGS!” screeches Noah, and to be totally honest I had completely forgotten he was there.
“Sorry, Noah—all cleaned up now, just need to put the bandage on.”
“So you’re Noah?” says Leo. “Nice to meet you. I’m Leo.”
He holds out his hand to a beaming Noah, who grabs it with his left hand and shakes it wildly.
“I like your hands,” says Noah. “They’re soft like a girl’s.”
“NOAH! Sorry, Leo, he’s, well, he’s four…,” I say as if that explains everything.
But Leo laughs. Not in an embarrassed way. A real, full-on belly laugh.
“Thanks. I like your hands too,” Leo says, then he turns to me. “And you’re…Pig?”
“Ha ha ha ha! Right, yeah, well, no, I mean, my name’s Haylah, but everyone calls me Pig so yeah. It’s Pig. Anyway!” I garble, in approximately 2.5 seconds flat. “You’re all patched up now, Noah, and I think we ought to leave Leo to it, OK?”
“Aw, OK,” says Noah sadly.
“Yeah, I do have stuff to do actually,” says Leo, pointing at the notebook. And MY jokes next to it.
Oh God…why did he point at them? He knows they’re from me! No, he can’t know. Can he?
But, even if he doesn’t, what if Noah recognizes my handwriting? What if he says something about it with his big dopey blabbermouth? Don’t be silly! Noah can’t write his name yet—he doesn’t even know what handwriting is—but still, what if Leo knows?
What if he asks me straight out if I wrote them? What will I say? How can I possibly explain posting random, anonymous jokes through his locker without sounding like the total freak that I undoubtedly am?
Head him off! Attack first!
“So what stuff are you doing—homework?” I ask, my voice shaking a little. And here it comes. He’s going to ask me about my notes. Oh God.
“Nah, I’m just trying to write some comedy stuff. I do a bit of stand-up, y’know. Can’t sing or dance and I like being onstage so…that’s what I do.”
He doesn’t know. Oh, thank God. After all, he can’t know they’re from me, can he? Relief rushes through me and I almost let out a yelp of glee.
“Oh, that’s right,” I say as casually as possible, screwing up my nose and looking to the ceiling as if trying to recall a distant and unimportant memory. “I think I saw you in assembly the other day?”
“Yeah, I noticed you in there actually,” he says.
What?
“You did?”
He did?
“Yeah—you didn’t laugh. It’s always like that when you’re in front of an audience. You don’t notice all the people who do laugh, you only notice the ones who don’t.” He’s looking at me carefully now, which is part amazing and part horrifying. “And I thought maybe it was because you don’t have a sense of humor or something but, well, today you’ve been making the funnies so…now I’m thinking, and I’m trying not to sound too desperate here, but…” He clasps his hands together and looks longingly at me with an exaggerated look of desperation. And it’s just eye-meltingly cute. “Why in the name of everything holy didn’t you laugh?”
This makes me giggle. A shameful girl-gig
gle I’ve never produced before. But God, he’s right: I hadn’t laughed the other day in assembly. I’d been too busy sitting on the edge of my seat, frozen stiff, staring at him, captivated by the way he owned the stage and made everyone feel that the joke he was telling was for their ears only. I’d thought he was hilarious, but I guess I only laughed inside my head.
Which isn’t really what stand-up comedians are after.
“Oh. Balls. Sorry, no, actually I thought you were”—careful, Pig, don’t get too enthusiastic or he’ll be on to you—“good. Really…good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah, you know, erm, funny.”
“Well, that’s kinda what I was going for…”
“Hay likes funny!” says Noah and my heart jumps into my throat fearing what he’s going to say next. “She’s going to be a com—”
“Communist!” I interrupt desperately. “I want to be a communist!”
“You do?” says Leo, looking confused.
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing Noah’s hand and pulling him toward the front door before this gets any worse. “I just love that whole everyone sharing property thing and those cute little red books that you get.”
That’s communism, right?
“Anyway,” I say, getting up from the table and dragging Noah with me, “it’s been fun. Thanks for the, y’know, knee…thing.”
“Bandage?” he offers, following us down the hallway.
“Yep, and, erm, good luck with the comedy.” And then it strikes me I might never get this chance again, so I grab Noah’s hand tight for support and go for it. “I thought you were…brilliant actually. I loved it.”
“Thanks! Really? Thanks. And hey, good luck with the communism,” he says, smiling, seemingly genuinely pleased. “Oh, and I hope your phone stops being weird.”
Oh hell. He does remember.
“Right! Yep. Noah, say thank you.”
Noah raises his hands in the air and screams, “THANK YOU!” like a total nutcase.
“You’re welcome, little dude. Hope the knee gets better. See you around, Haylah.”
“Yeah, I’m ’round!”
Round? Oh God, did I just say that?
Pretty Funny for a Girl Page 8
