Pretty Funny for a Girl

by Rebecca Elliott

Admittedly, when I say it out loud like that, what I said does sound pretty bad. But at least she’s stopped crying now.

  I glance at her and her face has gone from brokenhearted kitten to ferocious lion. She sits bolt upright in her chair, glaring at me. “You said what?”

  “I’m sorry, Mum!” I say, trying to buy myself some time while I eye up the best escape route. “I didn’t know you liked him that much. I thought it was just a little thing, y’know?”

  “No, I don’t know! And what the HELL gives you the right to mess around with my love life?”

  “Ugh, your ‘love life’—don’t make me heave!”

  Shut up, mouth!

  “HAYLAH!” she bellows as she stands up and looks down on me. In so many ways.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say, standing up and edging away from her. “I screwed up, okay? Why don’t you just phone him up, tell him it was my fault, and get him back?”

  “Because it’s done, Okay—it’s over. I tried ringing him already to talk about everything and he won’t take my phone calls, for God’s sake!”

  “I’m sorry, Mum. I, I just didn’t want Noah getting hurt, or you for that matter. Look how upset you guys got after just one phone call from Dad—do you really want to put yourself and us through that again?’”

  “Haylah, I was taking things slow so that didn’t happen! And if you were so worried about that then why didn’t you talk to me about it, instead of going behind my back and getting rid of the only person in my life that has brought me any happiness over the last few years?”

  Ouch. Can you believe she just said that?

  “So me and Noah aren’t enough for you then?” I spit. And I know that really I’m angry with myself. But frankly it’s easier to be angry with her.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” She runs her fingers through her hair, looking utterly exasperated with me as I slowly back away toward the door. “But it’s not easy, you know, bringing up children on your own.”

  And then I really snap. Because I was only trying to help her out here with Noah and everything else, like I always help her out with Noah and everything else, and sometimes—just sometimes—it would be nice to get a little appreciation for it.

  So I take a step toward her. Possibly a step too far.

  “Yeah, well, I do know actually. I mean, it’s not just you bringing up Noah—in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m basically his second parent while you’re off at work or sleeping upstairs!”

  Yep, definitely a step too far. I can almost see flames behind her eyes.

  “I work night shifts, Haylah. I have to sleep sometime! Do you really think I want to work as much as I do? Don’t you think I’d much rather be here with you and Noah? Do you really think this is how I planned my family life to be—always out, always exhausted, always on my own…? I didn’t choose this for us, okay, it just happened. I’m sorry if that makes you hate me so much you don’t ever want to see me happy again!”

  “I do want to see you happy again!” I shout. “And I DON’T HATE YOU!” I yell even louder.

  “Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it!” she shouts back.

  “Stop shouting!” yells Noah from the doorway, and we both turn to him.

  His face is shiny with tears and he screws up his nose before they start again. Mum runs over to him and scoops him up in her arms.

  “Oh, Noah, I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s all okay. We were just acting out something we saw on the TV yesterday.” She turns and scowls at me. “Weren’t we, Haylah?” she says through gritted teeth.

  “Yes. That’s right. It was a scene from a horror film called Mother from Hell,” I say before storming out into the hallway and screeching, “I’m going out!”

  And I figure as I’m playing the role of a dramatic teenager here more than I ever have before I may as well see it through so I slam the door hard behind me. And it actually feels pretty good.

  As I walk to I-don’t-know-where, the burning anger slowly fades inside me and turns into a gray sludge of misery. I hardly ever argue with Mum, but at least normally when we do I’m safe in the knowledge that I’m completely in the right and she’s completely in the wrong (obviously). But not this time. This time it’s pretty much my fault. The whole Ruben thing—well, I kind of know that I’ve been a selfish git about it all.

  I’ve tried so hard to ignore Dad leaving us, I guess this is the resulting numptiness. I just wanted to keep Mum to ourselves, keep things the way they always are: safe, risk free. Hurt free. But nothing stays the same. I should know that by now. And if you hold something too close you only end up strangling it. I’m like that guy in the novel we’re being forced to read in English class, just a big brainless oaf squeezing the life out of a mouse with my big dumb hands.

  Then I realize that somehow, without thinking, I’ve made my way onto Leo’s road. I just want to feel like I did yesterday, when he kissed me and everything was right in the world and nothing bad could ever happen again.

  I’ll knock on his door, he’ll give me that grin, invite me in and he’ll say wise, calming things to me and we’ll laugh and kiss and make the gloom disappear. I start to walk taller as I get near his house—but then his door opens and someone emerges.

  It’s Keesha, that harmonica-playing stick insect who’s always hanging around him like a bad smell. Honestly, it’s like she’s stalking him or something. I hide behind a wheeled garbage can and peer around the corner at Leo as he appears behind her. She turns, the braces on her teeth glinting in the sunlight.

  Then.

  Oh God.

  He kisses her.

  And my heart falls through my toes and splats onto the pavement.

  Everything in me wants to look away, but my eyes are fixed on them. It’s a long drawn-out kiss, just like the one we shared yesterday. Only Keesha looks like she’s used to this—like they’ve done it hundreds of times before.

  Finally, they part and he flashes her that grin, the same warm smile which yesterday made me feel like anything was possible, but which now makes me feel sick. My hands are shaking a bit as I remain hidden around the back of the garbage can (which I’m tempted to get into and just wait until it’s collected and I’m taken away to a better place) until she leaves in the opposite direction and Leo closes the door.

  I scrunch my eyes tight shut, trying to fight the tears as my head swims with darkness.

  I’ve made a mess of everything.

  Mum’s furious with me.

  Leo was using me after all.

  And my friends…my friends… I’ve lost them too, and all over some stupid, stupid boy. Oh God, I’ve been such an idiot.

  I get up and walk away on shaky legs. Then, with nowhere else to go, I head to Chloe’s house. I plan what I’ll say to her—I’ll explain that I didn’t know she was talking to Leo that night about me and that she was right about him all along, and I know she didn’t really mean what she said about me, she was just angry and I didn’t mean all that stuff I said about her looking trashy and…

  Oh God, she’s so going to slap me.

  I knock on the door. Chloe opens it, and instead of saying all that stuff I just start sobbing and she steps toward me, her eyes also filling with tears, and flings her arms around me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I sob.

  “I’m sorry too,” she sobs back.

  “I didn’t mean anything I said and you were right all along,” I whimper.

  “Well, I didn’t mean anything I said. I was just being a massive tit head,” she blubs.

  Kas runs through from the kitchen and joins the blubbering hugfest. Then we just stand there, a big ball of whimpering patheticness, occasionally splurging out between great gasps of teary sobs, “I’m sorry!”

  “I know, I’m sorry too!”

  “I missed you guys!”

  “I know—we missed you too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lounging back on Chloe’s massive bed, surrounded by a sea of cushions,
I stare up at her ceiling, still covered in the glow-in-the-dark stars I remember giving her for her eighth birthday. I tell them everything—all about the thing with Mum, and the thing with Leo. They gasp and make sympathetic “aww”ing noises in all the right places.

  “I can’t believe you kissed him!” says Kas in awe.

  “You’ve got guts, girl—it’s incredible,” says Chloe. “But that’s really crappy about Keesha. I know they’ve been like an on-off thing for years, but I just thought they were off at the moment. I mean, you did know about their history, right?”

  “No! Nobody told me!” I say, sniffing away the last of my tears. “He never said anything to me about her. And she’s not even pretty—I mean, I’m better looking than her, right?”

  And yes, I know full well this isn’t true and I know it’s goes against the whole sisterhood thing, but frankly sometimes you just wanna hear pretty little lies, okay?

  “Oh God, yeah, babe!” says Kas.

  “And funnier? Please say I’m funnier than her!” I splutter.

  “SO much funnier,” says Chloe, reaching over and stroking my hair.

  “So…” says Kas, lying on her belly, her chin resting on her hands, “do you love him?”

  “No! Well, I don’t know, maybe… I mean, this hurts like hell on a jetski…so…I don’t know.” My voice gets quieter as I realize something. “Maybe I just love the way he made me feel.”

  “How do you mean?” says Chloe.

  “I guess it was just nice to not feel like the stupid dumpy one who’ll never get a boyfriend for once. I mean, that’s what everyone else thinks of me.”

  “Don’t be silly, Pig. Nobody thinks of you like that!” says Kas.

  “Yes, they do. And even you do,” I say to Chloe. “I mean, you pretty much said as much.”

  Chloe sighs sadly. “I was angry,” she says, lying on her back and cycling her long legs in the air. “And…well, the truth is, I’m a bit jealous of you, okay?”

  Wow. I never thought I’d hear Chloe say that in a bajillion years.

  “Of me? What the hell for?”

  Chloe stops and turns to me, propping her head on her palm. “Because you’re funny and clever and interesting, and that Friday night, Leo—this cool, popular older guy, who, let’s be honest, we all like—wouldn’t stop talking about how amazing he thought you were.”

  “Not ‘amazing’ enough to stop him being embarrassed to be seen with me and kiss other people though, I guess.”

  Ugh, saying it out loud makes it even more humiliating.

  “I know and I’m sorry he’s done this to you,” says Chloe. “But I mean you’ve got all that going on for you, and then on top of that Kas is a bloody genius.”

  “Don’t you mean a geek?” says Kas. “That’s what everyone thinks when you’re at the top of the class, right? And I have to work so hard to be in them. And before you say it, Pig, I know it’s not all about guys and all that, but come on, who wants to date a know-it-all, bookish geek? I actually lied to Isaac and told him the reason I wasn’t in his math class was because I was in the remedial class below, just so I wouldn’t seem so clever. I know, I know!” she says as I begin to splutter in fake outrage. “It’s bad and I feel terrible about it. But I just didn’t want him to think I was weird.”

  “I don’t know—better to be a geek than an airhead,” says Chloe. “Guys don’t want to date me for my great conversation skills; they just wanna see how far they’ll get with me so they can tell their friends.”

  “So, Stevie and Isaac, they’re not working out?” I say, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

  “No, we totally dumped those two. You were right: they were idiots who didn’t actually wanna know us. Plus, they had the combined personality of a mackerel,” says Kas.

  “Wow,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “I think Stevie just didn’t want to know me because, well, what’s to know? I just wish I was more interesting, I guess.” Chloe sighs. “And I wish I had bigger jugs.” She gives an exaggerated longing look at my giant rack, and with a sheepish smile I softly jiggle them from side to side which makes her smile.

  “I wish I wasn’t such a nerd,” says Kas. “And that my forehead wasn’t so freakishly big.”

  “Well, I wish I was more girlie,” I say. I don’t usually, but in this moment I kinda do. Surely it’d be easier? “Though physically, obviously, I’m perfection itself.”

  We all laugh a little, then sigh.

  “I just wish I was more normal,” we all say together.

  We lie in silence, our hands behind our heads, staring up at the ceiling.

  Until it dawns on me that actually the only problem with any of us is that right now we’re being complete morons.

  “What the hell are we doing?” I say, sitting up. “This is crazy, right?”

  “What do you mean?” asks Kas.

  “Well, listen to us! Firstly, who the hell wants to be ‘normal’ anyway? And what is normal? If there is such a thing, it’s probably super boring. And, secondly, look at us: we’re sitting around complaining, but we’re all clever, funny, brilliant—”

  “Beautiful,” Chloe adds, sitting up and throwing her arms out to the side.

  “Interesting!” says Kas, getting up onto her knees and taking a bow.

  “Hell, yeah! We’re all clever, funny, brilliant, beautiful, interesting, totally awesome girls, and any boy would be a lucky son-of-a-biscuit to have us, just the way we are. Why are we trying to be something else, something duller, just to please them?” I say.

  “Because we like them?” says Chloe, embracing a purple velvet cushion like it’s Harry Styles’ face.

  “Yeah, but I bet you anything boys don’t think for one minute they need to change to get a girl,” I say. “They might start playing the guitar or something because they think it makes them look cool or sexy, but they don’t try to hide how clever they are or change their personality or what they’re into or give up their friends or any of that crap just to please girls.”

  “True,” admits Chloe.

  “Then why do we do it? Why should we try and be something else?” I say.

  “Well, when you put it like that…” says Chloe.

  “Hell, yeah, we shouldn’t change for anyone!” says Kas, throwing a cushion up in the air and catching it. “If boys don’t have to, we don’t have to either!”

  “God, I love feminism,” I say.

  “Hmm, I don’t know. Isn’t it all about not wearing makeup and hating men?” says Chloe with a knowing smirk.

  And we both throw cushions at her head.

  “I’m sorry I lost sight of all this. Lost track of you guys and myself and what’s really important. Guess I was just blinded by good looks and charm. Whatever it cost me. But I’m well and truly back on the feminist train now. Both engines at full steam,” I say, grabbing my boobs and making us all laugh. “Sorry I’ve been a total numpty.”

  “We all have,” says Chloe.

  “Numpty Dumpty,” says Kas, pointing at her own chest.

  “Twat on a wall,” says Chloe, with a hand over her own heart.

  “Agreed. Especially as, even though I didn’t know about Keesha, I think deep down I did know you were right about Leo using me.”

  “But he does really like you though, Pig. I mean, the way he was talking about you at the pub…” says Chloe.

  “Yeah, and he wouldn’t have kissed you if he didn’t,” says Kas.

  “I guess. But if a guy doesn’t like you enough to talk to you in front of his friends then it doesn’t really count for much, does it? No matter what he says the excuse is. I knew he just wanted me to write his set for that frickin’ competition and I just went along with it, even though it meant losing you guys and my self-respect. Well, it won’t happen again—I’m not changing for anyone, especially not just to get a guy. Any changing I do will be for me and IF I ever have a boy interested in me again…”

  “You SO will, Pig,” says Chloe.

 
“Oh God, I hope so ’cause kissing’s awesome,” I say.

  We all briefly sigh in agreement.

  “Anyway! If I do, it won’t be because of what he wants me to be or do for him.”

  “Yay! Go, Pig!” squeals Kas in excitement. “You’re right. We’re all better off without these guys. There’ll be better ones. Guys who like us for us. But…where are these good guys?”

  “Yeah, how long do we have to wait for one to come along?” says Chloe.

  And my thoughts shoot to my mum. And how long she’s waited for the right guy, and how Ruben might just be that person. And how I messed things up for her.

  “You know, there are good guys out there and… I think Ruben might be one,” I say. “You know—the bearded guy. And I completely screwed it up for my mum. Made him dump her and run off to London, probably to get away from me as much as anything. And, argh, I don’t know what to do to put it right.”

  “So you like Beardy after all?” says Kas.

  “I think I do. The sock thing’s still super gross, but…well, he was really cool that night after the pub, and he’s really easy to talk to, and the main thing is he makes Mum happy. But I blew it.”

  “I’m sorry, Pig,” sympathizes Kas.

  “Yeah, that’s crappy. So is she still going to the comedy thing tomorrow night?” asks Chloe.

  Oh hell, the London Young Comic of the Year thing is TOMORROW. I’d completely forgotten about it. You know, what with all the trauma and heartbreak and first-class muppetry.

  “Well, she was, but I hardly want to go now! I just don’t think I can face Leo again.”

  “Rubbish! Don’t you dare let him get the better of you, Pig! You wrote that stuff and you deserve to see it performed onstage.”

  “You really think I should go?” I say.

  “Yes! We’ll get tickets too. Loads of people from school are going, y’know, ’cause Leo’s so popular and everything,” says Kas.

  “Yes, Kas, thanks, I’m aware of that.”

  “You know, for a clever person, Kas, you really are quite thick sometimes. But yeah, come on—you’ve gotta go, Pig. At the very least, it’s an excuse to get out of this scuzzy town and take a trip to London!” says Chloe.