Pretty Funny for a Girl

by Rebecca Elliott

  He takes it. “Yes. Okay. I’ll stay long enough to see what your mum thinks of me being here.”

  Score!

  “Thank you.”

  We get up and start walking back to the front of the theatre, my nerves increasing with every step.

  “So, wow, you’re really performing tonight?” I can’t tell if he’s impressed or just as bewildered as I am about the whole thing.

  I run my fingers through my hair and huff out a long breath. “Yep, if I can force myself out there. But listen, don’t tell Mum that I’m going on. I think she’ll try to persuade me not to go out there. I’ve kinda had a crappy week and she’s feeling a bit overprotective of me. She wouldn’t think I’m ready, and she’s probably right, but I don’t need to hear it.”

  Then Mum and Noah walk around the corner. Noah runs up to us, yelling Ruben’s name in delight. Yay! Then I look at Mum. Uh-oh. She shoots me an angry, questioning look.

  “Come on, Noah,” I say, refusing to meet Mum’s glare.

  “But it’s Ruben! I want to stay with Ruben!” he says, wrapping himself like a lunatic koala around Ruben’s legs.

  “Come and say hi to Chloe and Kas—they’re desperate to see you!” And fickle little freak that he is, he detaches himself from Ruben and scampers toward Kas and Chloe.

  I feel Mum’s eye-daggers pierce the back of my brain as I chase after him.

  “Hey, Noah!” says Kas. “How was the train?”

  Noah rambles on, giving them a minute-by-minute account of his journey: how a man with only one leg sat opposite them, how Mum went for a wee on the train, but didn’t shut the door properly and a woman walked in on her, how there was no less than three pieces of chewing gum stuck on his window, but he couldn’t get them off, which was a shame because one of them looked like strawberry flavor which is his favorite.

  As he yammers on, I peer back around the corner. Mum and Ruben are talking.

  What if it goes wrong? What if she tells him to get lost? What if this whole thing just makes her hate me?

  Then, after a few agonizing minutes, they kiss. Which is both brilliant and utterly disgusting at the same time. All that beard. Ugh.

  They walk back over to us, hand in hand. Mum is looking happy again. Ruben is looking like the bearded cat who got the cream.

  “Ooooh!” says Chloe to them. “Look who’s a couple!”

  “Chloe!” I say.

  “What? They’re so cute together,” says Chloe.

  Mum’s beaming, but then turns and glares at me.

  “Thank you, Chloe, but excuse me a minute while I have a quick word with my daughter.” She lets go of Ruben’s hand and drags me back down the alley.

  Oh, holy bumbags. This is bad.

  “I’m sorry, Mum. I…” But before I can go off into a whole apologetic ramble she smiles, puts her finger up to my mouth to shut me up and then gives me a big hug.

  Wait, what?

  “Look, I’m not loving that you went through my phone or tried to meddle in all this, but well, I am loving why you did it. I love you, Hay. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she says into my hair.

  “Probably have lots of boyfriends and a crazy love life?” I say.

  “Well, obviously,” she says, laughing.

  I tell her I’m sorry, that I know I did a dumb thing.

  She hugs me tighter and says, “You so often do the right thing, Hay. You’re allowed to do the wrong thing from time to time. You’re amazing. Me and Noah are both so lucky to have you.”

  She moves back from me, holding my face in her hands. “Look at you! This new outfit, your hair, even the makeup…you look absolutely beautiful, you know that? My funny, gorgeous girl. You should be up on that stage, not Leo. Where is he anyway? You want me to smack him in the face?”

  I suggest it’s probably not the best idea. (Mum’s got arms like a bricklayer and would probably send him into orbit.)

  Then I decide to tell her about tonight.

  “Truth is, I’ve thought up a better way to punch him in the face. I’m…well, I’m performing tonight.”

  And, instead of warning me off, her eyes widen and she smiles at me. “You’re really going onstage?”

  She actually seems pleased about it—does this woman have no compassion for me at all!

  “Yeah, unless I just go home now, which actually might make a lot more sense.”

  “Oh, no way! You’re so ready, Hay. I thought it all along. When we were watching Leo perform your jokes, I was thinking, Why’s she writing for some other guy when she could be doing this herself?”

  “You did? So why didn’t you say that!”

  “Oh, love. Because I will never push you into anything you said you didn’t want to do. And, well, I probably wanted to protect you”—she glances over at Ruben—“like you wanted to protect me. Thing is, if we don’t take risks, we never get anywhere, never do anything. Seeing my baby onstage in front of all those people…I can’t imagine anything better. But look, don’t do this just to beat Leo. Do this for you, because you’re talented and you deserve this. Even if you bomb, I’ll be so, so proud of you.”

  We hug again, both of us watery eyed.

  “Am I really going to bomb though?” I say as we pull away.

  “Course not, love! The amount of time you put into writing your funnies, how could you fail?”

  “There’s some stuff in my set about you and Noah—just funny stuff. Well, I flippin’ hope it’s funny stuff. Is that okay?”

  She squeezes my shoulder. “Of course! You can say anything you want about me, babe, as long as it gets a laugh. Be confident out there, like you deserve to be. Come on, shoulders back, boobs in the air, and go get ’em, tigress!”

  “Thanks, Mum,” I say, standing a little taller.

  “Oh, but first fix that makeup of yours because you look like Uncle Fester.”

  “Oh knobnuts,” I say, seeing the black mascara I just wiped from my eyes smeared over my fingers.

  We go into the theatre and I’m told there’s a special place for the contestants to sit, right near the stage, and a backstage dressing area we can use.

  With a last set of “good lucks” from everyone, I head backstage to try to save my smeared face and calm my frantic nerves.

  But when I get there, of course, there’s Leo.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Hey, Pig!” he says. “I’ve been looking for you, and God, you’re rubbish at checking your messages—whoa, you look amazing! Check out the new look! So you’ve come to wish me luck?”

  “Good luck,” I say coldly, sitting on a rickety chair in front of a mirror and raising a tissue to my panda eyes.

  The other contestants are milling about, checking themselves in mirrors, reading through their scripts. One red-haired girl is doing what I can only hope is some sort of vocal exercise although she sounds more like she’s having some kind of fit.

  Leo walks over to me and looks at my reflection in the mirror. And the problem is my stupid heart is still pleased to see him, even though the last time I did he was playing tonsil tennis with Keesha.

  “Yeah, thing is though, I don’t think anyone’s supposed to be back here apart from us performers,” he says with an apologetic smile.

  “I know,” I say, refusing to look at him, trying instead to focus only on fixing my eye makeup.

  “You all right?” he says. “You’re acting funny. You’re not nervous for me, are you? ’Cause I’m gonna nail it, don’t you worry.”

  “I’m sure you are,” I say flatly.

  Then a balding, round man with a face like a wobbly trifle, wearing a red sequined vest, bounds in, followed swiftly by the lemon-sucking front-desk woman holding a clipboard.

  The trifle throws his arms up and says, “Well, hey, kids! I’m Jonno. I’ll be your MC this evening (not just a nutter)! Y’know, introducing the acts onstage, making a few jokes to keep the audience lively for ya, maybe dropping a few of my best dance moves—we’ll see how the
evening goes!”

  He puts on a strange, nasal, back-throated, low-pitched voice for the last few words of every sentence. I can’t work out whether it’s a nervous tic or whether he genuinely and mistakenly thinks it will trick people into thinking what he just said was a good joke.

  The posh woman rolls her eyes and announces, “Right, let’s do a namecheck, just to see that you’re all present and correct.”

  She starts to read out the eight names, each kid in the room responding, “Here,” apart from Leo who answers, “Always present, always correct.”

  And now I do look at him, and for the first time I don’t think, God, he’s charming! I actually think, Chuffin’ smart-arse.

  The woman is equally unimpressed and glares at him over her half-moon glasses. After a few more names, she says, “And, ahem, Pig.”

  “Here,” I say.

  “Right, that’s it then,” says Jonno. “Good luck, everyone. I’m sure you’ll all be hilarious (though not as funny as me obviously)!”

  And they leave us all to our nerves again.

  Leo stares at me. “You? You’re performing?”

  “Yep,” I say, glancing at his reflected face in the mirror before concentrating back on my own.

  “Since when?”

  “Last minute addition. Don’t you just hate it when you don’t know something that everyone else knows, and you end up feeling a complete dumbnut?” I’m trying to keep my cool, but that was definitely said in way too high a pitch.

  “Erm…” he says, slowly sitting down on the bench next to me. I can almost hear the cogs whirling in his head as he figures it out. “What are we talking about here?” he whispers.

  I carry on fixing my makeup in the mirror. “How’s Keesha?”

  “Erm…fine.”

  “Yeah, funny that. She looks fine to me too which is weird as the last time I saw her you were giving her mouth-to-mouth RESUSCI-frickin’-TATION!”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes.” I turn to him. “I saw you two. At it like blowfish,” I say, returning to my reflection and pretending to do something with my hair.

  “When? What—oh, on the doorstep.”

  “No, it was definitely on the mouth.”

  “Don’t joke,” he says, looking down at his feet.

  “This is a comedy night, Leo—it’s kinda what we’re here for.”

  “Look, I don’t know what to say. Me and Keesha, we’ve known each other for years.”

  He says that like it explains everything.

  “And…? I’ve known my postwoman Janet for several years, but she doesn’t expect that kind of doorstep service.”

  “I mean known known her. We’re kind of a couple, I guess. Look, I, I thought you knew… I don’t know what to say.”

  “So that’s it?” I say. Then, frustrated and unable to make any kind of sense of the rush of thoughts that are trampling through my mind, I blurt out, “Not even a sorry? You just don’t get it, do you? You come along with your, your jokes and that smile and make me feel actually really good about myself for once—you raise my hopes only to…to wipe POO all over them.”

  And now my eyes are misting over again. Partly from embarrassment at the whole poo reference. Not exactly the sophisticated, calm riposte I had imagined.

  I turn away and he reaches out to touch my arm. “Pig, Haylah…”

  But I shrug him off. “And now you’ve made me smudge my frickin’ mascara again! I always knew makeup hated me!”

  “Listen, Hay, I AM sorry. I didn’t know you felt like that about me.”

  I look at his reflection in the mirror—somehow I can’t bear to actually face the real him. “Yes, you did. And anyway I don’t, or maybe I did, but only because I thought you felt like that about me. Because you flirted with me, because you…” I realize at this point that my voice has hit an unnatural volume and several other contestants are now staring over at us so I whisper-shout, “kissed me…”

  Leo put his hands behind his head and stares at me in the mirror with a frustrated expression. “Look, I flirt with everyone! That’s just how I am! And I kissed you because you grabbed me and kissed me and, well, I’m a boy and an idiot and you’re a lot more attractive than you think you are, okay?”

  Patronizing git. And great, so now he’s saying it was just me forcing myself on a guy who wasn’t really into it.

  “So it meant nothing. I get it. Just forget it! Okay?”

  “No, it wasn’t nothing! I didn’t mean that. It’s just…I’m with Keesha. It’s just the way it is. I’ve been with her on and off since we were, I don’t know, eight or something. I guess I love her. I’m sorry. I thought you knew that?”

  “I didn’t. And doesn’t she mind you tongue-wrestling other girls?”

  “Other girl. Singular. You. Just you. And yes, she would mind, and I shouldn’t have done it. I just…I’m stupid. And I like you, Pig. A lot, you know?”

  Yeah, right.

  “No, you don’t. You lied to me and you pretend you don’t know me when there’s other people around. If you like me, you’ve got a really funny way of showing it,” I seethe.

  He sighs. Lost for words for once. Then says, “So this gig is your way of getting back at me? You think you’re going to win? ’Cause these contestants all know what they’re doing. I mean, some of them were at last year’s competition and they’re good, you know—really good. And experienced and…”

  “And I’m not ready, right?” I say.

  “Look, I just don’t want you to make a fool of yourself.”

  “Well, it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?” I say.

  He sighs again, and is about to say something else when the fancy woman announces that it’s now time to take our seats. As I walk to my seat on the front row, next to all the other contestants (but luckily far away from Leo), I catch sight of Chloe and Kas a few rows back. Kas hold two thumbs up to her chest and Chloe mouths, “You okay?” I nod back to them.

  But I don’t feel okay.

  Angry, stupid, used, so very, very nervous, completely out of my depth, but definitely not okay.

  I try to shut my mind off and just concentrate on my set, which I run through in my head again, and the stage. The big, empty, lonely stage that I’m going to have to walk out onto later.

  OhGodOhGodOhGod.

  First Jonno the MC comes out. He’s surprisingly lively onstage, scampering about like an idiot, and asking a few people in the audience where they come from before blasting the hell out of whatever they say. His jokes aren’t particularly funny, but the audience laughs along politely and I guess at least it sets the bar pretty low for the rest of us.

  Then he introduces the first act, a girl who’s so nervous she can barely get a word out to start with, but when she’s warmed up she’s actually gets some big laughs. And it’s great to see another girl actually being funny, on stage, but at the same time, the funnier she is, the more I want to crawl into a hole and die rather than go up there myself.

  Oh God, she’s really good. What am I doing here?

  Still, no one claps louder than me and the contestants along my row. We all know that anyone who’s mad enough to put themselves through this deserves applause. And possibly a psychological evaluation.

  Next up is a freakishly tall boy who talks mostly about football, and how to sound like you know what you’re talking about to your friends when really you haven’t got a clue. We laugh along, at least the front row does, but to be honest he’s not that good. He fluffs quite a few lines and some of his material is kind of a private joke with his friends who laugh raucously from a few rows back, but the rest of us are left baffled. Which is all great for me as I’m pretty damned sure I could do better than that. Right?

  Then there’s a guy who does a lot of impressions—some, like his one of Simon Cowell followed by Gollum from Lord of the Rings calling Cowell a “fat little hobbit,” are spot-on, whereas others, again, leave me and the rest of the audience bewildered. I’m still not sure whether
his last impression was Arnold Schwarzenegger or Stephen Fry.

  Next there’s a girl who brings a keyboard out with her and sings surreal songs, one of which is called, “Your Pencil Case Tells Me You Heart Me So Why Won’t You Lend Me Your Ballpoint.” She’s really funny actually so again I’m feeling nauseous about my own pathetic offerings.

  Then it’s Leo’s turn. And after a bit of a nervous start he does nail it, of course. In fact, he blows all the others out of the running.

  Keesha in the row behind me claps and laughs louder than anyone. I turn to stare at her, but she just offers back a friendly smile.

  What a manipulative cow.

  The hurt from seeing them kiss is fading though. I get that Leo and Keesha are together. And actually I’m strangely okay with that. Maybe I didn’t want his love after all, at least not in a romantic way. Maybe all I wanted was his respect and friendship—I mean, forgetting the kiss thing for a moment, more importantly he was the first person I’ve ever shared my material with (not a euphemism). And that was a pretty big deal. At least to me.

  But I can’t worry about that now. Mum’s right. I don’t care if I beat him any more—it’s not about that. This is about me, about doing something just for me.

  There’s only two more acts before I go on, and I can’t sit in my seat any more because I’m just a big blob of rumbling nerves and swimming thoughts. So, with my heart and stomach somersaulting over each other, I make my way backstage to wait for my name to be called.

  Leo’s there. Sitting on a threadbare sofa in the corner of the room. Looks like we’re in for round two then.

  “You were excellent,” I begrudgingly say, “but then you know that already.”

  I start pacing around the floor, looking over my script, which I’m gripping with trembling hands.

  “They’re your words, Pig. I couldn’t have done anything without you,” he says eventually, in an uncharacteristically serious voice.

  Whatever.

  “Look, I get it. You were just using me to write your set. It’s cool—it’s over now. No hard feelings,” I say.