Pretty Funny for a Girl

by Rebecca Elliott

  I’m pleased to see him looking ashamed. “What? I wasn’t using you for material!” he says defensively as I shoot him a Very Hard Stare. “No, okay, well, maybe I was using you at first. And that was crap of me, and I was a dumbass and I’m sorry about that—but seriously I don’t wanna lose you as a friend, Pig. Nobody else gets the comedy thing like you do; no one else makes me laugh as much as you do. You’re important to me, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, not meaning it at all.

  “Right, so we’re cool, yeah?”

  “Yep,” I say, my hands shaking.

  “Great. So…don’t go out there then. You don’t have to prove something just to try to get back at me. Why put yourself through it? I’ll win, and we’ll share the money like we agreed. It’s all good, yeah?”

  Erm. EXCUSE ME?

  “Oh, I get it.” I say, stopping my pacing and looking squarely at him. “You’re scared that I might actually win!”

  “No!” He laughs at the very idea, but I can see his body tensing. “Sorry, but not even a little bit. You heard the crowd—they frickin’ loved me. But the truth is, I am a little bit worried you’re going to go out there and do something stupid, like tell everyone you wrote my stuff. And I really don’t need that, Pig. I mean, we agreed we’d do this together; we agreed you wouldn’t tell anyone. So you just need to get past this—you can’t let some personal stuff mess everything up for me.”

  My hands stop shaking. I turn to look at him full on, and he actually flinches at the anger raging behind my eyes.

  And this is it. This is what I actually needed. He’s just pushed me into finding a new gear I didn’t know I had, and I’ve just speed up and overtaken.

  My anger has overtaken my heartbreak.

  My determination has finally overtaken my patheticness, turned around, and put two fingers up to it.

  Slowly, I walk toward Leo, like a panther nearing its prey, and through gritted teeth I say, “This will mess everything up for you—seriously? You’re only doing this because you’re a massive show-off, but you can’t sing or dance, that’s what you told me, right? Oh, and because it’ll ‘look good’ on your bloody Cambridge application.

  “For me, this is everything—what I’ve dreamed about my entire life. Everything I’ve wanted to be is there for the taking, on that stage—it’s not a stepping stone to some other glory. I don’t even care about the prize. Oh, but I’m forgetting, it’s all about you, isn’t it, Leo?”

  “Yeah, all right, Haylah, you’ve made your point,” he says, at least having the good grace to squirm in his seat.

  “What possible other reason could there be for me to go out there?” I fume, starting to almost enjoy myself. “I mean, I’m just an irrelevant, fat schoolgirl! I can’t possibly be as funny as the great Leo Jackson! No one wants to hear what I have to say, right?” I’m looming right over where he’s sitting now, my hands on my hips in full Mum-rant power stance.

  “No, come on, that’s not what I’m saying at all! And I’ve told you—you’re not fat,” he says with—UNBELIEVABLY—a wink.

  “I’LL DECIDE IF I’M FAT OR NOT!” I yell down into his face.

  Although it does occur to me that I haven’t actually thought about being fat for quite a while, which makes me feel pretty good, although shouting at him at the moment is making me feel even better. So I continue. “And I’ll decide what I say or don’t say. And I’ll decide whether I’m ready to go out there or not, and I’ll frickin’ well decide if I’m going to forgive you or not. GOT IT?”

  Leo holds his hands up to me in surrender, but I swear he still has a smirk on his face. “Yeah, all right! Calm down, Pig.”

  “AND MY NAME’S NOT PIG—IT’S HAYLAH!”

  And with that the smirk disappears and he gets up and storms off, just as the lemon-sucking woman tiptoes into the room and whisper-scolds, “What is going on in here?”

  “Nothing,” I say, my blood cooling again and leaving me with a fresh feeling close to elation. Like I’ve just freed myself from something that was holding me back, like I’ve just crawled out of an ugly chrysalis and realized I’ve got a set of kickass wings and I know how to use them.

  “Well, can you make the ‘nothing’ quieter, please? And you’re about to go on.” She looks down at her clipboard and raises an eyebrow again. “Pig, isn’t it?”

  I pause before responding with a nod. Time standing still and in that still moment I think back to crying myself to sleep that first day I boldly told everyone to call me Pig, just to see the bullies off my back. It was the same week Dad left. Well I’m tired of putting up with the bullies and quietly being whatever they push me into being. I need to reclaim myself, I need to stand up. And I want to do stand-up. As me. The real me.

  And, right there and then, I make a decision.

  “No, actually. Can I change that? I just want to be Haylah. Haylah Swinton.”

  “Very well,” she says. “I’ll tell the announcer. I’m not changing it again though, so are you sure you don’t want to be Pig any more?”

  “Yeah,” I say, with my chin held high. “I’m sure.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Nerves are running through me like fire as I walk to the side of the stage, an actual stage with curtains and hot lights and an audience of faces staring at it and… Oh God.

  My stomach churns its contents like a cement mixer, and I’m suddenly remembering playing one of the Three Wise Men in the school nativity when I was five. Instead of giving gold to the baby Jesus, my nerves got the better of me and I pooped myself, started crying, and loudly wailed out into the audience, “Mummy! It’s a code brown!” It’s quite possible that that exact same scenario might present itself here tonight. And not even my mum’s gonna think that’s cute this time around.

  Like waiting to walk out in front of a firing squad, I wait for the MC to finished titting about onstage, making a few jokes at the expense of a couple of the parents in the audience who squirm in their seats, and then he…gulp…introduces me.

  “And finally tonight, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for…Ms. Haylah Swinton!”

  As I emerge from behind the curtain, everyone cheers, though no one louder than Chloe and Kas. And, cutting above the rest is Noah’s high-pitched voice shouting, “Just tell chicken jokes, Hay! Chicken jokes, chicken jokes, chicken jokes!”

  And hearing them and my name actually makes me smile and starts to put me at ease, although that message hasn’t got to my legs yet, which are still shaking like a newborn deer’s. I manage to get to the center of the stage as Jonno leaves on the opposite side. And now it’s just me up here. Alone. I grab the mic and look down at the huge audience of expectant faces, now hushed and waiting for me to talk: people from school, my two best friends, my mum, holding hands with Ruben as Noah sits on her lap. And somehow the nerves disappear.

  And I feel like I’m home. Like this is where I’m meant to be. Like this is what I was made for. This is the me me.

  And then I start talking. And they laugh. A lot.

  “Hi, my name’s Haylah, it’s nice to be here. Before we get started, I should warn the front row that, although I look dainty, the last time I did a gig I turned around and my butt exploded all the stage equipment.

  “Yeah, I can’t even do the stand-up bit of stand-up comedy without making the audience feel nervous. It’s possible that not only might I die up here, comedically speaking, but you guys might actually die.”

  A huge laugh, the first of many, erupts from the audience and my brain jolts into overdrive like I’ve just been injected with a heavenly heady mix of caffeine, adrenalin, chocolate, and electricity.

  “I’m not too nervous though ’cause I’ve got my family here for support. So I know if I get badly heckled…that’ll just be my mum. And there’s my little brother Noah. Everyone give Noah a shout-out.

  “Actually, I told Noah I was going to do this and he suggested some of his own…‘jokes.’ He suggested I open with, ‘Who made all the trees?’r />
  “Treesus.”

  Everyone gives the biggest laugh yet.

  “Hmm, not bad. Thanks, Noah. Living with an under-five though. Yikes. It’s a challenge, isn’t it? Like sharing the house with a tiny little drunk fascist dictator. Stumbling about, yelling ridiculous demands while everyone runs about after them, trying to avoid a major conflict. When you live with an under-five, you don’t live in a family, you live in a regime.

  “Now, for those of you who don’t have younger siblings—so those of you who are the younger sibling, or the only child of the family, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE. Oh yeah, as the youngest in the family, you’ve sailed through your childhood in the full and certain knowledge that the world revolves around you.

  “You know why? Because you were the dictator in your family! You made the decisions, you ruled by force. When your family went to a restaurant, YOU decided when they left.

  “When your family needed to go out, THEY WAITED FOR YOU to find your shoe, to stop your random tantrum, for you to stop peeing in the laundry basket. It’s exactly the same story whenever Putin goes out for dinner!

  “But I’ll tell you something—it is not like that for the older sibling. Oh no. That’s not how our childhood goes. We’re the oppressed, downtrodden people trying to please YOU, because if we don’t, Mum and Dad will make US suffer.

  “When you’re having a fit, they’re like, ‘Look, you need to help find his shoe NOW or he’ll never stop screaming and we’ll never leave this house and it will all be your fault! I mean you’re SIX. For God’s sake, take some responsibility!’

  “I’m kidding though. I love my little brother, although I am a little jealous of him. I mean, isn’t it amazing what little kids can get away with in public? Like practicing doing forward rolls, in church, down the aisle. At a funeral.

  “Apparently, I was being ‘inappropriate,’ but I mean, if he’d done it, it would have been fine. And, when I wear a Batman costume down to the local supermarket, the mask just freaks people out. It’s like, ‘Holy mass hysteria, guys. I’m not Robin! I’m just here for tampons.”

  (That was one just for you, Noah.)

  “But at least he’s not a baby any more. I don’t know, I just don’t get that whole baby thing—dribbling, screaming, pooing everywhere. I don’t know if anyone else has that reaction when they see a baby—it might just be me.

  “My mum’s the same though. She’s not interested in tiny babies. She says, ‘I just like them when they start doing stuff…like leaving home.’

  “Nah, my mum’s great though—we get on really well. I have to say that because she’s here. But genuinely she doesn’t nag me too much now I’m a bit older, a bit wiser. She’s stopped nagging me if I’ve brushed my teeth, had a bath, or wiped my bum properly. She figures I’ve got that stuff down by now.

  “Shows how little she knows.

  “No, now she asks me about boys. ‘You got a boyfriend yet? Why not? Aw, you must have your eye on someone?’ Until you actually do get a boyfriend and then she’s like, ‘Do NOT let him in your bedroom unless the door is OPEN, you have a panic button around your NECK, and your panties are password protected—you get me, girl?’

  “But then everyone wants to know about your love life when you’re a teenager, right? Your friends, your parents, even the cashier at the supermarket.

  “‘Find everything you were looking for?’ Nope, not yet.

  “‘Hope your experience was satisfactory?’ Almost non-existent, if you must know.

  “So I’ve taken to using the self-service checkout, which is fine. I mean, they try to make it feel like you’re dealing with a real person, don’t they? It talks to you—they almost give it a personality.

  “The problem is the one in my local store is a complete bitch. She’s lazy, can’t be bothered to weigh stuff—if you want two carrots instead of a pre-filled bag, she just blanks you like you’re beneath her, then throws your change at you, one coin at a time.

  “Then, just as you think she’s done, she spits your receipt out so fast it jams and tears, and then has the nerve to sarcastically yell, ‘I hope you enjoyed your shopping with us!’ At least she didn’t ask me about my love life though. Although, come to think of it, she did ask me if I’d had an ‘unexpected item in my bagging area.’

  “Truth is, and I know you’ll be surprised to hear this, I don’t get so much attention from the boys—not like my beautiful girlie friends do. ’Cause, y’know, I’m not an actual girlie girl.

  “Any other girls in here not an actual girlie girl? Oh nice, plenty of cheers and whoops from you guys. I’m not alone! Hurray!

  “So I’m not sweet or dainty. I don’t like the color pink, can’t be bothered to moisturize. Don’t do skirts and dresses. Mostly ’cause I don’t like the idea of there being nothing between my underwear and the outside world but air, y’know?

  “And I used to think not being a girlie girl made me less than a girl, but now I realize you can’t wear a bra the size of two dome tents lashed together and think yourself less than a girl. If anything, I’m too much girl. I mean, there’s no getting around these two.

  “Sometimes literally. I wore a wonder bra the other day in an open-topped vehicle and the police ended up giving us a ‘wide load’ escort vehicle.

  “So I’ve got girlie boobs and I do like romance, so I guess that’s pretty girlie too.

  “Give us a shout if you’ve ever fallen in love. Yep, a lot of you. It sucks, doesn’t it? I don’t know, I think we should have guessed it from the term ‘falling in love.’ I mean, no one falling into anything is ever good, right? No one who landed in anything pleasant would be described as falling into it.

  “You dive into a cool swimming pool, you plunge into a warm bath, but you FALL into a ravine, an industrial machine, or a pile of crap.

  “Anyway, I don’t think I really fell in love at all. I just tripped over it and grazed my knee on the gravel of humiliation. But then, as a feminist, I shouldn’t be obsessing about falling in love with a boy anyway, right?

  “I mean, this is the problem for the teenage feminist girl. We’re just this big hormonal bag of contradictions, right? We look in the mirror and we say to ourselves, ‘Okay, you wanna be funny and smart, but not funnier and smarter than the boys because how are they gonna flirt if they can’t belittle you?’

  “You wanna be flirted with, but you don’t wanna look like you wanna be flirted with because that makes you a needy, possibly slutty let-down to the sisterhood.

  “And are you even allowed to have boobs as a feminist? I’m pretty sure you are—but are you allowed to be proud of them? Again, I think yeah—but I do suspect naming them is a no-no. So—Ant, Dec, keep your identities secret, okay?

  “So you look in that mirror and you say, ‘You’re a feminist—be yourself and be proud of who you are. Screw what people think! No, wait, you’re a girl, be ashamed of who you are. What other people think is everything—how dare you go against the grain?’

  “And I mean boys don’t have this crap, right? They might look like the Elephant Man, have the brainpower of a trout, and the muscles of a premature baby—but I bet you they look in the mirror and say, ‘Oh hell, yeah. You are all man. Go get ’em, tiger.’

  “They have the confidence of a warrior king even if it’s based on literally nothing. And I mean they’ve got the right idea there, haven’t they? We could take a leaf out of their book of never-failing confidence, right, girls? So, hang on, they’re right and we’re wrong on this? Which means boys are better than girls.

  “No, wait! Dammit!”

  And then it’s over. As everyone falls about with laughter, I feel pumped up and more alive than I’ve ever felt before. I step back from the mic to let the audience know I’ve finished my set. Cue even more applause. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Trying to remember every detail of this amazing moment.

  Then I step forward again and say, “My name’s Haylah Swinton. This has been amazing. You’re all amazing.
Thank you all so much. Goodnight.”

  The laughter, applause, and whooping still thunders around the theatre audience and as I replace the mic in its stand, unable to keep the massive smile from my face, I can clearly see my gorgeous little group of family and friends who are all on their feet and chanting, “Haylah, Haylah, Haylah…”

  It is, without doubt, the best night of my life.

  I make my way off the stage as Jonno takes the mic and tells the audience that all the acts are done and there will now be a brief pause in the proceedings. And for a few moments I’m backstage by myself. I just stand in the middle of the room, running my fingers through my hair, trying to take it all in. My brain is buzzing.

  Did that really just happen? Oh, my good holy frickin’ cobnuts, did that just happen!

  Then James and Van come in and Van actually hugs me and tells me I totally nailed it, followed by a few of the other contestants, who trickle in and tell me how good I was and I, of course, return the compliment and then, before I know it, I’m swamped with hugs from Kas and Chloe, Mum, and Noah, who’ve all made their way in. Even Ruben follows on behind them, giving me a proud if lipless grin from beneath his beard. They all screech with excitement and yell, “You were AMAZING! You’re SO gonna win!”

  And, for the first time, I really kind of believe them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  As I walk back out into the theatre, everyone I know cheers for me again, and my brain glows with a pure joy I’ve never felt before. All the kids from school, even Destiny and Jules, the crafting trio (and who knew their humor spanned further than cat memes?) and a load of guys from my year who’ve barely spoken to me before are gathering around and telling me how great I was, and then in the middle of all of them Leo walks over to me and holds out his hand to shake mine.

  “You were amazing. You totally deserve to win,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. And, well, truth is, I wouldn’t have done any of this without you—you showed me it was possible.”