Stuff

by Jeremy Strong

  Everyone was screaming. Someone pressed the alarm button and the escalator juddered to a halt. Pete’s pushchair had fallen sideways and he’d been tipped out (He wasn’t wearing a seat belt.)

  ‘I was run over by a twin-buggy’ he said. ‘I yelled so much, Mum and Dad thought I must have broken something. I was whisked off to hospital and had lots of X-rays and so on. But I’d just been very scared.’

  End of Pete’s Story

  ‘So, you never got to see Miles and Jemima modelling nappies?’

  ‘No. Sad, isn’t it? In here. I want to look at some jeans.’

  We marched into a department store and we were making our way through the women’s section when we came across Sky.

  ‘Hey! Just the people I need!’ she beamed excitedly.

  ‘Really? Us?’ Pete was grinning from ear to ear. He would.

  ‘I’m trying to find something for the party’ said Sky. ‘What do you think of this?’ She held a crop top across her chest, moulding it to her curves with her hands.

  I couldn’t bear it. ‘We’ve got to go –’ I began.

  ‘No, we haven’t. Try it on,’ said Pete.

  ‘Good idea. I’m going to try these jeans too. Wait there.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked Pete. ‘We can’t hang about here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I gazed around. We were surrounded by women’s things. We were right next to hangers full of bras and pants. I didn’t know where to look. I kept thinking the assistants must be watching us, but if I didn’t look at the bras, I was looking at knickers and if I wasn’t looking at knickers, I was looking at other stuff that seemed incredibly small and skimpy.

  ‘Hey look,’ said Pete, fingering some tiny pants. ‘Do they really wear these things?’

  ‘Put them back,’ I muttered. ‘Just try and be normal, will you?’

  ‘What do you think, boys?’

  It was Sky. She was back. My heart leaped into my throat. She looked fabulous.

  ‘Give us a twirl,’ said Pete.

  ‘Pete!’ I hissed, but I watched, mesmerized, as Sky turned round.

  She stopped and looked at Pete questioningly.

  ‘Stunning,’ he said, shaking his head in admiration. ‘Totally stunning.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘Hmm!’ All I could do was grin and nod like some five-year-old’s little plastic toy.

  Sky pulled at the top. ‘It’s not too tight?’

  ‘No.’ I swallowed, coughed, choked and went red.

  Sky giggled. ‘Thought I might try a bikini,’ she said.

  Pete’s eyes popped. God knows what mine were doing cartwheels probably.

  ‘But they haven’t got any’ she added. ‘Oh well, think I’ll get the top. Thanks for your help. See you tomorrow.’

  Off she went, leaving Pete and me saturated with every male hormone known to science, plus several more yet to be discovered. We could have sold our bodies for Science And The Good Of The World. We might have ended up having newly discovered hormones named after us, like Stufferomone and Peteromone, instead of which we just stared after Sky, in a happy trance.

  ‘Are you going to buy those knickers?’ an assistant demanded. ‘Or are you just resting your hand there?’

  Pete drew himself up and looked the assistant squarely in the eye. ‘I refute them, thus!’ he declared, whisking his hand away from the display.

  Then we fled. Stiffly.

  27

  Holy Sock!

  ‘You can’t go to a party on your own,’ the Trifle told Tasha.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ I offered.

  ‘I thought you two couldn’t stand the sight of each other?’ The Trifle remained suspicious.

  ‘Si’s OK.’

  Tasha’s mother shot me a look. Scorn with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Women,’ I joked. ‘Always changing their minds.’

  You might have thought that by now I would know it was always a Seriously Big Mistake to joke with a pregnant Trifle. The Trifle did not have a sense of humour. What the Trifle did have was a Seriously Withering Stare. She switched it on, powered up, looked at me and pulled the trigger: ‘And what exactly would Mr Fourteen-Year-Old-Adolescent-Boy-Child know about women?’

  ‘Dangerous,’ I hazarded. ‘And to be treated with respect.’

  The Trifle continued aiming her Seriously Withering Stare at me, but I could see I’d managed to take the sting out of it. ‘You’d better make sure you do,’ she grunted.

  ‘I’m cool,’ I said.

  ‘Cool is what you’re definitely not,’ muttered the Trifle. ‘Anyone who can use up four entire bottles of bath foam in one go and outrage an old lady is definitely not cool.’

  ‘It was only bubbles.’

  ‘Expensive bubbles!’

  ‘I said I was sorry. So, can we go to Pete’s party?’

  ‘You’ll have to check with your father, but I suppose it’s OK with me. There won’t be alcohol, will there?’

  Fat chance,’ said Tasha.

  ‘Good.’

  So, then Tasha had to spend ages deciding what to wear. She kept popping in and out of my room with a bewildering array of outfits, all of which looked fine to me. It was OK but it wasn’t eye-popping, like Sky’s display. That still made me feel hot all over.

  ‘What do you think of this?’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘It’s no good saying “It’s OK” all the time. Everything I’ve shown you has been “OK” so far.’

  ‘But they are OK. What else do you want me to say?’

  Tasha sat on my bed next to Pankhurst and crossed her legs. (Yes, you did read that right. The radical feminist rabbit was on my bed again. She was making quite a habit of it.) ‘Listen, this is how it is. There’ll be boys at this party, right, and girls. So promise you won’t laugh …’

  ‘I promise I won’t laugh.’

  ‘Swear you won’t make stupid noises or pull stupid faces …’

  ‘Tasha!’

  ‘Swear!’

  ‘ΟΚ, I swear on this sock …’

  ‘What’s so special about that sock?’ demanded Natasha.

  I pushed a finger through a hole in the toe. ‘Bless you, my child, it’s a holey sock,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s the Holey Sock of Stuff.’

  ‘Fine. Take the oath.’

  ‘I swear on this holey sock that I won’t whatever it was you asked me to swear.’

  ‘OK.’ Tasha bounced on the bed a bit and resettled herself. ‘It’s like this. It’s a party –’

  ‘Get on with it!’

  ‘And the boys will be after the girls, and the girls will be after the boys.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So, if you want to get someone in particular you have to put on a show. It’s no good being “OK”. You have to look so giga-brilliant that the person you’re after can only see you.’

  ‘Right.’ We looked at each other for several seconds. ‘So, what you’re saying is that you want to look good because there’s someone you’re after at the party?’

  Tasha blushed.

  I’d rumbled her. ‘So, who is it?’

  Silence.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I know you won’t because if you do I shall remove your head without your permission. Pete.’

  ‘Pete! My friend Pete?’

  ‘Why so surprised?’

  ‘You can’t trust him, Tash. He makes things up. You told me that yourself.’

  ‘He’s muddled, that’s all.’

  ‘He stole Sky from me.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He asked her out and she went off with him.’

  ‘Pete’s goino out with Sky?’ Her face fell. ‘I didn’t know that. Are you sure? I thought … oh well, never mind. I’m not going to give up on Pete, and you shouldn’t either.’

  ‘But I don’t want to go out with Pete.’

  ‘Stupid! You know what I mean. Maybe you should try asking Sky again.
’

  ‘I’ve got to dump Delfine first.’ I pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to hurt her.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Tasha said brightly. ‘Unavoidable. She’ll get over it.’

  ‘I know, maybe, but …’

  ‘Look, Si, you’re doing the right thing in the long run. At least you’re being honest with her. There’s no point in carrying on with someone when you don’t love them any more.’

  I paused a second and then said, ‘Does that include adults?’

  Bang! It was like I had just hit both of us on the head with a brick. It was almost exactly what Dad had said to me when he and Mum split up. For a few seconds Dad and I and Tash and Tracey were all sharing the same world and it wasn’t very comfortable. Tash and I stared at each other in silence. I wished we could un-think what we’d just thought, but now it was there.

  Tasha let out a long sigh. ‘You have to break up with Delfine and I’ve got to sort out Darcy, once and for all.’

  ‘Why don’t we do it at the party?’ I suggested. ‘That way we can do it together and Darcy won’t be able to make a fuss because there’ll be so many others there.’

  ‘What about when we’re back at school?’

  I shrugged. ‘All I know is that we can’t spend the rest of our lives going about in fear of what Darcy might do. We’ve got to face up to him. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘That’s all,’ echoed Tasha glumly.

  28

  Destiny Makes a Move

  This is true: there was a man who had hiccups for sixty-nine years. Sixty-nine years! That’s most of his life, and he’d be hiccuping no matter what he was doing.

  Eating and hiccuping.

  Sleeping and hiccuping.

  Riding a bicycle, hiccuping.

  Brushing teeth, hiccuping.

  Having hiccupy dreams. (About not having hiccups.)

  How can you possibly drink while hiccuping? He must have been such a mess – clothes covered with hiccuped sludge. Did he ever get to snog anyone? Supposing he didn’t – that would be so sad. Maybe he met a hiccuping woman, but that would make things even worse. Unless they had synchronized hiccups. Kiss-hic! Hic-kiss!

  Thinking about that man helped me to keep things in perspective. OK, so maybe Darcy was going to pulverize me, but at least I wouldn’t take sixty-nine years to die of hiccups. Sometimes it’s useful to bear in mind what others have to suffer.

  Like poor Delfine, hopelessly in love with me. And I was going to break her heart, because ever since Sky had arrived at school I’d felt that my destiny lay with her. Sky was my other half. That was how it seemed, even though I hardly knew her and we had spoken so little. I just knew there was something there. And, of course, she was quite simply huggatastic. Every time I saw her my body turned into an entire biochemistry experiment and all sorts of weird things happened.

  So Saturday came. I got out all my clothes and spread them around my room. Tash asked if I was having a spring clean.

  ‘Trying to decide what to wear tonight.’

  ‘Cool. I’ll help.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Listen, let me show you what Sky most probably likes. Is that a good idea or not?’

  ‘Maybe. I withhold judgement for the time being’

  She picked out a pair of white jeans I’d meant to bin months back.

  ‘I never wear those. Nobody wears white jeans!’

  And how many girls come running after you?’

  That rather floored me.

  ‘I thought not. So wear these jeans and this T and this top. Try them.’

  ‘Nobody looks like that!’

  ‘Exactly. You have to stand out, Si. Everyone will notice you. Your male friends will probably laugh because you’re different, but I reckon Sky likes different. So she’ll think, hey, he’s cute, he’s cool, and he doesn’t care what his mates think. He makes up his own mind. I like that. I want to be with him. I want to be close. I want to hold him. I want to kiss him. I want to –’

  ‘OΚ! You’ve made your point!’

  ‘Si – you’re looking awfully flushed.’

  ‘Yeah, and if you don’t get out of my room at once you’re going to look awfully dead.’

  ‘Charming. You try to help and all you get are death threats. I don’t –’

  ‘OUT!’

  I slammed the door and took several deep breaths. I got into the white jeans. I pulled on the Τ and tried the jacket. I stood in front of the mirror. I pushed my hair back. I did some dance moves. I fell over. Better try not to do that last bit at the party. I studied my reflection. A stick insect in white jeans. It was certainly different. But would it work?

  I took my mind off the evening by starting to draw the final instalment of Skysurfer. It was time for Punykid to face up to Obnoxx. In the drawings I was so powerful – I could make anything happen. I knew who was going to win, and I guess you know too, but my real-life battle was quite another matter.

  The human body has two million sweat glands. Count them if you don’t believe me. It’s an awful lot and every one of mine seemed to be on turbo-boost as Tasha and I went into Pete’s house. I had four things on my mind. (Multitasking! Maybe I was getting in touch with my feminine side hopefully, not too much.) Anyhow four things on my mind:

  1. What would everyone (especially Sky) think of how I looked?

  2. How would Delfine react when I told her it was all over? (I’d packed some pocket tissues to help out.)

  3. Just how painful was dealing with Darcy going to be?

  4. Sky? (A billion unanswered questions there.)

  You could hear the din from the music system halfway down his street. Pete’s Aunt Polly was at the door with a tall glass in one hand and her other round the waist of some hulk.

  ‘Hi, Stuff, who’s the beauty with you?’

  ‘My sister – Tasha.’ I was getting used to this. It sounded good.

  Aunt Polly squeezed the hulk’s waist. ‘This is Ryan.’

  ‘Nice,’ Tasha observed.

  ‘Hands off,’ beamed Aunt Polly. ‘Go on through. Pete’s out the back somewhere, chatting up the girls. Nice jeans, Stuff.’

  Did she really mean that or was she being sarcastic? I couldn’t tell from her smile and a second later Tasha was pulling me through to the back.

  The place was heaving with bodies – upright, downright, sideright – some dingoid was even standing on his head. (He crashed to the floor a second later.) There seemed to be a lot of smooching going on in dark corners. In fact, I wondered if there were any dark corners free.

  And a second after that I saw Sky. Dancing with Pete.

  Have you ever felt you’ve just been hit, only you haven’t? Like an invisible blow has knocked the wind out of you? Pete saw me and waved back wildly, a huge grin on his face. Sky glanced across and smiled.

  Someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned round.

  Delfine and Darcy.

  Darcy and Delfine.

  My destiny.

  29

  Toothbrushes and other WMDs

  Some Interesting Information About the Appendix and Toothbrushes

  Here’s a true story about the appendix and the First World War (1914 – 18 which, of course, you knew). The appendix is that, funny little bit of intestine that doesn’t appear to serve any purpose, except that it goes bad sometimes and makes you so ill you have to go to hospital and have it whipped out. (I suppose it can be done at home on the kitchen table with a potato peeler and bucket but hospital is advised.)

  People have had all sorts of strange ideas about why people get appendicitis, Some thought it came from eating too many peas. Complete rubbish, And during the First World War the British soldiers thought it came from swallowing loose toothbrush bristles. More rubbish, of course, but that’s what they thought, and they got this idea that the enemy were deliberately manufacturing toothbrushes with loose bristles and then somehow getting them sent to British soldiers. What a wickedly sneaky plot! As a weapon of mass destruction the t
oothbrush must have been quite awesome.

  End of Info About Toothbrushes, etc.

  So, face to face with Darcy I found myself wondering if there were any loose-bristled toothbrushes close at hand. Because I needed one. Desperately.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Delfine pouted. ‘I haven’t seen you for days. You haven’t been answering your mobile.’

  ‘Battery went,’ I lied. ‘Couldn’t get a new one. Anyhow, I’ve been busy. Listen, Delfine, we’ve got to talk.’

  I glanced up at Darcy. He gave me a big grin and drew a finger across his throat. Oh great.

  ‘Can we go somewhere without your big brother?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So we can be private.’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself, pustule,’ chuckled Darcy. ‘You’re wasting your time.’

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ I hissed at Delfine. Damn! I wanted this to be civilized. I wanted Delfine to understand that I was upset too, but she was making it so difficult. Delfine folded her arms across her chest and cocked her head on one side.

  ‘I don’t see much point in talking,’ Delfine said, examining her nails. ‘I don’t see much point in you at all, Simon. In fact, you’re dumped. So there. Ta-ta.’

  And that was it! She turned on her heel and swept from the room like the queen herself, except I don’t suppose the queen wears slingbacks and has a butterfly tattoo on her bottom. (She’d never shown me. I said: ‘What’s the point in having a tattoo there if you’re not going to show anyone?’ The thought was driving me crazy. Didn’t make any difference. She wouldn’t show me. No chance of seeing the butterfly now.)

  I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or what. It didn’t matter, because I didn’t have time to consider my reactions. Delfine might have gone, but Darcy was still there.

  ‘Seems like my sister has finished with you, my cretinous crudbasket.’ He grinned. ‘However, it pains me to tell you that I haven’t. Do you know what I have been living with for the last three days? A wet mess. I don’t like it when my sister gets upset because what upsets my sister upsets me and that makes me feel even worse, and who’s to blame for all this? A mucoid piece of pus. How very selfish of you.’