Ben
Fifteen years old …
‘What do you think of Maddy?’ I asked Robert as we kicked a football around his garden. It was a Saturday afternoon in mid-June, but a cool, cloudy day. Maddy wasn’t about, she’d gone to visit her nan who still lived in Harrow, so it was just us two for a change. Football wasn’t really her thing, so we made the most of having a kick-around when we could do – without being grumbled at. I took the opportunity to talk to Robert about something that had been playing on my mind. Maddy.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, confused by my vague question. He rolled the ball back on to his toe and flicked it upwards so that it landed on his knee, enabling him to bounce it from one to the other, on to his chest and then back over to me with considerable control. Robert was ridiculously talented with a ball – in fact, he was great at any sport, ball or no ball. He always won, no matter what the game – something that was helped by his competitive streak. He liked being the best, whereas I was too laid-back to care. Perhaps that’s why we worked so well together.
‘I dunno …’ I shrugged, putting my foot on top of the ball to stop it before slowly passing it back in his direction as I struggled to formulate my words. ‘She’s not like the other girls in our class …’
We’d been attending Peaswood High for the past four years. It was a lot bigger than our primary school, with loads more children, but all three of us had managed to get into the same form class – thanks to us begging our parents to ask the headmaster. So nothing much had changed when it came to our friendship. We still lived in each others’ pockets and were as tight as ever. Occasionally one of us would get close to another kid and they’d join us for a bit – but they’d wander off eventually, put off by how close we all were, I reckon. So the three of us had stuck together, as we’d promised we would. We’d even come up with our own group name – ‘The Tripod’. Yeah, it was only mildly better than Laura and her Pink Dreamers, but it meant something. The name came from our first science lesson with Mrs Fellows – an extremely strict teacher with an irritatingly high-pitched nasal voice. One of the kids in class had been playing with his tripod, instead of listening to her riveting lesson on the periodic table, and bent one of its metal legs. The teacher made him stand on his chair as punishment and, as if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, proceeded to give him a massive lecture on respecting school equipment before detailing the important qualities of the tripod. She said, ‘Tripods have three legs. They rely on each other for support. If they stand together they are strong and united. BUT if one breaks, they are all rendered useless …’ We turned to each other with little smirks, all thinking the same thing – yeah, we’re a fricking tripod!
‘What’s made you ask, anyway?’ Robert probed as he flicked the ball in the air and head-butted it repeatedly, continuously keeping an eye on it as he jerked his body around to wherever the ball was headed – always a step ahead and ready to tap it skywards.
‘Nothing … It’s just I heard Antony and John talking about her,’ I shrugged.
‘Yeah? What did they say?’ he asked with a frown, catching the ball in his hands and looking at me – my revelation grabbing his full attention.
‘That they thought she was fit.’
‘Really?’ He raised both his eyebrows and puffed out his cheeks as he mulled over the comment.
Going to ‘big school’ and mixing with people from outside of Peaswood (they all arrived on coaches every morning – streamed in by their hundreds), we suddenly discovered how sheltered our lives were. Our idea of a fun night was riding around on our bikes down our road and grabbing some penny sweets or collectable stickers from the newsagents, but in those first few years at secondary school we were shocked as we heard many tales of raunchy things happening at under-eighteen discos. Even the school discos or birthday parties we went to were eye-opening – kids would go around snogging as many people as they could, tallying them up in some sort of tongue-wagging competition. The three of us would be awkwardly stood on the dance floor, getting our groove on to ‘Cotton Eye Joe’, as we tried to stop ourselves from gawping at the sight of it all. Before going to Peaswood High, that kiss between Greg and Becky was the rudest thing we’d ever seen and that was nothing to our new classmates. Even four years in we struggled to keep up – we were too busy being the children we were supposed to be. Some of the other kids were simply much more advanced than us – kids like Anthony and John, who we knew had both been ‘all the way’ with various girls in our year. Knowing that they were now talking about Maddy in that way, that she was on their radar, made me feel really protective of her. And irritated.
‘Well, she’s not ugly …’
‘Definitely not.’
‘In fact, yeah, she is cute, I guess,’ shrugged Robert, his face returning to its earlier frown as he contemplated our best friend in a way he clearly hadn’t before.
Robert had been flirting with a girl in our class called Daniella that week. They both knew they fancied each other and that they’d be snogging each other’s faces off at the next party, it was only a matter of time. I think his own concerns for our female friend were fuelled with the knowledge of the racy thoughts that had been going through his teenage mind about his looming first sexual encounter with Daniella.
‘It’s strange to hear that said about her, though, you know?’ he added.
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’
‘Makes me feel weird.’
‘Same …’ I nodded.
‘Do you think Maddy likes one of them?’
The question threw me. It was toe-curling enough thinking of them fancying her, but I hadn’t even thought about Maddy fancying one of them. We didn’t really talk about that sort of stuff with her – she could ask us any questions she liked, for instance she’d been quizzing Rob no end about him fancying Daniella, but we’d never probed her on the topic of the opposite sex. Well, I didn’t anyway.
‘I dunno …’ I muttered.
‘Maybe you should ask her.’
‘Do you reckon?’
‘Why not? I bet she’d like hearing that they called her fit,’ he grinned.
Standing there, just the two of us, in the safety of his back garden, I thought about telling him how I felt – confessing that I thought Maddy was more than fit, that I thought she was the most amazing girl ever to have graced the planet, but I didn’t. I’d been feeling that way for so long and our friendship, the one the three of us shared, stopped me from saying anything, like it had done in the past whenever the words were on the tip of my tongue. We were a tripod. We stuck together to help each other through whatever dramas life chucked our way, we weren’t meant to be creating them or making things complicated between each other. I’d always thought that if I were to tell Maddy how I really felt it would have caused things to change between the three of us. It could have ruined everything and driven a humungous wedge between us that we’d never be able to get rid of. I never wanted that to happen to us. I carried those fears with me and they kept my heart in check – stopping me from blurting out declarations of love that, for all I knew, I could have ended up regretting.
Anthony and John paying her attention had got my back up, perhaps because they had the freedom to say what they felt and more of a chance with her than I did – and I knew they’d use that chance to get as far with her as they could. They’d have no respect for the kind and wonderful girl I knew her to be. They were teenage boys with one thing in mind. Sex. I couldn’t stand it.
Our morning routine had been set on our first day at Peaswood High – Maddy walked round to mine, then we’d both continue round to pick up Robert before heading into school. It had originally started with our mums taking us in convoy, but within a month we’d managed to persuade them that we were fine to do the five-minute walk alone. So, on the Monday morning after speaking to Robert, as soon as I’d closed my front door and taken one of the pink peardrop sweets she was offering me, I decided to bring up the conversation.
‘Erm … I heard Anthony and John talking about you the other day,’ I said, popping the sweet into my mouth, my eyes instantly watering at the sweetness of it.
‘Those two idiots,’ she sighed, rolling her eyes. ‘What were they saying?’
‘They called you fit.’
‘Haaa!’ she shrieked, as she grabbed hold of my arm and stopped on the pavement. Shaking with laughter, she tilted her head back, covering her face with her hands to quieten the sound.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Anthony Burke and John Martin?’ she giggled.
I shrugged – not understanding her apparent aversion to them.
‘Pass me a bucket!’
She laughed the whole way into school.
I couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t about to start dating one of them if that was what she thought of them …
Or so I’d thought.
It’s possible that my little chat with Maddy had resulted in her mind being awoken to the possibility of fancying John – the dim-witted yet more pleasant of the two rogues. Such is the fickle nature of a teenager’s heart, what wasn’t there one minute had grown into a colossal flirtation the next. At least, that’s what it felt like for me – and the change came suddenly. That very same day, when we were in afternoon registration, John walked over and whispered something to Maddy. I have no idea what was said, but was surprised to witness her cheeks pinking as she pouted out her lips into a smile before tapping him gently on the arm. She was visibly flirting. And I knew that was the case because she couldn’t look at me for several minutes afterwards – no doubt she could sense my unbelieving eyes staring at her incredulously, questioning her behaviour.
It simmered along in that playful manner for a few weeks, suggestive gazes and whisperings going back and forth, until Julia Hicks’s birthday party. On that night of childish antics, not only did Rob go off to snog Daniella, but Maddy ended up tucked away in a dark corner of the room playing tonsil tennis with John.
The never-ending stream of cocktail sausages at the buffet table were my only comfort that night.
I wouldn’t say I was happy a week later when John decided Maddy wasn’t his type after all. Watching her become deflated and embarrassed at being carelessly dumped was certainly uncomfortable, but I definitely felt relieved that their coquettish behaviour had come to an end. I selfishly found it reassuring and comforting to have things go back to normal. Well, almost back to normal –John may not have taken his relationship with Maddy much further, but Robert and Daniella had become an official item. This was a pairing I didn’t mind so much. It didn’t leave me seething and depressed; in fact, it was almost the opposite. I enjoyed having Maddy to myself a little more when Rob’s attention had been diverted away from us. I liked us becoming a twosome.
Maddy
Fifteen years old …
The summer before going into year eleven was a glorious one. Every day seemed to be spent running around in the sweltering sunshine with careless abandon. The long days stretched the daylight hours, increasing the time we had to explore and play. More than any other summer holiday I can remember, that one was gay and merry – our last chance to be proper kids before heading back to school, turning sixteen and starting the gruelling lead-up to our GCSE exams. For the last time in our lives we were free from worries, responsibilities and expectations. It was a summer filled with smiles of contentment … for the most part, anyway.
We were that little bit older by then and our mums felt at ease about us going out independently, allowing us to go into the village on our own – as long as we promised to stay together and headed home before it got dark. They implied they were doing us a favour but, let’s face it, we were a handful and it was a relief for them to get rid of us for a few hours when they could. There was only so much they could take of us being under their feet after they had been used to sending us off to school each day. With us out of their hair they were left to enjoy the peace that had only existed before we came into the world kicking and screaming.
Robert and Daniella (the school’s current golden couple) had frequently been found snogging each other’s faces off whenever they had the chance during term time. Despite their keenness, though, they hadn’t actually managed to see each other so far during that summer break. Instead they had been texting almost every day and spent an hour every night on MSN. Much to Ben’s and my disdain.
Our local park, to which we’d become regular visitors, had a variety of trees lining the pathways and clustered around its edges, most of which we’d succeeded in climbing. The boys had developed a little routine when it came to tackling their vertical beams, one that was aggravating to say the least. Essentially, they would clamber up as quickly as they could, perch from up high and grin down at me, heckling for me to start climbing. I had no doubt that Robert and Ben never saw my being a girl as something that made me a lesser human being, but when it came to climbing trees I was slower and more fearful – something that amused them. Now, I wasn’t a girlie girl, I wasn’t scared of getting grubby. I just wasn’t overly keen on heights! Usually I overcame my fear and cautiously ascended, taking care not to look down until I was on a sturdy branch but, occasionally, if the tree just seemed too big and freaked me out, I’d decline the challenge and remain grounded, much to the boys’ annoyance. I’d lie beneath the tree, basking in the gorgeous sunshine, ignoring the leaves and twigs that they playfully threw down
at me until they got bored and descended, joining me at ground level.
Three weeks into our six weeks of freedom we were once again in the park, towards its back end, with the boys deciding what tree to take on.
‘This one!’ shouted Ben as he approached a sparse-looking beech tree, and started to fly up it with ease.
Robert followed suit. Only once they were both dangling from its branches, swinging with youthful serenity, did they look down at me, Ben grinning manically, while Robert simply raised his eyebrows, daring me to join them.
‘Come on,’ called Ben. ‘Hurry up!’
‘Don’t rush me,’ I warned in a huff as I placed my baby blue rucksack next to the base of the tree, took out a bottle of Coke and downed a big gulp of it, the fizz burning my insides in my haste.
‘I don’t understand what takes you so long.’
‘I’m just getting ready.’
‘You’ve climbed bigger!’ encouraged Ben.
‘I know, I know …’ I faltered, peering up at the pair of them, each in their grubby army-like camouflage shorts and khaki-green t-shirts. Their look was certainly Action Man inspired, my own was a touch more Sporty Spice, with dark blue Adidas trackie bottoms that had three florescent orange stripes running down each leg. Stupidly I’d put on a white t-shirt that day, and there was no way it would still be gleaming white by the time I got home, so I knew I’d get a telling off from Mum for getting it dirty.
‘It’s an easy one!’ Ben encouraged.
‘Get up here!’ yelled Robert, taking a more forceful approach. After a heavy pause he slowly, and teasingly, added, ‘Don’t be such a girl, Maddy.’
Well, that was enough to get me out of my strop and up the tree instantly. Talk about succumbing to peer pressure. Ben was right, it wasn’t as hard as some of the others they’d forced me up and, as long as I looked up it and not down at my feet, the height didn’t seem so bad. I just took my time.
‘I knew that would get you up here,’ Robert laughed with a cheeky wink, once I’d joined them on the steady branch they were both perched on.
‘Very clever,’ I smiled, looking out at the rest of the park.
Putting my fears aside, there was nothing like being up high in a tree with Robert and Ben. Even though we were realistically only seven or eight feet in the air, to us that seemed ginormous – we might as well have been at the top of the Empire State Building, it would have evoked the same feeling of wonder. The air seemed different up there, cooler and fresher, and the view more beautiful than when we were grounded. We could
see the whole park. There was also something about becoming invisible to others as we hid behind the tree’s leaves and branches that felt magical. I completely understood why the boys loved being up there so much. An overwhelming sense of peace would take over us for a moment or two when we first sat there, as though we’d entered a new world.
Inevitably, at some point, the peace and tranquillity we’d marvelled over would descend into chaos with the boys shaking the branches and trying to do forward rolls on them. I’d clamp my arms and legs onto the branch and scream my head off at them to stop, scared that we were on the verge of falling and breaking all of our bones. They never listened to me, they just cackled, finding my fears hilarious.
Getting down was always fun too … NOT. The boys would courageously swing and leap to the ground, landing with ease, whereas I’d painstakingly hold on for as long as I could while the boys shouted at me to jump – occasionally pulling at one of my legs if they got really bored of waiting for me.
That’s how it had been on that day in the middle of our summer holidays – the boys had teased me just as much to get down the tree as they had to get up it. That’s why, as we were walking back through the park heading home, I decided it was time to get my own back on the overly
confident duo. I hated being the weaker one. It was time for them to squirm instead. And so, as we walked towards a tree we’d nicknamed ‘The Big Green’, a monster of an oak tree that had been too difficult for any of us to master with its wide girth and sporadic branches, an idea popped into my head.
You're the One That I Want Page 3
