Looking for a Hero

by Cathy Hopkins

  Tyler was spending Christmas with his family in St Lucia and had flown off several days earlier after having set up a date in the calendar for next year. I liked him a lot and there was no reason that I shouldn’t go out with him because Joe still hadn’t said anything about us going steady. I’d decided to cut myself some slack and leave the decision-making about him until after Christmas. There wasn’t anything I could do so I wasn’t going to fret over it and ruin the holiday.

  As the family settled around the piano ready for our first song, my mobile bleeped that there was a text message. It was from Erin and she wanted me to go back to MSN. I promised Mum that I wouldn’t be long and raced back up the stairs to my computer.

  Irishbrat4eva: Sorry about before.

  Cinnamongirl: S’OK. Was it news of Scott?

  Irishbrat4eva: More than that, it was Scott. They let him out of hospital.

  Cinnamongirl: How did he sound?

  Irishbrat4eva: Subdued but . . . OK, I think. He actually apologised for being a dickhead.

  Cinnamongirl: Wow. That’s something for him.

  Irishbrat4eva: I know. He didn’t say much about last night but, when I asked how he was, he said: New Year soon, New chapter.

  Cinnamongirl: That sounds positive, doesn’t it?

  Irishbrat4eva: Yeah, for him. He’s not a boy of many words. New chapter. I think I got what he was saying.

  Cinnamongirl: Fingers crossed.

  Irishbrat4eva: Yeah. Hey, I haven’t asked about your show. How did it go?

  Cinnamongirl: Really good. A great success.

  Irishbrat4eva: Fantastic. How are the three lieges, yon loves of thy life?

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew Erin was feeling better the moment she lapsed back into our Shakespearian speak.

  Cinnamongirl: Verily, I am perplexed. My per has never been so plexed in fact. Tyler was lovely. He wants to be my number one liege, but Joe didst not look happily upon the situation.

  Irishbrat4eva: What about yon liege from the land of pasta?

  Cinnamongirl: Methinks that long-distance love can’t work in the long run, though it saddens my heart.

  Irishbrat4eva: Thou speaketh wisely. And thou canst always meet up with him later when you are an international artist jetting the globe. Hmm. So that’s one down, two left. Who doth thou choose?

  Cinnamongirl: I don’t know. It’s strange because, now that Joe sees that I may have someone else, he has been acting keen.

  Irishbrat4eva: Verily it is because love is a dance. You move forward, he moves away, he moves forward, you move away. He probably feels safe now, safe that you’re not desperate for only him and so he feels able to advance. That’s when things start to happen.

  Cinnamongirl: Verily. Remember a few months ago, I was wondering how you knew if you were really in love.

  Irishbrat4eva: Yeah. And how dost thou?

  Cinnamongirl: I don’t know. But I do know that it’s possible to love people in different ways. That I am sure of. As there is the pineapple, so is there the mango.

  Irishbrat4eva: Verily, thou hast been at the Christmas sherry methinks. Ah. I get you. Boys. Different flavours. Hmm. I guess thou needn’t makest thy mind up just yet, tis Christmas and the season to be jolly.

  Cinnamongirl: Ding dong verily on high.

  Irishbrat4eva: And a ding dong to you too, and fare thee well for my family dost beckon me down to attend yon church. Speaketh soon.

  Cinnamongirl: Fare thee well and may your dreams be full of fruit.

  Irishbrat4eva: Party on pineapple girl and may your melons be plentiful. Oh, don’t go yet. Woah thy horses. How did Leela, Zahrah and Brook fare in Leela’s love challenge?

  Cinnamongirl: Verily Zahrah has been smote by the arrows of lurve and she and Ryan are in smooch heaven.

  Irishbrat4eva: Hah! And she was the cooleth of them all.

  Cinnamongirl: Verily. Never say never.

  Irishbrat4eva: And yon others?

  Cinnamongirl: Sadly the land is barren when it comes to yon handsome knights to take their hands. And it is not for lack of looking.

  Irishbrat4eva: Verily. For I too doth search but to no avail. Tell them it will soon be a New Year and, as Scott says, it bringeth a new chapter for us all.

  Cinnamongirl: I will.

  Irishbrat4eva: And now I really do fare thee well. Laters.

  Cinnamongirl: Laters.

  Downstairs, I heard the doorbell ring so I shut my computer and ran downstairs to see who was there. Joe’s mum, Charlotte, had just arrived with a bunch of presents. Behind her was Joe, who gave me a cheeky grin.

  ‘Merry wotnot,’ he said.

  ‘Same to you with tinsel on,’ I replied but with a smile to show that I was pleased to see him.

  In the living room, Dad began to play the piano and we all went in and soon my family were singing carols with gusto, apart from Kate who looked on with disdain from her place on the end of the sofa where she was sitting with Tom, who wasn’t singing either. Dad moved on to songs from famous musicals and I wondered whether Joe was finding the whole thing mad, but I decided that if he didn’t like my family he wouldn’t really like me so I sang along at the top of my voice and challenged him with my eyes to join in. He sat and listened for a while with an amused expression on his face and then joined in when Dad played ‘Climb Every Mountain’ from The Sound of Music. He had an awful voice and I put my fingers in my ears and he stuck his tongue out at me. When Dad went back to carols and began to play, ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’, Joe got up and whispered, ‘India, can we talk for a sec?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said and got up to follow him out through the hall and into the kitchen.

  He shut the door behind us and turned to look at me. ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Have you decided what you’re doing?’

  ‘What like my GSCE subjects? Yeah ages ago.’

  Joe came and playfully wrung my neck. ‘No. Not your GSCEs. You know I don’t mean them. What about us? What about the guy I saw you with at the show?’

  ‘Tyler? He’s in St Lucia.’

  ‘Wow. Lucky guy. So is it serious with him?’

  I shrugged and decided to give him back some of the lines he had given me ever since I met him. ‘Early days but, you know, I’m young. I haven’t even played the field yet. I don’t want to commit to anyone.’

  ‘But what about us? You know there’s something special here.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, but,’ I indicated the door, ‘through there are my family and my aunt Sarah and your mother, Charlotte. If we get involved and it doesn’t work out, it wouldn’t be good. No. Too close to home.’ I said it in a light-hearted way though and with a twinkle in my eye so that he’d get that I was teasing him.

  Joe nodded. ‘Hah. Ouch. Yeah. Hmm. Sounds familiar. OK. You got me. So . . . what if a guy changes his mind? Is ready to take a risk?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know, Joe. I’m not a player. I don’t believe in messing people around or cheating, but . . .’ A thought hit me like a thunderbolt.‘Oh. My. God!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve just realised something. Ohmigod. About you. Ohmigod.’

  ‘What?’

  I couldn’t say it to his face. I needed time to take it in, but what I had realised was that I was just the same as he was. And that I understood totally where he’d been coming from when he’d told me that he didn’t want to get involved. When he’d said that he really liked me but didn’t want to get tied down, well, he wasn’t being rotten. He was being honest. His situation had been no different to mine now and I know that I’m not a love rat or a user. I just happened to meet three fantastic boys all around the same time.

  I couldn’t help it. I found myself grinning.

  ‘What?’Joe asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just . . . another thing I’ve realised that we’ve got in common.’

  At that moment, the door burst open. It was Mum. She picked up a tray of mince pies from the table. �
�Come on, you two, we’re going to sing some more carols.’

  Joe grinned.‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said and we followed Mum through the hall and towards the living room. Just before we went into the room Joe caught my hand and pulled me back. I didn’t resist and he quietly closed the living room door and pointed to the mistletoe that Mum had hung up from the ceiling the night before.

  ‘So?’ he asked.

  I stepped forward.

  No harm in a Christmas kiss. And a ding dong merrily on high, I thought as we leaned forward and melted into each other’s lips.

  Just before going to sleep that night, I was looking for a book in my school rucksack and I came across the CD that Joe had given me weeks ago. I put it in my CD-player and lay back on the bed.

  He’d said that it was some music that expressed what was going on in his head and a couple of tracks that he’d been into lately. I pressed Play and the sound of Neil Young’s voice filled the room. ‘I want to live with my Cinnamon Girl, I could be happy for the rest of my life with my Cinnamon Girl.’

  When Santa did his rounds that night, he would have seen that I’d fallen asleep with a big stupid smile on my face.