Cassie's Crush

by Fiona Foden

  P.S. Everyone could see the Leech’s knickers while she was on Ollie’s back. They were bright pink with sparkly red hearts on. Puke…

  Got soaked walking home from school. Marcia had gone ice-skating and Evie was having a piano lesson. I’m not allowed to do stuff like that ‘cause it’s too expensive, Mum says. Maybe if she had a proper job, and Dad could get promoted at the jam factory, we’d have more money so I could be an ice-skating pianist or something instead of just a lopsided freak with no special talents.

  A lorry thundered past me, sloshing me with stinking puddle water. I hurried on, conscious of Stalking Paul breathing heavily behind me. “Cassie! Wait up!” he shouted.

  I walked even faster with my head down.

  “Hey, Cass,” he yelled again, “you’re all wet!”

  I stopped and examined myself. “You’re right,” I said. “Thanks for pointing it out. Otherwise I might not have noticed.”

  I started walking again and he fell into step with me, chomping his gum with big jaw movements like a cow chewing cud. “I’ve just realized something,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You know boob?”

  “Huh?” Even though I had my coat on, I still jammed my arm over my left side.

  “Boob,” Paul repeated. “Like, the word boob…”

  “Uh, yeah,” I mumbled.

  “It’s the same spelt backwards as it is forwards!” Paul announced, like he’d just discovered the cure for cancer. Then he poked at the yellow-headed spot on his chin.

  “Is it really?” I said.

  “Yeah. Like, B-O-O-B,” Paul said, spelling it out in case I’d had my head opened up and my brain removed.

  “Mmmm,” I said.

  “Another’s one’s P-O-O-P,” he added. His spot was really huge. If you can call a spot angry then this one was furious. “It’s funny, innit,” he said, “how all the rude words are the same spelt backwards as they are forwards?”

  “Are they?”

  “Yeah! Like, like…”

  There was a pause while his brain clanked and grinded. “Bum!” he announced, hurrying to keep up as I strode along.

  I slid my eyes over to him. “That’s not the same. Backwards, it’s spelled MUB.”

  We stopped beside Mum’s glowing pink van. “Oh yeah,” Paul said sheepishly.

  “Well,” I said, “thanks for the tip. If I’m stuck on how to spell any rude words I’ll know where to come.”

  He looked confused, like he didn’t know if I was joking or not. “Er, Cassie,” he added, shuffling a bit.

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you, er, would you like to…” Oh no. He was blushing bright red, so I had a pretty good idea what was coming next, even though I’ve never been asked out by a boy in my life. A load of responses whizzed round my head, like, “Sorry, Paul, I’m really busy at the moment – forever, in fact…”

  “I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime?” he muttered.

  “Erm, I can’t really,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m going out with somebody already.” The words shot out before I could stop them. I turned and ran into the house, praying he wouldn’t tell anyone at school or there’ll be a “Who’s Cassie Malone going out with?” thing flying round. And Ned will find out and it’ll be all round his year as well. So I’ll never hear the end of it at home either. I thought being asked out was supposed to be a good thing?

  Beth had hidden her baby-soft tissues (she must have counted them and noticed a couple missing; it’s a wonder she didn’t call the police) so I was stuck for what to stuff into the left side of my bra. Thought about a sock or a pair of knickers, but I couldn’t get either of them to lie in a naturally smooth boob shape. Ned had gone to school early so I had a quick search in his room for something to use. He’s always making big fancy sculptures for school (he’s three years above me and they get to do much better art) so I was hoping there’d be some foamy stuff or cotton wool or something. All I could find were a few sheets of bright blue tissue paper. I folded them up and tucked them in. It looked fine, like I really was a normal-shaped girl.

  I called for Marcia and Evie on the way to school. “What you need to do,” Marcia said, “is find out as much as you can about Ollie so you know where he goes and what he’s interested in.”

  “So you’ll have loads to talk about,” Evie agreed.

  “I could kind of study him,” I added, all keen, “like an exam subject or something…”

  “You could rummage through his bin, like people do with film stars,” giggled Evie, and the three of us were soon in hysterics about the idea of stealing a ladder to snoop through his bedroom window. It still worried me, though, that I seem to be thinking about Ollie all the time these days. I always thought crushes were fun things to mull over if you were a bit bored in a maths lesson. But not this one. It’s far more stressy than that. I could hardly eat Mum’s horrible dried-out roast chicken last night because I was too busy replaying last week’s chip shop scene in my mind. Had Ollie asked Sam to call me over for a chip, just for an excuse to be near me?

  “We’ll help you,” Marcia said eagerly. “We’ll make it a thing, like an operation…”

  “An operation?” I repeated.

  “Yeah! You know – like Operation Spy…”

  “Spying on Ollie,” Evie chipped in.

  “That’s it!” I exclaimed. “Operation Spying On Ollie Peyton. Operation SOOP.” It sounded perfect, and a lot more effective than climbing on his back and flashing my knickers like the Leech does, not that I’d ever do that. I have far too much dignity. Operation SOOP did sound a bit like stalking behaviour, but so what? There’s no law against that (I don’t think).

  “Oh, guess who asked me out yesterday?” I added.

  “Not Stalking Paul?” Evie spluttered.

  I nodded.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I already had a boyfriend.”

  Marcia gave me an are you mad look. “Why?”

  “It … was all I could think of. I had to say something, didn’t I?”

  “You could have just said no thanks,” Marcia said, shaking her head.

  I knew what she meant. Marcia always makes things seem so simple, whereas I tend to make life … complicated. It started raining while I was trying to figure out why, so we ran to school because I’d forgotten my coat. By the time we got there I was drenched. It wasn’t all bad, though, as we had art first thing and Ollie’s on my table. We were painting, doing watercolour pictures of a fruity still life. This would have been boring in the old Ollie-free days, when my whole life was boring, but I was really into it, trying to do my best so he’d think I’m amazingly talented.

  Sam and Ollie were chatting. I was enjoying painting but felt horribly clammy because of my damp school sweatshirt. So I took it off and slung it over the back of my chair. I carried on painting, wondering what conversation starter I could use on Ollie, when I noticed he wasn’t painting or even talking to Sam. He was staring at me.

  I looked up, then down, to see what he was staring at. Then I saw. The left side of my white top had this massive blue splodge. It looked like I’d been shot with an ink pellet.

  “Had an accident, Cassie?” Ollie sniggered.

  “Yeah. I, er, must’ve spilled some paint on myself.” I grabbed my sweatshirt and dragged it on over my head, knowing that Ollie and Sam were thinking exactly what I was thinking: we were painting apples, bananas and tangerines. None of them are blue, obviously, so where the heck had the splodge come from? I even glared up at the ceiling in case some kind of toxic blue chemical had dripped on to me and I was about to drop dead.

  At lunchtime, I grabbed Marcia. “Look what happened!” I hissed in the loo, lifting up my sweatshirt to show her.

  �
�What did you do?” she asked.

  “I put some tissue paper in my bra and the rain must have soaked through and made the dye run…”

  “Why did you put tissue paper in your bra?” she asked, accidentally leaning on the hand dryer, which started up with a huge roar.

  “To pad it, to even it out with the other one…” I was sweating, really panicking.

  “God, Cassie. You’re mad, you know that? You’ll just have to keep your sweatshirt on all day.”

  “But it’s all damp!” I wailed.

  “Could you run home and get another shirt?”

  I thought about this. I doubted whether I’d make it there and back in time for the bell. Anyway, Mum would be home, and she’d spot the big blue patch, because she notices everything, and interrogate me about it. “Those school tops cost money!” etc, etc. I could hear it now. “Could we go to yours?” I asked.

  Marcia nodded. “OK, if we’re quick.”

  Brilliant. I could get changed at Marcia’s and throw away the blue-stained shirt and Mum would never know anything about it. I could just tell her it must’ve got lost in the wash. Our washing machine is always eating things.

  As soon as the lunch bell went, me and Marcia hurried off to her house. She let us in, and we ran upstairs, where she rummaged through her drawers for a clean white top. No tops. “Maybe Mum’s got one you could wear,” she suggested.

  “What?” I pictured myself in some terribly flowery blousy thing with a bow at the neck. And I’d thought my day couldn’t get any worse.

  “She’s not much bigger than you,” Marcia said, “and she’s got a few plain white tops with little collars that she wears for tennis.”

  I gulped hard. “What if she finds out?”

  “She won’t,” Marcia said, grinning. “She only plays tennis in summer.”

  This sounded like a plan. I followed Marcia into her mum’s bedroom, checking that I wasn’t bringing in any dirt on my shoes. Marcia opened a drawer and pulled out a white top. It had three buttons, a little collar and was almost like our school polo tops, apart from a tiny crocodile logo on the chest. “Sure she won’t find out?” I took it from Marcia and held it up against myself.

  “No, it’ll be fine. Go to the bathroom and sort yourself out. And hurry up – we’ve only got fifteen minutes till bell.”

  I bolted into the bathroom and pulled off my top and blue-stained bra. As I peeled off the wodge of damp tissue paper, I realized the blue dye had actually sunk into my skin. Grabbing a flannel, I tried to scrub it off. It wouldn’t budge. I was stained, probably for ever. So now my left boob wasn’t just slow-developing. It was blue as well.

  I rubbed and rubbed, but all that happened was my skin got sore and kind of pinky-blue. Then I heard the downstairs door open and Marcia’s mum shouting, “Hello? Hello? Is that you, Marcia?”

  I stopped dead. “Oh, hi, Mum!” Marcia said in a panicky voice.

  I realized some of the blue dye had gone on to the flannel and quickly dropped it into the washbasin.

  “What are you doing here?” her mum asked. I heard her spiky heels clopping up the wooden stairs.

  “Just popped back for something,” Marcia said.

  “What?” her mum asked.

  “Er, my geography homework. I forgot my jotter this morning and I’ll be in massive trouble if I don’t hand it in…”

  I could tell they were standing on the landing, just outside the bathroom door. My heart was rattling in my chest. “It’s not like you to forget your books,” Marcia’s mum said sternly.

  “I know, Mum…”

  In panic, I threw my stained top and bra into the wicker laundry basket, where I hid them under a horrible peach-coloured nightie. Then I pulled on Marcia’s mum’s top.

  “You need to be more organized, Marcia,” her mum went on. “Anyway, I’ve got a presentation to work on this afternoon, can’t get a minute’s peace in the office, so I thought I’d come home and—” The bathroom door swung open. Marcia’s mum was standing there, glaring at me.

  “Cassie? What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I … I just came to keep Marcia company,” I muttered.

  “Really? So the two of you needed to come all this way to pick up a jotter?”

  “Er, yeah…” Marcia stared down at the floor.

  “Are you telling the truth? Or are you two up to something?” Her mum’s eyes were narrow and mean and her mouth was all scrunched down at the corners. I started to feel lucky that my mum only makes me scrub out the van. “And is there any reason,” she went on, obviously furious now, “why you’re wearing my best tennis top, Cassie?”

  “I, er … oh!” I looked down in surprise, as if I’d only just noticed I had it on.

  “Cassie’s school top got wet,” Marcia explained quickly. “I said you wouldn’t mind if she borrowed it. You’ll bring it into school all washed and clean tomorrow, won’t you, Cassie…”

  “Of course I will!” I said.

  “But that’s a Lacoste top,” her mum snapped. “Do you have any idea how much they cost?”

  My throat went all tight. I wanted to pull off her stupid Lacoste top and run out of their horrible squeaky-clean house, even if it meant being half naked. “Er, twenty pounds?” I suggested.

  “Twenty pounds?” Her mum did a horrible bitter laugh. “It was a lot more than that, Cassie, although I wouldn’t expect you to know about expensive sportswear. It was seventy-five pounds, actually.”

  Seventy-five pounds, for a top! Marcia’s mum might seem super-brainy in her scary grey trouser suit but she wasn’t half ripped off. “That’s a lot,” I agreed. “You can get them loads cheaper in the market.”

  “I don’t shop at the market,” she spluttered.

  Hell. I was only trying to do her a favour, save her a few quid next time she’s out shopping. “I’ll take it off, then,” I said quietly.

  “No, just keep it.” She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “You can drop it off tomorrow on the way to school. But please don’t damage it or pull it out of shape.”

  “OK. And, er … thanks.” What did she mean, don’t pull it out of shape? Does she think I’m so weirdly formed that I’ll make it all lumpy and baggy?

  “Better get back to school now,” she added.

  “OK,” Marcia said, checking her watch. Without even seeing it, I knew we were going to be horribly late back. But it wasn’t our fault. We’d have been in plenty of time if Marcia’s mum hadn’t ranted on about the price of sportswear.

  “Don’t you have a coat, Cassie?” she called after us at the front door.

  “No, I forgot it today.”

  “What, in the middle of winter? Goodness! Well, I suppose you could borrow one of Marcia’s…”

  “No, it’s all right, thanks,” I said, striding away from the house with Marcia scuttling at my side. If a tennis top cost seventy-five pounds, God knows what they spend on coats around here.

  By the time I got home I felt dizzy and weak, as I hadn’t had time for lunch with all the drama. To make absolutely sure I didn’t “pull it out of shape”, I changed out of Marcia’s mum’s top straightaway. Mum needed me to give a Labradoodle a haircut, hold a spaniel while she trimmed his nails and shampoo a red setter. The setter took ages – he took an instant dislike to the grooming brush, so I had to muzzle him to get the job done. If that wasn’t enough, once the dogs had been dealt with, Dad asked me and Ned to help him find out where the cheesy stink in our car is coming from.

  “Maybe it’s not cheese,” Ned suggested, sticking his head into the car and sniffing.

  “It smells like cheese,” Dad said, taking out all the carpets for about the hundredth time and even sticking his nose in amongst the enginey bits.

  “Maybe it’s something dead and rotting,” Ned added cheerfully.

  “Oh, I don’t know,
” Dad said with a shrug. “I’m sure it’ll disappear into the atmosphere eventually.” Let’s hope that happens before we all die from inhaling the poisonous fumes.

  Agggh!!! I forgot the precious Lacoste top so I couldn’t call for Marcia on the way to school. Had to walk the long way round so her mum wouldn’t spot me through the window and run out and grab me, and that made me late. To make my day worse, Stalking Paul stared at me all through English, and Miss Rashley told me off again for “being completely incapable of focusing”. How could I focus, with Paul gawping and breathing at me and Ollie smirking just a few desks away?

  After dinner I borrowed Ned’s laptop again, googled a few body and advice-type websites and finally found out this:

  MY RIGHT BOOB IS PROBABLY BIGGER BECAUSE I AM RIGHT-HANDED, SO THAT SIDE GETS MORE EXERCISE.

  That’s it! All I have to do is train myself to be left-handed. Why didn’t I think of that before?

  My first day as a left-handed person. I managed to get toothpaste foam all down my chin and could hardly shovel my cornflakes into my mouth. When I had a little practice at writing, the best I could manage was a wobbly baby scrawl. My left hand was aching already and my right one felt strangely underused.

  I’d washed Marcia’s mum’s top but still needed to iron it. I could have cheated and used my right hand to iron (I mean to hold the iron and not actually iron with my hand, ha ha) but I didn’t want to give up that easily. If I could manage to iron using my left hand, surely I’d get through a day at school being left-handed too?

  I gripped the iron and tried to smooth it over the top, but kept making more creases and wrinkles. “Can’t you iron yet?” Beth remarked, swanning into the kitchen. It was unusual to see Beth up at this time. Normally, unless Henry’s driving her to some posh family event or something, she waits until me and Ned are out of the way before emerging from her princess quarters.