The Kissing Game

by Jean Ure

  Mr Mounsey said, “Well, yes that is certainly one name for it – cliché. Meaning worn out or hackneyed.”

  I looked at Harmony with some annoyance. What a nerd!

  Mr Mounsey then went on to tell us that as well as being a cliché, my figure of speech was also a metaphor.

  “This is when one thing – the rain – is said to actually be another thing – cats and dogs.”

  Kelvin Clegg immediately shouted out, “How can rain be cats and dogs?”

  Kelvin Clegg is lower down the scale of evolution than an amoeba, but I think he actually had a point there. How can rain be cats and dogs?

  You could tell that Mr Mounsey was at a bit of a loss. He went on about symbolism in a very vague sort of way. Just burbling, really. Obviously didn’t have the faintest idea. He was saved by the bell, as teachers often are. He said, “Yes, well! Why don’t you all go away and try thinking of other figures of speech that are metaphors?”

  I have been trying to think of one but it is not easy at the moment as my mind is on other things. Well, when I say other things … what I mean is sex. What I mean is kissing. What I mean is … Lucy!

  My hormones are positively seething.

  I asked Dad last night when he started going with girls.

  He said, “So long ago I can’t even remember.”

  I urged him to try. I know he is getting on and his memory may be going, but this sort of knowledge is very important to me. It is a vital part of my education.

  “When did you first kiss a girl?”

  “Oh, I can remember that!” chuckled Dad. “That was Jenny Libovitch. We were six years old.”

  Blimey! I am definitely a late developer. I have a lot of catching up to do!

  D is for diarrhoea

  Also known as THE RUNS.

  It comes from fear

  Or from upset tums.

  It is gross and mucky.

  Decidedly yucky.

  And I wish my sister could get it! I wish she would break out into a hideous rash and all her toenails drop off and her hair fall out in great chunks. While we were eating tea, the phone rang and she rushed off to get it. Whenever the phone rings in this house it is almost always for her. She leads this mad social life full of hectic activity. I don’t know how she gets to have so many friends as she is a really quite obnoxious person.

  She came back into the kitchen chanting, “Sally’s got a girlfriend, Sally’s got a girlfriend!”

  I fixed her with this stony look. (This is something I have been practising.) I said, “What are you talking about?”

  She said, “Your girlyfriend! She’s on the phone.”

  I said, “I haven’t got a girlyfriend.”

  “Well, whoever it is,” said Izzy, “it’s a female person and it’s waiting for you.”

  My heart did this battering thing that hearts do when you are agitated. Or maybe it was my hormones starting up. The only girl I could think of was – Lucy!

  It wasn’t Lucy, however, it was Harmony Hynde. Ringing to tell me about cats and dogs. She said, “I suddenly remembered! We’ve got this book at home called Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, so I looked it up. Raining cats and dogs … it’s really interesting! Do you want to hear?”

  I did, sort of, so I said all right, and she said, “I’ll read it to you. Listen! In Northern mythology …”

  It might have been quite instructive if I’d been able to pay attention properly, but my hormones were raging like mad and all I could think was why couldn’t it have been Lucy? Well, and I also found myself wondering what cup size Harmony Hynde was and deciding that she probably wasn’t any cup size at all. I mean, that girl is totally flat. She is like a playing card.

  It’s very bad for the concentration when all you can think of is cup sizes. So the only bit I really got was the last bit, how the cat can be taken as a symbol of pouring rain and the dog as a symbol of strong gusts of wind.

  “My dog is certainly a symbol of that,” said Harmony.

  I held the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Did she mean what I thought she meant?

  “He farts,” said Harmony; and she made this loud trumpeting noise down the phone and laughed this shrill laugh. “My dad says he’s like a wind machine!”

  I was a bit gobsmacked, actually. It’s quite embarrassing when a girl uses a word like that. It’s not what you expect. I mean, I know my sister uses words like that. She uses them all the time. But my sister’s a very crude person. Mum’s always telling her to wash her mouth out. I wouldn’t expect that sort of language from someone that’s a library assistant. Specially not Harmony Hynde.

  “Where did you get my number from, anyway?” I said, sternly.

  Harmony laughed her raucous laugh – she has this really loud, pealing sort of laugh – and told me that I wasn’t exactly hard to find.

  “There’s only one d’Amato in the book!”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I would have done, if she hadn’t gone and confused me. It’s just my brain wasn’t functioning properly. I found this distinctly annoying. So I grunted in a Neanderthal way and told her that as a matter of fact I was in the middle of my tea, and I think the message must have got through as she was off the phone pronto (as my dad would say).

  When I went back to the kitchen Mum was all agog (or is it just gog? It is a very strange word) wanting to know who had rung me. Mum is full of insatiable curiosity. I said, “It was a library assistant explaining my metaphor.”

  There was a silence. Mum blinked, Dad shot me a glance over his glasses. He’s probably never heard of metaphors. I don’t imagine you’d need them, for being a dentist. Then my sister gave this mad cackle and said, “So that’s what you get up to in the library! I might have known it was something disgusting!”

  Are all girls like this? Rude and foul-mouthed? It is a sobering thought. It shows once again how little I know about them.

  Anyway. That was yesterday. Today is Saturday and I went swimming in the morning with Bones. All night long – well, for quite a large part of it – I lay awake having this fantasy of Lucy being there, in a bikini, and of me having to dive in and rescue her from drowning. Instead of which, guess what? Harmony Hynde comes prancing up (in a one-piece bathing suit that makes her look scrawnier than ever. No cup size at all).

  “Salvatore!” she goes. At least she doesn’t call me Sal. I suppose that is a point in her favour. But I do hope she is not going to start dogging my footsteps! I mean, what was she doing at the baths? She’s never been there before.

  “Do you come here often?” she trills.

  “Every Saturday,” says Bones, before I can stop him.

  What a thicko!

  “I’ve only just started,” gushes Harmony. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  Fortunately she can’t swim very well so we were able to junk her. We left her messing about in the shallow end. Even then she grabbed us on the way out. She seemed to want to be friendly, but I swiftly discouraged it. I explained that me and Bones had things to do.

  As we walked away Bones said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you like her?”

  It’s not that I don’t like her. It’s that she doesn’t do anything for my hormones, and they have to be my priority if I am ever going to catch up with Dad.

  It’s nine o’clock now and my sister has gone to a party. Well, she says it’s a rave but I don’t really see how you can rave on Coca-Cola, which is all she’s allowed to drink. She went off looking like a Christmas tree, all hung about with bits and pieces. She’s always going to parties. I can’t understand how she gets all these invitations. People surely can’t like her? She is quite reasonable-looking, I suppose, but Mum’s Match friend didn’t say anything about her being a charmer. Well, you hardly could, the way she carries on. She has this extremely vicious temper. She threatened to gouge my eyes out the other day all because she caught me eyeing her bra on the washing line. I was only trying to find out what cup size she was! About A minus, I should think. A
at the most. But I didn’t get a chance to look properly.

  It is a mystery to me how some people have a social life and others don’t. I don’t have any at all. I just sit in my room dreaming of Lucy. I think I shall resume work on my novel. I have decided what it is going to be about. It is about a cockroach – a low, unlovely form of life, shunned by all and sundry. This is how it is going to start:

  I am a cockroach.

  Mr Mounsey told us in English that it is very important to have a good snappy start to a book.

  I think that is definitely snappy. I should think anyone would want to read a book that started like that.

  I have thought of another figure of speech: it’s coming down in buckets.

  E is for eyeful

  When Lucy walks by.

  “Get a load of that!”

  The lads all cry.

  I have become a sex fiend! My mind is like a sewer. I cannot stop thinking about boobs and bras and cup sizes.

  I have got to kiss someone soon!

  I have got to kiss Lucy …

  I am practising, for when she lets me. I have discovered that if you make a fist and kiss the finger and thumb bit, it feels like lips. Well, sort of. I mean, you have to use your imagination. But I feel it is essential to get some experience before I do it with Lucy. Stuart Sprague says it is very easy to miss, especially if you close your eyes, which he says a lot of people automatically do.

  Then instead of pressing lips to lips you find you’re pressing lips to eyebrows or lips to nose. So now, every night, I am making a fist and pretending it is Lucy. I am even doing the tongue bit! Though Stuart Sprague says that this is a very advanced form of kissing and should not be attempted on your first go.

  “Best get to know ’em,” he says, “before you try that.”

  I think probably Stuart knows what he is talking about. He has kissed more than twenty girls!!!

  Bones wanted me to ask him what a bosom felt like, so I did, but he rolled his eyes and said, “Man, I can’t tell you! I don’t have the words. A bosom has to be experienced to be believed.”

  I would like to experience a bosom. I think I am becoming obsessed.

  Today on the way home I had this mad urge to climb up the statue of Queen Victoria in the High Street and touch her tits. This is scary!

  Suppose I go mad and lose control of myself? I could be locked up!

  On Tuesday, in PSHE, we did role playing. Mothers and fathers! Kelvin Clegg had to be sent out. I really hoped I’d get Lucy for a partner, but Carrie Pringle grabbed me instead. She got in just ahead of Harmony Hynde, who I could see was making for me.

  My first thought was that if I couldn’t have Lucy I’d sooner have Carrie than be stuck with Harmony, who is acting rather too bold for my liking. But now I am not so sure. Carrie is almost as bad-tempered as my sister. I think she may be a man-hater. Bones said, “She’s scary, that one!”

  Bones is right. She’s a terrible person! Mrs Petty gave all the boys a bean bag to hold. A bean bag with a nappy. She said, “This is your new-born baby. I want you to look after it.”

  Kelvin Clegg immediately chucked his baby at the wall bars (we were doing it in the gym). That was when he was sent out. I think he was under the impression he was being funny, but lots of the girls sucked their breath in and old Carrie, she makes this angry hissing noise in my ear. Harmony says, “He could get life for that,” and Carrie goes, “Yeah! Dead right!”

  Mrs Petty said that we would address the issue of male violence another day, and told us to get on with looking after our offspring.

  Carrie started in on me straight away.

  “You idiot! Don’t hold it like that! It’s a baby, not a bean bag … well, support its head, for goodness’ sake! A new-born baby can’t be expected to support itself, can it? Don’t you know anything? You’d better watch me making a bottle for it. Are you watching? There, I’ve made it. Now I’m going to give it to you to give to the baby. Well, go on! Give it to him! Now you can burp him. I said, burp him! Don’t you even know how to burp him? Honestly, you’re pathetic! Give him back and I’ll show you … there! He’s done it. Now I’m going to go shopping and leave you alone with him. This is a test, to see if you can manage.”

  When she got back from shopping she claimed she could hear the baby crying. She said, “Are you deaf, or what? Poor little thing! It needs its nappy changed.”

  I said, “How do you know?”

  “Because I can smell it!” she snapped.

  While I was changing the bean bag’s nappy, Mrs Petty came over. She nodded approvingly and said, “Well done, Salvatore!” But Carrie huffed and puffed and said, “Some father you’d make! Don’t know the first thing!”

  Actually, I think I did quite well. Bones dropped his one, and Stuart Sprague put his one on the floor and then went and trod on it. I said, “Squashed baby!” Carrie didn’t even smile. She said, “Men!”

  I’m really glad it’s Lucy that I fancy and not Carrie. Bones reckons she’s a Lesbian.

  F is for flob

  Meaning cob from the gob.

  It’s also for fart

  Called by Cockneys jam tart.

  This is a rather childish sort of rhyme but I think I have to be allowed to express the carefree side of my nature now and again. My life has suddenly become deadly serious. My whole future is at stake. I’m not joking! If my love life is not sorted by the time I reach Z, I shall know for sure there is something wrong with me.

  Today is Saturday. An important day in the letters of my alphabet. I went out with Lucy!!! Well, when I say out … it wasn’t a date, exactly. What happened was, I sort of bumped into her, accidentally by chance, in the shopping centre. Well, when I say chance … it wasn’t entirely chance. I have to be honest. I knew she was going to be there. I heard her talking to Sharleen Oates in the bus queue on Friday.

  Sharleen Oates is her best friend. They were making plans for Saturday. I heard Lucy say, “OK, I’ll wait by the Swiss clock.” Then Sharleen said, “Wait till eleven. If I’m not there by then, you’ll know we didn’t get back in time.”

  Back from where? Who cares! This was my Big Chance. I knew I had to take it. So I told Bones I couldn’t go swimming and rushed off to the shopping centre, where I secreted myself in a doorway and watched.

  Well! It finally got to be eleven and old Sharleen still hadn’t shown, so just as Lucy was starting to move away I sprang out and said, “Hi!”

  She jumped about two metres. She said, “Oh. It’s you.” She didn’t sound all that pleased to see me, but probably she thought I was a mugger, or something.

  I couldn’t think what to say after I’d said hi. Lucy said, “Have you been spying on me?”

  I said, “No. I only just got here.” (You can’t always tell them the exact truth. Stuart Sprague advised me about this.) I said that maybe she’d like me to walk with her, wherever she was going. I said, “I don’t think it’s safe, being on your own.”

  Lucy said, “Why not? What’s going to happen?”

  I said, “There might be men waiting to abduct you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she said. “And what use d’you think you’d be?”

  I said, “Well, I could stop them!”

  “You and whose army?” she said.

  She’s very quick at that sort of thing. Wit and repartee. I find it quite difficult to keep up with her.

  In the end she said that if I wanted I could buy her a Coke. So that is what I did. The first time I have ever bought a Coke for a girl! We sat together in the Swiss Snack Bar and my hormones roared and bubbled and I wanted to grab her and press my lips against hers, only I didn’t think she’d go for it. Not in the Swiss Snack Bar. Not in front of people.

  After we’d drunk our Cokes I asked her if she’d like to come for a walk. She said, “What for?” I said, “We could go to the park. It’s nice in the park.” She said, “No, it’s not, it’s freezing cold.”

  “I could always hold your hand,” I said.

/>   I obviously moved a bit too fast. She looked at me like I’d made some kind of improper suggestion. Like instead of saying “I could always hold your hand,” I’d said “I could always hold your bosom.”

  Suppose I really did say that? Suppose that’s what I said and I didn’t realise it? I’m losing control! I have bosoms on the brain! I’m in sexual overdrive!

  I am going to write some more of my novel, I Am A Cockroach.

  I find that the life of a cockroach, although inevitably a sad one, has a calming effect on the hormones. Cockroaches do not have bosoms.

  I have just had to break off and go downstairs. Mum called to me that I was wanted on the phone. I can hardly believe it! It was Harmony Hynde. Again! She wanted to know why I wasn’t at the baths this morning. Cheek! What’s it to her?

  She said she’s found another figure of speech for me: Going at it hammer and tongs.

  It is quite a good one. But I think Harmony Hynde must have even less social life than me.

  G is for grolly

  Which comes out the nose.

  A really good grolly

  Hangs down to your toes.

  My sister says I’m a pervert. All because she caught me fingering – that’s what she called it: fingering – her bra. It was there again, on the line! I just wanted to know what it felt like. She didn’t have to go running off and tell Mum.

  “Mum, he’s a pervert! He’s got to be stopped!”

  Mum said, “Salvatore, whatever it is you’re doing to upset your sister, just stop it.”

  “He’s perving!” cried Iz.

  “Don’t perve on your sister,” said Mum.

  She was pretty busy, shredding bits of grass. Well, that’s what it looked like. (It’s what it tasted like too.)

  “He’s a lunatic! He ought to be locked up!” screeched Iz.

  Mum sighed and said, “Can’t you two just manage to coexist like a normal brother and sister?”