The Kissing Game

by Jean Ure

  “Yes, you can!” she said. “You can tell me anything. We’re friends!”

  I said, “B-b-b-b-b—”

  “Take a deep breath,” said Harmony. “Now, what’s the problem?”

  “She t-t-told me t-t-t-to d-d-dig a hole and b-b-bury myself!” I said.

  “You think she doesn’t like you?”

  “W-well, w-wouldn’t y-you?” I said. “If s-someone t-told you to d-dig a hole and b-bury yourself?”

  “It would depend who it was,” said Harmony. “It could be that she’s really mad about you and is just doing it to inflame your passion.”

  “Do you think so?” I said. I didn’t mean to sound eager. But it’s exactly what I’d been thinking!

  “Well, it could be,” said Harmony. “I mean, I couldn’t say for certain.”

  How am I to find out? This is the question!

  “I don’t expect,” said Harmony, in matter-of-fact tones, “that anyone will ever be inflamed by me.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Glasses,” said Harmony, “for one thing. Teeth,” she said, “for another. Hair,” she said, “for another.”

  “I’m sure that someone will love you for your mind,” I said.

  Harmony said she supposed she would have to be content with that.

  I felt deeply moved and have now written four more lines of her poem:

  Harmony Hynde

  I love your mind!

  The way you read books –

  More important than looks!

  The way that you talk –

  Who cares how you walk?

  I have noticed that when Lucy walks she goes bibbity bobbity, bibbity bobbity, with her bum bouncing up and down. Harmony’s bum doesn’t do that. She doesn’t really have one. But I do admire her mind!

  R is for rear,

  For rump or for bum.

  Stand in the playground

  and see them come!

  Big bums, small bums,

  Hardly there at all bums!

  Bums that wobble,

  Bums that pobble,

  Bums in trousers,

  Bums on bikes,

  Bums of every

  Size and type.

  But the bum that I like best

  Is the bum of Lucy West!

  She is still pretending not to fancy me. I don’t know whether she wants me to throw myself at her, or what. Maybe I should act like I am attracted to someone else? Harmony, for example.

  I am not sure whether she would be inflamed by seeing me with Harmony, but just at the moment Harmony is the only girl who will have anything to do with me. I seem to have upset everyone by telling Jason Twelvetrees about my Cockroach book. They keep calling me Cockroach, or Boff. Carrie Pringle accused me of being something that lives in sewers. I thought that was quite unnecessary. Why am I so misunderstood?

  My sister has been especially unpleasant to me. She said I was a sad little pervert, stinking up her way of life. This is because she discovered that I had used her foaming face cleanser again. I didn’t use that much! And how does she know, anyway? Unless she has been spying on me?

  I am feeling very depressed. I only have eight more letters to go and Lucy, my Lucy, the light of my life! She shows no sign of warming towards me. What must I do to win her love???

  I feel more than ever in sympathy with cockroaches. If I thought they would respond to the human touch, I would keep one as a pet.

  S is for sex

  Which is on my brain.

  I think of Lucy

  Again and again!

  Today in the library, Harmony asked me about my cockroach story. She said, “I really like the sound of it! It sounds really good.”

  I said, “You could read it if you like. The trouble is, I’ve only got one copy. I sent the other to Jason Twelvetrees.”

  “Yes, and if our house burnt down and the other one got lost in the post, it would be a disaster,” agreed Harmony. “You shouldn’t ever lend your only copy.”

  “This is it,” I said. And then before I could do anything to stop it my mouth had gone and opened all of its own accord and blurted out, “You could always come round and have a read of it at my place!”

  I don’t know why it said that. It was like it has this mind of its own. I mean, I knew what would happen if my sister saw me with Harmony.

  “Sally’s got a girlfriend, Sally’s got a girlfriend!”

  On the other hand, I did quite enjoy the idea of Harmony reading my book. She’d be the first person to do so!

  “When shall I come?” she said. She was dead keen!

  “Well, I suppose you could come today if you wanted,” I said.

  “After school?” She beamed at me; this big toothy beam. She looks really goofy when she does that! But I quite like it. So I said yes, after school would be fine, and that is what we agreed.

  Lucy has been ignoring me all week. I know it’s because I said her lips were squishy. I have been trying desperately to think of something else they could be … plump and juicy? Round and rosy? I will have to put my mind to it.

  As well as thinking of words to describe Lucy’s cheek I have been looking for an opportunity to inflame her passion. That opportunity came today! At half-past three, as me and Harmony were going out of the school gates, we found ourselves on a collision course with … guess who? Lucy and Sharleen! I didn’t hesitate. I knew I had to act fast, so I immediately seized hold of Harmony’s hand. I think Harmony was a bit surprised, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  Unfortunately, neither did Lucy. She just smirked and said, “Nice day for it!” Then she and Sharleen shrieked with laughter. Sharleen hissed, “Cockroach!”

  “Such tiny little shrunken minds,” said Harmony.

  But it’s not Lucy’s mind that I fancy. It’s her body!!!

  As soon as the two of them had gone wobbling off, I tried to get my hand back but Harmony seemed to have it in a vice-like grip. I didn’t like to start struggling, I mean it wouldn’t have looked very manly, so in the end I was forced to leave it there. It felt OK. Quite nice, really.

  This is the first time I have pressed flesh. So I suppose, in a way, it is a landmark.

  When we got home my sister was out. Deep relief. I grabbed some milk and a packet of biscuits and took Harmony up to my room. We sat on the bed and I read her all forty-six pages of I Am A Cockroach. While I was reading it she ate most of the biscuits, for which she apologised afterwards.

  She said, “I got so carried away listening, I didn’t realise what I was doing.”

  I said that was OK as I wasn’t particularly hungry. But if she always eats like that I don’t know how she stays so sticklike!

  “What did you think of the book?” I said. “Please be ruthlessly honest.”

  “Right. Well. Being ruthlessly honest,” said Harmony.

  She paused. I said, “Yes?”

  “Being ruthlessly honest,” she said, “I thought it was brilliant!”

  “Really?” I said.

  I wanted to make sure. She may not be the object of my passion, but I value her opinion.

  “Really and truly!” said Harmony. “I really liked it. Usually when boys write anything it’s all fighting and violence.”

  “There is some violence,” I said. “The bit where they try to squash him with a shoe.”

  “Yes, but that’s only one small incident. Mostly,” said Harmony, “it’s what I’d call psychological … full of insight.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to sound modest, “that was my aim. My aim was to get inside the mind of a cockroach.”

  “Which you did! Perfectly! I shall never look at cockroaches the same way again,” said Harmony. “Not,” she added, “being ruthlessly honest, that I have ever actually seen one.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  Harmony said that made it all the more amazing that I could actually pretend to be one. I suppose it does.

  “Do you feel that you relate to cockroaches?” said Harmony. “Do
you feel an affinity with them?”

  I said that I did, and she nodded and said, “Yes, I thought you must. It comes across.”

  So then I told her – I don’t know why – about how at one time I had thought there was something wrong with me. I told her that I had even been scared I might be gay. She cried, “But there’s nothing to be ashamed of in being gay!”

  “Well – no,” I said, “but I’m glad I’m not.”

  “Why are you glad?” demanded Harmony.

  “Well, if I was, I wouldn’t fancy girls!” I said.

  “You mean, you wouldn’t fancy Lucy West,” said Harmony.

  It is very unsettling, the way Harmony can get into my brain and read what I am thinking. I asked her (later on, so’s she wouldn’t guess it was anything to do with Lucy) if she reckoned it was an insult to describe someone’s cheek as being squishy. She gave this great screech of laughter and said, “You have to be joking!”

  I said, “I am not joking. I am in deathly earnest.”

  Harmony said, “OK, and I am being ruthlessly honest.” She said that squishy was not a good word to use for a cheek.

  I said, “So what would be a good word, do you think?”

  But Harmony just cackled and said, “I’m not writing your love lyrics for you! Think of one yourself!”

  This is what I have thought of so far:

  Lucy’s cheek is soft and round

  Like a beach ball it would bound.

  Lucy’s cheek is soft and pink

  Of a peach it makes one think.

  Lucy’s cheek is ruby red

  As if on strawberries she’s fed.

  Lucy’s cheek is pink and pouchy

  Lucy never could look grouchy!

  None of them seem quite right. But I have added two more lines to Harmony’s poem:

  Never mind your flattened chest

  Your brain is ace – by far the best!

  I think she would like that.

  T is for tit,

  Both a bird and a breast.

  I know which one

  That I like best!

  I have discovered that Harmony isn’t even an A. She’s nothing at all! I asked her and she told me. Harmony and me can talk of things like breasts. She’s amazing that way. I think she could teach me quite a lot about girls.

  I would have thought, for instance, that she would find it very worrying and upsetting not even to be an A. Like if I was a girl and didn’t have a bosom I would immediately imagine there was something wrong with me. I would probably start fantasising that I had been born into the wrong body and was really meant to be a boy. But Harmony says the longer she can go without having a bosom, the better it will be as far as she is concerned.

  “After all,” she said, “what use would it be?”

  I said, “Well, I suppose if it was big enough you could balance things on it.”

  “You mean, use it like a sort of shelf?” said Harmony.

  At that we got a bit silly and started thinking up all the ways that a bosom could come in useful. Like, for instance, you could hang things on it.

  You could open doors with it.

  You could strike muggers with it.

  You could scatter crowds with it.

  But Harmony said she still didn’t want one.

  I think perhaps, in spite of having this mega-sized brain, she is still a bit immature. I like the thought that in this respect I am ahead of her. My hormones are raging like crazy! I reckon Harmony’s are still asleep.

  I don’t know how we got talking about boobs and breasts and busts and bosoms. We started off talking about Jason Twelvetrees. He has written to us! Both of us. This is his letter to me:

  Dear

  Thank you so much for your lovely letter. It was most kind of you to write.

  I have read your book ‘I Am A Cockroach’ and very much enjoyed it. I think, to be published, it would need to be a little longer – another half-dozen chapters, say – but it is certainly very promising. I wish you all the best with it.

  I am glad my talk inspired you. I am enclosing a list of books that I have written. Maybe you will be able to find them in your local bookshop.

  All good wishes,

  P.S. You may be interested to know that I shall be appearing in Waterstone’s book store in the Burnett Centre this Saturday at 12 noon.

  This was Harmony’s one:

  Dear

  Thank you so much for your lovely letter. It was most kind of you to write.

  I have read your book ‘The Great Wall of China’ and very much enjoyed it. I think, to be published, it would need to be a little longer – another half-dozen chapters, say – but it is certainly very promising. I wish you all the best with it.

  I am glad my talk inspired you. I am enclosing a list of books that I have written. Maybe you will be able to find them in your local bookshop.

  All good wishes,

  P.S. You may be interested to know that I shall be appearing in Waterstone’s book store in the Burnett Centre this Saturday at 12 noon.

  We sat in the library together at lunch time and pored over our letters.

  “I did tell him,” said Harmony, “that my book wasn’t finished.”

  “He’s pretty old,” I said. “Maybe he forgot.”

  “Mm. Maybe,” said Harmony.

  We studied the letters side by side.

  I said, “It’s good he wrote our names by hand … it makes them more personal.”

  “And different,” said Harmony.

  We agreed that Jason Twelvetrees probably has millions of fan letters and that it was pretty good that he bothered to reply at all.

  We also agreed that we would go to see him in Waterstone’s on Saturday morning.

  “It’s bound to be crowded out,” said Harmony, “but we might at least be able to say hello.”

  She asked me how her poem was coming along. I said that I was still working on it.

  “It must be a really long one!” she said.

  She sounded quite excited. She then told me another figure of speech she’d found: all fingers and thumbs.

  U is for ugh!

  A noise of distaste.

  Like Ugh! Poo!

  Doggy do!

  Ugh! Pox!

  Sweaty socks!

  Ugh! Yuck!

  A pile of muck!

  Bad eggs and drains can also smell,

  So can cheesy feet, as well.

  Best thing to do,

  ALWAYS CARRY

  A CLOTHES PEG.

  Well! Jason Twelvetrees didn’t smell of cheesy feet but his breath was a bit pongy. It smelt like something had died. Harmony reckons it’s because he smokes.

  We didn’t get to Waterstone’s until quarter past twelve. We thought there would be this great long queue snaking out the door and halfway round the shopping centre, but all we saw, when we reached the children’s department, was Jason Twelvetrees sitting mournfully at a table behind a pile of books.

  His books. Ones he had written. I think maybe he was hoping to sell them.

  He looked up with quite an optimistic expression when me and Harmony arrived.

  “And what can I do for you?” he said, reaching for his pen. “Have you chosen your books?”

  We hadn’t really gone there to buy books; just to say hallo and thank him for his letters. It was obvious he didn’t recognise us, but as Harmony said afterwards, he probably meets too many people to remember all of them.

  “You came to our school,” I reminded him.

  “We wrote to you,” said Harmony. “We sent you our stories.”

  “Ah! Did you?” he said; and the optimistic expression began to fade. “Did I reply?”

  “Yes, you did,” said Harmony.

  “Oh, well, that’s good,” he said. “You haven’t come to tick me off.”

  We stood there a while, just to keep him company really, until some more people arrived. But all that happened was this woman came up and asked him where the Roald Dahls
were. After a bit we got to feeling sorry for him, all bald and threadbare, sitting there trying to look as if he wasn’t really interested in people buying his books. Like he was just there for show, or to pass the time of day or something. So what we did, we both bought one. I bought one called Jampot Jane and Harmony bought one called Mr Munch the Lunch Box Man.

  Mr Twelvetrees said, “You realise these are way too young for you? These are meant for five-year-olds.”

  They just happened to be the cheapest. I mumbled that I couldn’t afford one of the bigger ones. Harmony said brightly that she was buying Mr Munch for her little sister. (Who I happen to know is ten years old and some kind of child genius.)

  Mr Twelvetrees seemed resigned. He said, “Ah, well! So be it,” and wrote Best wishes Jason Twelvetrees in his spidery old handwriting inside the covers.

  Just as we were going, a little kid came up to him clutching a Goosebumps which he wanted him to sign. Old Jason Twelvetrees got quite snotty. He snapped, “Now why would you expect me to sign something which I did not write?”

  The little kid looked quite crestfallen. He probably thought one author was the same as any other author. I reckon it wouldn’t have hurt Mr Twelvetrees to sign his Goosebumps for him.

  “What shall we do with these?” I said to Harmony, once we were outside. I meant Jampot Jane and Mr Munch.

  “Keep ’em!” said Harmony. “Signed copies … could be valuable.” And then she confessed that she could have afforded one of the more expensive ones, but that Jason Twelvetrees didn’t really write her sort of book.

  I asked her what her sort of book was and she said that just at the moment she was reading Pride and Prejudice.

  “By Jane Austen,” she said.

  I said, “I know who it’s by!”

  I must be honest, however. With myself, I mean. Sometimes you try to hoodwink yourself. I have to admit that last term I’d never even heard of Jane Austen. Mr Mounsey was giving us a quiz in one of our English lessons, all about books and authors. When he asked if anyone knew who Jane Austen was, old Lucy stuck her hand up and said, “She’s a tennis player.”