Super Star

by Cathy Hopkins

  ‘It’s the holidays,’ he said. ‘That means things to do.’

  ‘Not always,’ I said. ‘Sometimes it means lying about doing nothing.’ I snuggled back into my pillow. ‘Or extra sleeping.’

  He picked up a cushion from the floor and biffed me over the head with it. ‘Come on, Jess. Time for breakfast.’

  ‘Remind me never to have children,’ I said as Uncle John’s blurry face appeared around the door.

  He sighed. ‘Too late for me. If only I’d known. Come on, Louis, leave Jess alone to get up.’

  The next few days were a whirlwind of activity. Up at seven. Feed the boys. Coco Pops for Sam. Fruit for Louis but ‘only pears and they have to be cut up’. Sort the boys’ clothes out. T-shirt and jeans for Sam. Has to be blue for Louis and he insists on wearing his Spider-Man outfit on top. Then on with my job, which was to take them out of the house so Uncle John and Aunt Cissie could get on with their painting, so it was out to the beach, play football, tennis, cricket, rounders – anything to keep them occupied. I hoped I’d maybe bump into Connor while we were out but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  In the evening, I’d tuck the boys up on the sofa, one under each of my arms, to watch CBBC. I liked our TV time when they were tired and snuggly and smelt of soap after their baths.

  It all went smoothly apart from the fourth afternoon after we’d been watching a repeat of Doctor Who on the television. I was washing up in the kitchen when Louis came up behind me.

  ‘I’d like to be a Dalek instead of Spider-Man now,’ he said. ‘I need a costume.’

  ‘OK,’ I said and searched around for anything to help make him a costume. At first, I thought about maybe using some tinfoil to give him the metallic robot look, then I spied the sink plunger on the window sill behind the sink. Perfect, I thought. I picked it up, rinsed it under the tap and gave it to Louis. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘stick that to your forehead and you’ll look just like a Dalek.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Louis. He took the plunger and put it up to his forehead. The suction from the rubber worked perfectly and Louis ran off to show Sam his DIY raygun appendage. I finished the dishes and went through to the living room where Louis was trying to remove the sink plunger from his head.

  ‘It won’t come off,’ he wailed.

  ‘Course it will,’ I said and went over to him. I pulled on the plunger, but the more I tugged, the stronger the suction on his skin, and I could see that he was beginning to get distressed. Uncle John and Aunt Cissie had gone out for painting supplies but they had been gone almost an hour and would be back any minute. It wouldn’t look good to get back to find that their youngest son was freaking out because the babysitter had stuck a sink plunger to his head.

  I pulled again.

  ‘Ow,’ Louis objected as Sam joined in the pulling. We tried everything – getting him to relax, lie on his side, gently trying to prise it off, but nothing was working; the plunger was glued solid to his skin and his mouth was beginning to wobble as if he was fighting back tears.

  ‘Will I have to go out looking like this?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, you can pretend you’re an alien,’ I said. ‘Everyone will think that you’re so cool.’

  He didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Mum and Dad,’ said Sam as we heard the sound of their car pulling into the driveway.

  ‘Oh God, they’re going to kill me,’ I said. ‘Sam. Create a diversion.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Um. What?’

  I suddenly remembered a trick that Charlie played on Mum one April Fool’s Day when we were little. ‘Tomato ketchup. Squirt some on your head and lie at the bottom of the stairs in the hall.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sam. ‘Brilliant.’

  This only upset Louis more. ‘I want to do that,’ he said.

  ‘You can tomorrow,’ I promised.

  I found the ketchup and handed it to Sam who went out into the hall while I continued my search for something to help release the sink plunger. I noticed a bottle of olive oil next to the cooker.

  ‘Oil!’ I said. ‘That should act as a lubricant. Yes. That will do it.’

  Louis glanced at me coming towards him with the olive oil. ‘I’m not a potato,’ he said, then glanced out into the hall at his brother who had liberally applied the red gooey liquid to his head and was lying on the floor moaning.

  ‘You’re not like other babysitters, are you?’ he asked as I got busy applying olive oil around his forehead where the plunger was attached.

  ‘Probably not,’ I said as the oil oozed under the rubber and the plunger began to slide a little. With a gentle tug, I heard a thwuck sound and the plunger finally came off and we both fell back.

  Oh no, I thought as I reached out to catch Louis. It had left a perfect bright red circle where it had been stuck to his forehead.

  A scream from the hall distracted us as Aunt Cissie came in the front door to find Sam lying at the foot of the stairs, looking like he was covered in blood.

  ‘Oh my God!’ cried Uncle John, who came in behind her and ran over to Sam.

  ‘April Fool!’ cried Sam and sprang up.

  “April Fool?’ asked Aunt Cissie. Neither she or Uncle John seemed to get the joke. They both looked well freaked out.

  ‘It’s July not April,’ said Uncle John. ‘You almost gave us a heart attack, Sam. Whose mad idea was this?’

  Sam pointed at me. ‘Jess’s. And she got the sink plunger stuck on Louis’s head.’

  By this time, Louis had come into the hall and was looking at himself in the mirror. His parents noticed the mark on his forehead.

  Uncle John turned to me. ‘Jess?’

  ‘He wanted to be a Dalek. Er, yes . . . You have to be creative with boys, don’t you?’ I reached behind me and picked up a pan. ‘Anyone want to try the pan on the head trick? Maybe not. Charlie tried it when he was younger. We had to call out the fire brigade when it got completely stuck. Um. Right. Thanks a lot. I’m going to go up to my bedroom now. Oh. I haven’t got one. Right. OK. Maybe I’ll just go and hide under the table. Bye.’

  The whole family stood in a line looking at me as if I was insane.

  Once the boys were in bed that night, I had supper with Uncle John and Aunt Cissie. They’d recovered from their shock by then and were even laughing about the incidents so that was a relief. Later, I fell into my make-do bed exhausted and grateful that the past days had been so busy that it had taken my mind off the fact that JJ had gone and Keira had set up the Facebook page. It took a lot of willpower but I made myself stay away from the computer in the little spare time that I had. I knew I’d obsess if there were more posts on Keira’s I hate Jess page.

  Plus it was weird being down in Bournemouth, like I’d fallen into a parallel universe. Porchester Park, London and all that went with it, including Keira, seemed so far away. I thought about sending a message to Keira threatening to report her to Facebook, but being away from home, it didn’t seem real, like a bad dream and not really part of my life. Maybe I was in some sort of denial but the days were going so fast and part of me wanted to pretend that Keira didn’t exist and her comments on Facebook hadn’t happened. I just hoped that my four hundred Facebook friends had been as busy as I had and hadn’t seen her horrible link before I’d removed it. Pia was always telling me to take people who I don’t know off my friends list and I had meant to but, like so many things, had never got around to it.

  On the Monday morning, it was a gloriously sunny day so I filled a paddling pool in the back garden and as the boys played in it, I checked my mobile for messages.

  There were three.

  Skype me soon. Miss U. Gramps not so gd. JJ X

  From Pia: I messged Keira 2 tell her 2 remove the page off Facebook or I’d report her. Result. It’s gone. She’s still got her own page though so I left a message on her wall saying she’s a coward. XX.

  Thank God for that, I thought as I clicked on to the last message.

  Too soon. It was from Keira. She must
have kept my number from when we were in the modelling contest. U bully, getting your midget friend 2 do ur dirty work 4 u but hve removd page from facebook in case she makes truble 4 me. But I have not forgtten u or what u did to me. u r a bully. I hate u and ur stupid simpering face.

  I felt sick as I read the words which had such hate in them. Amazing, I thought. I haven’t even done or said anything and yet she’s the one accusing me of being a bully. My first instinct was to delete the text and I was about to do so when I remembered what a visiting policeman had told us in school one day last term. He’d come into the school to do a talk about cyber-bullying and told us to keep emails and texts as evidence in case they were ever needed. Keira had been smart enough to remove the Facebook page before I had printed out a copy but I could save the text. I prayed that I wouldn’t need to use it though and that she would leave me alone.

  Don’t think about it or her. I mustn’t let her get to me, I told myself, though I knew that it was too late. She already had.

  After supper, when the boys were tucked up in bed, I went down to the beach with my Who Am I? notebook. It was still light and I felt like some alone time, so I found a quiet spot, got out my notebook and sat down to look out over the sea.

  Keira’s text immediately began to play on loop in my mind. You’re a bully. I hate you and your stupid simpering face. What she’d written hurt. I cursed inwardly that I’d let her get to me again. I so wished Pia was with me. I sent her a quick text to thank her for sending the message to Keira. She was such a good friend, always looking out for me. She seemed so far away in Denmark. At least she’d be returning to London tomorrow and I only had a few more days in Bournemouth, so soon we’d be able catch up properly. Pia wouldn’t have let the text affect her, which is probably why Kiera targeted me and not her.

  Why does she hate me so much? I asked myself. I searched my mind for anything that I could have done or said to her over the years, thinking right back to when we lived on the same street. Had I done something unforgiveable? Maybe I’d been insensitive. Maybe it was my fault she had a vendetta against me, but I couldn’t think of anything. Was it just that sometimes people didn’t get you and no matter how you behaved or what you said, they would interpret it differently? Maybe it was just that simple. I thought about what Mrs Callahan had said to us before we broke up from school. Who are you? I asked myself that question. Who am I? I knew I wasn’t a bully, despite what Keira had said, so did that make me a victim? I jotted down some words under the heading, Who am I?

  Hurt. Strong. Sensitive. Vulnerable.

  Is it possible to be all those things at the same time? I wondered, then added some others.

  Changing. Confused. Clear. Schizophrenic.

  ‘You’re looking thoughtful,’ said a voice behind me.

  I turned to see Connor and Raffy. Raffy bounded over and greeted me as if I was his long lost best friend.

  ‘Hi,’ I said to both of them and gave Raffy’s head a stroke.

  ‘You looked miles away.’

  ‘Just thinking about something. I wondered if we might bump into each other while we were staying down here.’

  Connor nodded. ‘I had a feeling we might. I have a philosophy about meeting people on my travels. If you’re meant to meet them again, you always do.’

  I smiled, liking the fact that the subtext of his statement was that I was one of the people he was meant to meet again. ‘So how’s your visit to Bournemouth been?’ I asked.

  ‘Good,’ said Connor. ‘What about you? What’ve you been up to?’

  ‘I’ve been busy being Nanny McPhee,’ I said. Connor looked puzzled. ‘You know, in the films?’

  Connor shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen them.’

  ‘She’s a nanny with a wart on her nose. I’ve been looking after my two young cousins. Holiday job sort of thing.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Connor and looked closely at my face. ‘Wart on her nose? Do you have one?’

  ‘Only metaphorically.’

  He laughed. ‘A metaphorical wart? Is that what you were thinking about?’

  I nodded, then got the giggles. ‘Sorry. I’m talking gobbledygook.’

  Connor shook his head. ‘Too right. Girls. I’ll never understand them. So, do you want to take a walk? Maybe get a drink somewhere?’ He pointed along the beach. ‘There are some great cafés further along.’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied, got up and brushed sand off. I’d been working hard. I deserved a bit of time off. It would be nice to have some company my own age, especially company so drop dead gorgeous as Connor’s.

  As we walked along the sand, we chatted about our lives, what music we liked, who our friends were, and I found Connor really easy to talk to. He seemed genuinely interested in who I was and what I was into.

  ‘And what do you want to do at uni?’ he asked as he let Raffy off the lead. Once free, the dog raced off along the beach.

  ‘That’s the big question,’ I said. ‘No idea. Not child-minding, that much I do know. Far too exhausting and I don’t think that I’m very good at it.’

  I told him about the sink plunger episode and he cracked up laughing. ‘Still, you have some time, don’t you? You don’t have to put in applications yet?’

  ‘No. But we’re expected to have some idea,’ I replied. ‘Maybe I’ll do something creative. Maybe write. I don’t know.’

  ‘I didn’t know for ages what I wanted to do,’ said Connor. ‘I did a foundation course in art. It was really good because we got to try out various different mediums before making our final choice. I found I loved photography. The classes weren’t like work or school, if you know what I mean, more like my favourite hobby and I couldn’t get enough of it. Is there anything you feel like that about?’

  Shopping, snogging, fashion, I thought but didn’t say so in case I sounded shallow. ‘Er . . . what I’m into keeps changing,’ I replied. ‘Maybe media.’

  ‘Don’t stress it,’ said Connor. ‘It’ll come clear. Sometimes what comes first is what you don’t want to do – like you said you don’t want to do child-minding – and that helps you narrow it down.’

  ‘Oh, I can give you a list of those. Banker, doctor, lawyer. I think I’d like to be rich, though.’

  ‘Why?’ Connor asked.

  ‘More options. More freedom.’ I thought about the life that JJ and Alisha had. There was no doubt it was super fab. Who wouldn’t want what they had? ‘Don’t you want to be rich?’

  ‘Not really. I mean, I don’t want to be poor. I’d like to have a home, pay the bills and so on, but I’m not bothered about being wealthy. As long as I can play sport, walk Raffy, hang out with good mates, stuff like that. A walk on a beach on a cold day with Raffy, then a café for a hot cup of coffee and a bacon sarnie and to sit and watch the waves, that’s my idea of heaven. I really wouldn’t want much more. Fancy cars, watches, designer clothes, you can keep them. They don’t float my boat.’

  ‘Would you like to meet my father?’ I said. ‘I think he’d like you.’

  Connor looked puzzled.

  ‘And my Aunt Maddie, she’d like you too.’

  Connor began to look worried.

  I laughed. ‘Just joshing,’ I said. ‘Hey, don’t look so worried. I don’t really want you to meet my family. Just Dad’s always on about having the right values, realising where true happiness lies. And Aunt Maddie, well, she’s Queen of Miss Do Right. My headmistress too, in fact, she’s given us a project on it for over the holidays.’

  ‘And you, Jess? Where do you think happiness lies?’ Connor asked.

  I thought for a moment. My happiest times? ‘Easy. Being with mates. Being with the right people, and I count Dave, my cat, in that group. Doesn’t really matter where.’

  Connor nodded as if he agreed, then he got out a whistle. I noticed that I hadn’t said being with JJ and felt a twinge of guilt, though spending time with him was high on the list. Connor blew his whistle and moments later, Raffy came bounding over to rejoin us.

 
‘You’ve got him well trained,’ I said.

  Connor nodded. ‘Works every time. I always carry it in case he goes off somewhere and I can’t find him. I’d tried to use it on an ex-girlfriend once, she was always wandering off, like if we went shopping, I’d turn around and she’d be gone, but she soon told me where to go.’

  I laughed. ‘I think I’m with her there, like, have you never heard of mobile phones?’

  ‘Point taken,’ said Connor with a grin. He put Raffy back on his lead and we walked on until we came across a café bar with a deck overlooking the sea where we joined the many people hanging out enjoying the last of the sun.

  I looked after Raffy and Connor went to get us drinks – a lager for him and Coke for me – and we stayed and continued our conversation with Connor telling me all about his love of photography. I heard my phone bleep a few times that someone had sent me a text but I didn’t look. I could catch up on them later.

  It was only when the sun began to disappear that I checked my watch. ‘Oh my God, the time!’ I gasped.

  ‘Problem?’ asked Connor.

  ‘Not really, just I didn’t let anyone know where I was going. I’d better get back.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ said Connor.

  When we got outside the bar, I finally checked my messages. Five messages from Uncle John, each one growing more and more agitated. ‘I’m for it when I get back,’ I said.

  ‘Er . . . possibly before that,’ Connor said and nudged me to look over at the road. ‘I’ve got a feeling that man might be looking for you.’

  I glanced over to where he was looking to see an irate Uncle John getting out of his car.

  I tried dodging down behind the wall to our left. ‘I am so in the doghouse,’ I said. ‘Can he see me?’

  Connor nodded. ‘Seen and coming this way. You could always try burying yourself in the sand.’

  I frantically started digging, much to the delight of Raffy who joined in with enthusiasm.

  Happiness is:

  Tucked up on a sofa with my little cousins fresh out of their bath and smelling of soap and watching kids’ TV and eating crisps.