‘Thanks for . . . before, with Eleanor,’ he said. ‘She said she really appreciated being talked to like a normal human being for change. It really is true what she said before – about people not knowing how to deal with her so they avoid her or the subject of her illness. They talk about anything else but what’s happening.’
‘But it must be so hard,’ I replied, ‘for you too. If there’s anything I can do or if you want to talk . . .’
William’s expression grew hard for a moment. ‘Eleanor may want to talk, but not me. No. Last thing I want,’ he said. ‘What good would that do? Like there’s anything you could say to make it better.’
He looked so intense and I remembered that I was supposed to be cheering him up. I quickly scanned my brain for something I could say to help.
‘I could try and say something to make you laugh . . .’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘Look. I’m really really sorry about . . . um, whatever I said before. About you being . . . um annoying and stuff . . .’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said William. ‘I probably am.’
He looked so sad as he stood there. Like a little boy who was desperately trying to be brave. He needed distracting. And fast.
‘Er . . . OK,’ I said and pointed to the back of the church hall. ‘See that screen over there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Come behind it with me and I’ll snog you.’
William burst out laughing.
‘See,’ I said. ‘I told you I could make you laugh.’
The amused look that had been annoying me so much lately appeared back on his face. ‘Ah . . . but did you mean it?’ he asked.
Time for a little practice flirting, I thought and glanced back at him in a coy way. ‘Why? Do you want me to have meant it?’
‘Depends. Do you want me to take you up on it?’
I looked at his mouth. It was a very nice mouth, wide with a bottom lip that plumped out in the middle like a tiny soft cushion. I glanced up into his eyes and a shiver of anticipation went through me. For a moment, it was as if we were locked together. Suddenly he grabbed my hand. We quickly walked over behind the screen where we were out of sight and he pulled me close to him and kissed me. Properly. Like, not a peck. I mean, properly. Then we pulled apart and both burst out laughing.
‘Better than talking,’ he said, grinning.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Yes. Good.’ I felt weak at the knees from the kiss. I hadn’t imagined for a moment that he would take me up on my offer. I’d said it to make him laugh. His response had taken me unexpectedly and on the kissing scale, he was a ten out of ten.
He gazed into my eyes and I felt myself turning to jelly. He pulled me close again and once more, we kissed. I could have stayed there forever if we hadn’t heard Izzie and Lucy sniggering a short distance away. I opened my eyes.
They were doing that smirking thing again.
The birds of doom may fly overhead but there’s no need to let them nest in your hair.
‘Oh no. Look who’s in there,’ I groaned as I looked through the window of the prefab where the fundraising meeting was being held after school on Monday. I could see four prefects from Year Eleven waiting for the meeting to begin. Doreen Kennard, Blair Thorpe, Charlotte Miller and Sandra Collins.
‘Who?’ asked Lucy.
‘Dopey Doreen and her sad bossy mates.’
‘Don’t be so cruel, Nesta,’ said Lucy. ‘You wouldn’t like it if someone said that about you.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t come up with that name. Everyone calls them that,’ I said. ‘They are so boring. Remember when Blair gave that talk in assembly last year? I can’t even remember what it was about. I was asleep after five minutes.’
‘It was about drugs,’ said Izzie.
‘None of which could possibly be as potent as her speaking voice,’ I said. ‘One of the most powerful tranquillisers I’ve ever come across.’
TJ and Izzie laughed but Lucy punched my arm.
‘Come on. Let’s do a runner now,’ I said. ‘We’ll find another way to do something . . . like donating our organs when we’re dead.’
‘Nesta,’ groaned Lucy. ‘Gross.’
‘Well, they’re no use to you when you’re six foot under are they? I mean, I know I’m Queen of Squeam now I’m alive but when I’m dead, anyone can have anything. Like if any of you girls want a kidney or whatever, please feel free.’
‘Wow, thanks Nesta,’ said TJ. ‘I’d love a kidney. I could have it bottled and put on the mantelpiece as a reminder of you.’
‘And I’ll have your eyeballs,’ said Izzie, laughing. ‘I could have them made into earrings.’
Lucy put her fingers in her ears. ‘Stop it. You’re all disgusting.’
‘Oops. Too late to do a runner,’ said Izzie suddenly putting a straight face on. ‘Here comes Wacko.’
I turned to see Miss Watkins approaching. She was wearing a long, navy-coloured cardigan that she’d bought at the sale yesterday and her face lit up when she saw us.
‘Well done, girls,’ she said. ‘I was hoping you lot would turn up. Come on then, let’s get inside.’
Five minutes later, the meeting was underway and Miss Watkins asked Boring Blair to fill us ‘new girls’ in on forthcoming events.
I had a hard time not falling asleep again much as I tried to concentrate on what Blair was saying. It was something about the tone of her voice. Or lack of tone. She spoke every word on the same level. She wouldn’t last five seconds on the radio.
I tried to focus once more and told myself that Blair’s lack of delivery didn’t matter as everyone knows she wants to be a marine biologist when she leaves school. Poor fish. The fishermen won’t need nets. They can just send Blair underwater and ask her to say something and the fish will all surrender in droves. In fact maybe she is perfect for the job of fundraiser – she could hypnotise people into giving their money away. I almost laughed as an image of thousands of people walking down the road like sleepwalkers and handing over thousands of pounds to Blair played through my mind. ‘Sleep sleep, hand over your cash,’ she said in my fantasy.
‘Nesta,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘What are you smiling at?’
‘Smiling? Me? Oh. Yes, Miss. Just thinking about fundraising ideas.’
‘Want to share those thoughts? That’s what the meeting is all about. Sharing ideas.’
‘Er no, Miss. Thank you. Not yet. Thank you.’
Somehow I didn’t think my fantasy of Blair as Queen of the Zombies was an idea that would go down that well in the present company. Doreen, Blair and their mates are a peculiar lot. Although people call them the Dopey Doreens, actually they are all dead clever. They’re not exactly pretty girls but they’re not unattractive either. Somewhere in the middle and all of them look like they go to very expensive hairdressers, in fact Charlotte has the glossiest auburn hair I’ve ever seen even though it is a little thin. Doreen’s small and brunette. Charlotte tall and skinny. Blair is tall with a mane of blond hair. And Sandra’s medium-sized with wild, curly, dark hair. So pretty normal in the main. The thing about them is that they’re . . . what is it? I thought as I searched my mind for the right word. They’re always up for awards for this and that. Mainly to do with science. Clever? No. Responsible? That’s partly the word, as they have always been the prefect type. No. I know the word. Adult. It’s like they somehow skipped childhood and adolescence and went straight into being grown up. Maybe they were even born grown up. I could feel myself smiling again as I imagined them in a play school reading books whilst around them other kids played with toys.
‘Nesta, Nesta,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘You’re daydreaming again. Come on. Join in. That’s why you’re here.’
‘OK. So how much has been raised so far?’ I asked.
‘Two hundred and fifty pounds,’ said Blair looking pleased with herself.
‘And how much is needed to build the new wing at the Lotus Hospice?’ I asked.
‘Well, that’s amo
ng other things,’ said Sandra. ‘We support a number of charities.’
‘Yes, but we agreed that the hospice would be our focus for the first half of the year,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘They have a target that they are trying to reach and all the schools in this area did promise that we would make them our priority until the sum has been raised.’
‘And the sum is?’ I asked.
‘Another fifty thousand pounds is needed,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘And they were hoping to get it by the beginning of May so the building could commence later on in the month.’
Doreen laughed. ‘Unlikely,’ she said.
‘Not possible,’ said Charlotte.
‘Thanks to some very generous benefactors, four hundred thousand has been raised by various organisations so far,’ said Miss Watkins, ‘but all those sources have now been exhausted, so it’s down to creativity and hard graft from now on. Just to make that last amount needed.’
The Dopey Doreens were all shaking their heads.
‘But why not?’ I asked.
Sandra gave me a very snooty look. ‘Have you actually done any fundraising?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered. So I’d only done yesterday’s jumble sale, but she didn’t need to know that.
‘Then you’ll know exactly how hard it is to extract money out of people,’ Sandra continued. ‘At least, enough to make a difference.’
‘And you wouldn’t believe how many people pitch up like you lot, full of enthusiasm, only to drop out a few weeks later when they realise what hard work it is,’ said Blair and the others nodded along with her.
‘Doesn’t need to be hard work,’ I blurted. ‘Well, OK, maybe a bit of graft but I don’t see why it can’t be enjoyable as well.’ I was thinking of the auction we’d had yesterday and what a laugh that had been for all of us. Volunteers and buyers.
‘Yeah right,’ drawled Doreen in a tired way. ‘Just what we need. Another naïve idealist.’
‘Now come on,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘You don’t want to put off our new arrivals on their first night.’
Doreen gave her a look back which said, that’s exactly what I want to do. I got a feeling that this fundraising thing was their little club and they didn’t want outsiders in. It was no wonder others had dropped out so quickly. When faced with this lot, I thought, who could blame them? But I wasn’t about to do a runner. I like a challenge and I don’t like people insinuating that I can’t do something. Huh, I thought. I’d show them who was a naïve idealist or not.
‘OK then,’ I said. ‘So what’s on the agenda? More jumble sales? Raffles? What?’
‘The big event in the calendar year is the dance on May 7th,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘How’s that going Blair?’
‘Well, we’ve got the venue,’ said Blair.
‘Which is where?’ asked TJ.
‘It’s a hall in East Finchley at the end of the High Road . . .’
‘Oh, I know it,’ said Izzie, then pulled a disapproving face. ‘It’s where I . . . er . . . It’s a bit dark and stuffy in there.’
I knew the hall too. It was where Izzie went to a slimming club called Weight Winners but she obviously didn’t want the others knowing how she knew the place.
‘So you find somewhere on no budget,’ challenged Charlotte. ‘We can brighten it up on the night with a few balloons.’
Izzie caught my eye. I knew she thinking the same thing that I was: Sounds like the party of the century. Not.
‘And how are the ticket sales going?’ asked Miss Watkins.
At this question, Blair looked down at the floor, faintly embarrassed. ‘Ah. Not brilliant so far . . .’
‘How many?’ asked Miss Watkins.
‘Twenty-five. Sorry. I . . . Look, we’ve got time yet.’
‘Five weeks,’ said Miss Watkins. ‘Five weeks and we need to sell at least five hundred. The hall will easily take that number, and even more at a push.’
‘Have you advertised it?’ asked TJ. ‘I could put it in the school magazine for a start. I certainly didn’t know that there was going to be any event in May, and if people don’t know about it, no one’s going to buy tickets.’
‘Yeah. Have you got any posters out there?’ asked Izzie.
Charlotte pulled a pile of posters out of her bag and held them up. They were black and white and showed little sense of design, in fact they looked like newspaper cuttings.
‘I’ve put these up in a few of the libraries,’ she said.
For girls with brains, this lot aren’t that bright, I thought – but then it was always the same in every year: the ones who did well academically weren’t always the most sussed when it came to street cred or doing anything commercial.
After looking at the posters, I glanced over at Lucy and pulled a ‘God they’re awful face’.
Unfortunately Blair saw me. ‘OK then, let’s see you lot do better,’ she said. ‘Charlotte spent ages doing those. Honestly Miss Watkins. Do we have to work with this lot from Year Ten?’
Miss Watkins’ eyes were twinkling as if she was secretly enjoying what was going on. ‘Team effort, girls,’ she said. ‘Team effort. Now have you new girls got any suggestions that you’d like to throw into the pot?’
I nodded. I was sure that Lucy, Izzie, TJ and I could raise more than two hundred and fifty pounds if we put our heads together. Sir Bob raised millions for Ethiopia in one night, so what was fifty thousand?
‘Give us a few days,’ I said. ‘We’ll come up with some ideas.’
‘Well, don’t do anything stupid,’ said Doreen. ‘And make sure that you consult us before starting. We’re experienced and know what we’re doing.’
‘Which is why you raised the grand sum of two hundred and fifty quid,’ I said as Lucy, Izzie and TJ gasped in horror.
Doreen looked as if she’d like to thump me and Blair, Sandra and Charlotte scowled at all of us with undisguised disdain. Now I knew that we had definitely stamped on their territory. Not that Miss Watkins seemed bothered by any of the animosity taking place in front of her. She was still smiling away as if at some private joke. Well tough to the lot of you, I thought as I met Doreen’s glare in an eyeball to eyeball staring contest. You’re not getting rid of us this easily.
Doreen looked away and murmured, ‘So childish.’
I didn’t care what she thought. I’d made up my mind that I wanted to do something for the Lotus Hospice and she wasn’t going to get in the way. It was because of something that TJ had said. It was at the jumble sale and made things click into place for me. She’d said, ‘I suppose for most people, people in need are all so far away and it doesn’t seem real. The people are anonymous but then when something affects someone close to you and you put a face and a family to a tragedy or disaster, then it all becomes so real.’
I nodded. That’s was how I felt now having met Eleanor. She was real and I couldn’t help but feel that it might have been me in her place or someone that I knew. The Lotus Hospice was my chosen charity now and I meant to give it my best.
‘We need a good theme for the dance,’ said Lucy in the lunch break at school the next day.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘It definitely needs something. I couldn’t believe those posters. A dance. The first Saturday in May. Like, so what? How dull is that? Wouldn’t attract me to go. It has to be like an event. Something you feel you can’t miss out on. A happening type of happening.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lucy. ‘Which is why we need a theme.’
‘But what?’ asked TJ.
‘Don’t know,’ said Lucy. ‘But we need to give people an excuse to dress up. I think people like that, least I know I do.’
‘Yeah, speak for yourself,’ said TJ. ‘I’m happy in my jeans and T-shirt. How about we do a barn dance sort of thing.’
‘Not glam enough. Who wants to dance about with a bit of straw stuck between their teeth?’ said Izzie.
‘Sounds OK to me,’ said TJ.
‘You have much to learn about being cool my dumb little chum,’
I said.
‘So what can our theme be?’ asked Izzie. ‘All in red, all in gold, all in silver?’
‘Cowboys and Indians. Vicars and tarts. Hollywood,’ suggested Lucy.
‘I think we should write down an A–Z of themes,’ said TJ. ‘Be useful for when one of us throws a party in the future, as well as for the dance. Plus, it would be great to put in the mag as a feature. In fact, it would be cool to do a whole section on parties.’
We spent the next fifteen minutes trying to think up themes and although some of them were really good, none of them felt right for the dance.
‘Some people hate dressing up,’ I said. ‘And it might put them off coming if they think they’ve got to hire a fancy dress costume. No. All in silver or all in white or something like that is more do-able and won’t cost a lot but . . . I don’t know. As Izzie said, it just needs to be more glam, I think.’
‘I know,’ said Lucy. ‘As I said, a chance to dress up, that’s it. A chance to put on your bling and strut your stuff. How about something like the Bling Ball?’
‘Yeah, great idea,’ said Izzie. ‘But not sure about the name. Sounds a bit downmarket. We need to sell a lot of tickets to fill the place and get some atmosphere going.’
‘But even if we sell a load of tickets,’ said TJ, ‘at only eight quid each, we still need to do something else to raise fifty thousand. I had a look on the Net last night and found a few sites with some really good ideas.’
‘And I’ve had a few ideas,’ said Lucy.
‘Me too,’ said Izzie.
‘So let’s hear them,’ I said. ‘Let’s brainstorm.’ I’d heard my dad use this term a million times when sitting round the table at home working on film ideas with his various producers.
We spent the next half hour writing down everything we could come up with for Miss Watkins and the Dopey Doreens. Soon we had a good list with suggestions from the insane to the sensible.
‘So what have we got so far chairperson?’ I asked TJ as she had been the one writing everything down.
TJ began to read from her list: ‘Sponsored skydiving . . .’
Mates, Dates and Diamond Destiny Page 7
