by Lil Chase
‘What’s wrong with you these days, Gwynnie? We used to be friends, but recently you’re . . .’
‘I’m what?’
Dad thinks about what to say for a second before quietly uttering, ‘. . . a little unpleasant.’
That is the rudest thing that anyone has ever said to me! Coming from my own father means that it’s twenty billion times worse. ‘Well, you’re . . . you’re . . . you’re the gingerest person in the world!’ I don’t know if that hurt or not. ‘I’m going to my room. And as I’m so unpleasant you’ll be happy to stay away from me.’ That’s more like it. I slam the kitchen door and storm upstairs.
Chapter 23
I want everyone to see my new piercing. On Monday I walk to school in a top that’s so small it’s not much more than a bra, and tracksuit bottoms that I push down low so I’m showing off as much of my stomach as possible. The whole school is in assembly and I think they are all talking about me. For once, that feels pretty good.
Then The Dazzler says, ‘Gwendolyn, please would you stand up?’
A few months ago this would have been like I was man of the match in my worst nightmare. But right now I’m OK with it. I stand up.
‘Everyone look at Gwendolyn Lewis.’
Everyone looks at me and I feel like a bit of a celeb.
‘This is a perfect example of what I was talking about at the beginning of term. We can not have students dressing like this and continue to maintain an image of decency. As I mentioned weeks ago, there is a new school uniform in place . . .’
I think I know what’s coming.
‘You have had plenty of time to purchase one. As of tomorrow, anyone not in the correct attire will spend two weeks in detention.’
Two weeks in detention would probably be worth it.
‘And the offender will not be allowed to go to the prom on Saturday.’
The assembly hall completely erupts. I have never heard anything like it. Take That or Madonna playing at Wembley would have made less noise. Michael Jackson coming back from the dead would have barely registered compared to this. The end of the world would have been a quiet day in the Lake District when put against the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from Northampton Hill High.
‘You have driven me to this and it’s your fault.’
He means you, like, you the whole school, but it sounds like you, Gwendolyn Lewis.
Every other word I hear is my name. Just as I’m thinking there is no way that this could be worse, Mr Roberts tops it. Above the din I can just hear him saying, ‘. . . regulation . . . blazer . . . tie . . .’ and the word I was dreading above all: ‘. . . skirt.’
My knees begin to buckle. I sit down quickly without waiting for permission and feel like turning into one of those proper nutters that live in a padded cell and rock back and forth.
As we file out of assembly I can hear Kimba say to Tanya, ‘I told Gwynnie that top was too much. Now we have to wear uniform . . . all because of her.’
Which is a complete lie, but I hate myself so much right now that it’s almost nice to have someone else hate me too – it makes me feel included.
It’s the next morning, and no matter how many pictures of Outer Mongolia I show my dad, I can not get him to agree to move there. I am going to live and die in England. Possibly in a few hours, when I get to school and they all decide to kill me.
I get dressed in my room and leave the skirt till last. I do all my make-up and curl my hair with the straighteners (which should be impossible, by definition). This is avoidance of the inevitable. Finally I put on the skirt and look in the mirror.
It’s a plain black A-line skirt that stops at my knees. Then there are my knees: they’re stupidly knobbly, like a bag of marbles, and they are covered with scars where I picked off old football scabs, and scabs on scabs on scars on scabs. I bought some tights after school yesterday so no one will see, but there is no hiding my skinny legs. It would be OK if I could wear leggings, but someone asked the Dazzler yesterday and he said, ‘Under no circumstances.’ I wonder if that includes me?
I wait outside Jenny’s house so that we can walk in together and not feel so terrible. It’s only OK to look like a fool if you’re with someone else who looks the same. She is still in her I’m not answering my phone phase so she looks pretty surprised to see me standing outside her door. Somehow she has managed to look really good in her uniform. Not cool exactly – no one could look cool in school uniform – but she has fashioned it up with these funky tights, and a way of tying the tie so it looks short and fat. Mine looks like I have a piece of string dangling round my neck.
I’m speechless for a minute before I ask, ‘How did you get your skirt so short?’ They are supposed to be regulation length.
She lifts up her fitted shirt and shows me that she has rolled the skirt over itself at the waist to make it shorter. ‘Easy, see. Anyone could do it.’
‘Not me,’ I say. ‘I have to find a way of hiding my skinny legs. They are hideous.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ she says. ‘Never mind. Maybe you could get a longer skirt and call it a maxi dress.’
I pretend to know what a maxi dress is and nod along.
She’s pretty quiet on the way there and I think she must be dreading our first uniform day as much as I am. I take a deep breath as we approach the school gates.
‘We’ll have to stick close together.’ I try to hook her arm with mine but she pulls away.
‘It’s OK, thanks.’
‘What’s up?’ I ask her. Jenny seems angry with me.
‘Nothing. Oh look, there’s the rest of the girls!’ And with that she darts off towards the BB gang, leaving me alone.
In the playground there’s this weird thing in the air because we’re all wearing uniform for the first time. Everyone is speaking to everyone else, telling their story about how they hate how we look and how their parents are writing letters to the school board to get it changed back to how it was. But they are kind of enjoying themselves too. It’s something to bond over.
I walk in and Northampton Hill High goes quiet. Apparently the school hasn’t completely forgiven me for being the cause of all this. They look at me and shake their heads.
‘Thanks a lot, Gwendolyn Lewis!’
Great, a Year 11 knows my name but only to shout abuse at me.
I hurry over to my friends in the BB Club. (There’s no point having your belly-button pierced when it’s hidden under a shirt.) If I thought we all looked the same before, we definitely all look the same now: navy-blue blazers with a badge, and skirts to match. But all the other girls have short skirts that show off their nice legs. Even Tanya has rolled up her skirt because her mum is not around to stop her.
I try to say, ‘Hi,’ like everything is fine when it’s completely not.
‘Hi, Gwynnie,’ says Elizabeth. ‘What do we all look like, eh?’
The rest of them all nod hello to me, then sort of turn away a little. Jenny stands a few metres from me. They’re so far away I feel shortsighted.
‘I’ve never seen you in a skirt before, Gwynnie,’ says Tanya, who stops herself from saying I look OK because that would be a downright lie.
Paul and Ranjit come over, talking about who is wearing a clip-on tie and who had to get their mum to tie theirs for them. ‘Hey, Gwynnie,’ Ranjit says, ‘aren’t you Miss Popular today?’ He laughs. ‘I think everyone hates you!’ He says it as if he’s filling me in on the weather forecast: foggy, with a chance of dislike.
‘Really?’ I mumble, now terrified.
‘Yup,’ he says, not realizing that this is worse than that time when Spurs lost to West Ham due to dodgy lasagne. ‘I’ve heard someone’s even drawn a tombstone with the words R.I.P. Gwynnie on the wall in the girls’ toilets.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Actually,’ says Kimba, ‘it says R.I.P. Skinny Gwynnie.’
‘That’s not true,’ says Paul. ‘It’s just a rumour.’
This is really bad.
‘Second only to Gwynnie,’ says Kimba.
Charlie looks at me with pity. ‘Yeah. I heard about the tombstone in the toilets, Gee. I’m sorry.’
I have a huge lump in my throat and I want to run away. But the only place to go is the toilets and then I would have to walk past everyone else in the school shouting at me, only to arrive in a room with a picture of my own grave in it. At least my friends will just insult me once and then it’ll be over. I hope.
‘Gwynnie,’ says Kimba, ‘we had an emergency meeting about you last night on MSN. We would kind of prefer it if you didn’t hang out with us for a while.’
‘What? Why?’ I ask.
‘Well,’ she explains, ‘everyone kind of despises you, and we don’t want them to depise us by association.’
‘Jenny?’ I plead to my best friend.
Jenny starts rummaging in her bag as if she hasn’t heard me. I was being a bit of a knob yesterday, showing off my new piercing like that, but I can’t believe that the exact thing I thought would make me cool and popular has made me the most uncool and unpopular person in the history of high school.
‘Sorry, Gwynnie,’ Melissa says, ‘but we have to think of the reputation of the BB Club.’
I feel sick.
‘Yeah,’ Kimba says, obviously loving being the bearer of such bad news, ‘and we are also dismissing you from the Prom Planning Committee.’
‘Hey!’ I say, feeling a bit angry. ‘I thought you were supposed to be my friends.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t even come to prom at all,’ she says, as if she’s pointing out something that I should have realized on my own.
‘Kimba,’ says Elizabeth, her voice shaking a little, ‘Gwynnie’s right; she’s a BB girl and we should stick by her. Everyone will forget about this after a while.’
Kimba shoots Elizabeth a look. ‘No one has forgotten about your incident, Elizabeth, and that happened in Year 5. Every day for the rest of forever the pupils of Northampton Hill High will get dressed for school and curse Gwynnie’s name.’
‘Not the rest of forever,’ I say. But maybe she’s right.
‘But still,’ continues Elizabeth, ‘Gwynnie is—’
‘Elizabeth, do you want your membership reduced to bronze too?’
Now Elizabeth is getting flack for sticking up for me. If I don’t walk away now I will cry. ‘Forget it then!’ I shout. ‘Some friends you are! I’ll see you around,’ I say, and I start running. I’m heading for my grave in the girls’ toilets. If my dad doesn’t let me change school then I am going to Mongolia by myself.
I hear Charlie say, really loudly, ‘Don’t be rude to Gwynnie, all right?’
And Kimba says, ‘What do you care?’
As far away as I am I can still hear his answer. ‘Because I want to ask her something, and you can’t cuss her like that.’
What does he want to ask me?
‘Gwynnie, wait!’ He shouts it really, really loudly this time so the whole school looks. He runs to catch up with me so I stop and let him. He says, ‘Gwynnie, erm . . .’
‘Yes, Charlie.’ This totally isn’t real.
‘Will you go to the prom with me?’
I’m too shocked to say anything.
‘What do you say, Gwynnie? Will you be my date on Saturday?’
I am looking at him like he just asked me to join Girls Aloud, mouth open, eyes wide – I must look ridiculous. But the whole entire world is watching Charlie Notts ask me to the prom.
‘Yes, please,’ I squeak. (OK, the please was possibly a bit much.)
Me and Charlie are going to the prom together. And if he doesn’t ask me out properly, then I’ll just have to ask him.
Chapter 24
‘Hey, Dad, how’s it hanging?’ I say as my Dad walks into the living room.
‘It’s hanging superbly, Gwyndoe, just bloody superbly.’ He gives me a big kiss on the top of my head, which I let slide.
‘Why are you in such a good mood?’ I ask him.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ he says.
I would, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking when he’s looking so smug. ‘Have you just taken a pill that can make you happy but will make your hair even more frizzy?’
‘No, Gwynnie, I haven’t. And I wouldn’t need one as I am extremely frizzy and as happy as a clam.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
‘Tell me, Dad.’
‘No.’
‘You know you can’t keep a secret.’ I roll my eyes in this overly dramatic way. ‘Tell me now and then we can skip over the whining and pleading and get on to your boring secret, then have dinner.’ I’m not being unpleasant here, I am only teasing him and he knows it.
‘Oh, Gwynnie . . . This is so completely not boring.’ Dad thinks he’s speaking like me, but I so completely don’t speak like that. Oh.
‘Tell me or I’ll tickle you.’ My dad’s weakness is tickling. I stand up and get him at the back of the neck, where I know he’s most vulnerable. He does that thing that’s sort of in between laughing and screaming in agony, and then he yells, ‘Stop! I surrender! I’ll tell you everything.’
‘You’d be rubbish in a torture situation, Dad. They wouldn’t need a dripping tap, just a feather duster.’
Dad looks at me and he’s smiling. I can see that he’s really properly smiling like I haven’t seen him smile in ages. Not since Mum was alive and he had his proper job at the warehouse and Mum had her part-time work at Dixons and we didn’t have a lot of money but we were fine.
Suddenly Dad goes all serious.
‘Gwynnie, I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit of a rubbish dad sometimes.’
I don’t say anything. I could tell him he’s not a rubbish dad, because he’s not. Well, not all of the time. But I’m waiting to see what bombshell he’s about to drop.
‘Since your mother died I’ve found it really difficult to manage on my own . . . with everything . . . There’s a lot of stuff that I feel I have messed up that I know your mother would have handled better, and there is a lot stuff you have missed out on.’
‘I don’t need stuff, Dad.’ When have I ever needed stuff?
He takes a breath and then continues. ‘Angela wanted me to tell you that you can always come to her if you ever need any – erm – girl talk—’ Oh no, he’s not going to talk about condoms and diseases again, is he? ‘And she knows that she’s not your mum and she’d never be as good as your mum, but . . .’
What’s Angela got to do with anything? Please don’t tell me he’s marrying Angela.
‘Is this about Angela?’ There’s this weird crack in my voice and I realize that I am on the verge of crying. It sometimes happens when people start talking about Mum in a serious way.
‘This isn’t about Angela at all really, and I don’t know why I brought it up. I just wanted to say that I know things have been difficult since Mum died . . . And I’m sorry that I ruined your birthday by not having any money. If there was anything I could change about the past couple of months, that would be it.’
‘It’s OK, Dad.’ And it was OK. So why did I make such a big deal about it at the time?
‘Anyway, I wanted to make it up to you by doing something brilliant. Just the two of us.’
‘You don’t have to, Dad.’ Part of me is excited that maybe he’s got us tickets to New York Fashion Week, but part of me is worried that he is about to suggest counting sparrows at Bradlaugh Fields.
‘So . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘You know how Spurs have kicked the bums of every other team in the FA Cup for the first time since 1991?’
‘Yeah.’ Doesn’t everyone know that?
‘And you know that we usually watch the final down the pub wit
h the lads?’
‘Yeah.’ I can see where he is going with this but I don’t dare to dream it’s true.
‘Gwynnie . . .’ He makes it all dramatic like he’s a gameshow host. ‘I’ve . . . gotusticketstotheFACupfinal!!!’
This is amazing! So amazing that I can’t register what he’s saying. My mouth hangs open like a goal when the keeper’s been sent off, while my dad does this dance that makes him look like he’s stirring three different pans of soup at the same time, two with his hands and one with his bottom. ‘We’re going to see Spurs?’ I ask. I’ve only ever seen them play four times.
‘Yup.’
‘In the FA Cup final?’ I will probably never see Spurs in the FA Cup final again.
‘Yup.’
‘This is the best thing you have ever done for me ever!’ I run over and gave him a big hug.
‘I thought we’d make a day of it; go down to London, watch Tottenham lift the FA Cup, and then after we’ve shouted ourselves hoarse, get something to eat somewhere, like pizza or something, before we come home.’
I can picture it now: there we are with thousands of screaming Spurs fans. It’s the eighty-ninth minute, it’s two all, and Andros Townsend makes the most amazing tackle before passing it down the line to Frazier Campbell who lobs it over to Robbie Keane who takes it round one of their defenders, then two, then three, before chipping it over the keeper and scoring the most amazing goal since Gazza’s 1991 stonker against Arsenal. The crowd will jump up in amazement and when the ball finally passes the goal line everyone will go mental and start hugging and bawling. Then the ref will blow for full time and everyone will go even more mental because they will realize that we have actually done it. Then Charlie Notts will ring me and ask if I saw it, and I’ll be like, Saw it? I’m here! Then he’ll tell me that I am the most amazing girl he has ever met and he’ll say he wants more than anything to be my boyfriend.
‘Thank you so much, Dad. You’re the best.’
‘Well,’ he says, like it’s no big deal or anything, ‘I figured that we were doing nothing special on Saturday so . . .’ He trails off when he sees my face.
