by Sue Limb
The waffle was delicious, and Fred’s mother, angel that she was, tried to tempt Jess to a second.
‘No, no, thanks, I really mustn’t,’ said Jess. ‘I ought to get off home because we’ve got to get ready for Granny coming. I’ve got to move out of my room.’
‘That’s hard,’ sympathised Fred’s mum. ‘But think of the Brownie points you’ll accumulate. Your mum will feel so guilty about it, she’ll never dare say no to you again!’
Jess hadn’t considered this possibility. It was certainly a cheerful thought. She thanked Fred’s mum effusively and they tiptoed towards the front door. They paused by the open door to the sitting room and looked in for a moment. Fred was lying fast asleep, half out of his sleeping bag, but his mouth wasn’t open any more. In fact, he was sucking his thumb. Oh my goodness, thought Jess, how unbelievably sweet!
‘For heaven’s sake don’t tell anybody!’ whispered his mum. ‘He’d never live it down!’
Jess walked home in five minutes, but she could feel her warm, positive mood slipping away with every step, and a chilly foreboding creeping back over her. She wondered in agony how she was ever going to get all her stuff into that tiny box room. Her huge posters would just have to stay rolled up under the bed. And what about her clothes? There wasn’t even a wardrobe, just a tiny chest of drawers about big enough to hold a Barbie doll outfit.
And, oh no! Her Barbie dolls! All twenty-eight of them! She hadn’t played with them for years, of course – not for years and years and years. And years. They lived in a huge cardboard box under her bed. She was saving them up for when she had a little girl. (By genetic engineering, obviously, or cloning. No man would ever want to marry her.) But even though she never ever played with her Barbies now, she would always keep them. They were part of her history.
The box room. No bigger than a coffin. It would be like being buried. Maybe she wouldn’t keep her Barbies after all. She would make a huge bonfire in the back garden. She would burn her clothes. She would burn all her old toys (except her old teddy bear Rasputin, obviously – he was more of a guru and personal trainer than a toy). She would burn all her make-up. She would shave off all her hair and burn that. She would wear only a pair of Oriental black pyjamas. She would sleep in the box room on a small mat made of rushes. The only item in the room would be a plain white saucer for her tears. Then they’d be sorry.
By the time she got home, her insides had screwed themselves up into a dreadful knot, and she wished she hadn’t had the waffle. Indeed, there was a danger that any moment the waffle might, in some rather grisly sense, be born again. She was dreading seeing her mum. Would she be angry? How angry? Or perhaps she had gone stark staring mad and would be crouching in a corner mumbling, her clothes reduced to rags, muesli scattered on her head?
But her mum’s car was missing. Oh no! Had she gone to drive off a cliff somewhere, leaving a note? Owing to the difficulties with my daughter I no longer wish to be a burden to her.
Jess let herself in and immediately saw that her mum had indeed left a note, on the hall table.
Dear Jess,
I’ve gone to get Granny, as it’s quite a long drive and I want to be back by teatime. Sorry about yesterday. It’s really unfair of me expecting you to move into that poky little box room, so I’ve moved into it myself. All my stuff is in there in plastic bin bags. You can have my bedroom. I’ve put all your stuff in there and you can do whatever you like with it.
Love Mum
Jess ran upstairs and charged into what had been her mum’s bedroom – the best room upstairs, by miles. It had two windows! It had a built-in wardrobe! It even had a little fireplace where Jess was already planning to have a real log fire! Tears of joy ran down Jess’s cheeks. Curse this premenstrual tension. But her mum was so kind! Jess loved her so much! Here was this lovely, palatial room and she could do whatever she liked with it. Her mum had placed Rasputin the bear on the bed and he seemed to be waving to her – regally, of course. This was the best Sunday since Sundays were invented.
The phone rang. A cold spear of fear went through Jess’s heart. She was sure her mother had been killed in a road accident. Just at the very moment when she loved her more than everyone else in the world put together, she had been cruelly snatched away. Jess fell on the phone.
‘Yes?’ she gasped, preparing for the cold voice of a police officer or possibly an Accident and Emergency nurse.
‘Hey, Jess!’ It was Flora. ‘Everybody’s dying to hear – what exactly happened last night between you and Whizzer?’
Chapter 8
Jess and Flora met in a cafe. Unfortunately, their part of town was completely lacking in style, and the only place open on Sundays was a little religious charity place which sold snacks made by poor people in Africa.
‘Is this actually food or some kind of building material?’ Jess growled as she tried to free her teeth from a cereal bar made of tree bark, gravel and superglue.
‘It’s OK, we should eat more of this sort of stuff,’ Flora assured her. ‘The starving –’
‘Yes, yes, I know! Don’t give me a hard time about the starving! I get enough political harassment from Mum at home! There’s no need to start preaching just because it’s Sunday!’
‘Sssssh!’ whispered Flora.
The middle-aged woman who ran the place looked disapprovingly at them over her owly glasses. She was polishing some mugs adorned with portraits of Jesus.
‘Please don’t say anything loud and satanic,’ Flora whispered. ‘Or we’ll get thrown out, and there’s nowhere else open.’
‘So how was the party?’ asked Jess. ‘How did you get on with Mackenzie? I hope you broke his heart with a resounding crack audible at the North Pole?’
‘He is so cool!’ confided Flora. ‘We spent the whole evening together. He’s really witty and, like, confident and stuff, and he told me I’m beautiful, which is rubbish, of course.’ Flora’s modesty could be irritating. She was always insisting that she hated her eyes, nose, mouth, skin, hair, etc, despite the fact that when He created Flora, God was on tip-top form and really cooking on gas.
On that day He also made the flamingos, the dolphins, the rainbows and a divine apple crumble with custard. By the time He got around to creating Jess, however, He had rather run out of steam and had a slight headache, and could only manage a couple of other things – toads, baboons and possibly methane – before needing to take an aspirin and have a lie-down.
‘But what about you?’ asked Flora. ‘What happened with Whizzer? Did you puke all over him or did he puke all over you?’ Jess was amazed for a moment. The soup! This must be something to do with the minestrone. ‘He said you’d been sick all over him and you ran off to the loo and then you went home. You poor thing! If you’d told me I would have looked after you and everything! What was it? Food poisoning?’
Jess was speechless for a moment. Saved by a rumour of vomit! Maybe the strange tale of her bags of soup wasn’t widely known after all. Jess was tempted to tell the whole story to Flora. Normally she told her absolutely everything. But this time … maybe not. It was a chance of a great escape, and Jess seized it.
‘Yeah,’ she said eventually. ‘Must have been something I ate.’ Wanting desperately to change the subject from vomit, though, Jess went on, ‘So what about Ben? I sort of bumped into him just as I was leaving. Not in a stylish way, either. More like a kind of bison colliding with a barn door. Who did he get off with? I suppose he was mobbed by lovelorn maidens all wanting a piece of him?’
‘No,’ said Flora. ‘He was talking to me and Mackenzie quite a lot. They’re thinking of starting a band and … well, they asked me to be lead singer in it.’ Flora looked ever so slightly furtive as she completed this speech, and sort of flinched very prettily, like a shepherdess who has trodden in some sheep’s poo.
Jess’s heart leapt right out of her mouth, completed two circuits of the cafe and re-entered her body at speed through her right nostril. It was amazing nobody noticed. Ben Jo
nes had asked Flora to be in his band! Of course, she had to smile and look thrilled to bits for Flora, though the sky went dark, and the coffee in her cup turned into the urine of a vampire bat.
‘He asked you to be in his band?’ Jess blurted out. ‘That’s fantastic! You’ll be on TV by Christmas! I shall wait at the stage door and cry out feebly for your autograph as you sweep out to your waiting limousine, but my words will be lost in the howl of the crowd … You will be blinded by the flashing cameras of the paparazzi …’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Flora. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll come to anything. I can’t sing anyway. We’ve got nowhere to practise. And I don’t suppose my parents will let me. My mum’s got a thing about protecting me from loud noises because I had so many ear infections when I was little.’
‘No, no – you’re gonna be big!’ Suddenly Jess couldn’t eat another mouthful of the cereal bar, not even for the sake of the starving. ‘You’re gonna be massive – global! Intergalactic! People will be watching your videos on Mars!’ Jess managed, with a heroic effort, to go on smiling.
‘You can come to our rehearsals,’ said Flora, looking guilty.
‘I’m not sure about that.’ Jess frowned. No way would she hang around at their rehearsals, like some kind of sad groupie. ‘I’m going to be really busy getting my new room ready. I’m going to paint it purple and fling leopardskin throws about. What I thought was going to be a disaster has turned into a great interior design opportunity. Thanks, bizarrely, to my granny.’
‘My granny’s just gone off for a holiday in Barbados!’ said Flora. ‘She’ll probably be waterskiing by now. Or snorkelling or something.’
‘Why does your granny have to be so glamorous?’ enquired Jess acidly. ‘Doesn’t she know grannies are supposed to hobble off to bingo and moan about their arthritis? Barbados! Honestly! What a showoff!’
‘Your granny is heaps nicer than mine,’ said Flora guiltily. ‘She’s so funny. I hope her knee gets better soon. And I’m dying to see your new room. Can I help you to paint it?’ Flora was trying so horribly hard to be nice. She would win an Olympic gold medal for niceness. Jess felt completely paralysed by it. It was like being trapped in icing sugar and nibbled to death by pink teddy bears.
Jess stood up. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ she said. ‘I’ve got heaps to do on my room.’
Flora had to go, too. She had already done her homework, of course – and possibly ironed it and sprinkled it with rosewater. She was planning to spend the evening chatting online with Mackenzie about the band.
On the way home Jess dropped in at the petrol station and spent the last of her pocket money on a bunch of flowers for Granny. She felt, on the whole, she would rather not have a granny who went waterskiing in Barbados. It was going a bit too far. For Jess’s granny, luxurious fun consisted of trying out a new flavour of cough lozenge. Cherry instead of honey and lemon was her idea of living dangerously.
Jess arranged the flowers in Granny’s room. It didn’t look like her room any more, and now she had the best bedroom upstairs, she didn’t mind about giving up the downstairs one. Jess went upstairs and stuck all her posters on the wall. She adored her new room. She made plans to cover the floor with astroturf and paint the ceiling sky blue with aeroplanes. Or perhaps she would adorn the walls with red velvet and make herself a four-poster bed with an antique Venetian shawl thrown carelessly across it and old brown leather-bound books on the bedside table. And a candle in an iron candlestick. And a stuffed owl in a niche. Looking a bit like Fred with his hood up.
It was five o’clock. Where were Mum and Granny? Should she start to worry? Jess decided instead to make herself a cheese sandwich. She hadn’t eaten anything since the gravel and glue cereal bar at the Christian cafe. She hoped the catering in heaven was a bit more appetising. She had just taken a huge mouthful of sandwich when the phone rang.
‘Jess, love, I’m so sorry, we’re halfway home and the clutch has burned out,’ said her mum. ‘We’re going to stay the night in a B&B. Can you cope?’
‘Of course I can!’ cried Jess indignantly, even though the shadow of a werewolf was already visible on the opposite wall.
‘Well, maybe you’d like to have Flora over, or something – to keep you company,’ suggested her mum.
This seemed like an excellent idea. If Flora came over, Jess could snoop on her Facebook chat with Mackenzie, and perhaps even learn a thing or two about Ben Jones’s secrets. Maybe, who knows, Ben Jones himself might appear – virtually, that is. His profile name was apparently Six Toes. Jess wondered if he really did have six toes. Would she ever get to see his feet? She was sure they would be fragrant and sacred, not smelly like other boys’ feet.
Jess rang Flora. ‘Guess what! I’m Home Alone. Wanna come over?’
‘Oh, wow, yes!’ said Flora. ‘And shall I see if I can bring Mackenzie and Ben Jones?’
‘What, seriously?’ A thrill ran down Jess’s spine. ‘Wow! Bring it on!’ she cried. ‘Yes per-leease! But the place is a complete tip!’
‘Great!’ answered Flora. ‘If it’s a complete tip already then there’s no danger of us making a mess, is there?’
Jess rang off and looked around in a panic. She was supposed to be doing her homework. But in less than an hour Ben Jones might be sitting right there on her sofa! His divine bum would leave an imprint so sacred, nobody would ever be allowed to sit there again. But could she transform herself into a thing of beauty in less than an hour? Could she design herself a pair of eyebrows that would break his heart for ever? She could but try. She seized her tweezers and uttered a faint prayer for supernatural help. After all, she had eaten most of a religious cereal bar at lunchtime. She hoped such heroism had not gone unnoticed by those above.
Chapter 9
Amazing! Unbelievable! Mackenzie and Ben Jones were sitting on her sofa! Really sitting there, in flesh and blood! Mackenzie was cute, with dark curls and a dangerous smile. Ben Jones was blond, silent and charismatic. This was so the most exciting moment of Jess’s life so far.
‘Wanna Pepsi?’ she asked.
‘Got anything else?’ asked Mackenzie. ‘Pepsi makes him fart.’ He nodded towards Ben. Ben groaned and thumped him. This was certainly a romantic start to the evening.
‘Haven’t you got a beer or something, Jess?’ asked Flora, looking quite annoyed at Jess’s painful lack of style.
‘No. Sorry. My mum doesn’t drink, and we never get wine or beer in unless we have visitors we’re trying to impress,’ confessed Jess. ‘We haven’t had any vodka in the house since the prime minister dropped by.’
There was a silence. The boys looked blank. Ben waggled his feet and stared at them. Jess was terrified. It was going to be a disaster.
‘My parents have got a wine cellar,’ said Flora.
‘Wow! Ace! Wicked! Let’s go there, then,’ said Mackenzie.
‘We can’t!’ yelled Flora in panic. ‘My parents are at home.’
The boys looked disappointed.
‘I can’t offer you the crystal chandeliers and champagne of Flora’s place,’ remarked Jess, ‘but that kind of stuff is so Last Century. Nowadays everybody’s into dry toast and tap water. It’s kind of, you know, Buddhist.’ Ben looked puzzled. Mackenzie looked bored. It had been a mistake to mention Buddhism.
‘Remember last Christmas?’ said Mackenzie. ‘We went round Carter’s and raided his dad’s bar? Man, did he booze! He sploffed his fozza with a Red Stinker.’
Jess sighed. Boys had a language of their own. They could be talking about drink. But it could equally be a reference to sport, or a video game. Or even war. This evening was beginning to be a bit of a disappointment, conversation-wise. Ben was apparently incapable of joined-up speech. And Mackenzie was talking in Hungarian.
Jess began to rewrite the dialogue in her head, à la Jane Austen.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Jordan, Miss Barclay,’ said Sir Benjamin Jones, with a distinguished bow. ‘May we expect the pleasure of your company at the ball at N
etherbourne next month?’
‘So what have you got to drink, Jess? Apart from Pepsi?’ demanded Flora rather irritably.
‘I think I may have some chocolate milkshake,’ said Jess, secretly aware that it was probably past its sell-by date.
‘Yeah! Ace! Milkshake! Wicked!’ shouted Mackenzie. ‘Gimme milkshake – straight into the vein!’
Jess couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t said please.
‘What about you, Ben?’ she said. She was trying to make her voice sound low and sultry, but unfortunately, as she spoke, a little drop of spit shot out of her mouth and landed on Ben’s shirt. He flinched. Oh no! That was the end of everything! She had hoped to seduce him and had instead spat on his clothing.
Ben Jones said, ‘Er – I’m OK, thanks.’ He didn’t brush the spit off or anything, although Jess knew that he knew it was there. She could see it still glistening. Luckily Flora and Mackenzie were gazing into each other’s eyes and hadn’t noticed.
‘I’d like some milkshake, too, please, Jess,’ said Flora. ‘I just so adore chocolate.’ She licked her lips and sighed. Both the boys gawped at her, clearly wishing they could be turned into Easter eggs right there and then.
Jess went out to the kitchen. The milkshake was only one day past its sell-by date. Jess sniffed it. It didn’t smell too bad, although there was a faint whiff of garlic about it from one of her mum’s jars of salad dressing which had been standing next to it in the fridge, with the lid off. So far, so good: a chocolate’n’garlic milkshake only just beginning to go off. But there was only enough left to fill one glass.
Wait! If she used smaller glasses, maybe she could fill two. She found a couple of wine glasses and poured the milkshake into them. Then she got a Pepsi for herself. Then she ate a cracker to dry her spit up, so she wouldn’t shower Ben Jones with saliva again. She inhaled a cracker crumb, choked and had a coughing fit. Her eyes watered. Her mascara ran. She reapplied it in the downstairs cloakroom: hurry, hurry, hurry! She smudged it. Would she manage to get back into the living room before one of her guests died of old age?
