Kiss

by Wilson, Jacqueline

  I looked at Miranda. The vest was transformed. It clung to her like a corset, the straps taut against her smooth white skin, the black lace stretched to the limit over her cleavage. The tangerine of her bra straps contrasted exotically. She looked incredible.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ I said, tugging my vest off and hurriedly pulling on my school shirt.

  ‘Hey, hang on, I didn’t have a proper look.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to. It looked awful.’

  ‘I’m sure it didn’t. Don’t be like that. Maybe you need a smaller size.’

  ‘They don’t come in smaller sizes. None of the clothes in normal shops look right on me. I’m going to have to shop in bloody Mothercare.’

  ‘Oh, Sylvie, you are funny.’ Miranda gave me a sudden hug to cheer me up.

  An assistant twitched the curtain to check on the cubicle and looked startled to see two girls embracing in their underwear.

  ‘You’re not meant to be in there together,’ she said hastily, her cheeks pink. ‘Come on, get dressed. I want you out of here.’ She flounced off, rattling the rings of our cubicle curtain.

  ‘Oh my God, she thinks we’re getting it on together!’ said Miranda, whooping with laughter.

  ‘Oh, Miranda!’ I said, going bright red. ‘Quick, put your blouse on. Let’s go!’

  Miranda’s laughter was terribly infectious. I started giggling too, and then I couldn’t stop, even though I covered my mouth and bit my lips.

  We staggered out of the changing room, snorting and squealing. I felt every sales girl was staring at us disapprovingly. I was ready to run right out of the shop, but Miranda made me wait.

  ‘I want to buy the top, silly.’

  ‘You can’t buy it now!’

  ‘Why not? It looks good on me, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But they’re all looking at us, thinking we’re … you know.’

  ‘Who cares? Anyway, so what if we were? Grow up, Sylvie.’

  I knew Miranda had the right attitude but I couldn’t help feeling horribly embarrassed as we waited in the queue for her to pay. She made it worse, playing to the crowd, putting her arm round me and gazing at me fondly.

  ‘Stop it!’ I hissed.

  ‘Oh come on, where’s your sense of humour, Coochie Face?’ said Miranda, laughing at me.

  I was even more upset when we got out of the shop at last and saw the time on the big ornamental clock.

  ‘Oh no! It’s nearly two! We’ll be so late. We’re going to be in so much trouble! Come on!’

  I started running. Miranda hung onto me.

  ‘Don’t, Sylvie. Slow down and start thinking. You’re right, we really will be in big trouble if we go back to school now. If we waltz in halfway through the afternoon then it’ll be dead obvious that we’ve been out. But if we don’t go back at all then they’ll just think we’re away ill or something. They don’t take a register in the afternoon, do they? The teachers won’t even notice.’

  ‘But the other girls will know we were here this morning.’

  ‘No one will dare blab on me. Do you think old Lucylocks will tell?’

  ‘She wouldn’t tell to get me into trouble, but she might be worried about me, scared that something’s happened.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I suppose she might start flapping. Can’t you text her? Look, borrow my mobile.’

  ‘She hasn’t got a mobile herself.’

  ‘Oh, typical. What a bore that girl is. I don’t know what you see in her, she’s so smug and silly and lickle-girly.’

  ‘No, she’s not. Not really,’ I said. ‘Poor Lucy. Carl’s always horrid about her too.’

  ‘There! I knew Carl and I were soulmates. Anyway, let’s hope Lickle Lucy holds her tongue because we’ve just got to stay out of school now, we’ve no serious option. So we might just as well enjoy ourselves, right? Let’s go round all the shops. Hey, we could wind up all the shop girls pretending to have steamy sessions in the cubicles. Oh, Sylvie, your face! I’m just joking. Don’t go all moody on me, there’s a darling.’

  ‘We’re going to be in even more trouble if we miss the whole of afternoon school. And what will we do about our homework and stuff?’

  ‘Oh, get a grip, girl. Copy off Lucy. Look, no one will notice at school, but if they do you can always say you were sick at lunch time or had a splitting headache or whatever and had to go home. Don’t look so worried, it’s easy to fob them off, believe me.’

  ‘So easy you actually got expelled from your last school,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t get expelled for something as trivial as a teeny bit of truanting,’ said Miranda. ‘Come on, Sylvie, lighten up a little, let’s have fun.’

  I lightened, because there was no point darkening and spoiling everything.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Fun time.’

  We did have fun going all round the shopping centre, in and out of every clothes shop, though I kept well away from the changing rooms whenever Miranda wanted to try anything on.

  I did let her talk me into trying on shoes, and we paraded around in high heels and big boots and strappy sandals. Miranda adapted her gait according to her footwear, strutting and striding, even doing a Charleston step in diamanté twenties shoes. I was scared we’d get thrown out of the shoe shop too, but there was a young spotty guy serving us and he just sat back on his haunches, entranced. I watched Miranda admiringly too, though part of me wanted to kick her for being such a terrible show-off. But the thing was, she showed off so brilliantly. She was the Miranda Holbein Roadshow, rolling up and performing anywhere with cheeky charm.

  I’d never had such fun going round the shops. Carl liked browsing in charity shops and antique centres but he hated the shopping centre and wouldn’t set foot inside it. Mum was generally too intent on making a quick trip round Tesco. She got depressed if we went window-shopping in the centre because we didn’t have enough money to treat ourselves. I’d gone shopping with Lucy one Saturday afternoon but it hadn’t been much fun. We’d had a staid cup of tea and a scone in a department store like a pair of pearl-strung old ladies, and then we’d wandered aimlessly around, Lucy only getting really animated in the Bear Factory.

  I was surprised when Miranda wanted to go to the Bear Factory too. She entered into the spirit of the thing, playing with all the limp little bodies in the tub waiting to be filled with beans and turned into bouncing bears.

  ‘I want to be yours, Sylvie,’ she said, making empty little paws stroke me imploringly. ‘Fill me up and set my little satin heart beating with love.’

  She was so good at making things seem real, just as good as Carl. I couldn’t resist. I picked up the chosen bear and its head flopped wistfully, its eyes big and brown, its little mouth an imploring smile. There seemed something quaint and old-fashioned about him, so I called him Albert. He quivered approvingly.

  Miranda took him to the machine to be filled up.

  ‘No, don’t. Stop it!’ I said. ‘We’ll have to pay for him if we fill him up.’

  ‘So? I’m not proposing we steal him. I’ve got heaps of money on me. More than enough for one small bear.’

  ‘So you really want Albert?’ I asked.

  ‘No, you idiot, you do. So I’m buying him for you, OK?’

  ‘You can’t possibly—’

  ‘I certainly can. Watch me!’ said Miranda. She handed him over to be stuffed. ‘Nice and portly, if you please. All bears should have proper plump tummies. Isn’t that right, Albert?’ She made him nod his head. The Bear Factory girl smiled, obviously used to people larking around.

  Miranda chose Albert a little red satin heart to be sewn into his chest, and she recorded a message too. She put on a delightful growly voice and said, ‘Grrr! I’m Albert Bear and I think Sylvie’s grrreat!’

  We watched Albert being sewn up as proudly as two parents. When he was handed to me I felt that wonderful tight-chested surge of excitement that I used to feel long ago at Christmas when I was very little. I couldn’t help hugging Albert, even though I worried tha
t I looked ridiculous.

  ‘Aah!’ said Miranda. ‘Now, let’s kit him out in some clothes.’

  ‘The clothes cost a fortune though. He doesn’t need any, really,’ I protested.

  ‘Nonsense! He can’t prance about stark naked if he’s a middle-aged Victorian.’

  Miranda picked him out a shirt, a canary-yellow waistcoat, a pair of trousers and some splendid scarlet boots.

  ‘There! Very stylish, even if his costume is an approximation of Victoriana,’ she said. ‘Maybe we can make him a greatcoat and a top hat somehow. And wouldn’t he look cute with an ebony cane? He’s a bear with true style, Sylvie.’ She complimented me as if I’d given birth to him myself.

  She paid for him discreetly, not making a great show of her generosity, and then passed his carrier bag over to me when we were outside the shop.

  ‘It’s the best present I’ve ever had,’ I said, hugging her.

  ‘Well, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had,’ said Miranda, hugging me back.

  I was delighted but unnerved. I badly wanted Miranda to be my best friend now – but what was I going to do about Lucy? And much more importantly, what about Carl? Would he mind? What did he really think about Miranda?

  I WENT ROUND to Carl’s that evening. Jules said he was upstairs in his room doing his homework. I knocked on his door and went in. He wasn’t doing his homework, he was lying on his bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

  ‘Carl?’

  He grunted at me, not sounding encouraging.

  I stood in the middle of his room, peering around. It wasn’t at all like the Glass Hut. It was like seeing lots of Carls reflecting right back to when he was a baby. There was his wooden Noah’s Ark still sailing across the windowsill. An elderly plush giraffe grazed on the faded rug. The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Where the Wild Things Are and Frog and Toad Are Friends were tucked at one end of his bookshelf. String puppets dangled down from the ceiling. The walls were papered with his art – nursery school blue dogs and red horses, primary school ancient Romans lounging at the baths, Egyptian mummies glittering with gold paint.

  There were his current possessions, of course – his computer, his glass reference books, his second-hand Penguin Modern Classics, his antique and collectors’ fair magazines, neatly stacked.

  His whole bedroom was always neat. There were never any clothes strewn across the floor, smelly socks screwed up under the bed, plates of food left mouldering on the carpet, all the usual boy things. There were no pin-ups either, no baby-faced girls with big breasts. I knew Carl wouldn’t go for a Beyoncé or a Britney.

  ‘Who do you fancy, Carl?’ I asked.

  He lifted his head, blinking at me. ‘What?’

  ‘You know, pin-ups. Women.’

  ‘Oh. You sound like the guys at school. They’re always on about that stuff.’

  ‘So, who do you like the most?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not interested. I don’t know any of these women so why should I get turned on by photos of them?’

  ‘And the winner of the Male Political Correctness Award is Mr Carl Johnson,’ I declared, pretending to hand him an imaginary trophy.

  He didn’t play along with me, still staring at the ceiling, not moving a muscle. If his eyes hadn’t been wide open I’d have sworn he was asleep.

  ‘You’re always lying prone now, Carl. You want to watch it. You’ll get so used to horizontal life you’ll keel over when you eventually stand up.’ I paused. ‘So who do you fancy out of the girls you know?’

  Carl sighed. ‘I don’t know any girls.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You know heaps. Like …’ I paused again, digging my nails into my palms. I decided to go for an easy option, though I felt mean. ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I fancy Lucy like crazy,’ said Carl. ‘Not.’

  I felt mean using Lucy like this, even if she was totally unaware of it. But maybe I didn’t have to be loyal to her any more.

  She’d phoned up at five, asking what on earth had happened to me. When I told her I’d bunked off with Miranda she’d been appalled. She came over all righteous and goody-goody, going really over the top, saying I was jeopardizing my entire school career. I think she was mainly put out because I’d gone off with Miranda and not her. I let her lecture me for ten minutes. She went on and on about Miranda being a totally bad influence. She wasn’t saying anything that was basically untrue, but I got so bored I said, ‘Do shut up, Lucy. Miranda’s my friend.’

  Lucy put the phone down on me. It didn’t look as if Lucy was my friend any more. Still, did it really matter now I had Miranda?

  ‘What about Miranda?’ I said.

  I’d paused too long. Carl had lost the thread of our conversation.

  ‘What about her?’ he said.

  I swallowed. ‘Do you fancy her?’

  ‘No,’ said Carl.

  ‘Not one bit? She’s ever so lively and attractive and dynamic. She’s the sort of girl you can’t help looking at.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t fancy her at all. She’s not my type.’

  I paced up and down his bedroom, trying to summon up the courage. I said it over and over in my head.

  Am I your type?

  Do you fancy me?

  I couldn’t quite manage it. I reverted to Miranda.

  ‘She’s not really a type. She’s unique. I haven’t ever met anyone else quite like her. I don’t just mean the way she dresses, but the way she relates to people, and all the different things she knows. She can seem really outrageous, like she keeps pretending she’s after you – well, I think it’s pretending – but then she can be amazingly sweet to me. You’ll never guess what Miranda bought me today, Carl.’

  ‘Miranda Miranda Miranda. Hey, maybe she’s your type, Sylvie,’ said Carl. ‘Do you fancy her?’

  ‘Shut up!’ I said. I felt my cheeks going scarlet as I remembered the girl in the shop.

  ‘Syl? I didn’t mean it. Anyway. Look. Do you think Miranda would like to come bowling some time?’

  I stared at Carl. ‘You want to go bowling with Miranda?’ I repeated.

  ‘Not just her. Us. We could go one Friday night.’

  ‘The three of us?’

  ‘Well. I could get one of the guys from school to come too. Maybe.’

  ‘Which guy?’

  ‘I don’t know. Whoever wants to come.’ Carl coughed and sat up. ‘Paul was saying he likes going bowling. Maybe he could come.’

  ‘Paul the football guy?’

  ‘Yeah. Him.’

  I went and sat down by Carl’s giraffe, stroking her long soft droopy neck. It was so strange. It was all happening just as Miranda had suggested. Perhaps she really was an enchantress like her Glassworld counterpart? Why was Carl inviting her if he didn’t like her? And why on earth was he suggesting bowling?

  ‘You don’t like bowling,’ I said.

  ‘I think it’ll be fun.’

  ‘You hated it that time you went with Jake.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I hate anything I do with Jake,’ said Carl. He stretched. ‘So. This Friday? You and Miranda, Paul and me?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Great.’ Carl smiled at me. It was a devastatingly sweet smile, his brown eyes shining. I stopped puzzling over everything and smiled back.

  ‘Now I really must get on with homework,’ Carl said gently, getting his school bag and flipping through it for textbooks and jotters.

  ‘You always have so much homework,’ I said, sighing.

  ‘You always have so little,’ said Carl. ‘And even then you don’t always do it.’

  ‘I haven’t got any this evening. I don’t even know what we got set, on account of the fact Miranda and I played truant this afternoon.’

  I knew that would stop him in his tracks and divert him from his homework. I told him the whole story of our afternoon adventure. Carl looked reluctantly impressed. We’d often fantasized about playing truant when we were at school together. We’d even plotted
the best way to do it and planned what we would do together on our snatched day of freedom. We’d never quite managed to do it.

  ‘Miranda’s got a lot of bottle,’ said Carl. ‘Still, better not get too carried away. You don’t want to get into too much trouble.’

  ‘Lucy thinks I’ll get expelled.’

  ‘Oh well, Lucy would.’

  ‘I think we’ve broken friends, Lucy and me,’ I said, nursing the giraffe.

  ‘Well, that’s cool, isn’t it? Because you’ve got Miranda now.’

  ‘Yes. She said she wants to be my best friend. But you know what Miranda’s like, Carl. You don’t really know where you are with her. She could just as easily stop being your friend and become your worst enemy, and then where would I be?’ I said, clutching the giraffe close to my chest.

  ‘You’d be where you always are, best friends with me,’ said Carl.

  He reached out and we did our special best-friends clasp. I wanted to hang onto his hand but he gently disentangled his fingers and opened up his school books. I sat cross-legged watching him work for a few minutes and then I went home.

  Mum was just coming down the road, struggling with shopping. I ran to help her, feeling guilty.

  ‘I thought we were going to Tesco on Sunday morning when I can help,’ I said, hauling flimsy plastic shopping bags indoors.

  ‘Hey, hey, careful, there’s eggs in that one. Don’t try to carry them all, you’ll hurt yourself.’

  We struggled together down the hall into the kitchen and tumbled all the bags down on the floor. Mum switched on the kettle and started unpacking everything, putting food in the fridge and cupboards. I nicked a banana and then backed away towards the door.

  ‘No, don’t slope off, Sylvie. I want to talk to you,’ said Mum ominously.

  I froze, holding my banana in mid-air. I chewed my first mouthful but I seemed to have lost the ability to swallow. Had they noticed I wasn’t at school and phoned Mum at the building society? Maybe some nosy neighbour had spotted me out with Miranda? Perhaps the shop where we’d tried on the vest tops had found out our names and reported us?