Now, Maybe, Probably
Page 8
“Why?” my lips said anyway. I couldn’t hold it back. I didn’t want him to think I was just being a snooty cow about this, but I couldn’t come up with a single reason that someone I’d barely spent any time with since we left Primary could want to buy me a cuddly toy at the zoo.
“’Cause you’re so angry today,” said Andy.
OH. I was palpably peeved. A teenage boy had been able to figure it out, and that was really saying something. Whoops. Better humour him.
“Oh…” I said, softly. “I’m sorry, thank you.”
I scanned the shelves of plush pawed friends. They really had every animal under the sun on offer. I rummaged in the bins of little beany things and produced a small, squat bird with glasses and a book clutched between its wings.
“An owl, please,” I said to Andy. “That’s very kind of you.”
#20 The Great Rethink
When I woke up this morning, I was shocked to find Andy sitting at the kitchen table in his boxers and a band T-shirt.
Let’s just say he was equally shocked to see me, dressed in just my knickers and one of Charlie’s oversized hand-me-down Iron Maiden tops. (The latest loot from Andy’s big cousin.)
Andy sat bolt upright and knocked over his bowl of cereal, sending milk and Rice Krispies everywhere as pathetically as Charlie had when he sprained his wrist. Speak of the devil, Charlie appeared behind me in the matchingly scuffed Metallica shirt. “Right, so the newest members of the Heavy Metal T-shirt Club have been acquainted?”
With one hand holding the hem of “my” shirt down and the other firmly concealing the shape of my braless chest (or lack of it), I wasn’t really in a position to laugh with him, so I just rolled my eyes and said, “Honestly, Charlie, you should tell me when people stay over!”
“Nuh-uh!” he replied. “Andy was still here when you went to bed, so you should expect him to have stayed! It’s not like it was Jordy or anyone.”
I shuddered. My thoughts exactly.
Of course, I rushed to get dressed right away, and made an effort to look presentable, too. I still don’t know why I bothered with a bit of makeup just for Andy, but it probably had something to do with the need to counteract what he’d just seen. Me, in little else but a scuddy shirt advertising some band I don’t know anything about, stupid morning hair all lank and gross about my shoulders.
I had to get my revenge. Charlie looked equally awful at this stage of the day, not being any more of a morning person than I am. All I needed to do was fetch Devon, who had seen the smartened up version of Bedtime Charlie at sleepovers over the months, but never the foul and bedheaded beast who currently sat in the kitchen slurping at cereal.
I popped next door to retrieve her, and she was already dressed too. “You have to see this,” I said. “This is what you’d be marrying. Rethink!”
As we approached the kitchen (she’d come to ours the walk-in wardrobe way) we could hear a tense conversation.
“Are you sure you’re not gay, though?”
“Sure I’m sure!” snapped Charlie. “Why would I be gay?”
“’Cause of the way you look at those posters. No offence, I’m not taking the mick, honest!”
“I’m not, OK! Only one person ever tickled my pickle and that’s Mal. Well, not literally, you know. No one else, only-”
It was then that he noticed me and Devon and blushed scarlet.
“I mean-”
“Cool,” said Devon, abruptly.
Andy got up and dumped his bowl in the sink. “Gonna get dressed,” he mumbled, trying to slip past me in the doorway.
“Omigod!” Aimee screamed, barging him into me on her way into the kitchen in her pyjamas, slippers and dressing gown. “I am SO LATE!!”
“Half term,” the four of us said more or less simultaneously.
She hid her face in the cereal cupboard out of embarrassment. “Oh. Right. Yes.”
Charlie finished with his bowl and left it lying on the table as if there were ample women around to get the washing up done, and he headed upstairs with Andy. Devon turned to me. “That was what you wanted to show me? That smelly old Charlie doesn’t fancy me?”
“Well, you gave him an orang-utan,” I wavered. “And it wasn’t that, really! You were just meant to see how manky he looks first thing in the morning. I didn’t know there was nothing going on with you two; I really thought…”
“Yeah, bye,” she yawned, and went home via the front door. She had to ring the doorbell in seconds because she hadn’t taken her key and no one was in at hers. I tried not to laugh as she did her best unimpressed huff back through the wardrobe to Narnia, I mean, her fluffy, glittery bedroom.
That was when I sat down to write this. So here you have it! Rindi and Fern are the loveliest people I know, Andy and Dev are both crazy generous, Jordy’s scared off probably for good, Kitty’s secretly a wonder of musical theatre (the non-Disney high school kind), Zak’s a pest (but I think he’s misunderstood), and here I am all alone for the next week because just about everyone is either avoiding me, or needs to be avoided.
P.S. I really do miss you.
P.P.S. I hope you had a happy birthday – there’s a card in the post, but you can probably expect to see that in June.
T.T.F.N. Harley & Co. – “Co.” representing the massive pile of selected (or rather, not selected, as far as Mum’s photo albums are concerned) ten-year-old photos of raincoats and birthdays.
The next book in the recommended reading order is: Was He The Queen?!
Connect With Me Online:
Website:
https://www.dilliedorian.co.uk
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https://muzzyheadedme.tumblr.com
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About The Author:
Dillie Dorian is an English author of child and YA realistic fiction. She is notable for offering all fourteen titles in her debut series, A Bended Family, for free online.
Dillie has been “writing” since a very young age, and her mother probably still hoards innumerable sellotape-bound “sequels” to everything from Animal Ark to The Worst Witch.
Her first serious project began in September 2006, with “Oops! Did I Forget I Don’t Know You?”, which sparked countless official sequels of its own within months. Working on this series between the ages of thirteen and fourteen taught her everything she knows about writing, and she hasn’t stopped expanding on the Hartleys’ lives since!