Posh and Prejudice

by Grace Dent

  So I’m sitting in the library today pretending to read about the Golden Age of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, except I’m not really. I’m listening to proper old-skool Wu Tang Clan on my cell phone and doodling a drawing of a fancy cat with a tiara on onto my notebook and staring out the window. All of a sudden a load of bags and files slam down on the desk and I look up and it’s Saf and Josh and Carrie all swarming around me.

  “Hard at it as usual,” said Joshua, looking at my cat which for some reason had dangly earrings and buck teeth which I reckon, if it was analyzed by a head specialist might signal that I am some sort of nutjob.

  “Aw, leave her, Josh,” said Carrie. “Shizza works harder than all of us.”

  “Thank you, Carrie,” I said, but by this point Carrie had her tongue halfway down Saf’s throat and was pinching his bum at the same time.

  “Oh, take it somewhere private!” groaned Joshua. “It’s like watching feeding time at the bloody warthog pen.”

  The pair wandered off to look at books together.

  Joshua sat down opposite me and stared right in my face.

  “Mr. Bamblebury has bought a twelve-channel mixing board for the music room with our quiz money,” he said.

  “Flaming hell! That’s good,” I said. Josh nodded slowly.

  “We should do another quiz or a raffle or something,” Josh said. “We could make enough to get new mics and crap like that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Then I thought for a bit.

  “Wow,” I said. ‘You proper care about all this ‘Increase the Peace’ thing don’t you?”

  Joshua looked at me, then he burst out laughing.

  “No. I honestly couldn’t give a crap,” he said.

  “So why are you doing all this then?” I said.

  Joshua looked at me like I was a bit simple. “Shiraz, have you any idea how good all this charity stuff looks on your university application forms? Raising money? Helping the community? Don’t say you didn’t think about that too?”

  My cheeks went a bit hot then.

  “No, I didn’t think about that. I’ve never thought nothing about university applications. I don’t even think I’m going to university.”

  Joshua narrowed his eyes.

  “What?” he said. “Why aren’t you thinking about it? You SHOULD go to university. Why wouldn’t you go?”

  “Well, I dunno,” I said, “I’ve never really imagined it. No one in my family has ever gone to uni. Dunno why.”

  Joshua thought for a few seconds, mulling it over.

  “Well, that’s just wack,” he said. “What you going to do instead? Stay in Goodmayes? Marry that Wesley bloke with the modded car and the sovereign ring?”

  I cringed when Joshua said that. I wish Wes had never worn that bloody ring to quiz night.

  My face must have looked sad then ’cos Josh stopped being so pushy.

  “Look, I’m not being tight, Shiraz,” said Josh. “I’m just saying. You’re clever. Really clever. And funny. And good fun.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “And pretty. And sexy. With a nice set of jugs.”

  “Joshua!” I said.

  “Sorry, sorry. My special brain pills haven’t kicked in today yet,” he said. “My mouth is out of control.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him and felt really squelchy and hot inside. Like I never feel with my Wesley.

  “Hey, anyway,” said Josh. “Has Ms. Bracket told you about the Christmas class trip yet?”

  “No!” I said.

  “We’re going to see King Lear at the Globe theater on the Southbank in London.”

  My heart went boom when he said that. I love London. Ever since me and Wesley drove there alone last year it’s always felt like it’s there, eleven miles away being proper exciting without me.

  “And then…” said Joshua. “And this is the unofficial, not Ms. Bracket bit, we’re going clubbing afterward!”

  “No! Straight up?” I said.

  “True fact,” said Joshua. “I’m sorting it out.”

  Then the bell started to ring for next class so we both began collecting our stuff. “And I hope you’re coming, Shiraz Bailey Wood. ’Cos it’s going to be Christmas and we’re going to go partying. And it’s going to be messy. And besides… I want my Christmas snog.”

  And with that he walked off leaving me more confused about life than I’d possibly ever been EVER.

  DECEMBER

  MONDAY 1ST DECEMBER

  Oh God. I keep having bad dreams about Joshua Fallow ever since he said that stupid thing about my jugs which he probably never meant anyway, ’cos he is a proper player who flirts with everyone. Not scary dreams. Nice dreams. Ones I’m proper ashamed to describe.

  Last night for example, I dreamed that Joshua Fallow was riding a horse wearing just his undercrackers through Ilford Mall and he starts chatting me up outside TopShop and he gets off his horse and his body is well buff and then he is biting my neck like a vampire then we are rolling about together in the flower beds doing what my Nan would probably describe as “heavy petting.”

  I woke up breathing all funny, with a big grin on my face and the duvet kicked off and my nightie all twisted, covered in sweat. That giant bear Wesley bought me was on the floor staring at me crossly like I’m some sort of hoochie mama.

  I felt guilty, and it’s not fair ’cos I’d NEVER cheat on my Wesley. NEVER. Not when I’m awake anyhow. But I can’t bloody help who I snog in my sleep CAN I?

  WEDNESDAY 3RD DECEMBER

  Ooh, it’s starting to feel proper Christmassy already! Carrie and Barney Draper have been getting the legendary Draperville Christmas lights display ready. This time it’s gonna be BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER! They’re doing the Santa’s sleigh and Rudolph running up the front of the house and decorating the tree with a zillion flashing lights as usual and they’re also doing a weird eight-foot-tall snowman with the mechanical moving arms and a flashing carrot nose… BUT THERE’S MORE! This year the Drapers have hired a life-sized nativity scene! With a baby Jesus in a manger being beheld by three wise men from afar and shepherds and everything!!!

  It’s not like Barney Draper is proper religious or anything. To be honest I reckon he’s only doing the nativity ’cos the Ilford Bugle kept saying Essex council were going to ban the word “Christmas” ’cos of the word “Christ” being offensive. So now Barney’s making a big point of celebrating Christ ’cos he says he’s got a perfect right to and besides, “It’s not like I started whining last Eid when Amjad at Number 39 and his lot were giving it the big one about Allah!”

  I just nodded when Barney said that, then helped him hammer up some plywood to make a shelter for the baby Jesus and his whole team of plastic supporters, which included a sad praying woman, a bloke with a beard who looked like the magician David Blaine, a sheep, an ox, and some other weird biblical animals made from flame-retardant materials.

  I asked Barney if there was any room in his biblical scene for a proper massive teddy bear so huge kiddies could clamber on it. Barney said, “Yeah, of course.” He’s picking up the bear tomorrow. THANK YOU GOD.

  MONDAY 15TH DECEMBER

  Oh my gosh it’s the 15th already!! I ain’t done none of my shopping! Not one present. Sonia Cathcart has done all of her Christmas shopping, fancy-wrapped it in special bows and got it all under her Christmas tree! “I’m sooooo glad I was organized this year!” Sonia Cathcart keeps saying. “I’d HATE to be rushing around!” she keeps saying. “Now I’ve got more time to party at Christmas,” she keeps saying, 227 times a day.

  “Oh shut it you annoying cow!” I feel like shouting, “You don’t even know what partying is! You won’t even risk drinking the Cup-a-Soup with the spicy croutons in your variety pack ’cos you reckon you’ve got food allergies and high blood pressure YOU SILLY BINT!” I don’t say it though. I just think it.

  All I’ve done so far is make a list:

  Mum: CD of covers by Pop Idol winners.

/>   Dad: 3-pack of vests from Macy’s (dark color to hide curry stains).

  Murphy: Page 3 Model Calendar from the supermarket.

  Carrie: Tabitha Tennant Underarm Roll-on—“Pong-Gone by Tabitha T.”

  Cava-Sue and Lewis: A book about traveling TO REMIND THEM TO GO.

  Penny: Cadbury’s Chocolates box (large) and bag of Purina Lo-fat Science Diet.

  Nan: One of them novels she likes with a picture of a woman in a Victorian bodice being groped by a geezer in riding jodhpurs on the front.

  Clement: Entenmann’s marble loaf cake.

  I’ll do all that after school one night.

  11PM—Wesley! Oh God, I forgot about him: something from Best Buy or Sports Authority.

  TUESDAY 16TH DECEMBER

  Wesley’s teddy bear is a big hit at the Draperville lights display!! Carrie’s family have raised over a grand to go to their charity that sends sick kids to swim with dolphins. (What is it with sick kids and dolphins? They’re proper obsessed with them, aren’t they? If I ever find myself thinking about dolphins a lot I’m getting myself down to Dr. Gupta’s right away.)

  Barney Draper says that he’s had folks of every color and creed enjoying his nativity: white, black, beige, and green. “EVERYBODY, so the council can stick their Christmas ban right up their ’arris!”

  Some people have been enjoying the nativity a bit too much, mind. The baby Jesus went missing for twenty-four hours on Saturday night after a drunk bloke nicked him on the way home from Goodmayes Social. He brought him back though. The bloke said he was so hammered he felt proper sorry for baby Jesus sitting there freezing with his frankincense and myrrh so he took him home for some of his lamb shish kebab.

  Anyway, I’m proper excited tonight as we’re going on our Christmas trip to London to see King Lear tomorrow! Carrie says the dress code is “Dress to Impress with a nod toward Academia.”

  Balls to that, I’m wearing my jeans, my pink hoodie, and my gold.

  THURSDAY 18TH DECEMBER

  Oh God. Oh no. no. no. NO NO NO.

  I feel properly awful today. Awful, terrible, nasty—but at the same time, a bit amazing. Yesterday all of us Sixth Formers went to London and it turned into one of the most brilliant days of my whole life ever. Even better than the day my family went on Fast-Track Family Feud on ITV2 and even better than the day Wesley first came round my house and asked me out and better than the day I got my GCSEs and realized I wasn’t thick. Better than all of that.

  I ain’t eaten one single thing today and I never even went to school. I just lay under the duvet in my room thinking and thinking and praying and I ain’t even religious or nothing but the one thing Sonia Cathcart always says is that if you ask Jesus Christ Our Savior for his divine guidance then suddenly he’ll spring up like a genie out a bottle or something and help you out. Well I’ve been under here for eight hours asking him to sort this mess out for me and he ain’t helped me at all. All I know is I’m well confused and I feel like a right slapper.

  Basically, me, Carrie, Sean, Uma, Saf, Joshua, Ms. Bracket, and loads of other folks went through on the train and the tube to London yesterday at about 3PM. It was snowy and quite dark when we came up from the tube station and there was a brass band playing on Charing Cross Road and zillions of Christmas shoppers everywhere and tourists and office workers and commuters and all the shop windows had Christmas displays and everywhere you looked there were tipsy people staggering out of Christmas office parties and bus drivers wearing flashing antlers and Santa Clauses on every corner collecting charity money and traffic jams and noise. We were all having such a giggle, me and Carrie and everyone. I just felt proper Christmassy and dizzy and alive.

  I always want to come to London but Wesley never wants to come. Wesley can’t see the point. Wesley says it’s smelly and full of freaks. And I used to think that too for a long time, especially when Cava-Sue used to go on about it. But now I don’t because the thing is when you get to London and you stand on Waterloo Bridge over the Thames and look both ways along the river and there’s Big Ben and the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral and loads of other amazing buildings and lasers and lights and the river is flowing beneath you, well, it is properly the most beautiful thing EVER.

  And it really changes how you feel about life ’cos suddenly you’re part of this one amazing, big universe and you feel like exciting stuff can happen and you’re not just stuck in Goodmayes doing school stuff and you feel properly in awe of the world and what can go on here and it changes how you feel about everything FOREVER. Wesley can never see that about London. I wish I could bring Wesley to that bridge and show him, but he would never want to come.

  Me and Carrie and Saf and Josh and Uma and Sean stood on Waterloo Bridge and stared at the view for a while and took photos of each other and Josh pointed out mental stuff no one noticed before like weird faces on buildings that he called gargoyles and statues up on roofs. Then Sean took a group picture of us all for our MySpace and Josh put his arm round me and touched my shoulder and it felt really good.

  Then Sean said, “Hang on, that’s a nice picture, Shiz, just you and Josh together?” and we both wrapped our arms round each other’s waists and pretended to cuddle which was just a joke but it felt amazing and I KNOW I should have been thinking, “What would my Wesley say if he saw me pretend-cuddling?” But the fact is I wasn’t thinking about my Wesley. He wasn’t in my mind at all.

  So we went to see King Lear performed by folks from the Royal Shakespeare Company and it was TOTALLY BRILLIANT, ’cos fair enough, it’s one thing reading it out in class, but when you see all these people really being Cordelia and Goneril and King Lear then it proper brings it to life and you get well caught up in it. And when King Lear was cast out into the storm I could feel myself starting to cry ’cos I started thinking about Nan and how awful it would be if we all turned on her and made her homeless and by the time the play was over—THREE HOURS LATER—I was properly buzzing. And by this point it was 10 o’clock and Ms. Bracket started to “seriously recommend” that we all got the tube home which was her trying to force us but she didn’t have no power to and the thing was Joshua had sorted out free guest list passes at this club called Forever Friends off Trafalgar Square. So Carrie says, “Oh come on, Shiz, we can get a night bus home! It’ll be good!” and I should have said no but I didn’t, I said yes ’cos I knew Josh wanted me to go ’cos he kept looking at me proper intense. Well anyway, Forever Friends was bloody amazing and it was packed out and the DJ was playing bits of hip-hop and bits of random silly party stuff and ’70s disco and I don’t know what quite happened in there but I think I lost a bit of my mind ’cos suddenly we were all dancing up on the stage, me and Saf and Sean and Josh and Uma and Carrie and we were so happy and we were laughing and hugging each other and talking total nonsense about life and how much we all loved each other and how we’d all be friends forever just like the club was called Forever Friends and at one point I was dancing with Josh and he was holding me round the waist and looking right in my eyes and suddenly I realized I just wanted to snog him, no, SNOG HIS FACE OFF, but I didn’t ’cos I knew that was well wrong.

  But then the club lights went on and we all got turfed out and everyone in the club spilled out into the streets and everybody was on a proper Christmas high and everyone started flooding into Trafalgar Square and we all followed, then people started getting into the fountains and splashing about and me and Josh climbed up on one of the bases of the sculpted lions and we sat together and watched Carrie and Saf and Sean running about in the fountains. Then Josh got hold of my hand suddenly and kissed it and he said, “So can I have my Christmas snog?” and I was so carried away with the moment that I snogged him and it felt totally bloody amazing and squelchy and hot and just gagggggggggggh! (And that ain’t even a word!!!) And the second he stopped snogging me I suddenly remembered Wesley Barrington Bains II and I felt bad.

  “What’s up?” Josh said.

  �
�I’ve got a boyfriend,” I said. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Oh c’mon, Shiraz,” said Josh. “I’ve been after you for ages. You feel the same.”

  “No. I don’t. It’s not like that,” I said, but I sounded proper confused. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “Well, I know what you’ve gotta do,” he said. “You’ve got to bin that Wesley guy and be with me. I want you.” Then he kissed me again, for longer that time.

  Then we rounded everyone up and we all got the night bus home together and I came straight in the house and got straight into this bed and started worrying and so far Jesus Christ Our Savior has come up with no guidance whatsoever.

  Maybe it’s because I am GOING TO HELL.

  SUNDAY 21ST DECEMBER

  This has been the hardest four days of my whole life EVER. So much for Jesus Christ Our Savior. I suppose some messes you’ve just got to sort out on your own. I am TRYING MY BEST to ignore Joshua but he texts me every day. Proper naughty texts that I have to DELETE right away. About stuff he’d like to do with me. Stuff I’ve never done before and wasn’t planning on doing for a while yet. It is driving me mental. I was in a right state getting everyone’s Christmas pressies today. I’ve left it far too late.

  My nan has ended up with some extra-strong denture fix glue and my brother got a calendar called “Naughty Babes” which I’ve now looked through properly and realize is not suitable for a fifteen-year-old at all ’cos by April the “babes” have totally given up wearing knickers or even sitting upright with their knees shut altogether. I got Wesley some antifreeze and a new ice-scraper. I’m just too busy these days for Christmas pressies. I hope they all understand.