by Grace Dent
“Yeah.” Jimi shuffles.
“Really?” I say.
Long silence.
“Uh . . . well, okay, no,” he admits.
“So, er, why are you really here?” I say, placing the bass on the floor and sitting down on a seat beside where he is fidgeting nervously.
“Well, I just, you see . . . well, it was just something I’ve been thinking. And I keep on thinking it. So I thought I’d come over and say it right to your face.”
“You’re annoyed about Panama’s backing tape jamming, aren’t you?” I tut. “That was nothing to do with me, I’m afraid. I know zilch.”
Not exactly true.
“NO! Not Panama’s tape. Actually, that was the funniest thing I’ve seen for a long time. No, I wanted to talk to you about . . . look, can I be frank here?”
“You’re not Frank, you’re Jimi—” I begin, using one of Loz’s jokes.
“Ronnie, be serious! I’m being really serious.”
“Okay,” I mumble.
“Right, I don’t know how to say this.” Jimi blushes. “Cos, well, I’ve been a real complete idiot over the last month. A total idiot. I should never have snogged Panama, I don’t know what I saw in her—”
“Huge bazonkas?” I suggest.
Jimi wrinkles his nose at me.
“But look, Ronnie, tell me if I’m wrong here, cos I might be wrong, and if I am wrong, I’m going to go straightaway and then we’ll just have to ignore each other at school from now on as I’ll be so totally embarrassed . . . but I think that me and you have got a sort of connection.”
I just stare at him. At his pale blue eyes and stupendous full mouth.
He carries on, “And if I fancy you, which I, erm, do. By the way. There, I’ve said it, I fancy you. And you fancy me, which, okay, I’m not that sure about. Well, maybe, if you agree to it, that is, we should try and maybe give things a go.”
I’m mesmerized now. Has Jimi lost his mind or does he mean this?
“So, er, that was what I wanted to say.”
“Uh, okay.”
We both stare straight ahead for about a minute.
“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” Jimi eventually says.
“Well, I s’pose I sort of fancy you too,” I mumble. I am absolutely gobsmacked.
“That’s a start!” says Jimi, relief spreading over his face. “So, er. Well, right . . . that’s dead good! Er, thank you! So, where do you want to take it from here?”
Jimi moves closer, taking my face in both of his hands and then sort of staring at me, before running his hands down my hair, blushing even more. My heart is bashing a hole through my chest. I can see every bristle on Jimi’s newly shaven head.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “What do you think a possible next step would be?”
“Mmmm, well,” he begins, slightly nervously. “I don’t suppose a small snog is out of the question, is it? You know, just to seal the deal that we like each other.”
Jimi moves his lips toward mine, shutting his eyes and wrapping my entire torso in his strong arms. And . . .
. . . Oh, well, come on, what would you do?
Where did grace dent get the idea for LBD: It’s a Girl Thing? “Tradition stands that a first novel should be ‘about what you know.’ Although I didn’t know any goblins or talking mice, I did know intricately about being a troublesome teenage girl, back when the world was my oyster . . . or at least would have been if I didn’t have a ten P.M. curfew! I love Ronnie, Claude, and Fleur and the whole extended LBD clan more passionately with each paragraph I write. I wish they’d gone to my school—I might have attended a tad more willingly.”
When she isn’t dreaming up new adventures for the LBD, Grace is a regular contributor to British teen magazines and newspapers such as CosmoGIRL! and The Mirror. She is also a columnist for the Guardian and More! magazine. She lives in Putney, Southwest London.
