by Liz Miles
E. the D. D.: Here. (Hands phone to Sofia. Exits.)
The script stands a strong chance of winning an Oscar for Most Unoriginal Screenplay.
Ellie is sixteen and escaping school-related humiliation. Dad meets Ellie off Cheapie Flight at the No-frill-o Airways terminal. Small talk is made, covering topics such as Knowledge of Italian (Dad’s is native, Ellie’s is basic) and Mobile Phones (Dad’s is lost, Ellie’s is expensive to use).
In the car. Ellie and Dad now stretch to topics as diverse as The Weather (unsurprisingly hot—it’s August) and The Traffic (surprisingly light—it’s August).
Ellie is brought to the apartment, assuming Dad will be living there too. Well, you do, don’t you, when you go to stay with your dad for the summer? You expect that your dad will actually be staying with you. You have clearly forgotten the truth of D.A.D.
Dad mentions two housemates—teenage girls he’s renting to, sent by the letting agency, who moved in yesterday. He says he hopes they’ll all get on. He hands Ellie a wodge of money. He says she should call if she needs him.
D.A.D. disappears, his trademark move, and how he gets his name. Ellie remembers that Dad has lost his phone and she couldn’t call him even if she wanted to.
• • •
When I’m breathing again, I grip the balcony railing and crane my neck slightly so that I can make out the main square with its fountain and grand medieval buildings. There’s a United Nations of studenty people hanging around on the stone steps. They’re all draped over each other and half of them have mobile phones pressed to their ears.
People. Connecting. Everywhere.
I want to go home. I want to hide in my bedroom, under my patterned duvet and total lack of cat insignia.
Let’s face it: I am no intrepid explorer. I don’t have the people skills, for a start. I mostly only ever do sociable stuff for Mo-related reasons, and look how that all turned out. (Fazia’s the big exception to my “books are my only friends” rule because she’s been my best friend forever, and not because I’m in love with her brother. And I so wish I wasn’t in love with her brother.)
I feel achy and empty.
Maybe it’s hunger. I thought the new Fancy Signora Stepmum would be cooking me local delicacies. Now I’m thinking I might not even meet her. I’ll have to survive on the Italian equivalent of Pot Noodle from the convenience store across the road. Potto Noodle-o. I bet it’s more delicious because it’s Italian. My stomach rumbles.
There’s another sound too—metallic and hollow.
A key in the lock.
Disappearing-Act Dad, perhaps back already to say sorry for abandoning his youngest daughter? Or to tell me he’s found his phone and/or he’s giving me a new number?
No one calls my name, no one seems to know I’m here. So it has to be a housemate. I’m not ready to meet her. I don’t think I will ever be ready to meet her. In fact, if I manage to go back into my room, I’m going to phone Mum and ask her to change my ticket home. My dad and I might be estranged, but these girls are actual strangers. Mum won’t expect me to stay here. I know she doesn’t have Dad’s address either, because she “can’t keep track of that man,” and all these arrangements were made on the phone—the phone he’s lost. Mum will call Dad a “useless, unreliable, irresponsible man.” Again.
I wait. A door shuts inside the flat. And then silence. My new housemate must be in her black Goth-ness or pink Kitty-ness, and I should brave my white felines and ring Mum.
But when I do, there’s no answer. I’m only supposed to use this phone to contact England in emergencies, but I think this counts, so I text Fazia and tell her my life is falling apart and it’s all her brother’s fault.
She texts back that she’s out shopping with her mum and she’s sorry—again—about her brother, but men are rats, except Hot Harry, and she’ll write more later. She ends with, “Hang in there, Ellie Els! Xxx”
She has kinder nicknames for me than her brother does.
• • •
I’m used to it really. When you’re my size and at my level of shy not-fitting-in-ness, and you’re also called Elena Minghelli, you’ve got to expect it. I’ve been Ellie the Elephant since I was small. Though I was large even when I was small, of course. A baby elephant. It was a few years before I realized that “elephant” was not a good thing to be.
Just the other week, Mo managed to top that when he called me “Minger-Ellie.”
Minger-Ellie, get it? Ellie Minger-Ellie. What took that nickname so long to emerge?
Ha.
Ha.
HA.
This is especially funny coming from the mouth of the boy you’ve fancied all your life, who also happens to be your best friend’s brother. And, oh, perhaps on the night your best friend told you she’s sure you’re “in with a chance.” Say the night of the Thank God The GCSEs Are Over Party—the one everyone calls The TGTGCSEAOP (also known as the “Big Sneeze”).
Normally you wouldn’t be seen dead at this sort of skinny-bodied-cloney, no-self-respecty snogfest of a phlegmy school-related disco. But tonight is different. Tonight you’re officially “in with a chance” with Mo! And you’ve worshipped him for years! Since when you were five and he let you eat his last Christmas tree Santa chocolate! And when you were ten and he interrupted Space Monster Spewing Mutants II: The Revenge, Level 22: The Oozing Dungeon, to let you and Fazia play Pink Princesses Get Dressed! And when you were thirteen and you slept over at Fazia’s and the smoke alarm went off and he held the door open for you! He practically scooped your not-remotely frail, damsel-in-distress body up in his manly fifteen-year-old fireman arms and carried you through the raging flames of Casa Khareem. (Turned out there was no fire—Mrs. Khareem was up early and burned some toast and the Khareem smoke alarm is ultra-sensitive. But still. There was plenty of fire in me.)
So. I am In With a Chance at the Big Sneeze.
I arrive, wearing a new red dress I’ve spent a week making. And matching lipstick. And a smile. I stand near him, holding a bottle of beer I have no intention of drinking. Fazia raises her eyebrows at me and wanders off to find Hot Harry, the guy she always snogs at the end of any given social occasion. One day, one of them might actually ask the other out.
Tonight I’m in with a chance with Mo.
He’s with his deep-giggly friends. They’re going, “Haw-haw, haw-haw,” like a pack of donkeys.
“Look, it’s Smelly Ellie Minghelli. Haw-haw,” Donkey Number One says.
“Ellie the Elephant. Haw-haw,” adds Donkey Number Two.
Donkeys One and Two nudge Mo.
“She’s made an effort tonight. Haw-haw,” Donkey Number Three says, giving Mo a full shove, clearly far manlier than his puny nudging donkey friends.
There’s a silence. The donkeys stare at me. This is the bit where Mo sweeps me up in a fireman’s lift and rescues me from the burning, um, donkey barn.
Instead, he says something to his friends. They all bray madly. And then I hear something else. Fazia denies it for days afterwards, but I hear it. I hear him call me “Minger-Ellie.” Minger. It’s a few steps closer to loserville than “elephant.” It’s like “smelly” and “ugly” combined. I’ve been promoted.
The donkeys go wild—haw he haw he haw.
So I have a new nickname and it’s coined by Mo. Fan-bloody-minger-tastic.
I stay put, because I am independent. I hold out until I see Mo snogging Holly.
Holly is the kind of fair maiden guys fought over in the olden days; duels at dawn. Holly is perfect. Holly is “in with a chance” with every single boy in the school. Guys are lucky to be “in with a chance” with Holly, not the other way around.
That’s when I burst into loud, stupid, obvious tears and storm out of the party. Oh yeah, I really am that dignified. Minger-Ellie leaves the Big Sneeze in sniveling disgrace. It’s a surefire way to make the new nickname stick. And stick it does.
Fat chance, the one Fazia said I was in with.
She apol
ogizes for her brother, but of course it’s not her fault. It’s like if males aren’t insulting females and/or leaving them, they cease to exist.
And I sort of wish that would happen, really. The world would be a more perfect place.
• • •
Fazia hasn’t texted back yet and the sky is growing darker. I’m coping with the bedcover, at least. I change into pajamas, pull out a book and read on my bed for ages, carefully ignoring the cats. Eventually, though, I have to leave my room because I can’t go forever without using the toilet. I may be Minger-Ellie and the laughing stock of my whole school but I’m still made of a human-related substance, deep down.
I open my bedroom door a crack and peer out. There’s no sign of life so I dart quickly into the bathroom.
And that’s when I walk in on a naked guy.
Yes, naked. And a guy.
Just when I’ve been wishing the whole male population of the world away, one appears naked in my flat.
My pajamas are fluffy and have teddy bears on them. No one outside my family was supposed to see them. When I left my room, I dashed past the other bedroom doors just in case they were open and my new housemates saw something they shouldn’t.
I now see almost everything I shouldn’t.
I see a naked guy. Young. A bit older than me, I think. Fit. Buff, even.
He has one foot in the bath and his body half turned away from me.
I scream.
He yelps and gapes at me. “Oh Jesus, doesn’t the lock work? Oh Jesus, I didn’t realize!”
His accent is American. His body is … really interesting.
I gulp and tug at my pajamas (the bears! the bears!) but I can’t seem to speak. I see chest. I see muscle definition. I see a small line of hair starting at his navel. I see more.
While I’m busy seeing all these things, he’s grabbing the nearest towel, which seems to be a hand towel.
No, it’s smaller than that. It’s a titchy little bidet towel, designed to dry certain private parts of the body. It has a flowery pattern on it.
The boy covers one private part of himself in flowers. His, um, front part. I can still see the rest. I try not to look but my eyes are drawn there.
He finds a bigger towel. He doesn’t look at me as he wraps it around himself and lets the bidet towel drop to the ground.
With the bottom part of him covered, my eyes travel north and I take in the dark tattoo on his shoulder. It is a girl’s name—“Jen”—plus a heart. It dances as his arm muscles move, tying his towel tighter.
He has gorgeous arms.
I wonder what “Jen” would say if she knew I’d walked in on her boyfriend like this. And is Jen the Hello Kitty girl or the vamp? The boy has longish hair, but I’m still not sure which girlfriend is more likely, not until he puts some clothes on.
“It was locked!” The boy stares accusingly at the door. “I checked.”
“Oh,” I say. It’s the first thing I’ve said. It occurs to me that I shouldn’t still be standing here at all, but I’m kind of frozen.
“I’ll ask my dad about the lock,” I manage. Yay, my voice is back. And it seems to want some exercise, too. “It’s just typical of my dad to put me in a flat with total strangers as housemates and not even check the bathroom door lock works and …” I hesitate. “Are you the boyfriend of one of my new housemates?”
“No,” he says. His hand is all clenched where he’s clutching the tied edges of the towel. “I live here. Since yesterday.”
He lives here? “Wait—you’re my actual housemate?”
“I guess,” he shrugs. “There’s me, and there’s Yoshi. We moved in yesterday. Yoshi’s something else—wait till you meet her.”
I’m confused. It’s none of my business, but I say it anyway. “So who’s Jen?”
The boy looks shocked. Then he turns his head and frowns at the tattoo. “Oh. I’m not with Jenna anymore. That’s why I’m here.”
He tattooed her name on his shoulder, but he’s already moved on. He already thinks Yoshi is “something else,” and he met her yesterday.
Yeah, he’s a guy, all right.
He holds out the hand that’s not engaged in towel-clutching duties. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Andy. So you’re the landlord’s daughter?”
I nod. “Ellie,” I mumble. I shake his hand. And I’m now staring again.
I snap my eyes away.
“Okay, so … I’ll just come back later,” I say, suddenly swept up in a shyness I probably should have felt a lot earlier. “A lot later. And, I’ll, um, knock first.”
Andy looks relieved. “Thanks, Ellie,” he says.
“That’s okay. So I’ll be going.” I edge out of the door.
“Hey, Ellie?” Andy says.
I slink back, my eyes fixed carefully on the ceiling this time. “Yes?”
“Nice pajamas.” He grins.
I pull at the hem of my pajama top. I wish I could bring myself to say something cheeky like “nice birthday suit,” like Sofia or Fazia probably would in this situation.
I turn to leave, and that’s when I meet my other housemate, who’s just walked into the flat and is staring toward the bathroom, and me, in curiosity.
This one is definitely a girl. She has funky bright-pink and black hair that’s spiked at the front and all different lengths. She’s covered in bright makeup and her lipstick is the color of bubblegum. Her clothes are mismatched and clashy, with all shades of pink from pastel to electric. She looks like something off a high-fashion shoot.
She looks stunning.
Andy pokes his head out from behind the bathroom door, now covered in about three more towels. He beams at the style princess. “Hey, Yoshi! This is Ellie.” He waves a hand between us. “Ellie, Yoshi. I’m about to have a shower and the lock’s broken—don’t come in!”
“I buy pizza?” Yoshi says. “For three?”
She looks at me and I nod. Well, I’m starving.
Andy shuts the door halfway through saying, “Yoshi, you’re the best!” He couldn’t have just said “yes”?
I’m almost relieved to go back to the cat-filled room and change out of my pajamas.
• • •
After Yoshi gets back, Andy emerges from his vamp cave dressed in head-to-toe black. The pizza smells delicious. We sit and eat and talk.
Well, Yoshi doesn’t talk all that much. She’s way too cool. Or maybe her English isn’t that great. But Andy works hard to include her in the conversation and he laughs in her direction all the time and generally looks interested in her. Then he looks disappointed when she says something about “having exam” in the morning and she goes to her room to study.
He definitely likes her. A lot.
Tattoos are forever, but “Jen” is clearly forgotten.
When we’re alone, Andy asks me about Dad, because he knows that the landlord’s name is Armando Minghelli, a professor at the university.
“So you’re Ellie Minghelli?” he asks, and I brace myself when I nod. But he doesn’t laugh, or think of a nickname.
“My name’s Elena really, but I don’t like that either,” I tell him. “I hate my name. I get teased about it at school.” I don’t tell him exactly how or by who.
“I hear you. I have issues with my name, too,” he says. “Though I’m starting to forgive it now, if it’s the reason I’m here with the world’s coolest roomie.” He grins. He has to mean Yoshi. He has seen my teddy-bear pajamas.
Andy continues, “I guess your dad wanted two girls to move in with you, huh? This mix-up probably happened because I’m called Andrea.” He spells it for me. “I’m Italian-American, and it’s a boy’s name. But that didn’t stop the stupid things they said in the locker room at high school back in the States. It was bad.”
Oh, yeah? I’ll bet my story beats his.
“The girly-boy stuff has mostly stopped now, and I’m in Italy.” He runs a hand through his longish hair. “But it was Jenna who called the agency, and she said the girl there w
as Aussie. And Jenna called me her roommate, not her ex-boyfriend. They do so many sublets in this city of students, they don’t really check stuff.”
I stare at him. Apart from the hair, there’s nothing remotely girly about him. Stubble. Large hands. Muscles. Sexy smile.
Extremely recent break-up with a live-in girlfriend whose name is tattooed on his arm and who made post-break-up arrangements for him. Obvious attraction to our other housemate.
Focus, Ellie, focus.
“So why did Jenna find you another place to live?” I don’t know why I want to know, but I do.
His eyes shift downwards. “Well, she wanted me to leave.”
“Yeah?” So she broke his heart?
Or he broke hers? And she issued him with an eviction notice? That’s what Mum did with Dad in the end. “I’m sick of hanging around waiting for you,” Sofia and I heard her shout. “Just get out of my life and stop even pretending you have any interest in me or the girls.”
Andy says, “Yeah. She … she threw me out.”
Good for Jenna. “My dad definitely said I’d be sharing with two girls,” I tell Andy pointedly. Suddenly, I want him to worry.
He worries. “Do you think he’ll let me stay?”
I feel instantly bad, so I tell the truth. “He probably won’t even notice. He doesn’t really pay much attention to me.” That sounds a little pathetic so I add, “I think he thinks I’m all grown up, now I’m sixteen. Independent.” Like a cat. That sounds less pathetic, but it’s a lie because he didn’t pay much attention to me when I was twelve, either. Or six, for that matter.
“You’re sixteen? You going into junior year?”
“Um … I’ve just finished GCSEs. I’m starting A levels next year—like your high school leaving thingies. I think.” Then I blurt, “I hate school. I can’t wait to leave forever, but I like … I like studying.” This is a terrible thing to admit. Social death. “I just don’t like the people much.” That is possibly worse.
Andy laughs and pulls up closer to me, settling in his chair like I’ve just given him a License to Talk About Yourself in Tiny Detail.
“I feel the same,” he says. “I had the toughest time in school, mostly because I refused to be like everyone else.”
