Dad nodded. ‘Ten minutes ago. Threw up all over the hall.’
All I could feel was relief as I pulled out my mobile to let Simon, Lucy and Izzie know.
Lucy’s diary
20th April
Boys snogged: 2
I think I may be in love with Tony again. We had a major snog sesh the night of Izzie’s gig and it reminded me just how great a kisser he is. I have one boy to compare him to now and that’s Eddie Mason. It happened last Wednesday night in the car park behind the cinema in Muswell Hill. I was waiting for Dad and Eddie was there carrying a load of shopping for his mum who went off to get more groceries. I’ve known him for ages and although I don’t really fancy him, I knew he fancied me – he’s always been after me at parties – so I decided to give it a go. I wanted to kiss another boy besides Tony, just to see what it was like. It was yuk. We were all out of synch with each other and his lips were too wet. Not at all like with Tone.
The way he handled the whole mad Nesta night really impressed me. He was so protective of her. Izzie and I let her stew for a few days after the gig but we missed her too much so when she came round grovelling, it didn’t take long before we had all agreed to be best of mates for ever and ever again. Simon’s sister Tanya had taken a bottle of champagne to the gig and Nesta had swigged it back like it was lemonade. I think she also wanted to prove to Tanya how grown up and sophisticated she could be. Tony told me that she had a bad hangover and was so miserable afterwards. She tried to finish with Simon saying that she couldn’t keep up with his crowd, but he wasn’t having any of it and that he didn’t see it as his crowd or her crowd. He’s cool. Not at all stuck up like Cressida.
Not sure what to do about Tony though cos Nesta said he had a girlfriend a week or so ago but he wasn’t with her at the gig and he certainly didn’t act like someone who was in a relationship when we snogged on the dance floor. I have to think about how to play it because I know he likes a challenge so I don’t want to go diving in there and blow it. I shall watch and wait from a distance. And maybe do a few Izzie spells. Tee hee. She says I have to get a photo of him, sprinkle it with sugar, put it in an envelope under my pillow and he will grow sweet on me. That’s if mice don’t eat it.
Noticed that a girl called TJ Watts in our class looks lonely. She was mates with a girl called Hannah who left to go and live in South Africa. Must put it to the others that we should ask her to hang out with us for a bit. She’s cool and I’ve always liked her. She’s dead brainy.
Splash of the old Armani and away we go. Tonight’s a very special night. May the twenty-fourth and I’m taking Lucy out for her birthday. I’ve saved up my pocket money for a few weeks plus Dad bunged me a bit extra. It’s going to be a romantic meal in an Italian restaurant on the Archway Road then a walk in the park. It’s a lovely evening so we may just let nature take its course.
She was waiting for me outside Jackson’s Lane opposite Highgate tube. It was funny because both of our faces lit up when we saw each other and both of us tried to hide it and to look cool. We laughed because we knew exactly what we were doing. It’s like that with Lucy – as if she can read my mind almost. She looked great, in blue – it really suits her. She has some style, does Lucy, clothes look good on her. It bothers her that she’s small. Not even five foot I think, but I like being taller than her. Makes me feel protective.
We held hands as we walked towards the restaurant and it felt totally natural even though we weren’t going out officially. This was our first proper date since Izzie’s gig. We’d been chatting on the phone about what a total eejit my sister had been – so juvenile – and then called each other a couple of times after that. In one chat, Lucy had mentioned that it was her birthday this week so I jumped in and asked her out. I was surprised that she said yes because she’d been cool with me after Izzie’s gig, like she’d lost interest, which was strange after our steamy snog on the dance floor. I guess that was part of the challenge with her though. She wasn’t a pushover for my charm and that only made me want to win her over more.
The restaurant was perfect. Not too posy, not too downmarket, just comfortable. The waiter made a big fuss of Lucy when he found out that it was her birthday and she blushed like anything when he came out with all the waiters with tambourines and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her. We both stuffed our faces. My dad’s Italian and I love good Italian food. We both had pasta. I noticed that we’d both picked dishes with no garlic. Snogging was deffo on the cards. We devoured huge bowls of tiramisu afterwards. On the house, the manager said. I think he was smitten with Lucy too. One thing I like about her is that she likes her food. I’ve been on some dates with girls who are so picky and go on about being on a diet and the size of their bums or legs. What they don’t realise is that boys love those curvy bits.
After supper, we headed over towards Highgate Woods where we found a bench tucked away from the main paths. I noticed that Lucy had gone quiet on me.
‘You OK?’ I said.
She nodded and rubbed her tummy. ‘Yeah. Full to burst.’
‘Me too,’ I said and I put my arm around her.
We started to kiss and as always with her, it felt great, really great and after a while I couldn’t stop myself – part of me just wanted to eat her up – I caressed her shoulders, the back of her neck, her arms, round to the front . . .
She smacked my hands away and leaped up. ‘Tony! I told you before.’
‘I . . . I’m sorry. I get carried away. Sorry. Sit down. I won’t do again. Promise.’
She sat down again and I started to tickle her instead. She laughed and began to tickle me back and soon we were wrestling. A man with his dog went by and looked across at us suspiciously.
‘You all right, love?’ he asked Lucy.
She nodded and pointed at me. ‘He’s got ants in his pants.’
The man rolled his eyes, huffed and walked off. I tried to catch her to tickle her again, but she ran off. I soon caught her up and wrestled her to the ground. I sat on top of her and pinned her arms down with my knees and then I leaned in. ‘OK, no escaping this time.’ And we had a really long snog. I changed position and lay beside her but cuddled her into me. It felt great lying there in the grass on a warm spring night, the stars up above, really romantic. I began to edge on top of her and pulled her closer to me, but she pushed me off. She got up, brushed the grass off her skirt and then she just looked at me.
I stuck my tongue out. ‘Meanie.’
She didn’t laugh or even smile. ‘I want to go home now.’ She began to walk towards the park gate. I scrambled to my feet to go with her. I would never leave a girl to go home on her own. That’s not my style, even if we’d just had an argument, which I think we’d just had . . . Sort of. Sometimes I don’t get what’s going on in girls’ minds. I thought she was well into it. Into me. By the expression on her face and the determined way that she was walking away from me, clearly not. What did I do wrong?
‘You OK?’ asked Izzie as we got changed into our sleepover gear. Izzie, TJ and I were staying over at Nesta’s for the night and she had gone for supplies with TJ, leaving me alone with Iz.
I shrugged. ‘Ish. I just don’t want to bump into Tony. Remember last time we had a sleepover here? I ended up in his room and things got a bit hot and then again in the park when we went out for my birthday.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Izzie. ‘I know for a fact that he’s staying with a mate over in Hampstead. Apparently when he heard that we were all coming over, he immediately said he was going out.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Nesta told me.’
I was about to ask her if she had told Nesta about Tony getting fresh with me. I hadn’t told Nesta myself. Not that I didn’t trust her. I did, but she was still Tony’s sister and I didn’t want to make trouble between the two of them. I got the feeling that if she knew how much he had been coming on to me, she might kill him. I could talk to Izzie about it though.
‘I’m just not ready
to go further than kissing with Tony but I also feel embarrassed about my total lack in the boob area. You know I have the chest of a nine-year-old girl.’
‘I doubt that would put him off,’ said Izzie. ‘He clearly adores you.’
‘He adores me when he can’t have me. It’s the challenge he adores.’
Izzie shrugged. ‘Maybe —’
At that moment, TJ and Nesta came in so we quickly changed the subject. They had brought a tray laden down with all our fave sleepover goodies: crisps, choc-chip cookies, slices of pizza and Liquorice Allsorts. TJ was such a sweetie, a little shy at first but now I was getting to know her, I was glad we’d asked her to join our gang. She was a good laugh and I think she’ll make a good fourth mate.
We had a great night doing our usual sleepover activities: we watched a couple of romantic movies from Nesta’s dad’s classic collection. He has some brillopad ones. This time we watched The Philadelphia Story which was made in the nineteen-fifties and then we watched Sleepless in Seattle which made all of us cry when the hero (Tom Hanks) and the heroine (Meg Ryan) get together at the end. We ate everything naughty including all the cookies and then Nesta insisted that we danced off all the calories we had eaten so we went round the world and did our version of Scottish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, African, Irish, Indian and Aborigine dancing. It was hysterical and TJ joined in with gusto like she’d been doing mad dancing her whole life. I was very relieved that Tony wasn’t around because I wouldn’t have wanted him to catch me in my jim-jams dancing like a loonie petunie.
‘I love sleepovers with you guys,’ I said when we collapsed in a heap on the sofa. ‘These are the best times in the world and make me wonder why I even bother with boys. Boys just mess your head and your heart up. Girls help sort your head out and heal your heart.’
‘Yay,’ said Izzie.
‘Er, I wouldn’t rule boys out,’ said Nesta. ‘They have their uses.’
I couldn’t totally disagree because secretly a part of me was hoping that Tony might come back later and we’d have a chance to do some flirting.
TJ was so funny when we got on to talking about boys. She reckons she’s very inexperienced. ‘See, I can karate chop a boy to the floor and stand on his neck easy peasy, but if I think of having to kiss one, I’m terrified,’ she confessed. She’s a whizz at sports and is a champion arm wrestler, but she said it’s when it comes to boys that she loses confidence. ‘I turn into Noola the alien girl and I talk gibberish.’ I wasn’t sure whether to tell her or not but my brother Steve is totally into her. He’s been asking about her since she first came round to our house. I could tell he was well impressed – the way she mended his computer and knew all about the books he was into. I could see his mind ticking over: A babe? With a brain? Could this be possible? I decided to wait before I told her because although TJ’s a new mate, Steve is my brother and I wasn’t sure that he’d want me blurting out his secret crush. It was up to him to tell her that he was into her, not me. I’d definitely want Tony to tell me his feelings before Nesta, even if she is his sister.
‘We’ll look after you,’ said Nesta. ‘Stick with us and we’ll teach you everything we know about boys.’
‘Which isn’t a lot,’ said Izzie.
Nesta grinned. ‘Speak for yourself.’
The next morning, Nesta’s mum and dad made themselves scarce and went out to Highgate village to have their breakfast up there so we took over the kitchen. We’d got up late and we were still in our pyjamas sitting around eating toast when Tony arrived back around eleven. I took a deep breath and tried to look uninterested although that was the total opposite of what I was feeling. I always reacted when I saw Tony; either my stomach flipped or my knees went to jelly. Not that I was ever going to let on to him though. He’d love it. Nesta went straight into introductions between him and TJ and we got to witness first hand how she turned into her alien girl. She blushed furiously (Hurrah, another blusher, I thought) as Tony turned on the charm and gave her a flirty look. ‘Hi, TJ,’ he said in a low voice.
TJ looked at him then at the floor. ‘Uhuh,’ she muttered.
‘So TJ, what do virgins eat for breakfast?’ he asked.
TJ blushed even more. ‘Um . . . dunno,’ she replied.
‘Thought not,’ he said with a grin.
‘Take no notice of Tony, he’s a dingbat,’ said Nesta.
Poor TJ, I thought and I gave Tony a look as if to say, ‘Lay off her.’ He grinned back at me. I wondered if he was grinning at me because I looked a mess. I had thought about dashing to the loo to make sure that my hair wasn’t sticking up all over the place but I couldn’t put any make-up on or lip-gloss because it would look too obvious and strange with my night clothes. Oh well, tough, I thought. If he doesn’t like me as I am, au naturel, then he doesn’t like the real me. I stuck my tongue out at him which made him grin even more. He went to the fridge and got out a half-eaten apple pie. He cut himself a huge slice.
‘Apple pie for breakfast, gross,’ said Izzie.
‘Would you prefer I did something else with it?’ he asked with a cheeky expression on his face.
‘Like what?’ asked Izzie.
‘You seen that film American Pie?’
‘Yeah,’ said Izzie, then she pulled a face. ‘Eww and double eww.’
TJ looked mystified.
Nesta sighed. ‘Sorry about my disgusting brother, TJ. In American Pie, a boy asks what it’s like to have sex. His mate says it’s like putting your thingee in a warm apple pie.’
Tony watched TJ to see her reaction. She blushed even more. I decided that I’d give him a taste of his own medicine and take the focus off TJ. I slipped off my stool. ‘Apparently, some guy in Australia tried it, but this guy didn’t wait for the pie to cool after it came out of the oven. He was taken to the local hospital and treated for burns.’
Tony’s hands flew to his crotch. ‘Arghhhh!’ he said as the rest of us cracked up laughing. ‘I wonder how he explained that to the nurse on duty.’
I picked up the apple pie. ‘Er, Tony . . . would you like me to warm that up for you? I could put it in the microwave . . . on high.’
Tony laughed, came over and put his arm around me. ‘And how is the love of my life?’
I wriggled away from him. ‘Dunno. How is she?’
‘You know you want me really,’ he said.
‘Yeah right. It’s agony keeping my hands off you. Not,’ I said and headed for the door with the others.
Tony sighed. ‘That girl . . . ’ I heard him say as we made our exit.
It was hard resisting him when he came close and I felt the vibe between us, but it was also fun keeping him on his toes.
‘Blimey, it’s a bit posh here,’ said Rob when we got to the party on Saturday night. It was in Knightsbridge. A mega posh place. Huge rooms, marble floors, with a smell of . . . ? Money. A doorman in black tie let us in and once inside, his clone stepped forward and offered something pink and bubbly in a champagne flute glass.
‘Just act like you own the place, like you totally belong,’ I said to Rob after I’d taken a flute, then I looked around for Annabelle. I’d met her last year at a party in Holland Park. Luckily I didn’t have far to look. She was coming out of a room to our left into the hall and waved when she saw me. I felt relieved because I could see the doorman glancing down at his list then back at us. He was about to say something to Rob but backed off when he saw that Annabelle knew us.
‘Hey Annabelle,’ I said as I made my way over.
She flicked her long blond hair back and turned to a boy behind her. ‘Hey Tony, meet my new boyfriend, Sebastian Janson Hicks.’
A smooth-looking boy of about eighteen stepped forward. I nodded at him. ‘Great party,’ I said.
He looked down his long nose at me. ‘How do you know? You just arrived.’
Annabelle giggled nervously. ‘Take no notice of Seb.’
Tosser, I thought as scanned the room. ‘First impressions, mate, first impressions count and it
doesn’t hurt to make guests welcome.’
Sebastian looked momentarily confused. I thought about leaving. I didn’t really know people here and I wasn’t going to stay if the rest of Annabelle’s guests were like him.
And then I saw her.
Slim with long, white-blond hair, face of an angel, body of a goddess. She was all in black and wearing one of those low-cut corset things. Sexy. She clocked me too. I held her gaze a moment, a moment longer then I turned my back on her. She’d find me later if she’d felt it.
‘Come on, Rob, let’s find some nosh. I’m starving,’ I said and pulled him away towards the kitchen.
We didn’t find the nosh. The nosh found us. A fleet of men in black-and-white were taking around plates of tasty morsels: shepherd’s pies, chicken pieces on sticks, pizza pieces, beef and noodles, all à la miniature. Rob and I positioned ourselves by the kitchen door and grabbed them all. We were starving. I hadn’t had a thing since breakfast with Nesta and her mates. It had been nice to see Lucy, always is, but she’s playing it very cool these days. Time to move on, I told myself. Find someone more my own age or . . . let her find me, I thought as I watched the girl with the white-blond hair come out into the hall as if she was looking for someone.
Nigellas, Savannahs, Jeremys, Simons, Mariellas, came and went. Rob and I munched on whatever was doing the rounds and I waited until angel face made her move. I didn’t have to wait long. Just as the bowtie boys were bringing in the mini puddings, she wafted my way in a breeze of perfume. Lovely, I thought. I like a girl who smells nice.
‘So how do you know Annabelle?’ she asked casually, looking around as she asked.
‘I’m her personal trainer,’ I said and then indicated Rob. ‘And this is her shrink, Rob. Needless to say Rob sees more of her than I do.’
She laughed a tinkly laugh. Nice. I don’t like girls who hee haw.
‘And you?’ I asked.
‘I am her divorce lawyer,’ she replied. ‘OK, she’s only young but she’ll need me in the future.’
The Secret Story Page 6
