My Best Friend and Other Enemies

by Catherine Wilkins

  “Oh, this is Jessica,” says Joshua. “You know, from school.”

  “And I’m Ryan, Jessica’s brother,” pipes up Ryan, not to be sidelined.

  The group of boys look us up and down. “What’s that on your badge?” one of them asks Ryan.

  “It’s a spaceman,” says Ryan, glancing at the badge proudly. “My sister made it for me,” he adds.

  The lads glance between us some more. I can’t work out if they are about to be really mean or not. Then one of them suddenly says, “Hang on, are you Toons?”

  They all stare at me. I’m not sure what to reply. Before I can, one of them says, “She is. I’ve seen her with Tanya Harris. You’re Toons, aren’t you?”

  “Um,” I manage. (Why do they all know my nickname?)

  “Did you draw this?” One of them, called Michael, whips a piece of paper from his pocket. It’s a photocopy of the cartoon I did of our school.

  Ohhhh. Realisation dawns. Tanya has circulated it around school already. And she’s told everyone “Toons” did it! Blimey! “Er, yes, I did that,” I say.

  “Nice one!” exclaims Michael.

  Then, two things happen at once. Firstly, the boys get really excited, keep grinning at each other and start high-fiving me. (I don’t mean to boast, but it’s honestly as if they’ve discovered I’m Banksy or something.) And secondly CAC all troop out of the cinema, having watched their film.

  Which means that, as CAC enter the cinema foyer, they see me being high-fived, patted on the back, and generally congratulated by half of our year’s basketball team.

  I know that if I want to be strong and independent and stuff, this is exactly the sort of thing that I shouldn’t care about. But I can’t help it. This event elevates today to best day ever.

  Ah, life is good. As Ryan and I enter our house later that day, there is a delicious smell of curry wafting all around.

  “What time do you call this?” says my mum, instead of “Hello” or even “Thank you for taking my nightmare child out for the day.” “I was just about to ring you. Dinner is on the table now.”

  Honestly. First she wants us out, and then she’s annoyed about it. There’s no pleasing some people. Luckily I am way too Zen to rise to the bait.

  “Blimey, Mum, there’s no pleasing you, is there?” I reply. (Well, all right, nearly too Zen.)

  “Sorry, love,” she says. “I was just worried about you. Thanks for taking Ryan out. You’re a good girl really.” She kisses me on the head, and we all sit down to dinner.

  “And I’m good, too,” Ryan adds, apparently feeling left out.

  “From the sounds of things, you were a blimmin’ nuisance this morning,” says my dad, dishing out rice to everyone.

  “Well, boys will be boys,” says my mum. “Have you calmed down now, sweet pea?” My mum looks at Ryan fondly, seemingly suffering from acute memory loss. It’s as if she has no actual recollection of the spaceman row earlier.

  To my delight, this meal is delicious. My mum’s made two different curries. One is apparently called Tarka Dahl, and has loads of lentils in it. The chickpea one is called Chana Masala. It tastes amazing.

  “Mum, this tastes amazing,” I say with my mouth full. I swallow. “This is my favourite meal of the economy drive, bar none.”

  “Well, good,” says my mum, looking pleased. “It certainly took the longest.”

  We all start chatting about the film, which means that Ryan goes into an excited monologue while my parents nod and say, “Oh yes?” and exchange little smiles with each other because of how cute he looks when he’s animated. We all seem really happy for once.

  This is certainly the happiest I’ve felt for ages. I’m still reliving how awesome it was when half the basketball team congratulated me! It was such an amazing feeling. And Amelia’s face! Priceless. I sigh contentedly.

  I knew I was brilliant. But to be honest, I didn’t actually expect anyone else to cotton on to it until I was a famous and eccentric cartoonist in my fifties. I kind of weirdly had this vague fantasy of being “interesting” and elusive, and growing whatever the female equivalent of a beard is … still a beard, I suppose … but anyway. I have peaked forty years ahead of schedule. Which is weird.

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m famous (in a roundabout way to upwards of fifty people). This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened. I feel like I can do anything now. I can take on the world. Nothing matters.

  I sort of don’t ever want this day to end. I want it to stay being the day where the brilliant thing happened forever.

  My leg starts to vibrate gently and I realise I still have my phone in my pocket. I pull it out discreetly, and try to look at it under the table (my parents are very anti-mobile phones at the dinner table). But luckily they are still entranced by Ryan’s enthusiastic film review.

  I click on it. I have a message from Natalie!

  How U been? Wot U up 2 l8r? X

  What? I read it again. Then I read it again, just to make sure. It’s hard to do this and still be discreet.

  “Jessica? What are you doing?” asks my dad.

  “Nothing,” I murmur, shoving the phone back in my pocket and returning my attention to the dinner table. Well, some of my attention. My mind is racing.

  What the what? My first thought is that maybe she got the wrong number and that message was meant for someone else. I mean, that type of thing has happened before. Mainly in note form, but still. Accidentally or deliberately, it seems a bit odd that she would suddenly message me out of the blue. I’m just going to ignore it. I’m not going to fall for that again.

  On my way up to my room after dinner, my phone buzzes again. I sit down in my room and read another text message from Natalie.

  Hey Jess. RU free 2nite sweets? Wondered if U wanted 2 hang out. X

  OK, that one had my name. It is overtly definitely meant for me. I still can’t rule out the possibility of a trick … Actually, you know what? I really can’t be bothered with this. It’s ridiculous. I had a great day today. I am going to continue to feel good, and be myself, and not get bogged down in trying to second-guess what Natalie is thinking. Ha.

  I put my phone down and start sorting through some of the clean washing that my mum has left on my bed. My phone starts ringing. I check the screen, bewildered. Natalie is ringing me. She hasn’t rung me in … well, ages.

  Curious, I answer. “Hello?”

  “Jessica!” comes Natalie’s voice. “Babes, I’m so glad you answered. When you didn’t reply to my texts I was worried you might have changed your number or something. How are you?”

  “Um, fine … um … why are you ringing me?”

  “What kind of question is that? Uh, like, ’cause I’m your best friend? Look, everything’s got stupid, Jess. We need to sort all this out, you and me.”

  I can’t believe it. Those are the words I’ve being dying to hear since we fell out (although, to be honest, in my fantasy version she’s way more apologetic than that) and yet, now it’s finally happened, I don’t care. I really don’t care.

  “Natalie, why are you so bothered about being my friend now?” I say. “You’ve been totally excluding me at school.”

  “Look, I know, things have got really weird. I haven’t exactly enjoyed the last couple of weeks, either.”

  “Ha!” I blurt. “Yeah, right!” (Maybe I slightly care. But only about the truth and justice of it all.) “You looked like you were having a great time. And you and Amelia started all this anyway.”

  “Look, I know, I know. I haven’t entirely been completely nice to you. And I’m really sorry about that.” (Wow – she actually did apologise.) “I just find it hard to fit everybody in at the moment.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, I just – I really like you. You’re my best friend and you always will be. But I really like Amelia as well, and you guys don’t get on, and I get caught in the middle, and it’s hard.”

  “I have always been perfe
ctly nice to Amelia,” I say crossly. “She hates me, Nat. She’s always picking on me, and making little comments, and putting me down. She’s the one causing any tension, not me.”

  “I know, I know.” Natalie sighs. “I know that’s how it looks, but she’s new, it’s hard for her. She’s just like that because she’s jealous of you.”

  “WHAT?” (OK, I didn’t mean to shout that.) But I feel kind of incredulous. “What’s she jealous of, Nat? My rubbish, dog-sick jacket? Maybe my terrible immaturity? Is that it?”

  “She’s jealous of you and me. Every time she wants to do something together, you have a story about some time you and me already did it, and had loads of fun, and … you can be a bit tactless, and I told her that’s just how you are, but for some reason she started doing it back to you.”

  Oh. My. God. Information overload. So much I want to reply to. I am not tactless. I can’t believe Amelia thinks I’ve been doing to her what she’s been doing to me. (I mean since before I started deliberately trying to do it to her.) I gasp. I’m momentarily speechless as I process all this.

  “Well,” I say finally. “The bottom line is, you chose her, didn’t you? You chose her over me. She got what she wanted. So that’s that, really.” I feel surprisingly close to tears.

  “No, that isn’t that!” squeals Natalie. “Stop being such a blimmin’ drama queen! I’m allowed to have more than one friend. Look, I didn’t choose her at all, Jess. It just happened that way at the time, and then it was really hard to come back from without losing face.”

  “Losing face? Nat, you could never lose face with me. I’m the least street person ever.”

  “I know!” Natalie laughs and sniffs, and I wonder if she’s slightly crying. “Look, I know I should have been honest with you ages ago, but I’ve been a bit jealous of you and the chess club, and when Amelia suggested this gang, it seemed like the perfect way to give you a taste of your own medicine and—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I interrupt. “Back up there, you’ve been jealous of the chess club? You hate the chess club!”

  “Only because you love it so much!”

  “I don’t love it; it’s OK and I like chess. Like I said, I’m not a very street person.”

  Natalie splutters with laughter. “I’ve missed you so much. Do you want to come round to my house tonight? We could talk about this, and hang out. Maybe have a sleepover?”

  Natalie, my beloved best friend, sounds really upset and genuine. But I still feel so hurt by everything, that I say, “Won’t Amelia be there?” slightly sneeringly.

  “No. Look, Amelia’s great, but we don’t hang out all the time. I miss you, Jess. You’re so funny, and Amelia’s mostly quite serious. I miss our silly jokes together. Those cartoons you drew of your gang were amazing. I was well impressed.” I feel myself relenting. Natalie pauses. I hear another sniff. “Have you missed me?” she adds quietly.

  “Maybe,” I hear myself say.

  “Oh my God, come round right now!” she exclaims. “Ask your mum to drive you over. We have to make up properly. I want to hug you. I can’t do that over the phone.”

  “Um …” I hesitate.

  “I never watched that dinosaur programme,” continues Natalie. “We could watch it together if you come round. And bake the dinosaur biscuits! I’ll check my mum has flour … Oh my God, I found that poem you wrote the other day, about MBlaze.” (Oh yeah, I forgot about that – Natalie and I used to write poems to MBlaze, but instead of being about us loving them, they were offering MBlaze tips on how to become more normal.) “It was so funny! Oh, please come round!”

  “Um …” I need to think about this properly. Should I go round there? Do I want to be Natalie’s friend again? Twenty-four hours ago this was my dream. And now it’s really happened. Natalie wants me back. And I love Natalie … I do. I do want to go round there! Excitement surges through me as I realise this. Everything’s going to be OK. Everything’s—

  “And I tell you what,” Natalie starts gabbling excitedly, “the first thing we can talk about is how you met the basketball team and why they were all high-fiving you. How much gossip have I missed here?”

  Oh. Ohhhhh. Of course. I feel like I’ve just come crashing back down to earth. Natalie doesn’t want me back. She just wants to hear about the basketball team. I am just a means to an end. I suppose I looked “cool” enough to be her friend again, did I? Now she cares so much about “losing face” and boys stuff. Ohhh.

  Well, I’m not cool. (I’m brilliant, but I’m not cool.) I refuse to be used and then cast aside again.

  “Yeah, well,” I say. “It’s great that you want to hang out and everything, Nat, but we’re in rival gangs now. Maybe you should have thought a bit more about that before excluding me.” Then I hang up.

  There’s nothing like some lovely, clement weather to cheer the days along. And this is nothing like some lovely, clement weather to cheer the days along. Ha ha, I am still funny. (I am a humorous cartoonist.)

  It’s been raining for pretty much three whole days now. Honestly. What is the point of springtime if it’s just going to rain? Come on, universe, don’t you think it’s about time you stopped making it rain? (I don’t ask for me, but you should see Ryan when he hasn’t been able to run off his excess energy. Maybe we ought to get him a hamster wheel.)

  I’m feeling weirdly upbeat despite the dreary weather and occasional domestic flare-ups, though. I sort of don’t care about anything. The future seems like it might contain good things, even if bad things are still happening sometimes as well. I think I’ve sort of relaxed slightly in general.

  It’s like, now that one good thing has happened to me (i.e. I have drawn a cartoon that is officially popular) I know that it is possible that other good things could happen. I don’t need to worry so much about the little things. Like who is calling who back and that sort of thing.

  Natalie hasn’t called me since I hung up on her. Not that I care. I’m not really thinking about Natalie much any more. Officially. I mean, I’m thinking about her a tiny bit, but that’s not my fault. I mean, it’s impossible to erase memories or think of nothing, isn’t it?

  Ohh. All right, I have sort of been thinking about her a lot. (Maybe even, what you could describe as “non-stop”, if you wanted.) Because part of me thinks I might have overreacted, but part of me thinks I sort of had to do what I did for the principle. I mean, otherwise it’s like Natalie can just pick me up and put me down whenever she feels like it. And that isn’t right.

  So apart from not quite being able to work out if I am overreacting or if my stance is justified, everything is fine. Well, Natalie and Amelia have gone back to frostily ignoring me in the form room again. But apart from that, everything is fine.

  Well, also, there was a notice in assembly on Monday about not wasting paper, or the “privilege” of the photocopier might be taken away (which I think might indirectly be because of my hell-school cartoon). How unbelievable is that? I am equally thrilled and scared of the repercussions of my kind-of-but-not-really notoriety. Anyway, the point is, apart from all of that, everything is fine.

  And anyway. Things aren’t all doom and gloom. I have actually sort of made a new friend. Joshua has gone from boy-who-I-sat-next-to-in-art-that-I-thought-was-funny-but-who-probably-thought-I-was-weird, to boy-who-I-sit-next-to-in-art-that-is-my-friend-and-may-or-may-not-think-I-am-weird-but-it-doesn’t-matter-anyway.

  Which is pretty good progress. I mean, I don’t want to lose my old friends. But if I am going to, it is at least nice to know that I am in fact capable of making new ones.

  We exchanged numbers on Saturday. And on Monday night he texted me, joking about the assembly warning about my cartoon, and how I was an outlaw, and he was going to “shop me to the feds”. He really makes me laugh.

  And now it’s Tuesday and it’s art again! I love art. I have always looked forward to it the most out of all my subjects. But now I’m better friends with everyone I sit with, it’s even more fun. I’m almo
st excited about the prospect of Tuesday’s lesson. (And I mean, it is still school. Weird.)

  We have to draw a big vase that has been put on our table. Other tables have jugs and stuff. (We are supposed to concentrate on making it look round and three-dimensional.) Then Mrs Cooper goes into the little side staffroom to “make a cup of tea”. So we are left to it!

  It’s brilliant, we get to joke around while we draw! Terry and Fatimah tell funny stories about their weekends, and Joshua and Emily chip in with funny interruptions. It’s a laugh. Then they start talking about being able to get into fifteen-certificate films and Terry asserts he would definitely be able to do it.

  “Urgh, you said ‘do it’,” I joke, and they all laugh (apart from Terry).

  “What? I would,” Terry maintains.

  “What, you would do it?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I would definitely do it,” says Terry. More laughter.

  “Urgh, Terry wants to do it,” I tease. Emily, Megan and Fatimah giggle.

  “Oh, grow up,” says Joshua, pretending to tell me off, but still looking amused.

  “What? Oh, I get it!” says Terry. “Do it. Yeah.” Then he turns behind him and shouts, “Oi, Dan! Do you know how to do it?”

  Dan replies, “Yes thanks.”

  And Terry goes, “Urgh, Dan knows how to do it!” I think the subtlety of the joke is getting lost somewhat, but it does make quite a few people laugh. So much so that Mrs Cooper comes back into the room to demand what all the noise is about.

  As she walks in, Terry is doing a weird victory dance in his seat which Mrs Cooper immediately clocks.

  “Terry! Stand up this instant! What on earth is going on in here?”