Lottie Biggs is Not Tragic

by Hayley Long

  For a while I just followed my feet around the town centre. Lots of the shops were empty and buried behind plywood boards and fly-posters. In another shop window, the glass had been entirely covered with identical posters that said:

  QUALITY GOOD’S

  END OF LINE’S

  OUTLET

  . . . and this made me smile at first because it made me think of how my English teacher, Mr Wood, would have needed one of Sally’s herbal rescue remedies if he’d seen this abominable abuse of apostrophes. But then it also got me thinking about school and about Goose and Gareth and I stopped smiling then and just felt really flat.

  And then it started to rain and I swear to God that the raindrops were fatter and colder than they ever are in Cardiff. I was wearing a parka which Ruthie had given me and – even though it’s two sizes too big for me and smells of mud – I was really glad I was wearing it because those raindrops felt like they’d been dumped on my head directly from the North Pole. Right now, Ruthie’s parka is drying on the back of my chair and I’m really grateful it’s there because it’s warm and snugly and smells like a slightly smelly friend.

  To escape the rain, I ducked into a shop. It wasn’t the nearest shop – that was actually a branch of Vogue Marché which sells smock-tops and slacks for the more mature lady – but it was the nearest shop to me which looked like it might have something interesting inside. It was called:

  I pushed open the door and stepped in, out of the rain. The shop was massive. Every inch of every wall was covered in racks and racks of tightly-pressed-together stuff. In fact, there was so much stuff in there that my brain needed a few seconds to digest it all. Not only were there Doug’s videos and discs but there were also DVDs, computer games, ancient LPs, tape cassettes, comic books, old games consoles . . . There was probably other stuff too, which I never even spotted. By anyone’s standards, it was an extremely interesting shop. A few people who looked like they were in their twenties or thirties were slowly browsing the shelves with frowns of total and utter concentration on their faces and I noticed, with a jolt of surprise and pleasure, that most of them were wearing parkas too. I’m not sure why this made me feel so good exactly. But it did.

  Shoving my hands into the pockets of Ruthie’s parka, I wandered over to a rack of films and started looking at the titles on offer. Behind the desk, a man with a young face but hair as grey as mine put down a screwdriver that he was using to fix a prehistoric computer and said to me, ‘Shouldn’t you be in school, love?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m on holiday at my dad’s.’

  The man behind the counter – Doug? – nodded suspiciously. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, I have to ask. I get every ragamuffin in Wrexham in here otherwise.’

  I smiled and turned back to the films. There was lots of stuff I’d never heard of and there was lots of stuff with foreign titles too. I looked to see if they had that film And They Died Screaming, but they didn’t – which was just as well because I wouldn’t ever have bought it anyway. I wanted to buy something though. I really did. So I scanned the racks of films again and I found a film called Forrest Gump, and just seeing the cover made me smile because it was a title that I recognized, and for some reason that made me instantly happy.

  The bell on the shop door tinkled. Two boys, who looked like they were probably in Year 9, walked in and joined me by the films. From the counter, the man who I was soon to discover was called Doug said, ‘Shouldn’t you lads be in school?’

  ‘Nah,’ said one of the boys, ‘We both got to go to the dentist’s in an hour.’

  Doug looked at the two boys doubtfully and said, ‘What? Both of you? And weren’t you at the dentist’s last week?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the boy who’d spoken before, ‘I suffer chronic with my teeth. We both do as it happens. I’m having a couple of molars out today to make a little space at the back and what are you having done, Jay?’

  The other boy who was blatantly called Jay put his hand against his jaw and said, ‘Root canal treatment.’

  Doug nodded suspiciously. ‘Sorry, lads. Gotta ask. You know how it is.’

  ‘I do, Doug, I do,’ said the first boy. ‘You’d get every ragamuffin in Wrexham in here otherwise.’

  Doug gave the boys another doubtful look and then shrugged and turned his attention back to the ancient computer.

  I stood still with the copy of Forrest Gump in my hands and had another quick look around to see if there was anything else I might want to buy. Next to me, from the corner of my eye, I could see Jay and his friend whispering and giggling. They both seemed very preoccupied with the titles placed high up on the wall above all our heads. A quick, darting movement made me turn and look at them properly. Jay’s friend was clutching a DVD in his hand and the two of them were fixed intently on the back cover blurb and were clearly trying so hard not to giggle out loud that they looked like their heads were about to pop. Then, after another minute or two, that same boy whose name I will never know crouched low, sprang upward like a frog and slam-dunked the DVD back into its position on the top shelf.

  I frowned and turned away. But only for a second. The same darting movement caused me to turn again. This time, it was Jay who jumped. I saw him bend his knees, spring upward with all the force he could muster and topple a DVD with his outstretched fingertips from the top shelf.

  Again, the boys huddled together to examine the information on the case and, again, whatever it was they saw almost caused them to have a hernia.

  I looked upward in order to establish why exactly they were so fascinated with the films on the top shelf.

  And then I realized.

  I’m not going to go into any of the specifics but it’s enough to say that those films on the top shelf were grubby.

  Before I could stop myself, I said, ‘Urrggghhhh! Yuck!’ And then I shook my head in disgust at the two Year 9 boys and said, ‘Virgins!’ I said it very quietly though because I’m not stupid. I’ve got myself into trouble before for saying things like this.

  Even though they have bad teeth, there obviously wasn’t anything wrong with their ears. The nameless boy shoved the grubby film behind his back and, in a blatantly unfriendly manner, said, ‘Did you just say something to me?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said and glared at him, even though I was actually feeling quite scared.

  ‘Yeah, well . . . you better not have done,’ he said, glaring back at me.

  ‘Well, I didn’t,’ I said, still glaring.

  The nameless boy shrugged and then he nodded in my direction and said, ‘Lesbian!’ And then him and the boy called Jay both started laughing their heads off.

  I hurriedly slammed Forrest Gump back on the shelf and walked straight out of the shop. Once outside, I rushed as fast as I could through the rain, and I didn’t actually care which direction I was moving in – I just wanted to put some serious distance between myself and those stupid boys. And it wasn’t what they’d said which bothered me exactly. It was more the fact that I was all on my own and I didn’t have Gareth beside me to go all red in the face and tell them to apologize or Goose to tell them that they were being totally and utterly ridiculously ridonkulous.

  rIDICuLOusLY riDONkuLOus

  But she had said it when we were barely three quarters of an hour outside Cardiff and speeding westward along the motorway to Aberystwyth. We’d spread ourselves out across the entire back seat of the coach. Left to right – Goose then Gareth then me. To begin with, as the bus station disappeared behind us, we’d all been a bit quiet. But then, at pretty much the exact same moment that it properly dawned on me that the coach was moving and we were on it, Gareth had said, ‘Flipping heck! I can’t believe this is actually happening! Flipping flopping flumping heck!’

  And I said, ‘This must be the most freakily freaked-out experience in the whole of Freaky-Experience Land.’

  And Goose said, ‘Yeah, and we’re going to miss school tomorrow.’

  For some reason, even though we all quite like schoo
l, that made us start to laugh. Not proper outright ha ha ha belly laughter, but just a light display of vocal amusement shared between three friends.

  And then, with no warning whatsoever, Gareth narrowed his eyes, curled his top lip into a sneer, and in the dodgiest American accent that I’ve ever heard in my entire life, said, ‘Don’t be a spanner – Go to Pontcanna!’

  ‘Huh?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said Goose.

  Gareth grinned. ‘Sorry, girls, it’s a reflex. I just saw the name Pontcanna on a signpost and I couldn’t stop myself. It’s a game me and the rugby boys play when we’re on the tour bus. What we do is, we spot a place name and we make up some rhyme to go with it. And the first line has to begin with the word Don’t and the second line has to begin with the word Go. I don’t know why – it’s just the rules. Helps pass the time though and works a treat at breaking up any pre-match tension. Even Coach Jenkins sometimes joins in. Oh, and the really tricky part is that you gotta try and sound like Al Pacino in The Godfather when you say it.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is,’ I said. ‘I don’t watch old films. Except Star Wars.’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ said Goose. ‘It’s a classic. Tim booked it for the Sunday film club the other week. Tim reckons that it’s widely regarded to be the second greatest film in the whole of American cinematic history.’ Her face darkened a bit then and she said, ‘I should be with Tim right now. I think I’m probably going to get sacked.’

  Me and Gareth exchanged a worried look. I’m hopeless in awkward situations, I really am. Luckily though, Gareth is a social genius. He glanced past Goose at the city flashing by on the other side of the window and then pointed a finger straight in her face and said, ‘Don’t act like a clown – Go to Grangetown!’

  ‘Gareth, that game is hilarious,’ said Goose flatly and mouthed the word sad at me. But a split second after that, she glanced out of the window, turned back to us with her eyes half-closed and her jaw jutting forward aggressively and said, ‘Don’t do things by half – go to Penarth!’

  And even though her Al Pacino impression was as rubbish as an empty Ribena carton, and even though this was without any shadow of a doubt the worst and most tragic game ever invented in the entire history of tragic games, we all burst out laughing. And this time it was actual ha ha ha belly laughter rather than the light vocal display of amusement that it had been earlier. But the really weird thing was that once we’d started to laugh, we couldn’t stop. We physically couldn’t. Because no sooner would we be getting to the end of our ha has, than one or other of us would hold an imaginary cigar in our hand and say something like, ‘Don’t follow the trend – go to Bridgend!’ And that would set us off again. Like this:

  When you really think about it, it wasn’t even that funny. In fact, it wasn’t funny at all. Actually, to be brutally honest, it put the un in funny. And yet at the same time, it was flipping flopping flumping hysterical.

  But then, one by one, once we’d all got totally stuck trying to think of something that would rhyme with either Ystradgynlais or Pontneddfechan, the ha has dried up and we went a bit quiet. And then we pretty much went silent.

  And, somehow, the atmosphere changed. I don’t know why. The bus was the same. The situation was the same. But our faces underwent a catastrophic transformation. We looked like this:

  For ages, we said nothing and then, just before we got to Swansea, Goose sighed and said, ‘This is totally and utterly ridiculously ridonkulous!’ And then she went silent again.

  I wriggled uneasily in my seat. ‘I didn’t make you come with me,’ I said.

  Goose leaned forward to look at me. And it was that exact same kind of look that teachers give you when they’d really like to clip you round the ear but know they’re not allowed to. Like this:

  ‘Oh jog on,’ said Goose crossly. ‘I was hardly going to leave you standing at the bus stop, was I?’

  ‘Well you could’ve done,’ I said, hurt. ‘I only asked to lend some money.’

  ‘Borrow!’ said Goose.

  ‘OK, borrow then. Keep your baggy bra on.’

  Gareth, who’d been sitting very quietly between the two of us, raised his palms into the air and said, ‘Ladies, please! We’re on a public bus and we’re representing Cardiff here! Can we try and show a bit of decorum?’

  ‘Huh?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said Goose.

  Gareth’s cheeks reddened. ‘Well, it’s the kind of thing Coach Jenkins says when it gets a bit rowdy on the rugby coach and it usually works for him. But, honestly, don’t start rowing, eh? I’m getting a dose of the Frillies. And I really, really don’t need it right now.’ His cheeks went redder. For one weird horrible second, I glimpsed a glassiness in his eyes and actually thought he might be about to cry. But it must have just been a bit of dust which had irritated him or something, because he fiddled with his eyelashes for a moment, then blew his cheeks out in a big noisy sigh and said, ‘Right! To action. Goose, can you borrow me your phone for a second? I gotta make a really important call to Coach Jenkins. Tell him where I am.’ And then, miserably and almost to himself, he mumbled, ‘He’s gonna totally kill me.’

  For a moment, Goose looked like she was on the verge of saying something critical to Gareth but whatever it was she obviously decided against it. Biting her lip quite blatantly, she said, ‘Sure.’ Then she rummaged in her briefcase, pulled out her phone and added, ‘And after he’s finished, you have to phone your mum, Lottie, and tell her where you are. That was part of the deal, remember?’

  I nodded. I didn’t mind. In actual fact, now that I was really and properly on my way to Aberystwyth, I wanted to phone my mum. I knew she’d be getting worried about me. If she’d noticed I’d gone, that is.

  ‘Hello . . . Is that Coach Jenkins?’ Gareth had Goose’s phone pressed flat against his right ear and his hand pressed flat against his left ear. ‘Hello – it’s Gareth, it is. . . . Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m phoning. I’m sorry, Coach, I . . . What’s that? I can’t hear you properly. . . . Hello? . . . Hello? . . . Coach? . . . Are you there?’

  Evidently, despite the fact that Gareth was booming so loud that everyone on our coach definitely could hear him, the only Coach that mattered obviously couldn’t. Gareth lowered his arm and stared down at the phone with a look of total dismay on his face.

  ‘No signal?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘No credit?’ Goose asked, sounding equally anxious. ‘Because it’s OK – I’ve got a top-up card in my bag somewhere.’

  Gareth shook his head. ‘No, that won’t help! Cos there’s no flipping charge!’ A look of horror had spread over his face. ‘Your battery is totally and utterly kaput, Goose. Dead as a doughnut. So a great flipping flat use of good this is!’ And then he pushed the phone back into Goose’s hands, folded his arms and slumped so far down in his seat that I thought he was going to slip right off the edge and collapse on to the floor.

  Goose’s face clouded. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘The number of times I’ve said that my battery is flat! And it’s always been a total lie to get me out of a boring conversation. And now my battery actually is flat and I really really need my stupid phone.’

  ‘How am I going to phone my mum?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, you’re not, are you?’ said Gareth, a lot more crossly than he needed. ‘Not just now, anyway. Same as I ain’t gonna speak to Coach Jenkins and tell him where the heck I am.’

  My mum has always said to me that if I’m ever in a situation where I can’t think of anything good to say, I should say nothing.

  So I said nothing and looked out of the window. Outside, towering above all the terraced houses and telegraph poles, I spotted the Liberty Stadium, home of Swansea’s football and rugby teams. I’d seen it on the telly loads of times but I’d never actually seen it with my own personal actual eyes before. Hoping to improve Gareth’s mood a little, I nudged him in the side and said, ‘I can see the Liberty Stadium over there, Gaz.’

  Gare
th’s frown deepened and he made no effort to look in the direction I was indicating. ‘I’m a Cardiff Blues man myself,’ he said. ‘I hate the Ospreys. They represent everything in life that I object to.’ And then he unzipped his bag, pulled out his iPod, plugged his earphones into his lugholes and shut his eyes. Conversation blatantly over.

  Goose, who now had her feet up on the seat and was leaning with her back to the window, put her head on one side so that she could see beyond Gareth to talk to me. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry I got so stroppy just now. I just got a bit stressed out. This is a helluva situation we’re in. But your sister will have a phone, won’t she? She’ll let us all borrow it, won’t she?’

  ‘Course she will,’ I said. ‘She’s as sound as a pound that got found on the ground is my sister Ruthie. Honestly she is.’

  ‘And she won’t mind me and Gareth crashing over on her floor, will she?’

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘She’s an archaeology student. She spends most of her time grubbing about in the mud and getting overexcited about a few crappy bits of broken pottery. She’s actually quite square, if I’m honest. She’ll probably enjoy a bit of fun company.’

  Goose relaxed. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ And then she looked down at her Ponty-Carlo Picture House uniform and said, ‘Do you reckon she’ll lend me some decent clothes?’

  I laughed at that. ‘She might lend you some clothes,’ I said, ‘but they definitely won’t be decent. Like I said, Ruthie spends half her life in holes. All her clothes are waterproof and smell of mud.’

  But as it happened, once we finally reached Aberystwyth, around teatime on that Sunday evening, the clothes that Ruthie was wearing when she greeted us were neither fantastically waterproof nor at all muddy-smelling. In fact, she hadn’t smelt of mud in the slightest. She actually smelt of perfume and bath oil.