Boys for Beginners (15 page)

However, right now I have a new problem and I'm panicking again. I am alone with Charlie. It'll take about ten minutes for us to walk back to my house, and there is no way that I can be
interesting for ten minutes. I can't think of a thing to say.

I scan my mind. Why is it only filled with rubbish? There must be something good or funny or insightful I can come up with.

We get all the way to my house without either of us saying a word.

We stand outside my front door. ‘Do you know what I like about you, Gwynnie?'

That I'm an idiot? A nutbag? I have stupid skinny legs that make it look like I'm a walking pair of compasses?

‘You don't feel the need to talk every second of every day. Some girls just talk and talk and talk and talk, and most of what they say is crap.'

Am I supposed to answer that, or would that make what he just said untrue? I say, ‘Thanks,' and leave it at that.

‘Is this your house?'

For the first time ever I feel really embarrassed about my house. It's a tiny terraced thing that is in desperate need of a coat of paint. The metre square of lawn in front hasn't been mowed in like a million years and there's a pile of junk that my dad is collecting to make some kind of sculpture. He calls it
art trouvé
. But there
is nothing trouvé about it. Whatever trouvé means.

‘Would you believe me if I said that I was just looking after it for a friend?'

Charlie laughs. ‘Not really. There's a sticker on the window that says,
Spurs Supporter Lives Here
, and I know that you and I are the only people in Northampton stupid enough to support Spurs.'

Suddenly I get a burst of courage and I have no idea where it came from. I lean towards him. I close my eyes and lean and lean and lean. My lips are out and puckered and they aim for him like an arrow in slow motion.

Why haven't I got to his mouth yet? I open my eyes and Charlie's looking at me like I've got a mental disorder. He's bent back, almost at a ninety-degree angle.

His gorgeous face looks confused. ‘Are you OK?' he asks. Charlie Notts is so caring.

‘I'm fine,' I say. He's not getting it. ‘I'm a bit cold.' Perhaps he'll put his arms around me to warm me up.

‘You can borrow my coat.' He quickly takes off his coat and hands it to me. ‘Give it back on Monday . . . or whenever.'

I take his coat and put it on. Now I'm boiling and I'm sweating up the inside of Charlie's coat. Yuck.
And
he hasn't put his arm around me.

I have another idea. ‘I have an itch on my back. On my left shoulder blade. Will you scratch it for me, please?'

He waits for me to turn around, but I don't, so he has to reach his arm around me and scratch my shoulder. He has his arm around me now and it's the most romantic thing since the invention of candlelight. He's leaning forward, and I know what that means. The BB Club told me. He opens his mouth and I know what that means too. I have to remember everything the girls taught me: close my eyes, allow his lips to go round my lips – or is it my lips around his? No pogoing, no washing machines . . . God, I hope I don't get this wrong!

I go in and kiss him. Full on the lips.

‘Gwy—' As our lips touch I muffle something that he was trying to say. Maybe he wasn't trying to kiss me after all. But it doesn't matter now. We're actually snogging!

And it's the best thing ever.

I arrive late to the next day's Prom Planning Committee meeting. This way I know all the girls will already be there when I walk in. I say, ‘Guess what!' like it's nothing and no big deal, but the fact that I have said
Guess what
, in this loud announcey-type way means that it obviously is a big deal.

They all kind of shrug like they are not that interested.

They will be.

‘I'm Charlie Notts girlfriend!!!'

Silence. Not the overjoyed whoops of non-jealous delight that I was hoping for. I stand there like a magician who's just done a
ta-da!
But the rabbit is still in the hat and hasn't disappeared at all.

‘What are you talking about, Gwynnie?' asks Jenny.

‘Oh my God, it's the best thing ever! Me and Charlie are a proper couple!'

‘What?' Kimba doesn't sound so sure. ‘Charlie Notts? And
you
?'

‘Yes.' I don't like the way she said that, like I'm a mental patient and she's one of the doctors in the white coats. But I know that Charlie and me are together now. I am sure of it. A little bit.

‘He walked me home and totally snogged me and it was amazing!'

Still silence. Finally Melissa says, ‘Look, Gwynnie, I'm not being funny, but you've never snogged anyone before—'

‘Jenny!' I squeal. ‘You said you wouldn't tell.'

‘This is the BB Club, Gwynnie. Telling them is not telling.'

Somehow I'm not sure if that's true, but it doesn't matter any more so I let it slide.

Melissa continues. ‘Maybe you thought you snogged him but you didn't.'

‘Of course I did! We were outside my door. And then he kissed me.' Technically I kissed him, but what's the difference? We kissed.

‘Did you use tongues or was it just a peck on the cheek?' asks Jenny.

‘Definite tongues. First we staircased, then we pogoed for a—'

‘TMI, Gwynnie,' interrupts Melissa with a hand raised.

‘Thanks very much,' I reply.

‘That means
too much information
.'

‘Oh.' I'm still learning. ‘Still,' I continue, ‘we kissed for ages. Like about two minutes.'

‘That's a shame,' says Jenny. ‘Oh well, maybe he had to get home.'

‘Is that not very long?' She's instantly made me feel bad. ‘He did say that he had to go home.'

‘Ooooh.' They all do this noise at the same time. The way they do it makes it sound like a bad thing.

I defend myself. ‘But you said that maybe he had to go home.'

‘Yeah, but if he
said
he had to go home it sounds like he was making excuses to go, rather than having to go. Do you see the difference?'

I totally do! Oh this is awful. Charlie Notts kissed me and then couldn't get away fast enough. ‘Do you think I've blown it?'

Elizabeth goes all reassuring. ‘No, no. It doesn't definitely mean that. So when did he ask you out?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘How did he say it? Was he like,
Will you go out with me?
' Elizabeth looks all dreamy and smiley as if she's imagining some romantic movie. ‘Or,
Will you be my girlfriend?
or,
Can I be your boyfriend?
'

‘He didn't say any of those things.'

Elizabeth's face falls a little but then she smiles at me again. The smile is not as strong as it was before.

‘But we kissed for ages so that must mean I'm his girlfriend.'

‘Oh, Gwynnie,' Kimba says, shaking her head, ‘you really don't know anything, do you?'

I would shout at her that
she's
the one who doesn't know anything, but when I look around they are all shaking their heads in the same way.

Jenny says, ‘You're not going out with a boy until he asks you out formally or refers to you as his girlfriend.'

‘But—'

‘No buts, sweetie. Those are the rules. Or else how do you know if it was just a snog for the sake of a snog, or you are proper boyfriend and girlfriend?'

I think back to what happened and wonder
how I could be so stupid. He tried to snog me in the cupboard but that's because it was Postman's Knock.
I
was the one who snogged him outside my house. He played along with it for the shortest time possible, out of pity. Then he said he had to go home. Obviously to get out of it.

‘Oh, sweetie, don't be upset.' Jenny is so nice sometimes. ‘At least you got your first snog.'

‘I suppose.' Jenny's right. At least someone found me not too hideous to give me a pity snog. But this is not how I thought today would go. When I woke up this morning I thought I had a boyfriend, and that he was the most gorgeous boy in the whole school. But an hour later, it turns out that I'm a delusional nutbag. I tell the BB girls that I've just remembered I have to leave.

‘But we're planning prom!' says Elizabeth. ‘We're on to decorations, and how we're going to have our hair.'

‘Balloons, streamers and a disco mirror ball,' I say. This is from a movie that my mum used to like.

They all make impressed
Ahhh
noises about the mirror ball.

‘And I was hoping that I could borrow your
ghd's, Jenny, so that I could have my hair super-straight.'

‘Sorry, Gwynnie. I can't lend out my ghd's to bronze members.'

‘What? Why?'

‘It's part of the bronze membership deal; ghd's count as a privilege.'

I'm not sure if this is fair. ‘Are you doing everyone else's hair?'

‘Yes.'

‘Even Elizabeth and Tanya?'

‘They are full members.'

‘But they haven't got their belly-buttons pierced.'

‘Elizabeth and Tanya are founding members so the policy is different.

‘I don't know, Jenny,' says Elizabeth. ‘Couldn't we just—'

‘Be quiet, Elizabeth,' says Jenny. ‘You're still only a silver member.'

I look around at the others but they've all started messing with their phones or rummaging in their bags. Only Elizabeth looks up for a second to mouth,
Sorry
.

‘But if I get my belly-button pierced my dad will kill me and then I won't be able to go to
prom anyway.' I try to get off on compassionate grounds.

‘You have to get your priorities straight,' says Kimba. I knew she was behind all this bronze privilege stuff. ‘If you really want to be in this club you could get your belly-button pierced, then hide it from your dad until after prom.'

I can't take this. In the last five minutes I've lost my boyfriend and been told I'll either have rubbish hair for prom or get stabbed in the stomach. ‘I've really got to go,' I say, and leg it out of there.

I'm already on the street when Paul calls me. I don't really want to talk to anyone. But Paul's not really anyone.

‘Hi, Gwyndle.'

I've only just remembered that I forgot to ask Jenny what happened with her and Paul because I was too busy obsessing over the shortest non-relationship since the Big Bang. Maybe that's why she was so mean to me just now.

‘Hey, Paul. How are you?'

‘I'm OK. A bit bored really.'

‘Are you not seeing Jenny later?'

‘I dunno. We sort of had that thing last night—'

‘You didn't break up, did you?' For some reason I don't think I could take it if they broke up.

‘No.'

I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘That's good then. I mean, loads of couples have arguments and it all works out fine.' I don't know who I am trying to convince here, him or me.

‘Yeah, she says she just needs some space to think.'

In the old days I would have said that I didn't know that Jenny knew how to think, but I let it drop. ‘Well, that's cool then.'

‘Yeah. Except I didn't know that Jenny knew how to think.' He laughs, and I do too. ‘Sorry, I know she's your friend now.'

‘That's OK. We're allowed to make jokes at our friends' expense. Just as long as they don't find out.' I wink down the phone at him, before I remember that he can't see me.

Then Paul says, ‘Do you think Spurs will win the final?'

I don't even have to think. I know. ‘They'll do really well in the first half and then mess it up in the second.'

‘You never know.'

‘We haven't won the FA Cup since, like, a million years before the dinosaurs were born.' I'm saying all this stuff and realizing that all the things I thought I didn't care about any more, I totally do care about. ‘It would be so great to see Spurs lift the cup.'

‘Don't hold your breath, Gwynnie.'

‘It's all about who turns up on the day, Paul.'

‘It's a game of two halves, Gwynnie.'

‘All we need is one more goal than the other guys, Paul.'

We're laughing, and it feels like old times again. I'm properly back in a good mood, and I thought I'd never be in a good mood ever after realizing that I was wrong about me and Charlie.

‘So where you going to watch it?' he asks the question I hoped he wasn't going to ask. ‘Are you and your dad doing your normal tradition of the Old Pack Horse?'

Me and my dad have watched the FA Cup final at my dad's local pub every year of my life. They now reserve a table for us, even though everyone wants a table because it's FA
Cup final day. ‘The thing is,' I tell Paul, ‘this year I won't be able to because I'm helping with prom.'