Boys for Beginners (16 page)

‘Oh. Right. Have you told your dad this?' Paul is acting like I'm letting
him
down rather than my dad.

‘Not yet. But it's not like he won't be able to find anyone to watch it with.'

‘Yeah, but you better tell him quick in case he has made special plans or something.'

Why is Paul being so weird? ‘Well, Mr Agony Aunt, I would speak to him, but he's always out these days.'

‘I know. He's always over here.'

‘What's he doing round there?'

‘Helping my mum in the garden.' Paul is sounding more and more shifty by the second.

‘Why is my dad always round with your mum? Do you think there's something going on between those two?'

‘No,' he says, all defensively. ‘But would it be so bad if there was? Your dad is a nice guy, nicer than my dad ever was. He might be good for her.'

I think about this for a minute. I suppose Paul is right. Angela is great, and my dad is pretty
great too – for a gormless fool – but the feeling I get when I think of them together is like the feeling I get when I think of Paul and Jenny breaking up. I don't want it to happen, but I'm not sure why.

‘Gwynnie, you will look brilliant if you do this,' says Elizabeth, beaming at me. ‘And the BB Club will have to make you a gold member.'

Which means I can use the ghd's for prom.

So here we are, in some dodgy tattoo parlour in town, about to get my belly-button pierced. I asked Elizabeth to come with me for support. Normally I would have asked Jenny, but she hasn't been answering her phone recently. And anyway, I know Elizabeth will be nicer about it if I scream like a girl. I feel like she's standing over my death bed.

‘Where do you want it, luv?' asks the piercing lady.

I'm a bit worried because I've told her twice that I want my belly-button pierced, I am lying on this table, and I've pulled up my top so my belly-button is exposed. Where does she think I want it?

Elizabeth answers for me. ‘In her navel.'

Where the hell is my navel? It sounds like it's somewhere at sea. ‘No, I don't!' I quickly shout. ‘I want it in my belly-button.'

Elizabeth whispers to me. ‘Your navel
is
your belly-button!'

‘Oh,' I say. ‘I thought you said eyebrow.'

The woman who is about to make a hole in my body sort of nods as she says, ‘Right, OK,' except I can't properly understand her as she has her tongue pierced and her lip pierced. She's wearing all black and her hair is dyed bright orange, which makes her look like a battery. She has tattoos all over her, ones that say
Mum
, ones that say
Dad
. . . She has fairies and angels, all with gigantic boobs that are out there for the world to see. She has five piercings in each ear, one in her eyebrow, and even a few in her arm that stretch her skin in a nasty way. But if she has gone through it this many times, it must mean it's not painful.

She looks around for something and then asks, ‘Have either of you got a pen?' Elizabeth quickly gives her a Zac Efron biro from her bag. I wonder if she is going to make me sign something, but she makes a mark on my stomach,
just below the belly-button. ‘Is that about right, luv?'

I nod. For some reason I thought they would do all this with lasers and precision tools and medical experts. I had no idea that Zac Efron would be involved.

‘Don't worry, Gwynnie,' says Elizabeth. ‘I'm sure it won't hurt that much.'

The Battery nods in agreement and pulls out this humongous needle gun that looks like the kind of thing they tranquillize rhinos with. ‘Besides,' the Battery says, ‘some people like the pain.'

‘OK,' I say, like a soldier about to go into battle. ‘I'm ready.'

She puts the needle-gun thing on my stomach. Elizabeth holds my hand and pulls this face like she thinks it will definitely hurt. But Elizabeth has not put holes in
her
stomach, so what does Elizabeth know?

The Battery pulls the trigger and there's a sort of
click-thud
noise. It turns out that Elizabeth knows everything.

‘Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!' I am in more pain that I have ever been in in my life. More pain than when David Kaddimacaza slide-tackled
me and took off my little toenail. More pain than when Jenny persuaded me that waxing my armpit was a good idea. I'm sure being shot with a real gun could not be this bad.

Elizabeth is screaming in agony too and I'm touched that some sort of psychic connection has given my friend sympathy pains. ‘Gwynnie!' she shouts, ‘you're breaking my hand!'

Oh.

The skin on my stomach is all red and bleeding, but there is a metallic ring in it, and that's all that matters. Elizabeth starts swaying a little bit, and the music in the background changes to a low sort of hum.

‘There you go sweetheart,' says the Battery. ‘That'll be twenty quid.'

I look at her. And then I throw up on the floor.

‘That's going to cost you extra.'

Elizabeth puts a cold flannel to my head. ‘You can lie down if you want,' she says.

‘I'm fine,' I say.

‘You don't look fine.' Elizabeth is wincing. ‘You look . . . green.'

We're in her bedroom and I sit forward in the
chair to look at myself in the mirror on her dresser. Just the movement of leaning forward makes me feel even more sick and I groan. Then I see my reflection and I groan even louder.

‘This can't be normal,' I say. I'm definitely a pinkish shade of green. Like cheap toilet paper. Or a lettuce gone off. I hoist myself up and over to the bed.

‘Have you got a bucket?' I ask Elizabeth in a panic.

Elizabeth looks equally panicky. I know her fluffy rug is new after she spilled Ribena over her carpet and she had to cover it up so her mum wouldn't see the stain. The rug looks like Macaroni, only bright blue. ‘Are you going to be sick?'

‘No,' I reply, ‘I want to put it over my head!'

Elizabeth laughs. She has this really funny laugh that I have never properly heard before – it sounds like a pig with the giggles when it's got a cold. Her laugh makes me laugh, and that helps to make me not want to vom all over her fluffy rug. She slaps her hands over her face. ‘Sorry.'

‘For what?'

‘Jenny says I sound really ugly when I laugh and I shouldn't inflict it on people.'

I frown at her and sit up a little. ‘Your laugh is hilarious!' I tell her.

‘But I don't want to be hilarious,' she says, and she looks a bit sad. ‘Jenny has this pretty little laugh that makes her sound like a small child who knows a rude secret. All the boys love it.'

‘Jenny could make ballet lessons compulsory and all the boys would love it,' I reply.

‘I know!' Elizabeth says. A tear rolls down her cheek. ‘How does she do it? Why do they all like her so much?'

I'm a bit shocked. She must be sad that even a muppet like me has managed to snog someone and she hasn't snogged anyone yet. I didn't realize that Elizabeth was so unhappy; she is always so sweet to everyone and nice to be around. ‘I don't know,' I say. ‘But it might be something to do with the three chicken fillets she stuffs down her bra.'

Elizabeth looks at me through wide, wet eyes. ‘She uses
three
chicken fillets?!'

I nod. ‘Four, on special occasions.'

‘I knew there was something different about her!' Elizabeth shakes her head in surprise. But then her face falls. ‘It will take more than chicken fillets to get someone to snog me.'

Crying's not my speciality. I haven't done it in ages and I'm not really sure how to handle it in other people. When I used to cry my dad and Kevin would tell me jokes until I started laughing. Or sometimes they would just let me cry and they'd leave the room. I realize that might not cut it in this situation.

What was it my mum used to do?

‘Come here,' I order her. Elizabeth looks at me. I open my arms all big, just like my mum did, and give her a hug.

Oh God, it hasn't worked. I've made it worse – she's crying even harder now! ‘Sorry, Elizabeth,' I say, and pull away.

Elizabeth seems a little embarrassed but she smiles at me. A tear drops from her cheek and lands on the rug.

I'll try my dad's tactic. ‘Hey, where's your dog?'

‘Macaroni?' She looks confused like she has no idea why I've brought up Macaroni at a time like this.

‘Yeah.' I eye her suspiciously.

‘I don't know. My mum might have taken him for a walk. Why?'

‘I haven't seen that dog since you got this rug . . . Coincidence? I don't think so.'

She laughs and coughs at the same time.

‘I'm not making any accusations, but if I find a bottle of blue dye anywhere I'm calling the RSPCA.'

The piglet laugh is back.

‘And if I find out that you used to have a dog called Cheese, you are in really deep trouble!'

Elizabeth now sounds like a pig with not just a cold, but with swine flu. ‘You're so funny, Gwynnie!' She pauses for a sec. ‘That's why all the boys like you.'

All the boys like
me?
This is news.

‘How do you get the boys to like you?'

‘Elizabeth, you're asking a bald man for hairstyling tips.'

She glances at the floor before looking up again, like she's gearing up to say something huge. ‘But Paul likes you,' she says.

‘Yeah, but I've known Paul my whole—'

‘And Ranjit.' Suddenly she goes bright red and can't look at me.

‘Yeah, but Ranjit and—' Hang on a minute . . . ‘Elizabeth, do you like Ranj?'

She shakes her head a little too quickly. ‘No,' she says.

I don't say anything; I've heard that's a good way to get a confession.

‘No!' she says again. Then once she catches on to my sneaky smile she says, ‘Ranjit would never feel the same way anyway. He doesn't like girls like me.' She gets up and walks over to fiddle with something on top of her cupboard, like that's the end of the conversation.

But I'm not letting it rest like that. ‘I have no idea what kind of girls Ranjit likes,' I tell her. ‘But I can tell you what he
does
like.' She flicks her head round really quickly. ‘I mean, if you want to know . . .'

She grins at me cos she knows I'm teasing.

‘He supports Aston Villa, so that means he's a glutton for punishment. Um, his favourite food is fizzy cola bottles.'

Elizabeth is nodding along, as if she's memorizing all this for a gameshow.

‘His favourite film is
The Sixth Sense
.'

‘I've seen that!' she says, all excited. ‘It's a great film!'

‘Yeah, but he's seen it twelve times, which I think is a bit weird, but there you go.'

She looks thoughtful.

‘He's pretty cool really, Elizabeth,' I say to her. ‘You should go for it.'

She's still thinking.

‘Come on, if an idiot like me can snog Charlie Notts, then there's no reason that a cool chick like you couldn't get Ranjit Mohan.'

‘But . . .' she pauses again, ‘what will Jenny and the others say if I go out with him? Will they laugh at me?'

‘Who cares what they think?' I say.

‘Thanks, Gwynnie.' She smiles at me and then pulls me in for another big hug. ‘Oh, sorry,' she says and pulls back. ‘Are you feeling OK now?'

And I realize that I'm feeling fine.

I stagger into my house, feeling better after eight of Elizabeth's mum's homemade cookies. I go into the kitchen to see if my dad notices my cool new piercing – he never notices anything.

‘Hi, Dad,' I say, all bright and breezy as if everything is normal.

He doesn't even look up from the sports pages, so everything is certainly normal there.

‘Have we got any muesli, Dad?'

I knew that would get his attention. He's always banging on about me eating nothing but chips and bread and saying one day I'll be as fat as a beach ball and I always say,
Chance would be a fine thing
. At least if I was a beach ball then maybe I might get to go to the beach.

He looks at me like I've gone crazy. Then he looks me up and down. Then he notices my belly-button ring. Then he's the one who goes crazy.

‘What on earth have you done to yourself?!' he shouts.

Why does my dad have to notice everything?

‘What?' I say, like I don't know what he's talking about. Like it's none of his business. Which it totally isn't.

‘Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. What is that thing in your stomach?'

‘Oh, don't worry, Dad, that's just a piercing.'

‘How could you?!' he shouts. ‘When did you do that?'

I'm tempted to say,
Years ago
, but he actually looks angry, so I just go with the truth. ‘This morning. At this properly professional place run by a woman that really knew her stuff.' I didn't say I would tell the whole truth.