Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 01] (8 page)

‘You won’t ever say,
will you, Mum? You know, that I like Tony. Not to anyone. Not Steve or Lai or
Nesta or Izzie or anyone.’

‘Course not if you
don’t want me to. But I don’t really understand why Nesta and Izzie can’t know.
They are your friends.’

I pulled a face.

‘Why the face?’ asked
Mum.

I shrugged. ‘Since
Nesta came, it’s like her and Izzie are friends and I’m the odd one out.’

‘And how do you feel
about that?’ she asked, going into shrink mode. I felt like one of her patients.
I’ve heard her come out with the ‘and how do you feel?’ line a hundred times
when she’s been on the phone to one of them.

‘
I feel
left
out,’ I said.

‘I’m sure you’re
imagining it,’ said Mum. ‘Izzie will always be your friend. And I think Nesta
wants to be too if you’ll let her.’

‘You don’t
understand,’ I said.

I felt cross. How
could she know what it had been like lately?

I wasn’t going to say
any more.

‘Well how do you think
Nesta feels?’ asked Mum. ‘It can’t have been easy for her, starting a new
school, new area and everything.’

‘Oh, she’s fine. Her
life is completely together. She lives in an amazing flat. All the boys fancy
her. And now she has Izzie.’

I felt as if I was
going to cry. Everyone cared more about Nesta Williams than they did about me. I
bit my bottom lip. I wasn’t going to blub. Not in front of Mum. No one
understands. And Tony likes girls who know who they are and what they want and
I still don’t have a clue. And there’s no one to talk to any more.

I picked up Mum’s
Good
Housekeeping
magazine and started leafing through it. She got the message.
Counselling session over.

She started tidying up
around me and as she moved things off the kitchen table, she put her hand on
her cards.

‘Angel Card?’ she
asked with a grin. Now even
she
was laughing at me. It wasn’t funny.

‘No thanks,’ I
grumbled. ‘Those stupid cards have got me into enough trouble as it is.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said
Mum and went upstairs.

When she’d gone, I
noticed she’d left the cards on the table. I stuck my tongue out at them. But
then I couldn’t resist. Just one more to see what it said. I picked them up,
shuffled and chose one.

If you want a
friend, be a friend
,
it said.

Arggghhhh
. I threw the card down. This was
getting spooky. They always seemed to say just the right thing. If you want a
friend, be a friend. That was it. I hadn’t exactly gone out of my way to be
Nesta’s friend. I’d been so busy thinking that she’d stolen Izzie from me that
I hadn’t even thought about how I’d come across to her.

And I suppose Mum was
right. It can’t have been easy for her starting a new school where everyone
already knows each other.

OK, Nesta Williams, I
thought. One more chance. I will be a friend to you.

And see what happens.

I went up to my room
and had a good think about what I could do to be more of a friend to Nesta.

Make her a cake. No,
that’s silly. Anyway she’s always on a diet.

Invite her over for a
video night with Steve and Lai. No. Lai will only drool over her.

I know. I’ll organise
a girlie night. Izzie and I often have them, well used to have them, we haven’t
done one for ages. We can put on face-packs and do manicures and do each
other’s hair. Nesta’ll like that with the Clothes Show coming up. And I’ll be
really really nice. In fact, I’ll even be sweet, seeing as I seem to be so good
at it.

I looked into my purse
to see how much money I had left then popped out to the local chemist so I had
everything in.

I got an avocado
face-pack, some purple nail polish as Nesta likes that, hair conditioner and
last of all some Haagen-Dazs pecan as I know it’s Nesta’s favourite. And some
Flakes because they’re Izzie’s favourite and I can’t forget her in all this.
And Mum said we can send out for pizza. Excellent.

When I got home from
the shops, I went to my computer and designed an invite on e-mail to send to
both of them.

I pressed the send
button and waited for their replies.

Bor-ing
Sundays

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I got up the next day and
went to check my incoming mail.

Nothing. That’s
strange. I know for a fact that Izzie always looks to see if she’s got any
e-mails first thing in the morning. What’s going on?

At eleven o’clock, I
phoned Izzie’s house. No reply. Only Mrs Foster’s message on the machine: ‘I’m
afraid we’re unable to take your call at present. Please call later.’

I called Nesta.

‘Hi, is that little
Lucy?’ said Tony.

Gulp. ‘Yes. No. Sorry.
I mean yes but I’m
not
little,’ I said.

He laughed at the
other end, ‘OK.
Lovely
Lucy, then. You want Nesta?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Not here. She went
off somewhere with some guy from your school. Michael I think he was called.’

‘Was Izzie with them?’

‘Don’t think so. Shall
I tell her you called?’

‘Please,’ I said.
Thank you.‘

‘And, Lucy?’

‘Yes?’

‘I think small girls
are cute,’ he said, then he hung up.

When did I get so
polite? Please. Thank you. Sorry. So much for my dazzling conversation. He must
think I’m stupid. Why didn’t I think of something brilliant to say? He likes
girls who are funny. I could have told him my Scottish joke.

What’s the difference
between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney?

Bing sings but Walt
disn’y.

But he did call me
lovely Lucy. And he thinks small girls are cute. Maybe there’s hope after all.

Sundays. What to do?
It’s such a
boring
day.
And
it’s raining.

I had a quick look at
my homework. My project for Miss Watkins stared back at me from my desk.

What makes me ‘me’?

What are my interests?
Tony Williams.

What do I want? To
snog Tony Williams.

What are my goals in
life? To snog Tony Williams.

What am I? Shallow I
suppose, since those are my main goals. Probably not ones that will impress
Miss Watkins or Mrs Allen either.

OK. Snog Tony Williams
and bring about world peace. That sounds better.

What would I like to
do as a career? Still dunno.

Never mind, we’ve got
a week or so left yet. I’ll think about it later.

I went downstairs and
flopped on the sofa in front of the telly. Steve and Lai were squabbling over
the channel changer. Steve wanted to watch a video of
The Matrix
and
Lai wanted to watch
another
repeat of Star Trek.

I couldn’t be bothered
to join in and stake my claim. There was nothing on I wanted to watch anyway.
Where was Izzie? I hope she hadn’t gone off doing something with Nesta without
me again.

‘What can I do?’ I
asked, going into the kitchen where Mum was busy preparing some sort of weird
nutloaf thing for lunch.

‘Homework?’ said Mum.

‘Done it,’ I lied.

‘Tidy your bedroom?’

‘Boring… I’ve got
nothing
to do…’

‘Well I don’t know,’
she said. ‘Just don’t mope about under my feet. Anyway, I thought you were
going to make some clothes. Why not make a start?’

I spent the rest of
the morning rooting through bags of assorted jumble from the cupboard under the
stairs. Most of it rubbish by the look of it, all sorts of stuff that Mum’s
collected over the years. Izzie says it’s because she’s Cancerian and they hate
to throw stuff away. She’s certainly right in Mum’s case. There are clothes in
here from when I was a baby.

Dad got up from
reading his papers in the living-room. ‘Time for a cup of tea!’ he declared. He
always says it like it’s a really exciting thing. A sensational world event.
TIME FOR A CUP OF TEA.

On his way to the
kitchen, he spotted the baby clothes lying on the carpet.‘Oh. Ahhhh,’ he said
and picked them up and took them in to show Mum. They stood in the kitchen like
a couple of dopes, all misty-eyed, looking at the tiny pink cardigans and
miniscule blue booties.

‘Our little baby,’
said Mum, gazing softly at me.

‘It seems like only
yesterday,’ said Dad, looking at me, ‘when you were still in nappies.’

‘
Errgh
,’ I
said. ‘Stop it.’

‘Maybe we should have
another,’ said Dad.

I put my fingers in my
ears. Yuk. I don’t even like to think about it.

Suddenly I spied a box
jammed in at the back of the cupboard and hauled it out.

I couldn’t believe my
eyes when I opened it. It was full of old dresses. I don’t mean old like worn
out, I mean old in that they looked like they’d been kept for decades. Fabulous
fabrics, a velvet wrap, crepe blouses with tiny little tucks and pleats,
beautifully sewn, an evening gown with exquisite beading, a top with sequins.
Satin, silks. I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.

‘Mum,’ I called.
‘Whose are these clothes?’

Mum came to look at
the heap of clothing I’d piled out on the hall floor.

‘Oh, those. Those were
your grandmother’s. I used to wear them in the Sixties.’ She picked up a
gorgeous pale lilac crepe jacket. ‘I haven’t looked at these in years…’

‘What are you going to
do with them?’ I asked.

‘I don’t like to throw
them out…’ she said.

‘Supposed to be good
Feng Shui, isn’t it?’ called Dad. ‘Clear your clutter and all that.’

‘I don’t suppose I’ll
ever wear them again,’ Mum laughed. ‘But they’re not exactly your style, are
they? Maybe I could take them down to the second-hand shop or even to a costume
shop for people to use in the theatre.’

I held my breath and
asked, ‘Can I have them?’

‘What on earth for?
Are you doing a production at school?’

‘Not exactly,’ I said.
‘It’s just, I
think
I can do something with them.’

I piled the contents
of the box and bags out on to the floor and started sifting through. Some of it
was junk. Cable knit sweaters that had gone hard. T-shirts with paint all over
them. But Grandma’s stuff was a treasure trove.

I made a heap of the
clothes I wanted and carted them upstairs with the sewing machine. Then I
leafed through a couple of magazines for good designs and set about cutting,
chopping bits off, hemming and reshaping.

After a few hours, Mum
appeared at my door. ‘What are you doing? We’re all wondering where you’ve
disappeared to.’

‘Creating,’ I said
with a flourish, showing her what I’d done so far. ‘A short black velvet
cross-over skirt and… my
piece de resistance
for special occasions.’

‘Lovely,’ said Mum,
feeling the material. It was powder-blue lined chiffon with tiny pearls sewn
all over it. ‘Isn’t this from one of the evening gowns?’

‘Yes. It was so easy
to make, as it’s only a sheath dress and got no sleeves, just the back and
front sewn up at the sides. It’s like one I saw Jennifer Aniston wearing in one
of the mags.’

‘Oh, try it on, let me
have a look,’ said Mum. It fitted like a glove.

‘Very pretty,’ said
Mum. ‘And it looks really professional.’

‘I doubt if anyone makes
material like this any more. And I bet Nesta won’t have anything like it from
Morgan this time.’

‘Are you still worried
about Nesta?’ asked Mum.

‘Not really. I’ve
decided to make more of an effort with her. In fact, I’m making presents for
both her and Izzie. I want to surprise them when they come over later.’

I’d showed Mum the
bandero top I’d started out of red sequin material for Nesta, then I was going
to do a halter neck for Izzie with the leftover black velvet from the skirt.