Girls in Love (3 page)

“An ‘I wish’ boyfriend,” I say, cheering up considerably, getting all set to tell them about the blond guy I saw coming to school this morning.

“No, no. Liam and I went out together Saturday night,” says Nadine. “We met in Tower Records that morning. I was sorting through the indie section and he was too, and we were both looking for the same band and there was just the one CD so he said I could have it.”

“And then he asked you out, just like that?” I say incredulously.

“Well . . . we chatted a bit.
He
did. I couldn’t think of a thing to say, actually. I was just standing there dying, wishing I could come out with something,
anything
. Then he started asking me about this other group who had a gig at the Wily Fox that night and he said did I want to go. So I said yes. Though I’ve never been to the Wily Fox. Well,
any
pub. You know my mum and dad, they’d go crazy if they ever found out, so when I got back I said you’d got back from the cottage early, Ellie, and we were both going round to Magda’s for this little party, and then your dad was going to take me home. I had to say that, because I guessed I’d be back really late from the Wily Fox. I hope you don’t mind.”

“So you went there on your own?” I say, astonished. I still can’t believe it. Nadine’s always so quiet. She generally stays shut up in her bedroom playing her loopy music night after night. She never goes anywhere.

“And he turned up OK, this Liam?” says Magda.

“I didn’t think he would. I was so scared of going in there by myself. I was sure they’d chuck me out for being underage,” says Nadine.

“Why didn’t you phone me? I’d have come with you,” says Magda.

“Yes, but it might have put him off. Or he might have liked you better than me,” says Nadine.

Magda nods.

“No, I thought I’d just put my head round the door and have a look and then I could always run home if I wanted. But he was there before me and he paid for us to go into the back room where the band were playing and then he took me home after. Well, to the end of the road. I didn’t dare let him come further in case my mum and dad saw. And then I’m seeing him again
next
Saturday so can I say I’m spending it with you, Ellie?”

“Yeah. Sure,” I say, still stunned.

“So what’s he
like
?” says Magda.

“Oh, he’s really cool. Dark hair, moody dark eyes, hip clothes.”

“Did you tell him how old you are?” I ask.

“Not at first. I made out I was fifteen. And he said, ‘Nearly old enough,’ ” says Nadine, giggling.

“Oh, God,” says Magda.

“Yeah, OK, but later I was talking about you two, and I said I’d been friends with Ellie forever and friends with Magda the two years we’d been in secondary school, and then I realized what I’d said. And Liam twigged—but he just teased me a bit. He doesn’t mind that I’m only thirteen. Well, nearly fourteen. He says I act old for my age, actually.”

“I see,” says Magda. “So. Did you snog?”

“Yes. Lots.”

“Did he open his mouth?”

“Of course,” says Nadine. “He’s a truly great kisser.”

My own mouth is open. Nadine and I have frequently discussed French kissing and we both thought it a squirmily revolting idea, someone else’s sluggy tongue slithering around your fillings.

“You said—” I start.

Nadine giggles. “Yes, but it’s different with Liam.”

“It’s great, isn’t it?” says Magda, who has given us frequent accounts of her own amorous encounters.

Nadine is looking at me almost pityingly. “You’ll see, Ellie,” she says. “When you get a proper boyfriend of your own.”

That’s it.

My mouth stays open and starts talking. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve
got
a boyfriend,” I say, before I can stop myself.

Nadine stares at me.

Magda stares at me.

It’s like I’ve nipped out around my glasses and
I’m
staring at me too.

What have I just said???

What am I doing?

How come I started this?

But I can’t stop now. . . .

nine wishes

1. I wish I really had a boyfriend.

2. I wish I was fifteen pounds lighter. No—thirty pounds.

3. I wish I was six inches taller.

4. I wish I had long blond silky hair.

5. I wish I had a leather jacket.

6. I wish I had new shoes from Shelleys.

7. I wish I was eighteen.

8. I wish I could stop all wars and poverty and sickness.

9. I wish I still had my mum.

three boyfriends

I
hear this voice going on about a boy on holiday in Wales. A boy I kept seeing—but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until we met up in a romantic ruined castle one wild and windy day. “We literally fell into each other’s arms!” I say.

Well, it’s sort of true.

I tell them he’s called Dan. They immediately ask how old he is.

“He’s not as old as your Liam, Nad,” I say.

That’s true too.

“So how old
is
he?” Magda insists.

“He’s . . . fifteen,” I say.

He
will
be, in three years’ time.

“What does he look like? Is he dishy? What sort of clothes does he wear?” Magda persists.

I abandon all attempt at truth. “He’s very good-looking. Blond. His hair’s lovely, it sort of comes forward in a wavy fringe, just a little bit tousled. He’s got dark eyes, a really intense brown. He’s got this way of looking at you . . . He’s just a real dream. His clothes are very casual, nothing too posey. Jeans, sweatshirt—still, that’s just what he was wearing on holiday. It’s so unfair, we didn’t meet up properly until right at the end, and yet somehow when we started talking it was like we’d known each other forever, you know?”

“Did he kiss you?” Nadine asks.

“We didn’t get a chance to kiss, worst luck. We were with my stupid family nearly all the time. We did manage to steal off together at a picnic, but just as Dan was getting really romantic, Eggs came chasing over to us and started pestering us and that was it!
Honestly!
”

“What are you getting all passionate about, Eleanor?”

Oh, God, it’s Mrs. Henderson in her tracksuit, jogging off to the gym.

I look down at my lap, going all pink, trying desperately hard not to giggle.

“Her boyfriend!” says Magda.

“Surprise, surprise!” says Mrs. Henderson. She sighs. “You girls seem to discuss little else. You’ve all got one-track minds. Many thousands of determined intelligent women fought battles throughout the last century to broaden your horizons, and yet you’d sooner sit there babbling about boys than concentrate on your all-round education.”

“You said it, Mrs. Henderson,” says Magda. Unwisely.

“Well, you three are going to have to curtail your cozy little chat and do a detention tomorrow, because you’ve been so carried away by your enthralling conversation that you’ve failed to notice the bell for afternoon school went five minutes ago. Now get to your lessons at
once
!”

We jump to it. We get told off all over again when we get to English. It isn’t fair. I quite like English. It’s about the only thing I’m any good at, apart from art, but now Mrs. Madley glares at us and goes on and on and we get divided up and I have to sit right at the front.

We’re doing
Romeo and Juliet
this year. Everyone thinks it’s dead boring. Privately I quite like Shakespeare. I like the way the words go, though I don’t understand half of it. Certainly the beginning bit’s dull—but when I flip through the book and find the first Juliet part it gets much more interesting. Juliet is only thirteen, nearly fourteen, so
she’d
be in Year Nine too. As far as I can work out her mother and her nurse are keen for her to get
married
.

I sit wondering what it would be like to be married at thirteen in Juliet’s day. It would be fun as long as you were rich enough to have someone pay the mortgage on your Italian mansion and loads of servants to spruce up your medieval Versace frocks and deliver your pizzas to your marital four-poster. . . .

Mrs. Madley suddenly shouts my name, making me jump. “You not only come to my lesson ten minutes late, Eleanor Allard, but you obviously aren’t paying the slightest attention now you’re here! What on earth is the matter with you?”

“She’s in love, Mrs. Madley,” says Magda. She can’t
ever
keep her mouth shut.

Mrs. Madley groans in exasperation while the whole class collapses.

It looks like I’m in serious trouble
again
. I stare wildly at the page in front of me. I spot a line at the top that looks dead appropriate “ ‘Under love’s heavy burden do I sink’,” I quote, sending myself up.

Mrs. Madley is wrong-footed. She even looks mildly amused. “Well, take care you don’t sink too far, Eleanor. Look what happens to these star-crossed lovers at the end of the play. Now, girls, settle down, and let us
all
concentrate on Shakespeare.”

I decide I’d better concentrate too—so I don’t really have time to plan what on earth I’m going to say going home from school with Magda and Nadine.

In maths last lesson there’s no point my trying to concentrate because I can’t figure any of it out, so I sit nibbling my thumbnail, worrying about this boyfriend situation. When I was little I used to suck my thumb a lot. Now when I’m ultraanxious I find I have to have a little weeny suck and chew just to calm myself. I wondered if smoking might have the same effect—not in a classroom situation, obviously—but when Magda shared a packet of Benson’s with me I felt so sick and dizzy by the time I lit up my second it’s put me off for life.

I have to sort out what I’m going to say about Dan. I think of his blond hair and dark brown eyes . . . only, that’s the boy I saw this morning on the way to school. I don’t even have a clue who he is. I just started describing him when Magda and Nadine asked all those questions. I couldn’t tell them what the real Dan looks like or they’d crease up laughing.

Oh, God,
why
did I open my big mouth? I was like some demented fairy godmother waving a wand over nerdy little boy Dopey Dan in Wales and turning him into the Golden Dream I saw this morning.

Magda and Nadine believe it all too.
I
practically believe it. I’ve always had this crazy habit of making things up. It was mostly when I was little. Like after my mum died . . .

It was so horrible and lonely that I kept trying to pretend she wasn’t
really
dead, that if I could only perform all these really loopy tasks like go all day without going to the toilet or stay awake an entire night then suddenly she’d come walking into my bedroom and it would all be a mistake, someone else’s mother had died, not
mine
. Sometimes when I was lying awake holding my eyelids open I’d almost believe she was really there, standing by my bed, leaning over ready to give me a cuddle, so close I could actually smell her lovely soft powdery scent.

Even after I gave up on those daft tricks I didn’t give up on my mother. I felt she still had to be around for me. I talked to her inside my head and she talked back, saying all the ordinary Mum things, telling me to be careful crossing the road, and to eat up like a good girl, and when I went to bed she’d chat to me about my day and she’d always say “Nightie Nightie” and I’d whisper “Pajama Pajama.” I did that long after Dad married Anna. She said some of that stuff too, but it wasn’t the same at all. I used to hate Anna simply because she wasn’t Mum. I’m older now. I can see it’s not really Anna’s fault. She’s OK, sometimes. But she’s still
not
my mum.

So what would Mum say? This is the awful bit. I can still make Mum say all this stuff to me, but it’s the
old
stuff that I needed to hear when I was little. My made-up mum can’t seem to get her head round the idea that I’m big now. Big enough to want a boyfriend. Only I haven’t
got
one and yet I’ve told my two best friends I have.

“Tell them the truth, Ellie,” Mum says firmly, her voice suddenly loud and clear.

She sounds so real I actually look round the classroom to see if anyone else can hear her.

I know Mum is right. In fact I even work out how to do it. I shall say I was just teasing them, playing a silly joke to see how much they’d swallow. I’ll say I did meet a boy called Dan on holiday but I’ll say what he’s
really
like. I’ll even tell them about the gorgeous blond bloke on the way to school. I’ll draw a cartoon for them, the real Dan and me with my wand turning him into the Dreamboat. They’ll think it’s funny. Well—maybe more funny peculiar than funny ha-ha. But they’re used to me being a bit weird. They’ll still
like
me, even though they’ll think I’m nuttier than ever.

I’ll tell them on the way to the bus stop. Then it’ll be over and everything will go back to normal. Except Nadine really
has
got a boyfriend. This Liam. Unless . . . could
she
have made him up too? Nadine and I used to play all these pretend games together. She was always great at making things up, that’s why I always wanted her for my friend. Oh, what a hoot if Nadine’s been fibbing too! I really wouldn’t put it past her!

But when we come out of school at the end of lessons and Magda is asking me more about Dan and I’m all set to say my piece, though my throat’s dry with nerves and I feel incredibly silly, Nadine suddenly stops dead and gasps.

“Nadine?”

We stare at her. She’s blushing. I can’t get used to seeing Nadine’s snowy skin shine salmon pink.

“Nadine, what’s up?” I say.

Magda is quicker than me. She’s seen what Nadine is staring at. Not what.
Who
. “Wow!” says Magda. “Is he Liam?”

Nadine swallows. “Yes! Oh, God, what am I going to do? I’m in my school
uniform
.”

“Well, he knows you go to school.”

“But I look such a berk in uniform. I can’t let him see me like this!” Nadine dodges behind me, ducking right down. “Walk backward into school, Ellie!” she hisses.

“Don’t be so nuts, Nadine,” says Magda. “Look, he’s seen you anyway.”

“How do you know?” Nadine mutters, still hiding behind me.

“Because he’s waving like crazy over in our direction. And he’s not waving at me. Worse luck. He’s really gorgeous,” says Magda.

He is. He’s tall and he’s got dark hair and very dark eyes and he looks hip in his skimpy black top and black jeans. He’s the sort of guy who seems totally out of our class. Like my blond dreamboat. But Liam isn’t pretend. He’s real and he’s still waving at Nadine.

She steps sideways round me, pink and pretty. It’s as if she’s a whole new person whom I hardly know. She waves back, an odd little waggle of her fingers, her elbow tucked into her side. Then she runs over to the wall where he’s waiting.

“I can’t believe it,” Magda mutters. “He’s so yummy. What does he see in Nadine?”

“Magda! Don’t be such a bitch,” I say primly—but she’s only saying out loud what I’m thinking.

I feel as if I’ve been in a race with Nadine and I always thought I’d win, but now she’s forged ahead and left me behind.

“Come on, Ellie, let’s go and say hello,” says Magda.

“No! We can’t butt in.”

“Of course we can,” says Magda, shoving me sharply in their direction. She runs one hand through her hair, fluffing it up, and undoes the top button of her school blouse. “Hey, Nadine,” she calls, wiggling across the playground toward them.

I stand foolishly, not sure whether to follow. I edge toward them as if I’m playing Grandmother’s Footsteps. Nadine is sitting on the wall beside Liam. Magda is standing in front of them, one hand on her hip. She’s chatting away like crazy but it doesn’t look as if Liam is paying her much attention. Nadine isn’t saying much. She’s looking down, hiding behind her hair.

“Oh, and this is my other friend, Ellie,” she mumbles when I get near.

What’s wrong with her voice? She sounds all wet and whispery.

“Hello,” I say awkwardly.

Liam gives me a curt nod and turns back to Nadine. “You look cute in the uniform,” he says.

“I look
awful,
” Nadine protests. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I finished early at college so I thought I’d see if I could spot you amongst all your little schoolgirly chums. So come on. Let’s go for a walk or something.”

“OK,” says Nadine, swinging her legs over the wall.

Liam raises his eyebrows and she giggles stupidly.

“Bye, then, Nadine. Bye, Liam,” says Magda. She waves. He doesn’t bother to respond.

“Well!” says Magda, staring after them. “So we’re the little schoolgirly chums, eh, Ellie?”

“She’s so different with him,” I mutter.

“He doesn’t exactly get ten out of ten in the charm stakes,” says Magda. “I hope Nadine knows what she’s doing. He’s ever so old for her.”

“I don’t like him,” I say.

“Neither do I. Though if he’d liked
me
more I might feel more positive,” says Magda, laughing.

That’s one thing about Magda. She might be a real scheming bitch at times but she’s always honest about it.

“Oh, well, Ellie, I’ll walk with you to the bus stop, eh?”

She links her arm in mine. There’s a whole crowd of Anderson boys at the bus stop. Our school is Anderson High School too, but they’re entirely separate, across the road from each other on different sites. One school for girls, one school for boys. Twin schools for separate sexes. Only most of the Anderson boys are so awful it’s depressing. The little ones are just like animals, yelling and kicking and bashing each other with their schoolbags. Their idea of sophisticated humor is farting. Come to think of it, the Year Nines go in for that a lot too. They are all revolting, each and every one. The Year Tens and Elevens are almost as bad, though I suppose there are a few possibles.

One of these possibles is at the bus stop. He’s Greg Someone. I suppose he’s quite good-looking but he’s got red hair that he hates, so he puts heaps of gel on it to make it as dark as he can. If you were ever in a clinch with Greg and you ran your fingers through his hair it would be like dabbling in cold chip fat.
Not
a happy thought.

Magda’s never given him a second glance before, but suddenly she bounces up to him. “Hey, Greg. How’s things? Did you have a good holiday? Pretty dire having to come back to this old dump, eh? And look at all this homework first day back, can you believe it! See how heavy my bag is.” She thrusts it at Greg. He staggers, blinking rapidly. It’s not the heaviness of Magda’s bag. It’s the heaviness of her approach. I don’t think she’s ever said one
word
to him before.