Not Pretty Enough (2 page)

CHAPTER 4

March.

Sometimes I think I must be the unluckiest person in Wales,
and other times I think that fate must be on my side for once to make up for all
the other stuff. Like now, for instance. We’re in maths with our teacher, Mr
Griffiths. We don’t have assigned seating as such, but you choose your seat on
the first day of class and it’s assumed you will sit there for the rest of the
year. I usually sit halfway down the back row, next to Ewan. This is a very
desirable seat, being next to Ewan, because he’s so good at maths and I’m so
rubbish at it. He explains what I don’t understand and don’t want to look
stupid by asking the teacher to explain it
again
.
The problem today is that I was kept behind in geography, and when I rush into
maths class, I’m late and flustered. Leigh has obviously assumed I’m not coming
and taken my seat next to Ewan. It’s like she thinks sitting next to him will
make him fancy her as much as she fancies him.

So now, I’m squished on the end
of the row by myself. But here is the part where fate cuts me a break. Miracle
of miracles, I’m not the last into the lesson. Lloyd is. And his seat is taken
too.

“Where should I sit, sir?” he
asks, out of breath from running to make it on time.

“Go and grab a chair and squeeze
in on the end there next to Francesca,” Mr Griffiths points at me, grinning
like he has just said something hilarious.

“Chessie,” I mutter under my
breath. I hate anyone using my proper name.

Holy crap. What am I going to
do? Lloyd Layton is going to sit next to me.
Next to me
.
I have no idea what to do. Do I attempt to chat to him without slobbering? Do I
act all cool and aloof and pretend that I am not nearly peeing myself with
excitement and breaking out in a cold sweat simultaneously?

Lloyd dumps his bag on the floor
next to mine. (Our bags are touching! It’s a sign! Or maybe I’m delirious.) He
doesn’t acknowledge me at all as he waves to his mates on the other side of the
room. I decide to be cool and aloof and not the bumbling idiot I normally am.
At least I’m sitting down so I can’t trip over my own feet or walk into
anything. I’ll look all relaxed and intellectual, and Lloyd will be impressed
that I understand maths so well. Maybe he’ll even ask me for help with a
question.
Me
. I wonder if I should attempt to
start a conversation with him, I could say something like “bloody teacher kept
you behind too, huh?” but Mr Griffiths has already started twittering on about
something to do with algebra, and I don’t really understand a word of it, and
that will never do for looking cool in front of Lloyd. So I pull out my new
pink fluffy pen and try to look productive. I’m really glad I bought this pen
at the weekend, it’s bound to impress Lloyd. It’s very cute, and it makes my
writing look super neat.

Mr Griffiths mentions a page
number, so we all open our textbooks and start reading the page. It’s
gobbledegook. I don’t understand a word. I can’t put my hand up and ask Mr
Griffiths to come and explain it to me with Lloyd sitting right there. I’m
supposed to be good at this. I’m supposed to know this stuff. So I just start
writing. I am writing gibberish. I have no idea what the hell sequential
algebra is or why anybody would want to learn about it, but I want Lloyd to be
impressed by my mathematic ability, so I just write a load of numbers in my
book. I figure it doesn’t really matter what I write, as long as it looks like
I’m working to Lloyd, I can tear the pages out at breaktime and get Ewan to
explain it to me then.

Then a funny thing happens. I
hear the words, “Sir, I don’t get this,” come from the seat next to me. This is
very strange because it sounds like Lloyd’s Welsh accent, but Lloyd is some
kind of genius and
always
gets maths stuff. I
risk a glance towards him, and sure enough, he has his hand in the air and is
beckoning for Mr Griffiths to come over. Wow, I think. Lloyd doesn’t get this,
and I look like I do. He must be so impressed.

But Mr Griffiths is a bit busy.
He is bending over Cole’s work, shaking his head and muttering. He looks at
Lloyd distractedly. Then he looks at me. Then he says a terrible, terrible
thing.

“Ask Francesca to explain it to
you, she knows what she’s doing.”

Oh, crap. Why can’t we be doing
something easy?

I immediately go to put my hand
up to object, but Mr Griffiths has gone back to Cole’s work, and Lloyd is
looking at me expectantly.

Okay, deep breath. All I have to
say is one simple sentence. All I have to say is, ‘actually, I don’t really understand
it myself,’ and all will be well. The teacher will come over and explain it to
both of us, and Lloyd will ask me what I’ve been writing in my book for the
past twenty minutes, and I might have to admit that it mainly involves
CC loves LL
doodled in various fancy handwriting with
my new pen. So instead I say, “Sure, I’ll explain it to you.”

He nods and smiles at me, and I
wonder how the hell I’m going to get out of this one.

I close my own book and glance
nervously around the class. Everybody has their heads down, concentrating on
their work, except for Leigh. She is resting her head in her hand and staring
longingly at Ewan, who is working obliviously. It’s pathetic. It’s obvious to
the whole class that she’s yearning for him. God, I hope it’s not that obvious
that I like Lloyd. I mean, Leigh is practically drooling on the desk over Ewan.
At least I don’t drool on the desk. Not very often, anyway.

“Well,” I say, leaning over to
look at Lloyd’s book and turning a page, just as he goes to move the book
closer to me. Our hands brush together and I pull back startled by the
intensity. Our hands brushed! And there was electricity! This is meant to be!

“So,” I say, wondering what to
do next. “This is algebra…” This is ridiculous. He knows what bloody algebra
is. I rest my pen against my top lip and try to look intelligent and seductive
at the same time. Lloyd still has an expectant look on his face. Except, I’ve
obviously rested the pen too high up my lip, and it’s tickling my nose. Really
tickling now, and…

“Atchooooo!” I yell, a sneeze
catching me by surprise. Oh my god. I’m aware that every person in the
classroom is staring at me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, holding up
my hand. “I just…”
Oh no
. “Atchooooo!” I sneeze
again. “Atchoooooo!” I grip my nose firmly between my thumb and my finger. I
vaguely remember reading somewhere that is the best way to stop sneezing. Or is
that hiccups? Either way, it doesn’t work. It just makes me want to sneeze
more. “Atchooooo!” I yell again. Oh God, this is so embarrassing. Why do I have
to have a sneezing fit on the one day I am sitting by Lloyd Layton? It’s highly
unlikely that I will ever be lucky enough to sit by Lloyd Layton again; I get
my one big chance to impress him, and what do I do? I sneeze.

“Atchooo!”

Oh God. Now my nose is running.
I’m still gripping it with one hand, and frantically feeling around in my bag
for a tissue with the other.

“Atchooooooooooooooo!” It comes
again, and this time something so horrible happens that it’s like being in slow
motion. A huge lump of snot, my snot, straight out of my nose, flies out of my
nostrils, and goes zooming up into the air, turns around, and like a giant
pancake, starts plummeting back down to earth, to land smack bang in the middle
of Lloyd’s textbook.

Oh. My. God.

“Ugh!” Lloyd yells and pushes
his chair back so fast that he nearly falls off it.

Oh my god. What do I do? What do
I do? My face has gone so red I must resemble a lobster, and when my hand
finally closes around a tissue in my bag, I have no idea what to do but lean
over and wipe the snot from Lloyd’s book, and deposit the offending tissue back
into my bag. I’m so embarrassed I could die. And to make things so much better,
Mr Griffiths is laughing like he’s never seen anything funnier in his life.

“Francesca, do you want to go to
the nurse?” he asks, after finally composing himself.

I’m so embarrassed I have no
idea what to do. All I know is that I don’t want to sit here with thirty pairs
of eyes on me for the rest of the lesson, and I’m not sure I will ever be able
to look at Lloyd again without wishing the ground would open up and swallow me.

I don’t answer Mr Griffiths’
question, just grab my books and bag and run out of the room. I only stop
running when I hear the door slam behind me. I shove the books into my bag and
throw the pink pen into one of the bins as I pass. I never want to see it again
in all my life. I don’t go to the nurse though. I slip into the cafeteria and
sit underneath the stairs at the far end, positive that no one will see me. It’s
the space kids use when they bunk off lessons, they sit there until the coast
is clear of teachers and dinner ladies, then slip out the side of the building
and make a run for the gate. I consider doing just that, but what’s the point?
I will still have to come to school again tomorrow morning and the morning
after that and the one after that. I may as well face everyone next lesson and
get the laughter and the taunts over with now.

I catch Debs on her way out of
her own maths lesson. “You won’t believe what happened to me in maths today.”

She gives me a hug. “I’ve
already heard.”

“What? How?”

“Come on, Chess. Something like
that happens and you think the whole school isn’t already talking about it?”

Oh, smashing. Just what I wanted
to hear.

“I can’t believe I sneezed snot
into the middle of Lloyd’s book.” I’m trying to make light of the awful
situation, and also make sure Debs walks with me, because I don’t want to face
the teasing that will undoubtedly come from the other thirty people in my maths
class by the time we get to the cafeteria.

Debs is obviously trying not to
laugh. “You’ve just ruined your chances of ever getting a date with him, you do
know that, right?”

“Yes, thank you for pointing
that out. I hadn’t realised that Lloyd might not want to look twice at a snot
sprouting sneezebag, but now you come to mention it…”

“Hey, Chessie,” Leigh shouts as
she walks by. “Atchooo!”

“Ha ha ha,” I say, fake smiling
at her.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ewan asks,
falling into line beside us.

I’d forgotten that he’d been
there to witness the whole thing.

“I doubt I’ll ever get my
dignity back, but yeah, I guess so. Did you speak to Lloyd afterwards? What did
he say?”

“He thought it was quite funny
actually.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he did.”

“He laughed and asked Mr
Griffiths to exchange his textbook, which he did. I think that one may have
gone into quarantine.”

“Thank you, Ewan. That makes me
feel so much better.”

“Sorry,” he says. “You asked.
Besides, it’s not like the worst thing you’ve ever done to Lloyd Layton.”

“Well, if it isn’t, then I don’t
want to know what is.”

CHAPTER 5

April.

It’s the Easter holidays and I’ve seen a picture in a
magazine that I want to look like. If I looked like that, Lloyd would want me in
an instant. I figure the hair is the most striking thing, and honestly, if you
look really closely and squint a bit, the model’s hair isn’t that different
from mine. If mine were longer, blonder, and didn’t frizz at the mere
implication of water, that is. But I think I have something to work with. Now I
just need to figure out the best way to put red streaks in without it costing a
fortune.

 It’s when I’m lying on my
bed, channel surfing and sulking a bit if I’m honest, that I get a genius idea.
The idea really is a stroke of brilliance, and it’s all thanks to Delia Smith.
My channel hopping lands on Delia’s cookery programme, where she’s icing a cake
of some kind, and that’s when it hits me. I have everything I need to put red
streaks in my hair right here, or more precisely, downstairs in the kitchen
cupboards: red food colouring.

Beat that, Einstein.

I’ve seen people doing
highlights on TV; all you need is foil – also in the kitchen cupboards – and
you’re set. You paint the dye on, wrap the hair in kitchen foil and sit under a
big hairdryer for an hour. I might not have a big hairdryer, but I have a
little one shaped like a frog, and I’m sure I can improvise on the small
details. Teenagers the world over are going to thank me for this. I can’t be
the only person in the universe who has very little time to dye their hair and
limited cash flow.

My mum is in work so I’m on my
own in the house, which is good because Mum might not like me raiding the
kitchen. I briefly consider calling Debs and asking for her help, but really,
how hard can it be? Imagine how impressed Debs will be when she sees my hair
tomorrow. She’ll probably ask me to do hers as well. Then word will spread
around the entire school that I’m some kind of virtuoso hairdresser, and
everybody will be begging me to do theirs, and if Lloyd doesn’t notice me for
the red streaks in my hair, then he’ll notice me because of all the people
raving about my hairdressing skills.

I know we’re not allowed to dye
our hair in school, but it’s the holidays now, inset Friday to be exact, so I
have two weeks of freedom in which no one can moan at me for having red
streaks. Also, assuming my hair is going to look really cool, and it will take
off around the whole school, shouldn’t the teachers be proud of me for being so
imaginative? Even if they aren’t, what’s the worst they can do? Tell me to wash
it out? I hope it’ll be like permanent hair dye, in which case, it won’t wash
out. Nothing I can do about that. It’s not like they can expel me for something
beyond my control, is it?

With that in mind, I decide that
it’s now or never. I head downstairs and root through the cupboards until I
find what I’m looking for. I find the food colouring buried in the back of a
cupboard. It’s unopened. I reckon my mum has forgotten she ever bought it.
That’s good because she won’t miss it. I can’t remember the last time we ate
red food anyway. That’s probably why it’s three years out of date. I wonder if
that matters?

I decide to do the deed in my
room, mainly because if I spill dye on the carpet anywhere else, my mum will
skin me alive. I grab my towel from the bathroom, set the things out on my
window ledge and debate the best way to do this. My blonde hair is just past my
shoulders, and I decide that I need three chunky streaks on either side of my
middle parting. That’s what the model in the magazine has, and I don’t want to
get ahead of myself. I’ll have plenty of people to practise on if it goes well.
I section off six equal chunks of hair and clip the rest back. So far, so good.
I really think I’m going to be good at this. I’ve got some rubber gloves to put
the food colouring on with, and a plan. I have six pieces of foil cut to exact
size and length, and as soon as the dye has evenly coated each section of hair,
I’ll wrap it in the foil and then, when they’re all done, I’ll turn the
hairdryer on them for an hour. Easy.

I pour the red colouring into a
plastic tray, coat my rubber-gloved fingers in it, and begin stroking them down
the length of the hair. The first streak goes really well. The dye just sort of
sinks into my hair, which is good because at least it’s not running anywhere or
getting on the bits that are meant to stay blonde. This is so easy I can’t
believe I haven’t thought of it before. Within minutes the first streak is
done, wrapped in foil, and I’ve started the next one. The whole process takes
about twenty minutes. I throw the gloves away as soon as I’m done and hope my
mum won’t miss them. It’s not like she uses them for washing up
that
often. Maybe I could tell her the dog ate them.
We don’t have a dog, but it’s not really that unlikely that some random dog
broke in and ate a pair of Marigolds, is it?

I sit on my bed and switch the
hairdryer on. I last about ten minutes until I can’t resist taking a peep under
the foil.

The first peek is a little
disappointing. I’ve looked under the first streak I did, rationalising that
it’s been on the longest, and honestly, the food colouring has soaked into my
hair so much that it doesn’t really look red at all. It looks sort of off-pink.
Maybe it needs a second application. Maybe it’s like nail polish, and will chip
unless you do two coats. Luckily I have just enough left to do the job. I
rescue the gloves from the bin and re-do one streak at a time and quickly wrap
them back up in foil and decide to sit with the dryer on for longer this time.

When the longest hour ever has
passed, I rip the foil off with abandon. I’ve done all I can do. I’ve used the
entire bottle of food colouring, and had the hairdryer on the hottest setting
possible for over an hour. This is it.

I turn away from the mirror as I
remove the foils, wanting my masterpiece of tresses to be a surprise. I shake
my hair out and turn back around, excited to see my reflection.

Oh.

Oh. Well. That looks nothing
like the model in the magazine. In fact, it looks like I’ve been hit on the top
of the head and my skull is bleeding.

It’s not red, exactly. It’s like
dirty reddish-pink. It feels very dry, and the colour has spread out into the
sections of my hair that were still supposed to be blonde. The roots in
particular. Rather than being in defined streaks, it’s sort of one big mass of
reddish colour. Oh well, it was my first try after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have
expected greatness so soon. I’ll just go and wash it out. To tell the truth,
red streaks aren’t so appealing anymore anyway.

Here’s the thing about food
colouring: it doesn’t wash out. I guess it’s not really supposed to, I mean,
you’d hardly need to wash dye out of a cake, would you? But I do need to wash
it out of my hair, and it’s not coming out. I’ve been in the bath for half an
hour, I’ve shampooed it three times, and it’s just not moving. It hasn’t even
faded.

I’ve figured out what I’m going
to do though. I’ll go into town tomorrow and buy a dark coloured hair dye. I
can’t afford to spend much on one, and certainly can’t ask my mum to buy one
because she’d want to know why, but I think one of those cheap ones that last
eight washes will do the trick. I’ll have an image change for the holidays and
by the time school starts back, it will have washed out and taken the red stuff
with it. No one will know any different.

The only problem left is how to
keep the whole debacle from my mother. She’ll be in work tomorrow, so I can go
shopping without suspicion, but tonight is the issue. She’s due home in twenty
minutes, and all I have to do is convince her that I’m absolutely freezing cold
and have to spend the night huddled in my winter hat. The thing is though, it’s
April. It’s really not that cold. In fact, we’ve got quite the heatwave for
April.

“Chessie, aren’t you boiling?”
That’s the first thing my mum asks as she comes in.

“No, I’m cold actually.”

“In this weather? Maybe you have
a temperature.”

“No! No, I’m fine, really. I just
took a cold bath to cool down, and well, I cooled down too far.”

“Do you want me to put the
heating on?”

“No, no, I’m quite comfortable
in this.”

I can tell she doesn’t believe
me.

“Have you seen my washing up
gloves?” Mum calls from the kitchen when she goes to do the dishes later.

“No,” I lie. “Why, have you lost
them?”

“I’m sure they’re not where I
left them,” she calls back.

“Maybe a dog ate them,” I say,
crossing my fingers.

“That’s not helpful, Chessie.
I’m sure I put them in this cupboard last night.”

I slink off to bed early, hoping
to avoid further interrogation.