Not Pretty Enough (7 page)

“You’re welcome, I’ll be
cheering for you.”

“Thanks, wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

I start to make my way down the
bank we’re sitting on.

“Oh, and Chessie?”

I turn around and Debs chucks
her bottle of water at me. “I think you might need this.”

I thank her and get into line
quickly with the other five runners in our group. Lloyd is on the end, then
Darren, then two boys I don’t know, then Laurie, a girl from our form, and I’m
on the other end. I wave at Lloyd overconfidently.

“I thought you were doing
something else,” he yells across the heads between us.

“I thought I’d give this a shot
instead,” I call back.

“I didn’t know you ran.”

“Enough to get by,” I say. What
the hell is that?
Enough to get by
? He might as
well have asked me if I knew any Spanish.

He nods somewhat uncertainly,
like he’s not sure whether I’m pulling his leg or not.

“Well, good luck,” I call.

“You too.”

I notice that the other five in
this group and the six in the group in front of us are sort of working
themselves up by jogging on the spot and shaking their arms around. In fact,
I’m the only one standing dead still and wishing it was lunchtime already.

I could really use a flapjack.

I decide to try a little jogging
on the spot, but then I think better of it. They’re all just wasting energy. If
I reserve mine for the actual race, I will probably do better than them.

Maybe.

Mr Hursh blows his whistle and
the first group set off.

Wow. They’re fast. They’re like
greyhounds on a racetrack.

I don’t think I can run like
that.

I’d be more like a hippopotamus
on a racetrack.

“Three minutes,” the teacher
yells at us as we move up to the starting positions.

I wonder if we should crouch
down and set off like real runners do on the TV, but Lloyd and the others are
just hanging around waiting. I decide to follow their lead. I don’t want to
look like a complete amateur, after all.

“I thought you and Deborah were
doing the least athletic events today,” Laurie says to me.

“I thought I’d give this a go.
You’ve gotta try new things once in a while, right?”

I just wish that ‘once in a
while’ wasn’t in twenty-something degree heat, and that ‘new things’ was more
along the lines of a hairstyle or bronzing powder.

I wave at Debs, who has been
joined by Ewan on the bank.

God, it looks comfortable up
there.

Not like down here where you are
surrounded by sweaty people and a miserable teacher.

“Group two, line up. Minus sixty
seconds,” Mr Hursh yells.

Oh crap.

I don’t think this was the
brightest idea after all.

I suppose I am kind of unfit.

Well, I think I am. It’s not
like I ever do any exercise to find out whether I’m unfit or not. I guess we’ll
know soon enough.

Mr Hursh blows his whistle.
“Thirty seconds. Get ready.”

The whistle blows again.

We’re off.

Oh crap.

Crikey, the others are fast.

“Clemenfield, I said GO!” Mr
Hursh yells.

Oops.

I start running too.

Oh, this isn’t so bad. I mean, at
the moment. I’m only a few paces around the track so far, and I have to go
round the whole thing four times, but I can probably manage it. Maybe.

Now, to catch up with the
others.

They’re fast. Lloyd has done one
lap already. He’s going to pass me in a minute on his second round.

I wonder if you can take a
shortcut in a race?

I wonder if anyone will believe
that I went so lightning fast that they didn’t see me do the first lap and this
is actually my second too.

Wow, if anyone would believe
that I’d actually be neck and neck with Lloyd.

“You’re supposed to run, not
walk, Chessie!” Lloyd yells as he zooms past me.

“I’m pacing myself,” I yell
back. “Like The Tortoise and the Hare.”

But I don’t think he heard me,
which is perhaps a good thing because I’m probably too old to be talking about
ancient fables.

Can’t he see that I am running?
I’m actually running pretty fast for me.

“Hey,” Laurie yells as she comes
past on her second lap. “I think you should stick to javelin in future.”

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically.

At least I’m trying, right?

What does it matter if the
others have already done two hundred out of the four hundred metres and I’m on
approximately ten?

I am going as fast as I can.
It’s not like I’m slacking off or anything.

In fact, I think that maybe I
should suggest to Mr Hursh that the others have all been taking steroids or
something, because it
cannot
be natural to run
that fast.

It just can’t.

I hear Debs cheering for me, and
as I look over to wave at her, something awful happens.

I trip.

I fall down.

Splat. Face first on the grass.
I guess I should be glad that it wasn’t concrete or something.

God, this is embarrassing.

I try to get up, but this
running lark has left me a bit out of breath, and I’m panting for air. I think
the fall must have winded me.

Darren runs past me and scowls
on his way. Obviously my flailing is taking up too much of the track.

I bet if that had been Lloyd
passing he would have stopped to help me up.

Eventually I struggle to my
feet, and as if this race could get any worse, my shirt is completely covered
in grass stains. It’s now white and green with a definite hint of mud. How
lovely.

“Clemenfield, move or leave!” Mr
Hursh is shouting at me.

Well, I’m not giving up that
easy. I’m not even halfway through one lap yet and the others are on their
last.

I run again. I’m totally out of
breath and my chest is feeling all tight. I uncap the water bottle I’ve been
carrying with me, and take a huge gulp.

And then I choke.

Obviously drinking and running
doesn’t mix.

I spit water everywhere,
including down my shirt.

I can’t breathe.

I’m hacking and coughing and
spluttering but I can’t breathe.

I think that mild asthma I was
diagnosed with when I was a kid has just become severe asthma.

I’m trying to take huge gulps of
air in an attempt to get some into lungs that feel too small for my body.

Stupid, unfit body.

Mr Hursh blows his whistle to
signify the end of the race.

“Clemenfield, get off the
track!” He yells angrily.

I oblige.

I collapse to the floor and
start crawling over to the edge of the field where Debs has come to meet me.

Mr Hursh blows his whistle again
and the winner of the race is announced.

It’s Lloyd.

Of course it is.

As if we ever thought it would
be anyone different.

In fact, I’m beginning to think
that all the things Lloyd said to us earlier were just a load of crap to get
his ego stroked.

He was in the lead the whole
way. Even Darren didn’t come close, but that might be because he was too busy
glaring at me.

“Jeez, are you okay?” Debs asks
worriedly as she helps me to my feet.

“Fine,” I pant. “Just let me sit
down for about three years.”

I hobble along behind her and
sit back down at our spot on the grassy bank.

“Remind me never to enter a
race,” Ewan says. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I mutter, heat flaring in
my face as I sip my water.

I’m still wheezing and coughing,
and every deep breath I take is never deep enough.

“At least I won’t have to do
long jump now.”

I look around for Lloyd and
eventually catch sight of him walking in the direction of the gym with Darren,
undoubtedly going to practise on the mock obstacle course that has been set up
there so no one ruins the proper course until it’s time for the event.

He didn’t even come to see if I
was okay.

It was his fault I entered the
bloody run in the first place, and he didn’t even check to see if I was okay
after I nearly died in the middle of the track.

Boys are so inconsiderate.

“Come on,” Debs says when she
sees me watching him walk away. “It’s nearly lunchtime, I’ll get you an extra
flapjack to make you feel better.”

“Thanks,” I say gratefully.

I feel quite sick from all the
choking and not being able to breathe thing.

Debs goes ahead to get to the
front of the queue and I walk down to the cafeteria with Ewan.

“You know, it was really brave
of you to try that, Chess,” he says. “I could never do something like that, no
matter how much I wanted to impress someone.”

“I wasn’t doing it to impress
anyone,” I lie.

Ewan laughs. “Yeah. I’m sure you
deciding to dice with death on a running track had absolutely nothing to do
with a certain tall boy from 9C.”

“I…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to
say anything to him. For the record, I really admire you. I wish I had the
courage to make the girl I like realise I exist.”

“If we’re talking about the same
girl, don’t worry, she knows you exist.”

“Knowing I exist and seeing me
in
that
way are two different things.” He sighs.
“Forget it, Chess. I’m happy just to be friends.”

“She likes you,” I say.

“As a friend, maybe. But I don’t
want to ruin that by trying to be something more. I’m not good with girls, you
know that. I’m not tall or hot or good at sports like Lloyd is. Debs deserves
better.”

“That’s nonsense. Debs likes you
as you are. You don’t have to try to impress her. I wish I could say the same
about me and Lloyd.”

“Chess, you know Lloyd is my
mate, right? And I still don’t know what you see in him. There are much nicer
guys out there who would like you for who you are. I don’t see the point in
trying to change yourself just to impress him.”

Perhaps because you’re more
sensible than me, I think to myself.

CHAPTER 14

I have come to the conclusion that I should never try to
impress Lloyd with sports. After the spectacle I made of myself on the running
track this morning, you’d think I would give up.

But no. Not me.

After lunch, I ask Miss Raine to
put me in the same group as Lloyd for javelin. I don’t actually ask her that. I
already checked Lloyd is in the first group, and I asked her to put me in the
first group so I don’t get psyched out watching how well the other groups
throw. I don’t think she really understood me, but she agreed eventually,
probably out of sympathy.

I do look like quite a pathetic
sight. My once white shirt is now white, grass-stained, and muddy, with wet
patches of sweat and where I dribbled water down it after the whole running
mishap this morning.

I think that I do believe in
karma, because after the race mess, during the javelin I get exactly what I
wanted.

There are ten people in each
group this time, and when we’re all lined up, Debs is on one side of me and
guess who is on the other?

Lloyd Layton.

He cannot fail to notice how
good I am at javelin.

I mean, I think I’m good at
javelin. I’ve only done it the once. During games last week. And I did manage
to throw mine farther than anyone else’s, but now I’m here and looking at all
the boys lined up, I can’t help but panic that it might have been a fluke.

This is my one chance to impress
Lloyd and make him forget that I’m unfit and can’t even make it a quarter of
the way around a running track when he can make it four times and not even
break a sweat.

At least you don’t have to run
for javelin.

Miss Raine walks down our line
and hands the javelins out. “Be careful with these, we don’t want any
accidents.”

We all nod and try to look
mature, even though I can see some of the boys are grinning widely and
obviously dying to poke someone with it.

“I can’t believe how good you
are at this,” Debs says loudly to me. “I could never throw it as far as you,
Chessie.” She’s not exactly shouting, but it’s obvious what she’s doing.

Lloyd takes the bait.

“Are you really?” he asks me. “I
suck at javelin. I couldn’t even get it twenty feet.”

Twenty feet?

Is he joking?

I’m not that bloody good.

“Um, sure. I love javelin.”

I’m not sure that it’s even
possible to
love
any form of physical activity,
but I get the feeling that this is what he wants to hear.

“Cool.” He smiles his winning
smile at me. “May the best man win.”

Oh, I’m sure he will. Absolutely
sure. He can throw the damn thing
twenty feet
?

“Good luck,” I say.

“You too.”

He’s talking to me. That’s twice
today that Lloyd Layton has actually struck up a conversation with me. I
believe this is progress.

But somehow I have to lob a
javelin all the way across this field, and I know that I don’t stand a chance
against Lloyd Layton. He’s much stronger than me. Obviously all the boys in my
form who I beat the other day were weaklings.

Miss Raine blows her whistle.
“Everybody line up, position your javelins, and be careful.”

The whistle blows again and this
is the cue to throw.

I close my eyes, cross the
fingers of my free hand, and fling.

It goes sailing through the air
and lands perfectly, miles ahead of all the others.

I don’t believe it.

I did it.

“Wow. Good job,” Lloyd says.

“Thanks,” I say, surprised.

Surprised doesn’t even cover it.
Mine actually went farther than everyone else’s. Including Lloyd’s.

“Good work, Chessie,” Miss Raine
says. She hands me a marker to mark the position and we all run forward to get
our javelins for the next throw.

As mine is further away than the
rest, I’m the last one back in the line.

I’m so excited that I can’t
contain myself.

I turn to Lloyd Layton eagerly.
“Did you see that? I’ve never thrown it that far before.”

I can’t help jumping up and down
a little bit, partly because I’m excited and partly because I want him to
notice my boobs.

And then the worst thing that
could ever possibly happen in my whole life happens.

My javelin slips.

Lloyd lets out a cry of pain.

I’ve stabbed him in the foot.

I’ve stabbed Lloyd Layton in the
foot with my javelin.

Oh, shit.

“Oh my god. Miss Raine!” I yell.

“Are you okay?” I turn to Lloyd.

Why would I even ask him
something like that? Of course he’s not okay. He has a javelin sticking out of
his shoe.

“Fucking hell, Chessie,” he
yells at me.

“Oh dear,” Miss Raine is saying.
She’s beckoned another teacher over and yelled at him to go and find the nurse
pronto.

“I’m so sorry. It just slipped.”

“Move back,” Miss Raine yells at
the other pupils who have gathered around us.

Everyone makes the move to
shuffle back but no one actually does. They just continue peering at Lloyd and
mumbling amongst themselves.

What do they think this is, some
kind of circus?

“
Get
back
!” I yell, throwing my arms wide. “Give him some space.”

This time everyone moves a few
paces back.

“Where does it hurt, Lloyd?”
Miss Raine asks him.

“My toes,” he moans.

“Oh dear, oh dear.” The nurse
totters across the field towards us, first aid kit in hand. She peers at
Lloyd’s foot. “There doesn’t appear to be much blood. That’s a good sign.”

Oh God, there’s going to be
blood?

Mr Hursh rushes across with a
chair for Lloyd to sit down, because if he tried to sit on the grass, he’d poke
his eye out.

Lloyd sinks down gratefully.

I think he’s about to pass out.

Oh God, what have I done?

Debs puts her arm around me
comfortingly, but all I can think about is what I’ve done to Lloyd. He’ll
probably have to have his foot amputated. He’ll never play sports again. He
probably wanted to be a professional sportsman one day, but I’ve just destroyed
all hopes of his career. He’ll probably have to become an accountant or
something and sit in an office all day staring at a computer screen and he’ll
probably look out of the window and see people playing football and hate me for
the rest of his life. He’ll probably put a picture of me on the back of his
door and throw darts at it. At the very least he’ll have to have his foot in
plaster for months and I’ll have ruined his summer holidays and he won’t be
able to do any sports for at least a year. And that’s just the best case
scenario. I bet he was going away on holiday this summer and he’ll have to stay
at home because he won’t be able to travel with only one leg.

“It seems like it’s just a flesh
wound,” the nurse says.

It is?

Oh. That’s not quite so bad
then.

I look down at Lloyd’s foot and
realise that while I was busy panicking they’ve gotten the javelin out and the
shoe off. The nurse has put a piece of gauze between Lloyd’s big toe and the
one next to it.

“You were very lucky,” she’s
saying to him. “A couple of millimetres either way and you would have had some
serious damage.”

He doesn’t have any serious
damage now then?

That’s good news.

I glance at his face and am glad
to see that he looks a lot less pale now. He catches me looking and shoots me a
death glare.

Well, it’s not like I expect him
to forgive me.

I mean, I do, obviously. But not
right now, not today.

Tomorrow, maybe.

The nurse takes the gauze away
from his toes and I see there is a bit of a cut there, but it’s not too bad.

“I’ll disinfect this and put a
plaster on it. It’ll be better in a couple of days,” the nurse tells him.

“Thanks,” Lloyd mutters.

“I’ll find you a spare pair of
trainers to wear home,” Mr Hursh says.

Oh dear. I forgot about the
trainers. They’re really good ones, like a few hundred quid job, and now, well,
one of them has a giant hole in the top where the javelin went in.

Oops.

“I’ll pay for your shoes,” I say,
wondering where the hell I intend to get that kind of money. My mother will
kill
me. I can kiss goodbye to the next six weeks
right now.

“No,” Lloyd grates out. “They
were old ones anyway. I needed a new pair.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say as the
nurse puts a plaster on his foot.

Lloyd ignores me.

I guess I can’t really blame
him. I did stab him in the foot with a javelin.

“Okay, you’re good to go,” the
nurse says to Lloyd. “But I don’t think you should do anymore events today.”

He nods solemnly, and then gets
up and limps away with Darren.

He doesn’t even look at me.

“Miss Clemenfield,” Miss Raine
says, rounding in on me.

“It was an accident,” I point
out.

“I know,” she says. “But even
so, perhaps it would be better for you to stay away from these events for the
rest of the day.”

I nod.

“Just stay on the sidelines and
sit this one out, okay?”

I nod again, trying to look sad.
Like that is punishment.

Okay, so I’ve already done my
two events for the day, but at least I won’t even have to think about doing any
more.

“You’re so lucky,” Debs says as
we walk back to our spot on the grass. “I still have to do discus.”

“Just whack someone around the
head with the disc,” I joke. “That’ll get you out of it.”

Of course, there is one little
problem to come out of this whole day. Lloyd Layton is never going to like me
now I’ve nearly taken his foot off with a javelin.