Star Crazy Me (4 page)

Josh said, “I'm not starting on at you.”

“Well, ha ha, that's very funny, cos it's certainly what it sounds like!”

“Yeah? Well, you know what? I wish I'd never bothered!”

“You and me both!”

We stood there, glaring at each other. Speaking personally, if I'd been Josh I'd have walked out right there and then, but I guess Josh is a nicer person than I am. He said, “Oh look, for goodness sake, this is really stupid! If we can't even t—”

“
Go away!
” I screamed it at him. “I'm sick of being lectured, and especially by you!”

This time, he finally got the message. I guess I'd gone just a bit too far, even for Josh. Coldly, he said, “If that's the way you want it.”

“It is!”

“OK!”

I followed him back out into the hall and stood, simmering, waiting for him to go.

“At least I'm not bunking off school,” he said.

He didn't even slam the door behind him. I would have done.

Needless to say, the minute he'd gone I collapsed like a squashed meringue. Mum's always said that one of these days my tongue will get the better of me. “Just
can't learn to control it, can you?” I could even hear Nan rebuking me. “Well, that's it, girl! You've really gone and done it this time.”

I'd bawled at Indy, now I'd bawled at Josh. But it was his own fault! He shouldn't have brought Nan into it. He knew she was the only person in my entire life who'd ever really, truly loved me. He knew how much I missed her.

Memories of Nan came flooding over me and plunged me into even deeper depths of misery. When Mum came home at six o'clock she was considerably annoyed to find that last night's dinner dishes, plus this morning's breakfast stuff, were still mouldering unwashed in the sink, and the pizza which apparently (so she said) I was supposed to have taken out of the freezer and put in the oven was still in the freezer, and the oven hadn't even been turned on, and for crying out loud, Carmen, you haven't done a single solitary thing!

I told her that I had in fact been doing my
homework, and waved Josh's print-out at her to prove it. It wouldn't have cut any ice with Mum even if it had been true. She went on at some length about how she had been working for eight hours straight, and the least she deserved was to find dinner ready and waiting for her when she got back. I guess she had a point. One way or another, it was a pretty horrible kind of evening.

Mum was on late turn next day, so I had to get up and get dressed and make like I was going to school. While I was munching cereal in the kitchen, her mobile started squawking. She yelled at me from the bathroom. “Carmen, get that for me!” So I picked it up and found it was a text message from school, alerting
Mum to the fact that I hadn't been there yesterday. I'd forgotten they did that. Phew! Lucky for me I'd got there first. I deleted it immediately.

“Who was it?” said Mum.

I told her it was someone trying to sell something.

Mum said, “Sell what?”

“Didn't ask.”

“Well, in future I would like to
know
,” said Mum. “It could have been a free kitchen. How do you know it wasn't a free kitchen?”

I said, “It wasn't a free anything. It was just rubbish.” I grabbed my bag and made for the door. “I gotta go, I'll be late!”

I caught the bus at the usual stop, but instead of getting off at Ravenspark Road I stayed on till we reached the shopping centre. I wasn't going back to that school again ever. Of course I knew they would come for me. I'd be hunted down like a criminal and dragged off in chains, or more likely handcuffs. I'd heard of people being brought back to school by the
police. But they couldn't make me stay there! I'd just keep running off until in the end they'd be forced to send me somewhere else. Either that, or lock me up. Whichever. I didn't care! Sooner be behind bars than have to suffer Marigold Johnson and her gang of sniggering morons every day.

“
That fat freak! What's she think she's gonna do
?”

The words still rang in my ears. I had the feeling that everyone was staring at me.
Ooh, look! Fat!
Body fascists, that's what Josh had called them.
You're the
wrong size, you're the wrong shape!
Yeeeurgh
,
bluuurgh
,
don't want her joining the club!

Thinking of Josh, as I went into the shopping centre, made me feel bad all over again. He and Indy were my two best friends, and I'd upset both of them. Josh had trusted me with his secret. He'd confided in me what he wouldn't even confide in his mum and dad, and I knew how hard it must have been for him. He is such a very
private
sort of person. He doesn't just blurt things out like I do. He'd probably been screwing up his
courage for weeks before finally bringing himself to tell me. How could I have been so mean as to fling it back in his face?

And how could I have snarled at Indy? Threatening never to talk to her again! Indy and I had been friends since our very first day in Year 7. She was the only black girl, I was the only fat girl, and I guess we drifted together for comfort. Nobody else, right at the beginning, seemed to want to know us. Indy and her mum had just moved from London, and out of all my special gang at juniors I was the only one that got sent to Ravenspark. My best mate Janey was supposed to be coming with me, but at the last minute her mum and dad had gone off to live in Australia, leaving me on my own.
Marigold
had been at juniors, but she didn't want to know me any more than I wanted to know her. Me and Indy were always going to be outsiders. Most everyone else got sucked into Marigold's orbit before even the first week was out.

Fortunately, as it happened, me and Indy hit it off
from the word go. We both came from single parent families, which was an immediate bond. And we both utterly despised Marigold Johnson, which was another. I love Indy! She is really funny and scatty. She has a little brother who is even scattier. He gives us lots of laughs, like when he asked his mum to buy a second fish tank so his fish could go on holiday. Actually, I thought that was just so sweet! He was only six years old, and he really cared about his fish.

Nan used to like Indy. She said, “That girl has a happy face.” Mum, on the other hand, always makes me grind my teeth. She says it's “so amusing” to see us together, what with me being so huge and Indy being so tiny. Well, she doesn't actually say huge; what she says is
big
. But that is just a polite word for fat.

Another thing she says, though not in so many words, is “How come a boy like Josh” – meaning a boy who could have his pick of any girl he chose – “goes round with someone like you?” Not even Mum would be horrid enough to actually say it to my face, but I
know that is what she thinks. She occasionally lets slip these remarks. She is so beautiful and glamorous herself that she considers it a total waste, like for instance if Darrin O'Shea from Urban Legend were to hang out with – oh, I don't know! Some ancient old bag of a politician, maybe. Why not have a girlfriend as gorgeous as he is?

It's what Marigold thought, and the reason she got so insanely jealous, cos how could someone like Josh prefer a wobbly jelly to a prom queen like her?

What Mum has never been able to get her head round, though I've told her over and over, is that Josh is not my boyfriend, he is just my
friend
. We confide in each other and look out for each other and support each other when things go wrong, like when Josh's cat went missing and I helped him look for her, and went round the streets sticking notices on lamp posts, and did my best to cheer him up when he thought he was never going to see her again. Like when Nan died, and it was Josh who was there for me. Indy was, too,
except she lives miles away, while Josh is just ten minutes down the road. I cried buckets all over him. Not over
Mum
; I didn't shed a tear, hardly, in front of Mum. Mum didn't shed a tear, either, cos of being scared she'd make her mascara run. Well, no, I'm being unfair, she did cry a little bit, when she first got back from the hospital, just not in public when she had her make-up on.

Mum never loved Nan the way I did; sometimes I used to think she almost resented her coming to live with us. They certainly didn't always see eye to eye, in fact they used to fall out quite a lot, mainly over me. Mum used to say that Nan automatically took my side whenever we had an argument, while Nan said Mum did nothing but carp and criticise. She always used to stick up for me, especially when Mum went on about my weight.

“Just leave the girl alone! We can't all go round looking like bits of string… wouldn't want to, neither. Some of us like a bit of flesh on our bones.”

It used to make Mum so mad! She accuses me of having a sharp tongue, but if I do it's her I get it from. It's true I am not a doormat; I don't believe in just lying down and letting myself get trampled on by the Marigold Johnsons of this world. But I am not a bad sort of person. I really am not! I had never ever yelled at Josh or Indy before. It was all the fault of that hideous Marigold. She had turned me into a right cow.

I tramped on, round the shopping centre, trying to find something interesting to do. I was just about to go into HMV and check whether there was anything by Urban Legend that I hadn't got (which I knew there wouldn't be) when my mobile started up. I thought,
I
am not going to answer it!
But it turned out to be a text message from Josh.
R U coming in 2day
? I immediately texted back:
No I told U
. So then he wants to know,
Why not
? And I tell him,
U no why not
. So then he says,
UR missing maths
and I tell him,
Good
(because I hate maths) and for just a few minutes it makes me feel quite triumphant. Yay! I'm missing maths! I'm walking
round the shopping centre while everyone else is stuck in a dreary classroom listening to Mr Fenwick drone on about equations. Best of all, Josh hasn't given up on me.

Made bold by a sudden mad burst of enthusiasm I go waltzing into HMV and begin happily browsing, picking things up and putting them down, until I notice someone watching me and immediately become self-conscious and go rushing back out into the shopping centre and walking furiously in no particular direction.

A couple of policemen are strolling past. They give me these really suspicious looks, like “What is that girl doing here?” and “Why isn't she in school?” but I stare back boldly and they go on their way, leaving me alone. It's a good thing we don't have to wear much in the way of uniforms at Ravenspark, specially in summer. Just black trousers and a white top. Nobody's going to know which school I go to, unless I have the misfortune to bump into someone like Mrs Gasbag – or Mum.

The thought of bumping into Mum makes me go
scuttling like a frightened hen down to the far end of the shopping centre. Mum works in the High Street so she's not very likely to be around, especially at this time of day, but on the whole it seems best not to take any chances. She'd do her nut if she discovered I wasn't in school again.

I have heard that some shopping centres are really fun places, where you can easily spend an entire day without ever getting bored or running out of things to do. Ours is not like that. It is called the Bosworth Centre, which is a very dreary name for a very dreary place, especially when you don't have any money. But I didn't dare go home before my usual time in case of running into Gasbag. I swear that woman spends her life peering through the letter box, waiting to spy on me.

At lunch time I bought a bag of crisps and an apple and sat and munched in a corner, keeping an eye open for Mum, or Gasbag, or anyone else that might recognise me. After lunch I went into Primark and
wandered up and down the aisles, gazing at stuff, until I felt that I was being watched again, probably by a big beefy store detective who'd haul me off to be strip searched before I even had a chance to turn my pockets out and show him they were empty.

I left Primark and scuttled next door into Superdrug. In Superdrug they had bins full of stuff just asking to be nicked. So I nicked some. For absolutely no reason at all, except for something to do. It wasn't even like it was something I wanted. I mean, camomile wipes! What was I going to do with those, for heaven's sake? They had cotton wool balls in another bin, and I'd have nicked some of them, as well, if I'd been brave enough. It wasn't conscience that stopped me, but fear of being arrested. Maybe Josh was right, and I really was a coward.

I slid out of Superdrug and into the Choc Shop, which is right next door. They have these ultra gollopy delish chox in the Choc Shop. Handmade, with yummy gooey fillings. Mum never buys any as they are a)
expensive and b)
fattening
. But just now and again, Nan used to treat us. Her and me. We'd have gollopy delish chox together, sitting at one of the little tables, with Nan sipping a big frothy cappuccino and me slurping at one of their special fizzy bubble drinks, all pink and sweet and zingy. That was before Nan's arthritis became so bad she hardly ever left the flat. It seemed like such a long time since Nan and me had had fun together.

I dithered in the doorway, trying to get up the nerve to do a quick snatch and grab. I fantasised what Nan might say.
Go for it, girl!
She was wicked, was Nan; she could egg you on. But I didn't think even Nan would encourage me to shoplift.

I walked out empty-handed, feeling a bit defiant. If Nan wouldn't encourage me to shoplift, I bet she wouldn't encourage me to get up in front of Marigold Johnson and her cronies and sing
Star Crazy Me
and run the risk of being jeered at, either. It's not what she would want! She was always quick to jump to my
defence, like if Mum made one of her remarks.

I remembered once when we'd been watching
The
Wizard of Oz
– which I must have seen about a dozen times – and I was singing
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
, giving it all I'd got, Nan clapped her hands and cried, “You'll be a second Judy Garland, one of these days!”

Judy Garland is the name of the person who played Dorothy in the movie. I have to admit, when I was younger I did model myself on her, just a little bit. Nan loved it, as Judy Garland was possibly her all-time favourite singer. Anyway, while I was still basking in Nan's praise, Mum had to go and ruin everything by saying rather pointedly, with a look at me, that
Judy
Garland
had a lot of problems with her weight.

“She got really fat.”

Nan hit back, quick as a flash: “Yes, and everybody loved her!”

And I bet nobody called
her
a fat freak. Josh wasn't being fair! He had no idea what it was like, constantly having to remind yourself,
I will not be ashamed of my
own body
. But at the same time always, always being aware that you weren't stick thin and beautiful. That all the stick thin beautiful people were looking at you and sniggering. Or, even worse, feeling sorry for you. I was
NOT GOING TO GET UP ON THAT STAGE
AND BE FELT SORRY FOR
. No way!

I went up to the next floor on one of the escalators. Not that there was anything up there, just a load more boring shops. I mean
really
boring shops. Middle-aged women shops. All full of cardigans and clumpy shoes and raincoats. For a while I slobbed around in Smith's, reading magazines, until I got that feeling again that I was being watched. I think it's what they call
paranoia
. Means you think everyone's out to get you. It's how I felt, that day in the shopping centre.