Boys for Beginners (17 page)

‘Don't you have to be sixteen to get yourself pierced?'

‘She thought I was sixteen.'

‘Is that because you told her you were sixteen?' he asks.

‘Well . . .' That might also be true.

‘Gwynnie, the reason you have to be sixteen is because you have to be old enough to make considered choices. I mean, even if you take that out now—'

‘I'm not taking it out!' That would be a total waste of forty pounds.

‘What I'm saying is, even if you take it out, you will still have a scar on your skin for the rest of your life.'

‘I know that. I'm not a child!'

‘Yes, you
are
a child.'

I'm so insulted.

‘What I mean is, you are not an adult and you have no idea about the consequences of your actions.'

Why do parents always do all this
consequences of your actions
stuff? ‘Why don't you just leave me alone? I don't bother you about your life. Not that it's much of a life, working at a sports shop and flirting with Angela Shields!' OK, that was a bit harsh, and I feel bad for saying it as soon as I say it.

‘What's wrong with you these days, Gwynnie? We used to be friends, but recently you're . . .'

‘I'm what?'

Dad thinks about what to say for a second before quietly uttering, ‘. . . a little unpleasant.'

That is the rudest thing that anyone has ever said to me! Coming from my own father means that it's twenty billion times worse. ‘Well, you're
. . . you're . . . you're the gingerest person in the world!' I don't know if that hurt or not. ‘I'm going to my room. And as I'm so
unpleasant
you'll be happy to stay away from me.' That's more like it. I slam the kitchen door and storm upstairs.

I want everyone to see my new piercing. On Monday I walk to school in a top that's so small it's not much more than a bra, and tracksuit bottoms that I push down low so I'm showing off as much of my stomach as possible. The whole school is in assembly and I think they are all talking about me. For once, that feels pretty good.

Then The Dazzler says, ‘Gwendolyn, please would you stand up?'

A few months ago this would have been like I was man of the match in my worst nightmare. But right now I'm OK with it. I stand up.

‘Everyone look at Gwendolyn Lewis.'

Everyone looks at me and I feel like a bit of a celeb.

‘This is a perfect example of what I was talking about at the beginning of term. We can
not have students dressing like this and continue to maintain an image of decency. As I mentioned weeks ago, there is a new school uniform in place . . .'

I think I know what's coming.

‘You have had plenty of time to purchase one. As of tomorrow, anyone not in the correct attire will spend two weeks in detention.'

Two weeks in detention would probably be worth it.

‘
And
the offender will not be allowed to go to the prom on Saturday.'

The assembly hall completely erupts. I have never heard anything like it. Take That or Madonna playing at Wembley would have made less noise. Michael Jackson coming back from the dead would have barely registered compared to this. The end of the world would have been a quiet day in the Lake District when put against the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from Northampton Hill High.

‘You have driven me to this and it's your fault.'

He means you, like, you the whole school, but it sounds like you, Gwendolyn Lewis.

Every other word I hear is my name. Just as
I'm thinking there is no way that this could be worse, Mr Roberts tops it. Above the din I can just hear him saying, ‘. . . regulation . . . blazer . . . tie . . .' and the word I was dreading above all: ‘. . . skirt.'

My knees begin to buckle. I sit down quickly without waiting for permission and feel like turning into one of those proper nutters that live in a padded cell and rock back and forth.

As we file out of assembly I can hear Kimba say to Tanya, ‘I told Gwynnie that top was too much. Now we have to wear uniform . . . all because of her.'

Which is a complete lie, but I hate myself so much right now that it's almost nice to have someone else hate me too – it makes me feel included.

It's the next morning, and no matter how many pictures of Outer Mongolia I show my dad, I can not get him to agree to move there. I am going to live and die in England. Possibly in a few hours, when I get to school and they all decide to kill me.

I get dressed in my room and leave the skirt till last. I do all my make-up and curl my hair with
the straighteners (which should be impossible, by definition). This is avoidance of the inevitable. Finally I put on the skirt and look in the mirror.

It's a plain black A-line skirt that stops at my knees. Then there are my knees: they're stupidly knobbly, like a bag of marbles, and they are covered with scars where I picked off old football scabs, and scabs on scabs on scars on scabs. I bought some tights after school yesterday so no one will see, but there is no hiding my skinny legs. It would be OK if I could wear leggings, but someone asked the Dazzler yesterday and he said, ‘Under no circumstances.' I wonder if that includes me?

I wait outside Jenny's house so that we can walk in together and not feel so terrible. It's only OK to look like a fool if you're with someone else who looks the same. She is still in her
I'm not answering my phone
phase so she looks pretty surprised to see me standing outside her door. Somehow she has managed to look really good in her uniform. Not cool exactly – no one could look cool in school uniform – but she has fashioned it up with these funky tights, and a way of tying the tie so it looks short and fat. Mine looks like I have a piece of string dangling round my neck.

I'm speechless for a minute before I ask, ‘How did you get your skirt so short?' They are supposed to be regulation length.

She lifts up her fitted shirt and shows me that she has rolled the skirt over itself at the waist to make it shorter. ‘Easy, see. Anyone could do it.'

‘Not me,' I say. ‘I have to find a way of hiding my skinny legs. They are hideous.'

‘Yeah, you're right,' she says. ‘Never mind. Maybe you could get a longer skirt and call it a maxi dress.'

I pretend to know what a maxi dress is and nod along.

She's pretty quiet on the way there and I think she must be dreading our first uniform day as much as I am. I take a deep breath as we approach the school gates.

‘We'll have to stick close together.' I try to hook her arm with mine but she pulls away.

‘It's OK, thanks.'

‘What's up?' I ask her. Jenny seems angry with me.

‘Nothing. Oh look, there's the rest of the girls!' And with that she darts off towards the BB gang, leaving me alone.

In the playground there's this weird thing in the air because we're all wearing uniform for the first time. Everyone is speaking to everyone else, telling their story about how they hate how we look and how their parents are writing letters to the school board to get it changed back to how it was. But they are kind of enjoying themselves too. It's something to bond over.

I walk in and Northampton Hill High goes quiet. Apparently the school hasn't completely forgiven me for being the cause of all this. They look at me and shake their heads.

‘Thanks a lot, Gwendolyn Lewis!'

Great, a Year 11 knows my name but only to shout abuse at me.

I hurry over to my friends in the BB Club. (There's no point having your belly-button pierced when it's hidden under a shirt.) If I thought we all looked the same before, we
definitely
all look the same now: navy-blue blazers with a badge, and skirts to match. But all the other girls have short skirts that show off their nice legs. Even Tanya has rolled up her skirt because her mum is not around to stop her.

I try to say, ‘Hi,' like everything is fine when it's completely not.

‘Hi, Gwynnie,' says Elizabeth. ‘What do we all look like, eh?'

The rest of them all nod hello to me, then sort of turn away a little. Jenny stands a few metres from me. They're so far away I feel shortsighted.

‘I've never seen you in a skirt before, Gwynnie,' says Tanya, who stops herself from saying I look OK because that would be a downright lie.

Paul and Ranjit come over, talking about who is wearing a clip-on tie and who had to get their mum to tie theirs for them. ‘Hey, Gwynnie,' Ranjit says, ‘aren't you Miss Popular today?' He laughs. ‘I think everyone hates you!' He says it as if he's filling me in on the weather forecast: foggy, with a chance of dislike.

‘Really?' I mumble, now terrified.

‘Yup,' he says, not realizing that this is worse than that time when Spurs lost to West Ham due to dodgy lasagne. ‘I've heard someone's even drawn a tombstone with the words
R.I.P. Gwynnie
on the wall in the girls' toilets.'

‘Is that true?'

‘Actually,' says Kimba, ‘it says
R.I.P. Skinny Gwynnie
.'

‘That's not true,' says Paul. ‘It's just a rumour.'

This is really bad.

‘Don't we all look smart?' Charlie Notts has just joined the group and I feel like hiding behind a bush. ‘All I need is a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a bowl haircut and then I would be the uncoolest person in the world.'

‘Second only to Gwynnie,' says Kimba.

Charlie looks at me with pity. ‘Yeah. I heard about the tombstone in the toilets, Gee. I'm sorry.'

I have a huge lump in my throat and I want to run away. But the only place to go is the toilets and then I would have to walk past everyone else in the school shouting at me, only to arrive in a room with a picture of my own grave in it. At least my friends will just insult me once and then it'll be over. I hope.

‘Gwynnie,' says Kimba, ‘we had an emergency meeting about you last night on MSN. We would kind of prefer it if you didn't hang out with us for a while.'

‘What? Why?' I ask.

‘Well,' she explains, ‘everyone kind of despises you, and we don't want them to depise us by association.'

‘Jenny?' I plead to my best friend.

Jenny starts rummaging in her bag as if she hasn't heard me. I
was
being a bit of a knob yesterday, showing off my new piercing like that, but I can't believe that the exact thing I thought would make me cool and popular has made me the most uncool and unpopular person in the history of high school.

‘Sorry, Gwynnie,' Melissa says, ‘but we have to think of the reputation of the BB Club.'

I feel sick.

‘Yeah,' Kimba says, obviously loving being the bearer of such bad news, ‘and we are also dismissing you from the Prom Planning Committee.'

‘Hey!' I say, feeling a bit angry. ‘I thought you were supposed to be my friends.'

‘Perhaps you shouldn't even come to prom at all,' she says, as if she's pointing out something that I should have realized on my own.

‘Kimba,' says Elizabeth, her voice shaking a little, ‘Gwynnie's right; she's a BB girl and we should stick by her. Everyone will forget about this after a while.'

Kimba shoots Elizabeth a look. ‘No one has forgotten about
your
incident, Elizabeth, and that
happened in Year 5. Every day for the rest of forever the pupils of Northampton Hill High will get dressed for school and curse Gwynnie's name.'

‘Not the rest of forever,' I say. But maybe she's right.

‘But still,' continues Elizabeth, ‘Gwynnie is—'

‘Elizabeth, do you want your membership reduced to bronze too?'

Now Elizabeth is getting flack for sticking up for me. If I don't walk away now I will cry. ‘Forget it then!' I shout. ‘Some friends you are! I'll see you around,' I say, and I start running. I'm heading for my grave in the girls' toilets. If my dad doesn't let me change school then I am going to Mongolia by myself.

I hear Charlie say, really loudly, ‘Don't be rude to Gwynnie, all right?'

And Kimba says, ‘What do you care?'

As far away as I am I can still hear his answer. ‘Because I want to ask her something, and you can't cuss her like that.'

What does he want to ask me?

‘Gwynnie, wait!' He shouts it really,
really
loudly this time so the whole school looks. He
runs to catch up with me so I stop and let him. He says, ‘Gwynnie, erm . . .'

‘Yes, Charlie.' This totally isn't real.

‘Will you go to the prom with me?'

I'm too shocked to say anything.

‘What do you say, Gwynnie? Will you be my date on Saturday?'

I am looking at him like he just asked me to join Girls Aloud, mouth open, eyes wide – I must look ridiculous. But the whole entire world is watching Charlie Notts ask me to the prom.

‘Yes, please,' I squeak. (OK, the
please
was possibly a bit much.)