Boys for Beginners (3 page)

‘Oh.' He looks a little disgusted.

‘No, really, it was hardly even half a sneeze. And I got most of it off with my sleeve.' I'll quit while I'm miles behind. I can see Melissa and Kimba laughing at me. I'll try one more time. ‘Do you want to play?'

Charlie Notts breaks into a massive smile and for a millisecond my legs go all girlie. ‘Yeah. Thanks.' It's the best birthday present a girl could get.

‘Cool.' Behind him, the other girls look really jealous. So I act more relaxed. Nonchalant, even. Like I chat to blokes every day. ‘You're new here, aren't you?' I say, sounding as calm as a dead person.

‘Yeah.'

But I'm not calm. I'm talking to a fit boy and just being next to him is making me want to do the kissing bits I've seen in films.

‘Oh, right, thought so.' Cool as a cadaver. ‘What's your name then?' I can't let him know that I already know his name and what his dad does for a living.

‘Charlie,' he says.

‘Oh, right, cool, whatever. I'm Gwynnie.' He nods. I don't think he already knew my name. No one ever knows the names of people in the year below. ‘You can be on my team. We're winning. I think it's about 15–10 or something.' I shout over to Paul. ‘Paul! What's the score?'

‘I dunno!' he shouts back. ‘Like 12–7 to them, I think.'

No one ever knows the score in these things. It's not really the point.

‘Paul's on our team.' I start pointing the players out. ‘Um, there's also Justin Kark, the one that's hogging the ball, Richard Williams—'

‘OK. Cool.' Charlie Notts is off and running into the action.

I kind of stand there for a bit and watch him play. Charlie tackles someone from the year below
me (I don't know his name). He dribbles down the pitch for a bit. Thomas Ford calls out that he's free. Charlie looks up, sees where Thomas is, and kicks it over to him. The ball bends and lands directly at Thomas's feet with the precision of Gazza and David Beckham rolled into one. Charlie Notts is a footballing god.

‘Nice pass, mate,' says Thomas as he jogs up to Charlie and slaps his hand.

Charlie smiles at him and then looks over and smiles at me.

Talk about a birthday treat!

There is no one around when I get home after school. It's a bit depressing to be alone on your birthday with no one there to give a flan. I head up to my room and dump my stuff on the floor.

Fourteen. The big one-four. I thought it would feel different.

Happy birthday to me

My bedroom is the little box room next to the toilet. There's just space for a single bed and a small chest of drawers. If I want to hang anything I have to put it in the coat cupboard downstairs, so it's lucky that I only have one thing that I need to hang. It's a dress. I never wear it. Mum gave it to me before she died. But I don't want to think about that now.

My room is papered white with multicoloured dots, and there are some places where I got bored and started pulling off the wallpaper to see what
was underneath. There was nothing. In hindsight I probably should have left it.

I suppose I could cover the rips with posters, but I'm not a girlie girl who has a load of pictures of pop stars and sexy actors all over her walls. I only have one poster, and it's of Gazza after he scored from that free kick in the 1991 FA Cup semifinal. Best goal ever.

I plonk myself down on the bed and stare at my reflection in my little mirror. OK, time for self-assessment: My hair is very long, which I think is a good thing. But it gets badly tangled if it's loose so I keep it in plaits all the time. It's somewhere between the colour of bathwater after I've been playing football and the brown of the night sky when it's all light polluted. Even ginger hair like my dad's would be better.

My face is just a face. I've got eyes, a nose and a mouth, so that's a good start, but that's all it is, a start. I haven't got the other thing, that prettiness thing that makes a person good-looking. I will never look gorgeous.

I look down my top at my boobs. They're more like M&Ms that have been glued on under my skin. Not even a half-eaten miniature doughnut hole to speak of.
And
one of them is
definitely bigger than the other – more like a coat button than an M&M.

Happy birthday to me

Kevin's present catches my eye. I open the shoe box again and tip it all out on to my bed.

There's this blue stuff that I know is eyeshadow. I put some on my finger and rub it on my eyelid. It looks properly stupid, so I put on more.

It looks worse.

There's a black pencil in there and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. I've heard of lipliner, so I try to trace the outside of my lips with the pencil. It's no good; I haven't got a steady hand so it goes everywhere and makes me looks like one of the goths in Year 11. I don't know exactly what I am, but I know for sure that I'm not a goth . . . I think.

I get out a circular brush thing that's covered in black stuff and kind of poke myself in the eye for a bit. It hurts. I'd better stop.

I look in the mirror again. I'm still skinny. I've still got no boobs and bathwater hair. My face is still just a face. But now I look like I've been in a fight with a load of football hooligans. I'm black and blue, and crying from being poked in the eye.

Happy birthday to Gwynnie

There's a knock at the front door.

Oh God! Who's that
?

‘Who is it?' I shout, while frantically rubbing off the make-up.

‘It's me!'

It's Paul. If he sees me like this he will rip it out of me for weeks. I spit on my hands and rub even harder. My whole face goes pink and a bit painful. I think I've given myself friction burns.

‘I'm coming!' I shout. I run to the bathroom and try to wash it off, but it's no good. This stuff is permanent enough to stay on but removable enough to smear all over the bathroom towel.

‘Gwynnie! What are you doing, you muppet?'

‘I'M. COM. ING!'

There is now a blackish bluish pinkish blur where my face used to be, but it will have to do. I leg it downstairs and open the door to Paul. He stands there looking at me with a frown.

‘What took you so long?'

‘It's nothing.'

‘What's going on with your face?'

‘I was upstairs.' I realize that I've answered the wrong question with the wrong answer.

Paul stares at me while turning to the side
and raising an eyebrow. ‘You know that you're properly mental, don't you, Gwynnie?'

He's got me there.

‘Anyway, happy birthday, nutbag. Your dad is over talking to my mum so I brought round the Xbox and I thought we'd give your birthday present a go.'

The make-up is the only present I've had today and I don't see how we can use that on the Xbox, unless we are going to try and make it look ten years younger . . . a Sega Mega Drive.

He pulls out a game box from his backpack. ‘Now I know you don't have an Xbox, so we'll have to keep it round mine, but this is a present for you.' He hasn't bothered to wrap it, but it's still in its cellophane, so that's sort of the same thing and that makes it a present. It's the new
Gears of War
game that we've both been wanting to play for ages. ‘And I promise I won't play it much if you're not there because it's your game. Until you get an Xbox, that is – then it's properly yours.'

‘Cheers, mate.' Paul's the best sometimes.

‘No problem.' He pushes past me and walks into the living room to set up the console in
there. ‘Oh, and my mum said happy birthday and gave us this.' He pulls out a frozen pizza.

‘Nice one. I'll stick it in the oven.' Angela's the best too.

When I come back from the kitchen Paul's already playing the game. He's trying to get his head around the new flamethrower weapon and he's failing badly. He's not dead yet though and he pauses it and asks if I'd like a go.

‘But you're not dead yet.' This has never happened before. ‘What are you up to?'

‘It's your birthday. I'm just being nice.'