Cassie's Crush (2 page)

At break, I grabbed Marcia and Evie to ask how they thought I should put my settler-inner plan into action. “My God,” Marcia laughed. “I've never seen you like this about a boy, Cassie…”

I shrugged. “Well, there's never been anyone like Ollie at our school before, has there?”

“You can say that again,” she agreed with a roll of her eyes. “Not my type, though…”

“Not mine either,” Evie added, “but he's cute. All the girls are talking about him.”

“So why shouldn't
I
talk to him?” I asked, feeling a bit bolder now.

“No reason!” Marcia said.

“Er … what shall I do, then?”

Marcia shrugged. “Just go and find him and be yourself. Be friendly, chatty and natural.” She made it sound like the easiest thing in the world.

“Er, OK,” I grinned. “I'm going to do that right now.”

But my bravado was quickly wilting away. The truth is, I've never had a boyfriend. Everyone knows this. Marcia's been out with Billy Thomson and Evie had two snogs with Joey Armstrong at the school Christmas party. I've had nothing. Not even a pathetic little hand-hold.

As I mooched about the school grounds, my mouth dried up with nerves and my hands were sweaty (nice!). And when I spotted Ollie leaning against the fence at the bottom of the playing field, the Leech had got there first. She was flicking her poker-straight fair hair and grinning at him with her eyes stretched wide. She looked
mad
, actually. I wandered over. “So you lived in London, did you?” I heard her asking in that infuriating squeaky voice.

“Yeah,” he replied. “We moved here a couple of weeks ago.”

“D'you like it?” At this point she'd started twirling her hair with a finger. I could have actually puked right there on the grass.

“I think so.” He smiled at her. “Just settling in really, finding my way around…”

“Bet it was great, living in London…”

Ollie shrugged. “It was, y'know, OK.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I know what you mean.”

How
did she know? Bet she hasn't even been to London. She was jiggling around him, all eager and panty like a little puppy. Any minute now she'd start licking his face. “Oh, hi, Cassie,” she trilled, spotting me strolling casually by. “Did you sort out that …
thing
?”

“What thing?” I didn't know what she was on about, but I wished she'd just disappear in a puff of smoke. Ollie was looking at me, and when he smiled I went tingly all over. It felt like every cell in my body was kind of …
shimmering.

“You know,” the Leech retorted. “Weren't you talking about things coming in different sizes?” She exploded with laughter.

Oh God. Why did she have to bring that up now? She was still sniggering, and Ollie looked confused, and I wondered what had possessed me to think I could march up to him and start chatting and be his friend. “I don't know what you're talking about, Amber,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. Then I folded my left arm over my left side and walked away as fast as I could to find Marcia and Evie.

 

The three of us went out for a baguette at lunchtime. “The Leech ruined everything,” I told them as we squished on to a bench in the high street. “She was going on about things coming in different sizes.” I prodded my left side, where I'd stuffed a bit of loo roll into my bra. Our school uses horrible cheap stuff so it was really scratchy. I was worried it'd make a rustly noise if I moved the wrong way.

“Who cares about her?” Marcia retorted. “She's such an airhead.”

“Anyway,” Evie cut in, “never mind the Leech. What about Ollie?”

“What about him?” I asked glumly.

“Well, if you like him that much, you should ask him out or something…”

“I couldn't do that!” I exclaimed.

“Why not?” Evie asked with a shrug. “You're making it pretty obvious anyway. You were staring at him all through English…”

“And registration,” Marcia pointed out.

“I was not staring!”

“OK. Not staring,” Evie agreed. “Just drooling, then.” A bit of bread shot out of Marcia's mouth and on to the pavement as she burst out laughing.

“I was
not
drooling,” I spluttered.

“Right,” Marcia said. “What did we do in English, then?”

“Um, er…”

“Got memory loss?” Evie asked.

“I was … daydreaming. I just haven't clicked back into school yet after the holidays.”

“Pffff,” Evie sniggered, taking a gigantic chomp off the end of her baguette. “Can't imagine
what
you were daydreaming about.”

“Just stuff,” I said, which sent us all into hysterics. I felt better already, just being out of school with Marcia and Evie, who have the knack of making me see the funny side of things. And Ollie
did
smile at me – in registration and in the playing field. The thought of those smiles hovered about in my mind for the rest of the day.

How has Ollie managed to become so popular in just one day? I've lived in Tarmouth all my life and don't have people gathered around me, all chatting and asking questions, like he does. Half the time it was the Leech, Jade, Natasha and the rest of her hangers-on. Then it was Sam, Joey, and a few other boys, so it looks like he's got a group of mates already. I couldn't bring myself to talk to him with so many people around.

Then, first period after lunch, I spotted him wandering along looking a little bit lost in the corridor. “Hi,” I said as we passed. I also flashed a huge, friendly smile, which I hoped made him realize that if he needed any help settling in, I mean
anything at all
, then I was the girl to do it. I also hoped to God there wasn't any lunch stuck to my teeth.

“Hi,” he said. Then he paused and looked at me with those melty brown eyes, which was hotly embarrassing because I didn't know what to say next.

“Um, Carrie…” Ollie fished out a crumpled timetable from his trouser pocket.

“Cassie,” I corrected him. “My name's Cassie.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“S'OK,” I said with a shrug, as if I was used to being called the wrong name and it didn't bother me at all.

He frowned at his timetable. “D'you know where Mr Snow's class is?”

“Yeah,” I said, but as I started to tell him my mind went kind of … empty. It was as if all the little cogs in my brain had suddenly stopped working. “Er, Mr Snow…” I mumbled over the thumping of my heart.

“French,” Ollie said, giving me a strange look. I had my left arm clamped over the left side of my body to disguise my “unusual” shape.

“Oh yeah,” I said with a loud, stupid laugh. “You're in Mr Snow's class, are you? I get Miss Hitchin for French. Mr Snow's stricter but he'll be fine with you, seeing as you're new…”

“Er, right,” he said with a grin.
Shut up, Cassie. Shut up.
“So where's his class?” he prompted me.

“Oh, um … go along to the end, turn left, and I think his room's, er, second on the…”

“Have you hurt your arm?” Ollie interrupted.

“What? No. Why?” I kept it bent and stuck to my body. The loo paper had got too scratchy so I was going about unpadded.

“It's just, you're holding it like this…” He copied my odd pose.

“I'm fine. It's just kinda … achy.” I winced and gave the elbow area a little rub with my other hand.

“Why?” Ollie frowned.

“Um … I'm not sure. Growing pains, I think. That's what my dad said.”

“Can you get those in your elbow?”

“Yeah.” I nodded firmly. “I'm sure you can. It's all to do with the, er … joint. And the bones.”
Shut your great big idiot mouth, Cassie Malone, before he thinks you're insane.

“Is it?” His lips twitched a bit.

“Uh-huh. Everything grows too quickly, faster than the bones can keep up, so you get these pains in the, er…” I tailed off and blinked down at my shoes. What was I on about, pretending to be some kind of bone expert?

“Don't you have classes, you two?” barked Miss Rashley, marching towards us with her nostrils flaring and a furious scowl on her face.

“Just going,” I gabbled, hurrying away, relieved that she'd got me out of the bone conversation. And at least we'd talked, me and Ollie. Take that, push-up-bra-Leech. She might have simpered all over him with her fluttery eyes and flicky hair, but he seemed
genuinely
worried about my elbow. Which must mean…

Actually, I don't know what it means. But I'm going to have to sort out the boob situation urgently.

Normally I'm ready for school in about six minutes. Today, though, I tried to do my hair so it wasn't so wild and messy-looking (my shoulder-length muddy-coloured hair has a mind of its own) and wondered if maybe one day I might persuade Mum to buy me some straighteners.

“What are you doing in there?” she yelled through the locked bathroom door, while I rummaged through our cupboard for something to make my hair lie flat. Dad's anti-baldie lotion stuff was sitting there on the shelf, and I was so tempted to slap a bit on my boob to see if it might speed up its growth.

“Cassie!” Mum shouted again.

“She's
beautifying
,” chuckled my big brother Ned from the landing. “She's transforming herself into a vision of loveliness.”

“How long will that take?” Mum retorted in response.

“Years,” I growled, wishing we had a proper second bathroom – an
en suite
like Marcia's – instead of just one for our whole family. How are five people meant to manage with just one bathroom? We do have a broken old toilet in the horrible stinking shed at the bottom of our garden, but I doubt if anyone's used it since Victorian times. You'd probably get some kind of bum disease if you sat on that loo.

Later, at school, I heard the Leech saying to Jade, “Looks like Cassie's actually tried to do her hair today, ha ha!”

“Yeah,” Jade said. “Wonder why?”

They both burst out laughing, then the Leech said, “C'mon, let's ask her for some styling tips.”

I bolted away down the corridor before they could get me, wishing I wasn't such a coward. Perhaps combing through conditioner and leaving it in wasn't such a great idea, even though I'd read it as a beauty tip in one of Marcia's magazines. Ollie smiled at me, though, in history. He either didn't notice my peculiar lank hair, or is too in awe of my sparkling personality to care what I look like.

Big sis Beth was whisked off at seven thirty a.m. by her boyfriend Henry to some posh family do miles and miles away. I can't stand Henry. He drenches himself in so much aftershave it's a wonder he manages to breathe in any oxygen. And Beth's not much better. She's just turned eighteen and is meant to be on a gap year, which I'd assumed meant doing exciting stuff like trekking through India or swimming with dolphins, but all she seems to do is paint her nails and drool over Henry. As soon as they'd left, I snuck into her room to nick some of her baby-soft tissues. I stuffed a whole wodge of them into the left cup of my bra and was quite pleased with the natural-looking result. But when I glanced down in morning break, the tissue clump had worked its way down to my stomach. Now it looked like I had some kind of horrible growth.

Left boob
still
hasn't grown. No wonder I'm feeling so unbalanced.