Cassie's Crush (3 page)

No chance to talk to Ollie this morning because there was a swarm of people buzzing around him at break. I'm glad he's hanging out with Sam and Joey, though. They're pretty friendly and like a laugh, which might make getting to know Ollie a bit easier.

The three of them were hanging about outside the chippy at lunchtime. They were chatting, probably about London and how it compares to living in such a boring place like Tarmouth, where even the pier fell into the sea because it couldn't be bothered with the place any more. Me and Evie had walked past the chippy queue when someone shouted, “Hey, Cassie!”

I whirled around to see who it was. Sam was grinning at me and holding out his bag of chips. “Want one?” he asked.

“Thanks,” I said, going back to take one from his bag.

Ollie was watching me. I was trying to focus on Sam because I knew if I even glanced at Ollie, I'd go bright red and not be able to speak normally. “Growing pains any better?” Ollie asked with a smirk.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I mumbled to the ground.

“Have you been ill or something?” Sam asked, looking concerned.

“No, no,” I said quickly. “It's just … just some pains I was having the other day.”

I'd told Evie all about the growing pains incident, and she was giggling as we walked away from the boys. “Maybe you should see a doctor, Cassie,” she teased. “Those pains of yours sound serious.”

 

After school, I phoned Mum and said I was going to Marcia's. She sounded annoyed. “I've got a few jobs for you, Cassie,” she said, which made me even gladder that Marcia had asked me over (even though Marcia's mum can be a bit scary and never seems exactly delighted whenever I go round). Me and Marcia had dinner in their huge, incredibly tidy kitchen, with her mum banging cups and things in the background. We had steak and a big salad, like in a restaurant, and Marcia's mum made fresh drinks from real oranges in the kind of machine you normally only get in juice bars. No wonder Marcia's developing properly. She gets all the vitamins her body needs.

It was a relief to get away from her mum and escape to Marcia's room. “Think Ollie will end up going out with the Leech?” I asked as we lounged on her huge double bed with its vast assortment of posh velvet cushions.

“Are you insane?” she exclaimed. “Of course he won't, Cass. Why would he go out with a total airhead with sticky-out boobs who talks in an ickle girlie voice?” When Marcia says stuff like this, she always sounds so confident and absolutely sure that she's right. And she's
great
at imitating the Leech.

“Well,” I said, “she usually gets what she wants, doesn't she?”

“She's a spoiled brat,” Marcia declared, “and all she cares about is what she looks like. D'you really think he'd like someone as shallow as that?”

“Yes, but…” I tailed off and tried to take in what she'd said.
Marcia's right
, I thought as I ran home later.
Why would a gorgeous London boy want a bubble-head girlfriend when he could go out with someone like me – i.e., someone who actually has a brain and opinions?
Actually, I could think of a million reasons. But I tried to squash them all out of my head.

Mum came up just after nine a.m. and found me lying on my bed, plotting ways to have the Leech sent away to another continent. “
Here
you are,” she said, like she'd spent hours searching all over for me. “Get up, Cassie! There's stuff to do. I need you to help me clean out the van.”

“But I've got homework,” I said, leaping off my bed and scrabbling in my bag for my English jotter.

“You've got all weekend for that,” she said, as if my schoolwork – my whole
future
– didn't matter one bit. She made my lazy old brother help too, forcing him off the sofa and snatching his life-support device (the TV remote) off him. It was weird, seeing Ned without it gripped in his hand. Like part of his body was missing.

Princess Beth wasn't made to help as her enormous brain was far too busy with important matters like deciding whether to go for the pearly lilac or turquoise nail polish. She actually said she had a pounding headache
and
earache, then stood there, gloating, at the top of the stairs (not looking remotely ill) while me and Ned were shoved out into the drizzle by Mum. It's not fair. Beth is treated like royalty around here, just because she's the eldest. Mum doesn't expect Dad to help much either, but that's probably because he works really long hours at the Jolly Jam Company. I used to love going to the factory occasionally with Dad, and getting to wear a little blue hair net. Although I'd still like to go, I'd feel a bit silly asking now.

So there we were, me and Ned in full view of the public, scrubbing and hosing the outside of the van. That would be OK-ish if it were a normal van. But it's not normal. It's bright pink, with
Posh Pooches
painted on the side and a big picture of a grinning poodle. When she decided to start a dog-grooming business, Mum reckoned Posh Pooches was the best name ever. My (much better) suggestions “lacked pizzazz”, as she put it. I suggested:

No Barking.
I imagined something like a No Parking sign but of a dog crossed out. Mum said that was stupid, as it sounded as if she didn't allow dogs in her dog-grooming van, and did I think that would be good for business? I said I wasn't thinking in a business way. I was thinking
creatively.

Simply the Pets.
This started her singing “Simply the Best” and dancing madly, so I regretted even suggesting it. Dad just kept sniggering and shaking his head, then went back to reading the sports pages of the newspaper. No one complains about him “lacking pizzazz”.

It took me and Ned
two hours
to scrub out the van. At least Ned had brought out the inflatable mallet he won at a fair, and kept bopping me on the head to make me work harder (a sixteen-year-old boy should be too old for blow-up mallets, really, but I love it that Ned's such an idiot). Mum just stood there barking instructions, chatting to her best friend Suzie and waving her cigarette about. And Beth had a totally stressful afternoon lying on the sofa while pushing back her cuticles with a little wooden stick.

Went swimming with Marcia and just had to brazen out the boob thing in the pool. While I can camouflage it with bra-stuffing and fifty layers of thick clothes, I couldn't stuff my costume with tissue as it'd have gone all soggy and floated out in little flakes.

Stalking Paul was in the pool and kept staring and grinning at me. “My God, the boy's in love,” Marcia kept sayin
g, digging me in the ribs.

“Lucky me,” I groaned.

“He adores you! Look, he can't take his eyes off you.” I had to hold my nose and duck under the water, just to escape his creepy staring for a few seconds. And when I came up, gasping for air, he was still grinning at me. The tragic thing is, Paul's the
only
boy in the entire world who's ever really shown any interest in me. And when I say “shown interest”, I mean he's always there, hovering, with a slimy little smile on his face.

Thankfully, Sam and Joey turned up at the pool, and Paul started showing off the great dives he can do (belly flops, more like). Most of the boys either tease or ignore him, so he was probably chuffed to bits when Sam said, “Er, well done, Paul, but you don't really have to show me again. I kind of get the picture.” Me and Marcia had a Coke and crisps with Sam and Joey, and then it started pouring so I called Dad and asked if he'd pick us up, because no one else's parents would do it. He's nice like that. Mum would say she was far too busy and ask what was wrong with my legs (or the bus), but Dad turned up fifteen minutes later in his rattly little car with a smile on his face, and didn't complain about dropping off Joey, Sam and Marcia in all different parts of town. I just wish our car didn't whiff of cheese. The smell's been there for weeks, and every time we get in the car it's a little bit worse. Although Sam wrinkled his nose, everyone was too polite to ask why, and Dad hasn't been able to figure out why either.

 

I sat up late in bed, using Ned's laptop to Google ways to make my left boob catch up with the right one. Here's what I learned:

 

1. It's normal for bodies to be asymmetrical and almost everyone has different-sized hands and feet. Who cares about hands and feet? You can disguise them in shoes and gloves. But there's going to come a point – like this summer, on the beach – when everyone'll notice my tiddly fried-egg boob compared to the normal one. Will I have to wear a jumper all year?

2. As my right boob is bigger, that's probably my dominant side. Well, that's just
fascinating.
Congratulations, right side.

3. It will “probably” even out “eventually”. This is as reassuring as Dad saying he'll “probably” find out why our car smells of cheese “eventually”.

4. I am obviously a freak.

I was all fired up to be friendly to Ollie when the Leech came strutting over in her stupid peep-toe boots and MADE HIM GIVE HER A PIGGYBACK!!! He was laughing, which either means he liked doing it, or was just trying being nice and humouring her, which means he's a lovely person as well as being the cutest boy ever in Tarmouth. Sigh. I'm now convinced that Ollie's never going to be interested in an unsymmetrical girl who spends most of her spare time working for her mum for no money (i.e. slavery).

P.S. Everyone could see the Leech's knickers while she was on Ollie's back. They were bright pink with sparkly red hearts on. Puke…

Got soaked walking home from school. Marcia had gone ice-skating and Evie was having a piano lesson. I'm not allowed to do stuff like that ‘cause it's too expensive, Mum says. Maybe if she had a proper job, and Dad could get promoted at the jam factory, we'd have more money so I could be an ice-skating pianist or something instead of just a lopsided freak with no special talents.

A lorry thundered past me, sloshing me with stinking puddle water. I hurried on, conscious of Stalking Paul breathing heavily behind me. “Cassie! Wait up!” he shouted.

I walked even faster with my head down.

“Hey, Cass,” he yelled again, “you're all wet!”

I stopped and examined myself. “You're right,” I said. “Thanks for pointing it out. Otherwise I might not have noticed.”

I started walking again and he fell into step with me, chomping his gum with big jaw movements like a cow chewing cud. “I've just realized something,” he said.

“What's that?” I asked.

“You know boob?”

“Huh?” Even though I had my coat on, I still jammed my arm over my left side.

“Boob,” Paul repeated. “Like, the
word
boob…”

“Uh, yeah,” I mumbled.

“It's the same spelt backwards as it is forwards!” Paul announced, like he'd just discovered the cure for cancer. Then he poked at the yellow-headed spot on his chin.

“Is it really?” I said.

“Yeah. Like, B-O-O-B,” Paul said, spelling it out in case I'd had my head opened up and my brain removed.

“Mmmm,” I said.

“Another's one's P-O-O-P,” he added. His spot was really huge. If you can call a spot angry then this one was
furious
. “It's funny, innit,” he said, “how all the rude words are the same spelt backwards as they are forwards?”

“Are they?”

“Yeah! Like, like…”

There was a pause while his brain clanked and grinded. “Bum!” he announced, hurrying to keep up as I strode along.

I slid my eyes over to him. “That's not the same. Backwards, it's spelled MUB.”

We stopped beside Mum's glowing pink van. “Oh yeah,” Paul said sheepishly.

“Well,” I said, “thanks for the tip. If I'm stuck on how to spell any rude words I'll know where to come.”

He looked confused, like he didn't know if I was joking or not. “Er, Cassie,” he added, shuffling a bit.

“Yeah?”

“Would you, er, would you like to…” Oh no. He was blushing bright red, so I had a pretty good idea what was coming next, even though I've never been asked out by a boy in my life. A load of responses whizzed round my head, like, “Sorry, Paul, I'm really busy at the moment – forever, in fact…”

“I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime?” he muttered.

“Erm, I can't really,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I'm going out with somebody already.” The words shot out before I could stop them. I turned and ran into the house, praying he wouldn't tell anyone at school or there'll be a “Who's Cassie Malone going out with?” thing flying round. And Ned will find out and it'll be all round his year as well. So I'll never hear the end of it at home either. I thought being asked out was supposed to be a
good thing
?