Girl, 15: Charming but Insane (20 page)

The mysterious boy didn’t ring again, though. Jess couldn’t risk phoning Fred, in case it hadn’t been him. It might have been Ben, or possibly Mackenzie, or even the dreaded Whizzer. After all, he had once squeezed her minestrone. The phone call did give Jess that tiny shred of hope which she needed in order to get through the evening without throwing herself off the kitchen table. Otherwise, putting Granny’s eardrops in would have been the highlight of the night.

After supper Jess’s mum was watching a programme about the history of England, as she had a crush on Oliver Cromwell. So Jess couldn’t distract herself with music channels. She went up to her room and carried on getting her clothes out of plastic sacks and hanging them up. It was a major, major task. It could take years. She might just about have finished it in five years’ time. By then it would be time to leave home, and she’d have to start packing it up again.

Who was this boy who had rung and refused to leave his name? Whizzer, who had only been attracted to her because of vegetable soup? Ben Jones, who hung around with her now and then because his best mate was going out with hers? Or Fred, who was hardly on speaking terms with her now, and regarded her as just part of ‘everybody’? Heavens! She had been inside that boy’s pyjamas. Not at the same time as him, obviously. But it must count for something. Though not, apparently, to Fred.

As Jess walked into school the next day, she bumped into Ben Jones by the noticeboards.

‘How did the band practice go?’ she asked.

He pulled a face. ‘We wuz rubbish,’ he said. He didn’t say anything about having rung her the night before. So it more or less had to be Fred. But Jess wasn’t sure how she was going to find out.

Third lesson was English. Everybody would be there. If Fred had rung her, he might mention it, or give her a sign, or something. If only she had remembered to give him his money back! It had added insult to injury. Poor Fred. He must think she was a monster.

As she entered the English room, Mr Fothergill was giving out a worksheet. Fred was sitting at the front, reading. He always used to sit at the back with her and Flora. He didn’t look up as she came in, or as she passed. She ignored him right back, twice as hard, and sat down with Flora. Mackenzie and Ben Jones were sitting next to Flora. It now seemed impossible ever to see Flora on her own. Jess would have to kidnap her and take her off to a remote mountain hut just to enjoy a girly chat.

Flora gave Jess a dazzling smile, but then turned straight back to Mackenzie and whispered something in his ear. And squeezed his arm.

‘Now,’ said Mr Fothergill, ‘I just want to finish off Shakespeare for this year, so from next lesson we can all concentrate on writing something original. Creative writing. Don’t forget, if you want to submit anything for the school newspaper, give it to Fred. How’s it going, Fred?’

‘Snowed under with stuff,’ muttered Fred. ‘Can’t cope. Contemplating suicide.’

‘Good, good,’ beamed Mr Fothergill. ‘That’s the spirit.’

Then Mr Fothergill explained about the final worksheet on
Twelfth Night
. Jess stopped listening. She was thinking about the newspaper. She had so many ideas for it. A Lonely Hearts column, for instance. A gossip column. A cartoon competition. Everyone could do cartoons of the teachers and the winners could be published.

She had so many ideas, but she wasn’t going to ‘send stuff in’. Fred might not accept it. He might send it back, or just lose it. Why hadn’t Fred invited her to write something? He so clearly hated her guts. He had invited Jodie, for goodness’ sake, and Jodie could hardly hold a pen.

‘OK, get on with it,’ said Mr Fothergill.

Jess got on with it. Mr Fothergill had meant the Shakespeare worksheet, but Jess thought she would start with the Lonely Hearts idea.

Girl, 15, charming but insane, 70 spots to support, greasy dark hair, smells slightly of Grann
y
’s eardrop fluid, bum looks big in everything, boobs will never win prizes at the village show, crazy moments, imagination tends to run away with her, seeks godlike boy with spiky golden hair that shines like a crown, eyes of swimming-pool blue, and a smile that can make baked beans boil in their can.
(Ben Jones, obviously.)
No football fanatics, computer geeks or TV violence junkies.

Although
, thought Jess,
what sort of boys does that leave?
How limited the male sex was.

Unfortunately, chaps were necessary if you wanted to have a family. If only you could reproduce by pulling a hair out of your head and putting it in water. Pretty soon it would sprout roots, like Mum’s geranium cuttings, then you would pot it up and put it on a sunny windowsill. A huge bud would form. You’d have to support it in a kind of net, like melons in greenhouses. Then, one day, you would hear a lusty cry. You’d rush to your windowsill and find the bud had burst open and a bouncing baby had dropped off into the net. Then all you had to do was think of a name for it.

Jess was into names of places at the moment. India was a nice name for a girl. Wyoming. San Francisco – although San Francisco sounded like a person’s name already. Jess realised it was probably Spanish for St Francis. She remembered St Francis was the saint who loved the birds. Eagle would be a good name for a boy. Albatross. Not Raven, though – the child would inevitably get called a Raven Lunatic.

The bell rang for the end of the lesson.

‘Jess!’ called Mr Fothergill. ‘Can I see how you’re getting on, please?’

Horror seized Jess. It was too late. She hadn’t done a single answer on the worksheet. She had had no idea that sixty minutes had passed. It felt like about five. The rest of the class went off. Flora pulled a sympathetic face and slipped Jess half a bar of chocolate. Flora, of course, had been writing away at about seventy miles an hour and had completed the worksheet exactly on time.

Fred stayed behind to ask Mr Fothergill something. Jess made an ‘after you’ kind of gesture to suggest he should go first. She didn’t want Fred to see her being humiliated by Mr Fothergill. Fred nodded a horrid polite ‘thank you’ and dived in.

‘It’s about the football reports,’ he said.

Jess immediately stopped listening. Instead she looked at the back of Fred’s head. His hair was practically down on his shoulders. It looked awful. If only he would get it cut.

Eventually Fred and Mr Fothergill sorted out the thing about the football reports, and Fred left the room without a backward glance. Jess shrugged and placed her pieces of paper on the table.

‘What is this?’ asked Mr Fothergill, peering at Jess’s sketches.

‘I got bored,’ said Jess. ‘So I invented a third sex.’

‘What about Shakespeare?’ asked Mr Fothergill.

‘I was going to start the worksheet in a minute,’ explained Jess. ‘But suddenly the bell went. I’m really sorry. I lost all track of time.’

Mr Fothergill should have been cross, but instead he went on looking at what Jess had done.

‘I like this Lonely Hearts ad,’ he said. ‘Listen, Jess – you should be doing something for the newspaper. A spoof Lonely Hearts column is a great idea. I’ll tell Fred you’re going to do it, OK?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jess, ‘but I don’t really want to write for the newspaper.’

Mr Fothergill frowned. His pudgy cheeks sort of drooped. He looked like a disappointed pig. Jess didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

‘It’s a great idea, the newspaper, I love it, and I can’t wait to read it,’ she added hastily. ‘I just can’t, like, take part right now. Sorry.’

‘Why not?’ asked Mr Fothergill.

Jess hesitated. If Mr Fothergill had been a woman teacher, Jess wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment. But she wasn’t used to talking to men about emotions and stuff. In her limited experience, they usually went pale and ran off to watch football on TV with the sound turned up very loud.

‘It’s bad vibes,’ she said. ‘Between Fred and me.’

Mr Fothergill hesitated, and pulled a face. You could see he was longing to escape into football, but there was none available in the classroom.

‘OK, well, I won’t force you,’ he said sort of shiftily. ‘But what about the end-of-term show? You did tell me once you wanted to be a stand-up comedian. The show would probably be a better idea for you anyway. You could do a monologue about a girl trying to draft a Lonely Hearts advert. Use this as a starting-off point. OK?’

Jess was suddenly terrified, and yet thrilled. She could be in the show! Not as part of Poisonous Trash, but up there on stage in her own right. Doing stand-up. She was so excited, she almost couldn’t speak. So she nodded.

‘Great!’ said Mr Fothergill. ‘I’ll tell Mr Samuels and Ms Dark – they’re organising it. Once you’ve got a draft of your monologue, I’d be happy to go through it with you, and we should rehearse it in the school hall, so you’re used to the acoustics. So let me know as soon as you’ve got it ready. And we’ve only got a few days, so get a move on.’

‘What . . .’ Jess hesitated. ‘What about the Shakespeare worksheet?’

‘Oh, heavens, yes!’ said Mr Fothergill. ‘Let me have it by tomorrow morning, or there’ll be big trouble. Well . . . medium-sized trouble, anyway,’ he concluded, with a plump piggy grin. Mr Fothergill was really nice. Jess would never eat bacon again.

It was lunchtime. Flora and the guys had gone off to a small practice room to work on their songs. Mr Samuels and Ms Dark had said they could use it in the lunch hour. There was only a piano in there, but Flora was having piano lessons (naturally, Grade 5) so she could play a bit, and Mackenzie had brought his guitar. The music teachers would be very busy from now until the show, practising with choirs and instrumental groups, and possibly also sneaking off to Lovers’ Lane now and then, but Poisonous Trash didn’t need any more help. They could practise by themselves. Mackenzie had said so. He was full of confidence. They didn’t need anybody, he said. And they certainly didn’t need Jess.

She didn’t care, though. Now she’d got a project of her own. But first she must have food. Fuel for the brain. She was starving, so she bolted down a chicken salad baguette in the canteen. She sat on her own. She didn’t want chat. Her mind was racing.

Five minutes later, her lunch was finished. Jess went to the library and sat at a table by herself. She got out a piece of paper and her pen. Right. She’d got to write a monologue that would would have them rolling in the aisles. She’d show Flora how brilliant she could be. She’d show Fred! This was her big chance. She was going to do stand-up. Big Time.

Chapter 23

For a few days, Jess’s routine was the same: in every moment of her spare time, she was in the library, working on her monologue. It was the one thing that offered an escape from the black cloud that was her problem with Fred. When Jess was concentrating on her monologue, she forgot about everything else. ‘I’m trying to draft this Lonely Hearts ad but instead I’m slowly losing the will to live . . .’

All morning she was looking forward to getting back to it at lunchtime. ‘
Young female flat-chested ape with bum so huge it blots out the sun
. . .’ All afternoon she was looking forward to getting back to it after school. ‘
Goddess, 15
. . . Or maybe that should be
Minor Deity
. . . Well, to be honest,
Minor Deity with a colourful range of skin ailments
. . .’ She got a peculiar excited feeling whenever she thought of it – similar to the feeling she used to get in the days when she worshipped Ben Jones from afar. She was even more crazy about her monologue than she had been about Ben.