Girl, 15: Charming but Insane (27 page)

I
’m going to be blogging away (I wrote glogging by accident at first and I kind of like it, so I might be glogging too) and I can promise you loads of laughs, polls, quizzes, interactive stuff, downloadable goodies, plus sensational secrets that Fred, Flora, Ben, Mackenzie and Jodie have begged me to never reveal! Do
n
’t tell them I sent you — and promise yo
u
’ll be there!

Love,

Jess!

Loved this story about Jess?

You’ll adore

Absolute Torture!

Chapter 1

Disaster! Jess tried to hide her horror.

Her mum frowned. ‘What’s wrong, sweetheart? It’s what you’ve always wanted. A trip to see your dad! I rang him about it last night and he can’t wait to see you! And there’ll be sun, sea, art and ice cream! Plus lots of interesting places on the way down to Cornwall. It’s the holiday of a lifetime. For goodness’ sake, Jess! What’s the matter?’

Jess could not possibly, ever, tell. She would rather run through the supermarket stark naked and farting than reveal her secret to Mum. This sudden fabulous surprise holiday was going to ruin her life, big time. Jess’s heart sank and sank and sank until it was right down on the carpet like a very ill pet.

But she must try and sound delighted. ‘Nothing’s wrong! I’ve just got a bit of a headache. But hey, Mum! Thanks! It’ll be fantastic! When do we leave?’ She tried desperately to force a bit of enthusiasm into her voice, but it was hopeless – like trying to cram her bum into size 10 jeans.

‘We’ll set off the day after tomorrow,’ said her mum, with the excited smile of a practised torturer. ‘Early. There won’t be so much traffic then, and we can just potter gently down into the countryside. Oh, I can’t wait! It’s going to be marvellous!’

Mum’s eyes glazed over and she stared out of the window with a look of faraway rapture, as if the angel of the Lord had just appeared over Tesco’s.

‘Ruined abbeys!’ she drooled. ‘Rare wild flowers! Bronze Age burial mounds!’

Jess sometimes thought her mum was slightly off her head. Maybe if her parents had stayed together it would have kept Mum sane. But then again, maybe not. Her dad was kind of crazy, too.

‘Start packing!’ said Mum. ‘You’ve only got twenty-four hours!’ And she rushed off upstairs, possibly to pack
Fabulous Fossils and Fascinating Cracks in the Ground
or
Stylish Sea Urchins of the South West
.

Twenty-four hours! Jess had to think fast. She had just one day to put an end to this horrendous talk of a holiday. Could she become dangerously ill in twenty-four hours? Could she discreetly vandalise the car so it would never, ever, start again? Could she, acting with utmost care of course, slightly burn the house down?

She had to see Fred. Dear Fred! He would know what to do. Perhaps they could elope. Although they had no money. Perhaps they could elope to the bottom of his garden. It was a bit overgrown down there. There was a huge tree. They could secretly live in the tree. A bit like Tarzan and Jane, only without the muscles or the beauty.

Darling Fred! She had to text him now! Jess raced up to her bedroom but – how cruel fate was – her mobile phone had disappeared. The floor of her room was covered with scattered heaps of clothes, CDs, books and empty chocolate wrappers, as if it had been ransacked by wild animals in the night. Jess flung the debris around for a moment and then decided to cut her losses and just go round to Fred’s house without texting him. He was bound to be there. He almost never went anywhere without telling her these days.

She just had to check her make-up first. Jess headed for the kitchen where there was a small mirror above the sink, so you could stare into your own tortured eyes as you washed the dishes. She sighed. Her eyebrows were rubbish. They would have been rubbish even on an orang-utan.

Never mind. This was no time to pluck an eyebrow. She flung open the fridge and grabbed a can of Coke. No, wait, that should be water. Although she and Fred were close, they hadn’t yet passed the gas barrier. Silent pants were desirable in his company.

Jess got a glass of water and drank it while looking in the mirror.
Glug, glug, glug
went her throat, like a snake eating a whole family of gerbils. Most unattractive.

‘Have you seen my teeth?’ came a sudden spooky voice behind her. But it wasn’t a spectral presence. It was only Granny. Actually, what she said was, ‘Have you feen my teeth?’ because when she lost her teeth she couldn’t pronounce her ‘s’s. She called Jess ‘Jeff’. This was slightly irritating. Jess wasn’t completely opposed to the idea of a sex change, but if she did unexpectedly become a male person, she wanted to be called Justin, not Jeff.

‘Have you looked under your pillow?’ asked Jess. They went into Granny’s room and found the teeth immediately.

‘My goodneff, you are brilliant at finding things, dear,’ said Granny. ‘You fould work in airport fecurity when you leave fchool.’

Jess laughed. Granny’s teeth were always either in a glass of water on the bedside table, or under the pillow.

‘No, Granny, I’m going to be a stand-up comedian, remember?’ said Jess. ‘Not as glamorous as airport security, obviously, but somebody’s got to perform the back-breaking drudgery of making people laugh.’

Granny picked up her teeth and for a moment used them in a kind of ventriloquist act.

‘Hello, Jeff!’ she said in a squeaky voice she always used for the teeth. ‘What’f for fupper?’ Granny made the teeth chomp together in a hungry kind of way.

This little cabaret had amused Jess quite a lot when she was younger, but now, quite frankly, it was beginning to lose its allure. Jess was desperate to escape and fly to the arms of Fabulous Fred. She laughed politely and backed off down the hallway towards the front door.

‘Let’f go and watch the news,’ said Granny, ramming her teeth back into her mouth with panache. ‘There’s been an explosion in Poland, it’s terrible. Hundreds feared dead.’ Granny was quite ghoulish in her addiction to catastrophe.

‘I’ve got to go out, Granny,’ said Jess, looking at her watch in an important way. ‘I’ve got to say goodbye to my friends before I go on holiday.’

‘Ah! Our lovely trip! I’m so looking forward to it, dear, aren’t you? Grandpa and I spent our honeymoon in Cornwall, you know.’

Jess had heard this story approximately 99,999 times.
Please don’t say anything more about it, Granny
, she thought desperately,
or I might just have to bundle you away affectionately but briskly into the cupboard under the stairs
.

‘And,’ Granny went on excitedly, ‘I’m taking Grandpa’s ashes so I can throw them into the sea!’

Jess smiled through gritted teeth and reached behind her to open the front door.

‘Lovely, Granny! Fabulous idea! Ashes, sea – go for it! Kind of like the afterlife is a scuba-diving holiday!’

Granny laughed. She was amazingly broad-minded and would probably laugh at her own funeral.

‘Now you must excuse me, Granny – I really must go! Flora’s waiting for me in the park!’

‘Oh, all right dear – I’ll keep you posted on the Polish explosion when you get back!’ promised Granny.

She trotted eagerly into the sitting room, heading for the TV. It was already two minutes past five and she might have missed some glorious brand-new disaster. Granny had come to live with them fairly recently and it had certainly brightened things up in the Jordan household. However, right now Jess’s thoughts were elsewhere.

She ran out of the house and sped down the road. It had been a lie about Flora waiting for her in the park. An excuse to get away. The person she really had to see was Fred.

Please God
, she prayed as she hurtled off towards the sacred house where the divine Fred Parsons lived.
Save me, please, from this terrible holiday! Sprain my ankle! Sprain both my ankles! And please let Fred be in!

Chapter 2

As she ran to Fred’s house, Jess tried to get a grip on the situation. But it was totally out of control. The best summer ever had turned into howling darkness in less than half an hour.

Jess and Fred had only just become an item, and they had planned to spend the whole summer together in the park. They were going to have a picnic lunch under a different tree every day. They had even planned some bus trips out of town, to wander through forests or walk hand in hand on a beach, ‘like an insurance ad’, as Fred had put it.

And of course, once it got dark, they would probably have spent hours and hours practising the tiresome business of kissing and cuddling. Every night for the past week, by the park gates, in a private dark place under a tree, Fred had kissed her goodnight. Jess’s skin sort of sizzled at the memory of it.

‘I suppose we’d better go through the whole meaningless charade of a goodnight kiss – if we can manage it,’ Fred had murmured the first time. ‘In fact, I’ve been chewing gum all evening in preparation for this moment.’ He had spat out his gum – quite stylishly into a rubbish bin – and they had gone for it.

Their first kiss. It had been long, slow and delicious. Jess’s heart had gone into overdrive. And eventually, when they pulled apart, Fred had whispered, ‘What do you think of that? Awful, wasn’t it?’

‘Nauseating!’ Jess had sighed, and laid her head on his heart.

What fatal instinct had made her mum choose this moment to plan a holiday? The very moment when suddenly just being at home had become heaven on earth? Normally, of course, Jess would have loved nothing more than to go down to the seaside and visit her slightly crazy but totally cute dad, and help him with his rather gloomy paintings of beaches and seagulls. But just right now . . . the thought of going away was torture.