Girl, (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture! (29 page)

Jess could not speak. She could not believe it. She cared more about Fred than anyone else on earth, and he wanted to pretend they were deadly enemies. Her world was shattered. Suddenly she just couldn’t bear it any longer. She scrambled to her feet – not elegantly, alas, more like a hippo in haste.

‘Why not do the job properly?’ she said, struggling to keep her voice light and ironical. ‘Never mind pretending – let’s actually
be
deadly enemies. Strange that perfect happiness can give way suddenly to complete hell, but I suppose that’s life. Goodbye.’

Fred looked up in alarm. Tears, which Jess had been hoping to keep private, burst suddenly from her eyes. She turned abruptly and marched off.

‘Wait! Don’t be an idiot!’ called Fred. He was getting up. Jess broke into a run. ‘Jess! Come back! I was only kidding!’ Fred started to chase her.

The moment she heard the words ‘only kidding’, a kind of explosion happened in Jess’s insides. For a moment, she was more
immensely
relieved than she had ever been in her life – not counting the much-postponed comfort stop on the school trip to Stratford-upon-Avon.

But a moment later, she began to doubt it. Only kidding? How could he have made a joke of something so sacred? How could he have upset her so much? She would never speak to him again. She would never even look at him again. Never even refer to him. Never pronounce the word ‘Fred’, even when discussing the late, great Freddie Mercury. Perhaps never even use any word at all beginning with ‘F’. Although that might be hard.

And anyway, she didn’t believe he
had
been joking. There had been something horribly real about the way he’d confessed his fears. He’d been hesitant and the posh voice hadn’t been convincing. If it had really been a joke, Fred would have given a much more polished performance. Well, joke or not, either way, right now she hated him with a bitter, burning passion.

She could hear Fred panting and yelling as he chased her. It wasn’t exactly an Olympic event. Overweight girl – slightly overweight girl – wearing new, much-too-tight shoes, chased by bookish boy with long wobbly legs, who is intellectually opposed to the whole notion of physical exercise.

Eventually, of course, Fred caught up with her. After all, he was wearing trainers. He grabbed her jacket. It ripped.

‘You idiot!’ yelled Jess, and turned to face him.

Fred grabbed her wrist. His large grey eyes were bigger than ever.

‘Stop! Don’t be silly!’ he panted. ‘It was only a joke. I was just kidding.’

‘Some joke!’ yelled Jess, struggling to get free. ‘You dumping me! Big laughs!’

‘Of course I’m not dumping you!’ said Fred. ‘You’re the whatyacallit of my life! I worship the pavement outside your house! I would rather walk down the high street in my boxer shorts than lose you! I’d rather actually
take a dump
on the stage in front of the whole school than dump you!’

Jess closed her mind to all this sordid talk of dumping. She was horribly, insanely furious with him. She felt completely out of control.

‘Well, as it happens,’ she seethed, ‘what you said in jest, I’d been feeling for some time anyway.’ Words came tumbling out of her mouth. She hardly even knew what she was saying. All she knew was that she wanted to hurt Fred, to pay him back for the horrible pain that he had caused her. Fred’s whole body sort of cringed, and his face crumpled.

‘What?’ he gasped, grabbing at her again.

‘Let me go!’ shouted Jess, struggling, hysterical. ‘It’s over. I’ve had it up to here with you, and what you said just now is the final insult. Goodbye.’

‘I’m sorry!’ said Fred. He went down on his knees. ‘It was stupid. Forgive me! Set me nine impossible tasks. I’ll do them. I’ll eat tofu – anything.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Jess icily. ‘I’m going home.’ She stepped past him and walked briskly off towards the park gate.

Somehow she expected to hear Fred running up after her again. But he didn’t. Jess went through the gate and turned left to go home. No bounding footsteps followed her. She was desperate to turn round and run back to him, or at least look and see what he was doing, but she just couldn’t.

Besides, she had a lot of crying to do, once she got home. First of all, she had to cry about Fred saying such cruel things: being ashamed of her. Then she had to cry about the way she’d reacted, making things worse. Last of all – and worst – she had to cry because Fred hadn’t followed her begging and pleading to be forgiven, but had just somehow stayed dumbly behind in the park, the fool. How in the world had this awful row just blown up out of nowhere? Were they finished for good, or was it just a row? Either way, she was heartbroken.

Luckily, because Jess had had such a happy summer up till now, her teddy bear Rasputin was divinely dry, absorbent and ready to soak up whole monsoons of crying.

Get to Know Sue Limb with her Q & A!

 Name: Sue Limb.

Star sign:
Virgo.

Favourite colour:
Green.

Favourite number:
Seven.

Favourite thing to do:
Give my dog a bath.

Favourite food:
Anything with pesto.

Where were you born?
Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England.

Where do you live now?
On a remote farm in       Gloucestershire.

What were you like at school?
A tomboy-ish nerd.

Have you got brothers and sisters?
One older       brother, who’s a jazz musician.

What did you want to be as a child?
Secretary-     General of the United Nations (I told you I was a       nerd).

How did you start writing?
At age two, I liked doodling the letter ‘S’. When I grew up, I tried teaching,    couldn’t cope, and writing seemed to be the only      thing possible.

What did you do before you were a writer?
I was a    teacher, screaming in vain for quiet while my       classes rioted gently around me.

Where do you write?
Anywhere – I particularly like writing on trains. But when I’m at home, in a room with windows opening into a wild wood.

What was your favourite book as a child?
The Railway Children
by E. Nesbit.

What’s your favourite children’s book now?
Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak.

What’s your favourite adult book?
Persuasion
by Jane Austen.

What tips do you have for budding writers?
Read a lot!

What’s your favourite TV programme?
Frasier.

What makes you laugh?
Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as the Surgeons.

What’s your favourite movie?
Some Like It Hot
.

Who do you imagine playing Jess, Flora and Fred in a movie?
Carey Mulligan would be Jess, Emma Watson would be Flora and Jamie Campbell Bower would be Fred.

Books by Sue Limb (in reading order):

Flirting for England

Charming But Insane

Absolute Torture!

Pants on Fire

Five-Star Fiasco

Chocolate SOS

Coming soon:

Party Disaster!

Girls, Guilty But Somehow Glorious

Girls, Muddy, Moody Yet Magnificent

Girls to Total Goddesses

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

First published in Great Britain in April 2005 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

This electronic edition published in January 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Text copyright © Sue Limb 2005

Revised text copyright © Sue Limb 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved

You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,

printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the

publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication

may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781408812778

www.bloomsbury.com

www.JessJordan.co.uk

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