Girls in Love (8 page)

And she does! There’s this long tight stretchy skirt that I’m scared might be a bit frumpy, but there’s a sexy slit up the back—and then she finds a satin shirt to go over the top and I try it on and it’s like—wow!—I’m not me anymore. I don’t look like some stupid podgy little kid. I look much older. Fifteen. Maybe even sixteen.

“Oh, Anna, it’s great!” I say. “But the two together are going to be ever so pricey.”

“So what?” says Anna. “Let’s go mad.”

She buys a little short bright skirt for herself that is
so
different from her usual check-shirt-and-jeans young-mum style. Anna doesn’t look older. She looks much much younger.

“Let’s buy some tarty shoes too,” she says.

We strut around in these silly heels, both of us staggering. Then we go for identical black suede shoes with little buckles.

“You have them, Ellie, it’s OK,” says Anna.

“No, it’s not fair. You saw them first. You have them, Anna.”

“You two are very sweet to each other for sisters,” says the assistant, laughing at us.

“We’re not sisters,” says Anna. “Though it feels like we are sometimes.”

“We’re . . . friends,” I says, and it’s true. For the moment, anyway.

We both get a pair of black buckled shoes and we dance down the road in them, though we’ve both got blisters by the time we get home.

Anna’s being so sweet I feel bad about telling her lies but I know the moment I mentioned Seventh Heaven she’d morph into strict stepmother mode and say No Way.

So off I go to Magda’s on Saturday and we have a fun time with her family. You should see the birthday presents they gave her! It’s not as if they’re rolling in money either. She gets a VCR for her bedroom and a satin blouse a bit like mine but much more clingy and a huge cuddly bunny and a lacy nightie and a big box of chocs and posh lipstick and nail varnish and lots of CDs and scent and a necklace and a great big basket of smelly stuff.

Nadine sends her a Forever Friends card to show she really wants to make up, with a pair of ultrasexy black knickers inside. I give Magda a cartoon card I drew myself, with Magda up on a pedestal being worshiped by all these different males, not just Greg and his mates and poor sappy Adam, but people like Mr. Lanes, the history teacher, who is quite dishy in a mature sort of way, and I add all her favorite film stars and rock stars too. It sounds like showing off, but she really loves that card—and my present too. That’s homemade as well. Anna helped me make it last night. Magda’s always liked the Cookie Monster in
Sesame Street
so I baked her a whole batch of different cookies, chocolate and raisin and cherry, and then when they were cool I put them in a special tin. It’s airtight so the cookies can keep, but as we spend most of Saturday afternoon in Magda’s room mucking around and watching videos we keep stuffing cookies one after the other, so there aren’t many actually left now.

It’s a good job my new skirt has an elasticated waistband because Magda’s mum gets together this incredible birthday cake and crème brûlée and tiramisu and banoffi pie—
and
all the poached salmon and quiche and chicken and little-sausage-on-stick stuff.

“We’d better watch what we drink at Seventh Heaven or there’s going to be a serious chucking-up situation!” Magda whispers.

I’m starting to feel a bit sick, actually, when we set out. Not because of all the food. Because suddenly Seventh Heaven is the very last place I want to go to. You have to queue up to get in and this awful bouncer guy at the door eyes you up and down and if he thinks you’re too young or too wet or too boring he won’t let you in.

I don’t want to go—but it would still be terrible to be turned away!

“Come on, Ellie! What are you hanging back for?” Magda asks.

“My shoes hurt,” I say—which is true. And the slit in my skirt isn’t that big, so my knees are a bit hobbled. “Magda . . . what if we don’t get in?”

“We will. You leave it to me,” says Magda.

“We don’t know anyone that goes there.”

“So? We’ll be part of this great new crowd,” says Magda. “And anyway, we know Nadine, don’t we?”

It’s seriously weird when we get there and join the queue. There are some very tall glam girls with very tarty clothes and lots of makeup who make me feel very small and mousy.

“Clock all those trannies!” says Magda, giving me a nudge.

I blink and take another look. Magda’s right, they’re boys under all the blusher. And there are ordinary gay guys too, in tight T-shirts and fantastic tight leather trousers, showing off their muscle tone. There are girls too, giggling together, with cropped hair and nose studs.

“I think it’s a gay night,” I hiss. “Oh, Magda, maybe we’re going to look stupid if we try to get in tonight.”

“Relax, babe. It’s
everybody’s
night,” says Magda, nodding at a crowd of guys further up the queue. “Wow, they look pretty tasty. Now, they’re not gay, I’m sure of it. And look, there are loads of straight couples too. Can you see Nadine and Dracula?”

I can’t see them at all. I just see lots and lots of cool clubby chic people and I feel smaller and sadder every second. We’re working our way up the queue now and I’m so scared the guy will yell “You must be joking, you don’t belong here, you silly little schoolgirl,” and then I’ll literally shrivel up in my suede shoes and die here and now.

But Magda winks at him saucily and he grins at her and nods us both in, just like that. I can’t believe it!

It’s so great, seeing inside Seventh Heaven. It’s midnight blue with luminous stars and incredible strobes and the music is so loud and the smoky-cloud stuff pumping all over the place is so strange that I stop being me, Ellie, I’m this new cool clubber and I’m here to have fun. Magda and I have a quick tour round to see if we can spot Nadine but she’s not here yet. Magda takes me by the wrist and we get onto the dance floor. I’m not too bad at dancing but I generally worry in case anyone’s looking at me and noticing my fat bum but now I just get into the rhythm and leap around like part of the crowd. I
am
the crowd. We’re
all
the crowd and it’s truly fantastic.

Only we get tired eventually and go to get a drink. Magda orders two vodka and cranberry juices at the bar, but the barman tells her to dream on. So we have the juice without the vodka. It’s more refreshing that way.

Then this older guy comes up and starts hitting on Magda, leaning over and whispering in her ear. My heart starts hammering, because what am I going to do if she gets off with someone?—but then Magda shakes her head and he goes away.

“What was he saying?” I ask.

“Oh, he was pushing E and whizz and all that junk,” says Magda.

“Really?”
I say, staring after this real live drug pusher.

“It’s OK. I made it plain we’re not into drugs.”

There are lots of other kids who obviously
are
. As it gets later lots start crashing about, their eyes huge and staring. A girl near us suddenly sits on the floor and starts weeping.

I stare at her, wondering if she’s all right. Suddenly Seventh Heaven doesn’t seem quite such a glittery place after all. I still can’t see Nadine anywhere. Maybe she isn’t going to turn up.

Magda and I dance again, and I have to take my shoes off, but I don’t dare put them down in case they get kicked away so I dangle them by their straps, which is a bit awkward. I’m starting to get ever so tired. I think Magda is too.

Then way off at the other side of the club, right at the back, I think I see this blond head. My dream guy! Well, maybe not, I can’t see properly. Heaps of guys have that amazing fair hair, though I think it really
could
be him, only now there’s a whole load of other kids in front of him.

“Let’s go over the other side for a bit,” I suggest, trying to sound dead casual, though I have to yell in Magda’s ear before she can hear me above the music.

We’re edging our way over when we spot Nadine at last. She’s dancing wildly, her dark hair flying, her eyes very big, very black, very staring.

“What the hell is she on?” says Magda.

Liam is with her. It’s horrible the way he’s leering at her.

“Hey, Nadine!” Magda yells, charging over to her. “You look ever so hot. I think you maybe need a drink. Come to the ladies’ room, eh?”

Liam tells Magda to get lost. Magda takes no notice. “
Nadine
. Come on.” Magda takes hold of one arm, I take the other, and we pull her away.

I glance back once but I can’t see any blond head now. Maybe I was mistaken anyway.

Nadine is all sweaty and stares at us blearily, practically out of it.

“What has that pig got you to take, eh?” Magda says fiercely. “You’d better have a drink of water. Several. You’re dehydrated. Only not
too
much,” she says, as Nadine bends over the washbasin in the ladies’ and starts slurping straight from the tap. “Honestly! You’re like a baby. It’s a good job Ellie and I are here to keep an eye on you.”

Magda finds a paper cup and we give Nadine a couple of drinks. Then she staggers off to the loo.

A whole little gang of girls come into the ladies’.

“It’s OK, we’re not in the queue, we’re just waiting for our friend,” Magda tells them.

“She’s not the dark-haired girl with that Liam, is she?” says one of the girls.

“So?” says Magda.

“Well, she wants to keep clear of him. He used to hang round this girl at our school, really young, just in Year Eight, or maybe she’d just started Year Nine.”

Magda and I keep mum.

“He has this thing about really young girls. He says if you go with virgins you don’t have to bother about safe sex because you can’t catch anything off them.”

“What?”
I say.

“I don’t
believe
it!” says Magda.

“It’s true. He’s done it with lots of girls, but he gives them the elbow the minute they start to put out. This girl at our school, she got pregnant from this one time, but he just told her to get lost, he didn’t want to know. He said she was a slag anyway, saying if she’d do it with him then she’d do it with anyone.”

Magda and I stare at each other, horrified. Then we look at the cubicle where Nadine is. Surely she must have heard? She stays in there until all the other girls have gone. After a few minutes we hear her crying.

“Come out, Naddie,” I whisper.

“Yes, come on, babe, it’s just us,” says Magda.

Nadine comes out, tears streaming down her face. She heard, all right.

“We’re going to go home,” says Magda, putting her arm round her. “We’ll sneak out the back, leave him standing there. I’ve got the cab fare. You come back to my place and sleep over with Ellie and me.”

So that’s just what we do. And when I wake up at dawn and hear Nadine sobbing in the spare bed I slip over and get in beside her and cuddle her close.

nine favorites

1. FAVORITE BOY: Dream Dan.

2. FAVORITE GIRL: Nadine and Magda—can’t choose between them.

3. FAVORITE CLUB: Seventh Heaven. OK, it’s the only club I’ve ever been in, but it’s definitely the best.

4. FAVORITE MEAL: pizza with extra toppings of everything, especially pineapple.

5. FAVORITE SNACK: Magnum ice cream.

6. FAVORITE ANIMAL: elephant. Girl elephants stay with their mothers all their lives—true fact.

7. FAVORITE COLOR: purple.

8. FAVORITE FLOWER: pansy.

9. FAVORITE TV PROGRAMS: The X-Files, Friends, Sesame Street.

eight till late

Dear Dan,

I’m ever so sorry but you really CAN’T come and stay at my home. I did ask, but Anna my stepmother won’t allow it. I don’t think you realized this on holiday but she’s really really strict and right at the moment she’s dead annoyed with me because she found out that I went to this amazing club with a serious reputation so now I’m grounded for the rest of the TERM and she says I can’t have anyone at all to stay, so I’m afraid it really will be Christmas at the cottages before we see each other again. I do hope you understand and don’t feel too mad at me.

L. Ellie X

My tongue is black all over. It’s a wonder it hasn’t cracked at the roots and crumbled into cinders in my mouth.

I feel so mean saying all that stuff about Anna. She’s been really super to me. And she’s never said anything about the night of Magda’s party. I came home from Magda’s as good as gold on Sunday and said we’d just had this super birthday meal that had lasted practically all evening, but when I kicked off my killer shoes Anna saw my tights were all holes because I’d been dancing so much. She’s been an absolute sport and it’s especially unfair for me to say she won’t let anyone come and stay because next weekend she’s letting Magda and Nadine stay over Friday night.

We’re all going to Stacy’s birthday party. It’s going to be great if everyone starts celebrating their birthdays in style—we’ll be raving right through the year! Not that Stacy’s party is going to be a
rave
. We wondered why on earth she’d asked us to her party because she’s not our particular friend, we hardly know her, but it turns out she’s asked the entire class, and a lot of girls in Year Nine in the other classes too.

“My mum and dad are hiring the hall at the community center and there’s going to be a disco and a finger buffet and we’ve got an extension so it’s going to be eight till late,” Stacy burbles.

“Wow!” says Magda, but Stacy doesn’t twig she’s being sarcastic and just grins gratefully.

“Yeah, isn’t it fabulous? Well, see you there, you three.”

“We’re really looking forward to it . . .
not,
” says Magda, the minute Stacy’s back is turned.

“Shut up, she’ll hear,” I say. I always feel much more worried about damply enthusiastic girls like Stacy who are so terribly uncool. If I didn’t hang around with Magda and Nadine and try really hard to be hip I could so easily be one myself.

But Magda can be caring too. She’s looking at Nadine, who hasn’t said a word. She’s barely spoken since the Seventh Heaven night when she walked out on Liam. She just drifts round after us like this pale little ghost. The purple marks are fading on her neck but it’s going to take her much longer to get him to fade from her mind.

“Oh, I don’t know, Stacy’s party could be a laugh, I suppose,” says Magda. “We could stick together, us three, and have a bit of a bop. I quite fancy a girls’ night out. OK?”

“OK!” I say. “Right, Nadine?”

I have to nudge her twice before she nods.

But it turns out it isn’t going to be a girls’ night out at all.

“You can all bring a boy,” Stacy announces. “My boyfriend Paul is coming. This is going to be a
proper
party.”

“I like
im
proper parties,” says Magda.

“I can’t come then,” says Nadine. “I haven’t got a boy. Not anymore.”

“Oh, don’t go all droopy again, babes, I can’t bear it,” says Magda. “Of course you’re coming.”

“Yeah, with me. I haven’t got a boy to bring either, have I?” I say. “Seeing as my Dan is stuck up in Manchester.”

“I can always ask Greg to bring along two of his mates,” says Magda.

“No way! Not again!” I say very firmly indeed.

It turns out
Greg
won’t agree to go to Stacy’s party. Magda can’t believe it.

“The
nerve
of it! He says he won’t go to a stupid Year Nine baby birthday party because his mates would give him stick about it if they found out—after he made
me
go to that night of Ultimate Embarrassment at that nerdy Adam’s place! I told him where to get off. Or words to that effect.” Magda grins. “So now I haven’t got a boy either, Nadine. We’re a right pathetic trio. One totally absent boyfriend, and two exes.”

“Well, we’ll go to Stacy’s party just the three of us, like we planned originally. Let’s make it a real girls’ night out,” I say. “You two come back to my place and sleep over afterward, yeah?”

Magda agrees enthusiastically. Nadine doesn’t look as if she agrees at all, but she can’t summon up the energy to argue.

“I am seriously worried about Nadine,” Magda whispers to me in class. “Ellie . . . how far did that Liam get with her?”

“I’m not sure. I know he made her do all sorts of stuff, but I’m not sure about actual sex.”

“You don’t think . . . ? She couldn’t be pregnant, could she?”

“Oh, Magda!”

“She looks so pale.”

“Well, she’s always pale.”

“Yes, but now she looks like
death
. And she’s so droopy.”

“That’s because she’s missing Liam.”

“How
can
she now she knows the truth about that creep?”

“Maybe she’s missing him even so.”

“What?
Look, I don’t get all this moping-around lark. I’ve just given up Greg and yet I’m not an old droopy-drawers.”

“Yes, but you were never really that gone on Greg, were you?”

“How do you know Greg wasn’t the love of my life, the passion of my girlhood, the flame of my bosom, the fire of my loins—?” We are both shrieking with laughter by this time.

Nadine stares over at us but she doesn’t even ask what we’re laughing at. I look at her tense white face and the dark circles under her eyes. I start to get scared. Could Magda really be right? What if Liam has got Nadine pregnant, just like that other girl?

I know there isn’t any point asking her outright, not at school. I’ll have to talk to her privately, without Magda.

So after tea this evening I tell Anna I need to borrow a textbook for homework off Nadine. Anna’s in a bit of a flap herself because Dad’s late home again.

“He’ll be in a meeting. Or helping some student with a project,” I say. “Don’t worry, Anna. I’m sure he’s not . . . He’ll be in any minute, you’ll see.”

I feel mean leaving her but I have to go round to Nadine’s. Nadine’s mum asks me how I am and her dad calls me Curlynob as always, but there’s something guarded about their welcome.

Natasha is her usual prancy poisonous self: “Hi, Ellie! Look, do you like my new knickers? They’ve got frills, see?”

I can’t help seeing as she’s got her dress hoiked up to the waist. Why are all little kids such exhibitionists? If we carried on like that we’d get locked up—and yet
we’re
the ones who’re meant to be sex-mad.

“Natasha, darling!” says her mum fondly.

“Where’s your brother Eggs then, Ellie? Why didn’t you bring him round to play with me? I like Eggs,” Natasha gushes, making her eyebrows waggle.

“You little saucepot,” says her dad, pretending to smack her frilly bottom.

Nadine says nothing at all through all this. She stays hunched on the sofa, barely looking at me.

“Nadine! Aren’t you going to offer Ellie a drink of Coke or a juice or anything?” her mum hisses.

“It’s OK, thanks. I’ve only just had my tea. I’ve really just popped over to borrow that history book for homework, Nadine,” I say awkwardly.

Nadine stares at me, as we don’t even have history homework this week.

“Let’s go up to your bedroom,” I say.

Nadine gets to her feet like it’s a huge great effort.

“For Heaven’s sake, buck yourself up, Nadine,” says her mum. Then she looks at me. “I’m sorry, Ellie, but I’m really going to have to stop Nadine going out with you and Magda so much. I think you girls must stay awake half the night when you’re sleeping over at each other’s houses. Nadine’s been like a limp rag just recently and it’s really not good enough. Just look at the state of her!”

“Yes, I know, I’m sorry,” I mumble.

When we’re out in the hall Nadine raises her eyebrows apologetically for using me as an alibi. I follow her upstairs. The midnight tone of her black walls and gentle spiral of her hanging crystals make her room a soothing bolthole from the aggressive rose wallpaper and pink Axminster carpet on the landing.

Nadine flops down on her bed. I sit beside her, fingering her black quilt. She’s sewn it with silver stars.

“Nadine?” I delicately trace the star shapes with my finger, trying to get up the courage to come out with it.

“What?”

“Naddie, look, I wanted to see you, just you and me. To ask . . . to ask how you are.”

“You can see how I am,” says Nadine, turning on her side.

“Well. I know you’re feeling pretty fed up.”

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

“I’m sorry. I’m making a muck of this. It’s just—oh, Nadine, I can’t stand to see you like this. We thought, Magda and me, that maybe . . . maybe . . . ?”

“Maybe what? I wish you and Magda would quit discussing me. Aren’t you both happy now?” Nadine says bitterly. “You can both say I told you so because you’ve been right all along about Liam and I’ve made an utter fool of myself.”

“Oh, Nad, we don’t think that. It’s just you said you did all this stuff with Liam and I couldn’t help wondering—well, if you went the whole way with him and if you could possibly . . .” I lower my head so I’m whispering right into her ear. “. . . possibly be pregnant.”

Nadine lies still for a moment. I hold my breath. Then she looks up. Her eyelashes are spiky with tears. “No,” she says. “No, I didn’t. And no, I’m not. I wanted to, just to show Liam how much I love him, but whenever he tried to I was suddenly too scared and I went so tense we couldn’t. So he said I was frigid.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!
Nadine!
That’s the oldest and dirtiest trick in the book.”

“I know. But I just wanted to please him. So on Saturday he gave me this stuff to relax me. We were going to go on to his mate’s place afterward, where we could have a proper bed, because Liam thought it was maybe doing it out in the open that was bugging me. But then you and Magda came over. And then I heard those girls . . .”

“Well, I know it must be awful for you, but at least you know what he’s really like now.”

“But—but I got to thinking—I mean, what if those girls were talking about some other Liam?”

“You have to be joking. They saw him.
Your
one.”

“Or maybe they were making it all up because they were jealous because they wanted him themselves.”

“Nadine, you can’t believe this crap!”

“Well, that’s what I started telling myself. So I thought I ought to see Liam just to find out.”

“No!”

“And so yesterday after school I went looking for him, and when I found him with a whole crowd outside the video shop he wouldn’t even speak to me properly. He just said he never wanted to see me again after walking out on him like that in Seventh Heaven. He said I was a tight bitch, so cold that going with me would be like bonking a bag of Birds Eye frozen peas, and all his mates laughed, and this girl started hanging on his arm and cuddling up to him and sneering at me . . .”

“Oh, Naddie, Naddie!” I put my arms round her and held her tight.

“Don’t tell Magda, will you?”

“I swear I won’t.”

“I feel so stupid. And ashamed. He was so awful to me, and yet—yet I still feel I
love
him. Do you think I’m completely nuts, Ellie?”

“No, of course not. It’s
him
who’s the really vicious nutter.”

“I wish it wasn’t all such a mess. If only I had someone who really loved me back. Someone romantic. Something like your Dan, writing to you all the time.”

I take a deep breath. “Nadine. About Dan . . .”

Nadine looks up at me. “What about him?”

I open my mouth. The words are there, buzzing in my brain. I just have to trigger my tongue into action. Say it, Ellie.
SAY IT
!

“I made him up.”

I say it so quickly it comes out as one weird word:
Imadimup
.

Nadine blinks, not quite getting it at first. Then—“Ellie! You made him
up
?”

“Well, sort of. There was this boy on holiday, but he wasn’t . . . and then there was this
gorgeous
guy, and he
did
talk to me once, but he’s not called Dan, the other one is.”

“What are you
on
about?”

“I don’t know. It’s all a muddle. The thing is, my Dan isn’t mine and he’s not even called Dan. So if there’s anyone who’s completely nuts it’s me, saying all this stupid stuff about a boyfriend when I’ve never ever had one, not a proper one, anyway.”

“I just can’t get my head round this! I
did
wonder, just at first—but you were so
convincing
. Hey, have you told Magda?”

“No! I couldn’t bear it if she knew. She’d have such a laugh at me. You won’t tell her, will you, Nad?”

“I promise I won’t. Oh, God, Ellie, we’re a right pair, aren’t we?”

“You’re telling me.”

“We’re a right pair.”

“You’re telling me.”

“We’re a . . .”

“You’re telling . . .”

We’re laughing so much we can hardly speak. It’s an age-old routine we used to spout when we were about seven and it wasn’t really funny then. But it feels so good to giggle like crazy. We both roll on the bed, helpless—and we’re truly back to being Best Ever Friends.

Nadine’s still dead depressed about Liam, of course, but she’s not in quite such a zombie trance.

I tell Magda there are no worries on the pregnancy front.

“You’re sure, Ellie?”

“Positive. They never actually did it.”

“Well, at least that’s something. Though it still beats me how Nadine can have been
mad
enough to go with a guy like that.”

“Well, we all do crazy things sometimes, Magda,” I say uncomfortably. “Let’s stop going on about it, eh?”

Magda is happy enough to change the subject because she’s found out that Stacy has this older brother Charles who’s going to be keeping an eye on things at the party, and apparently he’s really quite tasty-looking, with blond hair.