Girls in Tears (8 page)

I have to go and sit with them when Mrs. Madley has finished telling me off for being late. Magda starts to whisper whisper whisper to me. I strain as far away from her as my desk will permit, my hand over my ear to show her I’m not listening.

Mrs. Madley
is
listening. “For goodness’ sake, Magda, will you be
quiet
! Now can we all concentrate, please. I want your
Jane Eyre
essays to be exemplary. I don’t just require coherent literary analysis. I want you to try to imagine what it must feel like to be poor plain little Jane in her mousy governess clothes, positively aching with anguish when she sees pretty, privileged Blanche Ingram flirting with Mr. Rochester.”

I can imagine only too painfully. I don’t want to write about
Jane Eyre
. I’m in such a state I’m not up to penning a paragraph on Percy the Park Keeper. I see out of the corner of my eye that Magda is busy writing. After a few minutes she shoves a note onto my desk. I look at her.

“Oh, Ellie, please make friends,” she mouths at me.

I almost weaken. But then Magda puts her hands together in a silly praying gesture, whispering, “Please please please pretty please!” Nadine copies her. They’re treating this like a silly joke. It’s just a game to them. They’re acting as if this is one of our usual silly fights over who ate the last square of chocolate and got called a greedy pig and went off in a huff. They played this little pantomime act then and it worked.

It’s not going to work now. I pick up Magda’s note. I see words like
sorry
and
mistake
and
drink
and
crying
and
kiss.
I see Magda and Russell kissing and I know these words aren’t enough. Magda’s taken everything away from me. She doesn’t even want Russell for herself. She just had to show she can get anyone she fancies.

To hell with her. I don’t want her as my friend now. Or Nadine.

I take the letter and tear it in two and drop it on the floor. Magda goes pink and looks at Nadine. I look away, my head in the air. I jump when Mrs. Madley shouts.

“Ellie! Don’t throw paper on the floor like that!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Madley. I’ll put it in the wastepaper basket, where it belongs.”

I bend down under my desk, retrieve the letter, and crumple each half into a tight little ball. I walk to the front of the room and throw both of them into the basket, so hard that they practically bounce.

when they’re lonely

So this is it. I don’t have any friends. I don’t have a boyfriend. I am Ellie the Ever-so-Unpopular, the girl no one likes, the girl no one wants. Poor sad stupid fat Ellie.

It’s so awful.

I keep wanting to burst into tears at school as I sit tensely in lessons, trying to stare straight past Magda and Nadine.

Nadine tries to get me to talk at break. Magda hangs about in the background. I march straight past.

“Ellie! For heaven’s sake, stop being so difficult,” Nadine says. “Look, I know you’re mad at us, but we’re still your friends, aren’t we?”

“No, you’re not,” I say.

Magda’s heard. She comes nearer. “Look, I know you’ve got every right to be mad at me, Ellie, but you’re still friends with Nadine, surely?” she says, reasonably enough.

I’m not ready to be reasonable. I hurt too much. “I don’t want to be friends with either of you,” I say.

“Is this just for today, because you’re sore about me snogging Russell?” says Magda.

“Not just today.
Forever,
” I say.

“You don’t really mean it, Ellie,” says Nadine. “You just want to make a dramatic stand and get us to beg and plead with you to stay friends.”

I suppose that’s exactly what I
do
want but I can’t possibly admit that now. “I do mean it,” I insist. “You’ve changed, Nadine. So have you, Magda. This is it. It’s over. Finished. OK?”

I stalk off. I hope that they will come running after me even so. I want them to tell me it’s not OK. I want Magda to cry buckets—tanks—
swimming
pools
—and beg my forgiveness on bended knees. I want Nadine to admit I’m right, that it’s crazy to swap sexy secrets with a stranger on the Internet. I want them both to tell me I’m their best friend in all the world and they can’t stand the thought of breaking friends with me.

But they don’t.

I walk off by myself. I stay by myself all day. Nadine and Magda go round in a little huddle, arm in arm. I keep thinking about the end of school and what I’m going to do then. What if Russell is waiting at the school gate?
Waiting for Magda
.

I decide I’ll rush right past him without so much as a glance in his direction.

It’s a huge relief to see he’s not there. But as I walk home by myself I start to wonder. Maybe he should have been there?
Why
wasn’t he? Is he too gutless? He can’t be concerned with hurting my feelings, not after he’s spent half of Saturday night on the stairs with his tongue down Magda’s throat.

Why
did he do it? Why didn’t he go out with Magda in the first place? Why did he go out with me and make me fall in love with him?

I feel so
lonely
. One of the Year Eleven girls is walking hand in hand with her boyfriend in front of me. She smiles up at him. He bends forward and gives her a quick kiss. I close my eyes. It hurts too much to look.

I run all the rest of the way home. I have this mad fantasy that Russell might be there, waiting for me. He doesn’t really want Magda, he wants me back, he simply didn’t want an embarrassing public encounter outside the school in front of everyone, especially not in front of Magda herself.

But he’s not waiting at home. No one’s home. Anna’s seeing some work people and she’s taken Eggs with her. I’m all on my own but this time it’s awful. I wander round the house restlessly, unable to settle in any room. The house is horribly quiet, so much so that I jump at every creak of the floorboards and gurgle of the pipes.

I make myself a coffee and nibble at a biscuit— and then another and another. I eat the whole packet, even though I start to feel sick. I wonder for a moment about
making
myself sick, but I clench my fists and bang them together, furious with myself. I’m not going to do that to myself ever again. I don’t care if I feel fatter than ever. I’m
not
going to go back on that ridiculous diet. I’m over all that. I don’t care if I’m a sad fat lump and Magda is a sexy curvy dreamboat. Well, I
do
care, of course I do, but I can’t change me into Magda and if she’s what Russell wants then I just have to accept it.

I
can’t
accept it. What is he
playing
at?
Why
didn’t I talk to him on Sunday when he phoned? At least he could have given me some kind of explanation. I’d have known where I stood.

So why don’t I phone him now?

No. Let him phone me.

He did phone me. I wouldn’t speak to him. But I could phone him now. He’ll be on his own.

Phone him phone him phone him.

I stand in the hall, pacing up and down—and then I do it.

The phone rings and rings and I don’t think he’s going to pick up, but just as his answerphone starts up he says, “Hello?”

The answerphone is still talking—and someone else is talking in the background too. They’re saying, “Is it Ellie?”

My heart turns over. It’s Magda.

She’s gone home with Russell.

Oh God, I can’t stand it. I slam the phone down without saying a word. I run up to my room and fling myself on my bed and cry and cry. I can’t kid myself anymore. It wasn’t just a silly drunken kiss at the party. They’ve started seeing each other.

The phone rings downstairs. Russell must have dialed the caller ID number and will know it was me. Oh God,
why
did I try to phone him? They’ll be having a right laugh at me now. No, they’re not like that. I know they’re not really hateful. They’ll be feeling guilty and worried about me. That’s why they’re phoning now. They feel
sorry
for me. That’s the bit that’s really torturing me. I can see them standing together by the phone, shaking their heads, conferring about poor old Ellie and how best not to hurt her feelings. . . .

I punch my pillow, hating Magda, hating Russell, hating
myself
.

I feel so scared and sad and lonely. I want my mum. If only she were still alive. I love Anna now, we’re just like big sister and little sister, but she’s not the same as a real mum. Not
my
mum.

I’d give anything in the whole world for her to be here now, sitting beside me, scooping me up in her arms, rocking me gently and stroking my hair, whispering Myrtle Mouse stories in my ear . . .

I stop crying and go and get my mum’s Myrtle Mouse book. Mum’s Myrtle is different from
my
Myrtle. Mum’s mouse is little and cute and gentle. She’s colored in soft, sweet pastel shades and her stories are soft and sweet too, little tales for toddlers.
My
Myrtle is done in brightly colored felt tip, vibrant purples and royal blue and moody jade and stinging emerald. Her adventures are equally colorful, big bold melodramas. She’s totally different—but I still can’t honestly say she’s original.

I take Nicola Sharp’s wonderful letter and read it through again. I’ve already read it so many times it’s a wonder the ink hasn’t faded. I get out my sketchpad and write my address in my best nearly italic handwriting. I draw a picture at the top of the page of Myrtle Mouse as an artist, wearing a big smock with a bow and wielding a large paintbrush.

I write to Nicola Sharp, telling her that I was absolutely thrilled to get her letter. I draw Myrtle leaping up in the air over a tiny moon.

I tell her just how much it means to me. I draw Myrtle in bed with the letter clasped to her chest.

Then I tell her I feel terribly guilty. Myrtle hangs her head, her whole body drooping, even her ears and tail. I explain that I based my Myrtle on some stories my mum wrote and illustrated for me long ago. Mum could never develop them herself because she died, so I’ve taken Myrtle over, but I can’t really take the credit for her invention.

I finish by saying I’m very very sorry for wasting her time, and tell her truthfully just how much I love her own illustrations. I draw Myrtle engrossed in a big Nicola Sharp nursery rhyme book, waving to the mice on the “Hickory Dickory Dock” page. Then I sign my name, stick the page into a big envelope and address it.

Nicola Sharp won’t be interested in me now she knows I’ve just copied my mum but it makes me feel a bit better to tell her the truth.

Most of the time I’m writing the letter and drawing Myrtle I can forget how unhappy I am. I might not be an artist yet but I will be one day. I shall lose myself in my work. I won’t bother with boyfriends. I maybe won’t even have any new girlfriends, either. I shall live all by myself and illustrate all day and create wonderful picture books.

when they wake up and remember . . .

I can’t face school today. My cold is nearly better but I blow my nose constantly and cough into my cornflakes at breakfast.

Dad pats me on the shoulder absentmindedly. “You seem a bit droopy, Ellie. Still, you’ll soon perk up when you get to school and see Magda and Nadine.” Then he remembers. “Oh dear, of course. Still, you’ll make it up soon, you always do.”

Anna looks at me sympathetically the minute Dad leaves for college. “He can’t seem to help being tactless. Still, he’s obviously got other things on his mind.”

I wince at the bitterness of her tone. “Anna . . .?”

But she shakes her head slightly and glances at Eggs, who is listlessly making a little cowboy out of the cornflakes packet gallop across the wide prairie of the kitchen table.

I cough again—and again. “I’ve got this cough . . . ,” I say unnecessarily.

Anna sighs, waiting.

“And a pain in my chest. And my head’s really hot. I feel totally lousy, honestly.”

“I still think you ought to go to school,” says Anna.

“Oh, please don’t make me, Anna. Feel my forehead. I’m sure I’ve got a temperature. I ache all over. I just want to go back to bed.”

“So do I, Ellie,” says Anna wearily, rubbing her eyes. “But I just happen to have a mountain of work to see to. I’m supposed to go up to London again but God knows what I’m going to do about Eggs. I daren’t ask Nadine’s mum again, not after last time.”

“Look, if I don’t go to school I can stay in bed this morning and then I’ll try to perk up around lunchtime and do some homework and then I’ll go and collect Eggs from school for you, OK?”

“It’s not one bit OK!” Eggs protests. “
I
had to go to school and my cold was much much worse. I don’t want you to meet me, Ellie! I want
you
to meet me, Mum.” His voice is all whiny. He scowls at the cowboy and flicks him over the edge and down down down the Grand Canyon to the kitchen floor.

“Take no notice of him, Anna. He’s just trying to manipulate the situation,” I say, retrieving the cowboy and giving him back to Eggs. “Here we go. The Cornflake Kid bounces back!” I make him do a little twirl. “Tell, you what, Eggs, I’ll make up a story about him on the way back from school.”

“With lots of fights and shooting?” says Eggs. He’s obsessed with guns even though he’s not allowed to own a toy one.

“Punch-ups and shoot-outs all over the place,” I promise.

It works. I get to stay at home. I go back to bed, snuggling under the covers. I hug my pillow because I’m so lonely and my own Ellie Elephant cuddly toy got thrown away long ago. I feel as if I’m on the scrap heap too.

I go back to sleep and have this terrible, stupid dream about Magda and Russell. They’re riding along together on a beautiful big white horse with a flowing mane and tail. I’m stuck on this fat little donkey, plodding along in the dust. I try to make it go faster and it suddenly bolts, galloping faster and faster, and I pull on the reins desperately but I can’t make it stop. We’re getting near the edge of the prairie now and then we’re over it and I fall down down down and wake up gasping.

It’s so awful waking up and remembering all over again. I have a long private weep, still under the covers, but then I force myself out. I bathe my poor sore eyes in cold water and then make myself some lunch. I actually open up my maths. I haven’t done
two
homeworks now and I don’t know what to do. Magda’s always helped me out but obviously I can’t ask her. I’ve sometimes rung Russell when I’m stuck but that’s an impossibility too. I can see I’m destined to get nought out of twenty for maths homework from now on.

I read through the first question but I can see there’s absolutely no point persevering. I’ve got a history project and some French verbs to learn but I can’t concentrate on stuff like that either. I end up drawing instead. I want to invent more Myrtle Mouse adventures but I decide I can’t do her anymore now.

I doodle around on my sketchpad and finally I draw the plastic cowboy and create a Kitchen County world for him. I draw him lassooing beetles and riding bareback on a bucking mouse, but then it occurs to me that this isn’t truly original either because I didn’t invent the plastic cowboy—he came with the cornflakes. I throw my pencil across the room in despair. Maybe I’m not any good at art, either. All I can do is copy other people.

Still, I’ve got lots of stories to tell Eggs about the Cornflake Kid on the way home from school. Eggs is reasonably appreciative, skipping along by my side. I’m in the middle of a fresh adventure about the cowboy and a matchbox-on-wheels wagon train when Eggs stops still.

“Are the cowboy’s mum and dad on the wagon train?” he asks.

“Well, they
could
be,” I say cautiously.

“He does
have
a mum and dad, doesn’t he?”

“Oh yes, definitely.”

“His mum won’t die like your mum?”

“No, of course she won’t. And
your
mum’s not going to die, Eggs.”

“And Dad won’t either?”

“No, of course not.”

“But maybe . . . maybe they’ll split up? Like, Dad might go and live with someone else?”

“No. Well. Who said he might, Eggs?
Dad
didn’t, did he?”

We’ve both forgotten the cowboy story now. We’re back to reality and it’s much more scary.

“Dad didn’t say. But I heard Mum yelling at him to leave and Dad yelled back that he wanted to.”

“Yeah, but they were just cross. They didn’t mean it.” I
hope
they didn’t.

“Sam who sits next to me at school says his mum and dad yelled stuff like that and
they
split up. Sam says he bets mine will too.”

“Your mate Sam isn’t always right, Eggs. Whereas your big sister, Ellie, is always always always right.”

“Ellie, did you and Russell yell at each other?”

I stop and swallow hard. “A bit,” I say. “Come on, Eggs, let’s get home, eh?”

I walk on quickly and Eggs runs to catch up.

“Are you sad, Ellie? Mum said I shouldn’t talk about it but I want to
know
.”

“Well, there’s nothing to talk about. I am a little bit sad, yes.” Understatement of the entire century!

“Will you get Dan to be your boyfriend again? I liked him best.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I hate all this change stuff and yelling and splitting,” Eggs says, suddenly near tears.

“I hate it too, Eggs,” I say, reaching for his hand and squeezing it.

I make a big fuss of him when we get home, fixing him special cowboy food for his tea. Well, my approximation of it. I think cowboys eat stuff like buffalo steak and hominy grits (whatever
they
are), but ham steaks and baked beans seem reasonable substitutes.

I’ll be eating with Anna later but I can’t stop myself snacking on baked beans straight from the saucepan. I’m just wiping up the last of the juice with a slice or two of bread when the door knocker goes. Three long taps and then two short ones— Magda’s knock.

“Oh God. We’ll pretend we’re not in,” I say.

“But we
are
in,” says Eggs.

“Shshh! I don’t want them to hear us,” I whisper.

“But that’s Magda’s knock,” Eggs squeals. “She’s our
friend
!”

He makes a bolt for the door. I’m after him like a shot but I’m not quick enough. Eggs has the front door open while I’m still yelling, “No! Don’t! Will you
listen,
Eggs!”

Magda is standing on the doorstep, biting her lip.

“There! It
is
Magda!” Eggs says triumphantly. “I
told
you, Ellie. Hey, Magda, come in!”

“Eggs, calm down! Go back to the kitchen and finish your tea,” I say, with as much authority as I can muster.

“
Can
I come in?” Magda asks meekly.

“Of course you can!” says Eggs, laughing, thinking she’s joking.

“No, I’m sorry, you can’t,” I say.

Eggs laughs more, thinking I’m joking too. Then he sees my face. He’s frequently idiotic but he’s not stupid. “Oh, Ellie, have you split up with Magda, too?” he says, looking tragic.

“Yes,” I say.

“No,” says Magda. “Oh, Ellie, you mustn’t split up with
anyone
. Especially not Russell. He’s nuts about you, you know he is. You should have heard him yesterday going on and on about how he’s blown it and how miserable he is.”

“So you did your best to cheer him up, right?” I say.

“Yes. No! Not in that way! I just went round there to see what on earth we could do to make you see sense.”

“It’s what the two of you did together on Saturday night that
made
me come to my senses. I never want to speak to either of you ever again. So just go, please.” I try to shut the door but she wedges her shoulder in the way.

“No, Ellie. You’ve
got
to understand. Look, I know there’s no real excuse for what happened, but we were all a bit drunk—
especially
you.”

“Um!” says Eggs, who’s been listening, wide-eyed. “Did you really get drunk, Ellie? Did you fall down? Were you sick?”

“No, of course not,” I lie. “Now go into the kitchen, Eggs.” I give him a little push to make him go. “And will you please get out of the way, Magda, so I can close this door.” I gave Magda a little push too. A harder one.

“But I need to
explain
.”

“And I told you I’m not
interested
.”

“OK, OK, forget me and Russell, though there’s truly nothing in it. But I need your help, Ellie.”

I stare at her as if she’s gone mad. She steals my girlfriend, she steals my boyfriend—and then she comes round asking for my
help
?

“It’s Nadine,” she says. “It’s an emergency. You know this guy Ellis, the Internet one. Well, she’s
meeting
him tonight.”

“Then she’s stupid.”

“Of course she is.”

“Well, talk her out of it.
You’re
her friend.”

“I’ve tried all day long but she won’t listen. She says she has to go. This Ellis says they’re showing some special early episodes of
Xanadu
at some cinema in London and Nadine feels she can’t miss the chance of seeing them—and him. She’s told her mum she’s going with us, but obviously she’s going on her own and I just don’t know what to do. I can’t tell on her to her mum, can I? And yet I can’t let her go off and meet this Ellis at the cinema, not all by herself. She says she won’t
be
by herself, there’ll be all the other
Xanadu
fans. Nadine’s acting like this is the dream date of the century but I just get this horrible feeling that it’s all a bit dodgy. She says I’m paranoid and I’m just jealous because she knows such a fantastic guy. What do you think, Ellie?”

“I think Nadine’s mad. Though maybe Ellis
is
fantastic. I don’t know. I don’t
care
. I’m not friends with Nadine and you anymore,” I say.

But I don’t really mean it. And Magda knows I don’t mean it too.

“Can’t we forget all the stuff about you and me and Russell just for tonight, Ellie? Will you come with me to London? I know where they’re meeting and at what time. I thought we could maybe get there early and watch out for weird guys and then kind of keep an eye on Nadine. Maybe we could try to sit behind her at the cinema? Though obviously we don’t want her to spot us. Look, if you won’t go with me I’ll go on my own. But the weirdos might home in on me if I’m by myself. Ellie,
will
you come with me? Please?
Please?
”