Girls Out Late (4 page)

His hand is stroking the wool of Eggs’s jumper insistently. I love the way it feels. It’s not like it’s anything too terrible. I don’t want him to think me totally uptight and pathetic. So shall I just let him go this far?

Oh my God, I’ve suddenly remembered the tissues! The ones I stuffed down each bra cup so I wouldn’t show too much in the tight sweater. I’ll die if he finds himself with a handful of paper tissue.

“Please, Russell. No, come on, I
have
to get home.” I push him away very firmly.

“Ellie!”

“I mean it. What’s the time?”

He looks at his watch. “Oh dear, I can’t see the face in the dark.”

“Russell,
please
!”

“OK, OK. It’s only just gone eleven.”

“
What?
You’re kidding!”

“Ten past.”

“Oh my God, what am I going to do?”

“Hey, hey, don’t panic. Look, it’s really not late at all. Ellie! Wait for me.”

“I’ve got to run.”

“Well, I’ll run with you. I’ll take you right home. I’ll explain to your folks that it’s all my fault.”

“And you’ll say what? That we went for a walk in the park and started kissing and lost all sense of time?”

“Well,
some
thing along those lines.”

“To my
dad
?”

“Is he a really fierce old-fashioned kind of
father
dad?” said Russell. “Maybe I won’t come
all
the way home with you.”

“Don’t, then! Look, you go off back to Pembridge Park. It’s going to take you ages. I don’t even know if there’s a bus at this time.”

“So I’ll take a taxi. No problem. And I was
joking,
Ellie. Of course I’m not going to let you go haring off on your own. I just wish you wouldn’t walk so quickly. I can’t keep up with you. I’m useless at running.”

“So am I!” I have to slow a little because my heart is pounding and I can hardly breathe and sweat is trickling down my back. Oh God, please let my deodorant keep working, please please please. Don’t let him think of me as
Smelly
Ellie.

“So you’re not a sporty girl. Not jolly hockey sticks?”

“I
hate
hockey. Mags and Nadine and I still do our best to slope off sharpish whenever there’s a match.” I take a huge gasping breath. “I’m going to have to start running again, Russell. That’s quarter past striking. How did it get so
late
?”

“You were in amazing company, that’s how,” said Russell. “Hey, will your dad be seriously cross, Ellie?”

I don’t know! I’ve never really been out late like this before. I didn’t ever go out on proper dates with Dan—and
no
dad would worry about what I was getting up to with Dan anyway. Dan had total nerd written right through him, like a stick of seaside rock. He used to turn peppermint pink whenever he came up close to me. If he’d ever kissed me like Russell he’d have gone magenta and exploded. Like the girl’s head in
Girls Out
Late.
And I’m a girl out later than late and Dad and Anna must be seriously worried. They’ll worry even more if I tell them the absolute truth. Right, I’ll spin them a little story. I’ll say I went back to Nadine’s and she showed me her favorite horror video,
Girls Out Late,
and it was so compulsive we just couldn’t stop watching and lost all track of time. It’s not really a lie. I
have
watched part of
Girls Out Late
at Nadine’s. They’ll understand. They’ll be cross, of course. They’ll wonder why I didn’t phone. OK, OK, I’ll say I
tried
to phone but I couldn’t get through. No, Nadine’s phone was out of order—even her dad’s mobile. How about little green aliens landed at Nadine’s and they abducted all of us and sabotaged the telephones???

We’re nearly at the top of my road now.

“You go, Russell, please.”

“But I want to help you out, explain to your dad.”

“No, I’m going to tell him I was with Nadine,” I say. “Go on, Russell, you go home.”

“OK then. Well, after one more kiss. Come on, you’re this late, another second isn’t going to make much difference.”

He takes me in his arms. I’m out of breath to start with—and this last kiss is so amazing I stop breathing altogether. When he eventually lets me come up for air, I’m gasping like a goldfish.

“Oh, Ellie!” says Russell, reaching for me again.

“No! I must go. Bye, Russell—bye!” I wrench myself away and start running again. Running and running and running right down my road to my house. Oh God, what am I going to say? Think, Ellie, think. Take a deep breath. It might be all right. They might have gone to bed early or something. Who am I kidding? The lights are blazing downstairs.

I put my key in the door—and before I can even get it out, Dad wrenches open the door.
He
is blazing.

“Ellie! Where the hell have you been?”

“Oh, Ellie, we’ve been ever so worried!” Anna pushes past him and gives me a hug. She clings to me as if she’s really really glad I’m safe. But then she pushes me away again, almost as angry as Dad. “Why didn’t you
phone
? The shops close at
nine
.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—it’s just we went to Mc-Donald’s after, Nadine and Magda and me,” I say.

“And?” says Dad.

“And we just got talking, you know what we’re like.”

“I don’t know what you’re like anymore, Ellie,” says Dad. “I never thought you’d start behaving like this. You’ve no idea what you put us through.”

“I’m
sorry
. Look, I’m really tired now, can we all just go to bed?”

“No we can’t. We’re going to have this out now.”

“Look, maybe we should all go to bed and discuss it in the morning,” says Anna.

“For God’s sake, you’re the one who has been in tears for the last hour!” says Dad.

I stare at Anna. Her eyes are red.

“Why were you
crying
?” I say. “I mean, I can see why you’re cross, but there was no need to get
upset
.”

“Our thirteen-year-old daughter out God knows where, nearly two hours late home. Come
on,
Ellie!” says Dad. He goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on. He reaches for the coffee mugs, slamming them hard down on the table—as if he’d like to slam me down hard too.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re getting so shirty with me, Dad. OK, OK, I’m late home, but it’s not that heinous a crime, is it? You’re often ever so late home yourself.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Ellie. Now, tell me, where have you been?”

“You know where I’ve been, at Flowerfields— and then McDonald’s. You’re acting like I’ve been popping pills all night at some rave, for God’s sake.”

“Where did you go
after
McDonalds?”

“Well, we were there ages.”

“Who’s we?”

“Dad! Magda, Nadine and me, honestly.”

“And then what did you do?”

“Well, Magda went home, and I went back on the bus with Nadine—and I just popped in her house to see some stuff and she started showing me this really creepy video,
Girls Out Late,
and I suppose I stayed a bit late watching it, goodness knows why, because you know I hate horror movies and this one is really truly
gross.
”

Dad and Anna are staring at me. I burble on and on, making stuff up about the movie. The kettle boils. Dad looks as if he should have steam spiraling out of his ears likewise. He makes the drinks, stirring so fiercely coffee slops all over the place.

“So you were at Nadine’s?” he says.

“Yes.”

“Oh, Ellie,” Anna says.

My heart is thumping. This is all going horribly wrong.

“And then where did you go?” Dad says.

“Home.”

“By yourself?”

“Well, it’s only a few streets.”

“You know you’re not allowed out after dark by yourself.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t think it would really matter, just from Nadine’s home to here. I suppose I could have rung you.”

Oh no!
I suddenly remember. I told Anna I
would
ring from Nadine’s. I look at her and she shakes her head sadly.

“We waited for you to ring. And then we rang Nadine’s—and Nadine’s mother said Nadine had come home on her own,” Anna says.

I swallow. “What did Nadine say?” I whisper.

“She came out with a whole load of stupid evasions and downright lies,” says Dad. “She couldn’t seem to see how badly we needed to know where the hell you were.”

“So you’ve been bullying Nadine, too,” I say.

“Ellie, nowadays you can’t just have a thirteen-year-old out late by herself—not without going out of your mind with worry. Surely you can see that?” says Anna.

“And
eventually
Nadine tells us you’ve gone off with some boy you picked up in McDonald’s,” says Dad.

“I didn’t pick him up! He talked to me first,” I say indignantly.

“A complete stranger! And you went off on your own with him. Are you mad?”

“He’s a Halmer’s boy,” I say.

“Well, they’re the worst. They’re famous for it. Picking up silly little girls and seeing how far they can go,” Dad thunders.

“Don’t, you’re making all this horrible. Russell isn’t a bit like that. He likes
art,
he was sketching and I was sketching, that’s how we got talking—and then he came on the bus with Nadine and me and then afterwards we just had this little walk. We were talking about all sorts of stuff, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” says Dad. “You’ve got your makeup smudged all over your face, Ellie. It’s obvious what you’ve been up to.”

“I haven’t been up to anything! Stop it! I don’t know why you’re being like this, spoiling everything.”

“Your dad doesn’t want to spoil anything, Ellie. He’s just been so worried wondering if you were all right. He’s overreacting. I am too. It’s just this is the first time this has happened and we’re obviously getting het up over nothing,” says Anna. She takes a sip of coffee, then tries to smile as if this is a normal conversation. “This Russell sounds really nice. Are you going to see him again?”

“Tomorrow.”

“No you’re not,” says Dad.

“Dad! Look, what
is
this? I thought you were really cool about any kind of boyfriend stuff.”

“It’s not about boyfriends, it’s about you lying to us.”

“I’m sorry, I just said the first thing that came into my head.”

“It’s frightening, you seemed so plausible. I just can’t believe it of you, Ellie. And I
hate
the idea of you going off on your own with the first boy that beckons in your direction, letting him slobber all over you in the dark.”

“Shut up, Dad. Who are you to talk anyway? You’ve done enough slobbering yourself, as you so charmingly put it. I remember all those girls you went out with after Mum died, before Anna. Maybe
after
Anna too.”

“How dare you!” says Dad.

“I do dare. I’m sick of you. Why is there always one rule for adults and another for teenagers? What gives you the right to tell me how to behave?”

“Stop it, Ellie,” Anna says sharply.

“Why should I? And why should I do what
you
say anyway? You’re not my mother.”

I push past both of them and run upstairs. Eggs is standing in his pajamas on the landing.

“You’re in big trouble, Ellie,” he whispers.

“You shut up,” I say, and go into my bedroom and slam the door.

I flop down on my bed and burst into tears. I hate them all. Why did they have to spoil the most magical evening of my life?

rhyme time

Breakfast is terrible. Dad and I aren’t speaking. Anna talks enough for both of us, chitchatting to try and pretend this is a perfectly normal morning. Eggs is intrigued and delighted by all of this, and asks endless idiotic questions about “Ellie’s Boyfriend.”

“He is
not
my boyfriend. He is just a boy in Year Eleven I happened to meet yesterday and we had a good long chat about art.”

“And a good long encounter in the park afterwards,” says Dad bitterly, breaking his silence.

“Please!” says Anna, nearly in tears. “Don’t talk to Ellie like that.”

“I’ll talk to her how I damn well please,” says Dad, pushing his plate away and standing up. “She’s still a child, and she is going to have to learn to do as she’s told. She’s not staying out till all hours.”

“Dad, I was home at twenty past eleven. Heaps of girls in my year stay out till way past midnight.”

“I don’t care what anyone else does, although from my conversation with Nadine’s parents last night it was all too humiliatingly clear they were obviously appalled. It was evident that Nadine would never behave like that.”

This is so infuriating! If only they knew! Last term when Nadine had this thing with this total creep, Liam, she sneaked off and saw him all the time and she lied her little head off to her mum and dad, forever making out she was round at my place or Magda’s. But obviously I can’t tell Dad this because I don’t want to tell tales on Nadine. So I just sigh deeply and tap my fingers on the table, acting like I’m too bored for words.

This winds Dad up so much he starts really yelling at me. Eggs stops thinking it’s funny and hunches down in his chair, sucking his thumb. I start to feel scared too. Dad’s acting like he really can’t stand me. I just don’t get it. Why does he have to be so
horrible
? I try to stare him out and act like I’m not even listening but my throat hurts and my eyes have gone all blurry behind my glasses.

“Will you please
stop it,
” says Anna, standing up too. “You’re frightening Eggs. Dear God, you’re frightening all of us. Now
please
—go to school. We’ll talk about it tonight, when we’ve all calmed down.”

“I’m out tonight, there’s a faculty meeting,” says Dad. “I’ll have a sandwich at work and go straight on to the meeting. I’ll be back around ten.”

I shall be out too, seeing Russell.

Dad’s staring at me—and it’s as if his mean narrowed eyes can laser through my skull and see what’s in my mind.

“
You’re
not allowed out, Ellie. You do understand that? You’re completely grounded.”

“Oh please! What a stupid expression.
Grounded!
It’s like something out of prep school.”

This is a clever diversionary tactic. It’s always the easiest way to score points off Dad. He likes to act like this ultra-lefty alternative guy and yet Grandma and Grandpa are ultra-straitlaced and right-wing and posh and Dad got sent right through the public school system. It’s something he’s very embarrassed about. He does his best to talk down, but the odd little phrase creeps into his conversation every now and then and betrays him.

“You might find the expression stupid, Ellie— but I trust you understand what it means?”

“I’m not allowed out, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Not at all?”

“Not at all.”

“Oh great, I can’t go to school then, can I? So I’ll just go back to bed for a nice long snooze.”

“Ellie, acting like a six-year-old is not going to convince me that you’re old enough to stay out half the night with strangers,” says Dad, and he walks out of the kitchen.

He doesn’t say goodbye to me, he doesn’t even say goodbye to Anna and Eggs. He just stomps out of the room, still acting like some Victorian control freak dad, like he’s Mr. Barrett of Wimpole Street and I’m poetic Elizabeth. Only I’m not reclining on a sofa, I’m on a hard kitchen stool—and I’m not about to elope with my romantic Mr. Browning. Russell and I are hardly at the eloping stage. I don’t know whether he writes poetry or not. I don’t even know his second name. But I’m going to find out. I’m meeting Russell tonight if it kills me. And Dad very likely
will
kill me if he finds out.

I don’t tell Anna my plans. She might well ring Dad up at work and tell on me. She’s acting like she’s really upset.

“Don’t mind your dad too much, Ellie,” she says anxiously.

“I won’t, don’t worry!”

“That’s not what I meant! Oh, Ellie, I wish I knew what to say. It’s so awful. I can see everyone’s point of view. I think your dad overreacted—but you were very very rude.”

I open my mouth and she shakes her head.

“Don’t say any more, Ellie, please. You’ve said more than enough.”

I feel mean. I know I shouldn’t have put in that cheap dig last night about Dad playing around. A while ago, Anna did get ever so worried that he might be having an affair with one of the students at the art college. I suppose it’s not surprising she worries because Anna was once at the art college herself. That’s when she met my dad. He
is
out an awful lot, though he’s always got some excuse, like this meeting tonight. If I were Anna I’d really have it out with him—but she always likes to pretend everything is perfect. She doesn’t stand up to Dad the way she should.
I
haven’t always stood up to Dad either. But now I’ve shown him he can’t bully me!

“I’m sorry I said some of that stuff last night. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just
him,
” I say. “He can’t treat me like that, giving me his orders.”

“You are his daughter, Ellie.”

“That doesn’t give him automatic ownership of me! You might let him walk all over you, Anna, but I’m not going to let him do it to me.”

And with that Supergirl swoops out of the kitchen and gathers up her schoolbag.

“You haven’t finished your breakfast.”

I grab my toast and say I’ll eat it on the way to school.

“I’m in a hurry,” I say, and dash off.

I’m not in a hurry to go to school. I’m in a hurry to see Nadine and Magda and tell them everything.

But by the time I make it to school the bell has already gone and Mrs. Henderson, our form teacher, is in a right mood this morning. When I get Magda and Nadine in a corner and start my story she tells me to stop gossiping and get down to the gym in double-quick time.

Mrs. Henderson is also the PE teacher, worst luck. I positively
hate
PE, whether it’s hockey or netball or athletics or rounders. You get hot and sweaty and people yell at you and you feel stupid. Well,
I
do. Nadine’s pretty hopeless too—and though Magda can be quite nippy and she’s good at ballwork she generally hangs around with us and doesn’t try, just to be matey.

So the three of us get into a little huddle in the changing rooms and I start for a second time, but Mrs. Henderson hounds us again, telling us to cut the cackle and get changed or we’ll be for it.

“Oh, Mrs. Henderson, I’m having a really heavy period. Can I be excused games today because of my stomach cramps?” I wail, clutching my tummy.

“Ooh, me too, Mrs. Henderson,” says Nadine. “It’s really bad.”

“And me too, Mrs. Henderson,” says Magda, determined not to be left out.

Mrs. Henderson puts her hands on her hips. “So you are all three having your periods?” she says, eyebrows raised.

“It’s a very strange but true phenomenon that women living in close circumstances menstruate at exactly the same time,” I say. This is a fact. I’ve read it somewhere, anyway. Even though it doesn’t actually apply to Nadine and Magda and me. It would be kind of creepy. And what if you found you needed to do everything else in unison too, so you all woke up at exactly the same time and had to make a dash for the loo simultaneously?

“It’s a very strange but true phenomenon that lazy schoolgirls will concoct any silly excuse whatsoever to get out of games,” says Mrs. Henderson. “I don’t care if you three girls are about to have
babies
—you are still going out on the games field and you will take
exercise
.”

We are forced to take so much exercise that I can’t even speak the rare times I stagger near Magda or collapse beside Nadine. I just gasp helplessly like a goldfish.

Mrs. Henderson keeps us hop, skip and jump-jump-jumping until the bell goes, which is incredibly mean because we have to charge back to the changing rooms and shower and shove on our clothes in a frantic rush as we only have a five-minute changeover period and it’s Mrs. Madley next lesson. A double period—just enough to give everyone stomach cramps! Mrs. Madley takes us for English and it’s my second-favorite subject (art first, of course) but Mrs. Madley is megastrict and the one thing she really gets mad about is if we’re late for her lesson, which we are.

She rants on as if it’s all our fault, and when Magda explains we were still dashing around the athletics field in our PE kit when the bell went, Mrs. Madley says that’s no concern of hers,
her
concern is her lesson and we are late, and that is inexcusable. She wastes a good ten minutes telling us we can’t afford to be late because we’ve got so much to do, and when she eventually starts the lesson it’s
poetry.
I like a good story, not airy-fairy poems. Especially as she wants us to concentrate on nature poetry. It is not in
my
nature to like nature. It sucks. I should have TOWNIE tattooed on my forehead. We have this awful moldering holiday cottage halfway up a mountain in the wettest part of Wales and every hour I’m forced to spend there seems to last as long as a week.

Mrs. Madley glares at our groans and reads us examples from the Romantic poets. I perk up a little at the word
Romantic
but it doesn’t mean
romance.
I don’t know what romantic countryside these Romantic poets tramped through but
I
never stand transfixed on my little Welsh hill and admire the fair musk-rose blooms or mellow fruits— there’s just a lot of rank vegetation and mud everywhere.

Then she swaps to modern poetry and she reads a Sylvia Plath poem about blackberrying and I suddenly sit up and listen because I like it, it’s so sharp and strange, but then she starts another poem called “Wuthering Heights” and the first line says something about horizons ringing her like faggots and we all collapse and Mrs. Madley gets very narked indeed and says we’re all utterly pathetic and then she says
we
all have to write a poem now. Straightaway. At least twelve lines. On Nature. And any girl who fails to do so will get a detention and double English homework.

I struggle.

I think of Wales. I think hard.

Mud, mud, horrible mud.

It’s like that old hippopotamus song.

If you slip in the mud
You fall down with a thud.

I think Mrs. Madley requires a more passionate response to Nature.

I try again.

Up in the mountain
Through the glen
You will always wonder when
You can clear off
Home again.

I peer round the room. Help! Everyone else seems to have got stuck in straightaway. Nadine rolls her eyes at me and Magda sticks out her tongue, but their eyes are vague. Concentrating on their poems. The entire class is looking serious. I daren’t do something silly and jokey. But how can I act like I
care
about the countryside? Hang on. Nature doesn’t stop bang at every town boundary. I could write about Nature here. I peer out of the window. It is a gray dreary day. The privet hedges of the suburban gardens over the road are cut into ugly arcs. The bedding plants are crude poster paint colors, set out in unattractive repeating patterns, like wallpaper. The trees have all been pollarded so their branches don’t wave in the wind. Suburban nature is not a pretty sight.

OK. What about in the dark? In the park. Me in the park with Russell, and the moon above and the poplar trees?
Yes.

I write. I forget this is my English lesson and Mrs. Madley is in a mood and my tights are all skew-whiff because I pulled them up too quickly after PE and my hair has gone even wilder than usual so it’s spiraling up and out like there’s been a minor explosion in my head.

I’m not here at all. I’m back in the park with Russell, and the key words form on the page, my hand writing as if it’s got a will of its own.

“Time’s up, girls,” says Mrs. Madley. “Right, you’ve all been very busy. I hope the fruits of your labor are mellow. Who’s going to read first?”

Oh no. She wants us to read them out
loud
! I sit, heart thudding. She picks Jess first and Jess reads out this neat little poem about flowers, simple and safe. Then Stacy gets chosen and she gushes on about the sea, the wild white horses and the flying foam until she’s practically foaming at the mouth too. It is a totally phoney poem with Absolutely Awful Annoying Alliteration but Mrs. Madley goes a bundle on this too. She picks poor shy Maddie next, who blushes and says hers is rubbish and then she whispers it so we can barely hear. Stuff about mills and fields and harvests and yields. Mrs. Madley doesn’t look impressed but says very good, dear. Then she picks Nadine.

“Mine’s about night, Mrs. Madley,” says Nadine.

It’s good, too, very Gothic, a total stormy night with bats flying and cats stalking and trees tapping on windows and flashes of lightning like spears from hell and the crash of thunder as the devil rides out.

“You’ve really tried hard, Nadine. Well done,” says Mrs Madley. “Now . . .
Ellie
.”

Oh God. My eyes flash over the page. No, I can’t.

“Ellie?”

“Er—mine’s about the night too. It’s similar to Nadine’s. It’ll be so repetitious, night after night. Can’t we have a day poem instead?”

“Ellie, I’m used to you girls being repetitious. Now start reading.”

“Night in the park
The pale moon bare
Luminous above the poplar trees—
Tall thin dark
A giant feather frieze
Surrounding the soft square.”