Girls to Total Goddesses (3 page)

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4

Ten minutes later, Beast and Charlie had gone off to organise the poster competition and Chloe and I were walking home. Matthew, luckily, was travelling in the other direction, and I was hoping to keep things like that for the rest of our lives.

‘Poor Beast!’ I said. ‘I thought that everything he touched turned to gold, but this Jailhouse Rock thing seems to be driving him over the edge. Why don’t we give him a hand?’

‘No!’ Chloe snapped. ‘Listen, Zoe, I have bad vibes about Amnesty and Beast.’

‘What?!’ I panicked. I needed Chloe to be completely cool about Beast, or I’d never be able to confide in her.

‘You remember last term, when I was mad about him,’ said Chloe between gritted teeth. ‘He asked me to take part in that vigil in aid of Amnesty, yeah? In the high street? In a sort of cage, like a prison cell type thing, all night? And I thought it was going to be just him and me but there were two other people there and he was, like, flirting with this other girl all night? And anyway . . . whenever I see Beast I think of all those nuisance love texts I sent him and I just cringe for England. That was soooo embarrassing! His mum even saw one!’

‘Yeah, but, Chloe, all this is ancient history. You’ve got to move on.’

‘I have moved on! I don’t care about boys any more! I’m a free spirit! And we’re reinventing ourselves! Girls to goddesses, remember?’

‘It hasn’t exactly been a brilliant start,’ I grumbled. ‘That was so cringe-making! Getting totally tied up in a stupid web of ridiculous lies.’

‘You started it! Telling Matthew that we’d changed our names and got boyfriends!’ I had to admit this was true. I was so regretting it now. Beast thought I had a boyfriend called Dan and I was busy with him every night of the week. ‘Anyway,’ Chloe went on, ‘I don’t mind Beast thinking I’ve got a boyfriend.’ It was ironical how different our feelings were.

‘We could help for just, say, one night a week. It wouldn’t hurt . . .’ I gabbled in desperation.

‘No, Zoe! We have to keep clear of all that! Imagine having to work with Matthew anyway! What a nightmare! I never want to spend five minutes with him again as long as I live!’

I didn’t argue any more. I started to wonder if I could somehow help Beast once a week without Chloe knowing. Maybe I could invent violin lessons or something. It would seem fairly insignificant to lie to her about something so minor, compared to the massive betrayal of keeping her in the dark about my feelings for Beast. I began to feel I would never be able to tell her about that, and even if I ended up married to Beast, he’d have to go upstairs and hide in the wardrobe every time she came round.

I became preoccupied with a delicious fantasy about being married to Beast and living beside a lake, where we swam every morning before barbecuing our breakfast on the shore. I wasn’t really listening to what Chloe was saying, and when I tuned back into her, I discovered I had agreed to a total overhaul of her wardrobe.

‘You’ve always thought my clothes were hopeless,’ said Chloe. ‘Now’s your chance. Be totally honest. I’ll accept every word you say. You’ll be my style advisor. We’ll chuck out all the rubbish and make me magnificent. Turning ourselves into goddesses in seven days is gonna be a piece of cake – at least style-wise!’

‘OK,’ I agreed hesitantly. I was beginning to get hungry and had been looking forward to walking on home after we reached Chloe’s house, and making myself a massive cheese and tomato sandwich.

But it was true: I
had
always thought Chloe’s fashion sense needed sharpening up a bit. Maybe this was an opportunity too good to waste. It might take us more than seven days to improve our actual bods, but the right clothes can instantly transform even hopeless nerds – think Gok Wan.

.

‘OK,’ said Chloe, as we entered her bedroom. ‘So, tell me: where do I start?’ She flung open her wardrobe doors and I sat down on her bed. A riot of ghastly colour flooded out of her wardrobe and enveloped me in visual noise.

‘Right . . .’ I got up and pulled out a yellow dress with a pattern of orange tortoises on it. ‘When did you last wear this?’

‘Ah.’ Chloe’s eyes had a faraway look. ‘At my Auntie Angela’s in Dorset, years ago. What’s wrong with it?’

I sighed. ‘Where do I start? It’s yellow, which is about your worst colour, it has tortoises on it, which let’s face it are best left in the wild, and it has a weird full skirt which probably makes you look like a lampshade.’ Chloe looked cross.

‘Auntie Angela loved it!’ she said rebelliously.

‘But, Chloe, that was years ago. You were just a kid. You need a more sophisticated look now. Chuck it out.’

‘I can’t chuck it out! Don’t be so harsh! This dress reminds me of that holiday. I had the best time in this dress. I almost kissed my cousin Jack.’

‘OK, OK, leave that one.’ Hastily I hung it back in the wardrobe. If Chloe wanted her clothes collection to be like Tutankhamen’s tomb, that was up to her. Instead I took out a pair of lime-green dungarees.

‘Yeah, that’s more like it,’ said Chloe, nodding eagerly as if she thought I was about to give her an award or something. ‘You’ve always said green is my best colour.’

‘But not this green! This is vile!’

Chloe burst into tears. ‘My dad brought those back for me from Dubai!’ she cried. ‘They’re not vile!’

‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean vile,’ I back-pedalled at speed. ‘I was going to say . . . viol-
ent
. The green . . . it’s a bit harsh. Probably in Dubai they have lovely bright sunlight, and so . . . this colour would look less . . . would look better. In this country, though . . .’ I continued cautiously ‘. . . I would go for maybe sage green, or sea green. Either of those would make you look fabulous.’

The dungarees went back in the wardrobe. I didn’t dare say anything about dungarees as a form of clothing. Chloe had stopped crying and was just sniffing now, even though it was a very indignant sniff. I hesitated between a red, green and yellow T-shirt and a skirt with horrible frills in bright, shiny crimson. I chose the latter. I could feel Chloe tense up as I held it to the light.

‘This is a cute skirt,’ I lied, ‘but basically
shiny
is a bit tacky, Clo. Except for evenings.’

‘I only wear it in the evenings.’

‘How many times have you worn it?’

‘Loads of times.’ She was lying. I remembered when she had bought it, back last spring, and how I’d had to bite my lip.

‘I’ve never seen you in it.’

‘I wear it when you’re not there! Because I know you’d be secretly sneering about it!’

‘I’m not sneering! Chloe, you asked me to do this!’

‘I didn’t realise you’d be so horrible about it!’

‘I’m not being horrible! Anyway, once we’ve done your wardrobe and cleared it out, you can come over to my house and go through mine!’ Chloe looked slightly comforted for a moment. I turned back to the crimson, shiny, flouncy skirt.

‘Basically,’ I said, trying to sound loving and gentle, ‘this skirt would be fine as a party piece, but on somebody else.’

‘Who?’ demanded Chloe furiously. ‘You, I suppose?’

‘No, no!’ I laughed (I wouldn’t be seen dead in it). ‘Not me. I’m too fat. Somebody tall and slim and dark, uhhh . . . Alice Clarke, maybe.’

‘Why shouldn’t I wear it?’ snapped Chloe.

‘First, crimson isn’t the best colour for redheads. It clashes with your hair. You should go for greens and blues and autumnal colours.’

‘Boring!’ shouted Chloe.

‘Secondly,’ I went on, determined now because she was starting to irritate me, ‘a flouncy skirt is fine on a tall girl, but on somebody short, you get the toadstool effect.’

‘Don’t you call me a freakin’ toadstool!’ shouted Chloe.

‘Stop shouting!’ I hissed. ‘I’m not saying you look like a toadstool! I’m just saying flouncy skirts can look like that on short girls!’

‘I’m not short!’ snarled Chloe. I didn’t reply to this, I just looked down on her puny five-foot-two frame from my towering height of five foot six or sevenish.

‘Chloe, I’m just trying to help you,’ I pleaded. ‘On the way here you asked me to go through your wardrobe. You said I’d be your style advisor and it would be my job to make you magnificent and you’d accept every word I said.’ Chloe just glared. I advanced on the wardrobe again and hung the skirt back up. I was determined to have my say.

‘Look . . .’ I ran my hand along her clothes. ‘Bright blue, bright red, yellow, pink, patterns, logos, prints, checks . . . this T-shirt even has a goddam hamster on it.’

‘That hamster’s not goddam!’ shrieked Chloe. ‘He’s called Hammy! He was my best friend for two years at primary school! I used to talk to him secretly so I didn’t feel lonely! Nobody would speak to me sometimes just because I had red hair!’

‘OK, OK, forget Hammy,’ I soothed. ‘All I wanted to say is, just take a look at all these bright colours and patterns and stuff – it looks like a children’s party. If you want to be magnificent and a goddess and all that, you’re going to have to stop decorating yourself like a Christmas tree and get some plain, stylish stuff for a change.’

‘Well, you can go to hell!’ Chloe’s eyes flashed and sparked. ‘You think you know it all! You think you’re so clever and freakin’ elegant and stuff! Well, you’re not! You’re fat and spotty and your ears are weird!’

This was too much. Something snapped. I turned on my heel, marched out of her bedroom and down the stairs. If I’d been in my own home I’d have slammed the door, but Chloe’s mum Fran was in the kitchen and being in somebody else’s house does rather cramp your style when it comes to volcanic rage.

I walked home fuming and nervous. I knew I was fat and spotty, but what was this about my ears? Chloe was such a bitch. All I’d done was try to give her some style advice – when asked, mind you – and she’d given me a whole new thing to be self- conscious about. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a long hard look at my ears.

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5

Mum was out, so I’d be spared a homework lecture. Great! Dad was busy in the kitchen. I gave him a brief hug and enquired if he’d had a good day.

‘No, it’s been a disaster, old boy,’ he said. He always calls me that, because they thought I was going to be a boy. ‘But, hey!’ Dad went on. ‘I’m making us a high-calorie supper. Mum’s in Glasgow inspecting a burned-out warehouse, so while the cat’s away . . .’ He tapped the side of his nose and winked. ‘I’m making beef and mushroom pie, with mash!’

‘Wow! Brilliant!’ I cheered up slightly, but I was still feeling stressed out because of my row with Chloe. I needed to patch things up with her, and fast. Maybe I’d been a bit too harsh about her weird clothes sense. In fact, it’s one of the things I love about her, so why had I droned on patronisingly about plain elegance? All the same . . . ‘Dad,’ I asked, ‘can you see anything weird about my ears?’

‘Nope,’ said Dad decisively. ‘They’re beautiful. They’re perfect. They are, of course, the Morris ears, inherited from me: small, streamlined for wind-resistance, and worn fashionably close to the head.’ He kissed me on the head and turned back to his pie.

I was not completely reassured, though. I raced upstairs. Music was coming from Tam’s room. I found her sitting on the floor surrounded by clothes. She spends seventy per cent of her time like this.

‘Hi, Zoe,’ she smiled. ‘How was school? And have you seen my dark-blue camisole top with sparkly bits?’

‘Ooops. Borrowed it at the weekend, I’ll get it right now,’ I promised, diving to my room and grabbing it out of a pile of dirty laundry.

‘Thanks . . .’ said Tam absent-mindedly. ‘I’m trying to sort stuff out, and sell a load of old things . . . So how was your day?’

I told her about the row with Chloe and my futile attempt to change her fashion sense. ‘We’re trying to transform ourselves into goddesses in seven days,’ I sighed. ‘We’re never going to manage it. How can Chloe be a goddess dressed in five different random colours that clash?’

‘Oh, that’s just Chloe,’ laughed Tam.

‘And, Tam, she said my ears were weird! Look at them . . . tell me what’s wrong with them!’

Tam stared at my ears from every direction, frowning slightly.

‘Don’t frown!’ I begged.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Tam. ‘Your ears are fine. They’re a bit small, maybe, and close to your head, but I’d kill for ears like that. Mine are like elephant ears – look!’ She pulled back thick hanks of blonde hair to reveal her rather large velvety ears, adorned with glittering earrings of the silver dangly sort. ‘I’m saving up to have surgery!’ she whispered. ‘I want to have my ears pinned back nearer to my head. Every time I wear my hair up I look like a goddam silver cup at a sports day!’

‘Well, when you have your ear op,’ I said, ‘maybe they could transplant one of your ears on to my head. I mean, do a swap. So we’d both have one tiny weird ear and one elephant one!’ Tam agreed, grabbed a pencil and drew a cartoon of us with our odd ears. We looked hilarious. I grabbed the pencil and added a massive zit on my chin. Tam grabbed it back and gave herself an enormous nose like an anteater. I was giggling uncontrollably now. I wrestled the pencil back and gave myself massive saggy boobs.

‘Mum and Dad . . . ?’ gasped Tam, shaking with laughter, and drew Dad as a cute little pig and Mum as a fearsome power-dressed rat.

Still laughing, I crawled up on to Tam’s bed and she sprawled out on the floor. For a moment I felt what bliss it was to be laughing with Tam, and how I was going to miss her when she went back to uni.

‘So, Zoe,’ Tam said after a while, ‘apart from this thing with Chloe, how’s life? Who’s your latest squeeze?’

‘Nobody,’ I said, a bit too fast. ‘Chloe and I are going through a self-improvement programme. We’re going to give ourselves the mother of all makeovers. We don’t have time for boys right now.’

‘Oh yeah?’ grinned Tam. ‘How long will that last? Half an hour?’

I couldn’t tell her about my feelings for Beast. He was a bit too close to Tam for me ever to admit anything to her. She might try a bit of matchmaking or something. It could end in disaster.

‘There is
one
thing I was wondering, though,’ I said. I was still in anguish about those fictional boyfriends I’d invented and what Beast might be thinking about it, if anything.

‘If you were crazy about somebody . . .’ I began. Tam sat up quickly, looking eager and grinning.

‘Ye-e-eah . . . ?’

‘And he hadn’t, well, hadn’t, uh, made a move, exactly, but you were hoping . . . I mean, do you think it would be a good idea if he thought some other guy was interested in you?’

‘Who is it, Zoe?’ Tam beamed, ignoring my question and joining me on the bed. ‘Who’s the lucky boy?’

‘Nobody!’ I retorted in panic, sitting up and trying to compose my face into serene calmness, even though my heart was beating quite fast.

‘Come on! There is somebody!’ Tam peeped round into my face. Her eyes were dancing. I was so wishing I’d never started this.

‘No, there isn’t,’ I said, blushing. ‘It’s just – in theory. What do you think?’

Tam’s face was full of mischief, but she hesitated for a moment or two, thinking, and in that little pause we heard footsteps coming upstairs. Dad was obviously going to announce that dinner was almost ready and frankly, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon.

There was a knock on the door. But it wasn’t Dad’s knock. This was a more polite knock, more hesitant.

‘Tam?’ A male voice called softly. It could have been any of Tam’s mates: Ginger, Smiffy, Morton, Christo, Ape . . .

‘Come in!’ shouted Tam. The door opened – and Beast came in! Every bone in my body turned into noodle soup. It was a major task to stop myself from melting away down the cracks in Tam’s floorboards in little rivulets of red-hot panic.

Beast gave me a sudden wonderful smile, like the sun coming out. My poor little heart skipped in the warmth, like a spring lamb.

‘Hi again, Zoe,’ he said, then hesitated for a moment and turned to Tam. ‘Hey, Tam! Your dad said to come on up. I heard you were home from uni and I just wanted to drop in and say hello. How are you?’

Tam jumped up and hugged him. I sat there on the bed feeling a bit awkward. It was so unfair that Tam, who was just a friend of his, could enjoy a massive cuddle, whilst I, who adored him more than words can express, had to just sit there and watch.

Though tormented by the sight of Beast’s arms around my glamorous sister, it did at least give me time to try to return my bones to their solid state and cover my weird ears with a few little strands of wiry hair.

‘I saw Zoe earlier in the Dolphin Cafe,’ said Beast, glancing at me with a fleeting smile, at which ten thousand of my goose pimples throbbed with excitement. ‘She told me you were home, and I realised it’s been ages since I last saw you. Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, thanks, brilliant,’ replied Tam tossing her wonderful blonde hair to demonstrate her post-appendicitis health. ‘But how are you? And how’s Jailhouse Rock coming on? I’ll be there, of course – I’m going to organise a whole busload of my mates from uni!’

‘Awesome,’ said Beast. ‘You’re an angel.’ He beamed at her, and I stared up in fascination at his profile, trying to commit it to my memory in a kind of secret mental photo. I find that, though I’ve known Beast for years, since I started to be mad about him, when he’s not there I can’t remember what he looks like.

‘Sit down, sit down!’ cried Tam, sweeping some bras off her computer chair. Beast sat down, but as if he wasn’t planning to stay long. I hoped he would find time to bestow another of his casual smiles on me, because it was at least a minute since the last one and I was desperate for a refill. ‘You’ve just arrived at the perfect moment!’ Tam prattled on. ‘I was interrogating Zoe about her latest boyfriend! She won’t tell me who he is! Come on, Zoe – tell Beast. Maybe he can give you some tips! Hey, Beast, Zoe wants to know, if this guy she’s mad about finds out she’s going out with another guy, will it make him more interested, or less?’