Double Dates & Single Raisins Read online

  My belly was filled with super-bouncy jet-balls. Not literally, but when people make all these cliché claims about “butterflies”, they obviously don’t know what they’re talking about. Butterflies flutter freely about the garden (though not usually our garden, what with frequent cats and two dogs pouncing / bounding about the place, rather like jet-balls). Butterflies don’t actually live inside people. They don’t come with warning labels about being a choke hazard for under-fives. Nobody has ever eaten a butterfly. From what little attention I paid in pre-school, only spiders and flies have been accidentally consumed.

  Jet-balls ping around everywhere, and would make for a miles-better metaphor. I even remember the time Charlie had one in his pocket from a party bag, and it fell out on the bus on the way home and went springing off the walls (are they still called walls on a bus?) and landing in the cappuccino of a man in a white suit. (That may be the cliché bit.)

  Charlie claims he remembers all that too, but I know he doesn’t, since he doesn’t remember how we’d left early ’cause of his nosebleed, which is, I think, a lot more memorable than a pink jet-ball.

  Thoughts of simpler times left behind in the rumpled bed, my jittery tummy and I had to rush through the morning routine. I jammed a piece of someone else’s blackened toast into my mouth just as I rushed out of the door, but hastily slipped it into the nearest wheelie bin on my way down the street.

  Lo and behold, I got to school earlier than usual.

  Rindi wrinkled her nose up at me. “Who’re you?”

  “Harley,” I yawned. “You know me.”

  “No,” she teased. “I don’t know anyone called Harley who gets up before quarter past nine…”

  Oh, boom boom…

  * * *

  “Psst! Harley!”

  I wandered through the wake of assorted humans towards my sister, who was standing on a bench – missing an adult. “Hey, Kitty-Kat! So you did come to watch the show. Where’s Mum?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m with Zak.”

  “Well, where’s Zak then?” I wondered if he’d spotted that tart Asta across the crowded room, fallen madly in love with her and broken his neck.

  “With Charlie. Why do you all talk so silly?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

  “Mooses. And now they keep saying ‘duck’ and laughing!”

  I hoped she hadn’t misheard a swearword – she could’ve actually heard some others if they were bantering that hard.

  Joining my brothers and Andy, I found that they were in deepish debate over something (maybe rude?) that had happened in a PE lesson earlier.

  “-said to him, ‘Andy, duck!’ and he was like ‘A duck? Where?’ so this rugby ball Jordy’d just lobbed just narrowly missed the back of his head!” Charlie chortled loudly over the crowd noise. He looked no saner than Andy must’ve earlier on. “And-”

  “Charlie, c’mon,” I reminded him, all set to drag him away. “We have to be in the left wing now. And Zak – don’t leave Kitty unsupervised like that!”

  Charlie smirked. “Wing.”

  “Wing the wong number!” tittered Andy.

  “Sum ting wong?” sniggered Zak, right at me.

  There you have it; boys are just dumb… All I could do was give him the evils as I towed a nervously giggling Charlie from the group, and hope he actually understood enough to keep an eye on Kitty.

  * * *

  Frozen at the end of my scene, I was struggling not to laugh. We had indeed chosen reduction to the absurd, in lieu of any actual original jokes, but it hadn’t gone down as horribly as it could’ve done.

  Sure, I was dressed as the Driving Instructor from Hell (true story, courtesy of Rindi’s sister Nadine) – an outfit selected by Kay and Rachel (the latter of whom was in an real cat suit, when she was supposed to be been a cat in the skit), who’d been let loose only on mine and Charlie’s costumes as Chan and Keisha seized control of the “look good” characters. But my spotty rain mac, socks and sandals and even my green stick-on beard were no match for what my twin was wearing.

  For his part in the final sketch, “Look What The Pouffe Fairy Brought” (actually not with the gay connotations it may have sounded like), he was wearing a ballet leotard (way too small and way too tight), Kitty’s pastel striped socks, dolly shoes with the toes cut off (muddied and modified by Hendy), Kay’s sunflower hairbands, and the hutch-cleaning fairy wings. He carried an electronic heartshaped wand like the ones you can get as a panto souvenir, still fluttering on and off because the switch had jammed, and was standing on a rollerball-wheeled pouffe stool, which had been used to enter the stage at speed. Charlie had been a real sport, even tossing his tiara into the audience at the end, despite openly wanting to keep it.

  Chantalle counted down from three without moving her lips, and we unfroze and walked offstage on jelly legs. Kay hugged us all, and helped remove the props and even supplied us a banana each from her oversized orange and white striped beachbag. We’d pulled it off!

  * * *

  “…and now to announce the winning act!” boomed Mr Pringle, unsmilingly, but with eyes that said he was possibly either proud, confused, or displeased. (Let’s call it disconproudled.)

  Of course we hadn’t won. My whole idea had been to ask a costume expert how to humiliate Charlie in return for his Andy Date idea. If he’d hooked me up with Jordy like he’d alluded, we could’ve executed a performance that’d make him shine. Despite double checking my lines for embarrassingness, I’d completely overlooked how Kay, as my sudden best friend, would want part in my costume too. Four minutes of sweltering in a tacky raincoat behind the curtain scarred for life by the image of my twin bro’s groin straining at an innocent leotard made me wonder if I was the one due karmic punishment and sixty years of therapy.

  “-The Drama Club Christmas Performance Advert – Much Ado About Nothing!”

  Cue claps and cheers from the audience, and a huge, disappointed “Ohhhhhhh!” from Kitty on her bench at the very front beside Zak.

  OK, it wasn’t exactly fair that the Zip Zap Boing crew were allowed to effortlessly win by placing an advert (no, shameless plug) for their Crimby theatrepiece prominently amongst our respective skits, songs and awful presentations. And it wasn’t exactly fair that they didn’t have to think of a single original thing to put the play together. And it wasn’t exactly fair that they had the backing of the entire Drama staff, choir and school band for their menial efforts.

  Asta Price and her cronies pranced up to collect their £10 book tokens for Waterstones. I caught her smug smile all the way from the side of the Hall, but I found that I couldn’t care. I’d won in a different way, last month when I’d brought myself to leave Drama Club, knowing it had ceased to be fun without you. If Asta thought she could make me regret my autonomy by winning a stupid book token, she was sorely mistaken.

  “Second prize,” he went on, “goes to the school brass band!” (Yuh-huh, they’d continued to use the old band title for what was now a trombone, a trumpet, a saxophone and… a bass guitar.)

  More clapping and cheering, and another, smaller “Ohhhh…” I started to wonder if I’d misread “School Patriotism Contest” as “Talent Show”.

  “And finally, the third prize of a Merit each, goes to… That Group With The Driving Instructor-” (that’s me!) “-and that… fairy thing. Come on up here and take a bow!”

  #15 The Wicked Witch Of The Wardrobe

  Up in my attic bedroom, we were playing Swap Shop. All of us were mostly organised on the outfit stakes, but we’d still arranged to bring those few gruesome items headed for the charity shop round in case of embarrassing embellishment ideas.

  I was in Chan’s old black leggings and one of Charlie’s T-shirts (Iron Maiden, with like a mummy thing on the front), eyeliner (done by Kay, not Charlie) and a trilby hat. I’d decided to go as a metal kid, because after the rain mac humiliation I didn’t think I’d feel up to proper dress-ups for a long while yet.
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  Rachel was sorted, basically, ’cause she didn’t have to return the catsuit ’til Saturday, which meant she was looking girlier than usual. Ditto Chan (“horny devil”) and Keisha (“sexy secret agent”). Dani had gone for Velma and wanted her cousin to be Daphne, so I felt her pain over having to go it alone – though Rindi and Fern sort-of matched as (shop-bought) Aurora and Ariel, complete with synthetic wigs.

  There was only one person holding us up…

  “Ooh! This, this, this, and this!” gushed Kay, looking about to jump up and lick faces like one of the hairy jet-balls I’d shut out of my room and away from the clothing pile. “-and THIS!!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re seriously going to wear five different shirts and the gold heels from the garden time capsule?”

  Planting her vegetable patch, her gran had stumbled upon a crate full of items that looked like they’d come from the 70s. According to Kay, all of it was costume, and came with a note from what must’ve been a young adult previous-previous occupant that read “Suckers! This is a millennium capsule and we’re a panto troupe.” They’d well underestimated her reaction…

  “I’ll find a way…” She grinned, deranged, grabbed the shirts and slipped off her millennium shoes for a quicker dash next door.

  “Mine!” snapped Keisha, suddenly, snatching the heeled Mary Janes no sooner had they departed Kay’s feet. “These’ll go perfect with my costume!”

  “Hey!” protested Kay, trying to swipe them back and dropping her loot. “They’re my shoes!”

  “But I’m a secret agent!” Keisha insisted, though I suspected she’d make a terrible one, what with all the gold she wore, and how unsurreptitious a thief she was.

  “You could at least ask!” Kay pointed out. A good point it was, too. Just because they probably really would look great on Keish, didn’t mean she had any right to take without asking.

  “Fine, can I wear your stupid shoes?!” barked Keisha.

  “Y’know what? NO!!” Kay exploded, with one final tug.

  Now, Keisha’s pretty bossy at the best of times, but the sheer force of Kay’s refusal made her grip relax. Kay flew backwards into the built-in wardrobe with a heavy crack!. She lay with stripy tighted legs splayed, looking every piece the Wicked Witch of the East for what could be seen of her, and we all sat in shock, waiting for her to cry.

  No crying. From behind the wall of hanging clothing, there was movement, and finally Kay sat up, hair sprinkled liberally with white dust. “I can see my house from here!” she announced, with excitement.

  All of us stared. Concussion couldn’t be ruled out, just because she was a little nuts anyway. Kay seemed to realise that we had no idea what she was on about, and embellished. “The wall just… broke. Now we can have conversations through the wardrobe!”

  Chantalle shot me a pitying look, and honestly it was welcome. As much as I liked Kay, I was already a little sick of my popularity with her. Would I ever sleep again for all the nattering?

  Kay stood, grabbed the shirts and shoes, and went downstairs to let herself out. I headed over to the wardrobe to inspect the damage. The dividing wall between our two attics must’ve been created with the same cheap plaster that parted my room from the boys’, because now there was a head-shaped dent. You could just about see into Kay’s bedroom from mine.

  That was the last we knew of Kay, until she rang the doorbell at six, already dolled up and ready to leave. Out of the five ugly tops, she’d sewn the perfect patchwork dress. Her hat of the day was that of a witch, but powdered with craft glitter that turned out to be multicoloured. Under the hat her thick, brown crimples floated with static from brushing, and on her feet were the gold shoes.

  “You just had to paint your face, didn’t you!” snorted Chan. “That would look fine without the green skin. Ick!”

  “It’s a Halloween party,” withered Kay. “You look like a prozzie that shrunk in the wash.”

  I had to stifle a laugh. Kay was absolutely spot-on. As grown up and sexy as that red minidress had probably looked on her mum, even as the tallest of our group, it didn’t exactly cling to Chan in the right places. What’s more, she was having the worst trouble balancing in her matching slingbacks – matching not so much because of their redness, but because they were also the wrong size.

  It hadn’t been the greatest move on Kay’s part, though – given that she was still trying to fit in with our group, and had now rubbed both queen bitches up the wrong way by refusing to fall into rank where they wanted her. If she only had a brain…

  #16 Mates, Dates & Double-Donut-Donkey Dares

  Constantly High discos are the nick-namer of our stupid school. There’s always police on hand to control the booze and drug situation, no matter how mellow the action has always seemed to me. After all, who in their right brain would bother turning up to a school party if they had a night of drunken debauchery in mind? Those sorts of people would never even consider fancy dress unless they’d already been pre-drinking. (And yes, this is Key Stage 3 – Years 7 through 9 – we’re talking about.)

  Despite the general mellowness of the disco, Keisha just had to stir things up…

  “I’ve got a great idea!” she threatened, over the roar of outdated pop music to rival my own collection. “Let’s play dares!”

  “Let’s not…” Fern whispered my way.

  “Yeah, ace idea!” Kay was beaming, possibly concussed after all.

  “Cool,” mumbled Chan, like she hadn’t been listening. The word “cool” summed up everything she was trying and failing to be when boys were about. Even her horny headband had slipped, and her pipecleaner tail wasn’t holding well to the black plastic belt she had on.

  Rachel had a suggestion. “OK, I dare everyone to dance all the way to the drinks table and back! First one wins! GO!”

  I’d just spotted Charlie, Andy and Jordy heading for drinks with a couple of other boys from their class. Could she have been trying to push me into an awkward position?

  “Er, maybe not.” I winced. “It’s ‘YMCA’ right now, and we are practically the Village People tonight…”

  Appreciative as she’d momentarily looked, Chantalle was straight in with a suggestion for me. “Harley, stop being a spoilsport. I dare you to get over there right now and snog your date – Andy!”

  “Only if Kay comes with me to set the mood with Charlie,” I agreed, halfheartedly. I had absolutely no intention of kissing Andy, but I was certain that no one would even remember Chan’s dare once they saw how seriously Kay would probably take her part in it.

  “I dared you first!” protested Chantalle.

  “Well, I double-dare Kay!”

  “But I double-donut­-dare you!”

  I smirked, so sure I would win this one. It’s sometimes handy to have a sister still in Primary. “I double-donut-donkey-dare KAY.”

  Chan looked exasperated, but suddenly came back with: “But I infinity-dare YOU!”

  Uh-oh.

  But then I had a brainwave. “Back at you!”

  “Infinity back at you – copyright!”

  It was then that Kay opened her mouth and unleashed the heroic line: “Infinity times more than you can ever say, back at you, copyright, bank, padlock, case closed!”

  Keisha was giving us the twitchy-eyed scowl again, but it was no good – she was the one who’d suggested dares, at a disco that made us all feel like it was about the year 2000. If that hadn’t been asking for immaturity, I wasn’t sure what it was asking for.

  All of a sudden there was a huge crash from the direction of the refreshments table. It was one of those Kodak moments. Andy Godfrey, lying in the middle of the wood-varnished floor, surrounded by what seemed like a thousand used plastic cups. His Michael Myers mask was crooked, and his shaggy strawberry blonde hair had a Wella-strength tint of cheap, blue fizzy drink.

  For the sake of seeming cool around my friends, I “should” have been rolling around laughing, but no stranger to embarrassing myself in public, I
kept a straight face and just winked his way to show my fool solidarity.

  It was only after he started grinning like an idiot that I began to regret it. Had our Blind Date mislead him some? Was a wink suddenly so much more suggestive if you were wearing eyeliner at the time? After all, Keish and Chan looked a million times more intimidating with makeup, and I guess that’s a similar effect…

  Charlie and Kay needed to be reminded of their date status ASAP! And speaking of Charlie, he didn’t seem to be having too fun a time either…

  Although Rachel had been nice enough to give him one of her unwanted slogan tees for his effort to be my counterpart and dress as a different kind of normal person, he still wore an expression of borderline depression. The irony ached hard inside, as it read “See No Emo, Hear No Emo” and was teamed with blue jeans and white trainers, both belonging to Andy no doubt.

  “Why don’t you and Andy just get together already?” he asked me, darkly. “This is painful to watch!”

  “Try ’cause I don’t fancy Andy, and Andy doesn’t fancy me?” I sighed. “If that’s how we’re running things, why don’t you and Kay get together?”

  “Yeah.” (Keisha was backing me up?) “You’re both weird and like sparkly stuff, and you could both bog off and have weird and sparkly babies.”

  “Shut up, Keish,” said Kay, bravely. Despite it being her regular nickname, Kay had been the first to say it so cattily that I was aware of how much it sounded like quiche. “Leave Charlie alone. He’s not hurting anyone. And he is sweet, but I’m just not looking at the moment.” She squeezed his arm. “As for Harley and Andy, same thing for sure.”

  “Kay, I don’t think Andy’s sweet!” I hissed.

  She shrugged, prodding Charlie on his way, back to his blue and beautiful buddies (respectively).

  I’d thought there was something odd and pressured about my brother’s expression – and watching it change as Jordy spoke to him across the dancefloor, I feared the worst. Andy seemed to be telling him “no”, and Charlie looked like he wanted to die, but reappeared next to us in seconds.

  “Um, look… Harley. The thing is, I lost this bet and Jordy says if I can’t get you to go out with Andy, he’ll-”