Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (2 page)

And anyway, she didn’t believe he
had
been joking. There had been something horribly real about the way he’d confessed his fears. He’d been hesitant and the posh voice hadn’t been convincing. If it had really been a joke, Fred would have given a much more polished performance. Well, joke or not, either way, right now she hated him with a bitter, burning passion.

She could hear Fred panting and yelling as he chased her. It wasn’t exactly an Olympic event. Overweight girl – slightly overweight girl – wearing new, much-too-tight shoes, chased by bookish boy with long wobbly legs, who is intellectually opposed to the whole notion of physical exercise.

Eventually, of course, Fred caught up with her. After all, he was wearing trainers. He grabbed her jacket. It ripped.

‘You idiot!’ yelled Jess, and turned to face him.

Fred grabbed her wrist. His large grey eyes were bigger than ever.

‘Stop! Don’t be silly!’ he panted. ‘It was only a joke. I was just kidding.’

‘Some joke!’ yelled Jess, struggling to get free. ‘You dumping me! Big laughs!’

‘Of course I’m not dumping you!’ said Fred. ‘You’re the whatyacallit of my life! I worship the pavement outside your house! I would rather walk down the high street in my boxer shorts than lose you! I’d rather actually
take a dump
on the stage in front of the whole school than dump you!’

Jess closed her mind to all this horrid talk of dumping. She was horribly, insanely furious with him. She felt completely out of control.

‘Well, as it happens,’ she seethed, ‘what you said in jest, I’d been feeling for some time anyway.’ Words came tumbling out of her mouth. She hardly even knew what she was saying. All she knew was that she wanted to hurt Fred, to pay him back for the horrible pain that he had caused her. Fred’s whole body sort of cringed, and his face crumpled.

‘What?’ he gasped, grabbing at her again.

‘Let me go!’ shouted Jess, struggling, hysterical. ‘It’s over. I’ve had it up to here with you, and what you said just now is the final insult. Goodbye.’

‘I’m sorry!’ said Fred. He went down on his knees. ‘It was stupid. Forgive me! Set me nine impossible tasks. I’ll do them. I’ll eat tofu – anything.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Jess icily. ‘I’m going home.’ She stepped past him and walked briskly off towards the park gate.

Somehow she expected to hear Fred running up after her again. But he didn’t. Jess went through the gate and turned left to go home. No bounding footsteps followed her. She was desperate to turn round and run back to him, or at least look and see what he was doing, but she just couldn’t.

Besides, she had a lot of crying to do, once she got home. First of all, she had to cry about Fred saying such cruel things: being ashamed of her. Then she had to cry about the way she’d reacted, making things worse. Last of all – and worst – she had to cry because Fred hadn’t followed her begging and pleading to be forgiven, but had just somehow stayed dumbly behind in the park, the fool. How in the world had this awful row just blown up out of nowhere? Were they finished for good, or was it just a row? Either way, she was heartbroken.

Luckily, because Jess had had such a happy summer up till now, her teddy bear Rasputin was divinely dry, absorbent and ready to soak up whole monsoons of crying.

Chapter 2

Granny was asleep in front of the TV when Jess got home, so she could run upstairs and sob her heart out unobserved. Eventually Mum came home from a long hard afternoon drooling over plants in the garden centre. Some time later, a delicious smell of Mexican food drifted up the stairs.

But Jess couldn’t face eating. Her heart was broken. Her mum came upstairs to fetch her down to supper, and Jess made up an excuse about having a tummy bug. Mum gave her a very searching look. You could just tell she
knew
it was boy trouble. She was so obviously fighting to stop herself saying, ‘
See? Men just chew you up and spit you out. Don’t say I didn’t warn you
.’

Instead she said, ‘Well, it’s back to school tomorrow, so here’s your clean shirt.’ Being a mum involved such endless drudgery. Jess was determined she would never have a baby. After this afternoon, she wasn’t sure she could handle relationships with the opposite sex. And she didn’t like the sound of test-tube babies. Jess had always hated science.

Later that evening Jess applied a huge amount of black eye make-up to hide the evidence of crying, and went downstairs to ring Flora, her best friend. Flora was blonde, beautiful and loaded, but she still managed, somehow, to be adorable. She was always particularly good when Jess needed comfort and support. She had a strong motherly streak (unlike Jess’s actual mother), always told Jess she looked great and even enjoyed baking.

Right now Jess was desperate to pour out her troubles and have Flora put it all in perspective. She’d have to ring her on the landline. Flora wasn’t allowed to use her mobile at home, because her parents were afraid of brain damage. As Flora always got straight As in every subject, Jess privately thought a little teeny bit of brain damage might have been quite a good thing for Flora, but anyway, the landline offered the chance to chat for hours without charge.

Jess reckoned she wouldn’t be overheard because Mum and Granny were watching an archaeological programme.

‘I love this series because it makes me feel young,’ confided Granny. ‘Look! An Iron Age skull! I may be over sixty but I’m certainly in better shape than
her
!’

Jess went out to the kitchen, closed the door behind her and dialled Flora’s number. Flora’s frightening father answered.

‘Barclay!’ he barked.

‘Er, hello, this is Jess. Could I speak to Flora, please?’

‘One moment!’ he said, and then Jess heard him say, ‘Flora, it’s Jess – keep it short. I don’t want my evening ruined by teenage cackling.’ This was rude, but typical of Mr Barclay, known affectionately to his daughters as ‘The Great Dictator’.

‘Hi, babe!’ said Flora. ‘How’s everything?’

She sounded on edge. You could tell her parents were listening. This was so frustrating.

‘Look, I just wanted to say I’ll come round tomorrow morning and we can walk to school together, yeah?’ said Jess. She couldn’t bear the thought of walking in alone.

‘What about Fred?’ asked Flora with deadly, cruel accuracy. It was a fair enough question. Jess and Fred had walked to school together for years – long before they had ever become An Item.

‘I had a row with Fred today,’ said Jess. ‘We’re not speaking.’

‘Oh no! You poor thing!’ cried Flora.

A horrid, unworthy thought zipped through Jess’s mind. Flora had once had a massive crush on Fred. Would she now pounce on him like a dog grabbing a fallen biscuit?

‘I’m sure it’ll all blow over,’ Flora went on. ‘But yeah, of course, come over tomorrow, OK?’

So next morning, her face pale with sleepless torment (and make-up, to be honest), Jess arrived on Flora’s doorstep. Flora gave her a big hug, which did help. Perhaps to show solidarity, Flora was wearing a dull grey jacket and no make-up whatever. Of course, she still looked like a goddess, but what was the poor girl to do? She was stuck with Great Beauty. Life was so unfair.

Briefly Jess told Flora how she and Fred had had their row, and Flora said it was horrid of Fred to try and make a joke of something like that, but, hey, wasn’t Fred a comedy artist?

‘Come on, babe! I’m sure he’ll be waiting by the school gates and he’ll fall on his knees and beg for forgiveness. You’ll be back together by lunchtime, believe me.’

Jess sighed. She certainly hoped so.

‘And anyway, there’s going to be loads of terrific stuff to do this term,’ said Flora. ‘You and Fred will do a comedy sketch in the Christmas Show, won’t you? I’m sure Mr Fothergill will want you to star in the show. He thinks you’re a comedy legend. The Lisa Simpson of Ashcroft School.’

‘You’re more of a Lisa Simpson,’ said Jess. ‘I’m an under-achieving female Bart.’

She smiled slightly at the thought of dear, fat, enthusiastic Mr Fothergill. He was head of English and he had given her so much help and encouragement last term when she had worked on her first piece as a stand-up comedian. In his sweaty way, Mr Fothergill was a little bit of a darling.

‘And another thing,’ said Flora. ‘Mr Fothergill’s probably going to be our class tutor this year.’

Jess cheered up quite a bit at this thought. Mr Fothergill would certainly make registration something of a comedy event. And she knew that she and Fred were favourites of his – even though teachers weren’t supposed to have favourites. So, if she and Fred could get back together immediately and begin working on a comedy double act with Mr Fothergill’s help, life would stop being hell and just might start to feel more heavenly than ever.

The first disappointment was that Fred wasn’t waiting at the school gates. Jess felt embarrassed somehow that he wasn’t there. As if he didn’t care enough about her, or something. Flora knew she was feeling this. Though blonde, she was perceptive.

‘He wouldn’t want to see you in a public place like this, babe,’ she said hastily. ‘That was stupid of me. He’ll avoid you until he can get you on your own. In a corner of the school field at break. That’s where you’ll stage your big reconciliation. A secret cuddle under the trees. How romantic!’

Jess managed the ghost of a smile. They entered the bustling throng of the main corridor. Schoolkids everywhere – but no Fred. The bell rang for assembly. They made their way to the school hall.

The head teacher, Mrs Tomkins, droned on and on about the new term, a new start, new opportunities. But Jess wasn’t listening. She was desperately searching through the rows in front. She could easily recognise Fred by the back of his head, but there was no sudden leap of the heart, no joyful recognition. Fred just wasn’t there.

Mrs Tomkins began to welcome the new teachers. Jess wondered if Fred was late because something awful had happened to him on his way to school. A bus out of control? Oh no! Fred was such a dreamer! Suddenly Mrs Tomkins’s voice broke into Jess’s anxious hallucinations.

‘. . . Mr Fothergill. We all wish him a speedy recovery. So for this term, Mr Fothergill’s place will be taken by Miss Thorn.’

‘What?’ whispered Jess. ‘What’s happened to Fothers?’

‘He’s been hurt in a car accident in Portugal,’ Flora whispered back.

Jess’s heart lurched in dismay. Poor, dear Mr Fothergill! A car crash! How horrid could today get?

As they filed out to meet their new form tutors, Jess couldn’t stop thinking about car crashes.

‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘I hope the Greased Banana wasn’t damaged.’ The Greased Banana was Mr Fothergill’s little yellow sports car.

‘I expect it was a hired car,’ said Flora. ‘We always hire a car when we go on holiday.’

This was a brief glimpse of how the other half lived. Jess’s mum had a very ancient estate car. It was coated with dust and made a ghastly farting noise when it went uphill. Flora’s family had an SUV, and hired shiny new cars when they went on holiday. Although, to be fair, they hadn’t managed a holiday at all this summer because Flora’s mum had broken her leg.

Somehow thinking about accidents made Jess realise she wanted to have a pee. The loos were up ahead.

‘Come on,’ said Flora. ‘We’ll be late.’