Jelly Cooper: Alien (2 page)

With a whimper, I open my eyes and push back the duvet.  The room is stifling and I’m
sweating
and shivering and I’m frightened and…and what time is it? 

I grab my mobile from the side of the bed.

1.30. 

One thirty and
I’m done with sleep for the night and have double maths to get through tomorrow.

Brilliant.

I grab the dreamcatcher and throw it across the room.  It bounces off the wall and lands on the floor with a definite rattle.

Chapter 2

I feel like someone’s
unwrapped a sponge inside my head.  I can barely lift the spoonful of cereal to my mouth and I’m pretty sure I’ve buttoned up my shirt all wrong.  I am officially feeble.  I consider asking my mother if I can stay home, but know she won’t agree.

I had the crappiest night sleep last night and it’s left me feeling, well, crappy.  Humphrey’s words are playing inside my head and it’s driving me crazy.  It’s like I’m wearing earphones that are plugged into a memory machine.  All I hear is Humphrey and all I see is fragments from the latest dream. 

I know I must look terrible.  Hey, maybe I
should
ask mum for the day off.  I look up, hopeful, but mum doesn’t seem to notice my sallow skin or the blue bags beneath my eyes.  Instead, she picks up her keys and offers to run me to school on her way to drop Molly off.

I smile.  “Sure mum.  That’d be great.”

The fist in my belly tightens its grip.

I wonder; do fourteen-year-olds get stomach ulcers? 

***
              ***              ***

Today has been horrible.  Worse than usual.  Utter suckage.

I’ve been late for lessons, missed the chips at lunchtime and answered the easiest maths question in the world with ‘um, minus two?’

Last lesson of the day and I am on my last legs (which is a stupid expression if you ask me.  It’s not like we’ve got spares, tucked in our bags).  Just one more hour to get through and the weekend is mine.  I plan a festival of sleeping and eating and not much talking.

The teacher is calling the register and I drag my attention back to the present. 

“Amy Cole?”

“Here.”

“Jelly Cooper?”

“Here.”

“
Unfortunately
.”

Rhiannon Miles.  And I thought the day couldn’t get worse.

They say that every person has a doppelganger, a soul mate and a nemesis.  The doppelganger eludes me (thank God - coming face-to-face with another version of me would be
fre-aaaa-ky
), the soul mate I’m working on, but I have definitely found my nemesis in Rhiannon Miles, head of the popular squad (of course).

Honestly, not one opportunity to humiliate, embarrass or hurt goes unmissed.  She’s like a coiled snake, always ready to attack.  She has spies all over the place and doesn’t miss a thing. She’s hated me from the moment she first laid eyes on me and I’ve hated her from the moment she opened that great big gob of hers.

And now she’s decided to put the icing on my crummy cake of a day.

I ignore the snorts and giggles of the ignoramuses sat around me (I always thought the plural for ignoramus would be
ignorami, like cactus and cacti, but it isn’t - I just looked it up in the dictionary.  Go figure).  I’ve been here many times before and there’s no point saying a word at this stage; it won’t change a thing.

“Miss
Wa-alsh.”

Melissa Lloyd. 
Rhiannon’s chief henchwoman and longest-standing devotee. 

Great.

“Yes Melissa, what is it?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

That’s never good.

“I don’t want to be called Melissa from now on.”

Miss Walsh’s bushy eyebrows climb up her forehead and Melissa smiles.

Ignore her!  Don’t do it.  Don’t ask.

I try to beam the thoughts directly into Miss Walsh’s brain but all that happens is that I get a headache and she still blindly bumbles on.

“Really, Melissa?”
  She folds her arms.  “What
would
you like to be called?  Something ‘celebrity’ like Apple or Manchester I suppose?”

This is Miss Walsh’s idea of wit.

Taking her time, Melissa clears her throat, smoothes down her shiny black hair and makes sure that she has the rapt attention of every person in the room.  Timing, they say, is everything.

I sit, biding
my
time, working out a game plan.  It’s sad, really, to think that you need a game plan just to get through school, but there it is.  Contrary to the happy-clappy tripe pumped out of the television and magazines, life’s not all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.  In fact, it’s a bit shit.   

I realise that I’m grinding my teeth, again.  Note to self: dentist appointment - make one.

“Well Miss Walsh,” Melissa blathers on.  “I’ve given this some serious thought, because names are, like, really important.”

This i
s how she speaks.  I kid you not.

“
Sooooooooo, I’d like to be called Glass from now on.”

The class collectively holds its breath.  Rhiannon sits perfectly still, her eyes gleaming.

“Glass.  You want to be called Glass?”

Melissa nods her head and makes her eyes go wide.  Like a puppy.

“It’s French for Ice Cream, Miss.”

Maybe Miss Walsh didn’t sleep well last night, or maybe she argued with the perspective Mr Walsh this morning, or maybe she left her brain on the kitchen table when she left the house.  Who knows?  All I know is that she’s walking straight into Rhiannon’s trap and there’s not a lot I can do about it.

“I’m not going to call you
Glace,
Melissa.  Sit down please.”

Miss Walsh
is new and the perfect patsy and Melissa, who’s got more swerve than a game of snooker, shrugs, pouts and turns to face the class.

“But why not, Miss Walsh?”

I close my eyes.

“Because,” says the unsuspecting moulder of young minds through gritted teeth, “it’s a stupid name and I refuse to call anybody by a name as stupid as
Glace
.  Now stop wasting time and SIT DOWN!”

Bingo. 

I open my eyes and Melissa grins at me.

I really hate that girl.

“But Miss Walsh,” she whines, winking at Rhiannon, “what about when you want to call Jelly?”

All eyes turn to me and
unwelcome heat races up my neck and invades my cheeks.  The air in the classroom is suddenly thicker. 

“That’s enough, Melissa.”

That would be the less-than-bright Miss Walsh floundering badly now that she’s landed herself in hot water. 

Melissa, sensing victory, goes for the kill.

“Jelly’s a stupid name, isn’t it Miss?  Ice cream, trifle,
jelly
, blancmange; they’re all as ridiculous as one and other.  Don’t you think so Miss Walsh?”  She pauses to place a finely polished fingertip to her glossed lips as if pondering the delicacies of world politics.

“Maybe,” she continues, “we shouldn’t call Jelly by her silly, stupid name any more.”

Miss Walsh pushes her knuckles into her eyes and groans. 

“Shut up Melissa, just shut up!”

Someone at the back of the room coughs, Pete Davidson starts to laugh and I wonder if the pompom heads will ever grow tired of being this pathetic. 

I rise to my feet and clap my hands together with slow, measured, strokes.

I look at Rhiannon, not Melissa.  Blondie hasn’t spoken a single word, but I know that she’s behind the whole thing.  She smiles and I clap harder.  I give her a nod.

“Well done.”

My voice is steady and strong and I give a quick prayer of thanks to Zeus, Apollo and all the other toga wearers.  Score one to me.

My face is
bright red, but you can’t win them all.

“Quite a little performance; ‘
ri-dic-u-lous’, four syllables,” I glance at Melissa.  “That must be some kind of record for you bimbettie.  Did your mother feed you some oily fish for breakfast or something?”  I turn my attention back to my nemesis (dramatic, I know), my eyebrow cocked.  I’m particularly proud of my ability to lift my left eyebrow when I get the urge to be uber-sceptical. 

“What’s the matter with you today Rhiannon?  Feeling a little under the weather, or have you lost your bottle?  Maybe all that jumping up and down waving your pompoms about like some rabid chipmunk has rattled your brain in your skull so much that you’re incapable of intelligent thought.  That
would
explain a lot.”

Rhiannon’s face distorts, her lips drawing back into an actual snarl!  For a second, I find myself kind of impressed, then I remember what a snake she is and how much I really, really hate her.

She starts towards me, threading her way through the desks.  Miss Walsh rushes forward. 

Too bad.

Now I am presented with two options: shall I let it be, like the Beatles said, or shall I push it? 

“Give me a B,” I yell.  No one answers, but I didn’t think anyone would.  I persevere.

“Give me an I.”

A small voice whispers ‘I’.  I think that it’s
Sharlene Crier, former target for one viciously inclined pompom-waver.

“Give me an M.”

Holding my arms in the air, I wave my imaginary pompoms above my head with feigned enthusiasm, a ridiculous look on my face as I mimic the school’s cheerleaders, or the school’s brain dead, as I like to call them.

Rhiannon struggles
against Miss Walsh’s grip as I get a small, but encouraging, chorus.

“EMMMMMM!”

“Give me a B.”

The chorus gets louder.

“B
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“Give me an O.”

“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“B, I, M, B, O…”

She’s really straining to get at me and I can see that Miss Walsh is having difficulty in restraining the little she-devil.

“What have we got?”

“
BIMBO!
”

Grinning, I walk from the room with my head held high. 

“TO THE HEAD MASTER’S OFFICE JELLY COOPER!”

Miss Walsh’s screech follows me down the hallway, but I don’t care.

Yes, Rhiannon started it. 

Yes, I’m the one cast out and sent to see Mr. Pickle
, unjustly. 

Yes, I may have to explain this whole thing to my parents. 

Yes, it was worth it. 

***              ***              ***

I think about standing outside Pickle’s office and then I go to the library. 

Hey, at least I thought about it. 

Anyway, Miss Walsh isn’t going to want to push the whole ‘I let a student manipulate me into inadvertently insulting another of my students’ thing.

I grab a seat in a sunny spot, pull the book that I’m reading out of my backpack and find my place.  Yes, this is much better than going to see
Pickle. 

A shadow falls across the table.  Frowning, I look up and prepare to meet the perpetrator with my infamous steely glare.

Except that it’s Travis Jenson.

A wistful sigh escapes my lips.  Seconds later I hear the sound in my head and, fighting the urge to slam the heel of my hand between my eyes, clamp my lips tightly shut. 

Travis stares at me with clear blue eyes. 

Time stops as I imprint his image onto my retinas.  He is
sooooooooo gorgeous.

Travis Jenson is fifteen.  He’s in the year above me at school, but he’s one of those kids that only just missed being in the class above.  His birthday is in September, I think. 

OK, OK, it’s September the third.

Or something
like that.

OK, it’s September the third.  You caught me.

Travis transferred to Seabrook last year.  His parents bought a cottage on the cliff top.  His dad’s a writer and found the sleepy little village of Seabrook – get this – an
inspiration
!  He uprooted the whole family and replanted them here in double-quick time.  I fear that the man is insane.  But he did bring Travis here, so I guess I should send him flowers or something.

Anyhow, Travis is the
captain of the rugby team, the football team
and
the rowing club and just about the cutest thing on the planet. 

Not that I’ll ever tell him.  Not while I have breath in my body and free will over my mouth.

Travis looks down at me and my gaze falls to the hard bumpiness of his chest.  I realise that I’m staring and blush to the roots of my hair.  My
red
hair.