Читать книгу Over the Moon - Jean Ure, Stephen Lee, Jean Ure - Страница 5

Life is so weird: nothing but ups and downs. I can’t keep track of it! One minute it’s like whoosh, whiz, sizzle! You’re over the moon. And the next, back down to earth with a huge great thump.

Down into a pit, full of gloom and despondency and deep dark despair. Which is where I was last night. I just didn’t see (I still don’t) how Mum could be so mean. So utterly without any sympathy or understanding for my plight. Life almost didn’t seem worth living. Whereas today – wheeee! All of a sudden, I’m back over the moon. Halfway to Venus! Practically out of sight. I can go to the party after all!!!

No thanks to Mum. But hooray for Dad! He is THE BEST. I can always rely on Dad to stick up for me.

I wrote that in my diary almost a year ago. I cannot believe that I was so young! Well, I mean, yes, I was twelve. Now I am thirteen, which is admittedly a kind of landmark age when you stop being a mere child and become a proper person. I do think there is quite a big difference between being twelve and being thirteen. All the same … to get so worked up about such utter trivia. Such “small potatoes” as one of my granddads would say. It is truly pathetic.

I was all in a froth, I remember, because I’d been invited to Tanya Hoskins’ party, and rumour had it, from people that had been at Juniors with her, that Tanya’s parties were something else. I mean, like, really posh. So I’d got this special new gear I was going to wear, a dinky little white outfit, short swirly skirt with matching top, which I’d begged and nagged at Mum to let me buy. It was practically a matter of life and death. I had to look my best! What with Tanya being my number one rival and all. Plus there were going to be boys. Even Mum was prepared to admit that boys made a difference, though she muttered her usual mumsy type stuff about twelve being far too young “for that sort of thing”. To which Dad, with a wink and a nudge, said, “Oh, yeah? Look who’s talking!” It was a bit of a joke between me and Dad that Mum sometimes seemed to forget how she had behaved when she was my age. “A right little tease,” according to Dad!

Anyway, there I was, the evening before the party, over the moon and all dressed up in my white skirt and top, with Mum going, “Scarlett, I should take that off, if I were you, before you have an accident,” and me yelling, “I’m just trying it on!” and Mum retorting, “You’ve already tried it on a dozen times,” and me irritably protesting that, “I have to make sure I feel comfortable in it,” when bing, bam, boom! DISASTER. Swishing past the kitchen table, I caught the handle of the coffee pot and that was that. Coffee all over. All over me, all over the floor, all over my lovely new outfit.

I screeched so loud I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t call the police. I couldn’t have screeched louder if I’d hacked off my finger with the bread knife. Even Dad heard, and he was outside in the garage. He came bursting in, through the back door.

“What’s going on?”

“I told her,” said Mum. “I told her to take it off.”

Dad said, “Take what off?” And then he caught sight of me covered in coffee and his eyes boggled. “Good grief! What happened?”

“She caught the coffee pot,” said Mum.

By this time I was practically hysterical. I am not usually a screechy weepy sort of person, I didn’t shed one single tear when I fell over in the playground and broke my wrist, and that was when I was in Year 3. But this was a calamity of cosmic proportions.

“It’ll come out,” Dad said. “Won’t it?”

“Doubt it,” said Mum.

“Not even if you put it straight into the machine?”

“Not washable,” said Mum. “Has to be dry cleaned.”

“Oh, lor’!” said Dad. “Isn’t that the get-up she’s supposed to be wearing for the party?”

I sobbed, “Yes, but how can I? Now? Look at it! It’s ruined! I’ll have to go and buy something else! Mum, can I go straight away and buy something else?”

“No, I’m afraid you can’t,” said Mum, at the same time as Dad said, “Well, I suppose— ”

“No.” Mum’s lips went all tight and trumpet-shaped. She sounded like she really meant it. “I’m sorry, Scarlett, we’ll try taking it to the cleaner’s and see what they can do, but— ”

“That’s no good!” I shrieked at her, like a demented creature. “I need it for tomorrow! Mum, please! Please let me go and get something else!”

But she wouldn’t. She can just be so obstinate! Dad was on my side, cos Dad always is, but Mum stood firm. She said I had plenty of other things I could wear, and that I was indulged “quite enough”. Dad said, “Isn’t that why we have kids? To indulge them?”

“Not to the extent of spoiling them rotten!” snarled Mum.

Poor Dad. What with me weeping and Mum snarling, he looked quite crestfallen. He hates to see me unhappy and he also hates it when Mum gets mad – which just lately she had been doing more and more often. He could obviously tell she wasn’t going to give way cos rather lamely he said, “Are you sure it won’t come out?” Like he was implying that any proper housewife would know automatically how to remove coffee stains. Which, needless to say, got Mum even madder. She somewhat sniffily informed Dad that she had better ways of occupying her mind than “tedious domestic trivia” and swept out of the room, leaving me still bleating and Dad looking sheepish, as he always did when Mum turned on him.

He told me gruffly to “Cheer up! You know what your mum’s like … she’ll simmer down.” But he didn’t say that he was going to overrule her. He didn’t tell me to jump in the car and we’d go into town straight away and buy me something else. So that was when I went down into my pit and furiously recorded in my diary that

Mum is hateful she exults in my misfortune and makes my life a misery. There are times when it is just not worth living.

Like I said, pathetic!

The next day was Saturday, the day of the party. I had already made up my mind to punish Mum by not going. I wanted her to suffer! I’m not quite sure how I thought it was likely to make Mum suffer, me not going to a party that I’d been looking forward to for weeks; I expect I had this vision of her being racked with remorse for ruining my life. I also wanted Dad to see how desperately miserable I was, cos I knew that me being miserable upset him more than almost anything. But then, while I was still wrapped up in the duvet feeling sorry for myself, Dad put his head round the door and cried, “Wakey, wakey, all systems go! Your mum’s had a re-think … I’ve talked her round.”

Three huge cheers for Dad! He was on my side! It was me and Dad versus Mum. Me and Dad were like a team and Mum was like the referee, always blowing her whistle and yelling, “Foul!” We didn’t usually take much notice of her. We just did our own thing!

Immediately after breakfast, me and Dad went into town and I went back to the same store. They’d still got the outfit, the same skirt and top, only this time, to be on the safe side in case of more coffee incidents, I got it in a deep emerald green. Dad always said that was my special colour, on account of me having red hair and green eyes, and I knew Tanya wouldn’t be wearing it as it doesn’t suit her sort of pale faded looks. She always sticks to boring pastel shades like pink (yuck!) and powder blue. When I got home I said a big thank you to Mum, but Mum just grunted and said, “I don’t want to know.” I didn’t care! I’d got my party clothes and I was back over the moon. Yippee!

Yeah, and guess what? This is my diary entry for the next day:

Tanya’s stupid party wasn’t worth going to. NO boys to speak of, except for just a few geeks, and loads of dim and boring cousins, and people from her old school, I might just as well not have bothered. It was a total waste of a good outfit, cos now everyone’s seen me in it, in my beeeeeautiful emerald green skirt and top, I obviously can’t wear them again! Not in front of Tanya.

I wonder if I could take them back and change them? I mean, I’ve only worn them once. They wouldn’t know. I could always say they were the wrong size, then I could get one of those tiny little denim jobs that I’d have got last time if Mum hadn’t been with me and said they looked tarty. Like she knows anything! What does she know? If she doesn’t want me to look tarty she should give me my own clothes allowance and let me get designer gear. But oh, no! that’s a RIDICULOUS PRICE, for a girl of your age.

I’ve just had a look and discovered I can’t take the stuff back cos some idiot’s gone and dropped a disgusting great splodge of food down the front. I don’t know who it was, but it certainly wasn’t me! UGH. That is just so gross! And I don’t think even Dad will let me go and buy something else.

Damn, damn, damn! Life is one constant battle.

I shall say it again: pathetic. OK, I’m not trying to pretend that I don’t still think it’s important to make the most of yourself. I’m not even trying to pretend that I don’t still look forward to parties, and to meeting boys. Course I do! It’s only natural. But lots of things have happened to me since I made that entry in my diary. I have been over the moon and down in the dumps and back over the moon and back down in the dumps, up and down, up and down, like a yo-yo, more times than I can remember. I expect that is only natural, too. But I wouldn’t ever claim now that my life had been ruined simply on account of clothes.

I guess what it is: I have just got older. Older and wiser, as the saying goes. Or, as my best friend Hattie once informed me, in her stern schoolmistressy way, “You have to grow up some time.” That is it: I have grown up!

Started back at school. Year 8! We’ve got Mrs Wymark. She’s really strict, but I think she’ll be OK. Me and Hattie are still together, thank goodness. Mum says thank goodness, too. She says I need Hattie to “quell my worst impulses”. She says if it weren’t for Hattie I would be like a walking Barbie doll.

What cheek! Like all I think about are clothes, and hair, and make-up. I think about loads of other things! I said this to Mum, and she said, “Like what, for instance?” and I said

“Well, boys, for a start. Didn’t you used to think about boys?” Dad fell about laughing. He said, “She’s got you there!” Mum just said, “Hm”.

She pretended to be amused, but I could tell she was wishing that Dad wouldn’t get all jokey when she wanted to be serious. I don’t know what the matter is with Mum just lately, she’s no fun at all. She is becoming really crotchety. Me and Dad, we laugh and fool around the whole time. Everything with Mum is like some big deal. She doesn’t seem to have any sense of humour any more. Dad only has to make some totally harmless little joke, like he did the other day, about how women ought to stay home and look after their men instead of having ideas “above their station”, and she flies at him like a wildcat. It was only a JOKE, for heaven’s sake! I just don’t know what’s got into her.

That was what I wrote way back last September. Only ten months ago, but it seems like for ever. Reading through my diary is like delving into ancient history. Not that I keep a real proper diary; I don’t fill in all the pages. Just now and then, when I feel inspired, I’ll pick up a pen and jot things down. I personally consider that I do quite enough writing as it is, what with school all day and homework half the night. I wouldn’t have the patience to do more than just scribble the odd few sentences.

Unlike Hattie, who has an actual blog. She spends hours on the computer, setting down her thoughts. She writes these whole long screeds, all about the current political situation and the state of the world. I guess I am more interested in the state of my emotions. I certainly wouldn’t want to go putting them on the computer for everyone to read. No way! I would shrivel up and die.

Not even Hattie is allowed to see what I write in my diary. When we were younger we never used to have secrets from each other; we took a vow that we would tell each other everything. But the older you get, the more private you get, or at least that is how it seems to me. I surely can’t be the only one to keep my innermost thoughts and feelings locked away inside myself? Mostly it’s because I’d be embarrassed if I were to tell anyone, but also, maybe, sometimes, it’s because I’d be a bit ashamed. I mean, some of the things I think … I know they are not worthy. Like this that I wrote about Tanya Hoskins:

That girl is so PASTRY-faced. How can anyone say she’s pretty??? She looks like she’s made out of dough!

Raging jealousy, that’s all it was. I’ve always been jealous of Tanya, right from when we started in Year 7.

I knew immediately that she was going to be my rival. Cos she is pretty, in spite of being pale. I was used to being the prettiest one! I always was, in Juniors. I am not saying this to boast; it just happens to be true. Like Hattie was always the cleverest, and Janice McNiece was the best at games. There is no point in denying these things, you have to accept them. What I couldn’t accept was that some people might think Tanya Hoskins was as pretty as I was. Not prettier; no one could have said she was prettier. But as pretty. Oh, this is so hateful! This is what I mean about being ashamed. But I am trying very hard to face up to myself and be truthful. I’m just telling it like it was.

Like it was: I couldn’t bear the thought of Tanya being selected for the Founder’s Day Dinner and Dance and not me!

There: I said it. That is how petty I was. Of course, I didn’t tell Hattie. What I told Hattie was that I really really really really wanted to be selected, “Just to show Mum.”

Hattie said, “Really?” I said, “Really, really!”

“Dunno how you’re going to swing that,” said Hattie. Neither did I; that was the problem. The Dinner and Dance is a big thing at our school, Dame Elizabeth’s. It only happens once every five years, and only a handful of people are selected from each year group, usually five boys and five girls. The way they’re chosen is strictly on merit marks – which I didn’t happen to have any of. Well, I think I’d picked up about four in the whole of my first year. Hattie, needless to say, got them by the bucket load. Mainly academic ones, since Hattie just happens to have this mega-size brain. Tanya Hoskins has a brain of more ordinary proportions, but she is one of those irritating people who applies herself. (A term much favoured by teachers, at our school at any rate. I always got end-of-term reports saying that I did not apply myself.)

“So how do you think you’re going to do it?” said Hattie. She is always very down to earth. Not to mention blunt.

I said hopefully, “I could try mending my ways.”

“Well, you could,” said Hattie. “But there’s an awful lot of them to mend!”

I begged her not to be so negative. “You’re supposed to be helping me!”

“Why?” said Hattie.

“Because you’re my friend! And we do things together. How could you possibly go without me?”

“What makes you think I will be going?” said Hattie.

I told her that she was bound to be selected. “You and Tanya; you’ll both be selected. You know you will!”

“I don’t know anything,” said Hattie. “And if you want to go as badly as all that, why not wait for one of the boys to invite you? Cos you know that they will!”

She meant one of the boys who got selected. I said, “I want to be the one to do the inviting! Plus there isn’t a single solitary boy that I’d want to go with. Not in our year, at any rate.”

“So who would you invite?”

I said, “I don’t know! I’ll think about that later. What’s important is being selected. And that’s what I need your help for!”

“Don’t see what I’m s’pposed to do,” said Hattie; but she agreed, in the end, to give me the benefit of her advice. “Provided you listen.”

“I will, I will!” I said. “Look at me … I’m listening!”

“Right, then,” said Hattie. “Let’s get started. Let’s make a list!”

I said, “List of what?”

“All those areas where you need to improve! Get a pen. Write it down!”

Meekly, I did so. “Improvements”, I wrote.

No.1 Work

No.2 Behaviour

No.3 Attitude

No.4 Punctuality

No.5 Team spirit.

Somewhat daunting, I think you will agree!

“Let’s take them one by one,” said Hattie. She has this very orderly sort of mind. “Work. If you just started to do some, it would help.”

“I will,” I said, earnestly.

“You’ve got a brain,” said Hattie, “why not use it?”

I told her that she sounded like my mum.

“I’m going to act like your mum,” said Hattie. “I’m going to tell you what to do and you’re going to do it … cos if you don’t, then that is it. I shall wash my hands of you.”

“Oh, no, please,” I said. “Please, Hattie, don’t!”

“It’s entirely up to you,” said Hattie. “What’s next? Behaviour. Well, that’s easy enough! Just stop getting told off all the time. Attitude— ”

“Yes,” I said, anxiously, “what does that mean?”

“It means co-operating,” said Hattie. “Like, you know … shutting up when you’re told to shut up? Walking down the corridor when you’re told to walk down the corridor? Not barging and yelling and— ”

“I don’t do that!” I said.

Hattie looked at me, rather hard.

“Well, yes, all right,” I said. “I get the message. What about punctuality? I can manage punctuality! At least I can if Dad leaves on time. He doesn’t always leave on time.”

“So go by train,” said Hattie.

The train meant getting up earlier, but I knew if I said that she would just tell me not to be lazy and that “nothing comes without a struggle”. And I really really did want to be selected! I mean, apart from anything else, it was a matter of pride.

Humbly, I said, “What about team spirit? I don’t quite get that one.”

Hattie said that team spirit meant joining things. Volunteering for things. Trying out for netball teams and hockey teams. I stared at her, appalled.

“You don’t do any of that!”

“I’m in the choir,” said Hattie.

I wouldn’t have minded being in the choir. Unfortunately, I can’t sing. Tanya can, of course: very gently and sweetly. She always gets to do the solos when it’s anything holy. Hattie has a voice like a bullhorn. She really belts it out! I would love to have a voice like Hattie’s.

“Look, it doesn’t matter if you don’t get in,” said Hattie. “Just show willing. That’s all you have to do. Then,” she added, kindly, “you might get merit marks for general improvement.”

Doubtfully I said, “Do they count?”

“Of course they count! They’re merit marks, aren’t they?”

I said, “Y – yes, I suppose. But I’d need thousands!”

“So get thousands.”

She made it sound so easy. She told me to “Look at it this way … nobody, but nobody, has as much room for improvement as you. You could get marks for improvement in every single area! Go for it, girl!” I staggered as she biffed me on the shoulder. She packs a hefty punch, does Hattie. “You could wipe the board! So long as you do what I tell you. OK?”

Weakly I said, “OK.”

“OK!” She biffed me again, on the other shoulder. “Get started!”

That very same day I added my name to every single list I could find on the notice board. Under-14 netball, Under-14 hockey. Gym, football, basketball. I didn’t actually make any of the teams, but at least I had shown willing. I just hoped the right people were taking note. I pictured Miss Allen, in the staff room, saying, “Scarlett Maguire is trying so hard this term. She’s not really a sporty type, but my goodness, she’s giving it a go!”

I didn’t try out for swimming cos Tanya is on the swimming team and I didn’t want to look stupid in front of her. I mean, I can just barely manage a length doing the doggy paddle. I did try for the choir (truly squirm-making!) and I also volunteered to paint scenery for the drama club, who fortunately said thank you very much but they didn’t need anyone to paint scenery that term as they were doing a production in the round and there wasn’t any scenery to be painted. After that, Hattie said that I had probably shown enough team spirit for the time being.

“You don’t want to overdo it, it’ll be too obvious. They’ll think you’re just trying to get selected.”

“I am,” I said.

“No, you’re not,” said Hattie. “You’re having a complete re-think. Change of heart. Reformed character!”

Somewhat alarmed, I assured her that I was exactly the same character I had always been. “All this change of heart stuff … it’s only temporary!”

“That’s what you think,” said Hattie.

What did she know?

All this effort is really draining me. Paying attention. Showing willing. Doing homework. I can’t relax for even two seconds without Hattie’s beady eye zooming in on me. This morning I was so utterly exhausted that I drifted off in the middle of French. Just a quick nap – Mrs Kershaw would never have noticed. But before I know it Hattie’s angrily jabbing at me with a ruler from across the gangway, pulling a face like a demented gargoyle.

Then when I got in a perfectly justifiable strop with Mr Hinckley, who has had the nerve to give us a THIRD LOT OF HOMEWORK in the same week, she stamped on my foot under the desk and hissed, “Attitude!” I felt like stamping right back, but just in time I happened to catch sight of Tanya simpering away on the other side of the room like a little saintly sunbeam, so instead of stamping I thought very hard of Founder’s Day and stretched my lips into a big smile of gratitude and anticipation, like, thank you S0 MUCH, dear, DEAR Mr Hinckley!

I am S0 looking forward to doing yet another load of history homework!

I really don’t know if I can stand the pace. I am already worn to a frazzle.

Mum was hugely impressed when I started settling down to my homework every evening without any of the usual nagging. The Scarlett-what-about-your-homework-I-can’t-believe-you’ve-already-done-it-and-don’t-try-telling-me-you-haven’t-got-any kind of thing. Leading, inevitably, to Big Bust Ups. Resentment and surliness (according to Mum) on my part, and frayed temper on hers.

“This is so good!” she said. “I’m so pleased! I know it’s a lot of hard work, but Scarlett, it is so important.”

To which I responded with a churlish grunt. I mean, I knew it was churlish but I didn’t want Mum exulting too much; it could only lead to disappointment. This was not the real me! This was just a temporary kind of me. I was glad that Mum was happy, but I feared it was going to make it all the harder when we went back to frayed tempers.

While Mum approved, Dad wasn’t quite so sure. I could tell he was a bit puzzled by the new me and all the sudden sunshine radiating from Mum. He was more used to him and me being in league against her, like winking and joking and taking the mickey when she was trying to be serious. He told me that I didn’t want to work too hard.

“You know what they say … all work and no play!”

“Frank, for goodness’ sake,” said Mum. “Don’t discourage her!”

“Well, but she’s at it every night,” said Dad. “For crying out loud, what do they expect of these kids?”

“She’s got a lot of catching up to do,” said Mum. “She spent the whole of her first year messing around … I’m just glad she’s come to her senses in time.”

Dad muttered, “In time for what?”

I said, “In time for Founder’s Day!”

Mum got it immediately. There aren’t any flies on Mum! “Oh,” she said, “so that’s what it’s all about … I might have known there was an ulterior motive!”

Dad still hadn’t caught on. He said, “What’s Founder’s Day got to do with it?”

“The Dinner and Dance?” said Mum.

“I want so much to go!” I said.

“Well, you will,” said Dad. “Of course you will!”

“Not if she’s not selected,” said Mum.

“She’ll be selected!”

“Dad,” I said, “I won’t.”

“What do you mean, you won’t? Don’t sell yourself short!”

“Frank, they do it on merit,” said Mum. “Merit marks. Right?”

“So? She can get merit marks! Brains aren’t the only thing. What about looks? Don’t they count for something?”

Dad was just blustering; it’s what he always does when he’s pushed into a corner. Mum made an impatient tutting sound and turned away.

“You don’t get merit marks for the way you look,” I said.

“Well, you darned well ought to!” said Dad. “You’d be a credit to the school!”

I said, “Hattie will be a credit to the school.”

“In her own way,” said Dad. “In her own way.”

He knew better than to come straight out and say anything derogatory about Hattie’s looks; Mum would have been down on him like a ton of bricks. It’s true that Hattie is not beautiful. It is also true that she is a rather solid kind of person. Sort of square-shaped. But she has a really good face, very strong and full of character, and it wasn’t kind of Dad to say some of the things that he did. He never dared in front of Mum, cos he knew she wouldn’t stand for it, but sometimes when it was just him and me he’d have these little digs like, “Poor old Hat, she’s as broad as she is long!” Or one time, I remember, he said that she would make a great sumo wrestler, which is totally unfair, as sumo wrestlers are fat. Hattie is not fat.

It always used to make me feel uncomfortable: really disloyal to Hattie. I know I should have said something. I should have told Dad that I didn’t like him making these sort of remarks about my best friend; but I never did. Cos me and Dad were in league. We used to point people out to each other when we went anywhere, like when Dad drove me to school in the morning. “Good grief!” Dad would go. “Get a load of that!” Or I would say, “Just look what that girl is wearing! Some people have no dress sense!”

It was our thing that we did; we enjoyed it. Mum said it was very superficial, judging others by the way they looked, but me and Dad never took any notice. We just laughed.

All the same, I did agree with Mum on one thing: I certainly didn’t need Dad discouraging me from doing my homework. I was having enough of a struggle as it was.

Mum said to me later that I mustn’t let Dad put me off.

“You know he has a problem with women asserting themselves.”

I really didn’t think I could be accused of asserting myself, just doing my homework, but Mum reminded me how Dad had been brought up. His mum had been quite old when he was born and had these really old-fashioned views, like a woman’s place being in the home and men not having to lift a finger to help with domestic chores. Dad wasn’t as bad as that, but I had to admit, he wasn’t exactly a modern man.

“You just stick to your guns,” said Mum. “I don’t care what your reasons are; anything that motivates you has to be a good thing. I’m speaking here from experience. It’s taken me the better part of thirty years to get motivated. I wasted a large chunk of my life, I’d hate to see you waste yours.”

I wasn’t sure what Mum meant when she said about wasting her life. She’d got married, she’d had me, she’d helped Dad build up the business. When they’d started out he’d been a penniless nobody; now he owned his own company. How could Mum say that was a waste?

“What was a waste,” said Mum, “was leaving school at sixteen with no qualifications. It severely limits your choices. They say it’s never too late, but take it from me … the longer you leave it, the harder it becomes. So please, Scarlett, I know you love your dad, I know you’re his pride and joy, but don’t let him talk you out of it! OK?”

I said OK, feeling a bit shaken – Mum had never spoken to me like this before, I’d had no idea how she felt – but I wailed at Hattie later that week that I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Hattie, in her sensible way, said it was because I was out of practice. She said, “You’ve lost the habit. Don’t worry! It’ll come back.” Glumly I said, “If I ever had it in the first place.”

“Well, you did,” said Hattie, “cos I remember once you beat me in a spelling test and I was jealous for simply days.”

I said, “Really?” It cheered me up for about a second, but then I lapsed once again into gloom. I told Hattie that it must have been a fluke. “Either that or I cheated.”

“You didn’t cheat! You didn’t need to. Miss Marx once said you were one of her best pupils.”

I said, “Miss Marx was in Year 2!”

“Year 3, actually,” said Hattie.

“Well, anyway.” I was feeling particularly down that day. I had just had a piece of homework returned with Unsatisfactory! scrawled at the bottom of it in rude red ink. I didn’t mind getting bad marks when I hadn’t bothered to work, but I had spent hours on that essay. It was very dispiriting; I had always thought I was in control of my life. I wasn’t used to being inadequate.

“I don’t know why I’m bothering,” I said. “I obviously haven’t got enough brain cells.”

“That,” said Hattie, “is one of the most insulting things you have ever said to me.”

“What???” I blinked. “What are you talking about? I’m not insulting you!”

“Yes, you are! You’re saying that I have chosen to be best friends with a moron. Well, thank you very much! Do you think it’s likely,” said Hattie, “that you and me would still be hanging out with each other if that were the case? People without brains,” said Hattie (she is prone to making these kind of sweeping statements) “are just totally dead boring.”

I told her that that was a horrible thing to say. “People can’t help whether they have brains or not.”

“They can help whether they use them or not.”

I said, “Huh!”

“Don’t you go huh to me,” said Hattie. “I know you, Scarlett Maguire! You think just because you’re pretty you can swan through life without bothering, but this time you can’t! Not if you really really really want to go to Founder’s Day!”

It is terrible, how well Hattie knows me. And the things she dares to say! She only gets away with it because we have been friends for so long. She is always right, of course; that is what makes her so absolutely maddening!

Bumped into Mrs O’Donnell on the way home from school today. She asked me how I was getting on. It seems she’d heard from Mum that I was desperate to be selected for Founder’s Day. I wish Mum wouldn’t go round telling people! It will be just sooo humiliating when it doesn’t happen.

I told Mrs O’Donnell that I wasn’t holding out much hope, and she said how you never know your luck and to keep at it. ‘Work hard! That’s the ticket.”

What does she mean, that’s the ticket? What ticket? Ticket to founder’s Day? I don’t think so. I said this to Mrs O’Donnell. I said, “I really don’t stand an earthly … who wants to go, anyway? It’s only a status thing.” At which Mrs O’Donnell got excited and screeched out, really loud, in that embarrassing way that she has, telling me that I’d got it all wrong, it was a lovely, lovely event!

It turns out that she was there, about a hundred years aqo. Mrs O’Donnell, at the founder’s Day Dinner! Un-be-lieveable! She’s said I can go round and look at her photos if I want, so I think I might. It would be interesting to see her as a young girl … I can’t imagine it!

That was an entry I made shortly after my conversation with Hattie, when she had a go at me for not using my brain. Hattie had sort of bucked me up, a little bit, but I was still feeling sore about that unsatisfactory scrawled at the bottom of my homework. I just couldn’t see that I was ever going to get enough merit marks. All this effort, and all for nothing! And then I bumped into Mrs O’Donnell and everything changed.

Mrs O’Donnell is this big jolly person that lives near us. I knew she’d been to Dame Elizabeth’s some time back in the dark ages, cos she was always telling me about it, but I never knew she’d been selected for Founder’s Day. It came as a bit of a shock, to be quite honest. Like, Mrs O’Donnell? How special is she! Pur-lease! She may be extremely pleasant and friendly, but there is absolutely nothing exceptional about her. Not as far as I can see.

I made the mistake of saying this to Mum, who rolled her eyes and said, “There you go! Making judgements again.”

I said, “But she’s never done anything!”

“How do you know?” said Mum. “How do you know what Mrs O’Donnell may or may not have done?”

I didn’t, of course. All I knew was that she was a fat woman with a grown-up family and a husband who played golf with my dad. But I went to look at her photographs, just out of curiosity, and I got another shock, cos when she was my age Mrs O’Donnell was really skinny and attractive, and Mr O’Donnell, who is now completely bald and looks, when seen from a please people when I can, so I enthusiastically agreed, saying that he was really fit, cos I guessed that’s what she’d meant by saying he was a dish. Unfortunately, it was like we spoke in different languages. Mrs O’Donnell said, “He was fit, right enough! Used to run crosscountry for the school … and old fat woman here used to play hockey for the first eleven, if you can imagine that!”

I couldn’t. I just could not identify the Mrs O’Donnell that I knew with the girl in the photograph. Altogether it was a sobering experience and made me reflect on what time does to people. But it also renewed my flagging spirits. In spite of Hattie and her bullying ways, I’d almost been on the point of giving up. I mean, three lots of history homework in one week, I ask you! It was the photograph of Mrs O’Donnell at Founder’s Day with her beau that did it. That’s what she called him: her beau! In other words, Mr O’Donnell, dressed to kill with all his hair. They had been young and beautiful once, just like me!

Mrs O’Donnell said, “Those were the days …” She told me to make the most of my youth while I had it, “Because once it’s gone, it’s gone.” I get really uncomfortable when old people start talking like that. I don’t like to think of myself all lumpy and shapeless and saggy-bummed! As quick as I could, I got her off the subject and asked her, instead, how she’d managed to get enough merit marks.

She said, “For Founder’s Day, you mean? I’ll tell you the secret: I knuckled down. True as I stand here … I worked hard, I played hard, and I resisted temptation.”

“Was it a struggle?” I said.

“Nearly killed me! But I was absolutely determined to be chosen and that was for one reason and one reason only: so that I could ask Jack O’Donnell to come as my partner.” She nodded at me, and winked, like it was the two of us in some kind of conspiracy against the opposite sex. “Never knew what hit him, poor man! How about you? Who are you planning to ask?”

I told her that I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

“Come on!” she said. “You expect me to believe that? A pretty girl like you? You could take your pick!”

I always used to preen when people said things like that to me, I really basked in admiration. Now I find it quite embarrassing; I am nowhere near as vain as I used to be. But what Mrs O’Donnell said started me furiously thinking, so that that night in bed I lay awake making a mental list of all the boys I knew, scoring them out of ten, trying to decide which one I would pick if I ever got to be selected.

Jason Francis – not bad. Six or seven.

Martin Milliband – yuck! Two would be generous.

Aaron Taylor – OK, but a bit of a dork. Five at the most.

Christopher Pitts – the pits. Zero. Double zero.

Wazir Mohammed – probably wouldn’t come. But five or six.

Carl Pinter, Mark Aller, Ben Sargent … I think I went through every boy in our year. I’d been out with quite a few of them and I wouldn’t have wanted to invite a single solitary one. I knew who I’d like to invite. I’d known it the minute I started my list – the minute Mrs O’Donnell asked me. The one boy who made my heart beat faster and turned my insides to jelly …

There was only one problem: I didn’t know his name. I’d never even spoken to him! But I made up my mind, right there and then: I was going to be selected, and he was the one who was going to come with me!

This is the first entry in my diary which mentions the Gorgeous Mystery Boy:

Mrs Wymark said to me today that she was really pleased with my progress this term. She said, “There’s been a marked Improvement, Scarlett. Keep it up!” She said she wasn’t the only member of staff to have noticed. They all have! So maybe I was right when I pictured Miss Allen singing my praises in the staff room …

I really began to feel that all my hard work might be starting to pay off at long last. I said this to Hattie, who said, “I told you so!” Adding rather grimly, however, that it was no excuse for slacking. “You need to keep it up, you still have a long way to go.”

Honestly! Hattie is so bossy, I’m sure she’ll end up as a head teacher. Either that, or prime minister. I don’t know what I shall end up as. I wouldn’t mind being a fashion model, or a TV presenter. If I was a TV presenter and Hattie was prime minister, I could invite her to come on my show! But we wouldn’t talk politics, cos politics are BORING.

Gorgeous Mystery Boy at the station this morning. He got on the same train as me, but it was so crowded there was a huge wodge of people between us. Really annoying! I wonder if he’s there every day? If he is, then going by train won’t be so bad!!!

We were four weeks into the winter term when I wrote that. Dad had proved so unreliable about getting me to school on time that now I just got him to drop me off at the station, instead. When I was at Juniors, Mum used to drive me in, but the minute I hit Year 7 she said that I could get there under my own steam.

“There’s a perfectly good train service. Why not use it?”

I told her because it was a whole lot of hassle and I’d probably have some ghastly accident and fall on the track. Mum, in her cold unfeeling way, said, “Well, that’s up to you. I don’t propose adding to pollution levels by ferrying an able-bodied twelve year old to and from school five days a week.”

Was that any way for a mother to talk??? I went grizzling to Dad about it.

“Mum says she’s not going to take me in any more and I’m going to have all these books and things to carry, cos they give you absolutely masses of homework, plus there’s my hockey stick, plus that stupid violin, which was Mum’s idea, not mine, plus it takes for ever to get to the station … I’m going to be worn out before I even get there!”