Am I Normal Yet? (21 page)

I nodded. “Yep. He messaged the other night, asking me about the new Wes Anderson film. I know, right? Guy? Wes Anderson? Anyway, I thought he might ask me to go see it. But when I replied – after a good half-hour of waiting time I may add – saying it had good reviews, nothing. Nada. Not a sausage.”

“You need to stop replying.”

“I know.”

“So why do you keep replying?”

I put my head down on the table. “I don't know.”

Amber bashed her bag on the table again, like a judge with a gavel.

“You see!” she said, her face even redder if possible. “
This
is why we need an agenda!”

I looked up and smiled at her. “I couldn't agree more.”

As if he knew I'd just made a conscious effort to stop talking about him, Guy barrelled through the double doors of the cafeteria. Why do guys like Guy look so good in duffel coats? It really is terribly unfair. He had Joel and Jane with him – their hands in each other's coat pockets – just like the saying. They spotted us and headed over.

Guy sat next to me and I felt outside's cold air coming off him. He stank of smoke.

“Smoking in winter is such a mission,” he announced, without even saying hi. “It's so effing cold outside.”

I sat up straighter in my seat, realized I should look casual, and slouched again. “So why smoke?” I asked.

He looked right at me. “Because it's cool.”

“I don't know if lung cancer would agree with you on that one.”

He shrugged. “I'll quit before I'm twenty-five.”

“Being cool?”

I watched him struggle not to smile. “No,” he said. “I'll be cool for ever.”

Joel and Jane went up to buy some chips to share while Amber handed Lottie and me some paper. “Here's my agenda.”

“Jeez,” I said, scanning it. “You've actually made an actual agenda.”

Guy gave her a look. “Is this for your lezzer club again?”

Amber's prickles went up. “It's for the Spinster Club, yes! And that's a totally offensive word anyway, dickwad. We're meeting at my house after school.” She gave me a
what-the-hell-do-you-see-in-him?
look over the top of his head. It involved lots of pointed glaring.

I scanned the page and it made me love her more. She'd even scheduled in a fifteen-minute break for “cheesy snacks”.

The topic for tonight's meeting, I wasn't expecting though. “We're going to discuss periods?” I asked.

Guy almost choked on his Diet Coke.

Amber nodded while Guy looked at us in horror. “You girls are dedicating an evening to talking about being on the blob?”

Amber gave him a pointed glare while I went as red as a…well, a period I guess.

“It's not our fault we bleed.”

We all grimaced. “Unnecessary usage of the word ‘bleed',” Lottie whispered and we both burst out laughing.

“That is disgusting,” Guy said.

“You're disgusting.”

“I'm not the freak who can bleed for three days without dying.”

Amber gave him another glare. “I'm not going to continue this with HIM here.”

Guy looked all faux innocent. “Who me?”

“Yes you.”

“Well, quite frankly, Amber, I'm gutted. I really felt like openly discussing menstruation while I ate lunch.” He pulled out an unhealthy looking white bread sandwich and took a satisfied bite.

Amber waited until he was chewing. “Your mum menstruates you know.”

Guy almost choked on his mouthful.

“She might be bleeding right this moment,” Amber added and looked on contentedly as he disintegrated into a proper coughing fit.

Worried, I thumped him on the back until he stopped. Every time I touched him it sent little fireflies buzzing up my arm. Jane and Joel returned with their chips and surveyed the hubbub.

“What's going on?” Jane asked, looking at Guy's bulging eyes and Amber's smug grin.

Lottie answered, not looking up from her agenda where she'd been colouring all the “o”s in with pencil. “Amber here has just been reminding Guy that his mother has periods.”

“Gross,” Joel said, at the exact same time Jane said, “Eww.”

Amber grabbed back her agendas, making Lottie accidentally scribble on hers as it was torn from her grasp, and stood to leave.

“Your mums have periods too. All of ours do. One of the things we're discussing tonight is society's immature attitudes towards menstruation. Girls, I'll see you at mine after school.”

She walked off, leaving us stunned.

Guy readjusted his chair so his leg touched my leg.

Even through my jeans it felt damn good.

Lottie examined the plate of biscuits and took her time choosing one.

“I know the theme of tonight's meeting is periods, but did you really have to get themed biscuits?” she asked.

Amber looked down at the plate of Jammie Dodgers, arranged thoughtfully in a circle.

“Oh,” she said, looking dismayed. “I didn't think of that.”

Lottie and I creased up laughing.

“Thanks,” I said. “Jammy Dodgers have now been ruined for the rest of my life.”

And Amber joined in.

Her room was a disgrace to all bedrooms everywhere. I literally had to pick a pathway to the bed through discarded clothes, dried-up palettes of oil paints, and crumpled-up bits of paper. How could someone so organized be so messy?

BAD THOUGHT

What sort of pig lives like this?

BAD THOUGHT

When was the carpet last hoovered?

BAD THOUGHT

You're going to get sick, you're going to get sick, you're going to get sick.

I stopped laughing, my heart already racing.

Shut up, brain,
I told myself, and I forced myself to rub my hands on the carpet as a private exposure. I didn't eat anything after that though. I didn't eat for the rest of the evening. Just in case.

Amber pulled her duvet around us so we formed a big lump.

BAD THOUGHT

When was this duvet last washed? Do I really need to have it touching me?

I wanted to jump out of it, but how would I do that without attracting attention? Amber had already divvied out the agendas and, sensing this really meant something to her, Lottie and I didn't take the piss, and I did deep-breathing about the duvet.

She cleared her throat. “So,” she said, a little nervous. “I'd like to declare this meeting of the Spinster Club officially open. Tonight's topic for discussion is periods.” Lottie put down her Jammy Dodger. “Now, you may think it's weird I've brought this topic up, but can you understand why?”

Lottie and I looked at each other. “Are we supposed to answer?” I asked.

Amber nodded. “Er…” I wracked my brains. “Because all women have them? I guess that's what makes us girls?”

She beamed at me. “Yes! Exactly right.”

“Do I get a sticker?”

“Shut up. No. As you said, periods are what make us girls. Half of the population have them. Our let's-face-it incredible ability to menstruate and grow babies makes us responsible for every single person on this earth. And yet, the sole thing that makes us women, the sole thing that creates life, isn't allowed to be talked about. What's up with that? You saw Guy this lunchtime, he thought I was uber-gross for even talking about it. How screwed is that?”

I rubbed my cheek. “It is a bit gross though, isn't it?”

She shook her head adamantly. “No, we've just been conditioned to think that.”

“We have?”

“Yes.”

Lottie put her plastic plate down. “She's got a point, you know. Take sanitary towel adverts. Like, why do they always use blue goo to represent period blood? If I found blue goo in my sanitary towel I'd ring the NHS helpline straight away.”

“Ha,” I said. “I guess I never thought about it. Why don't they use red goo? Or brown?”

“The whole sanitary/tampon world is such a minefield of wrongness,” Lottie said. “Think about how they're marketed. They're all made to look like sweet wrappers advertising how ‘discreet' they are.”

I nodded, thoughtfully. “You're right. I always buy the compact ones, so I can hide them in my hand on the way to the loo so no one can see what I'm carrying.”

Amber pointed at me aggressively. “Absolutely right.”

“You almost poked me in the eye.”

She ignored me. “Think about it. We all do it. Buy these flowery tiny things to hide the fact we're on. But three days a month, nearly every woman in the world is on and we're all hiding it. It's weird. Something we all do, something that's so natural, something that we'd freak out about if it stopped happening…is still seen as shameful.”

Lottie giggled. “Have you seen that TV advert for tampons? The one where they call a period ‘Mother Nature' and she's this old prudish hag wearing a twinset and pearls that keeps ruining fun stuff like music festivals?”

I smiled with her. “Well have you seen that new painkiller they're advertising specifically for period cramps? I looked at the label and it's just plain old ibuprofen, nothing else. It costs two quid more and the only difference is they've made the box pink.”

Amber pointed again.

“Seriously, Amber, I need protective goggles with you about.”

She ignored me again, too excited. “It's such a disconnect, isn't it? They market periods themselves as this horrible frumpy awful thing, and then the stuff we buy to deal with it is all pink and girly and ‘
hey, girl, it's okay, you can still smell of roses and go kickboxing
'.”

Lottie nodded. “You're right. Why not just go the whole hog? Periods suck, why make them scented and flowery? I'd much rather they put tampons in black boxes that came with a free chocolate bar.”

“With little slogans on each one that says stuff like, ‘
Blame Eve
' or ‘
This is your burden
',” I added.

The others laughed so hard that I didn't stop feeling proud for ten minutes. Which was fortunate really because, punctual as ever, Amber called our break for cheesy snacks. I watched as they dipped their hands into the bowl of Wotsits, the neon yellow gunk sticking to their fingers. Lottie licked it off eagerly before delving back into the bowl. My stomach lurched. Bile rose up in my throat.

“Do you not want any, Evie?” Amber asked, a smear of orange dust around her lips.

I shook my head. “I'm stuffed, thanks.”

“You sure?” She picked up the bowl and wafted it under my nose. My tummy lurched again, spiralling in on itself, twisting itself into tangles.

“I…I…”

I was saved by her brat of a younger brother bashing through her bedroom door. He was all wrapped up in a post-bath towel, his hair all wet and sticking up on end. He would've looked cute if it wasn't for:

“Amber is a big fat LESBIAN!”

“CRAIG! GET OUT OF MY ROOM.” Amber was already on her feet.

“Lesbian lesbian lesbian.”

“OUT!”

“Ginger lesbian! You never have boys in your room, do you?” he cackled. “Lezzer lezzer lezzer.”

Lottie and I looked at each other hopelessly.

“GET OUT, YOU LITTLE BRAT.”

“At least I don't have ginger pubes. She leaves them in the bath. GINGER PUBES GINGER PUBES.”

That's when the bowl flew through the air, sending the Wotsits cascading to the carpet. I ducked. So did Lottie. But Craig was hit right in the face with the bowl. His mouth hovered in an open “o” from shock. Then the howling started.

“MUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMY.”

Amber's stepmum was at the door in a second. When she saw him crying, and the tiny graze above his eyebrow, she went into overdrive. She dropped to her knees. “Oh my God, Craig. Are you okay? What happened?”

He shakily pointed at Amber, who stood, staring at where the bowl had been in her hand. “I didn't mean to hurt him. It's a plastic bowl!”

“AMBER. Out here now.”

And she was half-dragged from her bedroom. The door swung shut heavily behind them. We heard yelling. We heard screaming.

Lottie and I didn't know where to look. We couldn't even look at each other for a bit. We just stared at all of Amber's oil paintings, pinned haphazardly to the walls. I didn't know much about art but they were very good, very Vincent Van Goghy, all swirls and spirals, but a bit darker. There was one in the corner of what must be her mum, judging by the hair. Her face took up only the smallest corner of the canvas; the rest of it was painted black.

“Should we leave?” I whispered as the yelling got louder.

“YOU ALWAYS TAKE HIS SIDE.”

Lottie looked around for means of escape.

“How? We have to get past…them. God, her brother is a brat.”

“Stepbrother,” I corrected.

“EMBARRASSED ME IN FRONT OF MY FRIENDS.”

“Let's just sit here quietly and hope it goes away,” I said.

We both started playing with our phones.

“YOU CAN'T GROUND ME, I'M SIXTEEN.”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UUUUUP.”

“I HATE YOU. NO I WON'T SAY SORRY. I HATE HIM. YOU HEAR THAT? I HATE YOU, YOU LITTLE GIT.”

My phone beeped and I tapped it quickly, not wanting Amber's family to hear it.

It was a message. From Lottie.

This is so awkward, I could die.

We both dissolved into hushed laughter.

The argument died down and Craig's howling quietened. We heard resentful apologies muttered through the wood of the door. When Amber re-entered, her face was pink and her cheeks were all splotchy. The front bit of her hair was matted from tears.

“So, guys,” she said, all breezy, like nothing extraordinary had ever happened in the history of her life. “I was thinking we should each write letters to our local MP, and ask him to cut tax on tampons.”