Boys for Beginners (4 page)

‘Fair enough,' I say, and grab the controller. I'm not missing an opportunity like this.

He stays silent for eleven minutes until the oven buzzer goes off. I pause the game, but he says, ‘Don't worry, I'll get it.'

Now I'm really suspicious. He brings in the pizza and offers me a slice, but I'm still playing so I refuse.

His voice sounds all funny when he says, ‘Gwynnie, you know Jenny, don't you?'

I'm hardly listening when I say, ‘I'm familiar with her work.' I've just grenaded some locusts and I'm doing well.

‘Well, um, we've been going out for three weeks today.'

‘Wasn't she in America for two weeks? Whoa!' I was almost killed there.

‘Yeah, but we texted.' He's putting me off so I try to ignore him. ‘Thing is –' his voice is sounding really weird – ‘she wanted me to get her an anniversary present.'

‘After three weeks!'

‘And I wanted the opinion of a girl to see if she'll like it.' Paul reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box. ‘I don't really speak to any girls so I thought I'd show you.'

I'm intrigued now, so I pause the game, using pizza as an excuse to stop. He opens the box and inside is a silver bracelet with a blue diamond thing in it. ‘It goes with her belly-button ring,' he says. ‘What do you think?'

I'm thinking lots of things, like: how can Paul like a quarterwit like Jenny? I've heard that love is blind but it can't be deaf as well. I just shrug. ‘It's all right.'

He looks really worried.

‘It's nice,' I say.

He smiles. ‘Cool! Thanks, Gwynnie.' Then he puts it back in the box and back in his pocket.
He stands up quickly and walks towards the door.

I unpause it and carry on playing, but shout out to him. ‘I think we're out of toilet paper!'

‘No, that's not . . . Oh, sorry, Gwynnie, but I've got to go to Jenny's house.'

‘What? You're ditching me on my birthday?'

Paul cringes like he's in an impossible situation, like he
is
actually out of toilet paper. ‘It's our anniversary today,' he says with a shrug.

He opens the door but turns back to me before he goes. ‘Tell you what: you can borrow the Xbox for the week to make up for it.'

‘But . . .'

He's already in the hallway as he shouts back, ‘See ya!'

And then a great big locust kills me and I'm out of lives.

Happy birthday to me

Why are girls so completely stupid?

I've walked into the toilets at school and there's a group of them, Jenny Gregson and her followers, and they all look the same. Their hair is long and loose and either as straight as French fries, or as curly as curly fries. Every single one of them is wearing gold hoop earrings except for Tanya Dawson, who everyone knows has a mum that is really strict and won't let her do anything. But there is something else that makes them all the same – they are all wearing crop tops, except for Elizabeth Phillips, who is chubby and wouldn't suit a crop top. I guess they think it's OK to look like a fool if everyone else is doing it.

Their heads turn as I walk in. They see me and turn back, as if I am not important enough to worry about. The movement makes something
catch in the light and I finally notice what is so weird about them. They have their belly-buttons pierced! When did this happen? ‘What's going on?' I ask.

Kimba says, ‘Nothing to do with you, Gwynnie,' and turns her back to me.

‘Yeah, Gwynnie,' says Tanya Dawson. ‘You're not initiated in the BB Club so you can M.Y.O.B. – Mind Your Own Business.'

‘What the hell is the BB Club?' I say, clearly not M-ing my own B.

‘The BB Club is zip to do with you, is what it is,' says Kimba, thinking she's clever. Apparently being in the BB Club means you pick up Jenny's American-speak like an infestation of head lice.

Jenny Gregson looks a little shifty. This is a tricky situation for her because when me and her are with Paul she's my friend because Paul is my best friend, but when Paul isn't around she doesn't really need to talk to me. She sticks to looking at the floor and I can't really blame her. I'm not bothered enough to care anyway.

‘Fair enough.' I make a move to go into a cubicle, but Tanya Dawson is too eager to tell me to let me go.

‘BB stands for Belly Button. We're the Belly
Button Club. You have to have your belly-button pierced to be in it, innit?'

‘Tanya!' Kimba's angry because Tanya has let out the Big Secret.

‘OK,' I say, still not bothered. ‘Like I said,
fair enough
.' I get to the toilet door, but then I get confused and turn back. ‘Hang on a second. If you
have to
have your belly-button pierced to join, then how come you're a member, Tanya? You don't have your belly-button pierced.'

Tanya tries to think of an answer. ‘Errr . . .' I have just picked holes in the entry requirements of their exclusive club.

Melissa Rix pipes up. Melissa Rix is actually in Year 10, but no one in Year 10 will talk to her because she is a bit of a saddo. Our year will talk to her though because she is in Year 10. ‘Don't be stupid, Gwynnie,' she says. ‘Everyone knows her mum's really strict and won't let her do anything.'

Tanya doesn't look embarrassed when Melissa says this. It's common knowledge.

‘Well, what about you, Elizabeth? Do you have your belly-button pierced under your top?'

Elizabeth Phillips goes all red and I feel bad about asking her. ‘I
will
get mine done, but
not until I lose a few pounds. Otherwise the hole might get all warped out of shape when I eventually shed the weight.'

She looks at the others to see if that's the right answer and they nod in agreement. It's clearly been brought to the table before and they've made their ruling.

‘It's just a teensy bit of puppy fat, Elizabeth,' says Melissa Rix, like she's some sort of dieting guru. ‘You'll lose it in minutes.'

Jenny seconds the findings. ‘Yeah, Elizabeth, and it's really not as bad as you think. If you lost, like, half a stone, you would probably look OK.'

Elizabeth smiles, but she doesn't look happy.

‘So, out of five members of the Belly Button Club,' I say, ‘only three of you actually have your belly-buttons pierced. I'm not in Mensa or anything, but that's barely over fifty per cent. It's not what I call a hard-and-fast rule.'

‘It's not about actually having the piercing,' says Jenny. ‘It's more about joining a group of like-minded individuals with an appreciation of the same ideal.'

‘The ideal of having your belly-button pierced?' I ask.

Jenny looks at me like,
Duh, of course!

‘Why don't you join the club, Gwynnie?' Kimba says. ‘Oh, sorry, your stomach is so skinny that the needle would go all the way through to your spine.'

Kimba and Melissa start to snigger; Elizabeth frowns, opens her mouth like she's about to say something, but says nothing. I feel a bit awkward.

‘Gwynnie hasn't come in here to be verbally abused by you,' Jenny says. Maybe she's not all bad. Maybe Paul is making her a better person.

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘I've just come to use the bog.'

They all grimace and I feel awkward again.

‘Thanks for keeping us up to date with your
movements
, doll,' says Kimba, daring to crack another joke at my expense. Even Jenny can't stop herself laughing at that one.

I get angry with them and start to shout: ‘Your Belly-Stupid-Button Club is stupid. Didn't you hear what Mr Roberts said at the beginning of term? Because of you we'll all have to start wearing uniform! Everyone in the whole school will hate you! And all so that you can put stupid holes in yourselves.'

Jenny becomes all teacher-like and tries to calm me down. ‘Didn't you need to use the bathroom, Gwynnie?'

‘OK, OK, I'll pee off!' I put my hands up in an
I surrender
gesture and back my way into a cubicle.

‘Perhaps you should go too, Elizabeth,' says Jenny behind me. ‘We don't want any incidents.' The others giggle.

‘Er . . . Um . . . I'm OK, thanks, Jenny,' says Elizabeth.

I sit on the loo and try to pee as fast as I can so that I can I get out as fast as I can – which makes the peeing so much more difficult. I can still hear them gossiping on the other side of the door.

‘Do any of you gals know where he lives?' I still don't know who's speaking as they all sound the same, dropping in American words as if they were raised on the prairies.

‘I don't know for sure, but he always seems to come from the direction of Mount Street.'

Who are they talking about?

‘And Mount Street is where all the fancy houses are. If his parents are diplomats, he will probably live in a fancy house, won't he?'

There are general noises of agreement.

Are they talking about Charlie Notts?

‘OK, so if, like, one of us hangs out near
Mount Street – say, the person who lives nearest Mount Street—'

‘You are only saying that because you live near Mount Street!'

‘Well, I suppose I do. But it doesn't have to be me,' the voice is backtracking. ‘It could be whoever. Just hear me out, will you? Me, or, like whoever, and someone else, hang around Mount Street and wait until he comes by. And we pretend that I, or whoever, have fallen over and twisted my ankle. I'll be good at that because I can pretend to cry real well. Look.'

They make impressed
Ooooo
noises at the pretend crying.

‘See. Told you. So then, I cry and he'll offer to help. He's got a cell phone so he'll call an ambulance for me. But when I insist that I'll be OK he'll offer to, like, carry me to school in his arms.'

All the girls do swooning noises because of the thought of this bloke carrying them to school . . . to anywhere . . . to bed. I find myself imagining Charlie Notts carrying me and let out a girlie sigh.
Where did that come from?
I cover it up with a gigantic coughing fit.

‘Then, while he is carrying me—'

‘Or whoever!'

‘Yeah, while he is carrying me or whoever to school we can start talking to him. We can ask what he likes to do after school and stuff, what music he's into, what movies he likes—'

‘Yeah, and then we can hang out at those places, like we always go there, and maybe he'll start talking to us—'

‘I can't imagine Charlie Notts talking to me.' So they
are
talking about Charlie Notts! ‘I'm sure my tongue would fully shrivel up in my mouth and my throat would close over and I would fully die right in front of him.'

‘I would be so embarrassed if I died in front of him.'

‘It's a foolproof plan!'

I come out of the toilet and say, ‘What if he gets a lift to school?' They all look at each other, a little bit panicked. ‘Or what if he walks a different way? Your plan is not foolproof . . . it's foolish.'

They all look disappointed. Kimba looks angry and disappointed. She says, ‘Come on then, if you're so clever, you think of a plan to get him to talk to us.'

‘Why don't you just talk to
him
?'

They stare at me like I'm crazy. Melissa Rix starts laughing. ‘Go up and talk to him? Are you mad?'

Someone please tell me why girls are so completely stupid!

Hang on a minute. Why does Jenny Gregson look like she's been crying?

The bell rings for the end of lunch break. Another match is over and we all head in to school.

‘Gwynnie!' shouts Charlie. This is what Juliet must have felt like when Romeo was reciting poetry at her balcony. ‘Oi, Gwynnie. Oiiiii!'

I turn around and scrunch up my face at him like I have basically forgotten who he is. ‘Hi, Charlie Notts.' He's looking at me like I'm a nutter. ‘Er, I mean, hi, Charlie. Good game.'