Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 01] (10 page)

My heart sank.
Why
was she saying that to him? He’d kissed me, surely that meant he liked me, and now
she was ruining everything again. Why should he stay away from me? I didn’t
want him to. Not now.

There was only one
thing for it. I’d tell Izzie and Nesta that he was my Mystery Contestant. And I
was very happy to kiss him.

The doorbell rang and
Tony came out of the kitchen. As he went to answer it, he gave me a wink.

Nesta obviously
thought I wasn’t good enough for him. But he did like me. I knew he did. He
couldn’t have kissed me like that if he didn’t. Why did she always have to
spoil everything?

Standing at the door
was one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, tall with long auburn hair and
all dressed in black.

She pecked Tony’s
cheek, gave me a hands-off look and followed him down the hall into his
bedroom.

Just before he went in
he turned back and grinned. ‘Homework,’ he said, then disappeared.

‘His girlfriend,’ said
Nesta, appearing at the kitchen door.

And more kissing
lessons, if you ask me.

‘Come on,’ said Nesta.
‘Let’s go and make a plan for meeting that boy you like.’

‘Lucy, you look awful,’
said Izzie as I went back in.

I felt awful.

‘It’s Tony’s fault. I
could kill him,’ said Nesta.

‘She’s very pretty,
that girl,’ I said.

‘She must be
completely thick,’ said Nesta, ‘to be going out with him.’

‘I know he’s your
brother,’ said Izzie, ‘but he
is
a bit big-headed.’

‘Understatement,’ said
Nesta. ‘Nobody in their right mind could possibly fancy him.’

Something told me this
wasn’t the best moment to tell them that Tony was the MC.

Has life ever, ever
been worse? Just as I thought me and Nesta were getting on better, she tells
her brother to stay away. And now I don’t know what to think. Anyway, he has a
girlfriend. A gorgeous girlfriend. What chance would I ever have against her?

,

Haircut
From Hell

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‘I’m going to get my
hair cut,’ I told Izzie on the bus to school the next morning. ‘What do you
think?’

I showed her all the
pics I’d cut out of a mag last night showing different styles.

‘Good idea,’ said Iz,
pointing to one photo of a girl with cropped hair. ‘That would suit you. When
are you going to get it done?’

‘Tonight,’ I said.

‘Wow, you move fast.
Where?’

‘The mall. Remember
Candice had her hair cut last month? She told me if you go to the Aura school,
where hairdressers go to get trained, they do it for free. They’re always looking
for volunteers to go along in the evenings.’

‘Great, me and Nesta
will come as well. It’s late-night shopping so we can get your hair cut then
we’ll have a mooch round. But what’s brought this on? You’ve had your hair long
for years.’

‘Angel Card,’ I admitted.

‘An Angel Card told
you to get your hair cut?’

‘They were waiting for
me when I got back from Nesta’s last night. On the kitchen table. Waiting.
Calling me.
Luuuucy, pick one
. I tried to resist but I couldn’t help
myself. In fact, I’m going to have to ask Mum to take them out of the house. I
think I’ve become an addict. No resistance no matter what I tell myself or what
kind of trouble they get me into. I see the pack and I
have
to pick
one.’

Izzie laughed. ‘They
could start a group for addicts. ACA. Angel Cards Anonymous.’

‘Yeah, I’d get up and
say, “Hello. My name’s Lucy Levering and I’m an Angel Card addict. Let me tell
you my sad story.” ’

Izzie laughed again.
‘I’m a bit like that with the Net. Specially now I’ve found such a fab
astrology site. So what did it say? The card last night?’

‘No one can make you
feel inferior without your permission.’

‘Wow. That’s a good
one,’ said Izzie. ‘I’ll have to try it when I tell Wacko that I sat on my egg
baby. But why did that make you want to get your hair cut?’

I wasn’t sure how much
to tell Iz. I’d gone home from Nesta’s last night feeling like a complete
failure. I didn’t want to bore her to death with the list of things that make
me feel inferior lately:

·
       
Everyone
knows what they want to be when they grow up but me.

·
       
My
lack of kissing experience.

·
       
I only
look twelve.

·
       
Josie
Riley’s right. I am a midget.

·
       
I’m as
flat-chested as my brothers.

·
       
I’ve
never had a proper boyfriend. And now probably never will as the only one I
like belongs to another.

·
       
I can’t
even decide what colour to paint my bedroom.

Inferior. Definitely.

‘Time for a change,’ I
said. ‘Remember that horoscope you did for me that said it was time for a new
me so don’t resist? I thought what better place to start than with my
appearance? I’ve been so busy thinking about inside stuff like who I am,
strengths, weaknesses, all that sort of thing Wacko told us to think about and
it’s got me nowhere. So I’m going to change the outside. Hair. My room. My
clothes.’

‘Watch out world,’
grinned Izzie. ‘Sounds good to me.’

After school we went
straight to the mall. I sat in the hair-dressing college reception with ten
other volunteers.

Girls behind an
enormous glass desk registered everyone then told us to wait. It all looked
very swanky. A vast marbled reception with the most enormous bouquet of white
lilies in a vase. Everywhere were posters of Aura products and TVs up on the
walls showing demonstrations. I’ve definitely come to the right place, I
thought. I am going to look fantabuloso.

Nesta was straight in
chatting to the girls on reception about where they got their models and how
could she apply.

‘Aries rising,’ said
Izzie, watching Nesta flicking her hair about as she charmed them all.

‘That’s the leap
before you look sign, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. They have
fantastic energy. Go for it is their motto, and never mind the consequences.’

‘But Nesta’s a Leo,’ I
said. ‘How can she be Aries as well?’

‘That’s what I’ve been
discovering. Our individual horoscopes are far more complex than just having a
Sun sign. Like Nesta. Leo is her Sun sign. Like yours is Gemini and mine is
Aquarius. That’s determined by the month you’re born. Your rising sign is
worked out by the
time
and place you’re born. It changes every two
hours.’

‘So people with the
same Sun sign can be quite different personalities?’

‘Exactly,’ said Izzie.
‘There’s all sorts of factors — where your Moon is…’

‘Moon? I thought you
said Sun?’

‘Astrology’s a real
science when you get into it. Everyone has a different Moon they were born
under as well. That changes every two days. You have your Moon in Taurus.’

‘Is that good?’

‘Fantastic. It’s
exalted there. The Moon rules how you are emotionally. And means you’re very
romantic. Taurus is ruled by Venus. It means you appreciate beautiful things.’

‘Have you worked out
my rising sign?’

‘Yeah. Cancer,’ said
Izzie. ‘That means you’re very sensitive. Emotional even, sometimes. Cancer is
the sign of the crab and they can be a bit prickly on the outside but as soft
as mush on the inside.’

‘So what does your Sun
sign mean?’

‘How you look, your
general characteristics,’ said Izzie.

‘Gemini’s an air sign,
the sign of the twins, isn’t it?’

Izzie grinned. ‘Yep.
So you have two sides to you. The public and the private.’

‘Schizophrenic, you
mean? That explains how I’ve been feeling lately.’

Izzie laughed.
‘Geminis are good at communication. Creative.’

I stared at her with
admiration. She really knows her stuff and I don’t know why I ever worried
about what makes me ‘me’. I should just ask Izzie. She seems to know exactly.

‘Lucy Levering,’
called the girl at reception.

I got up and followed
her, suddenly feeling apprehensive.

Izzie gave me the
thumbs-up. ‘Meet you afterwards.’

I was ushered down a
maze of corridors and into a small salon with a row of mirrors and chairs.

A girl with bright red
hair and even brighter red lipstick came forward. She looked very young. She
can’t have been training that long. ‘Hi, I’m Kate and I’ll be cutting your
hair,’ she said. ‘Take a seat.’

After that I might as
well not have been there.

An older lady with
long curly blonde hair came in and they both stared at me for a while then
played with my hair, tilting my head from side to side, frowning and tutting.

‘Splits ends,’ said
Kate with disdain. ‘Who cut it last?’

‘Er, my mum,’ I said,
feeling smaller by the minute.

Kate and her
supervisor looked at each other knowingly. ‘Ah. That explains it.’

‘Take a seat at the
basin,’ ordered Kate.

‘Er, what are you
going to do?’ I asked as Kate shampooed me. ‘I’ve brought some pictures of how
I’d like it to look. I’ve got them in my bag.’

‘We won’t need those,’
said Kate. ‘Don’t you worry, I know what I’m doing.’

She led me away from
the basin back to a chair then started snipping. I told myself to relax. Kate’s
hair looked fab and so did her supervisor’s. I sat back, crossed my fingers and
closed my eyes.

A minute later, Kate’s
mobile rang. She had a quick look round to see if her supervisor was around
then seeing she wasn’t, took the call. It went on like this for twenty minutes.
Snip, snip, then she’d take a call. Some drama about a boy called Elliot. I
could see she was getting in a panic about something he said, and didn’t seem
to be concentrating on my hair at all.

‘Where were we?’ she
asked, coming back to me after the third interruption.

‘You were on the
back,’ I said. Then the phone went again.

‘Won’t be a mo,’ she
said and disappeared again.

When she came back she
was more flustered than ever, whatever was upsetting her, she seemed to be
taking it out on my hair. Snip, snip, chop, chop.

I stared at my
reflection in horror. My hair was gone. Cut or rather hacked bluntly to my neck
and it didn’t look even. It was
awful
. I felt myself go red and I
wanted to cry.

By now, Kate was busy
with the hairdryer, blowing and pulling.

‘Ouch, that hurts,’ I
said as she yanked a piece of hair then almost burned my scalp with the dryer.

‘Got to get a move
on,’ she said. ‘Got to get out quick.
Major
drama.’

I didn’t care about
her major drama. I had one of my own. She’d totally ruined my hair.

When she’d finished
blowing, she stood back to look at her work. I looked younger than ever. Nine.
Eight. A baby. Oh no. What has she done?

By the look on her
face, she didn’t like what she’d done either.

‘Are you pleased?’ she
asked, while shoving her things in her bag.

‘It, er, looks a bit
uneven,’ I said.

‘That’s the look,’ she
said. ‘Very Meg Ryan. And those split ends had to go. It can be a bit of a
shock if you’ve had long hair for a while. You’ll get used to it.’

Then she put on her
coat and scarpered.