Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 01] (12 page)

‘NoOOO, you mustn’t,’
said Iz, seizing the blue dress I’d made for myself. ‘God, this fabric is
amazing. All the little pearls. Put it on.’

I put on the dress and
both of them oo-ed and ah-ed. It did look good as long as I didn’t look above
my neck.

‘It fits like a
glove,’ said Izzie, then laughed. ‘See,
something
fits!’

‘Might look better if
I had boobs,’ I said, thinking back to the lingerie department.

‘Don’t be mad,’ said
Nesta. ‘They’ll grow soon enough. And if they don’t, you can always have
silicone.’

‘Silicone! I’m
fourteen
!’

‘Well what I mean is,
at least you can do something about having no chest. Bras, uplifts. Not like my
feet.’ She pulled off her trainers. ‘Look. Massive. Horrible. I can never get
shoes to fit.’

I couldn’t believe it.
Nesta wasn’t perfect after all.

‘That’s nothing,’ said
Izzie. ‘Try having my thighs. Both of you have such slim legs and I’ve got
great whoppers. And short stubby ones at that. I can never get jeans to fit.’

I felt so happy. Nesta
and Izzie both had complexes. Why had we never talked about it before? I
thought I was the only one who felt the way I did.

Hurrah. We’re all mad.

Suddenly Izzie and
Nesta started grinning like maniacs.

‘What?’ I said,
suspicious. ‘What are you two up to?’

‘Are you feeling
better, Lucy?’ asked Nesta, producing a package from her bag.

I nodded warily.

‘Good, because we got
you a little present as well,’ said Izzie.

‘Something you really
want,’ said Nesta.

Something I really
want? My mind filled with images of CDs, books, make-up I’ve had my eye on.
What great friends.

Nesta giggled as she
handed me the package in a carrier bag.

I put my hand in the
bag and pulled out ‘the present’.

Izzie and Nesta
collapsed on the bed laughing as I looked at what looked like a bit of wrinkled
pink plastic. ‘It’s for your, er, your chest problem.’

An inflatable bra. I
started laughing and Izzie blew into the hole in the bra to inflate it. A
perfect 34C.

‘Put it on, put it
on,’ she said.

I had to comply and
shoved the bra up under my dress then stood in front of the mirror and turned
to profile.

Nesta and Izzie made
long wolf whistles.

‘Pamela Anderson eat your
heart out,’ I said, strutting and wiggling round the room. ‘Baywatch here I
come. Yeah, thanks girls, like
very
funny.’

C h a p t e r
 
1 3

Pop
Star Names

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We are The Three
Musketeers. One for all and all for one.

Izzie brought her
wet-look gel with her on the bus the next morning and Nesta plastered it on to
my head.

‘There, that’s
better,’ said Nesta, slicking my hair away from my face. ‘It’s stopped it
sticking out and you can’t see it’s all uneven any more. Then tonight, we’ll
get you sorted at home.’

When we got off the
bus, we headed straight for the corner shop. We had Wacko first lesson and it
was hand in the egg baby day. Half our class were in the store. All buying free
range eggs.

‘Well done, girls,’
she said, when we all put the eggs on her desk. ‘I hadn’t expected half of you
to bring them back in one piece.’

Everyone looked at the
floor so we wouldn’t catch each other’s eyes and start laughing. Then Wacko
said she wanted us to get into groups and discuss how far we’d got with our
What makes me ‘me’? project.

Just as things were
going well, she had to bring
that
up again.

Izzie, Nesta and me
got into a group and stared at our files.

‘Let’s put in our pop
star names,’ said Nesta.

‘Pop star name?’ I
asked.

‘Yeah, like a stage
name. You take the name of your first female pet and your mother’s maiden name
and
voila
, your pop star name. Boys pick the name of their first male pet.’

I thought for a
second. ‘Our first cat was Smokey,’ I said. ‘And my mum’s maiden name is
Kinsler. So Smokey Kinsler.’

‘Takes all sorts,
darlin’,‘ said Nesta huskily.

‘Hubba hubba,’ said
Izzie. ‘Here’s Smokey an’ she’s smo-oking tonight. Mine’s Zizi. Zizi Malone.‘

‘Mine’s Sooty
Costello,’ laughed Nesta.

‘But Williams is your
name,’ I said.

‘I know, my mum kept
her name and I use that instead of Dad’s. So I’m using
his
maiden
name. Sooty Costello. I like that.’

‘Perfect,’ I said.

‘Let’s put in our Mills
and Boon writer names too,’ said Izzie.

‘How do you do that?’
I asked.

‘You take your middle
name and the name of the street where you first ever lived,’ said Iz.

‘Suzanne Lindann,’
said Nesta.

‘That works,’ said
Izzie. ‘Mine’s Joanna Redington.’

‘Mine’s Charlotte
Leister,’ I said, getting into it. ‘And we could put our death meals in as
well. It might come in handy if the aliens ever arrive and we have twenty-four
hours before the world blows up.’

‘A death meal being?’
asked Nesta.

‘Your last meal ever
on earth, stupid, like, if you know you’ve only got a few hours left.’

That set us off
dreaming for a while. All the lovely things we could eat and not have to worry
about the calories or dieting.

‘Chips, burger and
Haagen-Dazs pecan,’ said Nesta.

‘Roast chicken and
roastie tatoes and banoffi pie,’ said Izzie.

‘Spaghetti bolognese
and treacle pudding and custard,’ I said. ‘And chocolate. Lots of it.’

Nesta sent a note
round class when Wacko wasn’t looking. By the end of the lesson we had
everyone’s pop star names.

A good lesson
methinks. And I suppose I’m getting clearer on the what makes me ‘me’ front.
I’m Gemini with Cancer rising and the Moon in Taurus. I am an air sign, the
sign of the twins. I am Smokey Kinsler, pop star queen or possibly Charlotte Leister,
romantic novel writer.

Well, it’s a start.

I looked up at Wacko
and wondered if she would be impressed with our hard work.

‘Lucy Levering,’ she
said, seeing me staring at her. ‘Stop sniggering.’

She’s picking on me.
Do I care? No.

In the afternoon, we
all had to pile on to the school bus for an outing to the Tate Modern. Worse
luck, some of the Year Eleven girls had come along to help ‘look after us’.

As we took our seats
at the back of the bus, Josie Riley came down the aisle and stood threateningly
over Nesta.

‘Hear you’ve been
trying to cop off with Michael Brenman,’ she said.

Nesta immediately
stood up. ‘It sounds like English but I can’t understand a word’ you’re
saying,‘ she said, going into her Scary Spice persona.

Now Nesta is definitely
someone who doesn’t give
anyone
permission to make her feel inferior.
She’s five foot five and Josie’s at least three inches smaller.

Josie backed away then
saw me giggling and turned to me. ‘What happened to your hair? Whatever look
you’re going for, you missed.’

Izzie stood up next to
Nesta. ‘If I throw a stick, will you leave?’

Josie turned on Nesta
again. ‘You think you’re it, don’t you? Well let me tell you something. Michael
Brenman is mine and I’d appreciate it if you’d stay away’

‘Thank you, I will,’
said Nesta. ‘And as for Michael being
yours
, may I say we’re all
refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view. Anyway you can have
Michael Brenman, I’m not interested, he kisses like a whelk.’

Josie’s mouth dropped
open. ‘He
kissed
you? What does he see in a kid like you?’

Nesta stuck her nose
in the air. ‘I’m really easy to get along with once you lesser people learn to
worship me,’ she said.

Josie’s mouth shrank
to resemble a cat’s bottom and by this time, I was on the floor laughing.

‘One for all and all
for one,’ I said as she sloped off.

There are a million
things to look at in the Tate Modern. On the bank of the River Thames, it’s an
enormous warehouse type building with loads of different floors, each one with
room after room of remarkable oddities, some beautiful, some seriously
deranged.

As. far as our class
was concerned though, there was only one room worth looking at. After an hour
of trooping around and trying to make sense of it all, we all jammed ourselves
into a tiny dark space where there was music playing. On the wall, a film was
playing of a man with a beard. A naked man, sort of hippie dancing in slow
motion. His willy was flopping up and down in time to the music. Everyone was
falling about laughing and Candice Carter went up to the wall and started
dancing along with him. That made us laugh even more.

‘Is this art?’ said Mo
Harrison.

‘Well it beats
The
Hay Wain’
, said Nesta.

‘I thought you had to
be able to draw to be an artist,’ I said.

‘Not any more,’ said
Nesta. ‘My dad said anything can be art if you say it is.’

Then Mr Johnson came
in and caught us. He took one look at the film and said, ‘Move along, girls,
come on, move along. Plenty more to see.’

‘Oh, I don’t think
so,’ said Izzie, trying not to laugh. ‘I think we’ve seen it all.’

Sometimes school is
great.

The
Mystery Contestant Revealed

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My hair is
fantabuloso. At last. Can life get any better?

Betty, that’s the
hairdresser, is my new best friend. She looked more like a mum than a trendy
hairdresser and at first I had my doubts as to whether she could repair the
damage.

Nesta’s mum was just
off to do her newsreading shift having had her hair done. She looked ever so
smart in a navy suit and silver jewellery and I thought I’d be intimidated by
her like I am by Izzie’s mum but she was really friendly. She took one look at
what Kate had done and said to Betty, ‘Oh no, she wants it softer, feathered,
layered, don’t you think?’

I nodded but just to
be on the safe side, I showed them the picture I’d cut out of the magazine.