Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 01] (2 page)

I’m small and don’t
look my age. People always think I’m in Year Seven or Eight.

I stared out of the
window hoping for inspiration. Jobs for little people. Maybe I could audition
to be one of the Munchkins if they ever remake
The Wizard of Oz
?
They’re tiny. Or Mini Me in the next Austin Powers movie.

And what are you going
to be when you grow up, Nesta? Model.

And you, Izzie?
Singer-songwriter.

Lucy? Mini Me.

Yeah. Right. Now I’m being
plain stupid. I must have some decent ideas locked in my brain somewhere.

I made myself
concentrate. What makes me ‘me’ r

I’m the youngest
in my family.

Fifteen minutes later
and that was all I’d written.

‘Just before the bell
goes,’ said Miss Watkins, ‘I’d like to give you all a profile sheet to fill
out. Purely for yourselves to help get you started if you’re stuck. Nobody
needs to see them, they’re only for you, to get you thinking along different
lines.’

I looked at the sheet
of paper she handed me.

Help. I’m usually good
at essays and stuff. But this time I haven’t a clue. I don’t know who I am. Or
what makes me ‘me’.

Or what I’m going to
do when I grow up.

Or where I fit.

C h a p t e r
 
2

Angel
Cards

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When I got home after
school I did what I always do. Headed for the fridge.

‘When the going gets
tough…“ I said.

‘The tough eat
ice-cream,’ finished Izzie, swooping in and taking the tub from the freezer.

‘Diet again on
Monday,’ said Nesta.

I can’t believe she
diets. She’s as thin as a rake.

By five o’clock our
kitchen was packed. Me, Izzie and Nesta tucking into bowls of pecan nut fudge.
Brothers Steve and Laurence plus two of their schoolmates, Matthew and Tom, all
busy cutting mammoth hunks of bread then slapping on peanut butter and honey.
Yuk. Mum making a cup of tea. Herbal of course. And Dad attempting to feed Ben
and Jerry who are more interested in my ice-cream than dog food.

It’s chaos in here.

‘Why did you call them
Ben and Jerry?’ asked Nesta, pointing at the dogs - Ben, who had his paws up on
my knees trying to get his nose in my bowl, and Jerry, looking longingly at
Izzie in the hope she’d take pity and give him a taste. I gave Ben the last
spoonful to lick; I’m a sucker for his great sad eyes and that pathetic ‘no one
ever feeds me’ look of his, plus he’s still got his paw in a bandage, poor
thing.

‘We named them after
they ate a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey when they were puppies,’
said Lai through a mouthful of bread. ‘They love ice-cream.’

I think Lai fancies
Nesta, he’s gone all creepy and over-friendly since she walked in. He keeps flicking
his hair back and giving her meaningful looks. I don’t think she’s even
noticed. He likes to imagine himself as a ladies’ man. Ever since Tracy
Marcuson next door let him snog her last Christmas. He’s not bad-looking in a
kind of Matt Damon way but I don’t think Nesta would be interested. She likes
older boys or so she says. And not that she’d fancy my eldest brother Steve
either. He’s seventeen and a bit too swotty-looking for her though he’s quite
nice looking when he takes his glasses off and has a decent haircut. But he’s
not bothered about girls, unlike

Casanova Lai; Steve
prefers computers and books.

‘It’s like Waterloo
station in here,’ sighed Mum, clearing a space at the table. She doesn’t mind
though. Our house is always full of people, usually all piled in the kitchen
which is the largest room in the house. Dad knocked a wall through last year to
open it up a bit and though we do have more space now, he ran out of money so
couldn’t finish the job.

‘What are those marks
on the wall?’ asked Nesta, pointing to some pencil marks by the fridge.

‘Our heights as we
were growing up,’ said Lai, getting up and going to stand against the wall to
show her how it worked. ‘See, on every birthday we measure how much we’ve grown
with a pencil mark.’ He pointed to the highest. ‘Those are Steve’s.’

‘And these must be
Lucy’s,’ said Nesta, looking at the shortest marks. She stood at least six
inches higher than I had last birthday.

She then had a close
look at our’original‘ wallpaper.To cover up for the lack of it, Steve, Lai and
I have plastered our artwork from school all over one wall. And Mum, who’s
convinced that one day Dad will actually get round to decorating, has used
another area to try out different colour paint samples.

‘Very
Vogue
interior,’ Nesta smiled as she examined Mum’s wall which looks like a patchwork
quilt of misshapen daubs in various shades of yellow, blue, terracotta and
green.

‘Not,’ I said.

I haven’t been to
Nesta’s house yet but Izzie has and says it’s amazing. Straight out of an
interior design mag. Still, Nesta doesn’t seem bothered by our lack of decor
style. In fact she appears to like it here, as she comes back most nights after
school now. Her muni works different shifts as a newsreader on the telly and
her dad’s a film director so he’s often away shooting. Nesta has an older
brother as well but she says he’s hardly ever at home either.

Izzie has always come
home with me, ever since I’ve known her. Her mum and stepdad don’t get home
from work until after seven so it was arranged ages ago that she’d come here
until one of them picks her up.

Izzie says I have to
give Nesta a chance and get to know her properly but I’m not sure how I feel
about her being here all the time. It’s like, first she moves in on my best
friend, and now she’s moving in on my family. I’m trying to be friends and I do
sort of like her - it’s hard not to, she’s great fun - but I can’t help feeling
pushed out. Everyone loves Nesta when they meet her. She’s so confident and
pretty.

It all started a few
weeks ago when Izzie came to find me after school. She looked out of breath as
if she had been running.

‘Can Nesta come back
with us to yours?’ she asked, looking behind her as though someone was
following.

She saw me hesitate.

‘She needs friends,’
she said. ‘She’s not as sure of herself as she makes out. I know she acts all
tough, like she doesn’t need anyone or care what anyone thinks of her but I
just found her at the bus stop, crying. That creep Josie Riley and her mates
have been calling her names and she doesn’t want to go home until her mum’s
back. I don’t want to leave her there on her own.’

I’d have felt mean
refusing and I did feel sorry for her. I know what those bullies in Year Eleven
can be like.

‘Yeah. Tell her to
come,’ I said. ‘That is if she doesn’t mind my mad family.’

Course Mum and Dad
made her welcome straight away. They always do with people. They may not have
enough money to paint the kitchen walls but they don’t seem to mind feeding the
neighbourhood. Love, peace and have a chunk of organic bread. That’s what they
live by. Share what you have. The world is just a great big family.

Because Dad runs the
local health shop we’re fed all sorts of weird stuff. All organic, preservative
free. Tastes OK though. But some nights I don’t know what I’m eating. Tahini.
Gomasio. Miso. And herbal teas. Disgusting. Especially camomile. Smells like
cats’ pee. What I’d give for a McDonald’s followed by a big fat chocolate
milkshake.

But no, Mum and Dad
are veggies so the only burger you get round here is the tofu variety and
milkshakes are made of soya.

Izzie says it’s one of
the things she likes best about Mum and Dad but then she’s into all that stuff
as well. New Age, alternative.

‘I wish my parents
were cool like yours,’ she said once. ‘They really care about stuff. The
environment. What we put in our bodies. They’re not like usual boring parents.’

‘Exactly,’ I said.‘I
used to love the way they were when I was younger but I wish Mum would look a
bit, well, a bit more bland these days.’

‘Why?’ said Izzie. ‘I
think she looks brilliant.’

‘Brilliant?’ I said.
Not a word that would spring to my mind when describing Mum’s style. Peculiar
more like.

‘I love a bargain,’
Mum’s always saying. ‘Which is why I shop at all the charity shops.You get a
good class of cast-off in North London.’

Mostly I don’t mind
but last month’s parents’ meeting was the worst. I wanted her to look normal
for once but she came down the stairs ready to go, wearing red and white
striped tights, a purply tweed skirt
and
a green checked jacket. She has
no sense of colour co-ordination at all and slings it all together with total
disregard for what mixes and matches.

‘What do you think?’
she asked, giving me a twirl.

‘Er, very colourful,’
I said, thinking fast. ‘But why not try your green jacket with some navy
trousers? Or maybe the purple skirt with a grey or blue shirt? That would look
nice.’

‘But I love the
tights,’ said Mum. ‘I have to wear them.’

‘Well how about with a
plain black dress?’ I suggested, ‘and you could accessorise the red and white stripes
with red and white bracelets?’

She sort of listened.
Sort
of
. She went upstairs and changed into a black dress. Then threw
a multicoloured poncho that looks like an old blanket over it. And, of course,
she was
still
wearing the red and white tights. I give up. Everyone
was staring at her when we got to school. She stood out amongst all the other
mums in their Marks and Spencer’s navy and white. Even her hair is different.
Most mums have the standard short haircut but Mum’s is really long, halfway down
her back. Too long for her age, I think, though it does look OK when she puts
it back in a plait.

Then again, it could
have been the car that people were looking at that evening. We’ve had the same
one for years. I think Mum and Dad bought it at university, which is where they
first met. It’s a Volkswagen Beetle. And for some reason Dad painted it bright
turquoise. No, you definitely can’t miss it amongst the Range Rovers and BMWs.

Dad dresses pretty
normally. Cords and jumpers. I mean, he doesn’t exactly have to dress smart to
dole out people’s muesli at the shop but I wish he’d get rid of the ponytail.
Does he listen? No. According to a mag I read, balding men compensate by having
a ponytail. Poor Dad. It must be awful losing his hair but it would look so
much better if he had what little he has left cropped short.

‘So how was school
today?’ he asked the assorted chomping faces in the kitchen.