Read Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 04] Online

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Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 04] (3 page)

 

 

 

 

 

C h a p t e r
 
3

The
Wrinklies

 

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Stay close,‘ said Mum
as she pointed the camera at us in the back garden. ’Put your hand on Paul’s
shoulder, Richard. And
try
and look as though you like him a bit.‘ Dad
shuffled about behind us then finally put his hand on Paul’s shoulder. ’Might
be more appropriate if Paul put
his
hand in
my
pocket,‘ he
muttered.

‘Oh, for heaven’s
sake,’ said Mum. ‘Enough now. You made your point over lunch. This is our last
day together as a family before Paul leaves for Goa. Try and act like a
grown-up.’

Paul and I tried not
to laugh as Dad looked at the lawn like a naughty schoolboy. Quite an
achievement seeing as he’s in his sixties, but Mum can be Scary Mum to his
Scary Dad when she‘ likes. She gets a look in her eye and you know she’s not to
be messed with. Hannah used to call my parents the Wrinklies because they’re so
ancient. Mum had me when she was forty-five and Dad was fifty-three. They
thought they’d finished having children with

Paul. Then seven years
later, along came yours truly. I think I was what is commonly known in birth
terms as A Surprise. Or A Mistake. Whatever. All I know is that I have the
oldest parents of anyone in school. I used to get embarrassed when there’d be
all these young mums in T-shirts and jeans waiting after school, then along
would come my mum or dad in their ‘comfy clothes’ looking more like my
grandparents. I started telling people that Mum and Dad were actually the same
age as normal parents but they’d been captured by aliens one summer and kept as
an experiment on their spaceship for two days. The trauma made their hair grow
white and they grew old before their time. One girl in my class actually
believed me.

Mum took her picture
and Dad headed for the car.

So much for our last
day together as a family before Paul’s trip, I thought, as I watched Dad
reverse his Mercedes down the driveway and zoom off towards his golf club.

The rest of us trooped
back inside and Paul and I began to clear the table. Lunch had been a strained
affair with Dad giving me a lecture about ‘the importance of qualifications’
and ’a good career meaning a good start in life‘. It was so obvious it was
aimed at Paul, but I tried to look as if I agreed with everything Dad said.
Anything to keep the peace.

Then he started on
about how much Paul going to college had cost him. What a waste it all was.

‘I will pay you back,’
said Paul. ‘I really will.’

‘It’s not the money,’
said Dad. ‘I want you to be happy.’

‘I will be,’ said
Paul. ‘I
am
. I want to see the world. Experience life. It’s going to
be brilliant.’

‘Well, at least let me
give you some decent medical supplies for the journey,’ said Dad.

Paul sighed. ‘It’s
sorted, Dad. Don’t worry.’

Dad didn’t look
convinced and, for a moment, I felt sorry for him. He doesn’t normally look his
age but today he did. He looked sad and a touch weary. Sometimes he can’t
accept that people have their own plans for their lives. He’s so used to people
obeying his every word at the hospital, he thinks it’s going to be the same at
home. Poor Scary Dad. I think he means well.

 

After loading the
dishwasher, Mum went to water the pots on the patio and Paul and I went through
to the living-room. Paul flopped on the sofa and began flicking through the
Sunday papers. At the bottom of the pile was our school newsletter, which he
began to read.

‘There are loads of
things you can do in here,’ he said after a while. ‘Art, drama, choir. Getting
a hobby would be a good way of making new friends.’

‘You sound like Dad,’
I said, sitting next to him and stretching my legs out on to the coffee table,
‘organising my life. Anyway, I have loads of hobbies. Tennis. Football.
Karate.‘

‘Sounds like you’ll
meet lots of boys doing that stuff, not girls.’

‘Don’t be sexist.
Girls do all that stuff as well.’

‘Oh,
sorry
.
Didn’t realise you’re a feminist,’ he teased.

‘I’m not. I just
believe women are the superior race,’ I teased back.

‘Oh, look, there’s
you,’ pointed Paul as he came across our class photo. ‘And Hannah.’

‘It was taken just
after Easter,’ I said, looking over his shoulder. ‘I look awful.’

‘No, you don’t. What
are the other girls like?’

‘Oh, God. All sorts.’
I pointed to some of the girls in the photo. ‘That’s Melanie and Lottie. I get
on OK with them. They were at footie yesterday. Those three are the brainboxes,
those two are the computer nerds, Jade and Candice are the bad girls that like
to bunk off, Mary and Emma are the sporty girls, Wendy’s a bit of a pain.’

‘So, who do you hang
with?’

‘Well, Hannah before
she went, obviously. And now, I suppose Melanie and Lottie a bit, but they’re a
twosome really. I’m lumped in with the brainboxes seeing as I’m usually first
in the class at everything. Except maths. I hate maths.’

Paul continued to
study the photo.

‘Now, she looks nice,’
he said. ‘Who’s she?’

‘God, typical,’ I said
when I saw who he was pointing at. ‘She’s Nesta Williams. Only the best-looking
girl in our school.’

‘She looks like that
girl in Destiny’s Child.’

‘Beyonce.’

‘Yeah. So who are her
friends?’

I pointed out Lucy
Levering and Izzie Foster.

‘They look like fun.
Tell me about them.’

‘Not much to tell. I
don’t know them that well outside school. They don’t do football or any of the
stuff I do. Inside school, they’re sort of in the middle. Popular. Not too
swotty, not too disruptive, though Izzie does ask a lot of questions in class
sometimes. One teacher called her Izzie ’why?‘ Foster. But
everyone
fancies Nesta, that I
do
know. Even Scott next door. She’s in the
drama group and I think she wants to be an actress. She’s probably completely
self-obsessed. Anyone as gorgeous as her has to be.’

‘Not necessarily,’
grinned Paul. ‘I’m gorgeous and I’m not self-obsessed.’

‘And
I’m
gorgeous and I’m not self-obsessed,’ said Mum, coming back in with a bunch of
white roses she’d cut. ‘So why don’t you get in with this crowd?’

‘Oh, you don’t
understand, Mum. They hang by themselves. They’d never let anyone as boring as
me in with them.’

‘You’re not boring,’
said Mum, taking the newsletter from Paul and scanning the back page.

‘Don’t bother to read
that,’ I said. ‘It’s completely out of touch and dull.’

‘Well, here’s your
chance to change it,’ said Mum, handing it back to me.

‘What do you mean?’

‘There, back page. I
saw it the other day when I had a look through. I thought you might be
interested. It says that they’re looking for a new editor, seeing as the old
one will be moving on at the end of the year. And they want to make it more of
a magazine than a newsletter. Applications open to everyone from Year 9
upwards. You only have to do eight pages or so as an example.’

‘Not interested,’ I
said, putting the newsletter back on the pile of papers.

‘But you want to be a
writer,’ said Paul. ‘You should go for it. It would be good practice.’

‘Nah, people think I’m
a swot as it is. If I went for that, they’d only hate me more.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said
Mum and began to root around in the cupboards for a vase. ‘But I see that Sam
Denham is doing a talk for all those interested.’

‘Sam Denham? Where
does it say that?’

‘Ah, so suddenly it’s
not so boring.’ Mum picked up the newsletter and read from the back. ‘Monday 11
June, 4.30 in the main assembly hall. That’s tomorrow. He’s going to talk about
journalism. It says he got started on his school magazine.’

Sam Denham is a
celebrity journalist and though he’s old, at least in his thirties, he’s still
cute in that Ricky Martin kind of way. They always have him on the news when
they want an opinion about anything. He always has something interesting or
funny to say.

And he’s coming to our
school?

‘Maybe I
will
go to the talk,’ I said. ‘But only to listen.’

 

email: Outbox (1)

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 10 June

Subject: Night night

 

Hi Hannah

Feeling mis. Bro Paul gone. He and Saskia are booked on the overnight
flight to Goa tomorrow. Boo hoo. Everyone I care about is going away.

Gotta go, school a.m.

TJ

 

By the way, our crapola newsletter is looking for a new editor and Sam
Penham is coming to school tomorrow to do a talk. Apparently, he got started
on his school mag.

 

 

email: Inbox (1)

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Pate: 10 June

Subject: Sam the Man

 

WAAAAKE UP.

Exscooth me
? Pid you say Sam Penham as in Sam Penham from the telly‘ He’s a top
babe.
V V jealous.
Wish never left UK. Be sure to wear something short
that reveals your legs as they are one of your best features. And sit on the
front row.

TJ, you
must
go for editor. You’d be brilliant at it. And it
would take your mind off missing me and Paul. I’ve read all about this kind
of thing in Mum’s mags, The agony aunts are always telling people to ‘keep
busy’ and ‘throw yourself into your work’. I think this is a godsend. Your
destiny.

And you think you’re miserablahblah! Try being me. In a new country.
With no friends at all. Not even Melanie and Lottie. No, young lady, you
don’t know you’re born, as Dad would say. Yours truly Your

Agony Aunt Hannah

PS: Few more for the book collection

Over the Cliff by
Hugo First

The Cat’s Revenge by
Claude Bottom

Arf arf arf arf arf arf!

 

 

 

 

C h a p t e r
 
4

A
Lonely Little Petunia

 

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‘I’m just a lonely
little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch,’ sang the
record in my head. It was going round and round, louder and louder, as I sat
eating my lunch in the school playground the next day.

I was on my own
because Melanie suffers from awful hayfever and thought that sitting outside
would make it worse. Course, Lottie had to stay in with her to keep her company
and hand her tissues. I was going to explain that as pollen is airborne, it
could get anywhere, so it wouldn’t make much difference where she was, but I
didn’t want her to think I was a Norma Know-It-All. Too many people thought
that already. In fact, lately I’ve found myself holding back when I know the
answers to things in class. Let someone else be the one who always gets it
right. It doesn’t win you any prizes in the popularity stakes.

Perhaps I should have
stayed in with them, I wondered, as I looked around at all the groups of
friends. It is definitely possible to feel lonelier in the middle of a crowd
than when on your own.

Most of the school was
out making the most of the heatwave. Everyone in pairs or three or fours. All
busy talking, laughing, having a good time. I always used to sit with Hannah at
lunch and I felt really self-conscious sitting on my tod. Like, everyone must
be staring, going, ‘Oh, poor TJ, she’s got no mates.’

I continued munching
my peanut butter and honey sandwich like I didn’t care, but I did care. I
didn’t like this feeling of being the odd one out.

‘Hey, TJ,’ called a
voice near the bike shed.

I turned round to see
Wendy Roberts. ‘Hey.’

‘You heard from
Hannah?’ she asked, as she perched herself on the bench next to me and lowered
the straps of her top so the sun could get to her.

I nodded. ‘Yeah. I’ve
had a few emails. I think she’s missing England.’

‘You must miss her,
too,’ she said.

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