So I got to Carrie’s house at about 7
PM
and the big electric gates with DRAPERVILLE printed on them were locked so I buzzed the intercom and smiled at the security camera. I tried to make Penny do all her wees before we went inside, but the annoying fat lump still managed to go and squeeze one out all over the driveway and then run away from me and paddle right into Carrie’s mum’s carp pond with the illuminated statue with no arms. I was giggling to myself ’cos Carrie’s house still had a load of the Christmas decorations stuck to the front. If you look closely you can still see the big Santa sitting in the jacuzzi with sunglasses on and the sign which says
HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM DRAPER HYDRATION!!!
Carrie says her dad’s got so much work right now he hasn’t had time to take them down. I think really he’s just well proud ’cos his Christmas decorations always get on the front of the
Ilford Bugle
and people drive from as far away as Romford to see them and everything.
So me and Penny went into Carrie’s house and we went straight upstairs ’cos Maria, Carrie’s mother, was doing yoga in the front room with this quite gay-looking bloke called Bruce wearing Lycra pants, where you could see the shape of his goolies and everything, who’s her personal trainer. Carrie’s mum Maria is proper lovely. She is ever so pretty and she never shouts and she doesn’t look at all like she’s thirty-nine. “You all right Shiz darling?” she said, hanging upside down. “Give Caz’s door a bang, she’s been singing her bleeding ’ead off with that iPod on since she got home from school!”
I stayed at Carrie’s ’til about 9
PM
. Carrie showed me the new family photo that her mum has got blown up massive and put in a gold frame for the hallway. It’s of Carrie and her mum and dad dressed as cowboys, that they got done when they went to Disneyland Paris. But the photo is printed in a sort of brown color so it looks like it’s one from the olden days. It’s well clever. I wish my family did stuff like that. I wish we could all be friends. Last time we went on vacation Cava-Sue slapped Murphy even before we got on the plane and Mum wanted to go home early ’cos she missed our dog. Maybe it would be different at Disneyland Paris.
Anyway, so then Carrie’s mum shouted upstairs that Collette Brown from Cheeky’s Salon was coming over to give her a manicure and if we wanted our nails painted we could have them done too. How nice was that?!!! My nails were all bitten though so I said no. I didn’t want Collette Brown seeing my nails with all the bits of skin hanging off ’cos Collette Brown is perfect. I remember when her and Cava-Sue turned sixteen, Collette dyed her hair blonde and got a really amazing tattoo on the bottom of her back that says
Collette
in posh swirly writing. It pokes out of her jeans and she wears her thong over it and it looks so cool. Her and Cava-Sue went out on Collette’s sixteenth together and ended up in a nightclub in Gants Hill in a VIP room with some footballers. I will NEVER be as cool as Collette. I wish Cava-Sue still knocked about with her.
So Collette Brown arrived with a pull-along suitcase full of nail stuff. This man dropped her off in an Audi. It was a different one from the one I saw last time. Then Collette did Carrie’s mum’s nails and then she did Carrie’s nails and all the time she was telling us about Valentine’s night next week when she’s going to a posh place called Oxo Tower in London with this geezer called Vince who runs a firm “supplying security to businesses,” whatever that means. I asked Collette was this Vince him with the BMW or him with the Audi, and Collette laughed and she said neither ’cos Vince had a Benz Jeep. Collette Brown said that she likes being treated like a proper lady by men. She likes getting handbags, champagne, diamonds, that sort of thing off of them. Collette Brown says that if me and Carrie want a Valentine’s date we better pull our fingers out of our behinds now and find someone or we’ll be in the house together like a pair of lemons. Collette Brown says she doesn’t sit in the house waiting to be asked out, she goes out with her mates hunting.
I told Cava-Sue about this later when she was in the bed above reading
Rolling Stone
and she said don’t take much notice of Collette Brown ’cos she’s got a brain the size of a malt ball and she’s gone to bed with half the blokes in Romford. This can’t be true can it? Collette Brown is dead classy. Her MySpace is so amazing, she goes to tons of well cool parties where footballers from Millwall and Brentford FC hang out.
12
PM
— God, I really really hope Carrie doesn’t find us a Valentine’s date. What do you even do on a date? I can’t just sit and talk to boys like Carrie can. She’ll never find anyone to go out with me anyhow — thank god.
FRIDAY 8TH FEBRUARY
OH BLOODY CRAPPING HELL. Carrie got a text from Lee “Cotch” Coatchford last night. Carrie says she is going to ask him if he has a mate and if they want to come out with us on Valentine’s night. I said to Carrie stop making us look like a pair of desperados and I haven’t got any money to go to Spirit of Siam and I’ll have to go behind my mother’s back and everything! Then I said Carrie’s dad won’t want her going out with Cotch anyhow ’cos he’s got no job or nothing and everyone knows he sells weed. Carrie said, “Oh stop being negative, Shiraz, do you want us to spend Valentine’s night indoors like lezboids or what?” What was I meant to say to that?
I am NOT A LEZBOID at all by the way. I DO NOT fancy girls. Sometimes though I worry that one day I will turn into one ’cos I am just not like Carrie when it comes to boys. Carrie can think about boys ALL DAY LONG. I don’t get it. There ain’t that much to think about. IS THIS HOW BEING A LEMON STARTS?
SUNDAY 10TH FEBRUARY
No news from Cotch. Thank god. Went over to Nan’s house in Chadwell Heath. We went to bingo. There was a special charity night on for cancer where you had to wear a silly wig or antennas and you got a drink with a sparkler. It was well funny ’cos when we got there all the old people were wearing pink afros or big glasses or dracula teeth. Nan borrowed a long black Halloween wig from Casey-Anne, the neighbor’s kiddy. Nan’s mate Gill lent me some devil horns. I’m not being funny or nothing but some of Nan’s bingo friends are pretty crazy-looking anyway so it was hard to tell which teeth and hats were costumes.
I LOVE going to bingo with Nan. Nan is the bingo queen. Nan always reckons that she has a bad heart and bad eyesight, but when she gets to bingo she can do six bingo cards at once while smoking a Lucky Strike and talking about everyone else there with Gill. Nan don’t even get shaky when they do the live national link up for £40,000!!! I only did one card and my heart was thumping like mad! Nan said if she gets the big national one she’s moving to Spain with Gill and they’re going to sit in the sun and drink rum-and-Cokes and find themselves some new fellas, seeing as their old ones have gone and died. Nan said I can come with her and get myself a Spanish fella with brown skin and brown eyes. (Even Nan is obsessed with me getting a lad.) Nan asked how’s everything at home with my dad and Murphy and Cava-Sue. I said there’s been lots of fights over stuff like pizzas, and yesterday when Cava-Sue bought some stripy tights which my mum hates, and when Cava-Sue taped over Mum’s
Jerry Springer
with MTV2 without asking which made Mum have a right fit.
Nan was quiet for a bit and then she said well, she don’t like frozen pizza either. Nan said that if there’s too much noise at my house I can always jump on the bus over to Chadwell Heath and she’ll make me some nice chops and mashed spuds. I love my nan more than anything. I hope she never goes to Spain.
It was a right bother getting Nan and her mates home after bingo ’cos Gill won a bingo line and spent the £30 on rum-and-Cokes for her, Nan, and their mate Clement. “You can’t take it with you when you die,” said Gill. They were singing on the bus all the way home. They are worse than us hoodies.
MONDAY 11TH FEBRUARY
We had English today and that Ms. Bracket woman was making us read
Jane Eyre
again. Ms. Bracket don’t half go on and on about us passing our GCSEs. She is well scary too (without ever shouting). She don’t just give up like other teachers. Kezia Marshall said that after she was in that fight with Latoya Bell, Kezia’s mum rang the school to complain about Ms. Bracket pulling Kezia’s arm and giving her post-traumatic shock by shouting at her. Kezia said it was proper weird ’cos by the time Kezia’s mother put the phone down from speaking to Ms. Bracket it was Kezia’s mother APOLOGIZING about Kezia, and that NEVER happens. I don’t know how Ms. Bracket does it ’cos like I say she never shouts and she don’t even use loads of big words or anything.
So anyway Ms. Bracket was making us read some pages about the main character, Jane Eyre, who fancies her boss who is this narky bloke called Mr. Rochester. In the bit we was reading, Mr. Rochester was waffling on to Jane Eyre all about some other woman he fancied who he reckoned was well fit and a right laugh, which was a bit shady of him ’cos as far as I could work out Jane Eyre is quite miserable and has a face like a melted welly.
Ms. Bracket made us look at the page for about twenty minutes and think about what was happening. Then she told me to stand up and explain what I thought, and I nearly died ’cos I’d only looked at it once then started doing the
OK!
crossword and sharing a KitKat under the table with Carrie.
“So what is happening in these paragraphs . . . Shiraz Wood?” she said.
“Er . . . well . . . what I reckon,” I said, “is that this Mr. Rochester bloke is being a proper wind-up merchant. I don’t reckon he’s into that other woman at all. He’s just being a player.” Everyone laughed, but Ms. Bracket didn’t.
“What do you mean, ‘a player,’ Shiraz?” she said.
“He’s just messing her about ’cos he knows she’s into him,” I said. “He’s playing her so she’ll be even more keen.”
Ms. Bracket looked at me for a bit and smiled. “I think you might be on to something there,” she said. I couldn’t bloody believe it. “So what do you think she should do then?” said Ms. Bracket. Now this sort of stumped me ’cos the first answer was just a wild guess from reading it proper quick.
“Erm, well,” I said, “I think she should stick with him ’cos he’s got a nice house and plenty of money and all that.”
“And is that important?” said Ms. Bracket.
“Well, yeah, in a way,” I said. “But specially for Jane Eyre ’cos she ain’t got no family or money or nothing and as far as I can see that was like really really bad in the olden days ’cos everyone treats her like a right pikey.”
So Ms. Bracket raised her eyebrows at me, then she said, “So you think a relationship with Mr. Rochester, as well as love and security, would bring Jane Eyre more respect from society?”
“Yeah, more respect,” I said. “Totally.”
“Interesting,” said Ms. Bracket. “That’s a really good point, Shiraz, please sit down.”
Ms. Bracket smiled at me as I sat down. It felt really weird in my stomach, ’cos none of the teachers smile at me in school and they never ever say “good point.”
TUESDAY 12TH FEBRUARY
WHAT A SHAME — still no word back from Cotch about the double-date. Aw, pity. I was SO SO looking forward to that one . . . I AM SAVED! I have worried for the entire week that Carrie was going to set me and her up on some crap date with Cotch and some other random — but it’s too late now, she hasn’t managed it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
WEDNESDAY 13TH FEBRUARY
BOLLOCKS
THURSDAY 14TH FEBRUARY — ST. VALENTINE’S DAY
HORRIBLE DAY. Got up at 8
AM
and watched the GMTV Valentine’s Day special with Cheggers running all over the place with stupid mushy messages for people. (BABY-BOO-BOO I WUV YOU HEAPS — TREVOR XXX)
At breakfast Cava-Sue opened a Valentine’s card from Lewis.
“Ah, so he IS your boyfriend?!” I said. She just pulled a face at me like “Whatever,” but I could tell she was well happy. Lewis’s card wasn’t up to much. It just looked like a bit of old Coco Pops packet with bits of tinsel and glitter stuck to it. “’Ere, Cava-Sue, did he make that himself?!” I said.
“Yeah, he did actually, he’s very creative,” Cava-Sue said and she looked proper chuffed, which was weird ’cos it was like something a five-year-old with learning difficulties would make in playschool, and if he really liked her then surely he’d get her one of them big posh ones from Clinton’s Cards that are three feet tall and cost a tenner???
Maybe if she shaved her legs more he might. But I didn’t say that, I said, “’Ere, when are we going to meet him then?”
And Cava-Sue just shook her head and said “Never.”
Then Murphy walked in and said, “Oi Shiraz, look what I just found on the doormat!” and handed me this envelope which looked like it was a Valentine’s card, but it didn’t have a stamp on it, so stupidly I ripped it open with a half-grin on my face and it was an ad ripped out of the
News Of The World
for the Transform Boob Enlargement Clinic with
Better luck next year NO BAPS!
written on it in Murphy’s handwriting. Cava-Sue said that if I ever kill Murphy then she will totally take my side in court so I get probation for manslaughter, not done for murder, which was kind of her.
So I get to school and Carrie is standing in the hall looking well excited. Least I think it’s Carrie but I have to look twice as her skin looks browner than Nabila Chaalan’s ’cos she’s done a St. Tropez fake tan and dyed bits of the front of her brown bangs blonde. She looks amazing. Carrie is all hyped up about our date with Cotch and his mate Eric and she can’t understand why I’m not excited too and haven’t even brought a proper change of outfit for the date, which isn’t at Spirit of Siam any more but at Burger King drive-through ’cos Cotch has cash-flow issues. So then I got a bit narky with Carrie and said to her, “What’s all the big fuss, Carrie? You don’t even fancy Cotch!”
And she said, “Yeah, okay, Shiraz, maybe Cotch isn’t Mr. Right, ’cos Bezzie from Dawson Drive is, but maybe Cotch is Mr. Right Now.” Which didn’t make any sense at all whichever way I thought about it.
So anyway, school seems to last forever, then finally we get to Carrie’s house and spend about two hours getting ready. Carrie does my eyeshadow and lipstick, which makes me look like Sideshow Bob, and makes me wear one of her leopard-print hair scrunchies and her rhinestone dangly earrings in the shape of dolphins which I don’t like but Carrie says they go with my pink hoodie and “bring out my eyes.” Then we go to Burger King and wait for “our dates” who are meant to turn up at 6:30
PM
but don’t until 7:40
PM
’cos they were watching
Pimp My Ride
and dropping round something to someone, which all sounded well shady. By that point I was starving so I had a Whopper meal which I was halfway through eating when they arrived.