Mr. Brightwell said it was a small factory that supplies foods like samosas and pakoras and stuff to newsstands and gas station refrigerator sections. He said I should write them a letter to see if they can give me a job. I took the piece of paper and left the IT lab and felt a bit weird.
Mr. Brightwell is rubbish. I don’t know how he has a job.
FRIDAY 7TH MARCH
We got to meet Cava-Sue’s boyfriend, Lewis, tonight!!! Well, for about fourteen seconds. That’s all Cava-Sue would let us see of him and even then she was standing in front of him in the living room door answering all our questions like he had learning difficulties. He’s called Lewis and he is studying Art A-Level, that’s all we got to know.
Mum blackmailed Cava-Sue to bring him home ’cos she said she would only lend Cava-Sue a tenner to go out with Lewis if we could all have a butcher’s at him. Mum said this Lewis could be a bloody psycho or anything for all that we knew. Mum kept moaning on that when she met Dad in 1985 she brought him home to meet her mother within a fortnight for a cup of tea. “Didn’t I, Brian?” my mum kept saying. “You came and met my mother and had a cuppa after a fortnight? You remember, Brian?”
My dad made a face like he definitely DID remember. I don’t remember Mum’s mum at all ’cos she died when I was like three or something but Dad always says that me and Cava-Sue take after her ’cos “she called a spade a spade too,” whatever that means. Dad says the first time he went round to see his future mother-in-law, the first thing Gran did was look at his hair and pull a face, then open up her handbag and pull out a comb and say, “I reckon you’ll be needing this.”
Lewis ain’t much to write home about. The blokes at Cava-Sue’s college can’t be up to much if this is the best she can do. Lewis is the same height as Cava-Sue (medium height) and wore a white button-up shirt with a red T-shirt underneath and tight black jeans and Converse high-tops.
His hair is quite long on the top and short at the back and I reckon he had black hair dye in his hair. Weirdest of all he was wearing A WHITE TIE. Not one single thing he had on was a proper label like Hackett or Adidas or Nike, it all looked like it was from Save The Children in Ilford. I said this to Cava-Sue when he popped to the loo and Mum was sticking the kettle on, and she told me to shut my trap or she’d tell Mum she saw me in Ilford Mall this afternoon when I was meant to be at school, so I shut right up then.
Cava-Sue has gone to a club near Oxford Street in London called Young and Lost to see a band called DIY Taxidermy. I know this ’cos I was earwigging on her phone call and I found a flyer in her college bag when I was nicking a pen to do my
OK!
crossword. Cava-Sue has LIED to Mum!! She said she was just going to the Wetherspoon’s in Goodmayes then to Lewis’s house for a bit ’cos she knows Mum don’t like her going to central London on nights out.
I agree with Mum, central London is full of all sorts of pedos and terrorists. I don’t know why Cava-Sue needs to go there. Maybe she thinks if she goes to clubs in central London she might meet someone a bit better than Lewis ’cos, let’s face it, he’s never going to keep hold of our Cava-Sue if he keeps turning up in his old school uniform and bringing her “pieces of his art” made from bits of pasta and ribbon glued to old Pop-Tart boxes. What a freak.
My mother didn’t say anything about Lewis when he went. She just shook her head. If you knew her like I do, you’d know that’s not good.
3
AM
— Cava-Sue has just got back from central London. I asked her if she had a good time and Cava-Sue said it was probably the best night of her whole life EVER then she took about three goes to climb the bunk bed ladder and fell asleep on top of the duvet with all of her clothes on.
SATURDAY 8TH MARCH
Went to Ilford with Carrie today and we had a look around Top Shop and Superdrug for a while but it was a bit cold for just hanging on the benches so we went and sat in McDonald’s and I got a McChicken Sandwich and a strawberry milkshake and Carrie got a Fillet o’ Fish and a Rolo McFlurry and we sat in the window watching all of the folk passing by and we played That’s Your Boyfriend, which usually makes us both laugh so much we can hardly breathe. Basically, I point at some lad and go, “’Ere Carrie, that’s your boyfriend,” and it’s always some geezer with, like, no hair or a big fat bum or yellow teeth.
Then Carrie says “’Ere, Shiraz, well THAT’S your boyfriend,” and when I look it’s some forty-year-old bloke with a beard and all his stuff in a tartan shopping trolley.
So then I go, “’Ere Carrie, THAT’S your boyfriend,” and when she looks it’ll be some little hundred-year-old Chinese bloke carrying a tray of vegetables back from the market.
We can play this game for hours and usually we never ever get bored of it but today Carrie was a bit down. Carrie said she is completely totally pissed off as she feels like this whole thing with Bezzie Kelleher is just going nowhere. So I said to Carrie, “What whole thing, you nutter?!”
And she said, “Exactly.” Then she told me that she invited Bezzie as a friend on her MySpace last week and about four days later he accepted which was fair play ’cos he hadn’t logged in since then but when he did accept she left him a comment saying hi but he didn’t even comment her back.
I said to Carrie, “Well maybe he don’t check his MySpace that often ’cos I’ve not checked mine for like four weeks.” (Our crap £200 computer has got a virus and Mum won’t get it mended ’cos she says we just use it for rubbish anyhow.) Carrie just looked sad then and said that Bezzie Kelleher was breaking her heart.
I laughed well loud when she said that but then I felt bad ’cos I realized Carrie meant it.
So we walked back through the town center to get the 679 bus home and we saw Collette Brown coming out of Cheeky’s with a big smile on her face carrying a box, so we stopped to say hello. Collette Brown was well excited and she showed us what was in the box and I couldn’t bloody believe it. It was a TIARA. A silver one with diamonds in it like a princess would wear. Collette Brown said it was a pressie from her new boyfriend, Lennox, and she was off to Curl Up and Dye hair salon to get Jez who has won awards for his hairdressing in Essex to put her hair up and weave the tiara in the front.
Collette was going to a ball that night in Epping Forest and the theme was Royals and Rogues, which was going to be amazing ’cos all the girls dress as princesses and the blokes dress as gangsters. Collette said that she’d had her eye on Lennox for ages ’cos he plays poker in the salon after hours with Earl who owns Cheeky’s. Collette said the first time she met Lennox she rang him up afterwards and asked him out for dinner herself ’cos “she who dares wins.” Collette says blokes love it when girls take the lead. Carrie listened to all this and then she was dead quiet all the bus journey home. I asked her what she was up to tonight and she said, “She who dares wins, Shiraz.” Then she got off.
WHAT IS CARRIE DRAPER UP TO?
SUNDAY 9TH MARCH
OH BLOODY HELL. Carrie has only gone and sent a bloody message to Bezzie Kelleher’s MySpace saying that she really likes his “sound” and can she come over and meet him!!! And can she bring me too to meet Wesley Barrington Bains II??? Oh god no. Carrie Draper is a proper liberty. Sometimes I wish I kicked about with Sonia Cathcart ’cos at least if I was spending all my time praying to the Baby Jesus it might be better than hanging about Burger King drive-through getting my non-existent baps leered at by a boy who looks like a toad, or going over to bloody Dawson Drive to hear “Who Got Da Beef?” played live. I hope he doesn’t write back. Please Baby Jesus don’t let him write back.
TUESDAY 10TH MARCH
Bezzie has not written back. I always reckoned Bezzie looked a bit up himself. Whenever we sat on the fence near his house when he was fixing his car he always pretended he didn’t notice us when I knew full well that he could hear us singing and could DEFINITELY smell our chips. Carrie says she is thinking of going out with Cotch again just to teach Bezzie a lesson. HOW WILL IT TEACH HIM A LESSON?? I never want to be in love if it turns you this mental.
THURSDAY 13TH MARCH
STILL NO WORD FROM BEZZIE. THANK YOU BABY JESUS!
Homework tonight was to write a letter asking if we could have a work placement. Mr. Brightwell said that we’ve got to think of all the reasons why we’d be a “positive attribute to the company.” This is well hard. I rang Mr. Tilak from Tilak Foods today for more details of the job and he said basically it would involve counting six packets of pakoras or whatever out of a chute and into a box, then taping the box and making sure the food items don’t jam in the machine. I told Mr. Tilak I’ve got a low GCSE guesstimated grade in math, and he just mumbled it doesn’t matter as long as I show up on time and don’t eat the pakoras. He said I have to put my application in writing.
I asked Mum what I should write and she said, “’Ere, I dunno Shiraz. Tell him you won’t pick your nose near the bhajis and you can count to six all by yourself.” Then her, Murphy and Cava-Sue laughed for ages. They are PROPER JOKES.
Mum asked who told me to write to Tilak’s, so I said Mr. Brightwell, my careers advisor. Mum just tutted and said, “Huh, your careers advisor!” Then she said that’s where she went wrong in the eighties, listening to do-gooders like that and if she had her days to live over again she’d have just married someone with cash. Dad’s face brightened when she said that, like he was imagining it. Mum says that Collette Brown from Cheeky’s has got the right idea. She’ll get herself set up with some bloke with a bit of dough like one of them WAGs. She won’t be working in that tanning place long.
Cava-Sue tutted when she said that. Probably ’cos her Lewis goes round looking like a homeless. Mum says if I had any sense I’d get myself a builder or someone who is a bit handy ’cos she’s always wanted the kitchen knocked through into the laundry room and one of them breakfast bars like Carrie’s mum has got — except tasteful.
I said I would try.
FRIDAY 14TH MARCH
CARRIE STILL BEING BLANKED BY BEZZIE — There are only so many fake faces of disappointment that I can pull whenever Carrie mentions it.
Ms. Bracket asked if anyone wanted any help with our work placement letters today as she was happy to assist. I showed her my letter to Tilak’s and she looked at it and smiled a bit then got out her red pen. There is never any time at Mayflower when a red pen means anything good.
Ms. Bracket says that she is very impressed by my vocabulary but sometimes “less is more” when it comes to writing a job application letter. She reckons that I don’t need to tell Mr. Tilak all about how unique or mental I am or how I would cause lots of friction at the factory, as it’s not like applying for
Big Brother
— they like people to be quiet.
Ms. Bracket says I might be a bit bored putting pakoras into boxes — why don’t I look for a job that stretches me a bit, like at Essex FM radio or the
Ilford Bugle
newspaper, something where having a lively personality and a bright wit would be a good thing? That sounded much more exciting but I couldn’t be arsed to start the letter again from the beginning so I’m not going to bother.
“What you need to remember, Shiraz Bailey Wood,” she said and looked straight into my eyes, “is that you are the master of your own destiny.”
I don’t know what that meant. I reckon it’s something off
Star Wars.
SUNDAY 16TH MARCH
Today was proper weird. I don’t think I can write about it now.
WEDNESDAY 19TH MARCH
Right, so here goes. So on Sunday, me and Carrie are sitting in her bedroom on her massive bed eating a big bag of Cheesy Starships and watching
Soccer Idol
on Sky One, which we totally only watch for the bits where the boys go in the post-match showers and you nearly see their willies, then Carrie’s phone beeps and it’s a text from a number we don’t recognize. The message is:
WOT U UP
2
? JUST PICKED UP YOUR MYSPACE MESSAGE. WANNA CM OVA?
—
BEZZIE
So Carrie looks at me and at first she can’t speak and then she runs up to the mirror and starts shoveling on lipgloss and glitter eye-makeup and trying to find her best scrunchy and her thick gold charm bracelet while making a noise a bit like a fire alarm, and at first I don’t know what’s going on but then I finally get the gist of things and even though I’ve been dreading this happening I can’t help but feel excited as Carrie says we are going to Bezzie’s house!!! Deep down I have been dying to see what is behind the front door on Dawson Drive, considering I’ve heard about it so many times in Bezzie’s track “Who Got Da Beef?” There’s a bit where Bezzie raps:
“Roll up at my yard you’ll check nuffin’ finer.
I’ll bring ya’ cup of tea in my finest chin-a.
I’ll bring ya ice bay-be. I’ll wine ya. I’ll dine ya.
I’ll spit you some bare rhymes on my IKEA recliner.”
Personally, I think this is the crappest rap in the world ever. Who drinks tea in finest china? How old is he, thirty?
Carrie, however, thinks Bezzie’s lyrics are proper sick and even suggested to Ms. Bracket that we study “Who Got Da Beef?” as poetry for English as a GCSE set text instead of that Siegfreid Sassoon geezer who waffles on about getting shot at in the Second World War, which Carrie says is too upsetting.
So we roll up at Bezzie’s yard and knock on the door and I swear I can almost hear Carrie’s heart thumping through her T-shirt, and Bezzie opens the door and he’s got on white Nike tracksuit bottoms and a blue Adidas T-shirt and a little gold hoop earring, and the first thing I thought was how bloody enormous he was as he must be six foot three. I also thought how thin he was and what a huge nose he had, but later on Carrie said that she will always remember how gorgeous he was and how pale blue his eyes were and how he said, “Come in ladies, lovely to meet you,” when he didn’t say that at all, he said, “Gnnngnnnn’right? Come in, mind the mutt.” Then a King Charles Spaniel called Shane that was about a hundred years old limped out of the living room and licked us both and gave us a paw and Bezzie’s mum shouted shut the door ’cos we were causing a draft.