Over the Moon (12 page)

I meant to think, I really did, but there were just so many other thoughts swarming about in my brain that the problem of Hattie got crowded out. Life was just too exciting! I’d been selected for Founder’s Day, Matt was coming with me, and on Saturday we were raising money for the tsunami victims – and having our beauty contest. And Matt was coming to that, as well! I’d asked him, and he’d said that he would; him and Simon. I was so looking forward to it all! But you just never know when fate is going to strike you down.

This has been the worst day in the entire history of my life. When I woke up this morning I found my face had gone all bloated and ugly, I mean like REALLY ugly, like totally grotesque. Like something out of a nightmare. I nearly died. I am not exaggerating! I couldn’t bear to look at myself. It was so bad I had to miss out on the fundraiser. I am just totally GUTTED. I’d been looking forward to it for such ages! Why did it have to happen NOW???

I am living in terror in case it happens again. What is so frightening is that I don’t know why it happened in the first place. Mum says it’s an allergy, but to what? SHE says to make-up, but I haven’t
used any make-up. Not for days! Mum only says that cos it’s the easiest thing to pick on. It’s all part of having a go at me. Part of her “you’re too obsessed with the way you look” thing.

But I am not obsessed! It’s perfectly normal for someone to care about the way they look. Mum might have got old and past it, but I am still young, and I think she should remember that.

My next diary entry was the last one I made for a while. All it said was,
If this goes on, then there will be no point in living. I might as well kill myself.

I don’t think I really, seriously meant it – although maybe I did, which is rather frightening. But it truly was like the end of the world. How could I ever face anyone again?

How it started: I’d gone to bed on Friday evening feeling all happy and buzzy. I’d washed my hair ready for the beauty contest, and I’d cleaned my face
so
carefully, doing all the right things, like they tell you in the magazines; and then when I woke up on Saturday
morning  … I couldn’t believe it! I looked in the mirror and I just nearly died.
My eyes were all swollen like footballs.
I let out this piercing screech and went hurtling down the stairs shrieking,
“Mu-u-u-m!”
Mum shot out of the kitchen going, “What is it? What is it?”

“My eyes!” I bawled. “Look at my eyes!”

Mum looked. “Oh, dear, yes, they are a bit puffy, aren’t they?” she said.

A
bit
??? Dad came rushing in at that point, wanting to know what all the noise was about.

“It’s all right,” said Mum. “Just a minor crisis.”

By now I was practically in hysterics. I screamed at Mum that it wasn’t minor. “I’m supposed to be going in for a beauty contest! How can I even
show
myself?”

Dad took a look and said, “She’s right, she can’t go in for any beauty contest in that state.”

Dad’s reaction only made me even more hysterical. Mum told me to calm down.

“It’s nowhere near as bad as you make out. Eat your breakfast, then go upstairs and lie down for an hour and you’ll probably find you’re back to normal.”

“But what can be causing it?” said Dad.

“Anything,” said Mum. “She’s obviously like me; she’s got sensitive skin.” Mum said it was the price we paid for being redheads. She tried to make me eat something but I couldn’t; I just wanted to get upstairs, in a darkened room, and go to sleep, so that I could wake up and be my usual self. Mum gave me some cotton wool pads soaked in witch hazel to put on my eyes. I wanted to use a proper soothing lotion, but Mum told me sharply to “Forget all that proprietary stuff! It’s just junk. Witch hazel’s far better for you. Now lie down and try to relax.”

I did try, but it wasn’t easy. Every few minutes I kept touching at my eyes, checking whether they were still puffy and then getting in a panic cos I’d think they were getting worse, which meant grabbing a mirror and switching on the bedside lamp to inspect myself.
Mum came in at half-past eleven and said, “Well, how’s it going? Let me have a look … oh, that’s much better! It hardly even notices.”

But it still
did
notice. I sobbed that I couldn’t go in for a beauty contest with eyes that were all wrinkled and red. Dad agreed with me. I pleaded with Mum to ring Hattie and tell her I’d got the flu. Mum said, “Oh, now, come on, Scarlett! That’s a bit over the top. You can still go, just miss out on the beauty bit.”

I shouted, “I’m not going anywhere like this!”

Dad said he could understand how I felt. He told Mum that she would have been just the same when she was my age and Mum had to admit that he was probably right.

“I was pretty vain in those days, wasn’t I?”

“You had a lot to be vain about,” said Dad. “It’s almost worse for a pretty girl to lose her looks than a plain one. Not that she has lost her looks,” he added hastily, before I could set off screaming again. “It’s nowhere near as bad as it was.”

“But will you please,
please
tell Hattie I’ve got the flu?” I begged. I didn’t want people knowing the state I was in. I especially didn’t want Matt knowing. Lying in bed with a high temperature might be thought at least a little bit romantic, but having eyes embedded in elephant skin was just gross.

By six o’clock, when Hattie rang back to see how I was, the elephant skin had virtually disappeared. Even I had to peer at myself in the magnifying side of Dad’s shaving mirror to see the last lingering traces of it, which meant I’d stopped worrying about how I was ever going to be able to go out again without dark glasses and instead was full of bitter frustration at having missed the fundraiser.

“It’s so annoying,” I said. “I want to hear all about it! Was Matt there?”

Hattie said yes, he was. “I told him you’d got the flu. You’re obviously feeling loads better. Are you sure it’s the flu? Lots of people say they’ve got flu when really all they’ve got is a cold. Colds are quite different! Flu can be serious. If you’d actually got the flu you’d still be feeling ghastly.”

I said, “I am still feeling ghastly and if you don’t stop wittering and get on with things I’ll start feeling even more ghastly!”

“Oh. All right,” said Hattie. “What do you want to know?”

“Who won the beauty contest?”

Hattie said, “Give you three guesses!”

I didn’t need three guesses. Glumly I said, ‘Tanya?”

Without me, who else was there? In spite of what I’d said to Dad, about Tanya probably winning, I’d secretly believed that it would be me. It wasn’t vanity! Well, maybe it was vanity that I’d so desperately
wanted
it to be me and maybe it was vanity that I was now so jealous of Tanya, but I didn’t see how it could be vanity to know that I was pretty. Dad had been telling me that I was almost ever since I could remember.

“Did you vote for her?” I said.

“I didn’t vote for anyone,” said Hattie. “I decided in the end it was a bit demeaning … like Best in Show for dogs.” She added that she thought that was demeaning, as well, but I wasn’t particularly interested just then in Hattie and her dotty opinions. I sometimes think that she and Mum would make a good pair. It’s odd, because Hattie’s mum is quite normal.

“I wonder who Matt voted for?” I said.

“Haven’t the faintest idea,” said Hattie. “Why not ask him when he rings you?”

Eagerly I said, “Is he going to?”

“So he says. Said he’d give you a call tomorrow to see how you were.”

Well! That cheered me up hugely. By the time I went to bed I was feeling almost happy again, especially as my eyes were practically back to normal. I cleaned my face even
more
carefully than I had the previous night and went to bed to dream of Matt and what he might be going to suggest that we do. Cos obviously he wasn’t ringing just to have a chat; boys never ring just to have chats. He was ringing to ask me out. I was sure of it!

And then I woke next morning and my eyes were swollen worse than ever.

It was the beginning of the nightmare. As I look back, it all seems to merge into one block of horror. These are just a few of the things that I remember.

Lying in bed, on Sunday afternoon, with the curtains closed and witch hazel pads over my eyes. There’s a knock at the door, and Mum comes in.

“Scarlett?” she says. “Your flash young man has called. Do you want to come down?”

“Come down
?” I tear off the witch hazel pads and stare at Mum in horror. “You mean he’s actually
here
?”