Over the Moon (6 page)

Honestly! Hattie is so bossy, I’m sure she’ll end up as a head teacher. Either that, or prime minister. I don’t know what I shall end up as. I wouldn’t mind being a fashion model, or a TV presenter. If I was a TV presenter and Hattie was prime minister, I could invite her to come on my show! But
we wouldn’t talk politics, cos politics are BORING.

Gorgeous Mystery Boy at the station this morning. He got on the same train as me, but it was so crowded there was a huge wodge of people between us. Really annoying! I wonder if he’s there every day? If he is, then going by train won’t be so bad!!!

We were four weeks into the winter term when I wrote that. Dad had proved so unreliable about getting me to school on time that now I just got him to drop me off at the station, instead. When I was at Juniors, Mum used to drive me in, but the minute I hit Year 7 she said that I could get there under my own steam.

“There’s a perfectly good train service. Why not use it?”

I told her because it was a whole lot of hassle and I’d probably have some ghastly accident and fall on the track. Mum, in her cold unfeeling way, said, “Well, that’s up to you. I don’t propose adding to pollution levels by ferrying an able-bodied twelve year old to and from school five days a week.”

Was that any way for a mother to talk??? I went grizzling to Dad about it.

“Mum says she’s not going to take me in any more and I’m going to have all these books and things to carry, cos they give you absolutely
masses
of homework, plus there’s my hockey stick, plus that
stupid
violin, which was Mum’s idea, not mine, plus it takes for ever to get to the station … I’m going to be worn out before I even get there!”

Dad said we couldn’t have that; he said that he would take me. But Dad isn’t one of the world’s great timekeepers. I don’t think builders are, cos I once heard two woman talking on a bus, saying what a nightmare it was when you “had the builders in”. How they never turned up when they said they would turn up, and never finished a job when they said they’d finish a job, and how they were “all alike … they simply have no concept of time”.

That’s my dad! I used to think it was probably me, as well, but it is amazing what a bit of an incentive can do. A
double
incentive, in my case, cos once I’d spotted the Gorgeous Mystery Boy I couldn’t get up to the station fast enough each day. Dad didn’t know what had hit him. There was me going, “Dad, come on, I’ve got a train to catch!” “Dad,
please,
I’ll be late!” and Dad going, “All right, all right!
What’s all the big rush? So you miss one train, you get the next.” It’s true there are trains like about every ten minutes from Ritters Cross to Hayes End at that time in the morning, but the way I saw it, the earlier I was there, the more chance I had of Catching a Glimpse. I mean, let’s face it, there aren’t so many gorgeous boys knocking around that you can afford to let one slip through your fingers, as it were.

Bullying Dad really paid off. I not only arrived at school on time, thus earning merit marks for punctuality (me! Merit marks for punctuality!!!) I also got to catch not one but several glimpses of the divine being. The Gorgeous Mystery Boy. I relayed it all excitedly to Hattie. She was like, “Tell me, tell me! Colour of hair?”

I said, “Gold …
really
gold, you know?”

Hattie said, “Gold like gold, or gold like yellow?”

I said, “Gold like gold! Not yellow. Yuck! And not just ordinary blond. Gold like … molten sunshine!”

Hattie said, “Ooh! Nice. Go on! Eyes?”

“Blue,” I said.

“Blue. Wow! Tall or short?”

Proudly, I said, “Tall!”

“Fat or thin?”

“
Athletic
.”

“Which school?”

“Grove Park.”

“Mm …” Hattie pulled a face. “Could be worse.”

I said that it could have been a lot worse. Grove Park might have a bit of a tough reputation but at least it’s all boys. I said this to Hattie and she said, “I take your point … no opposition!”

Although Hattie isn’t – well, wasn’t – into boys in as big a way as I was, it’s never stopped us having these long heart-to-hearts on the subject. For all her great brain, Hattie can get just as girly and giggly as I can. She begged to be allowed to see my new “dream guy”.

“Where can I get a look at him?”

I said she should wait for me next morning at the ticket barrier. We don’t usually meet up, as Hattie comes in from the opposite direction and the trains don’t coincide, but she said that tomorrow she would catch an earlier one and hang about.

“I’ll just hover. I won’t be obvious!”

“You can’t miss him,” I said. I got this hot fizzy
feeling inside me just talking about him.
Zing, pop, sizzle,
like a bottle of Coke exploding. I told Hattie that sometimes he was with a friend, another boy from Grove Park. I think I sort of half had in mind that maybe the friend would do for Hattie. She could sigh over him, and I could sigh over the Gorgeous Mystery Boy. It would be more fun if we could sigh together; I didn’t like the thought of Hattie being left out.

She wanted to know what the friend was like. I said he was OK, but the truth was I hadn’t really paid much attention to him.

“Hair?”

“Dark.”

“Eyes?”

“Dunno.”

“Tall or short?”

“Tall. Ish.”

“Fat or thin?”

“Thin.”

“You mean … thin like weedy, or thin like athletic?”

“Not athletic. I think he’s got something wrong with him.”

“Wrong how?”

“I dunno, he has this trouble walking.”

“Like … sprained ankle, maybe?”

“Dunno. Don’t think so. Think it’s more than that.”

“Hm.” Hattie crinkled her brow, as she considered the problem. “Congenital?”

Whatever that meant. It sounded vaguely rude to me.

“Something he was
born
with,” said Hattie. “Like a club foot or something?”

I said again that I didn’t know. I didn’t find the subject anywhere near as fascinating as Hattie appeared to, but she tends to be a tidge on the ghoulish side. She loves to dwell on morbid details, like when they have medical programmes on the telly and she is absolutely glued to them.

“Be there tomorrow,” I said, “and you can see for yourself.”

Hattie promised that she would. She said that I needed an eye kept on me and that she was the person to do it, but really and truly, I could tell, she was just bursting with vulgar curiosity!

Hattie has caught her first glimpse! She was there by the barrier this morning – loitering with intent – and he walked right past her. Literally within centimetres. They might even have touched. Hattie agrees with me that he is totally out of this world! We have been trying to work out which year he is likely to be in; we think probably Year 10. Hattie says he has to be at least fourteen and could even be fifteen. In other words, just right! I don’t go for little boys. This is why there is no one In our class that I would even consider asking to partner me on Founders Day. If I am selected, that is. Oh, but I have to be! I just have to be! Especially now. I mean, now that I know who I am
going to ask  … cos I will ask! I’ll find a way.

His friend was there this morning, the one who walks with a limp. Hattie had a look and says it is not a club foot. She wonders if perhaps he has had polio, but I didn’t think people got polio these days. Whatever it is, it makes him walk in a very odd way, so that he has difficulty keeping up. We have christened them Peg Leg and the Sun God!

In fact it was Hattie who thought up the name Sun God and me who thought of Peg Leg. I am quite ashamed of it now, but I didn’t know his name and I had to call him something. Hattie disapproved even at the time. She said he hadn’t got a peg leg, just a limp.

“And you don’t refer to people with disabilities by their disability!”

I said, “I don’t see why not, if you don’t know their name.”

“Because it’s rude and insensitive,” said Hattie. “It’s
discriminatory.”

She’s always using these words. She doesn’t do it to show off, it just comes naturally to her; she’s like a talking dictionary. It is very educational, having Hattie for a friend. But that doesn’t stop me arguing with her!

“I’m not being dis— ”
Damn.
I couldn’t say it properly. “I’m not being!”

“Yes, you are,” said Hattie. “You just don’t realise it. It’s like when the police describe suspects as black.
That’s
discriminatory.”

She is always so politically correct! It gets on my nerves at times. I told her that it wasn’t discriminatory at all. “It’s just a way of identifying people … I wouldn’t mind if someone called me
the girl with red hair.”

Hattie said that was because I was secretly proud of having red hair.

I said, “Well, black people are probably proud of being black.”

“Yeah? I don’t expect they’d be proud of walking with a limp!”

I said, “All right, so how would you describe him? Like when we’re talking, what would you call him? Friend of Sun God?”

Hah! That stumped her. I don’t very often get one over on Hattie, but this time she didn’t have an answer. She came back to it later, when we were walking round together at break. Hattie is like a dog with a bone. She can worry a subject to death.