Then we spend hours and hours and hours at the nail varnish stands. Nadine ends up buying a nail lengthening kit, one of those fun sets where you can paint on false nails all different patterns and add little sequins and beads and stuff. Magda buys one too but I know I’d forget and nibble mine off. I’m going to stop biting my nails one day, but at the moment my teeth have a beaver-like will of their own and gnaw my fingers ferociously.
‘Come on, you guys, the shops will be shutting soon,’ I moan – and eventually they let me drag them up to this art shop on the top floor. They get fed up after the first few seconds and hang around outside while I finger the fat white sketchpads and lust after the huge shiny tins of rainbow felt-tips. I’m only in there a minute but Magda and Nadine keep putting their heads round the door and yelling at me. I try out the pens, writing ‘I am Ellie and I like to draw’. I do so, squiggling a little elephant with a wavy trunk with an 07 point and a weeny 03 point and a mean green and a flamboyant pink and after more moans from outside I end up buying the 05 black pen I always choose and a little square black sketchbook that I simply can’t resist. I haven’t got too much money left. I’m going to have to beg a few chips off Magda and Nadine or go hungry – but I’m happy.
The three of us link arms and wander round the rest of the shops, trying on high heels in Office and staggering around like drunks, and then we spend ages in the HMV store listening to the latest Claudie Coleman album. Magda, Nadine and I have entirely different musical tastes but we are all united in our admiration for Claudie. Magda likes her because she sings songs with very powerful, positive lyrics. Nadine likes her because her music is very cool and hip. I like her because she’s got long, wild curly hair a bit like mine but much lovelier and she’s not a bit fat but she is much curvier than your average rock chick. So she’s kind of my role model.
The HMV store is crowded. Magda automatically stands wherever there’s a clump of likely looking boys. They all stare at her appreciatively and three of them start chatting her up. Nadine and I sigh and slope off. This is a familiar situation and it sucks.
‘Three boys, three girls, and all three want to be the one who gets Magda,’ says Nadine. She is too nice to point out that she is always second choice. It’s easy enough to work out where I come – last!
‘Hey, wait for me!’ says Magda, scurrying after us. The boys call after her but she doesn’t take any notice.
‘You stay with them if you want,’ I say.
‘Yeah, we’re going down to McDonald’s but you can catch up with us later,’ says Nadine.
‘I’m catching up with you now,’ says Magda. ‘This is our girl-time, right? Hey, look at the time! It’s getting late. Come on, let’s eat.’
Magda is sweet enough to insist on buying me a burger and fries. I draw her portrait on the first page of my sketchbook, picturing her doing a little twirl in her pink top and designer trousers with lots of adoring weeny guys milling around her ankles. Then I draw Nadine. First of all I tease her and kit her out in Rhinestone Cowboy gear, but after she’s clobbered me I appease her by drawing her as a glamorous witch with nails like jewelled claws and in one elaborately manicured hand she’s holding a little doll, the image of Natasha, stuck all over with pins.
I’m really into drawing now so I peer round for someone to sketch. And then I see the strangest thing. There’s a boy the other side of McDonald’s. He’s not strange. He’s quite good-looking with dark eyes and long, floppy hair. He’s wearing Halmer High School uniform. A lot of the boys who go there are either Hooray Henrys or the twitchy nerdy type. But this boy’s different. Guess what he’s doing! He’s got a pen and a little notebook similar to mine and he’s sketching . . . me?
It can’t be me. No, of course, it’s Magda. She’s the one all the boys stare at all the time. But when he looks up he’s staring straight at me – and when Magda goes to get another straw for her milkshake he doesn’t turn his head. Then it’ll be Nadine. Yes, he’s drawing Nadine with her amazing long hair and big dark eyes. Though Nadine is lolling back in her chair and I’m not sure he could see her properly now.
It’s me he’s looking at. Looking up at my face and down at his book, up and down, up and down, his pen moving rapidly across the page. He must see I’m staring at him but it doesn’t put him off.
‘Why have you gone pink, Ellie?’ said Nadine.
‘Oh God, I haven’t, have I?’
‘Shocking pink. What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Who are you looking at?’ says Magda, coming back with the straw. She peers round and susses things out straight away. ‘Are you flirting with that Halmer High guy?’
‘No.’
‘Which boy?’ says Nadine, peering.
‘Don’t! He’s staring at us.’
‘So we’ll stare at him,’ says Magda. ‘What’s he doing, writing?’
‘I think he’s sketching,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘Me!’
Magda and Nadine look at me. They both look a little surprised.
‘What’s he drawing you for?’ says Nadine.
‘I don’t know. It feels . . . weird,’ I say, as his eyes flicker up and down again.
‘So you draw him,’ says Magda. ‘Go on, Ellie.’
‘It’ll look silly.’
‘No it won’t. Go on. He’s drawing you, so you draw him. Even Stevens,’ says Magda.
‘All right.’ I start sketching the sketcher. I try a jokey portrait, making his eyes extra beady, his hair a little too long, his stance ultra alert. I draw the sketch-book in his hand with a small picture of me. In this picture I am crouched over my own sketchbook drawing a minute portrait of him.
‘It’s good!’ says Magda.
‘So you’re drawing him drawing you drawing him . . . it’s making my brain buzz thinking about it,’ says Nadine.
‘Hey, he’s coming over!’ says Magda.
‘What?’ I say, looking up. She’s right, he’s walking this way, still staring at me.
I shut my sketchbook up quickly, and slide it onto my lap.
‘Hey, that’s not fair. I want to see what you’ve drawn,’ he says, standing at our table. He smiles at me. ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’
Magda and Nadine burst out laughing.
‘That’s an invitation you can’t resist, Ellie,’ says Magda.
‘Ellie! Hey, you’re not Ellie the Elephant, are you?’ he says.
I stare at him. Ellie . . . the Elephant? Why is he calling me my old nickname? Does he think I’m that fat?
All my old anorexic loopiness overwhelms me. I feel like I’m being blown up like a balloon. Roll up, roll up to peer at the fat lady in McDonald’s.
‘Ellie the Elephant?’ I whisper in a mouse’s squeak out of my gargantuan head.
‘Yes, I was in the art shop upstairs just now, you know?’
‘Does she know?’ says Magda. ‘She only spends half her life there.’
‘Half our lives,’ says Nadine.
‘Me too, me too,’ he says. ‘Anyway, I was buying this new pen and I went to try it out and someone else had been writing all across the pad, and there was this name, Ellie, and a cute little elephant with a wavy trunk.’
‘Oh! Yes, I see. That was me,’ I say, shrinking back into my ordinary-size self.
‘So have you been drawing lots of little elephants, eh?’
‘I hope not,’ said Magda. ‘Seeing as she’s supposed to have been drawing me.’
‘And me,’ says Nadine. ‘And also you!’
‘Me?’ he says eagerly.
‘Shut up, Nadine,’ I say.
‘Oh come on, let me see. Look.’ He opens his own sketchbook. ‘Here’s you.’
I peer at it, my heart thudding. I’ve never seen my portrait drawn by anyone else. Well, I suppose Eggs has included me in his shaky crayonings of MY FAMILY, but as he represents me as two big blobs, four stick lines and a wild scribble of hair, his portraits are not very flattering.
This boy’s portrait of me is . . . amazing. He’s brilliant at art. His pen is the same as mine and yet he’s got it to swoop and spiral with such style. He’s obviously a fan of Aubrey Beardsley. He places his figure on the paper with that kind of confidence, a bold outline, and immense detail with the hair, the features and texture of the jumper. My hair, my features, my jumper (well, on loan from Eggs). He’s drawn me looking the way I’d like to look, intelligent and absorbed, drawing in my own sketchbook. Drawing him. And the picture me is drawing a minute portrait too.
‘Wow!’ says Nadine. ‘Look, he’s drawn you drawing him drawing you and you’ve drawn him drawing you drawing him.’
‘You’re burbling, Nadine,’ says Magda. ‘Here, Ellie, show him.’
She snatches my sketchbook and shows him my portrait of him. He laughs delightedly.
‘It’s great.’
‘It’s not, nowhere near as good as yours.’
It’s annoying, I’m not really desperately competitive, and I couldn’t care less about coming top at school or winning at games and stuff like that, but the one thing I suppose I’ve always taken for granted is that I’m good at art. Better than anyone else in my class.
‘What year are you in?’ I ask.
‘Year Eleven.’
It makes it a little easier. Maybe in two years’ time I’ll be as good as that. Maybe.
‘What year are you in, Ellie?’
‘Year Nine, we all are.’
Nadine raises her eyebrows at Magda, and they both sigh, irritated at me for giving away our age. I suppose they could both get away with making out they were Year Ten. Maybe even older. But I’m smaller than them and with my chubby cheeks and dimples I could easily be mistaken for some little kid of eleven or twelve. Apart from my chest. I wriggle in my chair. I’m not sticking my chest out. I’m just sitting up a little straighter.
‘I’m going to get myself another coffee, can I get you girls anything?’
‘Well, we were just going,’ I say.
‘No we weren’t,’ says Magda. ‘Sure, coffee would be great.’
He smiles and goes off to the counter, leaving his sketchbook on the table.
‘I haven’t got any more money,’ I hiss. ‘I already owe you, Mags.’
‘He can pay. He’ll have stacks of cash seeing he’s a poshnob Halmer’s boy,’ says Nadine. ‘He really fancies you, Ellie.’
‘No he doesn’t!’ I say quickly, blushing again. ‘He’s just being friendly, that’s all.’
‘Oh yeah, like he trots round the whole of McDonald’s buying everyone coffee?’
‘It was just because I was drawing. Anyway, it’s probably not me he’s interested in. It could be you he fancies, Nadine – or Magda.’
‘Do you think so?’ says Magda, twiddling her hair and licking her lips.
‘You wish, Mags,’ says Nadine. ‘He’s only got eyes for Ellie.’
He comes back with the coffee and then he sits down beside us. Beside me.
‘So what else have you been drawing, Ellie? I’m Russell, by the way.’
He holds out his hand. I blink at him. I think he’s being incredibly formal and wants to shake my hand. He looks surprised when I hold out my own hand politely.
‘I was reaching for your sketchbook, actually.’
‘Oh!’ I feel myself blushing scarlet and try to snatch my hand away.
‘Let’s shake anyway. That makes us friends,’ says Russell, giving my hand a little squeeze.
Nadine gives Magda a triumphant nod. She’s right. I can’t believe it. I feel like I’m suddenly rocketed on to Romance Planet. Things like this don’t happen to me.
‘Let’s see the sketchbook,’ he says. He looks at my jokey portraits of Magda and Nadine.
‘They’re really fantastic,’ he says, grinning.
‘No they’re not. They were just quick sketches anyway. I can draw a bit better than that,’ I say. ‘But I’m nowhere near as good as you.’
‘No, I think you’ve got a real gift, Ellie. Do you want to do Graphics later?’
He’s treating me like a serious person. He’s a serious person. The only boyfriend I’ve ever had thought that you spelt it graffix and reckoned it was a stick of glue.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I said casually.
‘There’s supposed to be a very good Graphics course at Kingtown Art College,’ says Russell.
‘I don’t really fancy going there. It’s where my dad teaches,’ I say.
‘Oh, right. I know the problem. My mum teaches in the juniors at my school and it was seriously weird putting my hand up and calling her Miss. I rather hoped she might make me teacher’s pet and top of the class but she kept picking on me.’
We get launched into this whole long conversation about schools. Magda says something about her embarrassing enormous packed lunches when she was at junior school. Her mum and dad run a restaurant and if they are fond of anyone they want to feed them up. They’re very, very, very fond of Magda. Most people are. But Russell hardly seems to notice her though he nods politely. Magda gives up.
‘Shall we buzz off home, Nadine?’ she suggests.
‘Good idea,’ she says. ‘Bye, Ellie, see you tomorrow.’
‘No, wait, I’m coming too,’ I say.
‘Can I come as well?’ says Russell. ‘Which way home do you go, Ellie?’
‘I go on the bus with Nadine.’
‘Oh, that’s great, so do I,’ says Russell.
‘You don’t even know which bus.’
‘Your bus.’
Magda and Nadine roll their eyes. I giggle stupidly. I feel my cheeks with the back of my hand. They’re hot enough to fry a couple of eggs. At least I cool down a little outside. Magda waves goodbye and goes off shaking her head, still a little bemused. I trot along awkwardly between Russell and Nadine, trying like mad to think of something intelligent to talk about. I want to ask Russell all sorts of stuff about art but I don’t want to leave Nadine out of things. Yet if I start chattering to Nadine about French homework and what combination of colours she is going to paint her nails then it’ll seem rude to Russell.
I glance nervously from one to the other. Both of them catch me looking. Nadine rolls her eyes at me. Russell smiles. He clears his throat. He hums a little tune. Perhaps he is lost for words too. This is surprisingly reassuring.
‘Have you got their latest album?’ says Nadine.
I stare at her blankly but Russell responds. He was humming this song by some cult hip band Nadine is nuts on. I’ve never even heard of them. Russell and Nadine burble on about them.
‘What do you think of Animal Angst, Ellie?’ Russell asks.
I blink at him. I wouldn’t know Animal Angst if it howled in my ear. ‘Oh, OK,’ I say cautiously.
Nadine gives her eyes another roll, but she doesn’t betray me. I resolve to read the New Musical Express every week.
We stand waiting for the bus. There’s a big poster for a horror movie over the road. Girls Out Even Later.
‘Great,’ says Russell. ‘It’s coming out on Friday. The gory special effects are meant to be superb. Did you want to see it, Ellie?’
I dither helplessly. Does he mean – do I want to see it with him?
I want to go out with him, yes please! But I hate horror movies. I have to hide my eyes at all the scary parts. I can’t even listen to creepy music or I come out in goosepimples. I’ve only ever seen horror movies on video. It would be much much scarier on a huge screen. I’d probably make a right idiot of myself with Russell and end up cowering right under the seat. If I ever got in as it’s an eighteen. I haven’t got a hope in hell of convincing anyone that I’m eighteen.
Russell is looking at me, waiting for a reply.
‘Mmmmm,’ I say eventually, fully aware that this reply is not worth the wait.
Nadine launches into a long rave about the director’s last horror movie. I stand and stare into the middle distance. Russell seems fascinated. He’s obviously realizing that
he has been hitting on the wrong girl. He and Nadine are soulmates.
‘What did you think of Girls Out Late, Ellie?’ he asks.
‘OK,’ I mumble.
‘Did you like it?’ Russell presses me.
‘Mmmm.’
I seem to have taken to talking in initials: O, K and M.
‘Did you like the creepy bit in the multi-storey car park?’ says Russell.
I look at Nadine for help.
This time she betrays me by bursting out laughing. ‘Ellie never got that far,’ she says. ‘She started to watch it round at my place but had to hide her eyes before the title sequence was over. She only got ten minutes into the movie proper before running right out of my bedroom and refusing to come back.’
Russell grins. ‘So you find horror movies a bit scary, Ellie?’
‘Ellie’s the type of girl who’d find the Noo Noo scary,’ Nadine giggles.
My face is certainly Po red. Russell must take me for a right idiot. He’s laughing at me.
‘Then please come to the movie with me, Ellie – you’ll be snuggling right up to me in no time,’ he says.
I manage to laugh too, though I still feel a bit foolish. I glance at my watch. Talk about girls out late! It’s nearly ten.
Still, the bus is coming, I’ll be home soon. At least, that’s what I intend.
I don’t know who to sit next to on the bus. Nadine gets on first and rather pointedly spreads herself out on a double seat. I make for the seat opposite but I suddenly feel mean. Nadine’s been my best friend since we were both five years old. I’ve known Russell less than an hour, for God’s sake. I spin on my heel and nudge up next to Nadine. Russell sits opposite. He leans forward to try to continue the conversation but this old lady huffs and puffs so he contents himself with smiling.
Nadine and I can converse OK.
‘Gee whizz, I thought Magda was a quick worker!’ Nadine mutters. ‘I’ve obviously underestimated your pulling power, Ellie.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me!’ I whisper.
‘Rubbish, it was all your come-hither looks, staring at him all the time in McDonald’s.’
‘I was drawing him! I had to look at him. And, anyway, he drew me first. He was the one who started it.’