‘Ouch!’
‘Oooh!’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t have a clue anyone was sitting there!’
‘You’re kneeling on me!’
‘Sorry, sorry. Here, let me help you up.’
‘Careful!’ He was hauling so vigorously we both nearly toppled downwards.
‘Whoops!’
‘Watch out!’
I struggled free and stood with my back against the damp wall. He stood up too. It was too dark to make out more than a vague shape.
‘What were you doing, sitting in the dark? You haven’t hurt yourself, have you?’
‘I wasn’t hurt. I might be now. I still feel very squashed.’
‘Sorry. I keep saying that, don’t I? Though it is abit crackers to crouch like that in the dark. Next time you might get a whole troop of boy scouts hiking over you. Or a coachload of American tourists trampling you with their trainers. Or . . . Or . . . I’m burbling. It’s difficult making conversation when you can’t see. Let’s go on up to see if it gets any lighter.’
‘I don’t think you can. The steps seem to give out.’
‘Oh, well. That figures. Let’s go back down then.’
I hesitated, having a quick wipe of my face with the back of my hand. There wasn’t much point sitting there any longer. Dad and Anna and Eggs had probably forgotten all about me. Gone right back to the cottage. They’d suddenly snap their fingers three days later. ‘What’s happened to Ellie?’ they’d say. And shrug. And forget about me again.
The boy seemed to think I was timid. ‘I’ll hold your hand if you like. To help you down.’
‘I can manage perfectly, thanks,’ I said.
Though it was a bit hairy feeling our way down. The steps seemed more slippery, and there wasn’t any handrail. I stumbled once, and he grabbed me. ‘Careful!’
‘I’m being careful,’ I said.
‘I bet you there’s an attendant waiting for us at the bottom to nag us rotten about the danger,’ he said. ‘That’s the trouble, though. The minute I see something roped off I have this desperate urge to explore inside. So consequently I’m forever in a fix. Dopey Dan, that’s what my family and friends call me when they’re narked. I’m Daniel. But I’m only called that when they’re really really really going ballistic. It’s plain Dan most of the time.’
He went on like this until we emerged blinking into the daylight. Plain Dan was perfect. He had wild exploding hair and a silly little snub nose that he twitched to hitch his glasses into place.
I blinked through my own smeary specs and focused properly.
‘It’s you!’ we said simultaneously.
His family had another equally damp and dilapidated holiday cottage about half a mile down the valley from ours. We saw them in the village Spar buying their groceries and they were often in the pub in the evenings too. My dad and his dad sometimes played darts together. Anna and Dan’s mum sat and made strained conversation. They looked like they came from different planets, even though they were both in jeans and jerseys and boots. Anna’s jeans show off her tiny tight bum andher jersey is an Artwork designer sweater and her boots have got buckles and pointy toes. Dan’s mum has a bum much bigger than mine. Her jumpers were all too tight, too, and one of them was actually unravelling. Her boots were serious walking boots caked with mud.
The whole family were serious walkers whatever the weather. We’d see them setting out in a downpour in their orange cagoules, and hours later we’d spot these mobile marigolds at the top of a dim distant mountain. There were five children, all earnest and old-fashioned. Dan was the eldest, about my age, a good inch shorter than me even though I’m little. He had a fat guidebook about castles sticking out of his cagoule. Typical.
‘We made it!’ he said, as if we’d just returned from outer space. He tried to jump the rope in triumph but tripped.
‘No wonder they call you Dopey Dan,’ I mumbled, as I skirted the rope.
There was still no sign of Dad and Anna and Eggs. Maybe they really had gone off without me.
‘What’s your name?’ Dan asked, brushing himself down. ‘Rapunzel?’
‘What?’
‘Well, I found you languishing in a tower, didn’t I?’
I had sudden memories of a little Ladybird fairytale book. ‘Are you into fairytales?’ I said.
I intended it as an insult, but he took me seriously. ‘I don’t mind them actually. Some. My dad gave me a copy of The Mabinogion, seeing as we’re in Wales.’
He could well have been speaking Welsh for all the sense he was making.
‘It’s old Welsh fairy stuff. Dead romantic in parts. I’ll lend you the book if you like.’
‘I don’t think it sounds my sort of thing.’
‘So what is your sort of thing, eh? What do you like reading? What’s that little black book you’ve always got with you?’
I was surprised. He must have been watching me carefully. I usually kept my book hidden in my jacket pocket. ‘That’s just my little sketchbook.’
‘Let’s have a look then,’ he said, patting my pocket.
‘No!’
‘Go on, don’t be shy.’
‘I’m not the slightest bit shy. It’s private.’
‘What sort of thing do you sketch? Castles?’
‘Not castles.’
‘Mountains?’
‘Not mountains either.’
‘Then what?’
‘God, you aren’t half nosy.’
He wrinkled his snub nose at me cheerfully.
I gave in. ‘I don’t sketch. I draw. Stylized pictures. Cartoons.’
‘Oh, great. I love that sort of stuff. Do you ever do comic strips? I love Calvin and Hobbes. And Asterix, I’ve got all those books. Look, I’ve even got Snowy on my socks.’ He hitched up his jeans and straightened his socks, which were all bunched up in his Woollies trainers.
‘Very cute,’ I said.
He grinned. ‘OK, OK. I know my clothes aren’t exactly hip.’
He was dead right there. If I was home I’d be terrified of being seen talking to him. But he was kind of fun in a silly lollopy way, as persistent as a puppy. He didn’t even seem to mind my being so snappy with him. I wouldn’t normally have been anywhere near as sharp. It was just I was getting seriously bothered about my stupid family.
His family were all down in the grounds, peering knowledgeably at little heaps of stones. One of his sisters looked up and spotted us. ‘Hey, Dan! Come on down, we need your castle book!’
All the other little marigolds waved and shouted.
‘I’d better get cracking. They won’t stop now they’ve started,’ said Dan. ‘You coming?’
I followed him down. Dad and Anna and Eggs weren’t anywhere. Maybe I’d have to join up with the marigolds. I was getting so desperate that it began to seem an attractive idea.
But guess who I came across strolling round outside the castle walls. Dad and Anna and Eggs. They didn’t look the slightest bit concerned.
‘Hi, Ellie,’ said Dad. ‘Hey, have you made a friend? Great.’
Dan grinned. I glared.
‘Where have you been?’ I demanded.
‘Well, we were showing Eggs the way medieval people went to the loo in the castle – and then he needed to go himself so we had to trail right over to the toilets. Oh, poor Ellie, were you getting worried?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said sulkily.
‘See you around . . . Ellie,’ said Dan.
I did see him around a few times after that. Mostly with the marigolds. And Eggs. One day we joined up for a picnic. It even drizzled that day so we ate damp sandwiches and soggy sausages and mushy crisps. No-one else seemed to find this depressing. Dan was especially good at keeping all the little ones amused. Eggs adored him. I got sick of all this clowning around and went and sat on a wet rock and drew.
I was doodling away when a shadow fell across my page. I snapped my book shut.
‘Let me see,’ said Dan.
&nbs
p; ‘No.’
‘Meanie. Go on, special favour. Seeing as it’s the last day of the hols.’
‘Thank God.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t stick this dump.’
‘You’re mad. It’s fantastic. And anyway, who wants to go back home? School on Monday. Yuck yuck yuck. I wonder what it’ll be like – in Year Nine.’
‘You’re not going to be in Year Nine,’ I said. I’d found out that Dan was only twelve. Not even a teenager yet.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Rubbish. You’ll be in Year Eight. With the other little boys.’
‘I am going to be in Year Nine. Honest.’ Dan looked unusually embarrassed. ‘I’ve been put up a year, right?’
‘Oh, God. Because you’re so brainy?’
‘You’ve got it.’
‘Trust you! I should have sussed you out for a right swot.’
‘You ought to be pleased you’re going out with a boy of mega-brainpower,’ said Dan.
‘We’re not going out, idiot.’
‘I wish we could.’
‘What?’
‘I like you, Ellie,’ he said seriously. ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’
‘No! Of course not. You’re just a baby.’
‘Don’t you fancy having a toy-boy?’
‘Definitely not!’
‘Can’t I see you sometimes?’
‘You’re nuts, Dan. You live in Manchester, I live in London, right?’
‘Can we write to each other then?’
He nagged on until I gave in and scribbled my address on a page torn from my sketchbook. He’s probably lost it already, knowing Dan. Not that I want to know him. He won’t bother writing even if he’s still got the address. And even if he does I don’t think I’ll reply. There’s no point. I mean, he’s just this irritating little kid. I suppose he’s OK in small doses. But he’s not exactly boyfriend material.
Oh dear. If only he were five years older! And not all nerdy and nutty. Why can’t he be really cool, with fantastic fair hair and dark brown eyes???
I wonder if I’ll see that blond boy again tomorrow. I slow down, going all dreamy just thinking about him. Then I catch sight of my face in a shop window. I look like I’m brain-dead, eyes glazed, mouth open. And then I see the clock at the back of the shop and it’s gone nine. Gone nine! It can’t be. It is!
Gone nine, number nine, my first day in Year Nine – and I’m going to be in trouble before I’ve even started.
It’s weird walking along the corridor to Mrs Henderson’s room. We would have to have Mrs Hockeysticks Henderson as our class tutor in Year Nine. What is it about Games teachers? She’s always picked on me right from Year Seven.
‘Come along, Eleanor!’
‘Missed again, Eleanor.’
‘You’re not even running, girl, get a move on!’
I developed strategic tactics, suddenly stricken with appalling migraines or agonizing periods at the start of every Games lesson, but she soon got wise to me. She made me run six times round the hockey pitch for malingering and blew her poxy whistle at me whenever I tried to slow down.
I can’t stick Mrs Henderson. I’ve always hated PE. Magda sometimes hangs about with me and acts like she’s useless too. She doesn’t like games either. She hates to get her hair blown about and she won’t try to catch a ball in case she breaks a nail. Yet if she’s forced to participate she can run like the wind, shoot six goals in a row at netball and whack a hockey ball clear across the pitch.
At least Nadine is even more hopeless than me. She looks graceful but when she’s forced to run her arms and legs jerk out at odd angles and she totters along like a broken puppet, her head hanging.
I can’t wait to see Magda and Nadine. I haven’t seen them for weeks. We only got back from that stupid crumbling cottage yesterday. But somehow my feet are going more and more s-l-o-w-l-y as they squeak along the newly polished corridor. They look so hideous too, regulation brown school shoes, you’ve never seen such rubbish, your actual Clarks clodhoppers, when at any other school girls can wear whatever they want – heels, trainers, Doc Martens . . . Oh, there are these seriously wonderful sexy shoes in Shelleys! OK, they’ve got heels, high heels, but they’re this amazing shiny bronze colour. Now bronze is brown. Well, brownish. I begged Anna to let me have them for school but she wouldn’t give in. It’s so unfair. Just because she wears those boring Sloaney little pumps all the time. She’s one inch taller than Dad and ever so self-conscious about it.
‘Eleanor Allard?’
Oh, God. It’s Miss Trumper, the deputy head. She’s even worse than Mrs Henderson. School’s only started five minutes and she’s already on the warpath. It’s pathetic. Why can’t these old bags get a life?
‘What are you doing lurking in the corridor, Eleanor?’
‘Nothing, Miss Trumper.’
‘I can see that for myself. Whose class are you in this year?’
‘Mrs Henderson’s,’ I say, nodding at the door right in front of me.
‘Well, why are you just standing there? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve been sent out the classroom in disgrace already?’
‘No! I haven’t even gone in there yet.’
‘Well, do so, Eleanor. At once!’
I seize the door handle. I can hear Mrs Henderson in full flow inside, giving the class an introduction to the 1001 rules that must never be broken in Class Nine Neptune. Oh, yeah – all the years are divided into these pathetic planets: Venus, Mars, Mercury and Neptune. Funny how they never pick Uranus. We’re Neptune and we have this little trident thing on our badges. It’s all so boring. None of us want to be in Neptune anyway. Magda fancies Venus and Nadine wants to be in Mars because she likes the chocolate bars and I want to be in Mercury because I’ve got a soft spot for the late lamented Freddie . . .
‘Eleanor!’ Miss Trumper has paused halfway along the corridor. ‘Have you gone into a catatonic trance?’
Dear goodness, they think they’re so witty.
‘No, Miss Trumper.’
‘Then go into your classroom!’
I take a deep breath and turn the handle. In I go. And there’s Mrs Henderson, sitting on her table swinging her legs. She’s wearing a yucky pleated skirt to show she’s being class tutor, but she’s got bare legs and ankle socks and tennis shoes so she’s all set to bounce off down to the gym when she’s finished giving everyone an earful first lesson.
I get two earfuls. In fact she gets so aerated that my poor ears expand to Dumbo proportions. Stuff like First Day. And Idleness and Attitude. And Just Not Good Enough.
I bow my head and act like I’m in the depths of despair just to disconcert her. Under my hair I peer round for Magda and Nadine. Great, they’re right at the back! Magda’s grinning at me. Nadine gives me a little wave. They’ve saved me the seat in between them. And eventually Mrs Henderson draws breath and lets me slide off to the back. Magda whispers ‘Hi, babe,’ and Nadine gives me some chewing gum and I settle down and school is started. At least old Henderson didn’t give me a detention for being late the first day!
First days are always so bitty. There’s all the new timetables and notebooks and each and every teacher starts in on their own little lecture about Now You’re in Year Nine. Then at morning break Chrissie shows us all these photos she took in Barbados during the holidays and then Jess has us all in fits telling us about this action holiday she went on where she did this bungee-jumping and she keeps trying to demonstrate – so we don’t have a moment’s peace to be just us, Magda-Nadine-and-Ellie, until after lunch.
We saunter off to our special place on the steps that lead down to the Portakabins. It’s where the three of us have always sat for the last two years. But there’s a whole bunch of drippy little new kids hanging around doing handstands up against the wall, skirts tucked into their brand-new regulation ghastly grey school knickers.
‘Per-lease,’ says Magda. ‘Can’t you kiddiwinks go and wave your legs somewhere else? It’s just too
distracting, dearies.’
They straighten up, giggling foolishly, and then scatter when Magda flaps her hands at them.
‘Right,’ she says, seating herself carefully. Her skirt is a good six centimetres shorter than mine. She has to position it with extreme accuracy or else she’ll be the one showing off her knickers. Which are definitely not regulation.
Nadine sits beside her, kicking off her battered school shoes. I can see her black pearl toenail varnish through her tights.
I nudge up beside them, feeling a sudden warm rush of love for both of them.
Nadine’s been my friend ever since nursery school, when we stirred bright green dough in the Wendy House and played we were poisoning all the dollies. We stayed staunch friends all through primary school, playing Witches in the playground and Mermaids when we went swimming and Ghosts when we spent the night at each other’s houses. We vowed we would stay best friends for ever and ever, just the two of us. But the first year of secondary school we weren’t allowed to sit where we wanted. We had to be in alphabetical order. I found myself sitting next to Magda.
I was a bit scared of Magda at first. Even when she was only eleven she had a proper figure and she arranged her hair in a very sophisticated style and wore a thick coat of mascara so that her eyes looked knowing. She had finely plucked eyebrows that she raised when she took a second look at you.
She hardly spoke to me that first week. Then one time in class I was doodling on the back of my new school roughbook, drawing an ultra-hip cool-cat Magda. I made her a real pussycat with sharp whiskers and a fluffy tail. I drew me as a little fat mouse, frightened of Magda, all twitchy nose and scrabbly paws. Magda suddenly leant over me to see what I was doing. She worked it out at once. ‘Hey, Ellie! That’s great,’ she said.
So I drew some more stuff and she liked that too. We were friends after that. She wanted me to be her best friend.
Only of course I had Nadine. And Nadine didn’t like Magda at all at first. But when Magda invited me over to her place one day after school I forced Nadine to come too. I wanted moral support more than anything else. I imagined Magda living this amazing cool independent existence. I couldn’t have been more wrong. She’s got this lovely noisy interfering funny family. Magda’s the baby. Everyone’s pet. She acts like a cute little kid at home. Anyway, she invited Nadine and me up to her bedroom and she gave us both a full make-up job. I loved it. She actually made me look like I had big dark eyes behind my specs and she did this subtle line each side of my face so it looked like I had cheekbones. It was the first time I’d ever worn make-up and I thought it was wonderful. Nadine was a bit sniffy. Magda said it was her turn. She gave Nadine a real gothic look, chalk-white face and truly black lipstick and astonishing outlined eyes. When Nadine saw herself in the mirror she smiled all over her amazing new face and wanted Magda to be her friend too.