On and on. Is he too short? Am I too short? What is too short??
Ruby said, “Jo, if I were thee, I’d stick to smiling a lot. And shut your gob for the rest of the time. See thee later. Vaisey, make sure you tell me all about it.”
The bus came and we got on. And it was only then that I thought of something.
“What if they get on at the next stop? That’s where they got off last time. What if they get on and we have to do sitting down hello for the first time? How do you do sitting down hello?”
None of us knew, and then I thought of something worse.
“What if Phil’s mates are big hairy psychopaths? I saw a cartoon thing and a person on a plane was sitting down next to an empty seat, thinking ‘oh, good, I’ve got lots of room’ and behind him this massive one-eyed bloke with a trunk was shambling down the aisle towards the seat.”
Vaisey said, “Surely Phil might have mentioned if one of his mates had a trunk?”
Jo said, “Of course he would. Anyway, I think it’s the kind of thing you would notice when he said ‘my two mates’. You’d sort of know somehow if one of them had a trunk.”
I said, “Are you hiding something from us, Jo? Has Phil said something we don’t know about? Has he said ‘me and my mate and my other mate ‘Trunky’ are coming to the cinema’?”
In the end we were so hysterical that we went to the back of the bus and crouched down in our seats. Then Vaisey started singing the theme tune to Doctor Who as we drew near to the dreaded bus stop. Would we just see a huge trunk over the top of the seats as Trunky paid his fare?
As it happened, they didn’t get on.
But it had left us all even more jittery.
Vaisey said, “Maybe they jogged to Skipley?”
I said, “I don’t think so, Phil and Charlie had to have a lie down for five minutes after they started running if you remember?”
We were bouncing along, and the bus driver had been shouting stuff about the places we were passing. Even though we didn’t ask him to. Even though nobody asked him to.
Stuff like, “On your left you will notice the free-range egg sign. Old Stoat Farm do a range of free-range products that cannot be beat. The bearded couple who own it, from Leeds I believe, sleep in the same barn as the hens, in case the hens have a nasty dream. That is how caring and stupid townsfolk can be.”
Just as we passed Grimbottom, he shouted, “That randy bull’s at it again.”
Vaisey had been applying lip gloss for most of the journey.
I said, “Vaisey, how much lip gloss can you get on? You’ll never be able to get off the bus at this rate.”
Jo was looking in her compact mirror and fiddling about with her hair.
She said, “I don’t even know why I am doing this. He might not be able to see my hair. Where do you think he comes up to on me?” And she stood up swaying around on the bus.
She said, “Do you think he would come up to my ears?”
I said, “Shut up about your ears. At least you know who you’re meeting. What about me and Vaisey? We’re just ‘the two others’.”
I was chatting for chatting’s sake really, to keep my mind off imagining Phil’s trunky friend who might be my date. I wouldn’t mind if it was Charlie. And Phil and Charlie are mates. And Charlie liked my knees. But what if Charlie came and preferred Vaisey?
That would be a double blow. Unless the other one that wasn’t him was dreamy.
But whatever happened, neither one of them was going to be Alex.
Alex was out of my league.
I wasn’t even in a league.
To him I was just another little fourteen and a half-year old. He probably couldn’t tell the difference between one fourteen and a half-year old and another, they all looked the same to him. Stupid.
The bus finally juddered to a halt at the M & S stop and we got off. There was no one there. Well, apart from a woman in headscarf and wellingtons.
She got on the bus and the bus driver said, “Mary Bottomly, you are a dream come true. A vision of beauty in a world of—”
She cuffed him on his cap and said, “Don’t bloody start, I’ve just had some cow heel and it’s made my bloody lips stick together like super glue.”
I said to the other two, “This is no place for artists. Look, why don’t we just get a Coke and catch the next bus back before—”
And then we saw Phil and Jack and…someone who was not Charlie, bowling towards us. I wish I had my jeans on, my legs were feeling very shy and exposed. They hadn’t been out much.
Phil whistled at us and said, “Oy oy!”
Jack and ‘the other one’ were grinning, but not saying anything. This might be a very long night, and I was already longing to be tucked up with my squirrel slippers.
Phil said, “This is Jack, you met him before on the bus, and this is Ben. Ben is excellent at all sorts of sport. Aren’t you, Ben?”
Ben was nodding and smiling now.
He had floppy hair and it was going up and down.
Ben was quite good looking, a bit on the floppy-hair side. But tall.
As we went along to the cinema the boys were walking ahead, sort of stopping and turning round and making jokes to each other.
Vaisey said quietly to me, “Lullah, can I have Jack?”
What is the right answer to that?
I said, “That would mean that I had Ben.”
And Vaisey said, “He’s quite tall.”
I said, “I KNOW he’s quite tall. Tallness isn’t everything.”
Jo said, “You can say that again. Don’t you like Ben?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
Then, as if he had heard us, Ben turned round and looked at me. Then he turned back and said something to Jack.
Oh God. Perhaps he was doing the same. Perhaps he was saying stuff about me.
I wanted to run away.
When we got to the cinema the boys paid for the tickets and we went into the dark. Phil chose a row of seats about middle way up. I could see there was a snoggers’ row at the back. At least Phil hadn’t chosen that row.
He went first and said to Jo, “Why don’t you sit next to me, in case I get fwightened?”
Jo giggled in a girlish, slightly hysterical way that I had never heard before. I hoped she wasn’t going to turn from a rufty tufty girl into an idiot.
Then Jack sat a couple of seats away from Jo and smiled at Vaisey. He patted the empty seat next to him.
So, that left me and Ben.
But Ben didn’t move.
Should I go and sit down? Or run out of the cinema?
Maybe he would run out of the cinema.
Or maybe go and sit miles away from me because he was so alarmed by my knees.
Perhaps if I fainted and—
Then Ben said, “Tallulah, why don’t you go in first? And then I can protect you.”
I hadn’t heard him speak before and his voice was a bit croaky.
I smiled and shook my hair and we went and sat down.
What was he going to be protecting me from?
A violent ice-cream lady?
Then the film began. Night of the Vampire Bats was very…what’s the right word? Batty. I wasn’t really watching it because I was so tense, I thought I might be sick. That would be attractive.
Ben was silent, and I daren’t catch his eye. I just held my head rigidly forward.
What was everyone else doing? I swivelled my eyes as far as they would go without moving my neck and could sort of see Phil and Jo in the flickering half-light.
I think Phil might have had his arm around Jo. But it could have been someone’s leg from the row behind. I couldn’t see Jack and Vaisey’s arms, but they could have been doing secret handy-holding.
Ben had his arm on the arm rest so I kept my hands in my lap. Should I move one hand closer to him so that it was more easily accessible?
Did I want him to hold my hand?
I didn’t know.
What I did know w
as that I didn’t want him to not want to hold my hand. If you see what I mean.
Halfway through the film and still nothing had happened. If I didn’t move my neck soon it would snap off.
Ben leaned towards me and said something so softly I couldn’t hear him.
I whispered back, “Sorry, what did you say?”
And I thought he said, “Do you want a squeeze?”
A squeeze.
Nobody had mentioned that to me before.
Was a squeeze the same as a hug?
Because hugging was what you did to teddies not girlfriends, wasn’t it?
I could sense him waiting for me to reply, so I said very quietly in his ear, or where I thought his ear might be under his floppy hair, “I don’t think I know you well enough.”
And then he said a bit more loudly, “They’re still in the bag, I haven’t touched them.”
Pardon?
And he held out a bag of Maltesers.
Did I want a Malteser.
I don’t know you well enough.
Oh goodie! Now he knows I’m tall and an idiot.
The cinema experience was the longest, tensest hour and a half of my life, so far.
When at last we came out of the cinema, we got chips and walked across to the bus stop to eat them. Because we were all holding the bags everyone’s hands were in full sight. So there was no arm-around business going on.
When the bus came, Mary Bottomly in the headscarf and wellingtons was driving. She had her headscarf on underneath her official cap. And she didn’t have a smiley jolly bus-driver face.
Phil led the way to the back of the bus and sat down in the window seat.
We followed him and when we got to the back seat, Phil said, “Whey hey hey,” and pulled Jo down on to his knee. For once, she was speechless and just sat there like a mad doll.
I didn’t know what to say or where to sit.
Vaisey and Jack sat down next to each other and Jack started showing her his mouth organ. To my amazement, she looked ‘interested’. Maybe that is what you had to do, look interested when boys talked. Even about mouth organs.
So that leaves me.
With Ben.
Ben was easy to talk to – if you like talking about what type of running shoes are best for cross-country. It was quite relaxing, just half-listening to him.
Then I heard Jack say the word ‘guitar’. And Vaisey’s head started nodding in agreement and she was talking as well. Must be about music.
How sweet. I think Jack’s a bit shy, but I think he likes Vaisey. Then they started singing together and Jack was making a drumming rhythm on his knees.
Phil was now tickling Jo, who was going mental. And screeching. So much so that Mrs Bottomly the driver yelled back, “Oy, stop playing silly beggars. This is a bloody bus, not a Mardi Gras!!”
Oooh, now Ben is telling me about how he does pull-ups because he’s a bit weak in the upper arm. And apparently upper-arm strength is a big plus when you want to join the Navy. And he does want to join the Navy.
He said, “When we do our cross-country runs I put bricks in my rucksack.”
Just to be nice, I said, “Crikey.”
The boys didn’t get off at their stop because Phil said, “We’ll escort you ladeez to your homes in case of carriages going by and sloshing your evening gowns.”
What is he talking about?
Phil said, “We’ve been doing Jane Austen at Woolfe, so we can get inside the female mind.”
I said, “What is inside our female minds, then?”
Phil said, “Well, for instance, should one of you want to climb up a staircase on the way home, we lads would have the training to quickly get behind you and walk up the stairs, bracing ourselves.”
I said, “Bracing yourselves for what?”
Phil winked, “Aaaa, bracing ourselves for the moment when you lost your footing, or fainted, and then we could catch you, saving you from injury.”
I said, “Why would we faint?”
And Phil said, “You might be startled by bats.”
And everyone laughed.
We said “goodnight” to the bus driver woman as we got off.
And she said, “Is it?”
I don’t think she likes people, as such.
As the bus careered into the distance, there was a bit of an awkward silence.
We were all still standing by the bus stop.
So I said to everyone, “Well, I’m off to my squirrel room. Thanks for the cinema, and the, um, Maltesers. It’s been, um, quite smashing.”
And I set off for the Dobbins’.
I’d gone about halfway when Ben came after me. “I’ll walk you to your gate, Tallulah.”
He looked up from under his floppy fringe and said, “I had a nice night, it was really interesting talking to you.”
There was more silence as we crossed the village green, so I said, “Um, do you like theatre as well as running and so on? Like we do at Dother Hall?”
He looked at me like I had spoken in ancient bee language. And repeated, “Theatre…”
I said, to lighten the moment, “Ms Beaver says it’s a harsh mistress and your feet bleed before you put on the golden slippers of applau—”
And I’d just got to “applause” when he put his hand on my shoulder and turned me round to face him.
I was about to take a piece of hair out of my mouth, because as he spun me round my hair went a bit wild. But he lunged at me, mouth first.
He put the whole of his mouth on mine. My eyes were open so I could see that he had his closed. His mouth seemed very big. In fact, I felt like I was being eaten. Even though no chewing was going on.
I had to breathe through my nose because he was blocking my mouth.
Then I felt a little proddy thing going in between my lips like it was trying to prise them open. Was there still a bit of hair in there?
Or maybe he had trapped his fringe.
It was very floppy and…
My goodness it must be his tongue.
What was I supposed to do?
The prodding was still going on. I had my teeth together because I was so tense.
The little jabby tongue thing started working its way along my toothline.
It prodded at the side of my mouth which was tickly, actually.
I don’t think laughing would go down well, though.
In fact, it was like being in Night of the Vampire Bats. There was a bit in the film where a bat flew into someone’s mouth, and you could see it barging around inside because the cheeks kept bulging out, and the bat’s little head popped out now and then.
Perhaps I should move my lips a bit.
Or perhaps now was the time to turn my head away and look through the window and say, “Not now,” in a low voice. Except that there wasn’t a window and…
Then he just stopped and said, “Er, sorry, about that, erm…well, goodnight.” And he held out his hand.
I had had my arms by my side for the whole time and I put my hand up automatically.
And he shook it.
Then the worst thing happened. Well, another worst thing happened. Cain came round the corner. With a dead fox in his hand. He’d probably killed it for a little snack. He looked at us from under his black hair. I think he might have black eyes as well. And he was dressed all in black. He just stopped and looked at us, twirling the dead fox.
Ben said, a bit nervously I thought, “Well, I’ll er…see you around, Tallulah.”
Cain just looked at him and said as he went off, “Ay off you go, garyboy. Dunt make me leery because things might get a bit gorey.”
What did that mean?
Then he looked at me. Just looked. I didn’t know what to do.
He looked me slowly up and down and then half-smiled, but not in a jolly ‘ooooh what a laugh everything is’ way, it was sort of spooky.
He turned to go off down the lane, but looked back and said, “Now we’re evens. Tha’s caught me snogging and now I’v
e caught thee snogging.”
I never seem to know what to say to Cain.
I said, “I wasn’t snogging.”
And he said, “No, and you weren’t cleaning your windows, either.”
As he walked off twirling his fox, I thought, next time I’ll think of something really clever to say to him.
The Dobbins were in the kitchen when I went in. But the twins were in bed so I was saved the staring interlude.
Harold was in an ‘interested’ mood and he asked me about the film.
“What was the genre?”
I said, “Um, bats mostly.”
Harold loved bats unfortunately.
I knew that because he got his pipe out.
Which, incidentally, he never lights, he just sucks it and points with it.
“Most fascinating creatures…I think I may have a stuffed one in a drawer.”
Never mind the bats, I have had my first kiss. From a boy.
I escaped from the bat chamber into my squirrel room where I lay down on my bed next to my squirrel slippers and gave them a little hug. It was a full moon and I heard an owl hooting. Probably Connie, hanging about waiting for the birth of her owl twins. Eating rodents to keep her mind off motherhood.
I feel somehow changed.
Not like a werewolf. Fur isn’t growing on the back of my hands. Although it might be growing under my armpits, at last.
I am no longer a child. My corkers are emerging, and I’ve had my first kiss.
I’ve had my first taste of bat – I mean romance.
As a mark of my new being, I put the squirrel slippers on the floor.
I will no longer have cuddly-toy type things near me.
CHAPTER 12
Whooo-hoo-oooo
The Tree Sisters in Loveland
Vaisey was waiting for me in the kitchen when I came down next morning.
She was nodding her hair-hat and pretending to be interested in what the twins had made at playschool. Dobbins said it was a vase. But to me it was a washing-up liquid bottle cut in half, with what looked like snot all over it.