Жаклин Уилсон: Girls In Love

‘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.