Жаклин Уилсон: Girls In Love

We’re doing Romeo and Juliet this year. Everyone thinks it’s dead boring. Privately I quite like Shakespeare. I like the way the words go, though I don’t understand half of it. Certainly the beginning bit’s dull – but when I flip through the book and find the first Juliet part it gets much more interesting. Juliet is only thirteen, nearly fourteen, so she’d be in Year Nine too. As far as I can work out her mother and her nurse are keen for her to get married .

I sit wondering what it would be like to be married at thirteen in Juliet’s day. It would be fun as long as you were rich enough to have someone pay the mortgage on your Italian mansion and loads of servants to spruce up your medieval Versace frocks and deliver your pizzas to your marital fourposter . . .

Mrs Madley suddenly shouts my name, making me jump. ‘You not only come to my lesson ten minutes late, Eleanor Allard, but you obviously aren’t paying the slightest attention now you’re here! What on earth is the matter with you?’

‘She’s in love, Mrs Madley,’ says Magda. She can’t ever keep her mouth shut.

Mrs Madley groans in exasperation while the whole class collapses.

It looks like I’m in serious trouble again . I stare wildly at the page in front of me. I spot a line at the top that looks dead appropriate ‘“Under love’s heavy burden do I sink”,’ I quote, sending myself up.

Mrs Madley is wrong-footed. She even looks mildly amused. ‘Well, take care you don’t sink too far, Eleanor. Look what happens to these star-crossed lovers at the end of the play. Now, girls, settle down, and let us all concentrate on Shakespeare.’

I decide I’d better concentrate too – so I don’t really have time to plan what on earth I’m going to say going home from school with Magda and Nadine.

In Maths last lesson there’s no point my trying to concentrate because I can’t figure any of it out, so I sit nibbling my thumbnail, worrying about this boyfriend situation. When I was little I used to suck my thumb a lot. Now when I’m ultra-anxious I find I have to have a little weeny suck and chew just to calm myself. I wondered if smoking might have the same effect – not in a classroom situation obviously – but when Magda shared a packet of Benson’s with me I felt so sick and dizzy by the time I lit up my second it’s put me off for life.

I have to sort out what I’m going to say about Dan. I think of his blond hair and dark brown eyes . . . Only that’s the boy I saw this morning on the way to school. I don’t even have a clue who he is. I just started describing him when Magda and Nadine asked all those questions. I couldn’t tell them what the real Dan looks like or they’d crease up laughing.

Oh, God, why did I open my big mouth? I was like some demented Fairy Godmother waving a wand over nerdy little boy Dopey Dan in Wales and turning him into the Golden Dream I saw this morning.

Magda and Nadine believe it all too. I practically believe it. I’ve always had this crazy habit of making things up. It was mostly when I was little. Like after my mum died . . .

It was so horrible and lonely that I kept trying to pretend she wasn’t really dead, that if I could only perform all these really loopy tasks like go all day without going to the toilet or stay awake an entire night then suddenly she’d come walking into my bedroom and it would all be a mistake, someone else’s mother had died, not mine . Sometimes when I was lying awake holding my eyelids open I’d almost believe she was really there, standing by my bed, leaning over ready to give me a cuddle, so close I could actually smell her lovely soft powdery scent.

Even after I gave up on those daft tricks I didn’t give up on my mother. I felt she still had to be around for me. I talked to her inside my head and she talked back, saying all the ordinary Mum things, telling me to be careful crossing the road, and to eat up like a good girl, and when I went to bed she’d chat to me about my day and she’d always say ‘Nightie Nightie’ and I’d whisper ‘Pyjama Pyjama’. I did that long after Dad married Anna. She said some of that stuff too, but it wasn’t the same at all. I used to hate Anna simply because she wasn’t Mum. I’m older now. I can see it’s not really Anna’s fault. She’s OK, sometimes. But she’s still not my mum.

So what would Mum say? This is the awful bit. I can still make Mum say all this stuff to me, but it’s the old stuff that I needed to hear when I was little. My made-up mum can’t seem to get her head round the idea that I’m big now. Big enough to want a boyfriend. Only I haven’t got one and yet I’ve told my two best friends I have.

‘Tell them the truth, Ellie,’ Mum says firmly, her voice suddenly loud and clear.

She sounds so real I actually look round the classroom to see if anyone else can hear her.

I know Mum is right. In fact I even work out how to do it. I shall say I was just teasing them, playing a silly joke to see how much they’d swallow. I’ll say I did meet a boy called Dan on holiday but I’ll say what he’s really like. I’ll even tell them about the gorgeous blond bloke on the way to school. I’ll draw a cartoon for them, the real Dan and me with my wand turning him into the Dreamboat. They’ll think it’s funny. Well – maybe more funny peculiar than funny ha-ha. But they’re used to me being a bit weird. They’ll still like me, even though they’ll think I’m nuttier than ever.

I’ll tell them on the way to the bus stop. Then it’ll be over and everything will go back to normal. Except Nadine really has got a boyfriend. This Liam. Unless . . . could she have made him up too? Nadine and I used to play all these pretend games together. She was always great at making things up, that’s why I always wanted her for my friend. Oh, what a hoot if Nadine’s been fibbing too! I really wouldn’t put it past her!

But when we come out of school at the end of lessons and Magda is asking me more about Dan and I’m all set to say my piece, though my throat’s dry with nerves and I feel incredibly silly, Nadine suddenly stops dead and gasps.

‘Nadine?’

We stare at her. She’s blushing. I can’t get used to seeing Nadine’s snowy skin shine salmon-pink.

‘Nadine, what’s up?’ I say.

Magda is quicker than me. She’s seen what Nadine is staring at. Not what. Who . ‘Wow!’ says Magda. ‘Is he Liam?’

Nadine swallows. ‘Yes! Oh, God, what am I going to do? I’m in my school uniform .’

‘Well, he knows you go to school.’

‘But I look such a berk in uniform. I can’t let him see me like this!’ Nadine dodges behind me, ducking right down. ‘Walk backwards into school, Ellie!’ she hisses.

‘Don’t be so nuts, Nadine,’ says Magda. ‘Look, he’s seen you anyway.’

‘How do you know?’ Nadine mutters, still hiding behind me.

‘Because he’s waving like crazy over in our direction. And he’s not waving at me. Worse luck. He’s really gorgeous,’ says Magda.

He is. He’s tall and he’s got dark hair and very dark eyes and he looks hip in his skimpy black top and black jeans. He’s the sort of guy who seems totally out of our class. Like my blond dreamboat. But Liam isn’t pretend. He’s real and he’s still waving at Nadine.

She steps sideways round me, pink and pretty. It’s as if she’s a whole new person who I hardly know. She waves back, an odd little waggle of her fingers, her elbow tucked into her side. Then she runs over to the wall where he’s waiting.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Magda mutters. ‘He’s so yummy. What does he see in Nadine?’