Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 07] (2 page)

‘But some books
are
fun,’ said TJ. ‘They can take you to different places, let you in to different
people’s experiences, how others think. Don’t close your mind to them just
because they’re not all glossy with photos of celebrities in them.’

I was definitely being
got at. TJ is a regular bookworm. She reads everything and anything and Izzie’s
dad lectures in English at some university in town and is always giving her
heavy-looking books to read. Not my cup of tea at all, I’d rather watch a good
soap on telly, but she dutifully reads everything her dad gives her.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘so I’m
not a bookworm. That doesn’t make me shallow. Lucy doesn’t read a lot, do you
Luce?’

Lucy looked more
uncomfortable than ever now. ‘Actually, Steve passes on some of his books to me
and I quite often read late at night.’

‘Hah! Closet reader,’ I
said. ‘I never knew that.’

‘You never asked,’
said Lucy blushing furiously. ‘And I didn’t think you’d be interested.’

‘Hhmmm. So you think
I’m too shallow to have a discussion about books.’

‘No.’ TJ and Lucy
chorused.

‘Well, I didn’t know I
had such nerdy brainbox friends,’ I said.

‘See, that’s just it,’
said Izzie. ‘You think that because someone reads that they’re a nerd. You
couldn’t be more wrong.’

‘Huh,’ I said.

‘I think,’ said TJ,
‘you have different people for different parts of yourself. Like I can talk to
Izzie about books, astrology and stuff like what life is all about, I can talk
to Lucy about fashion and design and I can talk to you about… er, make-up and…
or… I know, advice about boys. Nobody knows more about boys than you, Nesta.’

Well that’s true, I
thought. I suppose it helps having an older brother. Boys have never phased me.
I sussed out pretty early that all of them, no matter what age or how cool they
act, are little boys underneath. They are as nervous and unsure about girls as
girls are about them.

‘So,’ I said. ‘We have
here, Izzie the seeker, TJ the thinker, Lucy the designer
extraordinaire
and me, the what? The airhead?’

‘Course not,’ said
Lucy. ‘No one said that. What’s got into you today? You always come in the top
ten in exams at school, so how can you think that you’re an airhead? You’re the
one putting yourself down.’

‘And you are the boy
expert,’ said TJ.

‘OK then,’ I said,
‘when it comes to boys. Fact. The cute ones often don’t read because they have
got a life. Fact. The nerdy ones bury their heads in books because they haven’t
got a life.’

‘Noooo,’ said Izzie.
‘No way. You couldn’t be more wrong. I mean, take Ben. He’s cute and reads
loads.’

Hmm, I thought. Ben is
Izzie’s ex and although really nice, not someone I’d call a babe magnet.
Definitely not my type.

‘Well, I think there
are two types of boys,’ I said. ‘The hot babe magnets who, OK, might be trouble
and break your heart, but are fun and great to be seen out with. And there’s
the other type, not quite as attractive, but cosy and good company and you know
where you are with them, because they don’t mess you around, basically because
they know that if they did, they might not get off with anyone else.’

Izzie laughed. ‘You
always see things in black or white. Nothing in between.’

‘So?’

‘You can’t always
generalise, especially about people,’ said TJ. ‘I don’t think everything is
black or white. I think there are shades of grey as well. Like take Steve, he’s
really clever and also attractive.’

I kept my mouth shut.
Steve is one of Lucy’s brothers and he’s been dating TJ for ages now. But once
again, like Ben, yes, nice, a laugh, but babe magnet - no way. I didn’t want to
insult TJ by saying that her boyfriend wasn’t a babe, nor Lucy by saying that I
didn’t think her brother was attractive. People can be very defensive about
their family. It’s like they can say the worst possible things themselves about
brothers and sisters, but God help anyone else who says anything bad. I guess
I’m the same about my brother, Tony. I slag him off something rotten sometimes,
but I won’t hear a word against him from anyone else. I dutifully kept my mouth
zipped about Steve, but sometimes it’s difficult holding in what I really
think. Sometimes I worry that I might be getting that disease, Tourette’s
syndrome or something. I read about it in a magazine. Instead of blood leaking
out or people being sick, people puke out their thoughts instead and they shout
awful things in public or on the tube or somewhere. They can’t help it apparently,
like the ‘What not to say and when not to say it’ filter is missing from their
brain. I’d be forever in trouble if my thoughts leaked out. I wonder if it’s
possible to have inner Tourette’s syndrome. Sometimes I think awful things
about people before I can stop myself. Mad things just pop into my head.
Sometimes my thoughts shock even me. In school sometimes, I want to shout
‘knickers’ at inappropriate moments like school assembly when our headmistress
is droning on. Or if I see someone really unattractive in the street, I think,
‘Woah, there goes a fat ugly one,’ then I feel awful because some people can’t
help the way they look. Or when Dad is giving me a hard time about something, I
think, ’Hhmm. Take your advice, Pater, and stick it up your bum.‘ Luckily, most
of the time my brain filter works and I manage to keep my thoughts to myself.
Maybe I’m secretly insane? It is a worry.

‘So you reckon the
choices are gorgeous and dangerous versus safe and secure, but not so
gorgeous?’ asked Lucy.

‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘That’s your choice. One or the other.’

‘I reckon you can get
boys who are both,’ said Izzie. ‘Gorgeous and safe and secure. Not all gorgeous
boys mess you around.’

‘They might not at
first,’ I said, thinking about Simon dumping me, ‘but they do in the end,
basically because they know they can.’

TJ shook her head. ‘I
agree with Izzie,’ she said.

‘Lucy?’ I asked.

She’s had this
on/off
thing with my brother Tony for over a year. Even though he’s my brother, I can
see that he’s the first type, ie: is v.v. attractive even though a little
arrogant with it. There’s always a queue of girls after him and he never gets
serious about any of them. Except Lucy that is. He really likes her, but half
the reason that he stays interested is because she doesn’t fall over herself
wanting to be with him. She keeps him on his toes. I know for a fact that if
she wasn’t messing him around, he’d be messing her around. It’s like they’re
doing a dance, he steps forward, she steps back. She steps forward, he steps
back. Right now, in the dance, Lucy is stepping back and Tony is stepping
forward.

‘Um, I also agree with
Izzie,’ said Lucy. ‘Oh, I know Tony’s not exactly Mr Commitment, but at least
he’s honest about who he is.’

‘Yeah, course,’ said
Izzie. ‘There are all sorts of types. There are boys who are deep
and
gorgeous. Cute boys who think about things. Cute boys who will commit and not
mess you around. People are different depending on who they’re with, so maybe
you just haven’t brought out the deeper side of the boys you’ve been with.’

‘What do you mean?’ I
asked.

‘Well, like we’re
different with different people,’ said Izzie. ‘You’re one way with your
parents, another way with teachers, another way with your friends, another way
with boys.’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘Well, like TJ was saying,
she talks to Iz about some things, Lucy about others and you about others.’

‘Yeah,’ said TJ. ‘Like
I go to Iz for advice and I come to you for a laugh.’

I had to think about
that. Was that a compliment or an insult?

‘Are you saying you
don’t think I can give advice?’

‘No… yes,’ said TJ
looking flustered. ‘I was trying to say something nice about you. Not many
people are as much fun as you. Oh, I don’t know. I think you’re being over
sensitive today, Nesta.’

‘Yes, don’t be a drama
queen,’ said Izzie.

I’m not even going to
reply to that, I thought.
Drama queen!
Moi
?
As
if
.

‘All I was saying,’
continued Izzie, ‘was that we’re probably totally different with different boys
too. With some, you don’t feel yourself at all and have nothing to say, with
others, you can’t stop talking. People bring out different sides of you. Maybe
you’ve never brought out what you call the nerdy side of a boy, because you’ve
never talked about anything to bring it out.’

‘So you
are
saying I’m shallow and I bring out the shallow part of people, boys included.
And
I can’t give advice.
And
I’m a drama queen.’

‘No,’ said Izzie. ‘Oh,
I don’t know. Just maybe, next time you like a boy, try talking about a book
you’ve read or ask him what he feels about the purpose of life or something.’

Huh, I thought, not
exactly a fun chat-up line in my estimation. I was feeling peeved by what the
girls had said. I don’t want to be thought of as an airhead-type drama queen
bimbo. I’m not. I do well at school. I
do
think about things. Like,
what to wear, how to do my hair, which is my favourite boy band and so on. But
maybe I should talk about ‘deep’ stuff. Books. Um. Maybe I’d better read one -
a grown-up one, that is. I used to read a lot when I was younger, but I went
off it. I don’t know why. I’ll start again when I get home, I decided. I’ll
pick a really intellectual, impressive-type book and that will show them, when
I start quoting bits off by heart. Then I’ll find a boy and knock his socks off
with my brainy brain-type brain as well as my looks. I shall show them all that
airhead, I am not.

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When I got home later that
afternoon, I intended to go straight to the dictionary and look up pragmatic
then go and find myself a ‘deep’ book from the shelves in our sitting room.
However, as soon as I’d stepped into the hall of our flat, I heard raised
voices coming from the kitchen. Oops, war zone, I thought as I went in to see
what it was all about.

‘But Dad,’ Tony was
saying, ‘everyone in our year is taking their test and Mark Janson has even got
his own car.’

Dad looked
tight-lipped. ‘I said no, and that’s final. We’ll talk about it again when
you’re nineteen.’

Ah, I thought, I know
what this is about. It’s Tony’s birthday tomorrow. September 22nd. He’ll be
eighteen and he wants to do a course of driving lessons in the hope of getting
a car when he passes his A-levels. He did ask if he could learn to drive last
year when he was seventeen and I remember that there were fireworks then. It’s
weird because Dad is usually pretty cool about most things, but when it comes
to talking about driving, he clamps up and becomes totally unapproachable. Poor
Tony, he really thought Dad would give in this year and had even saved all his
cash Christmas presents to go towards lessons.

I decided to step in
and help.

‘Don’t be a meanie,
Dad. It is his eighteenth birthday, that’s a really special one.’ Well that
clearly didn’t help, I thought as Dad’s expression turned from frosty to ice.
However, I don’t believe in giving up easily. ‘Loads of people Tony’s age
drive, Dad. And Tony would be very careful, wouldn’t you?’