Boys for Beginners (23 page)

When I'm playing on Xbox
My fave's
Gears of War
I promise to listen
And talk to you more
.

Goalies wear green
Refs wear black
I'll love you for ever
Will you please take me back?

‘I wrote it myself.'

Someone calls out from the audience. ‘No, really?'

More laughter.

Oh no, Paul's got more to say. Why won't he stop talking? ‘I'm sorry if I've been a rubbish boyfriend and not put you first and paid you enough attention and stuff, but if you take me back I promise to be a better boyfriend and love you more and do nothing but call you and text you and take you out to Nando's whenever I have enough money.' Paul seems to be feeling a little more confident now that he's nearing the end of his speech. ‘I've asked the DJ to play our song.' He signals to the DJ. I think he's expecting him to bring in the tune in a seamless way, but he doesn't. He sort of fiddles around a bit with some buttons and stuff. This is going about as smoothly as chunky peanut butter. Everyone is properly laughing at Paul now. I have just realized that Jenny might have thought she wanted this, but in reality Paul looks like a muppet, and nobody wants to go out with a muppet. Eventually
Breaking Free
from High School Musical starts ringing through the air. Paul gets to the edge of the stage and finishes up with, ‘Jenny, will you go out with me again and dance with me to our song?'

He drops the mic, jumps off the stage and walks towards her. Everyone is still looking. It's
like something out of a film. Or it would be except Jenny's face is flaming and clashing with her pink dress. Hopefully she'll be embarrassed but also realize that Paul is a nice guy and is doing this to impress her. Even if it's not that impressive.

I have to see what happens, but I can't get near enough as everyone is crowding round, also wanting to see.

I am about twelve people back and I get a glimpse of Paul approaching Jenny and trying to scoop her up in his arms like I told him to. Trouble is, he's not quite strong enough. He sort of grabs her leg and lifts her a millimetre off the floor. But he sticks to his script. ‘We're soaring, Jenny, we're flying.' Oh no, he's incorporated lines from the song! ‘You are the only woman in the world for me. Will you be my girl?'

All eyes are on Jenny. Including mine.

‘No.' She can't quite look at him. ‘Sorry, Paul, but I can't.'

This is terrible news. Paul looks crushed. He drops Jenny the millimetre back down again. He looks worse than when he spent a total of fifty-eight hours getting to the last level of
Tour of Duty
and then the computer crashed and he
couldn't save it. He can't quite believe it, not after he's gone to all this effort. ‘Why?' His voice cracks.

‘Um. I've found someone else.'

Everyone goes ‘Oooooooh,' in a mean sort of way because they know that's got to hurt.

Who's Jenny found? How come I don't know about this? Is it that Year 11 bloke she says is always looking at her? Maybe she's lying to make Paul feel better that she's turning him down. Looking at him, I don't think it's worked.

Paul legs it off somewhere. Everyone is too shocked to even laugh at him. People are going to be talking about this for years. Poor Paul.

Jenny stands there for a bit, looking upset too. She goes off the other way. I'd better follow her; she probably needs to talk to me. I am her best friend after all.

I dodge my way through the crowd trying to find her. She is quite easy to follow because I just have to look in the direction everyone's heads have turned. But I'm at the back of the hall now and I can't see her anywhere. Hang on a minute— is that her in the corner? Is that her kissing some bloke? I guess it wasn't a lie then, she's got a new
boyfriend already. Who is it? The two faces pull apart.

Oh my God.

Jenny is kissing Charlie Notts.

Why am I so completely stupid?

I'm watching my so-called best friend kiss the boy that I have been in love with since the moment I saw him. The boy I was just in the middle of asking to be my boyfriend. I can't believe that I didn't see what a bitch Jenny Gregson was all this time, and that Charlie was just using me to get to her.

I stomp over to them with my hands on my hips, all buzzing with indignity (if that's the right word). I don't know who to shout at first. ‘Hello, you two.'

They manage to stop snogging each other and look at me. They've been caught out.

‘What the hell is this?' I shout.

‘I thought you weren't coming,' says Charlie, looking guilty.

‘Is that why you decided to cheat on me with my best friend?' I ask him.

‘Gwynnie! You're here!' Jenny goes from pale to red to pale again.

‘Yes, I am,' I say. ‘And so are you. Having a great time. With
my
bloke.'

She says nothing.

‘How could you?'

‘Um.' Her eyes are darting around all over the place. ‘It's not as if you and him were going steady.'

‘I wasn't talking to you, Jenny. And I wish that you wouldn't speak like that – you're not an American and you don't sound like one.'

There's another ‘Ooooooh,' from behind me, and I realize that the whole school is watching. I don't care. Let them watch.

Charlie looks at me and I can see that he's only just taken in my hair and dress. ‘Gwynnie, I didn't get the chance to say before, but you look great.'

That kind of floors me for a second because it's so unexpected. It also reminds me how much I like him: absolutely loads. This really hurts. ‘How could you do this to me?' I gulp.

‘I'm so sorry, Gwynnie. But—' Charlie says.

‘I wasn't talking to you, Charlie,' I say. ‘I was talking to my
best mate
over here.'

Jenny can't speak. She's just looking at the floor.

Charlie, ever the gentleman, fills in for her. ‘But, Gwynnie, she's got a point: you and me weren't going out or anything.'

The annoying thing is, he's right. They both are. I say, ‘But you asked me to prom,' in this little pathetic voice, knowing it's futile.

‘And I wanted to go with you,' he looks really genuine. So what happened? ‘. . . as a friend.'

Yuck.
Friend
. The most offensive f-word in the English language.

‘You've been so great to me since I came to this school; you talked to me when no one else would. You have been getting more and more bizarre, but I really like hanging out with you, playing football and computer and stuff . . . But I've always had a thing for Jenny—'

Jenny has the decency to stifle her smile.

‘How could you prefer Jenny to me?' The pathetic voice is back again. ‘She's such a . . . a . . .' I know that everyone is listening and I don't know if I should say what I want to say.

‘Such a what?' asks Jenny with a deep frown.

But Charlie answers before I can tell her. ‘I
don't know, Gwynnie, sometimes it seems like you're acting like someone who's not you. Like you're pretending. Jenny's real, and you're, I dunno, a little . . . er . . .' He winces.

‘What?' I ask. ‘
Fake?!
'

‘Um . . .' He can't think of a less offensive way of saying it.

‘Jenny's real, all right.' A voice comes from behind me. It's Elizabeth and she's storming over looking furious. ‘A real bitch!'

This time it's a gasp from the audience. No one's ever heard Elizabeth speak like this!

Jenny looks hurt and tries to defend herself. ‘I can't help it if I am what you two have to pretend to be. I can't help it if you have to fake it.'

‘Jenny, what—' I say, but apparently Elizabeth hasn't finished.

‘
Gwynnie
fakes it? What about you? You pretended to like Paul when all the time you liked Charlie, snogging Paul's face off to make Charlie jealous. You pretended to be Gwynnie's friend so that you could get close to all the blokes that were her friends. And as soon as you realized there was a chance Charlie might like her, you tried to ruin it.' The crowd behind us
is back on my side and starts jeering in support. Even Charlie has to admit that that doesn't make Jenny look too nice.

‘
And
you do this completely fake American slang when you were only there for a couple of weeks!'

Jenny is so shocked she can't speak.

I'm shocked too but I stand next to Elizabeth and back her up. ‘Actually,' I say, ‘I just found out that you spent your holidays in Bognor Regis with your nan and a crazy aunt named Maxwell.' Howls of laughter erupt from behind me. ‘So unless they speak some weird transatlantic dialect in Bognor, you're faking that too.'

Jenny's gone bright red. Charlie can't look at her.

‘Come on, Elizabeth!' I say.

Elizabeth and I walk out of the hall, pretending to be calm, but as soon as we're outside the door we start to run. We leg it down the corridor to room 36. It's all dark, but we don't turn the lights on. We can't speak as we both go through in our heads what we've just done.

‘Are you OK?' she asks me.

‘I don't know. I feel like I've just had forty cans of Red Bull. My mind won't stop moving.' I look at her and can just make out the whites of her eyes. ‘Elizabeth, you were amazing!'

‘Well,' she says, ‘I felt really bad for you, and I thought it was time that Jenny was made to feel as bad as she makes me feel sometimes. She's never been very nice to me.'

‘Yeah, well, you were really brave out there.'

We flick our heads round as we hear someone at the door. I assume it's a teacher telling us to get out of the classroom. But it's not. When the person steps closer I can see that it's Jenny. I should have smelled her coming by the Britney perfume mixed with the scent of shame.

She pushes the door open wider. ‘Gwynnie, are you in here? I have to speak to you. Can I come in?'

‘Free country,' I reply with a shrug.

Elizabeth looks at me and gives my hand a squeeze. Then she leaves the room and leaves us to it.

‘Gee,' says Jenny, with tears in her eyes, ‘Charlie and I have liked each other for ages.'

None of this makes any sense. ‘Then why were you helping me to get him?'

‘I was doing it for you.' She approaches me slowly, with her hands out as if I might think she has a grenade or something. ‘I've helped make you look better. As a member of the BB Club, and a friend, I wanted to teach you how to make the best of yourself.'

‘Well, thanks very much!' I wish
I
had a grenade. But I still have so many questions, which she won't be able to answer if she is blown into a thousand pieces.

‘The thing is, Gwynnie –' she pulls the ridiculous fascinator from her head and starts playing with the feathers – ‘I was teaching you all this stuff, but actually I wanted to learn from you. You've always been so cool and relaxed around boys. You can go up and talk to them without fear. They all like you and talk to you and you make it so easy for them. If I could get just a bit of that then I would be happy.'

Huh?

‘I really liked Charlie from the beginning, and when I thought he was falling for you I got so jealous.' She stops, and stops fiddling with the fascinator. ‘I'm sorry, Gee. I've been such a bitch.'

She's right. But I don't even want to agree with her on that. ‘Why did you carry on with Paul if you liked Charlie?'

‘Paul's OK and everything, but he's only a Year 9. I was waiting for Charlie to make a move, but it turns out that he wouldn't do anything while I was still with Paul. As soon as I knew that Charlie wasn't going with you to prom, I phoned Charlie, told him I'd broken up with Paul and he asked me.'

‘Did you tell him you'd broken up with Paul before or after you broke up with Paul?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘Yes.'

She says nothing and looks at the floor. Charlie has been manipulated by Jenny like a football by a ball-hogging showoff. And he should have known better than to fall for it.

Hang on a minute. Will someone please tell me why I am so completely stupid? I have been wasting my time with Jenny and Charlie when there is someone else that is so much nicer than both of them put together.

‘I'm really sorry, Gwynnie. I really do want you to be my friend,' she says.

‘Do you know what, Jenny? If you want
Charlie so much, you can have him. I'll get over it.'

She looks hopeful.

‘I don't think it's me you should be apologizing to. Right now I've got a genuine friend that I've been rubbish to recently. You haven't been that nice to him either.'

Jenny bites her lip.

‘But before that, you should speak to Elizabeth. Tell her you're going to stop treating her like a doormat and start being kind to her from now on.'

Jenny nods.

‘And mean it.'

She nods again. I walk out of the room, leaving Jenny alone in the dark. Walking down the corridor I get my phone and text Paul:

Where r u?

After five minutes with no reply I go out to the playground, where I'm pretty sure he'll be. There's a slight chill in the air, and the school buildings look really weird when it's all dark. I call his phone and hear
Blue Is the Colour
– Chelsea's anthem, Paul's ringtone – ringing out everywhere.

I round the corner of the science block and
he's there, looking like the saddest thing that's ever kicked a football. When he sees me come over he stops. I think he's been crying.

‘You all right?' I ask.

‘I'm OK,' he says, but he's clearly not.

I sigh. ‘So. My idea about serenading Jenny didn't go as planned then?'

Even Paul has to smile at this. ‘Not quite.'