Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 07]

CONTENTS

Chapter
1

Chapter
2

Chapter
3

Chapter
4

Chapter
5

Chapter
6

Chapter
7

Chapter
8

Chapter
9

Chapter
10

Chapter
11

Chapter
12

Chapter
13

Chapter
14

Chapter
15

Chapter 16

Thanks as always to Brenda Gardner, Yasemin Uçar and the ever fab
team at Piccadilly Press. To
Rosemary Bromley at Juvenelia. To Steve
Lovering for all his help and
support. To Peter Ziderman for his input
about dentists and braces.
And to Georgina Acar, Scott and Jack
Brenman, Alice Elwes, Rachel
Hopkins and Olivia McDonnell
for answering all my questions about what
it’s like
being a teenager these days.

Contents
-
Next

‘Pah,’ I said. ‘I
wouldn’t go out with Adrian Cook if he was dipped in gold and covered in
fivers.’

Izzie gave me a
disapproving look. ‘
Nesta
. Covered in fivers? You mean, if he was
loaded. So what? I don’t think how rich or poor a boy is should make the
slightest bit of difference. It’s who he is, if he’s interesting, good company
that counts.‘

I pulled a silly face
back at her. She can be a real priss queen sometimes. ‘Yeah, but he has to be
reasonably
cute,’ I said.

‘So what if he’s
cute,’ asked Izzie, ‘if he’s boring to be with? Just good looks don’t count for
much after a few dates. You always judge by externals.’

‘Do not.’

‘Do.’

‘Not.’

The four of us were
sitting in a line on the edge of the bathtub in the bathroom at Lucy’s house.
TJ, Izzie, Lucy and me. We were covered in some homemade facial gloop that Lucy
and Izzie had concocted in the kitchen and were discussing the local boy talent
in North London. Pretty short on the ground in my opinion. And I
don’t
only judge by externals, I thought. Of course I care what a boy’s like inside.

‘Beauty is only skin
deep,’ said TJ, peering at herself in the mirror opposite.

‘Yeah, but not today,’
I replied, looking at our reflections. ‘We look like ghastly ghouls. What is in
this stuff, Lucy? It feels very sticky. Are you sure you were meant to put so
much honey in it?’

Lucy reached for her
natural beauty book, which was on the windowsill. ‘I think so,’ she said.
‘Yeah, egg yolk, yeast and honey.’

‘Sounds disgusting,’ I
said. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me.’

It was Sunday and
sometimes there’s not a lot to do on a Sunday, especially if it’s raining like
it was today. Lucy suggested we have an afternoon of beauty treatments round at
her house and as none of us were that well off in the pocket money department,
she decided to make DIY face masks. Think I’ll stick to nicking Mum’s posh ones
when she’s out from now on,

I thought. Egg on my
face? Never a good idea at the best of times.

‘Well, if it doesn’t
work, no problem, you can always eat it,’ said Lucy, sticking her tongue out
and licking her top lip.

‘I wouldn’t if I were
you,’ said Izzie. ‘Raw egg can give you that salmonella disease.’

‘That’s quite rare,’
said TJ. ‘And I think the egg has to be off.’

TJ’s our resident
medical adviser on account of the fact that both her parents are doctors and
some of their medical knowledge rubs off on her.

Lucy quickly put her
tongue back in her mouth. ‘Yuck,’ she said.

Izzie took her
trainers off, put a towel in the bath, then got in and lay down with her feet
resting up on the taps. ‘Honestly, the things we girls have to do to look
beautiful,’ she said. ‘I bet boys never do anything like this.’

‘Don’t you believe
it,’ said Lucy. ‘Steve and Lai are always slapping moisturiser all over them.
And they take an age in the bathroom getting ready. Boys can be just as vain as
girls.’

‘At least we don’t
have to shave,’ said TJ.

‘Well, not our faces,’
I said. ‘But we do our legs and under our arms. Waxing is better than shaving
though, it lasts longer.’

‘My gran does her
chin,’ TJ added, laughing. ‘She said it’s one of the awful things about getting
old. Hair starts sprouting everywhere, from your ears, your nose, your chin.’

‘Oo, sexy,’ I said. I
took a close look at my nostrils in the mirror. ‘I hope that never happens to
me.’

After we’d rinsed off
our face masks, we resumed our discussion in Lucy’s bedroom about the local
boys. What Izzie had said about me judging by externals had irked me. I wasn’t
so superficial as to only go out with boys because of what they looked like or
if they had money or something. My last long-term boyfriend had been very rich,
but that wasn’t the reason I went out with him. I liked him for who he was.
That is until he dumped me because he was going to university in Scotland and
wanted to be free to date any new girl that he fancied up there. Maybe the
girls think I only dated him because he was loaded. I decided to find out what
they really thought about me, but planned to ask them in a really subtle way.

‘So Izzie, about what
you said before. Were you saying that you think I’m shallow?’ Oops, I thought.
I knew before I’d finished the question that it hadn’t come out the way I
intended. Subtlety was never my best trait.

Izzie laughed. ‘No Nesta,
not shallow, but image is very important to you.’

‘Like it isn’t to
you?’ I asked. I looked at my three friends all busy painting each others
toenails. Lucy’s petite and blonde,TJ and Iz are tall and dark and all three of
them are gorgeous in their own ways, but they all work at it, forever trying
new things and new looks in an attempt to improve on nature. I am
not
the only one. ‘And Iz, you did a whole makeover on yourself just before term
started in September.‘

‘I know. It’s
important to all of us,’ she said as she began to paint TJ’s toenails a purple
shade called Vampire. ‘All I was saying is that there is other stuff that’s
important as well. Like, what’s inside a person.’

‘I know that. TJ,
Lucy, do you think I’m shallow?’

‘I never said I thought
you were shallow,’ said Izzie. ‘You did.’

‘Yeah, but you think
it,’ I said, looking at TJ and Lucy.

Lucy looked
uncomfortable. She hates confrontation, but I had to know what my friends
really thought of me.

‘I wouldn’t use the
word shallow,’ she said after a few minutes, ‘but I know a certain sense of
style and looking good is important to you.’

‘TJ?’

‘Um. God.
I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You’ve
obviously got a good brain or else you wouldn’t do so well at school.’

‘Yeah, but am I
shallow?’

‘Depends what you mean
by shallow,’ blustered TJ. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t say you’re deep… but you’re not
shallow either.’

‘Who wants to be
deep,’ I said lowering my voice. ‘Bor-ring.’

‘I think Izzie’s
deep,’ said Lucy, ‘and she’s far from boring. She’s always thinking about
things and asking questions about stuff like why we’re here and what it’s all
about. You’re not boring, Izzie.’

Oh, here we go. Now
I’ve managed to insult one of my best friends. Me and my big mouth, I thought.
I didn’t mean to say that Izzie was boring. I’d better try and say something to
make it clear what I really meant.

‘Yeah and where does
that get you, Izzie?’ I asked. ‘Who knows the answers to questions like that?
You could drive yourself mad asking about life, the universe and everything.
Perhaps that’s why you are a bit mad. I reckon, we’re here, you get on with it.
End of story.’

Oops, I thought as
Izzie’s face fell. I don’t think that helped. Maybe I should shut up for a
while.

‘That’s it,’ said TJ.
‘Pragmatic. That’s what you are, Nesta.’

Bugger, I thought. I
don’t know what pragmatic means. But no way am I going to let on or else they
really will think that I’m shallow. Whatever it meant, I felt I was being got
at. Huh.

‘Right, pragmatic, I
guess that’s OK.’

‘Yeah,’ continued TJ,
‘you just get on with life without questioning it too much. You like to have
fun, do girlie things, enjoy life, you’re not a complicated person and you’re
not that bothered about educating your mind or anything.’

‘I am too. I read. I
keep up with what’s happening.’

TJ and Izzie burst out
laughing. ‘OK, what have you read lately?’ asked TJ.

‘
Just 17. Bliss.
OK
! magazine.’

TJ and Izzie exchanged
glances.

‘What’s wrong with
that?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Izzie.
‘We all read the mags and they’re great. But when did you last read a book?’

‘All the time. We read
books every day at school. There’s a time and a place for everything. And
school is the place for books. Out of school is the place for fun.’