Geekhood (19 page)

“Fair enough,” Matt decides and moves to sit in one of the other chairs. If his tray touches the table, he’ll have staked his claim and the deal’s done.

“So’s that one,” I gabble. “They all are.”

There’s another freeze-frame as this information burrows its way into their brains. This is like a stand-off in those old westerns, but instead of hands hovering over guns, I’ve got trays and butts hovering over tables and chairs. The only movement between us is from our eyes as they flick between one another, trying to see who’s going to give first.

It’s Matt. But he doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t have to. He just flicks me a look that says it all. Then he walks deliberately away, followed by the others.

PS:
They are not enlightened! They do not understand!

Safe in my solitude, I quickly rearrange the chairs, putting the one I hope Sarah will sit in just a tad closer to mine than maybe it should be. She arrives within seconds of me sitting down.

“Aren’t your friends going to come over?” she asks, taking a seat opposite.

“No. They’re working on a project together. I’ll catch them later.” This positive energy is certainly improving my ability to lie.

“Oh, that’s a shame. Matt’s really funny.”

Note to self: maybe I need to patch things up with Matt.

PS:
Stay true! Be firm!

“Yeah, he is funny. Where’s Caitlyn? I thought you
were waiting for her?”

“No, I’m meeting her later.”

“Oh. Who were you waiting for, then?”

“Chris.”

I tense slightly.

“Oh, yeah?” I manage, with as much psychic positivity as I can muster. “Chris who?”

“Oh, I don’t know his surname. He’s a new friend; we got talking in Chemistry. He’s over by the till now.”

I look and wish I hadn’t. Chris is none other than Chris Jackson, the tall, blue-eyed athletic type whose name alone inspires giggling and flustered flapping in girls throughout the school. He pays for his salad and charms his way through the rabble to our table. And sits across from me. Next to Sarah. Right next to her. Where I should be sitting.

“All right?” His perfect chin glitters with shards of real live, genuine stubble.

No. I’m not all right. Right now I’d like to trade my pink handkerchief for a phaser. Or a beard.

The next forty-five minutes are spent with me trying to choke down my Spicy Beef and Rice – made all the more difficult on discovering that Sarah is a vegetarian; every meaty mouthful feels like betrayal. Chris, meanwhile, crunches through his salad with all the affability of a masticating cow, his stubble glistening in
the convenient spotlight created by the sun shining through a neighbouring window.

I think I hate him.

PS:
Positivity is the key!

The trouble is, no matter how many rictus-grins I beam across the table and no matter how many witty or edgy comments I throw into the arena, Chris just seems to command the conversation. Sarah is entranced by him and is more tactile than I think she needs to be: every one of Chris’s rib-tickling funnies is met with a playful touch to the arm or a coquettish flick of the hair. I’m really trying not to notice, but each occasion her hand goes near him, it’s as if time slows down and there’s a zoom lens in my eyes that follows every movement in heart-tugging detail.

To cap it off, Chris is manfully ignoring the bandage on his right hand. Sarah’s attention is piqued and it’s all I can do to stop myself throwing up when it’s revealed as a “rugby injury”. When she asks to see his other hand, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to retain a modicum of self-control. I throw a wayward glance across the tables; Matt’s watching me with a dark look on his face.

“Now
that’s
interesting,” Sarah purrs, tracing a delicate finger across Chris’s palm. My own palms itch jealously.

“What?” Chris leans back in his chair, obviously entirely at ease with female contact. The git.

“Well, this is your love line…” Sarah feathers a line on his hand, “…and it looks like you’ve got a secret ad
mir
er…” She draws out the middle syllable in a teasing, sexy drawl, precisely at the moment that I can hear my heart shatter.

“Yes,” she continues, lowering her head to get a closer look at his weathered hand. “Someone close to you … a friend…”

The chair beneath me seems to have disappeared and I can feel myself falling into the deep, dark hole that could only have been made by the Demons of Despair.

“Oh, yes?” Chris replies, with a Hollywood arch of one of his incredibly dashing eyebrows. “Who?”

“Well!” Sarah counters, unaware of the small crowd that seems to be gathering to watch, “I couldn’t possibly say. All I know is that the person may be closer than you think!”

The urge to put my face into my Spicy Beef and try and die there is overwhelming.

“OK,” Chris grins. “I’d better keep a lookout! Thanks for the tip. See you later.” And then, taking his tray, he sweeps majestically out of the room. I look at where his tray was; not so much as a crumb on the table.

Some of the crowd are asking Sarah if she’ll
read their palms and, within seconds, she’s drummed up a queue.

“Well, I’d better get going,” I announce, dragging my pointless form out of the chair.

“OK,” Sarah beams, as her first customer settles into Chris’s place. “See you after school?”

In a parallel Universe, another Archie is telling her to get stuffed and emptying Spicy Beef all over her head. In this one, he agrees, pathetically grateful for the chance to be near her just one more time.

SEVENTEEN

The afternoon doesn’t pass so easily. I just can’t seem to soak up Precipitation in the North-East; my mind is too busy playing and replaying the trailer for a new film:
The Courtship of Chris and Sarah
.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. With people like Chris in the world, did I really think I stood a chance? He’s even got those little muscles in the corner of his jaws that flex like little walnuts as he speaks. A lifetime in the gym couldn’t give me those.

My PS remains silent, no doubt swamped by the wave of self-loathing that crashes through my head. Even my doubt-riddled IM doesn’t bother to reclaim its territory; my mind is devoid of anything except depressing reruns of
Sarah and Chris’s Most Intimate Lunchtime Moments
.

The end-of-school bell sounds, but I remain seated, staring into space, serenaded by the squeak and scrape of chairs as they are pushed back under desks. Even Beggsy leaves without saying anything. But I barely notice that the room is empty until Mr Cook pipes up.

“Everything all right, Archie? Haven’t you got a home to go to?”

I have. But I don’t want to go back there. All that waits for me at home is the news that my mum will have allied herself with a Tosser and I will no longer belong to any family in particular. Even the thought of walking back with Sarah has lost its appeal. For a split second, I consider unburdening myself and telling Mr Cook everything that’s going on in my life. He’s my form tutor as well as my Geography teacher and he’s always letting us know that we can talk to him if we can’t talk to anyone else about stuff. But I already did that with Sarah and look where it got me: no friends, no girlfriend, an appointment with Certain Death at the hands of Jason Humphries, and a pink handkerchief in my top pocket. It’s not good.

“Sorry, sir. Daydreaming, I guess.”

“Well, as long as everything’s OK…?”

There’s the Gift Horse again, and I give it a full oral examination, coward that I am.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” The words tumble out of my mouth a little too fast and I get my stuff together as quickly as I can. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you, then.”

The corridors are emptying of students, much like a bath draining of water. My misery is so profound that my Grunt Detector
^TM
fails to spot two Neanderthal figures lurking by the school gates and before I know what’s
what, Paul Green and Lewis Mills have got me by the arms and have dragged me down the little alley behind the History loft. Jason Humphries appears, swathed in smoke, like some creature of the Netherworld. Where my fist connected with his nose, there are now two bruises ringing his eyes, upping his Fear Factor into six figures.

“Bet you think you’re something special, don’t you?” he hisses out of the side of his mouth that doesn’t have a cigarette dangling from it. “Think you’re hard.”

Strangely, I’m too miserable to be frightened; I’ve got too much else on my plate at the moment. Instead of the familiar scream of adrenalin, there’s only the tired sigh of resignation.

“Not really. No.”

“What?” The tendons in his rippling face work together to create an ugly mask of confusion. “Are you taking the piss, Geekboy? From what I’ve heard, everyone thinks you gave me a kicking.”

“No, I’m not taking the piss,” I reply dejectedly. “I got lucky. I’m no fighter. I’m not anything.”

For some reason, this admission unsettles him even more and he cocks his head, either trying to size me up or let a stray thought roll out of one ear.

“Think squealing to Mrs Holly’s going to help, do you? Gonna get your mummy to ring her up again?”

But I’m beyond being goaded and just about manage a feeble shrug.

Finally, Jason reaches some Olympian decision in his head.

“Pathetic!” he spits. “Hold him.”

With that, Mills and Green pull my jacket down over my arms as Humphries primes one of his fists for action. I always thought left-handers were supposed to be the artistic sort.

I wait for the inevitable.

“What’s that?”

I open my eyes and follow Humphries’s battered gaze to my chest.

“My hanky.”

“What? What you wearing that for?” Without waiting for my answer, Humphries pulls it out of my top pocket and it opens, flower-like, in all its pink, frilly glory.

“A pink hanky? Are you gay?” he sneers, a nasty laugh forming on his lips as he shoves it under my nose. “What’s this for? Mopping up the blood after I’ve done with you?” I dimly recall Matt saying something similar; perhaps he’s got psychic powers.

“It’s for calming criminals,” I reply without any thought or irony. But right now, it’s hardly the lump of kryptonite I was hoping for.

“What?” This information causes some sort of
systems overload in my attacker and he starts to laugh, waving my hanky around like some sort of Satanic morris dancer. Green and Mills start laughing too and soon the air is thick with murderous mirth.

“Oi! What’re you boys up to?” Mr Cook’s voice cuts through the braying. Humphries stops stone dead and rubs the hanky in my face.

“You’ll keep!” he hisses and the trio of bullies scatters.

“Archie? What’s going on?” Mr Cook appears in the alley.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Well get home, then!”

“Sir.”

Pocketing my handkerchief and shakily shrugging my jacket on, I leave the school premises, slightly unsure as to what’s just happened. I think I’ve just been saved by a pink hanky.

“I wondered where you’d got to.” Sarah is waiting for me on the pavement. “I thought you’d stood me up!”

The irony isn’t lost on me and, despite feeling grateful about my narrow escape, the Fog of Unrequited Love falls on me once again. It’s going to be a long walk home.

Every step I take feels inadequate. My chin is as naked as a baby’s backside and I am a Geek. And each
word Sarah speaks hardens to form a knife that strikes straight at my heart. Not even her reassurances that Humphries will probably leave me alone offer me any comfort.

“What’s up, Archie? You’re a bit quiet. And you were very quiet at lunch. Everything OK? You’re not embarrassed by what you told me at the weekend, are you?”

What do I say? That thanks to her thinly disguised flirting with Chris Jackson, my life has no meaning? Instead, I offer up a rough approximation of my concerns about Tony’s proposal to Mum. It’s a futile, last-ditch sympathy card, but I play it anyway.

“I don’t think you need to worry too much about it, Archie. It’s only a piece of paper. It doesn’t really change anything.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I lie. “It just feels a bit weird.”

“It’s only as big a problem as you choose to make it, Archie. Everything’ll turn out for the best.”

“I s’pose.”

“Hey – did you like my trick with Chris at lunchtime?”

She’s obviously completely unaware of how I feel. But who am I to stand in the way of True Love? No one, that’s who.

“Yeah… You had me fooled!”

“Sorry it had to be over lunch, but I didn’t think I was going to get another opportunity.”

I know how she feels.

“Yeah. So, it was a trick? You can’t read palms?”

“Oh, I can a bit, but I just told him what he needed to hear.”

Her self-confidence is chilling. This is more what I’d have expected from the White Witch of Narnia; perhaps she’s watched that film a bit too often.

“OK…” I dread the answer as the words leave my lips. “So, what happens next?”

“That’s up to him and Caitlyn, I guess.”

“Caitlyn?” I’ve never seen a guppy, but I think I might look like one now.

“Yeah. She’s fancied him for ages. I couldn’t tell you, but that’s why she wasn’t there at lunch.”

“What – you were…”

“…pointing him in the right direction, yeah. They both like each other, but neither of them’s had the nerve to do anything about it.”

Within the blink of an eye, the world is suddenly a brighter place. My positively-charged batteries fire up and my PS has enough power to start up again.

PS:
The power of positivity cannot be denied!

I think my denial days are over. For fear of opening
my mouth and saying the wrong thing, I change the subject and tell Sarah about the protective powers of my pink handkerchief. Pearls of laughter rain down on me, soothing my troubled soul.

“I’m not sure I buy into all that colour stuff,” she giggles. “Not to the point where I’d trust my life to a pink hanky.”

“Yeah,” I laugh in agreement, comfortable in my role as court jester and happy to betray my beliefs at the drop of a hat.

PS:
She is the source of positive energy! See how much better you feel in her company!

Once the giggling subsides, the conversation turns to psychic stuff and I find myself telling Sarah just how different I’m feeling; like I’m coming out of my shell and discovering the real me.

“Well, I think the thing is not to rush it, Archie. It’s powerful stuff and you need to give each phase the weight it deserves.”

“How d’you mean?”

“Everything you’re discovering is new; you’re in a transitional stage, like a butterfly coming out of its chrysalis.”

“One step at a time, sort of thing?”

“Definitely. The way we think and feel is down to years of learned behaviour. You can’t just unlearn
it overnight. It’s not a competition; you should just go at the speed that’s right for you.”

Eventually, the time comes for her to peel off and I’m left with a feeling like sunshine in my stomach as I walk the remainder of the journey home. I’m still in with a chance; all I’ve got to do is try and plug into her mindset and the rest will follow. But even the sun has to set: the feeling lasts until I see my house at the end of the street and I stand for a while, just looking at it.

I don’t want to go in.

I don’t want Mum and Tony to be engaged.

But I live there.

With a deep breath and a sinking heart, I head inside.

I walk through the front door and straight into Tony descending the stairs – no doubt from another sortie to the toilet. The newspaper under his arm kind of gives the game away.

“All right, Arch?” He’s either playing his cards close to his chest or suffering from some strain-induced form of amnesia.

“Yeah… How’d it go?”

“What?”

“You know … the ring thing…”

From a normal human being you’d either expect a few “hoorays” to be thrown about or a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. Tony gives me nothing to work with but a few chuckles and the instruction to “Go and ask your mother”. This must be what it feels like to be on Death Row.

I follow the sound of the radio to the kitchen, to find Mum on her hands and knees with her head in a cupboard. Despite the burden on my shoulders, this sight makes me smile – especially when she swears to the clatter of pans. Mum has a special way of swearing: it’s not offensive, probably because her favourite curse sounds like it was made up by a Victorian spinster.

“Buggeration!” Clatter, clatter.

“OK down there?”

Mum extracts her head from the cupboard and hauls herself to her feet.

“God, I’m getting old!” she half mutters. “Hello, love – how was your day? Cup of tea?” She can rattle off questions faster than a Gatling gun.

“Good, thanks. Yes, please.”

“How did your hanky go down?”

“Yeah, it was good. What about you?”

“Oh, you know, the usual.”

The usual? Have I missed something? Are marriage proposals a part of my mother’s everyday life? I’m starting
to wonder whether I’ve imagined the whole thing, or whether some rogue brain surgeon has been hard at work on Mum while I was at school, when she suddenly remembers the vital part of her day.

“Oh, yes! Tony asked me to marry him today.” It’s casual and non-committal enough to stretch me on the rack just a little bit further.

“And…?” Trying to keep the frustration out of my voice puts a strain on my psychic reserves.

“I said no.”

Anticipation of an entirely different answer makes my eyes widen; it’s like tensing yourself for a blow that never comes. Perhaps there’s more to this pink hanky malarkey than Sarah gives it credit for.