Girls to Total Goddesses (16 page)

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30

‘So,’ I told Chloe next day as I munched my tuna salad at lunchtime, ‘I’ve cleared out my wardrobe and I’ve got loads of stuff for sale on eBay. Plus I’ve called in a couple of debts. I’ll soon have that dress paid for and on my back.’

‘My dad gave me some money for mine,’ said Chloe, looking a bit guilty.

‘Wow! Lucky!’

‘I will clear out my wardrobe soon, though,’ said Chloe thoughtfully, carving up her baked potato. ‘I do need to get rid of stuff.’

‘No you don’t, if you don’t want to,’ I told her. I was still full of that weird energy I had acquired whilst delivering leaflets with Matthew.

‘But when you looked through my wardrobe, you said I should chuck out . . .’ Chloe’s voice trailed away and she gave me a puzzled stare.

‘You don’t have to get rid of anything if you don’t want to, babe!’ I assured her. ‘The Hammy T-shirt, the tortoises . . . keep the lot. You’ll have a little girl one day and it can be her heritage collection.’ Chloe looked relieved.

‘I think I will keep them, actually,’ she said. ‘There’s no harm in it. We don’t have to do things because . . . well, just because we decided to.’

‘We can change our minds!’ I beamed at her. It wasn’t rocket science. But it felt like some kind of revelation. I was feeling better about things now. The only blot on the horizon was having to babysit for the Norman twins. I’d agreed to it in a weird heroic mood, but I kept being haunted by memories of the previous humiliations those horrid little boys had imposed on me.

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Later I met Jess and Fred in the science quad. They were arguing about a packet of crisps.

‘Hi, guys!’ I called. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Oh, hopeless,’ said Jess. ‘We keep changing our minds about the sketch for Jailhouse Rock. Fred’s always coming up with these new ideas.’

‘Sorry.’ Fred hung his head in mock shame. ‘Apologies for my brilliance. I am on the waiting list for a partial lobotomy, but till then – you’ll just have to put up with my genius.’

‘And we haven’t had a chance to practise in front of anybody,’ grumbled Jess, scrunching up the crisp packet. ‘We don’t want to perform in front of our friends because we know they won’t be objective, they’ll just kind of go, “
Darlings, you were wonderful
.” But we won’t get any really helpful feedback.’

‘Oh well,’ I shrugged. ‘Apart from that, life is OK? You haven’t been mugged or anything? No operations scheduled?’ They had a great career in front of them, and they had each other: I was so jealous of them. If Beast and I were together I’d be in five-star heaven and I’d never grumble about anything minor, ever. For a split second I felt a stab of agony at the thought that Beast’s arms might at this very moment be wrapped around Charlie. Jess peered at me.

‘Zoe, what’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Oh, nothing.’ Hastily I shook off my horrid hallucination. ‘It’s just – I’m dreading . . .’ I ransacked my memory banks for something to dread. ‘Babysitting!’ I exclaimed. ‘I have to babysit for these two little horrors. The Norman twins. They’re vile. Last time I went they trashed the house and I had a nervous breakdown.’

‘How old are they?’ asked Jess.

‘Err . . . three? Four? Not sure. Preschool.’

‘Preschool? But that’s tiny! We’ll give you a hand, Zoe. Won’t we, Fred?’ Fred looked wary and shrugged. ‘When is it?’ Jess went on.

‘Next Saturday,’ I told them.

‘We’ll be there!’ Jess assured me, squeezing my hand. ‘We’ll outnumber them! We’ll terrify them!’

‘And we’ll tell them that if they don’t behave, we’ll perform our sketch show to them,’ added Fred. Jess turned to him, an idea visibly dawning on her.

‘We could perform anyway!’ she said, suddenly grabbing him. ‘Why not? That animal stuff we were working on, for a children’s show!’

‘I was thinking more in terms of a whole playgroup,’ said Fred doubtfully. ‘Not an audience of two.’

‘It’ll be three with Zoe!’ Jess insisted. ‘And anyway, we can try stuff out without it being so scary as a whole class! We’re doing it, Parsons – complain at your peril!’ Fred pulled a henpecked sort of face. ‘If you don’t go along with it, we’re finished! I shall go back to Ben Jones!’ Jess was laughing as she delivered this threat, but you could see she was serious, although she’s never been out with Ben Jones. However, Fred seemed to understand that she wasn’t to be trifled with.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’re on. Our agent will be in touch about the fee.’

Jess and Fred agreed to make their show fragrant and child-friendly and went off discussing which animal sketch might be best.

‘In my next life,’ Fred was saying, ‘I’m going to be a parasite.’

‘You already are!’ Jess replied. ‘You owe me ten quid, remember?’

In my next life I was going to be a goddess. But my next life had started already. It was so weird: I’d wanted to become a goddess in order to sweep Beast off his feet, and the moment I realised he wasn’t available, I’d kind of become a goddess anyway.

As I walked home I had a think about the way things had changed. OK, Charlie and Beast were an item, and it hurt like mad. But instead of feeling sick to my stomach, limp and tragic, I had become angry. I think it was because Matthew had served it up to me, and added all that insulting stuff as a side dish: how Charlie could teach me a thing or two, and how wonderful she was.

To hell with Charlie! I didn’t need a role model. I wasn’t ever going to be remotely like Charlie, and I was glad. Let Beast flirt with her all day if that was what he wanted. I had started off last year by hating Beast and I was pretty sure I could get back in touch with those old feelings again if necessary. I think what I was going through was a severe attack of sour grapes, but it felt OK. It felt quite exhilarating.

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‘I don’t care if I never have a boyfriend,’ I told Chloe next day. I was feeling even more determined and liberated. I’d been imagining Charlie and Beast’s future lives together. They already had three screaming kids, she’d lost her looks and he’d become a paunchy couch potato. I, meanwhile, had become a top designer with offices in New York, London and Paris, with a beautiful Brazilian assistant called Luis Quango, who exercised my deerhounds every morning in Central Park. Beast read about me occasionally in the newspapers, and shed a regretful tear.

‘I don’t care if I don’t, either,’ said Chloe hastily. ‘I’ve always said so, right at the start of this term, when we decided we were going to become goddesses and stuff. I said it wasn’t going to be about boys. Boys are off the radar.’

‘And they can stay there,’ I added firmly. I wasn’t going to have to tell Chloe that I was mad about Beast. That was a huge relief. I hadn’t realised just how much I’d been dreading coming clean to her. Maybe that was why I was filled with this weird buzzing energy, nowadays.

However, there were more demons to face on the evening of the twenty-fifth. Last time I babysat the Norman twins, it had ended in mayhem. They’d been so vile, I’d vowed I’d never ever babysit for them again. But was I going to allow myself to be beaten by a couple of piddling little kids? No way. I prepared very carefully for the evening, dressing in fierce black and red, and giving myself very frightening eyebrows.

‘They’re not asleep, I’m afraid,’ Jackie Norman whispered guiltily as she let me in. The twins thundered downstairs, in their pyjamas, but about as far from sleep as mammals have ever been.

‘Zaaaaaooowy! Zooooooowy!’ they yelled. They grabbed my legs. Usually at this point they dive under my skirt in a quest to see pants, but I wasn’t that stupid. I was wearing black drainpipe jeans. They tugged at my belt, roaring in their usual manner.

‘Stop that, boys!’ snapped their mother helplessly. ‘I’m so sorry, Zoe, they’re just excited to see you.’

Bullshit
, I thought. The twins were awful because the Normans were such rotten parents. But I had a cunning plan.

Once their mum and dad had gone out, the twins joined me on the sofa. The TV was blaring as usual. The twins were headbutting the sofa cushions and, if I got in the way, headbutting me. I switched off the TV and in the sudden silence, I turned into Kali, the goddess of the severed heads.

‘Get off this sofa and sit on the floor! Sit still! I have to tell you something amazing!’

The twins tumbled to the floor, but they were still scrapping. I remained aloof.

‘Unless you sit still and listen I will not tell you the Amazing Thing!’ I went on, fingers crossed. Eventually they stopped fidgeting and listened.

‘If you go to bed now and stay there, quietly, we will be visited by two Amazing Creatures,’ I told them. ‘But if you don’t, I shall phone the creatures now and tell them not to come. You have to be in your beds by the time I count to ten: one, two, three . . .’ The twins scrambled to their feet. ‘. . . four, five, six . . .’ They ran upstairs. ‘. . . seven, eight, nine . . .’

‘We in bed!’ they shouted. I hoped it wasn’t a prediction. I’d suffered from their random urination in the past.

I reached for my phone and called Jess.

‘Give it ten minutes,’ I told her. ‘So far so good.’

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31

Right on cue, the doorbell rang.

‘Don’t move!’ I warned the twins. ‘Stay right there in bed or I’ll send them away again!’ The twins stayed in their beds, their faces flushed and bright with excitement.

I ran downstairs and opened the door to Jess and Fred: he was carrying a metal box like a toolbox, and she had a rucksack. They had both made up their faces to look like fishes: grey and scaly. I cracked up.

‘We just need to slip into our cossies,’ whispered Jess.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘And when you’re ready, come right on up. The second door on the right.’

I raced back upstairs. The twins were still in their beds. Their eyes were huge – for a moment they looked almost appealing.

‘The Amazing Creatures have arrived!’ I whispered. ‘Not a word! Not a sound! Lie still, or I’ll tell them to go away again!’

Soon we heard Jess and Fred coming upstairs, accompanied by fishy watery sounds. They knocked on the twins’ door.

‘Come in!’ I called. Jess and Fred swam into view, their bodies veiled in rippling blue net. They swam up and down the bedroom for a bit, looking fishily from side to side, their mouths glooping open and closed. The twins stared in awe. I had never seen them so quiet.

‘Where are we, Sheila?’ asked Fred after a while. ‘I don’t remember this part of the ocean. I told you we should get SpratNav.’

They did a little scene revolving around Fish Wish: all the things fish would like to do if only they had hands.

‘If only I had hands!’ lamented the Fredfish. ‘I’d be able to tie my own shoelaces!’

It was fairly infantile, but the twins laughed their heads off, and Jess and Fred kept it short and sweet as agreed.

‘Do it again! Do it again!’ yelled the twins as Jess and Fred took their bow.

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘That was it. Finished. The end. The Amazing Creatures will come again next time, but only if you both stay in bed now and go to sleep. If I hear one peep out of you from now on, the Amazing Creatures will never come to visit you again and neither will I. OK?’

The twins nodded solemnly.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Lie down now. Goodnight and sweet dreams.’

The twins lay down and closed their eyes. I couldn’t believe it. My plan had worked – so far, anyway.

We tiptoed downstairs and Jess and Fred opened up their toolbox to reveal an amazing collection of stage make-up. They removed their fish faces with cold cream and cotton wool. I congratulated them on a great show.

‘I’m so grateful, guys,’ I said. ‘You have no idea what monsters those kids are usually.’

‘We’re thinking of doing some shows for schools,’ Jess told me. ‘So this is great for us – we can try things out.’

‘So you really wouldn’t mind coming again sometime?’

‘No probs!’ Jess assured me.

Fred had his back to us, and suddenly he whirled round sporting a grey moustache.

‘No talking in the library!’ he croaked in a professor’s sort of voice.

‘This is our pride and joy,’ said Jess. ‘Stage make-up with loads of beards and moustaches and stuff.’

‘God, how amazing!’ I raved, admiring the neat rows of facial hair. ‘Oh my God! I wish I could play with it!’

‘Well, you can if you like,’ said Jess. ‘We’ve got to go now, because we promised Mackenzie that we’d drop in on his band rehearsal – it’s just up the road. It would be great if we could leave all this stuff here and pick it up on our way back in a couple of hours’ time.’

‘Of course!’ I assured them. ‘Oh wow! That would be so cool! Can I really mess around with it and try out some stuff?’ I was like a little girl with a dressing-up box.

‘Yeah, of course.’ Jess showed me how to get the facial hair on and off, and then she and Fred had to leave to meet Mackenzie.

It was still quiet upstairs. I decided not to mess about with the make-up until I was absolutely sure the twins were fast asleep. If they came downstairs and found me sporting a thick red moustache, they would never go back to bed again. I sat and watched a bit of TV with the sound turned down low so I could hear the faintest peep from the twins’ bedroom. There was no peep. I waited and waited, and had a cup of coffee. Still silence from upstairs. The fish entertainment had worked a miracle, it seemed.

Suddenly my mobile gave a little buzz. It was a text from Chloe:
AM NEAR THE NORMANS’ SO CN I DROP RND & CU?
I replied in the affirmative. I was surprised. Chloe had told me quite sternly many times that she would never re-enter the hellish portals of the twins’ house.

I remembered the last time we’d been here together, months ago. I’d been babysitting, obviously, but Chloe had taken up Beast’s invitation to go to the sixth form event, even though we weren’t sixth formers. He had kind of invited us both, but I hated him back then, and Chloe had had a crush on him, so she’d gone alone. I remembered how she’d turned up here later in the evening, crying her eyes out. She’d been upset because Beast was with another girl at the party or something. It had been a stormy night, and I’d been in the middle of
Wuthering Heights
on DVD. It had been quite gothic.

Then Beast and his sidekicks had arrived, trying to calm her down, and they’d had a shouting match, and they’d woken the twins, and the twins’ parents had arrived back early in the middle of the chaos, and . . .

I shuddered at the memory of it and marvelled at how different everything was tonight: silence upstairs, a quiet little text from Chloe – no worries.

Chloe arrived, not broken-hearted, not weeping and not remotely gothic. She gave me a hug.

‘I realised I’ve been a bit mean, leaving you alone with the Norman twins,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to give you some support. Have Jess and Fred arrived yet?’

‘You liar!’ I grinned. ‘You’ve come because you want to see the show. Well, you’re too late. It’s over, and Fred and Jess have gone. And the twins are fast asleep. So tragically you’ve missed all the excitement. Come and get a hot chocolate – don’t worry, it’s the 40-calorie version.’

We went into the kitchen and Chloe looked around, shook her head and sighed.

‘God!’ she smiled ruefully. ‘I’m just remembering last time we were here. I was in such a state, remember? And Beast came round and everything? And the twins peed on everybody from the top of the stairs?’

‘Yeah, I was just thinking about that.’

‘I was in such a state about Beast!’ Chloe shook her head. ‘I can’t believe the grief I’ve got myself into over boys. First Beast, then Brendan. Thank God I’m not mad about anybody right now.’

‘Not even Dave Cheng?’ Dave Cheng is in Beast’s rugby team, and we’d seen him in Newquay.

‘Oh, ten out of ten for sex appeal,’ said Chloe. ‘But that’s it. I feel so much better right now, don’t you? Now I’m not mad about anybody.’

‘Definitely,’ I said, and meant it. Since I’d had that awful moment delivering leaflets with Matthew, I’d kicked my passion for Beast into touch. OK, I’d been putting in a lot of hours doing those aversion-therapy fantasies about him being unhappily married to Charlie, getting fat and regretful, and following my brilliant career at long range with a nostalgic tear in his eye . . . but it seemed to be working.

The best thing of all was that I’d never told Chloe. She need never know the anguish I’d been putting myself through.

‘Boys,’ said Chloe, ‘are the source of all the angst in the world.’

‘True,’ I agreed, stirring the chocolate. ‘We’re better off without them. I’ll be entering the convent at the end of next year. As long as the habits are by Vivienne Westwood.’

‘What’s this box?’ asked Chloe, pointing to Jess and Fred’s make-up tool kit.

I showed her the neat rows of facial hair and she did that funny little thing I love: she clapped her hands and jumped up and down on the spot.

‘Let’s try it out!’ she yelled. ‘That red beard is just right for me!’