OMG! I'm in Love with a Geek! (2 page)

I feel sick. I think he likes me too. Well, I THINK he likes me in the snog way. That MUST be why he wants me to come round. Because he is BURSTING with it like a massive love balloon.

OMG!

I really feel sick now. Need to brush my teeth. And tongue.

MEN!

OMG – UNBELIEVABLE!

When I got to Goose's bedroom his mum AND ROB were there. How can you have a decent snog when your parents are around? Goose just looked at me for ages. There was a massive pause and then he said, “I've got a new gecko – I wanted the most special people in my life to be here to see him first!”

I've got a new gecko?!

A GECKO.

Goose did not want to see me about our eternal love destiny spanning back thousands of years or our mahoosive hidden PASH feelings. He wanted to see me about a little lizardy thing WITH OTHER PEOPLE THERE!

Random or WHAT?! It was the last thing I was expecting. I know I rushed round to tell him about my guinea pig “Sergeant Nibbles” when I was 7 but we are slightly older now!

I said, “Great, Goose – enjoy your new pet.” It has a big tongue, legs that stick to anything and looks like something Rob my stepdad tries to bang on the head with his shoe when we are abroad. Rob, though, was saying things like, “He's lovely!” (LIAR!) Goose's mum kept saying stuff like, “You'd better look after him!” ER? IS THIS
DOCTOR WHO
? HAVE WE GONE BACK IN TIME TO PRIMARY SCHOOL OR WHAT?

I felt like such an idiot. TOTAL IDIOT. And ANGRY. I didn't say anything. Then Goose's mum had to do something and Rob had to do something else (it was a bit weird that they went out together) and I was left with THE GEEK WHO DOESN'T ACTUALLY FANCY ME AND HIS CRAPTACULAR FROGGY THING.

Goose said, “Hattie – you can name him if you like!” “OK,” I shouted, “call him Freak. Freak the gecko.” Goose didn't like that. He said reptiles should be given decent names as they are very intelligent. I told him I didn't think a gecko would mind what he was called as they can't actually speak English or they'd be running branches of Sainsbury's. Goose reminded me I've always hated being called Hattie (actress who played a fat matron woman). YES, Goose, but I have a brain bigger than a small pea and actual sophisticated womanly feelings (AND HOPES AND DREAMS THAT YOU HAVE JUST SMASHED TO PIECES – I didn't say that but I thought it). Whereas the gecko only cares about food and climbing on ceilings with his big gluey Pritt Stick fingers. Then I said, “Call him Major Freak Geek the Gecko!” Goose looked really cross and yelled, “Thanks for your lack of interest. I thought you would … that YOU … and me might be able to sort out some stuff. That's why Rob and Mum but… Look, I've got to get his vivarium ready. I'll see you tomorrow, OK?”

Why do I expect it to go all
Dirty Dancing
with Goose the geek when it's always going to end up with lizards?!

I feel like such an idiot. I thought he REALLY liked me in a totally erotic way. Instead it was all DORK-MONGERING and … STUFF! What STUFF? NOTHING HOT. I was going to tell him I wanted to snog him. That's a lesson learnt AGAIN. NEVER tell a boy you like him. Check whether he's got a gecko first.

Oh, Goose. Goose. Goose.

I'm gutted.

No, Rob – the gecko is not cool. Please let's not have a conversation when I feel like a doughnut and my heart is in pieces.

What's a vivarium?

A vivarium is what a gecko lives in. It's a hot, sweaty tank. Sort of like a sauna only you can't fit in it so it's TOTALLY pointless.

Pets are getting luxury spas. I'm having to make my own facial masks with Weetabix. You're meant to use porridge oats but it's basically the same thing. It's all bits of cereal.

I might suggest Gran gets a mini hot tub for Princess. Why not? Pets clearly matter more than actual people.

No point. Last time Princess heard the word “bath” she tried to run away on Gran's friend Tony's mobility scooter.

Geckos are the most useless pets ever.

Apart from Weirdo Jen's stick insect Malcolm. He spent his life trying to be a twig.

I'm trying to cheer myself up. It's working. At least I didn't make a dork of myself. In fact I was a bit of a cow. GOOD.

Geckos lack eyelids.

Hope MGK comes back in the next life as a gecko. No eyelids?! She would collapse without black mascara and Boots No. 7 eyeshadow in khaki-shine.

I HAVE TO REMEMBER: she is my sister.

Apparently geckos eat live crickets. Bet MGK can catch LIVE insects with her tongue – she's had enough practise!

HAVE TO REMEMBER: she's my HALF-sister. Not the real thing.

I'm googling gecko stuff. Need to stop. That gecko is a total symbol of a complete LOVE FAIL.

OH, GOOSE. And the worst thing is … I STILL like him. I could honestly kick him but I could still snog him too.

RIGHT.

Next year, Goose, you can concentrate on your gecko and I will concentrate on finding a REAL NON-GEEK MAN who puts ME before his pet and isn't afraid to show his FEELINGS.

Goose and me can still be friends. JUST TOTALLY PLATONIC.

The gecko and me can never be friends.

I can't believe I have wasted hours on animals when my real dad turns up in 2 days. Am I actually a loon? I can't think about LOVE or PETS! Goose should have realized I am going through something MAHOOSIVE. I am about to meet the man who is my Jeremy Kyle DNA-revealed-in-an-envelope moment. This is LIFE-CHANGING. NOTHING will be the same again. This is my DAD. The man I've been wondering about for years. The one I just KNOW will GET parts of me that Mum doesn't and who will be there for me when things get rough. Like when you get ignored for a gecko. Or dumped. Or when Matfield at school is a cow about something. Just a hug, that's all I need. A hug from my real dad will just make things better. I know he sounds a bit rubbish but people can change… He can change. And he's coming all this way.

Please let it be OK. I've already had one MASSIVE REJECTION FAIL from someone I love.

This whole situation with Keith feels like it's happened a bit too fast though. I can't keep up with my own head. I don't even really know how I feel. Dimple says, “Just go with it, Hattie,” but the past few weeks have been TOTALLY MENTAL. I have a new dad called Keith, MGK is my new half-sister and I find out my grandad was a Mafia Godfather!

Actually my grandad was a thieving postman who stole letters and parcels – not a crime legend mastermind. If he had been we'd live in a house like MGK's with a conservatory and a power shower – instead of a “bloody dribble” as Rob calls it!

I've decided I can't call MGK “Ruby” yet. Ruby. I KNOW that's her name but a real name makes her a REAL person with REAL feelings. We all know she hasn't got any. She's had complete nice-emotion liposuction.

I can hear Mum stomping about downstairs. She is not happy at ALL at Keith coming. I have caused this and I KNOW she's TOTALLY cross at me about it. She's not actually saying it but my bacon sandwiches are not crispy any more. I heard her tell Gran that it's the “crappest Christmas since there was a power cut on Christmas Day and you gave me a novelty squirrel nutcracker.” Gran said it was cute and practical. Mum yelled, “Rob can't look at a cashew without swelling up to twice his size!” Gran told her that nut allergies are all in the mind and that she could prove it.

This is the most outrageous thing she has ever said.

Apart from the time when she told everyone at her local pensioners' club that you can cure the common cold with 2 boxes of Maltesers and an entire bottle of brandy. “The brandy is a natural disinfectant,” she said, “and the honeycomb chocolate just gives you a lift.” She ended up in bed at 2 a.m. with a “men at work” sign under her duvet. It was in her spare room for ages!

AND the time that she said the ACTUAL men at work could come in for a “hot toddy” post-work so they could collect their stolen sign. Gran says you have to look after the workers – especially the young fit ones. She was right. They fixed her guttering for free and gave her a hard hat as a souvenir. She uses it in the shower when she wants to keep her perm dry. Most people have a plastic cap. Not something with “Fairways and Son – We build it better and bigger!” written on it.

TOTAL DRAMA! Gran hid a peanut in Rob's dinner! When he hadn't had a reaction half an hour later Gran started jumping up and down in the middle of
Coronation Street
, saying, “Told you! Told you! I've cured you. It's all in that overactive imagination of yours, Rob. Now you can look at an almond with kindly eyes.”

Rob started being violently ill about 8.15 p.m. He started swelling up. He's had to go to hospital. Gran think he's “worked himself up into an inflatable frenzy”. Mum says she's tempted to call the police!

Rob's been given a thing called an EpiPen. It's like a biro with magic medicine stuff in it. You have to stab yourself with it if you eat a nut or something that's been hanging around nuts. Rob has to carry it round with him EVERYWHERE. Mum thinks Gran should be prosecuted for murder. Gran thinks it was a genuine mistake. She was just trying to prove that Rob's problem is “in his brain not his immune system”. Mum told Gran that watching
Doctors
every afternoon does not make you actually medically trained.

I personally think Gran might be one of the potentially murdering maniacs who Weirdo Jen warned me about. It's what happens when you fill your life with programmes about posh people getting murdered in the countryside. Gran always acts odd after
Silent Witness
. She always says that had she been born in a different generation she would have been a pathologist – one of those people who examines murder victims and gets clues. “It's got everything I need from a career, Hattie – good money, justice and gorgeous young policemen asking me for guidance. Don't you think a white coat and a surgical hacksaw would suit me?” When I asked her if she wouldn't be a bit creeped out by dead people Gran started cackling and said, “Hattie, I'd love to go to work every day with people who can't answer back. It's my idea of heaven!”

Gran is a teensy bit psycho-mental. I'm glad she does come from a time when women left school at 14, got married and had babies!

No, I'm not – that's awful! OMG – whoever thought THAT was a good idea?!

It was probably men frightened of young girls nicking their jobs. Especially pathologists.

And policemen frightened of flirting grannies with scalpels!