Rebecca Rocks (8 page)

I have a feeling this poem makes me look a bit selfish. I know I should just be happy for the others. But I do kind of feel like this.

Cass told Alice today. Alice rang me later to tell me, and it seems it didn’t all go exactly as planned. They met up in town and went to the Pepperpot Café for hot chocolate. Alice says she was a bit worried because Cass seemed much more serious than usual. And when they were sitting down, Cass said, ‘So … I’ve got something to tell you.’

I have no idea why, but Alice was somehow immediately convinced that it was, well, a matter of life or death. She says she was practically in tears as she said, ‘Oh Cass, no – do you have cancer? Are you … dying?’

Cass, understandably, stared at her in amazement.

‘What?’ she said. ‘No! I’m fine! Oh God, Alice, don’t cry all over your hot chocolate, you’ll make it all salty and gross. I’m not dying. I’m gay!’

‘Oh, thank God!’ said Alice.

Anyway, they both realised that this was pretty funny, so things were okay after that, and they drank the nice hot chocolate and then went off and looked at amps in a music shop.

‘Did it ever cross your mind?’ said Alice when she rang me
to tell me about it (Cass had told her about coming out to me the night before), ‘That Cass liked girls, I mean?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I never thought about it.’

‘Me neither,’ said Alice. ‘I just assumed she was straight. Like I assumed you were.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘You are okay with it, aren’t you?’

‘Oh God, yes,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, I was surprised when she told me. But it’s not like she’s any different, is she? I mean, she’s still the same Cass. It’s not like it means she fancies any of us. So what difference does it make? I’m mostly just sad she didn’t tell us before.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘But at least she’s told us now.’

And it’s true, it doesn’t make a difference. I mean, obviously I was thinking about it when she was telling me. But in the morning, when we were making fudge and stuff, it wasn’t … an issue. I mean, I can hardly spend all my time imagining my friends’ love lives, can I? That would be pretty creepy.

I didn’t mention to Alice that I feel a bit bad about being the only single one of us three. I knew it would sound very babyish and selfish. But I do feel like that, even though most of our other friends aren’t going out with anyone either. It’s different when it’s your very best friends.

I have decided I am going to do something daring to get out of this blah mood. I am going to get my hair cut and finally get a fringe, so when we start the summer camp next week I will look like a new and exciting person. I have been
dreaming
of having a fringe for years, but I haven’t got one because of my weird wavy hair. But I bet hairdressing techniques have improved a LOT since the long-ago days when I last had a fringe and it just kept sticking out like a shelf. I mean, it was years ago AND I was a very small child at the time. I told Cass about my plan today.

‘Are you sure about this?’ she said. ‘You’ve always been sure you couldn’t have a fringe. It’s a big commitment. And it can go horribly wrong.’

‘But you have a fringe!’ I said.

‘I know,’ said Cass. ‘But remember, I’ve had one for years. I was trying to grow it out for ages and ages until I finally just gave in and accepted it. Fringes can be tricky things. And your hair is even thicker than mine.’

‘But Cass, they can DO things now,’ I said. ‘I was
looking
in one of Mum’s magazines, and it said if you start the
fringe high up on your head, the weight of the hair will keep it straight, even if it’s really thick.’

‘I suppose,’ said Cass. ‘It’s still risky, though.’

‘What’s the name of your hairdresser?’ I said. ‘The one who gave you the proper fringe a few months ago? I want to go to someone who has, like, proved their fringe-cutting skills.’

Cass told me the name. ‘But you’re not going to get exactly the same style as me, are you?’ she said. ‘It would look very odd if we turned up at the rock camp as hair twins. Like it was a band uniform.’

‘Of course I’m not!’ I said. ‘Anyway, my hair’s much longer than yours. Well, a few inches, anyway. And I’m not going to get much cut off most of it, just the front. You’re not the only person who’s allowed have a fringe, you know!’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Cass. ‘On your own head be it. Literally,’ she added. But I refused to laugh at her terrible jest.

Alice was slightly more supportive of my great reinvention plan. But only slightly.

‘Well, if you don’t like it, you can grow it out,’ she said. She didn’t sound as if she thought I actually would like it, though.

Anyway, perhaps in the past I would have been persuaded by all of this, but somehow it has just made me even more
determined to do it. I asked Mum if she’d give me money to get my hair cut and she said she would.

‘It could do with a bit of a trim, you’ve got some split ends,’ she said, rudely. Really, she has no manners. I told her about my fringe plan, and she liked the idea, though not for a
particularly
good reason.

‘You looked lovely with your fringe when you were little,’ she said. This is a total lie, obviously. But maybe it just means I will look brilliant with a proper fringe as a sophisticated teenager?

Quite a nice lazy day today. The weather was really nice so I spent ages just lying out in the back garden on a blanket, reading and listening to Best Coast on my iPod. I was
actually
in the mood for it, unlike Saturday. I generally like lazing around doing nothing when I know I could actually go and do something if I really wanted to. It’s just boring when you feel you don’t have a choice. I was reading a brilliant book called
Howl’s Moving Castle
. It’s set in a magical world, and the heroine is a teenage girl who gets turned into a hideous old
lady, but, although that sounds pretty grim, it is very funny and exciting.

Anyway, I won’t have much time to laze around like this next week because I will be rocking at the rock camp all day, so I am enjoying it while I can. And tomorrow I am getting my hair cut. I am a bit nervous but I have a good feeling about it. I flicked over some of my hair in front of my forehead to make it look like a fringe today and I think it really suited me. And that was just a fake fringe! Surely a real one will be even better.

I have a fringe! And it is all sleek and flat and I love it! I look like a whole new glamorous person. I was a bit nervous in the hairdresser’s this morning when she started chopping off the front of my hair and I could see long locks of it falling on my lap, but she spent ages trimming and shaping and spraying and drying it and when it was all finished I just stared at my reflection in amazement.

‘Do you like it?’ said the hairdresser, whose name was Cliona.

‘I love it!’ I said. And I did. I can’t remember when I’d ever actually felt so pleased after getting my hair cut. Usually I’m just relieved it hasn’t all gone horribly wrong. I met Cass, Alice and Jane afterwards, and Cass had to eat her words.

‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘You were right. It does look good. Cliona has worked her magic.’

‘You look kind of French,’ said Alice, ‘which is a good thing. Like you should be scooting around Paris on a moped.’

‘Welcome to the world of fringes,’ said Jane, who has always had a nice, well-behaved fringe.

‘I’m starting to feel left out,’ said Alice. ‘Maybe I should get one too?’

‘Then we really would look like we had band hair,’ said Cass.

‘True,’ said Alice. ‘Okay, I won’t.’

Alice has trouble-free hair anyway, thanks to her mum, who has blonde shiny locks which Alice has inherited. Both she and Jane always look very well put together, unlike me. I always seem to be a tiny bit scruffy. But not anymore! Now I have my French Girl Fringe. Even Rachel admitted it looked good when I got home.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That really suits you.’

‘You don’t have to sound so surprised,’ I said.

‘God, can’t you take a compliment gracefully?’ she said, and stomped off. But she’s just in a bad mood because her saintly boyfriend Tom is going on holiday with his parents
tomorrow
. Even Mum making a delicious casserole for dinner didn’t cheer her up.

OH MY GOD. Something terrible has happened. I went out to Alice’s house for a band practice today (which went very well, not that it matters now because I will never be leaving the house again, so I suppose the band is over). When Cass and I were waiting for the bus to get home, it started to rain, and we got totally soaked. Like, all my clothes were wet right down to my underwear, which is pretty revolting. Anyway, I squelched home from my bus stop in my sopping Converse and changed into my pyjamas and towelled off my hair. My hair was almost dry, and I was starting to feel normal again when I went to the loo and caught sight of myself in the mirror over the sink.

I was so horrified I actually shrieked, and my mum came running upstairs to see what was wrong.

‘Look at my hair!’ I cried.