when their friends have secrets
I haven’t done any of my homework but that can’t be helped. I get out my sketchbook and spend an hour or more drafting little versions of Myrtle. It’s fun inventing different outfits for her. I decide she looks cutest in little dungarees with embroidered daisies and a matching daisy ear stud in one round mouse ear. I experiment with her footwear. I try out dancing slippers and big boots and girly strappy sandals. I give her a little knapsack to pack when she leaves home.
Then I try out various adventures. I really put poor little Myrtle through a lot of trauma. It’s like she’s caught up in a little mousy melodrama. She’s stalked by cats, chased by dogs, and attacked by a gang of rat-boys. She enjoys a gargantuan feast in a kitchen but very very nearly ends up in a mouse-trap. She has a sore paw and is nursed back to health by a motherly hamster (Fudge resurrected). She goes on a long night trek with a gothic girl rat with twenty rings through her tail and attends a muddy gig at Rodentbury.
I’m so soothed by my imaginary world of Myrtle that I almost forget the horrible Dad and Anna situation. I hear Anna get up, I hear her in the bathroom, I hear her chivvy Eggs into getting washed and dressed, but it’s impossible to tell from her tone how she is.
Maybe it’s all right again. Maybe Dad has a perfectly reasonable excuse for why he stayed out half the night. Maybe Dad and Anna made it all up after their argument. Maybe they’ll be all over each other at breakfast, the way they used to be.
I always hated it when Dad wound his arm round Anna’s waist and she nestled up to him. I’d give anything to see them snuggled up together now. But when I go down to the kitchen there’s no arm-winding, no nestling. Anna is talking softly to Eggs, babying him with his cereal, letting him sit on her lap while he eats it. Dad is standing at the sink, drinking a mug of coffee, not looking at anyone, not speaking, acting like he doesn’t belong to our family anymore.
I look at Anna’s sore eyes and white face. I feel so angry with Dad. How
dare
he mess around with her, mess around with all our lives?
“Dad? Dad, can I have a word with you?” I say, going up to him.
“What? Look, Ellie, I’m in a bit of a rush. Can’t it wait?” says Dad, putting his coffee cup down and making for the door.
“No, it can’t wait, Dad,” I say fiercely. “I want to know what’s going on. Where were you last night?”
“Don’t, Ellie, not now,” Anna says quickly.
“Why not? Why can’t I ask? What are you playing at, Dad? Why are you doing this?” I stand in front of him, chin up, fists clenched.
Dad looks angry too, his eyes blazing. “Just mind your own business, Ellie,” he says, pushing past me. “This has got nothing to do with you.”
“It’s got everything to do with me!” I shout.
“Not in front of Eggs,” Anna pleads as Dad walks out.
“But it’s to do with him, too, with all of us.” I run after Dad into the hall. “You’ve got no right to mess around with us like this, Dad. Can’t you see how unhappy you’re making Anna? Just because you’re jealous of her!”
“So you think I’m jealous?” says Dad, opening the front door.
“Yes, because Anna’s doing so well. You can’t stand it. That’s just so typical of the whole male ego. You can’t bear to be overshadowed. You didn’t let my mother work, did you, even though she was brilliant at art.”
“You know nothing about it,” says Dad. “Your mother didn’t want to work. She wanted to look after you.”
“Yes, but I bet she’d have wanted to work once I was at school. She’d have been a brilliant graphic artist, just like Anna’s brilliant at her designing. That’s what you can’t stick, Dad. You’re not brilliant. You want us all to look up to you and think you’re wonderful. Well, you’re not. The only thing you’re brilliant at is making us all unhappy.”
“Well, now I know,” says Dad, and he walks out, slamming the door.
I’m left standing there, wondering if I want to go shrieking down the front path after him.
Maybe I’ve said enough.
I’m shaking. Anna comes and puts her arm round me, taking me back into the kitchen. She pours me a cup of tea. Eggs is staring at us, his spoon of cereal dripping slowly up his sweater sleeve.
“You shouted at Dad, Ellie!” says Eggs. “You’ll get into
big
trouble.”
“I don’t care,” I say, sipping my tea. My teeth clink against the china. I look at Anna. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help coming out with it.”
“I know,” says Anna, patting my shoulder. “Don’t worry so, Ellie. It might just all blow over.”
“It might not,” I say, and I give her a quick hug.
I think about what might happen as I walk to the bus stop. I play the kid’s game of not stepping on the cracks of the pavement. If I can make it all the way to school, then Dad and Anna won’t split up. I used to long for that to happen. I wanted Anna to clear off with Eggs so that it could be just Dad and me. But now that’s not what I want at all. I’d hate it to be just Dad and me—or Dad and me and some new girlfriend. I’d feel as out of it as Russell.
I think of him longingly. I touch my ring, twisting it round and round. Maybe we’ll stay together forever and then we’ll have our own place. We won’t ever be lonely anymore. We’ll have each other. . . .
I close my eyes and whisper Russell’s name— and very nearly walk straight into the blond guy, Mr. Dream Man. He sidesteps neatly.
“Whoops! Collision avoided—just!”
“I’ve got my punchbag rucksack under control, don’t worry.”
“Not in such a hurry today? What were you daydreaming about, eh? Your boyfriend?”
“Maybe,” I say, blushing.
“Ah, sweet! True love, eh?”
“I think so.”
I
know
so. I think about Russell all the way to school. I remember the way he kissed me just last night. I feel my whole body weaken at the thought of his touch. But at the corner of my mind’s eye little Ellie Elephant droops her head, trunk trailing, forced to do all sorts of new tricks for Russell when she’s mine and she only wants to do things
my
way.
I can’t wait to see Magda and Nadine. I desperately need to tell them all about Dad and Anna and see if they think this is deadly serious.
I
also
want to ask them about Russell and exactly how far they think I should go. We often talk about it. We even have different numbers for various activities. Nadine went
way
down the list with Liam, but Magda has always been surprisingly prim and insists she’s never going to do more than kiss until she’s in a proper relationship later on. But this is now, not later, and Russell and I are in a proper relationship. I need Magda and Nadine’s
advice
.
They’re both at school when I get there, sitting squashed up together on a desk, legs dangling. Nadine whispers to Magda and they both splutter with laughter.
“Hi! What’s the big joke, then?” I say.
They look at each other. Nadine shakes her head ever so slightly. “Oh, nothing,” she says.
“Yeah, we were just messing about,” says Magda.
I stare at them, my heart thudding. Nothing! They’ve got some private secret joke going between them and I’m not in on it. But we always share everything. We’re best friends, the three of us. I suddenly feel like some sad little toddler shut out of the Wendy house at nursery school while my two little friends play happily inside.
“Come on, you guys. It’s
me,
Ellie.” Then I get it. “Oh, so the joke was about me, right?”
“Wrong,” says Magda, but she isn’t looking me in the eye.
“Mags? Naddie? Look, you were laughing your heads off and then you looked up and saw me and shut up quick. So you were obviously having a laugh about me.”
“Oh, Ellie, don’t be so paranoid,” says Nadine, sliding down from the desk and reaching in her schoolbag for her hairbrush. “We were having a little joke about a
boy,
if you must know.”
“Yeah, but which boy? My Russell, by any chance?” I say, starting to get angry now.
“Oooh,
your
Russell, eh?” says Nadine. “You’re such a couple now, Ellie. Yet you were always the one who nagged me for abandoning my girlfriends when I went out with Liam.”
“You got all shirty with me too when I went out with Mick, remember? Yet now you don’t even dream of coming round to my place to help me get over poor Fudge’s death. You just rush off with Russell.”
I blink at them both. What’s the matter with them? We’re not quarreling, are we? I can’t stand it if we are. They’re my best friends. Nadine and Magda mean all the world to me.
I didn’t realize they’d be so upset because I didn’t go round to Magda’s for their little-girly pet funeral. And I’m not sure Magda’s
that
devastated about her hamster. She never made a fuss of Fudge when she was alive. Still, I do feel a little bit bad that I didn’t go round to her place.
“Did you have a proper funeral?” I ask humbly.
“We certainly did,” says Nadine.
“Yeah, Naddie made the most brilliant coffin. She painted a shoe box black and lined it with a purple silk scarf. I popped poor little Fudge into this black lace glove. She looked
so
sweet, though she’d started to get just a little bit stinky. Oh dear!” Magda sniffs mournfully.
I’m starting to wish I’d gone after all.
“We had this amazing gothic funeral. Well, more Viking, really, because we ended up sending Fudge off on a little sail toward Hamster Valhalla.”
“We were going to dig a grave but Magda just had this ancient plastic seaside spade and I mucked up two of my nails scrabbling in all that earth, so we took Fudge down to the river instead.
“In a procession, both of us wearing black veils. These boys biked past us and started yelling stuff, so I said we were going to a funeral and they should show more respect. Then they felt really mean and started chatting properly, but Nadine sent them packing.”
“Well, they were just kids.”
“They were Year Ten!”
“Yeah, like I said.
Kids,
” says Nadine.
“Just because you’re seeing this nineteen-year-old,” I say.
Nadine looks at Magda. Magda looks back. They give each other a secret little smirk.
“
What?
” I say. “Oh come on, don’t be like that. Magda. Nad.
Tell
me!”
But Mrs. Henderson comes trotting into class in her trainers and tells us all to be quiet.
I’ll have to find out later.
when their friends say they’re fat
I have to wait until lunchtime. There’s no time at all at break. Mrs. Henderson keeps us so late at PE that we’re still on the flipping hockey pitch when the bell goes. We waste a full fifteen minutes rushing in and out of the showers and shoving our clothes back on. I get a run in my tights trying to yank them up too quickly. My hair goes horribly frizzy and
won’t
get brushed into submission. I feel like throwing my hairbrush at the mirror.
I
hate
the way I look. Magda and Nadine have got such gorgeous figures. Nadine looks so slender and willowy and wonderful. Magda is very curvy but in all the right places. I curve
everywhere
. I just hate my stomach bulging over my knickers and my whacking great thighs, especially when they’re bright pink from running round the hockey pitch.
Maybe I’ll try to lose just a little bit of weight again. I won’t go really mad like last term. But if I just lost a few pounds . . .
It’s pizza for lunch. I’m so starving hungry I eat a huge slice,
and
chips. Then I decide I might as well go the whole hog now, and select a big cream bun for pudding.
Magda, Nadine and I go to our favorite nattering nook on the steps by the Portakabins. We squash up together on the same step, me in the middle. Thank goodness we seem to be friends again.
“We
are
friends, aren’t we?” I say pathetically, putting my arms round both of them.
“Of course we’re friends, nutcase,” says Nadine.
“You are daft, Ellie. We’re friends forever, you know that,” says Magda.
“So why have you got this secret between the two of you, eh?” I say, giving them a little shake. “Come on, tell me, or I’ll knock your heads together.”
“Go on, Naddie, tell her,” says Magda.
“Well . . . Ellie, do you promise you won’t go all po-faced and naggle at me?” says Nadine.
“Of course I won’t! Why? What have you done?”
“I haven’t done
anything,
” says Nadine. “It’s just . . . well, you know I mentioned this guy Ellis—”
“Ah! So what have you done with
him
?”
“Nothing. Truly. We haven’t so much as shaken hands,” says Nadine.
Magda bursts out laughing. “He hasn’t half confided in you, though, Naddie,” she says.
“Shut
up,
Mags,” says Nadine.
That’s it. They’re doing it again. Keeping me right out of things. I can’t stand it. I take my arms off their shoulders and struggle to stand up.
“Ellie?”
“Where are you going?”
“I know when I’m not wanted,” I mumble.
“Oh, for heaven’s
sake,
Ellie!”
“Sit
down,
girl!”
Nadine pulls on my arm and Magda tackles me round the knees so that I collapse in a heap on top of them. We roll around, groaning and then giggling. It’s hopeless trying to stay huffy when you’re sandwiched between two giggly girls and all your arms and legs are mixed up together.
When we eventually get straightened out Magda blurts out, “Nadine met her Ellis guy on the Internet!”
“Mags! You swore you wouldn’t tell,” says Nadine.
“Why didn’t you tell me before? The Internet! Oh, Naddie, are you
crackers
?”
“There! I
knew
it! That’s precisely why I didn’t want you to know. Your face, Ellie! You look so shocked.”
“Well, no wonder. You’re not saying you met him in one of those chat rooms? You didn’t!”
“She
did,
” says Magda.
“I did
not
. We met up on this
Xanadu
Web site, right—you know, Ellie, I told you. It’s this truly gothic cool comic book—”
“Oh yeah, yeah, I like those graphics, especially the way they have the picture boxes all different sizes and the characters step right out of the black lines—”
“Oh God, don’t go all technical on us. Save the art talk for Russell,” says Nadine. “I just like
Xanadu
because it’s a great scary story with this fantastic girl heroine with long black hair and very white skin—a bit like me, actually!”
“Except you don’t walk around in a black micro-bikini and black boots up to your thighs,” says Magda, giggling. “Anyway, Ellie, Nadine’s got chatting to this guy on the
Xanadu
Web site and now they’re e-mailing each other every night. I joined in too last night after poor Fudge’s funeral. Ellis is so
cool
. Well, he’s a bit cheeky, actually— some of the things he was asking Nadine were pretty blatant, but I suppose that’s guys for you—”
“What sort of things?”
So Magda tells me.
“
Nadine!
You didn’t reply, did you?”
“Look, Mags, I wish you’d kept your mouth shut. Ellie’s getting to sound like my mother,” says Nadine, rolling her eyes.
“You haven’t told your mother, have you?”
Nadine’s eyes practically disappear. “Are you nuts? Of course not! She’d go crackers.”
“You
are
crackers, Nad! Why won’t you ever get involved with anyone
normal
?”
“Normal is
boring
. I’m not like you two. I don’t want silly boys like Russell and Greg.”
“Russell
isn’t
silly,” I protest.
“Greg is,” says Magda. “He might have learnt how to kiss but he’s still useless at conversation— whereas Ellis says the most
amazing
things.”
“I’ll bet!”
“No, lovely romantic things, Ellie. He really
communicates
with Nadine. His messages are just like poetry.”
“When I logged on this morning he said he’s actually writing a poem about me,” Nadine says proudly. “He’s calling it ‘My Xanadu Girl.’ ”
“What are you
playing
at, Nadine? He’ll be fantasizing that
you’re
wearing a black bikini and thigh-high boots, like some pervy creep.”
“Don’t you dare call him a pervy creep!” says Nadine, blushing. “And so what if he does? It’s just harmless fantasy.”
“I’d die if I thought some bloke was getting off on the thought of me like that,” I say.
“Yeah, well, it’s not very likely, is it, Ellie? I mean, you’re so fat you’d look plain ridiculous in a bikini and big boots,” says Nadine.
Magda gasps. There’s a little silence. I can’t believe she’s said it. OK, it’s
true
—but it’s so hateful of her. I feel the tears stinging my eyes. I stand up shakily.
“Oh, sit back down, Ellie, please,” says Magda. “Don’t go all huffy again.”
“You heard what she said!”
“Yeah, but she didn’t mean it.”
“She called Ellis a pervy creep!” says Nadine.
“She didn’t mean that, either!” says Magda.
Nadine and I look at each other. We
did
mean it. This isn’t just a silly squabble, over in five minutes. This is a serious argument. This is us almost breaking friends. In fact there’s no almost about it.
“Bye,” I say, marching off, holding my head high. So high that I trip going up the steps and give my shin a crack. It hurts a lot. Maybe that’s why the tears are pouring down my cheeks.