“it’d be like … well, like prying into someone’s private affairs.”
Dee agreed immediately, and after a bit so did Chloe. She said she thought it was a pity, as she would have liked me to do some of the teachers, she thought that would be fun, but Dee and I made her promise – “On your honour!” – that she wouldn’t ever cheat. That way, we thought it would be safe.
Even so, we didn’t play The Game too often. For one thing, I had to be in the mood, and for another I always had this slight guilt feeling, like maybe I was doing what Mum had warned me not to: using my gift “irresponsibly”. It did niggle at me every now and again, but I told myself that it was just Mum, fussing. Mums do fuss! All the time, over just about everything. You have to decide for yourself whether it’s a justified fuss, or just a Mum fuss. If it’s just a Mum fuss, then it’s OK to ignore it. Well, anyway, that’s what I told myself.
That particular Saturday, what with it being nearly the end of term and Christmas only a couple of weeks away, I guess it was a bit like, “So what? Just a Mum fuss!” We messed about for a while, and I did Chloe’s cousin Dulcie, and had Chloe in fits of the giggles when I saw “Seven little people … I am definitely seeing seven little people! I can’t work out what it means.”
Dee said, “Maybe she’s going to get married and have seven babies.” and Chloe squealed and rolled herself up in the duvet.
“Is she happy about it?” said Dee.
“Mm … yes. I think so. But she’s kind of a bit … anxious.”
“You would be,” said Dee, “if you were going to have seven babies!”
Chloe squealed again and shot out of the duvet. “She’s not going to have seven babies! She’s playing Snow White in her end-of-term play … Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!”
“That is so politically incorrect,” said Dee.
“It’s better than having seven babies,” said Chloe. “Let’s do another one! Do my Auntie Podge. Look! This is her hanky. I did ask her.”
But I didn’t want to do Chloe’s Auntie Podge. “I’m tired,” I said. “I’ve had enough.”
“But I promised!” wailed Chloe. “I said you’d do her!”
“I’ll do her another day.”
For a minute it looked like Chloe was going to go off into one of her sulks, but then she suddenly snatched my nightie from under the pillow and cried, “OK, I’ll do you! I’ll tell you what you’re thinking …” She scrunched the nightie into a ball and made this big production of screwing her eyes tight shut and swaying to and fro (which I do not do, though I do close my eyes). After almost swaying herself dizzy, she began to chant in this silly, spooky voice.
“Is anybody the-e-e-re? Is anybody the-e-e-re? I see something! I see … a shape! I see … a boy! I see … DANNY HARVEY!”
I immediately turned bright pillar-box red.
“Told you so, told you so!” Triumphantly, Chloe hurled my scrunched up nightie at Dee. “Told you she was mad about him!”
“I am not,” I snapped; but by now my face was practically in flames, so fat chance of anyone believing me. The truth was, I’d had a thing about Danny Harvey ever since half term, when he’d come to our Fête Day with his mum and dad. (His sister Claire’s in Year 7.) He’d visited the cuddly toy stall that I was helping look after. He’d bought a pink bunny rabbit! From me. I thought it was so cool, a Year 10 boy buying a bunny rabbit. I may not know as much as I would like to about boys, but even I know that they would mostly be too embarrassed to buy a cuddly toy!
Mary Day, unfortunately, is an all-girls’ school, so we don’t get much of a chance to mix with boys; and if, like me, you are an only child, and specially if your mum and dad have split up, you practically live the life of a nun. Like, the opposite sex is utterly mysterious and you might just as well hope to meet aliens from outer space as an actual boy. But I knew where Danny went to school, it was Cromwell House, just down the road from Mary’s, so by using a different bus stop, and doing a bit of carefully timed lingering and lurking, I did occasionally manage to catch a glimpse of him. For weeks and weeks a glimpse was all, but just a few days ago, joy and bliss! He’d smiled at me and said “Hi”. He’d remembered! He’d recognised me! He knew I was the one that had sold him the bunny! Which, needless to say, had set me off all over again. Just as I thought I might be getting over it …
“Poor you,” said Dee; and I sighed, and she hugged me. And although she didn’t say it, I knew what she was thinking: Poor old Jo! She doesn’t stand a chance.
It was then that Chloe had her bright idea. We knew that Danny worked weekends and Thursday evenings at the Pizza Palace in the High Street (I had my spies!), so why didn’t we organise an end-of-term celebration for the day we broke up, which just happened to be a Thursday?
“We could say it’s for everyone in our class, ’cos they won’t all come, but if it’s just the three of us it might look kind of obvious, or parents might even want to be there …”
Dee and I groaned.
“Whereas if it’s for the whole class,” said Chloe, “they’re more likely to let us go by ourselves. And then” – she beamed at me – “you can get all dressed up and flirt as much as you like!”
Naturally I denied that I would do any such thing; but already I was mentally whizzing through my wardrobe wondering what to wear …
Fifteen of us signed up for our end-of-term celebration. We arranged to meet at the Pizza Place at six o’clock so that we could be home by nine, which was what most people’s parents laid down as the deadline, it being December, and dark, and the High Street being full of pubs and clubs and wine bars, not to mention Unsavoury Types that hung about in shop doorways. It was Mum who said they were unsavoury.
“Why do you have to go into town? Why can’t you find somewhere local?”
I said, “Because not everybody lives somewhere local.” Plus anywhere local is totally naff. “Anyway,” I said, “you don’t have to worry … Dee’s dad will come and pick us up.”
“So long as he does,” said Mum.
I
