I can’t stick him.’
Jo wasn’t the only one who teased me about terrible Jamie Edwards. Lisa and Angela had started up this stupid game too. I was starting to get seriously annoyed with them. I didn’t know what had got into them this year at school. Last year we were the three leaders of nearly all the girls and we had this special club badge with GAB on it, short for ‘Girls Are Best’, and we all called each other Gabby and we had this cheerleader chant I made up: ‘Girls are best, Never mind the rest, Boys are a pest, So
Girls are best!
’
Some of the other girls got a bit fed up and drifted away but Lisa and Angela and I kept up our special girls’ gang all the time, and the three of us always went yuck and pulled a face whenever any of the boys spoke to us. I wanted to extend the rules to cover men too, but Lisa said that was daft because her dad was a man and she loved him better than anyone else in the whole world, and Angela was equally awkward and got this immense crush on this pop star and squealed whenever she saw him on the telly and she stuck hundreds of pictures of him all over her bedroom walls and kissed every one of them goodnight when she went to bed and she did inky designs of his name entwined with hers all over her school books and her ruler and her bag and even on the sleeve of her jacket, though her mum got very narked about that.
Lisa and I thought Angela had gone incredibly crackers because this guy she likes is
pathetic
. Angela agrees with us now, and she’s torn down all his pictures and crossed out his name and she’s got a new jacket – but she’s in love with another pop group now,
all
of them, and she’s forever striking up these boring boring boring conversations about what she’d do if she could only get to meet them.
I knew that if only I’d been able to sit next to Angela at school as I’d planned then I’d have been able to be a good influence on her and keep her under control. She was starting to get on my nerves so much I was wondering about whittling my best friends down to one. But then Lisa fell in love too.
And that was worse. Because she started to go crazy over David Wood – and he’s certainly not a famous star in a band, he’s just this ultra-boring boy in our class at school.
‘He’s not ultra-boring!’ Lisa squeaked. ‘He’s dead cool. I love the way he does his hair. And his eyes. And he looks really old for his age, doesn’t he, because he’s so tall.’
‘He might look old but he acts like a toddler ,’ I said, disgusted. ‘Didn’t you see him in the canteen throwing his lunch around?’
‘That was just his bit of fun,’ said Lisa. ‘One of his chips landed right in my lap!’
‘Oh wow! How could you contain your excitement,’ I said, dead sarcastic.
‘She ate it too!’ said Angela. ‘After he’d drooled all over it.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if he drooled all over
me
,’ said Lisa.
‘Oh shut
up
,’ I said. ‘Honestly. I think you had a lobotomy in the summer holiday.’
‘A lobby-what?’ said Lisa.
‘It’s an operation they perform on your brain,’ I said. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
‘I know one thing, Charlie Enright. You’re getting a right pain, always showing off and looking down your nose at other people. You’re getting just like Jamie Edwards.’
‘Yeah, maybe it’s rubbing off on her because they sit together,’ said Angela, giggling in this particularly irritating way. ‘Hey, Lisa – Charlie and Jamie, what a pair, eh?’
‘They’re always yacking away together, certainly. Miss Beckworth had to tell them off the other day, they were getting so carried away,’ said Lisa, giving Angela a nudge.
‘You’re the one who’s in danger of getting carried away – in a body bag,’ I said, giving them both a simultaneous example of
my
sort of nudge. I have very very sharp elbows. ‘I hardly
ever
speak to Jamie Edwards – and when I do it’s just to have a ferocious argument with
Jo wasn’t the only one who teased me about terrible Jamie Edwards. Lisa and Angela had started up this stupid game too. I was starting to get seriously annoyed with them. I didn’t know what had got into them this year at school. Last year we were the three leaders of nearly all the girls and we had this special club badge with GAB on it, short for ‘Girls Are Best’, and we all called each other Gabby and we had this cheerleader chant I made up: ‘Girls are best, Never mind the rest, Boys are a pest, So
Girls are best!
’
Some of the other girls got a bit fed up and drifted away but Lisa and Angela and I kept up our special girls’ gang all the time, and the three of us always went yuck and pulled a face whenever any of the boys spoke to us. I wanted to extend the rules to cover men too, but Lisa said that was daft because her dad was a man and she loved him better than anyone else in the whole world, and Angela was equally awkward and got this immense crush on this pop star and squealed whenever she saw him on the telly and she stuck hundreds of pictures of him all over her bedroom walls and kissed every one of them goodnight when she went to bed and she did inky designs of his name entwined with hers all over her school books and her ruler and her bag and even on the sleeve of her jacket, though her mum got very narked about that.
Lisa and I thought Angela had gone incredibly crackers because this guy she likes is
pathetic
. Angela agrees with us now, and she’s torn down all his pictures and crossed out his name and she’s got a new jacket – but she’s in love with another pop group now,
all
of them, and she’s forever striking up these boring boring boring conversations about what she’d do if she could only get to meet them.
I knew that if only I’d been able to sit next to Angela at school as I’d planned then I’d have been able to be a good influence on her and keep her under control. She was starting to get on my nerves so much I was wondering about whittling my best friends down to one. But then Lisa fell in love too.
And that was worse. Because she started to go crazy over David Wood – and he’s certainly not a famous star in a band, he’s just this ultra-boring boy in our class at school.
‘He’s not ultra-boring!’ Lisa squeaked. ‘He’s dead cool. I love the way he does his hair. And his eyes. And he looks really old for his age, doesn’t he, because he’s so tall.’
‘He might look old but he acts like a toddler ,’ I said, disgusted. ‘Didn’t you see him in the canteen throwing his lunch around?’
‘That was just his bit of fun,’ said Lisa. ‘One of his chips landed right in my lap!’
‘Oh wow! How could you contain your excitement,’ I said, dead sarcastic.
‘She ate it too!’ said Angela. ‘After he’d drooled all over it.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if he drooled all over
me
,’ said Lisa.
‘Oh shut
up
,’ I said. ‘Honestly. I think you had a lobotomy in the summer holiday.’
‘A lobby-what?’ said Lisa.
‘It’s an operation they perform on your brain,’ I said. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
‘I know one thing, Charlie Enright. You’re getting a right pain, always showing off and looking down your nose at other people. You’re getting just like Jamie Edwards.’
‘Yeah, maybe it’s rubbing off on her because they sit together,’ said Angela, giggling in this particularly irritating way. ‘Hey, Lisa – Charlie and Jamie, what a pair, eh?’
‘They’re always yacking away together, certainly. Miss Beckworth had to tell them off the other day, they were getting so carried away,’ said Lisa, giving Angela a nudge.
‘You’re the one who’s in danger of getting carried away – in a body bag,’ I said, giving them both a simultaneous example of
my
sort of nudge. I have very very sharp elbows. ‘I hardly
ever
speak to Jamie Edwards – and when I do it’s just to have a ferocious argument with
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