Boys Beware (9 page)

Ali, needless to say, is in a dither and says it feels “peculiar”, but we have given her strict instructions
not to fiddle with it.
I told her to go and watch a
Star Trek
while we got dressed, so that is what she’s doing, shut away in her broom cupboard with Fat Man. I’m hoping that
Star Trek
will take her mind off her hair.

Me and Tash, meanwhile, have prinked and preened and paraded in front of each other and are now ready and waiting. We have sorted out a load of CDs and we have a lava lamp which Auntie Jay has lent us. She said she’d rather we didn’t use candles as she’s scared of the house being set alight. In any case, it won’t really get dark enough, even with the curtains closed. I wish we could have started later and gone on till midnight, but I know that is too much to hope for. Mum would certainly not let us.

Tash has just been so sweet! She said to me that I looked “mouth-wateringly” gorgeous. That was
such
a nice thing to say. I told her in return that she looked like a ravishing rock chick (a phrase I read in
Glam Girl).
I could see that she was pleased by this.

“But he’ll still prefer you to me,” she moaned.

Why does she think so??? I do believe I look a bit more romantic (floaty skirt) but Tash
definitely
looks more sexy. I told her this, and her face lit up. She said, “Do I? Do I really?”

I said, “Yes, short skirts are always sexy.”

The only reason I’m not wearing one is because of my horrible thighs. They are all thin, like drainpipes. No shape at all! Tash’s are nice and round and plump, and if she whirls about really fast you get a glimpse of her knickers. (Calvin Klein, natch!) Dad would be horrified. But he’s not here, and Auntie Jay has been up to inspect us and has said that we both look “very pretty”.

Now it’s nearly time. I have butterflies in my stomach! Which of us will he go for???

Full report tomorrow …

Sunday

He didn’t go for either of us. Not me
or
Tash. And Ali disgraced us utterly. She brought shame on us! We just wanted to die. Apart from that, it was a great party; everybody said so. Even Shauna Bates, who considers herself “a cut above” just because her dad is a TV producer. She told us it was one of the best parties she’d been to in a long time. It was just me and Tash that couldn’t enjoy it properly. And it was all Ali’s fault!

We are
so
cross with her. We are absolutely furious with her. After all the trouble we went to! She was still in her broom cupboard when Gus arrived (the first one to do so). We didn’t mind that as it meant we could have him to ourselves for a bit. We were getting on quite well, telling him all about Mum and Dad, and school, and how we were doing all our own shopping and cooking. He was really impressed, you could tell. Then the door of the broom cupboard opened, and Ali came out, and we nearly sank through the floor. She was wearing her baggy trousers with a horrible old dishrag of a T-shirt! As if that wasn’t bad enough she’d gone and undone the whole of our beautiful hair arrangement, so that all these limp strands were now hanging like a pair of shredded curtains round her face. What did she look like??? A total MESS.

Gus said, “Oh. Hi.” Me and Tash just stared. We couldn’t believe it! All our hard work for nothing.

Ali said she didn’t realise that Gus had arrived. She said, “I’ve been watching
Star Trek.”

Like anybody cared! Gus, being polite, said, “
Next Generation?”

It doesn’t do to encourage Ali. Before we knew it she was off and running. “DS9. It’s really exciting, they’ve just mined the wormhole! Captain Sis—”

We had to put a stop to it, she’d have bored him to death.

“Ali,” I said. I clawed up a load of papers that she’d left piled all over the computer table and shoved them at her. “I thought you were going to clear this junk away?”

Ali said, “Oh. Yes. Sorry,” and promptly scattered the whole lot on the floor. We all got down on our hands and knees to pick them up. I was
seething
with fury, and
I could tell that Tash was, too. I was specially seething because I had sacrificed my wrap top, all to no purpose! (I wore my green embroidered waistcoat, instead. It actually goes quite well with the floaty skirt.)

As we stood up, Gus said, “Is this a red dwarf?”

I couldn’t think what he was talking about. He was holding out a sheet of paper, with some messy kind of picture on it. Tash snatched it from him and thrust it at Ali.

“It’s some of her astrology stuff. She gets it off the computer.
Are you going to go and put it away?”

Quite honestly, we just wanted to be rid of her. I’d have been happy if she’d spent the whole evening in her broom cupboard. She wasn’t fit to be let out! Specially not when me and Tash were trying so hard to create a good image. I mean, you have to work at these things. It’s no use expecting boys to take notice of you if you’re not prepared to make some kind of effort.

Ali took the papers, but she didn’t go and put them away. She said, “It’s astronomy, not astrology.”

“Whatever,” said Tash.

“Astronomy is stars,” said Ali. “Astrology is rubbish.”

I beg to differ! I always read my horoscope, and quite often what it says has come true. I’m sure there is something in it. But Ali can be so obstinate at times! She must have known she was putting us to shame, but
nothing would budge her. She just went on standing there, clutching her papers to her chest and mouthing on about red dwarves, as if anyone was in the least bit interested. Poor Gus must have wondered what he had got himself into. I mean, this was supposed to be a party, for heaven’s sake! You don’t expect some lunatic in baggy trousers and a shapeless T-shirt to start lecturing you.

It was a good party, in spite of Ali, but we are still very angry with her. It’s simply not worth trying to help some people.

“Why did you do it?” shrieked Tash, when everybody had gone.

Ali said, “I didn’t feel comfortable … I didn’t feel like me.”

Absolutely no remorse! No acknowledgement that she had embarrassed us in front of other people. Fortunately most of our friends know about her, they know that she is what Mum calls “a one-off”. She has a sort of reputation at school for being brilliant but weird. I mean, it
is
weird, it is
seriously
weird to appear at a party in grungy old washed-out clothes when you know that everyone else is going to be dressed up. It is weird not to care how you look or what people think of you. We didn’t so much mind about Meg, and Zoella, and the others seeing her, but I could just dig a hole and bury myself right now at the thought of Gus knowing she is my sister! It is one of those times when I would like to disown her. I know that I can’t, because of promising Mum that we would watch out for her, and I do love her, deep down, but why oh why can’t she be more like the rest of us?

Tash and I are still conducting a post mortem. We have discussed at great and satisfying length what everyone was wearing, and how everyone behaved, and who hit it off with who, or whom, or whatever it is, but always, in the end, we come back to Gus. It wasn’t like he wasn’t friendly, but you can tell when a boy is interested and when he isn’t, there are signs that give it away. It’s called “body language”. I read about it in
Glam Girl.
Like, for instance, if you’re talking to a boy at a party and he keeps his eyes fixed on you, that means
you can score three points cos he’s definitely attracted. If on the other hand his eyes start to wander – forget it!

Gus’s eyes didn’t exactly wander, but they certainly weren’t fixed on me. I just had this feeling that he was being …
polite.
Tash said she had the same feeling when she tried talking to him. She swears she wasn’t too forward, and I believe her.

“So what did we do wrong?” she wailed.

I said glumly that we didn’t do anything wrong. “He just doesn’t fancy us.”

“Neither
of us?”

I said it looked that way. The only consolation is that he didn’t seem to fancy anyone else, either, so we reckon we are still in with a chance. At any rate, we do not intend to give up!

Monday

Everyone at school has been talking about the party and saying how good it was. Meg wanted to know where we had found “the yummy boy”. She said she could have gone for him big time if he hadn’t already been spoken for.

“I mean, like, he belongs to one of you, right?”

Kim immediately pounced and said, “Which one? Who’s going out with the yummy boy?”

Me and Tash sort of hummed and hah’d and said that we hadn’t yet decided. Kim said, “You haven’t, or he
hasn’t?” Tash pointed out that we had only met him a few days ago.