Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 07] (13 page)

‘Baby,’ I said.

‘
Enough
,’
said Mum getting up from the bed.

I went into the
kitchen and grabbed a piece of toast off a plate on the breakfast bar, put on
my jacket and headed off for school. Sometimes I hate having a brother. I’m
glad I haven’t got two, I thought. Ohmigod. What must Luke have thought? Oh
dentists. I checked my mobile in the hope that there was a message from him.
Nothing. Oh double dentists. I’d better phone and grovel. Apologise. Explain
that… what will I say? That aliens came to Highgate last night and took over my
brain for a couple of hours? Oh dear. I suppose it was a bit mad thinking that
he was my brother, but it made sense at the time. Triple dentists. I must work
on my excuses and come up with a really good one if I’m to get him back. Oh,
knickers. Sometimes it’s very difficult being me.

Mental
Makeover

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I dialled Luke’s
mobile on the way to school. It was switched off.

I tried again when I got
to school. Still switched off.

In the break at
school, I made my way into the girls’ cloakroom, found a cubicle then dialled
his number again. Luckily it was break at his school as well, as he picked up.

‘Hi, this is Nesta,’ I
said.

‘Oh. Yeah. Hi.’ His
voice sounded cold. Uninterested.

‘I er, just wanted to
say three things. First sorry, the aliens got me. Not my fault I was weird last
night, they interfered with my brain.’

There was silence at
the other end.

‘OK. Not aliens. Um… I
was researching for a film role where I have to play a schizophrenic. That’s
someone with a dual personality. No, you weren’t. Yes, I was. Shut up. No, you
shut up.’

Still silence.

‘OK, you got me,’ I
said. ‘I have to tell you the real truth. I have an evil and psychotic twin. It
was her you saw last night.’

Still
silence.

‘Oh Luke, listen, I
guess, I… I wanted to say, sorry. I guess I acted a bit strange last night.
This thing with our dads has got to me more than I thought and my mum always
said I had an overactive imagination. I guess it ran away with me. I know what
I thought was mad especially now in the light of the day, having slept on it
and…’ I realised that I was doing all the talking. ‘Are you still there, Luke?
Join in anytime…’ There was a very loooooooooong silence. Oh dentists, I
thought, I’m going to be dumped before we really got started. And it’s all my
stupid fault. ‘Are you still there, Luke?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right. So…’ But I
didn’t have anything else to say. My flow of bad apology and mad excuses had
dried up. ‘Um, OK then. See you around maybe… Sorry, sorry…’

‘Look, Nesta,’ said
Luke, ‘I think you have to make up your mind what you want. I felt a total
idiot last night, being left in that cafe with two of your mates watching it
all…’

‘Not my mates. They’re
in my class…’

‘Whatever.’

‘Yeah. Sorry.
Whatever.’

‘And what were you on
about? Me being your brother?’

‘I know. Oops. Big
mistake. Velly solly.’

I heard the bell go in
the distance at his end. ‘I have to go to class. Look, Nesta. I think we got
involved a bit fast. Let’s slow down a bit and take some time. Think about what
we want, OK.
You
think about what
you
want. I get the feeling
that you don’t really know.’

‘Oh… OK;

‘Just take some time…’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I
heard you. Take some time. OK. One, two, three. OK. Ready.’

At last Luke laughed.
‘Bit longer maybe. Look. Call me later,’ he said. ‘Maybe we could meet up
tomorrow?’ This time his voice sounded warmer.

‘OK. Later.’

Hurrah, I thought as I
switched my phone off and went to find the girls. Once again, life never closes
a wotsit without opening another wotsit.

Tomorrow, he’d said.
That’s Friday. In that case, I decided, I was going to take full advantage of
the next twenty-four hours and put myself through a mental makeover and crash
course on films and all I could find to do with them. When I saw Luke next, I
was going to astound him with my tip-top knowledge of everything to do with
movies and not just the entertaining kind that I liked. I was going to be Miss
Film Critic of the year.

At lunch-time, I went
to the library and piled all the books about films that I could on to the desk.
I poured through them trying to remember who’d directed what and who’d produced
what, so that I could name-drop and impress Luke. In the evening, I pulled all
Dad’s movie books out on to the dining table and continued my swotting up.

‘What’s going on?’
asked Tony when he found me nose to page with
Halliwell’s Film Guide
.

‘Need to know about
movies,’ I said, indicating the books.

‘But you do already,’
he said. ‘Don’t tell me that having a director as a dad hasn’t rubbed off on
you? I think you know more than you realise.’

‘Not as much as Luke.
He knows about ones I’ve never heard of.’

‘And you probably know
about ones he’s never heard of. Don’t put yourself down, Nesta.’

‘But there’s so many,
hundreds, thousands, I’m beginning to think that there aren’t enough hours in
the week to mug up on it all. I don’t know where to begin.’

‘Well what genre are
you looking at?’ he asked. ‘You do know what a genre is, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. Course,’ I
said. ‘It means type. Like romance or comedy. There are loads of different
genres. Like thriller, horror, detective, sci-fi, war, cartoon…’

‘See. You’re not as
stupid as you look,’ said Tony.

‘But I’ll
never
have enough time to swot up on all of them,’ I said, groaning. ‘It’s so
complicated.’

‘So why are you
looking at all this stuff? For a school project?’

‘No way. For Luke.’

Tony laughed. ‘Ah
well, there’s only one film you should talk to him about,’ he said.

‘Which is?’

‘The Coen brothers
movie.
O Brother, Where Art Thou
?’

‘Oh ha ha, you’re so
funny,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to forget about that minor brain blip. But
seriously, I need to impress Luke with my knowledge of movies.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s his passion and
I think I blew it the other night by dismissing him when he was talking about
them.’

‘Ah. You’ve forgotten
the rules.’

‘What rules?’

‘How to be a brilliant
conversationalist.’

‘I know how to be a
brilliant conversationalist, least no one’s ever complained before. Why? Do you
know something I don’t?’

‘Actually, yes I do,’
said Tony. ‘Or something you’ve forgotten.’

‘OK, Mister Know It
All. What?’

Tony shook his head
and looked at me sadly. ‘Wow. This guy has really got to you, hasn’t he? I
don’t think I’ve ever seen you lose it like this before. It’s like your brain
has gone dead. You don’t talk, you
listen
. Ask a few pointed
questions, then listen some more.’

‘D’er? Explain?’

‘What’s the most
flattering thing in the world?’ asked Tony.

‘To be told you’re
totally beautiful, I guess.’

‘Wrong. Well, that’s
OK, but actually, it’s when someone is like, totally interested in what you
have to say. Often in conversations, people don’t listen to each other. Not
really. Often, all the time one person is talking, the other person is planning
what they’re going to say, often not even really listening…’

I couldn’t resist.
‘Sorry. What were you saying? I was too busy planning what I was going to say
next.’

‘If you’re not going
to pay attention…’

‘No, Tone, I was just
having a laugh. Sorry. Listening.’

‘Well, that’s it
really. There’s nothing more flattering than someone really listening to you.
People
love
to talk about themselves and what they think. Course, this
tactic won’t last for ever, as you might get bored out of your brains listening
to someone else’s opinion all the time, but in the beginning it can really sway
things in your favour. I do it all the time. Makes girls feel really special. A
lot of boys haven’t cottoned on to it yet. Ask girls what they think about
things they’re into and really listen like you’re fascinated.’

I pointed to all the
books I’d been studying. ‘So you’re saying that I don’t have to study all this
stuff?’

‘You can if you want
to but, if the only reason you’re doing it is to have a conversation with Luke
about movies and make him feel good, then you don’t need to read up. All you
need to do is listen to what he thinks, ask him his opinion about a few films
and really listen to his replies. If you do it right, he won’t even notice that
you haven’t said much.’

‘Thanks Tony, you’re a
star,’ I said. How could I have forgotten the golden rules, I asked myself? I
already
knew
what he’d told me. Clearly falling in lurve had not made
me blind but
stupid
. But then, I guess this is the first time that the
tables have turned on me. Usually it’s boys who are trying to impress me. I’ve
never felt that I had to work hard to impress one of them before. And now
Tony’s reminded me how easy it is. Just let them talk and I listen. I put away
the books and settled down to watch
EastEnders
. Bliss.

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