Desirable (3 page)

I got changed and put my clothes in my back pack. I tried to push the bottle even further down into the bottom but all the time Tiny was watching me and the more I tried to hide it, the more he suspected something.

“OK,” said Mr. Fitton, “Is everyone ready? Tiny, you're excused for being tiny. Angry Al ...”

“Let me play, sir.”

“No can do I'm afraid. Your personality is a safety hazard.”

So off we went. A huge cheer went up when I walked onto the pitch. It should have been a thrill but I was too worried about what was going on in the changing room. About two minutes into the game, there was a kind of mighty fluttering sound and from every tree for miles around, flocks of birds flew off into the sky and headed for the changing rooms. Dogs barked. Cats meowed. And the head of every girl swivelled towards the school. I knew then that Tiny had opened the aftershave. Two minutes later, the birds flew off, the dogs stopped barking, and the girls started watching me again.

It wasn't until half-time that I found out what had happened. Angry Al had tried to get the aftershave from Tiny. Tiny had tried to run and hide in the showers. There was a struggle. The bottle broke. The aftershave all vanished down the drain.

It was all over.

Chapter 6

How to be Lucky

I asked Mom where she'd bought it, thinking maybe the shop might have some left. “Barney's Bargains on Croft Road,” she said. “It was knocked down to make way for the super Walmart.” Mom works at the Walmart. She said, “I often think of that shop. It would have been just in the middle of aisle seven – where the pasta sauces and Mexican TV dinners are now.”

I searched the internet. Desirable is not a good word to google.

It was all over.

Or maybe it wasn't. When you thought about it, it was mad to think that a splash of aftershave could change your life. Maybe I had just bloomed. Maybe it was nothing to do with the aftershave.

When Jasmine and Lily got on the bus the next morning, I sat up and smiled at them. Then I shuffled along the seat so that they could sit by me. Jasmine looked at me and shuddered. Lily said, “There's George.”

Jasmine said, “And your point is?”

“Nothing,” said her sister and they sat at the back. I could hear Jasmine saying, “I wonder what they ever saw in him.”

When Danielle got on at the next stop the only seat left on the bus was the one next to me. I said, “Hi” and smiled at her when she sat down.

“Oh, you'll talk to me now,” she said. “Now that no one else wants to.”

“How do you know no one talks to me?”

“I'm a girl. Girls communicate with each other.” She showed me a txt from Paula to everyone in the school. “George Owusu,” it said, “Is SOOOOO over.”

I said, “But you don't do what the other girls do. You're different. So you could talk to me.”

“I could but I don't want to. You've changed.”

“Yes I have changed,” I said. “And before I changed you wouldn't talk to me.”

“Before you changed, you wouldn't talk to me.”

“Yeah but I wanted to. I really wanted to.”

“You say that.”

“I can prove it.”

I rummaged around in my bag and found the piece of paper with the notes written on it, the notes about what I was going to say to Danielle on my birthday.

“It was your birthday?” she said. “You never said.”

“I never said anything. But I wanted to.”

She was reading the notes. Suddenly I was embarrassed about it, so I got off the bus a stop early. While I was waiting to cross the road, Perfect Paula's big pink Audi went past and splashed me.

That lunch time though, Danielle came to Warhammer. “This,” said Tiny, “Could be the start of something big.”

It was the start of three people playing Warhammer instead of two. And three people having lunch together afterwards instead of sitting on their own. It was the start of swapping books, and burning CDs for each other and going to the movies on Saturday afternoons. It was friendship. It was great. In the week before we broke up for Christmas it was even buying presents and cards for people who were not your Mom and Dad. I got a Goblin captain for Tiny and another one for Danielle. I painted hers to make it a bit special. Tiny bought me and Danielle an orcish canon each. He'd painted hers to make it special. Danielle bought Tiny a mounted goblin. But she bought me something different. She said, “I know it's a bit old looking. I got it in Demented Discounts. I remembered you having something like it months ago.”

It was a bottle of Desirable. Best before 1983. I said, “Thanks. It's what I always wanted.”

It was the school Winter Warmer that night – a kind of party with dancing in the gym, hot dogs on the grill outside and a casino in the computer room to raise funds for the new gym. Going home that night with a full bottle of Desirable in my bag, I found myself thinking how great it would be to walk in there and have every girl smiling at me, like in the old days. All it would take was one drop.

Everyone got dressed up for it. Mom even bought me a new shirt. It had no buttons on the cuffs. “I know,” she said, “It's meant to be like that. You wear it with cufflinks, like the ones your grandad bought you.”

“But Mom, they look stupid, and they have ‘Lucky' written on them! Just think what people are going to say?”

I was going to look even more stupid than ever at the party. All the more reason to splash on the Desirable. I was just about to open the bottle when Tiny and Danielle turned up in Tiny's Mom's car.

“Look at Danielle, one girl with two boys,” said Mom.

“Nice to be popular,” said Dad.

Then Mom sighed, “Remember when our George was popular?”

That fixed it for me. I stuffed the bottle into my pocket and made up my mind to smother myself in it as soon as I got to school.

The gym looked amazing when we got there – a great big tree twinkled in the corner, garlands of tinsel hung from the walls, and the light kept changing all the time from gold to blue to red. And couples dancing together. “This is going to be great,” said Tiny, rubbing his hands.

And suddenly I knew what I wanted. I didn't want every girl in the place asking me to dance. I wanted Danielle all to myself. But what about Tiny?

Easy.

When we went outside to buy some hot dogs, I slipped the lid off the bottle in my pocket. For a moment, the music stopped and you could hear birds fluttering around the outside of the building. I rubbed my finger round the rim and then wiped it on the back of Tiny's neck before putting the lid back on.

When we got back into the gym, every head in the place swivelled to look at us.

“Oh, no,” groaned Danielle. “Please don't tell me you're back in fashion.”

I said, “I don't think it's me.”

And every girl in the place screeched, “Tiny!!!!!” and ran over to try to get him to dance. In the end, one of the teachers had to get some paper and come up with a list so that he could dance with everyone. I have never seen anyone so happy.

Apart from me and Danielle. We danced – not well, but still – and we talked. And later on we went into the casino.

“Only a dollar a chip for a game of roulette,” said Mrs. Hardman. “All the money is going to the new sports center.”

We bought three chips and put them on red and won!

We put those on black and won again. And again. And then on red again. We just couldn't stop winning.

“Let's be a bit more daring,” said Danielle. “Pick a number.”

I picked 16. And we won.

We had 500 chips by this stage. Danielle was jumping up and down with excitement. “Don't worry, Mrs. Hardman,” she said. “We'll split the winnings with the school.” It was as I was raking the chips in that I noticed something. My cufflinks. My lucky cufflinks. Could it be the cufflinks that were doing this? No. But then again, maybe.

Danielle said, “Let's take the money and stop now.”

But I had this prickly feeling in my wrists, just where the cufflinks were touching them. I said, “No. We're putting all 500 on 23 to win.”

Mrs. Hardman turned a bit pale. Then she spun the roulette wheel and dropped the ball into the wheel …

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