Looking for a Hero (6 page)

‘Why? Do you think you’re not?’ asked Brook.

‘That’s it. I don’t know. I mean, Amy has never complained or anything but... I’d like to be more confident about it and . . . well, there are four of you.’

‘Yes. Four of us. And?’ asked Brook.

‘Um. I wonder if you’d show me.’

‘Show you or tell you?’ I asked.

Mikey’s expression grew cheeky and he looked at me hopefully. ‘Both?’

I looked at Brook, Leela and Zahrah. None of them said anything. Brook shrugged her shoulders.

‘We’ll discuss it,’ I said. ‘And get back to you later.’

‘How about on my birthday? Mum said I could have a party – which you’re all invited to, of course.’

‘Consider it our birthday present,’ said Brook.

Mikey’s face lit up. ‘Really? Cool,’ he said, and headed for the door.

‘So?’ asked Zahrah.

Brook shrugged. ‘We could show him. I don’t mind. He’s a nice guy and sometimes I feel for boys, like, where are they supposed to learn if we don’t show them.’

‘I guess,’ I said. ‘But I’m not kissing him. I don’t mind giving him a few pointers though.’

‘How do you know that you’re a good kisser?’ asked Zahrah.

‘Experience,’ I said. ‘Erin and I sold kisses at a Christmas fête one year over in Ireland. It was hysterical. By the end of the day, I had really got the hang of the fact that there are all sorts of kisses: light, deep, sloppy, dry.’

‘And how do you know you’re a good kisser?’ asked Zahrah turning to Brook.

Brook sat up with her back very straight. ‘It’s just something I was born with.’ She ran her hands over her body. ‘This bod was made for love,’ she drawled in a Texan accent. ‘And I was born to kiss and be kissed.’

Zahrah rolled her eyes. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’

Brook laughed. ‘I’ve practised,’ she said. ‘There’s always some boy like Mikey who wants to learn. And I’ve done my homework. I’ve read up on it and then practised.’

‘Good. So you can teach Mikey. Sorted,’ said Leela.

‘What about you, Lee?’ I asked.

Leela blushed. ‘OK. I haven’t snogged many boys but I think I’m OK at it. I’ve had no complaints.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And in the meantime, let’s do a list of the boy contenders so far. Zahrah. You go first.’

‘No one.’

‘Oh come on, there must be someone at school you fancy a little.’

Zahrah looked pensive. ‘OK,’ she said after a few moments.‘I guess there is Mr Bailey’

‘Ewww,’ Leela and Brook chorused.

‘You can’t have him – he’s a teacher,’ said Leela.

‘And he so fancies himself,’ said Brook.

You’re always making up rules,’ said Zahrah. ‘You asked my opinion and that’s it.’

Leela wrote down Mr Bailey. ‘OK. I’ll add his name but we all know he’s not a real contender.’

Zahrah shrugged. ‘There’s no one else I fancy’

‘Joe Donahue for India, although he’s out of bounds now,’ said Brook, ‘Callum Hesketh, Mark Mitchell.’

‘Callum Hesketh is a waste of time,’ I said. ‘And he’s already in a relationship.’

‘Who with?’ asked Brook.

‘Himself#x2019;

‘OK,’ said Leela and she crossed Callum’s name off. ‘Er. . . Liam Wiseman, Ramesh from the drama group . . . You got any to add, India?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘Eddie O’Neil from the Sixth Form fancies me, but it’s not mutual,’ I said. Eddie was OK but there wasn’t any chemistry. I wondered if I’d ever feel as strongly about another boy as I had about Joe. He really had got to me and I still felt cut up about it.
What’s the point,
I thought.

Leela lightly slapped my arm. ‘Enough of the glum face,’ she said. ‘It’s too early to give up.’ She did the girl power fist.

‘You’re right,’ I said and did the fist back at her, but I wasn’t feeling very enthusiastic about it.
Maybe you only ever get one true love in a lifetime,
I thought. Joe
was mine and, from now on, all will be compromise.

I could feel the nunnery beckoning again.

‘What are you doing, India?’ asked my younger brother Dylan later that night as he watched me cut out bits of girls’ heads and bodies from magazines and spread them over the kitchen table. ‘Is this some kind of witchcraft ritual?’

‘No,’ I said as I continued snipping.‘I’m making a collage for art.’ I took the eyes from one girl, the hair from another, the chin from another and stuck them down on a piece of paper. ‘I’ve had a new idea for my project of self-portraits. I am going to call this one
Cut Up.’ Cut up was how I felt after Joe had told me that he was seeing someone else,
I thought, snipping off a leg and sticking it down,
so it will be a perfect self-portrait to do to represent my state of mind.
Mr Bailey, the art teacher, was going to think I was totally mental when he saw my latest batch of work. Tragic heroines. Cut-up girl collages. And then I wondered if Joe might see them – art is one of his subjects.
I hope he does,
I thought.
Then he’ll see how he’s made me feel!

‘She looks like a freak to me,’ said Dylan. He looked over my shoulder at my collage then went to the fridge and helped himself to juice and a slice of carrot cake. ‘Want anything?’

‘No thanks,’ I said. We’d just had dinner so I wasn’t hungry any more and I was enjoying creating my cut-up self while I thought about my questions for Leela’s survey. I found art could be very therapeutic some days - it let me express feelings that sometimes I found hard to put into words.

‘What do you want from a girl?’ I asked Dylan as he sat down opposite me and began to cram cake in his mouth.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t like girls. They always want to kiss me.’

I should have known better than to ask a twelve-year-old, although, judging by the number of calls he got, girls weren’t put off by the fact that he wasn’t interested. Dylan is very goodlooking with the same fine features as Mum – cherub-faced with long eyelashes and red blond hair. He’ll be a heartbreaker by the time he’s fifteen. As I sat there cutting and gluing, various members of the family came into the kitchen, including Lewis who is a student in his first year at university. He has digs in Crouch End but comes home a couple of times a week to eat and get his laundry done. Like my other brother, Ethan, Lewis has my dad’s dark Italian looks - they’re handsome too, but in a different way to Dylan.

As always in the mad house I live in, my business was soon everyone’s business and I began to wish that I had started my collage in the privacy of my room upstairs. Dad came and sat at the top of the table and started making a collage of his own. Kate sauntered in with her red silk Chinese dressing gown on and her long dark hair freshly washed and smelling of the peach shampoo in the bathroom. She sat down and had a look at what I was doing.

‘I think you may be in need of a shrink,’ she pronounced before getting up and disappearing for the rest of the evening. (We don’t see a lot of her these days. She’s more like a lodger than a cousin whose house we’re living in.)

Mum made everyone hot chocolates and Lewis and Dylan sat and stuffed their faces with choc chip biscuits. What those boys can put away is breathtaking.

What’s your perfect girl, Lewis?’ I asked.

‘The perfect girl kisses you goodnight then turns into a pizza,’ said Lewis. Everyone groaned. It was a very old joke. Why?’

‘I’m trying to work out what I want from the perfect boy,’ I replied.

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ said Mum. ‘You’re young. You’ll get to know lots of boys and discover what you want along the way.’

I looked at the strange creature I had created on paper in front of me. I hoped that I never really ended up being so torn apart and I made myself remember my resolve not to go under because of a boy.
Be positive,
I told myself as I put the collage to one side.

‘We’re doing a . . . um ... project survey sort of thing,’ I said. ‘I need some questions to ask boys about what they want from girls. Any ideas. Dad? Lewis? Dylan?’

They all replied at once. My family is anything but shy.

‘Her phone number,’ said Lewis.

‘Love, loyalty, good times,’ said Dad with an affectionate glance at Mum.

‘To get off my case and leave me alone,’ said Dylan.

‘I don’t want to know what
you
want,’ I said. ‘I need questions to ask boys tomorrow.’

‘OK. Ask what puts them off a girl,’ said Dylan.

‘Good one,’ I said and wrote it down.

‘What would impress you if a girl did it?’ said Lewis.

‘What makes a good kisser?’ said Dad.

‘Excellent,’ I said and scribbled them down too.

‘Describe what you want from a relationship,’ said Mum.

‘Thanks,’ I said and wrote that down too. It was a good start and Leela would be pleased.

When everyone had gone to bed or, in Lewis’s case, gone home, I went up to my room and was about to go to bed myself when the phone rang. I quickly picked it up before it woke everyone up.

It was Erin.‘India, thank God – I’m so glad you’re there.’

She sounded weird, slightly out of breath.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What’s going on? Are you OK?’

‘Me yeah. Sort of. I just got back from Shawn Casey’s house. It was his birthday and oh . . .Jesus, what a nightmare.’

‘Nightmare? Why? What happened?’

‘Scott.’

‘What about Scott?’

At that moment, Dad put his head around my door. ‘Who is it?’

‘For me,’ I said. ‘Erin.’

‘Bit late to be calling,’ said Dad.

I nodded and luckily he disappeared. ‘Sorry Erin, parent patrol. You were saying . . . about Scott?’

‘Yeah. Sorry to be calling late. I just needed to talk to you. He’s out of control, India. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘Remember I told you that he’d got into drinking a lot and smoking.’

Yeah but he’s always been a bit like that, hasn’t he?’

‘It’s getting worse. I’m so worried about him.’

‘Why? What exactly has he been doing?’

‘He’s using skunk. I know he’s smoked grass before, I’ve seen him do it loads of times - but this is much stronger stuff and it’s like he has a total personality change when he smokes it.’

‘Like how?’

‘He turns horrible, loud and aggressive. And sarcastic, really mean to people. Not the Scott I know at all. Like at the party, he turned up about nine, stoned – he looked totally out of it, his eyes bloodshot and blurry. Shawn didn’t look happy that he was there. I said I’d look after him and Scott heard me. He turned on me and started taunting me in a lispy little girl’s voice saying, “Erin Werin, gonna look after me”. Then he almost fell over. I leaned in quickly to catch him before he crashed into something and he pushed me against a wall and tried to snog me, but it was awful, slobbery and heavy and I know Scott is a good kisser, least he is when he’s not stoned. Shawn saw that I was trying to shove him off and stepped in and Scott went for him. A couple of Shawn’s mates threw him out, and I am so worried about him – like where did he go? And in that state? I want to call his house, but I don’t want to get his parents involved.’

‘Have you tried his mobile?’

‘Tried that first. No reply. I don’t know what I should do, like stay out of it or try and talk to him.

‘Oh God, poor you. That’s a really hard one. Look it’s late. There’s nothing you can do now; he probably staggered home and is snuggled up in bed oblivious to it all. Leave it for now and see how he is next time you see him. Or call him tomorrow.’

‘I guess. Oh hell. I’m worried he’s going to do something and regret it. What would you do?’

‘I think I’d probably try to talk to him when he’s not been smoking but, with guys like that, they can get defensive and accuse you of sounding like a teacher or a Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. It’s not going to be an easy conversation.’

‘I know. He’s already said that I’m no fun because I don’t want to try smoking it but I really don’t want to. I’ve seen how people change when they do. It really isn’t like grass. It’s like they get zombified.’

‘What do your mates say?’

‘To keep away from him but, India, we go back a long way and I know that he’s a nice guy underneath. I don’t want to see him get into trouble.’

‘Then talk to him.’

‘Yeah. No. Oh God. I’ll try. Not easy. How are you?’

I decided that this wasn’t the time to drone on about my tragic love life. ‘Fine. Nothing major to report. Listen, try and get a good night’s kip and keep me informed. Anytime you need to talk, yeah?’

‘Yeah. Thanks, India Jane. I miss you.’

‘I miss you too.’

‘Laters.’

I glanced at the photo by my bed of Erin and me. Both pulling daft faces for the camera. I felt bad for her. She’d sounded so anxious. She’d been really into Scott last year. I knew him too when I was in Ireland. He was a cutenick with a cheeky grin that could melt most people – teachers and girls. I tried to imagine how it would be if Joe was in trouble. I think, like Erin, I’d feel I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand back and watch him fall apart in front of me. Sometimes it was hard not living near to Erin any more. Even though I had new mates, Erin would always be my best friend and, when she was sad, I felt it too.
Some days feel all out of sync,
I thought. I got changed for bed then snuggled down under the duvet.
PoorScott. Poor Erin.