Boys on the Brain

Boys on the Brain Jean Ure Cresta's diary starts: "My mum! She has boys on the brain!" This is a fun, pacey diary-based story told through the eyes of a typical contemporary girl of 14 in an 'AB FAB' kind of family.Cresta and Charlie are seriously embarrassed by their parents who insist on behaving like teenagers… Cresta's mother and her boyfriend play loud music when she's trying to work, and keep her awake at night with their noisy parties.Charlie, who's a bit plump, complains that her mum keeps nagging her to go on a diet. "Hasn't she ever heard of anorexia?" she complains.Cresta and Charlie are serious about their schoolwork and their careers and they are not going to waste their time thinking about boys… at least until they've taken their A levels… But then they meet some seriously cool guys. Boys on the Brain JEAN URE Illustrated by Karen Donnelly Copyright (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2001 Text copyright © Jean Ure 2001 Illustrations © Karen Donnelly 2001 The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007113736 Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007401628 Version: 2016-12-12 For Eleanor Warren, who writes wonderful letters Contents Cover (#u4d8f805e-41c7-5d88-88bc-53cc96039aed) Title Page (#u467688af-a3f4-5bd0-b4b2-0df97cd12cbf) Copyright Tuesday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Three years Later… Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author Also by The Author About the Publisher Tuesday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) (1st day of winterterm) Honestly! Mum is impossible. She is obsessed with boys. She has boys on the brain. First thing she says to me, over tea: “Guess who I travelled in with this morning? Brad Sullivan!” Not, “How was school?” or “Who’s your new class teacher?” or “What’s your timetable like?” but Brad Sullivan. “He’s turning into a really nice boy,” said Mum. I felt like saying, “Feel free! He’s all yours!” But Mum has such rotten taste in men she might just take me at my word. My mum and Brad Sullivan! I can just see it. And then, what about poor old Harry? He’d be out on his elbow. On the whole I do feel that Harry is a Good Thing. The first decent bloke she’s ever had. I wouldn’t want her ditching him. So I restrained my worst impulses and said, “Really?” in a polite but yawny sort of way, hoping that she would get the message. The message being that I do not want to hear about Brad Sullivan. Or about any other boy, come to that. I am sick of the whole subject! Instead, I tried talking about school. I said, “I’m so relieved! Me and Pilch are both in 9C.” I’ve been worried, just lately, that they might split us up. “We’re together for almost everything,” I said. “Oh, and we’ve got Mrs. Adey for English again!” “Have you!” said Mum. “That’s good!” To be fair to her, she did try to take an interest, but in the end temptation overcame her. As usual! The opposite sex just dra-a-a-aws Mum like a magnet. “Brad was telling me,” (she goes) “how he’s joined this new youth thing. They’re going to put on musicals.” Meaning, in Mumspeak, why don’t you join the youth thing? Join the youth thing and meet some boys! “They’re going to do a rock panto for Christmas,” chirrups Mum. “Wow,” says I. “They’re desperate for female voices!” Mum is so transparent. “You can sing,” she says. “Why don’t you try joining?” I said, “Because I have a voice like a corn-crake.” “No, you haven’t!” said Mum. “You’ve got quite a nice voice.” “Pilch is the one who can sing,” I said. Of course, she jumped on this immediately. “So you can both join!” “Mum!” I yelled. “I haven’t got time!” She’s always doing this to me. I wish she wouldn’t! I know she means well. I know she only has my interests at heart. What she considers to be my interests. But I wish she would just leave me alone! “You know what they say,” sighed Mum. “All work and no play…” I happen to like work. In any case, you have to study if you’re going to get anywhere. And I am going to get somewhere! I am absolutely determined. I said this to Mum and she said, “Oh, Cresta, you’re so focused!” I’m still trying to work out what she meant. Like, did she mean “I’m so lucky to have a 14-year-old daughter who thinks of something other than boys and clothes and make-up”? Or did she mean, “I wish I had a 14-year-old daughter that was a bit more like other people’s 14-year-old daughters”? I think that is what she meant. I think what she would really like is for me to be all dizzy and dumb. Well, maybe not dumb, exactly; but if we could have these cosy conversations about women’s magazine type stuff. A hundred different ways to do your hair, or how to get your man in six easy lessons. That kind of thing. I know I’m a disappointment to her, but I can only be how I am. And how I am is me. I wish Mum could accept that! Friday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Harry the Hunk came round this evening and he and Mum went to the pub. Mum wanted to know what I was going to do. I said, “Oh, I’ll probably get on with my homework.” Harry said, “Homework on a Friday? You’re keen!” “Oh, she is,” said Mum. She said it kind of… wistfully. “I’ve got simply stacks,” I said. I haven’t, actually; it’s too early in the term. What it was, I’d had this thought about Carlito and I wanted to write it down to read to Pilch tomorrow. I have thoughts about Carlito almost every night! Sometimes I find it hard to remember that he is only a figment of my imagination and not a real person. I only hope I never have to have an anaesthetic as I dread to think what kind of stuff I might start splurging on about as I come round!!! How embarrassing! Some of the things that go on in my head… This latest thought, I am glad to say, is perfectly respectable. It came to me in bed, as thoughts so often do. (Bed is a good place for having thoughts.) It started with the discovery that Carlito cannot read or write, and just went on from there. This whole scene unrolled itself in my head. Pilch is bound to shriek “What?” And then when she has got over her shock she will instantly demand to know “Why?” and I will have no answer for her. I have no idea why! It is just something that happened. It is a bit weird, in a way, since I am sure that in real life I would find it extremely difficult to converse with someone that was unable to read or write. Whatever would we talk about??? I think what it is, I think it is the Heathcliff factor. Like last term when we were reading Wuthering Heights, Mrs Adey said that Heathcliff represented a “primitive force”. Carlito is a primitive force! Boys like Brad Sullivan simply pale into insignificance. This is something Mum couldn’t even begin to understand. The power of the imagination! What I pictured was this sultry scene in a Spanish night club, where Carlito has gone with a party of his friends. One of them, who is secretly jealous of Carlito’s smouldering good looks and the way he can have any girl he wants, tricks him into somehow revealing the fact that he cannot read. (Not yet sure how. I shall have to work this out!) The so-called friend, who is English and not very attractive, sneers in a superior way, thinking the rest of the party will also sneer and that the girls will no longer find him attractive, Carlito I mean, but of course they do. Carlito himself is not in the least bit abashed. As Harry would say, in his coarse earthy way, “He doesn’t give a monkey’s!” This is on account of his wild gypsy blood, being very proud and fiery. He simply tosses his head and snarls - I am not sure what he snarls! Something rude in Spanish. I wish I knew something rude in Spanish! All I can think of is “Tu madre!” which I read somewhere is swearing, though I don’t quite see how it can be since all it means is “your mother”. But it sounds good. In Spanish! At any rate it will have to do for now. Perhaps later I will think of something better. Saturday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Mum and Harry came back from the pub last night with some friends they had met. They sat up for simply hours shrieking and talking and playing music very loudly, so that in the end I had to go downstairs and ask them if they would mind being a bit quiet as I was trying to sleep. “It is gone midnight,” I said. They seemed for some reason to think this was funny. But they did at least turn the music down. Went into town after lunch and met Pilch. We mooched round the shops, ending up in Paperback Parade where we each bought a book. I bought War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, and Pilch bought Anna Karenina, also by Tolstoy. We have made a vow to read them! War and Peace has almost fifteen hundred pages. One thousand four hundred and eighty-five, to be precise. Gulp! But last term Mrs Adey said it was a great book, so I am sure it will be interesting. Bumped into Cindy Williams and Tasha Lansmann in the shopping centre. They were with boys. They are a bit like Mum: boys are all they ever think about. Cindy has put white stripes in her hair. She looks like a zebra crossing. Told Pilch about Mum trying to get me to join the youth thing, just because of Brad Sullivan, and Pilch said her mum is the same. I don’t see how she can be! Pilch’s mum isn’t man-mad. I said this to Pilch and she said, “No, but my sister is and in some ways that is even worse.” She said that Janine spends all her time, practically, in front of the mirror practising make-up and how to look flirty. “And she’s only twelve years old! It makes you feel like you’re abnormal, or something.” “It’s surely not abnormal,” I said, “to want to get somewhere?” I reminded Pilch of our pact that we made last term. Our sacred, solemn pact to foreswear the opposite sex until we have taken our A-levels and got to uni. “It’s the only way,” I said. Pilch sighed. She said, “Yes, I know.” “I mean, if we’re going to be brain surgeons -” I said this to cheer her up and bring a smile to her face. Becoming brain surgeons was what we always used to say when people asked us. We didn’t mean it literally. It was just, like, a symbol of our determination to go places. To get somewhere. To be someone. Probably, in my case, a great writer, or maybe a TV journalist. I still haven’t made up my mind. Neither has Pilch. Sometimes she thinks she’ll be an architect, building glass bubbles and upsetting Prince Charles, other times she thinks she’ll be an archaeologist, digging up lost civilisations. But anyway, something. We are not just going to be cogs! We are certainly not going to be like our mums. After shopping we went back to Pilch’s place and locked ourselves in her bedroom (away from her little brother) and read each other our latest episodes. My one about Carlito, Pilch’s about Alastair. Pilch’s was in-ter-min-able! She has now decided that Alastair’s parents are hugely noble and live in a castle somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland. She’s got this book all about clans and she’s written pages and pages describing in excruciating detail the tartans that people are wearing. She seems to think that men in kilts are sexy. She’s even got Alastair wearing one! Blue and green, the clan of Mackenzie. He keeps saying things like “Och ay the noo”, which I thought was a bit odd considering that last week she said he was speaking in “very cultured English”. She explained, however, that when he’s back home in the Highlands (or Heelands, as she calls them) he goes all Scottish and speaks “in a soft lilt”. Hm! I didn’t say anything, as it obviously turns her on. After Pilch had read her bit, I read mine about Carlito in the night club. Pilch kept going “What?” just as I’d known she would. I told her to shut up and listen. After all, I hadn’t gone “What?” about all that tartan stuff, and this was far more inspired! I’d pictured the whole scene. Carlito sitting there all smouldering and sultry and this pale geeky English type believing himself to be so-o-o-o superior and everyone thinking he’s just dross. I’d written how Carlito curls his lip and goes “Tu madre!” with the candlelight glinting in his jet black hair. All Pilch could think to say was, “What’s he going on about his mother for?” Honestly. I bet people didn’t ask Tolstoy things like that! I am writing this in the evening. Mum and Harry are downstairs watching telly. They asked me if I was going to stay and watch with them, but I said I’d got to make a start on War and Peace. “It’s nearly fifteen hundred pages,” I said. Harry then made one of his coarse earthy remarks which is totally unprintable. Four-letter words just spew out of that man! It is simply no use trying to impress him. Or Mum. I don’t know why I bother. Anyway, I don’t really think they’d want me there with them. They’re still at the stage of snogging on the sofa. I nearly caught them at it the other day. I swear I heard this slurping noise as they prised their lips apart. I cannot see the attraction! I could if it were Carlito. But that is another matter… Sunday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Managed twenty pages of War and Peace last night. It is rather hard to get into, but I suppose that’s because it is a classic. Classics are not meant to be easy. Anyone could read them if they were. Harry the Hunk seems to have become a permanent weekend fixture. He stayed overnight on Friday and was still here this morning. And I don’t think he sleeps on the sofa. Mum used to pretend that he did. She used to make this big production out of lugging bedclothes downstairs and saying how inconvenient it was living in a two-bedroom terrace and not having a spare room. But I used to lie awake and hear the stairs creaking, so I’m sure it was just for show. Now he’s, like, here every weekend, all weekend, Friday night till Monday morning. I’m not sure how I feel about this. OK, I guess. I mean, if it makes Mum happy. She’s had lots of boyfriends over the years. Most of them have been dire; some of them have made her cry. And they’ve all regarded me as a definite impediment. Like, “Oh, that horrible spotty snot-nosed brat.” Harry just accepts me, like I am trying very hard to just accept him. It is not always easy, as I said to Pilch. It is all right for her, as she is used to living with a man, i.e. her dad. But when you are not accustomed to having a great hairy male about the place there are certain things that you have to try and remember. Like for instance you cannot just leave your underwear and stuff dripping over the bath. Well, I mean, you can. You could. It’s not like there are any rules about it. But then I would feel embarrassed, and it is the same with the loo. To think that you are sitting where a male bum has been sitting. Not that there is anything very much that you can do about it, unless you carry your own portable loo seat with you. Pilch giggles when I say this, but I am serious! It is a big intrusion into one’s life. However, I will accept it for Mum’s sake. She is obviously one of those women who needs a man to make her feel complete, and it is probably too late for her to change now. But just imagine! If she didn’t spend all that time snogging on the sofa she could be educating herself. She could be going to evening classes! She could be taking an OU course! She could be doing almost anything. And then instead of just being a bank clerk, she could be the actual manager! I did once suggest this to her, but she said, “I cannot think of anything more boring!” It is strange how different Mum and me are. I have this burning ambition, while Mum, it seems, is content with her lot. All she asks is a man in her life. And now she has one! So I must be happy for her and not worry about trivial things such as lavatory seats. Monday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) (2nd Week) Pilch rang last night. It was almost half-past eleven, so I thought it must be one of Mum’s friends. They are always ringing at these weird hours. They are a pretty weird bunch of people. Always shrieking and giggling. They don’t act their age at all. But Mum seems to think they are amusing. Anyway, it wasn’t one of Mum’s friends. Harry came back from the hall and said, “There’s a fish on the phone.” “A what?” said Mum. Harry said, “A fish of some kind. It wants to speak to another fish.” “Oh, you mean Pilch,” I said. It was his idea of a joke. He knows perfectly well that we call each other Pilch. We have done for years. I remember the day we started doing it. It was when we were really young, like nine or ten, and we had this simply humungous row, and Pilch yelled, “You look like a stupid pilchard!” To which, with immense wit, I instantly retorted, “So do you… you… pilchard!” And we have called each other Pilch ever since. Rather silly, really, but these things stick. I expect we will still call each other Pilch when we are middle-aged. Sometimes I forget that Pilch is really Charlie. Well, Charlotte, actually, but no one ever calls her that. So anyway I charged out to the phone and said, “Why are you ringing me at this time of night?” I mean, it is practically unheard of. People simply do not do that sort of thing in Pilch’s house. Unlike Mum and Harry, who behave like teenagers, Pilch’s mum and dad go to bed at reasonable grown-up type hours. Pilch says they are always safely snoozing by eleven o’clock. That is what grown-ups ought to do. Not sit around playing loud music and keeping their children awake till after midnight. “I wanted to tell you,” said Pilch. “I’ve found some more swear words for you. For Carlito. He could say… caramba.” I said “What?” “Caramba,” said Pilch. I asked her what it meant and she said she didn’t know, but she thought it had to be swearing of some kind. She had just read it in a book. “In Anna Karenina?” I said, somewhat surprised. Pilch said, “Well - n-no. Not in Anna Karenina. I’m not actually reading that just at present.” I said, “Why not?” “I’ve read nearly a whole chapter!” said Pilch. “How much have you read?” “More than you,” I said. It’s true. I have now reached page 55! (It is still rather difficult, but I think maybe this is because the print is so small.) When I went back to the kitchen, Mum and Harry were grappling with each other over by the cooker. They broke apart in a guilty fashion as I came in. I felt like saying, “Please don’t mind me. I realise that you are in the throes of sexual passion.” Tasha Lansmann said today that she thinks Mrs Pritchard is having an affair with Mr Bunting. She said that she bumped into Mr Bunting coming out of the library, and that he looked decidedly shifty and was “adjusting his dress”. This is such a disgusting expression! All it means is fiddling with his flies. And it is probably quite untrue. He probably just had an itch in an embarrassing place. Tasha Lansmann sees sex everywhere. All the same, I shall look at Mrs Pritchard most carefully next time I go to the library. These things do happen. Tuesday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Something intensely annoying. At lunch time me and Pilch had gone to the loo when suddenly there was the sound of the door crashing open and feet clumping in, and it was Cindy Williams and Tasha Lansmann. I could tell it was them by their loud squawking voices. “So who are you asking?” goes Tasha. “You asking Mel and her crowd?” Cindy says yes, she’s asking practically everybody. “I want it to be a real rave, you know?” She’s talking about her birthday party. “Boys?” says Tasha. At which Cindy sniggers and says, “What do you think?” So then they have a bit of a giggling session, then Tasha goes, “What about Ticky and Tocky?” And I freeze, ‘cos this is a name they’ve recently invented for me and Pilch. “You must be joking!” goes Cindy. “That pair? They’d put the kiss of death on anything, they would!” Personally I wouldn’t go to Cindy’s rotten party if she fell on her bended knees and begged me, and Pilch says that she wouldn’t, either. All the same, it just goes to show that you cannot be even the teeniest, tiniest bit different without being reviled and cast out. As Harry said the other day, when Mum was going on about the government, “It was ever thus.” Not that that is much comfort. I just hope they haven’t upset Pilch. She is very sensitive. Have reached chapter five of War and Peace. The trouble with very thick paperbacks is that you can’t open them wide enough to read the left-hand side of the page properly. It is quite tiresome. But I am going to persist because after all it is a classic. Wednesday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Went to the library to look at Mrs Pritchard. Also to see if there was a copy of War and Peace that I could borrow that might be easier to read than the one I bought, but there wasn’t so I took out Harry Potter, instead. I am not giving up on War and Peace, but I have come to the conclusion that a diet of nothing but classics is probably a bit indigestible, especially when they are in small print and you cannot read properly on the left-hand side of the page. Looked hard at Mrs Pritchard but couldn’t see any signs that she was any different from usual, which I think there would be if she were having an affair with Mr Bunting. Whenever Mum takes up with a new bloke it’s like total meltdown. She goes all moony and giggly and starts wearing these utterly unsuitable clothes. Crop tops and miniskirts and stuff that makes me really ashamed to be seen with her. Mrs Pritchard wasn’t in the least bit moony or giggly, she was quite sharp and spiky, the same as always. So I think Tasha was just fantasising. In any case, it would be entirely too trivial. I mean, Mrs Pritchard is a librarian. She has better things to do with her time. I know Mr Bunting is generally reckoned to be quite hunky, like he has these muscles all bulging out of his arms like waterlogged balloons, and people such as Cindy and Tasha hang around and gawp when he goes running in his shorts. But he teaches geography and has a brain the size of a pea. He is totally illiterate. He once gave me C minus for my geography homework and wrote “Its not good enough Cresta.” Its instead of It’s. And no comma! How could Mrs Pritchard have an affair with a man like that? I hate geography, anyway. Thursday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Pilch came into school today very upset as her mum suggested to her last night that maybe she should go on a diet. Pur-lease! Has her mum never heard of anorexia? It is true that Pilch is a bit on the plump side, but so what? That is the way she is made. It is the way she is happy. Why should she go and change her natural basic shape just to satisfy her mum? Pilch said gloomily that it’s because of her sister being thin as a pin and going out with all these boys, even though she is only twelve and a half. “Mum thinks I’m being left behind.” “So she wants you to starve yourself?” I said. Honestly! What with my mum going on about boys, and now Pilch’s mum wanting her to starve herself, it’s a wonder we’re not both on Prozac. Pilch said anxiously, “You don’t think I’m fat, do you?” I said, “No, you’re just well covered, and even if you were fat, what would it matter?” “I wouldn’t want to be fat,” said Pilch. I said, “Now you’re just being sizeist! You’re as bad as your mum.” Pilch said it was all very well for me as I am what she calls “a fashionable shape”. In other words, thin. I said, “That just happens to be the way that nature made me,” and I got on my high horse a bit and started lecturing her about turning herself into a media creation. Pilch said, “What do you mean, a media creation?” “Like you read about in the papers,” I said. I told her that I was sick of young people always being depicted as lame-brained airheads only interested in the opposite sex, head-banging music, designer drugs and clothes. “Some of us have a bit more going for us than that! We don’t spend all our time gazing into mirrors and tarting ourselves up and going on diets and making ourselves ill. Your mum ought to be ashamed of herself,” I said. Pilch cheered up a bit when I said this. She confessed that she had lain awake half the night pinching bits of flesh between her finger and thumb and wondering whether she ought to give up eating entirely, or at any rate stick to yoghurt and raw carrots. “It was making me really miserable,” she said, as we stood in the queue for lunch. “And oh, look!” she added. “They’ve got macaroni cheese!” I don’t really like macaroni cheese that much but I ate some just to keep her company. I think it is important that we stand shoulder to shoulder in this crisis. Friday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Harry came round. As usual. He and Mum went up to the pub. Also as usual. Mum said, “You don’t mind, Cresta, do you?” I said, “Why should I mind?” “Well -” Mum looked at Harry. This sort of “Help me!” look. “It seems so awful! Me going out to enjoy myself while you just mope here with a book.” “I’m perfectly happy,” I said. “Yes, I know,” said Mum, “but—” “You ought to get out more,” said Harry. I said, “I do get out! I go to school every day. Or hadn’t you noticed?” “There’s no need to be rude,” said Mum. I wasn’t being rude. But I hate it when they start on at me like I’m some kind of freak! Is it truly so abnormal to want to get somewhere in life? You’d think with all the bad experience Mum has had she would be pleased I don’t gad about, as Nan would say. Maybe she is scared that I am a lesbian, though what there is to be scared about I really don’t know. It is perfectly acceptable. But anyway, I’m not! If Carlito were to suddenly appear I would gad like crazy. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself! I would do all kinds of unspeakable things. I would snog, I would French kiss, I would probably even have under-age sex… Gulp! It is probably just as well that he is merely a figment of my imagination. “So! You really don’t feel like joining us?” said Mum. “Truly,” I said. “I have things to do.” “Well, all right. We shan’t be late,” said Mum. “We’ll probably all come back here.” “Yes, and this time,” said Harry, “the nasty old folk will behave themselves. No noise! That’s a promise!” They’re back here, now. I’m in my room and they’re downstairs, and they are making a noise. It seems they can’t help it. They’re playing music VERY LOUD. But I don’t want to be laughed at again so I’ve just stuffed cotton wool in my ears and am doing my best to ignore it. It is not easy. Saturday (#uf376bd7b-51ca-583d-9852-83d1c1c990ed) Met Pilch in the shopping centre. Bumped into Tasha, on her own, i.e. without Cindy. But with a boy. The boy was Brad Sullivan. So much for Mum’s plan for him and me to get together. Ha! I didn’t want to, anyway. But it intensely annoyed me when Pilch said, “Wow! Where did she get that from?” I said, “It’s only Brad Sullivan. He lives in my road.” “Oh! He’s the one your mum wanted you to meet,” said Pilch. “I don’t need to meet him,” I said. “I’ve already met him. I know him.” Well, I do, sort of. We always say hello. “He’s kind of cute,” said Pilch. Cute??? Brad Sullivan??? No way! “He reminds me of Carlito,” said Pilch. Indignantly I said, “He isn’t anything like Carlito!” Pilch said, “I think he is.” “Well, you can think what you like,” I said, “but he’s not your character, so how would you know?” She said, “I’m just going by the way you describe him.” “Well! Ho!” I said. “If I were going by the way you describe Alastair I would think he was a total nerd.” Pilch’s face suddenly transmuted into this big overripe tomato. “What do you mean?” she said, all tight and quivering. “Tall and willowy, lissom of limb and lithe of body, with hair like spun sunshine.” That is, actually, what she wrote. It was so naff that I memorised it. “Anyway,” I said, “if he’s Scotch he’s a Celt, and Celts don’t look like that.” “Oh?” said Pilch. “So what do they look like, according to you?” I said, “I know what they look like… short and dark and squat.” That shut her up! I know it was mean, destroying someone’s fantasy, but it served her right for saying that that stupid Brad Sullivan looked like Carlito. She didn’t talk to me again for another five minutes, until this woman came over to us wanting us to give money for cancer research and we wouldn’t because we once read somewhere that they torture animals, and the woman said, “Suppose you got cancer?” to which Pilch replied, “A principle is still a principle,” which I thought was rather good, and that got us talking again. Me and Pilch never stop talking for very long. We have too much to say to each other! Mum complains about it, because of the telephone bill. She says, “How you can be at school together all day and then gabble on for hours in the evening, I really do not know.” It is because we have things to discuss. Important things. School things, work things, book things. Things about Alastair and Carlito! Pilch and I have always talked. Back in Year 7 Ms Martin used to say, “Cresta McMorris and Charlotte Peake. I want you at opposite sides of the room.” But even then we used to pass notes! And then we had our secret language that no one but us could understand. IBBY language. We used to put an Ib after the first letter of every word - unless it began with a vowel, in which case we put an N in front of it. Verree complicated! But we got so’s we could rattle it off. That was when we were in Juniors. I can’t do it now. Unfortunately. If I could, I would go up to Cindy and Tasha and yell, “Sibtupid miborons!” And I’d do a rude gesture to go with it. Came back here with Pilch to read our latest episodes and found the whole place pulsating. “Oh, God,” I said, “they’re at it again!” “At what?” said Pilch. I said, “Playing their music!” As soon as me and Pilch appeared, Harry very ostentatiously turned the volume down. “Sorry,” he said. He put a finger to his lips. “Old folk being noisy again!” “What is it?” said Pilch. Mum, foolishly beaming, said, “They were my favourite group when I was young.” She held out a record sleeve. She has become a real vinyl nut since meeting Harry. It seems CDs aren’t loud enough, or something. “Look!” Pilch took the sleeve with this air of naive wonderment. “It’s a record,” she said. “I know! Isn’t it brilliant?” said Mum. “This album came out on my sixteenth birthday!” “And it’s still playable,” said Harry. “Who said records don’t last?” Pilch was staring, like, transfixed, at the sleeve. It was green and purple, with swirly bits. She said, “Dawn of Humanity… is that the name of the group or of the album?” “You’ve got to be kidding me!” said Harry. “It’s the name of the group,” said Mum. She snatched back her precious sleeve. “Please don’t tell me you’ve never heard of them!” “Mum,” I said, “things have moved on.” Mum sniffed. A bit huffy. “Fat lot you’d know about it,” she said. “Spend your life with your head buried in a book.” I grumbled to Pilch as we came upstairs. “It’s horrible,” I said. “They play it all the time.” “I think it’s fun,” said Pilch. “You wouldn’t,” I told her, “if you were trying to read War and Peace” Pilch said she didn’t expect, if she were trying to read War and Peace, she would find anything much fun. “They’re really hard going, aren’t they?” she said. “These Russian things?” “They’re classics,” I said. “Yes, I know,” said Pilch; and she heaved this big sigh. Pilch worries me sometimes. She doesn’t seem as committed as she used to be. I know it was my idea that we should read the classics, but she agreed with me. I didn’t force her. I just felt we ought to tackle something a bit - well! Worthy. Of course I have already done Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice; Pilch has only seen them on the telly. Anna Karenina is the first classic she has ever tackled. Maybe she just needs a bit of a breathing space. I am not going to nag as I feel that would be counterproductive. I will just wait and see what happens. Sunday (#ulink_296a52e0-35bf-55e8-a77b-322c3d0e75ed) Drove over to Wimbledon Dog Track with Mum and Harry. Not, alas, to see greyhounds but to look for vinyl at this record fair that’s held there. Record fairs, it seems, are full of the weirdest people! Strange anoraky men clutching big bags and long lists of the stuff they’re looking for. They speak in these nerdy, high-pitched voices and they loom over you and breathe over you as you go through the records. And when they find one they think they might want, they take it out of its sleeve and hold it up to the light and peer at it this way and that way, sometimes through a magnifying glass. If they discover even the tiniest mark, totally invisible to the naked eye, they point it out, with great earnestness, to the person that’s selling it. “Look at this,” they go, in their nerdy flutey voices. “There’s a mark about half a centimetre in. Can you see it? Just there, where my finger is… is it fly doings, or is it a scratch?” I didn’t know that flies did things on records but apparently they do. And then it sticks and causes the needle to go thunk or to fly into the air. I looked in vain, amongst all the anorakys, for anyone resembling Carlito. I look for boys who look like Carlito everywhere I go! They are very rare in this part of the world, though I did see a pizza delivery boy the other day who looked like him from a distance, only when I got close he turned out to be all nerdy and spotty. A big disappointment! But I live in hope. Mum, meanwhile, lives in hope of finding this one particular album called Driftwood. “If you come across it,” she told me, “buy it! No matter what the price.” She gave me some money and sent me off, but I didn’t find it, and nor did she or Harry. I looked ever so hard! I mean, I do like to make her happy if I can. I waded through stacks and stacks of grungy old fly-spattered records, but it wasn’t there. “What’s so special about it, anyway?” I said. “It’s part of my youth,” said Mum. “Just imagine, Cresta! You’re missing out on so much! You won’t have anything to look back and remember when you’re my age.” Oh, yes, I shall! I shall remember reading War and Peace. I am now on page one hundred and forty-three. Phew! Monday (#ulink_9dd021a1-deb3-5d6b-9b54-32eb74e8ea9b) (3rd week) Mum said to me over tea, “Harry and I have been invited to a party on Saturday.” I said, “That’s nice.” I know that Mum likes parties. She is a very sociable sort of person, which is one of the reasons I am such a huge disappointment to her. Mum really loves to be with a crowd! I just sort of shrivel. I am one of those people, if ever I go to a party (which mostly I don’t, because no one invites me) who end up standing in the corner with no one to talk to. It makes me feel very self-conscious. Like everyone’s looking at me thinking “Look at that boring girl standing in the corner.” I know that is what Cindy Williams and Tasha Lansmann would be thinking. I don’t know why it is that I can’t behave the same as other people. Sometimes I really wish I could! I am sure it would make my life a whole lot easier, plus it would make Mum happy and stop her worrying over me. I hate it when she worries! She started worrying this evening, about the party. “I really don’t like leaving you on your own! Couldn’t you ask Charlie to come round? Ask her to stay the night!” I will ask Pilch, as I think it would be quite fun; but as I said to Mum, “I’m fourteen. You don’t have to think you can’t go places, just because of me.” “I sometimes feel so guilty,” said Mum. “I always seem to be out on the razzle!” I told her that that was all right, she was obviously a razzling kind of person. I said, “It’s like having a teenager for a mother.” Mum liked that. She laughed and said, “I still feel like a teenager!” And then she went all sort of regretful and said, “But it ought to be you going out, not me!” I immediately thought, Oh, please! Don’t start! She didn’t. Not exactly. She just launched into this speech about being a single mum and how difficult it sometimes was, knowing what to do for the best. “What I desperately don’t want,” she said, “is to stop you going out and having fun.” “I do have fun,” I said. “Yes, but you know what I mean,” said Mum. “I feel you’re missing out on so much! And it bothers me that it might be my fault.” I said, “It’s not your fault, and I’m not missing out, and in any case we are quite different people.” Mum said, “Yes! I’m just a fun lover. You’re far more sensible!” Even if I hadn’t been, she said, there was one thing she had always sworn, right from the beginning, and that was that she would never be an overprotective mother. She looked at me very solemnly as she said this. “You don’t think I’m overprotective, do you? Tell me, Cresta! Tell me if you think I’m overprotective!” I said, “No, Mum, I don’t think you’re overprotective.” All the same, it is just as well, I can’t help feeling, that I keep my thoughts about Carlito under lock and key… Mum would probably have heart attacks if she knew what my imagination got up to! Tuesday (#ulink_547d72db-c1a8-5d7a-8fdd-5ae7bfe8fbcc) Asked Pilch about Saturday. She said she’ll have to check with her Mum but she’s pretty sure it will be OK. Cindy Williams overheard us and shrieked, “Hey! Wow! What are you two up to?” And then she cackled and said, “Whatever it is, don’t do anything I wouldn’t!” I didn’t deign to reply, but Pilch can never resist it. “We’re having a sleepover,” she said. “Ooh!” Cindy made her eyes go big. “Just the two of you? Or can anyone join in?” “I’m afraid we shan’t have room for you lot,” said Pilch. “We’ve invited the local football team round.” “Oh, wow!” cried Cindy. I asked Pilch afterwards why she’d gone and said that about the football team, but she didn’t seem to know. It is the silly sort of remark one makes to people such as Cindy. You can’t talk sensibly to them. This evening I was sitting at the dining-room table doing my homework when I suddenly became aware that the room was filled with vapour. I immediately rushed to the door screeching, “Steam! Steam everywhere!” Mum was on the phone. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and hissed, “Well, turn the kettle off, then!” I didn’t even know the kettle was on. I mean, I was doing my homework! I was writing an essay! I can’t be expected to concentrate on two things at once. It was quite uncalled for, what Mum said, about me being wilfully stupid and going round with my head in the clouds thinking I am so superior to everyone else. I said, “I don’t think I’m superior.” Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/jean-ure/boys-on-the-brain/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.