here!
Jess ran through the maze of corridors to the food technology department. Never had Mrs Kendall’s room been such a sanctuary. Although food technology was one of Jess’s favourite subjects, of course. Today there was a delightful smell of coconut cake in the air. But Jess couldn’t have managed even a mouthful. She felt so sick with anxiety, there was just a chance she might manage to lose a few pounds before finally dying of a broken heart round about 4.30 on Friday afternoon.
‘Today we’re going to look at the calorific value of different sorts of fats,’ said Mrs Kendall, leaning on the teacher’s desk. The veins in her wrists bulged horribly. Jess closed her eyes for an instant and tried to clear her mind of all thoughts of Fred, and replace them with polyunsaturated margarine.
Not for the first time, Jess wished there were no such things as male persons in the world, and women could reproduce just by cloning themselves in a jam jar on the bathroom shelf. Although the thought of a small version of herself, complete with flab, clumsiness and stupidity, was kind of hard to bear.
At the end of school, Jess found Flora by the gates. She looked disappointed and grabbed Jess by the arm.
‘You missed him!’ she hissed. ‘He gave me this amazing smile, but that tall girl with a red ponytail was monopolising him!’
Jess agreed, without really concentrating, that this was indeed appalling, and they set off home. Jess had so often walked home with Fred that every paving stone seemed to miss him.
‘Let’s go to the Dolphin and get ourselves some nachos,’ said Flora. Jess suddenly felt hungry. She was tired of being heartbroken. Why should she risk malnutrition just because Fred was behaving like a dingbat?
‘Yeah,’ she agreed heartily. ‘Or maybe a cheeseburger and fries.’
In fine weather there were tables out on the pavement, but you had to go in and queue for your food first.
‘Hey! There’s a free table!’ said Flora. ‘You sit there and bag it and I’ll go in and get the grub. Nachos and Coke be OK?’
‘Diet Coke – no, juice! Juice!’ said Jess. She was determined to start a new life right here and now. She would torment Fred by becoming fabulous. She would be slim, elegant, intellectually brilliant and fabulously wealthy. OK, so it would take a few days, but there was no way she was going to dwindle away into a small sickly lovesick pool of lovesick. Who needed boys? There would always be dogs – so loyal, so true.
She was just trying to decide whether a golden retriever or a red setter would suit her elegant new hair colour (she was planning to go a lustrous chestnut by the weekend), when the door to the Dolphin Cafe opened and three boys clattered out, laughing: Buster, Tom and – disastrously – Fred.
He couldn’t really pretend he hadn’t seen her, because her table was right there by the door. So he sort of paused for a minute.
‘Miss Jordan!’ he said, in a kind of haughty public voice. ‘Are you still alive? I thought you must have been barbecued in that rather convenient fire earlier today.’
Buster and Tom laughed, the morons.
‘So sorry to disappoint you,’ replied Jess, as a great surge of adrenalin rushed up her throat and fizzed all over her face like fireworks. ‘I thought you were the one who’d perished in the blaze actually – I was sure I got a whiff of roast pork.’
Buster and Tom laughed again, even louder. This comforted Jess slightly.
‘Come on, Parsons,’ said Buster.
‘We have an appointment at the DVD rental place,’ said Fred with a shrug. ‘With a few thousand aliens, I believe.’
‘I do so understand,’ said Jess. ‘In fact, you could all become aliens yourselves without any need for cosmetic surgery.’
‘We’ll leave the cosmetic surgery to you, Miss Jordan,’ said Fred. ‘Except I suppose your only problem would be: where to begin.’
The boys laughed and went off. Jess just went on grinning in what she hoped
Jess ran through the maze of corridors to the food technology department. Never had Mrs Kendall’s room been such a sanctuary. Although food technology was one of Jess’s favourite subjects, of course. Today there was a delightful smell of coconut cake in the air. But Jess couldn’t have managed even a mouthful. She felt so sick with anxiety, there was just a chance she might manage to lose a few pounds before finally dying of a broken heart round about 4.30 on Friday afternoon.
‘Today we’re going to look at the calorific value of different sorts of fats,’ said Mrs Kendall, leaning on the teacher’s desk. The veins in her wrists bulged horribly. Jess closed her eyes for an instant and tried to clear her mind of all thoughts of Fred, and replace them with polyunsaturated margarine.
Not for the first time, Jess wished there were no such things as male persons in the world, and women could reproduce just by cloning themselves in a jam jar on the bathroom shelf. Although the thought of a small version of herself, complete with flab, clumsiness and stupidity, was kind of hard to bear.
At the end of school, Jess found Flora by the gates. She looked disappointed and grabbed Jess by the arm.
‘You missed him!’ she hissed. ‘He gave me this amazing smile, but that tall girl with a red ponytail was monopolising him!’
Jess agreed, without really concentrating, that this was indeed appalling, and they set off home. Jess had so often walked home with Fred that every paving stone seemed to miss him.
‘Let’s go to the Dolphin and get ourselves some nachos,’ said Flora. Jess suddenly felt hungry. She was tired of being heartbroken. Why should she risk malnutrition just because Fred was behaving like a dingbat?
‘Yeah,’ she agreed heartily. ‘Or maybe a cheeseburger and fries.’
In fine weather there were tables out on the pavement, but you had to go in and queue for your food first.
‘Hey! There’s a free table!’ said Flora. ‘You sit there and bag it and I’ll go in and get the grub. Nachos and Coke be OK?’
‘Diet Coke – no, juice! Juice!’ said Jess. She was determined to start a new life right here and now. She would torment Fred by becoming fabulous. She would be slim, elegant, intellectually brilliant and fabulously wealthy. OK, so it would take a few days, but there was no way she was going to dwindle away into a small sickly lovesick pool of lovesick. Who needed boys? There would always be dogs – so loyal, so true.
She was just trying to decide whether a golden retriever or a red setter would suit her elegant new hair colour (she was planning to go a lustrous chestnut by the weekend), when the door to the Dolphin Cafe opened and three boys clattered out, laughing: Buster, Tom and – disastrously – Fred.
He couldn’t really pretend he hadn’t seen her, because her table was right there by the door. So he sort of paused for a minute.
‘Miss Jordan!’ he said, in a kind of haughty public voice. ‘Are you still alive? I thought you must have been barbecued in that rather convenient fire earlier today.’
Buster and Tom laughed, the morons.
‘So sorry to disappoint you,’ replied Jess, as a great surge of adrenalin rushed up her throat and fizzed all over her face like fireworks. ‘I thought you were the one who’d perished in the blaze actually – I was sure I got a whiff of roast pork.’
Buster and Tom laughed again, even louder. This comforted Jess slightly.
‘Come on, Parsons,’ said Buster.
‘We have an appointment at the DVD rental place,’ said Fred with a shrug. ‘With a few thousand aliens, I believe.’
‘I do so understand,’ said Jess. ‘In fact, you could all become aliens yourselves without any need for cosmetic surgery.’
‘We’ll leave the cosmetic surgery to you, Miss Jordan,’ said Fred. ‘Except I suppose your only problem would be: where to begin.’
The boys laughed and went off. Jess just went on grinning in what she hoped
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