Withering Tights - By Louise Rennison Page 0,35
were so hysterical that we went to the back of the bus and crouched down in our seats. Then Vaisey started singing the theme tune to Doctor Who as we drew near to the dreaded bus stop. Would we just see a huge trunk over the top of the seats as Trunky paid his fare?
As it happened, they didn’t get on.
But it had left us all even more jittery.
Vaisey said, “Maybe they jogged to Skipley?”
I said, “I don’t think so, Phil and Charlie had to have a lie down for five minutes after they started running if you remember?”
We were bouncing along, and the bus driver had been shouting stuff about the places we were passing. Even though we didn’t ask him to. Even though nobody asked him to.
Stuff like, “On your left you will notice the free-range egg sign. Old Stoat Farm do a range of free-range products that cannot be beat. The bearded couple who own it, from Leeds I believe, sleep in the same barn as the hens, in case the hens have a nasty dream. That is how caring and stupid townsfolk can be.”
Just as we passed Grimbottom, he shouted, “That randy bull’s at it again.”
Vaisey had been applying lip gloss for most of the journey.
I said, “Vaisey, how much lip gloss can you get on? You’ll never be able to get off the bus at this rate.”
Jo was looking in her compact mirror and fiddling about with her hair.
She said, “I don’t even know why I am doing this. He might not be able to see my hair. Where do you think he comes up to on me?” And she stood up swaying around on the bus.
She said, “Do you think he would come up to my ears?”
I said, “Shut up about your ears. At least you know who you’re meeting. What about me and Vaisey? We’re just ‘the two others’.”
I was chatting for chatting’s sake really, to keep my mind off imagining Phil’s trunky friend who might be my date. I wouldn’t mind if it was Charlie. And Phil and Charlie are mates. And Charlie liked my knees. But what if Charlie came and preferred Vaisey?
That would be a double blow. Unless the other one that wasn’t him was dreamy.
But whatever happened, neither one of them was going to be Alex.
Alex was out of my league.
I wasn’t even in a league.
To him I was just another little fourteen and a half-year old. He probably couldn’t tell the difference between one fourteen and a half-year old and another, they all looked the same to him. Stupid.
The bus finally juddered to a halt at the M & S stop and we got off. There was no one there. Well, apart from a woman in headscarf and wellingtons.
She got on the bus and the bus driver said, “Mary Bottomly, you are a dream come true. A vision of beauty in a world of—”
She cuffed him on his cap and said, “Don’t bloody start, I’ve just had some cow heel and it’s made my bloody lips stick together like super glue.”
I said to the other two, “This is no place for artists. Look, why don’t we just get a Coke and catch the next bus back before—”
And then we saw Phil and Jack and…someone who was not Charlie, bowling towards us. I wish I had my jeans on, my legs were feeling very shy and exposed. They hadn’t been out much.
Phil whistled at us and said, “Oy oy!”
Jack and ‘the other one’ were grinning, but not saying anything. This might be a very long night, and I was already longing to be tucked up with my squirrel slippers.
Phil said, “This is Jack, you met him before on the bus, and this is Ben. Ben is excellent at all sorts of sport. Aren’t you, Ben?”
Ben was nodding and smiling now.
He had floppy hair and it was going up and down.
Ben was quite good looking, a bit on the floppy-hair side. But tall.
As we went along to the cinema the boys were walking ahead, sort of stopping and turning round and making jokes to each other.
Vaisey said quietly to me, “Lullah, can I have Jack?”
What is the right answer to that?
I said, “That would mean that I had Ben.”
And Vaisey said, “He’s quite tall.”
I said, “I KNOW he’s quite tall. Tallness isn’t everything.”
Jo said, “You can say that again. Don’t you like Ben?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
Then, as if he had heard us, Ben turned round and looked at me.