Withering Tights - By Louise Rennison Page 0,36
Then he turned back and said something to Jack.
Oh God. Perhaps he was doing the same. Perhaps he was saying stuff about me.
I wanted to run away.
When we got to the cinema the boys paid for the tickets and we went into the dark. Phil chose a row of seats about middle way up. I could see there was a snoggers’ row at the back. At least Phil hadn’t chosen that row.
He went first and said to Jo, “Why don’t you sit next to me, in case I get fwightened?”
Jo giggled in a girlish, slightly hysterical way that I had never heard before. I hoped she wasn’t going to turn from a rufty tufty girl into an idiot.
Then Jack sat a couple of seats away from Jo and smiled at Vaisey. He patted the empty seat next to him.
So, that left me and Ben.
But Ben didn’t move.
Should I go and sit down? Or run out of the cinema?
Maybe he would run out of the cinema.
Or maybe go and sit miles away from me because he was so alarmed by my knees.
Perhaps if I fainted and—
Then Ben said, “Tallulah, why don’t you go in first? And then I can protect you.”
I hadn’t heard him speak before and his voice was a bit croaky.
I smiled and shook my hair and we went and sat down.
What was he going to be protecting me from?
A violent ice-cream lady?
Then the film began. Night of the Vampire Bats was very…what’s the right word? Batty. I wasn’t really watching it because I was so tense, I thought I might be sick. That would be attractive.
Ben was silent, and I daren’t catch his eye. I just held my head rigidly forward.
What was everyone else doing? I swivelled my eyes as far as they would go without moving my neck and could sort of see Phil and Jo in the flickering half-light.
I think Phil might have had his arm around Jo. But it could have been someone’s leg from the row behind. I couldn’t see Jack and Vaisey’s arms, but they could have been doing secret handy-holding.
Ben had his arm on the arm rest so I kept my hands in my lap. Should I move one hand closer to him so that it was more easily accessible?
Did I want him to hold my hand?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I didn’t want him to not want to hold my hand. If you see what I mean.
Halfway through the film and still nothing had happened. If I didn’t move my neck soon it would snap off.
Ben leaned towards me and said something so softly I couldn’t hear him.
I whispered back, “Sorry, what did you say?”
And I thought he said, “Do you want a squeeze?”
A squeeze.
Nobody had mentioned that to me before.
Was a squeeze the same as a hug?
Because hugging was what you did to teddies not girlfriends, wasn’t it?
I could sense him waiting for me to reply, so I said very quietly in his ear, or where I thought his ear might be under his floppy hair, “I don’t think I know you well enough.”
And then he said a bit more loudly, “They’re still in the bag, I haven’t touched them.”
Pardon?
And he held out a bag of Maltesers.
Did I want a Malteser.
I don’t know you well enough.
Oh goodie! Now he knows I’m tall and an idiot.
The cinema experience was the longest, tensest hour and a half of my life, so far.
When at last we came out of the cinema, we got chips and walked across to the bus stop to eat them. Because we were all holding the bags everyone’s hands were in full sight. So there was no arm-around business going on.
When the bus came, Mary Bottomly in the headscarf and wellingtons was driving. She had her headscarf on underneath her official cap. And she didn’t have a smiley jolly bus-driver face.
Phil led the way to the back of the bus and sat down in the window seat.
We followed him and when we got to the back seat, Phil said, “Whey hey hey,” and pulled Jo down on to his knee. For once, she was speechless and just sat there like a mad doll.
I didn’t know what to say or where to sit.
Vaisey and Jack sat down next to each other and Jack started showing her his mouth organ. To my amazement, she looked ‘interested’. Maybe that is what you had to do, look interested when boys talked. Even about mouth organs.
So that leaves me.
With Ben.
Ben was