Remembering that I still had to give Ben an answer I turned round, smiled and shrugged “Sure, see you then” I practised saying that to Ben so many times before that it sounded like a line out of a play. But who cared? Me and Ben would soon be drinking milkshake from the same cup and gazing into each others eyes.
I had to go home; I had so much to do. My nails to paint, my hair to wash and I still had to decide what to wear. As soon as the bell went at the end of English I was out the door, not soon enough though. Swarms of year 7’s were milling around my feet. I had to be careful not to tread on any of them, but every minute spent here trying to manoeuvre myself around them was a minute not spent doing my hair, make-up, nails!! Outside I made a run for the gates,
“HEATHER FOXEN!!!!” as if sensing my hurry Mr Johnson called me back. Apparently in my rush for the gates I’d knocked an innocent year 8 over in what can only be described as a selfish, lack of respect manner which I seemed to be adopting these days. I smiled at him and glanced at my watch. 2 hours, 56 minutes and 12…11…10 seconds until I met Ben! Mr Johnson seemed to think this was a perfect example of my complete disregard for elders, and that if I’d like to follow him, we would spend some time writing lines saying
“I must respect my elders
I must respect my elders
I must respect my elders”
“If I’d like” – I felt like turning round and saying well actually, no, now’s not very convenient for me but how about a rain check? Something in his tone told me that this wasn’t up for discussion and that he wouldn’t be interested in my sob story about Ben.
34 minutes and 16 seconds later I was off again, out the school gates, running down the road. Thank-god I didn’t live far. As I approached the main road, Bill, the lollypop man, waved and began to walk across. I stepped out thinking if I met him in the middle I’d save a few seconds. But my foot had barely left the ground when Bill was shouting at me.
“GET BACK!!”
I jumped back-wards, partly surprised he’d shouted at me, partly surprised he had it in him too shout. He then spent the next 5 minutes explaining the rules of road safety to me, all the time me wishing I had just crossed by myself. To make matters worse, during his rants about lollypop men only being there to make the world a safer place, a ten ton lorry rattled past offloading the contents of a muddy puddle onto me. Great.
After an agonizingly slow crawl across the road I set off running again, promising myself that I’d never, ever cross with Bill again- I hated him!
I put my key into the lock almost expecting the handle to fall off, or my key to get stuck because it was quite obvious that the gods of fate weren’t in a good mood this afternoon. When I noticed that the door was ajar, the sheer relief that passed over me clouded my judgement as to who it could be when mum and dad were at work and Tony was at university. I can’t remember now if it was seeing that the T.V was missing from the lounge or hearing men’s voices coming from upstairs discussing which bed to take that made me call the police. But I suppose that’s irrelevant now.
After grabbing the cordless and running outside to the sanctity of the bush next to our house I told the police, in hushed tones, that I was in the process of being burgled and could they send someone really quick because I was really, really scared. Five minutes later (1 hours, 56 minutes and 19 seconds till Ben!) I saw 2 police cars speeding down the street, sirens blazing. Standing up from in the bushes, feeling a lot safer, I waved at the police cars that skidded to a holt. A few of the neighbours were out on the street, seeing where the trouble was.
“Heather! What’s going on?” I heard some-one shouting. I turned round to tell them that I didn’t know only to come face to face with Tony, my darling brother who I forgot comes home twice a month to ‘borrow’ all our furniture.
“Now listen, Miss. You’ve wasted a lot of police time here today, it’s a criminal offence. As you genuinely seem to have learnt your lesson we’re going to let you off” I was in tears telling him how scared I had been of the big bad burglar. What? I’m 16 AND I was in my school uniform! “Next time just try to be sure that you’re being burgled before you get us involved.”
I told the officer that I most definitely would, and apologized a few more times.
I was now running seriously late, my hair was still wet and brown from the mud, I had nothing to wear and Tony was still running up to the phone every 5 minutes to scream,
“Please help me, please I sooooo think I’m being burgled like ewww.” At which his friend Mike would crease up into fits of laughter. So not funny.
When I got into the bathroom I started to calm down a little, I still had 1 hour 10 minutes and 35 seconds till I had to meet Ben. I got out of the shower in a very different mood. I would go put on that gorgeous new top, straighten my hair and be at The Trafford Centre with bags of time.
Glancing in the mirror is a moment I can barely forgive myself for. For, from that moment began what can only be described as ‘The Nightmare’.
When in a rush, I did what all girls do, reached for the razor instead of the tweezers, completely disregarding every voice in my head that was screaming, “NOOOOOOOOOOO”
It started as just a little off the middle, then onto a bit from underneath, and then a why not just take some off the top. 10 minutes later (0 hours 56 minutes and 47 seconds till Ben) I was left with what looked like two black marker lines going straight across my eyes. Great. Just great. With time slowly slipping away from me I decided to leave the eyebrows till last.
My top looks great. My pants look great. My shoes are gorgeous. Slight problem though, I couldn’t find any of them. I sieved through my wardrobe, promising myself that I would buy some new clothes, and cursing my mother for making me buy such hideous things. Right at the back, underneath the coats, I found a t-shirt, a black one that looked alright. I was in no situation to be too judgemental. Slinging a pair of jeans on and my old trainers I bolted for the door. Tony was stood at the bottom of the stairs trying to work out which way would be best to get the coffee table out. He took one look at me and collapsed, so did Mike. They continued to squirm about the floor laughing, whilst I decided to tell mum and dad every single secret I knew about Tony as soon as they were home. I took one last look at myself in the mirror in hall and realized what they were laughing at. My eyebrows still looked like helicopter landing pads! With 32 minutes and 15 seconds to go, and a 20 minute bus ride yet to take I did the only thing that could have been expected. I cried. And cried. And cried. I cried so much that Tony and Mike came in to see what had happened. Smothering another giggle as he looked at me he asked me what was wrong.
10 minutes later I was in Tony’s car speeding down the motorway, whilst Mike sat in the back drawing me some new eyebrows. I’d had to redo all my make-up, crying and eyeliner, no go, but now things seemed to be looking up. Tony skidded in front of the entrance with 6 minutes and 12 seconds till I was meeting Ben.
I sort of skipped to the cinemas, not wanting to work up a sweat, but feeling like I’d never get there walking. I arrived with 3 minutes 49 seconds to spare. Ben would be walking across to me, any minute, taking me into his arms and telling me how much he’d always loved me. Well, hopefully anyway.
Minus 2 minutes and 13 seconds. Ben was late. Ben was never late.
Minus 5 minutes and 25 seconds. What if Ben wasn’t coming. What if this whole thing was just a big joke? Come to think of it he had looked a bit puzzled when I’d said,
“Sure, see you then”
At minus 24 minutes and 18 seconds I realized that he wasn’t going to turn up. I’d been fooled. Probably by James, he was always doing things like that. I had just started walking towards the bus stop to go home and cry, when someone ran round the corner straight into me. I fell onto the floor, the contents of my bag lay next to me. It took a while before I realized I was being lifted up onto my feet, I opened my eyes to try and get my balance but what I saw before me knocked me right over again. In front of me stood Jack Groves. He was the Ben of his year group. Only he was older, his muscles were bigger, his looks were more rugid. And most importantly he was more interested in me.
“Fancy going watching a film?”
Oh. My. God.
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