What’s Up With Jody Barton?, page 12
My mum said, ‘Fair enough. But can I bring you a sandwich or some soup or a sausage roll or something before you liberate anyone else?’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Can I have a ham sandwich, please?’
‘Fair enough,’ said my mum, and then she went away to make me one.
I unpaused the game and started wriggling forward on my belly in the direction of my next mission objective — an abandoned farmhouse that I had to make safe for the Allied forces. I didn’t get very far before bullets started whizzing past my head and I was forced to take shelter behind a tree stump.
I was still sheltering there, twelve minutes later, when my bedroom door opened again. I hit the pause button, put down my controller and said, ‘Ahh, thanks, Mum.’ And then I immediately felt stupid because when I looked up I saw that it wasn’t my mum at all. It was my dad. He was carrying a tray with a ham sandwich and a mug of tea on it.
‘All right, Sulky Sue,’ he said. And then he stopped dead in the doorway, closed his eyes and said, ‘Sorry, son. Force of habit. Won’t happen again.’
I looked at him to see if he was joking. There was no suggestion of it on his face. I flicked him an irritated glance, but decided not to make a big deal of it. He was carrying a tray with my lunch on it after all.
My dad nodded at the frozen telly screen and said, ‘What you doing there, Jode? Shooting wrong ’uns?’
‘I’m liberating France,’ I said.
My dad nodded. ‘Good for you.’
He put the tray down on my desk and gazed out of the window.
‘You get a lovely view of Wembley from here,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said, and immediately felt my cheeks burn. I’d had this conversation before. I probably don’t need to explain when.
My dad said, ‘So how ya diddling anyway?’
‘I’m OK,’ I mumbled.
My dad turned away from the window so that he could look at me. ‘That was a good thing you did, Jody. Sticking up for your sister like that.’
I lowered my eyes. ‘Leave it, dad,’ I said in even more of a mumble, ‘I didn’t do anything.’
My dad shrugged. ‘It’s not nothing in my book, sunshine, but, hey, if you’d rather I didn’t go on about it, I won’t. Shall we talk about something else?’
‘Yes please,’ I said gratefully, and leaned forward to grab a sandwich.
‘Spurs,’ said my dad. ‘Why don’t we talk about Spurs?’
My fingers froze around my sandwich and my soul slipped down into my shoes. It’s not that I’ve got any particular problem with Tottenham Hotspur. It’s just like I’ve said before – I don’t like football. When you get past all the hype and back-page headlines, there’s actually nothing more going on than a load of blokes chasing after a random ball. It’s not like they’re liberating France from wrong ’uns or anything.
My dad nodded at my weird wallpapered walls and sat down next to me. ‘Your mum told me you’d taken your posters down. She says you’re gonna stick with the footy theme for a bit? I’m pleased to hear it, Jode. It was a real labour of love putting that paper up. Decorating ain’t really my game.’
I smiled and said, ‘Uh-huh.’ And then I glanced around my bare room and felt a bit sad.
My dad said, ‘Tottenham are doing well, aren’t they? Is that why you’re back on board?’
I nodded and said, ‘Uh-huh.’
My dad laughed and cuffed me playfully round the back of the head. ‘There’s a name for people like you, boy.’
I looked up at him, suddenly panicked. Surely he wasn’t going to start that Sulky Sue and Big Girl’s Blouse thing again?
‘Fair-weather supporters! You’re a fair-weather supporter, ain’t you? Only paying attention when your team is doing well.’ And then he laughed and said, ‘It don’t bother me though. I’m just glad to see you showing some interest.’
I breathed out slowly and then I smiled and nodded again.
My dad grinned back at me and puffed out his cheeks. It made that puh sound. Then he drummed his fingers on his belly for a bit and, eventually, he said, ‘Gareth Bale is a good little player, ain’t he? He’s made all the difference down that left wing.’
I nodded and said, ‘Uh-huh.’ I know the name but I can’t really say I’m totally sure who Gareth Bale is.
My dad said, ‘It’s amazing that we’ve made it all the way to the League Cup Final. High time we brought home some silverware for the trophy cabinet.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said.
‘The final is only a couple of weeks away. I’ve been thinking. How would you fancy coming to the match with me? You’ve never been to Wembley, have you?’
I looked at my dad, surprised. ‘Have you got another ticket? I thought you were going with Jolene. You always take her to the football.’
My dad puffed out his cheeks again and shook his head. ‘She says she doesn’t want to go. Reckons she’s a QPR supporter now. Reckons they’ve got a fancier kit. Can you believe that? A fancier kit? I ask ya! Women! They’re fickle, Jody. They change their minds as often as they change their earrings. But you’ll discover that for yourself soon enough.’ And then he smiled and said, ‘So how about I take my boy to the big match. Chunky and Son at Wembley Stadium! What do you say?’
I opened my mouth to reply, but then I closed it again. Because I couldn’t speak. I honestly couldn’t. It was like my dad and I were talking two completely different languages. And, even though we were sitting just centimetres apart, it suddenly seemed like we were at opposite ends of the solar system. And there weren’t a million or a billion or a trillion or even a quadrillion miles between us. There was an entire googolplex of miles. And a googolplex is a number so BIG that it’s impossible to get your brain round it.
My dad nudged me and said again, ‘Chunky and Son. What do you say?’
And because I love my dad and because I didn’t want to feel so scarily far apart from him, I glued a smile to my face, cuffed him playfully round the head and said, ‘Sounds chuffing excellent!’
He left me alone soon after that. I ate my sandwich, ignored my mug of tea and put Call of Duty back on the box. Immediately, my sergeant shouted, ‘Move move move,’ so I did as I was told and ran with the rest of the men towards the abandoned farmhouse. I wasn’t worried about what would happen when we got there. In fact, I was totally fearless. The return to rain-drenched, war-ravaged France was a relief. Talking to my dad had been hard work.
Keeping myself as low to the ground as I could, I edged my way forward until I had a clear view of the farmhouse. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t empty. Enemy soldiers were peeping through the open doorway and gun barrels were resting on the broken window frames. My sergeant shouted, ‘Move move move,’ and waved us all forward. I did as I was told and pressed on. Instantly, the enemy guns blazed into action and a shower of bullets whistled past my head. For a second, the screen turned red and my Damage Indicator flickered upward. A random voice shouted, ‘Keep your head down,’ so I took the advice and dived into a ditch.
But no sooner had I done that when my sergeant shouted, ‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t stop firing!’
So I switched my view from NORMAL MODE to AIM DOWN THE SIGHT MODE, set my target on an enemy soldier and let him have the full fury of my MP40 submachine gun.
And then I watched as he toppled out of a window and pitched head first from the house.
‘Ha,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s one less to worry about,’ shouted someone else.
My sergeant yelled, ‘Move move move. Let’s make this house safe!’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Let’s damn well make this house safe!’ And then I opened fire on another occupied window and caused more men to plunge head first from it. ‘Got you,’ I said. I think I may have been shouting a bit.
And then a really weird thing happened.
Liam Mackie gatecrashed my computer game.
He popped his head out through one of the other broken windows of the farmhouse and shouted, ‘What the hell was that? You gay piece of . . .’
I didn’t hear the end of his sentence because my heart was thumping so loudly that all I could hear was:
boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom.
I knew how it ended though.
I squinted down the barrel of my gun and lined Liam up in the target.
But then I frowned and lowered my controller.
My sergeant shouted, ‘Don’t stop firing,’ and somebody else shouted, ‘Look out! Enemy grenade!’ And, before I had time to even blink, the screen exploded into total chaos and I was suddenly looking up at the grey French sky. My Damage Indicator rocketed up to the maximum, the sky faded and everything turned red and stayed red.
I’d been hit. Fatally.
‘Stupid game,’ I muttered.
Mournful military music filled my room.
I did some secret inner swearing and reached forward to turn the telly off. But then I paused. Written across the screen in big letters were these words:
I read them and then I read them again. Call of Duty always ends with some weird message like this, but I’ve never actually paid any attention before.
But I know who Mahatma Gandhi was. We learned about him in RE. His real name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and he was the little bald Indian feller who never wore any shoes and who waged a war against the entire might of the British Empire. And eventually he sent the British packing and gave India back to the Indian people.
And he did all this without using any violence.
Which means that he wasn’t really a little man at all, was he? In terms of impact, he was actually a great big incredible genius of a man who’ll be respected and remembered by shedloads of people forever.
The more I thought about Gandhi’s words, the more they made sense. Liam Mackie hit me. He didn’t have to hit me. One word and I’d have backed off faster than Lewis Hamilton driving in reverse down a ski slope. But instead he hit me and gave me a dirty great shiner just because he’s got a violent and nasty streak in him. And if I went after him now and thumped him back I’d be just as violent and as nasty as him.
Not that I ever would, of course. I don’t like physical confrontations. Even Jolene beats me in a fight.
I put my thumbnail in my mouth and chewed it.
I had almost pulled a trigger and blasted him to bits though. Virtually rather than actually – but it’s the thought that counts.
‘Stupid game,’ I muttered, and I threw the controller down on the floor. And then I chewed my thumbnail a bit more and tried to think of something else.
But I couldn’t. As much as I tried, I just couldn’t shake the worrying realization that – for one dodgy second – the idea of shooting Liam Mackie had seemed perfectly reasonable. I puffed out my cheeks until they made that puh sound. Then I drummed my fingers against my belly for a bit and then, eventually, I said out loud, ‘Jeez, Jody! Get a grip!’
And then I made a decision. I was going to sort this thing out. Not for me. But for Jolene and Liam. Because if I hadn’t blundered in with my eyes closed and messed everything up so amazingly badly they’d probably still be sharing plates of chips and snogging each other across one of the cafe tables. All right, so Liam had punched me. He must have been shocked by what I’d done. I could hardly blame him for that. I was pretty shocked myself.
I sat on my bed for a moment or two more and then I stood up, dug my hand into the pocket of my trackies and pulled out a couple of pieces of paper. The first, scrunched up and sad-looking, was that leaflet called Am I gay/lesbian/bisexual?. I scrunched it up some more and buried it in my bin.
And then I dug it out of the bin, smoothed it flat to get the creases out and put it carefully under my mattress.
The second piece of paper, folded into a neat square, was the edge of a page torn from my maths project. And it had Liam Mackie’s phone number written down on it in Liam Mackie’s own handwriting.
I held the scrap of paper between my hands and stared at it. Then I laid it down on my duvet, picked up my phone and keyed in the number. And even though I was as scared as a scarecrow having a panic attack, I kept on thinking about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and how brave and strong and big that bare-footed little man actually was.
Liam’s phone rang a couple of times. And then he said, ‘Hello?’
My mouth had gone completely dry. I grabbed the mug of cold tea from my desk, took a swig and said, ‘It’s Jody. Jody Barton.’
There was a long pause. And then Liam said, ‘What do you want, gay boy?’
I took another swig of cold tea, but somehow I missed my mouth and most of it went down my chin. Wiping my face on my sleeve, I took a deep breath and said, ‘Two things. Number One, I want to say sorry. I said it yesterday but I’m saying it again. Sorry.’
‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ said Liam. ‘Yadder yadder yadder. What was the other thing?’
‘Jolene,’ I said. ‘She’s upset. She cried all day yesterday. And she wasn’t exactly Little Miss Sunshine when she went to school this morning. You didn’t have to dump her because of me, you know. I can promise you I’ll stay well out of your way from now on.’
There was another long pause and then Liam started laughing. ‘I didn’t dump her because of you,’ he said. ‘Well . . . maybe I did . . . but I’d have dumped her anyway soon enough.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I was confused.
‘I never liked her in the first place,’ explained Liam.
I felt my face go hot. ‘So why did you go out with her then?’ I said. I think I might even have shouted it.
Liam laughed again. ‘It was just an excuse to come round and see your mum. Now, she is well fit! If she ever wants me to take her to a film, you can tell her that I’m well up for it.’
My jaw dropped open. For a moment I was so incredibly, blood-boilingly . . .
. . . that I could barely breathe — let alone speak. Just for a second, Liam’s face appeared in my target again.
But then I stood up straighter, lifted my chin and very calmly said, ‘Stay away from my sister and stay away from my mum and don’t ever come near our cafe again.’ And then I pressed END CALL.
I seriously can’t believe that I ever thought Liam Mackie was beautiful. He’s definitely good-looking, yeah. But his beauty is about as deep as a coat of paint.
And I was still thinking about this when my phone buzzed and began to vibrate. I’d received a text message. I looked at the screen.
I knew it was Liam. Who else would it be? And he’d made a smiley face at the end of his message to show me how much he was laughing. I stared in horror at my phone for a googolplex of lifetimes and then, aware that something was flickering on the telly, I dragged my eyes away and turned to see what was going on. Gandhi’s words had disappeared. And in their place were two new ones, flashing at me like a warning light . . .
The next morning I got up and did all the usual things. I put on my school uniform, ate two bowls of Coco Crunchies, grabbed my lunch box from the cafe and my school bag from the hallway, and followed Jolene outdoors before the earliest of my dad’s hungry customers had even arrived. Just like it was any regular day.
Except that it wasn’t because I had absolutely no intention of going to school.
I walked with Jolene until we reached the bus stop outside Willesden Green Tube Station and then I dumped my bag down on the pavement and said, ‘I’ll see you later. I’m having the day off.’
Jolene stopped too and stared at me. And then she folded her arms very tightly and said, ‘What the fandango is going on with you, Jody Barton?
‘Nothing,’ I snapped. ‘Everything’s fine.’ And then I felt a bit shifty and deliberately looked in another direction. I’d kissed a boy. Or tried to. I doubt that my dad would agree that everything was fine.
A double-decker bus rumbled past us and filled the air with exhaust fumes. I coughed and turned round to see the noses of Natalie Snell and Latasha Joy pressed flat against its back window. Natalie Snell had her mouth wide open and her tongue hanging out.
Jolene said, ‘Look, Jody. Whatever it is that’s wrong, you can tell me. I’m your twin, innit. You can tell me anything.’
Ninety-nine per cent of the time, Jolene Janine Christabel Barton is a right royal pain in the brain. But very occasionally she’s niceness in a bottle with no catch attached. And the truth is that I’m closer to her than I am to anyone else in the whole wide world. So I suppose that’s why I love her regardless.
I looked straight at her and said, ‘Jolene, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’
‘I knew it,’ said Jolene. ‘I knew there was something! Have you been running up a massive bill on Mum’s iTunes account again?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing like that. It’s a lot more compli—’
Jolene’s eyes lit up. ‘You’ve been cheating in maths, haven’t you? All this time I thought you were a geeky genius, but now you’re about to tell me that you’re as thick as a brick and you’ve been copying off Chatty Chong. You are the limit you are, Jody.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve never copied off anyone in my life. I—’
‘OMG, you’ve been caught looking at the dirty mags in Mr Mulligan’s newsagents, haven’t you?’
‘No way,’ I said. And then I shook my head and added, ‘For God’s sake!’
Jolene wrinkled up her face. ‘It’s none of those things?’
‘No.’ I was feeling pretty appalled.
Jolene’s face wrinkled up even more. ‘So what the heck is it?’
I heaved out a sigh and then I looked down at my watch. In ten minutes, we were supposed to be settling down for registration.
‘I can’t tell you here,’ I said. ‘Can we go somewhere else? How about Brent Cross Shopping Centre? We can hang around the Hollister shop and see if someone will give us their carrier bag.’
Jolene’s eyes grew big and excited. ‘Oooh, it smells amazing in that shop!’ Then she looked all concerned again and said, ‘But you promise you’ll tell me what’s going on, yeah?’
