What’s Up With Jody Barton?, page 16
‘OK Dad,’ I said. ‘Just shout whenever you want a hand.’
My dad beamed and said, ‘Good lad. But stay safe, yeah? It’s only a little over a week until we make our holy Hotspur pilgrimage to Wembley Stadium. Chunky and Son. I can’t blinking wait.’
And Jolene made that horrible farty noise with her mouth again and my mum suddenly looked as if she was about to give birth to a kitten and, even though I quite like macaroni cheese, the moment that I was excused and able to escape back to my bedroom didn’t come a single second too soon.
The next morning, my mum stuck her head round my door and said, ‘You can’t mope around here all day, Jody. I want you to get dressed and ready for school.’
‘Oh, Muuuum,’ I groaned, ‘it’s the last day before the half-term holiday. You said I could take today off.’
‘No I didn’t,’ said my mum. ‘You don’t listen properly.’
‘Well, I’m not going,’ I said. ‘I can’t face it. Not yet.’
My mum looked agitated. ‘You can’t stay at home though. What will we tell your dad? That you’ve got a mouldy foot or something?’
I sighed heavily and pulled the duvet up over my head.
My mum said, ‘It’s just one day, Jode. One single day.’
I pulled the duvet back down, sat up and said, ‘If you make me go to school today, I’ll . . . I’ll start smoking.’
Even as I was saying it, I knew it was a pretty lame bargaining tool. But at that exact second it was the most persuasive argument I could think of.
My mum blew out her cheeks and made that puh sound. Then she said, ‘It’ll make your clothes whiff and your hair pong and turn your teeth yellow, but . . . OK then.’
‘Oh, Muuuuum,’ I said. ‘I really don’t want to go.’
My mum chewed her lip for a moment. And then she said, ‘Jody, just get ready for school, get through today and I’ll see you back here at half-three.’
‘I’m not going,’ I said.
‘I know, sweetheart. I heard you,’ said my mum. ‘But I don’t think you’re hearing me. So get up, get yourself out of the house and I’ll see you later.’ And then she made her eyes go all big and round as if she was trying to send me some sort of telepathic message and said, ‘Hmmm?’
‘Ohhhh,’ I said. ‘You mean I don’t have to—’
‘And,’ added my mum, ‘if I hear after half-term that you’ve skipped another single day of school, I’ll be walking you there myself.’ And then she shoved a fiver into my hand, kissed me on the cheek and hurried off.
I don’t know what my teachers think of my mum but I love her.
So I played along, put my school uniform on and left the house.
It was cold outside. It usually is in Willesden Green in February. I walked around the block a couple of times and then I went to the library to see if Mookie was about. He wasn’t. But Charity was. She looked at me from behind a pile of books and said, ‘Shouldn’t you be somewhere?’
‘I’m on study leave,’ I said.
Charity made a noise that sounded like hmmpf. Then she said, ‘Still?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘still. Is Mookie around?’
‘He’s on a training day,’ said Charity. ‘He’s learning stuff. Just like you do when you go to school. And if I phoned your school would they tell me you’re on study leave?’
‘Oh my days,’ I said. ‘What is this? Twenty questions? I only asked if Mookie was in.’ And then I turned round and rushed straight out, leaving Charity shaking her head and hmmpfing behind me.
I didn’t know what to do after that so I took another walk around the block. I was pretty cold and pretty fed up, to tell the truth. I was also pretty bored because I was seeing the exact same stuff that I saw the last time I did that circuit. Willesden Green doesn’t change much in the space of ten minutes. I saw kebab shops and nail bars and buses and mini-cabs and tanning salons and tattoo parlours and hurrying people and hamburger wrappers and fly-posters and falafel bakers and all the usual stuff that I’ve seen a nonillion times before.
But then I stopped.
Because on a wall, close to where Willesden High Road merges with Neasden Lane, I saw something new. Something so new that it hadn’t even been there ten minutes earlier.
In big black letters, somebody had sprayed these words:
Fair enough, I thought. And taking it as some sort of sign I turned round and began to walk in the direction of the closest high place that I know. The hill on Gladstone Park.
Sixteen minutes later, I was huffing and puffing and leaning forward against the railing of the duck pond at the very top of the hill. On the other side, most of the ducks had disappeared and the ones that were still around had their heads folded away under their wings.
‘That’s nice,’ I said to them. ‘I’ve walked all the way up this hill to see you and you can’t even be bothered to show your little ducky faces.’
So I gave up on them and turned round to take in the view over north London. And, even though I’d seen it a decillion times before, it still managed to completely blow my breath away.
Beyond the park, just about as far as the eye could see, was a crazy sprawl of high-rise flats and flyovers and train lines and telegraph poles and minarets and phone masts and church spires and superstores and office blocks and railway bridges and warehouses and rooftops.
And rising up above the whole lot, like a massive metal rainbow, was the enormous white arch of Wembley Stadium.
‘Wow,’ I whispered – because although it probably isn’t everybody’s idea of a beautiful view it really did look pretty stunning to me.
I followed the path of the giant arch with my eye. It disappeared into the grey silhouette of north London. There was no sign of a giant pot of gold anywhere.
And then I stopped staring into the far distance and looked at the scene unfolding much closer to me.
On the other side of the park, a group of boys were running into view. They looked wet and a bit muddy and were all dressed in matching gold rugby shirts and black shorts.
The PE kit of my school.
The school where everyone was talking about me and posting crappy messages on Facebook.
I immediately lost about one metre thirty in height and crouched down on the balls of my feet. It’s an invisibility tactic I’ve picked up from Call of Duty.
At the front of the pack were all the Sport Boys – the ones who play in the school teams and who always get picked first by the team captains. It was obvious they hadn’t spotted me. They all had their heads tilted skyward and were cross-country running with a very definite and determined sense of purpose. I relaxed a bit but stayed where I was, low to the ground. Way down the hill, the Sport Boys ran by and headed off towards the park’s south gate. I relaxed a bit more.
After the Sport Boys, came a long thin line of everybody else. Their heads weren’t tilted skyward and they weren’t running with the same obvious sense of focus. I noticed Besnik Bogdan from my chemistry class had his mobile phone pressed against his ear as he ran and a couple of other boys had stopped under a big tree to have a smoke. But none of this lot saw me either. I waited a while for them all to pass and then, when the coast was clear, I stood up again and stamped the numbness out of my aching feet.
But then one more runner came into view.
Although he was more of a walker than a runner. And a very slow walker at that. He was huffing and puffing and had his hand pressed into his side as if he was trying to deaden the pain of the world’s most hideous cross-country-running stitch.
And the second I saw him everything changed. Because it suddenly dawned on me that those crappy Facebook messages didn’t actually matter. The people who wrote them weren’t proper friends anyway. They were virtual friends. Come to think of it, they weren’t even that.
They were idiots.
And, even though there were 311 of them, they weren’t worth half of the slow-moving stitch-inflicted guy in front of me.
Not caring whether any of the other runners heard me or not, I took a big deep breath and as loudly as I could I shouted, ‘CHATTY!’ And then I waved my arms above my head and began running down the hill towards him.
Chatty Chong looked my way and stopped. And then he saw me, frowned and started walking again.
‘Chatty . . . wait,’ I shouted.
Chatty walked as far as the big tree and then stopped and leaned against the trunk. I ran over to him, finally slowing to a stop as I approached. My hand was pressed hard against a pain in my side. Somehow, even in that short distance, I’d developed a stitch.
We were both quiet for a moment while I got my breath back and then Chatty said, ‘If you’ve come to tell me I’m a geek, don’t bother. I don’t need it, yeah? I already know.’
I looked down at my hi-tops. They’d got so muddy that I knew they’d never be quite as good ever again. Normally this would have upset me a bit, but, right then, it didn’t really seem important.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Chatty Chong looked down at the ground and kicked at a tuft of grass and then he tilted his head skyward, looked over towards Wembley and said, ‘Yeah, well . . . you should be . . . so don’t try saying it again, yeah?’
‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘I’m an idiot.’
Chatty frowned and seemed to think about this and then he nodded and said, ‘Yeah.’
Even though it probably wasn’t a smiling situation, I smiled anyway. I couldn’t help it. Chatty Chong doesn’t exactly say much, but you always know where you are with him.
He jerked his head at me and said, ‘What happened to your eye?’
‘I smashed it really hard against someone’s fist,’ I said.
Chatty’s eyebrows rose and a look of shock flashed across his face. ‘Ouch,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Yeah. Ouch.’
Chatty said, ‘I didn’t see you in Maths Club. In fact, I ain’t seen you in maths lessons either. You ain’t been in all week, yeah?’
‘I’ve had some stuff to sort out,’ I said.
Chatty’s eyebrows rose a bit more and his cheeks went red. And then he said, ‘I heard that horrible girl with the great big airbags telling everyone that you’re gay, yeah?’
I think my cheeks went a bit red too. I looked down at the ground and kicked at a tuft of grass and muttered, ‘Yeah. I am.’ There wasn’t anything else to say really.
Chatty nodded and looked a bit worried. ‘You still like maths though, yeah?’
I looked up at him in surprise. ‘Of course I do. I’m still me.’
Chatty heaved out a sigh and looked relieved, ‘No drama then, yeah?’ And then he looked a bit hopeful and said, ‘Do you wanna come over to my house later? I’ve found this new maths game. It’s crap but it’s quite funny, yeah? It’s called Harry Potter and the Discontinuous Function.’
And I laughed out loud and nodded and had this really sudden urge to shake Chatty Chong firmly by the hand.
I didn’t though because that sort of thing looks fine if you’re both wearing a suit, but really weird when either of you is wearing a PE kit. So instead, I said ‘That sounds good, yeah,’ and I finally felt my world shift back somewhere closer to normal.
It was half-term after that. Half-term holidays always whizz by far too quickly in my life. They’re mostly filled up with doing these things:
• Lying in bed asleep
• Lying in bed listening to The Doors
• Lying in bed doing nothing
• Hanging around the Hollister shop
• Hanging around The Poster Hut
• Hanging around the library
• Generally hanging around
• Doing maths with Chatty Chong
• Doing GCSE coursework
• Generally doing nothing
• Watching telly
• Watching River Phoenix films
• Generally watching my back
• Playing games on my Xbox
• Playing Laser Tag in the Trocadero
• Generally playing it cool
• Helping my dad in the cafe
That stuff may not sound especially taxing, but I still never manage to get it all done.
But this half-term was different. I wasn’t in the mood for any general hanging around. In fact, I was so stressed out by the prospect of telling my dad about The G Situation that I wasn’t in the mood for much really. Not even Laser Tag. So the first few days of my holiday were pretty much spent doing this . . .
• Staying out of Jolene’s way
• Working in the cafe
• Going around Chatty Chong’s house to play Harry Potter and the Discontinuous Function
And aside from me and Chatty smashing each other’s high scores, nothing very interesting happened. Vee and Doreen came in and discussed Strictly Come Dancing, Whispering Bob Harris fell asleep in his apple pie and my dad told me again and again how much he was looking forward to taking me to the League Cup final.
‘Ain’t long now, sunshine,’ he said to me every single morning. ‘This Saturday! Can you flipping believe it?’
And every single morning, I just shrugged and said, ‘Yeah. Why not?’ Because Spurs reaching a final wasn’t such a difficult thing to get my head around. I mean, it’s not like being told that every circle’s circumference is approximately 3.14159265358979323846 2643383279502884197 1693993751082097494459230781640628620899 862 8034825342117 0679821480865132823 times as long its diameter – but that the exact ratio isn’t known because mathematicians have only been able to calculate this number up as far as the first one trillion decimal places.
I find that kind of thing much more of a struggle to deal with than Spurs reaching a poxy cup final. Even though I love maths.
I also found it quite a struggle to stay out of Jolene’s way. Seeing as how she was working in the cafe alongside me, this isn’t all that surprising. Every time I stood at the counter, Jolene kept her distance on the cafe floor and every time I went and did anything on the cafe floor, Jolene went and stood by the counter. In the end, I made things simpler for both of us and claimed the territory around the sink as my base camp. This suited everyone. When it comes to washing up, nobody in our family does it even halfway as good as I do.
And then, on the Friday, Liam Mackie walked in.
For a moment, I just froze.
Since he punched me in the face, I’d had a lot of time to think about what I’d do if I saw him again. Twelve days, in fact.
That’s
or
or
And I have to admit that a small proportion of that time had been spent picturing myself switching from NORMAL MODE to AIM DOWN THE SIGHT MODE and causing some serious grief to Liam Mackie’s Damage Indicator.
But only a very small proportion.
Because mostly I tried to throw these thoughts out of my head. I like to think that I’m better than that. I like to think that I’m more like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and that I can win my battles peacefully and with my dignity intact.
But unfortunately when Liam walked in I had my jaws clamped around a fried-egg sandwich.
As soon as my momentary shock paralysis passed, I dropped the sandwich back down on to my plate, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and frantically looked around for back-up. There wasn’t any. Other than Whispering Bob Harris who was nodding off over a fish-finger baguette, the cafe was empty. My mum was across the road having a full Willesden Wonder Tan, Jolene was upstairs on a tea break and my dad was in his office pretending to do the accounts but actually playing Angry Birds.
I was on my own.
Liam sauntered over towards me, bold as brass. He still looked buff. He always will do, I suppose. He was wearing that moss-green parka again. It made him look as if he’d just escaped from Call of Duty. On a reflex, I tensed up and prepared myself for an enemy attack.
Liam leaned against the counter, tapped his own chin and said, ‘You missed a bit . . . Jolene. That is your name, isn’t it? Or Josephine or Joanne or Jomosexual or something?’
I stood up straighter and lifted my chin up and – very calmly – I said, ‘Did you want something?’
Liam smirked. ‘Not especially. But I was just passing by and I got this sudden urge for a smoothie. Is your mum in? I like her smoothies the best.’ And then he grinned, leaned his elbows on the counter top and said, ‘They’re . . . well . . . tasty!’
And even though I knew that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi definitely wouldn’t approve, I curled my fist up into a ball and was a split second away from punching Liam right in the middle of his perfect face. I couldn’t help it. He was making me so angry that my eyes had misted up.
But before I had a chance to even raise my fist, another voice rang out across the cafe and made me stop.
‘My brother’s name is Jody. And, NO, my mum isn’t in, but my dad is and I think he’d like to have a word with you.’
Liam and I both turned to look at Jolene. She was standing by the STAFF ONLY door with her arms folded and an expression on her face that suggested she was as fed up as a sumo wrestler’s flip-flop. For once, though, her strop seemed to be directed at Liam and not at me. She stood there for a second – just Vulcan Death Glaring – and then twisted her head and shouted, ‘Dad, can you come out here a second.’
Liam’s smirk disappeared and the colour drained from his face. I think it did from mine too. I knew that telling my dad I was gay was going to be hard however I approached it. But I still didn’t want him to find out like this.
Liam took a few steps towards the cafe door. But then my dad appeared. He was smiling. As soon as he saw Liam, he stopped smiling and said, ‘You’ve got a nerve, ain’t you?’
Liam shrugged, flicked the hair out of his eyes with a sudden sideways jerk of the head and said, ‘It’s a free country.’
‘Not to go around hitting people it ain’t,’ said my dad.
