Boys Beware

“Oh, don’t worry about those two,” said Mum. “They can make do. They’re practically joined at the hip, anyway.”

It’s true, me and Tash are the hugest of best friends. Mum says we are more like twins than sisters. Sometimes we pretend that we are twins, and then people just get so confused! You can see them looking from me to Tash and back again to me, not knowing what to believe. We happen to have been born on exactly the same day – yet we don’t look in the least bit alike. Tash is small and dark and elfin, with this dear little face, all beaming and full of innocence. (Totally misleading! Mum says she is a holy terror.) I am on the skinny side, with blonde hair, a bit straggly except when it has just been washed, and blue eyes. In my last school photo, although I say it myself, I looked positively angelic! This is also misleading, according to Mum. She says that when it comes to the holy terror stakes, “I couldn’t put a pin between you.” But physically we are completely and utterly different, and this is because we are actually not even sisters! We love to string people along and get them all wound up. And then, when we have teased them long enough, we put them out of their misery. We have this party piece that we do.

“Her mum – “ Tash says.

“Married her dad,” I say.

“Which means – “(both together)” – we’re not even related!”

Ha ha! Well, we think it’s funny. Sometimes we tell people the story of how Mum and Dad met up while me and Tash were still in Infants. We tell how they got talking while they waited for us outside the school gates. How Mum was on her own with me and Ali, Dad was on his own with Tash, and so in the end they decided to get married. How us three were bridesmaids, in little pink frocks. Just so-o-o sweet!

Yes, and it would have been even sweeter if Ali hadn’t gone and brought up her breakfast in the middle of the ceremony, though at least she managed to catch most of it in her bouquet, which Auntie Jay said showed great presence of mind. Personally I thought it was rather disgusting, but it is the sort of thing you expect from Ali. She is just so accident prone!

After we’d settled the question of beds, and had mastered the art of switching the cooker on and off and closing the fridge door properly – Mum seemed to think we needed lessons! She has such a poor opinion of us – we all went downstairs for a cup of tea. One of Auntie Jay’s friends was there, a woman called Jo Dainty, who used to be at uni with her. She said, “Well, I just hope you’re more capable than I was at your age … I couldn’t even boil an egg!”

“I can boil eggs,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound boastful but there are times when grown-ups really do seem to think we are quite useless. I mean, closing fridge doors, for goodness’ sake!

“Just don’t get too cocky,” said Mum. “This is going to be a steep learning curve.”

She added that she intended to make out a list of Do’s and Don’ts, and she advised Auntie Jay to do the same.

“I may even make a Book of Rules.”

She thought better of that idea, thank goodness! But the day she moved us into the flat she presented me and Tash with a couple of jotter pads and said she wanted us to keep a daily Food Diary and a weekly Activities Diary, so that when she got back she would be able to check a) what we had been eating and b) what we had been up to.

“Mum!” I said. “That’s spying!”

“It’s not spying,” said Mum. “It’s a way of keeping you focused.”

“So who gets to do what?” said Tash.

I said that I would do Activities, and she could do Food. Writing a diary was no problem for me, I already kept one anyway. Not that I would ever let Mum see my own personal diary! My personal diary is strictlyprivate. I thought that for Mum it would be easy enough just to do extracts. Suitable ones, of course!

“What about Ali? What’s she going to do?”

Mum said that Ali was to be responsible for Fat Man. Fat Man is our cat. He is not really fat, it’s just that he has masses of fur, all puffed out like a big pompom, plus the most disagreeable expression, which in fact is every bit as misleading as Tash looking innocent and me looking angelic. In reality he is the sweetest cat and we all love him to bits! But it is Ali who specially dotes on him, so we didn’t mind her being put in charge. In any case, she would never have managed to keep a diary, she is far too disorganised. Unless, perhaps, she could have put it on the computer. Ali loves her computer! Needless to say, it was going to come with us. The computer and Star Trek are the two biggest things in her life – well, plus Fat Man.

Some people think that Ali is a bit odd, but really she’s just eccentric. We all feel very protective towards her. Dad once said that she is your actual “innocent abroad”, by which I think he meant that she is not at all streetwise. Unlike me and Tash! I wasn’t altogether surprised when Mum took me to one side, as we loaded the car for the second trip to Auntie Jay’s, and said, “Emily, I want you and Tash to do something for me … I want you to watch out for Ali. Make sure she’s all right. I know she’s older than you, but she is such a dreamer! So can I rely on you?”

I solemnly gave her my promise. Of course we would watch out for Ali! It made me feel good that Mum trusted me.

Or did she??? The last words she said, as we kissed her goodbye, were: “Just remember … no boys. I mean that, you two! I’m serious.”

PERSONAL PRIVATE DIARY (not to be confused with Mum’s!)

Week 1, Saturday

Our first day of independent living! Not that it has been all that independent so far as it was half-past two when Mum left and at seven o’clock Auntie Jay invited us down to have dinner with her and her friend Jo, so we only had just a few hours on our own. But that was enough to convince us that it is going to be the hugest fun!

Me and Tash started off by moving all the furniture about. It was Tash’s idea. She said the way you arrange your living space is an expression of your personality, and it was the other people, the people who had been there before us, who had put the bed in the corner and pushed the table against the wall. She insisted that the bed had to go under the windows, and the table had to go in the middle.

“That way, it’ll cover up the stain on the carpet.”

I do hope she isn’t going to become house-proud! She was actually talking of finding a rug to stand the table on. I had to remind her that we are only here for eight weeks. Tash said, “Yes, but we want the place to look nice.”

So long as she is not going to nag. I mean, there are more important things to worry about than stains on the carpet. Ali, of course, hasn’t even noticed the stain, she spent the entire afternoon sorting out her Star Treks. She has stacked them up all round her bed. She is hemmed in by them! She has brought 104 videos with her. More than enough for eight weeks, but she says it is best to be on the safe side. What she means by this, I have no idea. I’m sure Mum won’t be away longer than eight weeks; she was dithering even as we packed her into the car. But there is absolutely no need, we are perfectly capable of looking after ourselves. We have tins in the cupboard and food in the fridge, and Auntie Jay has said that every weekend we are to go downstairs and eat with her. Whatever happens, we will not starve!

This evening was a real dinner party. Very grown up! Auntie Jay said, “I’m giving it in your honour, I’ve invited everyone in the house.” We weren’t quite sure who else was in the house, but thought we had better get dressed up, just in case.

“It’s probably only old people,” said Tash.

“Yeah,” I said, “like married couples.”

“On the other hand, you never can tell.”

She didn’t have to explain what that meant! It meant, you never can tell when there might be a boy … Me and Tash practically live inside each other’s heads, we can always tune in to what the other is thinking – though perhaps upon reflection that’s not so difficult, since it usually concerns boys! We are on the lookout for boys wherever we go. On the way in to school, on the way back from school, in the shopping centre, even on the building site in Gliddon Road, where we once saw Justin Timberlake pushing a wheelbarrow. Big day! It wasn’t really Justin Timberlake, of course, but it sure did look like him. You just never know when someone gorgeous is going to pop up, and that being the case it seems only sensible to be prepared. Tash and I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing last year’s washed-out fashion statements! We dressed with as much care for Auntie Jay’s dinner party as we would for a rave.

“It’s only polite,” I said. “Exactly,” said Tash. And then we both looked at Ali and went, “Ali!” We screamed it at her. “You’re not going like that!” Ali said, “Like what?” Well! Like a derelict, if she really wanted to know. A horrible old saggy T-shirt and striped cotton trousers that ballooned round the bum.

“Haven’t you got anything better?” I wailed.

Ali seemed bewildered. She said, “It’s only Auntie Jay.”

And all the other people in the house … who knew what kind of gorgeous male might be there? I didn’t say this to Ali, however; there wouldn’t have been any point. She is so immature! It’s like, for her, boys are still an alien species. And to think she is almost fourteen!!!

Anyway, as it happened there wasn’t a gorgeous male in sight. Mostly it was what we had predicted: Auntie Jay’s friend, Jo Dainty; a married couple that live on the ground floor called Anne and Robert (quite nice but very boring), and a man from the second floor, directly beneath us, who is called Andrew and wears cardigans. Well, that’s what he was wearing tonight, all shapeless and woolly. I thought to myself that what he needed was a girlfriend to advise him on such matters and make him a bit more trendy. Auntie Jay, perhaps? She is unattached, and she obviously shares my views on cardigans cos at one point I heard her whisper, “Andrew, really! I thought you were going to donate that thing to charity?” He was quite shamefaced and clutched at his grungy old cardy with both hands in a defensive kind of way, as if she might be going to snatch it off him right there and then. I felt quite sorry for him. Auntie Jay can be really bossy!

Now I have come to the part which I have been dying to write. We have a piece of Extremely Interesting Information. In fact it is the BIG NEWS of the day: the cardigan man has a son who lives with him.

A boy! A real boy! Under the same roof! He was out with his friends this evening and so didn’t come to our little dinner party, boo hoo! And to think we got all dressed up … Of course we have no idea what he is like, he may be a total geek, but you can see that the cardigan man must have been quite fanciable when he was young, so we have high hopes. The annoying thing is that Ali – of all people – has actually met him. What a waste! She came back upstairs literally five minutes ahead of us, which means we only just missed him. She wouldn’t even have thought to tell us if she hadn’t heard me and Tash eagerly speculating what he might be like. All casually she goes, “I just bumped into him on the stairs.”

Breathlessly, Tash said, “What’s he like?”

Ali shrugged. “Just a boy.”

“How old is he?”

“Dunno,” said Ali. “Didn’t ask.”

“How old does he look?”

“Dunno. ’Bout my age?”

Yessss!!! Needless to say, we pumped like crazy, trying to find out whether he was gorgeous or geeky, but Ali is just so unsatisfactory. All she could say was, “He’s got brown hair.” The only thing she noticed … brown hair!

“Well, that’s cool,” said Tash.

“Yeah, like really unusual,” I said.