Take Two, page 21
‘No, Moss, not the point. I really wasn’t objecting to your use of tenses. I can’t do it.’
Moss silently handed me a custard cream. I took it. It may have been a bittersweet admission of surrender, but it was still a custard cream.
‘How long before he gets back to London?’
‘I don’t know, still weeks I think.’
‘Are you going to try and talk to him then? You’ll see him at your acting classes, won’t you?’
I shrugged. ‘He probably won’t go any more now he’s hit the vampire big time.’ To be fair, I hadn’t had time to go to ACT all term. Maybe I’d start again when he was back in the country, just on the off-chance of bumping into him.
‘You know where he lives.’
‘Great. So my only hope is to loiter near his house and pray for a miracle? That’s creepy.’
‘Well, you need a plan.’
It would have to be better than that. Maybe I’d just sit in my bedroom and obsess over why and how I had so monumentally messed up. I took some deep nasal breaths and briefly missed Amber. But not for her life advice.
‘He might send you a birthday message.’ Moss was scrabbling round for crumbs of comfort now.
‘He probably will. One of those passive aggressive Facebook ones that just say “Hbd” or, if I’m lucky, “Happy Birthday”. Or he’ll just post a “hilarious” collage of all my stupid, stupid texts.’ I deconstructed another custard cream quite savagely.
‘Well, before your actual birthday we’ve got your birthday party . . . that will cheer you up.’ Moss looked up from checking her own texts and spoke in a voice of doom.
‘Moss, I think you know that my party is not going to “cheer me up”, but why are you sounding so depressed about it?’ Bit late for that after literally months of bullying me to volunteer for what was looking more and more like social suicide.
‘Guess,’ she said.
‘Torr?’ She nodded sadly. ‘He’s not coming to my party?’ She nodded again. ‘Why not?’ I didn’t care for me, but I did care for her.
‘He’s not “free”. Some “cool” girl in his year is having a “surprise party” that he just can’t miss.’ She kept making little air quotes for every other word, in other circumstances I’d have laughed at her. ‘The classic last-minute-surprise-party excuse.’
I’d never heard of that one. ‘Did he not ask you to go with him?’
‘She won’t give him a plus one. According to this long and rambling text he’s just sent me, he tried really hard to get me invited – right, sure. Anyway, I wouldn’t have ditched your party to go with Torr. I don’t even care that he’s not coming.’
She obviously did care, so I just made vague supportive noises. From the most promising of starts this was turning out to be quite a traumatic evening. ‘We’ll have fun anyway,’ I said. We both just looked at each other. ‘OK, maybe not actual fun. Shall we cancel?’
‘Too late,’ she said. ‘People will just come anyway. We’re committed.’
And then there was an awkward pause where we both pondered Torr’s particular commitment issues.
‘We need to stop being negative and decide what to wear,’ I said, in a desperate effort to channel my inner Eulalie. ‘Effort or no effort?’
‘Effort that looks like no effort, obviously,’ she said, making an equally desperate effort to pull herself together. We weren’t convincing, but at least we were trying. Not for nothing had we both endured a term of assemblies on the theme of resilience.
‘Will you come over early and we can get ready together?’
‘You mean panic together?’
That was exactly what I’d meant.
‘As my alternative plan had been to go out with Torr and that is no longer happening, I will be at your house many, many hours in advance.’
2
• % of time spent convincing my mum that she does not need to email the parents of every person attending my party: 6% (This is very important, not least because I am not entirely sure who is coming to my party.)
• % of time spent panicking that I do not know who is coming to my party: 53%
• % of time spent convincing my mum that my Facebook event will not go public and end up on the Daily Mail website: 45%
• % of time spent creating completely irrelevant Party Pinterest boards: 62% (Your day will come, DIY glitter mason jar ice-cream bar, your day will come.)
• % of time spent texting Archie: 0% (starting to text and wimping out can’t count
• % of time spent missing Archie: 0%
• % of time spent lying about missing Archie: 100%
• % of time spent missing Digby: 100% (I’ve been doing some miserable multi-tasking)
‘I’m terrified of parties.’
Mia Wasikowska
Moss straightened one of the bottles of Coke for the hundredth time. She stepped back. ‘Do you think it looks too organized now?’
‘Yep, it’s a bit creepy. It looks almost like we’ve been sitting here for an hour staring at it.’ That is exactly what we’d been doing.
‘It doesn’t really look like a drinks table any more.’
‘What does it look like?’ I asked. Having a party was scary enough without a shape-shifting table thrown into the already weird and frankly disappointing mixture of invitees.
‘Like a piece of really bad modern art?’
‘Maybe we could mess it up a bit. So we look all casual and spontaneous.’
‘Elektra, these people do know us.’ We looked at the table. ‘But we should maybe try.’ Moss moved one of the bottles out of line and switched some plastic cups into different stacks, and stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘Now I’m scared that it looks like we arranged it scarily precisely, and then moved a bottle and some cups to make ourselves look casual and spontaneous. That’s like something a psychopath would do.’
‘I think the best thing is probably just to leave the table alone now.’
‘You’re right.’ Moss flopped on the sofa beside me. ‘We should never have got ready so early.’
My mum came in. She’d got really dressed up in solidarity.
‘You girls have a lovely evening,’ she said, carefully rearranging the drinks table. ‘I chopped up some crudités just in case – they’re in the tupperware next to the hummus on the third level of the fridge. Right,’ she said in the tone of someone about to go over the top during the Battle of the Somme, ‘I’m going to Bridget’s house.’
Moss and I had helpfully offered to book a range of dinner reservations on the opposite side of town, but Mum had decided that a cup of tea, a conversation with an annoyingly judgmental Cath-Kidston-style mum and, if she leaned right out of their top-floor window, a view of our garden was the better option. My father, on the other hand, had done a total Torr. He’d promised for weeks that he would be there to prevent anyone actually dying, but at the last minute he’d decided that a ‘very, very important’ and miraculously sudden client dinner was far higher on his list of priorities.
‘If you need anything,’ said Mum, ‘or anything goes wrong, just text. I’ll be on my phone the entire night.’ That I did not doubt. ‘Have fun!’ The door banged behind her.
‘What if literally no one comes?’ I asked. Torr wasn’t coming. Archie wasn’t coming.
‘Eulalie will definitely come if we text her.’
‘Moss, I love you, but it wouldn’t be much of a birthday party with me, you and my grandma. It would just be you two brutally excluding me.’
‘I’m sure some people will come,’ Moss said. She didn’t sound very sure.
‘I feel like maybe it’s worse if a few people come because then they know no one else turned up.’ I’d thought through every possible dire outcome. I’d probably done a more thorough risk assessment than they did for the whole of Straker: higher risk of social death and lower risk of actual death, also fewer flying elves.
‘They’ll all know, anyway,’ added Moss helpfully. ‘Because there won’t be any snap stories this evening or pics on Facebook tomorrow.’
‘I mean, unless we could . . . fake some?’ Moss looked at me like I’d gone mad, but she was in no position to judge. ‘We could switch all the lights off, turn on some really loud music, maybe a YouTube video with some flashing lights and general shouting or something?’
‘So to prove how cool we are, you are suggesting we should take photos and videos of each other alone in a dark, empty room with only some crudités and hummus for company?’ This was not a good time for Moss to be at her most chillingly logical.
‘You could dance crazily to distract people, or we could just do close-ups of our faces? We could get Eulalie to take the photos to prove there were at least three people? We could even get my parents . . .’
The doorbell rang.
‘Bagsie you go!’
‘God, Elektra, how old are you?’ Moss rolled her eyes but didn’t go to the door. We looked at each other. It was all a bit opening-scene-of-a-horror-film.
‘Let’s go together,’ I whispered.
It was the start of our first proper teen party and Moss and I, not a boyfriend in sight, were creeping into my hall, hand in hand.
The doorbell rang again. We both jumped.
‘Hey.’ The guy on the doorstep gave us an awkward wave.
‘Erm, hi?’ I was pretty sure I had never seen him in my life. I really don’t meet many guys so I doubt I’d forget one.
‘Sorry, who actually are you?’ Moss wasn’t renowned for her tact.
‘I’m Sam . . .’ There was an awkward pause. ‘Jamie’s plus one?’
‘Who’s Jamie?’
‘Daisy’s plus one.’
Under the circumstances, that would do. We showed him into the living room like really awkward estate agents. He looked around. ‘Is nobody here yet?’ Sam clearly had amazing powers of deduction.
‘Erm. No,’ I said apologetically.
‘I thought it started at eight?’ Was he really going to make us spell out the fact that no one else had yet turned up to our party?
‘It did.’
‘Oh.’
Moss pretended to straighten the sofa cushions and I just stood uselessly in the doorway. I hoped it didn’t look like I was trying to trap Sam, but I couldn’t move now, the moment for moving was over. I also really needed to turn the lights down, but I felt that would be creepy at this point.
‘I mean, it’s only twenty minutes past eight and everyone knows eight means eight thirty.’ I tried to sound as if I was just calmly explaining a point of party etiquette. ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘Oh, er, no. I think I’ll wait for everyone else.’ He looked out of the window pointedly, even though it was too dark to see anything. A Little Party Never Killed Nobody came on. I was beginning to regret our playlist decisions. Right now the little-ness of this party was coming very close to killing me.
The doorbell rang and we all breathed a major sigh of relief.
‘Ahhh, Jenny, Maia, thank God you’re here,’ Moss practically screamed from the hall.
8.45 p.m.: Some people have actually turned up. Small talk is getting slightly less awkward. Tentative dancing beginning.
9.00 p.m.: Quite a lot of people have actually turned up. People are properly dancing now.
9.20 p.m.: There are really quite a few people in my house. Someone has brutally discarded our Taylor Swift and Ariana filled playlist in favour of something that sounds a bit like the Straker soundtrack.
9.35 p.m.: There are a lot of people in my sitting room but I can’t find anyone I know.
9.45 p.m.: Alert. Alert. Commander Moss is Missing in Action.
9.47 p.m.: Text received from the mother: Is everything OK????? Sounds quite loud?????
9.48 p.m.: Follow-up text: Is that chanting??? Sounds a bit like a satanic ritual??????’
9.52 p.m.: Text received from the father: Elektrsa, Can you pleasde confirm to your mother that therec is no satanic ritual being perforned in our kicten she is waorried. Well, he was clearly having fun at the ‘very very important client dinner’.
9.54 p.m.: Follow-up text: If therec is a satanic ritual being perfomrd plese tell them not to use the kicthem – the white surfaces stain easily
10.10 p.m.: I’m pretty sure I just saw Flissy . . .?
10.15 p.m.: Commander Moss is alive, well and getting with some guy I haven’t seen before. Dark hair, stocky build, possibly wearing a rugby shirt. He is the anti-Torr.
10.17 p.m.: Quite stroppy text received from the mother: Elektra. I’m not happy. If this noise doesn’t quieten down in the next fifteen minutes I’m coming over.
10.25 p.m.: There’s a boy in the kitchen wearing a bucket hat. I think I’m going to cry.
‘There’s someone at the door for you,’ said someone else I didn’t know.
‘Why are they not just coming in?’
‘They want you to come to the door.’
Oh my God, I was literally going to get arrested. Or worse, it was my mother, too traumatized to cross her own threshold. Obviously I went because I was a respecter of authority. Unlike the person in the bucket hat.
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
‘Hey, Elektra,’ said Archie.
I stared. Was he even real? Had my poor little obsessed imagination just conjured up a lovely Archie-shaped mirage because I wanted him to be there so badly?
‘Elektra?’
He sounded real. I’d missed his voice.
I didn’t throw myself at him straight away. I had too much dignity for that. I gave it maybe another ten . . . OK, eight . . . OK, two seconds. ‘I’m SOOOOOOO SORRRREEEEE!’ I wailed.
‘Woah, you’re going to crush me.’ Archie backed away fast, as if I really was going to do him some damage.
Well that was humiliating. ‘I apologize for my enthusiasm,’ I said, trying to make my voice sound cool and trying to forget that this was all my fault. There was a lot of space between us now. So much space he might as well have been a mirage.
‘You’ll hurt him,’ he said.
Three months on a BBC drama and he was talking about himself in the third person? Too far. I got that he was upset with me, but why come if he was just going to give me the freezer treatment? I didn’t know how to make this better. Part of me (the guilty, scared part) wanted to run back inside, but the other part (the part that kept staring at his cheekbones, and all the rest) wasn’t going anywhere. Anyway, I couldn’t get back in the house because Maia was now getting with Sam in the doorway. ‘I’m having a party,’ I said in a small voice.
‘I know.’
‘Did my mum tell you?’ I managed not to add ‘when you texted her’ because that was too weird.
‘It’s more the hundred-odd people and the loud music that are giving it away.’ He smiled. I’d missed his smile.
‘Oh, God, Archie, I’m so sorry.’ I started to word-vom. ‘I didn’t mean any of it. I totally messed up, I just thought—’
‘Elektra.’ He cut me off gently. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘But it does.’ Of course it mattered. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’ If I just kept talking super fast then I might come up with something that made sense. Or not. ‘It was just a sort of misunder—’
‘Shhh, stop talking. I want to show you something.’ He started to undo the top buttons on his jacket. I was starting to feel kind of uncomfortable.
‘Give me your hand,’ he said. ‘Can I just say before we go any further that your mum is totally cool with this.’
OK, now I was feeling really uncomfortable.
He slipped my hand inside his jacket and both of us gave a little yelp of surprise.
Not me and Archie, me and the tiny bundle of puppy.
‘He’s called Plogojowitz,’ said Archie. ‘But I’ll understand if you want to change that.’
It was a long name for the little dotty bundle that was curled against Archie’s chest, but it suited him. ‘Hello, Plog,’ I said. He wriggled and stuck out one oversized paw. His coat didn’t fit him properly yet.
‘He was the runt.’
‘He’s perfect.’
‘I know he’s not Digby. He’s not meant to be a replacement. Obviously.’ Obviously. ‘And I think maybe his dots are in the wrong places.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘He’s not perfect.’
Archie looked worried. Plog looked worried.
‘He’s practically perfect,’ I said. ‘I like that.’
TheBizz.com
Bringing you the all the Best Backstabbing in the Bizz . . .
15th October
Roll up roll up fans of the Samber saga! We’re in for a Season 2 and it’s set to be pure DRAMAAAA . . . OK, so last time didn’t end so well: think public meltdowns, dog therapists and a literal Bonfire of the Vanities (when all of Sam’s handmade Italian shirts hit the flames).
Despite all that, OK because of it, we here at The Bizz are MORE than up for a round two . . .
We thought we’d play a little game – Samber Bingo. (Back off, we’re trademarking that.)
So grab some popcorn, invite your most sadistic friends over and let’s get watching . . .
STOP THE ABUSE THAT IS OUR CURRENT SCHOOL UNIFORM
Dear Mrs Haroun and Governors of Berkeley Academy. We, the undersigned, are hereby petitioning for a change to the uniform policy of our school.
a) The colour of the uniform (variously described as purple, plum, aubergine or Berkeley Beetroot) is so ‘unusual’ that it draws attention to the wearers and thereby increases the safety risks we run especially when travelling to and from school. It is SO ‘distinctive’ that no lower cost items can be substituted for the official uniform which is unacceptable in the current austere economic climate. We petition for a change to black or grey or, at worst, navy.
b) We petition for the uniform to include the option to wear trousers. The suffragettes did not die for our right to wear a skirt (winter) or a pinafore (summer).
c) (Only if a) above is not accepted) we petition for a relaxation in the uniform rules so that full uniform need not be worn on any other than formal school occasions and especially that blazers need not be worn outside the school.
