THREE

‘And while me and Owen are playing in the sea,’ I say, ‘Paul is rubbing suntan oil into your back.’
‘Mmmmmm.’ Sinead closes her eyes. ‘And then I rub it into his smooth chest and rippling, coffee-coloured stomach. And that little hairy bit below his belly button.’
‘But his chest might be a bit stubbly ‘cos he shaves it,’ I add.
‘Paul does not shave his chest!’
‘He so does!’
‘No way! Only Owen does all that stuff. He looks like he wears mascara and I bet he gets his bum waxed.’
‘No, he just naturally has beautiful, dark lashes. And I don’t care what he does to his bum – it’d still be the best bum on the planet.’
‘Whatever.’ Sinead frowns and looks ahead. I can just about see the new, bright white sign outside our school that says ‘North West London Academy’. That’s its new name, as of last week. We still call it Abbots Hill High, though.
‘Is that David?’
‘Erm, I think so.’
‘Damn. We’re going to have to stop. Well, let’s carry on after school. Make sure you say loads more about that suntan oil stuff.’ Sinead stops and bends over, right in front of me. I nearly trip over her.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, clicking my tongue.
She picks up a conker, runs forward and throws it ahead. The conker lands just behind David.
‘Daaavid!’ she screams.
Everyone in the street turns round – except David. It must be all quiet and leafy round here at the weekends. But now there are already coke cans and crisp packets everywhere, plus people like Sinead skipping around, shouting their gobs off.
‘He’s probably got his headphones on,’ I say.
‘Listening to that weirdo music,’ adds Sinead.
‘It’s not all weirdo music.’
‘Well, you would say that, seeing as you used to listen to weirdo music too – before you saw the light and got into Gonna B. Because of me.’
If only I had a pound for every time Sinead reminded me that she liked Gonna B first.
She finds another conker and manages to hit David’s bag. He turns around and Sinead jumps up and down and waves.
‘Sports bra,’ I smirk.
‘Shut it, No-Boobs.’
David waits for us to catch up with him. I can see the white wire from his headphones hanging down the front of his leather jacket. He’s pretty well-behaved at school, but the teachers are always telling him to take his headphones off. I sit with him in the lessons I’m not with Sinead in: Maths, Music and French. Sinead thinks he fancies me, but I tell her not to be so stupid. Anyway, I wouldn’t go out with David because he’s got moppy, flicky hair and looks like he’s in an Indie band.
‘Alright?’ he says, as we get closer, pulling one headphone out. ‘Been stalking your fake tan men this weekend?’
‘If you mean have we been going to see the fittest, most talented guys on the planet, then yes,’ replies Sinead. ‘What did you do? Sit indoors on your own, strumming your guitar, pretending to be Pete Doherty?’
‘Shut up.’ David screws his face up. Pete Doherty is a dickhead.’
‘And he doesn’t wash,’ I added.
‘Exactly. My fingernails are clean.’ David stretches out his slim hands to show us. ‘And not all manicured and stuff, like that dodgy boy band.’
‘You’re just jealous,’ said Sinead, and then does one of her sudden changes of subject. ‘Ugh! Don’t make me go to Science!’ She slaps her head. ‘Why do we have Science on a Monday morning? Could it possibly get any crapper?’
‘You’re such a drama queen, Sinead,’ says David.
That’s one thing I like about David – he doesn’t see Sinead as crazy, hilarious and great, the way everyone else seems to. I mean, she is my best mate and I love her and she makes me laugh loads sometimes, but other times it’s like she’ll do anything to be the centre of attention. It can get annoying.
‘Here, listen to this,’ David says to me, putting a headphone in my ear.
‘What is it?’ Sinead snatches the headphone from my ear, puts it in her own and then pulls a face. ‘Urgh, I’m surprised you haven’t slit your wrists yet, David.’
‘Nah, I only consider that when I hear Gonna B,’ he replies.
‘Admit it, David,’ I say. ‘You wish you could pay as many instruments as Lawrence a bit.’
‘He doesn’t play anything good on them, though!’
The bell goes.
In Science, Sinead is talking to Chelsea and Nadia about our weekend. She tells them Paul said ‘alright, love.’ I don’t know why she’s bothering. Chelsea and Nadia are never impressed by anything. They just pull their chewing gum and twist their nose rings and stare at people through their super-thick eyeliner.
‘What,’ says Nadia. ‘To you?’
‘Yeah,’ replied Sinead, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘He blatantly looked right at me. Ask Lucy.’
I nod wearily, and then go back to setting up our Bunsen burner, because somebody has to.
‘He must know me because I’m a Regular now,’ says Sinead.
‘My mum thinks you lot make that shit up,’ says Chelsea.
‘Well, tell your mum to come to their house with us one day then. Anyway, you’ve seen some of the photos on my phone. I can’t make them up.’
Chelsea shrugs and starts scratching her initials into the table with a compass.
‘You lot are weird, man,’ says Nadia.
At break, we go to the IT room to check the B Unofficial website in case there’s any news. B Unofficial has a forum, which is full of hussies from up North and Germany and places like that. They always put posts asking for the address of the Gonna B house. We normally wind them up by putting fake addresses. Sinead once put the address of Battersea Dogs Home. Most recently, she put the address of our school, saying Gonna B were doing a special performance here. I think had people had realised Sinead was a piss-taker by then, because we didn’t see anyone new outside the school gates that day. It was only Chelsea’s boyfriend and his dribbly, ugly dog – but he’s always there ‘cos he’s older and unemployed and thinks being a stalker will stop Chelsea getting off with someone else (he’s way too late for that, though).
I feel a bit bad, to be honest. Some of the Northern/German hussies travel miles, hoping for a little glimpse of the band and God knows where they end up. I mean, we all start out as hussies, really. Sinead cried and had snot running down her face the first time she saw Paul in real life. She’d kill me if I ever mentioned it now, though.
Me and Sinead manage to get computers next to each other. We always look at the forum first. We don’t have much time at morning break, so I start with the threads at the bottom of the page and Sinead starts at the top. Someone has posted a scan of a magazine interview, but I can’t really understand it ‘cos it’s in French. It looks like Owen says quite a bit, though, so maybe I’ll have a go at translating it with Google Language Tools later.
‘Oh my days!’ shouts Sinead, frightening the hell out of me and the rest of the IT room. ‘Look!’
She points at the screen and then I see it.
It’s a photo of Owen holding hands with a girl. It’s blurry, but definitely him. My heart jumps.
‘It’s just been posted,’ says Sinead.
Someone has written underneath: dis is wot my sista saw yestaday down mayfair. cudn’t beleev it. any1 no who she iz?
‘Could have been a fan who won a competition or something?’ I stammer.
‘Get real,’ snaps Sinead. ‘You’ll be saying it’s his gran next.’
The girl is really slim, with long dark brown, shiny hair. She’s wearing a fitted jacket, jeans tucked in boots and sunglasses. Owen’s wearing sunglasses too.
The bell goes.
‘Quick, let’s print it,’ I say. I print two copies. Sinead stands over the printer so she can snatch them before the teacher sees.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I say to Sinead, on the way upstairs to Art. ‘He said he was too busy for a girlfriend.’
‘She’s pretty,’ says Sinead. ‘Got to be a model.’
‘She’s probably thick as shit then,’ I say.
‘Look at you, you’re so jealous!’ Sinead elbows me really hard and sends me flying into a tall year 11 girl who kisses her teeth at me.
‘Whoops, sorry,’ I say, letting the girl go past us.
I give Sinead a dirty look. She laughs and sticks her tongue out at me.
‘It’s weird.’ I hold the picture up in front of me again. ‘Who do you think she is?’
‘I don’t know, probably some model he met at a celebrity party.’
‘But Owen said he wanted to go out with someone normal, like a hairdresser or an office girl.’
Sinead shrugs.
In Art, Sinead makes me laugh by drawing all over her copy of the picture. She gives the mystery woman goofy teeth, glasses and a wart on her nose, with hairs coming out of it. She draws a speech bubble coming from her saying, ‘I’m a boring bimbo slapper.’ Then she draws a thought bubble coming from Owen saying, ‘I’d rather watch ten hours of Holby City than date her again.’
Owen hates programmes like Holby City because he doesn’t like hospitals or the sight of blood. He doesn’t watch violent films either for the same reason. He prefers comedies. Bless him.
I don’t draw on my copy. I keep it folded in the back of my homework diary, so I can look at it again later.