Love Lessons Read online

  'I don't like boys,' I said.

  'Boys like you, Prue,' said Grace. She sighed.

  'It's not fair. I wish I was pretty like you so boys would t u r n round and stare at me.'

  'I bet they only stare because I look such a freak,' I said.

  Mum made most of our clothes from remnants from the Monday market stall. I'm fourteen years old and yet I have to wear demure little-girly dresses with short sleeves and swirly skirts.

  I have a red-and-white check, a baby blue with a little white flower motif, and a canary yellow piped with white. They are all embarrassingly awful.

  Mum used to make appalling matching knickers when we were little, threaded with very unreliable elastic. Our baggy shop-bought white pants are only one degree better. Still, I have proper underwear now. I used my maths tuition money to buy a wonderful black bra with pink lace and a little pink rose, and two matching knickers, wispy little things a tenth of the size of my plain girls' pants.

  I locked the bathroom and tried them on, standing precariously on the edge of the bath 11

  so I could peek at myself in the bathroom cabinet mirror. I loved the way they looked, the way they make me look.

  I hadn't dared wear them yet under my awful dresses because Grace could so easily blab. I'd have to wash them out secretly myself rather t h a n risk putting them in the laundry basket.

  'Do we look like freaks?' Grace asked worriedly.

  'Of course we do. Look at our clothes!'

  Grace considered. 'I like my dresses, especially my pink one with the little panda pattern – it's so cute,' she said. 'Would you have liked that material for your dress, Prue?'

  'No! I can't stick little pandas or teddies or bunny rabbits. For God's sake, I'm fourteen. '

  'Do you think I'm too old to wear my panda dress?' Grace asked anxiously.

  There was only one answer but I didn't want to upset her. 'I suppose your pink panda dress does still look quite sweet on you,' I lied valiantly.

  'It's getting a bit small for me now anyway,'

  Grace sighed. 'All my dresses are tight on me.

  I wish I wasn't getting so large and lumpy.'

  'It's just a stage you go through. Puppy fat.'

  'You didn't,' she sighed again. 'Dad keeps going on about me getting fat. He says I shouldn't eat so much. He says I'm greedy. Do you think I should go on a diet, Prue?'

  'No! Take no notice of him. He just likes to nag, you know that. Anyway, you can't diet just yet. I've got you a surprise.'

  12

  I'd felt so mean spending all my tuition money on myself, though I knew Grace would never m a n a g e to keep any present I bought her properly hidden. The only way I could buy her a treat was to get her something edible, to be quickly consumed.

  'A surprise!' said Grace, clapping her hands.

  'Ssh! I was keeping it a secret, to cheer you up the next time Dad goes off on one of his rants, but you might as well have it now.'

  I climbed out of bed and went to scrabble in my knicker drawer. My hands found the flimsy satin and lace of my new underwear. I secretly stroked them in the dark, and then searched again until my fingers slid over the crackly cellophane of Grace's surprise.

  'OK! Here we are!' I slipped back into bed and t h r u s t my present into her hands.

  'What is it?' she said, unable to see properly in the dark.

  I flicked the torch on to show her.

  'Oh wow!'

  'Shut up! Do you want Dad to hear?' I said, nudging her.

  'Sorry. But, oh Prue, it's so sweet!'

  There's a special chocolate boutique in the shopping centre. It's Grace's all-time favourite shop even though she's never even set foot inside it. Mum buys chocolate off a market stall. It's always a funny make and past its sell-by date, but it's cheap, and that's all Mum cares about.

  I was going to buy Grace a pound of posh 13

  chocolates in a fancy box, but then I saw this big white chocolate bunny in the window, clutching an orange marzipan carrot. I knew she'd love it.

  'What shall I call him? Peter Rabbit? Benjamin Bunny?'

  'Can't you ever make up your own names, Grace?'

  'You know I can't. You think up a lovely name for him.'

  'There's not much point. You'll be chomping away at him in two seconds. Knowing you, there won't even be a little chocolate paw left by midnight.'

  'I'm not going to eat him. He's far too wonderful. I'm going to keep him for ever,' said Grace, but her fat little fingers had already undone his ribbon and peeled off his cellophane.

  She sniffed his creamy ears ecstatically. 'Oh, he smells heavenly!'

  'So eat him, silly. That's what he's for.'

  'I can't!Well, perhaps I could eat his carrot? I don't want to spoil him. Still, maybe I could just lick one of his ears, to see what he tastes like?'

  'Go for it, girl!'

  Grace stuck out her tongue and licked. And licked again and again and again. And then all by themselves her teeth started chomping and the chocolate bunny was left disturbingly hard of hearing.

  'Oooh!' Grace murmured blissfully. Then she shone the torch on him. She saw what she'd done. 'Oooh!' she wailed, her tone changing.

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  'It's OK, just eat his head up quickly. It's what he's for.'

  'But it's spoiling him. Why am I such a greedy guts? Look, he's got a horrible gap in his head now.'

  'He's fine.'

  'No he's not. I want him to be whole again,'

  Grace said, looking as if she might burst into tears.

  'Well, his ears are in your tummy. If you gobble up the rest of him quickly then his body can join up with them, and they can squidge themselves together like plasticine. Then he'll be whole in your tummy and it will be his own private burrow.'

  Grace giggled uncertainly, b u t s t a r t e d chomping on his chocolate head. She offered me one arm because she felt he could manage on three paws. I'd imagined him so vividly I felt a little worried myself. It was like feasting on a real pet rabbit.

  'You eat your rabbit all up yourself, Gracie,' I said.

  'It's t h e loveliest t r e a t ever,' she said indistinctly, mouth crammed with chocolate.

  'But when did you buy it?' She paused. The obvious hit her. 'Where did you get the money?

  'Keep your voice down!'

  'I'm whispering.'

  Then we heard the bedroom door open along the landing. We held our breath. I snapped the torch off and Grace leaped into her own bed. We 15

  heard footsteps: the pad and slap of old slippers.

  'It's OK, it's only Mum,' I whispered.

  We heard her padding right along the landing, past our bedroom, down the stairs to the first floor, above the shop. Each stair creaked as she stepped. Our mother is a heavy woman.

  We heard her in the kitchen, opening the fridge door.

  'She's having a midnight feast too,' I muttered.

  'Not a patch on mine,' Grace whispered, daring to take another bite.

  Mum came trudging up t h e stairs again, slower now, breathing heavily.

  'Should I save a little piece of rabbit for Mum?'

  Grace asked.

  'No!'

  'But she loves chocolate.'

  'Ssh!'

  'Not now. In the morning,' Grace persisted.

  'Shut up or she'll hear us.'

  It was too late. The footsteps stopped outside our door.

  'Girls? Are you awake?' Mum whispered.

  'No!' Grace said, idiotically.

  Mum opened our door and came shuffling into the room. 'You should have gone to sleep ages ago,' she said. She came over to Grace's bed and bent over her. 'Are you all right, lovie?'

  'Yes, Mum,' said Grace.

  'What about you, Prudence?'

  'I'm fine,' I mumbled, giving a little yawn to make her think I was on the brink of sleep.

  16

  'Are you hungry, Mum?' Grace asked. 'We heard you go down to the kitchen.'

  'I was just gett