Girls in Love Read online

  I also had a panda called Bartholomew and a giraffe called Mabel and a big rag doll with orange hair called Marmalade.

  I had really grown out of them all by the time Eggs was born, apart from Nellie. When Eggs started crawling he ignored all his own new cuddly toys and always wanted mine.

  We once had a fight over Nellie. Eggs was screaming and screaming and wouldn’t give her back. I could see it was a bit ridiculous a girl like me wrestling with a toddler over a dirty toy elephant with a wonky trunk – but I wouldn’t give up. And then Eggs was suddenly sick all over Nellie. I insisted he’d done it on purpose. I said Nellie was spoilt for ever. My mother had made her for me when I was little. I bawled like a baby.

  Anna sluiced Nellie down and put her in the washing machine. She ended up a rather naff pale mauve and her stuffing went lumpy. She was still Nellie but I insisted she was spoilt and I threw her in the dustbin.

  I wish I hadn’t. I wished it almost the minute the dustmen carted her off. I know it’s totally mad but I still sometimes think of her now, lying amongst rotting Chinese takeaways and soggy teabags on some stinking rubbish tip, her trunk crumpled in despair.

  I threw all my other toys out when I redecorated my room, wanting to change everything, to stop being that sad silly dreamy fat girl. I wanted to remodel a new shiny hip version of Ellie to match my new room. I painted it bright blue with red furniture and yellow curtains, primary colours for a very secondary style. I tried to be bright and snappy and cheerful to match but I couldn’t keep it up. In fact right now I feel so dark and dreary and dismal I feel my matching habitat would be down a drain.

  I clutch the pillow close. When I was younger I used to have Nadine sleep over at my house at least once a week. We’d never bother with campbeds and sleeping bags, we’d just snuggle up together in my bed. Nadine’s not the cuddliest of girls, her elbows are sharp and she’s very wriggly, but it was great fun all the same. We’d make up ghost stories so gross and gory that I’d have nightmares when we eventually got to sleep, but that was OK too because I could hang on to Nadine and feel the knobs on her spine as I cuddled up against her, her long hair tickling my face.

  Only now Nadine has got Liam to cuddle. I still can’t believe it even though I’ve met him now. I wonder how she got on with him on their walk. And Magda with Greg. Nadine and Liam, Magda and Greg, Ellie and no-one at all . . .

  I drift off to sleep at long last. I dream. Ellie and Dan. Not the real Dan – the pretend boy, the one with blond hair and brown eyes. He waits for me outside school and we go off for a walk together down by the river. He holds my hand while we’re walking along the street but when we get to the secluded riverside he pulls me close, his arms go round me, he whispers lovely things, he lifts my hair and kisses my neck, my ears, my mouth, we’re kissing properly, it’s so beautiful, we’re lying on the mossy bank, entwined, I am his and he is mine and he whispers that he loves me, that he loved me from the moment we first set eyes on each other when he dodged round the parked car and we nearly collided, and I whisper that I love him too.

  ‘I love you,’ I whisper, and I wake up. I’ve never had such a vivid dream. I can still see the dappled sunlight on our skin, smell the honey musk of his chest, hear the beat of his heart, feel the warmth of his body . . .

  That is where I am, where I want to stay. I’m a stranger in this banal world of bathroom and breakfast. I won’t say a word as I sip coffee and spoon cornflakes. We sit at the table, Dad, Anna, Eggs and me. Four sides of the table, four members of a family, but they don’t seem to have any connection with me whatsoever.

  Dad is saying something to me but I’m not listening. It seems so strange that the only reason I’m sitting at this table is that the eight pints of blood in his body are similar to mine. He’s just a plump middle-aged guy with an embarrassing haircut and beard way too old to wear that silly T-shirt. That small boy with the yelping laugh choking on his cornflakes has even less to do with me. The calm woman in her white shirt nothing at all.

  She’s saying something about me missing the bus if I’m not careful, and she’s right. It’s there at the stop when I’m only halfway down the road. I could try running, but I don’t want my skirt to ride up even further, and besides, maybe I don’t really want to catch the boring old bus. I can always walk to school. Just in case . . .

  So I walk, past the bus stop, down the street, round the corner. The parked car’s not there, he’s not there either . . . YES HE IS! That’s him, right down at the end. Walking towards me!

  My dream is still so real it’s as if I know him, as if we went for that walk together and were in each other’s arms down by the river.

  He’s getting nearer, wearing a blue denim shirt today. It looks great with his colouring. He’s looking straight ahead. Is he looking at me? Looking for me? What if he dreamt about me too? What if he somehow dreamt the very same dream?

  I walk on and he walks on too. I can see his features now, his brown eyes, his straight nose, his sweet mouth, he’s smiling, he’s smiling at me. I shall smile too, a deeply significant smile to show that we share a secret . . .

  ‘Hi,’ he says, a few paces away.

  Hi! To me? Is he really talking to me? He can’t be. My head swivels to see if there’s someone standing behind me. No-one. It’s me. Oh, God, I feel such an idiot. I try to say Hi back but my throat is a sandy Sahara, so dry it comes out as a croak. Then he’s past, he’s walking on, I’ve lost it, I’ve lost my chance. He must think me a complete fool, only capable of frog-talk.

  I am late for school again. Mrs Henderson gives me a detention. Another one. Two in two days. Mrs Henderson suggests that I seem to be going for some sort of record.

  ‘Not a wise move, Eleanor,’ she adds threateningly.

  I don’t know what to do. I’m not fussed about old Hockeysticks Henderson. It’s me. I think I’m really going mad. Because now I’m in school and I’m breathing in the familiar smell of rubber trainers and canteen chip fat and Body Shop scent and Clearasil my dream is fading fast. I was starting to believe the dream was real, that the blond boy and I were really involved.

  I’ve got to stop this fast. I’ve got to tell Nadine and Magda that I made it all up.

  But I still don’t get a word in edgeways, not even at lunchtime on our steps. Nadine goes on about Liam, Liam, Liam. She’s inked a whole series of lovehearts all the way up her arm. She’ll give herself blood poisoning if she’s not careful. It’s as if she’s dyed her brain with his name too, because he’s all she can talk about. Not that they seem to talk at all. He’s barely said anything to her so far. They just skive off and snog, basically. Which is a little too basic, if you ask me.

  ‘Well, I didn’t ask you,’ Nadine snaps.

  Magda says that Greg does too much talking, he never stops. He showed her how to work out the Maths homework although she already knew perfectly well how to do it. And then he started giving her tips on Science into the bargain.

  ‘How about a few tips on Human Biology?’ Magda suggested on their way home.

  But he was too thick to take up her offer. He might be dead brainy but he’s brain-dead when it come to physical relationships, obviously.

  ‘It’s not necessarily obvious,’ Magda retorts. ‘I’ve just got to give him time. Redheads are known for their tempestuous natures.’

  ‘You’re ever so picky about Liam and Greg,’ says Nadine. ‘What’s bugging you, eh, Ellie?’

  ‘Nothing’s bugging me.’

  ‘You’re not feeling just the teeniest bit left out?’ says Nadine.

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Well, she’s probably fed up because her Dan is so far away and she can’t see him,’ says Magda.

  ‘If he even exists,’ says Nadine, staring at me very intently.

  I feel my heart pounding underneath my blouse. Nadine knows me so well. I hate the way her green eyes are gleaming.

  ‘Oh yes, he’s a figment of my imagination,’ I say, staring at them both. I pause. Then