Girls in Love Read online

  ‘Oh, God,’ says Nadine. ‘I forgot, Magda! And these tickets, they’re just for Saturday night. Oh, what am I going to do?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ says Magda. ‘You go. Who’d want to pass up a chance to go to Seventh Heaven? Hey! Ellie, how about if you and me go too? I’ll get my dad to cough up the cash. Don’t worry, Nadine, we won’t cramp your style. We’ll keep well away from you and Dracula.’

  ‘Dracula indeed!’ says Nadine, but she laughs.

  It’s OK at last. We’re all three friends again. And we’re going to Seventh Heaven!

  I wonder if the blond dreamboat Dan ever goes clubbing???

  Nadine is telling her parents she’s spending Saturday with Magda. I really am – but of course I’m not telling Dad and Anna we’re planning to go to Seventh Heaven. My dad loves to act laid back but I know he’d never let me go there in a million years because there’s been all this stuff in the local papers for weeks about the fights at four in the morning and girls being rushed to hospital with drug overdoses and all this other seriously heavy stuff. I just tell them Magda’s having this little party and I’ll sleep over at her place and come home some time on Sunday.

  ‘What are you going to wear to this party?’ Dad says. ‘Not that T-shirty thing again?’

  He’s home half an hour early, so Anna’s all set for her evening class. Dad’s trying to act as if the row this morning didn’t happen.

  ‘Maybe it’s time you had some new clothes, Ellie. Here.’ He hands me twenty quid. Then realizes it’s not enough. He fumbles in his wallet. ‘I haven’t got enough cash. Look, why don’t you go shopping with Anna, use the credit card?’ He looks at Anna. ‘Both of you buy yourself something new, eh?’

  Anna looks tense. I’m scared she’s going to start another row, start on about guilt money or something – and then I won’t get my outfit after all. But then she shrugs. ‘OK. Sure. So, Ellie – we’ll go late-night shopping tomorrow.’

  ‘Can you get home early again and look after Eggs, Dad?’ I say. ‘He’s such a pain to take shopping.’

  There. I’ve fixed Dad now. He can’t stay out late and play around. Anna gives me a little nod of acknowledgement.

  It turns out that we have fun shopping together. It’s almost as if Anna is Magda or Nadine. We wander round Jigsaw and Warehouse and River Island and Miss Selfridge and Anna tries on all this mad stuff and when I see her slinking round the changing room showing off her navel in this really raunchy gear I just fall about laughing and she gets the giggles too and it’s like we’re two girls together. I dare squeeze into some of the sexier stuff too but it’s a BIG mistake. I am the mistake. I am big. Well. F-A-T.

  ‘You’re not fat, Ellie. For God’s sake, you’re just perfectly normal size,’ Anna insists, although she’s Ms Stick Insect herself so she’s OK. I’m Ms Big Bumblebee – with the emphasis on the Bum.

  ‘What am I going to wear?’ I say, after I’ve tried on 101 outfits and discarded them all. ‘I want something hip and cool and now – and yet I look positively indecent in all this stuff.’

  ‘You’re just a bit curvy for current fashion,’ says Anna. ‘You don’t want these tacky tops or skimpy little skirts.’

  ‘So what else am I going to wear? A black plastic rubbish bag?’

  ‘We’ll find you the perfect outfit, Ellie, I promise,’ says Anna.

  And she does! There’s this long tight stretchy skirt that I’m scared might be a bit frumpy, but there’s a sexy slit up the back – and then she finds a satin shirt to go over the top and I try it on and it’s like – wow! – I’m not me any more. I don’t look like some stupid podgy little kid. I look much older. Fifteen. Maybe even sixteen.

  ‘Oh, Anna, it’s great!’ I say. ‘But the two together are going to be ever so pricey.’

  ‘So what?’ says Anna. ‘Let’s go mad.’

  She buys a little short bright skirt for herself that is so different from her usual check-shirt-and-jeans young-mum style. Anna doesn’t look older. She looks much much younger.

  ‘Let’s buy some tarty shoes too,’ she says.

  We strut around in these silly heels, both of us staggering. Then we go for identical black suede shoes with little buckles.

  ‘You have them, Ellie, it’s OK,’ says Anna.

  ‘No, it’s not fair. You saw them first. You have them, Anna.’

  ‘You two are very sweet to each other for sisters,’ says the assistant, laughing at us.

  ‘We’re not sisters,’ says Anna. ‘Though it feels like we are sometimes.’

  ‘We’re . . . friends,’ I says, and it’s true. For the moment, anyway.

  We both get a pair of black buckled shoes and we dance down the road in them, though we’ve both got blisters by the time we get home.

  Anna’s being so sweet I feel bad about telling her lies but I know the moment I mentioned Seventh Heaven she’d morph into strict stepmother mode and say No Way.

  So off I go to Magda’s on Saturday and we have a fun time with her family. You should see the birthday presents they gave her! It’s not as if they’re rolling in money either. She gets a VCR for her bedroom and a satin blouse a bit like mine but much more clingy and a huge cuddly bunny and a lacy nightie and a big box of chocs and posh lipstick and nail varnish and lots of CDs and scent and a necklace and a great big basket of smelly stuff.

  Nadine sends her a Forever Friends card to show she really wants to make up, with a pair of ultra-sexy black knickers inside. I give Magda a cartoon card I drew myself, with Magda up on a pedestal being worshipped by all these different males, not just Greg and his mates and poor sappy Adam, but people like Mr Lanes the History teacher who is quite dishy in a mature sort of way, and I add all her favourite film stars and rock stars too. It sounds like showing off, but she really loves that card – and my present too. That’s home-made as well. Anna helped me make it last night. Magda’s always liked the Cookie Monster in Sesame Street so I baked her a whole batch of different cookies, chocolate and raisin and cherry, and then when they were cool I put them in a special tin. It’s airtight so the cookies can keep, but as we spend most of Saturday afternoon in Magda’s room mucking around and watching videos we keep stuffing cookies one after the other, so there aren’t many actually left now.

  It’s a good job my new skirt has an elasticated waistband because Magda’s mum gets together this incredible birthday cake and crème brûlée and tiramisú and banoffi pie – and all the poached salmon and quiche and chicken and little-sausage-on-stick stuff.

  ‘We’d better watch what we drink at Seventh Heaven or there’s going to be a serious chucking-up situation!’ Magda whispers.

  I’m starting to feel a bit sick actually when we set out. Not because of all the food. Because suddenly Seventh Heaven is the very last place I want to go to. You have to queue up to get in and this awful bouncer guy at the door eyes you up and down and if he thinks you’re too young or too wet or too boring he won’t let you in.

  I don’t want to go – but it would still be terrible to be turned away!

  ‘Come on, Ellie! What are you hanging back for?’ Magda asks.

  ‘My shoes hurt,’ I say – which is true. And the slit in my skirt isn’t that big, so my knees are a bit hobbled. ‘Magda . . . what if we don’t get in?’

  ‘We will. You leave it to me,’ says Magda.

  ‘We don’t know anyone that goes there.’

  ‘So? We’ll be part of this great new crowd,’ says Magda. ‘And anyway, we know Nadine, don’t we?’

  It’s seriously weird when we get there and join the queue. There are some very tall glam girls with very tarty clothes and lots of make-up who make me feel very small and mousy.

  ‘Clock all those trannies!’ says Magda, giving me a nudge.

  I blink and take another look. Magda’s right, they’re boys under all the blusher. And there are ordinary gay guys too, in tight T-shirts and fantastic tight leather trousers, showing off their muscle tone. There are girls too, giggling to