Boys Beware. Jean Ure

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      So long as she is not going to nag. I mean, there are more important things to worry about than stains on the carpet. Ali, of course, hasn’t even noticed the stain, she spent the entire afternoon sorting out her Star Treks. She has stacked them up all round her bed. She is hemmed in by them! She has brought 104 videos with her. More than enough for eight weeks, but she says it is best to be on the safe side. What she means by this, I have no idea. I’m sure Mum won’t be away longer than eight weeks; she was dithering even as we packed her into the car. But there is absolutely no need, we are perfectly capable of looking after ourselves. We have tins in the cupboard and food in the fridge, and Auntie Jay has said that every weekend we are to go downstairs and eat with her. Whatever happens, we will not starve!

      This evening was a real dinner party. Very grown up! Auntie Jay said, “I’m giving it in your honour, I’ve invited everyone in the house.” We weren’t quite sure who else was in the house, but thought we had better get dressed up, just in case.

      “It’s probably only old people,” said Tash.

      “Yeah,” I said, “like married couples.”

      “On the other hand, you never can tell.”

      She didn’t have to explain what that meant! It meant, you never can tell when there might be a boy … Me and Tash practically live inside each other’s heads, we can always tune in to what the other is thinking – though perhaps upon reflection that’s not so difficult, since it usually concerns boys! We are on the lookout for boys wherever we go. On the way in to school, on the way back from school, in the shopping centre, even on the building site in Gliddon Road, where we once saw Justin Timberlake pushing a wheelbarrow. Big day! It wasn’t really Justin Timberlake, of course, but it sure did look like him. You just never know when someone gorgeous is going to pop up, and that being the case it seems only sensible to be prepared. Tash and I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing last year’s washed-out fashion statements! We dressed with as much care for Auntie Jay’s dinner party as we would for a rave.

      “It’s only polite,” I said. “Exactly,” said Tash. And then we both looked at Ali and went, “Ali!” We screamed it at her. “You’re not going like that!” Ali said, “Like what?” Well! Like a derelict, if she really wanted to know. A horrible old saggy T-shirt and striped cotton trousers that ballooned round the bum.

      “Haven’t you got anything better?” I wailed.

      Ali seemed bewildered. She said, “It’s only Auntie Jay.”

      And all the other people in the house … who knew what kind of gorgeous male might be there? I didn’t say this to Ali, however; there wouldn’t have been any point. She is so immature! It’s like, for her, boys are still an alien species. And to think she is almost fourteen!!!

      Anyway, as it happened there wasn’t a gorgeous male in sight. Mostly it was what we had predicted: Auntie Jay’s friend, Jo Dainty; a married couple that live on the ground floor called Anne and Robert (quite nice but very boring), and a man from the second floor, directly beneath us, who is called Andrew and wears cardigans. Well, that’s what he was wearing tonight, all shapeless and woolly. I thought to myself that what he needed was a girlfriend to advise him on such matters and make him a bit more trendy. Auntie Jay, perhaps? She is unattached, and she obviously shares my views on cardigans cos at one point I heard her whisper, “Andrew, really! I thought you were going to donate that thing to charity?” He was quite shamefaced and clutched at his grungy old cardy with both hands in a defensive kind of way, as if she might be going to snatch it off him right there and then. I felt quite sorry for him. Auntie Jay can be really bossy!

      Now I have come to the part which I have been dying to write. We have a piece of Extremely Interesting Information. In fact it is the BIG NEWS of the day: the cardigan man has a son who lives with him.

      A boy! A real boy! Under the same roof! He was out with his friends this evening and so didn’t come to our little dinner party, boo hoo! And to think we got all dressed up … Of course we have no idea what he is like, he may be a total geek, but you can see that the cardigan man must have been quite fanciable when he was young, so we have high hopes. The annoying thing is that Ali – of all people – has actually met him. What a waste! She came back upstairs literally five minutes ahead of us, which means we only just missed him. She wouldn’t even have thought to tell us if she hadn’t heard me and Tash eagerly speculating what he might be like. All casually she goes, “I just bumped into him on the stairs.”

      Breathlessly, Tash said, “What’s he like?”

      Ali shrugged. “Just a boy.”

      “How old is he?”

      “Dunno,” said Ali. “Didn’t ask.”

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