Boys Beware. Jean Ure

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      “All on your own?” she kept saying. “Completely on your own?”

      Daisy Markham was the only one that wasn’t envious. She said she thought that she would be a bit scared if she were left on her own, but as Meg pointed out, “There are three of them. It must be such fun!”

      Daisy still seemed doubtful. She really is a complete wimp. She said, “I can’t imagine my parents leaving me to look after myself.”

      Like this was some kind of criticism of Mum and Dad. I resented that! I said, “Mum knows she can trust us.”

      “Yes, and it’s good training,” said Tash.

      “But you could get up to anything,” said Daisy.

      “Like we might have orgies,” I said; and me and Tash went off into a fit of the screaming giggles.

       Tuesday

      Kim Rogers asked us today if we were going to take the opportunity to have a party. Tash said, “You bet!” It is in fact no. 1 on our list of things to do. We’ll have to check it out with Auntie Jay, of course, but I’m sure she’ll say that we can. She might even let us invite boys, if it’s a party! After all, you can’t really have one without them. I have to say that Auntie Jay is pretty relaxed about most things. She has made up one or two rules that we have to follow, but they are mostly just common sense, such as always being sure to tell her if we are going out and where we are going. She has put a book on the hall table – the In-and-Out Book. We sign out, and sign in! We’re cool with this. Just because we are teenagers – almost – does not make us unreasonable. It’s only when grown-ups are unreasonable that we take umbrage. That is such a good word! Umbrage, umbrage. I have just said it to Tash, who says that she has never heard of it.

      “What’s it mean?”

      I said, “It means when you get the hump.”

      Tash said that she had the hump right now, with Ali. “She’s doing baked beans again. She did baked beans last night. We’ll get bean-bound!”

      We are taking it in turns to do the cooking, and this week it’s Ali’s turn. I’m all for cutting down on the workload, but I do think that baked beans two nights in a row is a bit much. I have just said this to Ali. I said, “Can’t you do something different?”

      “Like what?” said Ali.

      I said, “I dunno! Omelettes, or fish fingers, or something.”

      Ali said that that would mean cooking. She said, “I told you before, I don’t cook. I just open tins.”

      I said, “Well, couldn’t you at least have opened some other kind of tin?”

      Honestly! It’s like she never even thought of it. Primly, she said that now she had opened the beans, we would have to eat them.

      “You can’t waste food.”

      I suggested she fed them to Fat Cat, but they are in tomato sauce and tomato sauce, it seems, is bad for cats.

      “This is going to look really great in my Food Diary,” said Tash. “Monday: beans. Tuesday: beans. Wednesday—”

      “Beans are good for you,” said Ali.

      Tash said, “Beans give you wind.” And she pursed her lips and made a long, loud growly noise. I immediately did the same.

      “That is so rude,” said Ali.

      Tash said, “Beanz meanz fartz!” and we both collapsed.

       Wednesday

      Email from Mum. She says she is not going to email us every day, just once a week, and she would like us to email her back once a week. We have delegated this task to Ali. We feel it is the least she can do (to make up for the beans) and have told her that it will be good for her. She was quite meek about it and promised that tonight she will open a different kind of tin.

      Me and Tash have just been down to see Auntie Jay and ask her about the party. She has said yes. Hooray! She has also said that we can invite whoever we want, including boys, but that a) it will have to finish by nine o’clock and b) she will have to look in on us every now and again, just to check.

      “I won’t cramp your style, don’t worry! But I did promise your mum I’d keep an eye on you.”

      The party is to be on Saturday week. We are quite excited! We have already made out a list of the people we intend to invite. They are: Meg Hennessy, Kim Rogers, Zoella Barling, Ishara Khan, Avril Mackie and Shauna Bates. Meg, Kim and Zoella because we are particular friends with them, the other three because they have brothers! Ishara’s is rather plain and has spots, and Avril’s is a bit of a nerd, but Shauna’s is quite nice, and in any case we reckon that any boys are better than no boys at all. We are not inviting Daisy Markham because we don’t think she deserves it, and anyway she doesn’t have any brothers.

      “What about him downstairs?” said Tash.

      A knotty problem! We still haven’t set eyes on him. It’s really annoying as we are for ever racing up and down the stairs or out on to the landing. We have found a secret way of referring to him, for when Ali is around. We refer to him as “Gosh”. From his name: Gus O’SHaugnessy. Pretty neat, we think! The way it works is like this. One of us, Tash for instance, will come into the room, and I will go, “Gosh?” meaning, “Did you see him?” and she will shake her head, meaning “No I didn’t.” Then a few minutes later it will be my turn. I will stand up, and stretch, and say, “Gosh,” meaning, “Now I am going to go and have a look.” And Ali will be completely mystified! I suppose it is a bit mean, keeping her in the dark, but really she is not in the least bit interested. Tash and I are just waiting for the day when one of us bursts in and cries, “Gosh!!!” meaning that at long last there has been a sighting.

      We could, of course, just go downstairs and knock on the door and give him an invitation. We have discussed this, but Tash is worried in case he turns out to be hideous. I said, “How hideous could he be?” and we speculated for a while, and frightened ourselves with visions of a Kevin Trodd type creature, so now we have decided that we will give him until the weekend to show himself. If by then we still haven’t managed to check him out we shall have to ask Auntie Jay. We would really rather not as we know she’ll only laugh, but we certainly don’t want any Kevin Trodds turning up!

       Thursday

      Meg has promised that she will try to get her cousin Tom to come to the party and Zoella says that she knows a boy she can bring, so things are definitely starting to look up! We asked Ali this evening who she’s going to invite. She said she hadn’t thought of inviting anyone. She thought it was our СКАЧАТЬ