I walk to school alone the following day. My choice. Uggs calls at my house for me but I lie, again.* I say I’m not ready and he should go on ahead without me, so he does. There is no contact from Dixie and, though that wouldn’t normally be a worry, I can’t help reading utter doom into it today. When she left last night she was subdued. We all were. I hope she can forgive me. I don’t know what to do to make it up to her.
I’ve decided that I just can’t schmooze Mike Hussy with charm, or anything else, so my plan is to stay out of his orbit and not get involved. I’ll smile and walk away if I’m caught near him. What I really want to do is to punch him in his mush, and that’s unacceptable, and I know it would feel fine for a moment but it would be stooping to his level. Besides, who am I to think I can judge others when I am clearly so SO flawed myself?
I see Dix a good length ahead of me on the street before school and I call to her and she turns around and waves (good) but she doesn’t stop to wait for me (bad). Delia and Maya come round a corner and she hooks up with them. I am gutted but I deserve it, so boo-hoo, Jenny Q. I’ve been glad until now that Delia and Maya get on so well because I don’t feel so guilty about not letting them properly join our gang of three.† But now I see them with Dixie and I feel agitated by it, in a negative way.
Uggs is lying in wait for me. He’s so loyal and I don’t deserve that either. He smiles and I know he’s trying to cheer me up but truth is I’m a moody Q today. I also happen to know that my hair has gone big and fuzzy and I didn’t have time, or the inclination, to try to tame it. I look like a clown and I am most certainly a fool.
‘Turn that frown upside down,’ Uggs says. ‘Remember, we have a charm offensive to set in motion.’
Before I can explain my plan to avoid Mike Hussy, Sam Slinky appears and comes over.
‘Guys, I just LOVED the bath bomb. Well done. Great idea and you should SO, like, sell them.’
That makes me beam. I can’t wait to tell Dixie.
Uggs looks shocked but recovers himself well. ‘Thanks so much for road testing it, Sam. Tell your friends. We’ll certainly take orders if anyone would like some at a great price.’ He’s in smooth business mode. ‘We have other varieties if you’d like to try some more?’
‘Absolutely. I’ll be, like, your guinea pig, yeah?’
Sam Slinky could not look less like a guinea pig if she tried, but it’s a truly amusing idea.‡ Apparently, if you are nervous or v shy of someone, you should imagine them sitting on the loo, but that just makes me laugh nervously and then feel even more discombobulated.
‘We’re in business,’ Uggs says as Sam walksб away. Then, ‘Flippin flapjacks, what have we just got ourselves into?’
‘The money, hopefully.’
We rush to tell our Business Manager and she’s pleased, even if she manages to avoid meeting my eyes.
‘We’d best make some stock,’ she says. ‘Planning meeting hereby called for this afternoon after school.’
‘At mine?’ I ask.
‘Natch,’ she says. ‘That’s where the Kit Kats live.’
That lifts me a little. It will do. It’s something to build on. And right now I couldn’t care less about Teen Factor X, I just want to make things right with my friend again. This grief is not worth it.
