AFTER MY HUMILIATING ENCOUNTER WITH Jet and the ninnies, I was totally sunk in despair. I’d spent the rest of that horrible lunch hour hiding in the girls’ toilets, because I was convinced that the ninnies were taking it in turns to follow me – or maybe one of the more entrepreneurial ones was organising guided tours: ‘Roll up, roll up and see Luisa Linley, the girl Jet Lucas rejected!’
After school, I insisted on hanging around the Science lab washing up already-clean beakers and test tubes, until Meko, her Japanese politeness stretched to breaking point, finally snapped.
‘Risten, Ruisa. Jet did you a favour. He is what you call in Austraria “dirtbag”, yes?’
‘What? No, he’s not a dirtbag,’ I said lamely. ‘Not really.’
‘He no good for you. He arready make you upset and you don’t even go out with him yet.’
She had a point, even I could see that. But it didn’t make me feel any better.
And then as Meko and I headed across the near-deserted grounds, I saw a sinister-looking hooded figure leaning against the bank of lockers right next to mine. An icy knot of fear grabbed hold of my heart.
If that seems an extreme reaction, let me tell you about my locker. My locker is a black hole of evil that sucks an unending stream of crap into its miserable vortex. Every day, I find some new obscenity scrawled across the door, or a half-eaten meat pie jammed into the vents – or once, last term, a Year Seven handcuffed to the padlock. Its ability to attract merde is, I have deduced, due primarily to its location – shoulder-height, end of the row, tucked into a sort of alcove under the stairs – and not really anything to do with me per se, or so I tell myself.
I looked around the quadrangle. There were a couple of underweight Year Seven boys playing soccer at one end and deaf old Mr Dwyer shuffling towards the car park at the other. None of whom were likely to be much help if Meko and I were suddenly assaulted by a dangerously frustrated locker vandal with violent tendencies.
The figure against the lockers must have seen us, because he suddenly straightened up and checked to see if anyone else was around. I still couldn’t make out his face under the hood, and I dug my nails into Meko’s arm so hard she let out a little squeak. And then the figure raised a hand and pulled the hood back. It was Jet Lucas.
‘Hi,’ he said, flexing his shoulders beneath his jacket and stepping forward to meet me. ‘Luisa, isn’t it?’ He flashed me a brilliant knee-knocker of a smile, and it was all I could do to stay upright.
‘Lu-Luisa?’ I stuttered stupidly. ‘Yeah. That’s right. Luisa.’ Inside, I was going, Doh! Nice one, Luisa. Now he thinks you don’t even know your own name.
Jet came closer, his ocean-blue eyes boring into mine.
‘I’m sorry if I was rude before,’ he purred. ‘I’ve been thinking about this new song and I was a bit preoccupied.’
‘Oh, that’s okay,’ I gushed despite myself. ‘I know what it’s like when you’re trying to be creative.’ Behind me, Meko sniffed loudly and disapprovingly. I ignored her.
‘Do you write music too?’ Jet asked.
‘No, no, not really. I mean … No, I don’t.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, smiling suggestively. ‘Because I bet under that uniform you have the soul of a songwriter.’
‘Um … maybe.’ What was I saying? Jet Lucas might have been interested in what was under my uniform, but somehow I didn’t think it was my soul. Either way, I didn’t care, because deep down inside me, maybe somewhere around where my songwriter’s soul should have been, I could feel a little tsunami of something – delight, bliss, rapture, whatever you want to call it – gushing and surging away in my chest, because Jet Lucas was actually flirting with ME!
‘Definitely,’ he said. Then he leant over and half-spoke, half-whispered, right in my ear, ‘And I would love to talk to you about my concert. Call me.’ He pressed a piece of paper into my hand as he brushed past and sauntered down the corridor.
And suddenly I wished that all those nasty little ninnies had been standing there watching me, Luisa Linley, having a totally hot moment with the totally hot Jet Lucas and dying with envy as it dawned on them that I would soon be following up said hot moment with other potentially scorching encounters as I liaised with him about his concert at the Motherwell High Twilight Fete.