Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 06] by Dates Mates, Mad Mistakes (Html)

and
labelled, so had to tell Spider to get lost. In the end I asked him to leave.
He told me not to get my knickers in a twist. Very original. Not. After he’d
gone, Josh lay on the sofa, rolling joints. Got a bit worried that Ben would
smell marijuana when he got back. Josh said that marijuana is nicer than
tobacco, so I had a quick puff. He told me that I had to really inhale it,
which I did and it made my head go woozy. Not sure that I liked the sensation.
     
    Best
:
listening to music, talking and snogging Josh
on the sofa. I give him nine out of ten on the snogging scale. Minus one
because I could taste the tobacco and an aphrodisiac it is definitely not
.
     
    Worst
:
after we left the garage and I locked up, it
was ten-forty. I knew Mum wouldn’t be home until after midnight, so no worries
there, but I knew I shouldn’t get back any later. Josh
said he was off to a party and
when I said I couldn’t go, he was like, Oh, OK, I’ll give you a call, then.
Then off he went, leaving me standing there on the pavement. Felt confused, as
after all that snogging, I thought he’d at least care about how I got home.
Didn’t like being out on my own so late at night. Phoned Nesta as she was
closest and she and Tony came and escorted me home. Tony was very sniffy about
Josh. He said that he thought Josh sounded like a creep and any boy should
always make sure a girl gets home safe as there are too many weirdos about.
Nesta thinks I shouldn’t see Josh, as he sounds like bad news. Felt very
confused. I don’t know whether she’s right or whether she’s jealous because she
thought he was cute in the beginning, but he never gave her any attention.
     
    I looked over what I
had written for my best and worst, then ripped it up and threw it in the bin.
Somehow I don’t think MissWatkins would be too happy if she knew I’d been
drinking, smoking, puffing on joints and snogging boys. I tried to rethink what
Dickens had said in the light of what had happened to me. I wrote:
    It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of Year Ten, it was the age of
growing up. It was a time of discovery. It was a time of being silly. It was an
era of fighting with my mum. It was an era of trying to accept her. It was the
season of rebellion, then the season of regret. The spring of new love, the
winter of disappointment. I had a new boyfriend, I
didn’t have a new boyfriend. I was going
direct to romance, I was going direct home, alone to bed.
    Yeah, I thought. Times
haven’t changed much at all since Dickens lived. Life is still a rollercoaster.
Opposites. Good times, bad times, best and worst. I wondered how the rest of my
class was getting on with the exercise and how their summers had been. It would
be hysterical if everyone wrote the truth about what we’d got up to, as knowing
the girls in our year, they’ll have been up to all sorts.
    As I tried to get into
writing the more socially acceptable version of my best and worst times, Lucy
phoned.
    ‘Oh, I’ve done that
homework,’ she said. ‘Took two minutes. Best time: breaking up for the summer
holidays. Worst time: well, that will be going back on Monday, won’t it?’
    I laughed. ‘I guess.
Might be a bit short for what’s expected, though.’
    ‘I’ll tell her I’m
going through a minimalist phase with my writing. Less is more sort of thing.
Anyway, forget about homework, we’ll have enough of that soon when term starts
and if you ever get stuck, Lai has been working on a list of good excuses for
handing homework in late. He’s hoping TJ will put it in the magazine, but I
don’t think she’ll dare. He’ll e-mail it to you, if you like. But tell me all
about Josh. Nesta said you saw him yesterday. What’s he really like?’
    ‘Weird,’ I said, ‘or
maybe not weird. More like mysterious. He’s quite unlike anyone I’ve ever met
before. I don’t feel I know him at all. Like, I asked him where he lived and he
said, “Planet Earth.” I