It's A Good Day So Far: Chapter Twenty Five, Will You Be My Girl?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Everybody left the school grounds in twos or threes or tens. Sal and Mel had to go because they had things to do. Sal asked me if I was all right and if I was going on the bus with them, I nearly did, but Danny had asked me to wait and he’d just dumped his bag, I’d have to do something with that. I didn’t know what to do. Sal didn’t want to leave me but I told her that I’d be all right. Nobody else said anything to me, they were all talking about the fight and how exciting that was.

I waited for ages, more than ten minutes, and nobody came out. I thought that Danny was playing a prank on me again like he always does. I told myself that he wasn’t going walk me home at all. I didn’t even know if I wanted him to, all he ever does is pick on me. Maybe he’d wanted to have a fight with Cotter for ages. Maybe I was just the thing that gave him a reason to have a go. I had to get home, Dad would be worried. But I couldn’t just leave Danny’s bag. I didn’t know whether to put it in my locker until tomorrow or take it home with me. He’s always messing about. What if he told Sir that I’d stolen it? Why did he go and leave his stupid bag with me in the first place? The dork.

I picked up his bag and mine and started to walk to the bus stop. I’d have to wait ages for the next bus. I sent a text to Dad telling him that I’d missed the bus and was going to be late home.

It was only then that I thought about Danny’s arms wrapped around me and the kiss on the top of my head. It was a kiss, wasn’t it? I wasn’t sure now. It probably wasn’t and I’d just been imagining things in the heat of the moment. And then I thought that it might have been, after all, because my mind couldn’t make its mind up. My stomach suddenly flipped over and I felt all warm and odd. I’ve never, ever, ever, for one single, solitary, second, imagined being kissed by Danny Peterson. Not even just on the top of my head. He’s the class clown and he always gets on my nerves. He gets on everybody’s nerves, especially the teachers. And then I realised the most oddest, craziest thing in the world. I realised that I’d been thinking about Danny Peterson and not about the horrible thing that had happened to me. I wasn’t crying, but what had happened to me was horrible. I started to feel a bit sad about it now but I couldn’t feel properly sad because my mind kept jumping from the bullying bit to the Danny Peterson kissing me on the head bit.

‘Hey, Kate, wait up.’ I didn’t dare look, but I did.

And he was running down the street towards me and I just knew that he had a frog in his hand and that he was going to put it down my shirt. He stopped in front of me and his hands were empty.
‘I thought you were going to wait for me?’

He looked kind of sad. I didn’t know what to say to him so I just shrugged.

It was like he didn’t know what to say, either. Maybe he remembered the stupid kiss, too, and was regretting it. We couldn’t just stand there gawping at each other, so I turned and carried on walking down the street

‘Do you want me to carry that?’ he sort of grinned and motioned towards his school bag that I was still carrying. It was heavy and I was very glad to give it him back. Then he said, ‘Do you want me to carry yours, as well?’ it seemed like such a dorky thing to say. I nearly laughed, but I didn’t. Then I realised that he probably wanted to take it so that he could pull everything out of it and take the mick about my stuff.

‘Nah, you’re all right. I’m good.’ He’d fallen into step beside me. He had his hands in his pockets and his shirt had come out of his pants. Without turning my head to look at him I could see grass stains on his trouser leg. I knew I should thank him, but I felt stupid and couldn’t think how to begin.

‘Katie, about what happened back there. Did they hurt you? Are you okay?’

‘No, they didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. It’s no big deal. Thanks for—’ I still didn’t know what to say to him and felt myself going red. ‘—thanks for jumping in like that. You didn’t have to or anything. You’re going to have a black eye tomorrow, does it hurt?’

‘Yeah, it hurts like hell, I think I’ll have to go to the hospital and I might even need an operation on it to save my sight, Sir said I could be blinded for life.’

I gasped and felt tears stinging my eyes. If he went blind it would be all my fault. He heard my distress and pushed me on the arm, ‘Don’t be daft Kate, I’m having you on. It’s fine. I worked hard for this shiner; it’d better be a beauty, got to have something to show for my efforts in class tomorrow.’

‘Are you frightened of what Cotter and his gang are going to do to you?’

Now it was his turn to gasp. ‘Katie Bell, I don’t believe you. I do my best afternoon-in-shining-armour, stuff and you accuse me of being scared of a pack of idiots like them. I’m not scared of them, and anyway, I’ve got another thing in my favour,’

‘What’s that then?’ I asked, curious now.

‘My genes.’

‘Your jeans?’

‘Yep, my genes. See, my old man gave me a pair of great legs to run with.’

‘Oh, your genes. I thought you meant—never mind.’

‘I can show you them if you like, here, look.’ He stopped and pulled his trouser leg up. I thought his legs would be all skinny and white and kind of puny, but he had hairs on them like my dad. Not as many of them as my dad and nowhere near as thick, but hairy, nonetheless.

‘Put it away,’ I said, laughing, ‘I’ve seen them before in games lessons.’

‘You’ve been looking at my legs while I was innocently trying to avoid the ball in Rugby? Holy mother of Jesus, that’s got to be a sin.’ I blushed but he was still talking and didn’t notice. ‘And anyway, I haven’t finished my story because you keep interrupting me. Have you heard of a bloke called Lindford Christie?’

‘Yes,’ I said, cautiously, because I sensed that there was going to be a punch line.

‘My uncle. That’s him, good old Uncle Lindford. Didn’t you know my name is Daniel Lindford Peterson? Cotter doesn’t stand a chance of catching me.’

‘He’s black.’

‘Cotter’s black? Has anybody told his mother?’

‘No, you idiot, Lindford Christie’s black.’

‘I know, we’re just hoping that he doesn’t notice that the rest of the clan are all white. So anyway, enough about my family tree, what I want to know is, why have we never had a conversation like this before?’

‘A crazy conversation, that makes no sense and is bordering on racism, you mean?’ I asked laughing.

‘Oh, that’s a terrible thing to say and me with an African terrier, too.’

‘Is there such a breed?’

‘Of course there is, come and ask Tiddles, if you don’t believe me.’

‘Tiddles?’

Tiddles, my African terrier. We were going to call him Tiger, but every time we called him, he got scared and ran behind the sofa.’

‘You’re nuts.’

‘And you evade questions.’

‘What question have I evaded?’ I knew, but I felt embarrassed when he touched on personal stuff.

‘We’ve been sharing a classroom for what, seven years? But you never talk to me. I could develop a complex, you know? People can get tics when they’ve got a complex and then they start twitching, like this,’ He did the actions and an old lady passing by tutted at him because he’d stepped off the kerb into the road, she called him a silly boy. He shouted after her, ‘It’s not my fault Missus, she’s given me tics.’ And he was still twitching his face.

But what was really funny, what was absolutely hilarious was when the old woman shouted over her shoulder, ‘Get some flea spray, then.’

I was in hysterics on the pavement, I couldn’t stop laughing and he laughed too but mostly he was just looking at me.’ It’s nice to see you laughing, Katie Bell. You used to laugh a lot. I thought you were just growing up all serious and ladylike, I didn’t know that—you know?’

I was embarrassed again because he had noticed that I used to laugh a lot and then he’d noticed that I’d stopped laughing much. He seemed to do an awful lot of noticing that I didn’t know about. He was still messing about and talking daft all the time, but one on one he seemed older. He’s the oldest kid in our class and is something like nine months older than me; he just missed the cut off point for the class above. Mr Hunter says that he could be really clever if he spent more time working and less time making an idiot of himself. He thought I was growing up ladylike, and I hadn’t noticed that he was growing up, at all. I was noticing now.

I’d been so busy laughing at Danny that we’d walked right past the bus stop. It meant walking another mile to get home. I was glad. We’d lapsed into silence and I was thinking that I really like him. But it’s Danny Peterson, how can I possibly like him when all he ever does is torment me? But I do.

‘Why?’ I asked. I didn’t even know that I was going to say it. It just sort of came out of my mouth when I wasn’t thinking about it.

‘Why what?’

‘Why did you jump in and fight Cotter?’

‘Because he’s a meathead and he’s had it coming for a long time.’

‘Oh.’

We carried on walking in silence and it was a bit awkward, I couldn’t think of anything to talk about. He pulled some Juicy Fruit from his pocket and took a stick out, and then he pulled another one up a bit and offered the packet to me. I took it and we opened our chewing gum, bent them in two and put them in our mouths. I was glad because it meant that I wouldn’t have bad breath if he kissed me. Then I was just going to mentally tell myself off, as if he’d even think about that, when he started talking again. ‘We wouldn’t want to have bad breath, that’d be really horrible. I knew a man who died from bad breath,’ he said with a laugh and I went red again because it was as if he could read my mind. I’d die of embarrassment if he knew that I was thinking about him kissing me. ‘I didn’t really,’ he continued, ‘it was his wife, who had to sit next to him, that died.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

Suddenly he went all serious and it came right out of the blue because I’m so used to him messing about.

‘Katie, I just lied to you and I don’t ever want to tell you lies, not even stupid ones. I didn’t jump in because I don’t like Cotter. I did it because I couldn’t stand to see them hurting you like that.’

‘Oh,’ I said again. What was wrong with me? Was oh the only flipping word that I had in my brain? Oh, oh, oh, it’s all I could manage to squeak out.

‘I like you Kate. I’ve liked you for ages, but you don’t notice me. Every time I look up, you’re there, gazing at Jason Parks and I just want to smash his face in because you fancy him. I wanted you to like me, but it’s all “ooh Jason, ooh, Jason,” and you’re all soft over him’ He said the ooh Jason bit in a silly voice because his face had gone bright red, but he wasn’t being nasty, just funny again. And when I looked up he was pretending to be a girl. ‘Katie and Jason sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G.’

‘Stop it. I don’t fancy Jason Parks.’

‘Oh, you so do.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Do’

‘Don’t’

‘Do.’

I went to hit him and he grabbed my hand, then he pulled me towards him, and then we were kissing. It happened just like that, without any warning or time to worry about it, or anything. He let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around me and I could feel his hand hot on my back through my school shirt. And all that stuff that I was worried about, concerning kissing, was all rubbish because it was just there all the time.

We kissed for ages, well it seemed like ages. And then we stopped and he put his head down embarrassed and I put my head down embarrassed, and we carried on walking. He had his hands down by his sides, not in his pockets like always. His knuckles kept touching mine and neither of us moved our hands for ages. And then he grabbed my little finger with his little finger. I didn’t pull away so he put his whole hand in mine and we interlaced fingers, Dean Koontz would call it commingling, he smiled at me, shy like and I smiled back.

‘You fancy Jason Parks.’ He could be the most annoying boy, sometimes.

‘I do not.’

‘Who do you fancy, then?’ I shrugged. ‘Do you fancy Philip Murphy?’

‘No.’

‘Do you fancy David Phelps?’

‘No,’

‘Do you fancy Joe Trench.’

‘No’

‘So who do you fancy, then?’ he stopped and turned me towards him and he brushed a piece of hair from my face. His finger stroked me down my cheek. ‘Come on, who do you fancy?’

I put my head down and dropped it onto his shoulder so that I didn’t have to look him in the eye. He was being so embarrassing. His arm came around me again. I liked it a lot. ‘Don’t make me say it, I mumbled into his neck.’

‘Say it.

‘I can’t.’

You can, it’s easy. I fancy you Katie Bell, who do you fancy?’

‘You.’

He was whispering now, ‘I’m glad you said that. I’d have felt a right fool if you’d said somebody else. Will you go out with me, Katie? Will you be my girlfriend?’

‘Yes,’ I said, still hiding my face in his neck. He stepped back and put his hand under my chin then he raised my head. Then kissed me again.