Flora's World: Love and other stuff Page 3

  On the way home Meena, Trisha and Mum try to convince me that it looks amazing and really suits me etc...etc....I'm not so sure…

  Nick turns up later that afternoon to see Dad, I swear he spends more time with my dad than his own, but then I guess his dad is always working.

  "What on earth have you done to your hair Flora?" he asks

  "Before you start taking the Mickey I say, "Your girlfriend did it"

  ‘Oh right’ he says and quickly shuts his mouth.

  Upstairs in the sanctuary of my room I plug the phone in and call Katie

  "I'm not sure about this perm Katie, I think I look like a poodle"

  "I'm sure its fine" she says

  "No honestly I'm not joking, I really hate it" I look at the picture of the girl on the front cover of my Mizz magazine, my hair looks nothing like hers. Hers looks silky and the curls are coiled and bouncy. My curls look tight and course. It kind of looks like Kerry Robinson’s hair and her dad is Jamaican. Don't get me wrong Kerry has beautiful hair but it suits her, it is very, very curly. I thought I was getting bouncy corkscrew curls like the Mizz girl, not Jamaican curls if you get my drift…..

  "Anyway I need to do your eyebrows, so I'll be round soon to do those and I'll check out your hair"

  Half an hour later I'm lying on my bed whilst Katie rips my eyebrows out with her tweezers. Bloody hell this hurts and she keeps pinching the skin "Can you hurry up please this is torture" I tell her

  "Hang on nearly finished" she says

  "Tada!! All done" and she finally puts down the tweezers and the pain stops! Hurrah!

  I look in the mirror and actually, she has done a pretty good job! The thick bushy brows are gone and these lovely thin ones in their place. The pain was worth it cos I think I look fabulous, and I do a little twirl in front of the mirror.

  Katie assures me that my hair is fine and it will settle, and to not wash it for a week to let the perm set, I'm not sure I want it to set I tell her but she tells me that if I wash it I will really mess it up 'Remember what happened when Gizmo got wet? So best to listen to Monique and wash it after a week and it will look better than the Mizz girls’

  I really hope so.

  Yiayia was not impressed with either of our new looks. She said I look like her bapous angora goat back in the village in Cyprus and that Mums hair colour doesn't suit her and she looks like a Turkish prostitute. Dad said he thought mums hair was quite raunchy like the bird from Top of the Pops the other night - I think he means Belinda Carlisle. Yiayia was confused and asked what ronchi was.

  Monday 14th January

  As I get nearer to the bus stop at the end of my road I spot a familiar figure and It's not until I get a lot closer that I realise Bradley is at my bus stop! What on earth is he doing here? He doesn't usually get on until the stop after Meena and Trisha. As I cross the road Bradley turns and is smiling at me as I walk towards him, my heart is really pounding………..

  "Hi' he says smiling at me

  Oh god my knees are feeling weak, he looks so bloody gorgeous this morning

  'Hi' I say back, 'What are you doing here? This isn't where you normally get on' Oh damn it, what did I say that for, now he is going to think I am deliberately taking note of where he gets on the bus and being a creepy stalker person

  Calm down, calm down, act normal......

  'Well the thing is, I was hoping to catch you without your mates'

  Erm.....what? Rewind that......did he say he wanted to catch me without Meena and Trisha???

  'Oh, really? Why?' I ask

  Please god don't say you fancy Meena and want me to put a word in or pass her a note...please....please.....I will die

  'Well' he goes on 'I wanted to ask you if you fancy hanging out after school? Get some chips? Go to the park or something?'

  My head is spinning, did he just ask me out? Did I hear that right?.....my heart is pounding and my knees are shaking and I just can't get any words out, I can feel my face burning and I go to move a strand of hair behind my ear and feel the greasy curl between my figures - arghhhhhhhh my disgusting hair....

  'Flora?' Bradley says 'Do you want to?'

  Oh the look on his face, he looks so cute and hurt like he thinks I am about to say no!

  'Of course I want to' I say 'Yes, yes I do'

  He looks relieved and says 'Good, for a minute there I thought you were going to knock me back'

  Oh god, my dreams have come true, as if I would ever say no to hanging out with Bradley Perkins!

  The bus pulls up and Bradley steers me onto it - he is touching my elbow!! And then grabs my hand leading me to the back of the bus, passing John who nods but doesn't look surprised to see Bradley with me. We sit right at the back and he looks at me and then says

  "You look different, have you done something to your hair?'

  I tell him I had a perm on Saturday and it hasn't turned out exactly how I expected but hopefully will look a whole lot better by Friday when I can wash it, I must sound like a babbling idiot because he doesn't seem to care about the state of my hair and just says

  "Looks ok to me"

  Meena and Trisha get on at the next stop, the look on their faces when they see me at the back with Bradley. Oh yes I am thinking, girls you are not seeing things I am sitting here with HIM!

  After school we go to the chip shop and get a free bag of chips and then walk down to the park. We sit on a bench in the freezing cold holding onto the chip bags which are lovely and warm but to be honest I actually don't care how cold it is, I am here with Bradley.

  'I've liked you for ages you know' says Bradley

  'What? Really?' I say shoving a chip in my mouth and then realising that's not very lady like. I can hear Katie in my head ‘Be elegant, flick your hair blah blahddy blah’

  'Yeah didn't you notice me always hanging around the chippy on a Friday when you're at work'

  Katie was right!!!!!

  'Not really' I say 'practically the whole school comes into the chippy on a Friday night'

  'So how did you get the job in the in there then?' he changes the subject

  I explain to him that my Aunt and Uncle own the fish and chip chop.

  "Ah I see, so your Uncle is Nico then?' he says

  "No, my Uncle is Costi, you mean my cousin Nick? I ask a bit confused

  'Nah the big Greek bloke that owns the chippy with the big moustache, isn't his name Nico? You know as in Nico's Fish and Chip Bar?'

  Oh, I get it now......I tell him that the chip shop is named after my grandfather and so is my cousin Nick.

  "Well that's funny' Bradley says 'We all call the big bloke Nico'

  'Anyway' I say changing the subject 'I thought you always fancied Kim Chambers' I have to ask because, you know she is really pretty and if he could choose why would he pick me over her?

  He nearly chokes on his chips. 'What? No way he says, I've only had eyes for you' he says 'I mean she's pretty and that but not as pretty as you'

  Is he actually being serious?

  He shuffles right up to me………..he's moving in closer, he touches my cheek ever so lightly with his fingertips and then leans in for a kiss, I have no idea what I am doing but close my eyes and hope for the best, I can taste salt and vinegar and chips - I wonder if I taste the same? I quite like this snogging.....and then he touches my boob!!!! Oh lord! Ben Williams eat your heart out, this was PROPER!

  Mission A accomplished

  I wonder what Bradley thinks about my bottom? And if he thinks it’s too big?

  When I get home yiayia tells me that the phone hasn't stopped, Meena and Trisha keep ringing and it’s driving her bonkers.

  I wonder how long I should wait before I ring them back and put them out of their misery!

  Chapter Three

  Love is………

  Wednesday 16th January

  I get home from school and propped up on the kitchen table is a beautiful gold envelope, with the fanciest writing done with a calligraphy pen, now the
person that wrote this knows what they are doing not like my rubbish attempts at fancy handwriting. The envelope is addressed to my parents.

  "What's this?' I ask yiayia

  'I don know, iss no mine' yiayia says

  I pick it up and see that its post marked Scotland. I wonder if it's from Auntie Anne, my dad's sister. Auntie Anne married a Count and lives in a Castle in the Scottish highlands. We have actually never been to the castle as they only inherited it when Uncle Eddie's father the previous Count died a couple of years ago. Before that they lived on a massive house on the Dun Lochie Estate which I do remember going to when I was very small. My dad and his sister aren't very close, I think there was some sort of argument years ago and things were never the same since. I think the last time we saw them was at Nanny Junes wedding to Grandpa Jeff when I was about ten or eleven. Nan goes to visit a few times a year and always comes back with tales of how grand the castle is and how they have a butlers and maids and even a cook! Auntie Anne's test tube twins Piers and Portia even have their own ponies. I'd be lucky to get a ride on the village donkey in Cyprus!

  When mum comes home from her shift at the Doctors Surgery she makes a beeline for the envelope and rips it open.

  'Ohhhhhhhhhhh' she says 'We've been invited to Count and Countess Dun Lochie's Spring Ball at Dun Lochie Castle!'

  Wow I say, the card inside the beautiful gold envelope is also gold with silky white flowers embossed on the paper. A spring ball at a castle!

  When dad comes home mum waves the card in his face saying 'look what came in the post' Dad looks it over and throws it on the table. 'Well we won't be going, if you think I am going all the way up to Scotland to hob knob at some poncy castle with a load of hooray Henry's you can think again. We hardly hear from Anne and now all of a sudden we get invited to a spring ball?'

  'Oh Jim for goodness sake, perhaps she is trying to make amends, extend the olive branch, I think we should go, come on give me one good reason why we shouldn't?'

  'The expense for one' Dad says ' Getting up there, fancy clothes to wear...'

  Here we go again.....can't afford this, can't afford that...............

  'We already have the fonthill dresses' I pipe up

  'Oh no' says yiayia 'that gold dress will glash with Sophia's hair'

  I think she means clash.

  'Keep out of it mum' my mum glares at yiayia

  'Don't shout at your mother' says dad and then they all end up shouting at each other and mum tells yiayia to ring the builder and find out when her bathroom is going to be finished because it's about time she went home!

  Later on I ring Katie from my room and I ask her if she has any idea why my dad would be so dead against going to this ball at the castle, it sounds like loads of fun to me.......she says she hasn’t got a clue........ Then she tells me that she thinks Danny may be cheating on her, she found an earring on the floor of his car and he swore it was his mums but she says she thinks she has seen those earrings in Top Shop and they aren't the sort of thing she has ever seen his mum wearing. She says if she finds out he is cheating she will cut his balls off......ewww that thought stays with me, how would you go about cutting off someone's balls? Scissors? A knife? The images that I conjure up are not very pretty.

  Saturday 19th January

  10.30am

  Bradley and I are going on a date later. He's taking me to the Cinema. It's time to wash my hair. I look at Mizz girl’s picture stuck to my mirror with blue tack. I've been looking at her picture all week and praying once washed I will end up with the same bouncy curls.

  11.00am

  I've scrunched in some mousse and am letting it air dry, still not sure......

  1pm

  Nearly time to go and meet Bradley and I look like something out of that rock band KISS. Oh dear. Katie I hate you for suggesting this. Monique I hate you for doing this and Mizz girl I hate you for having the perfect curls that I haven't got. I rip Mizz girls smug little face off the mirror, screw her up and throw her in the bin. Maybe a bit of lipstick will make me look better.......

  Mum has started wearing red lipstick it’s to go with her hair she says. She bought a beautiful Revlon one from the counter in Debenhams. Yiayia says it's the same colour the loose women of the village back in Cyprus used to wear........I quite fancy wearing red lipstick too but I don't think it's a good idea with all this snogging I am doing at the moment, so I stick to the coral coloured Rimmel one.

  9pm

  Brad and I had a lovely date. I've started calling him Brad and he likes it :-)

  We sat in the back row and snogged the whole way through the film, I don't even know what it was about, I was too busy snogging. I think I am in love. People say you get butterflies in your belly but mine feels like a hundred horses are galloping through it. Kim Chambers is sooooooo jealous. Trisha told me that her and Meena made sure that they discussed that we were going out in their science class very loudly and apparently her face dropped, haha. And then I caught her giving me evil's in the dining hall. She is really not a nice person so why should she have Bradley, just because she thinks she's beautiful.......Smug cow, well he's mine now so she better not stick her tissue tits in his face again thank you very much!

  I officially have a boyfriend! Bradley asked me if I would be his girlfriend………..well not exactly like that, what he said was: ‘So are we going out then?’ and I said yes.

  Same thing

  Mission B Accomplished!

  Well I must say I am doing really well, two out of three already and January isn’t even over. I wonder if I will wake up tomorrow and my bum will have miraculously shrunken to the size of a peach.

  Brad says that John is quite keen on Meena and would I drop it in conversation to see what she thinks so I said I would, I'll ring her tomorrow and see what she says.

  Sunday 20th January

  I was going to ring Meena but Yiayia said she had made extra Koubebia (stuffed vine leaves) so would I take some over, she sent me off with a Tupperware box full of them. Meena is always bringing round samosa's or Curry from her grandmother too they have this food swapsies thing going on. I hand the plastic container over to Meena's mum and she thanks me and says not to forget to take home some curry for yiayia, she's made her favourite Aloo Kobi. I go upstairs, Meena is busy with her head in her Science coursework.

  Soooooooo I say to her, plonking myself down on the bed, ‘how do you feel about John?'

  'John?' she says, puzzled 'He's ok, bit quiet, why?'

  I tell her that John quite likes her and would she fancy going on a double date with me and Brad.

  'Oh I don't think so Flora, you know how strict my dad is, and I’m not really allowed boyfriends'

  'Well neither is Katie but it doesn't stop her' I say

  'Yes but her dad is always working and comes home really late, my dad is home by 4.30pm every day, and I can just about get away with being a bit late home from school'

  I tell her if she tells her parents she is out with me it's not exactly lying, we just don't need to mention the boys. She says she'll have a think about it.

  When I get home with the curry yiayia can’t wait to grab it off me, she shoves it in the microwave to warm up and grabs some forks out of the drawer, Katie is sitting there at the kitchen table and looks a bit agitated.

  ‘No thanks yiayia’ Katie says as she grabs me by the arm and pulls me up the stairs.

  I was really looking forward to that Aloo gobi....

  She sits on the bed and starts crying as I shut my bedroom door.

  'Oh my god, what's up?' I ask her 'Is it Danny? Was he cheating then?'

  She grabs a tissue out of the box and blows her nose.

  ‘Nooooo’ she wails

  She tells me he wasn't cheating, the earring did belong to his mum, she knew all about his bad boy reputation with his previous girlfriend but he swore to god he would never cheat on her, he said why would I cheat on you when I have the most beautiful Greek goddess, that I do agree with
, Katie is very beautiful, she has long dark hair and massive black eyes, she has the most amazing bone structure and figure, she could be a model, but she says modelling is for idiots and that she has a brain. I ask how she knows the earring was definitely his mums and she said she was round his house when his mum asked him if he had found an earring. Then she asked Katie if she thought the earrings were a bit young for her as they were from Top Shop and that she had worn them on a work night out and everyone said they looked great. Danny had picked his mum up from the restaurant the night she wore them so she knew he wasn't lying.

  'So I don't get it then, if he definitely hasn't cheated on you what are you crying about?' I ask her

  She looks up at me with big scared eyes 'I think I might be pregnant' she says ‘I’m late’

  Oh my god, what on earth!!!!! Pregnant! No way!

  'Do you know for sure? Have you done a test?' I ask her

  She says she's a week late but hasn't done a test yet, she is going to leave it one more week she says! One more week, how can she live for another week not knowing if she is pregnant or not? I wouldn't be able to eat (god forbid) or sleep if that were me, but of course it wouldn't be as Brad and I are nowhere near to having sex, we've only been going out for a few weeks! And not even close to any of that sort of stuff!

  'What are you going to do if you're pregnant?' I ask her

  She looks up at me and says 'I don't know, I just don't know’

  What will Uncle Costi do to her if she is pregnant? Make her marry Danny? Make her get an abortion and send her to Cyprus to marry a goat herder?

  This is a really bad situation. Katie is clever, she is doing her A ‘Levels, she is going to University and getting away from the Chip shop and Yiayia will be proud of Katie's graduation picture hanging on the wall, the first one ever in our family.