OK X
I was planning to blow off Josh’s party yesterday and stay in with my folks instead. Fact is I was feeling proper odd what
with everyone on TV bloody going on and on about New Year’s Eve and “fresh starts” and “taking stock of the last twelve months”
and here’s me just split with this bloke who properly loved me but now reckons I’m well up myself and I miss him like mad
but I don’t want to get back with him ’cos all he chats about is Vauxhall Novas and his plumbing NVQ and I’ve met this other
boy who is well buff with pointy cheekbones who actually reads books and thinks about life.
“So what you up to this evening? Out gallivanting?” my mother says at about 5 o’clock and I sighs and goes, “Nah, I’m going
to stay in with you lot I reckon.” And my mother says “Oh, well we are very honored I’m sure, but you’ll have a bleeding job
of it ’cos me and your father are going to a Tom Jones tribute act at Goodmayes Social. Five quid a ticket and you get your
buffet for that too! Good, eh?” So I goes, “You’re what!? You’re going out? You ALWAYS stay in on New Year’s Eve!” and Mum
says, “Yeah, and I always have to sit here looking at your sour face ’cos you want to be out partying! Well you’re seventeen
now so I thought you’d be off out and staying at Carrie Draper’s so I made plans! Or should I have cleared it with Her Royal
Highness first?”
I just gave her my stroppiest WHATEVER look.
“’Ere, and by the way,” she says, “Cava-Sue and Lewis and Murphy are all at parties too, so if you are staying in will you
make sure Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest records on the DVR for Cava-Sue and will you let the dog
out for a jimmy-widdle at 11
PM
’cos you know she likes one just before bed, after she’s had her Pringles?”
At that point I decided I was off to Josh’s party. But I was well late getting ready by this time, so I ran around the house
like a mental, rounding up my best jeans, top, and hoodie from various laundry baskets and sticking them in the washing machine
and putting them on the radiators to get them dried fast, which ended up in another stand-up with my mother who could sniff
a radiator being put on in Australia I reckon. Mum then starts tracking me around the house moaning about heating bills and
about me not giving her no money toward stuff now I’m in Sixth Form and basically doing my head in by going on and on like
that for about forty-five minutes while I just ignored her and wished she had a bloody mute button.
So I walked down Thundersley Road and knocked for Uma, who looked proper amazing in skin-tight black trousers and a black
off-the-shoulder top and big hoops and fake tan, ’cos she’d had a big win on the Poker and had been treating herself down
at New Look. I waited while she fed Zeus then we set off for Josh’s house.
Josh lives over on the far side of Goodmayes on this posh street called Verence Road which is up near the hospital. It’s all
really big old-fashioned-looking terraced houses up there with quite spooky trees along the pavements. My mother always says
a lot of the doctors and the psychiatrists from the hospital live round there and I’m sure Cava-Sue once said one of her lecturers
from her AS-Level Theater Studies lived down Verence Road too. It felt well different there to Thundersley Road ’cos no one
had decorations on the front of their houses at all and everyone seemed well obsessed with recycling boxes and the only houses
that had rubbish or weeds in their front gardens looked like they were being gutted by builders to be completely done up and
a few of the houses had scaffolding up the front like they were making the lofts bigger, as if the houses weren’t flipping
big enough already.
We walked up to number 37, which had a big black door and big bay window like my mum always gets excited about on them “do
your house up” shows she watches. “Ooh I love them big Victorian bays!” she always says, “Just like my granny used to have
over in Stockwell when I was a little girl!”
I was thinking about that as we rang the doorbell and waited. It seemed like there was a proper noisy party going on.
Suddenly the door flings opens and there’s this lady who’s about fifty standing there in a long black dress with brown hair
all piled up on the top her head sort of willy-nilly holding a glass of red wine. She looks at us and shouts, “Youngs or olds?”
and we go “Eh?” and she goes “Which party do you want? Ancient people downstairs, hip young gunslingers up in the loft!”
“Erm, Joshua, innit?” said Uma.
“Of course,” howled the woman who had a bit of mentalist laugh to be honest. “Up the stairs, keep on going, up two flights.
Oh, and will you tell him if anyone is smoking up there to keep the skylight ajar as I’ve just had the upstairs painted and
I don’t want it smoked out.”
“Mmmmokthankyou,” we said.
We walked past her and down the hall where loads of grown-ups were standing about drinking wine and yakking. Snow Patrol was
blaring out of the living room and I’m sure I could smell hash smoke floating out of the kitchen. The blokes were wearing
jeans and suit jackets and some had beards and the women looked a bit like teachers and they all seemed to have extra-loud
voices and one woman was moaning about how some documentary she’d just finished assistant-producing had changed air dates
TWICE and she’d just fired off a stinking e-mail to the BBC and another woman was telling everyone that she’d reduced her
carbon footprint by ninety percent in six months. Me and Uma got down the hallway as fast as we could then practically ran
up the stairs.
Joshua actually has his own floor of the house. HIS OWN FLOOR!!! You know how my room is so small that I have to get out of
bed and go onto the landing and reverse back in again if I want to turn over in bed? Well Joshua don’t have this problem as
he has his own bloody massive bedroom in the attic with room for a double bed, a sofa, and his own bloody en suite bathroom!!!
When we got up to Joshua’s room there was about thirty-five kids up there from Mayflower and Regis Hill Boys and Walthamstow
Grange and a few girls from North West London who Josh said were his sort-of cousins and everyone was laughing and chatting
and screaming and shouting and jumping on the bed and drinking cider and hanging out of the skylight and smoking cigarettes
and this weird lad called Nozz kept showing everyone he could do backflips and everyone was fighting over the stereo trying
to plug in their iPods and playing hip-hop and Dubstep and R&B. It was the most wicked party I’ve EVER seen in real life.
Then Carrie showed up with Saf and Sean and by this point everyone was dancing or falling about or they were on their phones
calling other folks to tell them about Josh’s party or taking photos of each other to send to other kids to prove what a legendary
party it was. And the hours started to really fly by then because everything got really messy and at one point I was so happy
and dizzy I thought I was on a different planet, in fact I don’t even remember it turning midnight at all. And from the moment
me and Josh hooked up we just had such a proper laugh with each other and I totally forgot about the split-up with Wesley
’cos me and Josh were flirting and chatting then cuddling then snogging then REALLY REALLY snogging each other and everyone
who saw us was saying what a well cute couple we were and Joshua didn’t argue with that he just held me even closer and told
everyone I was his now. And I felt properly like I was in love although I knew it must just be my head playing tricks and
jumbling stuff up.
And somehow when I didn’t even notice, it started getting light and everyone was beginning to get taxis and me and Josh ended
up curled up on the floor with a blanket over us watching some mad film on DVD with subtitles and just chatting total rubbish
about proper randomness like books and music and what superhero power we’d both like to have for one day and all sorts of
crap and it just felt totally amazing with Josh there wrapped around me under the blanket talking to me proper intensely about
life and sometimes biting and kissing my neck. And we stayed there for ages doing stuff and eventually passed out and when
I woke up it was midday and there was no one else there but me and Josh lying on a floor surrounded by bottles and party poppers.
I grabbed all my stuff and kissed his snoring face and ran off home and quickly got in the shower and stood there for ages
thinking.
I feel like I’ll never be the same person ever again.
Me and Joshua are going out. I’m Joshua’s girlfriend! Me? JOSHUA FALLOW? He’s like the buffest boy in Mayflower and he wants
to go out with me! ME! He fancies me! He says he can’t stop thinking about me and I can’t stop thinking about him either.
I feel sick all the time. I just want to be with him every minute. Like right now when I’m lying in bed here all I want to
do is run out of the door and run to his house on Verence Road and see him and smell him and kiss him and wrap my arms and
legs round him. I think I’m going mad. I want to tell everyone in the whole world. I want to get on the top deck of the number
56 bus and ride round and round Ilford shouting it at passersby.
But we’re going to try and keep it quietish for a bit ’cos I don’t want Wesley to know. He’s going to think I’m a right hoochie.
I hope he’s not too upset.
I went over to Joshua’s after school tonight. We were planning on doing some reading for English ’cos it was back to school
this week, but it’s proper difficult studying when you’re on your own with Joshua in his room ’cos he is so choong that it
is well distracting. I keep finding little bits of him I ain’t never noticed or kissed before. I like the bits behind his
ears and the end of his nose.
I met Joshua’s mum properly today. She didn’t seem to remember me from New Year’s Eve. I only met her for five minutes in
the kitchen tonight and I said hello and smiled at her but she just sort of looked at me a bit funny. She stared at my hoop
earrings and my hoodie and my scrunchie and my rings like she’d never seen anything like it before, then Josh told her I was
called Shiraz and she said, “How lovely.” Then she said, “Well, your friend will need to go now because we’re sitting down
for supper as soon as Dad’s finished speaking to L.A.”
I came home and my mother was giving Penny a bath in the kitchen sink and my dad was clipping his toenails in front of the
TV and Murphy was moaning ’cos the clippings kept nearly landing in his Coco Pops. I just spoke to Josh on the phone and he
was asking when he can come to my house. I just laughed and said when hell freezes over mate.
Mayflower was proper stressful today. Everyone’s going on about studying now because it counts toward the final AS grade.
EVERYONE: Saf, Sean, Sonia, Manpreet, Tonita, Nabila, even my Josh. They’re all PROPER OBSESSED with getting good homework
grades and getting good AS grades ’cos everyone reckons if you get good AS grades then you can get good A2 levels next year
and then if you get good predicted A2 grades and have good hobbies and stuff for your uni application forms then you can go
to a good uni. Then if you go to a good uni you can get a good job and if you got a good job you can buy a big house and if
you work hard every day after that you can get an even better job and… and… bloody hell I’m knackered just listening to everyone.
That’s one good thing about knocking about with Carrie. She ain’t like everyone else. Carrie didn’t show up until noon today
and when Mr. Douglas started nagging her about missing Business Studies class she just tutted and said she’d done a Fake Bake
deep-bronze tan last night and it was still sticky so she couldn’t get her thong on over her lady-garden. Mr. Douglas’s face
went so RED. I love Carrie Draper. She is bare jokes. I can’t see Barney’s business lasting long with her in charge, mind
you.
Lewis’s mother in Benidorm has agreed to give Cava-Sue and Lewis a loan to go traveling!!! They are leaving for Vietnam in
two weeks! That’s two less people using the bathroom in the morning. Some mornings I don’t even get a shower before school!
I just have to spray more deodorant on and hope for the best. I asked Mum if I can have Cava-Sue’s room and we can put in
another bathroom. My mother just tutted and said, “A bathroom?!! Ha! Well I think we said goodbye to another bathroom the
moment you gave poor Wesley the plumber the boot! Oh, and I saw him today outside Sears, by the way. He looked like death
warmed up! You broke that one’s heart you did!”
I felt like crap when she said that. I’m guessing Wes has seen the photos on everyone’s MySpace of Joshua’s party. The ones
where I’m snogging Josh.
Then Mum says, “So what does this new one of yours want to be then?” And I went red when she said that, ’cos I didn’t think
she knew about Joshua, then I remembered that me, Murphy, and Cava-Sue all trade little bits of info to Mum in return for
favors so I mumbled a bit and said, “’Erm I dunno what Joshua wants to be, a politician I think.” And my mother laughed and
said, “Well if he’s got two faces and a slithering tail he’ll be fine.”
I tried calling Josh for a chat to cheer myself up, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
I was down at Uma’s tonight. There was a time when I’d never have hung out round there, ’cos Uma used to be a proper loon,
but she’s a bit different now. I wish other people could see it. Uma don’t smoke weed anymore so she’s not as paranoid. She
never even sees Tiffany or Ashleen who she used to go drinking with in the park.
It’s not like Uma’s suddenly an angel or nothing. I just reckon her stepdad going to jail and her mum leaving her with Clinton
just gave her a big wake-up call. My mum still don’t trust Uma though. She never will.
“How is she surviving for money? That’s what I wonder!” my mother keeps saying. “Mugging grannies and dealing drugs, I reckon!
Or much worse! And that devil dog of hers wants to be put down too.”