Good News...!

“So any plans for after tea?" inquired Jenny's little sister. "Besides popping out Miss Smelli-Knicks, if that still even counts as a plan?”

I was so fond of her that I blushed and grinned, and pretended to swat at her touselly ponytail. This however prompted an absolutely huge rolling of the eyes.

“OMG, like it matters, not being allowed to touch girls!” she exclaimed. “Er, this is my house, not school!”

Her mother went by at the foot of the stairs, and told her to hurry down to dinner and stop teasing their guest. I felt a bit indignant at that, but evidently it was nothing to how my friend felt.

“Er, we’re just talking about our plans for this evening!” the girl blurted from heights of scorn. "I'm not the sister who teases him. You're thinking of the other one, you know, taller, smellier, always chucking a netball about? The one who's been teasing him since the minute they met? Easy mistake to make, but I'm the much-improved model who came along second!"

She winked to me and in a noisy flurry descended for Round Two, her skirt flapping on her lower back, her vivid red and blue shorts on show. I was in more of a flurry than her however, and had to lean against the bannister for about a minute before I could go on to the bathroom and get ready.

Because Jenny's little sister, who even after all this time still felt like the one and only friend I had in that family, wasn't wrong.

Wanly I surveyed my face in the bathroom mirror. All through school, and then living together, Jenny and I had waited. We were nearing the point where I didn't think I could wait any longer.

How much had we missed already? These days I only had to go into town on a Saturday to be acutely aware of that question. Girls passing by everywhere I looked, usually stuffing their pretty round flat faces with snacks, left me shivering with desire. There'd been one today who'd had an open mouth and a lightly-freckled snubby nose, plus masses of golden curls hanging past her shoulders. The other two at the traffic lights were on my mind when right there in Jenny's bathroom, the tears started up – it was from remembering the tiny sniff of perfume that had come from both – but once I was crying in earnest it was wholly over that little Goldilocks in the supermarket and the tears just wouldn't stop. I couldn’t take much more of this, I really couldn’t.

They were living it now. So much younger than me or even Jenny, and it was already a part of their lives. While she and I were still waiting.

When I'd finally brought it under control I washed my face, so Jenny and her family wouldn’t know I’d been crying, and set off for the dining room. From the sounds of things Round Two had escalated to Round Five or Six, so I held still on the landing and listened.

“But it’s stupid!” fumed the voice of Jenny’s sister. “It's not like she's ever going to get round to it! Asking him to tea every weekend, when all along she's being like that...! What do you think the actual families are saying? Except the usual, that we're weirdos pretending to be the same as them!”

Jenny’s Mum murmured something, which I guessed from the response had been vaguely in my defence.

“I like him too!” blared the little girl, furious. “That's so not the point! I mean it’s a waste of an evening for him! Whole thing's a waste, in fact!"

The mild adult voice interjected again. This time I heard something about the proper way of doing things for boys and girls at this stage in their lives.

“Fine, if he was a boy,” the little sister retorted. “Er, we’ve got teaching assistants at school who are like his age. It’s embarrassing! I mean OMG, what am I meant to feel like on Monday, talking to them, when this weekend I’ve had one in my house popping his pants over my big sis? And that’s just me, so think how much more embarrassed he must feel. Er, does Jenny not think maybe he’d just like to get his waiting over with, since he’s been waiting like ten times longer than anyone’s ever waited ever?”

That was when Jenny's Mum lost her temper. It was either the tirade from her younger daughter or having to make the tea that did it.

"Jenny has told me she's just about ready to consummate her relationship in an appropriate manner," she declared, now coming in loud and clear. "So that's enough from you on subjects you know nothing about, young lady."

I couldn't see Jenny's little sister from where I was, but possibly she stood in stunned silence at this.

I know I did.

"And not a word to anyone, because that was supposed to be a secret between me and her," Jenny's Mum went on. "Now go in to tea."

No doubt the tea was going to be as tasty as ever, but all of a sudden I suspected I wasn't going to be able to get a thing down.

Good news...!

TO BE CONTINUED