Tessa in Love

  ‘Hmm.’ Matty laughed softly. ‘I bet Jim would die if he knew this was still here.’

  ‘Jim knows it’s still here,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know – he moved ten miles away. I shouldn’t think he visits the wood much any more.’

  ‘Well, maybe.’

  ‘Jim’s sweet. I should tease him about it.’

  I had no idea how Matty had the confidence to laugh at the idea of anyone fancying her, as if it wasn’t a really big deal. Poor Jim. He’d love it, though; he loved it when Matty showed him any interest.

  ‘Yikes, scary boy!’ I said, jumping when I saw a tall kid with long shaggy hair and an army-green coat approaching us. ‘It’s OK – there are two of us,’ I said, my heartbeat still quite fast.

  ‘Tessa, we don’t have to be scared of boys – we’re women now,’ Matty said.

  ‘Well you are,’ I said, thinking of her chest.

  ‘What’s up, girls?’ the boy said, coming closer. ‘Saying goodbye to the trees while you still have a chance?’

  ‘Mm,’ Matty said, and I just made a little squeaky noise. He smiled and slowed down as if he might stop and talk, but then he carried on walking past us.

  ‘What was that noise I made?’ I said, cringing. The boy had his hands in his pockets and walked with a bit of a sexy sway. He didn’t look back at us.

  ‘You’re so easily scared,’ Matty said.

  ‘I think he goes to our school, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Matty said.

  ‘He’s got a weird name,’ I said. ‘It’s like Shaggy or Catman or something . . .’

  ‘Wolfie.’

  ‘Or Griff ... oh yeah, Wolfie. Do you know him?’

  ‘He was a friend of Mudassar,’ Matty said. Mudassar was another of Matty’s exes. They broke up, because she thought he might be expecting her to go further – you know, further further, because he was older than she was. It happened a while ago, though. ‘Remember he had that friend who got suspended for letting the goat out?’

  ‘Yes! He’s the friend! Um ... is he the friend?’

  ‘Yeah, the Head told him that the goat could have been killed, because it got as far as the road and it could have caused a car crash.’

  ‘Well, it is pretty stupid to put a goat in danger just for laughs,’ I said. But Wolfie hadn’t looked like such a ‘bad boy’-type; I’d liked his smile, and his long swingy hair. I hated the way loads of boys at school had their hair cropped almost bald.

  ‘OK, look, I’ve gotta go. But are you coming to town with me and Lee tomorrow? I’m sorry we won’t be having a proper girly shop ...’ She looked at me a little apologetically, and I was actually a little hurt, but I didn’t want to tell her -1 didn’t want her to feel bad. More often than not, now, Lee would come along to the things Matty and I had made our sort of routines. But I guiltily remembered that I’d been trying to make Matty change her plans anyway.

  ‘Well, there’s that Cadeby Wood demo thing, remember?’ I said, gesturing a bit sheepishly back at one of the signs fastened to a tree.

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding,’ Matty said. ‘You want to spend all Saturday with a bunch of hippies shouting that hamburgers are more addictive than heroin, and supermarkets are the enemy of the people? What for? They’re still going to build it.’

  ‘I thought when you saw how pretty it was tonight... and there’s your tree . . .’

  ‘Ex-tree.’

  ‘It’s still a tree,’ I said.

  ‘God, no,’ Matty said. ‘You’re nuts. I have a new CD to buy and I finally have some money, and I need a top for Georgia’s birthday party’.

  I looked at my fingers.

  ‘Sorry,’ Matty said, then she paused and looked at me more intensely. ‘Listen, are you just put off because Lee’s going? I can tell him not to come. I just said I’d help him buy a new jacket.’

  ‘No, honestly!’ I said. ‘I just thought this was important.’

  Matty looked relieved. ‘Oh, you’re nuts,’ she said. ‘Give us a call about it in the morning. God, it’s six-thirty already, I’ve gotta go.’

  We walked back to the road together, and Matty legged it towards her house, and I sort of lingered and looked back at the wood. I felt a bit tearful, because it was like too many things were changing all at once. Matty was bringing boys on our Saturday shopping trips, the places I’d known as a kid were being destroyed. I felt sort of scared, too, as if everything was going too fast and soon I’d have to start making big decisions about life and I wasn’t ready.

  But as I walked home alone, I didn’t want to let my mind go where I knew I’d start to worry myself, like thinking about GCSEs and A-levels and university and jobs and . . . stop! Instead of that, I tried to remember what I knew about Wolfie the goat boy, and whether it was because I hadn’t met anyone new for a while, or maybe because trying to bring up hazy memories always feels nice, like seeing an old film you haven’t seen for years, for some reason it made me smile.

  Matty and I had a slightly awkward phone conversation the next morning. Both of us were trying to find out if the other one was pissed off. By changing our regular routine it was almost like we were standing each other up. I thought, now we’d set the precedent, what would stop us doing it all the time, in the future?

  But we both pretended we were happy about it and it was no big deal. I’d go along to the wood, ‘just for a laugh’, and she’d go and help Lee pick out the jacket, because boys are notoriously rubbish when it comes to knowing what suits them and I probably wouldn’t be that into going round a bunch of men’s departments. Besides, it’d be really good fun having different stories to share on our next girly night, to fit in around the soppy old movies. That’s what we told each other.

  But not-quite-falling-out with Matty had dented my confidence a bit. I changed my clothes about a thousand times before I left the house. I literally tried on every skirt I owned and settled for a little pink cord mini with long thick socks, although it didn’t really feel right. When I went downstairs my mum said, ‘I thought you and Matty weren’t going into town today. “Weren’t you two going to the Wood meeting?’

  I said, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ I didn’t want to complicate things by admitting that Matty and I wouldn’t be spending the day together.

  She said, ‘Oh, why are you dressed like that, then?’

  Mums have this way of just casually saying things that completely do your head in.

  ‘It’s just a meeting,’ I said. ‘It’s not like I’ll be climbing trees or rolling around in the mud. There won’t be riot police.’

  ‘There probably will be police,’ she said. ‘You will be careful?’

  ‘If you look out the window, you’ll virtually be able to see me!’ I said, although it wasn’t really true.

  ‘I’m just saying, if it gets out of hand . . .’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mum, how can it get out of hand? Most of the people there will be as old as you.’

  ‘God, surely not that old!’ she said.

  ‘I don’t mean that.’

  ‘Well, maybe I should come along,’ she said. ‘I like those trees, too. I often take some of the twigs to use in my flower arranging.’

  I love my mum and always have a really good time with her, but I didn’t want her to come. If there was someone there I knew, it’d look like I hadn’t been allowed out without her – or worse, like I chose to socialise with my mother on a Saturday, or worse worse, had to socialise with my mother on a Saturday because I had no mates.

  “That won’t be necessary,’ I said, trying to keep it casual. ‘I’ll bring you back the documentation and you can keep your protesting to correspondence-only. Will that do?’

  ‘Well, I have work to catch up on,’ she said, looking at a big stack of papers on the kitchen table (she was a part-time accountant, and did a lot of work at home). ‘So you’re safe. But I’ll remind you that it’s only eleven o’clock, and it’s still February, so you might want to rethink the disco outfit.’

>   ‘It is not a disco outfit!’ I yelled. And the thing is, I had thought it was probably a bit too much, but now I couldn’t admit she was right. So I just went out in it. It was only a little pink skirt. An old skirt. It’s not like it was a strapless dress, and I was wearing trainers! Though admittedly, my trainers were silver – in places.

  I have found that when you hope but don’t know that you’re telling a lie, the thing you say has a nasty habit of coming true. So of course everyone at the Cadeby Wood protest was my mum’s age, apart from the people who were much older. I was going to pretend I was just walking past and keep on walking, but then I saw the long-haired boy from the day before, Wolfie, standing with three other kids I thought I recognised from our school. I realised that I’d been hoping I’d see him again ... There was just something about the way he looked that made me want to see more. And maybe that was why I’d taken so long deciding on an outfit – although ‘outfit’ is too strong a word. It was seriously just an old skirt. The other three were one boy and two girls. The boy was short and a bit tubby and trying to grow stubble, but he looked like he was funny, because the others kept laughing when he talked. The girls were both tall, with gorgeous long hair, wearing faded jeans and lovely floaty tops that were about a hundred times more elegant than my clothes, but also seemed tons more casual. My skirt felt miniscule, my long socks had started slipping down a bit, and my legs suddenly felt three times their size. Goose-pimples sprang up all over my thighs, which were blindingly white. I ducked behind a tree trunk and discreetly tried to pull the socks up again. I hoped the group wouldn’t see me, but I couldn’t help trying to subtly look over at them. Wolfie was leaning on another tree, nodding and smiling at something one of his friends said and, when he answered, he looked up through a straggle of hair and caught my eye for a split second. I realised I found him totally crazy-sexy. It wasn’t love at first sight, because I’d been aware of him for years. It was like really seeing someone for the first time.

  Then he waved me over! I looked behind me to make sure he wasn’t beckoning to someone else. He laughed, and mouthed, ‘Yes, you’. I pulled my skirt as far down over my thighs as it would go and scuffed a bit of soily leaf over my trainers to make them seem a bit beaten up and went over, but on the way I slightly forgot how to walk and started taking insanely big steps.

  ‘Where’s your friend today?’ he said. I was used to boys asking after Matty, but my heart sank.

  ‘She’s shopping with her boyfriend,’ I said. My voice sounded stupid and high. Also, I felt like a bit of a bitch, as if I was betraying Matty by trying to sabotage her with this boy because I knew I wanted him. Sure, she had a boyfriend, but still, warning him off felt a bit much.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the girl with straight blond hair asked me, as if she was talking to a primary school kid. But she wasn’t being bitchy. I think I just looked like I was terrified of them.

  ‘Tessa,’ I said.

  ‘I’m Jane,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry Wolfie’s too rude to introduce us.’

  ‘We haven’t really met/ Wolfie said.

  ‘I thought you knew her,’ Jane said. ‘You said, “There’s that girl who was here yesterday”.’

  Oh my God, I was That Girl.

  ‘Yeah, I just saw her – we didn’t speak.’

  Well, I didn’t speak.

  ‘Sorry, Tessa,’ Jane said. ‘When he beckoned you over I assumed he knew you, and wasn’t just some random bloke hassling you.’

  ‘Hey!’ Wolfie said, and grinned. ‘Anyway, she came, didn’t she?’

  I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  ‘I’m Lara,’ said the other girl, whose hair was just as fabulous, but wavy and brown. What with these girls’ hair and bloody Matty’s bloody perfect bob, it was like all the shampoo ads were telling the truth, and they really had discovered the secret to beautiful hair, but for some reason my hair refused to participate. ‘He’s Chunk.’

  She nodded her head sideways at the other boy, who said, ‘How do. Are you here to save the Wood?’

  ‘What else is she going to be here for?’ Wolfie said.

  ‘Well, she’s a bit trendy for a woodland protestor,’ Chunk said.

  ‘Shut up,’ Jane said, then to me: ‘He’s an idiot. He thinks trendy is anyone who owns clothes made after the year 2000.’ Chunk looked mock-wounded – maybe not so ‘mock’ – and Jane gave him a little squeeze, which made him look happy again. Like Matty, Jane seemed to have that knack of being able to relax with boys and make them relaxed. I pulled my skirt down again and tried to think of something funny or interesting to say.

  ‘I’ve been coming here all my life, since before it shrank,’ I said. There was enough of a silence for me to worry that I’d said something stupid.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Wolfie said. ‘Although I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said. He held my gaze for a moment. Jane and Lara started talking amongst themselves about someone they both knew, as if they were leaving us to talk alone for a bit, and Chunk sort of closed their circle. ‘I’ve seen foxes here,’ I went on. ‘I mean, even now there must still be quite a bit of wildlife.’

  ‘When I was a kid,’ Wolfie said, ‘I used to believe the wood was full of wolves, because I got lost once and was chased for a bit by an Alsatian dog. I thought it was a wolf.’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘But there aren’t actually wolves,’ he said, with a glint.

  ‘Right,’ I deadpanned. ‘Good to know.’ I couldn’t believe how easily I was talking to him, kind of playfully.

  It wasn’t like we were saying anything really clever, but there was something more to it...

  ‘But I liked wolves,’ he said.

  ‘Luckily,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, you mean ‘cause of my name?’ he said. ‘Well, you’re right. Chunk has a terrible fear of pineapples, and the contradiction has been the bane of his life.’

  I laughed, and our eyes met.

  None of us talked when the parent-like people started debating the future of the Wood, and Wolfie’s gang sometimes nudged each other and made fun of the people who did talk, from time to time, but when it was finished Wolfie said to me, ‘I think it was really cool that you came, anyway, especially on your own.’

  ‘It’s important,’ I said, and I believed it. I hoped he believed me.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. There was a slightly awkward pause. Wolfie’s friends were ready to head off, and I was terrified that they might think they had to ask me along out of politeness and really didn’t want me with them.

  ‘OK, I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘I’m meeting my friend, that girl who was with me yesterday. It was nice meeting you all.’ I knew I sounded insanely formal and young. ‘Bye, then!’ And I walked away quickly, somehow forgetting how again.

  ‘Look, help me out here,’ I said. ‘Did he treat you badly? I’m on your side . . . for the time being. Is there any reason I should not be interested in Wolfie Cole?’

  The school goat just stared at me. Then it looked back at the ground and spotted an apple core, which it headed towards. I leaned over the barbed wire and stroked its back with my fingertips. Don’t ask me why the school had a goat – apparently, there was a brief experimental period where gardening and farming were an alternative to housecraft in the Year Ten to Eleven syllabus, maybe because the school was quite close to the countryside, but this hadn’t been an option for our year.

  The goat had a little fenced-off square to live in, with a tiny open shed at the back for shelter, next to a chicken coop and some vegetable plots. Back in Year Eight, some friends of mine and I had gone through a phase of coming up here at lunch-time and feeding our sandwiches to the chickens, because for a brief, weird time eating all your sandwiches was seen as ‘uncool’. We considered it hilarious to watch the chickens running around, fighting over bits of bread-crust, while we filled up on chocolate bars and crisps. From Year Ten, we were allowed outside at lunch-time, and most peop
le went to the cafes on the main Tanner Road, and we hadn’t visited the goat and chickens in ages.

  Matty had taken the morning off school to go to the dentist and I was spending lunch-break alone. I’d stayed back in class to help the teacher move some books into the store cupboard and had fallen behind the main lunch-time rush. I was feeling a bit too shy to go and plonk myself with a group of friends. You know how sometimes you just don’t feel up to joining in a loud conversation that’s already in full swing?

  ‘Tessa?’ someone said. It was Lara, the brown wavy-haired tall girl who’d been at the Cadeby “Wood meeting. She was with Jane, the sweet blonde one. ‘Hi, I thought it was you,’ Lara said. ‘Have you started leafleting, then?’

  We’d all taken some of the flyers from the meeting and been told to distribute them. I had only given them to my parents so far and asked them to take them into work. Although I’d brought some to school with the best of intentions, when it came down to it, I didn’t think I could hand them out in registration or anywhere else. I was afraid of looking geeky.

  ‘Well, a bit,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah? And what does the goat say about it?’ Lara said. I looked at her to see if she was making fun of me or just joking and couldn’t really tell.

  ‘Oh, I think he has issues with Wolfie,’ I said.

  ‘She,’ Jane said. ‘But you’re right – she’s still in love with him. He did try to rescue her.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘I heard he let her run into the street.’

  Lara looked a bit annoyed. ‘No,’ she said, and I worried I’d made a terrible mistake and she hated me now. ‘What happened was, he’d asked time and time again for her to have alternative fencing or fastening. She used to have this horrible wire rope round her neck and had to walk around a little tent peg the whole time, and sometimes the wire would wind around the peg until it was about six inches long, and it was cutting into her neck, and she was actually bleeding and scabby with dried blood. But no one did anything about it. So one day Wolfie climbed over and took the wire off and let her go, just because he was so angry and, you know, worried about her. I mean, no one listens to the students, right? He thought she’d just run around the field and a teacher would have to run and catch her, and maybe someone new would see how badly she was getting hurt and do something about it. But she got a bit further than he’d expected. And she didn’t run into the road. She just wandered out the back gate, where it’s a closed off street, no cars . . .’