Falling Fast - L.S

3

Rehearsals began the following Monday.

I got ready for school that morning very carefully, then examined myself in the long bathroom mirror.

My grey school sweater didn't cling snugly like Taylor's jumpers always managed to. It bulged out unattractively over my stomach, then settled into stiff, ugly folds just below my waist.

There was no getting away from it.

I looked fat. Bulky at the very least.

God, i really was the perfect choice to play Juliet's ex-nanny or Nurse or whatever she called herself.

I sighed and stroked mascara up my eyelashes.

I'd spent a lot of the weekend thinking about Harry. Wondering about him. He intrigued me - the way he'd made everyone in the room aware of him just by walking across it, the weird contrast between how bored he'd looked most of the time and then the intense interest in his green-gold eyes when he'd looked at me, like he really wanted to know who I was.

That look, on its own, made him unlike any boy I'd ever met.

I was determined to talk to him later. To find out about him. He must be really into the play to speak his lines as well as he did. I could imagine him sitting in his bedroom, hunched up against his pillows, reading his way through Romeo and Juliet's love scenes. Just like I had done.

He probably read all sorts of books. Maybe even poetry. A shiver slithered down my spine. I knew it wasn't love I was feeling. I didn't even really fancy him. I just... well... interested.

Then Taylor's pretty, flirtatious face flashed into my head.

Harry wasn't going to notice me. He wasn't going to see past her - the fake Juliet in front of him.

I put down my mascara and leaned against the long mirror. I hadn't got much sleep lately and I could see the dark bags forming under my eyes. My younger sister yelled through the door for me to hurry up.

"HOW MUCH LONGER YOU GONNA BE IN THERE?" Lottie thumped on the door.

I reluctantly peeled myself away from the bathroom mirror. No way was i letting Lottie in until I'd finished - but if I didn't hurry up, she'd get Mum on my case. And i really didn't want a row this morning.

I moved closer to the mirror and finished applying the mascara.

Mum was waiting for me just inside the front door. She was all dressed up for work in a blue suit, her hair carefully done in a consciously messy, flicked-back style. You'd never guess she used to wear long, hippy skirts and smoke joints with Dad after Lottie and I had gone to bed.

"I haven't got long," she said. "I just wanted a quick word."

I stared at her. Mum and I look alike. Even I can see it. We've got the same dark hair and blue eyes. The same heavy features. Only they suit Mum. Somehow she carries them off.

"Louis?" she said impatiently. "This is important."

"What is it?" My mind ran over the possibilities. Maybe Mum was secretly drying of some rare disease? No. She would hardly tell me about that just as she was leaving for work. Maybe it was Lottie. Maybe she'd been nagging her about us swapping bedrooms again. Mine was twice as big as hers. No way was she having it.

"I wanted to talk about tonight," Mum said, checking her watch.

I frowned. Tonight? What's happening tonight? God, it wasn't her birthday again, was it? We'd forgotten it last year. She'd gone mental on us. But no, Mum's birthday was in March. And this was late September.

"It's the play you've got involved with," she said. "Where it is and everything."

I shook my head. "What...?"

Mum sighed. "You know I've always treated you as an equal, Louis, so I'm not telling you what to do."

Right.

"I'm just saying, I know what boys this age can be like. They're mostly going to be interested in getting as far as they can and..."

"For God's sake, Mum," i snapped, too shocked and embarrassed to sort out all the different things I was feeling. How dare she try and warm me off boys she didn't even know? I thought of Harry and the way he had looked at me. Into me. That wasn't about sex and stuff.

"Look, I just wish my mother had talked like this to me." Mum sighed, her cheeks reddening slightly. "But the truth is they'll be after whatever they can get."

I stared at her, feeling my own cheeks burn, as if Mum's blushes were now flowing into me.

"Yeah, pigface." Lottie slouched up behind Mum, a sneer on her face. "And most of them won't be all that fussy about who they get it with."

"Lottie, be quiet." Mum rolled her eyes, but i could see she wasn't actually disagreeing with her. In fact, that was her real point, wasn't it? That boys kept artificially away from girls most of the time were bound to be so desperate that they'd try and do it with anything that moved - even something as hideous as me.

Tears pricked at my eyes. I didn't want either Mum or Lottie to see how upset I was.

"Right," i snapped.

I stormed outside, slamming the front door shut behind me.