Mates, Dates and Pulling Power Read online

  Cathy Hopkins is the author of the incredibly successful Mates, Dates and Truth, Dare books, and has started a fabulous new series called Cinnamon Girl. She lives in North London with her husband and three cats, Molly, Emmylou and Otis.

  Cathy spends most of her time locked in a shed at the bottom of the garden pretending to write books but is actually in there listening to music, hippie dancing and talking to her friends on e-mail.

  Occasionally she is joined by Molly, the cat who thinks she is a copy-editor and likes to walk all over the keyboard rewriting and deleting any words she doesn’t like.

  Emmylou and Otis are new to the household. So far they are as insane as the older one. Their favourite game is to run from one side of the house to the other as fast as possible, then see if they can fly if they leap high enough off the furniture. This usually happens at three o’clock in the morning and they land on anyone who happens to be asleep at the time.

  Apart from that, Cathy has joined the gym and spends more time than is good for her making up excuses as to why she hasn’t got time to go.

  Thanks as always to Brenda Gardner, Yasemin Uçar and the ever fab team at Piccadilly Press. To Rosemary Bromley at Juvenelia. To Steve Lovering for all his help and support. To Peter Ziderman for his input about dentists and braces. And to Georgina Acar, Scott and Jack Brenman, Alice Elwes, Rachel Hopkins and Olivia McDonnell for answering all my questions about what it’s like being a teenager these days.

  First published in Great Britain in 2003

  by Piccadilly Press Ltd.,

  5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR

  This edition published 2007

  Text copyright © Cathy Hopkins, 2003, 2007

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The right of Cathy Hopkins to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978 1 85340 933 2 (trade paperback)

  eISBN: 978 1 84812 261 1

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  ‘Pah,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t go out with Adrian Cook if he was dipped in gold and covered in fivers.’

  Izzie gave me a disapproving look. ‘Nesta. Covered in fivers? You mean, if he was loaded. So what? I don’t think how rich or poor a boy is should make the slightest bit of difference. It’s who he is, if he’s interesting, good company that counts.’

  I pulled a silly face back at her. She can be a real priss queen sometimes. ‘Yeah, but he has to be reasonably cute,’ I said.

  ‘So what if he’s cute,’ asked Izzie, ‘if he’s boring to be with? Just good looks don’t count for much after a few dates. You always judge by externals.’

  ‘Do not.’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Not.’

  The four of us were sitting in a line on the edge of the bathtub in the bathroom at Lucy’s house. TJ, Izzie, Lucy and me. We were covered in some homemade facial gloop that Lucy and Izzie had concocted in the kitchen and were discussing the local boy talent in North London. Pretty short on the ground in my opinion. And I don’t only judge by externals, I thought. Of course I care what a boy’s like inside.

  ‘Beauty is only skin deep,’ said TJ, peering at herself in the mirror opposite.

  ‘Yeah, but not today,’ I replied, looking at our reflections. ‘We look like ghastly ghouls. What is in this stuff, Lucy? It feels very sticky. Are you sure you were meant to put so much honey in it?’

  Lucy reached for her natural beauty book, which was on the windowsill. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Yeah, egg yolk, yeast and honey.’

  ‘Sounds disgusting,’ I said. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me.’

  It was Sunday and sometimes there’s not a lot to do on a Sunday, especially if it’s raining like it was today. Lucy suggested we have an afternoon of beauty treatments round at her house and as none of us were that well off in the pocket money department, she decided to make DIY face masks. Think I’ll stick to nicking Mum’s posh ones when she’s out from now on, I thought. Egg on my face? Never a good idea at the best of times.

  ‘Well, if it doesn’t work, no problem, you can always eat it,’ said Lucy, sticking her tongue out and licking her top lip.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ said Izzie. ‘Raw egg can give you that salmonella disease.’

  ‘That’s quite rare,’ said TJ. ‘And I think the egg has to be off.’

  TJ’s our resident medical adviser on account of the fact that both her parents are doctors and some of their medical knowledge rubs off on her.

  Lucy quickly put her tongue back in her mouth. ‘Yuck,’ she said.

  Izzie took her trainers off, put a towel in the bath, then got in and lay down with her feet resting up on the taps. ‘Honestly the things we girls have to do to look beautiful,’ she said. ‘I bet boys never do anything like this.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Lucy. ‘Steve and Lal are always slapping moisturiser all over them. And they take an age in the bathroom getting ready. Boys can be just as vain as girls.’

  ‘At least we don’t have to shave,’ said TJ.

  ‘Well, not our faces,’ I said. ‘But we do our legs and under our arms. Waxing is better than shaving though, it lasts longer.’

  ‘My gran does her chin,’ TJ added, laughing. ‘She said it’s one of the awful things about getting old. Hair starts sprouting everywhere, from your ears, your nose, your chin.’

  ‘Oo, sexy,’ I said. I took a close look at my nostrils in the mirror. ‘I hope that never happens to me.’

  After we’d rinsed off our face masks, we resumed our discussion in Lucy’s bedroom about the local boys. What Izzie had said about me judging by externals had irked me. I wasn’t so superficial as to only go out with boys because of what they looked like or if they had money or something. My last long-term boyfriend had been very rich, but that wasn’t the reason I went out with him. I liked him for who he was. That is until he dumped me because he was going to university in Scotland and wanted to be free to date any new girl that he fancied up there. Maybe the girls think I only dated him because he was loaded. I decided to find out what they really thought about me, but planned to ask them in a really subtle way.

  ‘So Izzie, about what you said before. Were you saying that you think I’m shallow?’ Oops, I thought. I knew before I’d finished the question that it hadn’t come out the way I intended. Subtlety was never my best trait.

  Izzie laughed. ‘No Nesta, not shallow, but image is very important to you.’

  ‘Like it isn’t to you?’ I asked. I looked at my three friends all busy painting each other’s toenails. Lucy’s petite and blonde, TJ and Iz are tall and dark and all three of them are gorgeous in their own ways, but they all work at it, forever trying new things and new looks in an attempt to improve on nature. I am not the only one. ‘And Iz, you did a whole makeover on yourself just before term started in September.�
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  ‘I know. It’s important to all of us,’ she said as she began to paint TJ’s toenails a purple shade called Vampire. ‘All I was saying is that there is other stuff that’s important as well. Like, what’s inside a person.’

  ‘I know that. TJ, Lucy, do you think I’m shallow?’

  ‘I never said I thought you were shallow,’ said Izzie. ‘You did.’

  ‘Yeah, but you think it,’ I said, looking at TJ and Lucy.

  Lucy looked uncomfortable. She hates confrontation, but I had to know what my friends really thought of me.

  ‘I wouldn’t use the word shallow,’ she said after a few minutes, ‘but I know a certain sense of style and looking good is important to you.’

  ‘TJ?’

  ‘Um. God. I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You’ve obviously got a good brain or else you wouldn’t do so well at school.’

  ‘Yeah, but am I shallow?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by shallow,’ blustered TJ. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t say you’re deep . . . but you’re not shallow either.’

  ‘Who wants to be deep,’ I said lowering my voice. ‘Bor-ring.’

  ‘I think Izzie’s deep,’ said Lucy, ‘and she’s far from boring. She’s always thinking about things and asking questions about stuff like why we’re here and what it’s all about. You’re not boring, Izzie.’

  Oh, here we go. Now I’ve managed to insult one of my best friends. Me and my big mouth, I thought. I didn’t mean to say that Izzie was boring. I’d better try and say something to make it clear what I really meant.

  ‘Yeah and where does that get you, Izzie?’ I asked. ‘Who knows the answers to questions like that? You could drive yourself mad asking about life, the universe and everything. Perhaps that’s why you are a bit mad. I reckon, we’re here, you get on with it. End of story.’

  Oops, I thought as Izzie’s face fell. I don’t think that helped. Maybe I should shut up for a while.

  ‘That’s it,’ said TJ. ‘Pragmatic. That’s what you are, Nesta.’

  Bugger, I thought. I don’t know what pragmatic means. But no way am I going to let on or else they really will think that I’m shallow. Whatever it meant, I felt I was being got at. Huh.

  ‘Right, pragmatic, I guess that’s OK.’

  ‘Yeah,’ continued TJ, ‘you just get on with life without questioning it too much. You like to have fun, do girlie things, enjoy life, you’re not a complicated person and you’re not that bothered about educating your mind or anything.’

  ‘I am too. I read. I keep up with what’s happening.’

  TJ and Izzie burst out laughing. ‘OK, what have you read lately?’ asked TJ.

  ‘CosmoGIRL! Bliss. OK! magazine.’

  TJ and Izzie exchanged glances.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Izzie. ‘We all read the mags and they’re great. But when did you last read a book?’

  ‘All the time. We read books every day at school. There’s a time and a place for everything. And school is the place for books. Out of school is the place for fun.’

  ‘But some books are fun,’ said TJ. ‘They can take you to different places, let you in to different people’s experiences, how others think. Don’t close your mind to them just because they’re not all glossy with photos of celebrities in them.’

  I was definitely being got at. TJ is a regular bookworm. She reads everything and anything and Izzie’s dad lectures in English at some university in town and is always giving her heavy-looking books to read. Not my cup of tea at all, I’d rather watch a good soap on telly, but she dutifully reads everything her dad gives her.

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘so I’m not a bookworm. That doesn’t make me shallow. Lucy doesn’t read a lot, do you Luce?’

  Lucy looked more uncomfortable than ever now. ‘Actually, Steve passes on some of his books to me and I quite often read late at night.’

  ‘Hah! Closet reader,’ I said. ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘You never asked,’ said Lucy blushing furiously. ‘And I didn’t think you’d be interested.’

  ‘Hhmmm. So you think I’m too shallow to have a discussion about books.’

  ‘No,’ TJ and Lucy chorused.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know I had such nerdy brainbox friends,’ I said.

  ‘See, that’s just it,’ said Izzie. ‘You think that because someone reads that they’re a nerd. You couldn’t be more wrong.’

  ‘Huh,’ I said.

  ‘I think,’ said TJ, ‘you have different people for different parts of yourself. Like I can talk to Izzie about books, astrology and stuff like what life is all about, I can talk to Lucy about fashion and design and I can talk to you about . . . er, make-up and . . . or . . . I know, advice about boys. Nobody knows more about boys than you, Nesta.’

  Well that’s true, I thought. I suppose it helps having an older brother. Boys have never phased me. I sussed out pretty early that all of them, no matter what age or how cool they act, are little boys underneath. They are as nervous and unsure about girls as girls are about them.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘We have here, Izzie the seeker, TJ the thinker, Lucy the designer extraordinaire and me, the what? The airhead?’

  ‘Course not,’ said Lucy. ‘No one said that. What’s got into you today? You always come in the top ten in exams at school, so how can you think that you’re an airhead? You’re the one putting yourself down.’

  ‘And you are the boy expert,’ said TJ.

  ‘OK then,’ I said, ‘when it comes to boys. Fact. The cute ones often don’t read because they have got a life. Fact. The nerdy ones bury their heads in books because they haven’t got a life.’

  ‘Noooo,’ said Izzie. ‘No way. You couldn’t be more wrong. I mean, take Ben. He’s cute and reads loads.’

  Hmm, I thought. Ben is Izzie’s ex and although really nice, not someone I’d call a babe magnet. Definitely not my type.

  ‘Well, I think there are two types of boys,’ I said. ‘The hot babe magnets who, OK, might be trouble and break your heart, but are fun and great to be seen out with. And there’s the other type, not quite as attractive, but cosy and good company and you know where you are with them, because they don’t mess you around, basically because they know that if they did, they might not get off with anyone else.’

  Izzie laughed. ‘You always see things in black or white. Nothing in between.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You can’t always generalise, especially about people,’ said TJ. ‘I don’t think everything is black or white. I think there are shades of grey as well. Like take Steve, he’s really clever and also attractive.’

  I kept my mouth shut. Steve is one of Lucy’s brothers and he’s been dating TJ for ages now. But once again, like Ben, yes, nice, a laugh, but babe magnet – no way. I didn’t want to insult TJ by saying that her boyfriend wasn’t a babe, nor Lucy by saying that I didn’t think her brother was attractive. People can be very defensive about their family. It’s like they can say the worst possible things themselves about brothers and sisters, but God help anyone else who says anything bad. I guess I’m the same about my brother, Tony. I slag him off something rotten sometimes, but I won’t hear a word against him from anyone else. I dutifully kept my mouth zipped about Steve, but sometimes it’s difficult holding in what I really think. Sometimes I worry that I might be getting that disease, Tourette’s syndrome or something. I read about it in a magazine. Instead of blood leaking out or people being sick, people puke out their thoughts instead and they shout awful things in public or on the tube or somewhere. They can’t help it apparently, like the ‘What not to say and when not to say it’ filter is missing from their brain. I’d be forever in trouble if my thoughts leaked out. I wonder if it’s possible to have inner Tourette’s syndrome. Sometimes I think awful things about people before I can stop myself. Mad things just pop into my head. Sometimes my thoughts shock even me. In school sometimes, I want to shout ‘knickers’ at inappropriate moments lik
e school assembly when our headmistress is droning on. Or if I see someone really unattractive in the street, I think, ‘Woah, there goes a fat ugly one,’ then I feel awful because some people can’t help the way they look. Or when Dad is giving me a hard time about something, I think, ‘Hhmm. Take your advice, Pater, and stick it up your bum.’ Luckily, most of the time my brain filter works and I manage to keep my thoughts to myself. Maybe I’m secretly insane? It is a worry.

  ‘So you reckon the choices are gorgeous and dangerous versus safe and secure, but not so gorgeous?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s your choice. One or the other.’

  ‘I reckon you can get boys who are both,’ said Izzie. ‘Gorgeous and safe and secure. Not all gorgeous boys mess you around.’

  ‘They might not at first,’ I said, thinking about Simon dumping me, ‘but they do in the end, basically because they know they can.’

  TJ shook her head. ‘I agree with Izzie,’ she said.

  ‘Lucy?’ I asked.

  She’s had this on/off thing with my brother Tony for over a year. Even though he’s my brother, I can see that he’s the first type, ie: is v.v. attractive even though a little arrogant with it. There’s always a queue of girls after him and he never gets serious about any of them. Except Lucy that is. He really likes her, but half the reason that he stays interested is because she doesn’t fall over herself wanting to be with him. She keeps him on his toes. I know for a fact that if she wasn’t messing him around, he’d be messing her around. It’s like they’re doing a dance, he steps forward, she steps back. She steps forward, he steps back. Right now, in the dance, Lucy is stepping back and Tony is stepping forward.

  ‘Um, I also agree with Izzie,’ said Lucy. ‘Oh, I know Tony’s not exactly Mr Commitment, but at least he’s honest about who he is.’

  ‘Yeah, course,’ said Izzie. ‘There are all sorts of types. There are boys who are deep and gorgeous. Cute boys who think about things. Cute boys who will commit and not mess you around. People are different depending on who they’re with, so maybe you just haven’t brought out the deeper side of the boys you’ve been with.’