spot and displaying my Mega Wimp side in the process.
Mum reckons I’m at a difficult age – I overheard this during a gassing session with Carla’s mum over the garden fence as she put up the washing. Carla’s mum lay on the sunlounger dressed in a teeny little bikini and looking quite gorgeous. Glancing at her and then at Mum sticking pegs into the Bingo Caller’s revolting odd socks, I knew which mum was the trendiest. My mum knew zilch about being a teenager – how to dress, or who Kriss Kross were – and actually liked Take That! A difficult age? Me?
I did start to notice changes with my body. I had a shape that was catching up to Carla’s but which I suspected would always be behind. And as for the other stuff, let’s just say if it weren’t for the awkward sex education classes at school, and Carla, I’d know nothing about THAT subject.
One morning I even woke to find that my tiny little ant hills had decided to grow into breasts. No longer a slave to the training bra, Carla and I got measured at Marks right away, only to discover we were in need of a 34B! And Dad was right, boys did start to change (not least when word got around that Carla was no longer with Daz). They began to sniff around Carla like dogs around a slab of ham. Plus they all sounded like freaks as every boy (except for Billy Turner) seemed to have picked up a new deeper voice that sounded like a cross between Corey’s and Sharlene Rockingham’s (she’d always sounded like a boy).
Miscellaneous: Hormones
Oh boy, I was dreading this bit, so let’s just skip it until later, right, Lowey?
Oh all right, we’ll do it now then…
I can safely say I’ve never been a woman so am unable to speak with any authority on the subject. Therefore, we’ll just have to stick with the hormones of a teenage boy.
Have you read what I wrote about boys talk ing to your breasts? Well, hormones are the logical explanation. If a boy at school asks if he can carry your satchel, what he’s really saying is, ‘I want to have sex with you.’ When he asks ‘How are you?’, he’s really saying, ‘I want to have sex with you.’ When he looks at you, he’s more than likely thinking about… yes, you guessed it… sex. So my point here is… teenage boys are like teabags bursting with hormones. Once you dip a teabag into hot water what happens? It literally bursts (you’ll get this analogy when you’re older. Much older. For now, please beware, especially as by now you are drop-dead gorgeous in the making, even if YOU think you look like a giraffe in need of urgent dentistry). Just bending down to pick up a pencil will induce a craning neck in a boy. Or the way you purse your lips when you talk. Even a certain way of laughing will bring on something in these hungry little boys, so… I’m just asking you to be aware of it and remember, you’re still only thirteen or fourteen.
Oh, and you’re beautiful. Love you, with stars on. Dad.
Dad was so wrong about the boy bit (they only ever looked at me when Carla was within spitting distance) but right about the giraffe thing (although I’m inclined to go with anteater). The only boy who ever really spoke to me was Corey. But as I’d known him since forever, he didn’t matter. Anyway, I’d come to terms with the fact that no boy would ever consider me girlfriend material and was content to live my love life through Carla anyway. As well as Darren she’d already been to the pictures with an older boy called Jake Saunders and snogged Colin Meek behind Lanes. With her long legs and elegant haircut, it wasn’t surprising guys found her irresistible.
Miscellaneous: Can’t get a date?
Great!
No, not really, I know this is hard, especially if it seems like everyone around you has a boyfriend, is out at the pictures, holding hands, and buying sloppy-looking cards shaped like love hearts. But don’t be in a rush. One day, someone will see how special you are, how great it is to be with you and vice versa. I never thought anyone would ever look at plain old me, but she did. Your mum did and what a stunner she is – proving the theory that there is indeed someone for everyone in this world.
When I looked at Gary Jones, Jake’s best friend, I felt things. Like I wanted him to kiss me. But Gary, along with a host of other guys from Lewisham to Deptford, seemed to enjoy me invading their company as long as it was to discuss tapes and football. Nothing else. And I was okay with that. Especially when Gary and Jake once said they liked me because I was just like one of the lads, a comment which proved that one day I’d get a boyfriend.
Didn’t it?
Miscellanous: Male friends 1
I bet you have a load of male friends. If not, then at least one. Someone you can hang out with, talk to? You make each other laugh? Discuss everything from school dinners to the state of the nation? This is all well and good, but don’t expect anything else from this if you start to fancy him.
Boys want a girlfriend. Maybe not a pink-ribbon-wearing, frilly, soft, rose-scented little package, but a girl all the same (sorry!). Forget all this talk about them wanting to be with a girl who understands the offside rule, burps and leaves her hand down her trousers ‘because it’s comfortable’. Rubbish. It’s only natural for a bloke to be attracted to someone who acts like… well… a girl (sorry again!), who flutters her eyelashes, flicks her hair when she’s embarrassed by a compliment and who’d never even dream of a burp or a fart.
So if you want one of your friends to ever see you as girlfriend material (and when I say girlfriend, I mean the holding hands, going to the park type) then try to be girly as well as (most importantly) yourself.
I decided to stop being mates with Gary and the others. No post-match analysis, no help with their homework and certainly no ‘women’ advice. This alienation lasted a whole week, right up until Gary Jones commented on what a bitch I’d turned into, which stung like a fresh bee sting and I quickly changed my mind back to being me.
* * *
Fact: Humiliations Will Only Get Worse with Age
Kevin Trivia: While men orbited the moon, looking for aliens, there were others on earth who publicly insulted some human beings over the colour of their skin.
Your last year of secondary school.
Your friends are probably talking about travelling, getting full-time jobs and/or changing the world… as soon as they ‘escape’ the bars and locks of school. But Lowey, if you haven’t decided to stay on at sixth form, please start thinking about it now. I’m not saying that by leaving school at sixteen you won’t get anywhere (I did and I earn a very good wage as a hospital administrator), I’d just prefer you to have more choices and that means getting more grades. Please, think seriously about it, and in the meantime buckle down to some studying. Don’t neglect your mates and boyfriend (if you have one. Please don’t have one yet!!!!), just try to limit the time spent ‘hanging around’ when you could be studying.
This is an important year for you.
Remember, your daddy loves you. With stars on.
By the time I was fifteen, three major events had occurred in my life.
I got asked out by a boy for the first time.
I became a revolutionary.
I got beaten up for the first time.