a box of crisps and shouted, “You drive a hard bargain, Lisa. I’ll throw in another box of roast beef Monster Munch absolutely free!”
Raj’s voice echoed down the street as Dennis and Lisa ran, breathless with excitement.
11 “These high heels are killing me”
“You did it!” said Lisa, as they sat on a wall to recover their breath.
“He really thought I was a girl!” exclaimed Dennis. “That’s the best fun I’ve had… well ever!”
“Well, let’s go into town then! There should be loads of people there!”
“I’d love to Lisa, but these high heels are killing me!” said Dennis.
“Not easy being a girl, is it?” she said.
“No, I had no idea your shoes were so painful. How do you wear them every day?” He took his shoes off and rubbed his feet. They felt like they’d been put in a vice from the Metalwork room. “Aah, let’s just go back, Lisa. I need to get changed and go and meet John up the park anyway. He’ll be wondering where I am.”
“Oh!” Lisa couldn’t hide her disappointment. “Spoilsport.”
“Morning, Lisa!”
It was Mac, a boy from Lisa’s year. He huffed and puffed his way up the street to join them. Mac was one of the fattest boys in the school, and endured the unwelcome celebrity that went with it. He had been to Raj’s shop as he did every day, and was carrying a bag of goodies.
“Oh, hi,” said Lisa brightly, before whispering to Dennis, “don’t worry, just keep quiet.” She raised her voice and said, “So, Mac, have you got anything nice there?”
Unlike most of the pupils, Lisa called Mac by his name, rather than his nickname, “Big Mac and fries”. Sometimes children pass on cruelty unthinkingly like they would a cold, but Lisa was different.
“Oh it’s just my breakfast, Lisa. A couple of bags of Maltesers, a Toblerone, a Bounty, Jelly Tots, some Skips, seven bags of Monster Munch, Raj was doing a special offer on those, a box of Creme Eggs, and a can of Diet Coke.”
“Diet Coke?” asked Lisa.
“Yeah, I’m trying to lose some weight,” said Mac without irony.
“Well, good luck with that,” said Lisa, almost without irony. “You know it wouldn’t do if we were all thin you know.”
“Maybe not. Who’s your lovely friend then?” he asked with a smile, as he popped a whole Creme Egg in his mouth.
“Oh, this is my French pen-pal, Denise. She’s staying with me for a bit.”
Dennis smiled at Mac uncertainly. Mac stared at him and kept chewing. It was quite a long time before he had demolished enough of the Creme Egg in his mouth to resume speaking. “Bonjour, Denise,” he mumbled through the chocolate.
“Bonjour, Mac,” replied Dennis, praying the conversation wouldn’t continue past the few French words he knew.
“Parlez-vous Anglais?” Mac asked.
“Oui, I mean, yes, a little,” said Dennis awkwardly.
“I had a French pen-pal come to stay once. Hervé was his name. Nice guy. Smelled a bit though. He wouldn’t take a shower so in the end we had to hose him down at the end of the garden.” He was still chewing. “Hervé came into school with me, are you coming in with Lisa tomorrow? I do hope so. I think French girls are gorgeous.” As he said this a little spittle of chocolate egg ran down his chin. Dennis looked at Lisa with panic in his eyes.
“Erm yes, of course Denise is coming in with me tomorrow,” said Lisa.
“I am?” said Dennis, so shocked he nearly lost his lady voice and his French accent all at once.
“Yes, of course you are. We’ll see you tomorrow, Mac.”
“OK girls, au revoir!” said Mac, before he made his way down the street, joyfully swinging his bag of confectionary as he went.
“Oh no!” said Dennis.
“Oh yes!” said Lisa.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Come on, at least think about it. What if you could fool everyone at school? It would be such a laugh, and it would be our little secret.”
“Well, I suppose it would be the most amazing thing,” said Dennis, a smile broadening across his face. “If the teachers, my friends, my brother, if everyone believed I was a girl…”
“Well…?”
“OK, but I’m gonna need some different shoes!”
But little did Dennis know, as he tottered home in his uncomfortable shoes, that he was about to take a tumble…
“I’m still worried about these shoes,” said Dennis.
“They’re fine. You can’t even tell they’re extra wides.”
It was Monday morning, and Lisa and Dennis stood outside the school gates. Dennis was dressed as Denise again, in the orange dress he loved so much. Maybe it was the sequins, or maybe it was his nerves, but he was sweating.
“I can’t do it…” said Dennis.
“It’ll be fine,” assured Lisa in hushed tones, as pupils and teachers made their way in to school. “You won’t have to say much. No one here can speak French. They can barely speak English.”
Dennis was too tense to laugh at Lisa’s joke. “Fooling Raj and Mac was one thing, but the whole school? I mean, someone’s bound to recognise me…”
“They won’t. You look so different. No one in a million years is going to think you’re Dennis.”
“Not so loud!”
“Sorry. Look, trust me, no one’s going to have a clue as to who you are. But you know, we could just go home instead…”
Dennis thought for a moment. “No. That would be the boring thing to do.”
Lisa simply smiled. Dennis smiled back and sashayed into the playground. Lisa had to quicken her pace.
“Calm down,” said Lisa. “You’re a French exchange student, not a supermodel.”
“Sorry–I mean, desolée.”
Some of the kids stopped and stared. The boys always stared at Lisa anyway because she was so wildly attractive. And the girls liked to check out what she was wearing, even the jealous ones who invented reasons not to like her. But now she was with this new girl not wearing school uniform, there was even more reason to look. Dennis could sense all those eyes on him, and loved it. He spotted Darvesh waiting for him outside the classroom as he always did. Sometimes they would have a quick kick-about before the bell rung. Darvesh scrutinised Dennis for a moment, then looked away. Wow, thought Dennis. Even my best friend doesn’t recognise me.
Lisa’s classroom was on the top floor of the main school building. Although John was in the same year as Lisa, he wasn’t in the same class. And kids two years older than Dennis didn’t know him, just as he didn’t know them, so Dennis had never met most of the people in Lisa’s class. In a school of nearly a thousand pupils, it was very easy to feel anonymous.
Unless,