Desirable Read online

  Jasmine said, “Not everyone’s like you, George.”

  It was a shame we didn’t get all the way to school. But Perfect Paula’s Mom stopped in her big pink Audi and offered me a lift, and it seemed rude to say no. “Sit in the back with me,” said Paula.

  “No. In the front with me,” said her Mom.

  “In the back with me.”

  In the end they decided that I would go in the back as far as the lights and in the front the rest of the way to school. While they were arguing, I looked out of the window and saw Tiny Biggs standing at the kerb, waiting to cross. I was going to wave to him but Perfect Paula’s Mum drove through a puddle and soaked him, so I slid down in my seat in case he saw me. That’s when I thought – hang on, I’m a celeb. We don’t need to wait for Hilary Duff. I can make Warhammer popular all by myself.

  “What are you thinking, George?” said Paula.

  “I’m thinking I might go to Warhammer Club this lunch time,” I said.

  When I got to Warhammer Club that lunchtime, Tiny was jumping up and down with happiness. “It’s happened,” he said, “I don’t know how. But it’s happened. Warhammer is in. Come and look.” The computer room was packed with girls. As soon as I walked in, they all screamed and waved.

  “I’ve died,” said Tiny, “And gone to Heaven.”

  I said, “Who’d like to play Warhammer?”

  They all yelled, “We all would!!!!!!!!”

  “And so would I,” said a voice at the door. It was Mrs. Hardman. And a voice behind her said, “And me.” It was Perfect Paula’s mom. “You don’t mind me spending the day in school, I hope,” she said to Mrs. Hardman. “It’s just that, well, George is here.”

  Me and Tiny played one game to show them how it worked. Every time I threw the dice, they all cheered and shouted, “Go, George!” Tiny said this was annoying, but I thought it was great. Then Maddie put her hand up and asked a question about goblins. I tried my best to explain the difference between a goblin and an orc. Then I told them some more about the nature and geography of the Warhammer World. The girls seemed really interested in stuff like that. They all sat in a circle and stared up at me while I talked. I forgot all about lunch until Mr. Fitton came in and said, “What are you girls doing in here? This is supposed to be Warhammer Club.”

  “We are the Warhammer club,” said the girls.

  “Forever,” added Lucy in a dreamy voice.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” said Mr. Fitton. “But I do know that you’ve only got ten minutes left for lunch.”

  When we got to the cafeteria, they’d set up all the tables so they made one big table down the middle of the room, and everyone could sit with me. My old table was still over in the corner by the garbage though, and Danielle was sitting at it. With Tiny Biggs. He must have left Warhammer club early. I hadn’t even seen him go. Don’t get me wrong. It was great sitting at that big table, with everyone passing me food and telling me jokes. But every now and then I looked over at my old table and thought how lucky Tiny was to have Danielle to himself like that.

  Chapter 5

  How to be Unpopular

  with Boys

  Then it was Gym.

  When I walked into the changing room, Angry Al Kominski was waiting for me with Tiny and another boy I’d never seen before. But he was huge. And I suddenly realized that the boys’ changing rooms were probably the only place in the whole school where I wouldn’t have girls to protect me. I said, “Hi.”

  “This,” said Angry Al, pointing to the huge boy, “is my friend, Huge Arnold. He doesn’t go to this school. But he is Perfect Paula’s boyfriend. He wants to know why she’s got pictures of you on her cell phone. And on her bedroom wall.”

  “On her bedroom wall? Really?”

  “Grrrrr,” said Huge Arnold.

  “We’re playing football today,” said Angry Al. “And Huge Arnold has agreed to play with us. Even though he doesn’t go to this school. He’s going to play on my team. Against you.”

  Huge Arnold said, “Grrrrrr” again. He didn’t need to say anything else. “Grrrr” said it all really.

  “Just tell us what’s going on,” said Tiny. “Tell us how you do it, so we can do it too.” He was looking at my bag as he said this.

  I clutched it a bit tighter. I suppose that’s what gave the game away.

  I really think I might have told Tiny the truth there and then, if Mr. Fitton hadn’t come in just then and said, “Right. Get changed. Let’s play football.”

  I said, “I’m excused.”

  “Excused why?”

  I hadn’t really thought of a reason. But I had thought of a powerful ally. I said, “Honestly, I am excused, ask Mrs. Hardman.”

  “It was Mrs. Hardman’s idea, George.”

  “What?”

  “She seemed to think the sight of you running around in shorts would be very popular. She sold tickets.”

  “What?!”

  “For the Sports Center Fund. The whole school is out there ready to cheer you on. They’ve paid two dollars a head. So no, you can’t be excused.”

  “I can’t even play football.”

  “Well it’s time to learn.”

  I got changed and put my clothes in my back pack. I tried to push the bottle even further down into the bottom but all the time Tiny was watching me and the more I tried to hide it, the more he suspected something.

  “OK,” said Mr. Fitton, “Is everyone ready? Tiny, you’re excused for being tiny. Angry Al ...”

  “Let me play, sir.”

  “No can do I’m afraid. Your personality is a safety hazard.”

  So off we went. A huge cheer went up when I walked onto the pitch. It should have been a thrill but I was too worried about what was going on in the changing room. About two minutes into the game, there was a kind of mighty fluttering sound and from every tree for miles around, flocks of birds flew off into the sky and headed for the changing rooms. Dogs barked. Cats meowed. And the head of every girl swivelled towards the school. I knew then that Tiny had opened the aftershave. Two minutes later, the birds flew off, the dogs stopped barking, and the girls started watching me again.

  It wasn’t until half-time that I found out what had happened. Angry Al had tried to get the aftershave from Tiny. Tiny had tried to run and hide in the showers. There was a struggle. The bottle broke. The aftershave all vanished down the drain.

  It was all over.

  Chapter 6

  How to be Lucky

  I asked Mom where she’d bought it, thinking maybe the shop might have some left. “Barney’s Bargains on Croft Road,” she said. “It was knocked down to make way for the super Walmart.” Mom works at the Walmart. She said, “I often think of that shop. It would have been just in the middle of aisle seven – where the pasta sauces and Mexican TV dinners are now.”

  I searched the internet. Desirable is not a good word to google.

  It was all over.

  Or maybe it wasn’t. When you thought about it, it was mad to think that a splash of aftershave could change your life. Maybe I had just bloomed. Maybe it was nothing to do with the aftershave.

  When Jasmine and Lily got on the bus the next morning, I sat up and smiled at them. Then I shuffled along the seat so that they could sit by me. Jasmine looked at me and shuddered. Lily said, “There’s George.”

  Jasmine said, “And your point is?”

  “Nothing,” said her sister and they sat at the back. I could hear Jasmine saying, “I wonder what they ever saw in him.”

  When Danielle got on at the next stop the only seat left on the bus was the one next to me. I said, “Hi” and smiled at her when she sat down.

  “Oh, you’ll talk to me now,” she said. “Now that no one else wants to.”

  “How do you know no one talks to me?”

  “I’m a girl. Girls communicate with each other.” She showed me a txt from Paula to everyone in the school. “George Owusu,” it said, “Is SOOOOO over.”

 
I said, “But you don’t do what the other girls do. You’re different. So you could talk to me.”

  “I could but I don’t want to. You’ve changed.”

  “Yes I have changed,” I said. “And before I changed you wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Before you changed, you wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Yeah but I wanted to. I really wanted to.”

  “You say that.”

  “I can prove it.”

  I rummaged around in my bag and found the piece of paper with the notes written on it, the notes about what I was going to say to Danielle on my birthday.

  “It was your birthday?” she said. “You never said.”

  “I never said anything. But I wanted to.”

  She was reading the notes. Suddenly I was embarrassed about it, so I got off the bus a stop early. While I was waiting to cross the road, Perfect Paula’s big pink Audi went past and splashed me.

  That lunch time though, Danielle came to Warhammer. “This,” said Tiny, “Could be the start of something big.”

  It was the start of three people playing Warhammer instead of two. And three people having lunch together afterwards instead of sitting on their own. It was the start of swapping books, and burning CDs for each other and going to the movies on Saturday afternoons. It was friendship. It was great. In the week before we broke up for Christmas it was even buying presents and cards for people who were not your Mom and Dad. I got a Goblin captain for Tiny and another one for Danielle. I painted hers to make it a bit special. Tiny bought me and Danielle an orcish canon each. He’d painted hers to make it special. Danielle bought Tiny a mounted goblin. But she bought me something different. She said, “I know it’s a bit old looking. I got it in Demented Discounts. I remembered you having something like it months ago.”

  It was a bottle of Desirable. Best before 1983. I said, “Thanks. It’s what I always wanted.”

  It was the school Winter Warmer that night – a kind of party with dancing in the gym, hot dogs on the grill outside and a casino in the computer room to raise funds for the new gym. Going home that night with a full bottle of Desirable in my bag, I found myself thinking how great it would be to walk in there and have every girl smiling at me, like in the old days. All it would take was one drop.

  Everyone got dressed up for it. Mom even bought me a new shirt. It had no buttons on the cuffs. “I know,” she said, “It’s meant to be like that. You wear it with cufflinks, like the ones your grandad bought you.”

  “But Mom, they look stupid, and they have ‘Lucky’ written on them! Just think what people are going to say?”

  I was going to look even more stupid than ever at the party. All the more reason to splash on the Desirable. I was just about to open the bottle when Tiny and Danielle turned up in Tiny’s Mom’s car.

  “Look at Danielle, one girl with two boys,” said Mom.

  “Nice to be popular,” said Dad.

  Then Mom sighed, “Remember when our George was popular?”

  That fixed it for me. I stuffed the bottle into my pocket and made up my mind to smother myself in it as soon as I got to school.

  The gym looked amazing when we got there – a great big tree twinkled in the corner, garlands of tinsel hung from the walls, and the light kept changing all the time from gold to blue to red. And couples dancing together. “This is going to be great,” said Tiny, rubbing his hands.

  And suddenly I knew what I wanted. I didn’t want every girl in the place asking me to dance. I wanted Danielle all to myself. But what about Tiny?

  Easy.

  When we went outside to buy some hot dogs, I slipped the lid off the bottle in my pocket. For a moment, the music stopped and you could hear birds fluttering around the outside of the building. I rubbed my finger round the rim and then wiped it on the back of Tiny’s neck before putting the lid back on.

  When we got back into the gym, every head in the place swivelled to look at us.

  “Oh, no,” groaned Danielle. “Please don’t tell me you’re back in fashion.”

  I said, “I don’t think it’s me.”

  And every girl in the place screeched, “Tiny!!!!!” and ran over to try to get him to dance. In the end, one of the teachers had to get some paper and come up with a list so that he could dance with everyone. I have never seen anyone so happy.

  Apart from me and Danielle. We danced – not well, but still – and we talked. And later on we went into the casino.

  “Only a dollar a chip for a game of roulette,” said Mrs. Hardman. “All the money is going to the new sports center.”

  We bought three chips and put them on red and won!

  We put those on black and won again. And again. And then on red again. We just couldn’t stop winning.

  “Let’s be a bit more daring,” said Danielle. “Pick a number.”

  I picked 16. And we won.

  We had 500 chips by this stage. Danielle was jumping up and down with excitement. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hardman,” she said. “We’ll split the winnings with the school.” It was as I was raking the chips in that I noticed something. My cufflinks. My lucky cufflinks. Could it be the cufflinks that were doing this? No. But then again, maybe.

  Danielle said, “Let’s take the money and stop now.”

  But I had this prickly feeling in my wrists, just where the cufflinks were touching them. I said, “No. We’re putting all 500 on 23 to win.”

  Mrs. Hardman turned a bit pale. Then she spun the roulette wheel and dropped the ball into the wheel …

  Desirable

  by

  Andy Stanton

  Lizzie Harris has hair the color of magic, a nose as sweet as music and arms as wonderful as rainbows. The only thing is, Lizzie Harris won’t go out with Sterling Thaxton. Sterling needs help, but who can he ask? Not his friend Doctor Edward Macintosh – that would be too embarrassing. Perhaps a canary would do the trick?

  Wolf

  by

  Tommy Donbavand

  Adam didn’t have much planned for this afternoon – head home from school, grab a snack, maybe play a video game before dinner. No way did he plan to grow some claws. Or fur. Or a tail. At this rate, Adam will be having his mom and dad for dinner. And they don’t seem exactly surprised...

  Candy Girl

  by

  Karen McCombie

  Sleep? No chance! Dixie’s too excited about her internship at Candy Magazine! She can’t wait to meet all the celebs, hang out at cool parties and chill with the models. But Dixie is about to find out that life at Candy isn’t as sweet as she imagined...

  Ninja First Mission

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  Ninja First Mission

  When the Grandmaster sends Taka on a special mission, this is his last chance to prove himself. But the mission is dangerous. To fail is to die, and Taka has failed before...

  The Shadow on the

  Stairs

  by

  Ann Halam

  “If you step on the ghost’s shadow, you are doomed. If it looks at you, you’ll die.” Joe’s sure Emma made up the story about the shadow to scare him. He plans to use it himself, to scare Diane. What would happen if it turned out to be true?

  Hide and Seek

  by

  Catherine MacPhail

  Tell the new girl the school is haunted. Spend a night there. Scare her half to death. It seemed like a fun idea at the time. But now Nicole’s friends are going missing one by one. No one’s laughing now. This Friday night, Nicole has a date with Destiny...

  The Ghost Box

  by

  Catherine Fisher

  The bad dreams began the day Sarah saw the face in the painting. The strange tree, the silver box and the ghost boy – they are all connected, but how? The ghost says he needs Sarah’s help, but it seems her stepbrother Matt is out to stop her, and he has others on his side. Who can Sarah trust?

  The Dying Photo

  by

  Alan Gibbons

  Their eyes were wide. Thei
r mouths were open. They were screaming. When Jimmy first sees the man with the camera, he knows that something is very wrong. But no one will listen to him, not even when his mom and dad disappear. Can Jimmy track down the man again – and if he does, can he get his parents back?