“Please Kim!” my friend begged me, trying to thrust the envelope into my hand, “it’s the only way that I can get it to him.”
I sighed, I didn’t normally have a problem helping my friends out, I would like to think that I’d bend over backwards to help them most of the time, but this was just something I had to draw the line at.
“Please!” Rena continued to beg, smiling at me, she had obviously mistaken my silence for a possible agreement.
“Rena I really don’t want to,” I continued, “please don’t make me.” I was hoping that may be if I reasoned with her, she would see sense.
“Come on Kim!” Jemma’s voice piped up from the other end of the door, “it’s not going to be a big deal.”
Great, now my other friend had started on me, I was now starting to wonder why I had thought that sharing prefect duty with them was such a good idea. There was no way I could run off and leave the conversation seeing as I was stuck guarding the playground door, ensuring that no year 7s were sneaking their way back into the school. Seemed a rather bizarre kind of prefect duty to me, standing by a drafty door was no fun, I envied the prefects that got to stand at the radiators in the main corridor, but I was never going to get that duty seeing as the head girl only let her friends enjoy that perk, most the other Prefects were Populars, there were only a handful of us Prefects that weren’t in the group.
“Please Kimmie,” Rena continued, great now she was going to try the pet names, seeing if it would wear me down.
“I can’t,” I insisted.
“But it’s only a stupid card,” Jemma insisted, “it isn’t a big deal.”
“It is to me OK,” I snapped back, “I hate him and don’t want to go anywhere near him, let alone right up to his bloody front door.”
My face was flushed red with anger; it wasn’t often that I swore in public, especially not at my friends.
“Sorry,” I quickly said, noticing the looks on both my friends’ faces, “I’m sorry, I’ll do it.”
Rena squealed and hugged me tightly, pressing the offending red envelope into my hand in delight.
I looked down at it, it was hard to see how such a silly object could cause me so much worry, it was square and red with 3 simple letters written on it “Ben”.
“All you have to do, is sneak it through his letter box after school OK?” Rena urged, “he’ll never see you its OK.”
“But what if he thinks it’s from me?” I asked, shuddering at the thought, I could imagine what would happen the next day if he saw me, everyone would think the card was from me, how that would make them all laugh. Silly little Kim giving Ben, the most popular boy in year 11 a Valentine’s card, it just didn’t bear thinking about.
“Why would he?” Jemma asked.
“Well he may just jump to that assumption if he sees me merrily posting it through his door.” I defended myself.
I could never understand how my best friend could fancy him so much, she wasn’t the one that had to live opposite him, see him strolling around the village in his super confident arrogant way with his stream of cronies tagging along behind.
I hated him, I hated all of them! All they ever did was make me feel small, just because God had gifted them with good looks and brains they seemed to think it their place to belittle people and walk round the school as if they owned it. Populars who needed them?
“I hate him.” I said, voicing my opinions out loud.
“Why?” Rena pressed, “just because he’s a Popular?”
I glared back at her, I couldn’t really get her to understand, Rena wanted to be a Popular more than anything, for some reason she had it into her head that these were “the” people to be, and that being one was the only thing that would make her school life happy. It made me cringe to see the way that she behaved in front of them, falling over her feet to impress and please them.
In my whole time at Jarrold High I had never ever ever wanted to be a Popular, I hated the way that we all had to be segregated off into little social groups, it seemed pathetic and childish to me. More than anything I wanted things back to the way that it was in year 7, we had all been naïve and innocent, everyone had more or less got on and life was much as it was before. Unfortunately, things had begun to change as we had got older, as the boys voices got deeper and their muscles started growing so too did their egos, and at the same time as discovering short skirts and make up the girls had also found the delights of bitching and backstabbing.
The Populars had emerged triumphant about 3 years ago now, beautiful, popular and clever, they ruled the school, walking the corridors as if they owned them and setting the social status for the school. I had never been sure exactly what the rule was for making yourself one of them, I had never been anything but myself. I knew that I wasn’t a “geek”, I didn’t study hard, wear my tie in a swot knot or go to bed at 9pm, I could be fun and spontaneous and when amongst my friends even loud or bubbly, but for some reason in school I was just shy and quiet. They didn’t know me, no one really knew me apart from my close friends, but for some reason they all thought I was sad and boring, I had never opened my mouth in front of them, yet I had been brandished with this unfair opinion and nothing I could do would ever change it.
Quiet does not mean boring.
My thoughts returned to the conversation. “Its not just because he’s a Popular,” I concluded, “I just don’t like him.”
“How can you not like him, he’s so dreamy.” Jemma retorted, along with every other girl in the school she was in the Ben Adams fan club.
I knew that Ben was good looking; at least I used to think he was, I remembered that at one stage I had thought him to be amazing too, but at some point that had changed, he had changed. He had stopped saying hi to me in the corridors and although we were neighbours we were complete strangers. As he got more confident and more popular he seemed to loose all of his good looks, to everyone else he looked amazing, but to me he had lost it, in my eyes he was ugly.
“So how come you aren’t giving him a card as well then?” I asked her.
“Because Rena saw him first and I don’t want to tread on her toes,” she remarked, giving Rena a hug.
Personally I thought that they were both deluding themselves, both girls were very pretty, fun and interesting, however they weren’t a Popular and so Ben wouldn’t go anywhere near them, I doubt he even knew they existed.
“Did you sign the card then?” I asked, wondering exactly how brave she had been and if my role as a messenger was still possibly going to lead to embarrassment.
“Course I didn’t!” she exclaimed, “it’s a Valentine, its supposed to be anonymous.”
Well how are you going to have any chance with him then?” I asked, slightly annoyed at her, the whole thing seemed daft to me, a complete waste of time, especially on my part.
“Look!” Rena suddenly snapped, “If you don’t want to deliver it just bloody say so will you and I’ll find another way of getting it to him.”
I saw my window, this was the perfect opportunity to get out of it, the last thing I wanted to do was go anywhere near his house, let alone post a Valentine through his door, the thought of it just filled me with dread.
I opened my mouth to speak, but changed my mind when I saw Rena’s face, that desperate look had returned, and I felt bad.
“No I’ll do it.” I said, placing the card into my school bag and zipping it up.
Looked like I would be taking a detour on my way home.
I walked up the road, with the usual crowd, Gillian, a girl in the year below me that lived a few doors away from me and Simon, a boy who lived down the next road. He was nice and we had been friends for years, he was one of the many “nice young men” on my mother’s list of potential boyfriends. She was forever digging out nice young men for me to inspect, normally I found them nothing but boring and dorky, and although Simon was lovely, he just wasn’t my type at all.
“It’s a dog.” His voice was argumentative.
I sighed, we had the same argument every day as we walked down the road on the way home from the bus stop.
“It’s most definitely a horse,” I said looking up at the tree above us that was waving in the wind, “it’s the whole reason the village is called Horsmere.”
“You think they named the village after that tree?” He snorted back.
I wasn’t sure exactly when this whole silly conversation had started, it had been going on for several months at least, one day I had just made a comment about how the tree up the road was shaped like a horse and that’s why our village had its name, and now every day without fail we would have this same argument as we trudged back up the road.
“It’s a poodle,” he said decisively as we reached the shop forecourt.
I turned round to face him, my eyes catching sight of Ben who had also just reached his gate opposite and had turned into his drive, great he was home, that was going to make the card delivery fairly hard.
“What you looking at?” Simon asked, following my gaze across the road, “oh please don’t tell me you’ve joined the Ben fan club too?” he asked, rolling his eyes in desperation. “I really don’t get you women, why would you want someone like that?”
“I don’t like him.” I screeched back in disgust, “I wasn’t even looking at him.”
Simon gave me a look as if to say that he didn’t believe me, “right well I’ll see you tomorrow Kim.”
“Yep.” I replied, turning and walking through the main shop door and through the back into our house.
“Nice day sweetheart?” my Mum asked as I reached the kitchen.
I threw my bag down on the floor and picked an apple up from the fruit bowl, “it was OK, although Rena annoyed me slightly.”
“Oh dear, why’s that?” she asked absent mindidly as she stirred whatever it was in the pot.
“She fancies Ben and wants me to get a card to him.” I muttered, I knew as soon as I’d told her that was a mistake.
She dropped the spoon with a clank and beamed up at me, my mother it seemed was also in the Ben fan club. She was pretty good friends with his mother and was often popping over there for cups of tea, Ben was also on her list of eligible young men, she had no idea what he was really like.
“And why don’t you want to get it to him?” she asked.
“Cos I hate him,” I said bluntly.
“Kim he’s a lovely young man, he’s clever and very good looking and his Mum is lovely.”
“Just because she’s lovely doesn’t mean he is,” I muttered.
“I find that so odd, he’s always so charming to me,” Mum continued, “I told you about the time he caught the thief didn’t I?”
I nodded my head, knowing full well that Mum would probably tell me the story again anyway. About a month ago Ben had decided to play super hero, one of the village layabouts had decided to steal a bottle of lemonade from the shop and Ben had chased him down the road and forced him to return it. Since then Mum had had nothing but praise for Ben.
Taking the card out of my school bag I decided to get it over and done with, anything was better than hearing my Mum sing out the praises of Ben.
Leaving the house, I glanced up and down the road, checking that no one was looking, the card shoved firmly up my jumper sleeve. There was no way that I was going to let anyone see the flash of red, that quite obviously screamed out Valentines Card.
Seeing that the coast was clear I crossed the road and started heading towards Ben’s drive, at that moment his Mum appeared, with Ben’s little brother Rupert in tow.
“Hello Kim.” She beamed down at me.
“Hello Mrs Adams,” I replied awkwardly.
“How’s school?” she asked, “all ready for those GCSEs.”
“I’m a little nervous actually.” I admitted.
“Yeah Ben is, you should see him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so worried about anything.” she commented.
I tried desperately not to let out a snort, as if Ben could possibly be scared of something like GCSEs.
“You off to the shops?” she asked politely.
The question startled me, what exactly would my excuse for being outside her house be?
“Erm…I’m just off for a walk actually.” I replied.
“Rupert and I are just off to the park. May be you could come round for tea some time, I’m sure Ben would love the company.”
I nodded my head politely in reply before saying my goodbyes and pretending to walk off in the opposite direction.
Why was it that parents never understood things, just because Ben’s mum was friends with my Mum they both automatically assumed that I am going to be best friends with Ben as well.
I turned back and noticed with relief that Mrs Adams had turned the corner and was out of sight, looking cautiously I crept back towards his house, keeping close to the hedge I tiptoed up the gravel drive, trying to stop my feet grating against the individual stones. Finally reaching the doorstep, I took a deep breath and pulled the slightly bent card out from my jumper and slid it into the letterbox. Quickly darting back down the drive I quickly crossed the road and didn’t look back until I was outside the shop door. Nervously I looked up at his bedroom window, there was no movement.
Breathing a sigh of relief I made my way into the house, hopefully by some complete miracle I had got away with it.