‘I dunno …’ I shrugged, putting my foot on top of the ball to stop it before slowly passing it back in his direction as I struggled to formulate my words. ‘She’s not like the other girls in our class …’
We’d been attending Peaswood High for the past four years. It was a lot bigger than our primary school, with loads more children, but all three of us had managed to get into the same form class – thanks to us begging our parents to ask the headmaster. So nothing much had changed when it came to our friendship. We still lived in each others’ pockets and were as tight as ever. Occasionally one of us would get close to another kid and they’d join us for a bit – but they’d wander off eventually, put off by how close we all were, I reckon. So the three of us had stuck together, as we’d promised we would. We’d even come up with our own group name – ‘The Tripod’. Yeah, it was only mildly better than Laura and her Pink Dreamers, but it meant something. The name came from our first science lesson with Mrs Fellows – an extremely strict teacher with an irritatingly high-pitched nasal voice. One of the kids in class had been playing with his tripod, instead of listening to her riveting lesson on the periodic table, and bent one of its metal legs. The teacher made him stand on his chair as punishment and, as if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, proceeded to give him a massive lecture on respecting school equipment before detailing the important qualities of the tripod. She said, ‘Tripods have three legs. They rely on each other for support. If they stand together they are strong and united. BUT if one breaks, they are all rendered useless …’ We turned to each other with little smirks, all thinking the same thing – yeah, we’re a fricking tripod!
‘What’s made you ask, anyway?’ Robert probed as he flicked the ball in the air and head-butted it repeatedly, continuously keeping an eye on it as he jerked his body around to wherever the ball was headed – always a step ahead and ready to tap it skywards.
‘Nothing … It’s just I heard Antony and John talking about her,’ I shrugged.
‘Yeah? What did they say?’ he asked with a frown, catching the ball in his hands and looking at me – my revelation grabbing his full attention.
‘That they thought she was fit.’
‘Really?’ He raised both his eyebrows and puffed out his cheeks as he mulled over the comment.
Going to ‘big school’ and mixing with people from outside of Peaswood (they all arrived on coaches every morning – streamed in by their hundreds), we suddenly discovered how sheltered our lives were. Our idea of a fun night was riding around on our bikes down our road and grabbing some penny sweets or collectable stickers from the newsagents, but in those first few years at secondary school we were shocked as we heard many tales of raunchy things happening at under-eighteen discos. Even the school discos or birthday parties we went to were eye-opening – kids would go around snogging as many people as they could, tallying them up in some sort of tongue-wagging competition. The three of us would be awkwardly stood on the dance floor, getting our groove on to ‘Cotton Eye Joe’, as we tried to stop ourselves from gawping at the sight of it all. Before going to Peaswood High, that kiss between Greg and Becky was the rudest thing we’d ever seen and that was nothing to our new classmates. Even four years in we struggled to keep up – we were too busy being the children we were supposed to be. Some of the other kids were simply much more advanced than us – kids like Anthony and John, who we knew had both been ‘all the way’ with various girls in our year. Knowing that they were now talking about Maddy in that way, that she was on their radar, made me feel really protective of her. And irritated.
‘Well, she’s not ugly …’
‘Definitely not.’
‘In fact, yeah, she is cute, I guess,’ shrugged Robert, his face returning to its earlier frown as he contemplated our best friend in a way he clearly hadn’t before.
Robert had been flirting with a girl in our class called Daniella that week. They both knew they fancied each other and that they’d be snogging each other’s faces off at the next party, it was only a matter of time. I think his own concerns for our female friend were fuelled with the knowledge of the racy thoughts that had been going through his teenage mind about his looming first sexual encounter with Daniella.
‘It’s strange to hear that said about her, though, you know?’ he added.
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’
‘Makes me feel weird.’
‘Same …’ I nodded.