Creepy and Maud Read Online Free PDF Page B

from inattention and age. Besides, I’ve seen what declared love becomes. How it evolves.
     
    Mrs Webster also told us that we are still evolving and that the next thing that will most likely happen to us as a species is the recession of our chins. We don’t need them, she said. If that’s true, then Owen Liddell is the most evolved person in our school. He has one of those E.M. Forster chins that start at the lower gum line and then just slope away to meet the larynx. Nothing there. Owen Liddell is also the most in-love guy at our school and a larger-than-life lesson to all therest of us to keep our mouths shut when it comes to love. I’ve seen what declared love becomes.
     
    Owen Liddell fell in love with Bella Hayman in Year 8. At first, he kept it to surreptitious glances and manoeuvring himself into proximity during classes. Then he started ingratiating himself with one of her ugly friends. Have you ever noticed how pretty girls do that? They always have one ugly one in the pack, usually the one who performs like an indentured servant out of pure gratitude at being admitted to the inner circle. Anyway, Owen started hanging around Hideous Helen (hey, that’s what everyone calls her, okay?) to try and get information about Bella, the object of his affection. Unfortunately, Hideous Helen misunderstood Owen’s objective and responded to his interest by falling in love with him herself. Girls can do that. They can fall in love with ugliness because apparently they look at our insides. I read that somewhere. Anyway, Owen really should have stopped with Hideous Helen. Let’s face it, she was a gift—the best he was ever going to do. But he didn’t cotton on. By Year 10, he was passing notes to Hideous Helen to pass to Beautiful Bella. Hideous Helen’s heart might have been breaking but she passed those notes along out of love for Owen. Whose chin continued to evolve the older he got.
     
    You may well ask how I know the ins and outs of thislittle love triangle. I know because everyone knows. The whole thing came to a head in a smashing brouhaha on a school verandah one hot day towards the end of Year 10. Owen made his declaration of love. Those who were not present to witness the beginning of the event were soon drawn to the area by all the screaming. Yes, screaming.
     
    Apparently Owen, dissatisfied with the speed of his campaign (and not taking into account Hideous Helen’s own agenda), decided to bail Bella up and declare his love. This could only have been made possible by the delusion of reciprocation brought on by years of unrequited pining and an IQ that matched his chin size. I give him points for bravery. By the time his heart and dignity were being crushed by the derision of Bella and her pack, he had lost all sense of reality. Went mad with grief. And why not? It happens all the time in books. I, and everyone else, watched Owen segue from despair to fear to (surprise!) anger as he was trounced by the worst weapon a girl has—laughter. Owen actually stood in the middle of the verandah and hollered, ‘Bella! Belllllllllaaaaaaa!’ as her skinny arse executed a haughty retreat. Owen didn’t come to school for three days after that. When he did next show up for home room, someone had written ‘Poor Bella’ in huge letters all over the whiteboard.
     
    And Hideous Helen? The tragicomic anti-heroineof the tale? Last I heard, she’d got herpes in her mouth from a foreign exchange student everyone called The Teletubby. She really should have raised her standards.
     
    As I said, I love Maud but I would never tell her.
     

EIGHT

    My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.
    —Woody Allen

    School is a strange land. Strange can be interesting. Or it can just be strange. I don’t mind having to go to school. It gives me something to do during the day. Maud’s there. And when you’re marginal, like me, it gives you the opportunity for observing some of the more