Lying in Wait Read Online Free PDF Page B

overheard stories about her from other boys in my class. I felt a kinship because the bullies in my class seemed to have as much contempt for her as they did for me.
    I heard her before I saw her. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked. I turned. Her green uniform skirt, made of some hairy fabric, was worn to baldness in places and the hem had come down on one side. I could see the inside of her collar was threadbare at the neck.
    ‘Laurence. Fitzsimons.’
    ‘Ah yeah, I’ve heard of you. Why do they call you the Hippo? You look normal to me.’
    I warmed to her immediately. ‘I
am
normal. They just don’t like me.’
    ‘Well, who gives a fuck what they like? Do you live on Brennanstown Road? I’ve seen you around.’
    I lived in Avalon, a large detached house with a well-kept garden at the end of the road, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell her. She didn’t seem to mind whether I responded to her questions or not. We ambled companionably onwards. When we passed Trisha’s Café, she suggested that I buy her a Coke. I hesitated.
    ‘OK then, I’ll buy
you
one,’ she said as she pushed the glass door open. It would have been rude not to follow her. Unfortunately, the bullies were already there, sitting near the counter.
    ‘Oink, oink!’ one of them shouted in our direction.
    ‘Fucking eejits,’ said Helen, ‘ignore them.’
    We very rarely had bad language in Avalon, but now, in the same five minutes, I’d heard
fuck
and
fucking.
From a girl. I used bad language too sometimes, but never out loud.
    Helen strolled coolly to the counter and returned with two Cokes.
    I shoved two 10p pieces towards her to pay for them.
    ‘You don’t have to. Just because I paid, it doesn’t mean you have to ask me out.’
    Ask her out?
    ‘I want to pay. It’s fair.’
    ‘Fine,’ she said. There was a lull in conversation as we sucked our Cokes through thin straws. And then she said, ‘You’d be quite good-looking if you weren’t fat.’
    It was not news to me that I was fat. My mother said it was puppy fat and that I’d shed it soon enough, but I was seventeen. My father said I ate too much. My scales said fifteen stone. I hadn’t always been big, but over the last year, since I’d moved schools, my eating habits had gone completely out of control. The more nervous and miserable I was, the hungrier I felt. I love food, and mostly the fattening stuff. But this was the first time that a non-parent had said I was fat without a look of disgust.
    ‘Your hair’s nice,’ I said, to return the compliment. She looked very pleased.
    ‘I love food too, I probably eat more than you,’ she said. Helen obviously had no idea just how much food I could put away.
    ‘If you could give me about three stone, we’d both be perfect.’
    Helen and I met a few times in the weeks after. We took it in turns to buy the Cokes. Then one day Helen said, ‘Do you want to come to my house tomorrow night?’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘To visit me? To kick off the weekend?’ she said, as if it was completely normal to be invited to girls’ houses. ‘My mum has made this amazing cake that’s going to get thrown out if it’s not eaten.’
    We had only known each other a few weeks, but already she knew which buttons to push. An arrangement was made for after school, an address written down on the inside cover of my jotter.
    At home that evening, I tried to be casual and breezy. ‘I won’t be in for dinner tomorrow, I’m going to the cinema with some of the lads,’ I lied, as casually as I could. I focused on my copybook with fierce concentration. My dad perked up: he was delighted.
    ‘Well, isn’t that great now, great altogether. Going out with pals, eh? What are you going to see? There’s a new
Star Wars
one, isn’t there?’
    We had been to see
Star Wars
together as a family. Dad and I had enjoyed it, but Mum had put her hands over her ears during the explosions, jumping at every clash of a light sabre. After that, she swore she was never