Free One More Little Problem by Vanessa Curtis Page B

she coaxes and twists my black locks.
    ‘Fran,’ I say. ‘Why are you doing this? I mean – you made it really clear at Forest Hill what you thought about my rituals and everything.’
    Fran continues her careful straightening of my hair but her eye catches mine for a moment in the mirror.
    She finishes what she’s doing and unplugs the straighteners.
    ‘Well, actually,’ she says, running a brush through my new smooth hair, ‘I’ve kind of – missed you. A bit.’
    We both turn the colour of purple grapes and Fran turns round and begins to sort through my flip-flop collection.
    ‘I’ve missed you too,’ I say. I busy myself applying lipgloss with a small sticky brush. ‘In fact, I’ve got a brand new word for you.’
    I always used to come up with a ‘word of the day’ for Fran when we were friends before.
    Fran turns round from the wardrobe.
    ‘Yeah?’ she says. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Renaissance,’ I say. ‘It means you can do loads of different creative things.’
    We exchange cautious smiles.
    It’s a start.
    *
    By the time I’ve finished getting ready it’s nearly time to leave for the tube.
    I stand in front of the mirror.
    ‘Not bad,’ I say. In fact I look pretty good.
    I’m wearing a white vest top, the long red skirt, brown boots, and Fran has lent me her cut-off denim jacket to put over the top.
    I hook a pair of long red sparkly earrings through my ears and spray a nice new clean can of shine spray all over my sleek hair.
    ‘You look really nice, Zelah,’ says Fran in a soft voice.
    I smile, although I’m a bit worried about my red cheeks.
    Maybe scrubbing my face wasn’t such a good idea. Like I have any control over it.
    ‘Thanks,’ I say.
    We shout goodbye to Caro and Dad and head off to the bus stop.
    This Marky boy better be good.

Chapter Fifteen
    ‘H e’s not coming,’ says Fran.
    We’ve been standing under her pink sparkly umbrella outside the Central Line tube station for about fifteen minutes and there’s no sign of Marky.
    ‘Hmm?’ I say in a distracted fashion.
    I’ve drifted off into a sort of sad dream where I’m back with Sol.
    Sol.
    My scowling, olive-skinned First Love.
    So far, anyway. I realise that life is quite long and I might have other boyfriends one day.
    But I miss him. He made me feel smalland girlie and quite normal, like I didn’t really have OCD.
    How is it possible to miss someone you only knew for a few weeks?
    The rain plops all over my feet and my denim jacket is damp at the sleeves.
    People stream out of the tube station and huddle under umbrellas and deep inside coats.
    It’s not even like a real summer.
    ‘Let’s just go home,’ I say to Fran. ‘I think I’d rather watch Caro slice up her arms than stand here waiting for some bloke with a stupid “y” on the end of his name to turn up. Bet that wasn’t even his real photo.’
    There’s a sort of coughing muttering noise behind me and I turn around to find a tall, handsome fair-haired boy gazing down at Fran.
    ‘Zelah?’ he says. ‘Hi! I’m Marky.’
    Fran stares up at this vision of gorgeousness with a smile beginning to spread over her face.
    ‘She’s not Zelah,’ I say. ‘I am. And feel free to look really disappointed.’
    Marky has fantastic manners.
    He turns away from Fran and holds out a hand to me.
    Yikes. Major
Germ Alert
.
    ‘She doesn’t do handshaking,’ says Fran, helpful as ever. ‘She’s got OCD.’
    Nice one, Fran. Why not just get a huge flaming bomb and throw it into the middle of where we’re standing?
    Marky’s grin fades just a little bit but he continues to smile down at me.
    ‘OC what?’ he says. ‘Sorry. Don’t know what that means.’
    I want to say a lot of things at that moment.
    I want to say, ‘It means that my life is rubbish. It means that I can’t even hug my own dad. It means that Heather, my next best thing to a mum, has to air-kiss me. It means that Ihave to put sheets of paper on my chairs before my bottom touches their