Free This Is All by Aidan Chambers Page B

love trees, which you were going to tell me and which is something you haven’t told anyone else in the whole wide world?’
    ‘Correct.’
    ‘Thank you,’ I said.
    And because I couldn’t stand it any longer, I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. And he didn’t resist and he didn’t pull away and he did kiss me back and we went on and on kissing for ages, starting feather gentle and slow-motion slow and our lips hardly touching and then his tongue lightly tracing my lips like it was a pencil drawing my mouth and then my tongue drawing his lips and then his tongue lifting my top lip and feeling all under it before both his lips took my top lip and kissed me that way, then my tongue exploring his bottom lip and when this wasn’t enough any more, we kissed with our mouths open wide and our lips covering each other’s and our tongues playing tag and flicking and circling and our breaths in one and out the other until I felt I would explode, the star burst starting in my vag and spreading down my thighs to my feet and up my body like a wavebreaking till I thought I would disappear altogether for ever into Will and there would be nothing in the whole wide world but him in me and me in him.
    Realisations: Sayings to Myself
    ( selections from being 15 till now )
    One good friend in a lifetime (e.g. Izumi) is worth celebrating.
    Learn to say no.
    If you can’t get to sleep, get up and do something very boring.
    Use moisturiser daily, Doris says, from the age of fifteen.
    Don’t assume Doris is always happy.
    Don’t assume Dad is as daft as he sometimes seems.
    Unhappy people are often aggressive.
    Men usually don’t always mean it when they say they love you.
    Never try and rescue a man in trouble unless he asks.
    Pushy people push everybody around, not just you. Don’t take it personally.
    People are like flowers. They need different amounts of watering.
    Water improves your complexion.
    Respect is at the heart of poetry.
    When buying clothes, don’t look at yourself in the mirror from the back. It makes your nose look big and your bum look even bigger than it is.
    Don’t buy clothes when you’re unhappy or they’ll never feel right.
    Eye liner makes you look tarty.
    There’s good gossip and bad gossip. Good gossip is funny and helpful and is not meant to hurt other people. Bad gossip hurts other people and is meant to.
    The reason old Shakes is god is that he can be all peopleand at the same time is beyond them. Also, he is the best of anybody at using the English language.
    When sad, read one of Shakes’s sonnets (nos 18, 27, 29, 30, 36, 60, 66, 71, 73, 80, 91, 94, 116, 129, 130, 138, 144, and 145 are my favourites).
    I write bad mopes when I’m unhappy. I write good mopes about being sad when I’m happy.
    I know I really will write poetry one day, so long as I keep trying, no matter how many failures, and how many mopes it takes.
    Real writers don’t make mistakes. They make changes.
    When I’m tired I become intolerant.
    Nice knickers are very important.
    Accept the fact that you don’t always snap out of things fast. That’s just how you are.
    When upset, be systematic.
    Ariel
    ‘Better stop,’ Will said, pulling away. ‘Sorry. Not ready.’
    I knew he was right, though I wanted to go on. How dangerous the body is when left to its own devices.
    And I also assumed he meant he hadn’t any protection. Neither had I. In my wobbly state before leaving the house I hadn’t even remembered to pack a tampon, and was anxious in case my period had started early, which it did sometimes. Luckily, Izumi had made me wear black jeans. (‘Never know where boys take you. And this one might take you to a graveyard.’)
    On our way back to the car park a rope dropped from a tall tree in front of us and a bean-pole of a boy came down it like a spindly spider – a young man really, but boy-face and chestnut hair like a tangled mop, which I didn’t see till he took off the helmet he was wearing, and strong