Free Boys Beware by Jean Ure

clothes –
as if –
and said the money would be better spent on books. “Of which they don’t have anything like enough.” Yeah yeah yeah! Books are OK, and I read as much as the next person, but you can get books from the library. You can’t get clothes from the library! And what is this weird notion that you could possibly have
too many of them?
    Ali didn’t buy anything to wear but she found a telescope, of all things, and the look on her face was just
so,
like, wistful, like really yearning, thatwe nobly told Grandad to forget about buying us anything and just get Ali her heart’s desire. I mean, really, it was
humongously
expensive, but I must say she is being very embarrassingly grateful, both to us and to Grandad. She says that a telescope is what she has always wanted.

    It is nice to see Ali so happy.
    Thursday
    Mum rang today, all the way from Peru. She spoke to each of us in turn, starting with Ali. I don’t know what Ali said to her, cos the telephone is out in the hall, but the first thing Mum said to me was, “I hear you and Tash are pretty fed up. Is it getting too much for you?”

    I said no, of course it wasn’t. The very idea! I was quite indignant. How could Ali even suggest such a thing? I told Mum that we
had
been a bit fed up last week, but more with school, and the general day-today struggle, and having to cope with unpleasant women such as Miss Selby. I said that now we were at Gran and Grandad’s and being cosseted, we were feeling much better. I said, “It’s like you, when you say you need a break.”

    Mum said, “Are you sure?” She was really anxious and all set to pack up and come whizzing back home. I screeched at her down the telephone,
“No!
We’re managing perfectly OK.” Mum still seemed doubtful, so when I handed over to Tash I told her to “Stand firm. Whatever you do!
Don’t let her come rushing back.”
    Tash obviously followed my instructions cos Mum agreed in the end to stay put.
    “I told her,” said Tash, “we haven’t burned the place down, we’re not stuffing ourselves with junk food, and we’re not having boys up there.”
    “Unfortunately,” I said.
    We both agreed, the chance would be a fine thing!
    Friday
    Started off by still feeling a bit sore with Ali, going and telling Mum we were fed up, but then we went down to the beach with Gran and Grandad and big surprise, miracle of miracles …
we have met a boy! A boy!!! In Sidmouth!
It is not the sort of place where you expect to meet anyone of either sex that is less than positively ancient.
    How it happened, we were playing beach ball with Grandad. Grandad likes to play beach ball, as it makes him feel – I suppose – that he’s still young. We think it only fair to humour him, since on the whole he is very good to us. It seems only kind. Gran just sits in her deckchair and watches. She says she is “past all that kind of thing”. Anyway, Grandad had thrown the ball, and Ali had missed it, and while she was still wondering where it had gone, me and Tash were racing off after it, and lo and behold, there he was … a real live boy! We almost, literally, bumped into him.

    He is Spanish, and quite good looking. Must be at least fourteen. Maybe even fifteen. His name is Wackeen, or that’s how he pronounces it. Seems a bit odd to me, but then I don’t speak any Spanish, apart from “Ole, ole!” which makes him laugh. I wish I could snap my fingers! Wackeen can make his go off like gun shots, but mine just sound like stale cornflakes.

    We were very puzzled about what he could be doing in a place like Sidmouth, but it seems he is staying with his sister, who is a waitress in one of the restaurants. Gran has promised that tomorrow, as it’s our last night, we can go there for a meal, hooray!
    I wish tomorrow
weren’t
our last night. I wish we could have met Wackeen earlier. I wish we weren’t going to spend all day driving to a place called Buckfast to see some stupid abbey. I don’t want to