Free Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson Page B

anoint my spots with all sorts of junk Mum buys in Boots it doesn’t help much. My entire body seems to be going berserk. I am not going into details but girls have NO IDEA AT ALL how embarrassing it can be. I wish I could hide inside a special spaceman suit with a fishbowl helmet and not have to make contact with anyone else ever. Except you.
    You wrote “Love Ellie” for the first time. That’s the best bit of your letter. I’ve read those two tiny words over and over, so many times it’s a wonder the ink hasn’t worn right off the page, such is the ardor of my laser-gaze.
    LOTS of love,
    Dan XXX
    Dear Dan,
    I didn’t mean to post that last letter! I just shoved it in an envelope in a tearing rush in the morning and put it in the letter box as I ran for school and THEN I remembered some of the stuff I’d said and I was so embarrassed. I even ran back to the letter box and tried to wriggle my hand through the slot. Then this police panda car slowed down and I thought, Oh, my God, I’m going to get arrested for attempting to steal the Royal Mail. I wriggled my wrist free and sort of grinned sheepishly at these police guys and they just laughed at me.
    MOST people laugh at me. I like the idea of wearing a spacesuit. I’d like one too. Only how can one communicate in a fishbowl helmet? You couldn’t go shopping unless you did some serious miming to show you wanted the latest indie album, leaping in the air in manic mode. Come to think of it, you wouldn’t be able to HEAR it. And what about talking to your friends? (Though one of my best friends still isn’t talking to ME.) And school??? Though I’m not a brainbox like you obviously are, so I don’t do much communicating with the teachers at the best of times.
    This is the WORST of times. I feel seriously fed up. Oh, God, I’d better stop now or I’ll write ANOTHER long rambly rubbishy letter. I didn’t really put “Love Ellie” last time, did I? I don’t remember. I don’t ever put Love to anyone, not even Luv or Lurve. I just put me.
    Ellie
    Dear Ellie,
    You did SO put “Love Ellie.” I have your letter here, beneath my heart. Well, that sounds poetic but it’s not anatomically accurate. I don’t have any pockets up at chest level. I’ve got your letter in my trouser pocket. So your words of Love (not Luv, not Lurve, LOVE) are actually rubbing against my thigh, only that sounds embarrassingly intimate and I don’t want this letter to develop into one of those porny pervy jobs some of the guys as my school write to girls. No, their letters are probably not TO girls, they’re just ABOUT girls.
    I don’t want to think of you like that, Ellie. Not that you aren’t absolutely wonderfully attractive etc, etc, etc. It was love at first sight like I said. I knew you were the girl for me. I think about you all the time. I’ve never been in love before. I suppose I love my mum and dad (though they do go ON a bit, and act all silent and reproachful if I want to do anything normal like watch RED DWARF or BOTTOM or play computer games or go to a football match—because they just want to read books and listen to classical music and wear Oxfam and recycle everything and lead a life as Green as Grass they think I should too). I love my brothers and sisters a bit too (though like your brother Eggs they are Right Pains—no, Excruciating Agonies, especially when they come barging into my bedroom and read all my private stuff and mock my new hairstyle). I am trying to turn myself into a dead cool guy so you will look at me and decide you’ll follow me, your lord, throughout the world. I haven’t suddenly gone nuts—well, nuttier than I am already—it’s something Juliet says. Are you doing ROMEO AND JULIET too? It’s quite good, though it’s murder doing it at my school because we’re all boys so some poor sap has to be Juliet when we read aloud. I was the original poor sap, actually, and everyone fell about and I could see this was NOT going to improve