Girl, 15: Flirting for England by Sue Limb

Author:Sue Limb
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

‘Right . . .’ said Jess. Suddenly her mind had gone blank.

‘Say somesing phoney, Jezz,’ said Gerard in a soft, low, purring voice. ‘You are h’amusing.’

Jess blushed. Gerard’s divine eyes were kind of melting her soul, to put it mildly. How could she think of anything phoney to say at a time like this?

She rolled over on to her tummy and picked up a bottle, then crawled to the water’s edge.

‘We can stick them in the mud so they don’t get carried off downstream,’ she said. As witty remarks go, it wasn’t prize-winning, but it was at least words in a row which made sense. Considering how fast Jess’s heart was beating, this was quite an achievement.

Gerard wriggled up beside her and they placed all the bottles in the stream. The silence was kind of ominous. They were lying so close together, their arms were almost touching. Their hands were in the water. Gerard scooped up a handful of mud.

‘How you say?’ he asked.

‘Mud,’ said Jess. Then she realised it sounded like the one word of French everybody knows: merde. Meaning, of course, poo. ‘Mud,’ she repeated. ‘Not merde.’

Gerard laughed. ‘You are phoney!’ he said.

‘Er – funny, not phoney,’ said Jess. ‘Fuh-nee.’

‘You are fuh-nee!’ repeated Gerard, grinning sideways at her.

‘What’s the French for mud?’ asked Jess. Not that she cared. It was just that every time Gerard looked at her, a kind of firework show went off inside her, and normal conversation was impossible, so she might as well learn a bit of French.

‘Ze mud – la boue,’ said Gerard.

‘What? Boo?’ asked Jess. What a weird language French was. So if you hid behind a door, then jumped out and said ‘Boo!’ in French, you’d be saying ‘Mud!’

‘Oui, la boue,’ said Gerard, staring deeply into her eyes. ‘I ham your French teacher.’

‘You sure are, sweetie!’ cried Jess, unable to contain a surge of delight. She scooped up a handful of mud. ‘And boue to you!’ she added playfully, and slapped the mud all over his hand. She was flirting for England, and in line for the gold medal.

‘And boue to you, too!’ said Gerard, laughing, and he scooped and slopped a handful right back on to her hands. Wow! Jess could suddenly understand the charm of mud-wrestling. Just as long as she could do it with Gerard.

Suddenly Gerard grabbed her hand under water. He pretended he was washing the mud off. A few crazy rockets went off in Jess’s chest. Gerard started playing with her fingers, and then basically squeezed her hand, hard, and wouldn’t let her go. He peeped sideways at her with a smouldering grin. Jess felt delightfully sick. And amazed. Could this really be happening? Could a guy she fancied actually be holding her hand? But there was a snake in this paradise.

‘What about Jodie?’ whispered Jess. Jodie was miles away at the top of the field, but still Jess could almost feel her watching.

Gerard shrugged – even though he was lying down. An English guy would never be able to do something like that.

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