Ask Amy Green: Boy Trouble

  Hi,

  Welcome to my very first Amy Green book.

  Thank you so much for picking it up. I’d like to tell you a little about myself before you start reading. Or, if you like, jump right in and read this later.

  I live in Dun Laoghaire, which is a difficult to pronounce (you say “Dun Leery”) but very lovely place on the coast near Dublin, Ireland.

  I have three children: Sam, 14, Amy, 5 (Amy Green is named after her) and Jago, 2. They provide lots of inspiration, especially my son and his friends. Oops, sorry, Sam says I’m embarrassing him again.

  This book was also inspired by the girls in sixth class in Glenageary/Killiney National School. And one of them, Kate Gordon, became my special editorial adviser – thanks, Kate!

  But you know, this book is really co-written by the thirteen-year-old me. I’ve kept diaries for years and when I read them now I remember exactly what it feels like to be a teenager – sometimes shy and uncertain, sometimes on top of the world. You can read some extracts from those diaries on my brand-new website: www.askamygreen.com

  In fact, many of the things that happen to Amy in the book have happened to real people, me included. Like when Amy meets the utterly swoonsville Seth on the beach and they… Well, you’ll just have to read on and find out!

  Best,

  Sarah XXX

  Chapter 1

  “Boys!” Clover taps a pink gel pen against her top teeth, making a hollow rattling noise. “They never change. What idiots!”

  She swivels round in her office chair and presses a button on her computer. The printer whirrs into action. She hands me two A4 sheets. “Read this and weep, Amy.”

  To: agonyaunt@gossmagazine.com

  Tuesday

  Dear Clover,

  Please help! It’s boy trouble. (What else?) I hooked up with this mega cute guy two weeks ago at a Sinister Teen Frite Nite. The year ahead of me in school. But I have no idea where I stand.

  We’ve been to the cinema a couple of times and he texts me a lot. But I’m confused, one minute he’s all over me, the next he’s completely ignoring me. What should I do? Play it cool or play along? I’m seeing him tonight, please advise.

  Anxious in Artane,

  (otherwise know as Wendy,14)

  To: agonyaunt@gossmagazine.com

  Wednesday

  Dear Clover,

  I wrote to you yesterday about a boy. Well, today I found out he’s been spreading nasty rumours about me in school. Saying I kiss like a washing machine! I think it’s because I told him to go easy on Saturday night. I wanted to watch at least some of the film.

  I’m so embarrassed. All the boys in my class are calling me Wendy Whirlpool and the D4 girls are all sniggering at me in the corridors and spinning their fingers round in a circle.

  I don’t know what to do. It’s a nightmare. I haven’t been able to eat all day. My friends are telling me to pay no attention, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like everyone’s staring at me.

  I’m going to pull a sickie tomorrow and Friday, but I’ll have to go back to school on Monday.

  Please help me, I’m in bits.

  Morto,

  Wendy

  My eyes widen as I read Wendy’s emails. I cringe inwardly. I understand exactly how she feels – sick to the stomach with worry. Feeling dozens of pairs of eyes boring into her. Paranoid, unsettled, deeply unhappy.

  “What do you think?” Clover says.

  “I feel sorry for the poor girl. I’d hate to be in her shoes.”

  “Any advice for her?”

  I shrug. “To ignore everyone I suppose, like her friends say. If it’s anything like our school, it’ll all blow over in a few weeks. I’d tell her to put her head down and pretend she’s invisible.”

  Clover blows a raspberry. “Wrong answer!” She makes the uh-uh noise from Family Fortunes.

  I stare at her. “If you’re so clever, what’s the right answer then?”

  “Duh! Fight back. Don’t let the sap get away with it.”

  That does sound far more interesting. But it’s hardly practical. “How? Wendy doesn’t sound all that confident.” I squirm a little. This is all getting too close for comfort.

  Clover tilts her head. “Wendy?”

  “The girl in the letter.” I stab the printout with my finger.

  “Right, Wendy. Let me think.” After a moment, her eyes light up. “Hang on. Maybe she doesn’t have to be confident. Maybe someone else can be confident for her.”

  Clover smiles at me, her eyes sparkling. She’s up to something. Goose pimples run up and down my spine.

  “Oh no, Clover. Don’t look at me. I’m so not getting involved. Just answer the letter. Tell her to ignore them.”

  But Clover just smiles knowingly. “Amy, I’ve made a decision, we’re not going to be that kind of agony aunt.”

  “We?” I stare at her.

  “Yes, we, Beanie. You’re going to help me.”

  “Really? Do I have a say in this?”

  “Let me see.” She taps her teeth with the pen again. “Ho-hum.” She pretends to be thinking deeply. “No! And we’re going to get, very, very involved. It’ll be oodles more fun, don’t you think? And I’ll get the agony page and maybe even an article out of it, or my name’s not Clover Wildgust. I can see it now.” She puts her hands in the air. “Ta-da! ‘Teenage Boys Dissing You? How to Get Your Own Back by Clover Wildgust.’ No. Clover M. Wildgust. I do like middle initials, don’t you? They add a bit of gravitas. Clover M. Wildgust. My very first byline. It’ll be the start of a beautiful career.” Her eyes go all starry.

  I put my head in my hands. Mum’s right, Clover is delusional.

  “Right, Beanie,” she continues, “this Wendy business calls for drastic action. We need a killer plan.”

  I’m worried now. When Clover takes drastic action it’s usually just that – drastic. Like when she got bored one day and dyed her hair petrol blue or when she drove through Dublin city in her Mini Cooper with the top down in the middle of February for a dare. She was wearing a bikini at the time and got her picture in two national newspapers. Gramps wasn’t amused.

  Clover stares at the noticeboard in front of her desk. I follow her gaze. It’s chocka with all kinds of invitations: to book launches, beauty evenings, fashion shows and parties. My eyes flit past them and rest on the luminous green invitation. You can’t miss it – in gothic writing, it screams:

  Dance the Night Away at

  Sinister Teen Frite Nite

  Sinister FM’s Teen Frite Nites are famous. They’re on every Friday in Monkstown Rugby Club and they’re strictly under sixteen and no alcohol. Anyone who’s anyone goes to them. My friends Mills and Sophie are always trying to drag me along. I’ve been a couple of times, but it’s always so packed and I hate dancing in front of people. I get all self-conscious. Then my stomach knots up and I feel sick and want to go home. Besides, it’s always jammers with D4s and Crombies; it’s like their weekly cattle market for new boyfriends and girlfriends.

  D4s are girls who live or would like to live in Dublin 4, a posh area of Dublin. They wear Ugg boots, skinny jeans or minis, and are addicted to fake tan and hair straighteners.

  Crombies are their male equivalents. They play rugby, wear Abercrombie & Fitch and other designer gear, and say “ledge” (short for “legend”) a lot. In Ireland, they are the closest thing we have to Neanderthal man and D4s find them wildly attractive. Figures!

  “Grab that green invitation for me,” Clover says.

  I pass it to her and she turns it over. “Hey, Beanie, would I pass for a fourteen-year-old?”

  I look at her carefully. What’s she up to?

  “Well?” she asks again.

&
nbsp; I bite my inner lip, considering. Clover is on the small side, with the kind of straight, white-blonde hair you usually find on a Bratz doll. It’s so long she can almost sit on it and when it’s windy, it sticks to her lip gloss. Clover’s hair is real but the colour’s most certainly not. Gramps says it’ll fall out if she keeps bleaching it, but she just ignores him.

  Today she’s wearing a mouse grey Juicy tracksuit teamed with a white sequined vest. Her flip-flopped feet are resting on the large wooden desk, her petal-like toenails a warm peachy colour. She looks a little too knowing for a fourteen-year-old, too comfortable in her skin. Plus she refuses to wear Ugg boots, says they give her sweaty feet.

  I shrug. “Maybe. On a dark night.”

  “It’ll be dark all right.” She smiles and her china-blue eyes twinkle dangerously. “I have a plan. We’re not going to let boys behave like ERs any more. We’re going to take revenge. For Wendy.” She waves her arms around excitedly. “For teenage girls everywhere. But I’m gonna need you, and your sweaty Yeti boots.”

  Chapter 2

  Before we go any further, let me explain how I got sucked into the whole agony aunt business in the first place.

  Clover recently landed a job on teen magazine The Goss during her gap year between school and college. It’s kind of like Mizz or CosmoGirl but with more articles and less celebrity pics. Not many Irish celebs actually live in Ireland, they mostly hang out in Hollywood, like swoon-boy Colin Farrell and the utterly gorge Cork lad with the big lips, Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

  The mag’s paying her and everything. She wants to be a journalist, so it’s great experience. Gramps set it up; he knows the editor’s dad. The agony aunt had just gone on maternity leave, so Clover asked could she give it a go. To her surprise they said yes. Clover reckons they were a bit desperate.

  I overheard Mum talking to Dave, her boyfriend (I refuse to call him my stepdad – it’s too Cinderella. Besides, they’re not married or anything, but more about that later). “Clover is so jammy,” she said. “Things always seem to land in her lap.” It must seem that way to Mum, but Clover works really hard when she wants to. Which, in fairness, isn’t all that often.

  You should also know:

  1. Clover has always been spoilt, according to Mum. Mum and Clover are sisters and they have a bit of a love/hate relationship. I guess it’s because of the age difference – twenty years!

  2. Clover’s seventeen going on thirteen (my age), which is probably why we get on so well. Technically she’s my aunt, but we’re more like sisters.

  3. Clover is very popular with boys and always has some poor guy or other on the go. At the moment it’s Ryan, who’s studying Arts at Trinity, an ancient college in Dublin with cobblestones and big metal sculptures, worth millions, sitting outside on the grass.

  4. Clover lives at home with her dad, my Grampa, or “Gramps” as we both call him. I couldn’t say Grampa when I was little, only “Cramps” and then “Gramps”. Clover used to call him “Gramps” in a baby voice to annoy him, but it just stuck.

  5. Clover’s currently on what she has decided will be the first of many gap years from studying or working full-time. She has it sussed!

  She has a place to study Arts at Trinity College (like Ryan) but deferred for a year. The Leaving Certificate almost put her off academia for life, she says. She did surprisingly well in her final exams for someone whose idea of studying is cramming the night before.

  Clover also says she intends to live at home for years and years so she can spend all her money on the important things in life, like clothes, shoes and going out. Clover is no fool, according to Mum. But Gramps has just retired and he likes having Clover around the place – he says she livens things up. Clover says she keeps him young; Mum says she’s delusional and that her shenanigans will send him to an early grave.

  6. Clover doesn’t mince her words. Mum says she’s borderline rude; Clover says she’s just honest. If you ask me, the truth lies somewhere in between.

  7. Oh, and she’s mad about elephants.

  After school on Wednesday, Clover rang me in a complete flap.

  “I’ve been reading some of the ‘Dear Clover’ letters,” she said. “You think you lot have problems, try paying for petrol. I haven’t bought shoes in weeks. One or two of them are worth answering, but most of them, ooh la la!” – she made a yawning noise – “boring. Someone asked me the answer to a percentages problem, as if I’d know. Ha!” She snorted.

  “Hi, Amy, how are you?” I said sarcastically, after she’d finished ranting on about the dull and pointless letters for a few more minutes. And to be fair to Clover, some of them were total yawnsville. “How’s school? Any news? Sorry I haven’t rung in an age, can I take you shopping to make up for it?”

  She gave a deep sigh. “Don’t you start, Beanie. Your mother’s bad enough. Listen, I need your help.”

  “Oh?” This wasn’t exactly a new one on me. Usually it means lending her some of my hard-earned babysitting money. Clover is permanently broke even though she is the one working, now on the magazine, previously in Tesco on the till. (She used to put on funny accents to amuse herself – American, German and Polish. She is brilliant at accents.) She is a complete shopaholic and spends every cent she earns with the speed of Usain Bolt. Luckily that includes spending money on li’l ole me!

  “You’re a first-year, right?” she asked.

  “Last time I looked.”

  “So you know how their petty little minds work.”

  “Petty? Hey!”

  “I should have said insignificant.”

  “Do you want my help or not?”

  “Look, I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve found someone with a proper problem to fix. It’s such a sad email; her ex-boyfriend’s behaving like a complete pig, surprise, surprise. I feel really sorry for her. But I have no idea what to tell her. Help me, Beanie. Please? It’s my first agony aunt page and I really want to impress Saffy.” Saffy is her editor. She sounds a bit scary, like a head teacher.

  “What’s your deadline?” I knew all the jargon from listening to Clover over the last few weeks. The deadline is basically the day you have to hand your article or “piece” in to the editor. When you’ve emailed it, you’ve “filed copy”. The “byline” is just your name at the top of the piece, by Amy Green in my case.

  “Yesterday,” she said. Clover always leaves everything till the last minute. Two years ago, she went on holiday with me and Mum to Rome and we came very close to missing the flight because of her. When we arrived to collect her in the taxi, she couldn’t find her passport. Mum was not amused. She refused to speak to Clover in the cab, giving her dark looks and glancing at her watch, while tut-tutting every few minutes and muttering about being late for your own funeral. I was stuck between them like a slice of ham in a sandwich, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  In the end we had to sprint to the gate. We were the last on the plane by miles and all the other passengers gave us filthy looks as we walked down the aisle with glowing faces, puffing and panting. We delayed the flight by twenty minutes and they weren’t happy. They only held it at all because Clover flirted outrageously with one of the security guards at the X-ray station. She told him she was a swimsuit model and had a photo shoot in Rome that very afternoon and could he be an absolute pet and help her or she’d miss the flight. He phoned the gate and begged them to keep it open for a few more minutes. Clover deserved an Oscar for her effort. Even Mum was impressed.

  Clover gave a huge breathy sigh down the phone. “Saffy’s given me until tomorrow morning.” She made an AAAGHHH noise that sounded like the fast spin of a washing machine.

  I was amazed. It wasn’t like Clover to get so stressed.

  “Beanie,” she begged, “I really, really need your help. Are you busy? Can you come over? Like now?”

  Busy? I was pacing the kitchen, trying to soothe my three-month-old baby sister, Evie, who was strapped across my front in a rainbow tie-dyed baby sling. I
was simultaneously watching my little brother, Alex, trying to feed his wooden ABC bricks into the ancient video recorder which Mum had rescued from the cupboard under the stairs and resurrected. Alex had broken the DVD player a week ago by ripping the DVD tray out: he was more troll than toddler. Mum was on an emergency milk and nappies run, leaving me holding the fort.

  “Just keep them alive,” Mum had said as she’d flown out the door.

  No, not busy at all!

  “I’m babysitting,” I said smugly. I prodded Evie in the hope she’d give a little wail to prove I was telling the truth, but she’d finally dropped off to sleep.

  “Where’s Sylvie? Has she finally done a runner? Wouldn’t blame her with you lot.”

  “No! Of course not. She’s just coming in the door. I’ll ring you back.” Mum walked towards me, dumped her heavily laden Tesco shopping bag on the tiles and threw her keys on to the kitchen counter with a clatter.

  “Sorry, sorry.” Her cheeks were flushed pink and I didn’t think she’d washed her hair for days, let alone brushed it. There was a white milky stain on the shoulder of her sky blue fleece and she looked wrecked. She held out her arms to take Evie off me. While she supported Evie’s weight, I untangled myself from the sling – David Blaine, eat your heart out.

  When I was finally free I said, “Mum, Clover just rang. She said she’ll help me with my maths homework if I call over.”

  “Did she really?” Mum squinted at me a little sus-piciously. It was a first. Clover didn’t believe in homework, she said it was a complete waste of time and energy.