Boys Beware by Jean Ure Page B

as soon as she comes in we are going to tell her. She has a date!
    MATCHMAKERS UNITED!!!
    Week 7, Saturday
    Well.
So much for trying to help people. Talk about ingratitude! Ali rolled up at six o’clock and we immediately told her about the invitation – the very
kind and thoughtful
invitation, considering she isn’t even one of us – and she said, “Oh, but I can’t, I’m doing things.”
    Quite frankly, we were staggered. When does Ali ever do things? I mean,
real
things. Going-out-in-a-group-and-having-fun-type things. She doesn’t! Not ever.
    Tash said, “When you say
things—”
    Ali said, “I’ve got stuff arranged.”
    I said, “What
stuff?”
    “Stuff,” said Ali.
    She is always so vague! She is for ever drifting in and out and not saying where she has been or who she has been there with. It’s useless to ask her as she will never tell you. I guess she’s going round to see Louise; she is the only friend we’ve ever heard her talk about. Goodness only knows what they get up to! Me and Tash grew quite impatient. Tash said, “If it’s Louise, you see her all the time. Surely just for once you could do something different?”
    I told her that Avril had invited her specially. “Zoella’s cousin is coming. He’s a real egghead!” (Dad’s way of saying boffin.) “He’s desperate to meet you.” Tash added that they would find “so much to talkabout.” But Ali just dug in her heels and said again that she had “stuff arranged”. She is a truly maddening person! She is just
so
stubborn.
    We spent half the evening lecturing her. We said, “It’s for your own good.” We came straight out with it, we told her: “You’ll never get a boyfriend if you carry on like this!” We told her that she didn’t know how to speak to boys, or how to behave with boys. We told her how she didn’t take enough care about the way she dressed or the way she looked. We said, “You have to make an effort. These things don’t happen all on their own.” We may have seemed a bit brutal, but sometimes I do believe you have to be cruel to be kind. She cannot go on the way she is!!!

    She sat in silence as we talked, but I honestly don’t know how much she took in. You can never tell with Ali whether she is actually listening to you or whether she is wandering off some place else. In her mind, I mean. At the end, when we’d exhausted ourselves and couldn’t think of a single other thing to say, she still just went on sitting there. I said, “Ali, we’re not getting at you! It’s just that we worry.”
    She said, “Yes, I know. I must go and do my homework now.” And disappeared into her broom cupboard!
    Tash and I are agreed: that is the
very last time
we bother. There are some people who just refuse to be helped, and Ali is obviously one of them.
    I am now going to get ready, as we are leaving in half an hour. I don’t know what Ali is up to, and I really don’t care. I just feel sorry for poor William. He is going to be so disappointed!
    Saturday. Evening.
    Well, talk about a let down! Talk about birthday
bash.
It wasn’t a bash at all! Avril’s mum and dad were there.
And
her granny.
And
one of her aunties. Tash said it was more like an old folks’ convention! And not a single solitary boy except for Avril’s brother, who is too nerdy to count, and Zoella’s cousin William. Who is also nerdy. But the hugest of boffins!

    I tried talking to him, just out of politeness, really, and also because nobody else was bothering, plus I felt kind of responsible, what with Ali not turning up, so I made this big effort and after about five minutes I felt like my brain was glazing over. I just don’t know
how
we got on to quadratic equations. It’s hardly what you would call a normal subject for conversation, though Ali might have found it so. I daresay she would enjoy talking about quadratic equations. She would find it stimulating. I’m sure people that are into them just love to exchange quadratic