Posh and Prejudice by Grace Dent

to force-feed Wes a boiled tongue sandwich that I know she got on quick sale down at ShopRite and
     Cava-Sue sticking her beak in about factory farming. Basically, there’s a lot of noise AS BLOODY USUAL.
    So I go downstairs and say, “Wesley, what you doing here? I’m studying tonight!”
    And he says, “Yeah, you said you’d study for a bit!”
    And I say “Nah… I said I was studying all night, I’m doing homework! Homework is IMPORTANT!” And Wesley sort of rolled his
     eyes and everyone sighed like I was being proper tight, so I storm into the kitchen and Wesley follows and tries to give me
     a cuddle and I shook him off and said, “You want me to fail my A-Levels, don’t you!” which WAS proper tight, I admit.
    So Wesley says, “Course I don’t! I was just passing so I popped in!”
    So I says, “Well, DON’T JUST POP IN when I got work to do!” And Wesley looked proper hurt then and he picks up his car keys
     and storms out of the door and drives off well fast.
    “Oh, well done, Shiraz!” my mother shouted, “Go on! Scare him off! You’ll not get another one like him! You’ll end up like
     your Auntie Annie, you will! She was always scaring men off! Wanting her own way! Where’s she now? Living on her own in Hastings
     with three cats and a grumbling ovary!”
    I stormed through the living room and up the stairs then got under the cover and pulled it over my head and fumed.
    I ain’t apologizing. Us Wood women NEVER do.

SATURDAY 8TH NOVEMBER
    Me and my Wesley are still not speaking. I know we will soon ’cos it don’t feel like we’ve split up or nothing. We’re just
     having a break on account of him doing my head right in big time.
    I was just reading Cava-Sue’s
Marie Claire
magazine on the loo and it said, “All relationships need space to breathe sometimes” which I reckon is totally right. I need
     space all right, lots of it, this house is doing my nut in.
    So I come home from Mr. Yolk tonight and I’m just halfway up the path when the front door swings open and my Aunty Glo trots
     out going, “Ooh, Shiraz, you’re in for a treat tonight! I brought round my karaoke machine and my new
Singalonga-Motown Classics
CD! Do you want stuff from the liquor store? Breezer or nothing?”
    “No, you’re all right,” I said, gritting my teeth and walking into the living room where my mother was tuning up her vocal
     chords to “Love Really Hurts Without You” and my dad was in his chair eating chicken curry and fries out of the carton ’cos
     he often gets himself a takeaway on the way home from Goodmayes Social on Saturday afternoon and he’d dribbled curry sauce
     down his T-shirt and he looked like a bloody homeless. “Ooh all right lovey!” shouted my mother into the microphone, “Look
     what your Aunty Glo has brought us round!”
    “Brilliant,” I said.
    Aunty Glo ain’t my real aunty by the way. She’s just my mum’s mate who used to work with her when Mum was a cleaner years
     ago. I was describing Glo to Joshua Fallow the other day and he said he’s got randoms like that in his family too. Like this
     one bloke he calls Uncle Zac who works at the
Guardian
newspaper who ain’t his uncle at all, he’s just someone his dad was on crew with at the university.
    I shut up after that. I didn’t want Josh to ask how my mum met Aunty Glo.
    So anyway, I’m standing there watching my mother murdering “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and thinking, “SO MUCH FOR BLOODY
     STUDYING TONIGHT,” when suddenly my phone vibrates in my pocket.
    It was a text. A text from Uma Brunton-Fletcher.
    U dn the Shkspr essay yet? Uma said.
    I looked at it for a bit. Then typed back.
    Not yt. 2nite. May B.
    My phone bleeped again.
    Wn 2 come and study at mine? it said.
    Do I want to study with Uma Brunton-Fletcher?
    I looked at my mother’s big mouth flapping open and shut.
    OK—B rnd in 30 minuts. I typed.
    Walking down to Uma’s carrying the
Complete Works of Shakespeare
under my