Read Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles for Free Online

I don’t know. The card read, ‘All my love from the satisfied purchaser of Neutrogena T/Gel Anti-Dandruff Shampoo.’
    Confessions Nos. 3, 4, 5: Appropriation of Another’s Property, Inconsideration Towards Fellow Human Beings, Total Lack of Compassion, or Just General Wickedness
    Which brings me to last night, Uncle Bert and the Electric B’Stards.
    Julie, who seems to be having more fun with this than I could have thought imaginable – really, she’s wasted at school, I’ve told her that – said I had only one job when she and Uncle Bert came to pick me up, and that was not to come down after I heard the doorbell. I was to wait upstairs, pretending to get ready, for thirty minutes . She needed the time, she said, a) to give Mother and Bert a chance to get to know each other, and b) to plant her props. Her plan was to steal his phone and hide it somewhere in our house. I was to ‘find’ it the next day and then he’d have to come by to collect it.
    Naturally I didn’t need the extra time to get ready. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. There are all these bulges these days that don’t seem to meld together like they should. I know I should have a proper bra – not just a support-vest – but I don’t like drawing attention to my boobs. I’d rather they were hidden away. They’re nowhere near as big as Julie’s anyway. And I already knew what I was going to wear: what I was wearing already (which happened to be the knee-length tweed skirt and purple polyester top I’d worn to school).
    So when Julie, Uncle Bert and Sue, his girlfriend, were drawing up outside our house, I was just sitting in the bathroom, waiting. I missed the next bit, but Julie told me about it later.
    Apparently Bert didn’t switch the engine off, just told Julie to run in and get me. He’s ‘in merchandising’, you see, and needed to get back to the venue ‘sharpish’. Julie, thinking fast, put on a little girl’s voice: ‘Oh, but it’s so dark.’ Uncle Bert, impatient to get the show on the road (literally), switched off the ignition, got out and came to the door with her – leaving Sue in the car. (God, Julie was pleased with herself when she told me this.)
    All I heard was Mother calling, ‘Constance! Time, time, time!’
    ‘Just doing my hair,’ I yelled back. ‘Give me five minutes. Sorry’
    Downstairs, Uncle Bert huffed a bit, but Mother told them to come in and they stood in the kitchen while she cleared the dishes. She’d taken her eyes out because they were hurting and I knew she was wearing her big black-rimmed glasses. By now she had also stepped out of her heels and was tiptoeing around the kitchen in her tights. Julie said this wasn’t a problem, that it made her seem even more petite (in a completely unrelated aside, can I point out how uncomfortable it is being so much bigger than one’s mother?), which was lucky because Uncle Bert is quite small himself.
    Unfortunately Mother’s charm was not in full flow. For one thing, she kept coming to the bottom of the stairs and calling up. Julie said Uncle Bert looked at his watch and jigged about, but some sort of conversation struggled through. Mother said it was very kind of him to take me – ‘if Constance ever, ever, ever appears!’ – and he said it was a pleasure, that it was nice to let others enjoy the perks of his job. Silence. He studied the photograph of Euston Road in the rain which we have on the wall. He said, ‘Is it New York?’ and Mother said, ‘No, it’s ’uston Road.’ He said, ‘Houston? In Texas?’ And she said, ‘No, ’uston Road in ’uston, London.’ Unlucky this: she gets annoyed when people pick up on her accent. (She thinks she doesn’t have one.)
    For me, upstairs, waiting the first ten minutes wasn’t too bad. Then I began to worry. It’s my worst sort of thing, not doing what’s expected of you. I paced for a bit, and then I sat on the stool, listening to the leaking bath tap drip, drip, drip . Each time