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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
VISIONARY HONOURS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 Celebrate the fifth anniversary of Proud in this dazzling new edition of the anthology, featuring a brand-new story and artwork. A stirring, bold and moving anthology of stories and poetry by top LGBTQ+ YA authors and new talent, giving their unique responses to the broad theme of pride. Each story has an illustration by an artist identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Compiled by Juno Dawson, author of THIS BOOK IS GAY and CLEAN. A celebration of LGBTQ+ talent, Proud is a thought-provoking, funny, emotional read. Contributors: Steve Antony, Dean Atta, Kip Alizadeh, Fox Benwell, Alex Bertie, Caroline Bird, Kathi Burke, Tanya Byrne, Moïra Fowley, Frank Duffy, Simon James Green, Leo Greenfield, Saffa Khan, Karen Lawler, David Levithan, Priyanka Meenakshi, Alice Oseman, Michael Lee Richardson, David Roberts, Cynthia So, Kay Staples, Jessica Vallance, K Valentin and Kameron White.
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12
Reviews
‘A rainbow box of delights. There’s something for everyone – humour, romance and activism. Dawson’s introduction, recalling Section 28, is particularly poignant.’
Guardian
‘This is a must-read collection.’
The Scotsman
‘A brilliantly curated rainbow of stories by new and established writers, made even more sparkling by the addition of wonderful illustrations. Fantastic!’
Alex T. Smith, creator of Claude and illustrator of Grave Matter
‘I loved every page of this wonderful and much-needed collection. Funny, sad, charming and more than a little bit magical.’
Keris Stainton, author of My Heart Goes Bang
‘The incredible stories inside of Proud made me laugh, cry and feel proud to be who I am.’
Julian Winters, author of Running With Lions
‘A joyous, brilliantly curated collection of short stories highlighting the full range and breadth of LGBTQ+ diversity.’
Lauren James, author of The Next Together
‘Be still my rainbow-striped, queer-as-all-heck beating heart! From the adorable to the achingly beautiful, from the funny to the fabulous, what we have in Proud is a collection of stories that speaks to so many different experiences. I cannot wait for the world to read this, it’s truly astounding.’4
George Lester, author of Boy Queen
‘Hilarious, heart-soaring and unapologetically queer, Proud is everything I needed as a teen – and still need today.’
Rowan Ellis, author of Here and Queer
‘Proud brings together a beautiful variety of queer voices, telling stories of love and pain, struggles and triumphs. It’s like a multi-faceted gemstone, each angle reflecting a new, different story about queer adolescence – and together as a collection, it shines.’
L. C. Rosen, author of Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts)
‘A wonderful celebration of many different LGBTQ+ identities, these beautifully illustrated short stories by both established and new authors are defiant, heartbreaking, heartwarming and funny by turns. This fantastic anthology is something to be proud of!’
Robin Stevens, author of Murder Most Unladylike
‘A brilliant, broad and inclusive collection of stories and poems spanning different genres, themes and identities. It’s a wonderful snapshot of LGBTQ+ writing for young people and is in turns funny, touching, stirring and empowering.’
Sophie Cameron, author of Out of the Blue
‘Proud is a wonderfully diverse collection of stories that explores the shared experience of being LGBTQ+ while understanding that no two of us are the same. By empowering the voices of the many talented LGBTQ+ contributors, Proud truly speaks to a younger generation in a way that so few have managed to do before.’
Calum McSwiggan, author of Straight Expectations
‘A beautiful, sometimes deeply touching collection of tales, confessions and council. Five stars.’
Rebecca Denton, author of The PunkFactor
CONTENTS
A NOTE ON THE STORIES
The stories in this anthology deal with the struggles faced by the LGBTQ+ community. Here, we have included a list of resources to help you if you are affected by any of the issues raised in this book or would like to find out more.
FOREWORD
When I was a little girl, I didn’t know I was a little girl.
Or rather, as soon as I knew there was any sort of a difference between boys and girls I knew, without hesitation, that I would definitely prefer to be a girl. What I wasn’t aware of was that parents who are told they got a baby boy, might actually have a baby girl. I didn’t know that a whole bunch of these babies grow up and decide to do something about the gender they were assigned at birth. I certainly didn’t know the term ‘transgender’.
My ignorance existed for several reasons. The first, I guess, was the education of my parents. They, like the vast majority of parents at the time, had never heard of transgender people. Although I continually asked my parents when I was going to metamorphose into a girl, they didn’t know that was a ‘thing’ any more than I did. Can’t, and have never, blamed them.
The second reason is worse because it was so cruel. I was born during the political reign of a woman called Margaret Thatcher. Here we need some historical context. Against the backdrop of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which was inaccurately attributed to gay and bisexual men, public 8attitudes towards LGBTQ people was at an all time low in Britain, with the British Social Attitudes Survey reporting that 75% of the population felt homosexual was ‘always or mostly wrong’.
In the middle of this negativity came a children’s book. It was called Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin. You guessed it, it’s about a little girl who has two dads. When the Daily Mail newspaper got wind that this book was being stocked in a school library, they splashed it across the front pages, causing a moral panic which eventually led Thatcher’s Conservative government to introduce a piece of legislation called Section 28.
This clause in the Local Government Act 1988 stated that local authorities (thus including schools and libraries): ‘shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality’ or ‘promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. Wow. Yeah, that was a thing that happened.
The ‘acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’? Ruddy hell.
This of course meant that teachers and librarians were terrified that if they helped or supported young LGBTQ 9people in any way, they would be persecuted. A culture of clanging silence fell over schools, libraries and youth clubs. For twelve long years, teenagers went to school, unable to ask their teachers, counsellors, mentors and librarians questions on burgeoning feelings about themselves, their bodies, their minds, their desires.
I was one of those teenagers. Being a gender non-conforming queer youth was WELL FUN in the 90s let me tell you. I remember one time, an entire football team had scooped up handfuls of wet mud off the pitch and hurled them at me, shouting ‘DOLLY DAWSON’. My poor PE teacher, himself a gay man, could only stand at arm’s length and ask ‘who did this?’
‘All of them,’ I replied, in tears. And he couldn’t do a thing to help. There were no measures in place for homophobic, transphobic or biphobic bullying. How could there be? That might be seen to ‘promote’ homosexuality.
The government of the era made my life worse. I am still covered in scars – real and metaphorical – because of that piece of legislation. It was eventually scrapped by the Labour government in 2000.
Sorry, did that come across political? Welcome to being LGBTQ+. Your life is inherently political. Politicians, all 10the world over, are still discussing whether or not you should have the same fundamental human rights as straight or cisgender people.
The final reason I didn’t start my transition until I was twenty-eight was the media. Ooh the media is a powerful, powerful thing. I have mixed feelings about being a very small cog in that thundering, polluting social engine. As discussed, banning a book was instrumental in the introduction of Section 28. The Mail announced in 1985: ‘Britain Threatened by Gay Virus Plague’. The Sun said ‘Blood From Gay Donor Puts 41 At Risk’. Fast forward to 2017 and The Times declared ‘Children Sacrificed to Trans Lobby’. The Mail: ‘The NHS Pressured Our Kids to Change Sex’.
Almost thirty years, but the same moral panic. Gay people, trans people, bi people, queer people: the media wants people to think we are a risk. A risk to your health, a risk to your children. Utter, unrepentant, unreserved bigotry and prejudice.
But with Section 28 gone, media attitudes towards (cisgender) gay and lesbian people improved over the course of the late nineties. Will & Grace and Queer asFolkappeared on Channel 4; Ellen DeGeneres came out; 11Graham Norton got his own chatshow; Dana International won Eurovision; Doctor Who had a bi companion (Jack Harkness) and then a lesbian one (Bill Potts); Big Brother heralded the dawn of Reality TV and with it household names Brian Dowling, Anna Nolan, Rylan Clark, Will Young, Nadia Almada. Which came first? Media representation or the shift in attitudes? Chicken or egg?
YA fiction has always pushed boundaries. In Judy Blume’s Forever (1974), ‘theatrical’ Artie tries to kill himself after questioning his sexuality. Almost thirty years later in David Levithan’s BoyMeetsBoy(2003), Paul and Noah attend a high school so inclusive, their sexuality is the least of their worries. Levithan dared to dream of a world free of intolerance and hatred. Sadly, we’re still dreaming.
Our books are widely ‘challenged’ or banned. My own This Book Is Gay (2014) was removed from Alaskan libraries in 2015 after parental complaints. Luckily, the librarian fought back and the book is still in the Walsilla Library, albeit in a different section.
We fight on. We, as LGBTQ authors, know how important it is to see ourselves in stories. If we live in stories, it means we live in the real world too. We are 12claiming our space, claiming our oxygen. Since the dawn of time, we have been told in a litany of ways that we are ‘less-than’, ‘out of the ordinary’, ‘abnormal’, ‘subnormal’, or plain ‘different’. We are fucking none of those things. We are gloriously ourselves, and we show the world our glory during Pride.
That is why Pride is both party and protest. It’s noisy, it’s colourful, its glittery and it’s very, very visible. It’s a statement to the whole wide world that we are here; we celebrate our varied and diverse culture; our history; our struggles.
Bringing me to this very book. All the wonderful writers and illustrators featured are LGBTQ+. We’ve all got here are despite the barriers and struggles we’ve experienced. Oh, and I’m sure we have. I bet every last one of us has, at some point, felt like a misfit, an outsider, a prisoner in our own body. And yet here we are, spinning that straw into gold! We are proud of ourselves because I know that I often felt like I wouldn’t succeed because of my gender or sexuality, but I did.
I am SHOOK at the talent I persuaded to write for us. Pretty much everyone I asked said yes within about ten minutes. What a fucking day that was! I am a fangirl 13for every last established writer and illustrator in this collection, and I can’t tell you what a rush it was to help choose the four previously unpublished authors we’ve unearthed. They’re all going to be stars.
The only shame was that I couldn’t call upon ALL the LGBTQ YA talent I love so much. When you’ve finished this anthology and bought all our books (if you love LGBTQ authors, buy LGBTQ authors) also check out YA superstars Patrick Ness, Cat Clarke, Liz Kessler, Susie Day, Andrew MacMillan, Steven Lenton, Alex T Smith, Alex Bertie, Adam Silvera, Nina LaCour, Will Walton, Josh Martin, Robin Talley, Alex Gino and Marieke Nijkamp… and those are just the ones I can recall without googling. VERY sorry if I forgot you.
See all those names? We’re not successful because we’re gay, or trans, or bi, or queer. We’re successful because we’re good. We are all skilled and talented. The best thing we can do to influence change is what we do best. We tell stories: stories about ourselves and stories about people like us. These stories are that (potentially fictional) brick that was first thrown at the Stonewall riots, the inception of Pride marches. We are hurling our messages of love, of kindness, of hope, out into the world. Enjoy! And share14them. That’s what you can do. Tell everyone you know about this book.
Unbelievably, it’s now five years since PROUD came out. It’s so lovely that school libraries in particular are buying this book and displaying it proudly in schools. Such a thing would have been impossible in my day. I would love to say that things had gotten better since the book was first released in 2018, but I don’t think they have. If anything, they’ve gotten worse.
In both the UK and the US, politicians are using LGBTQ people to distract from their failings. Sadly, this tactic seems to be working. Books in particular are the target of far-right groups who claim that books like this one are ‘grooming’ young adults and, in essence TURNING YOU QUEER.
Clearly, this is gibberish. If books had that power, I would identify as a Very Hungry Caterpillar. Every book I was taught in school, from Romeo and Juliet to An Inspector Calls featured straight and cis characters and lo, I sit before you a transsexual. When people ‘challenge’ or ‘ban’ LGBTQ books it’s because they think there’s something fundamentally wrong with being queer. If they truly were ‘thinking of the children’, they would be rather 15more invested in supporting education around inclusion to stop young LGBTQ people facing prejudice in schools and society at large.
You deserve to see yourselves in fiction and poetry as much as anyone else does.
Whether you picked up this book because you identify as LGBTQ+, or because you’re having a think about your identity, or because you’re one of the millions of friendly allies we absolutely rely on to coexist in a very heteronormative, cisgender society, I thank you for the bottom of my heart. I really hope you enjoy these stories, poems and pictures.
I’m proud of you.
Juno Dawson Updated June 2023
17
Through a red door down a steep flight
of stairs into a windowless cellar
with sweating walls
an ingénue in a smoking jacket
sits atop a piano
as a host of swaying women
sing ‘Your Secret’s Safe with Me’
and one invites you
into the privacy of a kiss – all these
dark clandestine places – and you find
yourself imagining a very tiny
woman walking straight
into her mouth
through a red door down a steep flight
of throat into a windowless cell
with breathing walls
an ingénue in a smoke-jacket
sits astride a piano
as a host of swallowed women
sing ‘Your Secret’s in a Safe’,
the barmaid shakes a custom
cocktail she calls ‘A Private Kiss’ – all these
dark half-eaten faces – and you find
yourself imagining a tiny tiny
woman walking straight 18
into her mouth
through a red breath down a dark
thought into a swallowed sense
with shrinking walls
an innuendo in stomach acid
slops upon a piano
as a host of silent passions
mouth ‘Your Secret Is Yourself’
inside the belly of the world – all these
dark dissolving spaces – and you find
yourself imagining a windowless
woman breaking
walls down in herself, sprinting
up the shrinking
halls and up contracting
corridors and up the choking
fits of hard stares through dark
thoughts and dead
laws through the red door
as it swallows shut behind you
now you’re spat out
on the pavement with the
sun just
coming out.19
21
“Parents! My name is Zorg, Commander of the Realm of Ziatron, and I bring news of your son’s sexuality.”
I stare at my pathetic reflection in the mirror and remove the colander from my head and Mum’s shimmery pashmina from around my shoulders. This is what it’s become. This is what it’s become because I cannot think of the goddamn words! And the more I practise, the more every single option sounds wrong.
“Mum, Dad, I think I might be gay.” (What’s with the ‘think’? There is no ‘think’, you are.)
“Hey, just to let you know – I don’t fancy girls. But I do fancy –” pause for dramatic effect – “sheep! Ha! Joking. It’s boys. I fancy boys.” (Is this really the time for jokes? And I’m pretty sure this one wouldn’t sit well with Mum’s RSPCA donations.)
“Um, you know how I’ve got posters of Hamilton, Wickedand DearEvanHansenup in my bedroom? 22Well, it’s a sign. A stereotypical one, but a sign nonetheless.”
I hear their car pull up on the drive and strike a pose, pointing at my reflection in the mirror. “You’ve got this, gay chops!”
Gay chops?! And anyway, I so haven’t. ‘Got this’, I mean, I’ve no idea if my chops are gay or not, but the rest of me is, so I guess they are too.
I clatter down the stairs as my parents struggle through the front door with armfuls of plants from their visit to the garden centre. They both took a week off work at the same time, specifically so they could ‘sort the garden’ and simultaneously ruin some of my hard-earned break after finishing GCSEs by constantly asking when I’m going to get out of bed and why I need to spend so long in the shower.
“What do you think?” Mum says, holding up a stone statue of a curly haired boy with fat cheeks, holding his dick. “It’s a peeing cherub.”
I nod, slowly.
“We needed a centrepiece for the water feature,” she explains.
“Cute little fella, isn’t he?” Dad grins. “Reminds me 23of you.”
My eyes widen. I do have curly hair, but I’m not half a metre tall, and I don’t permanently have my dick in my hand. But it gives me an idea. “Speaking of … cute fellas…” I begin.
“Cam, there’s a tray of begonias in the boot – grab ’em will you?” Dad says.
“Huh, sure,” I say, heading out as Mum and Dad take their bits through to the back. My heart sinks as I see our Ford Mondeo is jam-packed with what must be most of the garden centre. We’re gonna be here all day and it’s so hot my shorts are already sticking to my legs. The only way this’ll be made better is if one of the items somehow leads to a conversation about me being gay, but I can’t see how. “Mum – here’s the weedkiller, and also, I’m gay.” It just doesn’t work. I grab what is possibly the tray of begonias and walk back through to the kitchen.
“You could have brought something else in with you,” Mum complains.
“Dad just said the begonias.”
“Well, they’re not even begonias. They’re geraniums.”
I put them down on the worktop. “Mum, the thing 24is—”
She puts up her hand. “There’s no thing about it, Cameron. Use your initiative. You’re a big strong lad, you can carry more than just one tray of bedding plants.”
I blow my cheeks out. Big and strong are not words you would use to describe me. “OK, Mum, can we talk?”
There. I’ve said it. I’ve asked if we can ‘talk’. Now she’ll know I’ve got something BIG to say.
“Fancy helping me plant out the sweet peas?” Dad says, appearing at the back door.
“Apparently he wants to talk,” Mum tells him.
“Oooooh.” Dad grins. “Do we need to sit down, Cam?”
I sigh. “If you want to.”
They both sit down at the table. “OK,” I say. My mouth is suddenly really dry, but I tell myself to chill out. It’s no big deal. It’s just me and who I like. And I’m ninety-nine per cent sure they’ll both be cool with this, because they were fine when my sister told them she was vegan, and that’s a much bigger thing, especially when your dad is a manager at a turkey nuggets factory. “So, you know how I’ve got posters 25of Hamilton, Wicked and Dear Evan Hansen up in my bedroom? Well, it’s a sign—”
“Olá, Cameroooooon!” It’s Luis, eyes beaming, arms outstretched, having walked in through the open front door. His dad’s Brazilian, so he likes to drop a bit of Portuguese into conversation, although he basically only knows two words.
He also sometimes calls me ‘Cameroooooon‘, in the style of a howling wolf. I don’t know why.
And he’s also an hour early. Him and my other best mate, Molly, were meant to be coming round just before two so we could all go over to the Year Eleven Leavers’ Prom committee meeting together.
He gives me a big hug. “All right?” Luis says, seeing my parents, as he rocks me from side to side, wafts of Lynx Africa billowing up from under his T-shirt.
Behind him, Molly stumbles through from the hall, a mound of soil in her cupped hands. “There was a pot on the floor by the door and I knocked it over,” she explains.
I let her tip the soil into my hands, because I’ve been thrown off guard now. I was all geared up for my BIG ANNOUNCEMENT, and now my best mates are here 26and I wasn’t planning on having an audience.
“You are never going to guess what!” Luis says.
“What?” I mutter.
“Everyone guess!” he insists.
I’m half tempted to say ‘I’m gay’ and get it over and done with that way, but I’m standing there holding a mound of soil and if I say that, everyone will probably want to hug me and that’s just gonna result in a lot of mud everywhere.
It doesn’t matter because Luis is too excited to be looking for an answer anyway. “The penguins at the zoo…” he says.
I roll my eyes. The zoo is basically the sole attraction in our shitty town, and even that’s crap. Last year they made a big deal about the new penguin enclosure, making it sound like the most amazing thing, but it’s actually just a big pond, a pretend igloo and a replica polar bear – even though polar bears and penguins live literally poles apart and neither of them live in igloos.
“…are GAY!” he squeals.
I stare at him. “What?”
“They’re gay, Cam! Two of the penguins have started a gay relationship!” 27
I turn to Molly, open-mouthed.
“It’s mad down there,” she says. “Loads of people have turned up – even a TV crew.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet!” Mum says. “What are their names?”
“What does that matter?!” I say.
“Kippie and Jingles,” Luis tells my mum.
“Aww!” she says again.
Dad nods sagely. “You hear of this quite a bit these days – penguins at zoos starting gay relationships.”
“Do you?” I say, because this is literally news to me.
“We gotta get down there, Cam!” Luis looks like he’s gonna explode if we don’t. “There’s a full-on media storm. We might get interviewed!”
I chew my lip a bit. “Cool.”
“Go on, Cameron,” Mum says. “Go and enjoy yourself.”
I manage a weak smile. I’m not sure how looking at some gay penguins constitutes ‘enjoying yourself’ but hey ho.
“Oh, but what were you going to tell us?” she continues. “About the West End musical posters? It’s a sign, you said?” 28
I nod at her. No way am I going to tell them now. Not now the frigging penguins have got in there first. This was my thing. Now it’s theirs. And it’d be weird. The penguins are gay. I’m gay. It’s too much gay. “Uh-huh. It’s a sign … a sign … that I may want to consider a post-eighteen musical theatre course, I dunno. Maybe.”
Dad frowns. “You were talking about Law yesterday.”
“Yeah.” I tip the soil into his hands instead. “It was just a thought. I guess I’m at that age.”
I hurry out of the front door with Luis and Molly in tow, furious that my chance has been ruined.
Wanker penguins.
*
I’ve never seen the zoo so busy. There was an actual queue of people at the ticket desk, and the crowd around the penguin enclosure is at least five deep. Everyone’s got their phones out, filming the ten penguins that are waddling around inside.
“Which ones are the gay ones?” Luis asks me.
“How should I know?”
Luis tuts. “Why are you being moody? You should be happy for them!” 29
“Why?”
“Love, innit?” He smiles. “It’s sweet.”
“It is quite sweet, Cam,” Molly adds. “I think it’s great that they’ve felt able to come out.”
“Uh-huh?” I nod. “You think the penguins have felt empowered by society’s acceptance of the LGBTQ plus community?”
“Hush up,” Luis tells me. “There’s Femi!”
He cocks his head towards a girl in a zoo uniform, who has just walked into the enclosure with a bucket along with a lad called Aaron, who’s also in my year. Aaron’s nice. Nice in an ‘ohmygodIreallyfancyyou’ sort of way. So, naturally, I’ve always done a good job of pretending I have no interest in him.
Luis makes a little groaning noise and thrusts his hands into the pockets of his board shorts. “She is so fine.”
“Please don’t groan like that,” Molly says.
“Yeah, it’s gross,” I add.
But he’s oblivious to us both. “Oi! Femi!” he shouts across the enclosure, apparently also oblivious to the crowds of people now staring at him as he hollers away at the girl he likes. “Which ones are Kippie and Jingles?” 30
Femi rolls her eyes and sighs. “These two,” she says, throwing a couple of small fish from the bucket towards two penguins sitting by the entrance to the igloo.
The crowd makes an ‘awww’ noise. Someone says ‘Cute!’ I’m not sure I understand the fuss. No one would care if they were straight.
“Thanks, Femi!” Luis shouts, flashing her the smile that usually gets him extra chips in the canteen.
She shakes her head and throws more fish for the penguins.
“Do you think she’ll come to the prom with me?” Luis asks.
“How could she refuse?” I tell him, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “You’re like catnip for girls.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Catnip.”
I glance over the crowd, most of whom are zooming their phones in on Kippie and Jingles, and can’t help but wonder if this would happen to me, if I ever got a boyfriend. Like, if I was sitting with him on a bench in the playground, would all the school gather round and film us, just eating our sandwiches? ’Cause I don’t really want that. I’m not a circus act. Yet somehow, this whole ‘coming out’ thing – it’s like a big ‘TA-DAH!’ 31and I really don’t want it to be. I just want to be me, and being me is just getting on with it, no fuss, you know?
A cameraman and a woman with a microphone seem to be heading in our direction. “Let’s go,” I say. “Committee meeting starts in ten minutes.”
We start to push our way out through the crowd. I glance over my shoulder and my stomach tingles when I find Aaron staring at me. Maybe he’s still mad after I screwed up our science project in Year Nine – we basically haven’t spoken since. But he nods at me, so I nod back, then hurry away through the penguin-mad mob.
*
“It’s just a bromance.” Danny Mills leans back in his chair, legs spread wide apart, like he’s really proud to be showing us all his crotch.
Information: If Danny Mills was the last boy on Earth I still wouldn’t fancy him, or even make myself try to. He’s supposed to be in charge of arranging the entertainment for the prom – a position that’s resulted in him booking his older brother’s indie folk band, 32when the request was very clearly some sort of cheesy tribute act.
And he’s not done yet.
“Penguins can’t be gay. Gay’s a human thing, isn’t it.” He shrugs. It’s a statement, not a question.
Molly carefully puts her pen down on the desk. “Please tell us more of your bullshit, Danny,” she says, smiling sweetly.
Danny laughs. “All this gay stuff, it’s all new. There barely were any gay people back in the day.”
“Back in what day, Danny?” Molly says. “Like the Greeks, for example?”
“Yeah.” Danny shrugs. But then he clearly feels how the atmosphere in the room has turned against him and adds, “All I’m saying is, they’re just male penguins who happen to be mates. Bromance. Get over it.”
“Exactly, Danny.” Molly scowls. “Get over it.”
There’s a super-awkward silence until Priya, the long-suffering Prom President, meekly says, “So, about the balloons?”
“See, I think, if anything, it proves being gay is nature, not nurture,” Molly suddenly says.
We all turn to her. I don’t want to hear any more 33opinions about the goddamn penguins, but she’s staring at Danny, eyes full of fury.
Danny holds his hands out, like what the hell are you talking about?
“Because some people think,” Molly continues, “that talking about it in school, or letting little kids read books about it, or seeing gay people on TV or whatever, some people think that makes you gay. Like you can catch it, or some shit.”
Danny folds his arms.
“But if two penguins can be gay, then it’s nature, isn’t it?” Molly says. “They’re just following their natural instincts.”
“They’re just attention-seekers,” Danny says.
“Oh, go and sit on a cock!” Molly screams at him.
Luis laughs, but I swallow and stare down at my trainers. I’m not an attention-seeker. That’s precisely what I don’t want to happen.
Priya clears her throat. “Um, so the balloons, then?”
“Let’s have rainbow balloons!” Danny announces. “Big gay rainbow balloons shaped like a penis and I’ll cancel the band and we can have a big gay kissing contest instead!” 34
Suddenly something bubbles up inside me, and I don’t know if it’s fear, or anger, or red-hot hate towards this utter wanker, but I run out of the room and the next thing I know I’m leaning against the wall of the corridor, out of breath, trembling, simultaneously feeling like I want to smash something and crawl under my duvet and disappear.
I feel Molly’s hand on my shoulder. “You OK, Cam?”
I don’t look at her, but I nod.
“He’s a dickhead.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. I turn to look at her, and I come so close to saying it. To telling her. But I bottle it. I don’t want people analyzing all the reasons I might be gay, like they’re doing with the penguins. I just need to be able to get on with it.
She gives me a smile, then wraps her arms round me and gives me a huge hug.
I think she already knows.
*
“Thanks for coming with me, mate,” Luis says, as we walk towards the zoo on Friday afternoon. “I need a wingman.” 35
“I really don’t see how I’m going to be any use,” I tell him.
“It’s just less awkward. Plus, it’s less like I’m stalking her.”
“We’re just twopeople stalking her.”
“Stalking is a solitary activity,” Luis says. “Weirdos never hang out in pairs.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, right? So Cathy and Heathcliff, then? Not weird? ‘I wish I could hold you … until we were both dead.’ That’s not weird? Jaime and Cersei in Game of Thrones – not weird?”
Luis tuts. “Don’t be mentioning death and incest when we’re with Femi. We don’t know her opinions on them.”
“Oh, what, you think she might be in favour of both?”
Luis stops dead in his tracks. “Oh my God.”
I look up and the smile falls from my face. There’s a group of protesters outside the zoo with placards. There’s a frumpy old woman holding one that reads ‘Stop the Gay Agenda’, a tall middle-aged man with one that says ‘Family First!’ and an actual little kid with a placard reading ‘Let Penguins Be Penguins’. 36
We tentatively walk up to the entrance, and a young woman with a pinched face hands me a flyer. “Boycott the zoo!” she says. “They’re pandering to the pro-gay lobby and their anti-family agenda!”
“How?” I manage to ask her.
“It’s a family zoo. By claiming the penguins are homosexual, it’s putting ideas into the heads of impressionable children.”
I stare at her. Is this what people think? Is that what people will say about me, if I ever manage to come out? Will they think I’ve just been inspired by the penguins?
“What people do behind closed doors is their business, but leave the penguins out of it,” the woman continues.
“The penguins are gay though, innit?” Luis grins. “They love each other, man.”
The woman scowls at him. “It’s a love that will be punished.”
Luis openly laughs in her face, then stops and turns deadly serious. “Do fuck off.”
And he grabs my arm and pulls me into the zoo.
And that’s why Luis is my best mate. All the stuff 37I only ever do or say in my head, he actually does or says in real life. He’s epic and I love him.
When we get to the penguin enclosure it’s deserted, apart from Femi and Aaron, who are standing at the front in their zoo overalls. “If you’re here to see Kippie and Jingles, we’ve had to put them in their own enclosure,” Femi says.
“What happened?” I ask.
“They want to hatch their own egg, so they’ve been trying to steal one from the straight penguins,” she says. “The other penguins are on to them, so we’ve separated them for their own safety.”
“It’s not discrimination,” Aaron adds, like he’s been told to say that for legal reasons.
Luis grins at Femi. “Actually, I came to see … you.” He gives her a little wink.
Femi glances at Aaron, then back at Luis. “Fine. You’ve got five minutes. Aaron? Go and show Cameron the penguins.”
Aaron looks back at her. He seems almost scared. “Go on,” she insists.
“Um – Cameron? Do you want to…?”
I nod, and let Aaron lead the way round the side of 38the main enclosure. He’s slightly shorter than me, with blond hair, short at the back and sides, and swept into a neat side-parting. He’s got adorable doe eyes that make my chest feel like it’ll explode … and other parts of me too. I tell myself it would be a good idea not to think about his eyes too much.
