A Kiss, a Dare and a Boat Called Promise

by Fiona Foden

  “So,” Chantelle says airily, “what’s happening with you and Leon?”

  My heart jolts. “Nothing,” I reply. “We’ve just been hanging out, that’s all.”

  Chantelle makes a snorty noise and casts a quick glance at Gemma. “Just hanging out? Like, you’re not going out with him or anything?”

  I blink at her as we turn into the main road with all the bustle of buses and lorries unloading. “We’re just friends,” I say.

  “Oh, right,” she says with a sneery laugh. “Is that all?”

  What is she on about? I want to say I’ve changed my mind about shopping and hurry back home. But that would feel like giving up before we’ve even got there, and how would I explain my sudden reappearance to Maria and Mum? Anyway, we’re almost at the mall now. It looks pretty dismal from outside, and as we head in through the glass doors, it’s obvious that this is unlikely to be a thrilling shopping experience. Half the shops have shut down, and the ones that are open are hardly enticing. I need to keep my money for tomorrow, anyway. Apart from our train and bus fares to the boatyard, I’ll feel better about the whole thing if I have a bit of extra cash. The thought of possibly seeing Promise again is the only thing that’s keeping me alive today.

  We venture into a clothes shop where everything seems to be encrusted with sequins. It’s dazzling, like drowning in tinsel. As Chantelle marches off to flick through the rails, Gemma hovers beside me. “So what’s the thing with you and Leon?” she murmurs.

  “I’ve already explained,” I say, trying not to sound unfriendly. “There isn’t a ‘thing’.”

  She peers at me through a heavy fringe. “Chantelle used to go out with him, y’know.”

  I frown at her. “Really?”

  She nods. “She dumped him – broke his heart.”

  “Oh,” I say faintly, wondering what on earth I’m supposed to do with this information.

  “I think it’s horrible, really,” she adds, inspecting her black patent pumps.

  Now I’m really confused. “What – that she finished with him?”

  “No,” she declares, fixing me with greenish eyes. “I mean, what he’s doing to you.”

  “But he’s not doing anything, Gemma. What d’you mean?” Across the other side of the shop, Chantelle holds a shiny red dress up against herself and pouts into the mirrored wall.

  “The way he’s hanging out with you to make Chantelle jealous,” Gemma continues. “I mean, you’re new here and don’t know anyone and he’s all over you. I just think that’s so rotten of him.”

  I blink at her, stuck for words. Do I believe this? What about last night, when the two of us cycled alongside the hidden river? Chantelle doesn’t know we did that. So how could he possibly have been trying to make her jealous?

  Gemma has turned away to check out some sky-scraping shoes, leaving me feeling slightly sick in sparkly hell.

  “I’m going to try these on,” Chantelle announces, trooping back to us with an armful of tops and tiny sequinned skirts. “What about you, Gemma? Found anything?”

  “No,” she replies, “there’s nothing I like.”

  “Oh, come on, Gems, there must be something. Get some stuff and try it on with me.” I see it then – the flicker of fear shooting across Gemma’s face. She is actually scared of her friend. Obviously, Gemma does whatever Chantelle wants. “Er, OK,” she says, grabbing at a horrible T-shirt with a glittery Eiffel Tower on the front that happens to be hanging nearby. They totter off into the changing room together, and I can hear squeals and giggles in there as Gemma exclaims, “Oh, you look amazing, Chantelle!”

  “Do I?” Chantelle simpers.

  “Yeah, you’re just like a model.” Ew. Feeling queasy and overheated now, I perch on the plastic chair outside the changing room.

  “You look like a bored boyfriend, love,” cackles one of the assistants. I raise a faint smile and get up to browse the rails, pretending to be deeply interested in a shimmery dress with a huge red bow on the front, like a present.

  What am I doing here anyway? At least tomorrow, I’ll be far away from all of this. Now, though, I can’t ignore the tiny seed of doubt that Leon might not be all he seems. It’s so important that I can trust him – but now, after Gemma’s little announcement, I’m not sure I do.

  Finally, Chantelle and Gemma emerge from the changing room. While Gemma admits she can’t afford anything, Chantelle clomps towards the till with a pile of tops. “Let’s get something to eat,” she announces as we leave the shop. “How much money d’you have, Josie?”

  “Not much,” I fib. In fact, Mum practically forced me to bring all of my birthday cash – but I’m determined to save it for tomorrow. “Anyway,” I add, “I’m not really hungry. Think I’ll head back home now, OK?”

  “Oh, come with us!” Chantelle exclaims. “We’ll just go for a pizza or something.”

  “Er, I haven’t got much money,” Gemma starts.

  “Neither have I,” I add, but Chantelle is already looping her arms through ours – yes, even mine – and marching us out of the mall and round the corner, into a small, cosy-looking Italian restaurant called Gino’s. “Don’t worry,” she says, a little too loudly. “I’ve got plenty of cash.” She flashes a fake smile as an elderly waiter approaches us. “Table for three, please,” she says, and there’s an embarrassing scraping back of chairs as we’re shown to a table at the window. It feels all the more awkward because we’re the only customers in the place.

  Although it’s a different restaurant, it reminds me of the one I came to with Mum, the day we bought the metal detector. Mum had let me choose whatever I wanted from the menu, and when she saw me hesitating over whether to have a dessert, she said, “Go on, Josie. How often do we have a girly day, just the two of us?”

  Which is, I guess, what this is – a girly day. But one that feels all wrong… “I’ll have this one, please,” Chantelle tells the waiter, obviously unable to pronounce the name of the pizza she wants, but having sussed that it’s the one with the most toppings. “You’ll have the same, Gemma?” It comes out as an order, not a question.

  “Yes, fine,” Gemma says.

  “Have you decided?” the waiter asks pleasantly, turning to me.

  I feel my cheeks surging hot as I blink at the menu. Ordering any main course would gobble up a big chunk of my money, and I desperately need it to get to the boatyard tomorrow. “I … don’t feel very well,” I say quickly. “Could I just have an orange juice, please?”

  The grey-haired man smiles kindly. “Of course you can, dear.”

  Chantelle gives me a quick frown. Then, as the waiter leaves our table, she calls after him, “Could we also have two side orders of garlic bread, dough sticks, coleslaw and, er … some olives?”

  The waiter gives us a bemused smile. “Shopping’s hungry work, eh, girls?”

  “Oh yes,” Chantelle says with a cheesy grin. What’s she trying to do – chomp her way through the entire menu? And what the hell has happened to me? I never used to find myself in crazy situations like this. But now I’m sitting in the kind of restaurant your mum might bring you to for a treat, with two people I have nothing in common with. And, worse, one of them went out with the boy I’ve hardly been able to stop thinking about lately, and I bet she doesn’t even like olives…

  “So,” Chantelle says loudly, “that loo you had on the boat—”

  Oh no, not that again…

  I give brief, flat answers as Chantelle fires more toilety questions at me: “Did it stink? What happened when friends came round, weren’t they grossed out?” Amazingly, the topic doesn’t put her off shovelling great slabs of pizza into her mouth when their meals arrive. The table is crammed with delicious-looking food, and I’m actually hungry now – but of course, after saying I’m broke and feeling ill, I can hardly ask for a bit of their pizzas or side orders. Instead, I start wonde
ring how much of Chantelle’s thick foundation will come off when she wipes that tomato sauce smear from her chin.

  “Just going to the loo,” I say, jumping up from my seat. I don’t really need to go. I’m just desperate to get away from these two and all that scrummy-looking pizza and garlic bread, which I’m not even allowed to touch. As I make my way across the restaurant, I try to ignore my hollow, rumbling tummy. When I glance back, Chantelle and Gemma are leaning together, whispering. About Leon, probably. Or chemical loos. Well, let them, I think defiantly as I head into the ladies’ and lock myself in a cubicle.

  Will all the girls at my new school be like this? While Ryan seems fine about the new term starting soon – he’s already met a couple of girls in his year who work at the gardening place – I can’t imagine how I’ll ever fit in. Chantelle will spread word around that I lived on a boat, like it’s some shameful secret, and before I know it, it’ll be “Are you a gypsy then?” and all that stuff. It makes rescuing our boat – if Lily-May really is ours – feel even more crucial. I sit on the loo with the lid down, trying to figure out how to make my excuses and leave as soon as possible.

  By the time I’m back at our table, all the plates have been cleared away. Chantelle and Gemma are now tucking into towering ice-cream sundaes smothered in whipped cream and chocolate sauce. My stomach growls jealously.

  “Mmmm, this is lovely,” Chantelle says, in a fake, swoony voice.

  Gemma nods, looking decidedly pale and clammy. “Another Coke, please,” Chantelle calls across the restaurant to the waiter. “Want one, Gemma?”

  “Er … yes, please,” she says timidly. Meanwhile, I’m so hungry I could munch our bowlful of sugar cubes, like a ravenous pony. I glance at the door, wishing I could launch myself through it and charge home as fast as possible. I want to be helping Mum in the kitchen, or even listening to Ryan bragging on about how brilliant everyone thinks he is at work. Anything but being stuck here with these two…

  And then … everything seems to change. Instead of the three of us being in a restaurant, around the corner from a shabby shopping mall, it feels as if we’re in a terrible scene from a film. The waiter comes over and places our bill on the table on a white saucer, then wanders off to arrange a vase of flowers on the window sill. “I feel sick,” Gemma whispers, clasping a hand over her mouth. She does look ill – despite her thick make-up, her whole face has gone a weird greeny colour. Then, just as the waiter heads into the kitchen, shutting the door behind him, Gemma opens her mouth, and out comes … a great, gushing pile of vomit. There’s so much of it, it seems as if it’s never going to stop. And no wonder: this is what a twelve-inch pizza, two Cokes, side orders of coleslaw and garlic bread and a sundae consisting of three flavours of ice cream, warm chocolate sauce and a sprinkling of broken crunchy biscuits look like when they’re all mushed up and half-digested.

  “Oh my God!” Chantelle screams.

  “Are you OK?” I exclaim, gawping at Gemma’s distraught face, then at the pile of sick on the floor.

  “No!” Gemma wails. “I feel awful…”

  “Let’s get you outside,” Chantelle says quickly, “in case you do it again.”

  As she leads Gemma out of the restaurant, I crouch down on the floor and try to clear up the mess. It’s hopeless, though, attempting to mop up the stinky puddle with paper napkins from our table. All I manage to do is add piles of wet tissue to the soupy mess. “I’m really sorry,” I mutter, leaping up to my feet as the waiter reappears. He glares at the floor. “What happened here?” he barks.

  I just shrug. He is obviously furious, and who can blame him? It might not be my fault, but he doesn’t care about that. “For goodness’ sake,” he growls, shaking his head. “Where have your friends gone, anyway?”

  “Outside for some fresh air,” I whimper as a man with three chattering kids pushes open the restaurant door and ushers them in. When he spots the pool of sick on the floor, he quickly herds them back out again.

  The waiter stomps off and returns with a mop, a bucket, some cloths and a spray. Hurry up, I will Chantelle and Gemma. Come back in so we can pay the bill and get out of here. But there’s no sign of them. The waiter gives the saucer with our bill on a little nudge, obviously keen for us to pay up and leave. “Er … I’ll just go and see where they are,” I say.

  “No, you stay here and I’ll look,” he announces, marching across the restaurant and out on to the busy pavement.

  I can see him through the glass door, peering up and down the street. Then my focus switches to Gemma’s chair, where her leopard-print shoulder bag was hanging. It’s gone. I glance at Chantelle’s seat and realize her bag has gone too, and so has her carrier bag from that clothes shop. The two of them have taken all their stuff. Why would they do that? As the truth dawns on me, I almost stop breathing. This feels horribly different to when me and Mum were out having ice-cream sundaes together, chattering happily with the metal detector parked beside us.

  The waiter has come back inside and is marching up to my table, red-faced and furious. He snatches the bill from its saucer and waggles it at me. “Can you pay this, please?” he snaps. “Looks like your friends have gone home without you.”

  “But … they can’t have.” I stare at the figure on the bill. It amounts to all the money I have, not just in my purse, but the world. The waiter is glaring at me, breathing noisily through his hairy nostrils. “I only had a drink,” I say, realizing how pathetic that sounds. What does he care about who had what? He just wants his money.

  Blinking back furious tears, I open my purse, count out the money and place it on the saucer. There it goes: the money from Auntie Sheila in Manchester, my shadowy New Zealand grandparents, Bella’s mum and dad, Maggie and Phil from the boat opposite ours, and Tyler and Jake’s parents … all of it. In fact, when the waiter counts it up, I’m a little bit short. I scrabble about in my purse but there’s nothing left.

  “That’ll do,” the waiter says gruffly, picking up the saucer piled with money. Something else – a flicker of sympathy, perhaps – crosses his face. “Some friends, huh?” he says.

  I nod, barely capable of speaking. “Yeah.”

  He narrows his eyes and gives my arm a pat. “Weren’t in on their little prank, were you?”

  “No,” I whisper. “I had no idea.”

  He nods, his face softening. “I can tell. Off you go then, love. I hope your day gets better.”

  “So do I,” I mutter. As I leave the restaurant and step out into the sunny afternoon, I realize I’m no longer hungry after all.

  I keep my head down all the way home. Not because I’m worried about being spotted by Chantelle or Gemma (after all, they’re the ones who should be mortified, not me) but because I want to hide from the whole world. What an idiot! OK, the puking obviously wasn’t intended, and I’d felt sorry for Gemma at that point. But stuffing their faces, ordering the most expensive pizzas and heaps of extras – that was planned. Obviously, Chantelle had intended to do a runner all along.

  I try to call Bella but her phone is switched off. It wouldn’t seem right, calling Leon about this, especially after what Gemma said about Chantelle breaking his heart. Do I believe that? I’m not so sure. But right now, it feels as if there’s no one I can talk to.

  By the time I’m back at the Stag, I’ve worked myself up into a furious rage. I’m all set to track down Chantelle, or at least Vince and Maria, to explain what’s happened and demand my money back. But apart from two elderly customers chatting over their beers, the only person in the pub is Alex, the shy Polish barman who helps out sometimes. I bark a quick hello before hurtling upstairs to find Mum.

  She’s in the kitchen, and the smell which fills it is so lovely and sweet, it brings a lump to my throat. It’s that pastry smell from our last boat party, when Mum had packed me off to school and spent all day baking. “Are you OK, Josie?” She peers at me across the dingy
room.

  “Er … it’s just…” I clamp my mouth shut.

  “Sweetheart, what is it?”

  Without warning, my eyes fill with tears.

  “Have those girls been mean to you?” she asks. “Oh, love, I could tell you didn’t really want to go. I just thought it would be good for you to spend some time with them instead of hanging about here…”

  “I’m fine,” I say quickly, turning away so she can’t see the tears spilling down my cheeks.

  “Josie, you’re not fine.” She marches over to me and places her hands on my shoulders. “Please tell me what’s happened.” I pause for a moment before it all spills out: the pizzas, the puking, and the girls leaving me with the bill. “That’s disgusting,” Mum exclaims, hugging me. “I can’t believe anyone would be so mean. Right, I’m going to call Vince right now…” She turns away and reaches for the phone.

  “No!” I cry.

  Mum frowns. “Why not? We can’t let them get away with this.”

  “But you’ve only just started working here, and we don’t know how Vince will react if you complain about his daughter.”

  “We’ve got to do something, Josie,” she says, shaking her head.

  I link my arm through hers. “Yes, I know, but not right now, OK? I’ll get the money back somehow. Let’s not just … dive in and cause a big scene. Anyway, maybe I should have realized what they were up to…”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Mum says sharply. Still looking annoyed, but obviously considering that the Stag is the only home we have, she sighs and lifts down a large plastic box from on top of the fridge. Before she has even taken off the lid, I can guess what’s inside. “Look good?” she asks.

  “Perfect,” I breathe, gazing at the strawberry tarts.