Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco

by Sue Limb

  ‘Delicious, Granny!’ drooled Jess, lacing the burger with a bloodbath of ketchup. ‘You’re a star! And I hope there’s nothing chocolatey for pud!’ Actually, this was not quite true – Jess was secretly hoping Granny had prepared some evil concoction involving three different types of choc. Jess had made a new year’s resolution about having chocolate only twice a month. It would be torment, but her skin and her waistline would thank her.

  ‘No, dear, I remembered your new year’s resolution,’ said Granny firmly, ‘so I just stewed a few pears, and instead of cream there’s low-fat yogurt.’

  Trying to maintain a cheery smile at this dire news, Jess got stuck into her burger.

  ‘How was school today?’ asked Granny.

  ‘Oh, it was brilliant – I gave the tickets to everybody who’d put their name down for Chaos, and they were all thrilled.’

  ‘What’s Chaos again?’ asked Granny, frowning slightly.

  ‘It’s the dinner dance, remember, Granny? Fred and I are organising it in aid of Oxfam.’

  ‘When is this?’ said Granny vaguely, but you could see she was really thinking about the pepper grinder, which had stopped working properly and instead was depositing huge rocky grains of fiery pepper on to the defenceless burgers.

  ‘Valentine’s!’ said Jess happily.

  ‘Where are you having it?’ asked Granny, dismantling the pepper mill with a preoccupied air.

  ‘St Mark’s Church Hall!’ announced Jess. ‘Fred’s dad booked it for us, and he’s going to run the bar.’

  ‘That was kind of him,’ said Mum, pouring two glasses of wine. ‘I hope he’s got everything under control.’

  ‘Oh yes, Mum, don’t worry – we’ve got everything under control and it’s going to be fine!’ Jess assured her cheerily.

  This wasn’t strictly true, either. Although Fred’s dad had indeed done the booking for the hall and agreed to run the bar, all the other details – the food, the music, everything, in fact – were being organised by Jess and Fred. Jess had spent nine hours designing the most stylish tickets in the world, but, she thought, with a niggle of anxiety, they really must get round to sorting out the rest of it – soon.

  Chapter 3

  Jess and Fred dived into the Dolphin Cafe after school. It was one of those rainy afternoons when the windows steamed up cosily and the music and voices became a kind of warm blur.

  ‘Where’s Her Royal Highness?’ asked Fred, as they squeezed into the corner under the stairs – not the best table in the place, but it was all that was available.

  ‘Who?’ Jess was baffled.

  ‘Flora, Prom Queen of Ashcroft School,’ said Fred in a pompous voice. ‘She leaves a trail of broken hearts …’ His voice sank to a melodramatic whisper. ‘… Pavements, where she walks, turn to marshmallow … Bald old men grow hair again when she passes by … Mad dogs stop growling and start to recite lines of poetry …’

  Jess frowned. OK, Flora was amazingly beautiful, but it wasn’t Fred’s job to say so. At Kate Jackson’s party last weekend Flora had been wearing a drop-dead-gorgeous plum satin boned-corset dress with a massive bow at the back – very Hollywood and glitzy. Jess had tormented herself for most of the evening trying to see if Fred was ogling Flora. Shooting sidelong glances at your boyfriend to see if he’s shooting sidelong glances at your hot best friend is kind of exhausting. Maybe Sidelong Glances should become an Olympic event. Once upon a time Flora had had the hots for Fred, but, Jess told herself sternly, it would be a big mistake to sound jealous and stressy.

  ‘Shut up about Flora being so tactlessly beautiful!’ snapped Jess, drops of stressy spit flying out of her mouth and landing on Fred’s sleeve.

  ‘No need to drown me!’ Fred pulled a silly face as if the spit was some kind of toxic chemical and wiped his sleeve on his trousers.

  ‘Well, ordinary girls like me, who look like a camel’s bum, get a bit fed up with all that Flora Is A Goddess stuff.’ Jess tried hard to moderate her tone into something sensible and calm: she knew she sounded majorly stupid.

  ‘There’s no need to feel jealous of Flora.’ Fred had started to look a bit bored.

  ‘I’m not jealous of her!’ retorted Jess jealously.

  ‘I don’t go for the tall blonde type, for a start,’ Fred explained patiently. ‘Flora’s legs are like sticks, that blonde hair is such a cliché, and, let’s face it, she’s a ditzy airhead who thinks that Penzance is in France.’

  ‘She does not!’ OK, when Fred put on his Flora Is A Goddess act it was irritating, but to say mean things about Flora was totally wrong and unacceptable. ‘Ditzy?’ screeched Jess. ‘An airhead? Uhh, isn’t this the same Flora who gets straight As, beating both you and me in every subject including English?’

  Fred shrugged and tried to look charming and irresponsible. ‘I’ll never mention Flora again,’ he promised. ‘Except when discussing the flora and fauna of Australia, of course.’

  Jess stirred some sugar into her coffee – always a bad sign. When things were a bit dodgy, a spoonful of sugar seemed comforting, although afterwards she was sure she could actually feel it attacking her teeth and pumping up her waistline flab.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ she sighed, trying to settle down into normal conversation and beginning to feel she’d sounded stupid and hysterical, ‘Flora’s with Prince Charming.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know – Jack Stevens!’

  Flora and Jack had got together last term when they were in the school production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Flora had been delighted to discover that Jack’s brooding scowl was just a cosmetic choice, a bit like conditioner, and she insisted that underneath it all he was as soft as a doughnut and so, so funny. He was in year twelve and his family had taken Flora skiing at Christmas, so he scored maximum points on the Index of Cool.

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Fred.

  ‘What do you mean, him?’ Jess asked indignantly.

  Fred shrugged.

  ‘But you sounded sneery.’

  ‘No I didn’t. I hardly know the guy.’ He pulled a dubious face.

  ‘Fred, you’re jealous! Jack’s a star! And what’s more, he’s totally posh! His dad owns a printworks and Flora says their house is like something out of Jane Austen! Plus they’ve got a holiday home by the sea somewhere – on some cliffs – and a boat.’

  ‘Oh dear, I seem to have underrated him,’ said Fred ironically. ‘I may just have to lie down and let him walk all over me!’

  ‘He won’t want to set foot on you!’ Jess informed him with a teasing smile. ‘He’d ruin his shoes!’

  She was beginning to feel a tad better. Enjoying witty banter with Fred had been the best thing in her life for months, even if sometimes, when Fred was behaving like an idiot, he got on her nerves a bit.

  ‘On a different subject entirely … guess what?’ Fred’s eyes were dancing. Some joke was coming, for sure.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mum got a postcard from some old friend of hers – she’s on holiday in Italy, and apparently there’s a church there dedicated to St Fred.’

  ‘St Fred? No way!’

  ‘Well, I think he’s called St Fredianus or something.’

  ‘Fredianus? You know, it kind of suits you. In fact, I think I’ll call you that from now on.’ Jess was back in tune with Fred now, bubbling along nicely. ‘How is your mum, by the way?’ Jess loved Fred’s mum, who was always very sweet to her. She’d even baked Jess’s favourite cheese scones last time she was at Fred’s.

  ‘Oh, she’s OK,’ sighed Fred. ‘She’s getting a crush on her yoga teacher, though – I recognise the signs. I hope she’s not going to elope with him or something. Obviously it would be more glamorous to have divorced parents, but I’m not sure I could bear a stepdad who regularly sits on his head.’

  ‘Oh well, he can’t be any worse than some of the guys my mum is dating.’

  ‘Your mum is dating?’ Fred’s eyes got bigger and bigger until the whites showed all the way r
ound.

  ‘Oops! I wasn’t supposed to mention that! I don’t like to talk about it, of course, because it’s so very traumatic for me, her only daughter, but yes, Mum has joined an online dating agency. Don’t laugh! And don’t breathe a word to anybody!’

  ‘Online dating?’ repeated Fred, his eyebrows sky high. ‘Your mum?’

  ‘Yeah, I know, it’s so unbelievably gross!’ Jess shuddered. ‘There are these guys – they’re in her checkout basket or something – anyway, you can see their photos and read their biogs and whatever, and they literally all look like weirdos or hobos. It’s horrendous.’

  ‘So who’s her first victim?’

  ‘Well, I hope it’s not Mum who’s going to be the victim – I’m getting so nervous about her, it’s ridiculous. Talk about role reversal! I’ll be waiting up till she gets back and texting her every five minutes!’

  ‘And if she gets in after midnight,’ suggested Fred satirically, ‘you should tell her she’s been grounded.’

  At this point the cafe door opened and Jess heard somebody call her name. It was Flora, clinging picturesquely to the sleeve of Jack Stevens.

  ‘Here we go,’ whispered Jess, while eagerly waving them over towards the two empty chairs at their table, ‘the Prom Queen and Prince Charming. Now, Fred Parsons, if you say one word out of line, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.’

  Chapter 4

  ‘Hi, Parsnip!’ This was Jack’s greeting to Fred.

  ‘Ah, it’s the prince of darkness!’ This was Fred’s reply. But he also managed a grin, so Jess was satisfied. It was a sly, sarcastic grin, but then that was Fred’s usual.

  ‘I’ll get a hot choc,’ said Flora. ‘What would you like, Jack?’

  ‘Just iced water,’ drawled Jack, taking off his flying jacket. ‘Hot in here, huh?’ He tossed back his hair but a few strands fell over his face. Then he smoothed down the collar of his shirt and smiled at Jess. This was something Fred never did. Not the smiling – the smoothing. Fred’s shirt often had one side of the collar down and one poking up. Somehow this gave him the air of a chihuahua who had just woken up from a deep sleep.

  ‘So, how are my favourite comedy writers?’ Jack included Fred in his smile. It swept across the table like a warm wind from the south. His teeth were big and white and expensive-looking. He had big rubbery expensive-looking lips, too. But, actually, he always seemed really nice. It wasn’t his fault he was rich.

  ‘We’re stuck with our hosting script for Chaos,’ Jess told him. ‘And the deadline is looming – it’s scary.’

  ‘That show you did at Christmas was amazing,’ said Jack. ‘You’re going to be the next big thing … Jordan and Parsons.’

  ‘Jordan and Parsons doesn’t sound right,’ Jess mused.

  ‘It’s the Parsons that’s the problem.’ Jack looked teasingly across at Fred, who was leaning back in his chair and biting his nails in a way that was far from attractive. ‘You should change your name to Gordon. Jordan and Gordon.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Jess. ‘Why should it always be the girl who has to change her name?’ Then she realised it sounded as if she was thinking of marrying Fred. So she pulled a disgusted face and then she sort of caught Jack’s eye, regretted it and blushed. No way did she ever want Jack to fancy her – except in the kind of secret way you always want your best friend’s boyfriend to fancy you.

  ‘Fred is good,’ she blundered on. ‘But how about a snappier surname. How about Fred Freak? Fred Fox?’

  Fred gave her the kind of look that a snake gives a mouse – kind of sinister, from below half-closed lids.

  ‘Fred Fry!’ Jess ploughed on. Why was Fred being so unhelpful? ‘Although Fred told me just now that there’s an Italian saint called Fredianus.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Jack exploded with laughter and slapped his thigh. ‘Fredianus it is, buddy!’

  Fred shot Jess a look that would have curdled custard. At this point, luckily, Flora arrived with the drinks.

  ‘Guess what!’ she bubbled excitedly, shaking back her blonde hair and ripping off her gilet. ‘Jack’s mum and dad are going to their beach house the weekend after next! We’re all invited! There’s a kind of dorm upstairs with about ten beds so loads of us can come! Jack’s brother George is at uni and some of his mates are coming! You can both come, can’t you? It’ll be brilliant!’

  ‘I’m, uh, not sure …’ Fred pulled a strange ungracious face and rubbed his nose. ‘Won’t we be busy organising the Chaos thing?’ He looked at Jess and raised his eyebrows. ‘It’ll be coming up to the fourteenth the weekend after, I think. Must be, yeah.’

  Jess felt slightly sick for a moment. Somehow she had imagined that there were weeks and weeks before the dinner dance, even though she’d designed the tickets herself and, of course, knew very well that it was to be on 14 February. But the invite to the weekend by the sea was too good to refuse.

  ‘Of course we’re coming, Flo!’ she yelled. ‘It’ll be absolutely brilliant! Thanks so much! We can get the organising all done before we go!’

  ‘Of course, the Aged Parents will be around,’ said Jack with a sigh, ‘so a wild party is out of the question.’

  ‘Never mind!’ Jess could see Fred was a bit iffy about the trip. He was leaning his head on his hand and pulling his lips about in an unattractive way. Maybe he felt inadequate lip-wise – Jack’s lips were like a sofa; Fred’s were thin and nervy – but Jess wished he would stop doing it.

  ‘It sounds just awesome!’ she went on fervently. ‘Fred and I had the best time at my dad’s down in St Ives last summer!’

  ‘Except now it’s midwinter,’ Fred pointed out, making it sound like some kind of terrible curse.

  ‘Maybe we’ll get snowed in!’ suggested Flora, her eyes sparkling at the thought. ‘So romantic!’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Jack. ‘It’s an amazing sight – the beach covered in snow. Weird!’

  ‘Can you actually see the beach from your house?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Yeah, it’s right on top of a cliff, and there’s a path that goes down to this little cove.’

  ‘Oh wow!’ screamed Jess in ecstasy. ‘It sounds deee-vine!’ She clutched her cheeks to prevent her face from flying apart with sheer excitement.

  ‘Yeah, it’s good,’ Jack conceded modestly. ‘Last year, George – that’s my bro who’s at uni – made a Loch Ness Monster suit and went in the sea. This family arrived on the beach, yeah? With little kids and stuff. And George went swimming past with this, like, dinosaur neck thing poking out of the water. The kids went mental! We were hiding in the dunes. I laughed so much I nearly puked.’

  ‘I can’t wait! I so adore the sea!’ Flora’s eyes were already a kind of aquamarine at the thought. Fred’s, however, remained grey and his face seemed somehow veiled in mist. Suddenly he got to his feet.

  ‘Excuse me, guys,’ he said, his lanky body wobbling, a bit like an embarrassed giraffe saying goodbye to its favourite tree. ‘I gotta go – Mackenzie asked me to drop by his place to talk about some bands we might get for Chaos.’

  He gave a sort of awkward nod, and was gone – without even looking at Jess! They’d been planning to walk home together! They always did after school! He hadn’t even given her any eye contact! Jess felt as if she’d been stabbed terribly in the guts, but somehow she had to hide her horrible wound and be bubbly and vivacious as usual. If Fred had behaved badly, that wasn’t Jack’s fault. Or Flora’s. He was being an idiot.

  ‘Fredianus,’ said Jack fondly, watching Fred leave the cafe with just the tiniest hint of a slam. ‘What a legend!’

  They chatted for a bit longer, but Jess’s thoughts were elsewhere: with Fred. She didn’t quite believe that excuse about organising the music for Chaos. She had a feeling Fred just wanted to escape for some reason. He could be a moody beast at times – the best thing to do was ignore him.

  Jess ignored him all the way home, even though he wasn’t technically present. She was on her own. Flora and Jack had gone off to Flora
’s, wrapped round each other, because Jack was going to ‘help her with her homework’ – something, incidentally, Fred never did for Jess. Distracting her from her homework was more his style. Jess spun several revenge fantasies in which Fred pleaded for her to be kind to him, but instead she imperiously dismissed him with a contemptuous flick of her long raven tresses. In reality, Jess’s hair was short and spiky. But she was planning to have heavy, thick, glistening hair right down her back one day.

  In this way, half an hour was agreeably passed until she arrived home. As she went up the path, the front door opened and Granny came out. She was wearing her faux sheepskin coat and looked rattled.

  ‘Your mother’s in there with one of her precious boyfriends off the internet!’ she snapped. ‘I’m going round to Deborah’s! She’s taken leave of her senses!’

  Jess assumed this referred to her mum, not Deborah – a friend of Granny’s who was about as sane as anybody had ever been, possibly because she spent all her time making and devouring delicious cakes.

  At this moment Jess’s phone bleeped to indicate a text had arrived. She stopped on the doorstep to check it out – it would be Fred apologising, with any luck. But no. It was from Dad.

  HAD A V V BRILL IDEA FOR PROJECT WE CAN DO, it said. HAVE SENT U EMAIL WITH DETAILS. REPLY ASAP. LUV, DAD, OR, AS I WANT TO BE KNOWN FROM NOW ON, LORD VOLCANO.

  Jess sighed, put her phone away and got out her key. She had the feeling she was being overwhelmed by several kinds of madness.

  Chapter 5

  As Jess entered the hall, her mum popped out of the sitting room, heading for the kitchen. Seeing Jess, she stalled, looked agitatedly towards the sitting room, flapped her hands to show she wanted to say a thousand important things but must remain silent, then put on her public face.

  ‘Jess!’ she said in her public voice – the light-hearted one, which she used whenever they didn’t want to mention the corpse on the carpet. ‘Hi, darling!’ Her mum never called her darling except in emergencies. ‘How was school?’