‘Time to say goodbye,’ Frida says. We’ve just shared a pizza and now Pearl and I need to go through security. Frida gives me the biggest hug and I bury my face in her wild hair. She smells of Stråla – of salt and coconut suntan lotion. Even Pearl allows herself to be hugged and, at the last minute, she gives Frida the briefest of squeezes. ‘I made you these,’ says Frida. She puts her hand in her pocket and pulls out two tangled necklaces. She takes one and hands it to me. ‘Here’s yours, Pearl.’
The necklaces are round silver pendants, beaten flat. Mine looks like it’s been broken in half and it has squiggly black lines on it. ‘Put them together!’ Frida is excited. I hold my necklace next to Pearl’s. They fit perfectly. The squiggly lines come together to make a kayak. Sitting in the kayak are two girls, hair streaming behind them, their paddles held high above their heads.
Pearl runs her fingers over the picture. ‘It’s us,’ she says, smiling. Then she puts her necklace on and so do I.
‘Thank you,’ I say to Frida, rubbing the smooth metal between my fingers. Frida gives me one last hug then pushes us forward.
Soon, we’re sitting in the departure lounge waiting for our plane to board. ‘Baby Kex?’ asks Pearl. She’s just used up the last of her kronor in the snack shop and discovered Kex come in handy-size packs. I shake my head. It might be the lack of sleep, but suddenly I feel sick. Our flight is called and all around us people pick up their bags and form a queue. Usually, I’d be right at the front. I hate being the last one on to a plane, but I stay in my seat, my legs tucked under me, staring at the door that leads into the departure lounge.
When there are only a handful of passengers waiting to get on the plane, I’m still in my seat. ‘Come on,’ says Pearl. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Nothing,’ I say, finally accepting that Leo isn’t going to rush in and sweep me off my feet. I stand up and grab my bag. ‘Let’s go home.’
Pearl is quiet on the flight, but that suits me. I rest my head against the window and do some cloud spotting. Soon, I see neat squares of green fields below me, curving roads and matchbox houses. We’re back. The nose of the plane tilts down and the seatbelt light comes on. As we’re bumping along the runway, lurching from side to side, I realise that I don’t feel scared; I didn’t even feel scared when we took off.
After collecting our bags, we wander in a daze through a maze of corridors, following the ‘Exit’ signs. ‘I can’t wait to have a shower,’ Pearl says. ‘I think I’ve still got some phosphorescence stuck in my hair.’
‘I’m going to have a bath, with bubbles,’ I say, ‘and then I’m going to eat sliced white bread with Marmite.’ We turn a corner into another endless corridor. ‘And I’m getting some big fat chips, not fries, and for breakfast I’m having Weetabix.’
‘Weetabix! I’d forgotten about Weetabix,’ says Pearl. ‘Hang on. Toilets. I’m desperate. I never go on planes in case my bum gets sucked out of the hole.’
I follow her in. ‘I don’t think that can happen.’
‘Yes it can,’ she says, going into a cubicle. ‘I saw it on YouTube.’
While I wait with our bags, I glance in the mirror. My hair is tangled and salty stiff and my nose is pink. Freckles are scattered across my cheeks and I’ve got a yellow bruise on my cheek where the bottle of water hit me. I peer closer. Is that blood? I rub at a mark on my chin. It comes off. It was just a bit of face paint. All round my hairline is a faint blue smudge: more face paint.
‘C’mon, Wild Kat,’ says Pearl, taking her case and pushing open the door. ‘You look gorgeous.’
We walk down one more corridor, through double doors, then find ourselves in the arrivals hall. All round us, people are being swept into welcoming arms. I scan the crowd until I spot Mum and Dad. ‘Mum!’ I shout, dragging my suitcase towards them.
‘Kat?’ She peers at me. ‘Is that you?’ Then I see two girls standing behind her. One has a cloud of brown curls, the other is wearing a boob hat. Bea and Betty! I abandon my case and run, throwing myself into a big group hug. There’s a lot of jumping and screaming, and a little bit of crying. Dad always gets emotional at airports. ‘What’s Frida done to you?’ asks Mum, laughing and smoothing my hair down.
‘You look awesome,’ says Betty, ‘like you’ve been in a fight. Is that a scar?’
I laugh and shake my head. ‘Just a bruise,’ I say. ‘A bottle of water hit me on the cheek.’
‘No, on your forehead.’
‘Oh, maybe!’ I touch my head, remembering when Leo put a plaster there.
‘Did you have a good time, Kat?’ asks Bea, taking my hand. I look down at my fingers, which are rough and covered in blisters from paddling the kayak. A thousand memories flash through my mind. I think about Nanna’s pink high-tops and blonde curls, the sloping ceilings in our attic room, ‘Guantanamera’, cinnamon buns and golden sunsets. And I think about a boy.
I nod, but I can’t say anything. I look around for Pearl. She’s rescued my suitcase and is sitting on it. She scowls at me and sticks Otto’s unlit roll-up in her mouth.
‘For God’s sake, Kat,’ says Dad, peering down at my feet. ‘Where are your shoes?’
TWENTY-TWO
‘Have you seen Mum and Dad?’ I ask. Britta and I are lying on our stomachs in thick mud. We can’t stand up – we’re trapped under a net.
Britta shakes her head. ‘I think we lost them at the logs.’
‘Coming through!’ shouts a man wearing a bandana. He wriggles between us. Britta and I follow him, crawling forward on our elbows. The mud is icy and drizzle is falling on us. Britta gets out first and reaches back for me. I grab hold of her hand, she pulls me out and we follow the crowd running along the narrow track.
We’re in Dorset, competing in Cliff Hanger. We’re three kilometres in and have twenty-six ‘hard-core obstacles’ to go. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dad happier than he was at the start line. ‘I’m racing with my three girls,’ he had said, gathering us to him. ‘What a story!’
‘What’s next?’ I ask as Britta and I stumble along the path, the sea roaring somewhere below us.
‘Steps,’ gasps Britta.
‘Steps? That’s not a badass obstacle!’ I look ahead and see a steep cliff with steps cut into the rock. ‘Oh. That’s a lot of steps. We’re running up them?’
‘All eighty-three of them,’ says Britta. She’s about to start, then she steps to one side. ‘You go first.’
And I do run up the steps, not jog, run. Below me, the sea is grey and waves smash against the cliff. It’s November, and Stråla’s sparkling blue sea is a distant memory.
I’m in Year Eleven now. I still hang out with Betty and Bea, go shopping with Mum and straighten my hair before school. But some things have changed. A few times a week, I go running, sometimes on my own and sometimes with Britta. Dad got me a mountain bike for my birthday and we’ve been cycling together. On Sunday, he took me out in the woods. As we crossed the park I saw Pearl sitting on the climbing frame with her friends. She was smoking and all the beads had come out of her hair. When she saw me, she stood up, stuck her fag in her mouth and did the Ladybird wave. That’s when I noticed she was wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘I Pooped Today!’ I couldn’t see if she had her necklace on, but I was wearing mine.
Sometimes, for a special treat, I put on ABBA, lie on my bed and suck a Lakrisal. Then I shut my eyes, taste liquorice and salt, and think about Leo. It feels like a wonderful dream that’s slipping away from me. I’ve got one Lakrisal left.
‘C’mon!’ Britta is pushing my bum. I look up. Only a few more steps to go. I force myself on. ‘What can you see?’ she shouts.
‘Tyres! We’ve got to run over tyres.’
‘I love tyres,’ says Britta. ‘They’re the best!’ She’s not joking. We stumble over the tyres, trying to keep our knees high, and I think about Nanna running like a horse. Ahead of us is a muddy ditch full of water that we are expected to wade through.
We slither down the bank and plu
nge into the ditch. The water’s freezing and comes up to my chest. I pull an ice cube out of my vest. Now that’s just mean! All around us, people push and shove as they try to move forward. I grab hold of Britta’s vest to stop myself from falling over.
As we’re scrambling out at the other end, a woman runs past me, bumping into my back. I lose my footing, my fingers slip off Britta and I fall down in the mud. Britta doesn’t notice and keeps going. I try to get up, but someone treads on my hair and my face slaps down again. I laugh, wipe the mud out of my eyes and rest on my elbows, waiting until I’ve got my breath back.
Suddenly, two hands are round my shoulders, pulling me up out of the mud and holding me steady. I turn round to see who has rescued me. It’s a boy. A boy with messy brown hair, brown eyes and a face that I love and just can’t forget, even when it’s covered in mud.
‘Leo?’ I rest my hands on his chest. I feel his heart beating under my fingers. ‘What are you doing here?’
His hands tighten round me, like he doesn’t want me to run away. ‘I just came to tell you …’ He pauses, trying to get his breath back.
‘What?’ We are being bumped on all sides as people stagger out of the ditch.
‘That I still like you.’ He smiles and instantly I’m bathed in Stråla sunshine. ‘I eight hundred miles like you.’
I laugh, stepping closer to him. ‘Did you rehearse that?’
‘It was a long journey. I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to say.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘You told me you were doing this race and I just hoped I’d bump into you … and I have.’
‘What are you going to do now you’ve bumped into me?’
He looks embarrassed, like he hasn’t thought that far ahead. ‘I’m going to finish the race, with you, and then I thought we could have a coffee, maybe some chocolate – I’ve brought Plopp and Kex – and talk for a bit. I’ve actually got nowhere to sleep tonight. Can I stay at your house?’
I nod. ‘But you’ve forgotten the most important thing you’ve got to do.’
‘What?’ he says, looking worried.
‘This.’ I move closer, ignoring the muddy, sweaty people who push past us, and I reach up and hold his face in my hands. Rain starts to fall and in the distance there’s a rumble of thunder, but I barely notice because now I’m kissing Leo and it’s even more magical than phosphorescence. Leo wraps his arms round me and our race numbers become tangled. His heart beats close to mine. The rain gets heavier, but we don’t care, because we’ve found each other at last.
‘Kat?’ Britta’s shocked voice makes me let go of Leo and spin round. ‘What are you doing?’
‘This is Leo,’ I say, ‘and he’s joining our team.’
‘If that’s OK,’ he says.
‘What’s next?’ I ask Britta.
‘A big slippery wall we have to get over,’ she says, still staring at Leo, wide-eyed. ‘We’ll need to climb on someone’s shoulders.’
‘You turned up at just the right moment,’ I tell Leo. Then I pull him up the bank and we join Britta running along the cliff path. A gust of wind slams into us. I glance sideways, looking at Leo as he runs beside me in his mud-streaked vest. Rain falls down the back of my top and my fingers and toes are numb from the cold. I smile and shake my head.
‘What?’ he says, laughing.
‘Nothing,’ I say … As if I’m going to tell him that he just hit ten out of ten.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Before Jenny started writing books about the Ladybirds (Bea, Betty, Kat and Pearl), she was an English teacher at a large secondary school. Although she loved teaching funny teenagers (and stealing the things they said and putting them in her books), she now gets to write about them full-time. When Jenny isn’t thinking about stories, writing stories or eating cake, she enjoys jiving and running around the South Downs. Jenny lives by the seaside with her husband and two small but fierce girls.
Twitter: @JennyMcLachlan1
Instagram: jennymclachlan_writer
www.jennymclachlan.com
Also by JENNY McLACHLAN
FLIRTY DANCING
LOVE BOMB
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in August 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
This electronic edition published in August 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Jenny McLachlan 2015
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4088 5612 3
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