Cassie's Crush

by Fiona Foden

  “I always have! In fact, the government says we’re meant to have at least five…”

  “So now the prime minister’s telling us how to eat, and you’re planning to do what he says? I wish you were so keen to do what I say, young lady…” She was obviously finding this so funny. If Beth wanted strawberries, Mum would rush out and buy a whole crateful. This is what happens when you only exist because your mother got drunk on cocktails with her best friend.

  “It’s nothing to do with the prime minister,” I growled. “It’s about me and my personal health.” I tailed off into a sulk. The way she was acting, you’d think I’d asked for caviar or an ostrich egg, not a few bashed-up old strawberries.

  “If you’re so keen on fruit, have an apple,” she added, pulling a doggie comb out of the sink water and drying it on the towel we use for plates. I could die of some terrible dog disease and no one would care. I’ve a good mind to phone the council right now, or foster myself out to a normal family. But who’d want a lopsided thirteen-year-old?

  “I suppose oysters are out of the question,” I muttered as I left the room. Obviously, my health is of no concern around here. Why can’t we have strawberries like any normal family? The fruit bowl at Marcia’s is always piled high with exotic fruit (as far as I can remember, anyway. It feels like I haven’t been welcome there for decades now. Will her mum EVER get over that tennis top?). I’ll probably get one of those sailors’ diseases like scurvy caused by vitamin deprivation, even though they’re meant to have died out hundreds of years ago.

  Maybe it’s for the best, I thought as I headed off to school. What if the strawberry potion actually worked, and Ollie’s passion ignited in the middle of Marcia’s kitchen when her mum was in there, spying on us?

  We made jam tarts in home economics and they gave me a brilliant idea. Who needs strawberries when there’s always tons of jam in our house? Mum was busy in the van when I came home from school, and everyone else had gone out, so I could get on with my project without any interference. With only six days to go till the party, I needed to start getting everything ready.

  I peered in the kitchen cupboard and found weird jams that I can’t imagine anyone eating – stuff like damson, greengage and crab apple. Luckily, there was plenty of plain old strawberry jam too. I dumped two sticky dollops into the blender, then added a few more to make it extra effective. Surely the fruitier it was, the more passion-igniting the finished potion would be? I poured in some water and, as we don’t have honey, I added a sprinkling of sugar and whizzed it all up in the machine. I remembered you’re meant to add lime juice but we don’t have any of those either (limes being fruit – i.e., real fruit with vitamins in). But I didn’t suppose limes were crucial.

  Beth wandered in with Henry. “What you making?” he asked as I pulled the blender’s lid off.

  “Just a drink,” I said.

  “What, like a smoothie?”

  “Er … a sort of fruit juice.”

  “Give us a glass,” he said. “Beth’s dragged me all around the shops and I’m dying of thirst…”

  No! What if it had that passion-igniting effect right here and they started, um, doing stuff in our kitchen? Henry already had one arm draped around Beth’s shoulders. “Sorry,” I said. “I need it.”

  “Aw, go on, Cassie,” Henry nagged. “Just a tiny little glass.”

  I shook my head. “You won’t like it. It’s really sweet.”

  “I love sweet things,” Henry insisted. “You’re sweet, aren’t you, Beth?” And he kissed her ear noisily, which nearly made me throw up.

  She giggled. “Go on, Cass – don’t be mean,” she said. “You can’t keep it all to yourself.”

  I sighed, poured Henry the teeniest glass and watched nervously as he brought it to his lips.

  “God,” he cried. “That’s the worst thing I ever tasted.” He ran to the sink, the big baby, and started spitting like mad, all over the dirty dishes that were piled up in there. So now we’ll all get Henry germs on top of the dog diseases that’ll be lurking in there from when Mum washed the grooming brushes. “That was disgusting,” he spluttered. “I’m going to clean my teeth to get rid of it.” And he bounded upstairs to our bathroom.

  “He can’t do that,” I hissed at Beth.

  “Can’t do what?” she asked.

  “Use one of our toothbrushes!”

  “He’s not going to, stupid,” she snorted. “He has his own toothbrush here.”

  My God. Does he really? That seems – I don’t know … almost like they’re married or something. Beth flounced upstairs after him and I tried a teeny sip of my love potion. At least Henry and I agree on one thing. It was disgusting. As I didn’t think it would add to the party atmosphere if everyone was retching and spitting into Marcia’s sink, I poured it all down the plughole.

  Maybe I should forget about love potions and let things happen naturally. I mean, did Romeo and Juliet need strawberry juice and all that stuff?

  Then for my second disaster of the day. It was as if everything connected with Ollie/Marcia’s party was doomed to failure and the stars or the heavens or whatever were laughing at me. When I examined my Venus flytrap costume, I discovered it had gone MOULDY. What the hell went wrong? Maybe it’s been lying in a sticky pile for too long. Anyway, it smelled horrible, as if it’d been kept in a damp cellar, and it had greyish speckles all over it.

  Perhaps that wallpaper paste was off, like pretty much everything else around here. So now I have no love potion or costume and Marcia’s party’s going to be a disaster – because without a costume I just can’t go. Things can’t get much worse.

  Oh yes they can. Today was officially the worst day of my life. Here’s what happened…

  It was all Marcia’s idea. We’d gone straight to Evie’s after school, then decided to wander into town, as they both had some money left over from Christmas. Marcia spotted Ollie, and I know this sounds horribly immature, but we tailed him down the high street, my heart thumping like crazy as we whispered a running commentary on his movements: Subject stopping to look at cakes in bakery window. Subject going into bakery … no, subject resisting cake and now entering Boots … is subject buying something embarrassing like wart cream or anti-stink spray for his feet?

  We were convulsing with giggles as we tailed him around Boots, where he bought a Lynx deodorant and a bottle of shampoo (the kind meant for humans, obviously – Ollie doesn’t have to resort to the doggie sort like I do). Then he headed down George Street and along the seafront.

  Joey and Sam were messing about on the beach, and Ollie jumped down (athletically … sigh) and kicked some stones about with them. I hoped they’d build another fire, and then me and Marcia and Evie could just happen to stroll over and be invited. They didn’t, though. Instead, they headed back through the shopping precinct and over to Jackson Park.

  The streetlights were on so, even though it was dark, the park was brightly lit. We spotted the Leech and Jade, sitting on a bench with their skirts hitched up to show maximum thigh. The Leech had changed out of her school skirt and was wearing a tiny fringed one which looked like a strip of false eyelashes – in February, for God’s sake. I hoped her goosepimply legs were freezing. “He’s going to talk to them,” I said glumly.

  “No he’s not,” Marcia said. “Look, they’re heading in the other direction.”

  She was right. The three of us raced around the edge of the park to the other side so we could get a better look. Here, though, there were too many bushes for us to observe his movements properly. “You need somewhere high to spy from,” Marcia announced, just as I’d started to wonder if Operation SOOP was such a great idea after all. Sure, I’d find out more about Ollie … but why, exactly? It had started as a bit of a game and now I had a horrible feeling it would backfire on me.

  “What about the church spire?” Evie yelped. “That’d give you a good vi
ew.”

  “No way!” I hissed at her. “D’you want me to get arrested or something?”

  “What about over there, then?” Marcia suggested, indicating Chilli Galore, the kebab place. “Look, the roof’s pretty low. You’ll be able to get up easily. I don’t want to ruin my trousers and it’s OK ’cause you’re wearing an old skirt.”

  Sometimes Marcia can be so tactless. I scowled down at my clothes and muttered, “D’you think I’m mad? I’m not doing that!” The pair of them were really getting carried away. I didn’t want to lose face, but I didn’t fancy falling off a roof and ending up in hospital either.

  “Why not?” Marcia asked. “I thought you wanted to—”

  “Because I’m scared I’ll…” I tailed off as a little voice in my head whispered, Why not just do it? She’s right – it’s not that high. I’ll be able to spy on Ollie, which has to be better than going home, where I’ll be roped into shampooing that hyperactive red setter with Mum.

  “Oh, all right then,” I said hesitantly. Marcia and Evie were sniggering behind me as I marched towards Chilli Galore.

  Even so, I don’t think they actually believed I’d do it. I could sense their mouths falling open as I prowled around outside the kebab place, trying to figure out ways of getting on to the roof. The drainpipes looked too wobbly and unsafe, but there were bins down the alley at the side of the building, stinking of old food with a couple of cats lurking around, and some rusty old scaffolding too. No people, though, luckily. Marcia and Evie had gone quiet, and hovered nervously at the entrance to the alley as I clambered on to the smaller bin first, then a taller one, until I could get on to the scaffolding and climb right up to the roof. My heart was thumping with excitement. Marcia had dared me, and I’d risen to the challenge, which had to be better than posing in the park in a silly little eyelash skirt.

  Within minutes, I was on the front part of the roof, overlooking the street and park, in a perfect position to keep Ollie under surveillance. I watched him doing his swaggery walk between the bushes and shrubs, joking with Sam, and when I glanced down at Marcia and Evie, they were clutching each other and laughing.

  Marcia grinned and gave me the thumbs up, then pulled out her phone. A moment later, mine trilled into life, and I snatched it from my pocket and answered it. “See, I did it,” I said, feeling a little queasy now. Peering out over the park had been fine, but looking straight down at the pavement, where Marcia and Evie were standing, was making my head swirl.

  “Are you OK up there?” Marcia asked.

  “Er, I think so,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. “But maybe I’d better come down now…”

  “You can’t,” she hissed. “One of the guys who works in the kebab place is putting stuff in the bins. He’ll go mad if he sees you. He’ll probably call the police.”

  “What can I do, then?” I didn’t like it at all – being trapped up on a rickety flat roof until it was safe to come down. My mouth went dry as I tried to remember why, just five minutes earlier, this had seemed like a great idea. It might not have looked high from down on the ground, but from up here, the pavement seemed a horribly long way away.

  “I don’t know,” Marcia said as Evie babbled something in the background, “but it’s not safe to come down now. Just stay where you are…” I started to wish we were still carrying out Operation SOOP from the relative safety of Boots. “Anyway,” she added, perhaps to cheer me up, “can you see what Ollie’s doing now?”

  Still clutching my phone with my stomach swishing uneasily, I peered across the park. “Um, subject standing on a bench…” I muttered feebly.

  “Uh-huh…”

  “Subject jumping off bench…”

  “What else?”

  “Subject now running across the park, racing Sam…”

  “Oh, my God, look!” someone screamed from below. “There’s a girl on the roof! She’s going to kill herself, Winston!”

  I froze and glanced down. An old woman was standing there, staring and pointing up at me. “Quick, Winston!” she yelled. “She’s going to jump!”

  “I’m not!” I cried out. “I’m fine, I just climbed up to—” Well, what could I say? To spy on a boy? How pathetic would that sound?

  “Don’t do anything crazy, love,” the woman shouted.

  “Stay still!” came a man’s deep, booming voice. “That roof’s unsafe! Don’t move, OK? That’s why there’s scaffolding up…” I nodded and managed to stuff my phone back into my pocket. Great – the first time I’d ever climbed on a roof, I had to choose one that was about to fall to bits. Crouching down, I swivelled my eyes towards Marcia and Evie, who were gawping helplessly at me. A crowd was gathering, and Evie looked like she was desperately trying to explain things, waving her arms about and talking urgently. But no one was taking any notice of her. They were all staring up and shouting at me.

  The crowd swelled like wasps around a spillage of jam. “Don’t do it, love!” someone screamed.

  “Help’s on its way!” yelled someone else. “Just stay away from the edge, don’t do anything stupid…” Then a huge bald man rushed out of Chilli Galore with his face stuffed with kebab and started shouting for someone to call an ambulance. All I had to do was climb back down the scaffolding and on to the bins, then explain that it had just been a dare, and all these gawping strangers would’ve rolled their eyes and muttered about “young people today”. Then they’d have wandered off and forgotten all about me. But with everyone staring and shouting, I couldn’t move. I’d frozen in panic. Everything had gone blurry and I didn’t even care what Ollie was doing in the park.

  I don’t know how long I was there, crouching at the edge of the roof with my heart banging like crazy. But soon, in the distance, I heard the wail of a siren growing louder and louder. From round the corner a police car appeared and two policemen leapt out as if this were a real emergency. “Move along, everyone,” one of them shouted. “Everything’s under control here.”

  Under control? Who was he kidding? “Stay RIGHT where you are, love!” the policeman called up, and I managed a tiny nod. In the distance, I spotted Ollie, Sam, the Leech and Jade all hurrying over, but I was past caring what they’d think. “We’re getting help,” the policeman added. “It’s not safe for you to crawl all over that roof, so a fire engine’s coming.”

  A fire engine? There wasn’t a fire as well, was there? No sooner had he said it than it appeared from round the corner, with firemen piling out and putting up a huge ladder against the front of Chilli Galore. “What were you thinking?” barked one of the firemen, climbing up the ladder towards me.

  That’s when it really hit me what I’d done. For the sake of a stupid prank, the police and now the fire service had been called out when they could have been saving people in real emergencies. “I, I … I just,” I started babbling, but now didn’t seem the right time to explain about Operation SOOP. The fireman scrambled on to the roof, picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. This great big man who could’ve been anybody! OK, he was a fireman. It was his job to rescue me. Even before we’d got down the ladder he’d started asking me why I’d done it, and if I’d seriously been thinking of throwing myself off. Even though I kept telling him no, I don’t think he believed me.

  Everyone gawped and started shaking their heads as the fireman put me down on the pavement. I glanced around and saw Ollie making loud snorting noises into his hand. Sam was just staring at me as if I were mad. I couldn’t look at the Leech. Marcia and Evie pushed their way through the crowd and flung their arms around me, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I was dying inside.

  The policemen wouldn’t let me walk home. “You do understand,” one of them said in the car, “that if this was just a dare or a prank, whatever you called it, it’s actually a very serious matter?”

  “Yes,” I bleated. I stared out of the window, where a scraggy bird was pecking at
food on the pavement. I thought: I’d give anything to be that pigeon.

  At home, Mum kept giving me furious looks as the policeman ranted on at me. She was wearing her pink overall with poodles all over it, which didn’t seem to match the seriousness of the situation. “So what d’you have to say for yourself, Cassie?” she barked at me when the policeman had paused for breath.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “It’s as if you go out of your way to embarrass us!”

  “That’s enough,” Dad said sharply from his armchair. “She knows she’s done something silly. We don’t need to keep going on and on about it.”

  Mum and the policeman glared at him. “And you do understand,” the policeman went on, turning back to me, “that those fireman who helped you down from the roof could’ve been needed in a genuine emergency?”

  I nodded and blinked prickly tears from my eyes.

  “And people could have lost their lives because of you?” he snapped. “I mean – people could have died? You do know that, don’t you, Cassie?”

  “Yes,” I croaked.

  The policeman stared at me even more fiercely than Miss Rashley does. “I assume you won’t be pulling a stunt like this again.”

  Was he joking? Did he think I made a habit of tottering about on kebab house roofs? “I definitely won’t,” I said firmly.

  He stood up and asked, in a slightly kinder tone, “There wasn’t any other reason why … why you were up there?”

  “No. It was just, erm … just a dare.” He meant: You weren’t thinking of throwing yourself off, were you? I really wasn’t. But right then I could happily have done just that.

  I could hear Mum’s brain whirring, conjuring up suitable punishments for me, as Dad got up from his armchair and gave me a hug.

  “Your sister would never put us through an ordeal like that,” Mum wailed as soon as the policeman had gone.

  “Oh, just leave her be, Barbara,” Dad muttered.