by Sue Limb
Walking to school next day seemed like a huge effort. I was light-headed and my legs felt hollow and weak. Would Chloe ever speak to me again? Would she ask for her money back? As I reached the gate, I saw her waiting. She headed straight for me. I flinched a little. What was coming? A right hook? She grabbed my wrist.
‘I’m really, really sorry, Zoe,’ she said, her eyes full of tears. ‘I was a bitch. I’ve been a total pain recently and I promise I’ll try and do better.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled guiltily. ‘I was totally out of order. I’ve just got so irritable recently. Sorry, Chloe.’ We fell into each other’s arms and had a massive hug. ‘You can have the money back right away if you like,’ I murmured into her ear.
‘No, no!’ she pulled away, smiling. ‘I want Tam to have it! She’s in a fix and I can help! She’s always been so nice to me.’
We strolled off, arm in arm. The sun felt unusually shiny. The sky was fabulously blue. We were never going to row again. Well, not this week, anyway.
‘So what’s the situation between you and Oliver?’ asked Chloe.
How could I explain to Chloe the full intricate horror of my misunderstanding with Oliver? It would take all day. Besides, Jess and Flora were coming up.
‘It’s complicated,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain at lunch.’
‘Chloe,’ said Jess. ‘We’ve heard you can do somersaults. Is that true?’
‘Well … yes,’ said Chloe. Though useless at ball games and swimming, she can mysteriously do cartwheels and stuff.
‘Well, we’re doing an assembly next week and it kind of needs somebody to turn somersaults in it,’ Jess went on. ‘Any chance you could be that person? No pressure. Just, if you don’t, children will die in Africa because of you.’
Chloe started talking about the assembly with Flora and Jess. I went off into a kind of daydream. I was rehearsing a speech. At break I would go to the sixth-form area and hang around until Oliver appeared. Then, with a couple of graceful and carefree sentences, I would explain everything. I would be enchanting.
‘Oh, hi, Oliver!’ I would call, as if it was such a surprise to see him at this moment. In fact, as if I’d briefly forgotten about his very existence. ‘How’s it going?’ And then, after he’d told me how it was going, I’d say, ‘Listen, I’m sorry about the misunderstanding about the farm. I’ve been the victim of an elaborate practical joke. My parents brought me up to believe we lived on a farm, but I’ve recently discovered that we do, in fact, live in a perfectly ordinary house like everybody else.
‘And when my mum puts on her smart suit and picks up her briefcase, she’s not, as she always said, going off to milk the cows, but apparently, to investigate insurance claims. My parents invented this ludicrous story because they were so embarrassed about the insurance business that they were afraid I might run away from home. But, you know. I quite like my house anyway. Er … where do you live, by the way?’
And then, when he’d told me where he lived, I’d go round after dark and pick a bit of his hedge. And I’d tuck it in my bra, next to my heart, and never take it out for the rest of my life, even if it was quite prickly.
Chloe went off with Flora and Jess to demonstrate her somersaults in the hall. I just leaned against the fence. Hundreds of kids were milling about. But none of them was Oliver. I never see him when I’m looking for him. Then, when I least expect it, he appears. I read somewhere that ghosts are a bit like that.
‘Hi! Zoe!’ I looked round. It was Toby (also looking round – we’ve often discussed going on a diet together). He was eating a packet of crisps.
‘Crisps before 9 a.m.?’ I said, in a cross, lecturing kind of voice. ‘What did you have for breakfast, may I ask?’
‘Nothing,’ said Toby. ‘This is my breakfast. I don’t count muesli.’
‘How are you, anyway, my dear?’ I started in on the old-lady voice we sometimes use. But Toby didn’t pick up on it today. In fact, he sighed.
‘Oh …’ he said, tipping the last crumbs of crisps into his mouth and wiping his lips on his hand. ‘You know … rubbish.’
‘Why rubbish?’ I cried indignantly. Toby’s supposed to cheer me up. He’s usually relentlessly optimistic. ‘Listen, Tobe! You’re my hero! That money you lent me has literally saved my sister’s life!’ Toby looked surprised.
‘Uh … ?’
‘Well, not literally literally,’ I went on. ‘Although yeah! Maybe literally literally! Because when she first rang me to tell me how fed up she was, she was walking down by the river in the rain, in the dark! She could easily have thrown herself in, and now she’s as happy as anything – thanks to you, Tobes!’
‘Well,’ said Toby. ‘Good.’ And he burped. It was quite a sad burp, though, and he still looked rather down in the mouth.
‘So what’s the problem?’ I asked. He shrugged.
‘Fergus says we might as well sell our Earthquake Ball tickets,’ said Toby. ‘Nobody’s ever going to want to come with us.’
‘Rubbish!’ I shrieked. ‘Toby, you’ve gotta go! Everyone’s going! Don’t be such a pillock – of course somebody will go with you!’
‘Who?’ said Toby simply, shrugging. His eyes were huge, and fixed on me like two luminous blue-and-white planets.
Suddenly, in my secret heart of hearts, I felt a sickening jolt. Toby hadn’t said anything, but weirdly I had this sense that because he’d lent me all his money, I sort of had to go to the Ball with him myself! Noooooooo! Toby was a mate, and a good mate. The best. But the Earthquake Ball was so not the event to go to just with your mate.
If I thought I had to go with Toby I would literally die. Well, not literally literally.
‘Somebody will snap you up!’ I yelled. ‘You’re gorgeous! You’re both amazingly fun guys! Go out and hunt down a couple of blondes!’ This was a code way of making sure he never thought about me and Chloe as possible partners, because I’m mousy and Chloe’s a redhead.
‘We went out so-called hunting last night,’ said Toby. ‘We went bowling. Even the most munting girls there wouldn’t look at us. They said we were gay.’
‘Well, what do you expect from girls who haunt the bowling alley?’ I asked, swiftly ignoring the fact that I’ve had some of the best evenings of my life there. ‘Try the pool. Or the skating rink. Or the Dolphin Cafe. That waitress in the Dolphin fancies you. She’s always flirting when we go in there.’
‘She flirts with anything alive,’ said Toby sadly. ‘I saw her last week flirting with a tomato.’
The bell rang for registration. In the distance I could see Fergus approaching. Chloe is literally (yes, this time literally) petite – no more than five foot two in her shoes, and Fergus is at least half a head shorter. For one brief horrible moment a vision flashed before my eyes of Chloe in a fab green ballgown and Fergus tagging along beside her in a tuxedo. I’m sorry to be smallist, but it looked completely ridiculous. As if he was her adopted orphan son or something.
‘Who are you going with?’ asked Toby suddenly. I almost jumped right out of my skin. On the one hand, Toby’s question looked like a simple, straightforward enquiry.
On the other, it felt like a red-hot dangerous interrogation that might lead directly to the worst thing he could ever possibly say, i.e., ‘Why don’t you come with me?’
‘It’s kind of a secret,’ I said, and winked at him. Or tried to wink. But I was so nervous, my eyelid sort of stuck down (too much mascara, also, I admit.) Instead of looking sporty and playful I appeared, for a moment, only sinister and deranged.
‘Oh,’ said Toby. ‘I wish I had a secret partner lined up. Very glamorous and exciting, my dear!’ He tried, at last, for the old-lady voice, but got it slightly wrong. He just wasn’t in the mood, poor Tobe.
‘Don’t worry, Toblerone,’ I squeezed his arm, but only briefly, and in a totally unsexy kind of way, ‘you shall go to the Ball! Leave it to me.’
‘Will you be my fairy godmother, then?’ asked Toby with the ghost of a smile.
‘I certainly jolly well will, my dear!’ I assured him in my old lady’s voice. Chloe and Fergus joined us, and we went off to registration. They were talking about a film. I wasn’t really listening. My mind was reeling.
What had I done? Not only did I have to find a partner for me, but I now had to find one for Toby too. And possibly Fergus.
But first I had to find Oliver and explain why I’d said I lived on a farm. Just how complicated could a day be? I was exhausted already.
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29
THURSDAY 11.03 a.m.
Swept off my feet by his roller-coaster
At break, I heaved a deep sigh and tried to summon my few pathetic shreds of courage.
‘I have to go and confront Oliver,’ I told Chloe. ‘I have to explain that misunderstanding we had.’
‘Oh … right,’ said Chloe. She was smiling and trying to look positive and supportive, but I could tell she couldn’t quite remember what I was talking about. ‘I’ve got to go and see Dingle anyway, to get that work I missed on Tuesday. Then it’s maths.’ We’re in separate sets for maths, for reasons which must remain private.
‘I’ll see you at lunchtime, then,’ I said, and trudged off towards my appointment with doom.
I’d got my speech all ready. Well, it was hardly a speech. More a sort of brief aside. It went like this: ‘I’m sorry about the misunderstanding about the farm. I was telling Donut I lived on a farm because he was hitting on me and I wanted him to think I lived way way out in the sticks, so I’d, like, never be available to go out anywhere.’ It sounded so lame, but it was, in fact, just the plain old truth. So if I only managed to say this to Oliver, at least it wouldn’t rebound horribly on me and cause me loads of extra hassle.
I walked towards the sixth-form area, my heart starting to beat like a drum. The sixth form are based on the first floor, at the far side of the school, where the corridor turns into a sort of open balcony thing overlooking the field. As I reached this point, I glanced down. It was quite a sunny spring-like day and crowds of people had gone down on to the field. And there, talking to some guys, was Oliver!
He had his back to me, but of course I recognised it immediately. Just the sight of his shoulders, a hundred metres away, was enough to send all my nerves and arteries into some kind of deranged dance. I turned round, raced back along the corridor, down some steps and out on to the school’s back terrace – and down some more steps on to the field.
By now I was panting unattractively. Whoa! Big mistake that was. I should have strolled here. How could I look casual and offhand, as if I’d just bumped into him, if I was bright red and gasping for breath? I’d have to say I was desperately seeking Chloe.
Now I was surrounded by crowds, and I couldn’t see Oliver at all. I pushed my way through gangs of random people. Occasionally someone said, ‘Hi Zoe!’ But I just waved and pulled an I’m busy face, and pressed on. I reached the edge of the crowd eventually, and looked around. Still no sign of Oliver. I panicked. And then I double-panicked. For strolling towards me looking mad, bad and dangerous was none other than Beast and his moronic sidekick, Donut.
‘Hi, darlin’!’ he said, and suddenly he was right up close, invading my personal space with his strange glittering eyes. ‘Looking for somebody? Who’s the lucky guy? Could it be me? If not, why not?’
I hesitated. For a moment I was tempted to say I was looking for Oliver. But I so wanted to keep the Oliver part of my life separate from the Beast ’n’ Donut part of my life.
‘You’re out of breath, babe!’ Beast went on. He was actually stroking my arm, now, the animal! ‘Hey! Relax! Calm down.’
‘I am relaxed!’ I snapped, in hyper-stress. ‘I am deeply deeply calm!’
Beast laughed.
‘I love the way you talk! Don’t you love the way she talks, Doh?’ Donut nodded eagerly. To please his master he would be prepared to love the way I spat.
‘Tell you what, though, babe,’ he said, ‘you’re not very fit, are you? I don’t mean not fit, like, not good-looking. To be honest I’ve always thought you were one of the best-looking girls in the school. I mean, not fit, like, needing a fitness programme and a personal trainer. And I’m the man for the job.’
‘You are so not!’ I retorted, though it was really hard to stand up to him. Somehow he slithered his way round you like a snake. ‘If I ever decide to do a fitness programme, I’m quite capable of organising it myself, thanks very much.’
‘Anybody ever told you what sweet little dimples you got, Zoe?’ he said, grinning practically into my face. I was furious. How dare Beast hit on me here, on the school field? How dare he hit on me anywhere?
‘My dimples,’ I said coldly, ‘are nothing compared to Chloe’s freckles, which you must have noticed, as you spent so much time with her recently.’
‘Ahhh, your little friend,’ breathed Beast, putting his arm round my shoulders. ‘Tell you what, Zoe, she’s a cracker. But I think I must have done something to upset her, cos she won’t speak to me now. And to tell you the truth, she’s not really my type. I like a girl with a bit of flesh on her. Something cuddly. Something to grab hold of.’ And his big beastly fingers closed around my upper arm, squeezing my special store of flab till it almost hurt.
‘Thanks for pointing out that I am technically overweight!’ I sneered. ‘Such wonderful manners!’
‘You’re not overweight, babe!’ he grinned. ‘You’re perfect! Overweight, my arse! You’re as light as a freakin’ feather – look!’ Suddenly he kind of bent down slightly, and before I knew what was happening, he had hoisted me up on to his shoulder and was wheeling me round. Round and round and round. The field, the sky, the school, all flashed past in a madly whirling horizon.
I screamed. Everybody laughed. I held on tight to Beast’s jacket, because though this mad whirling circus performance was the last thing on earth I wanted to be doing, I certainly didn’t want to crash to the ground and end up brain damaged.
Beast was horribly strong. He’s a rugby player and they are always tossing each other about like bags of laundry.
‘Put me down!’ I screamed. ‘Put me down!’ And then I got kind of hysterical, and started laughing madly. It wasn’t that I was enjoying myself – quite the contrary. I have never enjoyed a moment less. But I just felt so totally helpless, I kind of freaked out. My body was trapped: laughing seemed all it could do. It was a painful kind of laughing, though. Quite close to crying, in fact.
Faces of people nearby loomed and vanished. It was like being on a roundabout at the fair. I began to feel sick. Then suddenly, out of the crowd, Oliver’s face flashed past. Oliver was watching!
‘Put me down!’ I roared unattractively. ‘I’m going to be sick!’
That did the trick. Beast lowered me to the ground. I wasn’t actually sick, but my head was spinning. I had to stand ultra-still for a while and hold on to my head until the field stopped spinning, bucking and rocking.
I looked round. Oliver had vanished. A blonde girl had come up to Beast and was, apparently, demanding the same treatment, as if it was some kind of joyride. He was busy chatting her up. It was as if I’d never existed. My enchanting dimples and lovable flab were on the scrap heap – thank God. I wouldn’t have to ask Chloe ever again what had happened between her and Beast. I’d experienced it myself, in two minutes flat.
My legs began to feel normal again. I limped off quietly into the crowds. My stomach was still queasy, though. But it wasn’t the vertigo. It wasn’t physical. It was the knowledge that Oliver had now seen me three times: once, with Donut fingering my earrings; once, with my arms flung around Toby, and now, being tossed about by Beast as if I was some kind of plaything, and I’d been laughing like a drunken slapper.
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30
THURSDAY 7.12 p.m.
A touching offer in the bathroom …
A depression settled over me. I was deep in the glooms. My life was in ruins.
Oliver would probably never speak to me again. There was nobody to take me to the Earthquake Ball. Matthew would be taking Chloe – and despite my efforts he was still technically a robot. And he’d be expecting to meet my partner Nigel, in order, possibly, to challenge him to a duel over me.
Worse, I was going to fail utterly as fairy godmother to Toby and Fergus. They might as well invest in a couple of scarecrows as partners. Even a mediocre scarecrow would be better looking than any girl I was likely to be able to recruit at this late stage.
‘By the way, Zoe,’ said Mum at supper, ‘when’s that school trip, again?’
‘What school trip?’ I asked listlessly, from the depths of my tragic despair.
‘The all-male Hamlet in Russian,’ said Mum. My heart gave a massive, salad-threatening lurch. Oh, that school trip!
‘It’s next week – but, uh, excuse me,’ I said, leaping up in terror and running out of the room in what I hoped was a carefree but trustworthy manner.
‘Come back!’ she said. ‘You haven’t finished your salad!’
‘Just going to the loo!’ I trilled, thundering up the stairs. Horrors! I had so many reasons to be desperate, I couldn’t even remember them all at once! I had totally forgotten about Hamlet. How was I going to get myself out of that one?
Sometimes the bathroom is the only place where you can chill out. I decided to forget my woes by losing myself in a trashy magazine. I was halfway through a page devoted to Celebrity Lovebites when my phone rang. It was Fergus. Bizarre! And even more bizarre if he’d known where I was sitting.
‘Fergy baby!’ I addressed him. ‘What’s the story?’
‘OKOK,’ said Fergus in his usual quick-fire jittery style. ‘ICan’tManage MuchButICanDoFifty. OK?’
‘Fifty?’ I was briefly puzzled. Part of my brain was still involved with Celebrity Lovebites, and to be honest, wanting to take the subject a lot further.
‘FiftyQuid,’ said Fergus. ‘I’llBringItToSchool Tomorrow. OK?’
‘Fergus!’ I cried. ‘You’re the lovechild of the goddess Venus!’
