Nicole and Lacey were doing this boom boom, shake shake thing between them, Mands was laughing and Adrian was saying:
‘I wish Zoe had been home for this. She’d have been so proud of you both.’
I thought of just how much I’d have given for it to have been Dad with the keyboard on his lap, rather than Adrian – and the happy bubble exploded. Or, rather, imploded.
Anyway, it was gone.
‘Mum’s always proud of me,’ I said. As I spoke it was like the room snapped back into focus again. It was just me and a load of people who didn’t really like each other. Plus a tube of skin cream and something that might once have been a pizza.
‘Yeah, but if she’d just heard that –’
‘Whatever,’ I said, shooting the word full of ice. ‘And Nicole, can you please stop filming everything? You’re creeping me out.’
‘Katie,’ said Amanda, in her big sister voice.
‘I’m just saying,’ I just said.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Sorry,’ said Adrian. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . I don’t understand . . .’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Clearly you don’t.’
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Lacey, ‘but you should know that Jaz is in your underwear drawer.’
She wasn’t literally in there. She was just digging through mounds of knickers and twisted up ropes of tights, and stuff was falling out on to the floor, which, let’s be clear, was already pretty busy.
‘Jaz, why are you looking through my pants?’
Jaz turned around and grinned, as though it was socially acceptable to meet someone on the bus and then come back to their house and play music with them and rootle through their knickers.
‘Because if you’ve got anything hidden, it’ll be in here.’
‘Like what?’ I said, feeling this total panic, because I did in fact have a condom in there. Not to use or anything. Just one I’d been given ages ago when a Sex Ed nurse came in to school and I thought I ought to keep it and maybe examine it. Only I’d never got it out of the packet, because Lacey had opened hers for the both of us and it had been all revolting and wet.
‘Whisky,’ said Jaz, ‘or handcuffs. Or maybe a secret diary.’ She reached right to the back of the drawer, putting her arm all the way in, a bit like a vet I’d once seen on television, who’d been helping a cow give birth.
‘Jaz . . .’ I began, as Adrian got to his feet, which took a while.
‘You know, I think I’ll leave you ladies to it.’
Thank the Lord he was off. But then Amanda jumped up too, and I really didn’t want her to go. The atmosphere was already toxic, and that wasn’t even including Nicole’s body spray.
‘You can stay if you want, Mands,’ I said, with a hopeless smile.
But I’d left it too late.
‘Ade and I are going to talk about restocking the shop.’
‘Great OK fine,’ I said. ‘You two go and do that.’
‘OK,’ said Amanda, heading out the door. ‘Have fun.’
‘We will,’ I said, as Nicole grabbed Lacey’s bag and frisbee’d it out of the window.
‘Ha ha ha,’ said Jaz. By which I mean, she didn’t laugh, she just said the words while looking Lacey straight in the eye. Clearly my underwear wasn’t as amusing as winding my best friend up.
‘Yes, very funny,’ said Lacey, also not laughing in the slightest. ‘Are you going to go and get it then?’
At which point Nicole started climbing out of the window.
‘No!’ I said, rushing forward and pulling her down off the sill before she could actually kill herself. ‘We’re properly high up, you’ll fall miles.’
‘If anyone’s going to fall out the window,’ said Jaz, ‘it should be Lacey.’
‘What?!’ Lacey’s head snapped back round. ‘Why?’
‘Put you out of your misery.’
This was not looking good. I had to get Jaz to leave before something truly terrible happened. But how? Seeing as I hadn’t actually invited her in the first place? Even with vampires, you have to ask them inside.
So while Jaz chucked Nicole chips and Nicole tried and failed to catch them in her mouth, and Lacey pretended she was deeply interested in my Amy Winehouse memorabilia (which, from past experience, I knew she wasn’t), I made a mental list of ways I might get Jaz to go away so I could talk to Lacey in peace.
1. Say the evening is over and go to bed. (No. Jaz would probably set light to the duvet.)
2. Fake a serious disease. (No. Nicole would probably catch it.)
3. Have a huge fight and make Jaz storm out. (No. Jaz would win and I’d storm out and then I would be homeless and although the new house was not much fun it was better than a park bench.)
4. Employ reverse psychology and tell Jaz that I want her to stay. (This could actually work. Nice one, me.)
I grinned, and lay back against the wall, ultra-casual, trying not to notice that Nicole was pulling the shade off my bedside lamp. ‘So, this has been a really fun evening.’
‘Huh,’ said Lacey.
‘I’m so glad I’m getting the bus with you now,’ I said to Jaz. ‘It’s brilliant.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Jaz, but I could tell she was pleased.
‘What’s great about it, Jaz, is that we get to hang out a bit more,’ I said. ‘I feel like I’ve hardly seen you at school because of all the . . . all the . . .’
‘Skiving?’ said Lacey.
‘And now we can do stuff. Which is why you should definitely stay a lot longer, if you want. Stay the night, even!’
I threw a quick glance at Lacey, with an expression that made it clear I was doing some very clever mind trickery that was going to get rid of Jaz pronto so we could enjoy some one-on-one friend time.
‘If she’s staying then I think I’m going to head off.’
‘What?! No, Lace, you don’t understand. I don’t . . . I mean, I want you all to stay. Especially you. Nicole, maybe don’t put that in your mouth, I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘I gave up seeing Gran’s kitten to come over here. Because I thought we were going to watch Mean Girls together.’ Lacey’s skin was normally this soft milky colour, but now she’d flushed a bright and, I must say, quite unattractive, shade of tomato.
‘We can watch Mean Girls,’ said Jaz. ‘I’ve got this great game. Any time Lindsay Lohan sits down, you have to drink –’
‘I thought we were going to watch Mean Girls,’ said Lacey, blinking fast. ‘To make up for not walking in to school together.’
‘And we will . . .’
‘So how come you invited Mad Jaz – oh dear.’
‘Mad Jaz?’ said Mad Jaz.
‘That’s Katie’s secret nickname for you,’ said Lacey. ‘It just slipped out. Whoops.’
‘Why do you think I’m mad?’ said Jaz, as I inwardly curled up into a tiny ball and rolled under the bed while outwardly tried to look unbothered and respectful-of-Jaz.
‘Just, you know.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Oh dear, this is embarrassing,’ said Lacey, looking the happiest she’d been all evening.
‘It’s j-just,’ I stuttered, ‘that you sometimes do things which are a bit . . . unexpected.’
‘I love it. Mad Jaz! Best nickname ever. Thanks, Katie. Now, are you drinking that beer?’
‘Maybe everyone should go home,’ I said. ‘Lace, it’s not late, you could probably still see the kitten. And Jaz, you can . . . go and do . . . Jaz stuff.’
Amazingly, it worked. Everyone got up and started moving towards the door.
‘Bye,’ I said, shepherding them all down the stairs, which made ominous creaking noises as they went. ‘Great seeing you. So much fun. Bye. Bye-bye!’
Then they were picking their way through the nettles in the front garden, and thank heaven it was almost over and I was just deciding to pretend that none of it had happened, when I had this sudden thought.
‘Er,
Jaz?’ I called down the path. ‘You won’t post any of this online, will you?’
Jaz turned, and smiled, her teeth shining white through the dusk. ‘I already have.’
At breakfast the next morning, there was a bit of an atmosphere. I know this because I was the one creating it.
‘I see you had a party last night,’ said Mum, looking meaningfully at the pile of fish-and-chip wrappers next to the kitchen bin. ‘I hope you had a good time.’
‘Not really,’ I said.
‘I had fun,’ said Adrian, giving his hair (head, not nose) a quick fluff. ‘And your friend, Jaz? She’s quite something.’
‘I hate Jaz,’ I said. Amanda raised her eyebrows. ‘OK, not hate, but . . . she’s not my friend, all right? She’s just someone I know, who came over for the evening. That’s all. And from now on can everyone please mind their own business.’
‘What’s upset her so much?’ said Mum.
‘You know Katie,’ said Amanda, as though I wasn’t standing right there next to them. ‘Drama queen. We’re running out of Coco Pops. It’s the world’s greatest ever disaster.’
It was pretty disastrous, actually. But it wasn’t why I was so upset. Although I have to say it didn’t help.
What’s the first thing you do when someone tells you they’ve put a video of you online?
You go and watch it.
Only I couldn’t because my phone was dead. And the broadband, which had been the one thing that had been OK about the new house, suddenly seemed to have ceased to exist.
I’d given it an hour, and tried turning the box off and on and then off and then on. And smacking it against the wall, just in case. It was working, because the lights were on, but however much I refreshed the connection, our WiFi wouldn’t come up.
I’d gone to bed with this itchy, crawly feeling that there was all this stuff out there and I couldn’t see it. Not to mention all the other stuff I was missing. Devi Lester’s latest conspiracy theory, whatever disgusting thing Nicole was up to, the pictures of Lacey’s gran’s kitten. It was like not being invited to a party. And as I literally hadn’t been invited to Savannah’s party, I wasn’t feeling too great.
‘Can someone please tell me why the broadband has stopped working?’ I said.
‘Oh. Yeah. That’s switched off for the time being,’ said Adrian, who was wearing his leather jacket at the breakfast table, the weirdo.
‘What’s the time being? Because I’m going to need it tonight.’
He creaked. Or his jacket did. ‘The foreseeable future.’
‘What?’ My breathing went shallow. ‘I cannot foresee a future without broadband.’
‘Money’s a bit tight at the moment. Takings are down, there are a few things wrong with the house that need to be fixed . . .’
‘Like having no broadband.’
‘It was either that or turn off the water, ha ha!’
I wasn’t laughing. ‘Then I’ll go without water.’
‘Adrian, why don’t you go and unpack . . . something,’ said Mum.
He shot out of the kitchen and, simultaneously, Mum and Amanda leaned in:
‘How can you be so rude?’
‘It’s not his fault.’
Which was pushing it. ‘He told us to buy the house, didn’t he?’
‘You should be nicer to him,’ said Amanda.
‘You’re right,’ I replied. ‘I should jam with him and maybe play all my private songs that I thought were just between the two of us.’
She flinched. ‘I’m going to help Adrian unpack . . . some . . . thing.’
Now it was me and Mum and a table’s worth of breakfast dishes.
I wouldn’t say anything else, I decided. Not while I was so worked up. I’d only talk my way into trouble.
Unfortunately, Mum has got this killer technique for getting me to open up. I think she learned it at nursing college. It involves kneeling down and brushing the hair out of my eyes and saying, ‘Katie, love, what is it? Are you OK? Because I’m worried about you.’
I lasted all of nine seconds.
‘It’s just, the house.’
Wrong answer. She stood back up again.
‘We’re all upset about the house,’ said Mum.
‘And, I suppose, Adrian.’
‘What about Adrian?’ asked Mum, swinging round to the sink.
‘Um.’
‘Do you have a problem with Adrian?’ Now she was doing some really intense washing-up. The sort of washing-up that made it clear she didn’t want to hear the answer.
‘No,’ I said.
A big, long gap.
Don’t say it, I thought. It won’t help.
Scrub scrub, splish splish.
‘It’s just . . . I thought you weren’t going to go out with another musician. Because of Dad, and everything. You kept saying it, all through the break-up. And now –’
‘Adrian is not a musician,’ said Mum, and she said it very fast and very sharp. ‘He’s in retail.’
‘He was in a band, though.’
‘That was then.’
‘Still, he’s always noodling about on the guitar, isn’t he? Him and Amanda –’
‘I think Amanda’s been terrific recently,’ said Mum. ‘Very calm, very supportive.’ I was clearly being invited to consider another member of the family who hadn’t been quite so angelic.
‘Yeah,’ I said. It was becoming obvious that Mum didn’t want to know why I’d been such a grump. She just wanted the grumping to stop.
‘And what’s the big upset about the broadband? Why can’t you use your phone?’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘About that. It’s sort of . . . broken.’
Mum did that thing she does when she is Being Calm In The Face of Adversity. The current adversity being me. ‘You broke your birthday present?’
‘I didn’t break it, OK? This boy on the bus chucked it out of the window.’
‘I suppose I thought you’d take better care of it. That phone was incredibly expensive.’
She wasn’t hearing anything I said.
‘If I hadn’t had to catch the bus in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened,’ I said. ‘It’s not my fault we had to move house.’
‘Katie, I have a headache coming on and you’re not helping.’
‘Well, I’m sorry I’m such a pain,’ I said. ‘And I guarantee that from now on you will hardly notice my existence. It’ll be like I’ve disappeared.’
‘Katie . . .’
‘You won’t even notice I’m around. Then, one day, you’ll find the Coco Pops packet is empty and you’ll be all, like, “Oh yes, my other daughter,” and –’
Mum took off her rubber gloves and stood back in a way that told me this conversation was over. ‘Katie, knock it off.’
Which made me completely livid, because she’d started out like she cared and really she’d just wanted to have a go at me.
What with all that, I wasn’t really up for lingering around at home, and I got to the bus stop even earlier than I had the day before.
No one should ever have to wait for a bus without a phone. It’s unnatural. I mean, what are your hands supposed to even do? Why do humans have thumbs, if not for messaging?
I was forced to look at the world around me, and it was not pleasant. Traffic whizzed past. A couple of pigeons fought over something brown. And the plastic packets that had been shoved through the wire fence had stacked up on the ground to provide an interesting record of the snack choices of the number 53 bus. (If you’re interested, Mars bars were the most popular, followed by Quavers, and then it was a tie between Double Deckers, Twixes and Wheat Crunchies.)
I spent a second thinking about what archaeologists in five hundred years’ time would think of our rubbish, and whether any of them would understand the gloriousness that is a Double Decker, and then I got distracted from my scientific considerations because Finlay had arrived and he was staring at me.
I tried a bit of a smile on him, to show that I’d
forgiven him for destroying my beloved mobile. Which I hadn’t, I just couldn’t face him destroying anything else.
He just smirked and said, ‘You’re really messy.’
‘I am quite messy, yes,’ I said, because I suppose I am. My hair was, as usual, a bit all over the place, and my eyeliner wasn’t at its best.
Then he smirked. So I decided he was an idiot and left him to it while I dealt with the year sevens, who all arrived at once, singing the chorus of Just Me.
They had the words and tune down perfectly, which was pretty impressive, given that they’d only heard it that one time on the bus. And they sang it over and over and over and over and over again.
‘That’s great, thanks,’ I said, thinking it would shut them up. Instead it seemed to put them into overdrive.
‘All right, maybe you can stop now,’ I tried, which of course made it infinitely worse.
Then Nicole turned up. I wanted to ask her about the video, and whether I could watch it, only before I could, she started telling me a long story about her BCG scab, which ended with her picking it off and eating it.
‘Maybe we could talk about something else . . . ?’
‘Maybe you could do some washing,’ said one of the year sevens cheekily, and then they all sniggered.
Honestly. In my day we showed our elders a bit of respect.
I smoothed out my sweatshirt, which, come to think of it, could probably have done with a spin in the machine, and then the bus came and we were all thundering upstairs and taking our seats, year sevens in the middle, Nicole and Finlay on the back seat and me floating around somewhere in between.
No sign of Jaz.
I spent the entire bus ride trying to keep Finlay from shoving tuna mayo down the back of my neck, while Nicole seared the word ‘Nicole’ into the seats with a compass and her lighter. What with having to make a quick trip to the loos to de-fish myself, I only just made it to registration, and as I sat down everyone giggled.
‘What?’ I said, just as McAllister came in and said: ‘Assembly. All of you. Now.’
Assembly that day was a lecture on plants – how we are all like plants and should grow towards the light and something about chlorophyll.
Accidental Superstar Page 6
