Following Flora

by Natasha Farrant

  The four of us huddled together in the bushes and watched.

  “This plan was catastrophic,” I said.

  “I did warn you,” said Twig.

  “They’re talking!” cried Jas.

  She was right. We were too far away to hear what they were saying, but they were definitely talking. Flora and Zach, face-to-face on the basketball court. He shuffled his feet, tossing his ball from one hand to the other. She tucked her hair behind her ear. He pointed down the path to where we were hiding. Flora turned as if to go. Zach put his hand out, like he was asking her to stay. And she did.

  “Bingo,” whispered Dodi.

  “Time to go home,” I agreed.

  We crept out of the bushes and went the long way around the park so as not to disturb them.

  It was almost dark by the time Flora got home. She didn’t mention the fact that Twig and Jas had run away, and nobody asked her where she’d been. But tonight I heard her humming Zach’s song to herself in the bathroom, and I think that tomorrow she may start talking to me again.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1 (VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING)

  Tomorrow, or rather today, started almost before yesterday ended, and Flora is already talking to me. I was asleep about five minutes when something landed on the end of my bed, and when I opened my eyes that something was her.

  “Are you awake?” she whispered.

  “No,” I mumbled.

  “So I met Zach.”

  Flora giggled, and stretched out at the end of my bed with her feet dangling over one side and her head hanging down over the other.

  Before today, I never really thought much about love at first sight. It’s just one of those things you assume must be true because films and books are always going on about it, but Flora is my first real life experience with it, and it’s extremely strange. She’s had about a million crushes and boyfriends before, but this is the first time she has come into my bedroom in the middle of the night to talk about it.

  “He’s so gorgeous,” she said. “I mean, close up. He’s got these amazing brown eyes, and when he smiles his mouth goes up a little bit more on one side than the other, which is adorable, and he has a dimple in his left cheek. And he’s really funny. I apologized about you and your video. I mentioned, you know, the fight thing, and he got all embarrassed and said he didn’t normally go around punching people. He said that song was very personal to him, and it upset him seeing it taken apart like that. He’s so sensitive and artistic. He said he had a lot on his mind, and I said I knew a bit about it through Zoran, but discreetly, you know, like I didn’t mention his witch mother not coming to the concert or anything. I just said very vaguely about his grandfather and how I was sorry, and he was all yeah, well, it was tough but he didn’t want to talk about it, and then it was a tiny bit awkward but he asked if he could see me again!”

  “Your face is going red,” I said. “I think the blood must be going to your head.”

  Flora flipped back the right way up and beamed at me.

  “Did I tell you he smells delicious? Like lemons. Or maybe limes.”

  “That’s so lovely.”

  “I’m going back to bed now.”

  She glided over to the door in a sort of weird improvised ballet and drifted out.

  I have been lying awake for ages. Jake comes home today. I realize that I have absolutely no idea what he smells like.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1 (CONT.)

  If I was making a film about me and Jake, I would call it something like The Saga of Bluebell and Jake, and it would go like this:

  THE SAGA OF BLUEBELL AND JAKE

  THE DAY HE CAME HOME

  BLUE, looking casually elegant without her glasses, sits on a park bench gazing wistfully at the duck pond. JAKE appears soundlessly behind her.

  JAKE

  You are even more beautiful than I remembered.

  Blue turns toward him with a dainty sob. Jake folds her in his manly arms.

  BLUE

  Jake! How delicious! You smell exactly like cinnamon toast!

  Or this: BLUE walks down the street with a group of friends, carefree and laughing, when they run into JAKE, hurrying toward them, carrying a bunch of flowers and a haunted expression.

  JAKE

  (his voice choked with emotion)

  Thank God you’re alive! I’ve been trying to call you every day since your last witty and amusing e-mail to apologize for sharing it with my entire family!

  BLUE

  Madame Gilbert confiscated my phone!

  JAKE

  (folding her in his manly arms)

  Your eyes are like the ocean on a summer’s day, and your fragrance reminds me of roses.

  I know both of these would be super cheesy, but I still think they would be better than what actually did happen today, which was—nothing.

  I waited all day for Jake to call. I don’t even know why I got so worked up about it. Maybe it was Flora last night, like all that head over heels stuff was contagious. Maybe I do like him more than I thought. Or maybe it was just Dodi, turning up at the crack of dawn with her hair curlers and a bag full of makeup, making me feel like it was all a much bigger deal than it was.

  “You have to be dazzling,” she scolded when I tried to resist her makeover. She made me steam and exfoliate my face, then started to turn my dead straight hair into droopy ringlets.

  “They’re pretty and feminine,” she said.

  “They’re hideous,” I retorted, but Dodi said I had to trust her.

  “I’m going to leave you the makeup and the curlers,” she said, after painting my nails pink and showing me how to make up my eyes. “Make sure you get up early tomorrow morning to use them. And if Jake comes around, put on just a tiny bit of lip gloss. You don’t want him to think you’re trying too hard.”

  “My hair is curly,” I said, but she said that was different.

  The more he didn’t call, the more I wished he would. After Dodi had gone, I sat down at my desk and did my homework. I worked all afternoon and I tried not to jump every time I heard a telephone or the doorbell ring, and when Dodi called this evening for an update I pretended I didn’t care, but I do. At least, I think I do.

  If I wish Jake would call me, it means I really like him—doesn’t it?

  If Iris were here, she would laugh at the lot of us—Dodi being bossy and Jake’s rubbish e-mails and me being so nervous. Even though she died way before any of us were into boys, I know she would have made me feel better. It’s December today. For most people that means Christmas and holidays, but for me it’s the month when she died, and right now the only thing I’m absolutely certain about is how much I miss her.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 2

  Dodi gave me precise instructions about what to wear today, but I overslept, and then I realized all my tights have holes in them so I couldn’t wear my new puffball skirt like she said I should, and my jeans were all in the wash so all I had were some old dungarees that make me look like I’m about nine years old. Flora said I looked like an extra on a farming program but by then it was eight and I had to run to get to school on time.

  Dodi looked disapproving as I slid in next to her in assembly. “You’re red,” she said. “You haven’t done your hair and you’re not wearing any makeup. Also, you’re sweating.”

  “Is he here?” I panted.

  “Two rows down, right at the end,” she sighed. “And what’s with the farm girl look?”

  “It’s only Jake,” I said, but my heart was hammering. From where I was sitting, I could just see the back of his head. Tom and Colin were jostling him. Jake turned round and smiled this little smile, and I saw that he is looking very brown and fit from his holiday. I admit that is not what I was expecting. In my mind he was still what he always was before he went away, which was more pale and interesting.“Only Jake,” Dodi sm
irked.

  Dodi says that Jake has come home hot. I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s difficult enough coming to terms with the whole idea of having a boyfriend at all, let alone a hot one, and I think Jake is maybe a bit confused too. He bought me a bush hat with corks hanging from it and a boomerang, which are nice but hardly romantic. Then later, when we were walking home with the others, he barely said a word. I thought that maybe we would stop in the park or he would ask me over to his place, like he used to do sometimes when we were just friends, but when we reached our usual crossroads all he said was “See you tomorrow, Blue,” and we went our separate ways.

  I think this may all be a giant mistake.

  I ran into Flora on the way home. She and Zach both had free periods this afternoon, and she was all aglow with love after meeting up with him at Home Sweet Home. Jas was sitting on her own in the kitchen when we got in, surrounded by notebooks, and I think she found Flora as irritating as I do because she took one look at her and grumbled that her whole family was obsessed with romance.

  “Grumpy!” Flora caroled. “Where’s Twig?”

  Twig, Jas informed us, had gone straight from school to the railway bridge by the canal, to look at the trains passing underneath.

  “Maisie Carter has a little brother,” she spat. “Maisie’s little brother likes trains. Maisie was supposed to look after him after school today, but she had better things to do, so she asked Twig to take him to look at the choo-choos.”

  “That’s so sweet,” said Flora.

  Jas said she thought it was revolting.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4

  Dodi says that Jake isn’t behaving like a proper boyfriend should. He doesn’t wait for me after lessons or talk to me on my own or behave like anything between us is at all different. She thinks he’s trying to avoid me. Like today there was only him and me and Dodi at lunch, because Tom and Colin had detention, and Dodi said, trying to leave us alone, “I have to go to the library now to research population density in the Sahara,” and instead of staying with me he said he had homework to do too, and we all ended up going together.

  “It’s not what you want in a boyfriend,” Dodi said. She says she is going to talk to him and explain the basic rules of going out with people.

  I told her what I thought about it all being a giant mistake.

  “I think actually we may not be going out anymore and he just hasn’t told me,” I said.

  “Holding hands,” Dodi went on, not listening to me again. “Going on dates. Spending time together. Kissing.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for any of those things,” I said, but Dodi says of course I am.

  THE SAGA OF BLUEBELL AND JAKE

  THE KISS

  (OR, UTTER HUMILIATION)

  EXTERIOR, DAY.

  JAKE and BLUE walk home along a London street in awkward silence.

  JAKE

  (staring at the pavement)

  So, d’you want to go to the cinema or something?

  BLUE

  (examining the bark of a tree)

  I, um, er, gah.

  JAKE

  (apparently not noticing that Blue is dying, strangled by her own embarrassment)

  Saturday afternoon?

  BLUE

  Hem, er, goo, agh.

  JAKE

  Right, well see you tomorrow then.

  He pounces and presses his mouth against hers. She makes a choking sound and runs away.

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5

  And that was it. My first proper kiss.

  I don’t know what Dodi said to Jake, but we were all hanging around outside the sweet shop together after school when the others just vanished, and the whole pounce/kiss/running away thing happened.

  The film of my life is not even a tragedy. A tragedy is Romeo and Juliet or Titanic, where everybody dies. My life is barely even a romantic-comedy. At best, it’s reality TV, except sometimes it doesn’t even feel real.

  “What’s it like when you kiss Zach?” I asked Flora when she breezed in this evening.

  “Like it’s none of your business,” she replied.

  “But really.”

  And Flora is truly in an exceptionally good mood at the moment because instead of saying what I fully expected, which was “I don’t have time to instruct inferior sisters in the art of love,” she went all dreamy.

  “Magic,” she sighed. “Like we’re the only two people in the whole world, and everything is still, like time has stopped but is spinning really fast at the same time. And warm. Like coming home. Like there’s nowhere else I ever want to be.” She was sort of staring into space, but then she gave herself a little “ah well, back to the real world” shake and said, “Why, what’s it like with Jake?”

  “We’re not really into that sort of thing,” I said.

  “What, like kissing?” she said, and then thank God Jas came into my room and said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “You’re covered in ink,” Flora said as she left. “I swear I never worked that hard in primary school.”

  Jas ignored her. “I need you to help me,” she told me. I said the last time she asked me to help her we all ended up combing our hair for fleas.

  “I’m not in the mood,” I told Jas. “I am thinking important thoughts, and I need to write them down.”

  Kissing Jake did not feel remotely like coming home.

  Kissing Jake felt wet and odd and not at all how a first kiss ought to.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6

  Today before going to work Mum put all the laundry in the bin instead of the washing machine. When she came home this afternoon, she realized what she had done, and sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and cried. Then Dad came in to find out what all the noise was and sat right down on the floor beside her.

  “I didn’t like those shirts anyway,” he said. Mum started to laugh and threw her arms around his neck, and then they went to bed. We haven’t seen them since, except when Dad came down to make grilled cheese because Mum was hungry. He got a text while he was making it, and it was from Mum in the bedroom telling him she wanted Rice Krispies as well. I haven’t seen him laugh so much ever. I didn’t even know Mum liked Rice Krispies.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7

  Zach was working today, so Flora couldn’t go and see him, but apparently if she isn’t with him she has to talk about him all the time. She hardly stopped all day.

  “He hasn’t seen his mother for over two years,” she told us. “You know I used to think she was a witch? Well, it turns out nice Mr. Rudowski threw her out after his wife died and told her to never come back. Zach’s never forgiven him for it.”

  “That sounds very dramatic,” Mum said. She was tired again. Jas and I were sitting on her bed playing cards with her to keep her company, while Flora went on about Zach and Twig practiced hairstyles in the bathroom.

  “It’s true!” Flora insisted. “Zach says she was a brilliant mum. She used to do things like take him out of school to go to the seaside, or camp overnight in Richmond Park. One time she took him for tea at the Ritz and wore a long gold cocktail dress and made him pretend she was the queen of Narnia.”

  “She sounds funny,” Jas said, shuffling cards. “Why don’t you ever do anything like that, Mummy?”

  “She sounds weird,” I said. “And if she’s so brilliant, how come she isn’t here now?”

  “She lives in the South of France now. Zach really, really wanted her to come to his concert, and she wrote and told him she would try, but he thinks she didn’t come because she’s so scared of his grandfather.”

  “His grandfather who’s in hospital?” I said.

  Flora said she didn’t see what difference that made, and why was her family always so unsupportive when she tried to tell them things, and then Dad came in and said, “Personally, I’m a little
worried about this young man.”

  “Were you listening?” Jas looked impressed. “Like spying?”

  Dad said he’d seen the video of Zach fighting in his classroom and he didn’t like it. Flora said, “Oh my God, you are spying on me,” and Dad said that’s what happens when you let your parents friend you on Facebook.

  “I don’t believe this!” Flora cried.

  “I don’t like boyfriends,” Dad said. “They disturb things.”

  “Like kittens?” Mum said. They looked at each other and once again I got the feeling that they were talking about something else completely.

  “Ignore your father,” Mum said. “He’s just trying to provoke you.”

  “No I’m not,” Dad said. “I am trying to protect her.”

  “That fight was completely out of character,” Flora insisted. “He was upset.”

  Mum said she was absolutely certain Zach was a very nice boy, and she hoped he would come to the house one day so she could meet him. Flora said that would probably scare him off for good.

  “He’s not used to this sort of thing.” She waved at Mum and Jas and me, all piled on the bed, with Dad lounging in a chair with his feet up on the bedside table.

  “I don’t think your mother was planning on receiving him in her bedroom,” Dad said, and Flora swept out, saying he was impossible, and pretending not to notice that everyone was laughing at her.

  “How is Jake?” Mum asked me to change the subject.

  “Forget about Jake!” Flora cried from the landing. “They haven’t even kissed yet!”

  “I’m glad to hear it!” Dad roared back at her.

  If you could die from blushing, I would be stone-cold dead.

  “Actually,” I muttered, “I have a date with him this afternoon.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Mum patted my hand. “And you mustn’t worry about the kissing.” She yawned. “There’s plenty of time for that.”