Generation Next

by Oli White

  I was still sitting there trying to work up the energy to get up and head home when a voice startled me out of my thoughts.

  “Hey, mister. All on your lonesome? Where’re your playmates?”

  I looked up to see Hunter’s sister, Fran. Still no shoes, still smoking, still gorgeous.

  “Could you possibly be any more patronizing?” I said, laughing. “My mates have all gone home.”

  “Not you, though?” she said, blowing out perfect rings of smoke as she exhaled. “You’re the hardcore one of the group, are you?”

  “Not exactly. I . . .”

  “I was going to go to bed, but I have to make sure everyone leaves and nobody nicks the family silver,” she said.

  “Family silver?”

  “So I thought I’d go for a dip in the pool instead. Fancy joining me?”

  I realized suddenly that somewhere along the line I’d lost the bag that had my board shorts and towel in.

  “I haven’t got any . . . I mean, I’ve lost my swim stuff.”

  “Just take your shoes off like me,” she smiled.

  “What, jump in with all my clothes on?”

  “Or take them off, whatever. It’s a lovely night and the pool’s heated.” she said. “I double-dare you.”

  She looked straight at me, and in one mad, determined moment I kicked off my trainers, took my phone out of my pocket and jumped up, standing by her side and holding her hand. As we walked toward the pool’s edge, she turned to me and grinned.

  “After three. One . . . two . . .”

  The water felt incredible, but I hadn’t bargained on the pool being quite as deep as it was, and because I was mid-yell when I hit it, my mouth filled with water as my head disappeared under the surface and I came up coughing and spluttering, with a mini-fountain of chlorine-infused water shooting out of my nose. Yeah, I know, really attractive. After I’d pushed my hair out of my eyes and composed myself, Fran swam toward me, laughing.

  “I can’t believe you jumped in the bloody pool with all your clothes on,” she said, moving up close to me.

  “Well, it’s been that kind of night,” I said. If you want the God’s honest truth, I couldn’t believe I’d jumped in the bloody pool with all my clothes on either.

  “Oh really?” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck. “And what kind of evening is that?”

  “Unusual,” I said.

  Then she leaned in and kissed me.

  We stayed there for what seemed like ages but was probably only a few seconds: kissing and treading water. I tried to take in the moment—God, I really tried—but it wasn’t as easy as you might think. I mean, there I was kissing an incredibly sexy older woman in a swimming pool in the middle of the night, and yes, it was all pretty awesome. Trouble was, all the time it was happening, there was this nagging thought at the back of my mind—as if a tiny little bloke was standing on my shoulder hammering at my head with a tiny little hammer—and I kept wondering what this moment would feel like if it was with someone I had feelings for. What would it feel like if it was with Ella?

  Once Fran had stopped kissing me, she sighed and shook her head, smiling.

  “So pretty, but so young,” she said, touching my nose with the tip of her finger.

  “I’m not that much younger than you, am I?”

  She shrugged and then let her head fall back to float on the water, staring up at the stars.

  “Shall we get out?” she said after a while. “It’s not as warm as I thought it would be.”

  “I’m going to give it another minute,” I said. I was probably blushing like a tomato with teeth.

  Fran kissed me, very lightly, on the lips, then swam to the edge of the pool, pushing herself up on her arms, her wet clothes clinging to her body as she clambered out. Yeah, that was all very . . . nice.

  Back on dry land, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought it through, plunging into the water with all my clothes on. No minicab was going to take me home soaking wet, and I certainly didn’t feel like walking. Luckily, on the way out, I spotted my bag sitting under one of the sunloungers, so I grabbed the towel from it, dried myself, and changed into my dry board shorts. Then I wrapped the towel around me and called a local cab service.

  It had been an epic night, but now I was knackered, and as I left, quietly stepping over sleeping teenagers as I went, I wondered how I’d got it so wrong with Ella. I felt angry and stupid, not to mention hurt. Then my mind slipped back to the last thirty minutes with Fran, and that at least raised a smile. Although I couldn’t say for sure that Hunter’s older sister had completely salvaged my evening, she had most definitely repaired a little piece of the damage.

  THE BAD MONDAY

  Trust me, the Monday morning after Hunter’s party won’t go down in history as one of my all-time favorite mornings. If anything, I should have been on a high: GenNext was going live that very morning, and I’d ended the previous week in a swimming pool being kissed by a gorgeous woman. Most people might say those two items alone added up to a pretty decent result, but any positive vibes I managed to conjure up in my head that morning soon evaporated every time the grim vision of Ella and Hunter kissing re-emerged. It literally made my stomach turn over.

  When I hurtled downstairs at 7 a.m., I found Mum sitting at the breakfast bar in her robe, staring out into the garden.

  “Hey, Mum.”

  It was like she didn’t hear me.

  “Is there a cup of coffee going?”

  She suddenly came to life, as if somebody had just switched her on at the plug socket. Jumping up, she grabbed a cup from the cupboard and flicked on the kettle.

  “Sorry, Jack, I was miles away.”

  She’d been a bit weird all weekend and I started to wonder if there was something going on between her and Dad that I didn’t know about. I sat down and inhaled a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes while I thought about it.

  “Are you worried about something, Mum?”

  “Don’t eat so fast!” she said, sitting down next to me with two cups of coffee.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “The only thing your dad and I worry about is you,” she said, touching my arm.

  “We’ve been through this. I’m fine this time, I told you.”

  Mum got up again and started unloading the dishwasher, which had a cup and about two teaspoons in it. She was definitely distracted.

  “I guess . . . Sometimes I worry that you don’t think I can handle myself, Mum. You know, ’cause of what happened.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, still at the dishwasher.

  “Well . . . does Dad think I should have fought back a bit harder? Or do you, maybe?”

  At that she spun around, a look of concern on her face.

  “No, Jack, don’t ever think that. We think you did exactly the right thing. You can’t win with people like that, with bullies. I’d rather you ran away from a fight than had someone stick a knife in you, like you see on the news every other week. God forbid. I’m proud of the way you handled it all.”

  I was about to answer when Dad interrupted us, bellowing from upstairs: “You’d better get a move on, love, the traffic will be murder!”

  I shot Mum a puzzled look. Where the hell were they going together first thing on a Monday morning? Didn’t he have to be at the office? Wasn’t she opening the hair salon?

  “Your dad’s just running me up to the doctor’s,” she said. “I’ve been feeling a bit tired and Dr. Murrell said I might need to take some iron tablets and something else I can’t remember the name of, so I’ve got to pop in and get a prescription.”

  “But . . . what kind of—”

  “It’s nothing to worry about, Jack. I’ve just been working long hours and I need to take some time off.”

  “You do work too hard, Mum,” I said. It was true. Mum was a brilliant hairdresser and had loads of loyal clients, so she was always taking on extra last-minute jobs here and there because she didn’t want to let any
one down. I looked at her. She didn’t seem sick but I couldn’t help but feel a little worried.

  “Well, I can’t trust anyone to hold the fort,” Mum said, laughing to herself. “I’ve put that young girl Shanice in charge this morning, God help me. She nearly burned Mrs. Hamilton’s head off the other day, leaving the peroxide on for too long.”

  I smiled weakly at her and got up from the breakfast bar, dumping my bowl in the freshly unloaded dishwasher.

  “Yeah, well you need to chill out and look after yourself, Mum, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Jack,” she laughed. “Now get yourself off to school.”

  Walking to the bus stop, I tried to shake the notion that Mum might have something seriously wrong with her. Even though she was playing the whole thing down, it was going to niggle away at me until I knew for certain she was OK. I looked up into the bleak gray sky as I wandered past the long line of semi-detached houses on my road, and wished the sun would at least come out. It was supposed to be spring, after all. A bit of sun would make everything seem better. Maybe.

  So you know when you’re thinking that you really don’t want something to happen, and then that’s exactly the next thing that happens? Well that’s how my morning went. I spent the bus journey to school making notes on my iPhone and formulating plans for the next stage of GenNext: a) to take my mind off my conversation with Mum that morning, and b) to stop my mind from wandering back to thoughts of Ella, because by this point, quite frankly, I was beginning to feel a bit pathetic about the situation. Yeah, so she’s dating a total idiot, big deal. Get over it, Penman, there are other girls out there and there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. Right? Right.

  Just as I thought I was beginning to get it all sorted in my head, at least for the time being, I jumped off at the bus stop closest to St. Joe’s and who do I almost crash into? Yep, Ella and Hunter. Holding hands—I kid you not. It was like someone had dropped me in the middle of some sick and twisted parallel universe. All these weeks they’d apparently been dating and today was the day I had to come face to face with it. Not only that, but there was absolutely no avoiding them as they were coming out of Caffè Nero and literally walking toward me. So I set my face to “don’t give a crap” and hoped for the best.

  “Hey, Penman.”

  Was I going a bit mental or was Hunter kind of semi-smiling at me?

  “What’s going on?” I said, walking alongside them toward school.

  “Nothing much. Did you have a good time Friday night?”

  No, I wasn’t losing it: he was actually being pleasant, though probably only because Ella was with him.

  “Yeah, it was cool. I haven’t been to many parties like that.”

  “I bet,” he said smugly.

  Ella, meanwhile, was noticeably sheepish, sipping her skinny latte and avoiding meeting my eye, and I wondered if she felt at all guilty. Had she even realized what this was doing to me? You know what, I really don’t think she had.

  “Look, I know you guys haven’t exactly hit it off, but all that needs to change right now,” she blurted out in a fairly demanding voice. “I can’t have my boyfriend and one of my best mates not being cool with one another, right?”

  “I’ve told you, babe, it’s all cool with us. Right, Penman?” Hunter said, slapping my shoulder.

  So that was why Hunter wasn’t being his usual repulsive self: Ella had obviously had a word with him. When I looked into his face, however, there didn’t seem to be even a modicum of sincerity in this new nice-guy demeanor of his. He clearly didn’t mean a word of it; it was just to keep Ella sweet.

  “What about you, Jack, are you cool?” she said.

  “All good, buddy,” I said.

  “Excellent,” Hunter said, grinning. “Any friend of Ella’s an’ all that malarkey.”

  He turned to face Ella, kissing her on the lips, and I’m fairly certain some of that morning’s Crunchy Nut Cornflakes made their way from my stomach back up into my mouth.

  “Look, I’ve got to run, babe, I’ve got some business to attend to before lessons,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Then he was gone and I was left alone with Ella. Awkward.

  As we continued toward St. Joe’s, our pace naturally slowed until eventually we stopped outside the gates. It was like we both knew that something had to be said before we walked any further, so I went first.

  “Well this is . . . I mean, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “About what?” She looked at me wide-eyed, brushing her hair off her face with her right hand.

  God, was it possible she really didn’t know how I felt?

  “Why didn’t you tell me about you and Hunter is what I mean,” I went on. “Seemingly it’s been going on for a while and we were together, like, every day, working on GenNext and the media production project, so I’d have thought you’d have given me the heads-up on who you were—”

  “Look, Jack, I am sorry, really. It was only the last couple of weeks that I realized . . . I mean, by the time I suspected that you kind of . . . you know . . . liked me in that way . . . you know, in a more-than-mates type of a way . . . by then it was already back on with me and Hunter, and I know you’re probably not a fan of his, but we’ve known each other a long time; we have a lot of history together. That’s why I kept out of your way for the last week or so; I didn’t want you to feel bad or upset and . . . I’m just sorry, OK?”

  Ah, so she did know after all. I shrugged and gave her a look as if I had absolutely no idea what the hell she was going on about.

  “You . . . you do like me, right, Jack? This is what this is about, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged again, looking back at her as if she were babbling a load of utter nonsense. It threw her, I could tell.

  “Oh God, I’m really embarrassed now,” she said, looking down at the floor. “I thought . . . well, it seemed like . . . Sorry, Jack, I’ve read this completely wrong, haven’t I?”

  “Er . . . slightly, yeah.”

  I have to tell you, I felt pretty low at that moment. Even after everything that had happened, I still cared about this girl so much, and the last thing I wanted was to make her feel stupid. I was on a self-preservation roller coaster, though, and there was no jumping off.

  “All I was saying was, because we’re mates and working together, I didn’t get why you kept your boyfriend a secret, that’s all.”

  “Oh! So you’re OK with it, then?” She sounded surprised and hopeful. “And you’re OK with us still working on GenNext together?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right about it?” I said. “Like Hunter said, it’s all cool with me, babe.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure how convincing I was being or if she was in any way fooled, but it was too late by then.

  “Right,” she said, “why wouldn’t you?”

  “Anyway, I’d better get to class,” I said. “Loads on today. I’ll see you later, I expect.”

  “Yeah, see you later.”

  Ella looked slightly dumbstruck as I turned and walked away from her, leaving her standing alone at the school gates. And yeah, of course I wanted to turn around and shout at her like a nutter: demand to know why the hell she wanted to be with an idiot like Hunter and not with me. But I didn’t. I just kept walking. And I’d like to tell you that it felt good, walking away like that, but it didn’t. It felt bad. Really bad.

  THE HEROES

  When I walked into the sixth-form common room that lunchtime, I was met with a trio of anxious faces. Austin, Sai and Ava all looked as if they’d just come back from a funeral, and I knew it was for my benefit.

  “Don’t even,” I said to Ava, as she wrapped her arm around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. I looked down at her wrist, delicately tattooed with a red-haired mermaid, and smiled at my new friend’s concern for my mental well-being.

  “We were worried when we didn’t hear from you all weekend,” she said.

  “Yeah, Austin said you’d probably top
ped yourself,” Sai added.

  “Oh did he now?” I laughed. “But you didn’t think about calling my parents to find out?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “You absolute muppets.”

  “Seriously, are you OK?” Austin said. “I mean, not to be selfish but things are looking so good with GenNext, I’d hate for something like this to screw everything up before it’s even got off the ground, you know? Not after the result we had this morning.”

  “Something like what?” I said. “Look, don’t worry. Me and Ella are cool, and—What result? What are you talking about, Austin?”

  “Sai, grab your laptop,” Austin said urgently.

  Sai complied, banging away quickly at the keyboard as we all sat down around a coffee table.

  “We went online at nine a.m.,” he said, flashing the screen at me, “and look at the views since a couple of YouTubers put a link to GenNext in their video descriptions.”

  “And look at the comments about the interviews; about Ella,” Austin said, pointing at the screen.

  “Are they good?” I said, trying to speed-read a few of them while Sai waved the laptop around.

  “They’re amazing.” Ava smiled. “People love her. Look, I’ve taken a screenshot of some of the comments.”

  “And that’s why we’re worried,” Austin said. “I mean, if you and Ella fall out . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Austin,” I assured him. “As I said, we’re cool. At least I think we are.”

  Ava grabbed my arm, tugging at me urgently.

  “But this is all really good news, right, Jack? These figures and stats? We’re on our way, aren’t we?”

  I perused the information once more: thousands of hits in just a few hours and traffic coming from all over the world. A sudden rush of excitement surged upward, like it had started from my feet and was now shooting out through the top of my head. For just a moment, the misery of the last few days melted away and I felt my mouth curl into a massive grin.

  “Are you kidding me? Guys, we so are on our way; this is amazing!” I said. “OK, so now we need to figure out what’s next.”