“We’re back!” I holler as we get in.
“Somebody’s here to see you, Haylah!” shouts Mum in a slightly giggly voice I don’t really recognize.
“Who’s here? Who’s here? Who’s here?” chants Noah as I take his shoes off.
Oh God, I think, it’s Chloe wanting to talk about last night and how she’s now in love with Leo and he with her.
I walk into the sitting room and see…Leo.
Leo Jackson.
Actually Leo.
Leo Jackson.
Sitting in our armchair and sipping from a cup of tea.
I stand, frozen, not knowing what to say.
“LEO!” says Noah.
“It’s Leo,” says Mum, trying to jolt me into action.
“Right. Yeah. Hi, erm…”
“Hey, Haylah,” he says.
Mum saunters up to me with a giggly grin on her face, then says, “Me and Ruben actually have some stuff to talk about, babe, so if you could take Leo and Noah into your room for a bit that would be great.”
“Right. Noah and, erm…”
“Leo,” says Leo with a grin.
“Yes, Leo, of course!” I say, slightly hysterically.
“Follow me, Leo!” shouts Noah as he leads LEO up the stairs and into MY room.
“No funny business—leave the door open, Hay!” Mum yells after me, making my cheeks burn with embarrassment.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. I bet he’s here to tell me how much I owe his dad for all the equipment I exploded last night onstage. And my room looks like a church jumble sale. And my huge underwears are on the floor. And I’m wearing clothes that make me look like the “before” photo in an advert for the local gym. And my hair looks like someone threw a poo at a melon. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Noah immediately starts jumping on the bed. Leo follows him in and stands in the middle of my room, his hands in his pockets, grinning at me, and seemingly enjoying the chaos he’s causing. I rush past him and grab at the huge pile of clothes, books, and food wrappers on my desk chair and throw them in another corner.
“You can sit there, if you want. And sorry about the, you know, mess. I don’t normally have, well, visitors.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “You should see my room.”
“Hmm,” I manage to get out as my cheeks go red at the very thought that I might ever, for any reason, be in Leo’s bedroom.
He sits on the chair and I on the bed, next to Noah, who’s still jumping up and down.
“Leo, can we play ‘Faecal stereotip’ or ‘Guess the smell’ or ‘Spoon Balloon?’”
“I don’t actually know what any of those things are, but yeah, I mean, ‘Spoon Balloon’ sounds pretty awesome.”
“It’s really not,” I say.
“Well, it sounds like the better of the three,” whispers Leo.
“Actually, ‘Guess the Smell’ isn’t as bad as it sounds,” I say.
“Really?”
“No, actually, it is,” I say, fishing around on the floor for Mum’s iPad. “Look, Noah, play on this for a bit, yeah?”
“Ohhhhh. Okay then. But will you watch me?”
“Sorry, Leo, just, er, give me a minute?” I say.
“Sure,” he says, leaning back and swiveling from side to side on my desk chair.
I get Noah playing some Lego Batman game on the iPad and pretend to show an interest for a few minutes.
“You’re so good at this, Noah!”
“See if you can get to the next level, without asking for any help at all, yeah?” etc., etc.
Eventually, when he’s engrossed in the game and the cereal he’s chomping down on, and my heart rate has calmed to a mere hammering, I turn back to Leo.
“He’s a cute kid,” he says.
“Oh sure, he looks cute now, but you just try to take that Pop-Tart away from him and you’ll witness his true identity—as the devil’s child.”
“I’m not Nevil’s child!” says Noah.
Leo laughs and then continues leaning back in my chair and staring at me. And I suddenly feel painfully self-conscious. I lean up against the wall behind me, grabbing one of my pillows and hugging it over my stomach.
“Anyhoo,” I say stupidly, “so, erm, it’s nice to, but, well, why are you here? And come to think of it,” I add, “how did you know where I live?”
“Your friend—Chloe, is it? She told me last night.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“She’s pretty cool actually,” he says.
“Yep. She’s the best,” I say, trying and failing not to sound sarcastic.
Maybe that’s why he’s here. Maybe he wants to ask her out. That’s normally why boys speak to me.
“You liked my set last night then?” he says conversationally.
“Yeah, I loved it! I laughed this time—you saw that I laughed?”
“Yes,” he says with a smirk. “So I guess you like your own jokes more than mine?”
“What? No, my set was awful. Didn’t you see it? I had nothing to say and then I molested your dad before destroying the building.”
“Ha, yes, I saw. And you did pretty good actually, for a first time, but I didn’t mean that. I meant the jokes you wrote for me. The jokes in my locker?”
“Oh—” The color drains from my face. I lean forward and bury my head in the pillow. “God. You know about that, then?”
“I figured it out,” he says cheerfully.
I sit back up, though I still can’t bring myself to look him in the eye. “Right. Right. Right. When?”
“Well, I had a pretty good idea when you were skulking around the lockers, pretending to take phone calls. My advice to you if you ever wanna be a spy is don’t. Then when we met, at my house, you were funny, hella funny, naturally funny, like you could say anything and it just, well, it sounds funny. I wish I had that.”
I look up at him as he spins all the way around in my chair, grinning. “I do? You do?” I say, trying hard to cover up just how ecstatically happy I feel right now.
“And, total shocker, I didn’t really buy the whole ‘communist’ thing.”
“Oh no, that’s completely true. I mean, if the comedy career falls through, it’s good to have a backup plan, right? And the world can never have enough communist dictators,” I say.
He laughs. And it sends tingles up my spine.
“True,” he says, and he’s stopped spinning around now and is leaning toward me, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands loosely interlinked. “Anyway, I knew for sure when I saw you a bunch of times hanging around my locker again at the end of school, you know, when you were pretending to tie your laceless shoes, or give a Year Seven who wasn’t even talking to you directions—”
I feel a hot glow spreading over my cheeks.
“Yeah, yeah, okay, so I’m not really built for stealth,” I say, clinging tightly to the pillow on my lap. “Look, I’m sorry. You probably think I’m a complete freak, and you probably wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that either. I just love comedy and I like writing jokes and, I don’t know, I saw you do your set in assembly and it, well, I guess it inspired me, or something that sounds less tragic…you know, just to see someone only a bit older than me do a kickass comedy set. Then, well, I kind of overheard you saying you didn’t have any new material for the pub gig and—”
“Overheard when you were stalking me, you mean,” he says with a smile.
“Well, you know, ‘stalking’ is such a strong word…” Then I cover my face with my right hand and look at him pleadingly through my fingers. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed. I promise I’ll leave you alone now, I won’t write secret jokes for you again or anything else weird, and we can just forget about this whole sorry tale, okay?”
“No, not okay,” he says, spinning my chair around again.
I look down at the pillow and gulp. “Right, no, of course. Let me know how much I owe your dad for the equipment and I’ll, I don’t know, pay him back in installments out of my pock
et money or something.”
He stops spinning again and, with his head to one side, nose screwed up and upturned hands, gives me an exaggerated “you’re nuts!” look. “It’s a pub, Haylah, drinks gets spilled all the time. It’s fine—it’s all fixed! What I mean is, it’s not okay to stop writing jokes for me.”
Relief floods through me as I stare at him with my mouth open. “Wait, what? Really?”
“Look, I’m here because you’re funny, and you write really good material and…” He pauses, like he’s choosing what he says next carefully. “Well, there’s this big competition, the London Young Comic of the Year, coming up in a couple of weeks. And I know it’s kind of stupid, but last year I was a runner-up, and I really want to win this year and, I think, if you’re up for it, maybe if you helped me write my set, I might stand a chance? The prize is a thousand pounds, so, if I win, we could share it. What do you think?”
“You want me to write your jokes?”
“Well, no. I thought we’d write them together? I mean, I would write them myself, but I’ve got all these exams this year and homework and argh! It’s a nightmare just getting that done and obviously I can write kickass funny stuff…”
“Obviously,” I say.
“But it takes me forever to come up with it. With your help, I think it would happen a lot quicker ’cause, well, funny stuff just seems to spill out of you like…”
“Vomit?” I suggest.
“Ha, er, exactly, but, you know, funny vomit,” he says, smiling. “Go on, we’ll have a laugh, and we might get five hundred pounds each. What d’you reckon?”
He says this like I need persuading.
“Hmm,” I say, pretending to think about it for about five seconds. “Yeah, OK.”
“Sweet!” he says, spinning around triumphantly with his legs and arms outstretched, making Noah look up from the iPad and laugh.
Battling to keep my outside looking cool and calm while my brain sings songs of joy, we agree to meet up at his place (his place!) on Monday after school. I’ll have Noah with me, but Leo says he has a PlayStation to keep him busy so it’s all cool.
“It’s a date!” he says as we both stand up to leave.
“It is?” I say before my brain has a chance to stop my mouth from utter muppetry.
“Yeah! I just mean it’s an appointment, on the calendar, yeah? Why?” He lowers his voice to an almost-whisper and leans down toward me. “What did you mean?” And then he actually winks at me, then laughs as I turn away to hide my blushing grin.
“Right, little guy, I’ve gotta shoot. High-five me, Noah!”
Noah dutifully high-fives him.
We walk to the front door past Mum, who’s now sitting on her own in the living room, staring into her cup of tea. I didn’t know Ruben had left, but hey, I’m not complaining.
“Bye, Mrs. Swinton, nice to have met you,” says Leo, but instead of being impressed with this gorgeous and beautifully polite guy I’ve brought into our home, she just keeps staring into the mug.
“Sorry,” I whisper to him as we reach the front door. “Don’t know what’s going on there.”
“No worries. See you Monday, yeah?” he says and then he leaves.
I lean up against the door after it closes and bite my bottom lip to stop myself from screeching with delight before skipping back into the living room.
“Well?” I say to Mum. “What do you think of Leo?”
“Who? Oh yeah, love, he’s great,” she says, but her voice is flat and lifeless.
“You okay, Mum?”
“Yeah, just… Well, just so you know, Ruben’s not going to be coming around any more…”
“Oh,” I say, realizing that he did actually listen to what I said last night. Well then, that’s good. I guess.
I sit down next to her and put my hand on her knee.
“How come?” I say, trying to sound clueless about the whole thing.
And she tells me that Ruben’s basically dumped her, and she doesn’t understand why. He told her he didn’t want to put any relationship “pressure” on her blah-blah-blah, so he’s backing off, going to swap his working hours around so they don’t bump into each other so much, and he’s taking a few weeks off, going to stay with his brother in London to get some “perspective” on it all.
“Maybe he’s just realized he doesn’t actually like me that much. Oh well, never mind,” she says with a heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling the heavy weight of guilt on my chest, but clinging to the fact that I know this is the right thing in the long run. “But, you know, maybe it’s for the best, Mum. I mean, Noah was starting to get attached to him, and the longer he stayed the more it would hurt Noah, and you, if he left later, so…maybe it’s good that he went now?”
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better, Hay. Come and give me a big old hug.”
As we hug, she sniffs and I’m afraid she’s about to cry and I HATE it when Mum cries, especially as this is kind of my fault, so I say to her, “Plus, he didn’t wear any socks. I mean, the man wore literally NO socks. Like, what is that about? You don’t need that kind of madness in your life. He can take his obscene ankles elsewhere, am I right!”
She stops the sniffing, but she doesn’t laugh. Instead, she pulls away from our hug and flatly says, “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
Then she sighs and quickly shakes her head, her hair flying around her face and, as if she’s shaken off the sad mask she was wearing, she emerges with a smile at the end. Even if it does seem a little forced.
Her voice back to its normal bouncy self, she says, “Now, go get me some ice cream and let’s watch a crappy movie together while you tell me about lovely Leo!”
“Yay!” I say, skipping off to the freezer.
And I know she’s totally going to be okay. The bearded troll is gone. Leo’s my new best comedy friend. We’re having ice cream.
Best. Day. Ever.
CHAPTER SEVENTEN
On Monday morning, Noah refuses to put his uniform on as he’s convinced he’s now “allergic to sweaters” (he’s not actually allergic to anything, but he hears other kids talking about their conditions at school and he wants a part of the action. The other day he insisted he couldn’t wipe his bum any more because he was “dyslexic”). Then he insists on walking to school backward for most of the journey because he’s “bored of forward walking.” So inevitably I get to school late. Again.
I walk down the hallway, and to be honest I’m not really looking forward to seeing Chloe as I’m still annoyed with her about Friday night. She’s sent me a few messages asking if I’m okay over the weekend, but I was pretty short with my responses.
On the other hand, my head is merrily filled with the song “I’m going over to Leo’s after school, do-dah, do-dah! Because he thinks that I’m so cool, do-dah do-dah-day!” Which leaves little room for annoyance. So I decide not to mention anything to Chloe about Friday night, or about Leo, as I don’t want anything to ruin this feeling. But of course that was ridiculously optimistic.
When I walk into the classroom, I can sense that something is not quite right. The air in the room tenses up as I enter, and the roar of thirty-three students all bellowing and shrieking at each other deadens to a purr. All eyes in the room fix on me; some stifle their giggles, others let them loose, and a few hands are cupped around clueless nearby ears as whispers are exchanged.
My cheeks burn red as I run my hands down the buttons of my shirt, checking to see that I’ve remembered to dress myself correctly and that one of my boobs hasn’t flopped out without me noticing. Then my brain catches up with the rest of the class as I realize what they must be laughing at.
Oh, please, no.
“Late again, Haylah?” says Mrs. Perkins.
“Yeah, sorry, miss,” I mumble.
“Too busy trying to makeout with other people’s dads!” says a voice from a group of boys at the side of the class.
That confirms it. Everyone knows about
Friday night. About my disastrous attempt at being a comedian ending in me groping Leo’s dad and my butt cheeks laying waste to the stage like two steamrollers.
“What was that, Greg?” says Mrs. Perkins.
“Nothing, miss,” says class bully and massive twonk-nut Greg before he carries on sniggering with the rest of the room.
I raise my head high. I won’t let them get the better of me.
“Well, obviously not your dad, Greg,” I blurt, “who, if he’s anything like you, is so ugly that when he looks in a mirror it slaps him.”
“Ha ha! Roasted!” yells Dylan, slapping his friend Greg hard on the back.
Greg slumps down into his chair as the rest of the class laughs, but this time at least it’s with me. Then they swiftly return to their morning gossip and general arsing about. I make my way over to Chloe and Kas at the back of the class, trying to keep up the appearance of someone unaffected by the laughter and sneers when inside I want to die a little.
“How the hell does everyone know about Friday night?” I hiss as I chuck my bag on the table.
“I don’t know. I guess some of Leo’s friends spread it around school?” says Kas.
“Don’t worry about it, Pig. By lunchtime, everyone will have forgotten,” says Chloe.
And suddenly lunchtime seems as far away as the sun.
We chat a little, but the atmosphere between the three of us is frosty. The last time I saw them on Friday night I snapped at Chloe, then stormed off slamming the door behind me. Chloe probably thinks I need to apologize. But frankly I think she needs to apologize to me for flirting with Leo, putting me forward for a gig I didn’t want to do, and laughing at the disastrous consequences. I think about saying something to her, but she’s better at arguing than me and I know she’d win. So I just keep my mouth shut.
The room falls silent for a moment as Jules and Destiny, a couple of fellow Frick House girls from the year above who sometimes sit with us in whole-house sports days and assemblies, but consider themselves too cool to do so at any other time, sashay into the room.
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