All the Fun of the Fair: A hilarious, brilliantly original coming-of-age story that will capture your heart

by Caroline Hulse

  Lewis looked at his feet.

  ‘Lewis.’ I’d never heard Mrs Harris’s voice so harsh. ‘You don’t want to keep going on rides with me. I’m your mother, for God’s sake.’

  ‘We’ll still be able to see you, mind,’ Grandma said, ‘so don’t be putting any of your parents’ hard-earned cash in that claw machine, Fiona. I will negotiate a good price for a panther later.’

  They walked away. A kid I knew from primary school walked past, mouth open wide as he jammed a hot dog in, but Lewis and I didn’t say hello. This kid was the year below, still at primary school. And he had tomato ketchup and onion trails down his T-shirt.

  I turned to Lewis. ‘Shall we do the Waltzers? Maybe?’

  ‘Waltzers sounds good.’

  We walked past two Year Eight kids, kissing under the tree. They kissed hard, lots of bobbling head movement going on.

  Twelve other kids, separated into boys and girls, stood nearby. Still, and silently watching.

  ‘I know they’re Year Eight and amazing,’ I said. ‘But I just think it would look better if the boys and girls stood together.’

  ‘Other people aren’t as good as we are.’ Lewis smiled. ‘I think the boys like me more now, you know.’

  ‘I knew it! It’s because of the girlfriend thing. Honestly, Lewis, I did you a favour.’

  ‘It’s not because of you. It’s because of me. My mum says you should be yourself and then everyone will like you.’

  I gave that the biggest eye roll. ‘Lewis—’

  ‘Don’t say my mum’s stupid again.’

  ‘I don’t want to, do I? I like your mum. But then she goes around saying stuff like that. Look!’ I pointed. ‘Sea witches!’

  I pointed to the three girls who had been mean to me in the toilets that time. But now, they looked scared, the two smaller ones hanging back. The main sea witch was getting picked on by an even bigger sea witch. A Queen Ursula.

  I shook my head. ‘The circle of life.’

  I looked down. At nearly twelve, I really needed to stop saying things from Disney cartoons.

  We reached the Waltzers queue. The cars were spinning so fast you couldn’t see the people’s faces. A boy in a baseball cap skipped across the platforms, spinning the cars faster. The boy with the money pouch that I’d heard so much about.

  He stood tall suddenly and looked out at the queue, feet apart, keeping his balance on the moving platform. A disco ball threw colours across his face, over his cheekbones and eyebrows. The way he stood over us, the colours bouncing off him – he was lit up like a hero.

  And I got it.

  I could barely look at him, he was so perfect.

  We shuffled forward in the queue, ‘Blooded Face’ playing again.

  The reaper will take you, take everyone you love

  And we are all alone at the last.

  It was now my favourite song, and it was going to be my favourite song for ever.

  ‘I’m not saying you’re my girlfriend anymore,’ Lewis folded his arms. ‘I don’t want people thinking I’m a fake.’

  ‘Fine.’ I glanced at him. ‘Except do you still say you support Tottenham?’

  ‘That’s different,’ Lewis said quickly.

  ‘I know, course it is,’ I said, even faster.

  ‘And Spurs,’ he said. ‘I have to call them Spurs.’

  ‘Spurs,’ I said. ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m so unlucky though.’ He kicked out at the barrier. ‘Spurs are playing Stoke away in a testimonial next week. Dad’s made Mum change our Saturdays so we can go. The ticket’s an early birthday present, and I’ve got to go and watch the game instead of going to my cousin’s party. And it’s a swimming party. And he’s getting one of those big floating things.’

  Lewis looked so sad, I couldn’t help laughing.

  And then he started laughing, too.

  And we just stood there in the queue, pushing each other, our eyes watering, like it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard. I couldn’t catch my breath, and nor could Lewis, because he started hiccupping – and then he looked like he was in actual hiccupping pain, and it got funnier still. And even Lewis found it funny as he went all Tiny Tim again, and his hiccup turned into a croak. And it wasn’t even that funny. It was just that we were friends again.

  Lewis made a sign for me to hit him on the back, eyes streaming. Still smiling.

  ‘Hi, Fiona!’ Selina Baker walked past, grinning. ‘Enjoying the fair?’

  Instantly, Lewis stopped croaking.

  I beamed at her. ‘It’s amazing!’ My smile faded a little. As well as the pinkish panther in her arms, she now had one of last year’s turquoise owls with her. Didn’t she know?

  She waved her pinkish panther’s paw at me. ‘I’m so pweased you’re enjoying the fwair, Fwi-ow-na.’ Selina moved the panther’s mouth along with the words.

  My smile faded completely now.

  Lewis and I looked at each other.

  ‘My name’s Mwister Pink,’ she continued. ‘Like in the film.’

  She lifted her owl’s wing. I realised it was about to be the owl’s turn to speak.

  I shook my head.

  She lowered the toys.

  If I was the best girl in school, I’d definitely be better at it than this.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to say, Fiona. You were asking about my job? There are some jobs going in the stables now, if you want me to put a word in?’

  ‘No thanks. Selina, this is my friend, Lewis.’

  She grinned. ‘Hi, Lewis.’

  When Lewis couldn’t say anything, she smiled at him and walked away.

  He hit my arm with the back of his hand. ‘Selina Baker said my name!’ He paused. ‘It would have been better if she hadn’t done the panther baby talk, but still. What’s that about a stables?’

  ‘Girl’s job. Cleaning up horse muck. Unpaid. At seventeen.’

  Lewis shook his head.

  We moved forward in the queue. I saw Jodie outside the Sweet Shack with her group of girls. Their sugar dummies glowed red under the lights.

  Jodie saw me and handed her dummy to Naomi. She ran over.

  ‘I told them you were friends with Selina Baker!’ Jodie looked from me to Lewis. ‘Are you two back together?’

  Lewis found his voice. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘We’re just good friends,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘I didn’t think you’d be cheating on Sean Anderton. Look,’ Jodie glanced back, ‘Alison’s thinking we might need to make the group bigger again soon. She thinks it might be better for ice-skating and stuff. Though she fancies Sean, so it could be weird.’

  ‘I’ll dump him, then,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’

  I shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Sweet.’ Jodie scratched her cheek. ‘Though Alison was thinking of fancying Clark now. He’ll get his brother’s paper round when his brother starts work at the petrol station.’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll dump Sean anyway, though. Just in case.’

  ‘You’re getting much better at girl stuff.’ Jodie looked at the queue. ‘Is there room for me in your Waltzer car?’

  We nodded. Jodie crouched under the barrier and got in the queue with us, just as the boy with the money pouch came over to lift the barrier.

  We scrambled into the car and pulled the metal bar down over us.

  We all handed the boy our pound coins. It went quiet, for a second. Then that song started again. ‘Blooded Face’.

  I felt the vibration start under my feet. I looked beyond to the big wheel and all the lights and the people.

  And I knew, right then, that this was about to be the best time I would ever have.

  I held my breath as I felt the car start to move. I sat up straighter, grabbed the metal bar, and waited for the boy to sp
in us.

  He didn’t spin us. Of course he didn’t.

  I could blame Lewis for being a boy. But it probably wasn’t all Lewis’s fault. The car the boy span instead had four girls in it – all sixth-formers, in black eye make-up and purplish lipstick. They were grown-up height, with long brown legs in cut-off denim shorts, and tops so low you could see the rise of their boobs under long necklaces.

  And I didn’t really have time to mind about the spinning. My head was too busy trying to stop jerking as it was.

  As the ride slowed to a stop, the boy with the money pouch helped the older girls out of their car. Taking their hands, like they were old ladies or something.

  ‘Maybe he’ll push us next year,’ Jodie said. ‘We might have boobs by then.’

  I looked at the older girls, smiling and chatting with him. And I knew I wasn’t going to look like those girls next year. Or the year after that. Or even the year after that.

  ‘Maybe.’ I turned to Jodie. ‘But we can definitely wear more make-up.’

  It was late when I got home that night but, still, I dug through the songs I’d recorded off the radio till I found ‘Blooded Face’. I played it in my bedroom, over and over.

  We will all die, and decay into dust

  And no one will care about my blooded face.

  I sat in my pyjamas on my bed, my knees to my chest. I hugged my pinkish panther, breathing in the vinegary smell of the fur. I threw one skinny panther arm over my shoulder and cried and cried into its neck.

  Mum came rushing into my room. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

  Mum approached the bed. ‘Shush, Fi.’ She held me. ‘It’s OK. It’s all OK.’

  I kept sobbing, harder and harder.

  Mum stroked my hair. ‘I wouldn’t have let you go to the fair if I’d known it would make you this upset.’

  ‘It’s not the fair’s fault,’ I said between shudders. ‘And I’m not upset.’

  Mum just kept stroking my hair.

  Dad came in. ‘Hey now, love.’ He sat on the bed. ‘This’ll distract you. They’ve just said on the telly Radovan Karadžić’s resigned. He’s been indicted for war crimes.’ Dad scratched his cheek. ‘Indicted means – well, I don’t know exactly what indicted means. It’s like arrested, I think. Bad, anyway.’

  I pressed my face into the sodden fur and cried more.

  It was over. The fair was all over.

  The best thing in my life. Over.

  I would never, ever be this happy again.

  Mum and Dad didn’t tell me to go to sleep. And Dad didn’t talk any more about Radovan Karadžić. They just let me sob into the panther, letting all the tears stream out.

  And I just cried and cried, not even knowing why I was crying. Just listening to ‘Blooded Face’ and smelling my panther and sobbing till it hurt. Sometimes gasping, sometimes spluttering. Knowing nothing I ever did – no moment in time – would ever be that perfect again.

  48

  Not all presents are good.

  (paradox)

  Three hundred and sixty-one days to the fair

  ‘Fi!’ Dad shouted up the stairs the next morning. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock!’

  Then Dad was in my room – I don’t know how long later – pulling my duvet off me.

  ‘You can’t be late on your last day of term!’ He dumped the duvet on the floor. ‘Now where do you want this? You left it downstairs.’

  He gestured with a book. A big book. A Comprehensive History of the Balkans by P.T.R. Cavendish.

  I pointed to the spot on the bookshelf next to Grandma’s long-legged owl, in what was becoming The Corner of Wrong Presents. ‘There’s fine.’

  I really needed to start doing and saying stuff, I decided, that I actually liked. No more football. No more Balkans. Definitely no more wasps.

  ‘And look!’ Dad waved a letter at me. ‘The best news! How clever is your old dad?’

  Dear Mr Larson,

  Thank you for your application for Quiz Bounce, the fastest finger first game with all the bells and whistles!

  We are delighted to tell you that you have made it through our initial sift, and we would like to invite you to a live audition on 1 August at . . .

  I licked my lips. ‘That’s great.’ I tried to sound like I meant it. ‘Well done.’

  Dad nodded happily and folded his letter. ‘I’m going to write and accept straight away. You can come to the audition, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And now, you have to say goodbye to your grandma because she’s going home today.’

  ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘Was it worth it, though?’ Dad asked.

  The Waltzers, the lights, the pinkish panther.

  ‘It was worth it.’

  Dad hurried out of the room, and I got dressed quickly in the same jeans and T-shirt as last night. My best clothes, for ‘out of school uniform’ day on the last day of term.

  A moment later, I heard a drawer slam. ‘Bloody hell, Gail, again! Where are all the effing stamps, again?’

  I said goodbye to Grandma in the lounge.

  ‘Thank you for taking me yesterday.’ I glanced at Mum and Dad and lowered my voice. ‘To . . . you know.’

  Grandma kissed my cheek. ‘It was a pleasure.’

  ‘My spies tell me you and Lewis went on the Waltzers together,’ Mum said.

  I looked up at her. ‘Do you think that means he’s forgiven me?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Do you think that means he’ll be waiting for me to walk to school?’

  Mum made a wafting motion with her hands. ‘Maybe go there and find out?’

  I grabbed my bag and my pinkish panther and ran to the lamppost.

  I checked my watch. 8.20. Still loads of time for Lewis to arrive.

  I looked at the house over the road.

  Carl’s car wasn’t there. The house was dark, all the curtains drawn. Now I thought about it, his car hadn’t been on the drive for a while. A bit of white leaflet had been peeking out of the letterbox for a few days, from where the postman hadn’t put it all the way through. The estate agent’s sign on the front lawn had an extra red banner across it. Sold.

  I waited some more. I checked my watch. 8.26.

  A few doors down, a woman was putting her window boxes and hanging baskets back outside, now it was just Monkford people in Monkford again.

  I stared down the road. Still no sign of Lewis.

  I looked at my watch. 8.28.

  I took one last look down the road.

  At 8.30 I put my bag on my shoulder and, with heavy feet, turned towards school.

  In that morning’s lesson, Dr Sharma didn’t put an end-of-term video on like the other teachers. She wanted to punish us with learning, right up to the end, so she made us give presentations about our science projects. All the while she was telling us, kids piped up.

  ‘Did you scarf down your breakfast, Dr Sharma?’

  ‘Are you shawl you want us to read out our science projects?’

  Cough.‘Scarf!’

  Dr Sharma had been walking away for this last one. She turned slowly on the spot.

  The Cough,‘Scarf!’-er, Liam, gulped.

  ‘Why are you saying scarf to me, Liam?’

  Liam looked from left to right, desperate.

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  He swallowed again.

  ‘Shall I help you out? Is it because I wore a scarf at Parents’ Evening? When I don’t normally wear one?’

  He was perfectly still. Then he gave a little nod.

  She nodded too. ‘And that’s funny . . . how?’

  He found his voice. ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘But it’s definitely funny?’


  ‘I’m not sure . . . I don’t think it is anymore.’

  ‘No?’ Dr Sharma said. ‘Have I ruined it? Well, that’s a shame.’ She turned to the class. ‘Next project presentation.’ She looked at her register. ‘Amy Barton. You’re up.’

  ‘She’s not in. She’s got a sick gran.’

  ‘A sick gran?’ Dr Sharma shook her head. ‘Poor effort. I will make a note to ask Amy’s parents in September what date they went on holiday.’ She looked back at her register. ‘Mark Cutter.’

  Mark stood up and went to the front. He coughed. ‘Now. What is photosynthesis?’

  Other kids went up to the front of the class, one by one.

  Turned out pretty much all the other kids had done their projects on photosynthesis.

  Dr Sharma sat at the front, marking other classes’ exercise books.

  I tried not to think about Lewis because it made a lump come in my throat. I wrote a list instead.

  Things at the Fair That Weren’t Quite as Good as I Thought They’d Be

  1)The donkeys on the donkey derby wobble

  2)The hotdog buns are too warm and crispy

  3)The sugar dummies cost two whole pounds

  4)The toys are really bad. The stitching’s going on my pink panther’s shoulder. And it smells of vinegar. And if I hold it for too long it makes my skirt stick to my legs.

  5)The dodgems hurt your neck when someone drives into you

  6)If you go on the Waltzers three times in a row, you feel sick. And not good sick. Bad sick.

  7)The Waltzer boy isn’t that great, and he looks pretty old, close up

  8)Under the onions and candyfloss, the field smells of toilet

  9)The mud ruined my best trainers

  I’m definitely still going next year.

  I closed my book of lists as Andrew Lane walked back to his desk.

  Dr Sharma looked up. ‘Fiona Larson!’

  I went to stand at the front. I placed my hands together, like the vicar did in church.

  ‘I did my project on blood.’ My arms felt weird, like I had too many. ‘I did loads of good stuff, but you’ll have to take my word for it. I can’t show you my project book because Dr Sharma stole it.’

  There was a ripple of interest round the lab.

  ‘I said, the book was unsanitary.’ Dr Sharma leaned onto her elbows. ‘Fiona decided to make hers a practical project. She put a substantial amount of her own blood in there.’