by Sue Limb
‘It’s amazing!’ Flora hugged her as if they’d been parted for years, not hours. ‘Wait till you see the house! It’s such a shame it’s dark but apparently in the morning we’re gonna be blown away by the view! Jack’s mum is parked outside. By the way, the perfume she wears is really overpowering, so try not to faint. I think she sloshes it on to mask the doggy smell.’
‘Damp dog is my favourite scent,’ murmured Fred.
Jess punched him affectionately.
‘Gubbins is so wonderful! We took him down to the beach in the dark and he was frightened of the sea! He was barking at the waves, trying to frighten them! It was hilarious!’
Waiting in the people carrier, Mrs Stevens was wreathed in a cashmere throw and a cloud of delicious perfume. She flashed them a toothy grin.
‘Hello, how lovely to meet you, Fred. And, Jess, you’re looking wonderful. How was your journey?’ she gushed in her breathy voice.
‘Fine, thanks,’ said Jess politely. ‘How was yours?’ (She was particularly proud of this bit of ultra-politeness, and would remember to boast about it to Mum when she got back.)
‘Oh, it was fine, thank you, Jess, but the roads are always a bit busy on Friday evenings, aren’t they? Even in winter. I hope Charles has got the house warmed up – the boys have been cutting wood. We’ve got a big fireplace so you’ll be able to toast your bottoms all evening.’
Mrs Stevens drove out of town with panache; soon they were on dark country roads.
‘I wish we could see the sea!’ sighed Jess.
‘Oh, you wait till tomorrow morning – you won’t be disappointed, unless there’s fog,’ promised Mrs Stevens.
Eventually they turned off the country road into a small lane and then almost immediately up a zig-zagging steep sandy drive, higher and higher and higher, until Jess’s ears popped. A big house loomed up in the headlamps, and Mrs Stevens parked.
‘Welcome to Sea Spray,’ she beamed, tossing her blonde hair back with the kind of relaxed poise that Jess’s mother would never have managed in a million years. ‘We’ve saved some supper for you – you must be starving!’
‘Oh, thanks very much!’ Jess replied eagerly.
They entered the house via the kitchen, which was at the back, and then went through into a huge sitting room, where a gang of boys were gathered around a fireplace. A bald man, presumably Mr Stevens, was dozing in an armchair. Jack jumped to his feet as they arrived and came over, smiling, the puppy bounding alongside him.
‘Hi, Jess! Hi, Fred!’ he said. ‘How was the train? We got the fire going for you. Uh, I don’t think you know my bro, George …’ A smaller and slightly plumper version of Jack waved from the hearthrug. He had dark curly hair and a big nose. ‘And this is Tom and Humph.’ Tom was tall with glasses and a wide smile, and Humph was a pale, thin guy kneeling by the fire and fiddling with a poker.
‘There are so many boys, we could almost have a football match!’ trilled Mrs Stevens from the kitchen. ‘We’ve saved some chicken casserole and some spuds in their jackets for you, if that’s OK, Jess?’
‘Oh wonderful, thanks so much!’ Jess turned back to the kitchen and Fred followed her.
Gubbins was wagging and capering round their feet – he seemed to be particularly enchanted by Jess, and the feeling was mutual. She’d always wanted a dog and had nagged her mum about it in vain for years.
There was a big table in the kitchen with two places set for them.
‘Sit down!’ said Flora. ‘What would you like to drink? OJ or cranberry?’
‘Just water, please.’ Jess was uneasily aware that her jeans were already too tight, and she hadn’t hit the spuds yet.
‘So,’ said Mrs Stevens, ‘when you’ve had your supper, we’ll all gather round the fire and play charades until we fall asleep. It’s a tradition at Sea Spray.’
‘Charades?’ Jess clapped her hands. ‘We love charades, don’t we, Fred?’
‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to play,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve strained my imagination.’
Mrs Stevens looked baffled for a moment, and then uttered a strange bellowing laugh. ‘Oh, Fred!’ she cried. ‘Flora warned me that you were a bit of a joker! Strained your imagination! Ha, ha!’
Jess was glad that Mrs Stevens had apparently found Fred amusing, but she knew his manner could be a bit weird sometimes, and she just hoped he would relax and not try too hard.
Chapter 22
After gobbling up the delicious supper, expressing delight and gratitude and insisting on washing up their plates (winning a gold star for politeness – Mum would be proud), Jess and Fred returned to the sitting room. Mr Stevens was still asleep in his chair, Gubbins was curled up on the sofa with Flora, and Jack, George, Tom and Humph were sprawled on the floor, arguing. There were loads of chairs and three sofas – the room was enormous – so Fred and Jess sat down, slightly awkwardly, on a small sofa.
‘But I’ve gotta find that phone!’ Humph was saying, running his fingers through his limp fair hair and turning his big green panicky eyes from person to person.
‘Humph lost his mobile earlier this evening,’ Jack explained with an amused grin. ‘We went out to walk on the beach and he reckons he must have dropped it somewhere on the path.’
‘What if it rains?’ wailed Humph. He seemed to be a bit of a drama queen.
‘Oh, you can just put it in the microwave to dry it out,’ said Jack, exchanging a quick flickering secret smile with his brother.
‘Can you?’ Humph looked doubtful. ‘That sounds a bit, uh, dodgy!’
‘No, it’s fine!’ said George. He had a lazy kind of grin. He lay back and stared at the ceiling, scratching his face. ‘We could put the dog in, too, if he gets a bit wet in the sea.’
‘Nooooo!’ shrieked Flora, laughing. ‘Don’t you dare touch my precious Gubbins!’ She picked up the little terrier and kissed his ears.
Mrs Stevens appeared in the doorway, her hands covered with flour. She’d already confessed to being an obsessive about baking – always a welcome hobby in a parent. ‘Why don’t you all play charades?’ she suggested. ‘Round the fire – so cosy!’
‘Later, Mum.’ George brushed her suggestion aside.
‘I’d love to play charades,’ said Jess, knowing it was something she and Fred would really enjoy. Fred was brilliant at charades. She’d never forget his performance of the Old Testament – the whole concept.
‘So would I!’ added Flora. ‘Although I’m rubbish at it!’
‘Let’s go down to the beach again first!’ suggested Jack. He gave Flora a secret kind of look, and Jess noticed George picking up on it. She guessed something was brewing.
Tom, the quiet speccy guy with the big smile, lumbered to his feet. ‘Maybe we’ll find Humph’s phone,’ he said, and Jess saw that he, too, was in on the joke – whatever it was.
‘Yeah!’ George got up. ‘Hey, mate! We could call your phone as we go down the path and we might hear it ring!’
‘My phone’s dead though!’ fretted Humph. ‘I left my charger behind! Maybe I should hitch into Weymouth tomorrow and get a new charger, except I’m right out of cash. Could you lend me ten quid, George?’
‘I’d really love to go down to the beach, wouldn’t you, Fred?’ Jess jumped up and ran to get her coat.
‘Take care on that path,’ warned Mrs Stevens.
‘Oh, I promised my mum I’d plummet to my doom at the earliest opportunity!’ Jess assured her. ‘So don’t worry – no, I mean, really don’t worry. I’m the most careful person in the universe!’
‘There are loads of wellies outside on the veranda,’ said Mrs Stevens. ‘There’s bound to be a pair your size. Much better for wet sand.’
‘Yes, put your wellies on, everyone!’ called George, as they filed out of a front door on to a covered veranda. Jess could hear the sound of the sea down below. ‘Here are yours, Tom,’ said George, fussing over a row of wellies. He seemed to be something of a control freak. ‘Tom Barker, size twelve, the mind of a p
ygmy inside a giant’s body. Here are yours, bruv.’ He tossed a pair to Jack, who sniggered in a mysterious way. ‘And here are yours, Humph!’ George handed a pair to Humph, who had got the zip to his anorak stuck – he seemed to be a disorganised scatterbrain.
‘Cheers,’ said Humph. He abandoned his struggle with the zip, grabbed the wellies and started to wriggle into them. ‘Wait!’ he said, puzzled and hopping about. ‘There’s something – something inside my welly …’ He pulled his foot out, peered inside the welly by the light of the porch and recoiled with a yell of disgust. ‘Ugh! Dog poo!! Guys, that is disgusting! Yuk! That stinks!’
‘Oh no! We really have to train Gubbins,’ giggled Jack. ‘He keeps pooing in the wellies. Sorry, mate!’
The boys all cracked up. George sank down on to a bench nearby, laughing helplessly, while poor Humph hopped about, wailing.
‘It’s all over my sock! Ugh, it’s revolting! I’ll have to take my sock off, but I haven’t brought a spare pair. Can you lend me a spare sock, George, you sadist?’
But George couldn’t speak – he was still helpless and shaking. Jess smiled politely at the trick, though it wasn’t her sort of humour. This was evidently the way these guys passed their time. It was like an American TV stunt programme. Jess stole a sidelong glance at Fred. He was watching with a wry smile, but he looked kind of vulnerable. Fred’s weapon was his deadly wit. He wasn’t really comfortable with rugger-team horseplay.
They started down the cliff path. George led the way, shining a torch behind him, a bit like an usher in a cinema. Humph was wearing a different pair of wellies and only one sock, and he never stopped talking, alternately moaning about his naked foot and lamenting his lost phone.
‘I’m sure we’ll find it in the morning, as soon as it gets light.’ Flora was trying to comfort him.
‘Yeah, but somebody could steal it!’ complained Humph in his high-pitched whining voice. ‘Or maybe a seagull will nick it or something.’
‘Seagulls don’t nick metal objects,’ said tall smiley Tom. ‘Not like magpies.’
The path, though tricky and steep, never felt very dangerous because on the seaward side there was a kind of low wall of turf.
‘Thank goodness for Dad’s alcohol ban!’ said George. ‘If I was smashed I’d be headfirst over here and rolling right down to the rocks!’
Eventually they reached the beach – without finding Humph’s phone – and ran about screaming as people do who find themselves by the sea on a winter night. The waves crashed, black and white and mighty, so close they could feel the spray.
‘If it was summer we could have a swim,’ said George, ‘but frankly, right now, I’d just as soon not freeze to death!’
Flora and Jess stared at the sea in a trance of delight, huddled together arm in arm, while the guys ran up and down kicking sand about. At one stage they picked Humph up and ran towards the sea with him, pretending they were about to throw him in, changing direction at the last minute and throwing him back up the beach instead.
‘Poor guy!’ exclaimed Jess. ‘I feel quite sorry for Humph!’
‘Oh, no need to,’ Flora reassured her. ‘They always seem to behave like this, and I think he likes it.’
Fred was hovering nearby, his collar turned up against the cold wind.
‘Why don’t you go and horse around with the guys, Fred?’ asked Jess uneasily.
‘I’d rather be an honorary member of the girls’ club right now, if you don’t mind,’ Fred murmured. ‘I’m such a weakling, if they tried to throw me in the sea I’d probably break a leg.’
‘Isn’t it absolutely awesome here!’ sighed Jess, staring up at the stars as the surf crashed nearby. ‘Wow, Flo, it’s really, really kind of them to invite me and Fred!’
‘Oh, no problem,’ said Flora with a happy smile. ‘Mrs Stevens really loves entertaining, and I’m always talking about you two guys. And besides … I think you can both do with a break from all that stressy Chaos stuff.’
‘Oh, don’t mention that!’ Jess shuddered. ‘I wanted to forget about it just for one night. Tomorrow we have to come up with a plan, Fred!’
‘But do we?’ Fred shrugged. ‘It’s not the only solution.’
‘Fred was saying, on the train,’ Jess explained, ‘that he thinks we should just cancel the whole thing and give people their money back.’
Flora hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t rule it out, babe,’ she said uncertainly. ‘It wouldn’t be the end of the world. Things get cancelled all the time.’
‘That’s just what I said,’ put in Fred swiftly.
‘But it would be so awful!’ wailed Jess. ‘Just to give up! I hate giving up! People would think we were so lame – and they’d be right.’
‘No, they wouldn’t,’ said Flora. ‘They’d understand.’
‘But they’d be so disappointed!’ Jess argued. ‘They’re looking forward to it! And they’re trusting us to organise it!’
‘But the stress of it is driving you round the bend, Jess,’ Flora insisted gently. ‘You said so yourself this morning. If you decided to cancel it – decided here and now – you could just relax and enjoy the weekend. It would be such a load off your mind.’
Jess was silent for a moment. The idea of cancelling Chaos did seem wonderfully attractive. No food to organise, no music to fix up, no more terror and dread, just lovely, lovely nothing to worry about except writing out a few cheques as refunds. Jess trembled – she was so very, very tempted.
‘I’ll think it over,’ she conceded. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it any more this evening, OK?’
Fred and Flora exchanged a dubious glance, and nodded. Flora threw her arm round Jess. ‘Don’t forget, babe,’ she said finally, ‘there’s no need to be a hero.’
At this moment the guys ran past, holding Humph on their shoulders like a rocket launcher. They were whooping and poor Humph was screaming.
Fred sighed loudly. ‘Manly games. I should be bonding with them but somehow I’d rather eat a live horse.’
‘Well, you’ve got to share the dorm with them tonight,’ said Flora ominously, ‘so maybe you should look really, really carefully into your bed before you get into it.’
‘Will do!’ Fred nodded. He did look a teeny bit worried.
Chapter 23
‘Jess, wake up and look at this amazing view!’ Flora’s face appeared in a hole in Jess’s dream. ‘Come on! You can see the sea! You can see right along the coast to Weymouth!’
Jess yawned and stretched and crawled out of bed.
‘Put your jumper on!’ Flora went on. ‘Come out on to the veranda!’ She was wearing her parka.
Their little bedroom was on the ground floor but round at the side of the house – the only view from their window was of a kind of lean-to where all the logs were stored. But once Jess had scrambled into her clothes, they went into the sitting room, through the French windows and on to the veranda. The view there was just awesome: the house, perched apparently alone on its cliff, seemed surrounded by sea far below. The coastline curved round in the furthest distance, like a thin grey line drawn in pencil, where there was the hint of tiny far-off rooftops and the outlines of buildings.
‘That’s Weymouth!’ breathed Flora in admiration. ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful! I’m so glad the sun is shining. The sea looks so blue.’
‘But it’s kind of gold, too,’ sighed Jess. The ocean seemed ultra-calm, stretching away in glassy glowing sheets towards the distant horizon, colours moving across it as clouds drifted over the sun. ‘Fred’s got to see this!’ She turned and went back into the living room.
There was the hubbub of boys’ voices from the kitchen, and they found the guys sitting at the huge kitchen table, eating their breakfast: Jack and George tucking into bacon and eggs, Tom shovelling muesli into his enormous mouth and Humph fiddling with a boiled egg and cursing as the yolk ran over his fingers. But no Fred.
‘Help yourselves to breakfast, ladies!’ George grinned. ‘The Parents usually have a li
e-in to avoid the revolting sight of us eating.’
‘Where’s Fred?’ asked Jess. A naughty glinting smile flashed around the gang of boys. Something had happened. Jess’s heart gave a sickening lurch.
‘Oh, he’s having a lie-in, too,’ said George. ‘Poor Fredianus! I don’t think he slept very well.’
‘You didn’t play any horrible tricks on him, did you, guys?’ demanded Flora.
Jack and George put on a show of innocence.
‘What, us?’ asked George. ‘We’re just pussy cats! Pass the marmalade, Humph, you useless parasite!’
It was obvious there was some joke going on, but the boys’ gang was kind of buttoned-down and pretending nothing was the matter. Jess didn’t want to get all stressy, even though she felt alarmed and anxious.
‘What shall we have for breakfast, Jess?’ Flora looked sympathetic but embarrassed; she knew Jess would be worried about Fred, but as a guest in her boyfriend’s house she was clearly trying to behave perfectly to everybody in all directions. ‘How about some scrambled eggs?’ she went on. ‘With tomatoes and mushrooms? That’s your favourite, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jess. ‘Shall I do the mushrooms and tomatoes while you do the scrambling? You’re the Demon Scrambler.’
As she wiped and sliced the mushrooms, Jess tried not to worry. So Fred was having a lie-in. So what? He often slept till noon at weekends; his mum was always joking about it. There was no need to worry. She tried not to listen to the boys’ conversation, and to concentrate on what Flora was saying about the lovely walks they could have along the cliffs and down on the beach, but it was hard to get George’s buzzing voice out of her head.
‘Guys! You know Mum likes charades? Well, we could arrange a little scene to greet her when she comes into the kitchen … a massacre! Humph slumped over his plate with ketchup coming out of his ear, Tom lying on the floor with a dot of ketchup in the middle of his forehead, and you impaled on the breadboard, bruv, with the bread knife sticking out of your back.’