Harry shook his head in disbelief. “Call me.”
“I will. I’ll call. I was already gonna anyway.” He pressed a slightly furry Haribo from his pocket into Harry’s hand, by way of an apology for not hanging out with him. “Get home safe.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s literally five minutes away, so hopefully I’ll avoid the kidnappers, terrorists and any rogue volcanoes. See you later, Soph.” He smiled at her. He had a very charming smile, Noah considered. Very charming indeed. Was he secretly trying to charm Sophie with it? Was he trying to seduce her with his deep brown eyes you could get lost in? With the fact he had hair with a fringe that swept across perfectly, with no cowlicks, ever? Was he trying to beguile her with the fact he was a couple of inches taller than Noah, didn’t have bags under his eyes and had a sweet little snub nose? Damn his perfect BMI and twenty-twenty vision! And he had the beginnings of proper arm muscles. Noah had noticed that in PE. Something else too … something potentially more alarming. Harry had suddenly started wearing Calvin Klein boxers. Underwear for people who were thinking about bewitching others into sexual activities, for sure! Why this sudden change? Until now, Harry had worn underwear from any normal high street chain store. Now, he was a designer underwear person. Noah hadn’t commented on the development, but maybe it all made sense. Maybe Noah had competition for Sophie’s attention.
Noah watched as Harry sauntered off, all aloof and mysterious. Aloof and mysterious and charming and cool and all-American high school hero with Calvin Klein boxers…
“Please can we go?” Sophie asked, breaking in on his thoughts.
“What? Oh, er, absolutely! Let’s go, go, go!”
CHAPTER FOUR
If Little Fobbing had had a completely truthful Wikipedia entry, it would have read something like:
Little Fobbing
Little Fobbing is a crappy little town in the middle of nowhere, with absolutely nothing fun to do; filled mainly with people over the age of 130. Come here if you want to be an undertaker, otherwise don’t bother. See also: Hell, Pit of Satan, The Abyss, Purgatory.
Noah’s house was on a bland estate built from cheap brick in the eighties, during an apparent national shortage of architectural imagination. He took a deep breath and turned the key in the lock, showing Sophie in through the tiny hall and into the lounge, where he was mortified to discover his mum had erected a clothes horse proudly displaying an array of her ridiculous frilly knickers and horrific thongs.
“Oh, GOD!” he howled, throwing himself in front of the display in an attempt to hide it all. He manically concertinaed the contraption together and rushed it through the door into the kitchen-diner, out of sight.
“Not mine, obviously!” he laughed, attempting to make light of it but realizing immediately it sounded like they were indeed his, because why deny it otherwise?
“I mean, I don’t wear women’s knickers!”
No, that still sounded like he did.
“They’re Mum’s. Not mine. I wouldn’t wear knickers. I hate them.”
You hate them?!
“…Unless they’re being worn by a girl I like…”
Oh, shut up, you utter fool, now you sound like a pervert.
“I don’t wear knickers. Girls wear knickers. Knickers are fine on girls. But I don’t think about it a lot.”
He nodded. That was the best he could do.
“Wow,” said Sophie, ignoring him and surveying the room.
“Yeah. Sorry,” he said, casting his eyes over the faded, limp curtains, ramshackle sideboard and twenty-one-inch TV that wasn’t even flatscreen. The reason he never wanted anyone to come back here? The embarrassment of living in this house. It screamed the fact they were totally broke.
“No. I like it.”
“What?”
“It’s got individuality.”
“That’s just a nice way of saying it’s weird,” Noah said, convinced that she was just being polite and was inwardly in hysterics at the crazy junk shop she’d just walked into.
“It’s got history.” Sophie smiled. “I like that. Like this sofa. It’s got a soul.”
Noah tried very hard not to gawp at her. A soul? The only thing that manky old sofa was likely to have was fleas. Certainly not a soul.
Why was she being so nice? Nobody in their right mind would be this nice, except Harry, of course. It felt like she was setting him up for a fall. Like she was actually just taking the piss, but in a really clever, cunning sort of way.
“This your mum, yeah?” she said, looking at a photo montage on the wall from gigs she had done.
“Yeah,” he muttered, waiting for the barbed comment that would surely follow.
“Cool photo. Have you seen her show?”
“Couple of times.” Thirty-six and counting.
“Any good?”
Noah shrugged. The show was probably the worst thing he had ever seen in his life, consisting of ramshackle choreography, piss-poor lip-syncing and a portable fog machine that frequently malfunctioned and pumped out thick smoke that nearly asphyxiated the audience. Bizarrely, people often clapped and cheered. Maybe they were mocking her? Maybe they thought his mother was on a “scheme” to help talentless people find jobs in the performing arts, and so they felt they should be encouraging? “I dunno, it’s probably OK if you’re drunk.”
“I know what they’ve been saying at school about it,” she said, glancing at him. “Although some of the boys definitely weren’t complaining, if you know what I mean?”
“Oh, God! Really?”
“Really. The boys at our school are so pathetic and disrespectful. Present company excluded.”
“Oh, yes, thank you,” he said. “Compliment … accepted. But I mean … those stupid flyers she had done, though.”
“But that’s how performers get work. They have to advertise.”
“Yeah, but in that outfit? Did you see them? Pouting and … in a leotard.”
“Nothing wrong with a leotard.”
“She’s forty!”
“You’ll be forty one day.”
“Yeah, and when I am, I won’t wear a leotard!”
Sophie laughed, and Noah relaxed and cracked a smile. She wasn’t going to take the piss after all. Why would she? That sort of stuff was beneath her. Things were going OK, he supposed.
“What about your dad?”
Things were not going OK.
“What about him?” he said, pretending to be busy by pulling his stuff out of his school bag and slinging it on the end of the trampy old sofa. And, after all, what could he say about him? That he’d disappeared six years ago, whereabouts unknown? That he’d left Noah and his mum with nothing? So what could Noah tell her? Dad’s gone. I don’t know where. I don’t know why. He’s screwed up our lives, but I still miss him. And I still love him. And I know that’s mad, but everything would be better if he just came back.
“Nothing. I just…” Sophie shrugged and looked away. “Nothing.”
Noah looked down at the floor and wondered if he should say something. He knew what she was getting at. Everyone had heard the story. He’d only just turned ten when his dad vanished. When he asked his mum where he was, she just told him she didn’t know. On the first night, the second night, the third week, the fourth month – she “didn’t know”. But then people starting saying things. Saying they hadn’t seen his dad – where was he? So Noah made up little stories, because saying you didn’t know sounded really weird. So he’d be “on holiday” or “visiting some friends” or “working away”. But as time went on, people were more intrigued, especially because it transpired that he owed money to various people in the town. People started taking the piss: “Your dad still ‘away on business’, is he?” They taunted him and his mum was saying nothing – wouldn’t even talk about it with him. He couldn’t stand it. So he made up the mother of all stories: his dad was being held hostage by pirates. It was the perfect cover: it explained why his dad had vanished. It explained why they hadn’t
heard from him. And it would hopefully make people feel sorry for his dad too, even if he did owe them money.
The trouble was, no one believed him. Fine, he thought. I’ll prove it. So, he constructed a ransom note, made to add credibility to the story. But then someone pointed out the note was composed of letters cut out from the primary school newsletter, even though the pirates were, according to Noah, from “Timbuktu” – which had been the first foreign-sounding place that had sprung to mind.
Fine, he thought. I’ll produce more proof. So, in a final coup de théâtre, Noah produced and starred in a video purporting to be from the kidnappers. He’d heard about pirate attacks in the news, so he knew pirates were real, but it didn’t occur to him they would be substantially different from the ones in books and films, except maybe they had modern weapons and communications technology. So he donned a skull-and-crossbones hat, eyepatch and ten of his mum’s necklaces. He ran the footage through some software that made the image grainy and distorted and it was job done: a vicious piratical kidnapper telling the world that Noah’s dad would “dance the hempen jig” or be made to “walk the plank”. He finished it with a “Yo ho ho” and a “Shiver me timbers” to add authenticity to the piece. A couple of clicks, and the masterpiece was uploaded to YouTube.
And then … calamity! Within hours it had amassed a ludicrous number of likes and gone viral. “Funniest shit ever!” one comment read. Or: “This kid is crazy!” Everyone laughed. Everyone thought he was a joke, and no one was going to let him live it down. And the whole pirate story was something that everyone still ridiculed him for to this day. No one, not for a second, cut him a little bit of slack for being a confused, frightened, heartbroken ten-year-old whose dad had vanished.
“It’s just me and Mum now,” he said, desperate to change the subject because he could feel the tears behind his eyes and he didn’t want to cry in front of her. Keep it together! he told himself. Keep it light. Keep it normal! “Do you want a drink?”
“Cup of tea would be nice,” she said, flopping down on the sofa.
“Tea? OK. Tea.” That was fine, he could do that. Teabag, hot water, milk. But what if she wanted special tea? What if she wanted Earl Grey or Darjeeling or something? What if she wanted sugar? Did they have sugar?!
“Is that OK?” Sophie said.
WHAT IF SHE LIKED TO DRINK IT WITH SOMETHING WEIRD LIKE A SLICE OF LEMON?! “No, yeah. ’Course it is. I like tea too.”
“Good.”
“Tea’s great,” he nodded enthusiastically, trying to engage in harmless small talk like a normal person. “Tea’s lovely. I love tea. Good old British tea!”
Sophie glanced up at him and raised an amused eyebrow. “Chill out, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Noah agreed. “Yeah.”
He sloped through to the bomb site of a kitchen, flicked the kettle on, took a couple of deep breaths and massaged his temples.
“OK, OK,” he told himself, wishing he’d come back with Harry instead so they could just spend half an hour chilling out in front of the telly, watching stupid kids’ programmes.
No. No, he must impress her. She must end up liking him enough that they could maybe become good friends and people might think he was just a normal, regular guy after all. This would be fine.
He rinsed a couple of dirty mugs under the tap and, in the absence of a washing-up brush, tried to scrub them clean with his fingers. What was she doing in there right now? Was she nosing around? What if she stumbled across the list of suggested dinner recipes he’d prepared for his mother, which she’d callously dismissed as “up-its-own-arse MasterChef crap”? A normal boy doesn’t jot down ingredients for “duo of pork with potato and celeriac rosti, apple puree and roasted sage, followed by rose-petal panna cotta with damson and lavender Viennese shortbread”. Oh God.
Tea.
He was looking in the cupboard for the tea. Where was it? A jar of Mellow Birds … empty … some sweeteners, a congealed jar of beef extract… Noah began to panic, flinging open random cupboards. Where the hell was the tea?
“You all right in there?” Sophie called through from the lounge.
“Er – yes!”
“Need some help?”
“No! No, it’s under control.”
He slammed the final cupboard shut, and it fell off its hinges and clattered on to the floor, scraping a good layer of skin off his shin on the way down. Noah writhed in silent agony, not wanting to alert Sophie to the mayhem that was unfurling just the other side of the wall. Defeated, he leaned weakly over the counter just as the kettle reached boiling point, forcing a jet of viciously hot steam into his face. “AAAARGH! SH— SHOOT! F— FLIPPIN’ … PANTS!” he screamed, desperately trying not to swear in front of her.
“Noah?!”
“NO! STAY THERE! DO NOT COME IN!” he squealed, fumbling around for the tap.
“What’s happening?”
“STAY!” he shouted, splashing cold water on to his face.
He patted his face with a dirty tea towel and propped the stricken cupboard door back against the unit. He could feel the wetness of his bleeding shin against his trouser leg, but looking for a plaster was futile. His mother didn’t even have any teabags; why would she have anything as opulent as basic first aid?
He considered whether using an old teabag out of the bin might be a viable option. It was gross, but the boiling water would kill off any bacteria so it would probably be OK. He gingerly poked through the fag ash and remains of his mother’s Indian takeaway from last night, finally discovering a hard little bag covered in korma sauce. He fished it out and rinsed it under the tap. It wasn’t ideal but it represented the best hope of success. He plonked it in the mug and poured the water over it, squashing the unyielding bag against the side of the cup in the hope of releasing a bit of tea flavour.
Nothing.
It was just a mug of hot water with a mouldy old teabag and a bit of scale from the kettle at the bottom. Maybe it needed time to brew. He poured in a little milk and a solid lump of what looked like cottage cheese fell into the mug. Noah closed his eyes and counted to five. He was determined not to let his mother and her piss-poor housekeeping ruin this for him. He calmly took the teaspoon and began to fish the cheesy bits out of the mug, piece by piece. There was loads of it. Millions of little specks, floating around in the pale white water. Satisfied he had removed the bulk of big lumps and deciding he could run the tea through a sieve prior to serving, he squeezed the bag again in the hope of at least making the water tea coloured.
But nothing happened.
He squeezed harder, aggressively pushing the spoon into the bag, which responded by splitting open, the pale water immediately filling with tiny flecks of tea leaves. All things considered, this had a high chance of being the worst cup of tea Sophie would ever have in her whole entire life. This was terrible. How would she ever see him as a possible friend, a person who could provide support and companionship, if he couldn’t even provide a simple cup of tea? His mother, his bloody useless mother, through a total lack of grocery planning, had ruined everything.
“There’s a problem with the tea,” Noah said, appearing in the doorway.
“What sort of problem?”
“There’s Bovril,” he said, feeling the tears prick his eyes again. This was how it would always be. He felt powerless against fate and destiny – or at least the incompetence of his mother. Things would never align for him like they did for other people. He would always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes, saying the wrong thing. He would always be the snotty little geek on the edge of the party. Correction: far away from the party. Unwanted. Joked about. And he did sometimes wonder: was that why his dad left? Was it because he was such a poor excuse of a boy? Crap at football? Asthmatic? Crying about being bullied? “Look, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, just about holding it together. “Maybe I’m not the right partner for you…”
“Noah…”
“Maybe you should go back in a thre
e with Jon and…”
“Noah!”
He sank down on to the sofa and put his head in his hands. He should never have allowed her to come round. Not without adequate preparation time first.
She came and sat down next to him. Brilliant. Prolong the agony, he thought.
“Look, it’s been a slightly stressful day, as I’m sure you’re aware,” he said, his right leg starting to jiggle up and down again. He needed a lie-down. He was in grave danger of having a stroke or something.
“I ignore what people say at school,” she said, putting a hand on his knee to stop his leg bouncing. Why is she touching your leg? What is happening? Oh God! Does she fancy me? I don’t have any condoms! “I know it’s just pathetic gossip,” she continued, “like what Jess said today, about you wetting yourself on that London Dungeon trip. I mean, I missed that trip because of—”
“Yeah, but I had a bladder infection,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, removing her hand.
“That’s the only reason.”
“Oh, right.”
“It stopped with some antibiotics and I now have total bladder control, so … just saying, that doesn’t happen any more. No accidents. Not for, like, three years now.” He nodded at her. It was vitally important that she understood he wasn’t some little kid. He was mature. Sophisticated. Like her.
“Hey, do you fancy coming to the party tomorrow night?” she asked.
“What? Melissa’s?” He looked at her suspiciously. Did Sophie not realize that people like Noah had no place at parties like Melissa’s? “She’d never want me there.”
“Oh, Melissa’s all right, she wouldn’t mind. I can bring a plus one.”
“But … what?” He definitely hadn’t heard that right. Why was she being nice to him? He’d done nothing to deserve this. He hadn’t even given her a cup of tea. “You could take anyone. Connor … James … Josh Lewis from Year Thirteen! Everyone loves him, he’s…”
“You’re such an idiot,” she said, laughing and pushing him so he fell against the sofa arm. “Gimme your phone – I’ll type my number in.”
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