by Fiona Foden
Stalked him and got stuck on the roof and sort of got arrested…
When I thought of it like that, it did seem a bit much. Marcia was right – I’ve been a little obsessed lately. And now I had a wasted costume, after Ray had bought it for me – and all those people were meant to be coming over to Marcia’s.
When I called her again later, she said she’d got hold of as many as she could, who’d promised to spread the news about the cancelled party. I said I’d call everyone I could think of too. “I feel so stupid,” Marcia muttered down the phone. “Other people are allowed to have parties. It’s not as if Mum was even planning to go out!”
“Marcia,” I said, as kindly as I could, “she’d have found out how many people you’d invited when they all turned up, and that would’ve been worse.”
“I know,” she said gloomily, not sounding remotely convinced.
VALENTINE’S DAY! The postman staggered to our front door with a bulging sack of cards for me (joke). Actually, this was the Valentine quota in our house:
Mum: one. From Dad, of course. I recognized it as one of the 10p ones Asda were selling. Still, you can’t put a price on love, I guess.
Dad: none. But Mum did kiss him noisily on his baldie spot and say, “You don’t need a card to know I love you, do you, Colin?”
Ned: one card swiftly thrust into jeans pocket. Intriguing. Could it be from Ray? I hoped so.
Princess Beth: huge padded satin card with two fwuffy pink teddy bears cuddling on the front of it. Barf. Also a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Double-barf. And a red rose in a box! How unoriginal. How clichéd. But what would you expect from toilet-stink Henry?
Me: none. Not that I’m bitter or anything. I just sat there, munching toast with some strange brown jam on it which Dad said is “still on trial” and “not ready for the general public yet”. Like we’re not the general public.
At least Marcia had cheered up – she called to say Daniel had delivered a card and some yummy truffles – and Mum was being nicer to me too. I don’t know if it’s because she felt all loved-up because of Dad’s 10p card, or if she’d started to feel guilty about banning me from going to Marcia’s party (I hadn’t told her it was cancelled as I wanted her to regret being so mean). “Doing anything nice today?” she asked as we cleared up the breakfast stuff together. I waited for her to announce that my task today was to shampoo eighteen Dalmatians.
“Don’t know,” I said. “Thought I might meet Marcia and Evie, go for a swim or something.”
“That sounds good.” Mum stopped putting plates away and looked at me. “Cassie…” She paused. “I had a little chat with Ray yesterday.”
My stomach clenched in panic. Now she was going to lecture me about never going on a motorbike again, ever. “Did you?” I asked nervously.
Mum nodded. “She … she’s a lovely girl, isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” I said, scraping a bit of dried egg off a plate with my fingernail.
“She reckoned I was being a bit harsh with you,” Mum added.
“Did she? What about?” I knew, of course. It gave me a warm feeling, knowing Ray had stuck up for me.
“About not letting you go to Marcia’s party last night.”
“Oh.”
“Do you think I was?” she asked.
“Well, um…” I wanted to say she’d been pretty unfair, especially as the party had been the best anyone had ever been to. But I knew I’d never get away with that, as one of her mum-spies would be bound to tell her it hadn’t happened. “It didn’t make any difference,” I muttered, “‘cause Marcia’s mum made her cancel it anyway.”
“Really? Why?”
“She found out she’d invited ninety-two people.”
Mum burst out laughing. “That was a bit much, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I smiled at the thought of so many people all jammed into Marcia’s living room, tramping in dirt and dropping crisps all over the precious cream carpet. “Mum,” I said cautiously, “did you ever do stuff like that at my age? I mean, plan big parties and get into trouble?”
Mum thought for a moment, then said, “The big thing I did – well, I was a bit older than you. I was seventeen…”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, you know I used to drive my parents crazy by hanging out with bikers…”
I nodded, even though she’d never said much about it before.
“I met this one boy,” she continued, “and my mum and dad banned me from seeing him.”
“Why?”
“He was a bit wild,” she explained, “but that’s why I liked him, of course. Instead of staying in my room at night, I’d climb out of the window and down the drainpipe, and once I managed to scramble on to his garage roof so I could sneak into his room, a bit like you…” She smirked and waggled her eyebrows at me.
“I’ve never climbed into a boy’s room!” I exclaimed.
“No, love. Just on to a kebab house roof, then…”
“OK, Mum,” I murmured, relieved that she looked amused instead of furious.
“Anyway,” she went on, her eyes gleaming at the memory, “I’d sneak off and meet him and sometimes we’d stay out all night.”
My eyes widened. “What happened?”
“You mean, did I get into trouble? God, yes. But we kept seeing each other anyway. I shouldn’t say this to you, Cassie, but sometimes you just have to do what feels right.”
I could hardly believe Mum was telling me this, and wondered if I’d do all that if it meant I could be with Ollie. Now, I wasn’t quite so sure. “So,” I asked, “what happened to the boy in the end?”
Mum laughed and tossed back her dark wavy hair. “What, him? Oh that was your dad.”
I couldn’t believe it – that the boy Mum used to sneak out to see now drives a cheese-mobile at seventeen miles per hour and uses special lotion to stop his hair falling out. I could see him through the kitchen window, fiddling with our car, and I couldn’t match the man who must’ve been Mum’s Amazing Person with the one bending down and sniffing inside the boot.
I went out to try and help him. “Dad,” I said, “can you remember when the smell started?”
He rubbed his face and I still couldn’t imagine the wild biker boy he once was. “Around Christmastime, I think,” he said. While he poked about outside, I climbed into the car and searched and searched, even under the carpets for about the fiftieth time, but I still couldn’t find anything. “We don’t know what it is,” I heard Dad saying, and I assumed he was talking to one of our neighbours, who probably thinks we’re the weirdest family in the street. “It’s strong and cheesy,” he added.
“Yeah, I know,” came a male voice.
“I’ve tried everything…” Dad said, sounding as if he’d lost all hope.
“Er, Cassie?” Someone was tapping the car’s side window. I looked up and saw Sam and scrambled out as quickly as I could.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to brush all the bits of car dust and ick off myself.
“I, er…” Sam shuffled and scratched at his neck. “I just wondered, um … a few of us thought…”
I looked at him and nodded, realizing he’d gone a bit pink. “What, Sam?” I prompted him, willing Dad to go back into the house.
“We, er, thought a few of us could get together later,” Sam explained, “seeing as Marcia’s party was cancelled last night.” Sam gave Dad a quick glance. Taking the hint, Dad wandered off to the garage, probably to find some pong-blasting chemicals. “And it’s Ollie’s birthday today,” Sam added.
“Is it?” Amazingly, this had virtually no effect on me at all. A few days earlier, I’d have been desperately trying to rake together some money to buy him a present. But I was sick of it all – the embarrassment, the stress, all the trouble caused by Operation SOOP. And anyway
, I liked standing there, chatting with Sam. I felt free.
“Yeah, so we thought we could all get together and have a fire down on the beach, like last time…”
“That sounds good,” I said. “As long as I’m allowed to go, I mean…”
“Your mum still mad about that stuff at the kebab house?” Sam asked with a sympathetic smile.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell sometimes…”
“Well,” Sam said, “we’re meeting about seven-ish, OK? And it’s fancy dress.”
“Fancy dress on the beach?” I exclaimed. “We’ll be freezing!”
“Yeah, well, Ollie thought that with everyone getting their costumes together for last night, we might as well still go through with it…”
I thought of my cat costume hung up in my wardrobe, and a shiver of excitement ran through me. “Great. We’ll just have to make sure it’s a really big fire, then, won’t we, so we don’t die of cold?”
Sam laughed, and I wanted to rush inside and ask Mum right away if I could go. But Sam seemed in no hurry to leave. He was kind of … loitering, as if he wanted to say something else. “Er … d’you think your dad would like my dad to have a look at his car?” he asked.
“What for?” I said, puzzled.
“Well, he works at a garage, and maybe that smell’s coming from inside the engine or something.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll mention it to Dad.” This, I realized, would put Mum in a much better mood – the thought of that cheese stink being dealt with, once and for all. I said bye to Sam and ran inside, almost too excited to breathe.
“So you see,” I told Mum and Dad at dinnertime, “Sam’s dad’s a mechanic and Sam said he’s seen this kind of problem loads of times and has always managed to find the source of the smell.”
“That sounds hopeful,” Mum said. “Last time I was in it, I nearly gagged.”
“Me too,” Beth muttered, wrinkling her nose.
“Aw,” Ned sniggered. “I’ll miss that smell. It’s kinda part of the family.”
“Well, I won’t,” Mum retorted, jabbing an over-boiled carrot with her fork.
“Erm, d’you think I could go out later?” I asked timidly. “Some friends are getting together on the beach…”
“Oh, I’m not keen on you just hanging out down there,” Mum said.
“Come on,” Dad added. “She’s sorted out the car problem for us…”
“Not exactly, Colin. I mean, we don’t know if Sam’s dad—”
“He’ll definitely do it,” I said quickly. “Sam called him to check. He owns Roach’s garage down by the dock and he’s expecting you to drop off the car tomorrow afternoon.” God, what was I thinking, making all of this up? I could picture it now: Dad trundling up to the garage and opening the door and this terrible stench gusting out. And him saying to Sam’s dad, “Hi, are you Mr Roach? Your son told my daughter you’re brilliant at sorting out cheese stinks…”
“Oh, I suppose you can go, Cassie,” Mum said with a shrug, “as long as you’re not out too late. Although why you’d want to hang out on the beach in the middle of winter I can’t imagine.”
“I won’t stay long, Mum,” I said.
“You’d better not, young lady.” I left the table relieved that she’d said yes, and that my Ollie crush seemed to be fading away at last. It was sort of being replaced by something else, which was making me feel warm as anything…
I’d called Marcia and Evie and arranged to meet at half-six by the clock in town, and at five-thirty I was pulling on my catsuit and doing some slinky feline moves in the mirror. I also checked that my left boob hadn’t shrunk back to its previous undeveloped state (it hadn’t. I was still normal-shaped. Hurrah!). I put on my cat mask and tied my hair back into a ponytail. Perfect. Of course, I had to take off the mask, stash it in my bag and throw a huge sweater on over the catsuit, or Mum would’ve kicked up a fuss about some fancy-dress beach party and everyone catching their death of cold.
“Want a lift, love?” Dad asked as I was leaving.
“No thanks, Dad. I’ll walk.” I couldn’t risk any cheesiness sticking to my costume.
Mum looked up from the big book where she was checking her doggie appointments. It looked pretty full. Maybe business was picking up. “Here,” she said, fishing a tenner out of her purse on the kitchen table. “You can take the bus and get a snack or something. Don’t be too late back.”
“OK,” I said, marvelling at the crisp tenner in my hand. Parents are so weird. One minute they’re furious, saying you’re a disgraceful police-time waster, and the next they’re thrusting money at you.
“You’ve helped me a lot lately,” she added. “I was talking to Suzie, and she said, what they do with Ray is…”
“With Ray?” I repeated. I didn’t understand what Mum’s best friend had to do with Ray.
Mum blinked at me. “Yes. You do know Suzie’s seeing Ray’s dad?”
“Is she?” I was totally confused. I knew Mum and Suzie had been talking about some wild girl who’d travelled around Europe and come back the model daughter … but I hadn’t known they meant Ray.
“Yes,” Mum laughed. “And you see, Ray was like you, always getting into scrapes, but when she came back from travelling her dad decided to employ her properly in his shop – they run a baker’s in Winterbourne – and since then she’s been this fantastic, responsible girl.”
“Right,” I said, smiling at the thought of Ray and me on her bike, zooming way too fast along the coast road and laughing as the salty wind stung our faces. If Mum had known about that, she wouldn’t have called Ray a “fantastic, responsible girl”. “Anyway,” I added quickly, “thanks for the money, Mum. If I run I’ll catch the bus.”
“I don’t see why you won’t let me give you a lift,” Dad said, shaking his head, triggering a snort of laughter from Mum.
“Colin, no one in their right mind would go in that car right now,” Mum reminded him. She turned back to me. “Have a good time and be sensible, OK?”
“Of course I will,” I said, bounding towards the door.
“Hey, what’s that hanging down from your jumper?” she called after me.
“Just a tail,” I laughed, giving it a quick flick as I headed out.
At the clock, I jumped off the bus and prowled up to Marcia and Evie, who looked amazing. Marcia threw open her thick winter coat to show a cute knitted black dress with red hearts hand-stitched all over it, and under Evie’s jacket was a stripy top, stripy leggings, a sticky-out black tutu and clompy lace-up boots. “You look fantastic,” Marcia enthused as I pulled up my jumper to show my catsuit.
“You really do,” Evie added. “Where did you get it?”
“Ned’s girlfriend bought it for me,” I said.
“Lucky you! Is it serious with them, then?”
“Who knows?” I asked, too excited to try to figure out Ned’s love life now. “Anyway, shall we go?”
Marcia nodded, and the three of us hurried down to the seafront. It was already dark, but the evening was mild and a calm sea lapped gently at the damp sand. “There’s the fire!” I exclaimed, forgetting about seeming cool and casual, and racing towards it while pulling my cat mask down over my face. This time there were loads more people, dancing about, their laughter carrying all the way along the beach. My heart was thumping as we headed towards the flickering glow.
“Think the Leech’ll be there?” Marcia asked.
“Probably,” I murmured, but I didn’t care about her any more, not when everyone was dressed up in wigs and masks and obviously having a great time. Someone had brought their iPod and some speakers and music was blaring out. I spotted Daniel Herring’s face peeping out from a bear costume. The Leech was prancing about in a leopard cape and Mickey Mouse ears, and Ollie – who hadn’t bothered dressing up after all – broke away from the group to say hello, all
smiles. “Happy birthday,” I said with a grin.
“Thanks. Love the mask, Catgirl. Can I try it on?”
“Er, OK,” I said, taking it off and handing it to him. He pulled it on and started doing some crazy cat dance, which prompted the Leech to zoom over and start dancing with him really close. Honestly, I didn’t care at all – all I wanted was my mask back.
“Wanna dance?” Stalking Paul asked, sidling up to me.
“Er, maybe later…” Sam was approaching, dressed in what looked like one of his dad’s suits and a trilby hat.
“Hey, Cass, I spoke to Dad about the car,” he said.
“What did he say?” I asked, aware that Ollie now had his arms around the Leech and she was giggling like crazy. Stalking Paul had gone off to dance on his own, bouncing his arms about like hoover tubes.
“He said he’s happy to have a look at it, see what the problem is. He’s going to phone your dad to see when he wants to bring it in.”
“That’s good of him,” I said with a smile.
“I think he’s intrigued,” Sam added. “He likes a challenge…”
“Oh, I nearly forgot!” the Leech shrieked as the song stopped. “Me and Jade made you a cake, Ollie!” Sam and I watched as everyone clustered around and the girls presented a round, flat cake with HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLLIE written on it in different coloured icing pens. “Looks like a cowpat,” Sam whispered in my ear.
It’s funny, because even though there were so many people there, it almost felt as if it were just me and Sam, warming ourselves by the fire. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “The Leech is trying to feed Ollie.” Sure enough, she’d pulled the mask – my mask – off him and placed it on a rock so she could post little pieces of cake into his mouth.
“D’you think he likes that?” I asked. “All the attention she gives him, I mean.”
Sam rolled his eyes and nodded. “God, yeah, he loves it all right.” Evie was imitating the Leech, popping bits of cake into Marcia’s mouth, and then Marcia started dancing with Daniel and me and Sam started dancing too. I’d even thrown off my sweater because it was so toasty and warm by the fire. And it was far better than the party at Marcia’s would have been, with her mum lurking and me having to be incognito all night.