Though she weirds me out, I feel sorry for Mabel. Every bone of her angular frame sticks out, making knobs and lines against the thin nylon of the 1940s dresses she wears when she’s not in tweed. And she has a vast range of nervous twitches, mostly to do with adjusting the gold-rimmed spectacles that slide up and down a long hooky nose. She was fiddling with them now, her rheumy pale-blue eyes flitting restlessly behind the crescent lenses.
‘This is just what I was after, Mabel.’ Stinky Mike smiled slowly and lifted a fat hand to her shoulder. He squeezed gently.
Ik!
Revolted, I hastily blanked the images of Stinky Mike and Tweedy Mabel from my mind and scarpered downstairs to blind myself with the copier for the rest of the afternoon. There was a desperate seduction to plan. I checked my watch.
No!
Yeech!
Twelve o’clock already!
I was down to four and a half days!
Where was Arnold Trenchard? Hurrying across the library, the memory of that one and only first love, the delectable Ben Latter, intruded for a moment, but I blocked it out. No chance of that, jinx or no jinx.
Chapter Three
Tuesday 13 April, sooo early, like, dawn maybe
I woke with a start.
Someone in the room above me was yodelling with an intensity piercing enough to shatter a wine glass, let alone the eggshell fragility of my skull.
I pulled a pillow over my head and the noise stopped.
But no.
My little sister Blue had only paused to catch her breath.
‘Lula? Are you ready to go?’ Mum’s voice trailed up the passage to my bedroom door.
Frik! Forgot I had a library shift. Bum bum bum. ‘Just got to finish up!’ I shouted back, with a twinge at such a bare-faced lie.
Scuffle scuffle up the hall. I could hear numerous plastic bags being gathered together. ‘Shall I start walking?’ she said loudly outside my door, amidst hurried rustling.
‘Yes!’ Throwing back the duvet. ‘Which way’re you going?’
‘Past St Alban’s.’
The elite boys’ school. Plodding this route with Mum would ordinarily be a trauma, but in the holidays the place is a graveyard.
‘’Kay! I’ll catch up!’ I rolled out of bed and assessed the crumpled clothing tossed on the floor from yesterday.
Big sigh.
No one to impress.
Pulling on my jeans, something rustled in my pocket. The List. Frik. What was I thinking? Just four poxy days till my birthday!
Arnold!
Seduction!
Of course someone to impress!
I had to look fanfabulouslytastic!
Yesterday afternoon had been a total washout because Arnold had been put to work in the library’s rare-documents room deep underground and I hadn’t laid eyes on him for the rest of the day. I paused in front of my near-empty cupboard, wracked with indecision. If I were late again, Stinky Mike would fire me for sure. I weighed it up: job . . . or . . . lifetime curse. Hmm.
If I didn’t have money for chocolate, I was doomed anyway.
I’ll wow Arnold tomorrow, I vowed, pulling on my T-shirt faster than Blue can shove a pea up her nose, and was out the door without brushing my teeth or my hair. The apple I snatched sorted out the gnashers and my hair was all scrunched up high on my head in that, um, I’ve just got out of bed look that I do a little too often.
By the time I leapt up the garden steps to the front gate, Mum had already disappeared from sight. I sprinted down the road and caught sight of her cruising down the hill into town. I grinned despite myself. Watching my mother from a distance always makes me smile. She wears enormous caftans, and her short white hair stands up in a shock all around her head. You’d never think she once raced Harleys and drank beer out of other people’s helmets. I caught her as she rounded the last corner of the block.
‘Good morning, Dr Bird!’ I said, like a centimetre from her ear.
‘Eeeee!’ Mum leapt away like a flying tree frog and I fell about laughing till I could barely breathe. ‘Cripes, Lula! Will you not creep up like that! In today’s world! You could have been a mugger! You’re lucky I didn’t brain you with my bag!’
‘Bags!’ I gasped.
‘What?’
I stood up slowly. ‘Bags. Plural.’ And took a deep breath. ‘What’s with the Third World’s quota of plastic?’
Mum’s fingers were turning blue round the handles of a gazillion shopping bags, all stuffed with –
‘HEY! Mum! Where are you taking Golly? And Bubbles! Geez!’
‘Lula!’ Mum whisked the bags round to the other side of herself and started beetling off briskly again. ‘You’re too old for these things. I’m taking it all to Oxfam.’
‘Noooo!’ I wailed. ‘Nooooo!’
She yelped as I grabbed the bag with Golly and Bubbles. ‘Tallulah, give that back immediately. Golly is no longer politically acceptable, for a start.’
‘Muuuum! Please!’ I’m embarrassed to admit this, but my eyes filled with tears. I pulled Golly and Bubbles from the bag and clutched them to my chest.
‘Tallulah. No nonsense. There’s absolutely no room in the house for all this stuff!’
‘Mum, we have a huge house! And if you let me live in the annexe, you wouldn’t need to bother about storage!’
‘Don’t start with that again. You’ve already taken over all of the cellar with your motor mechanics.’
I started to babble about how no one used the cellar anyway, but Mum fixed me with a rare steely gaze. ‘Lu, don’t you think it’s a little unfair if we let you stay in the annexe and your sister has to stay in the main house?’
I sniffed and rummaged in Mum’s handbag for a tissue. ‘I’m the oldest at home now. Pen will get a chance when I move out. And Blue when she moves out.’
‘Ohhh, you! Blue is four,’ growled Mum. ‘Let’s talk about it later. Come on, we’re going to be late. I’ve got a meeting with Security this morning. No sign of the Coven’s Quarter documents yesterday. Somebody must have taken them.’ Mum looked genuinely worried. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone about this, Lu.’
As we began hurrying towards the university campus, I decided to try another tack: ‘Mum, this annexe thing . . . How about –’
‘Oh look,’ exclaimed Mum. ‘There are still some boys in St Alban’s!’
How I kept walking I. Do. Not. Know.
Dear. God.
Let. Me. Die.
Now.
Let’s set the scene for you here, lovely reader. Me red-eyed, in yesterday’s clothes, clutching unattractive childhood doll and politically incorrect Golly. With Mum in flowing caftan and hand-hewn hair. And ‘some boys’ from St Alban’s. It’s just unspeakable on all counts. Could it get any worse?
Hoooo, yes.
First of all, not some boys. An entire row. Lined up on the boundary wall, legs hanging over on to the pavement. Grinning like apes at us scurrying along. I couldn’t look. Just turned my face away, praying Mum would increase the pace along with me.
Second of all, my mother is a law unto herself. She is mostly hermit-like. Every decade or so she has a flash of sociability. I should have been vigilant.
Vigilant.
‘Hello!’ she now chirped to the mob at large. ‘Are you boys not on holiday?’
‘Hi, Mrs Bird,’ replied the biggest and the blondest. (They know her from library visits.) ‘We’re doing extra graft for the Science Fair. Which we’d like kept quiet,’ he added with undue emphasis, looking at me pointedly.
I nodded obediently, snatched another look at him and ducked my head in horror.
Oh no! Frikfrikkery frikly frik! It’s him! It’s Ben Latter! My first and only real crush. I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that black dots speckled my vision. But even with eyes closed, even with black dots, I could still see Ben Latter’s blue, blue eyes, lips that gave me shivers, his perfect sunkissed hair, that highly charged body taut with tonedness that you only get from hours o
f, you know, sailing or polo or . . .
I felt myself get hot all over and might have made a small strangled sound. Eemph, maybe, or arrark. Something unattractive.
I felt painfully, agonisingly aware of my crumpled clothes, my scrunched hair, my furry teeth. The skanky plastic bags in my hands. And then, still staring at my grungy trainers, I caught a glimpse of movement. Suddenly Ben Latter’s shoes were facing mine.
‘Do I know you?’ he asked.
Fffff!
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t do anything at all.
Someone said, ‘What’s the bet she’s been Ben Flattered.’ There were titters behind me and I distinctly heard ‘Is that a baby doll?’ from the ranks.
I felt Mum look at me, very quickly, and she stepped closer to stand right beside me. ‘Of course you know me, young man,’ she tweeted to Ben. ‘I distinctly remember your last class visit. Such energetic boys, aren’t you all? Well! Science, hmm? Good luck!’
And we were off. In silence. Mum to her lovely woodenpanelled office and me to crumple next to the photocopier with a vacant stare.
There was no way a person could undergo such humiliation and still be breathing.
Oh, who had I been kidding all this time? Ben Latter didn’t even know me. And thank frik for that.
I tried not to think about how just one look at him made me feel like a pile of mushy peas. Maybe I am jinxed, I thought to myself. Maybe some of Grandma Bird’s crazy magic has messed me up somehow.
Alex’s voice came into my head.
Focus, girl.
Okay. Maybe, just maybe, if I could somehow land my first kiss, then everything else would fall into place. I’d be normal. I’d be amazing. If I could get Arnold Trenchard to oblige. Uh-oh. What if that went all wolly winkas too? Who else was there?
With a dry mouth I pulled The List out and was soon muttering quietly to myself, assessing all the options, trying not to think of blue, blue eyes, that strong body . . .
‘Tatty?’
‘Nyhee!’ I gasped, crumpling The List in my hand and resisting the urge to chew it up and swallow it. ‘Sophie! Geez, you gave me a fright.’
‘What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be working?’
See what I mean? How can someone with multiple piercings have this solid a work ethic?
‘I am working,’ I said tetchily. ‘Just planning how I’m going to do all of Mike’s photocopying.’
‘Have you seen my access card?’
‘No. How’d you get in without it?’
‘Security let me in, but I need to find it today or file it as lost. It’s been gone since last Friday maybe.’
‘Right,’ I said. I mean, like I care about Sophie’s security card in the grand scheme of my seriously sucky life. Suddenly two things occurred to me: ‘Hey, you could check with Mabel. She found my copy card. Obviously got an eye for finding lost cards.’
‘Right,’ echoed Sophie, looking at me oddly. I know, my suggestion was lame, but I needed to sound like I cared so I could broach my second idea.
‘Um, don’t you have a brother, Sophie?’ I smiled at her encouragingly.
Sophie smirked. ‘Don’t even think about it, witch girl. He likes his fingers.’
Well, what do you say in reply to that, hm? Exactly. Not much. As Sophie left, I sank back down with The List. It was quiet. My stomach rumbled peacefully. My dark thoughts began to float away.
Then:
‘Dude.’ Arnold loomed above me.
I jumped. Frik. Arns was not supposed to see me today, looking like this.
I shoved The List into my back pocket and considered options. Maybe I should let Arns see my vulnerable side.
Yes!
That could work! He might want to cheer me up with a kiss! A French one!
‘Don’t speak to me, Arns,’ I said in a quiet desperatemaiden voice. ‘I am the laughing stock of all St Alban’s and may infect you with social unacceptableness.’
‘Too late, my friend.’ (Oh no! The F word . . . not good.) Arnold slumped beside me. ‘Tallulah, I’m starting to think carefully about a makeover.’ Turning to look at me, he bit his lip anxiously. ‘I’ve got a pash.’
My heart sank. Nooo! After sixteen years Arnold was choosing NOW to be interested in the opposite sex? Couldn’t he have waited a few minutes for me to make my move before he decided to fancy someone else?
I gritted my teeth. Still the brutality crept out:
‘Arnold. The cool speak. It’s not working for you.’
‘Neither are the clothes,’ he agreed.
‘No. The clothes do nothing.’
‘Is there anything to work with?’ His eyes were pleading and wide. A little too wide.
‘The desperation is also not a good look.’
‘Duh, of course I’m desperate!’ he cried. ‘Did you know the Science Fair lot from PSG are here?’
‘The girls as well as the boys?’ I could feel my forehead crease in distress. Pamponia School for Girls was the neighbouring school to St Alban’s. More competition for scant boys. This was not good news.
‘So you know about St Alban’s.’ Arnold sighed. ‘Wish you’d given me a little warning. The walk over here was . . . not comfortable.’
‘Were they all on the wall?’
‘Like buzzards on a wire.’
‘The horror.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘So who are you in luuurve with?’ I couldn’t help it. I was feeling perkier. Despite heading for the black world of a lifetime jinx I could be happy for others. Yes. Yes, I could, dammit.
‘Mona de Souza.’
(Mona de Souza! We’re talking The Hottest Girl in Hambledon here.)
‘Yowzer. I’m pleased to see you aim high, Arnold.’
He sighed. ‘Look, Tallulah, just help me. Without any of your silly sarcasm.’
I swallowed my pride. ‘I’m hardly the ideal candidate. You’re viewing snog-free city here, Arns.’
‘Oh . . . yes. The curse. Pffteehee.’ How could he laugh? He flapped his hand dismissively. ‘Surely, though, it’s more because everyone knows you’re in love with Ben Latter. And have been since Year Two.’
‘Year One.’
‘Whatever. And you’re so bad at flirting. I’m not coming to you for that. It’s just that you know how to look good.’
I found the superficial compliment oddly comforting in this dark, dark time. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Please, Tatty. Help me look good,’ begged Arnold.
I gazed at him and sighed. He was clearly desperate for Mona. He was clearly lost to me. I pulled The List from my back pocket and grabbed a pen from the top of the copier.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Arns as I crossed his name out.
I should start at the top. Fat Angus. Nooo. I had a feeling my sister was up to something there. I shuddered. Better her than me. Next: Billy Diggle. Working at the DVD rental place must mean he’s really mature, right? Responsible. Wise way beyond his few, few years.
Oh, please. I wasn’t even fooling myself.
Next up: Bludgeon. Gulp. Next? Gianni Caruso. Oh, yep. I could see that happening.
‘Tallulah!’ yelled Arns.
I jumped in fright and hit my head on the copier’s A3 photo-paper tray.
Yeech! ‘What’s with you, Arnold?’
‘The Science Fair is Monday next week. It’s already Tuesday. I have three and a half working days before Mona de Souza is in wall-to-wall calculus seminars and I’m back at school! There are no men in Hambledon right now except me – my time is now! Now!’
‘You’re forgetting the St Alban’s guys,’ I said. ‘Those bliddy buzzards on a wire.’
And then it hit me!
Of course! St Alban’s boys! Forget The List! I jumped to my feet in wild excitement, but Arnold was already taking up my air time:
‘Mona doesn’t like public schoolboys,’ Arnold was saying. ‘Everyone knows that.’
‘But I might
!’ I squeaked, doing a little dance. ‘They don’t know about the jinx! And Mona could help!’ Thanks to this morning Ben My First Love was definitely a lost cause, but there were plenty of others!
Arnold didn’t bat an eye. ‘You get me Mona; I’ll get you a man,’ he promised.
‘Makeover at yours? Eight p.m.?’ I said blithely.
‘Done.’ We high-fived (I know. I wouldn’t do it in public. Just humouring Arns) and went our separate ways. Well, Arnold went back to the stacks and I got flirty with the photocopier.
I felt a shiver run down my spine.
Mona de Souza, Hambledon It Girl, just had to know a guy over twelve with all his fingers . . .
Chapter Four
Tuesday, late afternoon
I tramped home alone. Mum was working late – Security had suggested someone who might have ‘borrowed’ the documents, and Mum had to make a few discreet calls. I had a flash of guilt. Alex would expect me to be helping with something – she’d made me promise that I’d keep sending snippets to the Hambledon Herald to keep her storyline on Coven’s Quarter alive, but for now there was nothing I could do, and definitely no articles to write. My mother did not need that kind of publicity: a MISSING DOCUMENTS headline would not help her cause.
I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder and took a right up the final hill home. The pointed rooves and turrets of the Setting Sun, the old-age home across the street from our house, were visible now. It was a huge rambling mansion, much bigger than our own home, a storey higher, with two more turrets than our lowly one. Both houses were the last on the road, a kind of full stop for the town. From that point our road, Hill Street, became a potholed track, winding up and up into the woods. The wide stretch of tarmac was divided in two by a long green swathe of unruly grass punctuated by a massive tree stump and a flaking fire-hydrant sign opposite the Setting Sun and the Bird residence.
I pushed hard against our small, rusty front gate, hidden in a welter of rambling roses. I was glad I hadn’t asked Arnold round here. The house was a complete tip. And then there was the fact that Dad was oft passed out in the front bedroom, snoring loud enough to deafen the OAPs at the Setting Sun. (He drinks. A lot.)
When I got in, the house was silent. Grrr. Dad should’ve been getting dinner ready, and it sure didn’t sound like that was happening.
Kisses for Lula Page 2