Love, Peace and Chocolate (Pocket Money Puffin)

by Cathy Cassidy

  It’s dark when we spill out on to the pavement, and Kady hooks her arm through Jack’s, huddles in. I hold back, let them go on ahead. I wish the ground could open up and swallow me, because now I can see that three is a crowd. I’m the odd one out. Then Jack turns back, holding out his other arm.

  ‘C’mon, Jess!’ he grins. ‘You’ve got those faraway eyes again! Stop dreaming! Let’s go!’

  I take his arm, do as he says.

  I stop dreaming. Hope falls away from me like pine needles off a Christmas tree in January. There’s a cold, sad ache inside me, and it won’t go away.

  6

  jess, y won’t u answer my txts? i just HAV 2 talk 2 u … i’m so HAPPY! u’ll neva guess wot happened after we left u. like i said, it’s fate! c u at the bus stop.

  love, peace & chocolate,

  kady xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  kady, not feeling well. gonna leave my moby off & sleep.

  love, peace & chocolate,

  jess

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the doctor’s?’ Mum says, hovering in the doorway with a mug of hot lemon. ‘There’s been a nasty bug going round. Maybe they can do something?’

  ‘Nobody can do anything,’ I groan. ‘It’s probably just one of those twenty-four-hour things. I’ll be better tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, OK,’ Mum says uncertainly. ‘I just wish I didn’t have to work today. Stay in bed, pet; I’ll call the school and explain. Drink this – it might just help. And call me if you feel any worse, OK?’

  ‘OK. Bye, Mum.’

  I hear the front door click, and I pull the duvet over my head. I think I might die, seriously, but it’s not something a doctor can help me with and it’s not something that sleep or hot lemon can cure. My heart feels heavy, so heavy I can’t see how I can ever stand up and walk around again.

  Kady and Jack. Even their names sound good together, like they were meant to be. Why didn’t I see that from the start? I could have stopped myself from hoping, stopped myself from dreaming.

  Then I remember how it felt when Jack looked at me, smiled at me, and I know that I was always going to hope, no matter what.

  I pick up my mobile, flick to the in-box, scroll through Kady’s messages from last night, this morning. Fifteen texts, fifteen different ways of telling me something I just don’t want to know.

  ‘… gotta talk 2 u, jess, u’ll neva believe it …’

  ‘… something wonderful, AMAZING, fantastic, awesome …’

  ‘… i no yr gonna be happy 4 me, jess, i just no it …’

  Well, no, sorry, Kady, I’m not.

  I shut my eyes and let the tears come, hot, burning tears of self-pity. I want something I can’t have – I want Jack. He saw me first, after all – he walked out of the shadows and looked into my eyes and told me my flute-playing was awesome, and it was the first time ever a boy looked at me like I was somebody cool, somebody cute, somebody interesting. And all the time, he wanted Kady.

  ‘Jess? How are you feeling?’

  Someone tugs at the curtains, letting a sliver of daylight into the room, and I moan and burrow deeper into my pillow. My head aches and there’s a stale, sour taste in my mouth.

  ‘Jess? I bought some stuff to cheer you up – chocolate and oranges and a magazine. D’you feel any better?’

  It’s Kady. Kady knows where we keep our spare back-door key, under the plant pot with the little blue flowers in. She’s a good friend, the kind who worries when you’re ill and calls into the shops on her way home to buy you oranges and chocolate and your favourite magazine.

  I’m a bad friend, the kind who wants to throw those things right back at her, scream, shout, tell her to get out of my house and never come back.

  I don’t, though. I sit up carefully, hugging the duvet around me, rubbing my eyes. ‘Thanks, Kady,’ I say. ‘You didn’t have to.’

  ‘So are you any better?’ she wants to know. ‘What is it, a cold?’

  ‘Just one of those twenty-four-hour things, I think,’ I tell her. ‘You know, aches and pains and fever and sickness. It’s not so bad now.’

  ‘Your eyes look all red, too,’ Kady says. ‘Poor you.’

  Yeah, poor me.

  Kady huddles up on the bed, peels an orange and splits it in half. ‘Eat it,’ she insists. ‘It’s good for you. Vitamin C.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I thought you’d gone a bit quiet last night,’ she muses. ‘You must have been feeling rotten.’

  ‘Well, a bit,’ I admit.

  ‘Um – you know after we left you, me and Jack?’ Kady says. ‘After we dropped you at your house and headed on to mine?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Well – look, Jess, I don’t know how to say this.’

  So don’t, I think, but of course she does anyway.

  ‘We were talking for a bit outside my gate, and then … Jack kissed me. He kissed me, Jess! Then he asked me out! Can you believe it?’

  I take a deep breath in, biting the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. ‘Wow,’ I say shakily. ‘That’s great, Kady.’

  ‘You’re OK with it?’ Kady’s eyes light up like Christmas lights and her lips curve into a big, happy grin. ‘Oh, Jess, I was so worried you’d be hurt or angry or something. I mean, I know we said that no boy would ever come between us – I’d drop him in a minute if I thought you had a problem with all this – but, well, it’s Jack. I’ve never met a boy like him before.’

  ‘No,’ I echo.

  ‘He’s special,’ Kady says.

  ‘I know,’ I whisper.

  ‘So. That’s it, then, really. I wanted to tell you face to face, know that you were OK with it all. Oh, Jess, I’m so glad you understand – I couldn’t turn him down, I just couldn’t, you know?’

  ‘I know,’ I tell her. ‘It’s OK, really.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to change,’ Kady says, but she’s wrong about that, I know. Everything is different now.

  It may never be the same again.

  7

  hey jess, thanx 4 being so cool about jack. yr the best friend eva! told miss Anderson about your festival idea and she’s going to ask the head. fingers crossed!

  love, peace & chocolate,

  kady xxxx

  that’s great about the festival. and seriously, kady, if anyone deserves jack it’s gotta b u. i’m happy 4 u, really.

  love, peace & chocolate,

  jess x

  Lies drip off my tongue like ice cream. No, I’m not happy for Kady. No, I don’t think she deserves Jack. Not really. If I can’t have him, why should she? I’m jealous, pure and simple, except that there’s nothing pure and nothing simple about it.

  Sometimes, I guess, the truth is something you just have to keep to yourself.

  I’d like to tell Kady how I feel. I’d like to see her face fall, watch her try to talk her way out of this one. She said she’d ditch Jack in a minute if I wasn’t happy about the two of them, but talk’s easy. Would she do it? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t, I know, if things were the other way round.

  Y’see, Jack’s too good to be true. It’s like if you paid 10p for a lucky dip and came up with an iPod when everyone else was stuck with penny sweets and plastic whistles. You wouldn’t exactly hand it back and say it wasn’t fair, would you? It’s the luck of the draw.

  It’s not Kady’s fault, not really. She just got lucky, and I didn’t, and I can’t tell her how I feel because then I’ll lose her, as well as Jack. Instead I paste a fake smile on to my face and pretend everything is fine, and the lies just keep on coming.

  ‘No, of course I don’t mind if you see Jack this Saturday. Why would I?’

  We’re in Kady’s room, supposedly revising for a history test, but the only dates Kady has mentioned so far are dates with Jack.

  ‘Well, we usually hang out together on a Saturday, that’s all,’ Kady says.

  ‘I know, but that was before,’ I shrug. ‘Things can’t stay the same forever.’

 
I lean back against the wall, listening to the new compilation CD Jack made for Kady. The Fratellis are singing that a girl like me’s just irresistible, which is kind of ironic.

  ‘We’ll make it another night, then,’ Kady says. ‘By the way, Miss Anderson wants us to put some plans on paper for the Parkway Peace Festival. It looks like it could really happen!’

  ‘I know. I never thought they’d actually go for it!’

  ‘Maybe we should all meet up and brainstorm ideas again?’ Kady suggests. ‘You and me and Jack.’

  ‘No way,’ I say, a little too quickly. ‘I don’t want to tag along on your dates, thank you!’

  ‘It wouldn’t be like that,’ Kady says. ‘We’re all friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘We were,’ I correct her. ‘Not now. It’d be kind of awkward for me.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ Kady frowns. ‘Jack wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I’d mind.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you might feel a bit left out. Jack suggested we double-date sometime, if you’d like to,’ Kady tells me. ‘That’d be cool, wouldn’t it?’

  About as cool as having your toenails pulled out one by one with red-hot pliers. Watching your best mate and the boy you’re crazy about together? No thanks.

  ‘What if Jack hooked you up with Alex out of the band?’ Kady says. ‘That might be interesting! He’s cute!’

  ‘Not my type,’ I say lightly.

  ‘No? Well, how about Karl Williams and his magic drumsticks? Tasty!’

  ‘Don’t laugh at him,’ I say. ‘Poor Karl!’

  ‘Poor Karl? C’mon, Jess. You once said you’d rather kiss a frog!’

  I let out a long, exasperated breath.

  ‘Right now I wouldn’t want to kiss anybody,’ I say, which is such a big, fat lie my tongue will probably turn black. ‘Think of all those germs.’

  ‘Oh, Jess,’ Kady sighs. She gives me a pitying look, like I’m about six years old and don’t know anything. ‘It’s not like that. Kissing’s just … well, wonderful. You’ll understand, one day.’

  Then I get mad, because maybe, if it wasn’t for Kady, I’d understand right now. Maybe Jack would have hung around talking outside my gate. Maybe he’d have kissed me, asked me out. Maybe.

  ‘Don’t get sulky,’ Kady says.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are. I was only saying …’

  ‘Well, don’t!’ I snap. ‘I’m fed up with hearing about Jack Somers every minute of every day, OK? It’s boring. He’s boring. And you know what, Kady? You’re boring, too!’

  I grab up my jacket, snatch my history folder and stalk out of the room, slamming the door so hard it makes the CD jump. ‘I hate you, Kady Hamilton,’ I shout as I run down the stairs. ‘D’you know that? I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I HATE you!’

  8

  jess, u don’t really hate me, do u? wot happened 2 friends 4eva?

  love, peace & chocolate,

  kady xxxx

  I press Delete.

  For the first time ever, I have nothing to say to Kady. She’s always been there for me before. She’s always known the right things to say, the right things to do. She could fix anything with a grin and a hug and a bar of chocolate, but right now, she’s the problem.

  She’s seeing Jack Somers, and I just can’t stand it.

  I know I shouldn’t let it get to me. I should shrug off the hurt, get over it, tell myself that all’s fair in love and war. I should accept the situation, but I just can’t.

  It’s eating me up.

  ‘Jess?’ Mum says, holding up a scrap of pink fur fabric stained with tea leaves and potato peelings and stale orange juice. ‘Jess, I was taking the rubbish out and I found your old Furby in the dustbin. You didn’t really mean to throw it away, surely?’

  I roll my eyes, curl my lip. ‘Mum, I grew out of that old thing years ago.’

  ‘Well, maybe, but you used to really love it!’

  ‘Things change, Mum,’ I say coldly. ‘It’s time to let go, move on.’

  Mum brushes the tea leaves from the stained pink fur, wraps the toy in a shroud of kitchen roll. ‘Sure?’ she asks doubtfully.

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  At school, things are just as weird. I have other friends, of course I do, but they all look at me like I’m seriously insane when I tell them I’m through with Kady.

  ‘Not really,’ Ellie Bennetts says, when I sit next to her in the lunch hall. ‘You might have fallen out, but you’ll make up. Give it time.’

  ‘I’ve wasted enough time on Kady Hamilton,’ I argue. ‘She’s changed, Ellie. She’s mean and thoughtless. She doesn’t care who she hurts.’

  ‘Kady?’ Ellie blinks, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind a bright, butterfly hairclip. ‘No way. She’s really upset about all this.’

  ‘Don’t let her fool you,’ I say. ‘All she cares about is Jack Somers.’

  ‘You can’t fall out over a boy,’ Ellie says. ‘Not you two. It’s crazy! Boys come and go, but friendship is forever.’

  ‘Not this one.’

  Even so, there’s a hole in my life where Kady used to be. She has been my best friend for so long, it’s hard to plug up all the gaps now that she’s gone. I eat my lunch with Ellie, go ice-skating with Jade and Lisa, meet Sian and Becca in town for a coffee, but it’s not the same. I miss Kady, every single day.

  She texts sometimes, telling me she misses me, asking if we can talk, and sometimes I kid myself that we could do that, work something out. Then I catch a glimpse of Jack Somers loping along the corridor with his rock-star clothes and his tousled hair and his dark blue eyes, and my heart hardens.

  I delete Kady’s texts, every one.

  ‘Jess, can I talk to you a minute?’ Miss Anderson ambushes me at the end of class, just as I’m packing up my stuff.

  ‘Yes, Miss?’

  ‘Kady’s been telling me that this whole Peace Festival concept was your idea. Is that right?’

  ‘Well, kind of,’ I admit. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘It’s a terrific idea,’ Miss Anderson gushes. ‘There’s so much to arrange and organize, though, and I wondered why you weren’t coming along to the meetings. We’d love you to get involved, Jess. We need your ideas. You’d have so much to contribute!’

  ‘I can’t,’ I mutter.

  ‘Can’t?’

  ‘It’s awkward. It’s Kady and Jack’s idea now, and I’ve fallen out with Kady.’

  Miss Anderson looks thoughtful. ‘I see,’ she says. ‘I thought it might be something like that. You have to rise above it, Jess – the Peace Festival is too important. It’s the most exciting thing we’ve ever tried at Parkway, in my opinion. It matters!’

  ‘I know,’ I shrug.

  ‘We’re going to run it during the day on the last week of term, and invite along all of Parkway’s feeder schools,’ Miss Anderson pushes on. ‘Kady and Jack are involved in the music side of it, mainly, but there’s much more to it than that. We’re running art, drama and music workshops, stalls, events. We want to get every child involved, every child thinking about world peace. We don’t have long to organize it all. Will you come to the next meeting? We need you, Jess.’

  I can see the school playing fields bright with tents and marquees, fluttering with pennants, crammed with children singing, dancing, laughing. I can see painted faces and CND flags and white doves and a hundred home-made friendship bracelets tied on to wrists. We could change the way those kids think about the world. We could raise money, make a difference.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  ‘Thanks, Jess,’ Miss Anderson grins. ‘We need you, really. Bring Ellie and Jade and Lisa, but come along. Please.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean to keep you late,’ Miss Anderson says. ‘Better get away for your bus. I’ll see you at that meeting, though, OK?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  My mind is buzzing with ideas as I walk from the music room out towards the buses. When I reach the schoo
l gates I scrabble for my bus pass and that’s when I realize I’ve forgotten my blazer, left it behind in the music room. I turn back, resigned, walk down across the courtyard and push open the swing door to the music room.

  Jack’s there.

  He’s sitting on a desktop, facing away from me, hunched over his guitar. Long fingers pick out the chords of a song I’ve never heard before, a song about a girl with faraway eyes.

  My heart hammers as I creep forward to lift my blazer from the chair-back. He won’t see me, he won’t hear me. And then he turns, pushing back that choppy caramel fringe and grinning a soft, lazy grin meant just for me.

  ‘Hello, Jess,’ he says.

  9

  ‘Haven’t seen you for a while,’ Jack says, lowering his guitar. ‘I’ve missed you, Jess.’

  My cheeks flood with colour. ‘Me?’ I mumble idiotically. ‘You’ve missed … me?’

  ‘Yeah, course!’ Jack grins. ‘We’re mates, aren’t we? Kady said you two had fallen out. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Well. People grow apart. Friends aren’t always forever.’

  Jack shrugs. ‘I don’t believe in forever,’ he says. ‘It’s a long, long time. Why make promises when you can live for the day?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I pick up the abandoned blazer, back away softly. Jack is looking at me a little too intently.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he says. ‘Sit down a minute. What’s the rush?’

  I take another step backwards, sit down on a desktop. ‘No rush,’ I whisper. ‘I think I’ve missed my bus anyhow.’

  ‘I’ll walk you home.’

  A few weeks ago, I’d have done anything to hear him say that. It’s different now, of course. He’s Kady’s boy.

  ‘So,’ I say into the silence. ‘How’s the band?’

  ‘Going great,’ Jack tells me. ‘We’ve really hit it off. Karl’s amazing on drums, he really stirs the whole thing up. Alex knows exactly the sound I’m after on bass. And Lucie’s really talented – she’s a great girl. We’re doing some songwriting together.’