“SHUT UP!”
HONK! The goose flapped its wings and leapt into the boating lake.
Everyone came to a halt, staring at the goose as it paddled around in the water.
“Oh no,” Harry muttered. “It’s in the lake!”
“No shit!” Pierre said.
Bambi grabbed Noah roughly by his upper arm and pointed at the small jetty ahead. “We need to commandeer a vessel, hun!”
“Or just pay to hire one?” Noah said. “Harry and Pierre – stay on the bank and keep eyes on the goose. We’ll get in the water and try to encourage it back over to you.”
“If you have a chance, grab it quickly, wrap your hands around its wings and hold it close to your body,” Bambi said.
“Then strangle it,” Pierre added. “What? I hate that goose.”
“If you harm that goose,” Noah shouted back as he and Bambi ran towards the jetty, “then I will harm you! Be. Warned!”
Pierre shook his head, flopping down on the bank next to the lake. “You English are totally crazy.”
A beefy man with tattoos, and a scar from the side of his mouth to his ear, eyed Noah and Bambi as they hurried up to the jetty.
“Please, sir,” Noah began. “How much for a pedalo?”
“Fifteen pounds for half an hour,” the man sniffed, holding his hand out. “Cash or card.”
Noah stared at him. “Fifteen? Fifteen?” Had the man misheard? He’d said “pedalo”, not “luxury yacht”!
Bambi put a manicured hand on the man’s arm. “How about I trade you a pedalo for a ticket to my show, hun? You look like a good-time boy.”
Noah took a sharp intake of breath. Did Bambi actually want to be the victim of a drag-phobic attack? He glanced over to the bank of the lake where Harry was standing, keeping his eyes fixed on the goose, then back at the man, who was staring at Bambi’s chest.
“Yeah, OK, darlin’, you can take this one out,” the man said, taking a flyer from her and pointing to a yellow pedalo that was parked up on the launch ramp.
“You’re an angel!” Bambi said, blowing him a kiss.
“Yeah, yeah,” the man muttered, holding his hand out so Bambi could steady herself as she climbed in. He turned to Noah. “In you get, then, mate.”
“How does it work?” Noah asked as he struggled into his damp seat.
“Pedal with the pedals and steer with the lever,” the man said, giving them a gigantic push as they swept into the boating lake. “Enjoy the ride, girls!” he shouted.
“Don’t we need life jackets?” Noah wailed as they shot out into the lake.
But the man appeared to have gone.
“Pedal, then!” Bambi said. “You gotta pump those little legs, Noah!”
“I’m trying! I’ve got to steer as well,” Noah said, pulling the lever and putting them on a direct course to collide with a swan.
“Pull it right!” Bambi shouted.
“It won’t go!”
“Damn it, come here!” Bambi grabbed the lever and pulled them back over in the direction of the bank where Harry was now making big pointing gestures towards the goose. “Faster!”
“Bambi, just to … huh … remind you –” Noah tried to gulp in a big lungful of precious air “– I’m (a) not yet fully grown and (b) not very good at PE—” He gasped again. “And (c) suffer from mild asthma and am prone to … huh…” Noah wheezed and gasped. “…bronchial infections, made worse by … cold … weather … and…”
“Stop talking, then!”
“Let me steer a bit,” Noah said. “I can do it now.”
“Fine. Steer. They’re your diamonds, what do I care.”
Noah took control of the lever, as they lurched too far right and rammed straight into the concrete side of the lake – SLAM! They both lurched forward in their seats.
“Well done.” Bambi smiled at him.
“It’s over here!” Harry shouted from the bank.
“I know!” Noah said.
“WHAT?!” Harry shouted back.
“I said, I … gah!” Noah tried to stand up so Harry could see him, the pedalo lurching dangerously left and right as he did so.
“SIT!” Bambi said, pulling him back down, as the pedalo rocked around. “Bloody idiot.”
“WHAT’S HAPPENING?” Harry shouted.
“WE’VE RUN AGROUND!” Noah shouted.
Bambi sighed. “We haven’t run aground.”
“LIKE WHEN THE TITANIC HIT THE ICEBERG!” Noah shouted.
Bambi shook her head. “There’s not one friggin’ parallel to that situation.” She looked at Noah, her eye twitching slightly. “Can you please just peddle backwards so I can steer us back round the right way? If that’s OK with you, Noah?”
“WE’RE PEDALLING BACKWARDS NOW!” Noah called across to Harry.
A couple of guys wolf-whistled at Bambi, filming the scene on their phones.
“AHOY, BOYS!” Bambi called out. “Hoist my jolly roger and swab my poop deck, this boat is full of seamen and we’re coming for you! You fellows fancy a show tonight?”
Noah gritted his teeth and pedalled furiously. He didn’t know what he must have done in a past life to deserve being stuck in a pedalo with reckless drag queen, but it must have been pretty bad.
“Slow up!” Harry shouted across to them from the bank, pointing at the goose. “It’s that one – just ahead!”
Bambi steered the pedalo gently behind the goose, giving it the tiniest nudge up the backside, so it flapped, honked and started paddling towards the bank to get away.
Noah stopped pedalling, using the break to flex his cold and wet feet a bit. There was nothing worse than a wet sock. And a wet shoe. And an increasingly damp bottom, and…
Noah glanced down at the bottom of the pedalo and whimpered. “Water!” he babbled.
“Just another few metres!” Bambi smiled. “Working like a dream!”
“Water!”
“C’mon, goosey!”
“WATER! WATER! We’re SINKING!” Noah screamed.
Bambi looked down, eyes wide as she took in the scene that Noah was looking at. The bottom of the pedalo was swimming in a good four inches of water.
Noah threw himself at Bambi, shaking. “I can’t SWIM!”
“That bastard on the jetty gave us a dud boat!” Bambi hissed. My shoes!”
“I never learned! If I don’t have armbands, I’ll sink!”
“Noah, it’s fine, we’re metres from the bank, just pedal some more and—”
“HEEELLPPPP!”
HOOOONK! HONNK! The goose flapped about, spread its wings and launched itself out of the water, hopping up on to the bank, and starting to peck at some crumbs on the grass.
Pierre was right behind it with a big stick.
“Don’t you dare!” Noah shouted over to him. “Just grab it!”
“You grab it!” Pierre said.
“I CAN’T, I’M SINKING!”
“Pedal towards me,” Harry said, squatting down on the edge of the bank and reaching an arm out. “I’ll pull you in.”
“I pull you, Noah, if you like?” Pierre shouted from where he was standing near the goose.
“Right! That’s it!” Harry squealed, running over to Pierre and launching himself at him, so Pierre toppled backwards on to the grass, Harry on top of him. “Stop it! Stop saying suggestive things about Noah! ARGHHH! You’re driving me CRAZY!” Harry straddled Pierre, pinning Pierre’s shoulders down with his knees.
“Oh my God!” Pierre said. “All I do is repeat the same words you are saying, you are the CRAZY one!”
“You know what you’re doing!” Harry insisted, pressing his finger on the end of Pierre’s nose to make his point, which was about as much aggression as Noah had ever seen from Harry.
Noah never imagined he would be in a position where two boys were fighting over him, but he was scarcely able to enjoy the moment, what with his imminent watery demise and all. Bambi pedalled furiously, the boat shifting another metre or so, enabling
a quivering Noah to leap out of his seat and splash over the top of the pedalo, leaping to the shore. “Women and children first, Noah!” Bambi said, hoisting herself out of the wildly rocking boat.
“I am a child!” Noah hissed back, pulling Harry off Pierre as he scrambled up the grass bank. “Boys, I don’t know what I’ve done to cause all this sparring, but you must put your differences aside for now and sort all this out later.”
Harry brushed himself down and Pierre scrambled to his feet, shaking his head in disbelief. They all turned to look at the goose, which looked straight back at them, honked, and then started running in the opposite direction, flapping its wings … and then taking off.
“After it!” Noah shouted.
Noah charged ahead, following the goose’s low flight path as it glided back along the path they’d just run down and towards where the van was parked on the Outer Circle.
It flapped down on to some grass near the exit gate, as the four caught up with it and hovered a few metres away. “Right then,” Bambi gasped, removing the pashmina from her shoulders. “I guess it’s now or never.”
Bambi crept up behind the goose, which was busy scratching around in the grass. And then, holding the pashmina aloft, and in one swift movement, she threw the pashmina over the goose’s body, and wrapped her hands tightly around its covered wings, so just its head and neck were poking out.
HONK! HONK! HOOONK!
There was a brief struggle, as Bambi wrestled with the goose, rolling over on the ground…
A young couple passed by, looking unsure as to whether this was OK, and possibly part of some site-specific theatre experience, or actually something they should report to the authorities.
“Drag queen goose wrestling,” Noah told them. “It’s a thing now. In London.”
“Cool.” The young guy nodded.
“Love London!” his girlfriend giggled as they walked off.
Bambi stood up, holding the goose firmly under her arm, which just honked forlornly, the game clearly up. “I’m going to stuff it in the van!” Bambi said. “It’ll shit at some point, and then you’ll get your diamonds back, Noah. We’ll stop off at Pets at Home for some hay and seed, make the damn thing comfortable, but after that, we really have to check into the hotel, then get to Soho and flyer. Job done, boys, now get back in the van – we’ve got work to do.”
Noah let out a huge breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Thank God. OK, he didn’t have the diamonds back yet, but when nature had taken its course, he would. And if that meant sifting through bird poop for the next twelve hours, then so be it. It was the least he could do, for Gran.
He glanced quickly around him, and froze.
There she was.
The woman.
His mouth went dry.
The woman from the car. The woman who took the photos. Who asked him the time.
There she was. In Regent’s Park. On a bench. Looking at her phone.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
The van was parked in the hotel’s underground car park, which at least was out of sight as far as Noah’s dad and Eric went. They’d shifted all the luggage out of the back compartment of the van, leaving space for the goose, some hay, seed and a pile of prunes that Noah hoped would encourage the bird to shit both copiously and fast. The sooner the diamonds were out of it, the better.
But all this was small comfort. Noah sat wide-eyed in the front passenger seat, panic-eating a Costa Coffee chocolate tiffin. He was being followed. Someone was after something. And he didn’t know what or whom he could trust. Damn it! So much for having a clear head so he could properly focus on sensuous matters.
There was a tapping at the window. Harry. Noah wound the window down.
“Secretly eating a brownie, I see,” Harry said.
Noah shook his head. “It’s a chocolate tiffin. It’s my second. I may have three, I don’t know.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. “What the matter with you? Everything’s OK now, isn’t it? I mean, I know the diamonds are—”
“The diamonds, the diamonds, yes,” Noah said. He looked at Harry. If there was one person he could trust, it was Harry. And if he couldn’t trust Harry, he may as well abandon Earth and be the first to colonize Mars. “We need to talk.”
“Uh-oh.”
Noah opened the door. “Get in.”
Noah shuffled along the front seat so Harry could hop in next to him. “Shut the door,” Noah said.
Harry pulled it closed. “Look, if this is about what happened with Pierre, I’m sorry and I’m gonna apologize to him. He was just doing my head in with his constant little comments.”
“Oh, no, he deserved that,” Noah said. “I was quite taken by your efforts to defend my honour.”
Harry grinned. “What’s up, then?”
“OK,” Noah said. “OK, so this is going to sound crazy weird. I mean, you probably won’t believe me, which is partly why I’ve waited until now to tell you, but as my boyfriend, I think you should know. Are you ready?”
“Yes?”
Noah nodded. “Right. I think I’m being followed, Harry. There’s this woman, and sometimes a man, and they have a black Vauxhall Astra, and I keep seeing them. I saw them in Little Fobbing. I saw the car at Route 66, and I saw the woman again this afternoon, in the park.”
Harry stared ahead and nodded. “You ever seen them before? Do they live in Little Fobbing?”
“No.”
“OK, but why, Noah? Why would they want to follow you? I mean, not being rude, you are nice, and you’re cute, and there’s lots of reasons why I would follow you places, but two randoms? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Harry, I don’t think they want bow chicka wah wah with me. I’m trying to work it out. Like, is it something to do with my dad? Are they hired thugs, or undercover detectives trying to trap him for something? Or maybe it’s something to do with Bambi – I mean, how much do we really know about this drag feud in Stoke-on-Trent? What’s the real truth?”
Harry nodded. “She could have killed someone?”
“I don’t know! I just don’t know…” Noah shoved the rest of the tiffin in his mouth. “I just can’t work out why they’re after me!”
Harry sighed and looked out of the window while Noah finished chewing on the tiffin and thought about the fact he could have also mentioned Pierre, and whatever the hell he was up to in the shed with Ms O’Malley, but there was no way of doing that without admitting why he’d followed Pierre there in the first place and that might just lead to more fights and then Pierre might tell everything and that would all be very messy.
Harry looked at him. “You haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”
“Well, no, of course not.”
“So stop worrying.” Harry shrugged. “Whatever it is, it isn’t your shit. It isn’t your life. It’s someone else’s.”
Noah nodded. Maybe Harry was right. You couldn’t spend your time worrying what other people might have done, or were doing. That was them. This was him. And he should focus on him. Well, him and Harry. The stuff that made him happy. The stuff that was his life. Why care what trouble other people might be in? He hadn’t done anything wrong!
Noah smiled, feeling some sense of relief. “Maybe, later, after the club and everything and, assuming I can devise some way of getting Pierre and Eva out of the room for a bit, we’ll come back here and … and…”
Harry’s eyes lit up. “And what?”
“And listen to my Spa Reflections playlist. If you want to? Do that? Might you want to do that, do you suppose?”
Harry nodded and kissed him again, putting his hand up under Noah’s hoodie and T-shirt, stroking Noah’s tummy. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”
Noah let Harry gently work his fingers lower, waiting for any form of below-waist tingling that might indicate things would be OK later.
Shiiiit!
“And I’ll stop worrying,” Noah said, worrying like crazy that he was never again going to get a
boner.
“Good idea,” Harry replied, sitting back again. “Was that everything?”
Noah nodded. “Yeah. That’s everything.”
“What’s this?” Harry said, screwing his face up and pulling a tub of protein powder up from between the seats, that Noah had moved there to make space for the goose.
“Ah, I was just thinking about, you know, gaining a bit of mass, maybe, like a footballer, but I’ve kind of gone off the idea now.”
Harry didn’t look impressed. “Yeah, good. You’re fine as you are. I like you as you are.”
Noah nodded. “Cool. It was just a thought. Oh, and thank you.”
Harry shook his head. “Muppet,” he said, passing the protein tub to Noah and opening the door. “We’re all heading over to Soho with the flyers in five, so meet you in reception, yeah?”
“Sure.” Noah nodded. “I’ll just check on the goose, and see you there.”
Harry smiled and headed off towards the lifts, his words still echoing around Noah’s head: He hadn’t done anything wrong!
And then Noah looked at what he was holding and his blood froze.
He hadn’t done anything wrong…
Except actively participate in a pyramid sales scheme.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
He’d rammed the five tubs of protein shake he’d brought with him under some black sacks in a huge wheelie bin near the exit of the car park.
And then he’d pulled them out again because how would that look? An innocent person doesn’t try to destroy evidence.
So he’d put them back in the van and wished he could just tell Harry about it, but of course he couldn’t tell Harry because that might implicate Harry. That could make Harry an accessory to Noah’s accidental crimes … or it might force him into a moral dilemma – to testify in Noah’s prosecution or something. Poor Harry.
Noah racked his brains as he walked with Harry, Pierre and Bambi towards Soho. Maybe it would be OK. He was sure there was no incriminating evidence back at home. There was no paperwork or marketing materials – all Noah had was a few tubs of the powder… And a little shit of a Year Seven who he’d tried to recruit as a rep… Maybe he would have to kill him?
Noah Could Never Page 20