Flirty Dancing

by Jenny McLachlan

  He pauses and takes a deep breath. ‘No Angels . . . you are our Starwars champions!’

  It takes me a second to work out what has happened and I stand there, staring into the distance, clutching Ollie’s hand. A camera swings in front of my face and I look up at Ollie, vaguely aware that No Angels are going crazy somewhere over to my left. Ollie and I smile and he nods, telling me that I’ve got it right: we haven’t won.

  Then he puts his hand in my hair, pulls me closer and kisses me. I am so shocked I just fall against him and kiss him back, our fingers entwined, our hearts thudding. Applause, lights and cameras swirl around us as we melt into each other. Who would have thought losing could feel this amazing?

  Finally, we have to step apart.

  ‘Really?’ I ask Ollie.

  ‘Really,’ he says, smiling. Together, we turn to face No Angels, and then I grin and clap, and generally hide the fact that inside my mind is screaming, You, Bea Hogg, have just been kissed by the amazingly breathtakingly stunning Ollie Matthews . . . on live TV in front of ten million people!

  Not bad for my first ever kiss.

  Pearl doesn’t take the whole ‘kissing on TV’ thing very well. In fact, backstage, she stands in front of Ollie with her hands on her hips, blocking our path.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ She’s incredulous. ‘What do you see in her?’

  Ollie looks at me thoughtfully then turns back to Pearl. ‘Well, she’s got great timing and a good sense of rhythm. She has these big grey eyes, oh, and I like all this,’ and he ruffles my massive hair, ‘and she’s funny, kind, and she has the strongest thighs . . .’ Ollie pauses for a second, then continues, ‘Oh, and I really love –’

  ‘Shut up!’ hisses Pearl. ‘We’re going,’ she announces to The Pink Ladies, and she turns and disappears into the crowd. Only they don’t all follow her – Kat stays where she is.

  She looks tired. ‘I’m so sorry, Bea,’ she says. ‘I’ve been the worst friend in the world, haven’t I?’ I shrug. Right now, it’s hard to remember how all this began. She sighs, ‘I reallyarse, missarse beingarse your friend­arse, Bea-arse.’ I have to smile. ‘Can I ring you later?’ she asks.

  ‘OKarse,’ I say. I have so much to tell her.

  Just then the No Angels boys walk past. ‘Got to go!’ says Kat, wriggling off through the crowd, trying to catch up with them.

  I turn back to Ollie. ‘What do you love?’ I ask.

  ‘Your socksarse,’ he says, slipping his hand into mine.

  18

  What do you do the day after nearly winning a TV dance show and being kissed for the first time in your life?

  Make a Lego swimming pool with your three-year-old sister, of course . . . oh, and your boyfriend.

  My boyfriend. That sounds good. My boyfriend, Ollie. That sounds even better. This is definitely our best Lego creation ever, because Ollie makes a waterslide that you can actually run water down.

  After Lego, we wander over to the hospital to see Nan. We have to stop to pose for photos five times, but the whole ‘celebrity thing’ is fun, especially when a radiologist asks us to do a moon flip in the staff canteen.

  Nan tells us we danced ‘just like Fred and Ginger’ – I’ll have to Google them later – and gives us £10 and tells us to go and enjoy ourselves.

  ‘Oh, Bea,’ she says as we’re leaving, ‘I have some exciting news: I’m allowed out next week! Only, your mum doesn’t think I should go home yet so it looks like we’re going to be sharing a room again . . . you’d better dig out that airbed.’

  ‘I never took it down,’ I say. I go back to the bed while Ollie waits by the door. She holds my hand. ‘I’m really sorry I didn’t win, Nan.’

  ‘But you did win, Bea.’ She pushes me back towards Ollie. ‘I said you would.’

  Ollie and I wander through the park by the hospital. In our town, it’s hard to find anything to do on a Sunday, even with £10, but in the end, we buy toasties and banana milk in the café and have a picnic by the duck pond. The ducks get our crusts.

  We lie back in the sun and I put my head on Ollie’s chest.

  ‘Hey, Bea,’ he says. ‘I think this might be better than starring in a West End musical.’

  ‘Today,’ I say in my showbiz voice, ‘Ollie Matthews will be feeding ducks in the park with Bea Hogg!’

  ‘Exactly,’ he says.

  What do you do two days after nearly winning a TV dance show?

  Go to school, of course. I give Emma a massive French kiss then walk down the path, daisy hair grip stuck in my curls.

  ‘Bye, gruffy face!’ she yells.

  ‘Bye, gruffy face botty bird!’ I shout back. She loves that one, and runs back in to tell Mum.

  The Year Elevens are by the Co-op and I go and sit on the wall, but not right at the very end. In fact, I sit quite near to them. When the bus pulls up, they’ve quizzed me about how much we got paid (nothing) and if Shad is ‘shaggable in the flesh’ (no, he wears high heels).

  Walking down the bus, I see Kat in our usual place, and Ollie sitting across the aisle. They both have an empty seat next to them. In front of Ollie, I see Bus Kelly, all alone as usual, grinning up at me.

  ‘Hi!’ I say to them all. Then, ‘Shove up, Kelly.’ She is so happy she hugs my arm. I turn round to Kat and Ollie. ‘Kelly’s got a rabbit with only three legs,’ I tell them. I know an awful lot about three-legged Pepper.

  ‘I’ve got a dog with one eye,’ says Ollie.

  ‘I’ve got a cat, Pinky, and she’s got everything,’ says Kat, ‘except fur. It all fell out after a fight with a fox.’

  ‘She dresses it in baby clothes,’ I add. This makes Kelly gasp with delight and, of course, Kat gets her phone out and starts showing her photos.

  ‘Hey, Ollie,’ I say, and I have to grin.

  ‘Hey,’ he says back, and our fingers meet over the bus seat. Just then, I catch sight of Pearl, sitting towards the back of the bus. She’s resting her face in her hand, leaning on the seat in front of her and she’s looking at me.

  I’m used to that, but it’s different today. Even though she’s surrounded by friends, she doesn’t seem part of them. Usually, she is in the middle of the action, the queen of every situation. I don’t look away. Then she smiles, the smile I saw when I swung her round on my jumper, all those years ago, and she wiggles four fingers at me. The smile vanishes and she turns back to her friends, telling Holly she looks like a ‘fat minger’ in her new coat.

  I wonder if I imagined it, her little Ladybird wave? Even though she’s not looking, I do it back, not so that anyone would notice.

  ‘Hey, look at this one, Ollie,’ says Kat, shoving her phone under his nose. ‘It’s Bea dressed as a cat . . . can you believe she squeezed into that costume?’

  .

  About the author

  Before Jenny started writing books about the Ladybirds, she was an English teacher at a large secondary school. Although she loved teaching funny teenagers (and stealing the things they said and putting them in her books), she now gets to write about them full-time. When Jenny isn’t thinking about stories, writing stories or eating cake, she enjoys jiving and running around the South Downs. Jenny lives by the seaside with her husband and two small but fierce girls.

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in July 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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  This electronic edition published in July 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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  Copyright © Jenny McLachlan 2014

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4088 5608 6

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