Secrets, Lies, and Locker 62

by Lil Chase

  ‘Please, Miss Draper!’ begs Zeba. ‘I swear I will never talk in your class ever again.’

  Miss Draper raises an eyebrow. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep.’

  We’re in the classroom, me and Zeba, circling Miss Draper like we’re vultures and she’s our prey. ‘Please, Miss Draper,’ I say. ‘We’ll do all the work and make sure the competition runs smoothly. We just need a teacher so everyone knows it’s fair.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘There’s so much to organize. Can’t you ask someone else?’

  ‘But you’re our favourite teacher so we came to you.’ Zeba’s laying it on thick, but Miss Draper’s smiling so I think it’s working.

  Just then, Mr Holt walks into the classroom. ‘What’s going on in here?’ he asks with a cheesy grin.

  ‘These girls have a lovely idea to put on a poetry competition,’ says Miss Draper.

  ‘That is a lovely idea,’ Mr Holt says.

  ‘Let’s do it really soon,’ I beg her. ‘In two weeks’ time?’

  ‘Hmm …’ She might be wavering.

  ‘We promise we’ll do everything,’ I say.

  ‘Maya and I have designed the posters,’ says Zeba. ‘And we’ve planned how the prize-giving will go.’

  ‘I’ve contacted this local poet called Todd Swift who could be a guest speaker for us.’

  Mr Holt and Miss Draper exchange looks.

  ‘If the girls say they’ll do all the work and you can take all the credit, why not?’ he says with a chuckle. ‘In fact, I’ll help too!’

  Miss Draper laughs. ‘Well, if there is another teacher and we can split the workload, maybe I will.’

  ‘Yes!’ Zeba and I say together, and give each other our silly handshake.

  ‘Oh, we nearly forgot,’ says Zeba. She’s looking at me, but I have no idea what she’s talking about. ‘Can we hold it on a Saturday so our friend can come too? She goes to a different school.’

  I’m so glad that the poetry competition is going to give me, Frankie and Zeba something else to work on. It’ll fix the bad feeling between us once and for all.

  Chapter 21

  On Saturday Frankie, Zeba and I stand on the high street. Zeba’s in full-on goth mode – black lacy tutu with a purple top, ripped tights and black makeup – only her huge backpack kind of ruins the look. But I’m happy to see that Frankie is just in jeans and a plain blue jumper. No ponies today.

  ‘I still don’t get what we’re doing here,’ says Zeba. ‘Are we taking a weekend off the secrets? I mean, I’m all up for a game of Laser Quest – I just like to be kept informed.’

  Frankie raises her eyebrows and looks at Zeba like she’s a tagalong. ‘Oh, didn’t you know? Maya and I came up with it last week.’

  Through Zeba’s thick mask of make-up I can see she’s upset. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Maya doesn’t tell you everything. I bet Maya didn’t tell you she fancies Luke Marino.’

  ‘Frankie!’ I yell. ‘Keep your voice down!’ I check up and down the street to see that there’s no one from Mount Selwyn in earshot. ‘And I do not fancy Luke. I just wondered if he’s protecting Raphael, rather than out to get him.’

  ‘Of course Maya doesn’t fancy Luke.’ Zeba shakes her head at Frankie and tuts. ‘Obviously, Frankie, you have no idea because you’ve never seen him, but there’s just no way.’ Then Zeba turns to me with a sweet smile. ‘Good thinking about Luke and Raphael. We’ll look into it.’

  ‘Look, there’s Amanda,’ I say, pointing behind Zeba. I can tell from the mousy hair and the tall lankiness.

  Frankie tilts her head to the side. ‘She’s the one who Mark Nowicki fancies?’

  I nod. Today we carry out plan B of the Get Mark and Amanda Together scheme. This time we won’t mess it up by offering free money.

  ‘Hi, Amanda!’ says Zeba, a decibel or thirty too loud. ‘How in the devil are you?’ Zeba’s talking like she’s gone mental.

  Amanda looks like she’s thinking the same thing. ‘Er … hi … um …’

  ‘Manar Sakina Adiba Kahn,’ she says, her hand outstretched for Amanda to shake. ‘Aka Zeba, aka your local 24/7 goth.’

  ‘Riiiiight,’ says Amanda, and she slowly shakes Zeba’s hand as if it was a pair of discarded underpants. ‘Hi, Zeba.’

  Frankie stretches out her hand too. ‘I’m Frankie, honoured to meet you. I’ve heard a great deal about you.’

  Now Amanda’s freaked out. I hang back and simply raise my hand to wave. ‘Maya,’ I say, the sane filling in my mad-friend sandwich.

  ‘How come you’ve heard of me?’ Amanda asks Frankie.

  ‘A friend of a friend spoke to someone from your school.’ Frankie looks to the sky as if thinking hard. ‘Mark Nowicki, I think his name was – and he said you were the best cellist he’s ever heard.’

  OMG. I can’t believe what Frankie’s just done! She’s either a genius or completely blown our plan.

  ‘Mark Nowicki?’ Amanda asks, unable to control the smile on her lips. ‘Are you sure that was his name?’

  Frankie nods. And I realize I should have complete faith in my genius beffy.

  ‘Do you know him?’ I ask Amanda.

  ‘Er, no – I mean, he’s in some of my classes, but I don’t know him,’ she says, twirling a strand of hair around her fingers. ‘Why, do you?’

  We all shake our heads a little too quickly. Luckily Zeba’s picking up on our cues now. But Amanda doesn’t seem to notice anything.

  ‘And he said he liked my playing?’ she asks, a huge grin on her face.

  This time we all nod a little too quickly. But she doesn’t seem to notice that either.

  ‘Wow.’ For a moment Amanda is lost in her own happy world. Frankie and me give each other a subtle thumbs-up.

  ‘What is going on?’ Zeba hisses with a frown, clearly upset not to be in on the plan. ‘Oh.’ Her frown turns upside down when someone else walks up the high street.

  I turn to see who it is: Mark Nowicki. I pretend to act surprised as I gesture to Mark. ‘Oh, what a coincidence!’ I say to Amanda. ‘Isn’t that him? Shall we say hi?’

  Amanda has gone a funny colour: pale, then pink, then a little vomity shade of green, then pale again. ‘Er … I don’t know … should we? Maybe we should just leave. Or maybe we should go over. I don’t know … Umm.’

  Mark has sensed us looking at him. He looks first at Frankie, who he has never seen before, sees me and tries to work out how he knows me. Then his eyes fall on Amanda and he takes a deep breath in, looks down, looks up again, tries to smile at Amanda but ends up making a face like someone is pulling a splinter from his finger. Then he does the pale then pink then green trick that Amanda just pulled. It’s like some elaborate mating ritual.

  ‘We must talk to him,’ I tell her. I remember the advice my mum gave me about Karmella and Rochelle. ‘Talk about things he’s interested in and find a way to bond.’

  ‘Er …’ she says.

  ‘But first,’ I say, and look at Frankie, ‘we need the lipgloss pep talk.’

  Frankie grins. ‘Of course we do!’

  ‘The what?’ asks Amanda, and looks terrified.

  Frankie rummages in her bag until she finds her make-up. She pulls out three shades of gloss – pink, plum sparkles and red. ‘Pick one.’ She offers all three to Amanda.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Amanda, who was stressed before but now looks like we’re giving her a multiple-choice quiz at the most terrifying moment of her life.

  ‘If in doubt,’ says Frankie, ‘go with pink.’ She points the pink lipgloss at Amanda’s lips, and shoots, and scores, making Amanda’s lips all shiny and lovely.

  I hold up my hand mirror and Amanda does a little involuntary smile. ‘See,’ I say. ‘Now, give yourself the pep talk.’ I don’t tell her mine – Cool is everything. I feel like it belongs to me and Mum.

  ‘Try this,’ says Frankie. ‘Just be yourself and they will all love you.’

  ‘Good one,’ I tel
l Frankie, but Amanda isn’t so sure. ‘Look in this mirror and repeat: Just be yourself and they will all love you. Just be … Come on, Amanda, it won’t work if you don’t try.’

  ‘Just be myself and they will all love me,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Not like that,’ I say, and Frankie giggles. ‘Do it like you’re a cheerleader and this is the cup final.’

  ‘Just be myself and they will all love me,’ she says, a little louder, waving her fingers like pompoms.

  ‘It’ll have to do,’ I say, and I don’t give her time to think as I grab her hand and pull her over to Mark.

  Mark grins. ‘Hi,’ he says to Amanda. ‘Was it you who sent me this?’ He holds up a piece of paper and waves it in the air. It’s a flyer for Laser Quest with a note stuck on to the front.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘But I got one too.’ Amanda looks at me, Frankie and Zeba. I think she has an inkling that this was our idea, but I just shrug and put the next stage of the plan into action.

  ‘How weird,’ I say. ‘We all got these flyers in our lockers.’ They have exactly the same note on the front: Meet me here at 1 p.m. on Saturday. I want to see you.

  ‘Who could possibly have sent them?’ asks Frankie.

  ‘That is weird.’ Amanda smiles. ‘Especially as you don’t even go to our school. Your name is Frankie, isn’t it?’

  Frankie nods. ‘At your service. Maya and I are beffies.’

  I see Amanda and Mark’s confused faces. ‘Beffies,’ I explain. ‘It means best friends forever.’

  ‘When one has been such good friends for such a long time,’ Frankie throws Zeba a look that makes me cringe, ‘these nicknames just evolve.’

  ‘Well, sometimes,’ says Zeba, ‘a change is as good as a rest.’

  I intervene. ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’

  We enter Laser Quest and it’s like stepping into one of those bad sci-fishows that Dave watches. There are plastic aliens and laser guns hanging from the walls and ceiling. Along the edges of the room are arcade games and lists of the house rules.

  Standing at one of the arcade games is Billy Beckworth. I smile, but then quickly hide it as I am still pretending that it isn’t me who set all this up.

  Zeba nudges me in the ribs. ‘Have you invited Rochelle?’ she asks.

  ‘Of course she has, Manar,’ Frankie says, using Zeba’s real name to annoy her.

  We walk over to Billy. He’s wearing his bright red PVC jacket (stained) and he’s got a load of the Laser Quest staff in a circle around him, mesmerized by his performance. He’s holding a blaster in each hand and shooting these little alien things that come on to the screen.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say to one of the staff. He’s tall with strawberry-blond hair and looks like he last saw sunshine on the day before they invented computers. His name tag says ‘Stanley’.

  ‘This guy blows my mind,’ Stanley says. ‘He’s playing a two-player game, using two blasters, but it’s only him.’

  ‘Excuse me, Stanley,’ I try again. ‘Can you tell us what these flyers are all about?’ I know exactly what the flyers are all about, but I have to play along. I push the flyer into his line of vision.

  He ducks so he can continue to watch Billy. ‘If you get eight people together then you all get to go half price.’

  ‘But there are only five of us,’ says Amanda.

  Mark counts the group with his finger. ‘If Billy plays we’ve got six.’ Billy is still shooting aliens and hasn’t looked up, not even when Mark said his name. ‘We still need two more.’

  ‘I just saw Rochelle Jenkins from your year,’ says Amanda.

  Suddenly Billy whips around and both his on-screen avatars get killed as twenty aliens jump all over them. ‘Rochelle Jenkins is here?’ he says.

  ‘Oh man!’ says Stanley, and the other staff members join in the groaning. ‘You were just about to beat the high score!’

  Billy doesn’t seem to care. He might like Rochelle as much as Rochelle likes him. Now that he has been Rochelled out of his computer zone he looks a little surprised to see us. ‘How come you’re at Laser Quest?’ he asks. ‘Is Rochelle coming?’

  ‘Did I hear someone mention my name?’ Rochelle walks in and looks straight at Billy. ‘Are you talking about me behind my back?’

  The way they smile at each other is so cute. ‘We’re only saying good things, Rochelle,’ says Billy. ‘What else is there to say about you?’

  Rochelle melts a little bit and for the first time ever she looks vulnerable and really sweet.

  Zeba’s mouth falls open. She looks from Rochelle to Billy to me and back at Rochelle again. ‘Rochelle,’ she whispers, so only me, Frankie and Rochelle can hear, ‘are you the person who fancies Billy Beckworth?’

  ‘What?!’ she says, her hard face back again. ‘No way!’ Then she lowers her voice and asks, ‘Why? Does someone else fancy him?’

  She’s sort of given herself away by saying someone else, but we don’t call her on it.

  ‘What girl wouldn’t fancy that guy?’ Stanley has been eavesdropping. ‘Billy Beckworth is a legend,’ he says. ‘I am a hot-blooded male, but even I’m in love with him. We’re thinking of getting him on TV – he’s that good.’

  ‘Really?’ says Rochelle. ‘So, he’s kind of cool then?’ she asks.

  ‘Cool?’ says Stanley. ‘The man is my idol!’

  Rochelle abandons us and walks over to Billy and they start chatting.

  Zeba and Frankie look at me. ‘So it was Rochelle who fancies Billy Beckworth!’ says Frankie. She looks at Zeba. ‘Didn’t you say there was no way it could be her? Shows what you know.’

  Zeba looks hurt. She has no idea why Frankie is being so nasty to her. I do, and it’s time to sort it out. ‘Look, girls, I need to tell you both something. You remember that day we ran out on you at Starbucks—’

  ‘How could I forget?’ says Frankie, shooting another dirty look at Zeba.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ says Zeba.

  ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’

  I am just about to spill all when Mark shouts, ‘Can we get this thing started, please? I can’t wait to show Amanda how it’s done.’

  ‘Maybe it’s me who’ll be teaching you a trick or two.’ Amanda smiles at Mark.

  ‘But there’re still only seven of us,’ Zeba points out.

  ‘You can go in with seven,’ says Stanley. ‘Billy is basically two people anyway,’ he adds. ‘We’ll pretend there are eight of you and you can all go half price.’

  ‘Thank you, Stanley!’ says Frankie. ‘You are a gentleman, sir.’

  My heart sinks. I had invited an eighth person, of course I had. But it’s almost half past and Ben Sands hasn’t showed.

  We are all suited up in our Laser Quest jumpsuits in the pre-game holding bay. On top of the jumpsuits we’re wearing our laser packs. If someone shoots our pack, we lose a life. Each of us is holding a gun. Billy has two.

  Rochelle ties her scarf round her waist. ‘These outfits need a fashion rethink!’ she says.

  ‘No, no, no!’ says Billy, running over to her. ‘You can’t wear that – it’s bright red! You’ll get killed!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in this!’ jokes Rochelle, and smiles at him. ‘The fashion police will kill me if the rest of you don’t.’

  ‘We can’t have that,’ says Billy. ‘I’ll have to protect you.’ He grabs her hand and leads her to the game arena.

  ‘Maybe we should work in teams,’ says Mark, and looks directly at Amanda. ‘It might make it more interesting.’

  Amanda stands next to Mark.

  Me and Frankie and Zeba smile at each other. The plan to get Mark and Amanda together is working. We’ve fixed this one. We do our silly handshake.

  ‘That’s Team Fixers together then,’ says Zeba.

  I’m sure the rift between Zeba and Frankie will now be forgotten.

  But there is something I can’t forget. ‘Stanley,’ I ask, ‘will you be able to let us know if anot
her person arrives?’ I’m hoping Ben is just running late.

  As if reading my mind, Zeba says, ‘I don’t think he’s coming.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask as if I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  Zeba says, ‘Ben,’ just as Frankie says, ‘Luke.’

  Zeba looks at Frankie as if she is an idiot. ‘For the last time, Maya doesn’t fancy Luke, she fancies Ben – the cutest guy in school, who she has fancied since the day she arrived! Luke is a bully. Maya has more sense than that!’

  ‘Shows what you know!’ Frankie puts her hands on her hips. ‘You should have heard the way she was talking about Luke the other day.’

  I turn bright red. These two are broadcasting my love life – or lack of one – to the world. ‘Shut up!’ I hiss. But this only makes them shout louder.

  ‘You haven’t even seen Luke, so how would you know?’ Zeba says to Frankie, waving her head around as if her neck’s gone wobbly.

  ‘I know because I know my best friend. You’ve only just come on to the scene like a one-hit wonder.’

  ‘Maya would be crazy to fancy Luke. Besides,’ adds Zeba, ‘what about Hitachi? Why isn’t he here?’

  ‘Err …’ I look around. All eyes are on me, including Rochelle’s. ‘He’s got a rugby match.’

  ‘Who is Hitachi?’ says Frankie. ‘The box?’

  This is it. This is the moment that it all comes out.

  Rochelle speaks up. ‘Hitachi is Maya’s boyfriend,’ she says. ‘We’ve seen his Facebook page and everything.’ Why does Rochelle have to be here to witness this? I know she’ll tell Karmella. I know I shouldn’t care what Karmella and Rochelle think, but I do.

  ‘Huh?’ says Frankie, being both lost for words and ill-spoken for the first time in her life.

  ‘You would know,’ says Zeba. ‘He went to your school.’

  ‘Maya was heartbroken to leave,’ says Rochelle. ‘He was the captain of the rugby team at St Cecilia’s.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Amanda. ‘Even I’ve seen his picture. He’s hot!’

  Frankie looks at me and then looks back at the rest of them. Zeba looks smug because she thinks she knows something Frankie doesn’t.

  ‘I don’t do Facebook,’ says Frankie. ‘Don’t see the point. But I can tell you that Maya doesn’t have a boyfriend. And if she did, he certainly wouldn’t have gone to St Cecilia’s.’