by Anna Wilson
Suddenly there is an almighty crash from next door. I jump, startled, and nearly trip over Pongo who is excited by the racket and is hurtling around me in circles.
‘What was—?’
A volley of thuds fills the air: it sounds as though a giant is falling down the stairs. This is swiftly followed by another crash.
Pongo whines and rushes back into the house.
I follow him.
Mum is making a cup of coffee.
‘Did you hear that?’ I ask, pointing back into the garden.
‘Hmm?’ says Mum, sleepily.
Harris hurtles through the door. ‘Finn is practising his drums! I can hear it through the wall. It’s awesome!’ He pulls two wooden spoons from the utensils pot on the work surface and starts drumming the tabletop.
‘HARRIS!’ I yell.
‘You two,’ Mum groans. ‘Not now.’
‘Huh! It’s not me using the table as a drum kit!’ I protest.
Mum takes the spoons from Harris and tells him to sit down.
I grit my teeth and look back at the frenzied messages from Aubrey.
‘So, Finn seems like a lovely boy,’ Mum says. ‘Put your phone down, Skye.’
‘Lovely? More like Draco Malfoy’s uglier and more evil cousin,’ I mutter.
‘He is COOL and AWESOME and AMAAAZING!’ says Harris, bouncing up and down in his chair.
I give him a Paddington-style hard stare.
‘What did you guys do last night?’ Mum asks. ‘I never asked. I said put your phone down, Skye,’ she adds, without pausing for breath.
Of course you didn’t ask! You weren’t thinking about us. Your head was in the clouds after a night of waltzing around ‘meeting people’, I say. In my head. I slam my phone down, grab the cereal, pick up a spoon and then scowl for good measure.
‘Thank you, Skye. Welcome to the Land of the Living,’ says Mum.
She thinks she is so funny.
I open my mouth to speak but Harris is already talking.
‘We played Mario and we ate popcorn,’ he says, doing his best impression of the well-behaved child that he NEVER is.
Mum’s smile broadens. ‘Sounds a lot nicer than an evening with Milly,’ she says. ‘So you won’t mind if I ask him to come again next week?’
I drop my spoon into my cereal bowl with a clatter. ‘WHAT?’
‘That’s one way to get your attention,’ says Mum.
‘I am NOT having him round again,’ I say.
‘It’s Finn or Milly, young lady,’ Mum says, fixing me with her Don’t-mess-with-me expression.
I realize Mum must be serious about this latest hobby. ‘So you are going back to the ballroom-dancing class?’ I ask, horrified.
‘You betcha,’ says Mum. She clicks her fingers and waggles her hand down in front of her in what she clearly thinks is a smooth move.
‘Don’t do that,’ I groan.
Mum’s smile fades and she sighs. ‘I had a lot of fun last night, thanks for asking, Skye,’ she says. ‘And it did me good to get out and meet people.’
There she goes again with the whole ‘meeting people’ thing. I narrow my eyes.
‘What “people” did you meet exactly?’ I ask.
‘Dancing people of course, stupid!’ says Harris, flicking a spoonful of wet Cheerios at me.
‘Shut up!’ I shout. I push my chair back and make a lunge for him, but he is too fast. He bounds from his chair and leaps through the air, then grabs a tea towel from the work surface and begins spinning it around his head. ‘Did you do this dance, Mum?’ he asks, giggling. ‘It’s called the Tangfastic.’
Mum laughs. ‘Actually it’s the tango,’ she corrects him. ‘And no, we didn’t – it’s a very difficult dance. Don’t forget, I’m a beginner.’
‘But you will learn the tango, won’t you?’ Harris asks, dropping the tea towel on Pongo’s head.
The dog shakes it off and then begins another one of his Let’s-chase-Harris games, yapping and jumping and fake-snarling.
As Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, ‘Who’s the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?’
Mum ignores them.
‘I don’t know about the tango,’ says Mum. ‘I tell you what I am going to do, though. I am going to enter the end-of-term competition and then maybe you can come and watch me – if it doesn’t finish too late, that is?’
‘No WAY,’ I say. I have totally had enough of this insanity. I hear my phone ping and see that Aubrey has texted yet again. ‘I am going now,’ I say.
‘Don’t you want a lift?’ says Mum.
I look at her chosen outfit of the day: a fake red flower in her hair, a red jumper with a feathery scoop neckline, and long wide-legged black trousers with embroidered red flowers on, all finished off with red shiny DMs. ‘Er, no, you’re all right,’ I say. ‘I’ll get the bus.’
I walk out of the house to the sound of Harris wittering about how he wants to enter the dance competition too and how he’s going to help Mum with her outfits and practising her dance.
As Aubrey might say: ‘I think they need to go to the Life Shop.’
I glance at her most recent text as I walk to the bus stop:
R U dead or something? LOL.
I sigh and text back:
Still alive. Trying to ignore Boy Next Door and brother. Been on Planet Hunger Games since last night. Kidnapped by Katniss
It’s a lie of course. I read all those books years ago. But it was the first thing that popped into my head.
The bus pulls up as a little thought bubble appears on the screen which means that Aubrey is reading my text. She’s either writing a really long response or she’s thinking hard about what to say.
I get on the bus waiting for her to answer. Once I have found a seat I check my phone again.
Tell me ALL about it. C U L8r. Mum is giving me a lift today. Going out with Dad. She is Galadriel. Dad is one of dwarves. Kill me now.
I grin as I text back. Aubrey is back on form. I can tell her everything and things will be OK.
I walk through the school gates and immediately spot Aubrey standing by the netball courts. She sees me and waves. I feel a fizz of happiness. Skye and Aubrey – Aubrey and Skye: Best Friends Forever (BFF, as we used to say).
‘Hey!’ she calls as I make my way towards her. ‘I was beginning to worry that you’d been swallowed up by a wormhole and spirited away into a parallel universe or something.’
I grin, feeling sheepish. ‘Yeah, sorry – you know what I’m like when I’m in book-hermit-mode. I just kind of hibernated last night. Wasn’t looking forward to coming back to this place for starters.’
Aubrey threads one arm through mine. ‘’S’OK. Talking of “modes”: Mum was in super-organizational-mode last night, making me pack my school bag under her prison-guard-style supervision. AND – get this – she told me I have a dentist appointment after school today!’ She makes a disgusted noise. ‘I HATE my dentist. He has the hairiest nose you’ve ever seen. “Hashtag GROSS”!’
‘Eeuw!’
‘I know. And there’s no way I can avoid looking up it while he is staring into my mouth,’ she goes on.
This is a game we sometimes play – seeing who can gross the other one out the most. The bell goes and we shriek and giggle and think up things that are even more disgusting than Aubrey’s dentist’s hairy nostrils as we follow the hordes into the building. We are walking down the Year 8 corridor, completely unaware of anyone else around us as we laugh and joke. I am feeling fantastic.
Until I hear someone come up behind us and say, ‘Hey, Orrrbreeeee-and-Skye,’ in a sneery voice.
It is Izzy, one half of the Voldemort Twins.
Aubrey whirls round and squares up to them. Her expression hardens and I think she must be about to tell her to get lost, but instead she says, ‘Oh, hey, Izzy. Whassup?’
Whassup? This is Izzy Voldemort she is talking to. We do not say ‘Whassup?’ to Izzy Voldemort.
I am about to pul
l Aubrey away and ask her what the flip she thinks she is doing when Izzy steps closer to me, ignoring Aubrey, and says, ‘So how were the holidays, Hermione? Play much Quidditch, did you?’ She simpers. ‘Or were you too busy reading and being a general all-out nerd?’ She shoots me a nasty, slit-eyed, snaky smile. ‘We missed you at the cinema last week, didn’t we, Aubrey?’
There is a cackle as Livvy appears at her side (no doubt by some kind of evil Summoning Charm).
‘Looks like you guys had an awesome holiday,’ says Aubrey, letting go of my arm. I swear she even gives me a little shove out the way.
‘What was that about the cinema?’ I want to ask Aubrey, but I can’t form the words. I watch in horror as she flicks her hair and mirrors the twins’ body language: hands on hips, superior smile on lips. What is she doing?
‘I saw the pictures you posted, Livvy,’ she goes on. ‘Good times.’
‘Yeah, I noticed you stalking me,’ says Livvy, her smile turning sour enough to curdle milk. ‘You “liked” every single thing I posted – even the photo of the display board at the airport showing how delayed our return flight was.’
‘Yeah. Not very supportive,’ says Izzy. ‘Surprised you have time to look at our posts. Weren’t you too busy playing make-believe games and writing stories with your little chum here?’ she adds, nodding to me.
Aubrey opens her mouth to respond, but the Voldemort Twins cackle in unison and link arms, turning to go. They always have to have the last word. Part of me is relieved that they are being mean: I must have misread Aubrey’s body language just now.
‘Leave it, Aubrey,’ I say, laying a hand on her arm. ‘You know what they are like.’
Aubrey nods and blinks hard. ‘Let’s go,’ she says.
I can see she is upset. Those twins are such stirrers. Why did they even say that thing about the cinema? A nagging little voice in my head reminds me that Aubrey did go to the disco without me. Maybe she went to the cinema without me too?
No, the VTs were just winding me up. As usual. Aubrey would never hang out with the Voldemort Twins. I link arms firmly with my best friend and we head to our lockers.
The atmosphere between us is a lot less relaxed as we start unpacking our bags. I am trying to think of something to say to cheer Aubrey up when I see my locker door. Oh great. Someone has kindly Tippexed ‘Skye Diver’ all over it. I touch the white letters – still wet. No prizes for guessing who did this. I look around for the Voldemort Twins, but they have clearly used the Dark Arts to transport themselves elsewhere.
I am about to say something about it to Aubrey when she starts talking first.
‘So,’ she says, unloading the contents of her school bag. ‘You were going to tell me all about last night. You said something about “avoiding Boy Next Door”? What happened?’
I really don’t want to talk about this now. I just want us to get back to normal. ‘Oh, nothing,’ I say. ‘I told you – I was in my room all evening.’
Aubrey looks at me. I know she can tell just from my tone of voice that I am hiding something. We have always been able to read each other like a book.
‘Anyway, I have to talk to you about Mum,’ I say, clutching at a change of subject. ‘I am seriously worried. She says she’s going to enter a dance competition and that it was “nice meeting people” last night—’
‘Hmm,’ says Aubrey. ‘So when are you going to introduce me to Hot Neighbour Boy? Have you found out his name yet, by the way?’
She is not paying attention to me. She is not even looking at me now. She is aligning her books in her locker with great concentration. Honestly, she complains that her mum goes into super-organizational-mode, but I have to say it is getting to be a serious case of ‘like mother like daughter’. What does she think she is doing? Oh my life: she is colour-coding her stationery! OCD, or what?
I have to stop her right now, as I can tell from the look of concentration on her face that otherwise I will not get her full attention until she has finished. I decide I am going to have to tell her exactly what Finn is like. I will tell her how he lied to Mum about me giving Pongo popcorn and making him sick. That way she will see how mean he is and she’ll lose interest in me ‘introducing’ them.
‘Sure. I’ll tell you all about Boy Next Door,’ I say.
Aubrey immediately stops fiddling with her locker and turns to face me, eyes shining. ‘Go on!’ she says.
Gotcha.
I take a deep breath. ‘So. First of all, Mum asks him – he’s called Finn by the way – to BABYSIT us. Can you believe it? Milly Badbreath couldn’t make it, and just as I am about to convince Mum that Harris and me would be OK home alone, Finn’s dad, Rob, rings the doorbell and ends up volunteering his son to stay and “look after” us. And Mum only stands and chats to him in her hideous sequins-and-spandex outfit as if everything is normal and then she leaves us with Finn and it is a nightmare . . .’ I tail off.
Aubrey has lost interest. It is because I started talking about Mum instead of giving her gossip about Finn. She is tutting over the fact that a protractor has found its way into the pen compartment in her oversized pencil case.
‘Aubrey?’ I say.
Aubrey puts the pencil case down and turns, putting her hands on her hips again. ‘What?’ she asks.
‘Mum is determined to ruin my life,’ I say.
Aubrey rolls her eyes. ‘Oh come on. Your mum is lovely! Anyway, I thought we were talking about Finn.’
I groan. ‘I was, and now I am talking about Mum. She is a nutter!’
Aubrey giggles. ‘Don’t be mean. Anyway –’ she leans in conspiratorially. ‘Back to more important matters: how come you didn’t text me the minute Finn otherwise-known-as Hot Boy Next Door came round last night? Is this all a plan to keep him to yourself?’ She does a weird kind of nudge-nudge-wink-wink manoeuvre, which I am guessing is supposed to mean that I too think Finn is ‘hot’.
I open my mouth to deny this, to apologize for not texting, to elaborate on the Pongo-and-popcorn story – anything to stop her looking at me like that and speaking in that frankly rather sick-making tone of voice – when Aubrey lets out a gasp and drops the book she is holding. On my foot.
‘OW!’ I say, hopping up and down.
‘Shh!’ says Aubrey. She flaps her hands at me and shrinks back against her locker. I realize she is staring at a point past my right shoulder.
I stop hopping and turn to follow her gaze. I can’t see anything worth gawping at. I turn back to face her, frowning.
‘Aubrey? What . . . ?’
My friend looks odd. Her face has gone shiny, as though she is bathed in golden light from on high. She looks literally awestruck.
Then she breaks out of her statue-mode and flicks her hair, dips her head and smiles in a shy kind of way while blinking as though she has got something in her eye. When did this whole hair-flicking thing start? She never used to do it. She looks as though she is having some kind of fit.
‘Are you feeling OK?’ I ask.
‘Shh,’ she hisses again through her fixed smile. ‘It’s him!’
I turn slowly back again.
No. Nononononono. The reason for Aubrey’s bizarre behaviour is standing by the Year 9 lockers.
It is, of course, Finn. He looks a bit lost. A tiny part of my brain tells me I should go and say hi, but then my sane brain clicks in and reminds me that Finn Parker is my nemesis. And he is my best friend’s heart’s desire. I look back at Aubrey who is clutching a folder to her chest and grinning at Finn as though she has fallen into a hypnotic trance. Any minute now she is going to do her own impression of the Romeo and Juliet ‘Wherefore art thou?’ scene. This is enough to stop me from feeling even a weensy bit sorry for him being a newbie.
I try to think of something to distract Aubrey and get us away from Finn, but my mind has gone blank.
‘He is seriously hot,’ Aubrey whispers. ‘Even better than from a distance. Look at those eyes! Like . . . like almonds!’
‘Lik
e what?’
‘And that hair! Is his dad Asian? He’s sooooo beautiful . . . He even makes school uniform look cool. Capital O. Capital M. Capital G!’ she breathes. ‘You have to introduce me this minute.’ And she gives him a girly little wave with her fingers and giggles like a half-brained moron. Luckily Finn has not noticed Aubrey and now one of the Year 9 boys is talking to him.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the form room.’
‘Say hi,’ she says quietly. ‘Go and get him to come over!’
‘You get him to come over if you’re that bothered,’ I say.
‘I can’t!’ Aubrey says. Her face collapses and her shoulders sag as if she is in severe pain.
Flip. It’s like she’s possessed. I think of all the sci-fi stories I have read, where aliens come and wipe your memory clean and you wake up with a different personality. If I didn’t know differently I would think this is what has happened to my best friend. I no longer recognize her.
She is fluttering her eyelashes now and trying to get into Finn’s line of vision again.
I am speechless for at least one whole minute as I stand there and watch Aubrey making a complete fool of herself. Then I snap into life and grab her wiggly-fingered hand and force her to look me in the eye.
‘He’s mental!’ I say in a low voice. ‘I keep trying to tell you. He spent the entire evening rolling around on the floor with Harris and Pongo and squashing popcorn into the carpet. That is why I didn’t text you – because there was nothing interesting to tell.’
Aubrey’s expression darkens. ‘You could have invited me round,’ she says.
I let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You are not listening to me, are you?’ I glance over my shoulder. It is my turn to gasp now – but in mortification, not luuurve. ‘He’s looking at us,’ I say. I keep my eyes fixed on Aubrey and lower my head so that my messy hair falls across my face to hide it from Finn.
‘Is he?’ Aubrey squeals. ‘I’m going to literally die!’ she says. She flaps her hand in front of her face as though to fan herself and giggles like a demented monkey.
‘Aubrey, you are not going to literally die. It would make a nasty mess and cause complications for the school nurse.’