by Beth Garrod
The park seemed foggier than usual. Or was it just talcum powder billowing out of my hair? There was also a gross smell of pickled pear drop. I sniffvestigated, only to discover it was me. Wow, embarrassment sweats had upgraded my Loserdom to 4D. Still, I had to keep warm, or I might die, and then all over the world they’d publish my underwhelming life story alongside one of my awful school photos.
Maybe I could try some basic PE stuff. That could help? I flung my arms and legs around trying to remember what Mrs Nyatanga taught us. What was it . . . grape vine? Spotty dog. Yeah, this was working. And the way my costume was bobbing around was kind of funny. Ski jumps. Jumping Jacks. And I did feel a bit warmer.
But one simple high kick later and I’d frozen solid.
One simple high kick later and I was staring at a life in jail.
Exercise is bad for your health. Fact.
CHAPTER
FOUR
“Your elbow’s in my groin.” A man-voice was coming out of my ribcage. Surely not even the most advanced stomach could rumble sentences?
“Sorry, could you possibly move? Your elbow really is in my groin.”
Argh, it wasn’t a man-voice. It was an actual man. And it just said the word ‘groin’. To me. As if strangers should ever say ‘groin’ to each other.
Sorry, Bella. Back up. What had happened in the last fifteen seconds? I thought back. One particularly enthusiastic jumping jack – yup. Heel stuck in the mud – check. Losing my balance like a comedy cartoon character – done. Sailing through the air, legs akimbo – achieved. Shoe flying off like a glittery missile – kap-ow. And the final cherry on the cringe-cake? Landing full force on a big boney cushion – AKA an actual human. Oh excellent.
I looked like a mad woman – and one who thought it was OK to play spontaneous horizontal musical statues with strangers. But who, or what, was beneath me?
I looked down and freaked out as I couldn’t see a thing. Had the fall knocked out my sight?! But as I felt around in the dark, I realized with massive relief that the giant arrow bit had just fully flapped over the hole for my face. Phewphs. I yanked it off and squinted at my human landing pad, trying to make out some features. It had hair. Scruffy, brown hair. It had a face. A squashed and wincing face. And as it came into focus, I made out something far more terrifying. It had a squashed, wincing and undeniably fit face. WTWOMG.
Was my man-mattress actually Louis Tomlinson? Had I squashed The Tommo to death!? Harry was going to kill me. Who knew they holidayed in Wales? The news report was totally going to use that school photo of me now.
“Err, it’s actually starting to hurt quite a bit.”
I lifted my head up off my landing cushion, chest, whatever, and assessed the crime scene. My elbow was digging into something sort of warm, squishy, and . . . in his jeans. The area that shall not be named!! Mortification! This is not how my first boy-part contact was meant to be. I plucked my elbow out of the danger area and scrambled to my foot. It would be feet, but only one of them was in contact with the floor, the shoeless one could only dangle two inches above ground.
“Ughghgorry.”
Instead of apologizing, I sounded like I was trying to simultaneously gargle while getting tickled. As the attack-ee stood up, I got visual crush confirmation. Attack-ee was a lean, mean, scruffy haired fit-machine – and I’d potentially caused him organ damage. Not ideal. Must try again.
“Ughghgorry. I’m gory. Soggy. Sorgy. I’m sorry.”
Attack-ee was patting down his jeans, so luckily didn’t see my face giving my mouth evils for being so lame. Come on, guys, work together, you’re a team.
“Don’t worry about it, these things happen.”
They do? Shoe projectiles and spontaneous mountings might be a common occurrence to him but it’s deffo a first for me. But if he could play it cool, so could I.
“I was just doing some jumping jacks. To keep warm. Because I’m locked out. And I’m only really wearing cardboard. Which might sound a bit like cardigan. But is nowhere near as warm. And is a terrible choice of clothing. Unless you’re an actual cornflake. Which I’m not.”
He didn’t reply.
Must knock ‘playing it cool’ off the list of talents I previously wondered if I had. I looked up. Wow, he was proper tall. About six inches taller than me. (Even wearing one heel. Me, not him.)
“And I wasn’t throwing myself at you. On you. I just tripped. I promise. I wasn’t . . . being a weirdo or anything.”
Attack-ee looked bemused. Argh. Had I left gaps between those words, or just delivered the world’s longest mono-word? Was he going to dial 999?
My fate hung in the balance as he calmly straightened the collar of his denim jacket and brushed down his grey jumper that was peeping out underneath.
“Well, that’s good to know. All makes perfect sense now.” He laughed like a horse warming up pre-neigh – but in a hot way. My stomach lurched like when my mum goes 25mph over the small bridge by our house. Had I made a real life discovery of a specimen of Boy-Shouldus-Be-In-A-Band-Ius?
I tried not to stare at him as he picked bits of grass out of his ruffled hair. Out of all the no-hopers at Black Bay, why did I have to achieve my most mortifying accomplishment in front of this unique specimen?
“I’m so embarrassed. I didn’t mean to do any of that. And now look – you’ve soiled yourself.” His eyebrows shot up. “Not soiled! I meant like, earthed. Like grounded. Like dirted. . .” Someone invent a mouth filter for me, please.
“MUD!” I shrieked. “Yes, I meant you got mud on yourself.” We both flinched. Him because I bellowed in his ear. Me at having a Eureka moment remembering a three-letter word. Could I pretend English wasn’t my first language? Sure, if I had the ability to think of a single country more obscure than France. I don’t.
“Are you OK? You look more weirded out than me. And I’ve just been hit in the face by a shoe. . .”
Oh great. The flying shoe had hit him. I’d been hoping things could get even more cringe. He looked me up and down.
“. . . all while dressed as a giant . . . Cheerio?”
The horror of being labelled as the notorious Black Bay’s Sex Pest Shoe Attacker had made me numb to what a total dork I must look. Without the arrow bit, I was basically just a lone-girl dressed as a cereal box and smelling a bit of bins.
“I’m SO sorry. I’m not a complete loon. Promise. This is fancy dress.” It should really be called no-one-will-ever-fancy-me dress. “I don’t normally wear food packaging.” Hope that was stating the obvious. “It was an arrow. Now it’s pointless.” A bit like me trying to explain myself. “I was just pretending to be One Direction. As in not them. Not the boys. I mean, I can’t even grow a beard. Or dance. Or sing. I’m just their name. Well, I was until I squashed half of the arrow off. I mean, are you even OK? Please don’t report me.”
Attack-ee pointed at the large purpley bruise above his left eye. Some shoe glitter twinkled on it. Was that glitter embedded?! Oh great, I’d not only injured him, I’d permanently accessorized him.
“And who would I report you to? I don’t think the police have a department for crimes of landing on people.” He smiled. He must be pretty laid back to be taking this in his stride. “Although you do kind of look like a cereal killer. . .” Oh ha, very ha. “. . . and if they’ve caught it on CCTV, it’ll be a most excellent YouTube vid.”
Oh, the relief! Attack-ee wasn’t going to press charges! Attack-ee watched terrible videos too! I giggled. It came out like a three-year-old child’s, so I lowered it to sound more alluring and sophisticated, but sounded like Father Christmas instead. Attack-ee took a more traditional approach to silence-filling and made conversation.
“So . . . have you only just arrived? I haven’t seen you about?” Aaaah, a Liverpool twang to his voice. Northern accents make me all melty like a human toasted cheese sandwich.
“No, I’ve been here for a few days – but haven’t seen you about either.” Obviously, as one sighting of him and I
’d have been sleeping under his caravan. “We’re leaving tomorrow – THANK GOODNESS.”
He looked fake hurt.
“All right, Black Bay’s biggest fan?! It’s my fifth time here. . .”
Cringe. Why couldn’t I be less insulting with my insults?
“. . . and none of them have been near death experiences for me – yet. Although more recently some stranger attacked me in the dark with some footwear. Don’t know if you remember that one?” He looked even cuter when he was teasing me.
I shrugged my shoulders back at him, although all he saw was my arrow bob up and down.
“Nope, no recollection. Sounds awful though. You should let someone know, they sound dangerous.” I smiled. Maybe I had been too harsh. If Black Bay was good enough for this McFittie’s biscuit, it was good enough for me. “On second thought, you know, thinking about it more carefully, maybe it’s not that bad here.”
“My gran’s been coming here since she was little. That’s why we come back every year for her birthday. So . . . putting your total overwhelming-under-enthusiasm to one side, it would have been a nice change to have had someone to hang out with who was born in the same decade as me. Or even century.”
Did he mean me? Was this fit boy saying it would have been nice to have hung out with me? Could I somehow get him to repeat this – on camera?
“Sorry, do you mean me?”
It splurted out.
“Erm, yes?” He’d definitely noticed that I wasn’t normal.
“Cool.”
‘Cool’ was the understatement of the century. Ten minutes earlier I’d been counting down every second till we left, now I reckoned I could permanently live in a place where my bed played hide and seek. Plus, he thought I was his age, whatever that was.
“Aaaaaanyway, let’s start at the start. What’s your name – or can’t you tell me as you’re a highly skilled undercover agent, disguised as a box of breakfast?”
“Ha. Ha. I’m Bella. With zero special skills. Although I can get all five of my foot toes in my mouth.” Overshare. I hadn’t even attempted it since I was seven. “People call me Bells for short.” Luke also calls me Blobfish or Fishy Balls, but I didn’t feel I needed to offer all options.
“Well hello, Bella slash Bells slash foot chewer. . .” He put his hand out. Making full contact with his brown eyes made me all limp inside, like a school canteen baguette. “I’m Zac.”
So the love of my life was called Zac. Good to know who I was going to be obsessing over for the next for ever. I smiled up at him.
“Nice to meet you toooooo.” I accidentally did a ghost impression, as my body involuntarily shivered, like a little human earthquake.
Zac didn’t flinch and flicked off his jacket.
“Here.” He swished it over my shoulders, as if him catching hypothermia for a girl he’d just met was no big deal. “In the words of someone very profound, the cold never bothered me anyway.”
I swooned so much I even felt it in my liver.
“And if you’re locked out, how about we go somewhere a bit more sheltered? I could show you a spot that none of the oldies ever make it to? Kind of my own personal hideout.”
I nodded slowly and tried to squeeze out a normal reaction, but I was so overwhelmed with the excellence of this idea that I just sounded like Siri.
“Yeah . . . seeing a . . . new bit of Black Bay . . . sounds . . . good.” By ‘good’ I meant, best idea ever suggested in the world ever, including the invention of Daim Bar Dairy Milk.
So, off we limped – him from injury, me because I only had one shoe on. As we meandered towards the wood, I figured that with such a disastrous start things could only get better. But the only destination I was hurtling towards was the capital of Cringe City, population: me.
CHAPTER
FIVE
So here I was. Just casually picking my way through a tiny forest path with the world’s fittest man. As you do, Bella, as you do.
“So, er, what do you do when you’re not being hit in the face by strangers?” Fingers crossed he wasn’t going to say ‘kidnapping people in forests’. Or line-dancing.
“Well, that’s kind of a full-time thing.” Oh, great. Fit AND funny. “But, when I do take a break from it, I’m mainly at college.” Soooo he was at college. He did look older. “Or working on some prints. I spend half my life covered in paint.”
So he was a hottie arty type. I got a body tingle – bingle – in a way I’d never felt before. Probably the lesser-sighted-sexy-art-boy bingle – very hard to come by in Appleton, where the majority of boys think the highest form of creativity is weeing a pattern into snow.
“Oh, cool.” I said, ducking under a branch that he’d stopped to pull out of my way. “What kind of, er, prints do you print?” I was completely clueless, but knew the golden rule is to always show an interest.
“It depends really. Kind of abstract stuff, expressionism. You know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Obvs I had no clue. The only expressionism I knew was the intelligent expressionism I hoped was currently on my face. If only Rachel was here to help; she’s got a room full of books all about art (that up until now I’ve artfully avoided).
“Enough about me. What do you do?”
Gulp. What do I do?! I could hardly say that most of my time is spent making gifs of animals sneezing.
“You know. Stuff. . . Life stuff.” I nodded as if this held deep meaning. “And, erm . . . listening to music?” Could I be more generic?
“Me too. Obsessed.” His eyes sparkled, real-life dimples peeping through on his cheeks as he smiled. He must love music as much as me, which is a relief as it’s kind of a deal-breaker when I’m deciding if a person is excellent or not. Although those dimples could probably renegotiate any deal. “What was the last gig you went to?”
Oh no, straight back on to shaky ground. Does being forced into accompanying my mum to an ABBA tribute count as a gig?
“Wow, last gig?” I pretended to be racking my brain through all the totally awesome gigs I’d been to, while blocking out the glimpse of Pearls Allowed attempting to twerk. He definitely thinks I’m older than I am. “Think it was All Time Low.” By think, I mean, definitely wasn’t, but I have watched enough of them on YouTube to probably carry this off. Same could be said for 1D, but Zac didn’t look like a coordinated-canoe-paddle-dance-move kind of a guy.
“Nice. I could not get tickets for their last tour. You must have friends in high places!”
“Yeah, it was pretty amazing.” Not technically a lie, as the videos were definitely taken by people in very high places – like one or two rows from the back.
“So, what do you do at college?”
Uh-oh. The college clanger. There was no way I could come clean about still being in school. I didn’t want him to add ‘being younger than him’ on to the ever-growing list of reasons that he is way out of my league and should not be speaking to me.
“I, er, do all sorts really. I mean, what don’t I do?” Could I rhetorical-question my way out of this? Mum and Jo had taught me well.
“I know what you mean. It’s crazy busy, isn’t it, way too much like hard work for my liking.” He stopped to brush some moss out of his hair. “So what don’t you do then?”
“Well, I don’t do French.” This was true. I didn’t do French at college. But I also didn’t do anything else there, what with me not being at one.
“Wise choice. I kind of had to give up on the whole French thing when I discovered French cows say ‘meuh’ not ‘moo’ and then my mind was blown.” What?! I really had never thought of this. Do animals say different things in different languages? How has this never come to my attention before?
Uh-oh. Panic. Bella, stop thinking about what dogs say in German. I can’t pick anything he’s studying in case he asks me about it. Could I gamble on science?
“I take, erm, c. . .”
WHACK. Ouch.
“OOOOOWWWWWW.”
Saved by a massive branch
in the face! Result! I’d been so paranoid about making his jacket smell sweaty that I’d kept my arms rigidly by my side and had somehow missed a branch the size of a sideways tree dangling at head height. Thank you, forest, for your tree-mendous work.
“Are you OK?!” Zac rushed to my side, brushing my hair back off my forehead looking for any sign of damage. Concerned-Zac face was maybe even more fit than happy-Zac face and teasing-Zac face combined. I must injure myself more often.
“I’m fine. I promise. . . It sounded worse than it was.” I rubbed my head, even though it had already stopped hurting. “I was just a bit slow to twig on to it.”
He laughed. I MADE HIM LAUGH.
“You all right to carry on?”
I nodded and followed after him. He was making an extra effort to make sure there were no hazards dangling in my way, like some kind of sexy safety superhero. We chatted about nothing and everything, although I was glad he dropped the college questions. I found out he was deffo seventeen (fit), lived in Wolverhampton (my new favourite place) and had a guitar called Keith (strangely alluring). Keith was also the name of his dog (a girl dog), but he couldn’t pick which Keith was his favourite. He found out that I was almost seventeen (exact details seemed unnecessary), lived in Worcestershire, was obsessed with my camera (I like arty things too! Love me!) and had a weird crush on Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia (an unplanned panic blurt out that I would like to take back, please). He clearly won.
Ten minutes later, after squeezing our way through a falling down fence, we came to a stop. We were in the prettiest clearing overlooking a tiny lake. Who knew Black Bay could be so beautiful?!
“What did I tell you? The perfect place to hide from the organised fun.” He stretched out on a rickety bench near the edge of the water. Did he know he was a walking album cover?
Right, me. Let me get this straight. On Tuesday when I’d been stumbling through a Zumba in the Dark class with my mum (where I may or may not have broken Jo’s toe), this fittie had been minutes away looking all brooding and moonlighty? Life is so cruel.