Midsummer Meltdown

by Cathy Hopkins

  The question I’d been dreading. Oh God, I thought as I felt my insides shrink. What can I say? What should I say? The longer I hesitated, the more it appeared that I had something to hide. I took a deep breath and decided to tell Squidge the truth.

  ‘No. Truth. There used to be. At least on my side. I used to have a crush on him. Ages ago. But it never came to anything because he always saw me as Ollie’s kid sister. A kid.’

  Squidge kept his eyes on the photo. ‘And what about now? He’s not looking at you like he’s looking at a kid.’

  ‘I told him straight off that I’m going out with you. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want Michael. I want you. That’s the truth.’

  Squidge turned, took my hand and looked deep into my eyes.

  ‘Are you sure, Lia? Are you really sure? Because I would hate to hold you back. This Michael, he’s . . . he’s the kind of guy that you deserve. He’s from your world . . .’

  ‘My world! What world? I live in the same world as you do.’

  Squidge laughed. ‘Yeah, right. Get real, Lia. We might go to the same school but we do not inhabit the same planet when we go home.’

  ‘Yes we do. We do. We sleep. We do our homework. We hang out with our mates. What are you trying to say, Squidge?’

  Squidge sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t. Sorry. Just . . . I need to know. Did something happen between you and this Michael guy?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Truth. And I told him from the start that I was with you and just because he was single now, didn’t mean that I was available too.’

  ‘Ah. So he did make a play for you?’

  ‘Er . . . yeah. No. Not really. I mean nothing heavy and I told him straight . . .’

  ‘How did he make a play for you?’

  ‘Oh Squidge . . . you know, looks . . . sitting next to me. Honestly, Squidge, there is nothing between us. And you know what? Him being there and you not, it made me realise how special it is between us. And it is, isn’t it?’

  Squidge was quiet for a few moments. ‘Yeah. Really special. Just sometimes . . . I wish . . . well, I wish I had more. I wish I could offer you more. I wish my life wasn’t so ordinary.’

  ‘You? But you’re Captain Popular around here. You’re not ordinary. Don’t you see that? Everyone wants to be with you.’

  ‘Yeah but . . . I ride a push-bike. I bet Michael has some new state-of-the-art car. I live in a back street in the village. You live in a mansion and I bet Michael lives somewhere trendy and posh in London. Somewhere someone like you belongs. I bet he could take you places . . .’

  ‘Squidge, you don’t get it, do you? I don’t want that. If I want to ride in a fancy car, I can. My dad’s or my mum’s or Ollie’s or Star’s. Yeah, I live in a great place, but those things don’t make me happy. It’s having friends and people I like and love to hang out with that makes me happy. OK, so yeah, I don’t think I’d like to be poor but I tell you, when I first came down here, I was so lonely. Up there in our gorgeous house with our gorgeous things and all I wanted was someone to talk to and have a laugh with. Anyway, I don’t see you in those terms, rich or poor. I see you as someone I love spending time with. Love hanging out with. You make me laugh. And who else could have shown me all the great places down here? The beaches no one else knows about? The best views? The walks?’

  ‘Anybody who’s lived down here.’

  I punched him. ‘No. You know all the best places. The secret places. Listen, if anyone’s ordinary around here, it’s me. OK, the trappings of my life are exceptional, my rock-star family, where we live . . . but me? I’m ordinary. I really am. You want to know the truth? In Morocco, I was worried out of my mind that you might be getting bored of me. All that time to lie and think in the hospital and you’d have realised it too. When you didn’t return my calls, I thought I was going to go crazy. And then when I got back and you were so cool with me on the phone, remember?’

  ‘It was all the painkillers and antibiotics. I got a chest infection in the hospital so they were pumping me full of all sorts of stuff. I wasn’t being cool. I was just out of it for a while.’

  ‘And why didn’t you answer your mobile?’

  ‘I told you. At first, it was going off all the time and I couldn’t get up and answer it because of my leg and so I thought, oh, I’ll put it on voice mail and then I forgot where I’d put it and couldn’t look for it, not in my state . . .’

  I laughed. ‘I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.’

  Squidge laughed. ‘And I was going crazy imagining you away with Mr Flash Gorgeous and that the time away would give you space to realise that I’m not good enough for you.’

  I put my arms round him and gave him a big hug.

  ‘Oooouch,’ he winced. ‘Careful.’

  ‘Oh! Sorry. But . . . what a pair we are, hey? Both worried about the same thing. So you don’t want to dump me?’

  ‘Dump you! Never,’ said Squidge. ‘And you don’t want to dump me?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I bet your dad would like it. I bet your dad wishes you were with a boy like Michael.’

  ‘No way. I think all he cares about is that I’m happy. And you make me happy.’

  He leaned over and kissed my forehead. ‘And you make me happy.’

  Neither of us had noticed that Mac had come up beside us and had been listening.

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ he said. ‘You two are like major vomitous.’

  ‘OK,’ SAID SQUIDGE as Mac, Becca, Cat and I made ourselves comfortable on cushions on the floor in the front room of his house after school. ‘Here’s a list of the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for you to choose from.’

  ‘Who are you going to go as?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Oh, whichever part makes me look most tall, dark and handsome,’ Squidge replied.

  Hmm. Which part will he pick? I wondered. And what will he be like when he realises that Michael Bradley will be there as all Ollie’s mates are coming down again? Squidge is usually Mr Friends With Everyone so would he talk to Michael or ignore him?

  Mac lay back and scrutinised the paper that Squidge had handed him. ‘This is brill, mate,’ he said. ‘Great way for us to revise. Hey, Becca, slave girl, peel me a grape.’

  ‘Peel your own grape, mate,’ said Becca. ‘I’m nobody’s slave girl.’

  Squidge read from one of his papers. ‘OK. The play is set in Athens.’

  ‘Or in the Axfords’ case, in their back garden,’ said Mac.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I groaned. ‘The decorators have been at it for days now and even though I live there, I feel like I’m in the way.’

  ‘Theseus,’ continued Squidge. ‘He’s the head honcho in the play, the Duke of Athens.’

  ‘That’s who Dad’s going as,’ I said.

  ‘In that case, your mum should play Hippolyta – his girlfriend,’ said Squidge. ‘The play starts with them and they’re about to have a grand do to celebrate their forthcoming wedding with lots of wonga spent, and a good time had by all.’

  ‘Just like an Axford party,’ said Becca. ‘And I wouldn’t call their back garden a garden, it’s more like a park.’

  ‘Anyway, along comes this guy called Egeus,’ said Squidge. ‘Now, he’s a major control freak and wants his daughter Hermia to marry someone she doesn’t want to. She actually fancies a guy called Lysander but her dad wants her to marry someone called . . . er . . .?’

  ‘Demetrius,’ said Mac. ‘I remember their names because when I was little we had two goldfish called Lysander and Demetrius. I didn’t know where those names came from at the time but when we did the play at school, I realised that they were a bad choice. Both the fish were female and Lysander and Demetrius are male. Anyway, sadly, Demetrius got eaten by the cat.’

  ‘What was the cat called?’ asked Becca.

  ‘Rover.’

  ‘Rover?’

  ‘Yeah. We were a very mixed-up family.’

  Cat rolled her eyes. �
�Mad. So what next, Squidge? In the story?’

  ‘Hermia says, “No way, José” to her dad. She doesn’t want to do the arranged-wedding-type thing and really, really doesn’t want to marry Demetrius. However, Theseus reminds her of the law that states that she has three choices. She must marry as her father wants, become a nun, or be executed.’

  ‘No phone a friend option?’ asked Becca.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Whoa. Tough call,’ said Cat. ‘Think I’d go for the nun of this, nun of that option if it was me. Rather that than marry someone I didn’t love.’

  ‘Enter Hermia’s best mate, Helena,’ Squidge continued, ‘but she isn’t very sympathetic. In fact, she’s well pissed off with Hermia because she fancies Demetrius and thinks that Hermia was trying nick her fella. It wasn’t that, though, he’d just gone off her or was giving her the runaround or something.’

  ‘Bit of a lad, Demetrius,’ said Mac. ‘Has a bit of a commitment phobia.’

  ‘Sounds like Ollie,’ said Cat. ‘Some things never change.’

  ‘The course of true love never did run smooth,’ said Mac.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘That’s a line from the play.’

  ‘Really?’ said Cat. ‘Way to go, Shakespeario.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Squidge. ‘Lysander and Hermia decide to do a runner and take off for the woods. Unbeknown to them, a bunch of fairies who have been invited to the wedding have pitched camp in there and the King and the Queen of the Fairies have had a blazing row and then . . . this is where it all gets interesting.’

  ‘Yeah. Oberon,’ said Mac, ‘the King of the Fairies, is pissed off with Titania . . .’

  ‘She’s the Queen of the Fairies,’ said Becca. ‘I think you should go as her, Lia.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Squidge. ‘It says her character is graceful and she is very beautiful.’

  ‘And you should go as Hermia, Cat,’ said Mac. ‘She’s the grounded, sensible one.’

  Cat pulled a face. ‘Ooo, she sounds like fun. Not.’

  ‘What about me?’ asked Becca.

  ‘Oh, Helena, definitely. She’s the flighty, dippy one,’ said Squidge.

  Becca pouted. ‘Thanks for nothing.’

  ‘Well, that’s for saying all boys are stupid the other day,’ said Squidge.

  ‘You better watch it or I’ll break your other leg,’ said Becca.

  ‘Now, play nicely, children,’ said Cat. ‘Or you’ll be sent to bed without any supper. So who else is in this? Parts for you guys?’

  ‘Well, there’s Lysander and Demetrius, of course,’ said Mac. ‘Plus all the artisans. Bottom, Quince, Snug, Starveling and Flute. BQSSF. That’s how I try to remember names for the exams. Initials. Have you noticed all the girls’ names in the play so far start with H? Helena, Hermia, Hypowhatshername – the Duke’s bird. Makes it hellishly confusing to remember. I hope I can remember their names on the day of the exam. LD. Lysander, Demetrius.’

  Becca patted his arm. ‘Just remember your goldfish,’ she said. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  Mac grimaced. ‘Hope so. I’ll be so happy when these exams are out the way as I think I may be going slightly bonkers with stress.’

  ‘So what happens next?’ asked Cat. ‘And who are all those artisans you mentioned?’

  ‘They provide the sub-plot. They’re a bunch of guys who get together to do plays,’ said Mac. ‘Like an am-dram group and they want to do a special play for the royal wedding. And as always with those type of groups, you always get one showoff who wants to play all the parts. In this play, it’s a guy called Bottom.’

  ‘Bottom?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Bottom,’ Mac replied. ‘Imagine if his surname was Cheek.’

  ‘You are going bonkers,’ said Becca.

  ‘You may laugh,’ said Mac, ‘but there was a guy up at my school in London called Richard Pain.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that?’ asked Cat.

  ‘We called him Dick for short. So he was Dick Pain.’

  Cat and Becca groaned.

  ‘To continue,’ said Squidge, putting on a strict headteacher’s voice. ‘Now, as I said, Oberon and Titania have been arguing and Oberon wants revenge on Titania, so he tells his Head Fairy, Puck, to get some magic love flower juice and rub it into Titania’s eyes when she’s asleep, so that she falls in love with the first person she sees when she wakes up. And then he instructs Puck to make sure the first person she sees is one ugly dude. Puck takes this on board and when he sees Bottom showing off at the rehearsal, he decides to give him a donkey’s head. Literally. Bottom, with his ridiculous clown head, gets lost in the woods, Titania wakes up and bingo, sees the donkey creature, falls in love with him and invites him to her flowery bed-type hammock thing in the trees. Oberon sees it all and thinks that it’s hysterical because Titania is all over the donkey like a rash and all he wants is a bucket of oats and hay.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Becca. ‘A person could have a lot of fun with that love potion.’

  ‘And they do,’ said Squidge. ‘Puck puts it in Lysander’s eyes and he sees Helena and falls in love with her and then Puck puts it in Demetrius’s eyes and he falls back in love with Helena. She thinks they’re all taking the mickey and mocking her and Hermia gets well upset because she thinks that no one fancies her any more.’

  ‘What a mess,’ said Cat. ‘I think you should go as Puck, Squidge.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Or the donkey,’ said Squidge. ‘I can’t exactly do the Demetrius-Lysander look can I? I mean, when did you last see a Greek god type on crutches?’

  The following week we were transported to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, à la Axford.

  Becca and Cat came over to my house to get ready early on Saturday evening. It was a tradition now that for any of Mum’s dos that they came over and we got dressed together. For me, it was sometimes the best part of the party, trying on clothes, shoes and jewellery and doing each other’s make-up. I really appreciated having Cat and Bec as friends down here because when Mum held an event in previous years, unless I had a mate down from my London school, I was often on my own and had no one to talk to, not only beforehand, but also when the party got going.

  ‘Mac has just arrived,’ said Cat as she peeked out of the window in the guest bedroom down into the courtyard below.

  ‘As Demetrius?’ I asked.

  Cat nodded. ‘Hairy legs and all.’

  Becca took a peek then laughed. ‘Someone should have told him that socks and sandals is not a good look. Never mind. He still looks cute.’

  ‘He came up and picked his cossie last night,’ I said. ‘I thought he’d go for Demetrius as he fancies himself as a bit of a ladykiller.’

  ‘Not in those socks,’ said Cat.

  ‘Who’s Squidge coming as?’ asked Becca.

  ‘Still not sure,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t tell me. He wants it to be a surprise.’

  ‘Bet he comes as the donkey,’ said Cat. ‘You know what he’s like. Anything for a laugh.’

  ‘My Oberon . . . methought I was enamour’d of an ass,’ Becca quoted from the play. ‘That’s the line that Titania comes out with when she wakes up from her dream.’

  ‘Great quote,’ said Cat. ‘And I bet a million girls all over the world have said something similar when they have awoken from some stupid infatuation with a boy. That Shakespeare stuff still works today doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Becca. ‘But I guess that they had love affairs back then, too.’

  We began to root through the costumes that were left on the rail in the guest room. Cat pulled out a Grecian dress and handed it to Becca.

  ‘That would really suit you,’ she said as Becca held it up against her in the mirror. ‘Dead glam. If you put your hair up you’ll look like a total goddess.’

  ‘You think? You must say thanks to your mum, Lia, she’s so brill getting all these costumes for us.’

  ‘No prob,’ I said. ‘It isn’t any extra work because her friend Daisy Oldfield runs a cos
tume hire shop in Chelsea, so Mum just calls her and she sends a van of clothes down.’

  ‘Thank her all the same,’ said Cat. ‘I wouldn’t want her to think that we take it for granted. She’s always shelling out for stuff for us.’

  ‘I will, but you’d be the same if it were you,’ I said. ‘Anyway, she likes to do it.’

  Mum was always great when it came to costumes for her parties. She was sensitive to the fact that none of my new friends came from a well-off background and so, to save any embarrassment, she always made sure that she got a selection of costumes in. ‘For those who haven’t the time to go looking or haven’t a costume shop near them,’ she had said diplomatically when the van from Daisy’s had arrived on the Wednesday before the party.

  ‘OK,’ said Becca. ‘So let’s decide finally. Are you going as Hermia, Cat?’

  ‘Don’t think so. With my short hair, I’m hardly going to look like a Greek babe, am I? No, I want to go as Puck . . .’

  ‘Good idea. Here,’ said Becca and she pulled out a green pair of tights and a red jerkin and handed them to her. ‘And you, Lia, you have to be Titania so that leaves me . . . Shall I go as Helena, the flighty airhead?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Cat, and Becca punched her playfully on the arm.

  ‘Star must be going as Titania as well,’ I said as I flicked through the rails. ‘I’m sure there were two Queen of the Fairies outfits here when they arrived.’

  ‘That will be OK,’ said Cat. ‘You can be sister fairies.’

  Becca pulled the Fairy Queen dress out and held it up against me. It was a wisp of soft green chiffon with silver sequins sewn into the skirt. Very pretty and elegant. ‘This is definitely for you, Lia,’ she said. ‘It’s got your name on it.’

  I slipped the dress on and it did look fab, plus it fitted like a glove. We spent the next half-hour trying on various costumes but, in the end, went back to our original choices. After fixing our hair and doing our make-up, we emerged downstairs to join the arriving guests.