by Mary Hooper
It was quite late when I rang her and I think her mum was a bit surprised it was me. ‘I missed you today, Chelsea,’ she said. ‘I cooked chocolate brownies, too!’
‘Oh well, save me one,’ I said awkwardly.
‘See you tomorrow, will we?’
‘’Spect so,’ I mumbled.
Astra was ages coming to the phone, and she said hello so quietly that I could hardly hear it.
‘I rang to … I thought I’d better tell you that Ben’s rung me,’ I said. ‘He’s going away. He’s asked me to go with him and well, I don’t know that I will but …’
She gave a little cry. ‘He’s asked me to go away with him, too!’
‘What?’ I was bewildered. ‘Why?’
‘What d’you mean – why? Why has he asked you, come to that?’
‘But he said … I don’t understand …’
There was a long silence. ‘Nor do I,’ she said. ‘There’s things going on here we don’t know about.’
‘I know all about him!’ I said quickly.
‘Do you?’ she said. ‘Well, you haven’t exactly been honest with me, have you?’
‘You can talk!’
‘OK, I suppose we’re both a bit guilty of that.’ There was another long silence. ‘Are you going?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Going away with him?!’ she said incredulously. ‘Running away?!’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant I’m going to meet him tomorrow.’
‘Eleven o’clock?’ she said. ‘In the park by the bus garage?’
‘That’s it. Are you going as well?’
‘I think so.’
‘But not going away with him?’
She gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Well, we can’t both go, can we?’
I didn’t say anything else, and neither did she. After about a minute I just put the phone down.
And then I went to bed and didn’t sleep at all.
Chapter Fifteen
Monday, 31st October, 11.00 a.m.
ASTRA, CHELSEA AND BEN
It’s just on eleven o’clock and, although it’s half-term, there’s no one else on the green by the bus garage except Astra and Chelsea.
Astra is wearing a long skirt and her old jacket. She carries a bulky plastic carrier bag which might, or might not, contain overnight things.
Chelsea has her hair up, is wearing full make-up and, despite it being quite cold, wears a cropped top and miniskirt. At her feet is one of her mum’s leather sports bags which may, perhaps, contain a few items of clothing. Then again, Chelsea might have the bag with her because she’s going to her mum’s gym later.
‘Perhaps he won’t come,’ Chelsea says. It’s the first thing either girl has said to the other.
Astra makes a little noise midway between a giggle and a sigh. ‘Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’s gone already.’
‘With someone else!’ Chelsea says wildly.
They both laugh and then feel awkward and look away. It’s ages since they shared a joke.
Another minute goes by. Astra nods towards Chelsea’s sports bag and says, ‘Are you … you know? Would you really?’
Chelsea taps the bag with her foot. ‘Hmm …’ she says, which doesn’t exactly tell anyone anything. She looks at Astra piercingly. ‘Would you? Are you?’
Astra takes a deep breath, but is saved from replying because Ben is walking across the park towards them. He’s wearing an old denim jacket and has a rucksack over one shoulder. He walks easily, half-smiling to himself, looking just as he looked when he’d walked into their lives: cool.
‘Hi, girls,’ he says. ‘I guessed you’d get it together.’
‘Where are you going?’ Chelsea blurts out.
‘Why now?’ says Astra, who looks as if she might burst into tears at any minute.
‘I told you,’ Ben says to her, ‘destiny and all that.’ He points upwards, ‘the planets move in mysterious ways.’
Chelsea screws up her face. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘His granny,’ Astra murmurs. ‘She’s psychic.’
Chelsea continues to look bewildered. ‘I thought you were going away because of your dad – because of the boarding school business.’
It’s Astra’s turn to look confused.
Ben says nothing, so Chelsea explains. ‘Ben’s dad wants him to go to this flash boarding school,’ she says.
‘I didn’t know you lived with your dad!’ Astra exclaims.
‘His dad’s a famous actor,’ Chelsea says in a didn’t you even know that voice.
‘What?’
Ben swings his rucksack off his shoulder and puts it down.
‘So what’s the truth about me? Who knows? More to the point, who’s coming with me? Either of you?’ He laughs, ‘Both of you?’
For a while neither girl speaks. Each is looking at the other and thinking: Would I really go? Would she go? What’s going to happen?
Chelsea says, ‘Before either of us says we’re going, we ought to know who we’re going with. So what’s the truth about you? Who are you, exactly?’
Ben laughs. ‘My name is …’ he hesitates, ‘No. I don’t think I’ll tell you my name.’
‘You mean it’s not Ben Adams?’ Chelsea asks incredulously, while Astra thinks about the name-number match which now doesn’t match at all.
‘And I suppose you’re not a Gemini, either!’ Astra says.
‘Haven’t got the faintest idea,’ says Ben easily. ‘Never taken the slightest bit of interest in all that stuff.’
‘But you said … your gran and everything.’
Ben doesn’t reply, just smiles.
There is another silence, then Chelsea says, ‘Is your dad really an actor?’
‘Dunno,’ Ben shrugs. ‘He might be. I’ve never had a dad – not to speak of.’
‘But where d’you come from, then?’ Astra asks.
Ben looks from one girl to the other. ‘Nowhere. Anywhere. I’ve been sleeping rough all summer, and then they caught up with me and stuck me into this foster home place. And I got fed up with that so now I’m off again. They can’t keep me. Free as a bird, me!’
‘Is that why you didn’t want to bump into any social workers at school?’ Astra asks.
‘Is that why you didn’t really go and see the school secretary?’ Chelsea says. ‘But why come to school at all, then?’
Ben shrugs. ‘Didn’t have much choice,’ he says. ‘At this Home they sometimes used to drive me to school – and anyway, I had to go somewhere during the day, didn’t I? I figured that as long as I didn’t actually enrol there, though, no one would be able to keep tabs on me.’
‘But why did you say all those things to us?’ Astra bursts out. ‘Why did you make up all those stories about yourself?’
Ben shrugs. ‘Why not? It was something to do.’
‘You just … just amused yourself with us?’ Chelsea says.
‘Something like that. It helped to pass the time. Anyone can be anything he wants to be, remember?’
Astra starts crying quietly.
‘OK,’ Ben says, spreading his hands. ‘I was bored, right. I walk into a school and I get two girls making sheeps eyes at me: two best friends, both a bit gullible. And then I think, look at these two: they’re set up. They’ve got homes and they’ve got families and they’ve got friends – all the things that I’ve never had. And I think maybe it would be a laugh to split up these two friends, just to see if I can …’
‘You did it deliberately?!’ Astra asks. ‘You did it for a laugh? You saw us and you set out to break up our friendship?’
‘Didn’t you fancy either of us?’ Chelsea cries.
‘Either. Both.’ Ben shrugs. ‘Girls are ten a penny. I thought I’d see if I could land you – and you weren’t exactly difficult to hook. Either of you.’
‘But I wasn’t going to run away with you!’ Astra says hotly.
‘Nor was I!’ says Chelsea.
Ben looks at them, and then h
e looks at their bags and laughs. ‘No?’ He picks up his rucksack. ‘See you around, then.’
He walks off and then he calls over his shoulder. ‘Nice to know you. And next time, don’t believe everything you’re told, right?”
Astra and Chelsea stare after him. He reaches the pavement at the edge of the green but he doesn’t turn to wave.
Chelsea sinks down to sit on the sports bag. Astra just stands there, head hanging, arms folded round herself.
‘You sent him a card,’ Astra says. ‘What was that all about?’
Chelsea looks at her sharply. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I … well, I saw it.’
‘I lent him some money,’ Chelsea says, and then she gives a harsh laugh. ‘Well, I suppose I should say I gave him some money.’ She sighs, ‘I was easy pickings.’
‘But I thought, I really thought …’ Astra murmurs.
‘So did I!’ says Chelsea. She looks up at Astra. ‘We’ve both been really stupid, haven’t we?’
‘Gullible …’ Astra says slowly.
‘We believed everything he told us.’
‘We put him before us,’ Astra says. ‘Before our friendship.’
‘I know. We shouldn’t have done that.’
Astra blows her nose, then she says, ‘Is it too late, d’you think?’
‘Too late to be best friends again?’
Astra nods.
‘I suppose we could try,’ says Chelsea.
‘Wonder where he’ll go?’ Astra says wistfully.
‘Wonder where he’s been!’ Chelsea says, and she stands up and picks up the sports bag.
The two girls begin to walk across the green together, through the chip wrappings and drinks cans. Neither of them are quite sure enough of the other to suggest that they go for a walk, spend some time together, talk things over, but it’s in both their minds to do so.
Maybe by the time they reach the edge of the park they’ll speak about it, and then maybe they’ll go off together and things will be back to normal.
At least on the surface …
Also by Mary Hooper
CONTEMPORARY FICTION
Zara
FOR OLDER TEEN READERS
Megan
Megan 2
Megan 3
Holly
Amy
HISTORICAL FICTION
At the Sign of the Sugared Plum
Petals in the Ashes
The Fever and the Flame
(a special omnibus edition of the two books above)
The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose
At the House of the Magician
By Royal Command
The Betrayal
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
Text copyright © Mary Hooper 1998
First published in Great Britain in 1998 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
This electronic edition published in January 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in 1998 as Two Sides of the Story
This edition first published in 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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eISBN: 978-1-4088-4150-1
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Also by Mary Hooper