‘What about your play?’ she calls after me, an edge of sarcasm in her voice, but I’m off, hands in pockets, sloping up the garden path, on my way home to a whole different planet.
It’s ten past ten, and still there’s no sign of Cat. I shouldn’t have expected it, really, not after last night. I could see what her mum thought – she looked at me and she smelt trouble, the way other people might smell Tesco Value Shampoo.
Cat’ll be in school right now, telling her stuck-up mates about the boy she met from the Eden Estate who’d never even seen an olive before. Me, I’m sitting on the steps outside the vet’s with 73p to my name. I have a plan, though. I’m going to go in, see how Lucky is, then ask the vet to give me more time to pay the bill. I’ll wash his car for him, or clean out his hamster cages, mop the floors. Whatever it takes. How much can a vet’s bill actually be?
‘Hey!’ Cat is waving from the other side of the road. I fight back the grin that’s threatening to take over my face, and get up lazily, hands in pockets.
She’s not in school uniform today, and she looks at least sixteen. She’s wearing a short black sweater-dress over footless tights, a studded belt hanging slantwise over her hips. A black beanie hat is pulled down over her corkscrew hair. She crosses the road and comes towards me, and I fall for her honey-brown skin and emerald eyes all over again. I don’t want her to know that, though.
‘What took you so long?’ I ask. ‘D’you think of a way to pay the bill?’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I told you, didn’t I? Not a problem.’
We go inside, and the vet lets us go through to the back where Lucky is asleep in a big metal cage. He looks like he’s in prison.
‘He looks thinner,’ I say, but apparently Lucky ate a good meal last night, and slept well.
‘He’s doing fine,’ the vet says. ‘We’ll do the X-rays later, and fix that leg up. He should be ready to collect at evening surgery, if you’re still sure …’
‘I’m sure.’
‘And the bill?’
I don’t blame him for being suspicious. I wouldn’t trust us, either. ‘We can pay now, if you like,’ Cat says, bringing out a roll of money.
The vet raises an eyebrow, taps something into his computer, then prints out a bill and hands it over. ‘I’m charging you for the X-rays and the medication,’ he says. ‘But not the overnight stay. Just don’t tell anyone – they’ll think I’m a total pushover.’
‘Thanks!’ I grin, and then I look at the bill and see that it’s still £108, so that wipes the smile off my face pretty quickly. Cat doesn’t even flinch, just hands over the money with a smile.
‘See ya later, kid,’ she says to Lucky, and I wink at him, because you can’t stroke a dog through the bars of a cage. We promise to be back by seven o’clock surgery.
That’s a lot of time to kill, but Cat’s ready for the challenge. Twenty minutes later we are squashed together on a tube train, hurtling through the London Underground on the way to Covent Garden.
‘It’s not like I normally skive off school,’ she tells me. The woman opposite gives her a frowny look, and she lowers her voice.
‘I’m doing this for you, Mouse,’ she goes on. ‘Because you’re worried about Lucky and you need cheering up. Besides, I have a French test this afternoon.’
‘You’re all heart,’ I say.
‘I know. Anyhow, you’re bunking off too.’
I laugh. ‘I’m not skiving, I’m excluded.’
The woman opposite chokes on her takeaway coffee, but Cat looks entranced. ‘Wow!’ she says. ‘What did you do?’
I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘I tagged the wall of my school gym with eight different colours of spray paint.’
‘Unreal,’ Cat breathes. ‘What made you do it?’
That question again. There are a million reasons, all of them true. I thought it would be cool, I thought it would be funny. I wanted to show my art teacher, a wrinkled dinosaur in a tweed suit, that I could draw.
‘I was bored,’ I say, because that’s as good a reason as any.
School – it’s enough to make anyone turn vandal. The lessons are pointless and dull, day after day, week after week, year after year, so that in the end you just about lose the will to live. You start dreaming about rebellion, about locking the teachers into the school canteen and force-feeding them lumpy custard while you build a bonfire on the playing fields with every exercise book, every exam paper in the school. Anything, really – anything to kill the boredom, because nothing ever happens at Green Vale Comp.
And then it did, and for five whole minutes I was a king, a hero. In a quiet kind of way, because nobody knew it was me – until Chan noticed the paint on my fingers and pointed out the spelling mistakes and told me to get out of there. I was on my way out of the door, feeling like Van Gogh with a paint can, when Mr Brown grabbed me by the collar and it was all over, my moment of glory, just like that.
‘So they excluded you,’ Cat says. ‘Did the police get involved?’
‘No, Dave spoke up for me and the school agreed not to press charges,’ I say. ‘I had to promise never to do it again.’
‘And will you?’
‘No chance,’ I tell her. ‘Caused too much trouble.’
‘Yeah?’ She sneaks a look at my fingers. They are scrubbed and clean, with just the faintest rim of red around the fingernails.
‘Your graffiti days are done?’ she checks.
‘Definitely.’
‘So what about the door of the Youth Outreach Unit, yesterday?’ she asks, triumphant. ‘A little mouse face, in the corner. I saw it when I was unlocking my bike, and I knew it hadn’t been there when I went in. That was you, wasn’t it? Had to be.’
‘Caught red-handed,’ I say.
We get off the tube at Covent Garden, take the lift up to the surface and emerge on to a chaotic street stuffed with tourists and street performers. I’m still trying to take it all in when a tall, dark-haired bloke walks by, flashing us a sparkly-white grin.
‘I think I know him,’ I say.
Cat rolls her eyes. ‘Of course you know him,’ she hisses. ‘That’s Robbie Williams! Don’t stare – he’ll think you’re a fan or something!’
‘This place is crazy!’
‘You’ve been here before, right?’ she asks. ‘You must have!’
I shrug. ‘I’ve heard of it, but …’
‘Typical,’ she says. ‘We live right here in London, but when do we ever really explore? That’s why skiving off, once in a while, is so cool. You can get to be a tourist for a day. That’s what we’re going to do!’
We’ve only gone a few paces when Cat stops, mesmerized by a guy who has sprayed himself silver from head to toe. He stands as still as a statue, while Japanese tourists with fancy cameras take shot after shot.
‘Even his nostrils are silver,’ she marvels. ‘And inside his ears. Do you think he’ll ever get it off?’
I think of my own red-stained fingers, and hope that the silver guy used face paint, not aerosol cans. Does painting yourself silver count as an act of mindless vandalism? Probably not. ‘Awesome,’ Cat says, dropping a pound coin into a bucket at the silver guy’s feet. He springs to life, taking a sweeping bow, offering her a long-stemmed silver flower. She takes the flower and blows the silver guy a kiss, laughing.
We move on into the main square. There’s a junk market inside a huge, wide building and an outdoor market too, rows of stalls crammed into the courtyard space between the shops. To our right, crowds of people lounge on rows of steps, watching a troupe of acrobats doing handsprings and human pyramids.
Cat is already cruising the stalls, sniffing handmade soaps, tasting samples of fudge. When I approach, the stallholders blank me and move their samples out of reach. Typical. I stand back, admiring Cat’s confidence as she chats up the stallholder on a stand selling handmade chocolates, when the breath catches in my throat.
Quickly, carelessly, as the stallholder turns to speak to another custo
mer, Cat picks up a large, ribbon-wrapped box of chocolates and slips it into her bag. It happens so fast I can’t quite believe what I’ve seen. I frown, waiting for her to hand over the money, but she doesn’t. She just pops one last sample chocolate into her mouth and moves on through the crowd.
My new friend, the shoplifter.
OK, I knew she was trouble – she wouldn’t have been in Dave’s office otherwise – but I didn’t know what flavour of trouble. There are any amount of reasons why you might end up seeing a social worker. Your life goes out of shape. Your family might be messed up, or missing, or ill. Maybe you’re in trouble at school, or with the police. Maybe you steal things.
I used to do it myself, years ago. I took things from shops – sweets, pop, crisps – sometimes because I was hungry, sometimes because I just didn’t know any better. I learnt in the end though, and these days I don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to me, no matter how tempting it might be.
Cat does. I’m surprised how much this bugs me. I’m sitting on the steps watching the acrobats, when she tracks me down.
‘Where d’you go?’ she asks. ‘I was looking everywhere!’
She sits down beside me. In front of us, one of the performers is juggling beanbags with ribbon tails attached. They make rainbow arcs of colour as they fly through the air. ‘Good, huh?’ she says.
I blow air out between my lips, unimpressed. ‘My dad was a juggler,’ I say without thinking. ‘He juggled with fire. Better than this lot, by miles.’
‘Yeah? What does he do now?’
I shrug. ‘Dunno. He never lived with Mum and me – not since I was about two anyhow. I stayed with him one summer, back when I was seven, when Mum was ill. I thought I’d get to know him, but I didn’t get the chance. He took off and left me, went to India with his girlfriend and promised to send for me. He never did.’
‘Oh, Mouse, I’m sorry.’
Stupid, stupid, stupid. That’s what happens when you let the past leak out from the boxes in your head where you’ve packed it carefully away – people look at you with pity in their eyes, and that’s a look I’ve had enough of. Too late now, though.
‘I’m not sorry,’ I say, fiercely. ‘He was a waste of space. I hardly knew him, y’know?’
Cat looks confused. She has a normal family, after all, even if they are posh. I bet her dad was never a juggler. I bet he never even thought of ditching his kid to run off to India. How could she understand?
‘This’ll put a smile on your face,’ she says gently, taking out the handmade chocolates in their ribbon-wrapped box. ‘They’re for you.’
‘No thanks,’ I say.
Her face falls. ‘Why not? I thought you’d be pleased!’
‘Did you?’
‘Mouse, what’s up?’ she asks. ‘What did I do?’
‘It’s what you didn’t do,’ I tell her. ‘You didn’t pay.’
A pink flush darkens Cat’s honey-brown cheeks, and her eyes flicker with doubt. ‘Of course I did. I –’
‘Cat, don’t lie to me,’ I say. ‘I can’t stand liars. OK? I saw you.’
‘I thought … look, it was just a laugh! These stalls must get stuff nicked all the time. They expect it.’
‘That doesn’t make it right!’ I tell her. ‘Look, Cat, I don’t want you nicking stuff for me, OK? I don’t like it.’
Cat pulls a face. ‘Sorr-eee,’ she says.
‘I don’t get it,’ I say. ‘I know you’re trouble – you wouldn’t have been in Dave’s office, otherwise. I’m not judging you, Cat, but seriously, you don’t have to steal. You have a nice house, what looks like an OK family. You handed over a hundred quid for that crazy vet’s bill, and you didn’t even blink. You don’t need to steal.’
‘I don’t even know why I did it. I’m sorry …’
‘It’s wrong. You have to put them back.’
‘Mouse, are you crazy?’ she yelps. ‘I’m sorry I took them, OK? I didn’t mean to annoy you. But seriously, no way –’
I grab the chocolates and slide them under my jacket, and walk off into the crowd. When I reach the chocolate stall, I try to look casual, pretending to choose between the prettily arranged boxes. The stallholder watches me, stony-faced. When she turns to serve a customer, I slip the stolen chocolates back on to the tabletop.
‘Hey!’ the stallholder yells. ‘I saw that! What are you doing?’
That wasn’t meant to happen. The stallholder is screeching and shaking her fist at me, which seems a little harsh, considering I was replacing a box of chocolates, not nicking one. I don’t hang around to argue – I break into a run, elbowing my way through the crowds.
‘Stop! Thief!’ she shouts, and people turn to stare.
Suddenly Cat appears at my side. She wraps cool brown fingers round my own and tugs me into a quiet side street. We run through on to The Strand, plunge into a crowd of shoppers crossing the busy road. ‘There he is!’ a voice yells behind me, and Cat drags me down another side street, past walls of shiny plate glass, queues of glossy black cars. She slows to a stroll, tosses her head back and winks at a hotel porter in a fancy coat with a big top hat. He holds open a door and we walk through, and behind us the shouts and hassles fade away.
My feet sink into thick carpet as Cat leads me past a bank of plush sofas and shiny potted palms. ‘What is this place?’ I ask her.
‘The Savoy Hotel,’ she whispers.
‘Cat!’ I hiss at her. ‘What are you playing at? We can’t –’
‘We can! Tea for two, please,’ she says, smiling at a stern-faced waiter, who melts visibly. ‘Lapsang souchong?’
That last bit sounds like Japanese to me, but the waiter beams at Cat. ‘Certainly, Miss,’ he says. ‘We’re not serving our traditional afternoon tea just yet, but I’m sure we can arrange something. If the young man would just remove his hat? We have a dress code, you know.’
He scans my skinny jeans as if looking for holes and rips, but finds nothing. I take off my beanie and he slides his eyes over my chin-length fringe with a despairing sigh. ‘Over here, please.’ The waiter shows us to a couple of armchairs arranged beneath a big gilt mirror, and we sit down, sinking into the plush velvet.
‘We came here for Mum’s birthday, last year,’ Cat whispers to me. ‘You just have to act confident.’
Acting confident is not an option, but I do my best not to faint in terror as the waiter delivers a silver tray laden with bone-china cups and teapot. Cat grabs a mini-sieve and pours her tea, dropping in a couple of sugar lumps with a pair of silver tongs. Me, I’m all fingers and thumbs. My hands shake as I lift the teacup. I slop hot tea across my jeans and have to mop it up with a thick linen napkin the size of a small bath towel. ‘Relax,’ Cat whispers. ‘Just enjoy it!’ I gulp my tea, spilling puddles of it every time a waiter stalks past, but Cat takes her time, nibbling biscuits and pouring herself a second cup.
‘Am I forgiven?’ she asks, wiping the crumbs from round her lips with the tip of her pink tongue.
‘Forgiven?’ I hiss. ‘You’re crazy. You’ll get us arrested. Deported, maybe. The police are probably on their way right now …’
The waiter glides over and slips the bill discreetly on to a side plate. One thing’s for sure, tea at The Savoy is not going to be cheap. ‘Gonna do a runner?’ I ask as Cat unfolds the bill, and she kicks my shin under the table. I have a feeling that anyone trying to escape without paying would be shot, quickly and silently, with a non-fatal poison dart. You’d wake up in the hotel kitchen, chained to a dishwasher, washing bone-china teacups for the rest of your life.
Cat calls over the waiter, hands him several crisp notes and tells him to keep the change. She hooks her arm through mine and we walk out of a side door, heads high. Cat starts to laugh, and suddenly the whole situation seems so weird and wonderful that I’m laughing too. The doorman doesn’t seem to mind, and tips his hat to us with a grin. We head down towards the river, walking hand in hand, looking across the water at the London Eye as it turns slowly
in the thin October sun.
‘Ever been on the London Eye?’ Cat asks.
‘No, never.’
‘Let’s do it then!’
We run down to where a clump of tourists are queuing to get on a river cruiser. Some of them are French teenagers, being herded together by a couple of teachers. Cat edges right into the centre of the crowd, pulling me after her until we are surrounded by French kids.
‘Comment ça va?’ she asks me, in a perfect French accent.
‘What?’
‘Oh, mon ami,’ Cat says. ‘Ma petit souris. Shhh!’ She puts a finger to my lips, silencing me. The crowd edges forward, and we are carried on to the boat. Nobody asks us for money, or tickets. The French teachers don’t seem to notice they have acquired two extra students.
‘Always works,’ Cat says, grinning. We stand by the rail and gaze out over the river, the breeze ruffling our hair.
‘Sorry about the chocolates,’ she says.
‘It’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘You’re mad, you know?’
‘Nah. I’m just trying to take your mind off stuff. Is it working?’
‘Might be.’
Later, as we press our noses against the glass of the pod in capsule 17 of the London Eye, Cat takes my hand again. For a moment I forget about the scruffy pirate dog with the injured leg, about Mum and the flats and being excluded, about the stolen chocolates and The Savoy Hotel and the river boat full of French teenagers. I just lean against the glass and look out over the city. It’s dusk, and the water looks shimmery and bright, reflecting the glinting lights strung out along the Thames Embankment.
‘I could stay here forever,’ I tell Cat. ‘On top of the world.’
‘Me too,’ she says, and just for a moment, nothing else matters – nothing at all.
You can’t stay on top of the world forever, though. You have to come down, and in the end we did. We took the tube back to Clapham and collected Lucky from the vet, and it turned out that his leg was sprained and not broken, but it was all bandaged up anyhow. He looked more like a pirate dog than ever. All that was missing was the parrot on the shoulder.
Lucky Star Page 3