Angel Cake

by Angel Cake (epub)

  Before I know what’s happening, Dan slides his arms round me and hauls me up on to the crossbar of the bike. ‘No!’ I yelp. ‘Dan! I cannot!’

  But Dan isn’t listening. He launches the bike off the pavement and out along the road, wobbling slightly. I shift position, grab on to the handlebars with one hand and Dan with the other. I have never ridden on the crossbar of a rickety old bike before, or been kidnapped either, for that matter. I guess there is a first time for everything.

  I’m surprised to find I’m smiling.

  ‘So,’ Dan says, steering the bike round on to the wide, tree-lined avenue that leads into town, pedalling faster. ‘This is Princes Boulevard. It’s where all the rich people used to live, like a hundred years ago. Mostly flats now, though. Can you imagine it with horses and carriages and crinoline dresses? Liverpool was dead posh, once.’

  The breeze ruffles my hair and lifts it out behind me. I gaze up at the crumbling terraced houses with their big bay windows and litter-strewn gardens and try to imagine them a hundred years ago. What would those long-gone people make of us, a boy in angel wings and a girl in pyjamas, riding through the night on an antique bicycle? We pedal on.

  ‘Hang on,’ Dan says. ‘We’re turning…’

  The bike wobbles slightly as we take the corner, and I fall back against Dan before getting my balance again. A huge, dark building towers over us suddenly, vast and terrifying. Spotlights cast an orange glow over its ancient gothic arches and pinnacles.

  It’s a little like the elegant, ancient churches we have back in Krakow, but squarer, more solid, somehow.

  ‘This is the Anglican cathedral,’ Dan says. ‘Spooky, huh? They do good tea and scones in the cafe… not at night, obviously. And not as good as the ones Mum makes!’

  We ride on through the dark, deserted streets. Dan points out the Catholic cathedral, which I know already from Sunday Mass, the university, art college, even the Jewish synagogue. Then we cycle back along Princes Boulevard and swoop down into the park. Dan takes a blanket from the bike basket, spreading it out over the dew-wet grass beside the boating lake, and unfolds a parcel of iced cakes wrapped in a red-checked tea towel.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he tells me. ‘Like it?’

  ‘It’s perfect, Dan. Thank you!’

  ‘This is just the start… a taster, if you like,’ Dan says. He picks up one of the little cupcakes and bites into it, grinning. ‘There’s loads more I can show you. Liverpool’s cool. Seriously!’

  As I bite into the golden sponge cake and the sweet, melty frosting, I can almost believe him. The sky above us pales, and watercolour washes of pink and gold and orange seep over the horizon. Trees that looked skinny and stunted in daylight seem tall and elegant now, their branches silhouetted against the dawn.

  I guess even the most unlikely places can feel special, if you’re with the right person – or if you know how to look.

  Right now, though, I’m tired… and worried too. If Mum and Dad discover I’m missing, they’ll go crazy.

  ‘I must go,’ I whisper, and Dan just smiles and gets to his feet, shaking out the blanket, lifting the bike upright again.

  As we ride out through the park gates, a little milk float is buzzing its way along the street. Cartons of milk have already been left on the step by the door of the flat.

  ‘Hang on to me, really tight,’ Dan says, and I lean into him, waiting for a jolt or a wobble or a swerve. It doesn’t happen. The bike comes to a slow, smooth halt outside the flat.

  ‘Why must I hold tight?’ I ask, and Dan just laughs.

  ‘Because I like it when you do,’ he says. ‘I guess you can let go now, Anya. If you really want to…’

  ‘Dan!’ I protest. I slide to the pavement, and he adjusts the white-feathered wings and rides away, grinning. I bend and pick up the milk. The door to the flat swings open and Dad appears, dressed for work.

  ‘Anya,’ he says, surprised. ‘You’re up early… I didn’t hear you moving about. Were you collecting the milk?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I say, hiding the lie with a yawn.

  ‘Good girl. I thought I’d get an early start today. There are a few things I need to sort out. I’ll try not to be so late back tonight.’

  Dad kisses the top of my head and walks away, and I slip into the flat just as the clock turns seven.

  There is just one problem with going out to watch the dawn… it kind of wrecks you for school the next day.

  I yawn all the way through French and maths and finally fall asleep in history. Frankie jabs me in the ribs just as I am dreaming of picnics in the park in my pyjamas with a boy who may or may not be an angel.

  ‘Wake up,’ she hisses. ‘At least pretend to listen. What’s up with you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I had a late night. Dan came over…’

  Frankie’s eyes are wide. ‘Whoa… be careful, Anya. I’ve told you before… that boy is bad news.’

  ‘Frances McGee!’ Mr Goldman yells, and she snaps to attention, blinking. ‘I’m sure you’ve been listening carefully. Perhaps you’d like to tell the class the causes of the Great Fire of London?’

  Frankie doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Wasn’t that Dan Carney, Sir?’

  The class dissolves into giggles. ‘Most amusing,’ Mr Goldman huffs. ‘Where is Dan, anyway? Our little arsonist not here today?’

  A few of the bad-boy crew at the back of the class offer random excuses for Dan. He’s broken his leg, he’s at the dentist, he’s been expelled forever for setting fire to Mr Fisher’s Burberry raincoat. Mr Goldman rolls his eyes.

  I have a strong feeling Dan is still curled up in bed, asleep, his wings hanging from the coat stand.

  ‘Watch out, Anya,’ Frankie says later in the school canteen, flicking through a music magazine, one where all the bands seem to be young and skinny and dressed in black. ‘I like Dan, but he should have a government health warning stamped all over him. Don’t get involved.’

  ‘Involved in what?’ Kurt wants to know.

  ‘Girl stuff,’ Frankie scoffs. ‘Crushes, kisses… true lurve. You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Kurt protests.

  ‘I just do,’ Frankie says. ‘Seriously, Anya, Dan’s no angel.’

  But he’s the only good thing in my life right now, the only thing that makes this place bearable. And sometimes I see a sweet, sad, gentle side to Dan, a side I know Frankie has never seen. Sometimes he makes me miserable, sometimes he makes me mad, but he can make my heart flip over with just one look. And last night was special… so special.

  ‘You’re not even listening, are you?’ Frankie sighs.

  ‘It’s OK, Anya. Love is deaf, as well as blind,’ Kurt says wisely. ‘Anyone want a banana chip?’ He offers us a bag of dried brownish discs, and I take one, just to be polite. It tastes like something that may have been a banana, once, very long ago. Possibly in a past life.

  Kurt is always trying to tempt us into healthy eating with beansprout sandwiches, tofu quiche and random shrivelled things masquerading as fruit. It’s not really working, so far.

  ‘Yuck,’ Frankie sniffs. ‘Why call it a banana chip when it tastes nothing like either? It’s more like old shoe leather. If this is healthy eating, I’d rather be fat.’

  ‘You’re not fat!’ Kurt says. ‘You’re just cuddly. In a nice way.’

  Frankie’s lip curls.

  ‘Get a grip,’ she snaps. ‘I am not cuddly, I’m fat. Don’t go getting any ideas, OK? You are so not my type, Kurt Jones. It’s not just the drooping handknitted school jumpers and the hideous trousers, either. You do equations for fun, and eat vile, shrivelled things that even Cheesy wouldn’t bother with –’

  ‘What do you mean… hideous trousers?’ Kurt asks, in injured tones.

  ‘You must know,’ she sighs. ‘You get teased about them often enough.’

  ‘I don’t mind being a bit different…’

  Frankie rolls her eyes. ‘There’s different,’ she explains, ‘and there’s just p
lain embarrassing. Ever thought of going goth?’

  ‘Er, no…’

  ‘Emo? Scene? Nu-rave?’ Frankie continues. ‘Punk, maybe?’

  I don’t even know what those things are, and I don’t think Kurt does, either. ‘I’m not really a punk kind of a person,’ he protests.

  Frankie chucks her magazine down. ‘Face it, Kurt,’ she says. ‘You need a wardrobe makeover – and I’m not talking about rats or chicken wire.’

  She goes up to the counter for a second helping of sponge pudding and custard, and Kurt picks up the magazine, sulking. ‘Look at these people,’ he says, baffled. ‘All that backcombed hair, those skinny trousers. Does Frankie really like all that?’

  I bite my lip. ‘I think she does,’ I tell him.

  ‘She’d like me better if I looked like… like this?’ Kurt says, peering at a poster of a wild-eyed singer with eyeliner and heavily tattooed arms. ‘I will never understand girls.’

  ‘Frankie is strange,’ I shrug. ‘But she does like you, Kurt.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Kurt says gloomily. ‘She never even noticed I was alive until recently.’

  I’ve been invisible myself, and silent too, so I know how Kurt is feeling.

  ‘We don’t have anything in common,’ Kurt sighs, toying with a slice of lentil quiche. ‘We’re too different.’

  ‘Different is good,’ I say, thinking of me and Dan.

  ‘I’m not just different, I’m dull,’ Kurt says. ‘That’s what Frankie thinks.’

  ‘Not dull,’ I tell him. ‘But if Frankie thinks so, then why not surprise her? You are a smart boy. Think about it. What does Frankie like? What will please her?’

  Frankie is coming back to the table with a double helping of sponge pudding and custard, a contented smile on her face.

  Kurt begins to grin. ‘Hey, Frankie,’ he says. ‘I was just saying to Anya, I wonder how that crazy cafe is getting on? D’you fancy going along after school, to check it out? I’ll buy you both a cake!’

  Frankie raises an eyebrow. ‘I thought lentils and miso soup were more your thing?’ she asks.

  ‘They are,’ Kurt agrees. ‘But those cakes at Heaven are something else…’

  ‘Go on then,’ Frankie grins. ‘We’ll come, right, Anya?’

  I smile, but my heart starts up a drumbeat that has nothing to do with Kurt or Frankie. Maybe Dan will be there… and maybe, after last night, even Frankie will see that he’s the boy for me.

  Maybe.

  A big yellow cab with a slanting tower welded on to its roof is parked right outside Heaven. It looks like a taxi that’s been badly customized with gloss paint and some random freestyle roof-sculpture. Yellow Submarine Beatles Tours is painted in rainbow shades along the sides.

  ‘Scary,’ Frankie says. ‘This place gets weirder by the minute.’

  Inside, the cafe is almost deserted. Angel-boy Dan is wiping down the tabletops while his little brothers are doing homework at a table in the corner. He looks up with a grin that makes my toes melt.

  ‘Hey, Anya,’ he says. ‘Hi, Frankie, Kurt.’

  ‘No wings today?’ Frankie quips. ‘Is that because you’ve been skiving school again?’

  ‘Shhh!’ Dan says in a loud whisper, looking round to check his little brothers aren’t listening. ‘I wasn’t skiving, I was helping out. I told Mum there was a class trip to Alton Towers, and she let me stay off…’

  ‘Bad boy, Dan,’ Frankie says, shaking her head. ‘No wonder your halo’s slipped…’

  We order Coke floats and cupcakes and settle ourselves at the window table. The only other customer is an ageing hippy in an orange satin coat, sitting in the far corner eating a cheese sandwich from a plastic lunchbox.

  ‘Hey!’ Frankie whispers as Dan arrives back with the drinks and cakes. ‘He’s eating his own butties!’

  ‘Oh, that’s Ringo,’ Dan explains. ‘He’s a Beatles tour guide, and he’s started taking his breaks in here –’

  Frankie snorts. ‘Don’t tell me, that hideous taxi-thing belongs to him, right?’

  ‘It’s a yellow submarine, like in the Beatles song,’ Dan says. ‘He brought in a bunch of American tourists yesterday, and they had nine cakes and four giant lattes between them, so we pretend not to notice when he gets the cheese butties out.’

  ‘You’re nuts,’ Frankie mutters. ‘It’s a wonder you make any money at all…’

  A bell chimes as the cafe door swings open and a posse of teenagers come in – Lily Caldwell and some of Dan’s scally friends from school. She looks across and takes in the scene, then leans over and stubs out her ciggy on my cake plate. ‘Sorry,’ she says, not sounding it at all.

  ‘You’re not supposed to smoke in here,’ one of Dan’s little brothers pipes up, but Lily just gives him a cold stare and he shrugs and goes back to his homework.

  ‘Comin’ out, mate?’ one of the lads asks. His eyes scan the half-empty cafe, lingering with distaste on Ringo. ‘C’mon, Dan, this place is dead!’

  ‘I’m working,’ Dan says. ‘Y’know how it is.’

  ‘You could skive off,’ another says. ‘We’re goin’ into town!’

  ‘Sorry, not tonight,’ Dan shrugs. ‘Like I said.’

  Lily flicks back her tawny curls. ‘Just thought we’d drop in,’ she says softly. ‘We missed you at school today. Sure you won’t come out with us? It’d be fun, promise!’

  ‘I’m sure it would, Lily,’ Dan says. ‘But… no.’

  Lily’s face hardens. Her eyes catch mine, cold and mean, and I realize something. I don’t much like Lily Caldwell, but she really, really doesn’t like me.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she says, and the whole gang of them are gone, the door slamming shut behind them. Dan grabs the plate with the stubbed-out ciggy on it, brushing the whole lot into the bin just as his mum comes out from the kitchen, wiping floury hands on her apron.

  ‘What was that?’ she asks. ‘I thought we had people in!’

  ‘Just the wind slamming the door,’ Dan says. ‘Sorry.’

  The little brothers look up, exchanging glances, but Dan draws a finger across his throat when his mum isn’t looking, and the brothers keep their mouths closed.

  ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’ Dan’s mum says, smiling at us. ‘On our first day. I’m Karen Carney – it’s good to meet Dan’s friends from school.’

  Dan’s real ‘friends from school’ are slouching off down the street as we speak, Lily lighting up a new cigarette and the boys playing a noisy game of football with an old tin can. I drag my eyes back to Dan’s mum.

  ‘So, how was the school trip?’ she asks.

  ‘Trip?’

  ‘You remember,’ Dan prompts. ‘Alton Towers.’

  ‘Ah,’ Frankie grins. ‘Unforgettable, I’d say. Shame Dan couldn’t make it!’

  ‘It’s nice to see that Dan has such good friends,’ Karen Carney smiles. ‘There are some real scallies at that school. Ringo was telling me that someone tried to set fire to the place the other week! Probably while you were off with the flu, Dan. Can you believe it?’

  ‘I did hear something,’ Kurt says. ‘Terrible!’

  ‘Who would do a thing like that?’ Frankie wonders out loud.

  Dan, who has turned a kind of dark crimson colour, looks like he wants to slip through a crack in the lino.

  ‘There are some bad boys at school,’ I blurt, trying to rescue him. ‘But Dan is a good boy. Like… angel.’

  Frankie chokes on her cream meringue, but Karen Carney doesn’t seem to notice. She grins at me and her tired brown eyes are warm and sparkly. ‘Well… I’m very lucky with my boys, I know,’ she says. ‘It was lovely to meet you all again! Call in any time!’

  She heads back to the kitchen while Dan sinks down on to the window sill, hiding his face in his hands.

  ‘The flu?’ Frankie sniggers. ‘And Alton Towers, and scallies who set fire to the school… very interesting!’

  ‘She doesn’t know you were excluded, does she?�
�� Kurt says.

  ‘How about I say the cakes are on me, if you forget everything you just heard?’ Dan pleads. ‘Free cakes for life? As a symbol of our lasting friendship?’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ Frankie grins.

  I put down my cupcake, half-eaten. Frankie and Kurt are laughing with Dan, but as I watch him bribe his way out of the tangle of lies, there’s a bad taste in my mouth that even the sweet sugar frosting can’t hide.

  Dan told me himself, he’s complicated. Right now he’s cute and kind, but at school he’s a bad boy… about as bad as it’s possible to be.

  Which version is the real Dan?

  I haven’t a clue…

  Two days later, Kurt comes into school wearing skinny black cords and a silver studded belt, and Frankie just about faints with shock.

  ‘Anya!’ she hisses, grabbing on to my arm. ‘Look at that!’

  ‘New trousers!’ I breathe. ‘It’s a miracle!’

  ‘He looks so… different!’ Frankie says. ‘I mean… not so geeky. Not so lame.’

  Some of the Year Seven girls must think so too, because they give Kurt a double take as he swaggers past, then fall into a huddle, giggling and pink-cheeked.

  ‘So,’ says Kurt, ditching his rucksack at our feet and giving us a little twirl. ‘New kecks. What d’you think?’

  ‘Just call me a genius,’ Frankie says. ‘Seriously, I should be a stylist or something. Good to see you’re taking my advice at last!’

  ‘It’s cool,’ I tell Kurt. ‘Already you have some admirers, I think!’

  Kurt looks back at the group of Year Sevens and shrugs. ‘Maybe,’ he says carelessly, then spoils the cool act by pulling a terrified face. ‘They’re not laughing at me, are they?’

  ‘Laughing?’ Frankie huffs. ‘They’re smitten. Their little hearts are racing. They think you’re cute… so shut up and don’t spoil the illusion! What is this moth-eaten jumper you’re wearing?’

  Kurt has topped his spindly-legged look with a huge, black, drooping handknitted jumper. It really is moth-eaten too… there are several darns in the wool, and one of the sleeves seems to be unravelling slightly.