CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dad shoved the bunch of petrol-station flowers he’d bought me into my hands as he put his key in the lock.
“Aren’t lilies flowers of death?” I said.
“She likes them.”
Of course she did.
“I’m not saying she has to be your best mate, Alex, but it’d be nice if you two could just get along? Yeah? Be civil to one another.”
“You know I was drunk? You know I don’t really think of her as the Borg Queen, right?”
“Well, that’s what you said.”
I sighed.
“And we’ll talk about the drunk part after you’ve apologized to her.”
“I’m sixteen though.”
“Precisely.”
Dad led me through the hall and pushed me into the lounge while he carried on towards the kitchen. Kendra was sitting on the sofa, laptop on her knees, typing away. She put a finger up, instructing me to wait, finished whatever she was doing, clicked the mousepad, shut the laptop up and looked at me.
I waited to see if she was going to speak.
She didn’t.
“I’m sorry, these are for you,” I said, quickly offering the flowers after a pause that lasted way too long.
She stared at me, unblinking.
“They’re lilies.”
Kendra glanced at the flowers, sniffed, then looked back at me again.
“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean it, I … I’d had a drink and I … it won’t happen again.”
Kendra sighed. “The thing is, you did mean it, didn’t you? You don’t like me. Why don’t you just admit that fact first, get it all out in the open, and then we can go from there.”
I ran my tongue over my lips. This felt like a trap. It felt like standing here and openly admitting how much I hated Kendra would definitely be the wrong thing to do, even though she’d just told me to say it. “No,” I squeaked. “I like you.”
She stared at me.
“I really like you,” I added.
A look of disgust and mild alarm flickered across her face.
“Oh, god, not like that,” I said.
“Good, Alex, I should hope not.” She scowled at me. “Are you going to give me the flowers?”
I handed them to her. “Lilies,” I said.
“Yes, you said.” She dropped them on the sofa next to her. “I hope they didn’t cost too much.”
“They didn’t.” I gave her a reassuring smile and then clocked her frown. “I mean, they were competitively priced. I wouldn’t waste money, that’s something you’ve taught me and … but I wanted to spend some money to show how sorry I was.”
This was all too much. I seriously considered just telling her exactly what I thought of her and letting thermonuclear war commence. But just as my hand was hovering over the big red button (is that really how they launch nuclear missiles – seems a bit obvious and naff?), Dad walked in.
“All OK?” he said, giving this hopeful little smile, which was kind of pathetic.
I nodded.
“Good,” Dad said. “Sit down then, please.”
Oh, brilliant, things were about to get even better.
“Now, obviously,” Dad continued, “you’re sixteen, and I’m sure you feel like you want a bit more freedom – seeing friends, staying out, parties and so on. And that’s fine. That’s normal. But with freedom comes responsibility.”
Which is odd, because responsibility sounds like the antithesis of freedom, but OK. I wondered whether he had memorized this verbatim from some useless teen parenting site.
“And, Alex, drinking to excess is not being responsible, is it?” Dad said.
“I think it was because I didn’t eat any dinner though,” I told him.
“No,” Kendra said. “It was because you consumed excessive quantities of alcohol.”
I looked down at my shoes.
“Alex? Don’t do that looking at your shoes thing – you need to look at us, please,” Dad said.
I swallowed and looked back up.
“Now, Kendra and I have spoken, and despite your poor behaviour towards both her and the box tree shrubs she kindly bought for the front of the house, we’ve decided not to ground you.”
“Sorry about the shrubs,” I said. “Oh, and thank you.”
“OK,” Dad said. “But I do want us to be adult about this. And you need to promise us both that there won’t be a repeat.”
“Sure,” I said. “No drinking.”
“Alex, I’m not naive enough to imagine you’re not going to drink again – of course you will. I’m just saying, act responsibly. Don’t do it to excess. Don’t get so off your face your mates have to bring you home and you end up urinating all over the front of the house.”
“Huh. No.”
“OK,” Dad said.
I nodded.
Kendra was notably silent. What was the betting she was originally pushing for the death penalty for my punishment? Anyway, maybe that was it now, and I could just go and lock myself away in my room for a bit. Like, six months or so.
“So!” Dad said. “Ben.”
My eyes widened. “Er … yeah?”
“He seems like a nice lad.”
I nodded slowly. “He … is.”
Dad smiled. “Well, good. I’m glad. Pleased for you.”
“Wait … what? What do you mean?”
“Pleased you’ve found a nice boyfriend,” Dad said.
“What?! No!”
Dad’s face dropped. Poor guy, he’s well aware of his son’s inability to attract romantic interest and I think he’s always felt sorry for me. And in this case, maybe he just saw Ben and assumed, for some reason. I don’t know, wishful thinking or whatever.
“Right,” Dad said. “But last night, you said—”
I was bolt upright. “No! What did I say?!”
“Kendra opened the door, you were weeing in the shrub, Kendra went to get me, I arrived and said, ‘Come on, mate, put it away’, you refused and I’m not going to stop you mid-flow—”
“Can you please stop talking about me peeing in the shrub and get to the important bit!”
“I offered my hand to the girl, Efia, to introduce myself, and then to the lad you’re with, and you … you said, ‘Hands off – he’s mine.’”
I closed my eyes.
“So, I mean, I naturally assumed…” Dad continued. “And especially when you then added … well…”
I kept my eyes closed. “What?” I muttered.
“‘He’s a hottie, don’t you think? He’s…’”
“Ohhh…”
“‘He is…’”
“Please stop.”
“‘He’s finger lickin’ good!’ So, forgive me if I got it wrong, Alex, but from what I was hearing, it sounded like you’d got yourself a boyfriend at last.”
I emitted some sort of deep, guttural groan. I’d suspected there was more to the story, because of the way Efia and Ben had been acting, I just didn’t think it would be this bad. I’d made an absolute idiot of myself. Worse (or possibly better, depending on how you look at it), I couldn’t even remember any of this. I dreaded to think what Ben must think of me.
“Did he say anything?” I said.
“Ben? Um … no, he just … he looked a bit sheepish now you mention it, but at the time I thought he was just bashful about meeting his boyfriend’s dad while you were in that condition.”
“And Efia?”
Dad nodded. “Yeah, well, that’s the other thing—”
Oh god, there was more…
“She said, ‘I hope they have a chocolate fountain at the wedding reception,’ and I laughed, and said, ‘Yes, definitely, they’re my favourite thing, especially with fresh strawberries’, and she said, ‘No, mate – marshmallows, and—’”
“Dad!” I said. “No one is getting married. Least of all me. And even more least of all to Ben. He’s got a girlfriend.”
“He could be bi!” Dad said triumphantly, as thoug
h he deserved points for knowing about different sexualities.
“Could be,” I agreed, “but he still has a girlfriend, and I’m not going to be that person who splits other people up.”
Kendra grabbed the flowers. “I hope that wasn’t a dig,” she said, walking out.
I stared after her.
“You may not say much,” Dad said, “but when you do…”
“Huh, yeah,” I muttered.
And then Dad laughed, which was something, at least.
And I had a little chuckle too, but only a small one, because at this point I was mainly thinking two things:
1)I must never be allowed near alcohol again.
2)I needed to apologize to Ben and really make it up to him, not just for this new piece of hideousness, but for going on about his dead mum so much. And then I needed to seriously back off from doing anything that suggested I fancied him.
I also needed to prove my worth to Maggie. In twenty-four hours I had managed to screw up so much stuff it was almost beyond belief.
“What you gonna do, then?” Dad said.
I took a deep breath. “I’m going to get some bacon and avocado, and make the best goddam sandwiches that boy has ever tasted.”
Dad nodded. “There’s both in the fridge. We’ve got some bread too.”
“No,” I said. “None of your shop-bought bread. I need some flour and I need some yeast. This has got to be perfect.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kem sidled up to me as I skulked out of the staffroom the next day. “So, Alex, my man,” Kem said, eyes twinkling. “Got any insider tips, now you’re working here?”
I blinked at him. “Like what?”
“Well, like anything? This girl, yeah? She’s proper special. I’m gonna need some serious dollar to impress her!” His face was animated with excitement, like I held the key to him becoming a millionaire and, by extension, winning this girl’s affections. He lowered his voice a bit. “Are any of the machines more likely to pay out? Do you tweak the probabilities? You must know stuff now!”
I screwed my face up a bit. “I only really just started though. Also, even if that was true, I might get in trouble if I said anything, so…”
Kem nodded. “Yeah, well, you can just quietly tip me a wink.”
I mean, sure, although I had no idea what it would be about.
“Post came,” Kem said, handing me the small pile of envelopes he was holding. “No one was out here, so I took them.”
“Thanks.”
“Now you owe me one!” he smiled.
I raised my eyebrows.
He slapped me on my back. “Kidding!” He laughed, then turned serious. “You do though.” Then he smiled again. “Nah, not really! Well, a bit maybe.”
“I need to get on.”
“I’m gonna try ‘Rainbow Riches’ – it’s got unlimited nudges, and I lost a lot of bank on Jackpot Genie yesterday.” He headed over to the row of fruit machines along the far wall. I wondered at what point Kem might be classed as having a gambling problem, and some sort of intervention should be staged. Maybe it was fine. I had no idea where he got his money from, though.
The post hardly heralded the most auspicious start to what I’d hoped would be a better day. There was a pretty aggressive letter from the bank, demanding overdue payment of a loan within five days, else they would start court proceedings. Definitely one for Maggie. And then this:
WONDERLAND = CHUNDER LAND.
YOU’RE NOT WANTED HERE. YOUR
CUSTOMERS HAVE GONE. YOU’RE NEXT.
LEAVE OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.
It was on the same thin paper with the same lunatic caps. I passed it to Ben as he walked by with a large cardboard box full of plastic golden eggs. He scanned the note, then looked at me. “Consequences,” he said.
“That’s a threat, isn’t it?”
Ben nodded. “Yeah. This one’s a threat.” He looked at the note again, chewing his lip as he read it. “Maybe from a different person though.”
“You think?”
“Correct use of ‘you’re’ and ‘your’ – when they couldn’t even put an apostrophe in ‘time’s’ in the last one. Just seems weird they’re suddenly good at writing.”
I nodded. “Good point.” I hadn’t even noticed. “We should tell Maggie.”
Ben shook his head. “Nah, she’s got slightly bigger problems right now.” I followed his glance over towards the back office, where Maggie was facing off with a huge man in a white shirt with a police-style gilet. “Bailiff,” Ben whispered.
My neck and shoulders stiffened. “Oh no.”
“It’s OK, Maggie was transferring some cash to their account just as I was leaving the office, but he’s giving it large about them wanting more by the end of the month.”
I glanced around at all the machines – and barely a single customer in sight playing on any of them. Having money by the end of the month was looking like a tall order.
Ben sighed, folded the note and stuffed it in his pocket. “We’ll tell her later – got enough on her plate.”
“I reckon she needs to tell the police,” I said.
Ben shrugged. “I guess that’s up to Maggie, but I don’t think she’s keen having them poke around the place.” He glanced over at Drake sitting in his prize booth. “Never know what they’re gonna find, right?”
“He offered me weed,” I said.
“Yeah, he offers everyone weed,” Ben said. “Here, you want to help me with this?” He picked up the box and led me over to the Golden Goose machine, which is basically a big plastic goose, with a see-through middle that is filled with golden eggs. You put your cash in, pull the goose’s tail, and it pops out an egg, which always contains a prize. Usually, it’s a pretty ropey prize, but legend has it some of the eggs contain twenty-and fifty-pound notes, and one has a Rolex watch in it.
I was dubious about the watch especially.
Ben set his box of eggs down next to the goose. “Maggie audited it, and apparently it’s been popping out big-value prizes. She reckons whoever’s been refilling the eggs has just whacked the new ones on top, rather than taking the big ones out first and refilling from the bottom.”
I narrowed my eyes at the goose. “You mean to say, you refill it with low-value prizes to come out first, and the big ones always stay on top so they hardly ever come out?”
“That can’t be a surprise to you.”
“I’m a bit disappointed.”
“The house always wins, you know that,” Ben said, taking a key from his pocket to open the small access door on the top of the goose. “So, we need to go through all the eggs, check the contents and refill it.”
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about your mum – I didn’t know.”
He stopped fiddling about with the goose and was still. “Well, I didn’t tell you, so how would you know?” he said, not looking at me. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Well, I—”
“I’m fine,” Ben said. “I’m OK.” He sniffed and prised open the access door. “Come on, let’s get this done.”
I didn’t say anything more, I just nodded, but I knew he wasn’t OK. Efia had told me as much, and his reaction now confirmed it. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t dare.
“Um … Ben? About the other night? When you and Efia helped me home…”
Now he looked at me. “What?”
“I…” I swallowed. “My dad tells me I said some stuff.”
Ben nodded, tight-lipped, possibly trying not to smile, I wasn’t sure. “Uh-huh.”
“OK, so … I … I may have said some things that were out of order, and if I did, then I’m also sorry about that too.”
“You were funny.”
“OK.”
“And like I said, you were just enjoying yourself and, OK, Efia has clearly taken it all seriously and decided to ship you and me something chronic, but we both know it was just the vodka talking. Right?”
“Huh. Sure.” Except I shipped us too. Something chronic. I didn’t think it was the vodka talking. I think it was just the vodka helping me talk. I broke his gaze and flicked my eyes to the floor, before remembering that Dad said I should stop doing that, so I looked back up at him again. I attempted a smile. I think it may have come out as more of a “bravely trying not to cry” sort of face.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Ben said.
“No, I just didn’t want things to be awkward, that’s all.”
“They’re not awkward.”
“No. This is fine, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes. Isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Let’s do the eggs,” Ben suggested, quickly plunging his hands in the back of the goose and pulling a heap out. “Start splitting them open and checking what’s inside. Put any high value ones to one side for now.” He taped an “Out of Order for Planned Maintenance” sign to the side of the goose, which seemed a little unnecessary since Wonderland was still deserted, except for Kem.
I nodded. “What counts as high value?”
“Anything more than key fobs or a stack of golden tickets.”
“Cool.” And I set to work prising the plastic eggs open.
“Breaking news!” Efia said, bounding up to us both in her black Scream outfit robes. “His name’s Freddie. He’s seventeen.”
Ben’s face lit up. “Is this Lemon Boy?”
“This is Lemon Boy!” Efia said.
I felt funny about how delighted Ben appeared to be at the mention of his name, but I guessed that proved how he didn’t fancy me – he was pleased some other boy was in the picture.
“Other facts: he’s a Star Wars nerd,” Efia continued. “You can thank me for my excellent detective work later.”
“How do you even know all this?” I said.
“Asked some people who knew people who knew people who knew him.” Efia shrugged. “The info is all legit. I’ve corroborated it.”
I went back to checking the eggs, a bit glum about Ben’s keenness on me and Lemon Boy, and feeling the burn of Efia’s eyes on the back of my head.
“Oh. My. God,” she said, after a bit. “That’s fine, you don’t need to use the information I’ve so kindly procured, but if you don’t, I expect that’s all you’ll ever be doing.”
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