Efia blew out her cheeks. “It’s plausible.”
“It’s a lie,” I said.
“OK, well, we’ll talk to him,” Efia said, watching Drake as he flopped down behind his counter and started counting coins. “Later.”
I nodded, then did my best to look happy and welcoming as Bella spotted me and came over. “Hey, you,” she said.
“Hey. Hello. This is Efia. Efia, Bella.”
“Ah!” Efia said. “So you’re Bella! Ben … has mentioned you.”
Bella laughed. “All good things, I hope?”
“So good, I was beginning to wonder if you were actually real!” Efia grinned.
Oh yeah, we all had a good old laugh about that.
“I have pain au chocolat!” Bella said, holding up a large paper bag. “Thought it might help keep everyone going.”
“I actually love you,” Efia said.
Huh. Didn’t take long for her to be won round! Still, it was a nice gesture. And they did happen to be my favourite type of pastry, except for those Portuguese custard tarts.
“Well, I baked them myself, so I hope they measure up,” Bella added.
I mean, FFS, really?
“Ben’s request – he’s a sucker for my baking,” Bella continued.
“He’s in with Maggie,” I explained, sensing she was about to ask where Ben was.
She shook her head. “I have to give it to him, that boy has some stamina.”
My expression froze in a fixed smile. This was not the friendly small talk I was looking for.
“He’s like the Duracell bunny – he’s just keeps on, and on!” Bella laughed.
She was talking about his work ethic, right? I told myself that was definitely what she was talking about. This wasn’t about his sexual stamina. I mean, of course it wasn’t. I was going mad. I was reading all the wrong things into everything. I was a wreck.
I needed to take five minutes to sort my head out, but matters took their own course, because that was the moment a little kid opened the plastic egg she’d just got out of the Golden Goose, and screamed as a half-decomposed mouse and a load of hypodermic needles fell out of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bella was frozen to the spot.
Efia was completely silent.
Even Kem was staring, wide-eyed.
The screaming child’s mum, however, did what any sane person would do when a loved one was in danger and was filming the situation on her phone, zooming in on the rotting mouse and huge needles on the floor, as Maggie hurried over with the biggest stuffed animal Wonderland possessed.
“We’re so sorry,” she said, offering the giant lion to the crying girl. “Are you OK? Not hurt?” She looked at me. “Alex? Can you clean this away please? Quickly.”
“This is disgusting,” the mum was saying, still behind her mobile, her kid still wailing.
“We can only apologize,” Maggie repeated. “I’ve no idea how this could have happened. Alex!”
I flapped about, looking for some quick way of cleaning away the needles and mouse carcass.
“Dude, scoop it up in your hands!” Drake hissed.
I didn’t really want to do that, I mean, they were needles. What sort of lunatic picks up random needles with their hands? Never mind the manky rodent.
“It must be a faulty batch, I’m sure we can sort this out,” Maggie was saying.
I headed off to the office, muttering about “health and safety” and “dustpan and brush”.
“What’s going on out there?” Ben said, looking up from his laptop.
“Some kid opened an egg from the Golden Goose, and a load of crap fell out.”
“Crap as in, one of our usual prizes?”
“Crap as in a load of needles and a decayed mouse.” I took in Ben’s horrified expression. “Yeah, it’s not good.”
“But we were the last people to fill the goose up,” Ben said.
I nodded. I was well aware of the implications of all this.
“Well, did you notice any eggs had been tampered with?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, but I thought we’d put them in anyway – all adds to the fun, right?”
“All right, Mr Sarcastic!” Ben said. “Since you’re here, come and take a quick look at this.”
I was meant to be hurrying back with something to clean the dangerous mess up with, but he nudged up on his chair so that I could sit on the other half, right next to him, so naturally I did just that. He tapped on his laptop and a video starting playing on the screen – black and white, grainy, with lots of “covert” style shots and some pretty scary images of the Roswell aliens, with their child-like bodies and big heads with massive black eyes.
“That’s really excellent,” I said.
“Thanks. Took me all night, but I got there in the end.”
I flicked my eyes to him. “All night? All last night?”
He nodded, fiddling around with the volume on the soundtrack in the editing programme.
“Wow, that’s … I thought you’d be busy catching up with Bella?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “We caught up, I got on with this, she got tired, and anyway, she wanted to get home and see her folks, catch up with them too.” He shifted round in the chair to look at me. “Is … something the matter?”
I swallowed. “Matter?” I shrugged. “No.”
“OK, but you’re being weird.”
“Am I? How?” I said.
“On edge, I dunno.”
“Well, the golden egg thing—”
“With me, I meant. Ever since I got here. What’s up?”
I looked him in the eye. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I confirmed. I mean, actually, everything. Maggie suggesting Ben knew he would lose the bet – what did that mean? Ben nearly kissing me? Last night? Were we going to acknowledge any of that or just pretend like it didn’t happen? But then, maybe it didn’t happen? Maybe it was all in my head? Maybe I was unreliably narrating my entire existence? I cleared my throat and looked down towards the floor. “I mean, um … maybe just—”
He leaned towards me. “What?”
“Huh?”
“You’re mumbling, I can’t hear you,” he said.
“Oh, um, sorry.” I cleared my throat again. “I was just saying, maybe, you know, last night. Right?”
I glanced at him, and he was staring back, eyes darkening.
“ALEX!”
It was Maggie, red and furious, in the doorway.
“I was just getting it!” I bleated.
“Getting what?”
“Something to clean the mess up with.”
Maggie threw her hands in the air. “Well, try the cleaning cupboard, not the office!”
“Oh.”
“Oh.” Maggie said, in a mocking sort of voice. “NOW!”
I scrambled to my feet and hurried out of the office, but still heard her mutter a despairing “Boys!” as I left. Worse, I’d left the awkward conversation with Ben hanging. He clearly hadn’t liked what I’d started saying, and I hadn’t had time to make it better, backtrack, or gaffer tape my mouth shut so I could never speak again.
I hurried across the main floor, aware that Maggie was making a beeline back towards the fuming mother, whom Efia and Drake were still trying to persuade to calm down and put her phone away. The light switch in the cleaning cupboard was one of those little toggle ones that look like they’ve come straight out of 1940. In fact, it probably had, come to think of it. A very low-powered single light bulb came on, accompanied by the faint buzzing sound of dodgy electrics. I poked around the shelves, eventually finding a dustpan and brush amongst the old mop heads, bottles of bleach and assorted rags that should have been thrown away last century.
I hurried back over to the “crime scene”, where a full-blown slanging match was now in progress. As the kid’s mum shouted obscenities – “Shithole! That’s what this place is!” – and Maggie finally flipped – “Try sayin’ tha
t to my face!” (to which the mum replied, “I am sayin’ it to your face, you stupid cow!”) – I got down on my knees and did my best to scrape up the mouse corpse and assorted needles, using what must have been the world’s crappiest brush, which was missing most of its bristles. As Maggie and the kid’s mum circled around me like boxers gearing up for the first punch, I scurried out from between them, holding the dustpan at arm’s length, and wondered what the hell I was meant to do with it all now. Putting a dead mouse in the staffroom bin didn’t seem hygienic, and I was pretty sure needles were classed as clinical waste and were meant to be disposed of carefully.
“ALEX!” Maggie hissed. “Get that thing out of my sight!”
I stared at her and opened my mouth to speak—
“NOW!” she barked.
I jumped and headed straight back towards the cleaning cupboard, by default. At least there the mouse would be out of Maggie’s view, just like she’d asked, and I could have a moment to decide the best course of action. Although, once inside, I realized there was no solution to the body disposal issue and I’d just have to go out again, cross the gaming floor – in full sight of Maggie – and take the mouse somewhere else. I put the dustpan on the floor because I couldn’t have it near me any longer, and tried to decide what to do.
I jumped as the door creaked open behind me.
“Oh, it’s you,” I said, relieved it wasn’t the crazed killer I’d been expecting, since I was in a dimly lit cleaning cupboard.
“What are you doing?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Ben glanced over his shoulder, then nudged the door closed behind him. I froze in panic. This was it. We were going to have a “chat” and he would tell me I seriously needed to stop being obsessed with him and back off. The look in his eyes in Maggie’s office had said it all. He’d looked horrified. He sighed. “Look—”
“Nice cupboard!” I blurted out.
Ben’s eyes widened a little, whilst I mentally slammed my head repeatedly into the wall. Of course, I wasn’t done yet. “Haven’t been in here before. Quite big, really.”
Ben nodded, slowly.
“What’s this?” I said, desperately turning and grabbing the first thing I could find so that I could talk about it. “Cillit Bang. Ha! Multi-surface spray. Pretty … cool.”
“I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for,” Ben said, inching towards me.
I shook my head but clung on to it anyway, completely forgetting what it was I was looking for.
He took the Cillit Bang out of my trembling hands and placed it gently on the shelf behind me. But he stayed facing the wall, head bowed a little, and sighed again. “Look, if … if all this is anything to do with last night … I’m sorry, yeah? I was … I’m sorry, anyway, so, can we just—”
My breathing was jagged. “No! It wasn’t! Dinner was great!” I grimaced. I knew he wasn’t talking about dinner.
He smiled, shook his head, and turned to glance at me. “Good. I’m glad. I enjoyed dinner too.”
I swallowed and tried to read his face. So, he was saying he enjoyed dinner, but the thing in the street afterwards was a mistake? It felt like something important was slipping away from me. “We could do it again!” I added, trying to sound breezy and light.
“Maybe,” he said, sounding less than keen.
“We don’t have to…”
“No.”
“But … we could?”
Ben nodded.
I was sounding desperate. I needed to backtrack. “Bella could come too,” I added, just to make it clear I was happy with just being mates.
Ben flicked his eyes to mine, holding contact for a second or two. “Sure.”
“OK,” I said. “That would be … nice.”
And then there was this terrible silence where it just felt like I’d somehow said everything wrong.
The door flung open.
“ALEX!”
It was Maggie.
I grabbed the Cillit Bang and held it out towards her. “This?” I said.
She was silhouetted in the doorway, but I could tell she was quivering like she was about to explode. “What the actual frig use is a bottle of multi-surface spray?! What are you doing in here? Where’s the frigging mouse?”
“I wasn’t sure where to put it,” I pleaded.
“Sling it in the dumpster in the back yard!” Maggie screeched, giving me a hard scowl.
“Dumpster in the back yard.” I nodded. “Yes.”
She stormed back out, muttering and cursing under her breath.
“Ben?”
But he was gone before I could stop him. Way to go, Alex. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew I’d messed that one up.
“I think we should look at what’s staring us right in the face here,” Drake said as Maggie ushered us all into the staffroom for an emergency meeting, about half an hour later.
“Not now, Drake,” Maggie said.
“Why not now?” he replied. “We all know it, so I’m gonna say it. Ben and Alex were the last people to run maintenance on the Golden Goose.”
I looked at Ben, but he didn’t look back at me.
“We checked all the eggs,” I said. “We didn’t see anything.”
Drake gave a contemptuous chuckle. “Sure you did.”
“Shut up, all of you,” Maggie said.
We all stood in silence, feeling the burn of her glare as she looked us all up and down.
“All right,” she said, finally. “I’m aware that Ben and Alex were the last people to reload the goose, but you all know the keys to the goose are in this office, so if we’re really going to throw stupid accusations around, let’s be honest and say any one of you could have booby-trapped one of the spare eggs and slipped it in.”
I looked between by fellow suspects. My god. Any one of us! Well, except for me. I knew I hadn’t done anything. Not deliberately, anyway.
“However,” Maggie said. “There’s also quite a few of our regular punters who probably know that too, so as a precaution, the office is now going to be locked, twenty-four seven, and if you need to get in, you’ll have to see me. No one’s going to touch anything unless I know about it. Get it?”
We all nodded.
Maggie sighed. “I know I don’t pay much, but I do the best I can. You all know I’ll do anything to help you out; you’ve always got a home here, whatever else is going on. I hope … I hope you all know that. None of you had better be mixed up in this, or as God’s my witness, I will serve time for what I’ll do to you!”
I looked at Ben again, but he was looking down at his trainers.
“Now, I want all these new ideas to be up and running ASAP,” Maggie continued. “So it’s all hands to the pumps.”
Ben looked up. “Bella’s offered to help, if you like? She wants to hang out with me anyway and she told me she doesn’t need to be paid. It’ll mean we get some of the stuff done quicker.”
Now it was my turn to look down at my trainers.
“Fine,” Maggie said. “You, her and Alex can go through all the eggs in the goose again. Check every single one. Efia – rehearse the fortune telling with Eve. How long until the Roswell Experience is ready?”
“I reckon tomorrow?” Ben said. “Bella’s putting out teasers on social media about it.”
Of course she was. Probably in between brokering a peace deal in a war zone and singing lullabies to orphans.
“So we’ll make the relaunch date in three days?” Maggie said.
“For sure,” Ben replied.
Maggie nodded. “Get on with it then. No more screw-ups.”
We shuffled out of the staffroom, the unpleasant stench of suspicion hanging in the air. Efia came up close alongside me. “My money’s still on Drake,” she muttered.
“Yeah?”
“Trying to deflect attention on to you and Ben – absolute classic,” she said. “What were you doing with Ben in the cleaning cupboard?”
“Ruining everything,”
I said.
Efia grimaced. “Well, now Maggie has put you with Ben to work on the goose, the universe has granted you a chance to put it right.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t mess it up.”
She patted me on the shoulder and walked off to join Eve in the fortune-telling booth. I took a deep breath and strolled over, super casual, to the damn goose, where Ben and Bella were already pulling all the eggs out of its backside.
“We can probably manage this, if you want to do something else?” Ben said, not even looking at me.
I just stood there, mortally wounded.
“We’ll get it done quicker if Alex helps,” Bella said, giving me an encouraging smile.
Ben actually shook his head. “There’s so much else needs doing though, but whatever.”
Bella looked at me, like what the hell is his problem? At least I wasn’t imagining it. I shrugged. “That’s OK, I’ll …” I looked around for something else to do. “… I suppose I could help Eve with the fortunes then.”
Ben sniffed and started cracking open the eggs.
I seriously considered saying, “Just in case it’s this, I loved the fact you nearly kissed me!” but how could I, in front of his girlfriend?
“Sorry to have troubled you,” I said, quickly hurrying off towards the booth where Efia and Eve were. I ducked under the curtain and into the candlelit space where Eve was sitting (dressed in a velvet robe, virtually indistinguishable from her usual garb), behind a small table with a crystal ball and some tarot cards on it.
Efia sighed. “Did you mess it up?”
“I messed it up. By doing nothing. Just by existing, I messed it up.”
I flopped down on the chair next to Efia, and she pulled me towards her, giving me a little cuddle. “It’ll be OK,” she said.
I doubted it would be.
“Anything I can do to help?” I said.
“Sure,” Efia smiled. “Why don’t you be Eve’s first customer? She’ll do a reading for you, and I’ll observe and take notes for feedback.”
Eve smiled at me from beneath her hood. Maybe she meant it to be friendly, but she just looked like a demonic monk that was after my blood for a sacrifice.
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