Girl Online

by Zoe Sugg

  I nod, my eyes fixed on the skyline. Whereas the buildings in Manhattan are mainly gleaming mirrored glass or white stone, the Brooklyn skyline is made up of browns and reds, and it looks beautiful against the clear blue sky—like autumn leaves.

  “Welcome to my hometown,” Noah says as we approach the final archway on the bridge.

  I turn to look at him. “Do you live here?”

  “Sure do. So, what do you think?”

  “I love it. It reminds me of autumn.” Why did you say that? Why can’t you just speak normally? my inner voice instantly yells.

  “The colors?” Noah says.

  “Yes.” I breathe a sigh of relief that he understands what I was trying to say.

  “I get that. Your hair reminds me of autumn too.”

  I look at him questioningly.

  “Autumn has all the best colors.”

  I look away but my mouth won’t stop curling into a grin.

  As we drive off the bridge, Noah carries on his running commentary of turns and intersections until we get to a way quieter, residential area where the streets are narrower and lined with trees. I begin to properly relax again.

  “Thank you,” I say, staring out of my side window at the row of tall brownstone houses. “I feel so much better now.”

  Noah grins at me. “No problem. Let’s go get the tiara and then we can get on with the rest of the Mystery Tour.”

  “Good plan.”

  Noah turns the corner into a small street lined with quirky-looking cafés and stores. It’s like an American version of the Lanes. He pulls into a parking spot and turns to me and smiles. “You sure you’re OK?”

  I nod. “Yes, definitely.”

  He reaches over to the backseat for a scuffed leather biker’s jacket and puts it on. Then he looks up and down the street, like he’s checking for something, before he gets out of the truck, and I follow. It feels good to be outside on solid ground. I take a deep breath of the crisp cold air.

  “The store’s just up here,” Noah says, pointing ahead of us.

  As we walk past a secondhand bookshop, the door opens and a girl comes out. She looks at Noah and smiles like she knows him, but he just keeps on marching ahead.

  “I think we just went past someone you know,” I say, running to keep up with him.

  “What?” Noah looks distracted.

  “That girl, back there.” I turn and look back to see the girl still standing outside the bookshop, staring after us.

  “No, I don’t think so.” He pulls up the collar on his jacket against the cold. “Here we are.” We’re standing by a store called Lost in Time. The window is crammed full of antique treasures. Noah opens the door and bustles me in. It’s like walking into an Aladdin’s cave. Everywhere I look I see something that immediately makes me want to take its picture—an old sewing machine, a gramophone, rails of vintage clothes. Elliot would love it here. I feel a wistful pang and wonder how Elliot is doing with Dad. I cannot wait to see him again and tell him all about Noah.

  As I follow Noah through the store, I see a beautiful china doll dressed in a dark blue velvet dress with a lace collar that’s yellowing from age. Her hair is long and silky and the exact same shade of auburn as mine. She even has some freckles painted onto her nose. The doll is sitting on top of a pile of old books and her head has flopped to one side, making her look really sad. I instantly reach for my camera and take a shot. As the flash goes off, Noah jumps and spins around to look at me.

  He instantly relaxes.

  “She looks so sad,” I say. “I wonder how she ended up here. I bet she misses her owner.” I pick up the doll and straighten out her dress. “I hate the thought of abandoned toys. When I was younger, I wanted to start a toy orphanage. But then it got a bit out of control because every time we went to a school fair or walked past a charity shop I’d want to rescue every toy in there.” Stop rambling, my inner voice snips. I put the doll back on the pile of books.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Noah says.

  I look at him hopefully. “You do?”

  “Uh-huh. Only with me it’s musical instruments. I can’t stand it if I see an old guitar abandoned in a thrift store. Instruments were made to be played.”

  I nod. “Just like toys were made to be played with.”

  “Exactly.”

  We look at each other and smile and I feel a strange sensation inside of me, like on some invisible level, part of me and part of Noah just slotted together.

  We both walk over to the counter at the far end of the shop. An old man with an epic curly white mustache is sitting behind the counter, reading a book. “Yes,” he says without even looking up.

  “We’ve come to collect a tiara,” Noah says, looking at the scrap of paper Mum gave him, “for a wedding.”

  “Have you now?” The man slowly puts his book down and peers at us over the top of his glasses.

  Noah and I glance at each other and I have to fight the urge to giggle.

  “Aren’t you all a little too young to be thinking about getting hitched?” The man continues staring at us.

  “It’s not for our wedding,” Noah says.

  “No—we’re not getting married!” I exclaim, a little too forcefully.

  Noah frowns at me. “Are you saying you wouldn’t marry me?”

  “No—I—yes—I . . .” My face starts working its way through the crimson spectrum.

  “And after we’ve been together for a whole”—Noah pauses to look at his watch— “a whole one hour, fifty-seven minutes.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, playing along with the joke. “I know it’s been ages, but I’m just not ready for that kind of a commitment.”

  Noah looks at the man and sighs. “My heart is broken—broken!”

  The man raises his white eyebrows and looks at us. Then he shakes his head and gets up and disappears off into the back of the shop.

  Noah and I glance at each other.

  “Where’s he gone?” I say.

  Noah shrugs. “Your cruelty must have really gotten to him. He’s probably out back sobbing his heart out. He’s probably—”

  “Here you are.” The man comes back into the shop carrying a flat square box. He puts the box on the counter and takes off the lid. Inside, on a bed of pale pink satin, is a beautiful tiara made of creamy teardrop pearls—it’s even better than the original one. I breathe a huge sigh of relief on Mum and Cindy’s behalf.

  “It’s perfect,” I say.

  Noah nods in agreement.

  “I think my mum already paid for it on her credit card,” I say to the shop owner.

  “She sure did.” He puts the lid back on the box and puts the box in a small paper bag.

  “Thank you,” Noah and I say in unison.

  “Welcome,” the man grunts, going back to his book.

  “Have a nice day,” Noah says in a fake cheery voice.

  The man doesn’t say a word.

  “Wow, he was friendly,” I whisper sarcastically, as we head to the door.

  “That’s New York charm for you,” Noah whispers back.

  I go to open the door and I feel him reach around from behind me to open it for me.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not all like that,” he says.

  And I don’t know why, but there’s something about the way he says it that sends a shiver of excitement shimmying up my spine.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Stepping out into the icy air helps my pulse return to somewhere close to normal. The sky is now filling with banks of white clouds and people are hurrying by with their heads down against the chill breeze.

  “You hungry?” Noah asks.

  I nod. Now I come to think of it, I’m absolutely starving.

  “OK, I know this great place we can go to that has food and adventure all rolled into one.” He looks at me and grins and I get that shivery feeling again.

  “Food and adventure,” I say, trying to joke my way back to un-shivery normality.

  �
��Uh-huh. This place was made for Magical Mystery Day.”

  “Well then, we must go there immediately.”

  As we head back to the truck, I see the girl from the bookstore. She’s standing outside a café now, chatting on her phone. When she sees us, she starts really staring at Noah again.

  “There’s that girl, the one I thought knew you,” I say.

  Noah casts a brief look at the girl and pulls his hat down. “Never seen her before,” he mutters, quickening his pace.

  As we pass the girl, I glance at her.

  “It is,” she says animatedly into her phone but still staring at Noah. Then I realize what’s going on. He’s so striking-looking that this kind of thing must happen all the time. He’s literally a girl-gaze magnet. I feel a sudden pang of sorrow. What am I doing having fluttery feelings for someone like Noah? For all I know, he might have a girlfriend. He must have a girlfriend. How could the owner of those cheekbones and that smile not have a girlfriend?

  “Why the sad face?” Noah asks as we get into the truck.

  “I’m not sad,” I say as breezily as I can, gazing out of the window. The girl is walking toward us now, still holding her phone.

  “OK, let’s go,” Noah says, quickly pulling out onto the road.

  I instinctively grip onto the seat. Thankfully, a call from Mum provides a welcome distraction.

  “Did you get it?” she says without even saying hello.

  “Yes and it’s lovely,” I tell her. “Even better than the original.”

  I can actually hear her sigh of relief.

  “Noah and I were just going to get some lunch,” I say, praying that she won’t need me to come back to help her with anything.

  “What’s that? Oh, could you hang on a second, darling?”

  “Sure.”

  I hear the shriek of children’s laughter. “No dancing on the tables, please,” Mum says in a shrill voice. “Sorry, Penny, it’s the flower girls—they’re very full of life. What were you saying?”

  “Would it be OK for me to go and get some lunch with Noah?”

  “No!” Mum yells. “Do not get chocolate all over your dress! Oh, Penny, I swear, if their mothers don’t come back soon I am going to go insane. Yes, of course you can go for lunch, darling. Your dad just texted and he and Elliot have gone off to see a movie in Times Square, so take your time. Have some fun,” she says wistfully. The shrieking in the background reaches fever pitch.

  “Thanks, Mum. Love you.”

  “Love you too, sweetheart. No! Do not eat the flowers!”

  We’re driving through a more industrial area now. Every so often I catch glimpses of the river between the buildings.

  “All OK back at the ranch?” Noah asks.

  “Yeah. I think my mum might be about to have a nervous breakdown but she said I can stay out as long as I like.”

  “Awesome.” Noah glances at me. “I mean, awesome that you can stay out, not awesome that she’s having a nervous breakdown. But don’t worry—it’s impossible to have a nervous breakdown with Sadie Lee around. She’s like a walking, talking, baking, comfort blanket.”

  I laugh. “Sounds like the perfect grandma.”

  “Oh, she is.” There’s something about the serious way Noah says this that makes me instantly look at him, but his face is expressionless and fixed on the road. “So, up at that turn I’m going to hang a left,” he says, “and then we’re pretty much there.”

  “Oh.” We’re surrounded by grim-looking warehouse buildings now, and there are hardly any people around. I can’t see anywhere that looks remotely like a hotbed of food and adventure, but maybe once we get around the corner we’ll emerge into the heart of a quirky little neighborhood, crammed full of vintage stores and cafés.

  Instead, when we get around the corner, we emerge into an industrial wasteland full of garbage Dumpsters and tumbleweed. OK, there isn’t actually any tumbleweed, but there should be—it’s totally a tumbleweed kind of place.

  Noah pulls up outside a warehouse building that looks long abandoned. The walls are crumbling and covered in faded graffiti like old tattoos. Most of the windows are boarded up with sheets of corrugated iron and the few that aren’t are lined with heavy metal bars. Even the trees that are dotted about look derelict, leafless, and spindly against the beige brickwork.

  “I know it looks kind of sketchy,” Noah says in what has to be the understatement of the year, “but once you get inside it’s a whole other story.”

  “We’re going inside—there?” I stare at the building. The only time I’ve seen anything like this before has been in the scariest scenes of really scary movies—usually involving crazed psychos armed with guns. Or, one time, an actual chain saw.

  Noah laughs. “You’re gonna love it, seriously.”

  I turn to stare at him. Maybe he really is crazy, and not in a good way. “But w-what—is it?” I stammer.

  “I’m taking you to a secret café—for artists,” he says.

  I admit it; now I’m interested. “Really?”

  “Yep. No one knows it’s here. They never advertise it. It’s strictly invitation-only.”

  “So how do you know it’s here?” Although the idea of an invitation-only, secret café for artists intrigues me, I’m still not fully convinced.

  “My dad used to have a studio here,” Noah says, taking the keys from the ignition. “The whole building’s full of artists’ studios. It began in the seventies when the building was empty and a whole bunch of artists started squatting in it. Then, in the nineties, when the authorities wanted to bulldoze it, the artistic community got together to protest and the mayor granted the building a special status.”

  “Wow.”

  Noah nods. “This is the real New York,” he says wistfully. “Places like this. It’s also my favorite place in the world,” he says.

  I immediately get that fluttery feeling again at the thought of him bringing me to his favorite place in the world.

  “And, hey, it seemed like the perfect place for Magical Mystery Day—it’s top secret and it has cake.”

  “It’s perfect,” I say, and Noah starts to grin.

  We get out of the truck and the icy wind is so biting it makes me shiver.

  “You cold?” Noah asks.

  I nod. “A bit.”

  He takes off his scarf. “Here.” I stand dead still as he puts the scarf around my neck. He’s so close to me I daren’t lift my gaze from the floor. Then I do look up, and for a split second we’re staring into each other’s eyes. And click—I feel another part of me slotting into place with him.

  “Come on.” He places his hand gently in the small of my back and guides me over to a gap in the metal fence surrounding the building.

  We scramble down a steep bank covered in weeds and stubbly grass, and over to a large metal door. There’s an old keypad next to the door. Noah presses some of the numbers and there’s a clicking sound. He pulls the door open and ushers me in. We’re standing in a concrete corridor lit by harsh flickering fluorescent strip lights. The one appealing thing is the graffiti on the walls. This graffiti isn’t like the faded tags on the outside. These are proper works of art, whole murals stretching all the way along the corridor.

  A door in the wall opens and a woman comes out. She’s wearing a long tie-dyed dress and her hair is pulled back into hundreds of beaded braids. It’s so nice to see someone so bright and colorful and friendly-looking that I’m instantly reassured.

  “Noah,” the woman cries as soon as she sees him.

  “Hey, Dorothy, how’s it going?”

  “Great. I just found out I’ve got two pieces accepted for an exhibition downtown.”

  “That’s awesome.” Noah gives the woman a hug. Then he turns back to me. “This is my friend Penny. She’s come all the way from the UK. I wanted to bring her someplace special for lunch.”

  Dorothy gives me a warm smile. “Well, you came to the right place. Welcome to New York, honey.”

  “Thank you
.”

  “OK, I’ll catch you guys later—gotta go have a meeting with the gallery. Well done, Noah. I’m so proud of you.” Dorothy gives him another hug and starts heading off along the corridor.

  Noah looks really embarrassed as he turns to me. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

  I follow him to a door at the end of the corridor that opens onto a stairwell.

  “The café’s down in the basement,” he explains, holding the door open for me.

  “Why was Dorothy proud of you?” I ask as we head down the concrete steps.

  “Oh, she was just messing,” Noah says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think it was because I was with you.”

  I look at him blankly.

  “Because you’re a girl,” he says, the tips of his cheeks beginning to flush. “She’s always on me that I should have a girlfriend—not that you’re my girlfriend,” he adds hastily, his cheeks blushing even redder.

  “No,” I say, and we look at each other for a split second.

  He shrugs, and then we carry on walking.

  But I can’t help feel a glow spread all the way up from my toes. Because even though he’s Rock-God–tastic, and even though he lives in a whole other country, on a whole other continent, and even though I’ll be going back home in two days’ time and will probably never see him again, part of me wants to jump up and down for joy. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once we get to the bottom of the stairwell, Noah leads me over to a door.

  “It’s going to be really dark at first,” he says. “Is that all right?”

  I nod, but I must look apprehensive, as he instantly takes hold of my hand.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “It has to be dark to get the full effect.”

  “OK,” I say, not having a clue what he’s on about, but it really is OK—anything would be OK right now—his hand holding mine feels so warm and so strong.

  “Ready?” he says.

  “Yes.”

  I hear him flick a switch and suddenly we’re standing in a beautiful underwater world. At least it feels as if we are. The whole corridor has been painted to look like a seascape. The black walls glimmer with luminous pictures of fish and shells and emerald-green strands of seaweed.