Cassie's Crush (14 page)

I nodded, flushing pink at the very thought of it.

“See that?” Ray said, pointing to a huge blue and white sign which said Armando's Fish Bar. “It'll be wrapping fish and chips by now.” I knew
our
copy wouldn't, as I had ripped it into tiny pieces and stuffed it into the bottom of our bin. But I understood what she meant – that it'll be old news very soon.

It wasn't until we went for coffee and cake that I started to feel puzzled. Why had Ray brought me out today? Sure, she was going out with my brother (sort of), but I'd never even spoken to her before. Did she feel sorry for me, crying on the garden wall, or what? She sipped her black coffee while I had hot chocolate with cream and a Flake, which she insisted she'd pay for (just as well, as I'd come out without my £1.72. Also, I must learn to like coffee ASAP). “Um … how old are you, Ray?” I asked hesitantly.

“Eighteen,” she told me.

“You're two years older than Ned!” I exclaimed, wanting to ask if her friends teased her or called her a cradle snatcher.

“So what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

I shrugged. “I just, er…”

“You don't
mind
, do you?” she asked teasingly.

“Of course not,” I exclaimed. We fell into silence again as I tried to figure out how to ask her why she'd done so much to cheer me up today. Then, as if she could read my thoughts, she answered my question before I'd even asked it.

“It's funny,” she said, fixing me with her green eyes, “you're so like I was when I was thirteen. I don't mean that to sound patronizing…”

Miss Rashley is what I'd call patronizing, not Ray. “It's fine,” I said quickly.

“And when I saw you there, sitting and crying in your garden,” she continued, “it could have been me, five years ago, when my parents had been called to school and I'd just been excluded…”

“You were excluded from school?” I gasped. Ray nodded and smiled ruefully. “What for?” I asked.

“Oh, a whole mixture, really. Being cheeky, fighting, swearing at teachers…” She shook her head. “I was a real charmer, I can tell you.”

I looked at her, not quite knowing what to say. “You're not like that now,” I murmured.

“No, thank God,” she laughed. “It all came together eventually. I took my exams at college, did some travelling, learned French and taught a bit of English, and now I'm back here, working for my dad until I decide what to do next…”

“But you're only eighteen!” I exclaimed. “How come you've managed to do all that?”

Ray smiled. “Maybe I was determined to make up for lost time after messing around all those years … not that I think you're like that,” she added quickly. But I do remember thinking that everything was hopeless when I was thirteen, just as you looked today…”

“…And that was only about a party,” I reminded her. “It makes my problems seem kind of pathetic.”

“I still think you'll be able to persuade your mum to let you go,” Ray said firmly, “if you're calm and reasonable about it. She's not an ogre or anything…”

“I know,” I murmured, spooning the last of the creamy hot chocolate into my mouth.

As we left the café, I was trying to figure out how to persuade Mum, and wondered if she'd started to worry because Ray and I had been gone for an hour or so by now. No – she was probably just relieved I wasn't moping about. We climbed back on to Ray's bike and sped past the zoo, which made me think of rhino horns and love potions and Marcia's party happening in just a few hours' time.

Without telling me where we were going, Ray pulled up at a little cluster of shabby shops on the edge of town. One was called Party Box and had a peeling sign and a display of faded masks in the window. “Come on,” she said. “We're going in.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We're going to get you a costume for the party.”

“But what if I still can't go? Anyway, I don't have any money…”

Ray gave me a wide, gappy smile. “Things have a way of working out, Cassie. Come on.” She grabbed my hand. “Let's go in and see what they have. My treat.”

I couldn't understand why she was doing all this for me. Then it dawned on me that maybe Ray had a plan, and that she'd had to figure out ways to get around her mum too. “I suppose if I had a costume already,” I said as we stepped into the shop, “Mum would be more likely to let me go.”

“Exactly,” said Ray. I gazed around the shop, which was crammed with costumes and masks and crazy hats from the floor right up to the ceiling. A woman with a pale face and long, witchy hair smiled at us from the counter. “Looking for something for a party, love?” she asked.

“Yes, she is,” Ray said quickly, before I'd even opened my mouth. So I flicked through the rails, peering at furry gorilla outfits and ballet tutus and every kind of costume you could imagine. “What about this?” Ray said, holding up a black, all-in-one catsuit.

I liked it. Something about Ray's green eyes and all the doggie stuff at home made the idea of being cat-like quite appealing. “It's great,” I said, “but honestly, I'm probably never going to have a chance to wear it.”

“Just try it on,” she said. “Let's see what it looks like.”

I smiled and took it from her. For the first time in ages, I was actually enjoying myself. It was great to be away from snooty Beth and Mum's moods. I slipped into the tiny changing room and drew the bat-patterned curtain. Maybe it's because I was excited to try the thing on, but I actually forgot about my lopsided boob situation until I'd undressed to my underwear and had struggled into the stretchy catsuit. “Hey,” Ray hissed from outside the cubicle. “You forgot this.” She jabbed her hand round the curtain and passed me a velvety, whiskery cat mask.

“Thanks, I said. I put the cat mask on and paused for a moment before facing the tall, thin mirror. I hadn't padded my bra and I knew my left non-boob would be dead obvious in something so stretchy and tight. I turned nervously and peered at my reflection through the mask's eyeholes.

And it wasn't me. It
couldn't
be plain old Cassie Malone, because in the mirror I saw a normal-shaped girl in a mask and a catsuit whose body was completely symmetrical.

I couldn't believe it. I wondered if it was an illusion caused by the mask, or if this was one of those trick mirrors that changes your shape like you get at the fairground. I pulled off the mask and looked again. It had happened, and it was nothing to do with trying to be left-handed or exercising my left side. Grinning, I pulled the mask back on and leapt, feline-like, out of the cubicle. “So,” I said as Ray turned around to look at me, “what d'you think?”

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “
Amazing
.”

“You look fantastic, Catgirl,” chuckled the woman behind the counter.

“You really think so?” I asked, feeling suddenly shy.

“Admit it,” Ray said, laughing. “You know you do. Go take it off and we'll buy it.”

“Thanks!” I exclaimed. That one little word didn't seem nearly enough. I had another quick look at my new cat-self and tried a few feline moves in the mirror. Then I pulled off my outfit and examined myself in my underwear. It wasn't the mask, the catsuit or a trick mirror at all.

My left boob had caught up, simple as that, just as Marcia said it would. I felt crazily happy as Ray took me home, as if a little bit of her magic had rubbed off on me.

 

As Ray went up to see Ned in his room, I sat on our front step and called Marcia, desperate to tell her about my amazing day. “Oh,” she said. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Right,” like I was talking about clearing out the shoe cupboard or something.

“You don't sound impressed,” I said.

“Sorry, Cass. It's just, you won't believe what's happened…”

“What?” I asked.

“It's off,” she wailed. “Mum won't let me have the party. I can't believe she's doing this to me with everyone coming…”

“Why?” I asked, hardly able to believe what I was hearing.

“It's my own fault…” She sounded really choked up now.

“Don't get upset! How can it be your fault?”

Marcia sniffed loudly. “I'd written a list of everyone who'd said they were coming, and Mum saw it and went mad. She said there's no way our house is being overrun by hundreds of strangers and—”

“How many people did you invite?” I asked.

“Not that many! And none of them are strangers…”

“How many, Marce?” I asked gently.

“Er, well, maybe I
did
get a bit carried away…”

“Marcia,” I said, “how many people were meant to be coming tonight?”

“Ninety-two,” she mumbled.

“Ninety-two?” I repeated. “Are you kidding?” Never mind fitting them all into her house. I couldn't believe she knew so many people. It made me feel like a complete Nelly-no-mates.

“When they heard the Leech was coming,” she explained, “everyone wanted to come. Pretty much every boy in our year, anyway, and I thought…”

“So how many boys did you invite?”

“About sixty, I think. I sort of lost track.” Sixty boys. Great. That's sixty boys who were coming not because it was Marcia's party, but because they all wanted to be with the Leech.

“How many boys were coming
before
the Leech invited herself?”

“Er, eight,” she mumbled. Great. Well, even if I had been allowed to go, the last thing I'd have wanted was to be batting off the Leech's reject boys.

“D'you want to come over?” I asked. “We could watch a film or something…”

“I'd better not.”

“Oh, Marcia,” I murmured. “This whole thing's a real mess, isn't it?”

“It's all right,” she said in a tiny voice. “Like I said, it was my fault, really. Oh, and I meant to tell you…”

“What?” I asked anxiously.

“Mum found your bra and school top, the ones that were stained blue, in the bottom of our linen basket and threw them away. Want me to try and rescue them for you?”

“No, it's OK,” I said. Like I cared about a ruined old bra and top anyway.

I felt so bad as we finished the call. This whole party business wasn't her fault – it was mine. After all, the whole idea had started with my crush on Ollie. Did he really deserve all this fuss, as Ray had suggested? All the party arranging, and the trouble I'd got into with Chilli Galore and the police and the newspaper? I thought of everything I'd done to try and be his girlfriend:

I'd followed him to his house…

And nearly been savaged by Monty… (What kind of a dog's name was that anyway?)…

Made a disastrous jam potion…

Failed to turn myself into a Venus flytrap…

Stalked him and got stuck on the roof and sort of got arrested…

When I thought of it like that, it did seem a bit much. Marcia was right – I've been a little obsessed lately. And now I had a wasted costume, after Ray had bought it for me –
and
all those people were meant to be coming over to Marcia's.

When I called her again later, she said she'd got hold of as many as she could, who'd promised to spread the news about the cancelled party. I said I'd call everyone I could think of too. “I feel so stupid,” Marcia muttered down the phone. “Other people are allowed to have parties. It's not as if Mum was even planning to go out!”

“Marcia,” I said, as kindly as I could, “she'd have found out how many people you'd invited when they all turned up, and that would've been worse.”

“I know,” she said gloomily, not sounding remotely convinced.

VALENTINE'S DAY! The postman staggered to our front door with a bulging sack of cards for me (joke). Actually, this was the Valentine quota in our house:

Mum:
one. From Dad, of course. I recognized it as one of the 10p ones Asda were selling. Still, you can't put a price on love, I guess.

Dad:
none. But Mum did kiss him noisily on his baldie spot and say, “You don't need a card to know I love you, do you, Colin?”

Ned:
one card swiftly thrust into jeans pocket.
Intriguing.
Could it be from Ray?
I hoped so.

Princess Beth:
huge padded satin card with two fwuffy pink teddy bears cuddling on the front of it. Barf. Also a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Double-barf.
And
a red rose in a box! How unoriginal. How
clichéd.
But what would you expect from toilet-stink Henry?

Me:
none. Not that I'm bitter or anything. I just sat there, munching toast with some strange brown jam on it which Dad said is “still on trial” and “not ready for the general public yet”. Like
we're
not the general public.

At least Marcia had cheered up – she called to say Daniel had delivered a card and some yummy truffles – and Mum was being nicer to me too. I don't know if it's because she felt all loved-up because of Dad's 10p card, or if she'd started to feel guilty about banning me from going to Marcia's party (I hadn't told her it was cancelled as I wanted her to regret being so mean). “Doing anything nice today?” she asked as we cleared up the breakfast stuff together. I waited for her to announce that my task today was to shampoo eighteen Dalmatians.

“Don't know,” I said. “Thought I might meet Marcia and Evie, go for a swim or something.”

“That sounds good.” Mum stopped putting plates away and looked at me. “Cassie…” She paused. “I had a little chat with Ray yesterday.”

My stomach clenched in panic. Now she was going to lecture me about never going on a motorbike again, ever. “Did you?” I asked nervously.

Mum nodded. “She … she's a lovely girl, isn't she?”

“Yeah,” I said, scraping a bit of dried egg off a plate with my fingernail.

“She reckoned I was being a bit harsh with you,” Mum added.

“Did she? What about?” I knew, of course. It gave me a warm feeling, knowing Ray had stuck up for me.

“About not letting you go to Marcia's party last night.”

“Oh.”

“Do
you
think I was?” she asked.

“Well, um…” I wanted to say she'd been pretty unfair, especially as the party had been the best anyone had ever been to. But I knew I'd never get away with that, as one of her mum-spies would be bound to tell her it hadn't happened. “It didn't make any difference,” I muttered, “‘cause Marcia's mum made her cancel it anyway.”

“Really? Why?”

“She found out she'd invited ninety-two people.”

Mum burst out laughing. “That was a bit much, wasn't it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I smiled at the thought of so many people all jammed into Marcia's living room, tramping in dirt and dropping crisps all over the precious cream carpet. “Mum,” I said cautiously, “did you ever do stuff like that at my age? I mean, plan big parties and get into trouble?”

Mum thought for a moment, then said, “The big thing I did – well, I was a bit older than you. I was seventeen…”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, you know I used to drive my parents crazy by hanging out with bikers…”

I nodded, even though she'd never said much about it before.

“I met this one boy,” she continued, “and my mum and dad banned me from seeing him.”

“Why?”

“He was a bit wild,” she explained, “but that's why I liked him, of course. Instead of staying in my room at night, I'd climb out of the window and down the drainpipe, and once I managed to scramble on to his garage roof so I could sneak into his room, a bit like
you
…” She smirked and waggled her eyebrows at me.

“I've never climbed into a boy's room!” I exclaimed.

“No, love. Just on to a kebab house roof, then…”

“OK, Mum,” I murmured, relieved that she looked amused instead of furious.

“Anyway,” she went on, her eyes gleaming at the memory, “I'd sneak off and meet him and sometimes we'd stay out all night.”

My eyes widened. “What happened?”

“You mean, did I get into trouble? God, yes. But we kept seeing each other anyway. I shouldn't say this to you, Cassie, but sometimes you just have to do what feels right.”

I could hardly believe Mum was telling me this, and wondered if I'd do all that if it meant I could be with Ollie. Now, I wasn't quite so sure. “So,” I asked, “what happened to the boy in the end?”

Mum laughed and tossed back her dark wavy hair. “What, him? Oh that was your dad.”

 

I couldn't believe it – that the boy Mum used to sneak out to see now drives a cheese-mobile at seventeen miles per hour and uses special lotion to stop his hair falling out. I could see him through the kitchen window, fiddling with our car, and I couldn't match the man who must've been Mum's Amazing Person with the one bending down and sniffing inside the boot.

I went out to try and help him. “Dad,” I said, “can you remember when the smell started?”

He rubbed his face and I still couldn't imagine the wild biker boy he once was. “Around Christmastime, I think,” he said. While he poked about outside, I climbed into the car and searched and searched, even under the carpets for about the fiftieth time, but I still couldn't find anything. “We don't know
what
it is,” I heard Dad saying, and I assumed he was talking to one of our neighbours, who probably thinks we're the weirdest family in the street. “It's strong and cheesy,” he added.

“Yeah, I know,” came a male voice.

“I've tried everything…” Dad said, sounding as if he'd lost all hope.

“Er, Cassie?” Someone was tapping the car's side window. I looked up and saw Sam and scrambled out as quickly as I could.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to brush all the bits of car dust and ick off myself.

“I, er…” Sam shuffled and scratched at his neck. “I just wondered, um … a few of us thought…”

I looked at him and nodded, realizing he'd gone a bit pink. “What, Sam?” I prompted him, willing Dad to go back into the house.

“We, er, thought a few of us could get together later,” Sam explained, “seeing as Marcia's party was cancelled last night.” Sam gave Dad a quick glance. Taking the hint, Dad wandered off to the garage, probably to find some pong-blasting chemicals. “And it's Ollie's birthday today,” Sam added.

“Is it?” Amazingly, this had virtually no effect on me at all. A few days earlier, I'd have been desperately trying to rake together some money to buy him a present. But I was sick of it all – the embarrassment, the stress, all the trouble caused by Operation SOOP. And anyway, I liked standing there, chatting with Sam. I felt
free
.

“Yeah, so we thought we could all get together and have a fire down on the beach, like last time…”

“That sounds good,” I said. “As long as I'm allowed to go, I mean…”

“Your mum still mad about that stuff at the kebab house?” Sam asked with a sympathetic smile.

“I don't know. It's hard to tell sometimes…”

“Well,” Sam said, “we're meeting about seven-ish, OK? And it's fancy dress.”

“Fancy dress on the beach?” I exclaimed. “We'll be freezing!”

“Yeah, well, Ollie thought that with everyone getting their costumes together for last night, we might as well still go through with it…”

I thought of my cat costume hung up in my wardrobe, and a shiver of excitement ran through me. “Great. We'll just have to make sure it's a really big fire, then, won't we, so we don't die of cold?”

Sam laughed, and I wanted to rush inside and ask Mum right away if I could go. But Sam seemed in no hurry to leave. He was kind of … loitering, as if he wanted to say something else. “Er … d'you think your dad would like my dad to have a look at his car?” he asked.

“What for?” I said, puzzled.

“Well, he works at a garage, and maybe that smell's coming from inside the engine or something.”

“Yeah, maybe. I'll mention it to Dad.” This, I realized, would put Mum in a much better mood – the thought of that cheese stink being dealt with, once and for all. I said bye to Sam and ran inside, almost too excited to breathe.

 

“So you see,” I told Mum and Dad at dinnertime, “Sam's dad's a mechanic and Sam said he's seen this kind of problem loads of times and has always managed to find the source of the smell.”

“That sounds hopeful,” Mum said. “Last time I was in it, I nearly gagged.”

“Me too,” Beth muttered, wrinkling her nose.

“Aw,” Ned sniggered. “I'll miss that smell. It's kinda part of the family.”

“Well, I won't,” Mum retorted, jabbing an over-boiled carrot with her fork.

“Erm, d'you think I could go out later?” I asked timidly. “Some friends are getting together on the beach…”

“Oh, I'm not keen on you just hanging out down there,” Mum said.

“Come on,” Dad added. “She's sorted out the car problem for us…”

“Not exactly, Colin. I mean, we don't know if Sam's dad—”

“He'll definitely do it,” I said quickly. “Sam called him to check. He owns Roach's garage down by the dock and he's expecting you to drop off the car tomorrow afternoon.” God, what was I thinking, making all of this up? I could picture it now: Dad trundling up to the garage and opening the door and this terrible stench gusting out. And him saying to Sam's dad, “Hi, are you Mr Roach? Your son told my daughter you're brilliant at sorting out cheese stinks…”

“Oh, I suppose you can go, Cassie,” Mum said with a shrug, “as long as you're not out too late. Although why you'd want to hang out on the beach in the middle of winter I can't imagine.”

“I won't stay long, Mum,” I said.

“You'd better not, young lady.” I left the table relieved that she'd said yes, and that my Ollie crush seemed to be fading away at last. It was sort of being replaced by something else, which was making me feel warm as anything…

 

I'd called Marcia and Evie and arranged to meet at half-six by the clock in town, and at five-thirty I was pulling on my catsuit and doing some slinky feline moves in the mirror. I also checked that my left boob hadn't shrunk back to its previous undeveloped state (it hadn't. I was still normal-shaped. Hurrah!). I put on my cat mask and tied my hair back into a ponytail. Perfect. Of course, I had to take off the mask, stash it in my bag
and
throw a huge sweater on over the catsuit, or Mum would've kicked up a fuss about some fancy-dress beach party and everyone catching their death of cold.

“Want a lift, love?” Dad asked as I was leaving.

“No thanks, Dad. I'll walk.” I couldn't risk any cheesiness sticking to my costume.

Mum looked up from the big book where she was checking her doggie appointments. It looked pretty full. Maybe business was picking up. “Here,” she said, fishing a tenner out of her purse on the kitchen table. “You can take the bus and get a snack or something. Don't be too late back.”

“OK,” I said, marvelling at the crisp tenner in my hand. Parents are so weird. One minute they're furious, saying you're a disgraceful police-time waster, and the next they're thrusting money at you.

“You've helped me a lot lately,” she added. “I was talking to Suzie, and she said, what they do with Ray is…”

“With Ray?” I repeated. I didn't understand what Mum's best friend had to do with Ray.

Mum blinked at me. “Yes. You do know Suzie's seeing Ray's dad?”

“Is she?” I was totally confused. I knew Mum and Suzie had been talking about some wild girl who'd travelled around Europe and come back the model daughter … but I hadn't known they meant Ray.

“Yes,” Mum laughed. “And you see, Ray was like you, always getting into scrapes, but when she came back from travelling her dad decided to employ her properly in his shop – they run a baker's in Winterbourne – and since then she's been this fantastic, responsible girl.”

“Right,” I said, smiling at the thought of Ray and me on her bike, zooming way too fast along the coast road and laughing as the salty wind stung our faces. If Mum had known about that, she wouldn't have called Ray a “fantastic, responsible girl”. “Anyway,” I added quickly, “thanks for the money, Mum. If I run I'll catch the bus.”

“I don't see why you won't let me give you a lift,” Dad said, shaking his head, triggering a snort of laughter from Mum.