Cherry Blossom Dreams (8 page)

I’d arranged to meet Sean and Zack at Blossom House after school that day and as I let myself in the back door I can honestly say I didn’t feel at all embarrassed about seeing Zack. I mean, there was just no way Lily could be right about him fancying me.

I found my brother sitting on the floor of the upstairs front bedroom with Monty draped over both arms. The snake actually looked quite beautiful with the sun shining on its browny-gold skin.

‘Where’s Zack?’ I asked at once.

‘His mum wanted him straight home after school. His auntie is visiting or something.’

‘His parents are pretty strict with him, aren’t they?’ Sean and I had never had a lot of restrictions placed on us by Mum. She said that Granny had been unbearably bossy and over-controlling while
she
was growing up and she was determined not to be like that with us.

‘I guess …’ Sean murmured.

I went to use the bathroom but as I stepped inside I spotted the most enormous spider crawling over the floor.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it. It was one of those big dense crusty-looking spiders that seems to expand in size when it starts walking.

My brother rushed in from the bedroom to see what was wrong. ‘You’re such a wimp,’ he said with a grin. Then he told me to go and keep an eye on Monty while he rescued the spider.

I went back into the bedroom, where all I could see was the empty floor. There was no sign of the snake anywhere. ‘Sean, where is he?’ For a moment I wondered if my brother was playing some kind of prank.

‘What?’ He left the spider where it was and came back to join me.

‘Monty’s not here,’ I said with a frown.

‘He must be here. I left him right in the middle of the floor.’ Sean went over to the window and yanked back the curtains to look behind them. But Monty wasn’t there either. He also wasn’t lying along the curtain rail or, thankfully, dangling down from the lampshade. The cupboard door was closed so he couldn’t have gone in there.

Sean went to look under the carpet, which was completely loose at one edge of the room. ‘Uh-oh,’ he grunted as he pulled it back to reveal rotting green underlay and broken old floorboards with several holes in them big enough for a snake to squeeze through.

‘Oh God, Sean … what are we going to do?’ My mind was already racing ahead, imagining the worst possible scenario as usual … a ravenous Monty coming out from under the floorboards while Mum was showing someone round … Monty resurfacing in the toilet bowl while somebody was sitting on it … Monty’s head sticking out of the letterbox to greet the postman in the morning …

‘Don’t panic,’ Sean told me, knowing only too well the way my mind works. ‘He’ll probably reappear in a bit. If he doesn’t, we’ll call Zack.’ Though he sounded worried as he added, ‘Trouble is, Zack’s always moaning that his mum makes him switch off his phone whenever they’re having “family time”.’

Suddenly my heart felt like it was beating ten times faster as a brilliant idea came to me. ‘I know who we can ask to help.’

And before Sean could reply, I was already taking out my phone to call Lily.

When Lily and I were really little, Raffy had been obsessed with snakes. His parents had never let him have one, but he’d watched loads of nature programmes about them, had adopted a snake at a zoo and had tormented me and Lily with snake stories and videos. You’d never know to look at him now that he’d been such a geek when he was younger.

I’d told Lily that the side gate would be open and that she and Raffy should just knock on the back door when they arrived, but of course, Lily being Lily, she just walked straight in.

‘Lily!’ I scrambled to my feet from being down on my hands and knees looking for Monty. I’d been searching under the tatty old sofa – the only piece of furniture left in the front room – since the bedroom where we’d been keeping Monty was directly overhead.

‘Wow!’ Lily exclaimed in admiration as she took in her surroundings. I’d told her about Blossom House over the phone, explaining about the Monty crisis and that we couldn’t get hold of Zack and therefore needed Raffy’s help.

‘Isn’t Raffy coming?’ I asked.

‘I asked him, but he said he doesn’t know how to catch a snake and that in any case he’s too busy. More like lazy if you ask me. But don’t worry. I’ll help you look.’

‘Oh.’ I actually felt a bit let down and it was a struggle not to show it. Luckily, Lily was way too distracted to notice my reaction.

She was walking slowly around the room, staring with wide eyes as if she was in some sort of palace. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never told me about this place before! Sasha, you
do
realise this would be the perfect place to hold a party.’

Trust Lily to think of that.

‘Yeah, like
that’s
really going to happen,’ I muttered sarcastically.

‘Oh, you’re such a scaredy-cat, Sasha!’ Lily teased, though I could tell she knew better than to try and push it. ‘So where’s Sean?’

‘Upstairs … Lily, you mustn’t tell anyone you came here, OK? My mum doesn’t even know we come here.’ For some reason Zack’s warning had suddenly popped back into my head:
If Lily and her pals ever find out about this …

Lily must have picked up on my bout of anxiety because she frowned. ‘What’s wrong? You sound like you don’t trust me.’

‘It’s not that, it’s just –’

‘Sasha, have you ever brought Priti here?’ she suddenly asked.

‘
What?
’

‘Well, it feels like maybe you trust
her
more than me!’

‘Don’t be daft!’ I didn’t know what else to say. Lily sounded like she was jealous and yet how could she be? Lily is one of the most popular girls in our year. Priti is like … well … Priti had once joked that if she were a character in a Jane Austen novel she’d be the plain, shy girl standing at the edge of the ballroom while all the beautiful, confident girls were being asked to dance.

‘Well, you hang out with her all the time. You know, people at school are starting to think you’re going over to the dorky side,’ Lily said matter-of-factly.

‘I am
not
!’ I snapped back indignantly.

‘No? Well, sometimes it seems like you’re heading that way!’ Lily sighed. ‘Listen, Sasha, a party here would be so great. Don’t you want to do any fun stuff at all?’

‘I
do
do fun stuff, Lily!’ I protested.

‘Like what?’ she challenged me. ‘You never want to do anything fun with me and the girls. You never come shopping with us or go to the cinema with us or even come down the park with us in the evenings. You only ever hang out with the boring people at school. Priti is bad enough, but that Jillian is seriously uncool. And now your mum is actually getting married to the hottest teacher in our school … Well, I mean, having Leo in your house could totally get you in with all the popular people … but you won’t even let me
tell
anybody! It’s like you
want
to sink into the background!’

I gaped at her. Where had all this come from? I knew she was miffed that I didn’t try harder to fit in with the popular crowd she hangs out with, but it wasn’t like I went out of my way to embarrass her, or like I minded if she hung out in a different group to me. Why did it have to be such a big deal all of a sudden?

‘Don’t look at me like that, Sasha! I’m saying this for your own good. The fact is you need to be more image conscious.’ She frowned. ‘Listen, I know Clara and Hanna can be a bit of a pain, but they’re only like that because they think
you
don’t rate
them
. If you start hanging out with us a bit more, they’ll be fine. And I’m not saying you have to
totally
stop being friends with Priti, but –’

‘
You
can’t tell me who to be friends with, Lily,’ I protested hotly.

‘I’m
not
telling you!’

‘Yes, you are!’

That was when Sean came into the room and snapped at both of us. ‘HEY! I thought you were trying to find Monty!’ And he gave Lily a very unsurprised sort of look as he added, ‘I guess Raffy’s got better things to do, right?’

The three of us searched the house for ages, targeting every nook and cranny we could find. Lily and I barely spoke, but I was glad that she’d still stuck around to help out. I almost asked her why she bothered hanging out with me if she thought I was so boring and dorky, but I stopped myself because I was a bit afraid of the answer. Maybe she was right to complain. Maybe I
was
cramping her style. After all, she’d invited me to a Year Ten party, whereas I’d invited her round to an empty house to search for a runaway snake!

Despite our combined efforts, there was still no sign of Monty.

Lily didn’t look me in the eye when she said goodbye. I watched her walk away, then went back to help Sean lock up.

‘I guess there’s no point in leaving this switched on,’ I said as I unplugged Monty’s heat mat and pushed the whole box inside the cupboard while Sean looked on miserably.

We left the cupboard door open a little way, just in case he decided to return there while we were gone.

‘I’ll have to tell Zack,’ Sean murmured. ‘I’ll go round there tonight.’

‘Why not just tell him tomorrow? I mean, if they’ve got family visiting –’

‘I’d rather get it over with.’

We had just locked the side gate and we were on our way out of the drive when Mum suddenly appeared from the street.

I nearly had a heart attack on the spot, and by the look of it so did Mum.

‘What are you two doing here?’ she hissed.

That’s when we saw that a well-dressed middle-aged couple were following in her wake, clutching the estate agents’ details for Blossom House. Mum hadn’t mentioned any more house showings this week. (The potential buyer Miranda had found had gone away on business and wasn’t due back for a fortnight.)

‘Oh, hi, Mum. We were just passing and we were … um … checking the side gate was locked,’ I said in a rush. It was amazing how quickly I could lie when it came to protecting our second home. I could tell Mum didn’t completely believe my explanation, but fortunately her attention was quickly diverted.

Sean was pointing at the sales brochure Mum’s clients were holding. ‘You know,
I
took a lot of the photos in there,’ he informed them proudly. ‘Personally, I think they make the place look much bigger and a good bit lighter inside than it really is. And of course they don’t show all the damp and the woodworm and the dry rot and stuff like that.’ As he started to walk off, he added casually, ‘She
has
told you the house is way overpriced, right?’

Poor Mum let out a sort of choking noise and as we scurried away we could hear her apologising profusely for her son’s ‘extremely dark’ sense of humour.

We found Leo’s car parked outside our house when we got back. Sean gave a little huff of annoyance, which wasn’t like him, but I didn’t think much about it until we got inside. We were both on tenterhooks waiting for Mum to ring and tell us Monty had appeared while she was showing round her clients. I couldn’t imagine what Mum would do if she saw a snake. Though I suppose she might not blame us for it. I mean, why should she? She might open the cupboard and see the snake box, but there was so much other weird junk still left in Blossom House that hopefully the box alone wouldn’t stand out.

‘Hi, Leo. Nice smell,’ I greeted him. Something garlicky was cooking in the oven.

‘Hey, kids. You’re late home, aren’t you? Where have you been?’ Leo asked it lightly, but it was clear he expected an answer from us. That was taking a bit of getting used to. Mum almost never asked us to tell her what we’d been doing after school.

‘We’ve been with Lily,’ I answered truthfully.

‘Yeah,’ Sean grunted. ‘And now I’m going round to Zack’s. I haven’t got time to stop for dinner. I’ll get a burger or something. In fact do you have any money and I’ll get Mum to pay you back?’

Leo actually laughed.

Sean scowled. ‘OK, so I’ll buy a bag of chips. I’ve got enough money for that.’

‘Sean, I’ve already got something in the oven for dinner,’ Leo said, beginning to sound irritated. ‘Your mum’s going to be late so we’ll go ahead and eat without her. Anyway, we need to talk about your behaviour at school today. And what about your homework?’

‘I haven’t got that much.’

‘Really? Well, I’ve heard that you’ve got a geography assignment still outstanding from the end of last term.’

Sean instantly looked sulky. ‘You’ve heard a lot.’

‘Yeah, well … teachers talk. And since Rob Mann happens to be a mate of mine as well as your geography teacher …’

Sean looked even sulkier. ‘Hasn’t
Rob
ever heard of pupil–teacher confidentiality?’

‘I’m sure he has, but he also knows I have a special interest in you,’ Leo said evenly.

Sean glared at him. ‘If I want to go and see Zack, then I will – I don’t have to listen to
you
!’ my brother spat out.

If Leo was hurt by Sean’s reaction he didn’t show it. But his voice got a lot firmer as he said, ‘Sean, when your mum’s not here I’m in charge and you
do
have to listen to me. So you can text Zack to say you’re not coming, then you can eat your dinner, do your homework, watch some TV and by then I reckon it’ll be time for you to go to bed. Though you can always skip the TV and go to bed a bit earlier if you carry on with the attitude.’