Girl, 15: Charming but Insane (11 page)

Jess breathed a huge sigh of relief and prepared, for the first time in her life, to enjoy motorsport as it has never been enjoyed before, even by very fat men drinking lager on sofas.
Oh, thank you, thank you, God!
she thought in rapture.
Thank you, you guardian angel, whoever you are. This is the best moment of my life so far!
Only one thing bothered her. A few moments ago, she had assured God that if He got her off the hook this time, she would never be a bad girl again. It was going to be a major undertaking.

The party kind of unravelled early because watching motorsport movies wasn’t the girls’ idea of fun, and Jess got home by 10pm, which was fortunate, because her mum was already intensely irritated.

‘I’ve told you, I don’t approve of you going out in the evenings on weekdays!’ she snapped. ‘And I must know where you are!’

‘I was only at Tiffany’s,’ grumbled Jess. ‘Watching a movie. And if you really want to know, it was dead boring.’

Next day, school was buzzing with gossip. Who had nicked the disc? Rumours flew about. It had been sold to a Japanese businessman. It had been bought by satellite TV. Jack had never made it in the first place. Jess just kept her head down and her fingers crossed. OK, so yesterday she had been rescued – possibly by divine intervention. But the disc could surface at any moment and the whole CCTV party could be on again in an instant.

Jess tried immensely hard to be a good girl, as she had promised the Almighty. She didn’t want to blow it by a moment’s thoughtless misbehaviour. Luckily Ben Jones was absent, so she wasn’t distracted from saintliness. She actually concentrated in history, and performed her set tasks in strange, neat handwriting. She sat at the front in English and put her hand up eagerly to answer every question in a shiny virtuous voice. She ran about and attempted tennis in the sports hour, trying not to sweat too hard, as she thought God might not like it. She did not draw on her hands, doodle or daydream at all. By the end of school, she was radiantly religious and totally exhausted.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Flora. ‘You’ve been a bit weird all day, babe. What is it?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ shrugged Jess. ‘Just a headache. Got to go home early and sort my room out.’

She stomped off home on her own. The others were meeting at the Dolphin Cafe, but she didn’t want to hear anything more about the blasted CCTV footage as long as she lived.

Home seemed even more of a haven than usual. It felt cosier since Granny had come to stay – possibly because she turned up the heating even in summer, and was always making cups of tea. A delightful smell drifted out from the kitchen.

‘Granny’s made us her famous stew,’ said Jess’s mum from her desk, where she was going through some bills. As she spoke, the phone rang. Jess’s mum answered it, and then handed it over to Jess with an expression of grim annoyance. ‘It’s Fred,’ she said, and walked out to the kitchen to do something domestic – perhaps to check that Granny’s stew hadn’t got bats and toads in it.

Jess grabbed the phone. ‘Hi, Fred!’ She was intrigued. Fred didn’t often ring. But she was also terrified. Maybe somebody had found the disc, and Fred was ringing to warn her.

‘Meet me in the bus shelter in five minutes,’ said Fred briskly. ‘I want to return your copy of
Twelfth Night
.’

Jess was surprised. Fred didn’t usually talk in such short sentences for a start. And he’d already given her back her copy of
Twelfth Night
, at school. Something was wrong. He sounded almost sinister. Jess grabbed her jacket.

‘Where are you going?’ called her mum. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready!’

‘I won’t be a minute!’ yelled Jess, and ran out of the house. ‘I’m just going to collect my copy of
Twelfth Night
– the one Fred borrowed!’

She had on her jeans and trainers. It wasn’t far to the bus shelter. It was about halfway between her house and Fred’s. She ran all the way, her heart pounding with dread – and to be honest, with unaccustomed exercise. Fred was waiting there. She recognised his tall, skinny outline from afar.

‘I couldn’t talk on the phone,’ said Fred, looking mysterious under his hood. ‘My mum was listening. I thought you’d probably like to have this.’ He handed over a packet wrapped in a padded bag.

‘What is it?’ asked Jess.

‘It’s the CCTV footage from Tiffany’s,’ said Fred. ‘I got there early and nicked it yesterday when Jack was in the loo. I smuggled it out in the massive pocket in my cargoes.’

Jess fought off a terrible urge to fling her arms round Fred. She knew that was the sort of thing he hated.

‘Fred – you are the best!’ she cried. ‘I can’t tell you – I just can’t tell you what this means to me.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Hey – you haven’t actually watched it, have you?’ A deep and furious blush whizzed up from the soles of her feet and enfolded her entire body.

Fred just shrugged enigmatically. ‘What? Just a load of girls going to the toilet? Personally I prefer wildlife documentaries.’

Jess tried hard to work out if he was lying or not, but it was impossible with Fred.

‘Just don’t tell anybody it was me that took it,’ warned Fred. ‘I would quite like to retain all my body parts into adulthood.’

‘I swear I won’t breathe a word to anybody!’ vowed Jess. ‘Fred, I owe you one. Tell me what I can do for you – I’ll do it. I’ll crawl all the way to Africa on my hands and knees and carry you back a bag of mangoes in my teeth. Say the word. I’ll do it. Anything.’

‘That will not be necessary,’ said Fred. ‘As a teenage boy, I fear and avoid fruit as the vampire avoids daylight. No need ever to mention the CCTV again. As far as I’m concerned, this never happened. Bye!’ And he just turned and walked off.

Astonishing! Jess ran back home, holding on tightly to the terrible package. It wouldn’t do to just fling it in a rubbish bin. She wouldn’t rest till the disc had been boiled, poached, scrambled, mashed, pulverised with a mallet and drowned in boiling water. But she might just take a secret little peep at it first.

Chapter 12

Jess got back home just as her mum was placing Granny’s stew on the table. Granny looked up excitedly.

‘There’s a man in Scotland – a tax inspector, of all people – they’ve discovered he murdered his wife and buried her under the barbecue!’ she said.

‘For goodness’ sake, Granny,’ said Jess’s mum, ‘not at the supper table! Jess – wash your hands. You can’t be too careful with all this e-coli about.’

Jess put the package containing the DVD on her chair and washed her hands at the sink. They always ate in the kitchen. It was cosy, and looked out on to the garden.

‘We never used to have e-coli in my day,’ remarked Granny. ‘Although a girl in my street did die tragically from choking on a banger.’

Granny always referred to sausages as ‘bangers’, although she refused to eat them. ‘I would never trust a banger as far as I could throw it,’ she’d observed once, which gave Jess an idea for the Geriatric Olympics, with sausage-hurling a major event. Too bad Jess hadn’t had time to organise it yet.

‘What’s that parcel on your chair, Jess?’ asked her mum.

Jess blushed. ‘Oh, just that copy of
Twelfth Night
Fred borrowed,’ she said.

‘Why are you blushing?’ demanded her mum suspiciously.

‘Is Fred your boyfriend?’ asked Granny, winking playfully.

‘No, Granny! He’s just a mate, right? I would sooner clean the front path with my tongue than get involved with any male person in that way.’

Jess shoved the package under her chair, trying not to look furtive – trying to look as if it were, in fact, a completely uninteresting Shakespeare play.

Jess’s mum ladled out the stew.

‘Wow, it looks lush! I’m starving!’ said Jess. ‘I love Granny’s stew, don’t you, Mum? A positive treasure trove of savoury items.’ It was important to keep talking, to distract Mum from the dreaded mysterious package.

‘Oh yes!’ beamed Granny. ‘I don’t go for this Japanese sushi rubbish, but I love a good stew. I put a dash of oregano in it to make it more Italian this time.’

‘Let’s go to Italy this summer, shall we, Mum?’ asked Jess. ‘All three of us. They love grannies in Italy. I saw an Italian film once and it was full of grannies, all sitting in the shade and casting spells on people. Can we go to Italy, Mum? Oh pleeeeease!’

‘In principle,’ said her mum, sipping from a glass of water in a rather tired way, ‘I’d be very interested in the idea of taking you to Italy and showing you the art treasures of the Italian Renaissance, but I’m afraid this year we’re too poor.’ She tucked into her stew. Phew! It seemed as if Jess’s mysterious package had slipped from her mind.

‘Who’s your favourite Italian painter, then, Mum?’

‘Botticelli,’ said Jess’s mum. Jess knew this already, of course. There were Botticelli paintings on every wall. Not originals, unfortunately. Jess’s mum’s Botticellis were all reproductions. If they’d had a Botticelli original there’d be no problem about affording to visit Italy. They’d probably have a second home there – a palace with a swimming pool.

They had
The Birth of Venus
in the bathroom. It showed a beautiful blonde girl rising up from a shell and hovering above the sea. The gods of the winds were blowing at her and a handmaiden was offering her a billowing cloak. Jess’s mum had rather irritatingly remarked that Venus looked a bit like Flora.

Even more irritating was the Botticelli painting in the sitting room, because that was actually
of
Flora. Not Jess’s friend Flora Barclay, obviously, but Flora the Goddess of Spring. This one also looked like Flora as well as Flora. It was quite irksome, having a friend who resembled not just one but two goddesses: the Goddess of Spring and the Goddess of Love. Especially as Jess herself was more likely to be mistaken for the ape in the famous painting
Ape with a Grape
or the dog in
Still Life with Bulldog, Salad and Fries
by Alessandro Poggibotti.

‘What would you like to be goddess of, Granny?’ asked Jess.

Granny thought for a minute. ‘Teeth,’ she replied. ‘I would make sure everybody’s teeth lasted a lifetime.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what I like about stew. It just slips down. I couldn’t rise to a lamb chop, these days.’

‘And what would you like to be goddess of, Mum?’ Jess was beginning to feel a bit more relaxed now. She was beginning to enjoy herself. She was even wondering what she herself would choose to be goddess of. Bosoms, possibly. She would make sure everybody had massive boobs that would last a life-time. Not guys, of course. Although why not? If everybody had boobs, maybe there wouldn’t be such a fuss about them. And those Sumo wrestler guys certainly –

‘I’d be the Goddess of Mysterious Packages,’ said Jess’s mum suddenly, with a piercing stare. ‘I’d have X-ray vision, so I could tell what was inside parcels without having to listen to a pack of lies.’

‘You could get a job at the airport, then, dear,’ said Granny. ‘Although I hope you don’t, because I think the libraries are safer. They haven’t had any of those terrorist attacks on libraries yet, have they?’

‘I’d like to see them try,’ said Jess’s mum with spirit. ‘They wouldn’t get any further than Cookery and Gardening. So, Jess: what’s in your package,
really
?’ She turned treacherously to her defenceless daughter.

Jess blushed again. ‘I told you:
Twelfth Night
. Why are you giving me such a hard time?’