Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco (18 page)

‘Yeah!’ George got up. ‘Hey, mate! We could call your phone as we go down the path and we might hear it ring!’

‘My phone’s dead though!’ fretted Humph. ‘I left my charger behind! Maybe I should hitch into Weymouth tomorrow and get a new charger, except I’m right out of cash. Could you lend me ten quid, George?’

‘I’d really love to go down to the beach, wouldn’t you, Fred?’ Jess jumped up and ran to get her coat.

‘Take care on that path,’ warned Mrs Stevens.

‘Oh, I promised my mum I’d plummet to my doom at the earliest opportunity!’ Jess assured her. ‘So don’t worry – no, I mean,
really
don’t worry. I’m the most careful person in the universe!’

‘There are loads of wellies outside on the veranda,’ said Mrs Stevens. ‘There’s bound to be a pair your size. Much better for wet sand.’

‘Yes, put your wellies on, everyone!’ called George, as they filed out of a front door on to a covered veranda. Jess could hear the sound of the sea down below. ‘Here are yours, Tom,’ said George, fussing over a row of wellies. He seemed to be something of a control freak. ‘Tom Barker, size twelve, the mind of a pygmy inside a giant’s body. Here are yours, bruv.’ He tossed a pair to Jack, who sniggered in a mysterious way. ‘And here are yours, Humph!’ George handed a pair to Humph, who had got the zip to his anorak stuck – he seemed to be a disorganised scatterbrain.

‘Cheers,’ said Humph. He abandoned his struggle with the zip, grabbed the wellies and started to wriggle into them. ‘Wait!’ he said, puzzled and hopping about. ‘There’s something – something inside my welly . . .’ He pulled his foot out, peered inside the welly by the light of the porch and recoiled with a yell of disgust. ‘Ugh! Dog poo!! Guys, that is disgusting! Yuk! That stinks!’

‘Oh no! We really have to train Gubbins,’ giggled Jack. ‘He keeps pooing in the wellies. Sorry, mate!’

The boys all cracked up. George sank down on to a bench nearby, laughing helplessly, while poor Humph hopped about, wailing.

‘It’s all over my sock! Ugh, it’s revolting! I’ll have to take my sock off, but I haven’t brought a spare pair. Can you lend me a spare sock, George, you sadist?’

But George couldn’t speak – he was still helpless and shaking. Jess smiled politely at the trick, though it wasn’t her sort of humour. This was evidently the way these guys passed their time. It was like an American TV stunt programme. Jess stole a sidelong glance at Fred. He was watching with a wry smile, but he looked kind of vulnerable. Fred’s weapon was his deadly wit. He wasn’t really comfortable with rugger-team horseplay.

They started down the cliff path. George led the way, shining a torch behind him, a bit like an usher in a cinema. Humph was wearing a different pair of wellies and only one sock, and he never stopped talking, alternately moaning about his naked foot and lamenting his lost phone.

‘I’m sure we’ll find it in the morning, as soon as it gets light.’ Flora was trying to comfort him.

‘Yeah, but somebody could steal it!’ complained Humph in his high-pitched whining voice. ‘Or maybe a seagull will nick it or something.’

‘Seagulls don’t nick metal objects,’ said tall smiley Tom. ‘Not like magpies.’

The path, though tricky and steep, never felt very dangerous because on the seaward side there was a kind of low wall of turf.

‘Thank goodness for Dad’s alcohol ban!’ said George. ‘If I was smashed I’d be headfirst over here and rolling right down to the rocks!’

Eventually they reached the beach – without finding Humph’s phone – and ran about screaming as people do who find themselves by the sea on a winter night. The waves crashed, black and white and mighty, so close they could feel the spray.

‘If it was summer we could have a swim,’ said George, ‘but frankly, right now, I’d just as soon not freeze to death!’

Flora and Jess stared at the sea in a trance of delight, huddled together arm in arm, while the guys ran up and down kicking sand about. At one stage they picked Humph up and ran towards the sea with him, pretending they were about to throw him in, changing direction at the last minute and throwing him back up the beach instead.

‘Poor guy!’ exclaimed Jess. ‘I feel quite sorry for Humph!’

‘Oh, no need to,’ Flora reassured her. ‘They always seem to behave like this, and I think he likes it.’

Fred was hovering nearby, his collar turned up against the cold wind.

‘Why don’t you go and horse around with the guys, Fred?’ asked Jess uneasily.

‘I’d rather be an honorary member of the girls’ club right now, if you don’t mind,’ Fred murmured. ‘I’m such a weakling, if they tried to throw me in the sea I’d probably break a leg.’

‘Isn’t it absolutely awesome here!’ sighed Jess, staring up at the stars as the surf crashed nearby. ‘Wow, Flo, it’s really, really kind of them to invite me and Fred!’

‘Oh, no problem,’ said Flora with a happy smile. ‘Mrs Stevens really loves entertaining, and I’m always talking about you two guys. And besides . . . I think you can both do with a break from all that stressy Chaos stuff.’

‘Oh, don’t mention that!’ Jess shuddered. ‘I wanted to forget about it just for one night. Tomorrow we have to come up with a plan, Fred!’

‘But do we?’ Fred shrugged. ‘It’s not the only solution.’

‘Fred was saying, on the train,’ Jess explained, ‘that he thinks we should just cancel the whole thing and give people their money back.’

Flora hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t rule it out, babe,’ she said uncertainly. ‘It wouldn’t be the end of the world. Things get cancelled all the time.’

‘That’s just what I said,’ put in Fred swiftly.

‘But it would be so awful!’ wailed Jess. ‘Just to give up! I hate giving up! People would think we were so lame – and they’d be right.’

‘No, they wouldn’t,’ said Flora. ‘They’d understand.’

‘But they’d be so disappointed!’ Jess argued. ‘They’re looking forward to it! And they’re trusting us to organise it!’

‘But the stress of it is driving you round the bend, Jess,’ Flora insisted gently. ‘You said so yourself this morning. If you decided to cancel it – decided here and now – you could just relax and enjoy the weekend. It would be such a load off your mind.’

Jess was silent for a moment. The idea of cancelling Chaos did seem wonderfully attractive. No food to organise, no music to fix up, no more terror and dread, just lovely, lovely nothing to worry about except writing out a few cheques as refunds. Jess trembled – she was so very, very tempted.

‘I’ll think it over,’ she conceded. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it any more this evening, OK?’

Fred and Flora exchanged a dubious glance, and nodded. Flora threw her arm round Jess. ‘Don’t forget, babe,’ she said finally, ‘there’s no need to be a hero.’

At this moment the guys ran past, holding Humph on their shoulders like a rocket launcher. They were whooping and poor Humph was screaming.

Fred sighed loudly. ‘Manly games. I should be bonding with them but somehow I’d rather eat a live horse.’

‘Well, you’ve got to share the dorm with them tonight,’ said Flora ominously, ‘so maybe you should look really, really carefully into your bed before you get into it.’

‘Will do!’ Fred nodded. He did look a teeny bit worried.

Chapter 23

‘Jess, wake up and look at this amazing view!’ Flora’s face appeared in a hole in Jess’s dream. ‘Come on! You can see the sea! You can see right along the coast to Weymouth!’

Jess yawned and stretched and crawled out of bed.

‘Put your jumper on!’ Flora went on. ‘Come out on to the veranda!’ She was wearing her parka.

Their little bedroom was on the ground floor but round at the side of the house – the only view from their window was of a kind of lean-to where all the logs were stored. But once Jess had scrambled into her clothes, they went into the sitting room, through the French windows and on to the veranda. The view there was just awesome: the house, perched apparently alone on its cliff, seemed surrounded by sea far below. The coastline curved round in the furthest distance, like a thin grey line drawn in pencil, where there was the hint of tiny far-off rooftops and the outlines of buildings.

‘That’s Weymouth!’ breathed Flora in admiration. ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful! I’m so glad the sun is shining. The sea looks so blue.’

‘But it’s kind of gold, too,’ sighed Jess. The ocean seemed ultra-calm, stretching away in glassy glowing sheets towards the distant horizon, colours moving across it as clouds drifted over the sun. ‘Fred’s got to see this!’ She turned and went back into the living room.

There was the hubbub of boys’ voices from the kitchen, and they found the guys sitting at the huge kitchen table, eating their breakfast: Jack and George tucking into bacon and eggs, Tom shovelling muesli into his enormous mouth and Humph fiddling with a boiled egg and cursing as the yolk ran over his fingers. But no Fred.

‘Help yourselves to breakfast, ladies!’ George grinned. ‘The Parents usually have a lie-in to avoid the revolting sight of us eating.’

‘Where’s Fred?’ asked Jess. A naughty glinting smile flashed around the gang of boys. Something had happened. Jess’s heart gave a sickening lurch.

‘Oh, he’s having a lie-in, too,’ said George. ‘Poor Fredianus! I don’t think he slept very well.’

‘You didn’t play any horrible tricks on him, did you, guys?’ demanded Flora.

Jack and George put on a show of innocence.

‘What, us?’ asked George. ‘We’re just pussy cats! Pass the marmalade, Humph, you useless parasite!’

It was obvious there was some joke going on, but the boys’ gang was kind of buttoned-down and pretending nothing was the matter. Jess didn’t want to get all stressy, even though she felt alarmed and anxious.

‘What shall we have for breakfast, Jess?’ Flora looked sympathetic but embarrassed; she knew Jess would be worried about Fred, but as a guest in her boyfriend’s house she was clearly trying to behave perfectly to everybody in all directions. ‘How about some scrambled eggs?’ she went on. ‘With tomatoes and mushrooms? That’s your favourite, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jess. ‘Shall I do the mushrooms and tomatoes while you do the scrambling? You’re the Demon Scrambler.’

As she wiped and sliced the mushrooms, Jess tried not to worry. So Fred was having a lie-in. So what? He often slept till noon at weekends; his mum was always joking about it. There was no need to worry. She tried not to listen to the boys’ conversation, and to concentrate on what Flora was saying about the lovely walks they could have along the cliffs and down on the beach, but it was hard to get George’s buzzing voice out of her head.

‘Guys! You know Mum likes charades? Well, we could arrange a little scene to greet her when she comes into the kitchen
. . .
a massacre! Humph slumped over his plate with ketchup coming out of his ear, Tom lying on the floor with a dot of ketchup in the middle of his forehead, and you impaled on the breadboard, bruv, with the bread knife sticking out of your back.’

‘Waste of ketchup,’ said Jack, licking his fingers. ‘Plus I don’t like the sound of that bread knife bit.’

‘We could get one of those trick knives from the joke shop in Weymouth,’ said George. He seemed to be the gang leader. He never stopped talking.

‘I wouldn’t mind going into Weymouth,’ said Humph. ‘I need to get a charger – can anyone lend me ten quid?’