Keeping it Real (5 page)

“I can’t believe you’re doing this!” this girl was yelling. “It’s not the kids’ fault they’ve got problems! If you really cared about us, sir, you’d understand.”

The girl really did look amazingly like Karmen. But shy little Karms was too timid to yell at anyone, let alone a teacher.

Mr Lupton gave a nervous hitch to his baggy old cords. “I do care,” he said unhappily. “But there’s a limit to—”

“It’s STUPID to stop now. We’ve all worked SO hard!”

“I’m sorry, my answer’s still ‘no’.” He tried to turn away but the girl just barged in front of him. Her dark brown eyes were huge with distress. “What if I could get them all back?” she begged. “What if I go to round them up and we promised to work flat out all day Sunday?”

This musical had been Mr Lupton’s pet project for years and years. You could tell he totally yearned to be convinced. “But we can’t put this right in two weeks,” he said unhappily.

“So ask Mrs Threlfall if she’ll let you take us out of lessons until we finish the play! We can DO this, sir. They build gardens in a poxy
weekend
on TV! Give us one last chance. Please?”

Omigosh, it
was
her! That slight lisp on ‘poxy’. Karm’s voice was unmistakable now.

But where were the others? I knew shy little Karmen wouldn’t have joined the drama group by herself, so why weren’t Sky and Jax here to back her up?

Mr Lupton gave another hitch to his tired old cords. “All right, one last chance,” he sighed. “I want everyone here by 9.30 on Sunday morning and we’ll just see how it goes.”

To my amazement, all the cast members cheered. “We won’t let you down, Mr Lupton, I swear,“one girl told him.

“You’re all right, man,” one of the boys grinned.

“At least one teacher believes in us,” his mate said grimly.

Was this REALLY my school? Not to diss my old mates, but Park Hall pupils are not natural joiners. Dreamers yes. Antisocial losers, definitely. Joiners? No way!

Having saved their production, you’d think that Karmen would want to hang out and celebrate with the rest of the cast, but she just grabbed her parka and flew out of the door.

Panicking that I’d lose her again, and temporarily forgetting all about hellhounds, I zoomed after her in pursuit.

Outside my school it was one long traffic jam. A double decker was slowly inching past the school gates. Karms hopped on. I followed her up to the top deck and took the seat beside her.

My vibes were still tuned to angelic, not human, reality, so Karms couldn’t see me, but I thought she might be able to sense me.

“Well, this feels weird,” I teased her softly. “I can’t believe I actually didn’t recognise you, Karms - you look
so
grown-up!”

It wasn’t just the new hairstyle. My Karms was constantly badgering us to tell her what to think or what to wear. It drove us nuts, yet you somehow felt like you had to take care of her. But there was nothing helpless about the girl sitting next to me. She was like a human laser beam; all her energy focused on a single point: how to make this production happen.

In the old days, I’d have assumed she was pursuing some boy in the drama group - some skanky loser of a boy - but you couldn’t see this Karmen going for losers.

I felt her suddenly tense up. She’d spotted someone in the street. She whipped her phone out of her pocket, tapped in a pre-set, and yelled, “Where the HELL were YOU? You know how many kids turned up tonight? EIGHT! It was humiliating, Jax!”

Determined to see my second Pink, I half-dived across Karmen, peering out of the steamed-up glass.

No WAY! If Karms hadn’t used Jax’s name I’d never have recognised her. My friend’s natural red-brown hair had been dyed neon-sign pink. She had so many metal piercings it looked like she had bristles.

Down in the street, Jax was gesturing angrily, clearly not in the mood to co-operate.

Karms huffed with annoyance. “No, because I bought us some more time, didn’t I? He’s agreed to let us rehearse all day Sunday.”

The bus chugged away again, leaving Jax behind. “I will NOT let it go.” Karmen’s voice was shaking now. “No I’m not listening to you, Jax. Show up on Sunday or you’re in
big
trouble.”

She rang off and stared unseeingly out of the window until we reached her stop. I followed her off the bus feeling like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole. Nothing made sense.

I’d just seen Karmen fighting for the right to embarrass herself in public. Shy little Karmen who used to be too chicken to ring out for a pizza! Meanwhile Jax, who’d always been a wee bit rough around the edges, had turned into the teenage harpy from hell!

By this time it wouldn’t have surprised me if Karmen’s parents had become total nudists. I followed her nervously into the small terraced house, but to my relief, everything was exactly like I remembered. It even had that same homey, very faintly spicy smell.

Mrs Patel had the Be Good Tanyas playing on the stereo as she prepared the evening meal. Karm’s parents were crazy about country music. They’d wanted to name their only daughter after one of those big-haired country singers, Dolly, Loretta-Sue, or whoever, but that didn’t go down with the grandparents, so they compromised with ‘Karmen Asha’.

Karmen told me once that out of all the Pinks, her mum liked me best; Karms said she thought I had a sweet smile.

I imagined what her mum would say if she knew who was sitting at their breakfast bar. “Karmen’s been telling me you’re an angel now, Melanie! Isn’t that absolutely
fantastic
! You must try some of these sweets. No, darling, eat as many as you like. That way I won’t be tempted! Got to watch my calorie intake, you know!”

Over sounds of efficient chopping, Karmen and her mum chatted about what to buy one of the cousins for a wedding present.

If you didn’t know Karmen, you could have been fooled into believing everything was normal. But I was deeply disturbed not to say confused.
My
Karms had to rush to the phone every five minutes to call her mates. Sometimes she’d ring each of us in turn just to ask which top we thought she should wear next day.

Listen - I sat at that breakfast bar for over an hour and Karmen didn’t phone the other Pinks ONCE. But that wasn’t the most shocking thing. When it finally hit me, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed.

Karmen wasn’t wearing our colour
. That’s why she didn’t phone. That’s why the others refused to support her at the rehearsal.

“Omigosh,” I whispered.

The Shocking Pinks had broken up!!

If it wasn’t for Helix I’d probably be sitting in the Patels’ kitchen today going, “Omigosh, Omigosh.”

Unlike me, my inner angel has excellent control of her emotions. She said calmly, “This must be upsetting for you, babe, but we need to know what’s going on with these girls.”

I tried to pull myself together. “Should I check Karm’s room?” I gulped. “Look for clues to her state of mind?”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Helix agreed.

I found clues all right, and they didn’t reassure me about my friend’s state of mind. GREASE posters plastered over the walls, a GREASE DVD cover beside the DVD player, a GREASE minidisc on top of her minidisc player… I could go on.

“This isn’t being focussed,” I said in dismay. “This is being obsessed! This is Park Hall, Helix! IF they get this production together, which I doubt, they’ll be lucky to sell two tickets.”

I don’t know why it took me so long to see the photograph - maybe because Karmen had put it in such a big fancy frame.

It had been taken on our mad day out, minutes after we got off the London Eye. A helpful tourist took it with Karm’s digital camera. In the picture we’ve got exactly the same smiles.

For some reason Karmen had put a scented candle in front of the picture, and a silk rose. The rose was bright shocking pink.

I felt something slam shut inside my mind. Like,
don’t go there
. Lots of girls had candles and flowers in their rooms. It didn’t mean anything morbid.

I heard the sound of a key turning in the front door. Karmen’s dad was home. He dropped his bag and went into the kitchen.

“Friday night!” he sighed. “Two whole days of freedom!”

I peeped out of my friend’s room in time to see him grab Karmen’s mum and dance her round madly to the Tanyas.

I had a sudden painful longing for my own family. We had this big Friday ritual. I’d pick Jade up from her after-school club, we’d meet Mum out of work, then the three of us would go to the Cosmic Cafe. It didn’t look much from outside, but the food was out of this world. If he wasn’t on call-out, Des would join us later.

I’d been trying my best to act like an angel on a mission, but now the ache was so strong, it was an actual physical pain in my chest.

I want to see them.

In a heartbeat I was standing on the street opposite the Cosmic Cafe, icy sleet blowing in my eyes and mouth.

“Woo!” I said in awe. “Did I even say that out loud?”

Next minute I was charging across the busy road, literally morphing through cars and buses in my desperation to get to them.

To you they’d have looked like an ordinary London family in a cheap and cheerful cafe. To me, they looked like Christmas morning. I felt like I was going to explode with love. There they all were! Big bald Des pointing out something on the Specials board. Jade pulling on my step-dad’s sleeve. And Mum had totally changed her hair!

“They’re
so
beautiful,” I whispered.

Completely focused on the little scene inside the cafe, I totally didn’t register the otherworldly personnel carrier nosing up to the curb. I didn’t suspect a thing until two sinister reflections loomed up behind me in the misted glass. Next minute, hands gripped my arms, pinning them to my sides so I couldn’t move, and I was being dragged, screaming, away from my family.

A hand clamped down firmly over my mouth. I felt myself helplessly lifted off my feet and bundled into a vehicle. The engine was still running. There was a swoosh and a clunk as the doors slid shut and we started to move off.

I scratched and bit my unknown kidnapper thrashing about in my frenzy to get free. I didn’t even care if I poisoned myself with PODS toxins.

“OK, bad joke!” a voice admitted. “Listen, I’m going to take my hand away on a count of three, but DON’T bite! I promised my girlfriend I’d get back to Heaven in one piece. One, two, th—”

My eyes had been screwed tight shut. Now they flew wide open.

“BRICE?” I said in disbelief.

Chapter Six

H
ey check those, man, real angel tooth marks!” Lola’s boyfriend showed his hand to his mate, seeming almost proud.

The other angel boy laughed. “Sure that’s an angel chick? Seems more like a hell vixen to me!”

Brice waggled his eyebrows. “Mel can be quite feisty when she wants!”

They went on joking over my head in that maddening way boys do all across the Universe. Now I was over the first shock, I was livid. I gave Brice a hard thump. “You gave me a heart attack, you pig!! I thought you were PODS!”

He fended me off laughing. “I couldn’t resist, you looked so sweet and goofy, You were totally away with the fairies. “

I just glowered. I didn’t tell him about my family. I couldn’t.

Brice’s mate had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry, that was a stupid thing to do.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Hendrix.”

Woo
, I thought,
he’s really fit
.

I shyly shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

I flashed an evil look at Brice. “What are you doing here, dirt bag, apart from scaring me out of my skin?”

He looked slightly shifty. “Oh, you know, making the inner city a better place, beating Hendrix at pool.”

“In your dreams!” Hendrix said cheerfully.

“Omigosh, Hendrix, you’re an EA!” I realised suddenly. “I’ve got to report a cosmic anomaly at Park Hall High School. Some hell beastie got into my old school - and
pooed
, can you believe?”

I thought I saw a weird look pass between them.

Hendrix said quickly, “We’ll get someone on it, don’t worry.”

The angel carrier had been accelerating steadily while we were talking. Suddenly there was a violent lurch and I was virtually thrown into Hendrix’s arms as the van began hurtling through traffic at breakneck speed.

“I should buckle up sweetheart,” Brice advised. “Unless you enjoy cuddling Hendrix. Jools is a bit of a speed freak.”

I hastily unpeeled myself, pulling a hideous face at Brice. “Does he always drive like this?”

“She,” Brice corrected.

“And yes, Jools only drives in top gear,” grinned Hendrix.

She was now driving the wrong way up a one-way street. It was a heavenly vehicle, and therefore totally harmless to human road users, but I had to cover my eyes. We finally screeched to a stop.

I clambered out of the angel carrier on jelly legs, then rubbed my eyes. I’d walked down Matilda Street just about every day on my way to and from school, and never once seen this elegant shimmery house. That’s because it was an Agency house which had been invisibly slotted into a shabby human terrace.