Love Bomb (17 page)

I will put one more letter in the attic and it will be called ‘True Love’. I’ll put it in a Quality Street tin. Save it for when you hit the jackpot, for when you meet someone who loves you for who you are, and who would never settle for anyone else, particularly someone who hated Romanian orphans. You’ll know when to read the letter because true love feels like coming home.

The other reason it’s in a separate place is because it really is my last letter. I don’t want you to open it unless it’s absolutely the right time. I realise these letters might be hard to read. Sometimes they’ve been hard to write. I’d like to keep writing them forever, but I’ve run out of time. Even Dad, Nanna and Auntie Katie know that now. I’m leaving hospital this afternoon and I won’t come back. Usually going home is a good thing, but
not for me. Everyone’s finally accepted that I’m never getting better and that there’s nothing anyone can do except wait, and I don’t want to wait in hospital. I want to be at home, with you and Dad.

One day, if someone does break your heart, and makes you feel small and insignificant, I want you to remember this: when you were a tiny person, not even two years old, you were so mighty and amazing that you kept me alive. Today, it is you, Betty, who is making my heart beat, my lungs fill with air and my fingers hold this pen. Just so I can leave hospital today and hold you in my arms again.

Love you always,

Mumface xxx

Carefully, I put the letter into Dennis. My throat aches. I wish I could tell Mum that I found her letters and read
them, that I’ve felt how much she loved me. When I called my sketchbook the Big Book of Love, I was thinking about Toby, but as I turn over each page, making sure Mum’s letters are in place, and reading Bill’s quotations, I realise that this book isn’t about Toby at all.

But it is about love.

It’s about me falling in love with two people who’ve always been in my life, waiting for me: Bill and my mum.

Mum is right. I wasn’t really in love with Toby. I didn’t feel at home with him, more like I was on another planet. When I’m with Bill, I can be me. I need to tell Bill that I got it massively wrong, but what if I’ve left it too late? What if Bill and Kat got together when I was in a garage gazing at Toby, playing FIFA 14 and learning to sing miserable?

I lost the chance to be with my mum and now I’m losing Bill too. And this time it’s all my fault!

Before I go to sleep, I turn on my phone and delete Toby’s messages. There are only seven. I’ve had more texts from O2. Finally, I wipe his phone number.

I’m about to turn off my phone when I get a new message. It’s from Bill:
Just saw this and thought of you.
There’s a photo attached. Obviously, I can’t see it. I can’t think what to say to him so I just leave the phone by my bed and wait for the picture to come through.

As I drift off to sleep, I think about Mum and Bill. It’s good knowing that
True Love
is up in the attic waiting for me. Then I think about Bill’s lines of poetry, about the night I slept in his bed and how he said something important to me, something that is hidden just out of reach. Whatever it is, I think it might be the answer to everything.

When I wake up, the room is bright and I can’t hear any sounds in the house. Dad must have gone to work. I lie in bed, staring at the sunlight streaming through the gap at the bottom of the curtains. It’s making stripy lines across my legs. Dreamily I realise that today is the day of the Autumn Celebration. Then, as I’m curled up, all warm and sleepy, I suddenly remember what Bill said to me.

When I stayed the night at his house, and I was half
asleep, half awake, just like now, I asked him how his essay was going. He laughed, and he said, ‘
Betty, there’s never been an essay
.’

But if there was no essay, why did he have his love-poetry book all highlighted and studied? I sit up so fast the blood rushes from my head and I feel dizzy. Bill told me why: he said when he read the poems, he thought about
me
. He said it in his sarcastic voice, but what if he was telling the truth and wanted to hide it? After all, I’d just been going on and on about how much I wanted to kiss Toby.

I grab Dennis. I’m not the best at English because, although I love reading, I hate analysing. It ruins the story. But this time, I think it might make the story.

So I can weigh up all the evidence, I draw another love grid in Dennis and I do it just like my English teacher has taught me:

Dennis has been about Bill and me since I first wrote the words,
She walks in beauty like the night
, and
surrounded it with doodles of silver stars, but Toby’s smile was so dazzling I couldn’t see it.

But what if I’m just twisting Bill’s words? In my last report, miss did say my English work was ‘wildly imaginative’. I pull out my phone. I need to see Bill’s photo.

I open the text and slowly the image appears. First, I see a plastic moon hanging from a ceiling. It’s Eric’s ceiling – I can tell by the hot-chocolate spray marks that I was partly responsible for. Next, Eric’s blurred face appears. It looks like he’s jumping on his bed and his hair is shooting up, defying gravity. Then I see stars. Dangling from the moon, bumping Eric on the head, are around twenty blue, green and yellow stars. It’s a starry sky.

A starry sky that made him think of me!

Something inside me glows with excitement, but I force myself to calm down. Could
Eric
have reminded Bill of me? Am I like a six-year-old boy who smells a bit hamstery? There’s only one way I can find out. I have to
see Bill. Surely, when I look at him I’ll be able to tell if he’s secretly been fancying me for weeks? Then, if I’m right, I’ll prove to him that I’m totally over Toby and that I’ve finally seen what’s been in front of me all this time. It’s going to have to be something big. This isn’t the sort of thing you can sort out with cupcakes or a cuddly toy.

By the time I’ve had a shower – my first in three days – dried my hair and eaten two bowls of Rice Crispies, I’ve come up with a plan. Before I do anything, I’ve got to speak to Kat. There are only so many times you can steal Jesus before your friend gives up on you.

She answers her phone immediately. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in geography?’ I say.

‘I am,’ she says, ‘but Kabir just made Mrs Ledger cry by pretending she’d become invisible. She ran out and hasn’t come back. Are you feeling better?’

‘I’m fine … really surprisingly fine,’ I say, ‘but I’ve two important things to ask you.’

‘OK, but speak up. Kabir’s put a violent film on the interactive whiteboard.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Do you like Bill?’ I ask.

The line goes quiet. I hear a scream followed by a massive explosion.

‘I like him,’ Kat says, ‘and he is ten out of ten, but I don’t
like
him.’

‘But you said he was ripped and his bum looked lush … and that you were
addicted
.’

‘To
windsurfing
. It’s addictive. Honestly, Betty, the whole world doesn’t revolve around boys.’ Her words make me grin. ‘Bill is awesomely ripped, but he’s not interested in me and that’s sort of lessened the impact of his hottiness. Plus there’s this other instructor, Rob, and he’s got these arms like –’

‘Listen, Kat, I’ve got to do something very important and I haven’t got time to hear about Rob’s arms.’

‘They’re like Spiderman’s,’ she blurts out. ‘Go on, next question. Make it quick because I can hear a
walkie-talkie. Mrs P is approaching.’

So I ask my next question and, amazingly, she agrees.

She really is the most incredible friend.

It’s one o’clock and the Autumn Celebration starts in five hours. I have to see Bill if I’m going to put my plan into action. I’m not sure what I’ll say – I just hope that when I look at him somehow I’ll be able to tell if he likes me or not, if I’ve put the clues together right or if I’ve been a total idiot for the second time this week.

There is one problem. Today is Thursday, the day when everyone at Bill’s school does an enrichment activity. Bill always goes windsurfing at his club in Eastbourne with other boys in his year. If I leave now, I might get there in a couple of hours. I haven’t got a clue which bus I need or where it will drop me off. I don’t care. I’m on a mission … a love mission!

After a quick trip up to the attic, I grab my panda hat, my purse and my phone, then I tug on my yellow
DMs. I scribble a note for Dad: ‘Decided to go to school after all. It’s the Autumn Celebration tonight. You and Rue should come – 6.00. X Betty’

I slap it on the fridge, holding it in place with the potato magnet.

Then I kiss Mr Smokey goodbye and I’m out of the door and legging it to the bus stop.

‘Where’s the sea?’ I ask the bus driver. I’ve arrived in Eastbourne, but I haven’t got a clue where to go. The bus has dropped me in the town centre.

‘That way, love. You can’t miss it.’ I run down the road she pointed out, dashing past charity shops, bakers, chippies and gift shops. Soon I’m standing next to the pier. I look left and right. The seafront stretches away in both directions. Even though it’s nearly winter, the sun is shining and the prom is busy with foreign
students and old ladies in pastel anoraks who are being blown about by the wind.

I run on to the pier and look right. I see hotels, the gentle dip of the Downs and, in the distance, white cliffs. The dark sea is churning below me, covered in waves that peak and spray in all directions. I can’t see any windsurfers.

I go to the other side of the pier and grip the railing. I feel the peeling paint digging into my palms. Then, between two waves, I spot them: a group of windsurfers, their triangular sails zigzagging across the sea.

I run off the pier just as a Dotto train pulls up. The tiny carriages are packed with retired holidaymakers. I pay the driver two pounds and soon I’m squeezed between two elderly gentlemen who are both wearing tracksuits.

‘In a rush?’ asks Red Tracksuit. I don’t know what gives me away, perhaps it’s the way I’m muttering, ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ under my breath as the driver checks
each door and chats about the ‘glorious sunshine’ with every passenger.

‘I’m going to see a friend,’ I say, ‘but I’m not sure I’m going to catch him in time.’

‘Ohh!’ says Blue Tracksuit. ‘A feller … You like him, do you?’

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but I don’t know if he likes me.’ Why am I telling them this? ‘You see, he’s been my friend for years.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says the lady sitting opposite me. She leans forward and pats my arm. ‘That’s the best basis for marriage.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘but I’m only fifteen.’ The Dotto train starts to hum and then slowly creeps forward, and I mean
slowly
. ‘A boyfriend would be nice,’ I add.