My Invisible Boyfriend (5 page)

We’re not in a penthouse. I’m not foxalicious. And the Mothership is looking at me kind of funny, which is fair enough, because I’m probably all pink-faced and ridiculouslooking, what with the talking to people who aren’t there.

“I’m…rehearsing. For the Performing Arts Group. Auditions. This week?”

Actually, that’s quite impressive as explanations go. She seems pleased anyway.

“That’s great, babes! Be nice to have you getting a bit more involved in school activities. Not stuck up here watching telly all the time.”

I nog.

“I’ll leave you to it, babes,” she says, backing out. Then her eyes fall on the desk. The lamp. The gingerbread man, standing there trying to look innocent.

I think the Mothership just caught my boyfriend hiding in my bedroom. I feel so grown-up.

“Hei-
di
,” she says, with a sigh. “I know you and your father think it’s a bit silly, but it does help me to stick to it if you do
it, too, and I don’t think he really fits my Traffic Light system, does he?”

“Well, no. But I haven’t eaten him. He’s…my inspiration. If I suddenly feel an urge for naughty Yellow foods on a Red day, I’ll know he’s watching. So just leave him there, yeah? Don’t tidy him up or anything.”

She smooths her hand down one of my braids, tucking in the straggly bits, and makes one of those cutesy Mothership faces: tilt head, sigh.

“Everything all right, babes? Anything you want to tell me?”

I do want to tell her.
I’ve got this amazing boyfriend, called Ed, who smells like cinnamon and looks like Mycroft Christie, and I don’t even care how weird it is, because just thinking about him makes me smile, just like Dai does when he talks about Henry, and Ludo does whenever Peroxide Eric sweeps into a room, and Fili and Simon do all the time, because they’re never apart. Maybe even better than that. And I belong, properly belong, and I’ll never be Frog Girl again.

But she’s the Mothership. She understands the rules of netball, but I don’t think she’s qualified to deal with Ed.

And anyway, I don’t have to. I’ve got Gingerbread Ed, my little sentry on the desk, keeping all my secrets safe.

Now Ed’s got a name and a face (I’m picturing a little more Mycroft than Gingerbread Man, though a bit younger, obviously), life is sweet. Now I’m primed to giggle along in any
conversation, ready to throw in a casual little detail from my own love life. I’ll have to do some editing, obviously, if anyone asks: Mycroft Christie’s life tends to involve a few more fistfights with evil ninjas than the average not-on-television person’s does. Our first official date was a movie (though killer vampire bats didn’t fly off the screen and start attacking people when me and Ed did it). I’ve clung to his back as he rode Jori Song’s motorbike out into the country (although we weren’t being shot at by the alternate-universe Evil Time Bureau). We’ve had very deep and meaningful conversations about life, and time, and responsibility (but we didn’t always have to fit them into three minutes at the end of the episode).

It’s like being undercover. I could be exposed at any moment but only if I mess up and say too much. It’s a total thrill.

It even makes ITP feel useful. ITP stands for Integration Through Positivity. Or Isn’t This Pointless. It depends who you ask. Pottery and group hugs, to Promote Our Individuality, Embrace Our Diversity, and Capitalize Meaningless Phrases In General, all presided over by the frizzy-haired ethnically-beaded fairtrade-coffee-drinking Mizz Cooper. Except that Mizz Cooper has gone on a yogic retreat in a tent somewhere where they make butter out of yaks for the whole term, leaving the hugs to be delivered by Mrs. Ashe from the Science department. Mrs. Ashe of the lumpy waist-height monoboob, and the glasses-on-a-sparkly-string. The closest she’s ever got to Cooperesque touchy-feeliness before was
probably when she bought an organic banana by accident. It’s like being told what periods are by the Queen.

At least I have Fili in my group this year. Plus Dai’s Henry and Peroxide Eric. I like the idea of getting to know them a bit better. And it’s perfect for everyone getting to know Ed a bit better, too.

Ashe sticks exactly to Cooper’s lesson plans from last term, so after half an hour’s team-building a meditation space out of eggboxes and cellophane, we get to the Contribution. In other lessons, the Contribution is known as “that part where you actually have to write stuff down.” This time, it’s “Share a happy memory.”

OUTS.

TAN.

DING.

We get ten minutes’ writing time, then we have to read them out.

Brendan Wilson’s definition of “happy” makes Ashe turn purple in the face and rip the paper out of his hand before he can get more than three sentences in. Peroxide Eric has written about how much he likes pink fluffy bunny rabbits, Honey’s is about buying a handbag, and Fili has written HAPPINESS IS OVERRATED in eyeliner on her paper, and just holds it up instead of reading it out. I’m starting to feel daft for taking it seriously, but then it’s my turn.

I feel happy when I think about my boyfriend, Ed, and how we met. He was here on one of the Goldfinch summer courses for a few weeks, for physiotherapy, because he had an accident
on his motorbike and hurt his knee. And all the other people who were here having physiotherapy were old women, so we kind of got talking this one time when I found him on the Manor steps playing “Lola” on his acoustic guitar, and then he stayed on for a few extra weeks just to hang out and talk about music and poetry and bikes, even after his knee was totally better. And now he’s back in a different boarding school in London, so I won’t see him for ages. But if I play that song I can still remember him sitting there, and it always makes me happy.

I can feel my face pinking up as I read. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Fili’s eyebrow rise, curious, amused. The second I stop speaking, I start to panic. The “Lola” thing just came to me at the last minute. I’ve pushed too far: It’s all way too daft. But then Henry reads his, which is about watching Dai jogging round the lake at 6
A.M.
when he thinks no one’s watching, when there’s still a layer of foggy cloud sitting on it. His voice is all warm when he speaks: He even gets a little flush in his cheeks, too.

Fili’s still looking at me with that eyebrow quirked, that little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. I suppose she and Simon are a bit above that sort of thing, but hey, if it’s good enough for Henry Kim, I guess being sappy and ridiculous is OK.

I’m in love, after all. I’m supposed to be a bit dorky.

It works anyway. By the afternoon, it’s filtered back to Dai, who hums the chorus of “Lola” at me all through History.

By the next day, Ludo’s started asking me questions about which school Ed’s at, and where it is in London.

Sometimes, my own brilliance can be a bit of a burden.

I’m lucky, though. Ludo’s pretty distracted with sucking Peroxide Eric’s face, Fili always seems to be hurrying off somewhere at the end of every lesson, and anyway Ed isn’t the big event of the week. Wednesday is the first meeting of the Performing Arts Group, for the grand announcement of what the Wassail performance will be.

Dai grabs me at the end of French and marches me down to the Performing Arts block on the far side of Stables. I’ve been in and out of the music rooms that lead off the foyer before, helping Dad Man move a bunch of weird African drums and jingly bells around over the summer. But I’ve never done more than peer through the windows at the auditorium itself. Venables is already flailing around on the stage, wearing a floaty white shirt that’s got too many buttons undone. (Hairy chest. I make a mental note to keep Ed unfuzzy.) He’s got his usual swarm of girlies in attendance, Scheherezade and Honey and Leila, flicking their hair and pouting up at him. There’s a sort of smog of perfume in the air. Underneath it, patchouli oil and cigarettes, from the Upper School arts geeks. And that strange dusty smell of velvet seats, like an ancient cinema.

“Come on in, guys, take a pew,” Venables yells, waving his arms, and sending his if-I-keep-it-long-no-one-will-notice- I’m-going-bald hair flapping around his face. “Doesn’t matter where you sit. Eat your lunch, pick your nose, do what you like, just need your attention thisaway. Brilliant. Love it. Brilliant.”

Henry’s already snagged us a row smack in the middle of the tiered seating, and he waves me and Dai over. Fili and Simon are there already, locked in their usual inaudible conversation.

The stinky patchouli people sit in the row in front of us. The Venablettes take up position at the very front, sitting up perkily straight. Everyone’s conversations slowly get quieter and quieter, as if someone’s leaning on the volume control.

“Where’s…” I start to whisper.

There’s a bang and a clatter from the doors. Ludo, breathlessly dragging a bored-looking Yuliya behind her.

“That’s it, come in, come in,” yells Venables, beckoning them in as they squeeze into the end of our row. “Plenty of room, folks. Brilliant. OK? OK. I think that’s everyone. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Total silence.

“Bloody hell, you guys are quiet! Can’t have that. See lots of familiar faces here from last year, yeah? You guys know I don’t do quiet. Theater doesn’t do quiet. Theater needs you BIG and BRAVE, yeah?”

There’s a mumble of “yeah”s in return.

“Can’t hear you,” says Venables, cupping his ear.

“Yeah.”

“Still can’t hear you! On your feet!”

The floor bounces slightly beneath my feet; everyone stands up. I look up at Timo Januscz’s arse and realize I’m the only one not standing. Dai gives me a look till I give in.

“Let’s get moving, come on! Hands in the air! Waggle them round! Pat your knees! Roll your shoulders back! Roll them forward! BIG and BRAVE, yeah?”

“Yeah!” yells everyone. Well, almost everyone. Fili is rolling her eyes as well as her shoulders. Yuliya is standing quite still, watching the whole thing with her mouth forming a perfect O of horror.

I decide I kind of like Yuliya.

“Heidi, come ON!” says Ludo over the chorus of yeah-ing, windmilling her arms. “You have to get into it properly!”

“Don’t ever let me start a session without a warm-up, you guys, yeah?” bellows Venables, patting the air to tell us we can sit again. “Can’t expect your brains to work if your bodies aren’t moving, right?”

I usually expect my brain to work
instead
of my body moving, but Venables is blathering something about “kinetic energy” and rifling through his man-bag. Finally, he triumphantly thrusts a pale cream paperback book with old-fashioned black lettering on it toward us.

“Anyone recognize this?”

“It’s a book,” I say, automatically, and a teensy bit louder than planned.

“A book?” Venables cups his ear again. “Yes! It is! Never be afraid to state the obvious, guys. Nothing’s obvious, yeah? But not just any book! It’s a play, called
Twelfth Night.
Pretty famous. The guy that wrote it is pretty famous, too. The biggest celeb of the literary world? Shakespeare, guys!”

There’s a vague murmuring around the auditorium.

“Come on, I know what you guys are all thinking. It tells us it’s boring! Old Billy Shakespeare: words no one understands, nobody knows what’s going on, everybody gets stabbed at the end, yeah?”

I have to give Venables a few points, there. We did
Hamlet
in English last year. I liked his proto-emo-kid thing, but I did write an entire essay about how it would’ve benefited from being forty-two minutes long, and finished with a paragraph that read, “In conclusion, NEEDS MORE JOKES.” Prowse gave me a D.

People laugh anyway.

“Well, don’t all rush for the doors yet, guys, yeah? Because first off,
Twelfth Night
is about cross-dressing and gay sex. And second of all, this play? Billy’s play? That’s not what we’re doing.”

He chucks the book over his shoulder. Someone claps.

“We’re doing…” There’s more rifling of the man-bag. “This!”

He unrolls a poster, with TWELFTH NIGHT: THE MUSICAL written in huge, crappy marker pen lettering.

HOE.

CAY.

Venables grins like a crazy monkey as mumbling starts up all over, and waves his arms a lot as he starts to tell everyone the plot. There are some impossibly identical boygirl twins, and the girl dresses up like a boy, and a duke falls in love with him, which is apparently OK in Old Billy time
because she’s really a girl. Some guy wears comedy socks. And there’s a clown.

“But forget all that stuff about dukes, guys. This is not 1601. No one is going to be wearing codpieces in this production. We’re better than that, guys. We’re going to set this somewhere crazy. Take our audience somewhere they didn’t know they were going to go. Shake up our Shakespeare!”

Venables whips out a marker, and writes “IN THE ‘80s” on his poster, then adds “!!!!” on the end.

Fili makes a little moaning noise of despair.

“OH MY GOD!” hisses Ludo. “Leg warmers! And Lycra! And blue mascara!”

From the look on her face, these are apparently supposed to be good things.

Then we’re all filtering back out of the comfy seats into the foyer to sign up for roles. The acting/singing people have to audition—not in front of everyone else—but I still wrestle the pen out of Dai’s hand and cross my name off from where he’s gleefully written it in. Detectives definitely stay backstage if there are going to be leg warmers involved. I hover over Set Design/Construction, but Timo and the patchouli gang are already signed up, and I’m not sure I can handle poetic angst while standing on a ladder. Simon’s name is under Costume, though. I’ve never made anything more ambitious than my Bubble Wrap bag (and that’s mostly held together with staples), but I always wanted to be one of those kitschy home-sewn kids. And Simon may need some assistance with colors that aren’t black.

Costume it is.

The others are all on the audition pile, getting their stuff together to head back into the auditorium in little groups and sing songs from
Annie
, or whatever people do in auditions.

“Costumers? Brilliant, brilliant,” Venables yells, flapping his arms and wafting me and Simon over to him. “Love it, yeah? Eighties. You know the eighties, yeah? Brilliant. Perfecto. And don’t panic about construction, materials, budget, all that jazz. Right now, I just want your creativity. You can come up with some concept artwork for me, yeah? This time next week? Brilliant. Love it.”