Paparazzi Princess (16 page)

Riko stared at me angrily. ‘I just wanted some time alone with Ashton. They treat me like a kid. I just want some time out! Can you blame me?’

‘No. Well, yes actually. You’re in big trouble and it wasn’t because of me interfering. They knew you’d gone straight away. Listen, let me call Dad and say we’re all coming back.’

‘Nooooo,’ Riko cried.

She looked at the boy, who shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Riko, The police are involved. I . . . I guess we ought to go back.’ He sounded American.

Riko rolled her eyes. ‘You total cop-out. This was to be our holiday, Ash.
Our
s. We’ve been planning it for weeks.’

The boy looked sheepish. Up close, he had a gentle air about him and I got the feeling that the whole venture was Riko’s idea.

‘If we go now, we can avoid a big scene when the police arrive,’ I suggested.

‘I don’t care. I want to get arrested,’ said Riko. ‘That’ll teach my dad.’

‘He cares about you, Riko. I saw how upset he was. Come on, see sense. The operation must have cost the police thousands. They aren’t going to see it as a joke and you might get into trouble.’

Riko folded her arms as if shutting out the world. ‘You have no sense of adventure, Jess.’

Tom stepped forward. ‘She does, actually, but this is no time for fun. Come on. We’re going back. If we get the Piccadilly line, we can maybe avert the police and be back at Porchester Park in about forty minutes.’

Riko wrinkled her nose. ‘The
tube
? You must be joking. I’m Riko Mori. I don’t do tubes.’

Tom stood very close to her face. ‘Listen, Riko Mori. I don’t care whether you do or don’t do tubes but you are going
home
. Understand?’

Riko tried to stand up to him but he eyeballed her right back. In the end, her posture slumped slightly. ‘OK. I’m bored with this game anyway. It so isn’t turning out the way I planned. We’ll come . . . but we’ll get a taxi. Right?’

Tom glanced at me. ‘OK. But you pay, right?’

‘Why? Can’t afford it?’ sneered Riko.

‘You’re the problem. The problem pays,’ said Tom firmly.

I glanced over at him. It was amazing the way he’d taken control of the situation and kept me going when I was ready to give up.
My hero
, I thought.

‘I . . . I might make my own way back,’ said Ashton. ‘The police are looking for you, Riko, yeah? Best I don’t get involved.’

Riko’s face registered a flicker of hurt which she quickly covered up. ‘Sure. Desert us now, why don’t you?’

Ashton looked at the ground again and shifted on his feet. ‘Come on Riko. You know I could get expelled for this, not to mention what my folks are going to say. At least they knew I was out for the day. I’m sorry, I can’t get blamed for this.’

Riko flung her arms out. ‘OK. Go. I didn’t really want to go with you anyway.’

Ashton sighed. ‘I’ll call you,’ he said as he backed away.

‘Don’t bother,’ said Riko. She stuck her bottom lip out and looked like a five-year-old who was going to cry. For a brief second, I felt sorry for her as Ashton disappeared into the crowds. Rich or poor, boy problems were still the same.

We made our way to the taxi queue and, as we waited, Tom called Charlie to tell him to let Dad know that we were on our way back. Then he called Pia and told her to get the others to meet us back at Porchester Park.

Just as we got into the taxi and were driving away, I noticed police vans with their sirens screeching, advancing towards the station.

‘Bet they’re coming for you,’ I said.

‘Oops, missed us,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Come to get little old me, too late, guys, too late. But hey, Jess . . . One favour. Even though he’s a stinking cowardly rat and I hate him, please don’t bring Ashton into this. When we get back, say you found me but that I was on my own.’

‘But the police already have a photo of him.’

‘Yes but only
you
know that he was actually with me. They have no proof. Please. He was right. He might get expelled and his parents can be as intense as mine. I don’t care if I get into trouble but . . . I don’t want him to as well.’

I glanced at Tom. ‘What do you think?’

He thought for a moment then nodded. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘No need to bring him into it unless they look on the cameras at St Pancras. Don’t forget they’re everywhere.’

‘But if I’m back home, safe and sorry etc, they probably won’t check the cameras. I’d say it would be a waste of police time and money,’ said Riko, but she didn’t sound that confident. She stared out of the window for a few minutes. ‘I would have gone back,’ she said finally. ‘We would have got a return ticket. I just wanted a bit of time out.’

‘That’s what the paper said,’ said Tom.

‘What paper?’ asked Riko.

‘The article. I . . . Oh. I thought you’d seen it. I . . . I thought that’s why you took off,’ I said.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Riko. ‘What article?’

My mind was putting together the pieces. So she hadn’t read the article and freaked? Of course not. She said she’d been planning her escape all along. ‘Um. It doesn’t matter. Nothing. Not important. You didn’t see it. So . . . do you mean you were going to go off with Ashton anyway?’

Riko nodded. ‘We’d been planning to go somewhere for weeks – a few days out, anywhere. It was when you asked what my perfect holiday was, remember, Jess?’

I nodded. ‘A day in Paris.’

‘Yeah, said Riko. ‘That gave me the idea. I thought why not? A day trip to Paris. Our plan was to go, call my parents when we got there, when no-one could reach us and be back the following evening. At least that was the plan. Neither of us thought to book ahead. We always have someone who takes care of that sort of thing. I just assumed you pitched up, got your ticket and off you went. We were told that there might be a place if someone cancelled or didn’t show – that’s what we were waiting for when you turned up and ruined everything.’

‘We didn’t ruin anything,’ said Tom. ‘If anything, we saved your bacon.’

‘Whatever,’ said Riko. ‘But, rewind a sec.
Paper
? What are you talking about?’

‘One of the journalists who hangs about outside where you live did an article. Teens at the top, that sort of the thing,’ Tom explained.

‘So what did it say?’ she said and preened herself. ‘Did it mention me?’

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. Tom didn’t know I was the anonymous source.

‘It did actually,’ Tom continued. ‘It was about how a lot of so-called privileged teens like you find it hard finding friends and get lonely.’

Riko scowled. ‘I’ve got friends. I’ve got friends at school. So was it saying I was a
loser?
’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Just that it can be lonely sometimes.’

Riko’s expression grew harder. She tapped on the glass partition. ‘Hey, driver. Stop at a newsagent. I want to get a paper.’

‘And who are you, the Queen?’ said the driver. I could see in the mirror that he rolled his eyes. ‘Kids these days, no bloody manners.’ All the same, he slowed down and stopped at the next newsagent. Riko got out swiftly, followed by Tom.

‘You stay here, Jess. I’m not going to risk her running off,’ he said.

‘Whatever,’ snarled Riko.

They reappeared a few minutes later and Riko stood on the pavement. I watched as she read the article. When she’d finished, she climbed back into the taxi with Tom. She had a face like thunder.

‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she demanded. ‘The anonymous source?’

‘Hey, give Jess a break,’ said Tom. ‘You can’t lay everything on her. If anything, you should be thanking her.’

‘So much you know,’ said Riko, turning back to the paper as the taxi drove off again.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want Tom to think I was a traitor.

Riko threw the paper aside. ‘This will
kill
my street cred,’ she said. ‘I sound like a sad, pathetic loser.’

‘Tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper—’ I started.

Riko turned on me. ‘What are you on about now? It’s
you
who’s the sad loser, Jess Hall. I know it was you, even if you aren’t admitting it. This is almost word for word what I said to you.’

‘I
said
, lay off Jess, Riko,’ said Tom. He took my hand and held it.

Riko folded her arms and gave me the filthiest look.

I felt awful. I’d agreed with Dad that we wouldn’t reveal it was me who was the source so I wasn’t going to go against his orders again. As the taxi headed towards Knightsbridge, I felt my eyes fill with tears, tears that Riko noticed. She narrowed her eyes but there was no sympathy there, only hatred.

Gran was back from Italy and we were all round her house for a belated celebration. Her house smelt festive from the roast dinner cooking in the kitchen and from the apple-and-cinnamon drinks she’d prepared for us when we arrived. Us being Dad, Aunt Maddie, Pia, Charlie, Mrs Carlsen and me. Even though it was January the fourth, me and Charlie were wearing our Christmas jumpers, plus I’d made a tinsel tiara to complete the look. It was tradition to look like an eejit and always would be. I breathed in the familiar, safe scent of Gran’s and sighed deeply. She was back. All was well in my world again.

‘Ah . . . Christmas,’ I said.

‘Only it’s January,’ Charlie pointed out.

‘Christmas is a feeling,’ I said, ‘not a specific date and that’s what I’m going to write my essay about for school.’

‘I’d go along with that,’ said Charlie and he broke into song. ‘Oh, I wish it could be Christmas every da-a-ay.’

Pia and I joined in by doing our version of street dancing which made Charlie stop singing. ‘Mad,’ he said as he shook his head. ‘Sad.’

Gran had had the most brilliant time in Florence and done some fantastic drawings of nudie people. She was already planning an exhibition up in Hampstead at a gallery who liked her work. She shooed us out of the kitchen so that she could concentrate on preparing the meal, so Pia and I headed upstairs with Aunt Maddie. It was makeover time.

Pia covered the mirror in Gran’s bedroom with a shawl so that Aunt Maddie couldn’t see herself, then she grimaced and pulled faces as we plucked her eyebrows. Once they’d been shaped into a lovely arch, Pia applied a little light make-up then I blow-dried her hair. Once that was done, we pulled out a selection of clothes for Aunt Maddie to try on. I’d brought them from home and they were from Mum’s wardrobe. I couldn’t give them away to anyone after she’d died so I’d kept them in boxes. However, I knew she’d have liked to know that they’d gone to Aunt Maddie. Mum was always bullying people to wear their good clothes every day and not save them for special occasions. She would have hated to think that her best were wasting away in storage.

First Aunt Maddie tried a black wrap dress. It looked great on her and made her look loads slimmer than the baggy fleeces she usually wore. Next was a green skirt cut on the bias with a coral cardi and a little camisole top. That looked good too. As we pulled out more and more clothes, they all looked a million times better than Aunt Maddie’s old wardrobe. In the end, we settled for the cardi and skirt.

‘Ta-dah,’ said Pia as she finally whipped the shawl away from the mirror.

Aunt Maddie’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at her reflection. ‘I look like Eleanor,’ she said.

I nodded. The likeness had always been there but Mum had always been the more stylish one. I felt my eyes fill with tears too. She wasn’t my mum and never would be but she was Mum’s sister. She was family. While Mum was alive, I’d never appreciated having an aunt. She was just someone who came to visit occasionally and who often, used to annoy me, but lately I’d felt closer to Aunt Maddie. I’d begun to appreciate that, in her own way, she was there for me.

‘Watch out world,’ I said and went and gave her a hug.

‘Come and sit at the table,’ called Gran from downstairs.

Dinner was soon served with all the trimmings and as we sat around the table, I thought what a strange Christmas it had been: up, down and round and round, feeling good, feeling bad, spending time with the rich, with the poor, on an adventure with Tom. I would make a note of that in my essay too – that Christmas could be many things to many people and it wasn’t always a happy time. Sometimes it could be mixed, like it had been for me. I hadn’t heard from Tom since the Rescue Riko mission. I was
so
disappointed because I’d felt close to him that day and we’d had a good time together. Made a good team. Since then though, he’d only been in touch to speak to Charlie about music and I was beginning to think that he just wasn’t into having a relationship. He might like to hang out with me when it suited him but nothing more. I was still nobody’s girl.

As Gran passed around the roasties and the cranberry sauce, I picked up the stuffing.

‘This makes me think of Tom,’ I said. ‘He can go stuff himself.’

Pia almost choked on a sprout.

Later that evening, Alisha skyped me from the holiday home where she was staying.

‘We saw the article about Porchester Park,’ she said. ‘Dad gets the English papers while we’re away.’

God! Straight to the point
, I thought. I’d been hoping to skirt around the subject for a while then maybe drop it into the conversation to test if she’d seen it. I wondered if, like Riko, she’d guessed that it was me who had leaked the story. I had to make a decision. I thought about my resolution not to trust so easily. Could I trust Alisha? She was my mate, and mates trust each other, so I decided that she deserved to know the truth.