The Boyfriend Dilemma (20 page)

Chapter twenty-seven

My little brother is hiding again. “Matty!” Annalise calls up from the bottom of the stairs. “Hurry up, would you?” She plonks a hand on her hip. There's a sore-looking bit on her left ankle from where the strap of her platform sandal's been rubbing. “That stupid boy,” she grumbles, marching back to the kitchen and flinging open the fridge, where nothing seems to please her. I'm sure she exists on the stash of crisps and biscuits she keeps in her room. “He's driving me mad,” she mutters. “God, this had better be worth it.”

“What d'you mean?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

I glance at the kitchen doorway, willing him to come down so she doesn't get even more annoyed. Annalise seems different today, though. Not shouty, like she was at the auditions, or when Matty played his Oreo prank. This is a quieter, simmering annoyance, and for some reason, it's scarier.

It's me who finds him, cross-legged on the floor behind his bedroom curtain. “Matty, what's wrong?”

“Don't wanna go to school,” he mutters.

“C'mon,” I say. “You've
got
to go.”

“Wanna stay here,” he mutters.

I frown at my brother. He looks flat on this grey Monday morning, like some of the fizz has gone out of him. “You don't want to stay at home with her, do you?” I whisper.

“I wanna stay home with Fanta.” He gets up from the floor and plonks himself on his unmade bed, facing his fish tank.

“Matty, come
on
. We're going to be late and Annalise is acting weird today…”

He frowns at me. “How weird?”

I shrug. “Don't know. Just quiet and sort of …
brooding
.” I take hold of his hand. “Please, Matty…” He doesn't need to be asked again. Thankfully, he's already dressed, and he jams a cold slice of toast into his mouth before we head off to school.

“Have a nice day
,
” Annalise calls after us, in such a fake-happy voice that Matty and I can't help smirking in the garden.

“
Have a nice day
,” he keeps mimicking all the way to school, making me laugh every time. I never thought I'd say this, but sometimes I'm glad to have a little brother like him. He's not scared of our weird, newly ginger-headed au pair. Bet he's already planning his next prank to play on her. I can almost hear his brain whirring away as I drop him at school, and surprise him with a hug at the gates.

“Hey,” he yells, shoving me off.

“
Have a nice day!
” I sing-song, hurrying off to meet Layla. She's waiting on the corner as usual, and the smile bursts across her face when she sees me.

“Ben called Kyle,” she announces. “He's feeling much better. He's had operations on his ankle and arm, and he says your mum did an amazing job at stitching his face. He had concussion too, so they want to keep an eye on him, but he'll be allowed home pretty soon.”

“That's great.” I glance at her, avoiding looking at CJ across the street. “Where's home, though? It didn't sound like he's going back to Mary's.”

“Think he'll go to his parents'?”

“Don't know. Sounds like he's not really wanted there, either.”

We fall into silence, and I can tell she's thinking the same as me: who cares if he lied? I can't imagine not being wanted at home. Sure, I wish Mum and Dad were still together, and that I didn't have to spend my visits to Dad's watching Olivia cantering around the paddock. Ideally, I'd prefer not to have an au pair, and for Mum not to work so much – but then, she
is
brilliant at what she does. Didn't Ben's Aunt Mary say so?

We're at school now, and already the place feels different without Ben, even though he was only here for a few days before the accident. It's like when you drop a Mentos mint into a bottle of Coke and it goes
whooosh!
An instant reaction.

“Shame about what happened to Ben.” CJ has sidled up to Layla and me outside the school office.

“Yeah, I know,” I say, not wanting to discuss it with her. She looks different, though. Less hard, despite her stony expression. “You sang really well at the audition,” I add.

She flushes. “Thanks.”

“I didn't know you could sing,” I continue. “I mean, you were never in the choir or anything—”

“No, well, my mum wouldn't let me go,” she says flatly.

“Why not?” Layla asks.

CJ shrugs. “She thought it was a waste of time. And it costed, didn't it?”

“Not much,” I remark. “Just a couple of pounds a week for Acorn funds…”

“Yeah, but you all had new clothes for concerts and stuff. Black trousers, white shirts—”

I glance down, realizing I'd never noticed how greying her school shirts are, and how her skirt hangs limply, even though she's tried to roll it over at her waist to shorten it. “Mum's not really into us doing stuff,” she adds. “Not like yours.”

Does she mean I'm spoiled? I don't think so… “Well,” I say quickly, “I hope you're going to sing at the concert. You really should, you know. You were easily the best…”

“It won't happen now, will it?” CJ remarks. “Ben's broken his arm and won't be able to play guitar for months.”

“No,” I cut in, “it
has
to go ahead. It was a brilliant idea and if we can persuade Kyle and the others to go ahead…” I look around and spot Jude. “You'll do it, won't you?” I call across as the bell rings.

“Do what?” he asks, looking startled.

“The concert at the Acorn—”

“Excuse me!” Miss Baker, our gym teacher, raises her voice and stares pointedly at the clock on the wall. “Can I just remind you that the bell has gone, and that this isn't just a social gathering? Move along – you have classes to get to.”

 

Matty chatters all the way home. It's hard to pay attention as I'm wondering what Ben's doing now – not in an
oh-my-God-this-crush-is-taking-over-my-brain
kind of way. More in a concerned way, really.

Is he still lying in a hospital bed right now, all alone? Will Mary visit him again? When Matty broke his arm, the nurses brought out a fold-out bed so Mum could sleep beside him the night he had to stay over. He was
never
alone – not for a minute.

All's quiet when we get home. Annalise is lying on the sofa, flipping idly through a celeb magazine, and doesn't even look up when we walk in.

“Hi,” I say, remembering that I'm meant to be making an effort with her.

“Hi,” she says without shifting her gaze from the page. With a grunt, Matty clatters upstairs.

Although I'd rather head up to my room myself, it feels a bit unfriendly, so I perch on the sofa next to her and try to think of something to say.

“
Nooooo!!!
” comes the scream.

“Matty, what's wrong?” I leap up, tear upstairs and into his bedroom.

He is sobbing, face down on his bed. Crying like I've never heard him cry before.

“Matty, what happened?” I land on the bed beside him. He's crying too hard to answer. “Please tell me…”

He sobs and gulps until, finally, he turns towards me. He looks awful – red-faced, with his hair plastered to his wet cheeks. “Look,” he whispers, pointing towards Fanta's bowl. There's just the little plastic tree and the bridge and the Aztec pyramid thing. No Fanta. At first, I think his goldfish is hiding, playing a little prank of his own. But there's nowhere he could be.

“Where's Fanta?” I ask.

“He's gone!” comes my brother's tiny voice. “I think a cat came in again.”

“But…” I look around the room. “The window's not open, Matty.”

I get up and look down on the garden below. A cat couldn't have got in. So Fanta hasn't been eaten. It's a mystery. Unless… “Hang on a minute,” I murmur, padding lightly downstairs.

In the living room, Annalise has flung her magazine on the floor and is now picking at her fingernails with a kirby grip. “What happened to Fanta?” I ask calmly.

“What?” She squints at me.

“
Fanta
. Matty's fish.”

She carries on jabbing at her nails. “It was just a fish, Zoe. A stupid fish he won at Baxter Valley that wasn't gonna live long anyway.”

“What've you done to Fanta?” My voice has risen to a shriek. Matty's standing at the bottom of the stairs now, his eyes red and puffy and his hair all poking up.

She laughs a horrible, mean little laugh and drops the kirby grip onto our glass coffee table. “You're pretty keen on pranking me,” she says, glaring at my brother, “so I thought I'd get you back.”

“What?” Matty cries.

“You can't do that—” I start.

“Where did you put him?” Matty demands, cheeks red with fury. “Give him back!”

Annalise smirks, getting up from the sofa and drifting into the kitchen, where she fills the kettle. “I can't,” she says, “'cause he's in the loo.”

“You flushed him down the loo?” I yell as Matty's face crumples again.

“Yeah.”

“But … why? Because of the Oreo thing? That's a horrible thing to do!”

Annalise shrugs.

“You're so mean,” I yell as Matty runs off to check all our bathrooms. “I
hate
you. I wish you'd never come—”

The front door flies open and Mum is standing there. “What is going here?” she barks. Annalise and I turn to face her.

“She flushed Fanta down the loo,” Matty announces, reappearing briefly then clattering back upstairs.

Mum sets down her bag on the floor. Her short hair is growing out and the shadows beneath her eyes look particular dark in her paler-than-usual face. “Can someone tell me what's going on?”

“Annalise put Fanta in the toilet,” I say flatly. “To get Matty back for the Oreo trick.”

Mum's eyes widen. “Seriously?”

“Yeah…”

Mum shakes her head slowly and glares at Annalise. We can hear Matty, running back and forth across the landing, announcing that his pet is nowhere to be seen. “What on earth possessed you to do that?” Mum splutters.

Annalise sniffs loudly. “I don't know what you're talking about. A cat…”

“She just admitted it, Mum. And the window was shut,” I shout.

“It was Matty's pet,” Mum exclaims. “What made you do such a mean thing?”

“Look—”

“No,” Mum cuts in, “don't tell me – I don't want to hear any excuses, Annalise. I can't have you live here with my children any more. You can make some calls tonight and sort out arrangements, and I'll be taking you to the station first thing tomorrow…”

“No, not again!” she exclaims.

We both peer at her. “What d'you mean by that?” Mum asks.

“Nothing.” She glares at us as Matty mooches in. “Oh, I don't suppose
you
care. I only took this job 'cause Daddy said it was my last chance—”

“At what?” I ask, completely baffled.

She looks me right in the eye. “Last chance to hang on to my allowance. Thanks to you lot, it'll be stopped.”

“Is that like pocket money?” Matty asks, his eyes still pink and sore.

“Ha,” she snorts. “I'd imagine it's a
bit
more than that. You didn't think I could live on what you pay me, do you?”

“But—” Mum starts.

“Anyway,” Annalise cuts in, “he was annoyed that I haven't managed to stick at a job, so I took this one to keep him happy. He said, as long as I could hold down a job for at least six months, then he'd keep putting money into my account…” She looks around at us all, her eyes narrowed and mean. “You didn't think I
wanted
to be an au pair, did you?”

We stand there in silence. Even Matty is speechless. Then finally, he turns to Mum and takes her hand. “Fanta's gone,” he mutters. “She flushed him away. He's probably dead in a sewer or something.”

Mum pulls him close, shutting her eyes for a moment. “Just go,” she says under her breath.

“But what'll I tell Daddy?”

I've never heard Mum sound so icy. “Just go to your room, Annalise, and pack your things and leave my family alone.”

 

That night, after Matty's finally been persuaded to go to bed, Mum and I sit up chatting in the kitchen. We don't normally do this. She's too worried that my grades will plummet if I go to bed a second later than ten o'clock. Tonight feels different, though. There's so much to talk about, and it's as if she's forgotten about the time or even that there's school in the morning.

We talk about Annalise, and how Mum feels so responsible. She knew she was using her make-up and perfume, but had figured that she'd give her time to settle in with us before laying down a few rules.