The Boyfriend Dilemma (7 page)

Chapter nine

While I've always suspected that Rosalind isn't exactly keen on Matty and me, these past five days have proved it. Aside from the iPad (which Dad has already whisked away to be fixed), there have been other, smaller things we've done wrong, like…

 

1. Me not showing enough interest in Olivia's
   second
   riding lesson of the week. “She just stood there looking bored,” Rosalind complained to Dad, as if I should have been either clapping, cheering or fainting with excitement. Next time –
   when I finally get my phone back
   – I'll be sure to take hundreds of photos, OK?
   
2. Me (again!) saying I like science, when Rosalind asked what I enjoy at school. From the look she gave me, you'd have thought I'd said, “What I really love is performing cruel experiments on live frogs.” Which, of course, we never do. Or maybe she just doesn't get science?
   
3. Me and Matty and the Hot Chocolate Incident. Last night, Rosalind made Olivia's special bedtime drink, complete with squirty cream, chocolate sprinkles and some kind of edible pink hearts. When Dad wandered into the living room and said, “Don't you two like hot chocolate any more?” Rosalind replied, quick as a flash, “They didn't say they wanted any.” Well, I didn't actually. I don't really go for drinks that look like
   cakes
   . “You could have asked them,” he said, and the atmosphere was so uncomfortable, he grabbed his wallet and stormed out to the pub. Rosalind went all pink and watery-eyed and then spent nearly an hour in the bath.
   

 

Anyway, things aren't all bad, because we've survived – just. It's Saturday morning and any minute now Dad is taking us home. I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It's eleven o'clock, Dad. Maybe we'd be better be going?”

“Oh, right – are you both packed and ready?” he asks with a smile.

“Yes,” we reply in unison. In fact, we've been packed for hours. Matty's even waiting at the front door with his backpack on.

“Let's go then,” Dad says. “I'll just call Rosalind and Olivia in from the paddock. They'll want to see you off.” Sure they will, to make sure we've actually
gone.

As we drive away, with Rosalind grinning fakely and Olivia glaring at us, I wonder if it'll ever feel OK coming here. “Um, Dad,” I say when we're about halfway home, “could you drop me off at Layla's?”

“What for, love?” he asks, giving me a quick sideways glance.

I shrug, making out it's no big deal. “It's just, I haven't seen her for ages.”

He chuckles. “Still as thick as thieves, are you?”

“Yes, of course we are.”

“Sure you don't want to go home and see Mum first?” Dad asks.

“Um, I'd just like to see Layla…”

He nods. “Better call Mum to check it's OK.”

“I don't have my phone,” I remind him.

He exhales loudly. “Mine's in the glove compartment. Give her a call.” I rummage for it and find her mobile number.

“What is it, Mark?” she says coldly when she answers.

“Mum, it's me.”

“Oh, Zoe! Hi, darling. Everything OK?” Phew – she doesn't sound mad any more.

“I'm fine,” I reply. “We're on our way home. But it is all right if Dad drops me off at Layla's?”

“Do you really need to?” Mum asks. “It's just … there's something I'd like to talk to—”

“Please, Mum,” I cut in. “I haven't seen her all week.”

Mum pauses. “All right, love, but don't be too long. I took today off work and I'd really like to spend some time with you.” With a twinge of guilt, I realize I'm missing her too. At least, I'm missing kind, friendly Mum, rather than the annoyed version who confiscated my phone… She clears her throat. “Um … sorry about your phone, Zoe. I think I overreacted…”

“It's OK,” I murmur.

Mum pauses. “I know I've been a bit harsh with you, sweetheart. I was upset that day and it wasn't just about Matty being left at the holiday club…”

“What was it, then?”

“Um … something else.”

“Something at work?” I ask.

“It was … yes, kind of.” Her voice cracks, then she adds, “It's all sorted now, OK? Have a nice time at Layla's and I'll see you later. Is Dad bringing Matty home now?”

“Yeah, he'll be home in about half an hour.” I finish the call, and Dad and I chat about school and the cross-country team and how Miss Baker, our gym teacher, says I might be able to run for the county. It feels so good, just the two of us talking while Matty plays on his phone in the back, that all the stresses of the last few days melt away.

 

I've never
been happier to see Layla. Up in her room, I describe Olivia's announcement over dinner that she wants her newest horse blanket to be professionally embroidered with her full name (which I happen to know is Olivia Melody Butt, haha!). But even when we're curled up on her unmade bed, snorting with laughter, I can tell things aren't right. Layla's acting as if there's something on her mind. The tent thing, probably. Well, it'd take me a long time to recover from that too.

“Layla?” her mum calls upstairs. “Remember that thing you promised to do?”

“Yes, Mum,” she shouts back.

“What thing?” I ask, hoping she doesn't have to go anywhere.

“Gran's birthday party tomorrow,” Layla explains. “Mum's made the cake but she wants me to decorate it. One of Gran's friends has taken her out so I've got an hour to do it.” Maybe that's what's playing on her mind. It's unlike Layla to stress over a creative project, though. “Want to help?” she asks, slipping off her bed.

“Oh, you know I'm rubbish at that kind of thing.”

“No, you're not,” she insists. “C'mon, it'll be more fun if we do it together.”

It's not that I don't want to help. Just that I'd rather hang out in Layla's room, especially as Amber's out at the Young Adventurers' fun day, so we'd have the chance to catch up. But Layla's already heading downstairs, so I follow her to the kitchen where her mum has set everything out for us. “What are you planning to do?” I ask.

“Thought I'd make a patchwork cake,” Layla replies. “Gran used to love making patchwork rugs. Remember how she taught me to sew all the knitted squares together?” I nod. My grandparents live hundreds of miles away so we only see them on special occasions.

“She can't manage it any more, though,” her mum adds, glancing at me. “It's sad, Zoe. She can't remember how to make all the pieces fit together.”

I glance down at the block of sugarpaste icing, ready to be tinted into a rainbow of different colours. “D'you think it'll upset her?” I ask as Layla's phone bleeps in her pocket.

“I don't think so,” she replies, ignoring the message. “She still loves home-made things. She's always asking me about my clothes.”

“She'll be delighted,” her mum says firmly. “Anyway, I need to pick up Amber, OK? Can I leave you girls to it?”

“Sure,” Layla says.

In fact, decorating the cake is just the thing to take my mind off my two days with Rosalind and Olivia. We knead food colouring into the icing, then roll out the different colours and cut them into tiny squares to place carefully on the cake. By the time we've finished we've made a complete mess of the kitchen but the cake looks
brilliant.
We have some icing left over and Layla has the idea the idea of making a little icing basket, which she fills with miniature fruit, then moulds a model “Gran” and places her on the cake beside it.

“What d'you think?” she asks, grinning.

“It's amazing! Remember when your gran used to take us up to the quarry and we'd have a picnic?”

Layla nods, grabs a couple of pieces of icing and blends them together until they're a fiery orange shade. Within minutes she's made a tiny fox, with a flash of white beneath its chin, which she places at the edge of the cake. “It's perfect,” I exclaim.

“Well, you did it too.”

“You did the creative bits, though,” I say, even if I am pretty proud of myself too for my part in the Great Cake Effort. We hide it on top of the fridge where her gran won't see it, and are settling down in Layla's bedroom again when the front door bursts open and Amber charges upstairs towards us.

“Look what I made!” she announces, clutching a shoebox to her chest.

“What is it?” Layla asks.

“A purse!” Amber whips off the lid and something terrible wafts out – deeply fishy and possibly the worst stink I've ever smelled in my life.

We both recoil in horror and Layla makes a gagging noise. “Ugh, get it out of here!”

“Don't you like it?” Amber has plucked something brownish, like a lump of dead skin, from the box.

“It's horrible,” I exclaim. “What's it made of?”

“Salmon.”

“Salmon?” Layla splutters. “You mean actual fish?”

“Yeah,” Amber says proudly. “We took the skin off and left it to dry out till the smell had gone and then we sewed it together—”

“But the smell
hasn't
gone,” I say, creasing up with laughter.

“Yeah, it has! Anyway, it's better than using leather…”

Layla is up on her feet now, ushering Amber towards the door. “Take it away. Put it in the outside bin…”

“No,” she cries. “I made it!”

I snigger and turn to Layla. “D'you want to come to my house instead? I did tell Mum I wouldn't be long…”

Layla nods. “At least your place doesn't smell like that,” she adds, throwing Amber an exasperated look. “C'mon, let's go.” We yell goodbye to Layla's mum and run out.

Even outside, it feels like the stink is still clinging to the insides of my nostrils. “Good job Ben wasn't there,” I remark as we make our way along Layla's street towards my place.

“Yeah,” she says.

“Imagine what he'd have thought,” I add, giggling at the very idea. “Anyway, have you seen much of him while I've been at Dad's?”

“Er, he was at the market when CJ and Toni unpegged the tent,” she mutters.

“Oh, no, was he?”

“Let's not talk about him,” she says quickly, linking her arm in mine.

Poor Layla. The whole tent thing has obviously really upset her. Her phone bleeps again and she doesn't even check who's texted her. “What's going to happen about this au pair?” she asks, obviously keen to change the subject. “D'you think your mum'll go through with it?”

I sigh. “Uhh, I hope not. Don't mention it in front of her, will you?”

She smiles. “You're hoping she'll just forget?”

“Maybe.” We're at our house now, where Mum pulls me in for a tight, heartfelt hug.

“I've missed you, love,” she exclaims, pulling back and smiling at Layla. “Come in, girls. Zoe, it's so exciting, I've been desperate to tell you…”

“What is?” I ask hesitantly.

Mum beams happily while Matty clatters downstairs. “I've found someone!” she announces.

“What, already?” I glance at Layla in alarm, then back at Mum. “I didn't think it would happen this quickly,” I add.

“It doesn't if you go through the official channels,” she explains.

“So you've found someone …
unofficially
?” And this is Mum, who says the two of us matter to her more than anything else in the world, and blew her top when Matty was left waiting at the perfectly safe holiday club to scoff toast and honey for half an hour?

“It's not like that,” she says firmly. “I just put the word out at work that we were looking for someone, and a lovely girl got in touch. I've had a glowing reference from the family she's been living with, and we've had long chats on the phone and lots of emails back and forth…”

Whoa, would have been nice if Mum had let me and Matty know she'd found a new best friend… “What's she like?” Matty asks brightly, obviously thinking this is a
good
thing. Someone else to torment, probably.

“Her name's Annalise,” Mum says. “She's a friend of one of the girls who works in the flower shop – you know where hospital visitors buy bouquets to take in to—”

“Yes, Mum,” I cut in.
I do know what a flower shop is
…

“She's eighteen,” Mum goes on, “and she has lots of experience…”

“Which country's she from?” Matty asks.

“She's British actually, from the Midlands.”

“But…” I frown. “I thought the whole point of au pairs is that they come here to improve their English?”

“Yes, that's normally the case,” Mum says briskly, “but she loves working with children and wants to gain more experience before training to work in nurseries…”

“Nurseries?” I exclaim. “But, Mum, I'm thirteen! What's she going to do with us? Finger painting and dressing up?”