Never Evers Page 11

  She was interrupted by another clipboard-holding woman opening the trailer door. ‘You,’ she said, pointing at me. ‘Come.’ I smiled goodbye to Trainers and Visor – who looked like they genuinely wanted to murder me – and followed her out.

  As soon as I stepped out, I remembered we were halfway up a mountain, and that there were hundreds of screaming girls waiting. We walked three steps to another trailer and went in, the noise disappearing as the door shut behind us. Every single surface was covered with make-up and coffee cups and cans of Diet Coke.

  At the back of the trailer there were rails and rails of clothes and a table laid with fruit cut into hearts and stars and a tower of vegetables with a beetroot perched on the top. Who eats a whole beetroot? The trailer was so full of things that I hadn’t noticed a human being nestled among it all: Roland.

  He was standing in the middle of a square plastic bath mat laid out on the floor. For a second I didn’t realize what he was doing. He took his monogrammed trainers off and then his black leather jacket and T-shirt, revealing his tanned, super-toned body. He was stripping, right in front of me. I closed my eyes, in case he didn’t realize I was there. In case he was going to get fully, completely naked. I half opened one eye. He was peeling off his jeans. A woman was standing next to him holding a kind of plastic gun hooked up to a machine. And another woman was holding a paintbrush. Now he was wearing only his boxers.

  ‘I’m here,’ I squeaked.

  The women laughed. ‘Just because you have your eyes closed, doesn’t mean we can’t see you. Take a seat, we need to get this done and dried before we get on to you. Eat something, if you like.’

  I picked out a single carrot stick, and sat down on a pink plastic chair. Roland held his arms out and the first woman started spraying him with a thin brown mist. Every so often the other would use her paintbrush to kind of shade his stomach or his shoulder and then take a step back and admire her work. They chatted over him, like he wasn’t human, like he was a giant Ken doll. He just kept his arms out like he was playing stuck in the mud. He stared straight ahead at the wall with a blank expression on his face. He didn’t seem to have even noticed I was there.

  The women muttered something in French to Roland, and then left the trailer. I looked down and realized I was squeezing the carrot stick in extreme panic. I was alone with mostly-naked Roland.

  Still not looking at me, he reached over to the table and picked out a handful of almonds. He had clearly been told about the ‘fuel for dancing’ too.

  ‘So, what is your name?’ he asked, examining the almonds carefully, before popping one in his mouth. His French accent made it sound like every word was coated in honey.

  I carried on looking at the carrot and prayed for an avalanche. All I could think about was Nordic Socks telling me No speaking to Roland. I looked up. He was still standing in just his white boxers, which were now a kind of muddy-brown colour. Our eyes met. No looking Roland directly in the eye. I looked down again, and shut my eyes. Like I had accidentally eyeballed Medusa.

  I heard him laugh. ‘Let me guess: Cooper has been telling you those ridiculous “ground rules”.’ He pronounced ‘ridiculous’ like the French man in Horrible Histories. ‘Cooper is OK, but she used to work for Mariah Carey, so I guess she thinks I am just as much of a diva. But I am not Mariah Carey, am I?’

  I looked up at him and met his big blue eyes properly. It was only then I realized I’d snapped the carrot stick in half. ‘No, you’re not Mariah Carey,’ I said.

  He smiled at me, his dimples deepening in his cheeks. He was gorgeous. Looking at him was how I imagine it must be to see a lion on safari. You’ve seen it loads of times in pictures, but up close it’s totally different. Even though you know it’s real, it feels like it can’t be. Every single thing about him was perfect. Every corner, every feature. He looked airbrushed and filtered and framed in mid-air, even in brown-stained boxers.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Mouse,’ I said. ‘Like the animal.’ And I was so used to doing it that I did the mouse impression without really thinking.

  Roland laughed. ‘I love it.’ And then he did a mouse impression and laughed some more. ‘Will you give me your honest opinion, Mouse?’ He pronounced it ‘Merssssss’, like it had about six s’s in it.

  ‘Er … yeah?’ I said.

  He reached into the clothes rack and pulled out a black T-shirt with ROLAND across it in silver glitter. ‘I am being told to wear this in the video. What do you think?’

  ‘Er … It’s very …’ My mind went blank. ‘It’s very you?’

  He blinked and then burst out laughing – deep, roaring, bellowing laughs that rang all around the trailer. ‘Yes …’ he said, looking at the T-shirt, and then at me. ‘It is very me. But is it … too me?’

  ‘Well, it is a bit weird to have your own name on your T-shirt,’ I said. ‘I mean, my mum sews my name into my clothes, but that’s just on little tags at the back, not a massive glittery splash across the front.’

  Why was I telling the hottest boy I’d ever met about my mum’s sewing skills? I felt myself blushing, and I looked away. When I looked back at him, though, he was watching me closely with a weird smile on his face. His dimples and nose made me suddenly think how much he and Jack looked alike – apart from the eyes and the different hairstyles. They could have been brothers. Or cousins, at least.

  ‘What will I have to do … in the video? I mean, it’s really … nice of you to have asked me.’ Before I could stop myself, I added, ‘Why did you ask me?’

  He didn’t break eye contact with me, just kept smiling his wide, gorgeous smile. ‘Because there was … I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Because everyone wants to be in my videos, and because, y’know …’ He winked at me mischievously. ‘You’re cute, Mouse.’

  Just as I was letting that sentence sink in, Nordic Socks flung the door open, flanked by the French make-up women. ‘Roland, honey, they need to borrow you a minute in the other trailer. Mouse – you’re ready for make-up now.’

  Roland flashed me another grin, and left. The two make-up women sat me down and started pulling out tubes of foundation that were about eight shades darker than my skin, and painting it in lines on my cheeks and nose. ‘I love your hair,’ one of them said, picking up bits of it and holding it up to the other one. ‘I think we can do something interesting with it.’

  Ten minutes later, I was ready. My hair was parted in to long, Nordic Socks-style Heidi plaits, and I had never worn so much make-up in my life, even for ballet performances. I had bronzed cheekbones and shiny pink-glossed lips and eyes that had been covered in a million different pots of identical-looking grey shadow.

  Visor and Trainers had also been made up; Visor was kitted out in a pink all-in-one ski suit, and Trainers in a woolly jumper with snowflakes on and navy trousers. I was handed a white all-in-one. It looked exactly like Lauren’s. I imagined her face when I came back out of the trailer wearing an identical outfit to her.

  I held it in my hands without moving. ‘Is there another colour?’ I said quietly, trying to sound offhand.

  ‘OK, people, we need to start getting real,’ Cooper shouted from the other end of the trailer. ‘We are doing this in five minutes.’

  I went into the tiny toilet and pulled the ski suit on. I was hot with nerves and the thick layers of foundation were starting to melt. I got some tissue and patted my forehead. Some of the make-up came off, leaving a white patch.

  I realized I was shaking violently. I heard Cooper say, ‘Girls, you look amazing. You beat 25,000 other fans to be in this video, so you enjoy every cotton-pickin’ minute, OK?’

  She ushered us out and the cold air and the screams hit us all at once. ‘Whatever the guy over there with the red hat tells you to do, you do it, OK?’

  Trainers and Visor had linked arms and were huddling together.

  Cooper led us out in front of the crowd and the cameras. I tried to get closer to Visor and Trainers
for safety. I saw Connie at the side near the front, jumping up and down with excitement. Keira was next to her, smiling. She gave me a thumbs-up. Miss Mardle looked like she was watching a horror film. I felt like I was in one.

  I couldn’t see Jack anywhere but I did see Lauren, her face blank and unreadable among all the screaming open mouths around her.

  The man in the red hat approached us. ‘OK, all you have to do is dance, girls. Roland will sing one verse, and you just sway and jump around behind him. We’ll do it a few times over. Just dance like you are at a Roland concert.’

  I have never been to a concert, let alone a Roland concert. I hate dancing when there aren’t steps. I don’t dance at parties or weddings.

  The crowd suddenly got ten times louder as Roland emerged from the trailer and stood waving at them in front of us. He was wearing a plain black long-sleeved T-shirt – without his own name on it. He turned round and shot us a wink, and Visor and Trainers both made a soft, whimpery sound, like they’d just sunk into a too-hot bath.

  The red-hatted man went back behind one of the cameras and held three fingers up at us. Then two. Then one.

  Then music started blaring out from somewhere, and Roland was jumping around in front of us, mouthing French words I couldn’t understand while the crowd went crazier than ever.

  Automatically, I started swaying on the spot, feeling totally ridiculous. I looked at Trainers and Visor; their faces were frozen in to Instagram pouts and they were waving their arms around in time to the beat.

  I couldn’t help scanning the crowd, wondering if Jack was watching.

  Jack

  Mouse was amazing. Properly amazing. Max had bustled us all the way to the back of the crowd, so we couldn’t see as clearly as I would’ve liked, but she definitely looked cooler and more at ease than the other two girls. They were properly posing and pouting and generally looking massively try-hard, but Mouse just kind of swayed elegantly, like she was in her own world. Like she didn’t even realize the crowd or the cameras were there.

  Max stood next to me bad-mouthing Roland and the song he was prancing around to – which was a kind of cheesy, jittery Euro-disco, so sugary it almost set your teeth on edge – but I couldn’t take my eyes off Mouse. Even with her long hair in those weird bunches, she still looked so, so hot.

  Once they’d finished filming, and she’d been taken back into one of the big white trailers, we all headed back down to the beginners’ slope, and the rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of constant falling over. By the time we got back to the hotel at five, we were all in so much pain we could barely walk.

  ‘How are we supposed to ice skate when we can’t even stand up?’ Toddy moaned, as he flopped down on to his bed.

  ‘We’re not gonna be ice skating, are we?’ said Max, rubbing his battered legs, while simultaneously checking himself out in the mirror. ‘We’ll be too busy getting off with girls to do any ice skating. Speaking of which, we need a game plan for tonight.’

  Me and Toddy both groaned, but Max just carried on as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Jack, you go for Lauren. I’ll go for Scarlett, and, Toddy, that leaves you with Melody.’ He went and stood over Toddy, who was still sprawled out on his bed. ‘Now, listen, Toddy, because this is important. You have to actually speak to Melody, instead of doing what you normally do and just staring at your trainers.’

  ‘Whatever, Max,’ said Toddy drily. ‘Just because I’m not blessed with your incredible conversational skills.’ He was trying to make a joke of it, but I could tell he was nervous about having to hang out with Lauren and that lot. I was nervous, too. Something about those girls just encouraged nervousness.

  ‘Yeah, Max, can you chill out with the game plan stuff?’ I said, shooting Toddy what I hoped was a supportive grin. ‘Let’s just go there and see what happens.’

  Max frowned. ‘No, Jack, we need a game plan. Because if Toddy doesn’t chat to Melody, then Lauren and Scarlett will feel bad about leaving her out, so they’ll chat to her instead. And if they’re chatting to her, that means they can’t get off with me and you.’

  ‘Can’t we all just chat to each other?’ I suggested.

  ‘We’re not supposed to be chatting at all!’ Max yelled. ‘We’re supposed to be getting off with them! We’re supposed to be trying to win the bet!’

  ‘Well, why don’t me and Toddy chat to each other and you can get off with all three of them. How does that sound?’

  Max sighed, as if speaking to a little kid. ‘In an ideal world, Jack, that is what would happen. But this is not an ideal world, so I need you and Toddy to concentrate on Lauren and Melody, so I can do my moves on Scarlett. OK?’

  ‘“Do your moves”?’ I laughed. ‘Are you trying to get off with her or take her morris dancing?’

  Me and Toddy lay groaning in pain on our beds, while Max spent a whole hour hobbling around the room, deciding what he was going to wear. He tried on about six different outfits, but in the end it was all totally pointless, as it was so freezing outside that we had to keep our massive ski jackets firmly zipped up. So, really, Max could’ve been wearing a bright-pink leotard for all it mattered.

  The ice rink was about a minute’s walk from our hotel, in Mercier’s main square. The whole thing was lit up with millions of little fairy lights, and there were stalls scattered round the edges selling steaming mugs of hot chocolate and cinnamon waffles.

  We queued up to get our skates and I spotted Lauren, already on the ice. She had switched her all-white look for a tight red puffa jacket and jeans. As we wobbled over to the rink on our skates, she glided across with Scarlett and Melody. Before I even had time to say hi, she grabbed my hand and pulled me on to the ice.

  ‘Woah!’ I teetered crazily, and she held my hand tighter to keep me upright. The rink was really busy – it seemed like every kid in the hotel was here.

  ‘It’s easy,’ Lauren laughed, as I skidded painfully in to the sideboard. ‘You’ll get the hang of it. We’ll stick to the edge.’

  ‘It’s more that my legs are so knackered after snowboarding,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, skiing was pretty tiring, too. Don’t do so many pushes with your feet. Just do long, slow glides. Like this.’

  I watched her skate elegantly next to me, and tried to copy her.

  ‘You’re really good,’ I said.

  She nodded, like she was already well aware of the fact. ‘I used to do ballet. It’s kind of similar to skating.’

  I wasn’t in danger of falling over any more, but she was still holding my hand. What did that mean? Was she just trying to help me, or did she actually want to hold my hand?

  We skated slowly round and round the huge rink, hand in hand, my heart thudding softly in my chest. All my concentration was going in to trying not to fall over. Every so often, I’d look up from my skittering feet and catch a glimpse of Jamie and Ed sneering at me, or Max giving me a not-very-subtle thumbs-up.

  And then I saw Mouse. And she saw me. She was with Keira and Connie on the other side of the rink. Our eyes only caught for a split second, but I saw a little flicker of shock – or something – in her face. Without thinking, I let go of Lauren’s hand.

  ‘Shall we go and get a hot chocolate?’ I said.

  We sat on the bench by the rink, blowing the steam off our drinks. I kept wishing I was with Mouse, but that seemed like a stupid wish, really, when there was another hot girl sat right next to me. I tried to focus. On Lauren, on Max’s bet, on everything that wasn’t Mouse. Lauren was looking over at the rink, where Max was talking animatedly to Scarlett. Toddy wasn’t even making an effort with Melody. He was just chatting to Sarvan by the edge.

  ‘Do you think your mate Max fancies Scarlett?’ Lauren asked suddenly.

  ‘Er … dunno,’ I lied. I had no idea how Max would want me to play it. ‘Do you think she fancies him?’

  She squinted at them, as if that would tell her the answer. ‘Maybe …’ She left it at that.

  We kept staring at the rink in sile
nce. Having been ignored by Toddy, Melody had drifted in to conversation with Ed, and Jamie was now muscling in on Max’s chat with Scarlett.

  Lauren grabbed my hand again. ‘Come on, let’s get back on.’

  We skated over to where Jamie and Max were jostling for Scarlett’s attention. She seemed to be quite enjoying it. As we got closer, I heard the tail end of what Jamie was saying to her. ‘… I don’t know what he’s told you, but they’re not a proper band. They haven’t even got a name!’

  Scarlett laughed, and Jamie threw a smug smirk at Max. I winced. I knew exactly what was coming next.

  Before I could stop him, Max launched himself at Jamie, shoving him hard in the chest, and sending him crashing down on to the cold, hard ice.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Lauren squealed.

  ‘Shut up about our band, Jamie!’ Max yelled down at him. Jamie was too shocked to even respond. He just lay there, flat out on the ice, staring up at him. Instantly, Flynn was there, in full control, pushing away the kids that had crowded round to see what was happening. He put his hand on Max’s shoulder, firmly.

  ‘Right, Mr Kendal. Back to the hotel immediately!’

  Max was bright red. ‘But, sir! It was all Jamie’s fault! He started it!’

  Jamie was now back up on his feet. ‘You’re a bloody maniac, Max!’ he shouted. ‘You should have to wear a muzzle or something!’

  Flynn shushed Jamie angrily. ‘I saw everything, Mr Kendal. You shoved Mr Smith, hence you are the one who goes back to the hotel. Now!’ He looked at me and Toddy. ‘All of you!’

  ‘What, sir?!’ I said. ‘Why us too?’

  ‘You two are his co-conspirators, Jack. You’re the ones that are constantly egging him on.’

  ‘We don’t egg him on, sir,’ Toddy moaned. ‘We think he’s just as much of an idiot as you do.’

  Lauren, Scarlett and Melody all laughed, and I noticed Toddy blush proudly.

  ‘Be that as it may, Mr Todd,’ said Flynn, ‘I’m afraid all three of you need to learn that there’s only so far you can push me before I break. Head straight to your room, OK?’