Never Evers Read online

  Max gave one last cry of frustration and wobbled off. I offered Lauren an apologetic shrug. ‘Sorry. See you tomorrow, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah, cool.’

  She didn’t even seem that annoyed. She looked sort of impressed, actually. Maybe she would like me more if she thought I was some sort of bad-boy troublemaker.

  We returned our skates and wandered back to the hotel. I tried to sneak a glance at Mouse as we passed the rink, but she was surrounded by a load of girls I’d never seen before, probably eager to find out every detail of what the great Roland was like in real life.

  ‘Jamie’s such a div,’ Max huffed. ‘He just can’t bear it that I was gonna get off with Scarlett and he wasn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, well, none of us are getting off with anyone now, thanks to you,’ I said, pushing the hotel door open.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Max.

  ‘To our room, obviously.’

  Max shook his head. ‘No way. If you think we’re just sitting in our room all night, you’re mental. Let’s go and have a look round this town. We might even find a firework shop.’

  Me and Toddy hesitated.

  ‘Come on,’ groaned Max. ‘Everyone’s gonna be at the ice rink for another hour, at least. No one will know. We’ll just go for a quick wander.’

  I shrugged at Toddy, and he sighed and nodded. We wound our way up the hill, round the back of the hotel, and past lots of little snow-topped houses until we came to a bench with an amazing view of the town. We could see all the little chimneys puffing away and the lights twinkling. We could even see the ice rink, the tiny figures on it just a blur of different-coloured dots. We sat in silence, rubbing our hands and watching our breath billow out in front of us.

  ‘Maybe Jamie’s right about our band,’ I said, after a while. ‘It’s a bit ridiculous to keep going on about how great we are when we literally just play in your bedroom, Max.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ snapped Max. ‘We’re awesome. We just need a proper gig. And a name. Then we’ll be on our way.’ A little drop of acid fizzed in my stomach at the thought of having to play live, in front of a real audience.

  ‘We probably need a few more songs, as well,’ reasoned Toddy. ‘We should write our own stuff instead of just doing covers all the time.’

  So far we only had three songs – two covers (‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis and ‘London Calling’ by The Clash), and one that Max had ‘written’, which sounded pretty much identical to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max nodded. ‘True.’

  Suddenly, from nowhere, a sharp, tinkling sound shattered the silence.

  ‘What was that?’ said Max, looking around. We waited a few seconds, and the sound rang out again. This time, I saw exactly where it had come from. In the cluster of roofs directly below us, someone had thrown a snowball at a silver weather-vane. It was spinning wildly round and round, its tinkling noise getting fainter with every turn.

  ‘Let’s go and have a look!’ Max hissed. We crept further along the path, as it started to wind back downwards towards the town. A few metres down, Max shot his hand out for us to stop. In front of us, half hidden in the darkness, there was a figure. It had its back to us, and its hood up, so it was impossible to tell who or what it was. The figure moulded another snowball and took aim carefully at the weathervane. It missed, and muttered something under its breath.

  We all boggled our eyes at each other. ‘What shall we do?’ mouthed Max.

  ‘Let’s go back the other way,’ I whispered. ‘It could be a serial killer, for all we know.’

  Max frowned. ‘I don’t think serial killers spend their nights chucking snowballs about. Surely they’re too busy serial-killing?’

  ‘Whatever. Let’s just go.’

  We turned to head back, but suddenly, I felt Toddy starting to tremble violently next to me. Before I could ask what was wrong, the loudest sneeze I’ve ever heard exploded out of him. ‘AAAA-CHOOOO!’

  The figure spun round and stood staring straight at us, its face still hidden in the hood. We were frozen to the spot. It started walking slowly towards us.

  ‘Toddy,’ Max whimpered, through gritted teeth, ‘if we get serial-killed because you can’t sneeze quietly, I’ll never forgive you.’

  The figure arrived right in front of us. He – it was definitely a he – looked weirdly familiar. He pulled his hood down, and ran a hand through his floppy brown hair.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Max stuttered. ‘It’s … You’re … It’s you!’

  ‘Oui,’ said Roland, wearily. ‘I am Roland.’

  ‘You are definitely drawing more attention to yourself like that,’ Keira said.

  The three of us were skating round the rink in a train, with me in the middle, obscured from view.

  ‘The coolest thing that has ever happened to anyone in our school has just happened to you and you’re acting like …’ Connie was either lost for words or unstable on her skates.

  ‘Like I danced like drunk Frankenstein in front of a million people and a celebrity,’ I called back at her. I hate people looking at me. I get shy sometimes when I have to order in restaurants. Swaying from side to side awkwardly in front of a massive crowd of people had felt like slowly dying while everyone smiled on. Even now it was over, the thought of it kept crashing over me and made me want to fold myself up and disappear.

  ‘How did he say it again?’ Connie asked for the millionth time. ‘You keep doing it differently. “You’re cute, Mouse.”’ she whispered in my ear.

  ‘You sound like Poirot.’ I shook my head.

  ‘You’re cute.’ Keira squeezed my tummy. ‘It’s not how he said it, but how he looked when he said it. Was it “oh ooochycootchy, cute baby” or was it “I am consumed by passion. You are cute.”?’ She whistled at the end of the cute.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I groaned. I really couldn’t. It was like my brain had started to malfunction and remember it a million different ways, so now I had no idea what the real version was. I wish there had been an independent witness, or something. The first time a boy had ever said anything to me that could even be vaguely construed as flirty, and the situation had been so weird I couldn’t evaluate it properly. That’s if Roland had been being flirty at all, which seemed sort of unlikely now.

  ‘You’re being very cup-half-empty about this whole thing,’ Connie said bossily. ‘I bet most people here would willingly chop their face off to get near Roland.’

  ‘It’s so true.’ Keira laughed smugly. ‘The best thing about it was seeing Lauren’s face. It was like someone was ripping her soul in half. Are you mates with her now, or what?’ she asked me.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ I said, honestly. I looked over at Lauren on the other side of the rink. She was ice skating backwards while Scarlett filmed her.

  ‘Well, you know what I think about Lauren Bradley,’ sniffed Keira haughtily.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Connie breezily. ‘You absolutely hate her.’

  ‘The way she was skating around with Jack was so cringe,’ Keira carried on. ‘Anyway, we should just forget about those boys now, they’re idiots. You’re a mini celebrity now, Mouse.’

  ‘The best bit of today was after the video, when that French girl touched you and started crying.’ Connie was laughing hysterically. ‘She touched you like you were a unicorn. Like you were Jesus.’

  ‘She so wanted you to give her the hat,’ Keira shouted back to us. ‘She was blatantly faking it so you would.’

  I took my hand off Connie’s waist and felt inside my pocket for the hat. We had smelt it back in our room. It smelt like shampoo and boys. Which was to be expected really.

  It did feel like it should have happened to someone else. Lauren would have loved every single second of it. It would have become part of the thing that made her who she was. The mythology of Lauren Angelica Bradley. But I didn’t have the personality to make it like that. I’m too shy. I have always been too shy to make anything work. And ballet wa
s the thing that kind of made it OK. When I got in to White Lodge everyone stopped talking about how shy I was, even though inside it hadn’t gone away at all. It’s funny how they took me to ballet to try and ‘cure’ my shyness, but in the end, getting assessed out has made me less confident than ever.

  We stopped at the edge and hobbled off the rink. ‘Shall we get a hot chocolate?’ Connie clapped her hands.

  ‘You’ve had like seven today,’ frowned Keira. ‘I think you might OD.’

  We all plonked ourselves down on a picnic bench and watched the rink. Lauren and Scarlett and Melody had changed tempo since the boys had left. They were just being normal. Out of my right eye I saw Lauren look over at me so I smiled. She smiled back and waved, so I did too. Keira rolled her eyes.

  ‘Are you OK about her and Jack?’ Keira said. ‘I mean, you basically pulled a boy who looks like him, but much fitter, today, so …’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine about her and Jack,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s not like I fancy him, or anything.’

  ‘Lie,’ Keira coughed.

  ‘OK, well, it’s not just that. I wanted to be friends with him. Like, be mates. I would be OK with that. But now he’s with Lauren, so I can’t even be friends with him.’

  ‘Yes you can,’ Connie said. ‘He can have a girl who is a friend. Just cos he has a girlf— a … you know … whatever they are … That doesn’t mean you and him can’t be mates.’

  ‘I’m OK with her being his girlfriend. I didn’t ever really think anything was going to happen. I just … now I feel like I’m not even allowed to look at him.’

  I took the hat out of my pocket just as two random French girls walked over, giggling nervously.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said one. ‘But you are the girl from the shoot? With Roland?’

  Keira and Connie laughed, and I nodded.

  ‘Wow!’ said the second girl. ‘He touched your face, right?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Where?’

  I pulled the scarf back and pointed at my cheek. The girls looked at it, in amazement. ‘Wow … Do you mind if I …’

  She reached up and gently stroked my face. Then she looked at her own fingers in amazement. I made myself fake-cough to distract from the weirdness. Connie and Keira exploded in to laughter, but the girls didn’t even seem to notice.

  ‘What was he like?’ said the first one, dreamily. ‘Did he smell nice? Did you see his new tattoo? Tell us everything.’

  I thought about it. What had he been like? Really fit? Really clean-looking? In the end, I just said, ‘He was really … tanned.’

  They both looked a bit disappointed. ‘Oh. Well, yes, he has a holiday home in Bermuda, so it makes sense.’

  Then the other one said, ‘Can we take a picture with you?’

  Keira took the girl’s phone and snapped off a picture of the three of us. As the girls were walking off, I saw Lauren, Scarlett and Melody coming towards us.

  ‘Hey, guys.’ They all cooed together.

  ‘Hey.’ Connie and me smiled back, Keira stayed quiet.

  ‘Mouse, we were wondering if we could have a chat with you?’ Lauren said it looking only at me. ‘A private chat, I mean.’

  Keira and Connie looked at me. I wanted to say no, more than anything. But it’s an unwritten rule that you can’t.

  I walked next to Melody but we didn’t speak. I could tell she was nervous and that she knew what was about to happen. I opened my mouth to ask her what was going on but then thought better. We passed the hot chocolate stalls and walked towards a little playground that was across the square from the ice rink. Lauren opened the gate and we went in. She and Scarlett went over to the swings and sat down. Melody and me followed but there were no swings for us so we just stood in front of them.

  Lauren and Scarlett exchanged a look like kids do in plays when they are reminding the other one it’s their turn to speak. Like they had rehearsed how this was going to go. I tried to seem normal, to convince myself something horrible wasn’t happening. I glanced over at Melody but she just looked at the floor and bashed her heels together.

  ‘Look, Mouse, this is really awkward,’ Lauren said. ‘Especially as, you know …’ She looked at Scarlett. ‘Me and you used to be friends.’

  Used to be friends. Laughing on the slopes earlier it had felt like things might go back to normal.

  ‘And that’s the thing, Mouse, I care about you and I am really worried about you. We were going to go and talk to Miss Mardle, but we’re fourteen years old, we should just be able to talk openly to each other.’

  I looked at the floor. I just wanted her to say whatever it was she was going to say, so I could leave.

  ‘That’s part of it, I suppose,’ Lauren went on. ‘We’re just … it’s like you …’ She looked at Scarlett to help her, to pick up the baton.

  ‘Well,’ Scarlett said. ‘And honestly, we are saying this to your face, when loads of people are saying it behind your back. You are a bit … weird now.’

  ‘I mean, I’m sure you would rather we said it to your face.’ Melody said it like she was trying to convince herself.

  ‘We just wanted to be grown up about it,’ Lauren said. ‘And obviously, we don’t care about how you and Keira and Connie act or whatever. Everyone should just be themselves … but it just seems like you are a bit …’ She looked at Scarlett again.

  ‘To be honest,’ Scarlett said, ‘it feels like you are a bit obsessed with Lauren. Like it’s a bit … sad.’

  I put my hands in my pockets. I had forgotten about the Roland hat. I gripped on to it as hard as I could, until it was almost painful, and told myself to look normal. I have danced when my feet were bleeding before and kept smiling. I didn’t want Lauren to see me cry.

  ‘Anything else?’ I said, in as offhand a way as I could.

  Lauren and Scarlett looked flustered, like they hadn’t expected me to speak. Like when they practised their speeches I hadn’t ever said anything.

  ‘Ignoring us on the ferry was rude … but whatever.’ Lauren was talking more quickly, like she wasn’t quite as certain of herself as she was before. ‘We invited you to hang out with us because we were being nice, but you didn’t even show up. Since then you have just been acting so strangely.’ She paused, like she was working herself up to the next bit. ‘I saw you talking to Jack earlier,’ she said, ‘before the Roland thing happened and you dressed up as me.’

  She said ‘dressed up as me’ slowly. I could feel my jaw tensing. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard that it hurt.

  Scarlett carried on. ‘Actually, it’s really off to try and get with someone that a friend of yours is with. Today when you were flirting with Jack it was just really cringe and …’

  ‘Sad,’ Melody said. ‘Really sad. That you are that desperate.’

  ‘We know you’re going to ballet school in Paris and that you’re used to being the centre of attention. Or like being the centre of attention,’ Lauren cut over her. ‘But the thing with Roland today was actually worrying. Mouse, you threw yourself in to him when you realized Jack wasn’t interested. So cringe, so desperate. And that’s the thing.’ Lauren swung herself back a bit. ‘Jack told me he just thought it was sad. And weird.’

  ‘But we just wanted to tell you,’ Scarlett said. ‘That it’s not OK to act like that. It’s actually really off. And other people wouldn’t say it to your face but we wanted to. Basically to just sort this out in a grown-up way.’

  ‘Do you get that we are doing this to be nice?’ Lauren said.

  She got up off the swing and held her arms out for a hug. She was actually going to try and make me hug her, like we were friends who had just been shopping together. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t have moved. Lauren put her arms down and gave Scarlett a she’s-so-immature look.

  ‘I’m glad we could talk about it,’ Scarlett said. ‘We wanted to do the right thing, for your sake.’

  I lifted my head up and looked at Lauren and our eyes met. She knew what she doing. I s
hook my head and turned around. I walked to the edge of the playground and opened the gate. None of them said a word, they must have just been watching me leave. I didn’t go back to the ice rink. I walked straight back to the hotel, passing the stupid Roland posters, and into our room. Mr Jambon was tucked in to a little ball in his cage. I crawled into my sleeping bag and wrapped myself up tight too. I could see The Teen Witches’ Book of Spells lying on Keira’s bunk and heard her voice in my head: ‘The first rule is to not wish harm on others.’ I plunged my face inside the sleeping bag to muffle the ugly sobs my body had started making without me even realizing.

  ‘I hope something bad happens to you,’ I said out loud. ‘I hate you, Lauren.’

  Jack

  We stood there staring at Roland in silence. We didn’t really know what to say. He didn’t seem to mind being stared at. He probably gets it all the time. He just stood in front of us, shivering and staring right back.

  Close up, he looked exactly like he did on the posters – the floppy, side-swept hair, the massive blue eyes. The only difference was that on the posters he was always smiling; he had this big, cheesy grin smeared all over his face. Now, though, he wasn’t smiling at all. In fact, he was glaring at everything, including us. He looked cooler without the smile, I reckoned. Moodier. Less like a Disney-fied boy-band loser, and more like a film star or a punk singer or something. He was so polished he almost looked Photoshopped. If I really was a dead ringer for him, I definitely wouldn’t still be on zero.

  ‘So,’ he said, finally. ‘What do you want? Autographs? Selfies?’ His voice was really deep, and his thick French accent gave it this kind of gloopy laziness, like he was permanently half asleep.

  ‘Erm … You what, mate?’ said Max.

  Roland shook his head irritably. ‘I come up here for some time to myself, and yet still people manage to find me. So, come on, take the phone out and let’s get this over with. I’m not really in the mood for this tonight.’

  ‘We don’t want a bloody selfie with you,’ sniffed Max. ‘We’d never even heard of you till, like, two days ago.’