Never Evers Page 16

  Most of the faces in the crowd were suddenly replaced by cameras, and I stood there, grinning like an idiot as the bulbs flashed at me, hoping that this was how Roland grinned. I scanned the crowd frantically for a way out.

  Then the weaselly bloke handed me a microphone.

  One photographer in the front row yelled something in French at me, and suddenly it went deadly silent. Everyone was staring straight at me. I glanced over at Cooper but she just gave me the ‘OK’ sign with her thumb and forefinger.

  I had to say something. As Roland. My mouth was so dry it took a couple of seconds to unstick my tongue. I screwed my eyes shut and desperately tried to think of any French words I actually knew. Then I remembered.

  Before I could stop myself, it rolled out of my mouth, coated in my best, thickest French accent.

  ‘Avez-vous ma trousse?’

  The silence seemed to get louder somehow. The man who’d asked the question furrowed his brow and looked around at his neighbours, who were also furrowing their brows and looking around at their neighbours. I felt myself going red, and was suddenly extra glad of the ridiculous sunglasses covering half my face.

  The crowd was muttering in what sounded like total confusion. The only thing I could understand was the occasional repetition of ‘Avez-vous ma trousse?’ The weaselly bloke, who was looking just as bewildered as everyone else, yelled, ‘D’accord – encore une question pour Roland?’ and another photographer shouted something else at me in French.

  It was like my brain was on sleep mode. Like I was someone else, watching things happen from above my body, just sort of interested to see how it would all pan out. The only thing I could feel was my stomach, grinding and whirring, and my heartbeat pulsing thickly in my chest. I opened my mouth and this came out: ‘Votre grand-mère était un blaireau.’

  The furrows on the photographers’ brows got even deeper, and their confused whispering even louder. Which was fair enough, really, since I’d just informed them that their grandmothers were badgers.

  I saw Max literally fall to his knees and out of sight, and Toddy crumple down on top of him. Then, I saw Mouse. While the rest of the crowd were looking at me in forehead-wrinkled confusion, she was staring at me in full-on, open-mouthed horror. Next to her was the actual Roland, whose face was hidden by the sunglasses and hood, but I presumed there was a similar expression going on underneath it all.

  Both Cooper and the weaselly bloke were exchanging looks that seemed to suggest that their perfect megastar had completely lost his mind. Another photographer shouted something else out, and just as it was dawning on me that the only phrase I had left up my sleeve translated as ‘My budgerigar is in the pedestrian zone,’ I saw Roland lean in and whisper something to Mouse.

  Cooper looked like a deranged marshmallow at the side of the stage. Her teeny frame was swamped by a giant pink faux-fur coat and she was trying desperately to get the fake Roland’s attention. I looked at the real Roland next to me, trying to figure out what was going on. His sunglasses had fallen slightly to reveal his blue eyes boggling in complete shock. No one around us gave him a second glance, they were so transfixed by the fake Roland’s on-stage car crash.

  ‘Is that … Jack up there?’ I whispered so quietly it was almost inaudible. Roland nodded.

  ‘How do you know Jack?’

  He didn’t answer, just slowly started shaking his head in horror then turned and looked at me.

  ‘He just asked the entire French media, “Do you have my pencil case?”’

  ‘What?’

  Roland wasn’t listening; he seemed like he was talking to himself more than me. ‘And then he told them that their grandmother was a badger.’

  ‘Whose grandmother? Seriously, Roland, what is going on?!’ I grabbed his arm.

  Cooper shouted something to Jack in French. ‘What is she saying?’ I whispered, without taking my eyes off Jack.

  ‘No more questions. She is telling him to get off the stage.’

  ‘Roland!’ Cooper shouted. Either Jack hadn’t heard her, or he was unable to move. His face was half hidden by the sunglasses, but he looked terrified.

  ‘Mouse. Please do something,’ Roland hissed. ‘People are saying I am on drugs. That I have gone insane!’

  I started to push through the crowd towards the tiny pink outline of Cooper. Jack had gone silent on the stage. I stopped and looked dead at him, willing him to move. Cooper was clearly trying to do that, too, flailing about like a miniature flamingo at the edge of the stage. Why wasn’t he moving? Because he was in shock? Because he didn’t know how to explain to Cooper what was happening?

  Then I looked at him again. He wasn’t moving because he was scared. I clenched my whole body and hurled myself forward through the crowd like a little compact bullet. In front of the stage there was a tape and behind it four burly-looking men wandering up and down. I took a deep breath and plunged forward, under the tape and towards the stage. The crowd erupted in laughter, clearly thinking I was a super fan overcome with emotion. I jumped up the stairs and grabbed Jack’s hand but kept moving.

  ‘Run!’ I shouted and dragged him down the stairs. One of the burly men was on the stage now. The others were looking at Cooper. We could hear the cameras clicking and people yelling behind us, but we didn’t look back.

  ‘Keep going!’ I shouted. I hurled myself into the confused crowd, dragging Jack behind me. People seemed to part to make way for us. For a second our hands were pulled apart. When I looked behind me Jack was there, and was jamming Roland’s sunglasses into his trouser pocket. He took my hand again and we emerged at the edge of the crowd. The people towards the back hadn’t seen what happened, and were murmuring in confusion, but without the glasses, Jack didn’t look like Roland any more. We almost toppled over the little hill that led down to the ski lift station as Jack shrugged off the leather jacket. I sat down and slid to the bottom and he tumbled after me. At the bottom, we hid behind the ski lift station wall, panting. We’d lost them – for now. We stuffed Roland’s sunglasses and jacket in my rucksack.

  There were people milling about, drinking hot chocolate and taking off their skis, unaware that we were fake celebrity fugitives on the run. I straightened up and walked as quickly as I could to the lift, trying to look casual. We stood in line together and the lift swung under us and lifted us up in to the air. We turned and looked back at the swarm of people on the ground, Cooper’s pink outline freaking out below us.

  The lift chuntered along and the mountain spread out beneath us and we just stared ahead, shell-shocked by it all. Then we turned to each other, and Jack was smiling.

  ‘So, what … what actually happened there?’ I asked. ‘What were you doing? Do you, like … know Roland?’

  ‘I didn’t until two days ago … but, yeah … I do.’

  I couldn’t believe it. What would Keira and Connie say? What would everyone say? I pictured Lauren’s face, finding out that I had run off with Roland. And then I pictured her face finding out that I had run off with Jack, her boyfriend.

  ‘What, and you just met him and he asked you to pretend to be him? Why? What for? I don’t get it.’

  ‘Mouse. Honestly. I had no idea how I was going to get out of there. You’re like … a superhero.’

  ‘You’re the one with the alter ego.’ I smiled. Looking at me right then, grinning and laughing in disbelief, he had never looked so unbelievably fit. He was actually fitter than Roland. The few freckles that fell over his nose and his browny-green eyes looking at me would usually have made me feel shy and scared, but I just felt excited.

  ‘Just call me Superman,’ he said. ‘Except I don’t save anyone, I’m an utterly pointless superhero. Unlike you, who actually did save me.’ He grabbed my hand. ‘I was bricking it, Mouse. You are a legend. You’re insanely brave. Super-Mouse.’

  He didn’t take his hand away and I didn’t move mine.

  ‘Good thing Super-Mouse was there,’ I said.

  ‘Super-Mouse is my hero,
’ he said.

  ‘Your knight in shining armour,’ I said, swinging my legs and making the chair rock. The unloading point came in to view. It was higher up than we had ever been with Tania. ‘Neither of us has skis.’

  ‘We’ll just have to jump,’ he said. We held hands and I screamed as we launched ourselves on to the little mound of snow. We walked to the edge of the slope and sat down.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ I said. I held out my hand and a few snowflakes fell on the top of my glove. Jack looked up at the sky. It felt lucky.

  ‘It’s weird it hasn’t snowed until now,’ he said. ‘I was thinking that earlier. How there is all this snow everywhere but we haven’t seen it actually come out of the sky.’

  ‘Like it only snows once a year and then the same snow just stays here. I really love snow.’ I looked up at the sky and closed my eyes, letting the giant snowflakes fall on me.

  ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘That’s part of the reason I wanted to come here. I’ve never been anywhere cold on holiday. The only snow I’ve seen is the rubbish kind that goes grey and icy and melts within a day.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  I felt in my pocket, took out my hat and put it on.

  ‘Is that the hat Roland gave you?’

  ‘No, I doubt Roland would wear a baby-blue Topshop bobble hat.’ Then I pictured Roland. ‘Although …’

  ‘Exactly, are you kidding me? Have you seen some of the stuff he wears? I mean, he has whole racks of stuff way more mental than a bobble hat.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I unzipped my rucksack and we looked at the leather jacket. On the inside it had ROLAND printed a million times all over it. ‘But I think his, you know … manager probably makes him wear it.’

  Jack snorted. ‘That’s what you all want to believe. You and all those trillions of other girls who love him. You want to believe it’s not his choice, but I think he’d be wearing stuff even more mental than this if he could.’

  ‘Like a big massive bear costume.’

  ‘A bear costume?’ Jack started laughing even more. ‘I meant like weird trousers with slashes and diamonds and stuff. A bear costume?’

  It was so ridiculous that I started laughing in a hysterical way. We both did. I was almost crying and I couldn’t breathe properly.

  ‘But then, if he had a bear costume he could roam around freely,’ Jack said, quite genuinely. ‘Maybe we should suggest it to him. All celebrities could do it. Imagine, you would think it’s just a normal bloke in a full-on chicken outfit, but inside it’s Taylor Swift.’

  ‘Yeah, but Roland would have to be careful. They might think he was a real bear and shoot him.’

  ‘That’s true. As a celebrity you would have to be careful to choose an appropriate but not deadly costume.’

  ‘What would you choose if you were a celebrity?’

  ‘Well, you actually are a celebrity. I mean, if you weren’t already, for being in Roland’s video, you definitely are now, for basically kidnapping him.’

  ‘OK, well I would pick a platypus costume. And you’ll definitely be a celebrity when they find out you impersonated him.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Well, in that case, I choose a panda.’

  ‘They are going extinct. And they find it hard to get pregnant.’

  ‘I’m not currently trying to get pregnant so …’ Jack said, and we both burst out laughing again.

  ‘Shall we get some hot chocolate?’ I said. It was getting cold and the sun was beginning to go down. After I said it I remembered him asking me for hot chocolate and wondered if he was thinking about that too.

  We walked over to a little wooden hut, full of serious black-run skiers, and ordered two extra-large hot chocolates with cream and marshmallows.

  ‘This is a bit awkward,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t have any money. Toddy’s got my jacket.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ I smiled. ‘I’m a modern girl.’ Then I blushed, because it was like I had said we were on a date. All the time we had been talking I hadn’t thought about the fact I was looking at him, but I suddenly felt really aware of it. Like every time I looked at him it was as if I was shouting, ‘I like you’.

  We carried our hot chocolates to the decking at the back of the cafe and sat down.

  ‘Do you like skiing?’ Jack asked, wrapping his hands around his cup.

  ‘Actually, I really do. Which is weird because it’s the opposite of dancing, really.’

  He looked a bit confused.

  ‘I used to go to Bluecoats, and then I left to go to ballet school at Christmas in year seven.’

  ‘Wow, you must love ballet. I thought you might be a ballet dancer.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Because you always stand up really straight and tall. I thought either a ballet dancer or a soldier. But a ballet dancer seemed more likely.’

  I laughed, and then he said, ‘But I mean it in a good way. Like, it makes you look really … nice.’ And then, even though it was freezing, I saw him blushing slightly.

  I looked down and smiled inside. But I didn’t want to be one of the girls that tries to steal people’s boyfriends. However awful the person had been to me. I edged away a bit. ‘Yeah, to be honest, it’s been my whole life for like … ever.’

  ‘How come you left?’ he said and I knew I should tell him the truth. I wanted to. It felt right, but I’d trapped myself with my own lies.

  ‘I got in to ballet school in Paris next year so—’

  ‘Oh my god, Mouse, that’s amazing.’ He looked so impressed. ‘I’d literally love to be that good at something. To have a talent. Super-Mouse strikes again.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m talented, but I do love dancing.’ That was true at least.

  ‘Show me a move, then,’ Jack said. ‘One move. That I can do at parties to, you know … impress Max and Toddy.’

  ‘Ballet isn’t really like that. It doesn’t really help you in a disco situation.’

  ‘Just show me one thing.’

  ‘OK, but I’m not dancing unless you dance, too.’

  I stood up and offered him my hand to help him up.

  We were standing opposite each other. I put my snow boot heels together. ‘This is first position.’ I held my hands in first position too.

  Jack copied and looked ridiculous. His fists balled in the air and his feet splayed out.

  ‘You look like a penguin,’ I said, and rearranged his hands. ‘Stand really tall, like someone is pulling you up to the sky.’ He smiled.

  ‘OK, second position.’ I rearranged myself and then him.

  ‘So, do you think I’ve got talent?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said as I showed him third. He studied me closely and tried to copy.

  ‘How come I look ridiculous but you look amazing?’ he asked, and then smiled and looked down sheepishly at the ground.

  ‘You having a dance party?’ the boy working in the cafe shouted over at us.

  We both laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack shouted back. ‘We’re having a snow-boot, enormous-padded-jacket, freezing-cold dance party.’

  The guy laughed, ducked back into his hot chocolate counter, and some weird, electronic-sounding music started booming out. The boy leant out from the hut and started waving his hands around in the air wildly. ‘Dance party!’ he shouted at us.

  We waved our hands back at him, and then both of us started dancing. It was snowing more heavily now. I almost couldn’t see Jack through the snow so I just went crazy and let myself get carried away in it all. I started spinning in circles, like kids do, and got faster and faster.

  And then I collapsed in the snow and Jack collapsed next to me. Underneath the ski suit I was boiling hot from dancing, and as I lay back the snow hit my burning face and melted on it.

  We were lying next to each other, centimetres apart. I turned my face and he was looking at me. I almost reached out to hold his hand again but I knew that was mental. So I just smiled. I didn’t want to suggest leaving, so I just stayed th
ere, looking at him and then up at the sky.

  ‘That was the first time in a really long time dancing has felt fun,’ I said.

  ‘Same for me,’ Jack said. ‘Dancing is normally a phobia of mine.’

  ‘Sometimes it feels like it’s mine, too,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go back yet.’

  ‘Me neither,’ he said, reaching out and catching snowflakes on his fingers. Then he sat up. ‘I’ve got an idea.’ He crunched across the snow and went to the pile of trays outside the cafe. He picked one up and waved me over. I got mine and went across to him.

  ‘Are you going to turn into Roland again?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not a magical change like a werewolf.’ He started walking away with his tray. ‘Try to look normal.’

  ‘We’re only carrying trays,’ I said. ‘We just look helpful.’

  ‘Now we need a good slope,’ he said, looking out across the impossibly high mountains.

  We trudged through the snow that was getting fresh new layers every couple of minutes.

  ‘What about here?’

  We put our trays down and sat on them side by side looking down the slope.

  ‘Let’s push off on the count of three,’ Jack said.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘One … two … three!’ Jack started to slide, so I wriggled my bum forward a bit and then I was sliding too. I could hear Jack’s whooping and I started screaming. I was going faster and faster until I got to the bottom and slowed down.

  ‘That was amazing.’ Jack was dusting the snow off his trousers and standing back up. ‘These trays are way better than snowboards.’

  We ran up a different bit of the slope this time, picking our boots out of the new snow and plunging them in again. It was snowing heavily now, our tracks covered almost as we made them.

  ‘Right, on three again,’ Jack said.

  ‘One …’ But Jack pushed off early and started to slide. He reached his hand out to stop himself and I grabbed it. And then we were hurtling together. We held hands until Jack was going too fast and we crashed in to each other at the bottom.