Never Evers Page 18

  Just before we got to the entrance Jack hung back a bit. ‘Are you OK?’

  I nodded. ‘I feel better actually. For talking to someone.’ It was true. I didn’t feel embarrassed that I’d cried in front of him. For some reason, with him, it had felt OK.

  ‘Well, come and find me if you want to talk some more,’ he said.

  When we walked in to the hotel reception, I got nervous. Lauren could be anywhere. She could walk around the corner and see me with Jack at any moment. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. Worrying his girlfriend might see him. The woman at the reception tapped her friend on the shoulder and they both looked at me and whispered to each other. I looked down.

  ‘See, Super-Mouse, the superstar kidnapper is even more of a celebrity now,’ Jack whispered.

  ‘I don’t know if I want to be famous for being mentally unhinged,’ I said, and then we hugged goodbye. Like mates who see each other all the time, real friends.

  At the hotel, everyone wanted to know what had happened with Roland. Had he asked me to run away? Was he having a mental breakdown? Had we kissed? Were we a couple? Jack was right: I had become a mini celebrity. But becoming one just made me realize how much it didn’t suit me. On the surface everyone was excited and buzzing about it, but there was an undercurrent too. Like they thought I had come back to Bluecoats determined to make everything about me. I wanted to reverse it, but I didn’t know how.

  I tried to play it down. I fobbed everyone off with a story about running off with Roland and him being picked up by his crew ten minutes later. But on the way into town, I told Connie and Keira the whole truth. About the igloo and how Jack had been Roland and everything. Everything except the almost-kiss, because in the midst of finding out that they had been watching Hamster Wardrobe Boy on stage, not Roland, it didn’t seem like big news really.

  The restaurant was absolutely mental. It was done up like a giant gingerbread house, covered in sweets and icing. Inside, it was full of wooden toys and giant gingerbread hearts and all the waiters and waitresses were wearing traditional Alpine dress. A man was playing an accordion and one wall was covered from top to bottom with cuckoo clocks.

  ‘This is jolly,’ Connie said, bobbing around to the music.

  We sat at long wooden tables and they brought us trays of hot dogs. This ginormous multicoloured cuckoo clock started singing, and then a man dressed as a giant moose came out and started dancing.

  Just as it felt like the attention was moving away from me, the waitress asked to have her picture taken with me wearing my Roland hat. And then the dancing moose spotted me and held his moose hand out to me to get up and dance with him. I could see Lauren, crutches and all, looking sour-faced at me from the end of the table. I had been shaking my head to try and get the moose to go away, but Lauren’s face and the thought of the playground and how silent I had been gave me a kick. I got up. The moose cheered, the accordion man wandered over and I bopped along to the music with the moose.

  ‘Mouse and Moose!’ Connie screamed, taking a picture.

  The more people asked me about Roland, the more sullen and withdrawn Lauren got. At one point even Scarlett and Melody left her end of the table to come and hear about what he was like close up.

  After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and got into our pyjamas.

  ‘So, who would you choose if you had to choose one of them?’ Keira asked.

  ‘If you had to marry Roland or Jack tomorrow, or you would be shot, who would you choose?’ Connie said, gently feeding Mr Jambon a carrot on her bed.

  ‘Or if you had to shoot one of them tomorrow, which one would you shoot?’ Keira said, cross-legged, plaiting her hair.

  I climbed on to the bunk and swung my legs in the air.

  ‘Jack. I’d pick Jack.’

  ‘To shoot or to marry?’ frowned Connie.

  ‘Marry, obviously,’ I laughed.

  ‘So you would shoot Roland?’ said Keira.

  ‘I wouldn’t shoot either of them. What is this obsession with shooting? Anyway, guys, I have to tell you something. When me and Jack were in the igloo … I’m not actually sure. It’s not like I’m experienced in these things, but I think … Jack was going to kiss me.’

  ‘And?’ Connie said. ‘Why didn’t he?’

  ‘Because he has an evil, Regina George-worshipping girlfriend called Lauren Bradley?’ Keira said.

  ‘No, because we heard the siren.’

  ‘The siren of luuuuurve!’ Connie nodded.

  They clambered on to the teeny bottom bunk. Me and Keira side by side, and Connie holding Mr Jambon lying the other way.

  ‘Is he with Lauren then, or what?’ Keira said. ‘As much as I hate ol’ Bradders, it is a bit off to go around hitting on you when he’s with her.’

  ‘But is he with her?’ we all said at exactly the same time.

  ‘And more importantly, would you have kissed him back?’ Keira said.

  I put the covers over my head sheepishly and they both made ‘ummmmmm’ primary-school noises.

  ‘You need to look hot tomorrow.’ Keira whistled.

  ‘What shall I wear?’ I groaned.

  ‘Your witch-self clothes?’ Connie said sleepily.

  Keira kicked her. ‘She needs to look hot.’

  Slowly they fell asleep in the bunk with me. I reached over and picked Mr Jambon up and put him to bed in his cage. Then I squeezed myself back in with them and replayed the moment in the igloo. But in my head I let Jack kiss me.

  Jack

  I woke up on the last full day of the trip feeling groggy from lack of sleep. Me, Max and Toddy had spent pretty much the whole night talking about the press conference and the sledging and the snowstorm and all the rest of yesterday’s madness. Every time we were starting to drift off to sleep, I’d remember something else I hadn’t told them, and we’d be sat back up in our beds again, whispering and laughing.

  The only thing I’d kept from them was the bit in the igloo, just before we’d been rescued. I’d been so close to kissing her. And I was sure she would have kissed me back. But then the bloody paramedics had arrived. I mean, obviously I was quite glad they showed up, but y’know … I just wish they’d showed up, like, twenty seconds later.

  After breakfast, as we made our way to the ski lift for the final boarding session, we lagged behind the group so that Max could get his fireworks. Toddy kept watch for Flynn outside, and I went in with Max. He practically bought the whole shop. He bought bangers, Roman candles, waterfalls, Catherine wheels, bombettes, sparklers and a thing called a ‘Crackling Comet’, which genuinely looked like it could take down a plane.

  The snow started falling again – much more lightly than yesterday – as we jogged to catch up with the rest of our group, who were standing around waiting for lifts up the mountain.

  ‘Why didn’t you just wait until the end of the day to buy that stuff?’ I panted, as Max tried unsuccessfully to stuff the plastic bag full of illicit materials into his rucksack.

  ‘That’s when Flynn’s expecting us to buy dodgy stuff,’ he sniffed. ‘He’ll never suspect anyone of buying dodgy stuff at the beginning of the day, will he? You’d have to be an absolute idiot to do that.’

  Toddy eyed Max. ‘Yep. You’re right about that.’

  We reached the back of our group and Max flung his bag on the ground.

  ‘What’s this then, Mr Kendal? Been shopping?’

  Max looked up to see Flynn standing over him, beaming down at the plastic bag half zipped into his rucksack.

  ‘It’s just some, erm, sweets I bought, sir. For my mum and dad.’

  Ed and Jamie went ‘ahhhhhhh’ in unison, and Max threw a scowl at them.

  ‘Very thoughtful of you, Mr Kendal. Ever the gentleman.’ Flynn reached down and brushed the plastic handles aside so he could see into the bag. Max inhaled sharply.

  Flynn glanced inside and pulled out a firework. It was a big long tube with sparks and mad colours all over it and the words ‘LE FIZZER’ writ
ten on both sides. He examined it carefully. Max was watching him, open-mouthed in horror. He could be sent home for this. Or even suspended.

  ‘“Le Fizzer”, eh?’ said Flynn, after eyeing it for what seemed like hours. Then, suddenly, he dropped it back into the bag. ‘What will these sweet manufacturers think of next? What is it, Mr Kendal, some sort of popping candy?’

  Max exhaled loudly. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, faintly. ‘Popping candy, sir. Exactly.’

  ‘Well I never. I don’t see what’s wrong with Percy Pigs and Toblerone myself, but if you think your parents would prefer a “Fizzer”, then fair enough.’

  Max zipped his rucksack shut and almost collapsed into the snow.

  The morning boarding session was brilliant, despite Flynn warning me that, after yesterday’s antics, if I left his sight for ‘one millisecond’ I’d be in detention until I was eighteen. On the blue slope, I set a new personal best for my going-downhill-without-falling-over record (one minute twenty-four seconds), and to Max’s annoyance, Toddy even managed to pull off a – very small, very slow – 180. The snow kept falling gently throughout the day, and the fresh powder felt amazing underneath our boards.

  ‘We’ve gotta go all out at the disco tonight,’ said Max, skidding to a wobbly stop at the bottom of the slope. ‘Last chance to get off zero. No more messing about now.’ He whacked Toddy on the shoulder. ‘Toddy, no offence, but you’re probably out of contention. I don’t think your one butter-chat with Melody will realistically have persuaded her to let you stick your tongue down her throat.’

  Toddy just smiled, shrugged and started trudging back up the slope to the lift.

  ‘It’s just me and you now, Jack,’ Max grinned, as we followed him. ‘In terms of the bet, anyway. By the end of tonight, our band will definitely have a name. If things go well with Lauren and Scarlett, maybe we’ll start going out with them properly. Imagine that: having hot girlfriends in London.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘We’d be living the dream, man.’

  ‘Yeah …’ I said, hesitantly. ‘I mean, Lauren’s great—’

  ‘More than great,’ Max cut in, almost angrily. ‘She’s ridiculously hot.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. But, like, yesterday … with Mouse … It felt like something could have happened, almost. I really … like her, Max.’

  Max snorted loudly. ‘Mate, Mouse is mental. I’m telling you, you’d be mad not to go for Lauren. She’s properly fit, and – for some reason none of us fully understand – she actually seems to fancy you.’ He stopped and looked at me squarely. ‘Don’t make this another Maria Bennett thing, Jack, please. In six months’ time, I don’t want to be hearing about how you could have got off with Lauren, but you just wasted your chance at the last minute. This is your chance. Tonight is your chance! Don’t mess it up, man.’

  ‘I guess you’re right,’ I said. But all I could think of was Mouse’s amazing smile.

  At the end of the day’s session, we said goodbye to Basti and all got the main lift back down into town to return our gear. As we stepped out of the hire shop, I heard a loud shout from across the road.

  ‘Jack! Hey, Jack, over here!’

  I looked over, and saw Lauren sat on the terrace of a cafe, her busted ankle resting up on a chair.

  Max and Toddy raised their eyebrows at me. ‘Best go and see your missus, eh?’ whispered Max. I told them I’d meet them back in the room later, and walked over to Lauren. Her teacher was sat with her, but she just said, ‘Miss Mardle, do you mind if me and Jack go for a quick walk around town?’

  Miss Mardle looked like she definitely did mind, but all she said was, ‘OK, Lauren, but I need you back in your room in an hour. Be very careful on your crutches, it’s icy out there.’

  ‘Jack will look after me.’

  I helped Lauren up and on to her crutches, and we walked away. I prayed that Mouse wasn’t currently on one of the lifts back into town.

  ‘I feel like I haven’t seen you for absolutely ages,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, it’s all been quite mad lately.’

  ‘At least we’ll get to hang out properly at the disco tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, definitely.’

  We stopped to get hot chocolates and waffles at a little shop, and then sat on a bench nearby. It was getting colder as the sun started to dip gradually behind the mountains. She shuffled right up close to me, tucking her arm through mine, and I felt a shiver of nervous excitement. Max was right; if I wanted it to happen with Lauren, it could happen. Tonight. All I had to do was not bottle it.

  ‘Must have been a bit boring for you, not being able to ski these last couple of days?’ I said.

  ‘It’s been all right. My ankle still hurts a lot, not that anyone seems to care.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She unclipped her hair and shook it down around her shoulders. ‘Oh, nothing. They’re all just obsessed with … you know that girl Mouse, from my school, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if you saw, but she had this ridiculous thing yesterday with that singer, Roland.’

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘I did see that.’

  ‘Ever since then, it’s all anyone wants to talk about. It’s so annoying. Mouse just has to be the centre of attention, all the time.’

  I knew how untrue that was. It felt horrible hearing Lauren talk about Mouse like that.

  ‘Ah, lay off her,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘She’s had a rough time and all that.’

  Lauren looked at me sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, y’know … The stuff with her school. That ballet school she used to go to.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘You know. How she got … what do you call it? Assessed out? Or they made her leave, or whatever. It must be rubbish when all you want is to dance, and then you get kicked out of dance school. And now she’s back at your school for good, and she won’t get to be a professional dancer.’ I shrugged. ‘That sucks.’

  Lauren was watching me carefully with an odd look in her eyes. ‘She told you that?’ she said, slowly.

  I said, ‘Yeah,’ and then suddenly panicked. I didn’t want her to think that me and Mouse had been having loads of secret chats. ‘I mean … I’ve hardly talked to her, really,’ I spluttered. ‘But she said something about it. At the ice rink, I think it was.’

  She stared at me for ages, then broke out in to a huge grin. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on her. After what she’s been through.’

  A weird, uncomfortable silence settled between us. I sipped my hot chocolate and thought about what might or might not happen tonight, while Lauren smiled vaguely into the distance.

  ‘I’m gonna change into my pyjamas to get ready,’ Keira said and walked in to the bathroom. I looked out of the window. The sun had already gone down.

  ‘We’ve got three hours before the disco,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, so we need to start now. You said it takes you like ten hours to wash your hair, so you better get going.’ Keira peeled off her top. ‘I’ve got so many bruises I look like a map.’

  I sat on the edge of the bath and Connie sprawled out on the floor between the bunks, letting Mr Jambon pootle across her tummy.

  ‘Whatever I wear I will look like I’ve been beaten up,’ Keira said, examining her array of purple-and-green blotches.

  ‘Or like you’ve got a disease,’ Connie said chirpily. ‘I love mine. I don’t want them to go away.’ She rolled up her trousers. ‘This one’s my favourite.’ She pointed at a large purple, yellow and green bruise that almost covered the whole of one of her thighs. ‘I think it looks like an old man’s face. I’ll call him Malcolm, the man who lives on my leg.’

  ‘Is that gonna be your chat-up line tonight?’ I said. ‘“Hi, do you want to meet the old man who lives on my leg?”’

  ‘I don’t need chat-up lines,’ Connie said loftily, putting Mr Jambon on her head. ‘I just let my allure do the talking.’


  ‘Are you nervous?’ Keira said, looking at me in the mirror.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, but I don’t know why. I think it’s just the thought that he’ll be there. And it might be the last time I ever see him.’

  ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’ Connie sighed. ‘But just make sure you find out his last name and then you can internet-stalk him for the rest of eternity.’

  ‘He’s probably nervous about seeing you too. My mum always says you should think of boys as spiders,’ Keira said, taking her hair out and starting to brush it. ‘They’re more scared of us than we are of them.’

  ‘And spiders love witches, so the same probably goes for boys,’ Connie said.

  All day on the slopes I had been thinking about Jack. I went from being deliriously happy and not being able to stop smiling because he had been going to kiss me, to worried about why he had been going to kiss me, to thinking about him and Lauren. Nothing could ever happen between me and Jack really, because she had a kind of claim on him that would last for ever, even if she dumped him and met the love of her life tomorrow. But by tomorrow we might never see them again anyway.

  Skiing for the last time, hurtling down as fast as I could, I had pictured an alternate universe where me and Jack met by accident in Devon on holiday at Easter. My parents would be absent in a cream tea shop for the entire time and Lauren would never be mentioned.

  ‘I definitely want to come on the ski trip next year,’ Connie said.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Keira nodded. She put her arms around me. ‘I wish you weren’t going to Paris. Then we could all come together next year. The three witches.’

  Connie slipped Mr Jambon into his cage and came and put her arms around me too. ‘I love you, Mouse,’ she said. Just plainly and matter-of-factly.

  ‘I love you too,’ I said and hugged them both. ‘Three witches for ever.’

  I didn’t actually know what I was going to do about the lie. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to ballet school in Paris any more. I just wanted to go back in time and erase the moment where I had said it. I closed my eyes and kind of willed it to happen.