Never Evers Read online

  I really meant it. At that moment, I just wanted whatever would make Mouse happy.

  He just laughed again, and shook his head. ‘Listen, Jack. Don’t worry. Mouse is great. We both know this. But I feel that maybe she is more great for you. I’m sure I can find other great girls in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and all the other countries I can’t remember. Maybe Poland.’ He turned to Cooper. ‘Cooper, are we going to Poland?’

  ‘You betcha,’ said Cooper, not looking up from her phone. ‘Though I have literally no idea where it is.’

  He turned back to me. ‘You see? I think I will be OK …’

  I grinned, and it felt like a lead weight had been lifted from my shoulders. ‘OK. Cool. Thanks, man. So, what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Me?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe I will go to the disco. Cooper has promised me one night of freedom before I am chained to the tour bus for months.’ He nodded at the double-doors through which we could hear the muffled thud of music and laughter. ‘Who knows? Maybe the girl of my dreams is right behind that door.’

  ‘OK, I’ll see you.’

  He leant in and whispered, ‘Oh, and, Jack, if you get a chance, I wouldn’t mind getting that jacket back. I wasn’t joking about the diamond zip. Twelve-carat.’

  I laughed. ‘I’m on it.’ I legged it in to the corridor, past Cooper and the bald bloke, until I got to Mouse’s room. I banged on the door but there was no answer. I tried the knob hopefully and it swung open.

  ‘Mouse? Anyone in here?’ The bedroom was empty, but the bathroom door was open just enough for me to see a slither of what was definitely Mouse, standing over the sink.

  ‘Mouse, it’s Jack,’ I said gently. ‘Can I come in?’

  I pushed the door open and almost screamed in shock. ‘What the … Mouse, are you mental? What are you doing?!’

  I was shocked enough to do a full-on horror-movie-blood-curdling scream, but only a short little yelp came out. I held the scissors out in front of me and he jumped back.

  ‘What are you doing? You don’t just walk in on people in the bathroom!’ I shouted.

  ‘Sorry!’ He took a step back. ‘People don’t usually brandish scissors at you if you do.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stopped pointing the scissors at him. ‘Sorry. It was my fight instinct coming out. What are you doing here?’ I suddenly wanted to turn and look at myself in the mirror. I had this awful feeling that my face was covered in runny mascara and blotchy red tear stains. But there was no way of doing it without it not looking obvious.

  ‘I just … Mouse … I …’ He looked at me, right at me, for ages without saying anything.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘It’s true. I did lie about ballet school. I lied to everyone. You had every right to tell Lauren. It’s your choice.’

  ‘Mouse. Honestly, you have to understand, I would never, ever, do something like that …’

  He looked so upset. He seemed annoyed at himself for not being able to find the words. His eyes were shining like he was about to cry.

  ‘It’s OK, honestly, it doesn’t matter any more.’

  ‘Yes it does. I just … I really need you to understand that when I told Lauren that, I thought she knew. I didn’t know when you told me about the lie that I was the only person you told … the truth to.’

  I nodded.

  ‘What I should have done is told you how special I feel that you told me,’ he said really gently. ‘Because that’s how I feel. Honestly.’

  ‘It’s OK, really. I was going to have to face the lie some time. When I came out with it first, I think I thought I could make it true. That I could audition for ballet school in Paris and then it wouldn’t be a lie.’

  ‘Well, why can’t you do that?’ he asked. ‘Then it would make it true.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, it wouldn’t.’ I sat on the edge of the bath and took a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to be a dancer.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Mouse, you are a dancer. Because you dance.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I won’t be a professional dancer.’

  ‘I don’t even know if that’s true, Mouse. But if you love dancing you should keep dancing. Even if it’s just with me to random techno music on ski trips.’

  I thought about Lauren saying she hadn’t danced since she didn’t get in. It was sad, because she had loved it so much. And she had been really, really good.

  I nodded. ‘Sorry I threatened you with my fight instinct.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me.’ He smiled. ‘You are pretty fierce. And I wouldn’t expect Super-Mouse to do anything else.’

  He came and sat on the edge of the bath next to me, but he sat too far back and fell into it with his feet still hanging over the edge. I laughed and let myself slip back and fall into the bath with him.

  I turned to him. ‘So, Jack, will you help me do something mad?’

  ‘Is it witchcraft? Because I saw that book by Keira’s bed. Are you going to turn Mr Jambon back into a rat, or something?’

  I smiled and rested my head against the tiles. He did the same and we turned and looked at each other and for a second the air changed like it had done in the igloo.

  ‘Do I have mascara all over my face?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t going to mention it, but you do look quite crazy. Even without the scissors.’

  I hauled myself out of the bath and looked at myself in the mirror. ‘Oh my god.’ I turned on the tap and started scrubbing at my face. Jack stayed in the bath, smiling. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Stay at school. Have a reputation for being mental. Try and make up with Connie and Keira.’

  I turned and faced him. His head was still resting against the tiles. His hair was tilted back off his face. He looked relaxed and effortlessly attractive. How good he looked made me turn back and keep scrubbing at my face. It was a bit overwhelming. I tried to sound offhand, like I was enquiring about the weather.

  ‘So, are you and Lauren … going out?’

  He tried to sit up, but fell back into the bath again. ‘No. I don’t want to go out with her. Not just because she was so mean to you, but definitely even more now I’ve seen her be like that.’

  A new little lump of sunshine grew next to the bruise inside me. I dried my face and caught myself in the mirror, blotchy and damp.

  ‘Are you going to help me or not?’ I said, turning and crossing my arms.

  He pulled himself out of the bath. ‘Yes, Super-Mouse, the madder the better.’

  I picked up a random chunk of my hair and picked up the scissors and snipped it off. I looked at it lying in my palm.

  ‘What?’ Jack shouted. ‘Are you crazy? You’re hair is so cool. It’s so … distinctive and … you.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. I’ve had long hair since I was five. Since I started ballet. I’ve always kept it long, to put in buns, to look pretty, to help me look like a dancer. I just want to see how it feels not to have it.’

  ‘I just don’t think it’s good to make life-changing decisions after … after being upset,’ he said.

  ‘Jack, it will grow back. It’s hair. I’m not chopping my arm off.’

  ‘But what will your mum say?’

  ‘She’ll probably cry but then it’s not her hair. Jack, I’m gonna do it, so if you don’t wanna watch then you better leave.’ I really didn’t want him to leave.

  ‘Well, I’m obviously not going to leave now.’

  I handed him the scissors and stood facing the mirror. He stood behind me. I shook my hair out and looked at it, flowing down to my waist.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said. He reached out and picked up some of my hair and let it fall back in to place.

  I nodded. ‘It’s probably best to just try and chop the pony-tail off at the top,’ I said.

  I gathered it up into a ponytail. He picked it up and held it up in the air. ‘Mouse, if I do this, you better not sue me if you change your mind. Or cast a spell on me.’

  ‘I won’t. Stop drawing it out, jus
t do it!’

  I heard the sound of the scissors being opened and him picking up my ponytail. And then the sound again. He laughed. ‘There is no way these are going to cut through this.’

  I pulled the elastic out and shook my hair. ‘Can you do it in bits?’ I handed him my hairbrush and he started to brush my hair really gently, like he’d never brushed anyone’s hair before, like the hair could actually feel how gently he was doing it.

  He was concentrating really hard, picking up little sections and running the brush through them. Then he put it down and picked up the scissors.

  ‘Sure?’ he asked, and I nodded.

  He picked up a tiny length of hair. ‘How short? Here?’ He touched my ear gently. I nodded again.

  And then he picked up a little section and cut it. Hair fell softly on to the tiled floor. Then he picked up another and another until I couldn’t even see the tiles any more. But there was still loads and loads to go. Every so often he would brush some hair off the back of my neck or my shoulder. He didn’t speak, just worked away. Trying really hard to get it right.

  He walked around to the front of me. We were standing really close, he was just a few centimetres away from me, our toes were almost touching. He picked up the scissors and held up the little plait Keira had done through the front of my hair. I stepped closer to him and he chopped it off at the root and handed it to me.

  And then I heard a full-on horror-movie scream.

  ‘What the hell?!’ I heard Keira say and then, ‘Woah.’

  Connie was still screaming. Keira shook her. ‘Stop screaming, you lunatic.’ Then she looked at me, and then at Jack. ‘Are we interrupting something?’

  Jack looked at me. ‘I’ll see you back at the hall?’ I nodded and he smiled sheepishly at Connie and Keira and left.

  ‘Your hair!’ Connie wailed and picked some of it up and held it by my head, like she thought maybe the situation could be reversed.

  ‘Is this how you want to apologize for lying to us?’ Keira said. ‘Making us a coat out of your hair?’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why I said it, or why I didn’t tell you. I should have. I just … bottled it.’

  Connie picked up a mound of hair and threw it in the air and it softly fell over us all. Then she hugged me. ‘Listen, Mouse. What I wanted to tell you. What I came up here to do––’

  ‘Apart from stopping you hooking up, obviously,’ Keira interjected.

  ‘I wanted to tell you I’m really happy that you’re staying at school.’ Connie looked almost tearful. ‘When we were on the ferry. That’s what I wished for. What I wrote. That I wanted you to stay at Bluecoats.’ She looked up at me and threw her arms around me like she had in the bathroom on the first day. Properly. Tightly. Really.

  ‘This week has been pretty intense,’ Keira said and then came and put her arms round both of us and leant her head on mine.

  ‘Keira,’ I said. ‘I know I lied to you, but there is one thing you need to know is true. Alfie honestly does fancy you. Scarlett was lying. I don’t know why. Well, I do, to be horrible and—’

  ‘Because she doesn’t want me as her sister-in-law. Well, I don’t want her either.’ She made a humphing sound. ‘Alfie probably hates her too.’

  ‘Come back to the disco,’ Connie said. ‘I’m going to request Mamma Mia again. And Roland is at the disco,’ she squealed. ‘And he did a dance where he looked …’

  ‘Like he was dying of chemical radiation,’ Keira groaned.

  ‘Everyone is going crazy,’ Connie said.

  Keira nodded. ‘It’s true. Mouse, you have gone properly nuts.’ Keira kicked some of the hair on the floor and shook her head. And then she smiled. ‘I love it.’

  We bundled out and down the corridor. My hair was about thirty different lengths, and people were giving me weird looks, but I didn’t care. What Connie had said was true, everyone had gone crazy. The dance floor was packed. It wasn’t little pockets of girls in circles any more, but literally everybody who was there was dancing. Miss Mardle was even bopping about at the edge with Jack’s teacher, and giggling as he pulled off some pretty horrific dad dance moves.

  There was a massive crowd gathered in the middle of the room. We couldn’t see exactly what they were looking at, but I knew it must be Roland. We pushed into the mass of jumping people and saw him and Max right at the epicentre. They were doing some sort of attempt at breakdancing and everyone was watching and cheering.

  Jack appeared next to me and started cracking out some crazy moves that looked like a cross between Riverdance and the tango.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lauren, sat on the edge, alone. Even Scarlett and Melody had left her to join in the Roland-watching.

  ‘Just a second,’ I shouted to Jack and muscled out of the throng.

  I walked over and sat down next to her. Neither of us spoke. We just watched everyone dancing. People loving it. People who looked ridiculous but didn’t care.

  Lauren didn’t look at me, she stared straight ahead. We could both sit here for a week and she wouldn’t crack. ‘So, the only ones not dancing are the two dancers,’ I said.

  She didn’t respond, just acted like I wasn’t there. Her tried-and-tested power formula. I kept talking even though she clearly didn’t want me to.

  ‘Lauren.’ She had to look at me, I had said her name. I had called her bluff. She turned her head slightly.

  ‘Lauren. I just …’

  There were millions of things to say. Millions of fragments that had made it all like this. Her not getting in. My leaving party she hadn’t come to. Me being angry that she hadn’t come. Her being angry and then every teeny break that followed, right up to Jack. Millions of shards all in a heap between us.

  We sat side by side, staring at the dance floor. Scarlett and Melody looked over and whispered to each other.

  ‘You don’t have to like me,’ I said.

  ‘I invited you for hot chocolate on the boat,’ she shot back.

  ‘Lauren, I heard you talking about me in the toilets.’

  She flushed ever so slightly. ‘Don’t act like you haven’t said stuff about me.’ Her voice had an edge of defensiveness.

  I thought about the hex and how much I had meant it.

  ‘You could still be a dancer,’ Lauren said, still looking straight ahead. ‘You could try for other schools. You could keep dancing.’

  ‘So could you,’ I said.

  She turned and looked at me and a flicker of something ran across her face.

  And then Roland was walking towards us. Lauren straightened herself and tried to look kind of demurely sexy and like she hadn’t really seen him.

  ‘Mouse.’ He smiled and leant down and kissed me on both cheeks. ‘My kidnapper.’ Then he winked at me in an over-exaggerated way like a pirate. His eyes wandered across to Lauren. ‘Mouse, who is your beautiful friend?’

  ‘This is Lauren.’ I said, turning to her and smiling. ‘She’s a really good dancer.’

  She blushed slightly, and Roland said, ‘Fantastique. I love dancers. But I see you are injured, Lauren? Maybe I can keep you company, since I cannot ask you to dance with me?’

  Lauren went even redder, but still just about managed to nod ‘yes’ to him. Almost as soon as I got up, he had taken my place next to her.

  I went and found Keira on the edge of the dance floor.

  ‘Keira, guess what just happ—’ I started, but she squeezed my arm tightly to shut me up. She was staring open-mouthed at something on the other side of the room.

  Jack

  ‘First he steals Mouse, now he steals Lauren,’ Max laughed. ‘What’s he gonna do next? Burn your house down?’

  We were stood on the dance floor, looking over at Roland, who was trying to chat to Lauren in between taking selfies with a gaggle of ridiculously overexcited girls. Lauren looked like her old self again; all her glossy confidence restored, as she sat there beaming proudly round the room, like she couldn’t believe her
luck. I was glad, really. I hadn’t wanted to embarrass her. I just hadn’t wanted to get off with her.

  ‘Trust me, his tongue’ll be down her throat in about thirty seconds,’ Max sighed, and turned to me. ‘That could’ve been your tongue, man. I can’t believe you didn’t kiss her.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ I said, completely honestly. ‘But I’m glad I didn’t. It just didn’t feel right.’

  ‘Well, good luck to you, mate,’ Max said, whacking me on the back. ‘You wait patiently until it “feels right”. You’ll probably still be on zero at my wedding.’ He clapped his hands together loudly. ‘Anyway, enough chatting. Time for me to crack on with Scarlett and win this bet once and for all. Where’s she got to?’

  ‘She’s over there, with Melody.’ I nodded to the semicircle of girls surrounding Lauren and Roland. ‘Where’s Toddy, though?’

  We both scanned the hall, and I noticed that Mouse was waving to get my attention. She jabbed her finger excitedly at something behind me.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Max, following my gaze. ‘That Connie girl’s a man-eater.’

  Then Connie tore herself away from the bloke she had pinned to the wall.

  ‘Wh … what the … How … ?’ Max wobbled on the spot, totally stunned, while I leapt into the air and screamed, ‘Yes! Toddy! You absolute legend!’

  He and Connie dragged themselves out of the corner, and walked towards us, hand in hand. Connie zipped straight past, and into the mad blur of squeals and outstretched arms that was Mouse and Keira.

  Toddy just stood there in front of me and Max, grinning a kind of wonky, half embarrassed, half proud grin. His blond hair was all sticking up at the sides. His cheeks were pink and his glasses were resting at a slightly skewed angle on his nose. He almost looked drunk.

  Max was clearly too shocked to form actual, coherent words, so I spoke instead. ‘Er … Toddy. Would you like to kindly explain what the hell just happened?’

  Toddy patted his hair down and turned his wonky grin on me. ‘She just … came over and said, “Hey, so have you got any more hamster tips for me?” And I said “no”, and then she said, “You’re quite cute, aren’t you?”. And I didn’t really know what to say. But then she just jumped on me and started … getting off with me.’