Never Evers Page 21
Max looked like he could faint at any moment. ‘So, you … you … you …’ He turned to me. ‘He … Toddy got off with a girl before we did? Toddy won the bet?’
I clapped Max on the shoulder. ‘Yep, Max, I’m afraid so. Toddy won.’ I raised my other hand at Toddy and he high-fived me, blinking and smiling.
Roland slipped through the force field of girls that had imprisoned him and threw his arms around us.
‘Can we get out of here for a bit, you guys?’ he whispered. ‘That Lauren girl is cool, but there is only so much female attention I can take.’
‘Tell me about it,’ smirked Toddy, and Max’s face turned an even deeper shade of purple.
‘Hey, so, we’ve finally got a name for our band,’ I said to Roland, grinning. ‘The Parallelograms, right, Toddy?’
Toddy shook his head. ‘Nah, I’ve had another think. I quite like … Never Evers.’
I laughed. ‘Yeah. That’s got a nice ring to it.’
‘That’s actually not bad,’ grunted Max, and Roland nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, Never Evers. I can see that on a billboard. Or a backpack. Or a “trousse”.’
We all cracked up. He whipped out his phone, and shot a selfie of the four of us. Then he tapped at his phone while he muttered, ‘This – is – me – with – the – hottest – new – English – band … Never Evers.’ There. It’s on Instagram now, so it is a real thing.’ He grinned at me. ‘You’ll have to play some gigs now.’
‘Yeah,’ I grinned back. ‘We’re going to.’
He squinted back down at his phone. ‘It has already got 3000 likes.’
‘Oh my god,’ said Max.
‘Oops … 3100,’ said Roland.
Mouse, Keira and Connie came over, and I said, ‘Hey – why don’t we all go sledging? Me and Mouse did it yesterday, it was well fun. We can go and get trays from the dining hall.’
‘Yes, sounds great,’ said Roland, and everyone else nodded, too. We headed for the lobby, where the massive bald bloke was still waiting and managed to hold back the swarm of girls that tried to follow us.
‘Thank god Cooper has gone,’ Roland whispered, as he looked around the lobby. ‘She would not like me going sledging. I don’t think my insurance covers injuries you pick up while sitting on a dinner tray.’
The girls headed back to their room to get some hats and scarves, and Max said he needed to grab something too, so me, Toddy and Roland borrowed some trays from the dining hall and headed out to the little hill round the back of the hotel.
Outside, the temperature had dropped even further. It was properly freezing. The girls came running back and dropped down beside us. Mouse handed Roland his leather jacket, which he thanked her for, but I saw him checking the zip particularly closely.
She knelt down next to me and smiled her amazing smile. I had been worried when we were chopping her hair off that she would look like a crazy woman, but she actually looked even hotter than before. You could see her face much more clearly now, and it was like the haircut had given her a new kind of energy, a bright-eyed freshness, like she wasn’t hiding from herself – or anyone – any more.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Shall we sledge?’
‘Hang on. Where’s Max?’
As if in answer to my question, there was a screaming ‘WHEEEEEE!’ noise from behind us, and the sky suddenly exploded, shattering into millions of fiery-red sparks. We all turned round to see Max, half hidden by smoke, back up by the hotel. He was holding an armful of fireworks and a lighter.
‘There’s no way I’ll smuggle all this lot back into England tomorrow,’ he yelled. ‘Might as well use some of them now, eh?’
He sprinted over and flung himself down on to the tray next to Keira. ‘So, listen …’ he said. ‘We haven’t exactly seen eye to eye this trip, but I reckon it’s time to bury the hatchet, yeah? I mean … you can’t deny there’s clearly something between us.’
‘Yeah, maybe you’re right.’ She edged over towards him, and put her hand on his shoulder. Just as I thought she might actually, genuinely get off with him, she shoved him, hard. He let out a high-pitched shriek as he slid, fast, down the slope.
Keira cackled, and yelled, ‘Come on, let’s go!’ and everyone pushed off with her.
I went to shove myself forward, but Mouse stopped me. We watched our friends all zip downwards, screaming, going faster and faster until the darkness swallowed them up. Suddenly, it was just the two of us at the top of the hill.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said.
‘It’s all right. I’m quite glad you did it.’
We sat there in silence for a few seconds, smiling at each other, not really knowing what else to say. I felt my heart headbutting my ribcage. It suddenly seemed like it was really going to happen. This time, there were no paramedics or pop stars or flesh-eating rat-hamsters to get in our way. It was just me and Mouse, sat on our massively uncomfortable plastic dinner trays, grinning nervously and waiting for something to happen. I knew I shouldn’t feel scared any more, but I did. It was scary. Doing anything for the first time is scary. But I wanted to kiss her so badly.
I shuffled my tray a centimetre closer to hers. She laughed and did the same, so that our feet were just about touching over the slither of snow between us.
Then, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and leant in towards her.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, a massive, massive thank you to Rachel Leyshon, who has proved to be equal parts brilliant editor and expert therapist. Sorry for all the phone calls …
Big thanks also to our amazing agent Kirsty McLachlan, and to Barry, Rachel H, Elinor, Kesia, Jazz, Esther, Laura and all at Chicken House.
We also owe at least one drink to everybody who read this book in all its various drafts and gave us invaluable feedback: Anna McCleery, Abi Elphinstone, Emma Shevah, Rob Ellen, Rosie Ivison, Carolina Demopoulos, Laura Allsop, John Bardsley, Polly Cotran, Diana Battle, Halina Malone, Nell Booker, Sheena Wilkinson, Kate Feenstra, Evie De Witt Turle and Katie Heckles. Thank you all!
Cheers, too, to everyone whose brains we picked about real-life ski trip-based hilarity – namely Robin, Jeremy, Toddy, Harve, Del and Ally. Big fans of you all.
We’re very much indebted also to Elena Palano and Eugénie Bakker, because Connie and Keira wouldn’t be here without them …
Much love to our families – Rosie, Helen & Will Ivison and Mark, Clare & Rob Ellen.
Lucy would also like to thank the whole of the FHS staff for being so supportive and AMAZING. Plus, my 10.15 library crew … Stephanie Wahl in year 3 for the Draco Malfoy chat alone; Christiane Lesesne in year 4 for inspiring me with her work ethic … I can’t wait to come to your book launch someday. Rosie Phillips in year 6 for her knowledge of animal-shaped sponges and all the other juniors who come into the library and talk to me about books. Also to all the senior girls who told me their ski trip stories and to Sophie Daya, Manon Abbott, Larissa Guerrini-Maraldi, Chioma Onyegbosi, Yasmin Samrai. And, of course, U6S, my lovely form.
And a big final thank you to all the brilliant UKYA authors, bloggers and readers. Keep doing what you do!
Page 5: Tim Rice: adapted from ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King’ from The Lion King (Walt Disney, 1994)
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Text © Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison 2016
First paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2016
This electronic edition published in 2016
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Cover and interior design and illustration by Helen Crawford-White Cover photographs: snow angel © OJO Images/Getty Images; girl skiing © Mike Timo/Getty Images; hamster © Oksana2010/Shutterstock; skyline © Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock; ski lift © Diego Cervo/Shutterstock Interior photographs: ski equipment © kontur-vid/Shutterstock; hat © Ozomina/Shutterstock
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