Never Evers Page 4

You can usually hear Flynn coming a mile off because of his booming voice. He’s quite short, with slicked-back hair and a black goatee beard. He talks like he’s about sixty, even though my mum says he can’t be more than thirty. We were all quite chuffed he was on the trip, because he’s a proper pushover.

  ‘How are we all doing back here, then?’ Flynn asked us, waving his hands about dramatically. He inhaled heavily and let out a loud, satisfied sigh. ‘Will you just smell that mountain air, eh, lads?’

  ‘We’re on a coach, sir,’ I said. ‘All we can smell is Febreze and Jamie Smith’s farts.’

  Flynn wrinkled his nose. ‘Hmmm. Yes. It is a bit … cat-foody back here.’

  ‘Sir,’ Max said, rubbing his top lip, ‘can I ask you a question about facial hair maintenance?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Kendal, you may,’ said Flynn, stroking his goatee proudly.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Max, ‘as you can see, I’ve got a moustache these days—’

  ‘You may need a magnifying glass to confirm that, sir,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Shut up, Jack,’ snapped Max. ‘Anyway, sir, do you think I should be shampooing it? Do you shampoo your beard?’

  I groaned and stood up. ‘I can’t listen to any more of this. Excuse me, sir.’

  I squeezed past Flynn and jammed myself into the tiny toilet cubicle.

  As I slammed the door behind me and straightened up, I whacked my head on the ceiling, painfully. It was only stuff like this that made me realize how much I had grown recently.

  ‘Haven’t you changed, Jack!’ That was what my parents’ friends always said when they saw me nowadays. But it was weird – I didn’t feel different. I looked at myself in the little mirror. I didn’t even look that different really, apart from the height thing. Same small, sharp, brown eyes that curved upwards at the edges. Same thin, pointy nose that I definitely got from my mum. Same deep, O-shaped dimples on either side of my mouth that double in size when I smile really widely. Same bushy brown hair that always sticks up at the front, no matter how many times I splash it down with water.

  I pushed my face right up against the glass to check out my top lip. Nothing. Some of the hairs around the side of my mouth were getting sort of darker, but I was still a long way off even Max’s crappy attempt at a ’tache. Maybe I could just colour the hairs in with a black felt tip? Would anyone notice that? Maybe that’s what Max was doing.

  Suddenly, a loud burst of shouting and laughter erupted above me. I flung the door open and sprang back up in to the aisle.

  I saw what everyone was going mental about and burst out laughing, too. Another coach full of school kids was driving alongside us, all going equally mad, because Max was stood up on his seat with his trousers round his ankles, his bare bum pressed firmly against the window.

  I crept back on to the coach before anyone else. I stared out of the window the whole time people were clambering on, trying to be invisible, waiting for Lauren to walk past and confront me. When Lauren, Scarlett and Melody finally got on, they seemed louder and more giggly than ever. As they got closer my hands started to shake. They passed me, and the giggles stopped for a beat, but then they all just carried on walking down the aisle, louder than ever.

  ‘How was the diner?’ Connie asked brightly as she and Keira plonked down in the seats in front of me, and the coach rolled out of the ferry’s belly in to France. ‘We got slurpies. Half blue raspberry and half bubblegum. See.’ Connie stuck her tongue out and it was bright blue. ‘Now I match,’ she said, pointing at her blue-handprinted cheeks. I tried to smile. She looked at me a bit more intently and then glanced towards the back of the bus. Her eyes clouded a little.

  ‘You OK, Mouse?’ she said softly and I nodded.

  I leant my head against the window and pretended to sleep. Then Keira and Connie fell asleep for real, heads resting on each other, hair intertwined like their headphone wires, their legs flopping over each other. I didn’t have to make conversation and pretend to be OK. I pulled my head inside my hoodie like a tortoise as I watched the French motorway flicker past.

  I listened to the music from Swan Lake, closed my eyes and tried to remember the steps but I couldn’t drown out Lauren and the things she had said. I felt hot, damp tears building at the corner of my eyes but wiped them away quickly. We hadn’t even arrived at the resort and already I wanted this whole trip to be over. I didn’t even want to go home, I just wanted to go back in time and be a better dancer.

  Finally, I actually did sleep. I dreamt weird dreams where me and Lila were jumping from bed to bed in the White Lodge dorm, and then I was playing in the paddling pool with Connie when we were little, but she still had blue hands. Then Mum was hugging me and I heard Lauren’s echoing laugh, mingling with Melody and Scarlett’s. As I opened my eyes the dream got muddled and I realized they really were laughing. Everyone was.

  The whole coach was going absolutely crazy. Everyone was pointing and screaming. Even Connie was jabbing me with her finger. ‘Bum!’ she screamed through hysterical laughter. I looked outside to see another coach driving alongside us, and this pale, wide dough of bum pressed up against the window.

  Everyone was taking pictures and yelling, and the boys on the other bus were going mad too. Connie put her hands over her eyes but kept shouting ‘Bum!’ like she was calling for help and I could hear Lauren screaming ‘Oh my god!’ Miss Mardle came marching down the aisle doing her best stern face. The other coach overtook us, and the bum disappeared.

  ‘All right, ladies! That’ll do! It’s just a bum! I’ve got one, you’ve got one, everyone’s got one!’ Her Welsh accent got more exaggerated when she was flustered.

  ‘Miss Mardle’s got a bum!’ Connie announced, and everyone burst out laughing again.

  ‘Yes, yes …’ said Miss Mardle, patiently. ‘I do hope you’re not all going to go into wild hysterics every time you see a few boys. There will be boys at our hotel, you know.’

  ‘What?!’ said one girl near the front. ‘Are you serious, miss? There’ll be boys there?’

  Miss Mardle looked like she instantly regretted saying anything. ‘Erm, well … yes, Nadia. What I mean is, there will be a few other school groups staying there too, and chances are that some of them will include members of the male persuasion …’

  The rest of her sentence was drowned out by everybody screaming and yelling in excitement again. Miss Mardle clapped her hand to her face and retreated back to her seat.

  Suddenly, another ripple of commotion shot down the coach. I looked out of the window again, and saw what everyone was shouting about – a huge billboard with a boy’s grinning face on it.

  The boy was incredibly, amazingly good-looking. He had big, blue eyes that were looking slightly down, like he was shy, and a kind of half-smile that showed little dimples on each cheek. His light-brown hair was messy and swept sideways, and he was topless and had that kind of perfectly tanned skin that only celebrities have. His jeans were so low that you could see his whole torso and underneath was the word ‘ROLAND’.

  Keira whistled. ‘If that’s what all the boys look like in this country, then I’m definitely up for some French kissing.’

  ‘It’s not very practical to go out without a top in the snow,’ Connie said.

  Keira whacked her on the head. ‘Don’t even pretend you’d pick Ron over him.’

  ‘Ron is my one true pairing,’ Connie nodded without taking her eyes off the poster. ‘But I might let Roland English kiss me. To warm me up for Ron.’

  I heard Scarlett behind us saying, ‘He must be, like, a French singer or something.’

  Lauren said, ‘I don’t care what he is – he’s definitely the hottest boy on the planet. He’s amazing. We need to google him the second we get signal.’

  Finally, as the sun was starting to set and the stars were beginning to show, we passed a sign for ‘MERCIER’ – the town we were staying in. The coach pulled in to the hotel car park, and as I stepped off a blast of freezing air hit me. The fact that we w
ere in the middle of a mountain range felt real for the first time. I hugged my jacket close to me and looked around. It wasn’t actually snowing, but a thick white blanket covered pretty much everything – the ground, the cars, the roofs of the buildings. It all felt so strange and distant. Even the air smelt different.

  I waited as far away as possible while they were sorting out our bags, so I didn’t have to be near Lauren. I knew I’d have to speak to her at some point, but I just couldn’t face it right now.

  Miss Mardle came over and said, ‘Matilda, love, I’ve put you in with Connie as she’s supposed to be looking after you. I remembered you and Lauren were friends, but I’m afraid there wasn’t space in her room.’

  I breathed an inward sigh of relief, and said, ‘That’s fine, miss.’

  Connie beamed so widely she almost shone. Then she turned to Keira. ‘Did you know that I thought Mouse’s real name was Mouse until year four?’

  ‘Yeah, you also thought your dishwasher was haunted,’ said Keira.

  ‘It was!’ yelled Connie.

  Miss Mardle interrupted, ‘Yes, look, girls, this is all fascinating, obviously. But let’s head inside to the rooms now, as it’s completely freezing. I’ll need you all back in the lobby in about half an hour. The hotel’s putting on a movie night for us. Connie, please make sure you wash your face before you come down, love.’

  Connie sighed and nodded, and we walked into the hotel with everyone else, making sure to keep a few metres behind Lauren, Scarlett and Melody. There were more posters of Roland stuck up all over the lobby.

  ‘He’s following us,’ I heard Melody say.

  ‘I wish he was following us,’ Lauren said.

  The woman at reception pushed her glasses up her nose and peered at the poster with us. ‘You like Roland, eh? All the girls love Roland. Do you want to know a secret? Some people are saying he’s right here in this town at the moment, making his new music video.’ She raised her eyebrows at us and smiled. ‘Maybe you will see him …’

  I saw Lauren mouth ‘Oh my god!’ at Scarlett and Melody, and the three of them hurried off in to the corridor, giggling.

  Even though I hated myself for it, a bit of me wished I was with them.

  Jack

  Flynn unlocked the door and we charged past him into the room.

  ‘Well, here it is, lads,’ he said. ‘Your home for the next five days.’

  The room was small, dark and very, very neat. Everything in it was a kind of weird browny colour – the walls, the beds, the tables, the lamps. Even the sink in the bathroom.

  ‘Nice!’ said Max, dumping his rucksack on the floor. I looked out of the window at the dark, starry sky. You could still see the outline of the mountains underneath them.

  ‘Unpack your stuff quickly, and then come straight to the main hall,’ Flynn said. ‘Since it’s too late to do anything else, the hotel is putting on a film night for us this evening.’

  He shut the door, and we turned our rucksacks upside down and emptied them on to our beds.

  ‘Right,’ said Max. ‘That’s the unpacking done. Let’s go and have a look around.’

  The entire hotel seemed to be covered in posters of some French singer called Roland. He looked like your typical boy-band clone – big, cheesy grin plastered across his face and a side-swept mop of brown hair covering his forehead. He was wearing skinny jeans and a tattered black leather jacket. His confidence seemed to burn right off the poster.

  ‘What. An. Idiot,’ said Max, jabbing his finger against Roland’s super-smug face. ‘See, this is exactly the kind of moron we’re up against. Our band – whatever the hell it ends up being called – needs to be the exact opposite of this guy and all the other commercial X Factor rubbish.’

  Toddy squinted up at the poster. ‘He looks a bit like you actually, Jack,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up, Toddy,’ I laughed.

  ‘No, seriously. He’s got your nose anyway.’

  I looked at the poster again. He was sort of right. The little sharp, pointy nose and cheek dimples were a bit like mine. But the big blue eyes, smug grin and bulletproof confidence were about as far from me as it was possible to get.

  Max checked the corridor behind and in front of us, then pulled a pen out of his jacket and scribbled a big black moustache on Roland’s top lip. He checked the coast was clear again and added a speech bubble coming from under the moustache with the words ‘Je suis un loser’ inside it.

  He stepped back to admire his work. ‘What d’you reckon?’

  ‘You know “loser” isn’t actually a French word?’ I said.

  Max sighed. ‘Course it is. “Loser” is universal. It’s one of those words that’s the same in every language, like “internet” or “weekend”.’

  ‘I’m fairly sure that’s not true.’

  ‘Well, I’m fairly sure it is.’

  ‘I think the more interesting thing here,’ Toddy interjected, ‘is that you’ve drawn a moustache on him, and then called him a loser. Are you trying to say that people who have moustaches are automatically losers?’

  Max rubbed his bumfluffy top lip defensively.

  ‘No, obviously not, Toddy,’ he snapped. ‘It’s not the moustache that makes him a loser. What makes him a loser is the fact that he’s a loser.’

  ‘Ah, yeah, that makes sense,’ Toddy nodded. ‘Thanks for clearing that up.’

  We turned the corner in to the main hall of the hotel, which was the same chocolatey-brown colour as our bedroom, except it was about fifty times as big. There was a huge log fire blazing in the fireplace at the far end, and above it a massive TV screen. Tons of chairs were laid out in neat little rows, nearly all of them filled with kids of various different ages. And about half of them girls.

  ‘Oh my god!’ hissed Max, grabbing my arm. ‘I told you!’

  My stomach did a mini backflip as I glanced around the room. There were so many girls I didn’t even know which ones to look at. Max was clearly having the same problem. His face was twitching wildly in all directions, like he had ten flies buzzing in front of him.

  ‘They’re all so … so …’ His voice tailed off. ‘What’s the word?’

  ‘Hot?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max said dreamily. ‘Exactly. Hot. They’re all so hot.’

  We settled down into three free seats near the back as Mr Flynn came bounding up the aisle towards us.

  ‘What we watching then, sir?’ I asked, as he sat down in the row in front of us.

  ‘Romeo and Juliet, Jack,’ said Flynn.

  All three of us groaned loudly. ‘Oh, what?’ Max whined. ‘Firstly, I’ve already seen that, and secondly, it’s rubbish. You literally can’t understand a word anyone’s saying. It should have subtitles, or something.’

  Flynn smoothed the side of his goatee down with his thumb. ‘Romeo and Juliet, Mr Kendal, is not “rubbish”. It is Shakespeare’s finest work – a boundary-trampling fusion of love, jealousy and family loyalty. A tragedy of utterly Dionysian proportions.’

  ‘You should have subtitles as well,’ muttered Toddy.

  ‘What was that, Lewis Todd?’ Flynn snapped.

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve spent all day on a coach just to sit inside and watch the guy from Inception pratting about in a Hawaiian shirt,’ said Max. ‘Can’t we go out and explore, sir? Have a look around the town or something?’

  ‘No, you most certainly cannot, Mr Kendal. You will sit here quietly and soak up the words of England’s greatest writer.’

  Max snorted. ‘If he was England’s greatest writer, how come he didn’t write in English?’

  ‘It is English, you div,’ said Toddy. ‘It’s how English people talked in the olden days.’

  ‘Yeah, well, no wonder the olden days were so rubbish, then. That’s probably why they never got round to inventing TVs and iPhones and stuff – because no one could understand what the hell anyone else was saying.’

  Suddenly, the lights went do
wn and the big screen flickered in to life. Flynn whispered, ‘Quiet now, lads.’

  I tried to concentrate on the film, but it was way more interesting to look round at all the girls in the hall. On the other side of the aisle, about ten seats away, my eyes fell on one chair that was totally hidden by hair: a long, straight, brown wave of hair that draped all the way down the metal seat-back and halfway to the floor. I followed the hair upwards until I saw the girl it was attached to.

  Even in the darkness, I could tell she was fit. Really fit. She looked sort of sad and serious at the same time. She was wearing an oversized grey hoodie and sitting in this weirdly rigid way – straight back, hands crossed in her lap, and feet pressed together on the floor.

  I couldn’t stop looking at her. It was weird. Every time I tried to focus on the film, my eyes just drifted right back across to her.

  I was starting to quite enjoy this secret little game when, suddenly, during the bit where Leonardo Whatshisface and Juliet are flirting through the fish tank, she turned her head sideways and looked straight back at me.

  The second I noticed him, he looked away. He might not have even been looking at me in the first place. There were about a hundred people in the hall. He could have been looking at anyone.

  But then, suddenly, he turned again, and we both locked eyes. It was only for a second, but a second that definitely happened.

  I looked back at the screen straight away. I sat up and stared dead ahead. I tried to move my eyes without moving my body but as I’m not a gecko that didn’t work.

  He had dark hair that stuck up a bit at the front. The boys next to him were whispering to each other and every so often he absent-mindedly whispered something back, but he was actually watching the film. Or, at least, trying to. It made me like him. He was wearing a blue woolly jumper with a hole in the sleeve that he had stuck his thumb through. His mate said something and he smiled and shook his head. He was good-looking, but when he smiled he was gorgeous.

  I’d only noticed him in the first place because I’d been glancing around, trying to figure out where Lauren was. She was sitting behind me, somewhere, but I still didn’t know exactly where. I felt like once I knew, I would be calmer somehow. It’s weird how knowledge makes you feel more in control. Like an animal, trying to figure out where the next attack might come from. But then I had seen Scruffy Jumper and forgot to look for Lauren.