A Midsummer Tight's Dream (21 page)

I said huffily, “I don’t think Florence cares where you hang about at ‘neet.’”

Seth and Ruben both went, “Ooooooohhhhh, get you!!!”

Seth said, “Ay, tell Flossie I’ll be there abaht seven-ish.”

Huh.

Then Ruby and Matilda came tumbling out for school.

Ruben said to her, “Awreet, Ruby?”

Ruby said, “Aye, I’m all right, but where’s that daft brother of yours? Has ’e bin shot yet?”

Ruben said, “She’ll nivver find Cain.”

Seth joined in. “If Cain dun’t want to be fand, he’ll nivver be fand.”

Ruby flounced off to school and so did I.

I couldn’t wait to tell the mates about Charlie.

The rest of the Tree Sisters were with Bob and Monty in the music studio all morning so I didn’t have a chance to tell them anything. I was on prop-making duties, making fairy wings. Bending chicken wire and covering it with whatever I could find, mostly newspaper. There’s hardly anything to work with.

At lunch I told the Tree Sisters what had happened with Charlie.

I said, “Charlie came to see me in the barn.”

Jo said, “Oooooh, what was the ‘stuff’ he wanted to talk about, if you know what I mean?”

Flossie said, “Was it snogging stuff?”

And I said, “Well, yes, in a way. He said he really likes me, but already has a girlfriend and was sorry for being an idiot.”

Vaisey said, “Well, it’s nice that he really likes you, isn’t it? And, you know, let you know that he was sorry.”

I said, “I suppose so. But in a way it would be nice just to have someone who liked me and it not be all complicated.”

Jo said, “Oh, it’s all me me me with you, isn’t it, Tallulah? What about me me me!!!”

I said, “What about you? What’s the matter with you?”

She folded her arms. “What is the matter with me? What is the matter with me?”

I said, “Well, what is the matter with you?”

Jo said, “I’ll tell you what the matter with me is, I’ve got a boyfriend who is tunneling for his life.”

I said, “Well, he’s not, is he … tunneling for his life, he’s—”

But Jo had gone off on one.

“Tunneling for his life and meanwhile suffering the anguish of being underground and undersnogged.”

Then as we were going into Monty’s theater improv workshop, I told Flossie about Seth.

“I told him that you weren’t interested in where he hung out at ‘neet.’ And that he could stay at the back of Dother Hall for a million squillion years and you still wouldn’t be meeting him there.”

Flossie was back in Texas. “Hmmm, you are quite right, Miss Tallulah. Ah’m not a girl who is easy …”

So much for the famous Hinchcliff charm!

Flossie went on.

“Yes sirree bob, it will do that young man no damn harm to be kept waitin’. With his cotton-pickin’ insolence.”

I couldn’t wait to see Seth hanging around waiting.

Flossie went on normally.

“I’ll go out about quarter past seven.”

What???

Monty was in his tracky bums and wearing a headband, I don’t know why, as he hasn’t really got any hair to keep out of his eyes.

“Now then, girls, today we are looking at the emotion of being ‘drunk with love.’ The Bard often speaks of this. For instance, when Puck flings the love potion in his victim’s eyes. So, let us start with the eyes. Let us do drunken eyes. Let your eyes go.”

Flossie looked at me cross-eyed. Everyone else was looking like something from
Night of the Vampire Bats
.

Monty said, “Right, now tongues. Let your tongues loll in your mouths and try to speak. Let your tongue be like a big fat slug in your mouth.”

He was lolling his tongue out and saying, “HHEththhtgoooorll. Hecthhhooo.”

Jo came up to me with her eyes crossed and her tongue lolling out and said, “Givvtth a thnooogggggg.”

Monty wasn’t finished, because then we were on to knees.

At last, knees! Something I could shine at.

“Girls, feel like all the muscles in your knees have become useless—let them go so you have mushy knee complex. Try walking around with mushy knees.”

I was excellent at mushy knees, in fact, I was the best.

As we left, Monty shouted after us, “Girls, do not drive or operate heavy machinery after doing these exercises.”

We had a “Lost and Found Orchestra” lesson in the hall last thing, with Blaise and Bob.

Bob was on keyboards “improvising” around a tune. I think it was “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” but I can’t be sure.

Blaise shouted, “Girls, find something to make a noise with. A bit of pipe or a comb or a milk bottle. Or use your own body parts!”

Some girls got stuff from the kitchen or garden, kettles and bottles and even a saw.

Vaisey found a creaky door and started harmonizing with it. Sort of “creak-creak, la la lah lah lah!!!” in time to Bob’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

Flossie blew her cheeks out and hit them to make popping noises. It was really good, but she looked like a mad goldfish.

Jo was banging her head with a tin tray so I went and sat next to her and started a sort of counter-rhythm. She banged her head and I did
bang-bang-bang
on the wooden panels on the front of the stage. But I got a bit carried away and put my foot through the wooden paneling.

Bob had to get under the stage and take my shoe off so I could get my leg out. There’s a foot-shaped hole in the paneling now.

Blaise said, “We’ll have to find a way to keep those legs under control. They have a life of their own, Tallulah.”

She doesn’t need to tell me that. And of course she doesn’t know about my cracking snogging techniques either. And by the way, never will.

At home time I was wrapping my scarf around me, when Lavinia pounced.

“Begorrah, begosh, bejesus, Tallulah Casey. To be sure, to be sure, to be sure. How the devil are you?”

I mumbled, “Fine, thank you, just going home.”

She put her arm around me. “Now when are we going to get together with that nice Alex?”

I said, “Oh, I see. Oh, he’s been back but he’s gone again.”

She perked up and flicked her hair about.

“Did he … did you … ask him about coming and helping us?”

I said, “Well, I didn’t get a chance really because he was with his girlfriend, Candice.”

Lavinia said, “His girlfriend?”

I smiled. “Yep. Candice.”

She said, “Did you know he had a girlfriend?”

I said, “No, but Ruby says he met her at college and they have only just started going out.”

Why was I telling her this?

She looked thoughtful.

“Oh, I see. Hmmmm. See you later, Tallulah. Probably a bit too busy to do any lunchtime performances this term.”

And she went off.

So every cloud does have a silver lining. But it had made me long for Mr. Darcy again.

It was freezing on the way home from Dother Hall and I could hardly move my face. Ruby came scampering to meet me as I passed the post office. She said, “Brr, come and have hot choccy with me.”

I said, shivering, “Is your dad in?”

Ruby said, “Nah, he’s at band rehearsal. Come on.”

I couldn’t find out any more from Ruby about Candice. When I said casually, “So how is Alex doing at college? Is he, does he, see Candice a lot? I suppose they go mushrooming quite a lot.”

She rolled her eyes at me and said, “Don’t even think about it.”

So we sipped our choccy and she showed me some of her art from school.

I said, “What’s this one?”

And she said, “That’s Mrs. Bottomly stalking Cain on the moors.”

I said, “Does anyone know where he is?”

Ruby said, “Nah.”

I’d noticed it getting quite windy, and the trees rustling and creaking for the last hour, but then it suddenly got much worse. Doors slammed, and the wind moaned, like a ghostie down the chimney in Ruby’s bedroom. Oooohhh, it was a bit creepy.

I said to Ruby, “I’d better get home before the pub blows down. I wouldn’t like to be Cain out there in this.”

Ruby said, “They’re tough, those lads. Since their mam left. Well, you’ve got to be, haven’t you. Get on with it, I mean.”

I was going to ask what had happened to Ruby’s mum, but she started playing with Matilda and I didn’t like to.

I said good-bye and went outside. Jeepers creepers, it was wild. I had to hold on to my hat. As I passed the beginning of the path that led up the back road to the moors, I couldn’t help thinking about Cain again.

I know he doesn’t deserve it, but I am a bit worried about him. Out there all alone.

In the dark and cold.

He might die out there. Or at least get pneumonia.

And what will he be eating? I wonder if he is having to cook worms for his tea?

A
S
I
STOOD LOOKING
up the path, I could see the rocks and crags, bleak against the darkening sky. The wind was whistling and howling. There was something creepy and exciting about it. I liked it somehow, I don’t know why. It suited my mood, I suppose.

And also what was there to be frightened of? On the moors? Fang was just a silly village story. How could a dog be half-dog half-donkey? If Fang was half-otter half-dog, that would be more likely. And who could be frightened of that? A dog that really liked swimming? That’s not very scary.

As I stood there being blown about by the wind, I was still excited about Charlie saying I was a cracking kisser. If it was true, maybe there was a way I could show Alex that I wasn’t just a little girl anymore. I pulled my coat about me. I thought I’d go and look at the moors. I went up the back road as far as the low branch. Ruby told me that if you hung upside down on it, it made you happy because all the bad feelings dropped out.

I’m going to try it. I turned upside down on the branch and was swinging by my legs. In the wind. It was quite peaceful as I rocked back and forward.

The sky looked even more dramatic upside down. Then there was a really loud rumble of thunder and a crash of lightning. I got the right way round quickly. The atmosphere had gone all shivery. It must be about to pour down.

And then I felt a presence. There was definitely something alive very near to me. Oh no.

Fang. He might really, really be real. Maybe he can smell teenagers.

I looked into the dark fearfully. I could see a dark shape. Oooooh noooooo.

It wasn’t Fang. But it was nearly as bad.

“What’s tha doin’ hanging abhat here?”

Cain was there, looking at me from underneath his eyelashes. I couldn’t see his eyes very well as he had his collar up.

He went on looking.

And I went on looking.

I was so shocked to see him I couldn’t speak. I managed to croak out. “Are you … well, are you all right? No one knew where you were. And one of the lads said you might have, you know, been dead.”

I could see his teeth curving into a bitter smile. He said, “Why, were you worried abaht me? Did you miss me?”

I said, “No, I didn’t, well, you know, we didn’t know where you were, and Mrs. Bottomly with her gun and everything.”

Cain said, “That woman couldn’t hit a bloody elephant, even if it had a target painted on it.”

I said, “Oh, OK. Well … are you, er, coming back into Heckmondwhite?”

He came a bit closer and sat down on the branch where I’d been hanging upside down. Oh God, had he seen me doing that? Thank Jehosophat, I’d got my trousers on.