Cassie's Crush (13 page)

I tried to be ultra-helpful to get back on Mum's good side. But even though I made everyone's breakfast and washed up afterwards, it still didn't improve the mood. Mum said, “How d'you feel, having wasted hundreds of pounds of taxpayers' money?”

I didn't know how to answer that. I tried to calculate how much I'd wasted, with those two policemen, four or five firemen and additional expenses like their petrol and stuff, but didn't manage to figure it out. Must try harder in maths.

 

At school, I tried to zoom straight into English before Ollie showed up. I wanted to get seated and arrange my hair in a thick curtain to hide my face. This plan failed, as Ollie caught up with me at Miss Rashley's door. “So,” he said, grinning, “bit of adventure yesterday, huh? What were you doing up there, anyway?”

I shrugged. “It was just a dare.”

“You're mad, you know that?” he laughed.

“Yeah. I s'pose I am,” I said glumly.

“What did your mum and dad say?” Ollie asked.

I was flattered that he was interested but didn't want to tell him I'd sat there all shrunken in a chair, praying I wouldn't be grounded, while Mum and the policeman had ranted on at me. “They were … uh. Y'know,” I said, rounding off with a fake laugh. Ollie blinked at me. I felt hotness bursting out all over my face.

“Could you two lovebirds come in and sit down instead of blocking the door?” Miss Rashley snapped from inside the classroom.

I tumbled in with my face on fire and collapsed on to a chair. The Leech, who was sitting opposite, noticed my red face and shrieked, “Ooh, bit overheated, are we, Cassie? Shall we get the
fire brigade
, ha ha?”

“No thanks,” I growled.

“Nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw,” someone went, and I realized it was Ollie. He and the Leech were killing themselves laughing, and I threw him a filthy look. I wished I hadn't bothered hand delivering his party invitation, and I wished even more that I'd never got involved in Operation SOOP. Typical, choosing the most popular boy in Tarmouth High to have my crush on.
It's over
, I told myself silently.
I hate Ollie Peyton. My crush is officially dead.
But I knew I was lying. I kept my gaze fixed on my jotter and wrote so hard I snapped the lead in my pencil.

I couldn't even face hanging out with Ollie at lunchtime, even though he and Sam seemed to be waiting for me and Marcia at the gate. Before Chilli Galore, I'd have been thrilled to wander up the road with Ollie and sit and have a baguette with him. Today, though, I knew it'd be
police-car-this, fire-engine-that
and I really didn't need the hassle.

The weird thing is, Ollie caught up with me as we were heading for first period after lunch. “Hey, all right, Cass?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said flatly.

“Going to Marcia's party tomorrow night?”

I stopped at the door and nodded. “Sure. I don't have a costume, though. Do you?”

He grinned, and his eyes made me go all melty again. “Well, I'm working on it.” We stood there for a moment and I sensed something …
different
between us, like a strange kind of respect. And I wasn't being a tongue-tied mess like I usually am with him. Was it Chilli Galore? Had the terrible incident made Ollie see me in a different (dare I say, more
interesting
) light? Is that what a girl has to do to stand out from the crowd around here?

 

After school, I gave the cheese-mobile another scrub (to be ultra-helpful) and texted Marcia an update about Mum's chilly mood. She texted back a little sad face, which seemed a bit trivial considering my life is over and all I do is clean cars and vans for no money. Ned tried to cheer me up by beating me on the head with the inflatable mallet, and made about eight hundred fire engine jokes.

I decided to have a stomach ache so Mum would feel sorry for me and realize I've suffered enough. But no. She'd doubled up a doggie appointment, so I had to come out and help. She got the polite spaniel called Victor. I got the bad-tempered terrier called Fierce who took offence to the dryer and snapped at me.

That was a bit much, considering I also had a raging stomach ache, even if it was just a fake one. Just before I went up to bed, I overheard Mum and Dad talking with the living-room door shut. Me and Ned stood in the hallway, listening.

“Why does she
do
these things?” Mum said.

“Oh, you know what teenagers are like,” Dad replied. “They just get up to stuff without thinking first.”

I gawped at Ned. He pulled a mock-scared expression back.

“But the police!” Mum cried. “I've never been so ashamed in my life. Penelope Gooding saw. She was out washing her car when that police car pulled up…”

“Never mind Penelope Gooding,” Dad snapped. “You care too much about what the neighbours think.”

“I still think we should go through with it, Colin. She needs a short, sharp shock. We can't have her running riot, thinking she can do whatever she likes…”

My blood turned to ice. Ned grinned and did a throat-cutting motion with his finger. “It seems a bit harsh, Barbara,” Dad added.

“I don't care what you think,” Mum declared. “It's happening and that's that.” We heard her footsteps approaching the living-room door, so we both raced upstairs to the landing, where Beth was standing in her dressing gown and glaring at me.

“You're off your head,” she growled. I pushed past her, threw myself on to my bed and lay there, worrying what “short, sharp shock” could possibly mean.

What was Mum going to do to me? Send me to one of those awful boot camps where you have to get up at four a.m. and run for miles with some army man yelling at you? I knew I was being stupid, letting my imagination run away with me. But, as she hadn't grounded me, I couldn't think what else she could possibly mean.

I closed my eyes and started to mentally share out my possessions because there'll no point in hanging on to anything when I'm banished from my family home. Here's who gets what:

 

Mum:
zilch.

Dad:
the tree I started growing from an apple pip last summer, which is now 8.5 centimetres tall.

Beth:
nada.

Ned:
my personal fortune of £1.72.

Evie:
books and CDs.

Marcia:
my phone and clothes, even though, according to her, they are “really old”.

 

By the time I'd finished I was feeling quite distraught and decided it would've been better if I'd just toppled off that roof. Although maybe not if some poor, unsuspecting person had been walking out of the shop clutching a doner kebab.

I hoped the fuss would have died by the time I came home from school, but the first thing I saw was the
Tarmouth Times
spread open on the kitchen table. No one else was around. My heart lurched as I read the massive black headline:
TEEN'S ROOFTOP PRANK ALERTS EMERGENCY SERVICES
.

For a moment, I tried to convince myself that they didn't mean me. That there'd been an outbreak of irresponsible roof-climbing lately (I mean, what else is there to do in a boring seaside town in the middle of winter?).

I focused hard on the photo. Although it was fuzzy and black and white, it was definitely me, being carried down the ladder by that fireman. I sat down at the table with my guts churning wildly, wondering how hard it would be to change my identity. Would I be allowed, at my age? Or could I fake my own death? Maybe I could leave a little note on the beach saying I'M SORRY I CAUSED SO MUCH PAIN.
That'd
show them. And I could move to a new town where no one knew about Posh Pooches or Chilli Galore.

Ned, Beth and Dad weren't home yet, but I could hear Mum moving about upstairs. I read on:

Emergency services were called to the Chilli Galore kebab house on Newton Street, Tarmouth, last Wednesday when a teenage girl was seen by a passer-by on the roof. Concerned witnesses called 999 when the girl appeared to be in distress…

In distress? I felt a bit wobbly when I looked down at the pavement, that's all! Wouldn't most people?

…Police, paramedics and firefighters quickly arrived at the scene and the girl was brought down to safety.

They got it wrong! There were no paramedics there. Only police and firemen…

“It was a silly teenage stunt,” said Constable Martin Clark. “Young people should realize that wasting resources is a serious offence.”

Neither the girl nor her parents were available for comment.

The cheek of it. I would have been available if someone from the paper had bothered to get in touch for the proper facts. I'd have been happy to give an interview to explain that me, Marcia and Evie were just messing about, and it had all been
fine
until that woman had glanced up and started screaming for Winston and totally overreacting. That's the problem with being thirteen. No one listens to you. No one wants to hear your side of the story.

I heard Mum coming downstairs so I grabbed the paper and stuffed it into the kitchen bin. Mum marched in but wouldn't look at me. She started making dinner really angrily. When I say “make”, I mean she grabbed a tinned meat pie from the cupboard, stabbed its lid really violently with the tin opener and slammed it into the oven. Then she opened a bag of oven chips, tore off the corner of the packet with her teeth and poured them into a pan. She shoved them into the oven and banged the door so hard, it made the whole house shake.

I guessed now wasn't the right time to ask when she intended to start paying me for doggie duties.

“Um, I'll help with dinner,” I said lamely.

“It's all done,” she muttered.

“I could, er…” I racked my brain for something to go with tinned pie and chips. “I'll get the peas,” I murmured.

“I think,” she growled, “you've done enough.”

That was the thanks I got for trying to be helpful. Sensing I wasn't welcome in the kitchen, I hid in my room till dinner was ready and came down to find everyone sitting around ready to eat. The crumpled
Tarmouth Times
was spread out in the middle of the table with a few spaghetti hoops stuck to it. It had been fished out of the bin, plastered with bits of last night's dinner. Even worse, someone (probably Ned) had coloured me in with red felt-tip. “You're famous, baby sis!” he chuckled, shovelling a great slab of pie into his mouth.

“Er, I don't know about that,” I muttered. “I mean it's only the
local
paper.”

“Isn't that enough?” Mum retorted. “What d'you want – to be on national TV?”

“No thank you,” I murmured.

Dad was eating his dinner quietly, but kept giving me sympathetic looks. Beth was glaring at her meal as if it were rat poo. I could hardly choke down a pastry crumb for worrying when Mum would make the announcement about sending me away for a “short, sharp shock”. But no one mentioned my punishment over dinner. Maybe she'd forgotten about it.

I spent the evening hiding in my room, trying to dream up an emergency costume for tomorrow night. But my head was too full of the
Tarmouth Times
for me to think straight. It's because we live in a crappy little town.
That's
why I ended up in the paper. In decent places like London, there's too much serious crime going on for anyone to care about a girl on a roof.

As soon as I can, I'm getting my own flat in London with Marcia and Evie where no one will
ever
wash dog-grooming brushes in the sink and we'll have all the strawberries anyone could possibly eat.

At last, I discovered what “short, sharp shock” means. I'd almost been hoping it'd be something like having to clean out the dog van or cheese-mobile for the rest of my life, but it's a million times worse than that.

I'd dragged everything out of my wardrobe, and was trying to figure out how to make my incognito costume, when Mum appeared at my bedroom door. “Can I have a word?” she asked.

“Sure,” I replied, still on Best Behaviour.

She paused, and my skin started prickling all over with stress. “Your dad and I have discussed it,” she said, “and we've agreed that, after what you've put us through, there has to be some kind of … consequence.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured nervously.

“So we've decided you're not going to Marcia's party tonight.”

“WHAT?” I shrieked. It felt like my insides were crashing down to my feet.

“You heard, Cassie. After everything that's happened this week, with the newspaper and everything, what people must think of us … did that ever cross your mind?”

“No!” I cried truthfully. “But Mum, please! I've been looking forward to the party for
weeks
. Look, I even tried to make a costume…” I jabbed a finger towards the pile of mould-speckled petals still languishing in a bucket under my window.

“Well, we've made up our minds and that's that.”

“But you never said anything about grounding me! No one said—”

“You're not
grounded
,” she cut in. “God knows, Cassie, I couldn't have you moping about the house for days on end. But you're not going to the party. I know it means a lot to you, but you also need to consider…” Blah, blah, on she went, before stomping out of my room, leaving me totally
heartbroken.

“Mum, please!” I yelled, scrambling out on to the landing. “I'm sorry, OK? I know it was stupid. I'll never do anything like that again, I promise…” Tears were springing into my eyes.

“You're not going,” she snapped back from the bottom of the stairs, “and that's that. Maybe this'll finally knock some sense into you.”

I stood there staring at a squashed cheese puff on the rug. Then I slumped back to my room and called Marcia, even though I was so upset I could hardly speak. “You've got to come!” she wailed. “That's so unfair. I've spent all day getting the place ready and
everyone's
coming, including Ollie. I saw him at the pool today and he said he's definitely gonna be there…”

“Well, I can't come!”

“Have you told her how important it is?”

“Yeah, but she won't change her mind…”

“Oh, Cassie. That's awful.” We fell into silence. Talking about it was making me feel worse, so I wound up the call.

“Have a great night,” I muttered.

“How can I?” she cried. “It won't be any good without you”, which raised my spirits by about one tenth of a millimetre.

 

I didn't feel like doing much for the rest of the morning. All I could think about was the Leech showing up at Marcia's in that teeny eyelash skirt and Ollie coming over all lustful. I can't believe we've been planning this for weeks and I won't even be there. Even Ned agrees it's completely unfair and ridiculous.

To escape from the bad atmosphere in our house, I perched on the garden wall, feeling totally miserable, when a roaring noise came from down the street, growing closer and louder. A gleaming silver motorbike came into view. It was travelling so fast, I assumed it'd flash right by, but it slowed down just in time and screeched to a stop outside our house.

I stared at it. It looked amazing next to Mum's pink van. The bike's rider was tall, slim and dressed in a black leather jacket, leather trousers and big biker boots. He was wearing a glossy white helmet with red and blue stripes up the sides. Then he climbed off the bike, took off his helmet, and I realized with a start that it was a
she.
“Hi,” she said, shaking her hair out. Wild, curly red hair. Tons of it, springing all around her face.

“‘Lo,” I croaked. I knew her face from somewhere. Then it dawned on me: she was that snogging girl on Ned's bed.

“You're Ned's sister, aren't you?” she asked.

“Yep.” I nodded and forced a smile.

“Don't you recognize me?”

“Er, yeah, I
think
I do,” I mumbled, feeling idiotic. I mean, I'd only seen her snogging Ned. I hadn't exactly hung around enough to get a good look at her face.

“I'm Ray,” she said. “I'm a friend of Ned's.”
Friend?
Face-eater, she meant.

I bobbed my head, not knowing what to say.

“You OK?” she asked, hooking her arm through the helmet's strap.

“Er, yeah,” I said unconvincingly.

She frowned, wrinkling her pretty face. “You don't look OK. You look pretty fed up to me.”

“I'm all right,” I said, swinging my legs against the wall.

“Really?”

I nodded again.

“OK,” she said. “I just came round to see Ned. D'you know if he's in?”

“Yeah, he is.”

“Great.” She smiled again, and I twisted round to watch her marching up to our front door, all long legs and wild red hair. Mum opened the door and, without registering her own daughter virtually
dying
of misery and fruit deprivation on the garden wall, she flashed Ray a huge smile and let her in.

Ray was in there for ages. I wanted to talk to her again, to find out a bit more about her, but going inside would've meant facing Mum again. Anyway, why would Ray want to hang out with a thirteen-year-old waster-of-police-time like me? She looked at least seventeen, rode a motorbike and could probably gorge on strawberries whenever she liked.

“Hey, Cassie, you're still here.” Ray had come out of our house and was heading towards me. No sign of my brother. “Ned told me you're grounded,” she added.

“Well, not exactly,” I said with a shrug. “I'm just not allowed to go to my best friend's party tonight.”

She sat on the wall beside me and I glanced at her face. She had bright green eyes, sort of cat-like, and amazing pale skin. Sort of …
luminous
. No wonder Ned sat staring at his phone when she didn't call. “That's such a shame,” she said gently.

I nodded, wondering if Ned had also told Ray about Chilli Galore and the
Tarmouth Times
and, if he had, what kind of idiot she thought I was. I couldn't imagine her being lifted anywhere by a fireman.

“Well,” she said carefully, “there must be something you can do.”

I shook my head firmly. “No there isn't. Mum says I've wasted police resources and…” I was trying to sound tough, like none of this bothered me really, but my eyes were filling up with hot tears.

“Oh, Cassie, don't cry.” She put an arm around me in a big-sisterly way, not that Beth would ever do that. Beth was probably loving it that I couldn't go to Marcia's party. “I think it's a bit unfair,” Ray added. “I mean, Ned's been telling me how much you help your mum with the dogs and all that…”

I shrugged and wiped my face on my sleeve.

“Was this party really important to you?”

“Yeah,” I said, and it all poured out before I could stop it: about Operation SOOP and Chilli Galore – which Ned
had
blabbed about, of course – and how this party would be my big chance with Ollie, as long as the Leech didn't turn up in that eyelash skirt, and how I always acted stupid and tongue-tied around him.

“That's some crush you've got,” Ray said with a smile.

“Yeah. I suppose it is.” It felt OK telling Ray all of this, because she wasn't family and I could sense that she wouldn't laugh or tell me I was stupid.

“I hope Ollie deserves it,” she added.

“Er…” I tailed off. I'd never thought of it like that. “What d'you mean?”

“I mean, you're pretty, you've got a lovely face, and I'm assuming Ollie's cute…”

“Oh yes,” I said eagerly.

“But what else does he have?”

I racked my brain. All I could think of was the poshest house on Lilac Hill, and I knew Ray didn't mean that kind of thing.

“Is he amazing?” she asked.

“Um…” I frowned and tried to come up with examples of Ollie's amazingness, but I couldn't think of any.

“If you're going to have a crush,” Ray added with a mischievous grin, “shouldn't you pick someone amazing who deserves all the thought and energy you put into it?”

“I suppose so,” I murmured, feeling my black mood start to fade.
D'you think Ned's amazing?
I wanted to ask.

“Tell you what.” Ray jumped off the wall and pushed her hair out of her face. “Come for a ride on my bike with me. That'll cheer you up.”

“I can't!” I protested. “Mum'd go mad…”

“No she won't. I'll have a word with her if you like. I'll tell her you're really sorry about all the trouble you've caused and you and me are going off for a little chat.”

“What kind of chat?” Maybe I'd misjudged her friendliness and she was going to give me a right old lecture, like I needed that.

“You'll see,” she said with a wide smile.

“Why will Mum listen to you? I mean, I've tried everything…”

“Sometimes, Cassie, it's the way you say things.”

I blinked at her, not knowing what on earth she meant. “If you think it's worth a try,” I said hesitantly.

“Course it is.” Her smile lit up her whole face. “You know what? I think your day's just about to get better.”

 

I didn't believe Ray, even though I really wanted to. I watched as she strode back into our house, and Mum was all smiley at the door with her again, then the two of them went in, all chatty like a couple of mates.

I waited for what felt like a hundred years. I nibbled my nails and picked the moss off a huge area of wall. Then Ray bounced back out and hurried towards me.

“Hop on, then,” she said.

I stared at her. “What, on your bike?”

“Yeah. C'mon, before your mum changes her mind.”

“I can't go on a motorbike!” I protested.

“It's OK, I've passed my test.”

“Yes, but I don't have a helmet…” After the roof stuff, I wasn't about to go breaking any laws.

“It's OK, I've got a spare.”

I wiped the last of the dampness from my eyes and looked at her. “Did you ask Mum if I could go on it?”

“Um, not exactly, but it'll be all right, we won't be long…”

I bit my lip, thinking that, with all the trouble I was in already, a quick ride on a motorbike wasn't going to do any more damage. “OK, then,” I said, feeling a little ball of excitement starting to fizz in my stomach.

“Great,” Ray said with a grin, opening the box on the back of her bike and lifting out a shiny black helmet.

“Thanks.” I wasn't even sure how to fix the thing on and was praying that Mum wouldn't glance out of the kitchen window and see us. A few minutes ago, I'd been
willing
her to look out, think, “Oh, poor Cassie, all alone in the cold” and rush out and say all was forgiven. Now I was desperate to set off on that bike before she spotted us.

Ray fixed the helmet's strap for me. As she towered over me, I realized how amazingly tall she is – easily taller than Ned. “What about Ned?” I asked as she climbed on to her bike and made it snarl into life.

“What about him?” she asked.

“Didn't you come to see…?”

“Look, d'you want to come with me or not?” she asked, so I hopped on and we were off in a gigantic roar with me gripping her leather-clad hips and grinning madly as the winter air whooshed past my face.

Chilli Galore? The
Tarmouth Times
? Who cared about any of that?

 

You know when something happens that you realize you'll remember for ever? Today was like that. We zoomed around a bit too fast, and I thought we'd stop somewhere but we went right through Tarmouth, along the winding road that follows the coast, and on to Winterbourne, which is miles away. Ray stopped in the middle of town. I spotted loads of men looking at her, but she didn't seem to notice. When she took off her helmet and shook out her hair, even
more
men looked at her. She reminded me of a red setter, in a good way. I started to wonder if poor Ned's really in with a chance when Ray could probably pick any boy she wanted. “Um, where did you tell Mum we were going?” I asked, after she'd parked her bike and we were wandering through the bustling street of touristy shops.

“I just said we were going out,” she replied.

“Right. So I suppose that's not a lie, exactly…”

“Hey,” she said. “Don't worry. And you know that newspaper with your picture in?”