Dead Romantic (26 page)

I was agog. ‘I forgot, okay? And anyway I didn't know he was going to chew through that bag, did I?'

‘He's no ordinary dog though, is he? I knew we should have been more careful. Should have known not to let that thing into the lab in the first place. He's obviously been waiting to get his teeth into those limbs.' She stamped her foot on the hard earth.

‘Is your leg on the blink?' I asked her.

‘No, it is not,' she snipped.

I rubbed the hem of my dress. ‘Why did you stamp it like that?'

‘Because I'm annoyed, Camille, and it's the only way I can project my annoyance without resorting to physical violence. This is yet another obstacle we don't need and which we do not have time for.'

We came to a large dip in the earth, which I'd seen boys riding their bikes in and out of and doing their skateboard jumps in, like a natural half pipe in the ground. Zoe shone the torch into the trees on the other side. ‘He's not
here, is he?' she sighed. ‘But I can smell it. I can smell the hand.'

‘Can you?' I said, marvelling at how Zoe's body always seemed to be doing things mine couldn't. I wondered if that was one of the powers you got when you had someone else's limbs. ‘You're like a detective. I wish I could smell it. So, what now?'

‘I don't know,' she huffed and her breath cloud seemed never ending. ‘Wait.' She held out her hand and shone the torch higher up. ‘I saw white.'

We both ran down the hollow and back up the other side and looked up into the branches of the enormalous tree. A flash of white caught the light.

‘What was that?' I whispered. ‘Is it Pee Wee?'

She squinted up the torch beam. ‘Yes, looks like it. You'll have to get up there and coax him down with the fingers.'

‘Me?' I squawked. ‘I can't climb trees.'

‘Well, I can't. People with reanimated limbs aren't supposed to climb. It can damage us irrevocably if we fall.'

‘Really?' I said, thinking that was the worst excuse ever and even I wasn't going to fall for it. ‘We're stuck then, aren't we?'

Zoe's jaw clenched. ‘Camille, will you please climb the tree and retrieve that flesh-eating puppy of yours. Pretty please?'

‘I can't climb trees, Zoe,' I said again, much more slowly. ‘Seriously, I actually probably literally will shit myself. I fell out of one when I was seven, right onto my grandma's pavlova when we were having a picnic. I swore,
from that day forth, I would never climb trees again.'

Zoe ran the torch all along the branch to the other end and back again. ‘He looks quite at home up there.'

‘I didn't think dogs could climb trees,' I said.

‘Normal dogs don't have a penchant for killing and eating other dogs or munching rotting human body parts either but yours does. Who knows what else it likes doing?' She looked up towards Pee Wee. ‘I'll wait here. You go to the caretaker's shed and find the retractable ladder, and then you can climb up and get him, can't you?'

‘Get what?' said a voice behind us.

I flipped around to see two figures standing on the edge of the hollow. It was Damian's trainers I saw first. The brightest white trainers I'd ever seen. They matched his teeth. He also had on his tightest black shirt and jeans. Next to him was Louis in a sleeveless yellow
Zombie Apocalypse
t-shirt, long shorts and scruffy pink-and-yellow Nikes.

‘Oh go away,' said Zoe, putting all her emphasis on the ‘way' part of ‘go away' as though she really was quite irritated by the sight of them.

Damian walked down into the hollow and swaggered towards us. ‘Hello, Blue Eyes. Princess Peach. Now what would you two be doing in the woods on a Friday night, eh? Waiting for us, was ya?'

Zoe threw me a look. I threw Zoe a look.

‘You're sticking your noses into a particularly angry bee hive here,' Zoe warned him.

Damian laughed. ‘Come on. You know this is where Damie likes to hang with his women, don't you? Don't tell
me this is a coincidence.'

‘Ugh,' said Zoe. ‘Just when I thought I couldn't hate you more.'

Damian laughed and scratched the tip of his nose.

I glared at Louis. ‘It was you who Zoe saw hiding in the trees at the front of college, wasn't it? And who I saw in the hedge outside the Humanities block. Have you been following us?' I glanced up into the tree in case Pee Wee truly let the hand out of the bag.

‘Uh . . .' said Louis, flicking his hair out of his eyes. It was wet; I guessed he'd showered recently.

‘Yeah it was us,' said Damian. ‘We went up to Spook Central to see what was going on and when we saw the van leave, we followed you down here. Then we waited. And we watched. Ate a couple of burgers. And . . .'

‘. . . and we wondered if you needed any help or anything,' Louis cut in.

‘Well we don't,' said Zoe. ‘So you can go now.'

‘Can't,' said Damian. ‘Loser was worried about the Princess here. Thought you were chopping her up or something,' he sniffed.

‘What?' I snipped.

‘You didn't answer my texts,' said Louis. ‘I was thinking all sorts.'

‘He thinks you're a psycho,' Damian told Zoe.

‘Most people do,' she replied, looking up into the tree. She didn't even look angry. Then I realised, she wasn't. She got called a psycho or a freak every day of the week. It was water off a duck's beak.

‘Course, I don't,' said Damian, folding his arms.
‘Actually, I think you're pretty sexy, for a goth.'

‘Zoe's not a goth, she's a . . . scientist,' I said, ‘and I told you what we were doing, Louis. It's a sheep, okay? We're seeing if the reanimation serum works on a dead sheep.' I looked up into the tree again.

Damian caught me. ‘Why do you keep looking up there? Lost your cat, have you?'

‘No, it's my dog,' I told him and Zoe shot me an angry glance. ‘He went up the tree and now he won't come down.'

‘That little maniac what attacked me? I'd let him rot,' said Damian.

‘Dame,' said Louis. He looked up into the tree where the torch shone. ‘What's in his mouth?' I said nothing.

‘I ain't risking my neck for that one. Go on, Loser, you go up and grab him.'

‘Me?'

‘Yeah. Do it for your girlfriend.' Damian looked at me.

‘Don't be stupid,' Louis scoffed.

‘Go on,' said Damian, pointing up at Pee Wee. ‘You can jump up to that one, hook your leg over and you'll be away. Sweet.'

‘I'm not doing it.' They were arguing just like me and Zoe had done earlier.

‘All right, I'll go then,' said Damian, preparing to take a running jump at the trunk.

‘No, wait!' said Louis, pulling him back. ‘I'll go.' He jumped up and hung on to the branch.

‘Ha ha, knew you couldn't resist. Anything to impress her.'

Louis jumped down. ‘Leave it, Dame. Not now.' He brushed his hands off.

‘No, I think it's about time. Camille, this loser's got a raging chub on for you but he ain't got the balls to say it. Right, there, I said it. Now you can jump her bones, can't you? No more fannying around.'

‘Damian, for f . . .'

‘Tell her where her scrunchie is, Lou.'

‘Shut it, Damian!' said Louis, squaring up to him. ‘Just shut your hole, right now!' It looked like a lion cub trying to stand up to the head of the pride.

‘What's a chub on?' I said. ‘And what about my scrunchie? Have you seen it?'

Zoe headed towards me and hooked her arm through mine. ‘We have to get out of here.' We turned together and began to walk away.

‘Why?' I whispered.

‘Because that dog is going to drop that hand any second and the moment it does, Laurel and Hardy are going to want answers.'

I stopped. ‘But I want to know where my scrunchie is,' I said, looking back at them. It was all I could think about.

‘Damian, please don't, please, let me do it . . .'

‘He loves you to death,' Damian shouted at me.

‘You bastard!' Louis launched at Damian with such power, he knocked him clean off his feet. I grabbed the torch from Zoe and shone it at them as they rolled around on the ground, trying to get a grip on each other and flinging insults back and forward. I looked at Zoe for an answer
to how to stop them, but she was halfway across the field, walking back in the direction we had come.

Damian's forearms were up, covering Louis' blows. ‘Just tell her for God's sake! Stop being such a pussy!'

Damian had him pinned to the ground by this time, and Louis was glaring up at him with a face full of hate. It was the same look I gave salad.

‘Oh for goodness' sake,' I said, marching over to the fighting boys. ‘What are you doing? Get up, get up now!'

Damian got to his feet. He held a hand out for Louis to help him up, but Louis smacked it away and got up without it. ‘Here,' he said and held something out to show me. ‘Here's your scrunchie.'

I took it and looked at Louis. He looked like he was going to say something, but he turned away. I looked down at my cherry scrunchie. At least, it
looked
like my cherry scrunchie. I picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled of boy sweat.

‘He picked it up after you ran off on freshers' night,' said Damian, panting. ‘He wears it on his wrist and smells it. Now it's all out in the open, Loser, and you ain't gotta pussyfoot around her anymore, 'ave you?'

‘What?' I said. ‘Why did he have it?'

‘Why do you think?' Damian cried. ‘He's head over heels for you, you dozy cow. Only he's too scared to do anything about it. That day on the pier, when he smashed your face on the door, that was because he had that thing on his wrist and he didn't want you to see. That's why you ended up clanging your schnoz.'

‘Huh?' My brain was a train on its way to a station
everyone else in the world had arrived at. I just didn't understand anything anymore. Why would Louis Burnett have my scrunchie? I couldn't work out what the game was. If it was a joke, it wasn't funny at all. You don't mess with a girl's scrunchie.

‘I mean, personally I can't see the appeal,' Damian sniffed. ‘Seen bigger tits on an ironing board. But you try telling his dick that. I can't get him out the bathroom some days.' I shone the torch at him. There was a bit of blood inside his nose. He wiped it away. ‘But he saw you on open day and remembered you from kindergarten or something and that was his thunderbolt moment. He was all geared up to tell you at freshers' but the snakebite bit him on the arse.'

Louis walked away, hands up over his head like he was trying to crush his own skull. Louis loved me?

I still couldn't make sense of it all. I wanted to cry. I remembered the open day, but I didn't remember Louis. Or did I? I remembered seeing Damian, lying across some chairs by the wall in the gym, his top buttons undone, chatting to three girls in maxi dresses about freshers'. Someone else had been there. He'd held one of the double doors open for me. Had it been Louis? He hadn't said anything. I'd noticed everything about Damian: his t-shirt saying ‘Porn Olympics 1969', his blue jeans with the chain on the pocket, his brand-new Nikes with the silver tick up the side. He'd been peeling an orange in one long strip. I hadn't noticed Louis at all.

‘Dozy as arseholes, the pair of ya. Tell you what, you deserve each other,' said Damian, striding out of the
hollow and ducking under the branches of the tree. ‘I'll leave you two to it. I'm gonna have another crack at Professor Pinch Pussy.'

Louis was sitting against Pee Wee's tree, his arms on his knees and his head resting on them. I looked up into the branches to see if Pee Wee was still there. But there was no sign. I walked over to Louis and knelt down on the ground beside him.

He didn't look at me. He just said, ‘I'm sorry,' like he always did. All he ever said to me was sorry. Sorry about banging the door in my face. Sorry about startling me that night in the graveyard. Sorry about . . . this. And that was the moment I realised that every time he said ‘sorry', what he was really saying was ‘I love you.'

I didn't realise I was shaking until I saw the torchlight flickering on the ground. I held it steady with both hands. ‘This isn't a joke, is it? I mean, I don't think it's a joke but you have tricked me before . . .'

I didn't mean for him to answer. I was just saying it to reassure myself, but he shouted, ‘I never tricked you before! That was an accident on the pier. I never meant to smash your face in!'

‘Don't shout at me,' I said. ‘I was just checking.'

‘I can't do it, okay? I can't say it. It'll come out wrong,' he said.

‘What will?' I said, sitting down next to him on the ground.

‘The stuff in my head,' he replied. ‘The stuff I want to say . . . about you . . . You never should have found out from Damian.'

I couldn't catch my breath. Was I excited? Was I scared? I didn't know. I just wanted him to tell me what was going on. ‘Tell me. I won't laugh or anything.'

He sighed. ‘It's so stupid.'

‘What is?'

‘This.'

‘This?'

‘Yeah, this,' he said. ‘Spending all your time knowing that the best thing that could ever happen to you probably won't because you haven't got the balls to grab it. You wake up and there's a pain because they're not there. Then there's a pain when they
are
there. You drink to give you the courage to say it, but you never say it cos it's too hard. You don't offer them your coat when they're cold. You see them upset but you don't hug them. You don't stop them making a fool of themselves. Because then they might find out. And you don't want that because if they didn't feel the same way . . . it would just be the worst.'

‘Am I
they
? Are you talking about me?'