Dead Romantic (33 page)

‘Louis!' I screamed, yanking back the door of the Science block and sprinting down the corridor. ‘LOUIS!'

There was smoke already in the corridor, thick and black. It was boiling in there. The walls were sweating. A near-deafening squeal startled me as several frantic hamsters scuttled under the lockers outside the lab. The
burning plastic stink was thick in my nose and it started catching in my throat. There was no actual way of getting to Zoe now.

Louis was untying Pee Wee when I got inside the lab. He saw me and his face looked angry. ‘Camille! Get out of here, you stupid . . . What are you doing here?'

‘I came to find you!' I cried, coughing all over him.

He tucked Pee Wee under his arm and grabbed hold of my hand. ‘Come on, quick!' he coughed and we started running, as the windows all along the corridor began to explode, spraying glass outwards.

‘The fire's getting closer!' I cried as we sprinted back down the corridor.

‘I know, I know. Come on!'

‘But Zoe . . .'

‘We can't, Camille, we just can't get to her.'

As we darted out onto the concrete quad, there was another explosion and we just had time to sprint across to the Science block and dive behind the hearse. We huddled together over Pee Wee who was shaking in Louis' arms.

‘It's all right, it's all right,' I whispered, out of breath and kissing Pee Wee's shivering little head, though everything around me seemed to be bursting or burning or crashing down. ‘You went back for him,' I sobbed, nuzzling Pee Wee's warm head.

‘You went back for me,' Louis laughed, as a shower of glass and stone and papers rained down on us, and I hugged them both tighter than I'd ever hugged anything ever.

 

 

 

 

S
o we'd been at the hospital for three hours, waiting in a green-and-blue family room to hear news about Zoe and Sexy Dead Boy.

Our parentals had been called and they'd been all fine and dandy and offered to pay for all the damage and been actually quite pleased we had stolen a hearse and broken into the biggest Chinese restaurant in town and driven recklessly and blown up the college.

In. My. Dreams.

Once we'd got our story straight – that we needed the fish tank for our secret biochemistry experiment to reanimate a dead sheep – they just had to deal with it. Louis had been grounded for three whole months and given the full hairdryer treatment from his dad and uncle, plus an actual
clip round the ear from his mum. I hadn't actually realised a clip round the ear meant a whack; I'd always thought it was just some kind of clip.

My mum and dad had just kind of shouted at me for twenty minutes about stealing the nail art van, even though Mum hadn't used it in, like, a year, and for burgling and arson and all of that and I stood there and took it. I'd been glad Louis was holding my hand as I probably would have cried. With Louis there, I had been more worried about how embarrassing it was that my mum still had her rollers in, and that Dad had driven to the hospital in his slippers with the holes in.

‘I can't believe how much you've lied to us, Camille,' Mum had said. ‘And as for my van. Do you know how much batteries cost? You'll pay for that out of your wages. And you're grounded, indefinitely. And don't even THINK about going to that Halloween party you want to go to now, not a chance.'

I hadn't let on that this wasn't really a punishment because there was no longer a gym to have a Halloween party in, I had just stood there and taken my punishment. Truth was, I didn't actually care about the Halloween party at all anymore. I'd just as soon stay at home cuddled up on the sofa with Louis and Pee Wee, watching a film.

Damian's dad and his girlfriend, whom Damian had never met before, had thought it was all hilarious. I think they had just come from a party because they were dressed up and had both been quite drunk. His dad's first words to the cops had been, ‘What's he done this time?' He'd offered to pay for all the damage cos he was loaded, knew
Fat Pang himself and had friends on the council. Damian was always getting into ‘scrapes like these' apparently.

Zoe was okay, we were told by a doctor, burnt and injured but okay, and this had popped my anxiety bubble good and proper at least, but that had been all we were told about her for yonks. The saddest thing in the world was that nobody had come to the hospital for her. Nobody had come to tell her off or to give her a clip round the ear or to find out if she was okay. Nobody at all. Even Social Services hadn't sent someone.

The two police officers who had taken our statements were the same ones who'd got me and Louis out of the burning building. The policeman was called PC Kessler and he looked like that bloke in that film who goes out with this woman for one night and they end up having a baby together but really they're a total mismatch but in the end it's all okay because they've got a baby so it has to be. The policewoman was called PC Goodman and she looked like that blonde lady from that film about the woman in the yellow tracksuit. This is a brief snippet of our conversation with them:

‘So who was the man in the tank?' said PC Kessler.

‘What man in the tank?' said Damian.

‘The man in the tank in the gym,' said PC Goodman.

A shrug from Louis. A shrug from me.

‘We never saw no man in a tank. You must have been imagining it.'

‘Yeah, it was just Zoe in the gym. And the sheep we'd been trying to bring back to life. The sheep we'd knocked down.

We were trying to do the right thing.'

‘Honest.'

‘Yeah, honest.'

Basically, we'd denied all knowledge of a man in a tank. As far as we were concerned, he'd never existed. We'd been so convincing, I'd started to believe it myself. As long as we all stuck to the story, it would be okay.

But ever since we'd shaken off our parentals and the cops and been shoved into the family room to wait for news on Zoe, Damian had been acting dead odd. He just paced and flicked through magazines and clacked the abacus thing on the kids' table. Silent. It wasn't like him at all. He'd never gone more than five minutes without making some comment or flirting at least.

Me and Louis were on the sofa having a cuddle session, my head resting on his warm chest. His heartbeat was so soothing and I was so tired. I'd read in my Biology textbook that the human heart beats an average of three billion times in a single lifetime. I thought mine would beat twice that now I'd met Louis. No, not since I'd met him. Since I'd realised what he meant to me. He wasn't just the spare boy any more. He was
my
boy. And that made him the best and most special boy ever.

I was as heavy as lead but I couldn't fall asleep, no matter how hard I tried. My mind was racing thinking about Zoe and SDB. We weren't being told anything about them. Pee Wee was sleep-twitching on Louis' lap. My poor baby was dramatized.

A male nurse finally came in after an entire ice age and
told us the latest on Zoe. Damian was ready for him.

‘What do you mean, you don't know anything more? You've gotta know something more, you work here!'

‘I've said she is stable. Now if you'd just like to take a seat . . .'

‘That's all I've been doing for the last three hours, you dickhead, taking a frickin' seat.'

‘Sir, if you're going to be abusive, I will have to ask you to—'

‘Yeah, yeah, I get it, sit quietly and get ignored for another three hours, if I'm lucky and you might come and tell me she's dead. I get it, I hear you,' he shouted as the nurse left the room. Damian slammed the door behind him and slumped down in the purple armchair nearest the door and started leg jiggling.

‘They'll come and tell us when they know anything, Dame. Chill,' said Louis, pouring some bottled water into the shallow pot plant tray on the coffee table. He set it down on the floor for Pee Wee who lapped at it eagerly.

‘I can't chill; I gotta do something.' He bounced up and started pacing the room again. ‘I've decided one thing though. I'm gonna get you three off the hook. I'll take the full wrap for this and I don't want any arguments.'

‘What?' said Louis. ‘We've given our statements already.'

‘I'll say you both lied to protect me,' Damian sniffed, jumping around on the balls of his feet. ‘I want it. I'll say I roped you all into it. I broke into the college and Fat Pang's. I forced you to help me with the tank. It was my idea. Everything. I'll say it was me. They'll believe it. They've been waiting to pin something big on me.'

‘Damian, no,' I said. ‘That's not fair.'

‘Camille, I said I want it, end of. Cops are gonna keep asking them questions and they ain't gonna be satisfied till someone pays. What's the worst they can do? Dad'll pay for the damage and he has friends on the council so he'll be able to fast-track the college rebuild. I want this. I deserve it. Worst I'll get is community service. Hardly gonna blacken the glowing CV, is it?' He sat back down in the purple chair.

I looked at him. He didn't look right, he looked almost, well, humble. ‘You're doing this for Zoe, aren't you?'

‘No,' he said after a while of leg-jiggling and thumbpicking.

‘You really like her, don't you?' I said.

Damian stood up and went to the window. ‘I didn't go back in there to get her. Didn't even try. He went back in for a dog. I didn't do nothing.'

Louis stroked Pee Wee's tummy. Pee Wee looked like he was in a sleepy ecstasy. He loved Louis too, I could tell. ‘There was no way you could have made it through the flames and saved her. She didn't want to be saved anyway.'

‘I just legged it like always and saved my own skin. And now she's dying.'

‘She's not dying,' I told him. ‘The nurse said she was stable. That means not dying any more. They'll call for us when we can go and see her.'

Louis stroked my hair. He could do that now. I liked him doing that. It made my neck go goosepimply. I looked at Damian. It was the first time I'd ever felt sorry for him. How weird was that? And how weird was it that Zoe had
been the one to make him so un-Damian-like? The words
Thus begins a new life
popped into my head. And I remembered Zoe saying it. And painful tears began to well up in my eyes.

A lady in blue pyjamas came in. She had a tag on. And then I realised she wasn't wearing pyjamas, she was wearing those scrubby things doctors wear. And she was a doctor.

‘Camille Mabb?' she said.

‘Yeah?' I said, standing up.

‘Your friend is asking for you.'

I looked back at Louis. ‘I'll wait in here,' he said.

‘Can I see her n'all?' said Damian, jumping up.

‘No,' said the doctor. ‘She specifically said, “Just the blonde girl called Camille Mabb. Not the arrogant boyband reject.” I can only assume she meant you.' By her sneer, I guessed she'd been talking to the male nurse Damian had shouted at.

Damian sat down next to Louis on the sofa. Louis squeezed his shoulder. Pee Wee woke up and growled.

Zoe was in a private room on the first floor. The doctor took me up in the lift.

‘Was she badly hurt? Is she going to be okay?'

‘She's got burns to her hands and arms and she's inhaled quite a bit of smoke from the fire. We'll need to keep her in for the time being.'

‘Oh right.'

‘She'll need a fair bit of TLC for a few months as there will be some tasks she can't do for herself. We haven't been
able to get in touch with any of her family. Do you know where . . .'

‘Uh, they're away,' I said. ‘She's staying with us. My mum and dad are always there. And me. I'll be there too. We'll look after her.'

‘That's good,' said the doctor. ‘You're a good friend.'

Yeah, I wasn't sure what my mum and dad would have to say about it but I'd fought to keep Pee Wee so I would fight for Zoe as well, no problem. I suddenly couldn't wait to look after her, do things for her, make her meals and bring them to her on a tray, change her dressings. Make it all better. Make up for thinking she was doing all those terrible things. Murdering people and stealing their organs. Murdering my best friend. My ex-best friend. I was ready to nurse her back to health. And then I remembered who else might need looking after.

‘And what about . . . the boy? Is he . . . ?'

The doctor tilted her head, like she hadn't quite heard me. ‘Sorry, the boy?'

‘Yeah, can I see him too? To say goodbye.' I owed him that at least.

‘There was no boy brought in. It was just your friend. Was someone else in that building?'

‘Um . . . oh no,' I replied, as the lift
binged
and opened onto a long beige corridor. ‘I've probably got my wires crossed. It's been a long night.'

No SDB, huh? That didn't add up. Nothing ever did in my stupid little brain.