Friends Forever! (2 page)

“Les Bambinos Dangereuses,” I mutter, reaching my fingers out and touching Claude's ebony cheek, “what on earth has happened to us?”

“Ah! You're up!” Dad chuckles, looking at his watch for comic effect. “Good afternoon.”

It's 9:15 A.M. and Lawrence “Loz” Ripperton is on the sofa upstairs at the Fantastic Voyage, having a quiet half hour before his bartending duties begin.

“Oh, don't you start,” I groan, sitting on the sofa, grabbing the remote and flicking on MTV, which is showing a rerun of last year's Big Beach Booty Quake party in Destiny Bay. On the TV, Big Doggy the rapper is performing on stage while hunks in trunks and a zillion perfect girls in thong bikinis quake their booties to a ragga beat.

I take a slurp of my coffee. Dad peers at the screen, which is full of undulating flesh, making a face that indicates he'd be outraged if he had the energy, before carrying on with his sports section.

“I've just been frog-marched out of bed by Attila the Mum,” I grumble.

“Ah yes,” smiles Dad, nodding toward the bedroom next door where Mum's dressing. “She's in fine form this morning, isn't she?”

My father accepts my mother's ruthless dictatorship with exceptional good grace. It's almost as if he enjoys his day being spelled out for him in yellow Post-it notes. He stays here through choice! I'd be gone tomorrow if I had any other option.

“Wonnie! Wonnie . . . Beawblooooo!!” burbles Seth, my seventeen-month-old brother, crawling toward me with a grin. “Wonnie!” he gargles again, attempting to stand up, but somehow pirouetting and falling headfirst toward the coffee table.

“Whooooah there, little fella!” I gasp, leaping up to grab him. “God, Dad, can't we get him a crash helmet or something?”

“Wonniebeawblue?” repeats Seth, wrapping his tiny arms around me.

I kiss the top of his little blond head, inhaling that great baby smell. “Beawblue?” I repeat, finding it impossible to stay cross.

“Ahhh,” says Dad, who's a pro at translating baby babble. “He means the
Bear in the Big Blue House
DVD. Don't you, Sunny Jim?”

“Beablah!” Seth gurgles.

“Er, the one with the colors and shapes and stuff?” I ask. “Does he understand that?”

“I don't know,” Dad announces solemnly. “But he's silent when it's on, Veronica. That's enough for me.”

“Good point,” I say as Seth wriggles around in his powder-blue baby suit, desperate to be put down on the floor.

“Beaw-tance!” Seth says rather forcefully. “Tance!”

“Oh, yeah,” Dad adds. “He only likes the first six minutes, when the big hairy fella dances. He gets grouchy after that and wants it rewound.”

“Tance!” Seth squeals excitedly.

A stripe of brown goo is beginning to ooze from the back of his suit. Dad spots this, quickly rustling his newspaper in front of his face.

“That's chocolate sauce . . . right?” I groan.

“Yeah, right,” Dad says dryly.

Right that instant, my mobile phone starts squeaking and shuddering on the coffee table, playing a polyphonic version of Carmella Dupris's latest hit “KrazyGirl.” That's the ring tone I've assigned to Fleur! Hurray!

The screen fills with a jpeg of a beautiful blond girl wearing a stripey T-shirt and a powder-pink beret, marred somewhat by the chopstick jammed firmly up each nostril.

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me,” Dad says distractedly. “Your phone's been ringing for the last two hours. Me and Mum tried to open it. But we couldn't find the bit to talk into. It's all
Star Trek
to us, those things.”

“Why didn't you wake me?” I fume.

“Ronnie, you're not a morning person,” Dad says, chuckling. “I leave the wake-up calls to your mother. She's braver than me.”

I wrinkle my nose at him, then press “answer.”

“Fleur!” I say. “All right, babe? What are you doing?”

“Hey, Ronnie!” Fleur giggles. “Guess where I am?”

“Dunno,” I say.

“Give you a clue,” Fleur says, sounding excited. “I've just bought that fabulous cerise polka-dot bikini. This month's ‘hot buy' in June's
Elle Girl
magazine!”

“Er, you're on High Street?” I guess. “Or the Westland Park Shopping Mall?”

Fleur giggles a bit more. “I'm at Emerald Green Shopping City! I'm in It's a Girl's World at Emerald Green Shopping City!”

“Emerald . . . Green! Emerald Green Shopping City!” I say, feeling rather rattled. “Fleur, that's, like, two hundred miles away.”

“I know,” she laughs.

“Who are you with?” I say suspiciously.

“I'm, er . . . all alone,” Fleur says, sounding a little less jubilant now. “Dad was driving down really early for the Motor Show at the Exhibition Center nearby. I only found out last night, so I nabbed a lift.”

“Oh,” I say. “That's . . . er, cool.”

“Yeah, sort of,” says Fleur. “On the downside, Paddy's bent my ear for two hundred miles about getting a summer job. Apparently I need ‘direction in my life.' ”

“Gnnnngnn . . . don't even go there,” I groan.

There's a small awkward silence.

Emerald Green Shopping City, aside from being literally a “city of shopping,” is home to Britain's flagship It's a Girl's World store. IGW totally rocks! It's the LBD's own personal mecca, to which we're always planning a pilgrimage. As well as six whole floors of amazing clothes and accessories, the store runs daily catwalk shows and features its own TV station broadcasting on huge banks of plasma TVs. You can book personal shoppers who'll make you look like a pop star, plus there's a sweets shop, a nail bar, hair boutique and a
floor
devoted to sunglasses, hair clips and hats. There's also an entire basement of customized antique and retro designer clothes. (It's Claude's favorite floor. Last Christmas she found an amazing black sixties Mod dress for £20!)

“Hey, Ronnie,” Fleur says, sounding slightly lonely. “I'm standing at the bottom of the ground floor escalator.”

“Where the Million Dollar Models scouts always are?” I say, grabbing the DVD remote control and pressing “play.” Seth's eyes light up as the dancing bear fills the screen.

“Yeah,” Fleur says. “This is where they found Devan Davies, the Joop girl. No luck for me today, though.”

“It'll happen one day,” I tell her.

“Hope so,” Fleur sighs.

There's that sad, awkward silence again.

I know the LBD have been having some major problems recently, but this has got way out of hand now. Fleur going to Emerald Park without us just seems so final.

The LBD
always
go to Emerald Park together! Ever since Year 7, when we got our first proper allowances.

“Are you okay?” Fleur asks sheepishly.

I'm trying to swallow my feelings, but the words just flood out. “No . . . I'm not really, Fleur!” I say. “Why didn't you call me to go with you? I've got Girl's World vouchers to spend!”

“I called you this morning,” Fleur argues. “Three times! Your folks kept picking the phone up, but they couldn't work out what bit to speak into.”

“Oh God,” I groan, clutching my head.

“And then they couldn't hang it up,” Fleur says. “I could hear them chatting to each other for ages.”

“What about?” I gasp.

“Errr . . . nothing really,” Fleur says. “But, er, did you know your mum's nipples are almost back to normal after breast-feeding?”

“Shut. Up,” I grimace. “You're kidding me?”

“Er, no,” Fleur says. “You might want to go through your phone's memory and check out who else Radio Ripperton has been broadcasting to.”

“I'm going to kill them,” I say quite seriously. My parents will not be satisfied until I literally die of shame. I'd happily divorce them.

“Well, whatever, Fleur,” I continue huffily. “You didn't try that hard to reach me. Did you? You could have rung me last night.”

“Pgggh . . . well maybe I didn't feel like ringing you last night, okay?” Fleur snaps back. “I thought that you'd be round at . . . ,” Fleur begins to say something, then stops herself. “I thought you'd be too busy.”

She means Claude. She won't even say her name.

“I was playing bass guitar in my bedroom like a right Billy-No-Mates all last night, Fleur!” I yell. “I reckon Claude was on her own too.”

“Doubt it,” Fleur hisses. “She'll be with her new best friend!”

“Oh, for God's sake,” I say. “This is soooo stupid! We could have all gone to Emerald Park together today. We could be in the food court slurping milk shakes and checking out the passing hotties right now!”

“I've slurped my last milk shake with Claudette Cassiera,” Fleur scoffs. “Claude and I are over, Ronnie. She's out of my life now. I feel much better for it too!”

“Don't be daft, Fleur,” I say. “Look, let's have an LBD meeting tonight at my place. Let's talk about this.”

“What?!” Fleur says. “After her behavior?! I'd rather kiss the cat's bum.”

“This isn't all Claude's fault, y'know,” I begin to argue.

“Oh, go on, stick up for her. Like you always do!” Fleur says, sounding like she's almost blubbering. “Look, why don't you all just be friends together this summer? I'll find something else to do.”

“Like what?!”

“Like . . . like whatever I want,” she says firmly. “See ya, Ronnie.”

And then the phone goes dead.

I slump back on the sofa.

What on earth do I do now? Tell Claude? Call Fleur back? I feel sick.

Dad puts down his newspaper gently. “What's going on there?” he says.

“Nothing,” I say, chucking my phone and folding my arms.

“Oh, right,” Dad says. “Doesn't sound like nothing.”

I stare ahead at the TV.

“You girls had a bust-up?” Dad says.

“No, we're fine,” I say, clearly fibbing my head off.

“What's it about?” he says. “Lads?”

I scowl at him.

“Knew it,” Dad says. “It's always lads.”

“It's not lads,” I grump.

“That's all you ladies ever row about,” Dad says, trying to cheer me up. “Cuh, I've had a few young chickadees cat-fighting over me in my time, I'll tell you that for nothing,” he says, miming straightening his invisible tie.

Who's he kidding? His face looks like it was knitted by his mum.

“It's not about lads,” I say.

“Well, it's something . . . I saw Claude yesterday night walking up Lacy Road. She looked like a wet weekend.”

“You saw Claude?” I say, my eyes widening. “Which way was she going? At what time?”

“Er . . . back to her mum's, I s'pose,” Dad says. “Six-ish?”

“Hmmmph,” I say. Claude hasn't returned my calls for days.

“I can always count on little Claude for a smile and wave,” continues Dad, “but she didn't even see me. Had her head down. She looked really miserable.”

A tear forms in the corner of my eye. I bat it away. Dad sticks his big arm around me.

“Awww, come on, Ronnie! Give us a clue, eh?” he says. “I'm not as useless as I look. I bet I can help.”

“You can't, Dad,” I say quietly. “No one can. It's all a big mess.”

“But what . . . I mean, where . . . ?” Dad begins. “Isn't there . . . ?”

My lips simply become tighter. Dad knows from long experience that there's no point in questioning me further.

As tears dribble down my face, my mind is racing. Claude, Fleur and I have hung out together since, like, Day 1 of Blackwell School. Ever since the gangly blonde chick and the little prim black girl with her hair in bunches sat down beside me in Year 7 French. We're like sisters. We're a team. We live our lives together! If they're sad, I'm sad. If I'm sad, well, they try to sort things out for me. And, sure, we've had bust-ups before, but that's just because sometimes we can all be extra-specially infuriatingly annoying! Like when Fleur falls in love with a different aftershave-drenched drongo every ten minutes. Or when Claude gets all swell-headed about her straight-A grades. Or when I forget birthdays or turn up late for stuff. Or, say, when Claude and Fleur post pictures of me all over the Internet, taken at a sleepover, asleep with my mouth open, wearing Blu-Tack devil horns. Oh, how I laughed.

But we always make friends in the end. Don't we?

“C'mon, precious,” Dad says. “Dry your eyes. Look, are you sure you can't give me a clue what's up?”

“Maybe later, eh?” I sniff, wiping tears down my hoodie sleeve.

“Okay,” Dad whispers. “Leave you to it. For now.”

Suddenly, Mum appears in the doorway, freshly painted lipstick denoting her imminent exit.

“Ah, good girl. You're up!” she smiles, picking up her car keys. “Huh, Loz, I'm going to make that wholesaler's life hell this morning! Eight items missing on the last order. Eight! I'm not leaving his office until I get at least forty percent off next week's invoice.”

“Good luck, my little tinderbox,” Dad nods. “Go easy on him, won't you?”

“Not likely,” says Mum, making a googly face at Seth, then turning to me.

“You can cope with him, can't you, darling?”