Katie's Secret Admirer (4 page)

Chapter Six

After last Saturday's practice session, Katie had wanted to talk to Bel and Becky about what she'd thought was just Megan's crazy idea. Suddenly it didn't seem so crazy any more, but now Katie wasn't sure she wanted to talk to her sisters after all. Once Bel was doing her typical overreacting, and Becky was worrying the way she always did, the whole thing would be horribly real. If Katie kept the possibility to herself, she could pretend it wasn't happening – if she tried really hard. But it was difficult not to blurt out her suspicions as soon as she got home – and that was after a practically silent drive home with Mum. Katie hadn't known what to say, so she'd turned the radio on in the end. Luckily Mum seemed to assume she was just down because the practice hadn't gone too well – she
had
gathered that much at least. Thankfully Mum had been on her own, waiting by the gate for Katie. It would have been awful to have to listen to her being nice to Max's dad, especially if they expected her and Max to be nice to each other too.

Katie stomped up the stairs to the triplets' bedroom, trying to banish the picture of her mum smiling up at Max's dad. Becky was sitting on the window seat next to her rats' cage, playing with cinnamon-coloured Fang.

“Hi! How did practice go?”

“Terrible,” muttered Katie, gloomily.

Becky, who hadn't really expected any answer but “Fine”, possibly followed by a very enthusiastic description to which she would listen with half an ear, looked up from blowing on Fang's whiskers in surprise.

“Why? What went wrong?” She got up and came over to Katie, who was now lying flat on her back on her bed, staring miserably at the ceiling.

“It was a disaster – we had a practice match against the boys and we lost and I played really badly, OK?” Katie snapped out the end of the sentence. She knew none of this was remotely Becky's fault, but she was feeling really upset and angry, and Becky was so terribly easy to be nasty to.

Becky retreated back to the window seat, wisely deciding that her sister didn't want to talk. This left Katie feeling just as cross as before, except now she felt guilty about being horrible to Becky as well. Eventually she heaved herself up off the bed and went upstairs to the attic where they kept the computer. She flumped down on the computer chair, and turned it on, waiting as it chugged through its start-up routine. Eventually she managed to open up her email and it made a sound that was very slightly like applause. Katie clicked her tongue – Bel had been fiddling with the alert sounds again. The email was from Dad, as she'd been hoping – he generally emailed the triplets at the weekend, a separate message for each of them if he could manage it.

Hi Katie!

Hope everything's going OK, sweetheart. How's the football doing? Scored any more brilliant goals lately? You've got to email me some more pics of you playing – I want to be kept up to date with Manor Hill Junior Girls' world-takeover bid! Things are going pretty well here, we've started building, finally. I'm going to be really sick of this bridge by the time it's up. Still, it'll feel good seeing people using it. I pulled a massive spider out of one of my boots this morning – Bel would have had a fit, especially when Becky wanted to adopt it as a pet. I've attached a picture of me with the foundations for the bridge – I'm the one with the big hat – it's so hot out here. I've been checking the weather in Darefield on the BBC website –rain, huh? I know you're probably hating it, but it makes me feel really homesick!

Mail me back soon, and tell your mum I said hello.

Loads of love,

Dad

 

Katie had felt cheered up when she saw the message from Dad, but actually it only made things worse. Katie had hated it so much when her parents split up, and now it seemed like Mum might be thinking about meeting someone new. What was she supposed to say to Dad? And how could she tell him that she'd just messed up really badly in practice when he was so proud of her? She shut down the computer and went to do some more practice against the garden wall.

She did a lot of practice that weekend. Mostly to avoid having to talk to Mum, Becky and Bel. Luckily they all seemed to think that she was going mad on ball-skills because of the disaster on Saturday. Becky and Bel seemed so romance-obsessed that right now Katie felt like she could tell them she was going on a trip to Mars and they'd just ask her to bring them back some chocolate if she went past the corner shop.

Bel had gone to the cinema in town with Josh on Saturday afternoon, and it had gone really well, apparently. He'd held her hand, and she'd spent the rest of the weekend telling every detail to anyone who'd listen – and even those who wouldn't. By Sunday evening Katie was sick to death of Annabel's blissed-out face.

“Did I tell you about the popcorn?” Annabel asked her urgently as Katie walked past her doing her homework (supposedly) in the middle of the stairs.

“
No
,”
said Katie in the least encouraging way she could. It didn't work.

“Josh bought some—”

“Wow.”

Annabel seemed not to have noticed Katie's glower. “And then he did this thing where he chucked a bit of popcorn in the air and then caught it in his mouth. It was so funny!”

“Boring film, then…” Katie muttered sarcastically as she stepped over Annabel's history books.

The really annoying thing was that Becky didn't seem to mind Annabel's constant Josh-talk – in fact, she seemed to be encouraging her! Katie knew she couldn't stand Josh either, so why did she keep aahing at all Bel's stories?

It felt strange to be keeping such a massive secret from Bel and Becky, though, even if they were driving her mad. By Monday morning she was desperate to talk it over with someone – she'd emailed Megan over the weekend, but it wasn't really the same as talking it through, and she'd been worried about phoning as there was nowhere really private to do it.

When she got to school on Monday, Sarah, her team captain, was prowling round by the gates, obviously on the lookout for people. Becky nudged Annabel, and they closed in tight behind Katie – they didn't want Sarah having a go at her. Becky had told Annabel about Katie's horrible time at practice, although she'd had difficulty getting a word in edgeways.

Surprisingly, though, Sarah wasn't in too bad a mood.

“Oh good! Look, Katie, we've got an extra practice on Tuesday at lunch – can you tell Megan?”

Katie nodded, feeling relieved. “Sure.”

The girls' team had a league match on Wednesday, and Katie guessed that Mrs Ross didn't want them to go into it feeling depressed after the bad session on Saturday. She told Sarah she'd be there, and went off to find Megan. The triplets could see a group of people round the big chestnut tree, so they headed over. Katie realized gloomily when they were closer that it wasn't just Saima, Megan and Fran – in fact, Megan wasn't even in yet. Saima and Fran were chatting to Josh and David, and Josh and David were studiously ignoring each other. Josh seemed to have decided that as Annabel's pretty best friend, Saima was worthy of his attention, but he was behaving as though Fran and David weren't there. Annabel didn't seem to notice this. She tossed back her long hair, pushed one of her butterfly-shaped clips a shade further in, and sauntered over to meet Josh, casting a rather smug glance over her shoulder to see how many people had noticed that she and Josh were together. She was rather hoping that Amy would be around to see.

Yes! Amy was leaning against the fence with Cara a bit further along. Annabel tried not to look too triumphant, but it was hard to resist – she flashed her a quick glance, and was slightly disconcerted by the malevolent glare she got in return. Wow – Amy really was jealous! Annabel grinned to herself – it was so cool being the person that every girl in her year envied! She didn't see Amy and Cara put their heads together and snigger, though…

“Hey, Annabel.” Josh smiled lazily, and laid an arm over her shoulders.

Katie shuddered. He was like something out of a bad film! She met David's eyes and pulled a sick face at him, which made him snort with laughter that he had to hurriedly disguise as a cough. Luckily Annabel was far too interested in what Josh was saying to notice, although Josh did give Katie and David a sharp look. He was smart enough to know that Katie didn't like him – he just wasn't bothered.

David gave Katie a sympathetic look and went over to Becky, and they and Fran wandered off.

Josh smiled nastily at Katie. “So, I heard there's an extra practice for your lot tomorrow then?”

Katie shrugged. “Yeah.”

Josh just smirked, like he knew something she didn't. Then he turned his back on her and steered Annabel with him – Katie was abandoned again.

 

“Have you had any more of those notes?” Megan asked, as they sat eating their lunch in the dining hall. The others were all in the art room, so it was safe to discuss Katie's secret admirer problem.

“No, thank goodness. Maybe whoever it was has forgotten about it,” said Katie hopefully. She knew it wasn't likely, but still… She had enough to worry about just now. She was really nervous about the lunchtime practice the next day, and it niggled at her all through school, and the next morning as well. OK, so Sarah didn't seem to be holding a grudge, but most of the Year Eights in the team were complete fair-weather friends. They loved Katie when she was scoring the goals for them, but when she or Megan or Cara did anything wrong, they were “those dumb Year Sevens”. And Cara wasn't exactly holding back either. She and Amy and Emily kept very obviously stifling sniggers every time they saw Katie, and darting nasty, significant little smiles at Annabel for some reason as well.

As it turned out, Katie did get a few dirty looks, but the girls had more to worry about than getting at her. Shortly after they got on to the pitch, they had visitors. The first Katie knew of it was the little frown that developed between Mrs Ross's eyebrows as she was explaining the warm-up exercises she wanted them to do. The coach seemed to be staring at something over the girls' shoulders. Katie cast a quick look back, and drew in a sharp breath.

Most of the boys' squad (David and Robin were notable exceptions) were lined up along the side of the pitch, smiling – nastily. Like they were trying to give the girls a message. Josh, of course, was right in the middle, and Max was there too, grinning his face off at Katie. The thing was, it was difficult for Mrs Ross to send them away. Friends quite often came to watch practices – in fact, Amy and Emily were taking advantage of a rare spell of sunshine at the side of the pitch as well, in theory watching Cara, but more just gossiping.

It was very difficult to do exercises and work on tactics while fifteen boys were watching you like hyenas circling a wounded animal. Soon everyone was making stupid mistakes, and Mrs Ross looked like she was considering telling the boys to get lost – that would be really embarrassing!

“Look!” It was Megan, hissing over her shoulder as she dribbled a ball past Katie. “Over there!”

Katie looked almost reluctantly – Megan's face had been worried, and she wasn't sure she could cope with more stuff going wrong. She saw immediately what Megan had meant. Amy wasn't standing next to Emily any more, and she certainly wasn't watching Cara. Demurely fiddling with a lock of her long strawberry-blonde hair, she was gazing up at Josh Matthews as though she thought he was the most interesting person in the world, and batting her eyelashes at him. And Josh was positively lapping it up. As Katie watched, he smirked at Amy, and put an arm round her shoulders – just like he'd done with Annabel the day before!

Katie had to concentrate very hard to avoid a repeat of Saturday's dreadful performance. Thoughts were racing through her head – that she had been right all along, that Josh was a two-timing snake…

Mrs Ross drew the agonizing practice to a close and they had to run the gauntlet of the boys to get back into school and change – but Katie couldn't care less about their jeering remarks.

“Well spotted,” she muttered bitterly to Megan, storming ahead. “I knew it! But Amy? Wow, I thought he had better taste than that.”

“Scary, isn't it?” Megan agreed.

“What am I going to say to Bel? That's the real problem,” Katie groaned. “She's not going to believe me – she thinks the sun shines out of his eyes.”

Megan looked thoughtful. “You know, I'm not sure you should say anything to her.”

Katie turned round in shock. “What? I can't just leave it!”

Megan stopped walking and folded her arms, forcing Katie to come back to her reluctantly. “You can, you know. Bel can sort herself out. You and Becky have said loads of times that you think Josh is bad news, and she's never believed you. You're just going to have to let her work it out. Sooner or later she'll realize.”

“But – ” Katie got that far and stopped. She could see Megan was making sense, it was just so against her nature to abandon Annabel to her fate – she
always
rescued her sisters. Megan was right though – sometimes there was no telling Annabel – especially when it came to her specialist subject – boys. And it wasn't as if Katie could
prove
he'd been flirting with Amy – if Annabel asked him he'd probably just say that he couldn't get rid of her. Josh was easily smart enough to come up with a story on the spot.

Katie sighed. Megan was right – maybe she had to let it go. And that meant that she just had to wait for everything to go wrong for Annabel…

Chapter Seven

It was so difficult for Katie to watch Annabel and Josh together and not say anything. She didn't think that he'd spotted her and Megan watching him with Amy, but maybe he had and he just didn't care? He turned up to chat to Annabel in the bit of lunch that was left after the practice, and he seemed to be smirking whenever Katie looked at him (which was as little as possible). Several times that afternoon Katie nearly blurted out what she'd seen, but something always stopped her. Generally it was the blissful expression on Bel's face as she daydreamed her way through lessons. It was not the face of someone who wanted to be told that their boyfriend was a louse.

When they got home on Tuesday night she did tell Becky, who wasn't at all surprised.

“Poor Bel! That's so awful, she'll be gutted! David's always said how mean Josh is, but I never thought he'd do something like that.”

A flash of irritation lit up in Katie. Honestly! Didn't Becky even
think
without David these days? But Becky didn't seem to notice. She
was
surprised that Katie didn't want to tell Annabel what was going on, though.

“But we have to tell her!” she said, stroking one of her bunches against her cheek worriedly. “We have to, Katie! We can't let her go on thinking how wonderful he is, that's not fair!”

Katie shrugged. Megan's common sense had worked on her by now, however much she didn't want it to. “You tell her then.”

Becky put the end of her hair in her mouth, and chewed it, her eyes panicky.

“Becky, there's no point in telling her, because she just won't believe us, and we'll only make her upset – and angry with us too. And if she's not talking to us there'll be nobody to help her sort it out when it all goes pear-shaped. All Josh actually did was talk to Amy – and put his arm round her. I mean, you could see they were flirting, but we can't prove it.”

“I can't believe you're so calm about this.” Becky sounded quite hurt – it seemed almost as if Katie didn't care.

Katie sighed exasperatedly. “I'm not calm! I wanted to go and throttle him, and that rat Amy! But I talked about it with Megan after practice, and she made me see that there was no point trying to rescue Bel when she doesn't want to be rescued. We just have to wait.”

Becky managed to look even more hurt – she did that trick where her eyes seemed to be swimming in tears, which in Katie's current mood just made her want to throttle Becky as well as Josh and Amy.

“Don't look at me like that! Megan was there and you weren't. You were probably painting hearts with David, or talking to David, or thinking about
David
.”

Katie glared at her sister and stomped out of the room, starting to feel really, really guilty before she'd even got to the door…

 

Becky c
learly felt that she'd been letting Katie down – she was very good at assuming things were her fault, and she'd taken her sister's outburst to heart. She didn't (surprise, surprise) take it on herself to say anything to Annabel, though she did look edgy and worried when her sister started trying to decide exactly which film stars Josh looked most like. They'd been doing their homework, her and Katie at the big table in their room, and Annabel on the stairs. Annabel had rushed into the bedroom with a piece of paper, one that she was waving far too excitedly for it to be her science homework. It turned out that she'd adapted the flow chart they were supposed to be producing to detail all the features of the various actors, and then work out whose nose Josh had. She was disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm from Katie and Becky.

“I was going to cut out the different bits of the faces from magazines and everything,” she finished grumpily. “What are you two looking so miserable for?”

“We're doing homework, Bel,” muttered Katie irritably, and Annabel sighed in disgust, grabbed a couple of magazines and a pair of scissors, and vanished in a twirl of flounced denim skirt.

“You're right.”

Katie glanced up from the proper kind of flow chart again. “What?”

“I'm saying that I'm sorry, you're right about her and Josh.” Becky gazed hopefully at her with her huge dark-blue eyes. “And I'm sorry I've been hanging around with David so much, I didn't realize it was getting to you.”

“Not getting to me,” Katie muttered, feeling ashamed of herself. “David's really nice. I'm sorry.”

“Anyway, I'm going to be more thoughtful from now on – I feel really bad. Fran's probably sick of me being with David all the time as well, and I didn't even realize!”

Katie sighed. “I bet she isn't. I'm just being grumpy because I'm worried about Bel. And – well, other stuff.”

She looked thoughtfully at Becky and considered telling her sister about her suspicions to do with Mum and Mr Cooper. But she really didn't want to have the same conversation all over again – this time about Mum and Max's dad instead of Josh and Annabel. And she could just imagine Becky's reaction. Panic, loads of questions as Becky tried to get her head round the idea, and general fuss and bother. She shuddered slightly. She just didn't feel like dealing with that right now.

Becky raised an eyebrow enquiringly, and Katie had to think of something:

“You know, football – I'm still really cross about how badly I did at that practice on Saturday, and I think everyone else in the team is going to hold it against me for ages. Mrs Ross has still picked me for tomorrow's match, but she easily might not have done. I've got to be really careful, play extra well.”

Becky nodded understandingly, and reached over to pat her arm. “Don't worry – you will. You always pull it off in the end, don't you?” She smiled encouragingly, but despite Becky's trust in her, Katie was left feeling that this time she was up to her neck in a whole load of complicated stuff that she just might not be able to sort out.

 

It didn't help that Mum was definitely being a bit weird. She was even more forgetful than usual and a couple of times Katie had noticed her on the phone being quite giggly and smiley. She seemed to be really entering in to the whole Valentine's Day thing, as well, and on Wednesday at breakfast she even asked Katie whether she wanted some heart-shaped cakes for the sleepover party.

“Mum! It's meant to be an anti-Valentine's Day party! Of course I don't want heart-shaped cakes!”

“Oh yes, darling, I'm sorry, I forgot for a minute.” Mum smiled vaguely at her.

“So what kind of cakes
do
you want?” Annabel asked, in a rather patronizing voice. “Footballs?” She sniggered into her cereal.

Katie scowled. “How about we make some heart-shaped ones and tear them in half,” she growled. Then she slapped her toast down on the plate and went out to get her books ready for school, leaving the rest of her family staring after her in surprise.

 

Katie's walk to school could just about be described as with her sisters, but only loosely. She stalked about five metres ahead of them the whole way – and that set the tone for the rest of the day.

“Have you had a fight with Becky and Bel?” Megan asked as they were changing into their kit after school.

“Not really. It's just like our entire house is being taken over by Valentine's Day and I got a bit annoyed about it at breakfast. Why?”

“Ummm, I don't know. They haven't spoken to you much all day. And they keep looking at you as though you're a bomb that might go off any minute.”

“Huh. Well, I feel a bit like that. I've got too many things I'm not telling too many people. It's horrible.” Katie paused. “You do know how grateful I am to you for putting up with my moaning, don't you?” she added, smiling a bit shamefacedly.

Megan just grinned at her. “It's fine – don't start stressing about that as well.”

Katie grinned back, relieved. “I tell you what though, I'm really looking forward to this game.” She slammed her locker door shut so hard that the whole row shuddered, and the rest of the team, scattered round the changing rooms, stared at her. She giggled. St Luke's had better watch out!”

St Luke's certainly weren't prepared for the avenging angel that was Katie Ryan that afternoon. And the rest of her team looked a bit bemused as well. It wasn't that Katie was playing selfishly – Sarah and Cara still got plenty of time with the ball – but somehow, whenever the play was up front, Katie seemed to be in exactly the right place at the right time with a very determined expression on her face. By half-time Manor Hill were three goals up, and the St Luke's team were displaying a range of grimaces from confused to upset via very, very sulky.

“Wow!” Megan handed Katie a cup of orange squash and grinned at her. “I should think you need that. Two goals!
And
setting that one up for Sarah! Can we get you really annoyed before all the league matches? I haven't had to do anything; I felt like leaning on the goalpost and having a snooze.”

Mrs Ross happened to be right behind Megan, to hear this, unfortunately, but thankfully she didn't take it too seriously. She did decide it was time for a team pep-talk though.

“Right, listen up everybody! You've played brilliantly today – so far. But please don't go getting too complacent. I know the St Luke's coach and she's very good. Right this minute she's going to be telling her team that they need to pull out all the stops, and they're going to come back on the field desperate to claw back some goals. If you're not careful you could be in trouble – just remember that if we can score three goals in a half, so can they, and then they'd be just one away from winning. So, concentrate please, all of you!” Mrs Ross waited until the girls were all chatting amongst themselves again, and then sought out Katie, who was smiling happily into her squash. Seeing the coach coming she tried very hard to assume the expression of somebody who was not in the slightest bit complacent.

“Well done, Katie! That was brilliant, two great goals – and I was really pleased with the goal you set up for Sarah as well. It's great to see you girls playing for the team rather than trying to get goals for yourselves. Really good!”

The second half was as Mrs Ross had predicted – St Luke's were desperate. But they were so desperate that they were flailing about all over the place. Katie, watching one of their forwards lose possession to Cara through a silly mistake, felt like telling them just to calm down a bit, to stand back and think instead of running frantically after the ball with no idea what they were going to do with it if they got it.

When they shook hands at the end of the game, Manor Hill were celebrating a four-nil win. At least something was going right, finally! The St Luke's team climbed dismally into their minibus, and the Manor Hill girls headed off to change again.

Katie was changed in double-quick time, eager to get off and meet Mum and tell her how brilliantly the match had gone. While she was waiting for Megan to get her socks on, she rooted round in the front of her rucksack for her lip balm, a present from Annabel that she
did
actually use.

“Oh no.” Katie's voice sounded almost frightened.

Megan, who was hopping on one leg as she pulled her sock on, looked up in surprise and tried not to overbalance. “What's the matter?”

Katie pulled a familiar-looking piece of paper out of the pocket of her bag. “Look – another one.” She was holding it as though she expected it to bite her.

“Aren't you going to read it?” Megan asked interestedly.

“I suppose so – I'd rather just throw it away. It might tell me who it's from though, I guess.” She unfolded the piece of paper gingerly.

 

SEE YOU AT THE VALENTINE'S BALL!
WILL YOU DANCE WITH ME?

 

Katie handed it to Megan. “Another good reason not to go to that thing,” she said disgustedly. “But Becky and Bel made me promise.”

“Still no clue who it's from?” Megan peered over Katie's shoulder at the note.

“Nope – anyone could know I'm going to the ball. Bel's been going on about it every time she's opened her mouth for the last week. What am I going to do? I'd almost forgotten about the last note, it was more than a week ago now. I was hoping whoever it was had given up or something.”

“So at least you'll probably find out who it is at the dance,” said Megan thoughtfully.

“Great,” Katie muttered. “Then I just have to tell them to get lost. That'll be fun.”

 

The note put a damper on Katie's excitement over the victory, and she trailed out to the car not looking like someone who'd scored two goals and been instrumental in two more.

Mum saw her coming and put on a sympathetic face. “How did it go?”

“Oh, we won. I scored two goals. What's for tea?”

Mrs Ryan looked slightly blank. She'd had understanding and reassuring mother all prepared, and now the wind had been taken out of her sails rather. “Ummm, fish pie. Er, is everything all right? Did you have an argument with Megan?”

Katie looked thoughtfully at her mother. Was everything all right? Huh. How would Mum react if she told her what was really on her mind: “Well, I think Bel's boyfriend is two-timing her with one of our worst enemies, some idiot's been sending me lovenotes and I haven't a clue who it is, and I think you might be going to date the father of the boy who deliberately crippled me last term. Hmmm, so no, not really.”

Maybe it wasn't a very good idea…