Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (12 page)

The waitress brought us two hot chocolates and two croissants. We'd been coming here on weekend mornings for so long that we didn't even need to order.

‘I don't believe it!' I said. ‘That's crazy!'

Shaz shook her head gloomily. ‘No, it makes sense, really,' she said. ‘I understand it. But it makes things difficult. I'll have to be very careful that you don't ever pay for stuff for me – even this hot chocolate.'

‘What about a present? Come on, Shaz, surely the Koran wouldn't want to stop me buying you a present? We're best friends! And I'm not even a Muslim.'

Shazia looked very grave. ‘I know,' she said. ‘My father said that if you were a Muslim sister then he would not permit me to be friends with you any more. But because you're not, he thinks it's all right. He's going to double-check with the imam.'

‘Shaz! Your dad can't tell you who to be friends with!'

‘It's not that he wants to dictate my friendships,' she said, ‘but if you were a Muslim and you didn't see why gambling was wrong, then I probably wouldn't want to be friends with you anyway.'

‘But it's not really
gambling
. It's the lottery! It makes loads of money for good causes!'

She shook her head. ‘I thought that as well. But the imam says it's definitely gambling.'

There weren't many Muslim girls at my school – Shaz kind of stuck out with her headscarf. Most of them went to the girls' school round the corner. But Shaz was determined to go to the school with the Science specialism, and when we got friendly in year seven she was just totally normal. Then her dad started going to the mosque more often, and the headscarf appeared, and every now and again it was a bit of a problem, like when she couldn't have lunch during Ramadan.

But we'd never had a problem like this.

I got up to go. Shaz still looked really miserable, so I said, ‘Why don't you come with us? Help us look at motorbikes?'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yeah, it'll be really boring just listening to Jack droning on about engine power and stuff. And anyway, you're really good at Physics. You can advise us.'

‘Oh well, OK,' she said, and she did look happier. I congratulated myself.

Jack lived at the other end of Tithe Green and the garage was miles away in Enfield, so we called a taxi. I sprang out to ring the doorbell, while Shaz texted Jack to get him to come down.

Unfortunately Jack's mum answered the door.

‘Hello, Lia,' said Donna, face sour as a pint of week-old milk. ‘What can I do for you? Perhaps you want to book a course of manicures, to match your mum's new acrylic nail extensions. She was telling me all about how you're going to buy them a holiday, get your sister singing lessons.'

Oh brilliant, thanks Mum. Donna owned the Hard as Nails Salon, right next to Latimer's Loaves. It sounded like mum had been in there, spending my money. Huh. I had better things to spend my money on than her artificial claws. I'd have to put a stop to that.

I wasn't quite sure how.

‘Hello Mrs Hargreaves,' I said, really politely.
‘Is Jack there? We arranged to pick him up and we've got a taxi waiting.'

‘Oh you've got a taxi waiting, have you?' she said. ‘Wouldn't want to spend all your money on keeping a taxi waiting. After all, we're still waiting to see what arrangement you're going to come to with our Jack.'

‘Errr . . . what?'

She narrowed her eyes, so all I could see were her clumpy lashes.

‘You know very well what I mean, Madam Lia. You need to play fair with my son.'

‘But—' I said, and then Jack came thumping down the stairs, grabbed his jacket, said, ‘Bye, Mum, come on, Lia,' and jumped in the back of the taxi with Shaz.

‘Umm, goodbye,' I said.

She was looking at the taxi. ‘You watch it,' she said. ‘I know all about you, Miss Lia Latimer.'

‘Errr . . . bye. . .' I said, and walked away. I was nervous – what could she mean? Oh God. I just hoped she'd be really pleased and surprised when she saw the amazing bike I was going to buy for Jack. So pleased and surprised that she'd forget anything else she might or might not be thinking.

You'd have thought it would be easy enough buying a motorbike, wouldn't you? Two wheels,
handlebars, shiny bit in the middle. Jack was buzzing all the way in the cab, talking about the sleek, mean machine he was going to get. It was kind of annoying. He should have been a lot more grateful.

I was almost glad when we got to the garage and he immediately got into a fight with the salesman.

‘I am not showing a boy of your age a sports bike,' he said. ‘A 50cc, that's where you need to start. You're not even old enough for a provisional licence yet. Tell you what, son, why don't you come back when you're seventeen?'

‘What happened to the customer always being right?' said Jack.

‘I don't believe for one moment that you can afford a bike like that, and you certainly won't have the skill to ride it. Anyway, without a licence, I can't let you try it out.'

‘I can afford it. My friend here's just won the lottery.'

He looked at me. ‘Oh yes,' he said, ‘read about you in the
Mail
. Going to save the world, aren't you?' When I nodded – what else could I do? – he said, ‘Well, if you value your friend's life, you'll listen to me. I'm cutting my own throat here, but I wouldn't want to sign his death warrant.'

‘Just let us have a look,' said Jack, ‘now we're here.' And he looked at loads of models, and asked masses of questions, and before very long I'd got bored and found somewhere to sit and catch up with Facebook, while Shaz followed Jack around the showroom.

And the next thing I knew, Jack was back and asking me to write a large cheque.

‘They'll deliver it,' he said, his face glowing. It reminded me of his sixth birthday party when his dad revealed that he'd secretly put up a Scalextric set in their attic. Jack was so excited then that he wet himself. I glanced anxiously at his jeans to check it hadn't happened again.

‘It's just the best thing ever,' said Jack, and he insisted on dragging me over to the far corner of the showroom to see the bike – large, silver, kind of attractive, really. I wondered if I should buy one for me.

‘It's not as powerful as the sports bikes, so I think it'll be OK,' said Shaz, and the salesman said, ‘Promise me, now, that you'll have proper lessons. I don't want your death on my conscience.'

So I wrote the cheque and Jack gave me a hug and a sloppy kiss on my cheek and then Shaz gestured to our taxi driver to drive round and pick us up. We'd
decided to keep him waiting for us. We didn't want to be stuck in Enfield for a minute longer than we had to.

Jack celebrated all the way back to civilisation.

‘This is the best day of my life!' he said. ‘Lia, you are a complete and utter star. I can't believe I've got my own bike. Frank'll be so tanked when he sees it.'

Frank is Jack's oldest brother. Jack had spent his whole life trying to be better than Frank, a completely impossible ambition as Frank was twenty-two, gorgeous and played for Tottenham reserves.

‘Calm down,' said Shaz, a little bit grumpily. I thought she must be feeling dreadful, seeing me spend so much on Jack when her dad had banned her from accepting anything from me. ‘It's only a bike. And you'll need lessons and a licence before you can ride it.'

‘Yeah, calm down Jack,' I said, not all that much less grumpily.

‘It's so unfair that I have to wait until I'm seventeen to get a licence,' he said. ‘If we were in America we could all drive
cars.
Sixteen. That's all you have to be to drive there.'

‘And they all have their own cars,' I joined in. ‘My dad said that even if I did have lessons and passed my
test when I was seventeen, there was no way he could get me a car and pay extortionate insurance as well.'

Shaz and Jack were both laughing. ‘Well, that's not his problem now, is it?' said Shaz.

‘I suppose not,' I said. Obviously it was great, the possibility of getting a car as soon as I could legally drive. But somehow, all that I could imagine was me having to drive all my friends around. I glanced at Osman, my regular taxi driver – paunchy, grey-haired, chomping on his gum. Was I going to turn into him?

My life was going to be different from everyone else's. I'd never be able to moan about mean parents, or not having enough money to do stuff. It was like suddenly waking up and discovering that you were actually Bulgarian – actually, maybe Osman was Bulgarian, I wasn't quite sure. It wasn't a bad thing; it just meant you were a bit unusual.

I was looking forward to the Integrating Wealth weekend. It'd be good to meet other people who'd had a similar experience. Other Bulgarians.

Anyway, I hadn't forgotten my mission, to find out about Jack's brutal attack on Raf. How to do it, though?

‘Did you see Raf's face the other day at school?' I said to Shaz. ‘Someone had punched him.'

‘I saw he had a bruise,' said Shaz. ‘And he's not been in the rest of the week. Maybe he got mugged?'

‘Maybe,' I said, glancing at Jack. He didn't seem to be listening, though. He was texting furiously.

‘Jack, what do you think?' I asked, trying not to sound as though I were accusing him of anything. ‘Did you see Raf's eye? Do you think he got mugged?'

‘Who?' grunted Jack.

Shaz nudged him, ‘Raf . . . you know . . .
Raf
.'

‘Oh yeah, him. Billy-no-mates. Posh-boy Rafe. What about him?'

‘His
eye
,' I said, meaningfully.

‘What about his
eye
?' mimicked Jack.

‘It was bruised. What do you think happened? Do you think he got mugged?'

‘No idea,' said Jack, ‘and couldn't care less. If someone punched him, it's no more than he deserved. Did I tell you what he did when we played their team? Useless ref should've red-carded him after ten minutes.'

‘And he's got dodgy motives for chasing after you, Lia,' put in Shaz.

‘Has he been chasing you, Lia?' said Jack, with what appeared to be no more than mild interest.
‘Funny that, because I was sure he was gay.'

‘He's only interested in one thing,' said Shazia. ‘And it's not what you'd think, Jack.'

‘Sure about that?' he smirked. I gave him a thump.

‘Shut up, both of you!' I said.

‘We've only got your interests at heart,' said Shaz, and Jack nodded and put on his most serious face and said, ‘You listen to your elders and betters, young Lia. We know what's best for you.'

We dropped Jack off at his house – he had a football match – and Shazia got out too because she was going round to her cousin's house in the next street. She shoved a tenner into my hand for the taxi fare.

‘No, Shaz, you don't have to—' I said, but she shook her head firmly and said, ‘I do.'

We drove on to the Broadway and I paid the fare – £68.44. They charge a lot for waiting for you. It's almost never worth it. I wondered if I was compromising Shaz's soul by not telling her the full amount. But then, she only came with to do us a favour . . . and perhaps I shouldn't have kept the cab waiting. This was going to be super-complicated. I wondered if our friendship could take it. I really hoped so. I couldn't imagine life without Shaz at my side.

I swung into the internet café. It was much busier today, every booth was full. The customers were mostly sweaty men – the smell was appalling – but there were two groups of girls that I recognised from school. They'd obviously found out that Raf worked here – they were whispering and giggling as they pretended to look at Facebook. Alicia flicked me the finger. I ignored her.

Raf was behind the counter, dark head bent over a newspaper. My heart lurched. But when I got closer I realised it wasn't him at all. His brother Jasper flashed me a wolfish grin.

‘Hello!' he said, pushing aside the newspaper, which, I noticed, was an old one with an interview that I'd done about ‘Ten things I love'. ‘You're Lia, aren't you? I'm sorry about the other night. Must have got the wrong end of the stick . . . didn't realise. . . You're here to see Rafael, yes? He'll be pleased to see you. I'll call him, get him to come down.'

I just grinned like an idiot and said, ‘Oh, thanks, that'd be great,'

Jasper pulled out his mobile, called Raf's number. Called again. No reply. He frowned and opened the door at the back of the shop.

‘Never keeps his phone on,' he said, ‘although I've told him . . . I'll just . . . go and check. . .'

I wasn't sure what to do. I felt Alicia's eyes boring into the back of my head, and I followed Jasper to the doorway, which led to a flight of stairs. Jasper thundered up the stairs. I don't think he realised that I was behind him. Call me nosy – I just wanted to see a bit more of Raf's world.

At the top of the stairs, Jasper pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked a door. It swung open, revealing an office . . . just like the one over my dad's shop, except dad's is clean and tidy and has carpet on the floor and pictures of us on his desk, and this was dusty and full of piles of paper and the lino was scarred and peeling.

And my Dad's office didn't have a mattress pushed against the corner of the room, with a body sprawled over it.

Raf's body.

Chapter 12