Paris Crush (2 page)

I guess I was secretly hoping there was something more to the invitation. I thought maybe he liked me. But even if he did, I think I managed to put him off. I had a streaming cold that night; I
was sneezing so hard my corkscrew hair escaped every clip and pin I’d used to tame it and my nose was as red as a fire engine, so I looked more clown than babe.

Then Cindy turned up at the gig too and after half an hour of Cinders showing off her porcelain complexion and straighter-than-straight hair while I snuffled into a fistful of tissues, I decided
to beat a retreat and head home. And from the way Sam’s attention has swivelled towards Cindy ever since, I guess I made the right decision. It’s pointless competing with Barbie when
you’re Ronald McDonald.

Rupert crashes into my thoughts. ‘
As-tu un animal à la maison?
’ He’s grinning. I brace myself for another lame joke. ‘I bet your
maison
is
amazing.’

I sigh inwardly, but his eager-to-please puppy-dog eyes remind me of my brother Ben when he’s trying to cheer me up, so I resist the urge to groan out loud. Instead, I say,
‘
Oui
’ and glance at the clock. The hand ticks to twelve thirty and the bell rings on cue.

‘Saved by the bell,’ Rupert quips predictably.

‘Yeah.’ I grab my bag and join the crowd hustling for the door.

The webzine deadline meeting starts in five minutes. Cindy has brought it forward from its usual after-school slot because she’s got an appointment. My guess is she’s probably going
to get her lashes curled. Or her personality sharpened.

‘Are you coming to the dining hall?’ Treacle asks as she squeezes through the crush and pops out of the door beside me.

‘It’s the webzine meeting,’ I remind her. ‘I’ll probably eat my sandwiches there.’

Savannah scrambles out behind her. ‘Where?’

‘Webzine meeting,’ I tell her.

‘But Sal’s got important news.’ Sav stares at me pleadingly. ‘I promised we’d share a table so she can spill.’

Sally Moore is the biggest gossip in our class. Treacle always jokes that she’s got a great sense of rumour.

‘You’ll have to fill me in later,’ I tell Sav. ‘Cindy wants to check everyone’s submissions.’

Treacle’s gaze jerks down the corridor, past the students flooding from the classrooms. ‘Jeff!’

Jeff Simpson – Treacle’s dearly beloved and the web -zine’s sports writer – is striding towards the stairs. He stops and spins as he hears Treacle. ‘I’ll meet
you on the pitch!’ he hollers over the sea of heads.

‘OK!’ Treacle’s yell blasts my ear.

I squeeze her arm. ‘See you in registration.’ I dive into the crowd. Slipping through it like a weasel in a ball pool, I race after Jeff, taking the stairs three at a time, and catch
him at the top.

‘Have you finished your sports piece?’ I puff.

He nods. ‘Have you been testing products for Cindy again?’

‘Yep.’ Cindy is the beauty features writer and she uses me as her lab rat. It’s her way of disguising my secret role as horoscope writer. She’s given me tangerine
eyeshadow this week, and a cream that’s meant to shrink freckles. My freckles thrived on it. I swear I have twice as many as last week and the tangerine shadow turned my eyelids into orange
peel.

Jeff opens the door to the storeroom and lets me through. This is the webzine’s HQ. The friendly janitor cleared out most of the junk and set up six PCs on six ancient desks. There are
still shelves of ageing textbooks and glue pots lining the walls, and dust drifts down from an ancient lampshade hanging from a cracked ceiling, but I love the smell of crumbling wood and old
paper. It’s kind of romantic. Like being in one of the old movies Mum watches when she gets a spare moment.

Cindy and Barbara are already here. Best friends since playgroup, they look like before-and-after photos – Barbara dresses like a maths teacher and Cindy is cutting edge, sleek as the
cover of
Vogue
.

‘Hi, Gemma.’ Barbara smiles at me warmly and I feel instantly guilty for my internal bitch fest. Barbara’s actually really nice and, even though she writes the world’s
most boring feature articles while I’m stuck shrinking freckles for Cindy (Barbara’s last offering:
School Uniform – Why Smarter is Better
), she never apologizes for being
exactly who she is and I really admire that.

‘Hi, Barbara.’ I give her a small wave, feeling contrite, and shuffle behind a desk.

As I’m sliding into my seat, David and Phil Senior arrive. They’re twins and they’re OK. Kinda geek without the chic, but nice. They review gadgets and computer games for the
webzine and they’re mad about ‘graphic novels’ (which I always thought were just comics, but apparently I’m wrong). Straight away they’re showing one to Jeff, flipping
through pages to show him the latest thrilling instalment of
Cosmic Man
, or
Blasto Boy
or whatever.

The door swings open and Will blows in, the buckles on his leather jacket swinging. He sweeps his mop of dark brown hair away from his face and his smooth jaw and chiselled cheekbones catch the
light. He’s a good-looking package, but he should wear a warning sign:
CONTENTS MAY OFFEND
.

‘Hi, Will.’ Cindy barely looks up from her clipboard. ‘Have you got another scoop for us?’ She’s using her couldn’t-care-less voice.

‘I’m working on it.’ Will slouches into the seat behind his favourite PC – it’s got the fastest processor in the room and he’s unofficially made it his own. I
silently stick another imaginary pin in his imaginary heart and wait for him to clutch his chest and fall off his chair. He doesn’t. Instead, he drops his book bag on the floor and stretches
his long legs under the desk so his feet stick out the front.

Cindy glances at his size twelve biker boots. ‘Health and safety, Will,’ she chides.

‘Don’t worry, Cinders,’ Will says acidly. ‘If you trip, I promise I’ll catch you before you hit the floor.’

‘I’d rather hit the floor.’

‘I’m not sure the floor could handle it.’

Cindy meets his eye. ‘And
you
could?’

‘Bickering again?’ Sam’s voice makes me jump. He’s standing in the doorway, watching Will and Cindy fight. There’s a strange gleam in his eye. Is he jealous of the
sparks crackling between them?

He dumps his bag on the desk beside Cindy’s and sits down. ‘Don’t stop for me.’ He glances at Cindy from under his shaggy blond fringe. ‘I don’t want to
interrupt.’

‘You’re not interrupting, Sam,’ Cindy tells him sweetly. ‘We were just waiting for you so we could start the meeting.’

I roll my eyes. Cindy’s been buzzing round Sam since the webzine started. And now it looks like he’s finally getting a taste for her honey.

‘Thanks, Cindy,’ he mumbles and stares at his hands.

She taps her clipboard with her pen and looks brightly round the room. ‘Once again, it was lovely to see my inbox full.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Will mutters.

‘You’ve all submitted your articles, which I absolutely love.’ She’s not looking at me even though my horoscopes are one of the most popular features in the webzine.
‘Why don’t we quickly go over them in case I’ve missed something and then we can all go to lunch?’

David shoots up his hand. ‘Was it OK to make our whole feature about
Call of Duty
tips and tricks?’

Sam shakes his hair out of his eyes. ‘That’s fine by me. I can do with the help.’

Cindy cracks a wide smile. ‘Of course it is, David. I totally trust your judgement.’

Barbara slides David a look that takes me by surprise. There’s a gooeyness in her gaze I’ve never seen before.

‘Barbara.’ Cindy turns her laser-beam attention-ray onto her best friend. ‘Thank you for submitting another fabulous article.’

Will slouches lower in his chair. ‘What’s this week’s revelation?’

Barbara lifts her chin proudly. ‘
Detention: The Punishment That Keeps on Giving
.’

Will grunts. ‘Giving what? Overtime to teachers?’

Barbara doesn’t flinch. ‘Breathing space,’ she tells him. ‘A quiet time to reconsider and work on improving oneself.’

‘You’ve outdone yourself, Babs,’ Will snorts.

I fight the urge to suggest he volunteers for a few weeks’ detention. He could do with improving and we all need the breathing space.

‘I think Barbara’s come up with an interesting point of view,’ David chips in. ‘I can’t wait to read it.’

Barbara smiles at him, a soft blush pinking her cheeks.

My romance detector starts flashing. Are there actually sparks flying in the storeroom that
aren’t
directed at Cindy? I quickly slide my notepad from my bag and scribble a note.
Find out David’s star sign.
Suddenly Jessica Jupiter has a new matchmaking project. And maybe – with a well-worded prediction or two – she can bring David and Barbara
together.

And who knows? With Barbara in love, her articles might start to heat up and bubble with interest. I’ll be doing the whole school a favour.

‘Dad!’ I shout for a referee. ‘Ben’s bugging me!’

My nine-year-old brother is leaning over the dining room table pulling faces across my maths book while I’m grappling with vectors. Even though I’m squawking for Dad to haul him
away, I’m trying hard not to laugh.

Ben pulls the best faces. He says he gets lots of practice because he has to take so much icky medicine. He’s got cystic fibrosis so he has to swallow fistfuls of pills every day. He also
needs heaps of physiotherapy to keep his lungs gunk-free, and spends ages every day puffing on his nebulizer to help him breathe more easily. So I’m happy he’s bugging me. It means he
feels OK. Even if it
is
interfering with my vital mathematical education.

‘Ben!’ Dad yells from the kitchen. ‘Come and help me cook dinner.’

‘But then I can’t pull faces at Gemma.’ Ben turns round, eyes bright, as Dad appears in the doorway.

‘Let Gemma do her homework.’

Ben shrieks with delight as Dad plucks him off his chair and helicopters him into the kitchen.

I hunch tighter over my maths book and try to ignore the rumbling in my stomach. Dad’s fridge-surprise curry smells surprisingly good. Clearly, starvation can do funny things to your
nose.

‘Hi, love.’ Mum comes in from the hall and stops behind my chair. She ruffles my hair. ‘How’s homework?’

‘Not bad.’ Despite Ben, I’ve nearly finished vectoring. I’ll have the rest of the evening to work on next week’s horoscopes for the webzine. Then I glance up at
Mum. She’s looking tired. ‘Do you want me to do Ben’s physio tonight?’

‘Thanks, Gem, but I’ll do it.’ She plants a kiss on my head. ‘You look like you’ve had a busy day too, and I can put my feet up while Dad’s doing Ben’s
bedtime story.’

She heads into the kitchen, returning with fistfuls of cutlery. She starts laying the table around me.

‘I’m done.’ I slap my exercise book shut triumphantly and fetch the table mats from the dresser.

Mum takes me by surprise by dropping a gossip bomb. ‘I hear the Moores are going to Turkey for Easter.’

‘The Moores?’ I slide a table mat between a knife and fork. ‘As in Sally Moore?’

‘I met her mum in Tesco and she said the tickets were booked.’

This must be the rumour that Sal was looking forward to spreading at lunchtime. Mum’s looking wistful. We haven’t been on holiday for years. We were supposed to go to Spain last
summer, but Ben got an infection and we had to cancel.

‘Are we going on holiday this year?’ I venture.

‘We’ll see.’ Mum reaches for the salt and pepper pots and clunks them onto the table.

I know what
we’ll see
means.
If
Dad can work enough extra shifts to earn the airfare and
if
Ben stays well . . . I slap another table mat down.
Never mind.
Once
I’m an international journalist, I can travel the world.

I slip into a jet-set world, my mind conjuring up a Boeing 747 with an air steward welcoming me onboard.

‘I hope you enjoy your trip to New York, Ms Stone,’ he purrs. ‘We’re honoured to have you on our flight.’

My Journalist of the Year Award is weighing down my hand luggage. I’m planning to put it on my mantelpiece as soon as I reach my apartment on Fifth Avenue. I’ve already decided that
the solid gold globe would look far too garish in my London flat.

‘Champagne?’ the steward offers as I take my seat.

‘After we’ve taken off.’ I wave him away.

‘Are you Gemma Stone?’ A voice from the seat next to me takes me by surprise. It’s the editor of the
Wall Street Journal
.

‘Hello.’ I flash him a dazzling smile and shake the hand he offers across the armrest.

‘I hope you’re hungry,’ Dad’s voice breaks into my fantasy.

He’s marching from the kitchen, carrying a steaming saucepan of curry. Ben totters after him, wobbling under the weight of four dinner plates. He clanks them one at a time between the
knives and forks. Ben likes to prove he can help around the house and, to be fair, he breaks less crockery than Dad.

We settle into our seats as Dad heads back to the kitchen for the rice pan.

‘How hungry are you?’ he asks, slopping half a tonne of rice onto my plate.