The Time of Your Life (9 page)

Belle: The Washing-powder Plot

After lunch Belle went back to her room with Holly
and Cat to help Cat practise her Lady Macbeth lines.

'But screw your courage to the sticking place,'
Cat was
reciting,
'And we'll not fail . . .
'

But, unusually for her, Belle was having trouble
concentrating. Her head hadn't stopped spinning
since Jack whirled her round at the soccer match.
She could still feel the gentle grip of his hands on her
arms.

And now there was the bonfire party!

She could still hear him saying,
See you there, Belle?

See you there! That
was
almost
a date!

Belle had dated before, of course. Whenever she
stayed with her mother, Mom would magically
produce an eligible boy. She had friends in every city
in the world – at least, the fashionable ones – and many
of these friends had sons, perfect for accompanying
Belle to a film premiere in Cannes or the opening
of a new restaurant in Milan. Some of the boys had
been nice and she'd dated a few, but none of them
had x-ray eyes like Jack Thorne.

'So what exactly is Bonfire Night?' Belle asked, as
soon as Cat paused to scribble some notes on her
script. 'We don't have it in America.'

'Well, there's a bonfire . . .' Holly said.

'I could probably have guessed that part,' Belle said,
grinning.

'And fireworks . . .'

'Sounds great. What's it all about though?' Belle
asked.

'The Gunpowder Plot!' Holly told her. 'It's meant to
be on the fifth of November really, but the celebrations
take place on any weekend around November. This
guy called Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of
Parliament in sixteen hundred and something . . .'

'Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound like much
of a cause for celebration,' Belle pointed out.

'It's, er, complicated . . . They caught him, anyway . . .'
Holly mumbled vaguely as she flopped down on a
beanbag and opened a carton of orange juice.

'O-kay,' Belle said. She still wasn't much clearer, but
a party was a party, and Jack had said,
See you there!
and
that was all that mattered! 'So, let's get down to the
important stuff. What's the dress code?'

'Well, you're standing outside in the cold, so it's
pretty much wellies and woollies' – Holly laughed –
'and a hat!'

'Wellies and woollies?' Belle asked. Were they
speaking the same language here?

'You know, gumboots and baggy sweaters,' Cat
mumbled, looking up from her notes, a pencil in her
mouth.

'Sounds like a fashion nightmare!' Belle said.
How am
I going to look cute, alluring and sophisticated in gumboots?
she wondered.

'What about that poncho you wore for the football
match?' Holly suggested.

'Oh, yeah, my Armani cashmere,' Belle said, taking
the cream poncho from its hanger.

Cat nodded. 'That would be perfect!'

'And you know how much Jack liked it,' Holly
added. '
Toasty-warm
I think were his exact words.'

'Toasty-warm!'
Cat snorted. 'What was going
on
at
that football match? I thought you went to cheer the
players on, not cuddle them!'

Belle laughed. 'I don't usually wear the same
outfit twice in one day,' she mused, holding the
poncho up in front of her. Now that Jack had
admired it, it was her favourite garment in the entire
universe. 'But I think I'll make an exception this time.'

'And it
is
your lucky cape-thingy. You
have
to wear
it – you want to be lucky in lu-u-u-rve, don't you?'
Holly teased, raising her orange juice in a toast.

Belle watched in horror as Holly's elbow – which
had been resting on the coffee table – slipped. The
carton jerked sideways, spraying luminous orange
liquid all over the front of the beautiful cream
poncho.

'Oh, no, I'm so sorry!' Holly cried. 'Quick, let's run
down to the laundry room and I'll wash it for you!' She
grabbed the poncho and hared off down the corridor.

Belle jogged after her. She hoped Holly knew what
she was doing. Did orange juice stain? She had no idea,
but as she ran, she crossed her fingers and muttered
fervently,
'Please, please let it come out.'
Now that she had
set her heart on wearing that lucky poncho, nothing
else would be quite the same.

By the time she caught up with Holly in the laundry
room – a cavernous basement below the kitchens,
which always smelled of hot irons and washing
powder – Holly was in conversation with Miss
Candlemas.

'Miss Candlemas says we can put it in the washing
machine on the cold/delicates cycle,' Holly told Belle.

'When it's finished, stretch it out flat to dry and it'll
be right as rain!' Miss Candlemas beamed at them,
before reaching inside an industrial-sized tumble-dryer
with a screwdriver. 'Boys! More trouble than they're
worth!' she grumbled, her voice echoing from inside
the drum.

Belle exchanged a confused shrug with Holly.
'What's the matter with boys?' she asked.

'Always leaving coins in their pockets!' the
housemistress said, holding up a pound coin. 'I'm
forever fishing them out. Never had this problem when
I worked in a girls' school!'

Belle was singing as she skipped down the steps to the
laundry room half an hour later: '
Greensleeves was all my
joy . .
.' She'd just read in her history book that Henry
VIII was thought to have composed
Greensleeves
for
Anne Boleyn, and now she couldn't get the tune out of
her head . . .

She pulled open the door of the washing machine
and felt around inside for her poncho. '
Greensleeves was
my delight . . . Greensleeves wa
—' Was this the wrong
machine? She was sure it was this one, but she
couldn't feel her poncho in there – only some little
wadded thing stuck to the side. Was it an old
abandoned sock or . . .

. . .
or a tiny, miniature poncho?

It was stiff and matted – and the perfect size for a
three-year-old.

Belle checked the dial on the machine. It was no
longer pointing to COLD/DELICATES.

Someone had turned it to BOIL WASH.

Belle groaned as she turned the shrivelled garment
over in her hands. Well, the orange stains had certainly
gone – but so had any chance of her wearing her lucky
poncho tonight, or ever again!

She knew it was childish to be upset over something
so silly, but she felt tears sting her eyes as she climbed
slowly back up the laundry-room steps.

By the time Belle met up with Holly and Cat in the
common room a few hours later she'd totally recovered
from the disappointment of the Shrunken Poncho.
She'd borrowed the accompaniment to
Eternal Flame
on CD from the music library and had spent the rest of
the afternoon practising her big song for the wedding
gig. She was really pleased with how it was sounding.
And when her singing was going well it always made
her happy.

'And, anyway, I've picked out a gorgeous black
rollneck sweater to wear instead,' she told Cat and
Holly as they walked back upstairs after an early supper
to get ready for the bonfire party.

'Well, I'm still baffled as to how a washing machine
can switch
itself to
boil wash!' Cat commented.

'Don't!' Holly groaned. 'I feel terrible. I bet that
poncho cost a fortune as well – it was Armani!'

'Don't worry,' Belle said. 'Someone gave it to my
mom as a gift but she already had one the same. That's
how I get half my wardrobe.'

Bianca, Mayu and Lettie were chatting on the
landing at the top of the stairs.

Bianca turned to Belle, Holly and Cat with a big
smile. 'So what are you guys all wearing to the party?'
she asked casually.

Belle was surprised – to say the least – that Bianca
was making polite conversation. In fact, she couldn't
have been more astonished if she'd surfed down the
banister singing
I'm a Little Teapot!

Perhaps she's feeling guilty about the suit-of-armour trick,
Belle thought. 'Well, I was planning to wear my cream
poncho,' she replied as they all walked along the corridor
towards their rooms, 'but it had, er, a bit of an accident.'

'Yeah,
I
was that accident!' Holly said, rolling her
eyes at her own clumsiness. 'And it
would
have to be
orange juice!'

Cat laughed. 'It looked as if someone had
graffiti-tagged Belle's boob-zone!'

'Well, perhaps you could still squeeze into it if you
went on a crash diet,' Bianca suggested.

'How did you know it shrank, Bianca?' Cat asked,
stopping so abruptly that Holly bumped into her.
'No one said anything about shrinking.'

'Oh, I just assumed . . .' Bianca blustered.

'You know – cashmere, it's
so
prone to shrinking,'
Mayu piped up.

'Nobody mentioned
cashmere
either,' Belle added, no
longer in any doubt as to the identity of the Phantom
Poncho-boilers. One look at Cat and Holly told her
they'd figured it out too.

Bianca treated them all to an extra-frosty glare
before darting into her room, followed by a bemused-looking
Lettie.

'How dare they!' Cat fumed.

'It doesn't matter!' It was almost time for the party
and not even Bianca and Mayu and their Washing-powder
Plot could spoil Belle's excitement.

Holly: Sparklers and Treacle Toffee

Pulling on her boots ready for the party, Holly was still
feeling terrible about the Poncho Affair.

Why did she always have to be so clumsy?

And why did Bianca always have to be so mean?

Two of life's great unsolved mysteries!
she thought as she
wrapped her long pink and grey stripy scarf around
her neck.

Suddenly she had a brainwave. She ran to Belle's
room and asked her to give her the shrunken poncho.
Then she hurried to Serena's room for help. Luckily
Serena hadn't left for the party yet – she was still
doing her make-up and chatting with Gemma. She
immediately grasped the idea Holly spilled out to her
and quickly cut out a Barbie-sized poncho from the
matted fabric. Then she hemmed it with tiny blanket
stitches to stop it fraying, and Holly secured a safety pin
to the back.

'Look, we made you a brooch!' Holly cried
breathlessly as she sprinted back into the room. She
reached up and pinned it to Belle's jumper. 'Now you
can
wear your lucky cape-thingy, after all!'

'Thanks, Holly – it's awesome!' Belle cried, giving
her a big hug.

'Wow! That's so cool!' Cat laughed. 'Could you
shrink some of
my
clothes and make jewellery out of
them for me too?'

Holly felt much better. Now she could go to the
bonfire party with a clear conscience.

Holly linked arms with Cat and Belle and joined a
group escorted by Mr Garcia to walk the short distance
across the square to the bonfire party in Kingsgrove Park.

Belle looked fabulous in her designer jeans and
black jumper with her hair in two long thick plaits like
a blonde Pocahontas. Cat looked great too, of course,
in her leather jacket over a short red wool dress, worn
with thick black tights and biker boots, and her auburn
hair spilling out from under her black wool cap. It was
a cold night and Holly was glad of her fluffy grey
cable-knit jumper.

Almost all the students from Superstar High were
there, as well as several of the staff, who'd come along
to make sure they were all safe – but the park was also
open to the public, and was crowded with dads
carrying small children on their shoulders and mums
pushing toddlers in buggies. Holly closed her eyes and
inhaled the magical Bonfire-Night smell: smoke, hot
dogs, baked potatoes, toffee apples . . .

She spotted their friends and they hurried over to
join Nathan, Gemma, Serena, Nick, Lettie, Zak,
Frankie and Mason, their faces all glowing orange in
the blaze of the fire.

A few moments later, Ethan arrived, with Ben Stein,
pushing Felix in a wheelchair. Ethan was grinning. 'We
borrowed it from the St John Ambulance people. They
took pity on a poor invalid!'

The large group of friends chatted, stamping their
feet and blowing on their hands to keep warm. 'Whose
idea was it to have a fireworks party in November?'
Gemma asked. 'In Australia we wouldn't pick the
coldest time of year for a cookout!'

'Nor in Mexico,' Nathan agreed. 'Carnival in the
cold?
No gracias!'

Holly grinned. She couldn't see Nathan Super-shy
Almeida as a fiesta-animal, whatever the weather!

'Suggestion for you, mate!' Nick yelled at the Guy
on the bonfire. 'Next time you want to blow up
Parliament, try August!'

Holly laughed, and took the hot dog that Ethan
offered her. She glanced at Belle, who was anxiously
scanning the crowds for Jack.

'There he is now,' Cat whispered. 'With his shadow
as usual.'

Jack was hurrying towards them; Bianca minced
along behind him, her high heels sinking into the mud,
followed by Mayu. Belle smiled and looked down at
her feet.

'Hey, Belle!' Jack called, working his way through
the group to stand next to her. 'How's it going?'

Bianca elbowed in next to Jack and thrust a lit
sparkler into his hand. 'I'll write your name and you
write mine,' she simpered, starting to emblazon
Jack
on
the night sky.

'That reminds me . . .' He passed his sparkler straight
to Belle, then reached into his coat pocket and pulled
out several packs. 'The sparklers are on me!' he said,
handing them round. Everyone cheered and jostled to
light them from the tip of Belle's sparkler. Soon the
darkness was etched with a mass of glowing white
spirals.

'Lettie and I are going to get some drinks,' Nick
announced as the last of the sparklers fizzled out.
'Anyone want anything?'

Jack turned to Belle. 'Let's go and give them a hand.'

Holly watched Belle's face – which was already
glowing from the cold and the bonfire flames – light
up even more as she set off with Jack towards the
drinks tent, leaving Bianca scowling at her cold, dead
sparkler.

Mason, Frankie and Zak had started goofing around,
sword-fighting with candyfloss sticks. Ben was pushing
Felix – who was now sporting a PENNY FOR THE GUY
sign – in the wheelchair, spinning it like a BMX
stunt-bike. A few minutes later, Jack and Belle pushed
their way back through the crowd with a tray of hot
chocolates. They were talking nonstop.

The lucky poncho must be working!
Holly thought
happily. 'The fireworks are about to start,' she said,
handing round a bag of home-made treacle toffees her
mum had sent specially for Bonfire Night.

'Mmggh!' said Cat, and Nathan and Gemma and
Nick and Lettie, all nodding as their molars fused
together.

'Mmggh!' said Belle and Jack, grinning at each
other.

'Mmggh!' said Ethan, smiling at Holly with his
sea-green eyes.

'No, thank you,' said Bianca grumpily. 'Some of us
don't want to wreck our teeth!' Then she turned to
Mayu. 'Come on, let's get out of here – fireworks are
so-o-o boring!'

Holly felt Ethan take her hand. She squeezed back,
then slipped her hand inside his glove and felt the
warmth of his palm against her own. The booms and
bangs of the fireworks reverberated from the walls of
the stately London buildings all around the park.
Colours exploded in the night sky and flickered across
the faces of her friends, all staring upwards, captivated
by the display.

Her heart swelled in celebration.

Life at Superstar High couldn't be better.