Love Bomb Read online

  ‘Come on,’ I say, picking up my tea. ‘If we’re building a naked Lego man, we need to get a move on.’

  ‘You said we were making the Millennium Falcon.’

  ‘I lied,’ I say, leading him into the front room.

  After Bill’s gone, I keep working on naked man’s tiny toes. Suddenly I hear Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday to You’ come on in the kitchen and then Dad bursts into the room singing along and doing a truly shocking dance routine.

  He does a couple of circuits of the room then puts his hands out to me and says, ‘Dance with me, birthday girl!’

  ‘No way,’ I say, but eventually I let him pull me up, and then I dance with him just like I did when I was little, standing on his toes and going round and round in a circle.

  For dinner, Dad makes my special meal of macaroni cheese and baked beans (the baked beans are combined in the cheesy sauce) and then we eat a Smartie-decorated cake and watch Jailhouse Rock. Watching an Elvis film is a birthday tradition and, as usual, Dad sings all the songs while I groan and roll my eyes. I love it really.

  Finally, I gather up my presents. I’m ready for bed.

  ‘Good birthday, Plumface?’ asks Dad. He’s sprawled on the sofa, still wearing his decorating dungarees.

  ‘The best,’ I say, from the corner of the stairs. ‘I love the Lego.’

  ‘You’re never too old for Lego, right?’

  ‘Right, Dad.’

  ‘I see you got started on it. It’s looking good.’

  So funny. If Dad looked closely, he’d notice the Millennium Falcon has a lovely pair of brick buttocks.

  ‘Night, Bumface,’ I say as a special treat. He loves it when I call him this. Me, Mum and Dad: Plumface, Mumface and Bumface. These names take Dad back to such a happy place.

  At the last minute, he says, ‘You saw your letter from Mum?’

  ‘I don’t want it.’ My presents wobble in my arms.

  ‘Betty.’ He comes to the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s the last one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You haven’t got any more birthday letters. That’s the last one she wrote. She only managed to write them up to your fifteenth birthday.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m fine, Dad,’ I say, then I struggle my way up the stairs, into my bedroom and drop the presents on my bed. I flop down after them.

  The last one.

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  When I was little, I got Dad to read my mum’s first letter to me so many times that now I know it off by heart.

  Dear Plumface,

  Whoop, whoop … you are two! I wonder what you will see today? Daddy obviously, but maybe you’ll get a surprise and see a big ginger cat or the moon or Auntie Kate. At the moment these are your favourite things and you can say all of them. This is what they sound like: ‘ginge’, ‘moo’ and ‘ka ka’. This last one is funny because it’s German for ‘poo’! I hope it’s sunny and Daddy puts lots of Smarties on your cake. Don’t put them up your nose like last year … If you do, Daddy will have to suck them out again.

  Love you always,

  Mumface xx

  But, the last one.

  I suppose I thought Dad had loads of them stacked away in his wardrobe and that I’d go on getting them forever. I pick up one of my presents from Dad, a bottle of Wild Bluebell perfume, and spray some on my wrist. It’s smells yummy, of flowers and woods, but I feel a bit sick. Perhaps hot chocolate and chocolate cake wasn’t the greatest idea.

  I lie back and turn the blue glass bottle round in my hands. This isn’t a usual Dad present … could it be one of Dead Mum’s suggestions? She’s done it before. Along with the letters, she gave Dad a list of present ideas. With perfect timing, Mr Smokey (twelfth birthday: grey kitten) slips into my room, trots to the bed and leaps effortlessly on to my stomach.

  He pushes his head against my hands until I rub his nubbly velvet chin. I stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, while he kneads his nails into my top. Dad makes the best birthday cakes, my friends make my hair fly and throw me in bushes, and just the thought of Toby Gray’s smile makes me tingle. I should be purring like Mr Smokey right now.

  But something feels wrong.

  A knot of worry is hidden deep inside me.

  I shut my eyes and try to discover what it is, but everything gets confused … Toby’s blue eyes fall on me, I trace a curve of pink lipstick on a white mug, and, resting against the breadbin in the kitchen, I see a purple envelope with a heart drawn round the words ‘Plumface is 15!’

  ‘Hey, Mr Smokey,’ I say, picking up his paws to get his attention. ‘Ever fancied being a horse?’

  ‘Miaow,’ he says, which obviously means, Yes, Mistress, it’s my life’s ambition!

  The next morning, all my worries disappear when Mr Simms makes an exciting announcement in tutor time.

  ‘Listen up, guys!’ He’s perched on the edge of his desk, tie loose, sleeves rolled up, doing his cool-teacher thang. ‘It’s time for our Year Ten and Eleven Autumn Celebration.’ A ripple of interest runs round the room. The Autumn Celebration is legendary. Not because of the quality of the performances, but because of the imaginative ways students get inappropriate material into it. Last year, Bea’s boyfriend, Ollie, sang ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ with his band and gyrated in Mrs P’s face for the entire track. When they signed up, they said they were going to do a folk song about a lonely fisherman.

  ‘This year,’ says Mr Simms, ‘Mrs Pollard has specifically said: no rude songs. It’s happened too often and we are on to you.’ I might be imagining it, but I’m sure he pauses here to stare at me. ‘If you want to take part, put your name on the music notice board. No auditions. We’re all about equality here … but definitely no rudeness.’

  I turn to Kat and Bea. ‘We are going to do total rudeness, agreed?’

  ‘Do you remember two years ago,’ says Bea, ‘when Beth Fisher sang “Peacock” and Mrs P let it through because she thought it was about wildlife.’

  We smile at the memory. ‘And finally,’ says Kat, ‘we can take part because we’re in Year Ten!’

  ‘Let’s do some blue-sky thinking, girls,’ I say, searching in Bea’s bag for her felt tips. I write ‘Rude Ideas’ in huge bubble letters across a page in my Dennis the Menace sketchbook.

  ‘Don’t be cross,’ says Bea, ‘but I can’t do anything. I’m going to be jiving with Ollie and we’re only allowed to perform once.’

  Bea jives, like old-style rock ’n’ roll dancing, and she’s amazing at it. With Ollie, she entered a TV talent show and since then they jive at every possible opportunity, and sometimes when they really shouldn’t be doing it at all. I should have known ‘Bollie’ would be jiving at the Autumn Celebration.

  ‘I do have a very rude idea, though,’ she says. I look up from the cartoon rabbit I’m drawing. ‘My dad’s band, The Weirdie Beardies, play “hokum”, which is old blues music where the lyrics sound all innocent, but actually, they’re really dirty.’

  ‘I’m liking it already,’ I say, abandoning my bunny. ‘Go on.’

  ‘So these songs are all on my dad’s last, ahem, “album”.’ She tucks a stray curl behind her ear. ‘“Let Me Play With Your Yo Yo”, “My Pencil Won’t Write No More”, and, my personal favourite, “Hot Nuts, Get ’Em from the Peanut Man”.’

  ‘Yes, I vote “Hot Nuts”!’ screams Kat. Mr Simms tries to stay cool, but his anxious gulp and glance at the door says a lot.

  Suddenly, there’s a shriek from the corner of the room. We look over to see Pearl Harris, clapping her hands and screaming in a totally girly way … OK, in a totally Kat-like way. Her friends collapse in laughter, then she stares, stony-faced, straight at Kat. A Pearl Harris stare is quite something. She’s clearly got it in for Kat at the moment and still hasn’t forgiven her for sticking up for Bea last year.

  Quickly, I suck in my cheeks and throw her snooty, cold face right back a
t her, nose stuck up in the air, eyes wide and glaring. She’s not quite sure what to do next, after all, I’m imitating her for imitating Kat … Where will this end? She decides to go with mouthing, ‘Skank,’ at me.

  ‘Now that, girls,’ I say, ‘is an example of hypocrisy.’

  Pink-cheeked, Kat carries on, but this time, she speaks quietly. ‘Betty, I have to do a performance as part of my music GCSE. “Hot Nuts” could be it. I’ll play the guitar, which, as you all know, is an awesome skill of mine, and you’ll sing.’ She pauses here and looks at me. ‘You really can sing, Betty.’

  ‘I can, but I don’t. I’m going to play the keyboard, which is a weak skill of mine, and you are going to sing.’

  ‘But I can’t sing and you can.’ Kat’s perfectly shaped eyebrows are raised in expectation and her wide blue eyes are gazing at me. ‘C’mon, Betty,’ she pleads. ‘It will make up for Jesus.’

  Will she ever forgive me for Jesus?

  When we were eight, I had a tantrum just before our school nativity and screamed until Miss Hooker gave me Jesus. Unfortunately, Kat was supposed to be Mary and I was a crappy old angel. To be honest, it kind of destroyed our friendship for the next seven years and kick-started the break-up of the Ladybirds.

  ‘You know I don’t like singing, Kat,’ I say, making her roll her eyes. My mum was a singer with a band called The Swanettes. She adored the blues singer Bettye Swan and all things Sixties, hence my rather *special* name. It’s generally agreed that I’ve inherited her lovely, beautiful, magical voice that has the power to reduce my relatives to tears. It’s kind of spooky. ‘I do like the idea of “Hot Nuts”,’ I say, cautiously, ‘but can’t I just play the tambourine or something?’

  ‘“Hot Nuts”?’ says Bea. ‘“Hot Nuts”?! No way will Mrs P agree to that one.’

  ‘OK. We do the pencil song,’ I say to Kat, ‘“My Pencil Won’t Write No More”. Mrs P will think it’s something to do with English.’

  ‘But you have to sing so I can play the guitar,’ says Kat, looking desperate. ‘If I don’t do a guitar performance before the end of the year, I have to perform on my own in a Year Ten assembly. I’d rather jive than do that … no offence, Bea.’

  Bea just smiles dreamily and starts to entwine flowers around the large ‘HOT NUTS’ I’ve written across the middle of the page. Kat’s made her think of jive and her boyfriend, and it all makes her amazingly happy. I have a little wiggle of my own happiness as I roll the words ‘boyfriend’ and ‘Toby’ around in my head, enjoying how good they sound together. Maybe it’s worth breaking my no-singing rule if it means I get to bewitch Toby with my magical voice.

  I make a bold decision. ‘I will sing hokum at the Autumn Celebration,’ I announce. ‘Sign us up, Kat. We’re a band!’

  *

  Kat and I agree to rehearse at her place on Sunday. Then, with the help of Kat and Bea, I spend the rest of the day stalking Toby. To improve the quality of our surveillance, we go to the Year Ten office and tell the secretary that Mr Simms needs a copy of Toby’s timetable. Two minutes later, we know where he is every minute of the day.

  I spend the next few days trailing him. Soon I find out his favourite drink is Apple Tango and that he always gets to PE on time and to English late. On Tuesday I discover he likes playing Fruit Ninja on his phone. To find this out, I have to stand very close behind him in the canteen queue. My nose actually touches his blazer. I could have licked him. Alright, I did lick him, but only a tiny bit and just to make Bea laugh.

  I’m so busy loitering outside the boys’ changing rooms on Wednesday that I lose track of time, and Toby, and get to science late. I burst into the room to find the class already paired up and dissecting dead fish. In the corner, I see Kat trying to stick scales in Bea’s hair.

  ‘Sit with the new boy,’ instructs Mr Brooks, barely glancing up from his computer. Mr Brooks’ words have a powerful effect on me. Heart hammering and body tingling, I make my way to the back of the room. Finally, I’m going to get to speak to Toby.

  He is rocking back on his stool, his arm stretched across a worktop, watching me as I walk towards him. His eyebrows are raised as if he’s amused by some secret thing.

  ‘Hi,’ I manage to say as I sit next to him.

  ‘Alright?’ he says, tilting his head to one side.

  Say something, Betty, say something! ‘It looks like we’re a couple,’ I finally manage. Wrong thing! Abort, abort. ‘I mean, a pair, partners …’

  ‘Life partners?’

  ‘Science-experiment partners,’ I say desperately.

  ‘Got it,’ he says, smiling. Then he pushes a petri dish towards me. It contains a small green fish that’s speckled with yellow spots. ‘We need to find a worm in its gills,’ he says. I take in his dark lashes and high cheekbones, and I notice a small hole in his top lip where he must have taken out a piercing. Suddenly, I realise I’ve been staring at him for far too long.

  He catches my eye and his smile grows.

  I blush and look away only to spot Bea and Kat watching us gleefully. Kat mouths something, which might be ‘Oh my God’, then they both shut their eyes and start French kissing the air. Bea gets really into it, running her hands up and down her body and sticking her tongue out. It’s quite a sight.

  Toby catches the end of their performance. He looks at me and frowns.

  ‘My friends,’ I say, quickly picking up a pair of tweezers and poking around in the spongy grey flesh, desperately trying to hide the blush that’s spreading powerfully across my face and down my neck. Suddenly, and inexplicably, I say, ‘I’m coming to get ya’, worms!’ In an American accent. Like a cowboy. This is terrible. I. Must. Stop. Talking. ‘Where are those critters?’ I mutter, still with the accent. Yikes! I glance over at Toby. He’s started texting under the table, possibly ignoring me.

  He puts his phone away and I show him the little worm I’ve found.

  ‘Nice work, Betty,’ he says. The sound of my name on his lips makes me melt. ‘We’ve got to fill this in,’ he adds, reaching across the table, his arm brushing against mine.

  ‘Right,’ I say, forcing myself to look at the worksheet he’s holding. It looks like Mr Brooks has asked one of his children to draw a picture of a fish. All around the blobby image are boxes and arrows.

  ‘I think sir wants us to write the names of Muppets in the boxes,’ I say.

  ‘Definitely,’ says Toby, and he starts writing. I glance over his shoulder and help him out when he runs out of names. In box eight he writes ‘Vanilla Chinchilla’.

  ‘That’s not a Muppet,’ I say.

  ‘Vanilla Chinchilla is the name of a legendary band,’ he says, his face lighting up, ‘my band!’ On the back of the worksheet he draws his band’s logo for me and explains the Vanilla Chinchilla ‘sound’. I watch as his beautiful hands move across the paper.

  ‘Who’s in the band?’

  ‘Well, like, no one except me,’ he admits. ‘But I’m auditioning for a drummer and bassist this afternoon. And I’m looking for a singer.’

  ‘I can sing,’ I say. The words just fly out of my mouth.

  ‘Yeah?’ He looks at me and nods his head. ‘You should totally audition, B-Cakes. Vanilla Chinchilla are gonna be sick.’ OK, so ‘sick’ is a funny word to use, but B-Cakes … I have a nickname. Toby has given me my very own nickname! He rummages about in his bag. ‘Here.’ He passes me a rubbery key ring. ‘Have a bit of Vanilla Chinchilla merchandise. That’s going to be worth something one day.’ He nods seriously.

  ‘Cute,’ I say. ‘It’s a mouse.’

  ‘No. A chinchilla.’

  ‘Eating an ice cream.’

  ‘A vanilla ice cream.’

  ‘Got it,’ I say. I clip the key ring to my bag. ‘So, how come you moved schools?’ I think I’m getting the hang of this talking-to-a-gorgeous-boy thing.

  ‘Because,’ he says, resting his face on his hand and gazing at me, ‘I did some bad stuff.’

  ‘Like putting a piglet in your teacher
’s car?’ I ask, deciding to run some of my own ‘bad stuff’ past him. ‘Or taking your PE class back to your house for toasties during cross-country? Or henna-tattooing the new Year Sevens?’

  ‘Just stuff,’ he says, smiling. ‘Would you like to see an example?’

  I shrug. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Look around you, B-Cakes,’ he says, indicating all the students sitting in the classroom. ‘Who do you hate?’

  I study the backs of heads spread before me. I don’t hate anyone. Towards the front are Kat and Bea, their faces turned away from me. Suddenly, Kat dissolves in laughter and I wonder what Bea said. Then my eyes fall on Sam Oakley, who is sitting near them. I don’t really like Sam. ‘That boy with the black hair,’ I say, pointing. ‘He says “Rah!” in little kids’ faces and laughs at my duck rucksack … it’s got a big beak.’

  ‘I’m gonna destroy him,’ says Toby, picking up the scalpel. I’m quite relieved when he bends over the fish and gently presses the fish’s white eye out of its socket. What he’s doing is pretty gross, but such is the power of his handsomeness that all I really notice is how great his forearms look with his sleeves rolled up.

  Next, he walks to the front of the room, scanning the benches as he goes. After picking up a textbook from Mr Brooks’s desk, he returns to his seat, pausing for a fraction of a second in front of Sam. No one sees what he does next, except me. In one swift movement, he drops the eye into Sam’s open water bottle. I don’t know what to think. It’s such a revolting thing to do, but he did it for me. Toby walks back to his seat, smiling a bad smile. When he sees the shocked look on my face, he laughs.

  ‘Put down your pens,’ calls Mr Brooks. ‘Betty, can you give me your answer to question one?’

  I look down at our worksheet. ‘Fozzy Bear,’ I say. Sir is not amused, and reaches for a ‘Bad News’ sticker to put in my planner. Amazingly, I’m saved by Sam Oakley, who suddenly leaps to his feet and sprays a fountain of water over Mr Brooks and his stickers. The lab erupts into laughter and I think of all the times Sam Oakley has laughed at other people, just to make them feel small.