Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (25 page)

Why didn’t he just sweep her into his arms, the fool? On the other hand, why had he put her through all this, the swine? Waves of passion surged through Jess: absolute adoration followed immediately by downright rage. It was going to be a stormy night.

Chapter 30

Fred pushed open the kitchen door gingerly, as if he was afraid someone was in there.

‘My mum’s gone to the Peak District with her Japanese toy boy,’ said Jess.

‘It’s not your mum I’m worried about,’ said Fred. ‘Last time I was here Ben Jones was in charge, offering me stuff and acting as if he owned the place.’

He went into the kitchen with a disgusted look, as if some kind of faint whiff of Ben Jones was still hanging about in the air.

‘Oh, you’re not jealous of
him
!’ said Jess, in exasperation.

‘Why not?’ said Fred. ‘My mum said you and he were holding hands in the Dolphin Cafe on the first day of term.’

‘We weren’t holding hands! We were arm-wrestling! And if you hadn’t been absent I’d have been able to arm-wrestle with you – although, let’s face it, with a nerd like you there’d have been no contest.’

There was a moment of silence. Jess summoned every tiny scrap of courage. She had to keep the show on the road.

‘Why have you waited till now to come?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Why didn’t you come before?’

‘When we met at the health centre,’ said Fred, ‘I thought you’d borrowed my hoodie to give me an excuse to come round and get it back, so we could talk. So I come round – conquering my overpowering urge to run away and hide under a large stone – and what do I find? Jones in full possession of your kitchen, lounging about with his blond hair gleaming in the romantic halogen downlighters. And then, to crown it all, it appears that it was his football shorts you were waltzing about in at school.’

‘Oh, don’t be such an idiot!’ snapped Jess. ‘Ben lent me his shorts because I’d sat down on a mud slick on the school field. He came round to get them back. Earlier we’d done some mild arm-wrestling. So what? If you hadn’t been hiding and running off and avoiding me, I would have been too busy giving you a hard time to spend a single moment with him.’

‘One cannot compete with Ben Jones.’ Fred shrugged. ‘One fears him as the wildebeest fears the lion.’

‘Lion?’ said Jess. ‘He’s more like a three-toed sloth. And anyway, while we’re on the subject, you’re the one who’s been misbehaving. You’ve been flirting fit to bust, and kissing people, even.’

‘Kissing?’ Fred looked puzzled.

‘I saw you, you moron!’ cried Jess. ‘Kissing Jodie on the school field. Today!’

Fred’s face cleared. ‘We were just rehearsing,’ he said. ‘She’s the Countess Olivia, I’m her steward. We’ve got scenes together. And we’re so scared of Thorn, we practise together. I’ve also got a scene with David Green and we practise that, too.’

At this point the kettle boiled, and Jess made two cups of coffee. She secretly preferred hot chocolate, but she felt she might need a little extra demonic energy this evening. Fred was still standing up, looking as if he might leave at any moment. Jess got Grandma’s cake out of a plastic box and cut him a huge slice.

‘Sit down,’ she said. She pushed the plate across the table towards him. The smell of the lemon was very alluring. Fred sat down, stirred his coffee and looked at the cake with a kind of distant admiration.

‘Can’t quite manage the cake yet,’ he said. ‘Too terrified to eat.’

‘Terrified?’ said Jess. ‘Of what?’

‘Well, of you, of course. As you know, I’m a total coward. It’s taken me hours to summon up the courage to come here. I even had to have a Vitamin C tablet.’

‘So why did you come?’ asked Jess. ‘Why today?’

‘When Flora was explaining to Thorn why she’d been late, she said you’d been, er . . .
upset
was the word she used. Shortly before Thorn gave her what I believe is known as “the bum’s rush” and ejected her from the play.’

‘So you were worried that I’d been upset?’

‘I thought you must have been quite spectacularly upset for Flora to be so late, I mean, for a runthrough and everything.’

Jess was deeply touched.

‘I didn’t know you cared,’ she said archly, to hide her delight.

‘Oh, I don’t, of course, as you know,’ said Fred. ‘I came more in the spirit of ghoulish tourism, the way that people drive slowly past road accidents.’

‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied,’ said Jess, cruelly aware that she had not bothered to apply mascara or lippy since arriving home, assuming that she and Granny would be having a girls’ night in. ‘My face is, of course, hideously blotched with weeping. In fact, I have never looked so vile.’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . .’ Fred looked at her across the table, and his eyes began to sparkle. ‘I can remember days when you looked even worse.’

Immense relief flooded through Jess’s heart. Things were beginning to get back to normal. But she still had to try and understand how they’d got into such a mess in the first place.

‘Just explain one thing to me,’ she said. ‘Why did you say such a horrid thing to me, back there in the park? That you wanted to pretend we were deadly enemies? Some joke!’

Fred looked tortured.

‘Don’t let’s even go there,’ he said, cringing and kind of ducking at the memory of it. ‘I was just really nervous, in a pathetic nerdy way, I admit, about going back to school. I hate being looked at, as you know.’

‘
You
hate being looked at?’ said Jess. ‘You’re the biggest show-off in the class.’

‘Well, I mean, I knew the guys would kind of – give me a hard time.’

‘My heart bleeds for you,’ said Jess scathingly. ‘I, on the other hand, was so thrilled to be going out with you that I couldn’t wait to tell my mates and collect the envious congratulations.’ She really was quite disappointed in Fred.

‘Yeah, well . . .’ said Fred. ‘I was just embarrassed, you know. I didn’t want . . . I wouldn’t have wanted to be like Flora and Mackenzie when they were going out together, sort of snogging and pawing each other all day.’

‘But we would never have been like that anyway!’ said Jess. ‘We’re cool, remember? Charismatic, mysterious.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Fred. ‘So we are. I’m sorry. Anyway, once you’d gone off in a huff –’

‘It was not a huff!’ cried Jess. ‘My heart was broken, you moron!’

‘Once you’d gone off with heartbreak, etc.,’ said Fred, ‘I became suddenly terrified. I was sure you’d never speak to me again. You know I was away on the first day of school?’

‘Yes – why was that? I was so desperate to see you I almost died.’

‘Well, I was so desperate
not
to see you because of feeling so guilty,’ said Fred. ‘I couldn’t face you, I hadn’t slept, my life was in ruins, etc., so I went off and sat in the park all day. Under our tree. In torment. But why didn’t you come to school the next morning? Was it because you couldn’t face me?’

‘Of course I could face you, you idiot!’ said Jess. ‘Don’t judge everybody by your own cowardly standards. I had to have the morning off because I hadn’t done my homework, that’s all. So I feigned vomiting. It was an Oscar-winning performance, though I say so myself.’

‘Oh,’ said Fred. ‘Well, good.’ He stared back down at the cake. ‘I think I could manage a piece of this cake now.’

‘It’s a legendary cake,’ said Jess, getting stuck into her own, smaller piece.

They ate their cake in silence, but it was a good silence.

‘By the way,’ said Jess, ‘why did you go to the health centre that time? What was wrong with you? Something serious, I hope?’

‘Athlete’s foot,’ said Fred. ‘Ironical, really, for someone who avoids exercise at all costs.’

‘Fungus the Bogeyman, eh?’ said Jess with a smile. ‘Extremely attractive little detail, that.’

‘After we’ve finished our cake,’ said Fred, ‘I’d like to come round the other side of the table and give you a hug. But of course I realise I haven’t earned it yet.’

Jess was surprised. She would have been quite happy to have a hug from Fred in any circumstances.

‘The thing is,’ said Fred, ‘I know my cowardice is deeply unattractive. Even if it’s not loathsome to you, it certainly disgusts me. So in order to earn your renewed affection – if indeed you are considering renewing it – I have an offer.’

‘An offer?’ Jess felt uneasy. She hoped he wasn’t going to ask her to marry him. Though she had often fantasised about a life by the sea with Fred and twins called Freda and Freddo, plus a range of cute dogs of all sizes, it would be kind of tacky if he proposed to her now. She might just
really
go off him.

‘Set me any impossible task,’ said Fred. ‘Name it, I’ll do it. I kind of have to prove to myself that my spine does exist and is made of bone, not butter. So set me an impossible task, and I will earn your good will. Like a knight-of-old type thing. Don’t send me off on a crusade, though – it’s terribly politically incorrect these days, and besides, I can’t stand spicy food.’

Jess was amazed by this offer, and thought for a minute. She was glad Fred found his own cowardice repulsive, because she had to admit she didn’t much like it herself. It’s horrible when you love somebody but there’s something about them which puts you off. She had been quite perturbed by Fred’s account of his fears. And as it happened, there was one thing which she felt very strongly about right now.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Leave
Twelfth Night
.’

‘What?’ Fred went pale.

‘Tell Miss Thorn you don’t want to be in the play,’ said Jess.

‘Not be in the play?’ Fred was deeply shocked. You could tell by his shortage of words.

‘You’ve got to admit that for Thorn to throw Flora out is deeply unfair,’ said Jess.

‘Yeah. It stinks,’ Fred agreed.

‘All Flora did was look after me when I was in a terrible state today. I’ve never cried so much in a single day before. I felt quite thirsty afterwards. And one of the reasons I was so upset was because of you.’

‘Yes,’ said Fred, still deathly pale. ‘OK.’

‘And Flora was so thrilled to be in
Twelfth Night
, and now she’s been dropped she’s absolutely desperate. She hasn’t even dared to tell her dad yet. So, to show your bravery, and your loyalty to me and my friend, I want you to drop out of
Twelfth Night
. Because the woman organising it is pure evil and she has behaved unjustly to my friend. OK?’

Fred took a deep breath, swallowed a couple of times and stared at his hands, which were shaking. Then he looked up at Jess and raised his eyebrow in a quirky manner.

‘There isn’t . . . something slightly less terrifying I could do, is there?’

Chapter 31