Don't Kiss Him Good-Bye (3 page)

I nodded, and as I did, one of his friends came and chipped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, mate,” he said impatiently. I noticed that all female eyes locked on Rhys as he left the room. Then they looked at me—I wasn’t sure if it was appraisingly or a little jealously. It wasn’t a bad feeling to be the envy of the other girls in the room.

I got the paper from the printer and noticed Penny standing at the door of the library. She frowned. “Talking to Rhys, I see?”

“He asked for help with his paper.”

She remained silent for a minute while we headed toward fourth period. “I didn’t know you knew him.”

“We just met yesterday,” I said. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. He’s just . . . not like you, Savvy.”

I laughed and gave her a quick hug. “I’m just helping a new kid with his paper. Nothing more.”

She relaxed a bit at that. “All right, then.”

“Thanks,
Mum
.” I teased her to a grin before we parted. “See you sixth period.”

Chapter 5

That afternoon I strolled through the showers that promised May flowers, all the while twirling my unopened brolly like a majorette’s baton. I was from Seattle. And now I was a Londoner. A little rain wasn’t going to melt me. I loved the clean feeling of the drops sliding down my face and into the corner of my mouth, pelting my blonde hair, and slipping off my starched plaid uniform skirt. I turned down Cinnamon Street, past the neat brick houses and window boxes—some newly planted. I left the umbrella propped against our door. A brass plaque announced that I was home: Kew Cottage. I kicked off my shoes, and they went twirling and clattering onto the small porch as I headed inside.

“Pip-pip, cheerio, and all that,” I hollered. I heard the back door slam, the one that led out to the small “garden,” as the Brits call their patch of patio and backyard. I strolled into the kitchen and saw my sister, Louanne, drying off her arms.

“What were you doing outside?” I asked. Her dog, Giggle (aka Growl), was on the back of the sofa sitting sphinxlike, his paws in front and head up, so I knew she hadn’t been taking him out.

Louanne faced me. “Nothing.”

She was lying. Hmm, I could coax it out of her so I’d have some blackmail material to make her do my chores. . . . Kidding! But it wasn’t like Louanne to flat-out lie to me. I wondered what was up.

“Nothing?” I looked at her face. It was kind of red. A little puffy around the eyes.

She sniffed a couple of times. “Nothing!” she said in a tone that warned me not to ask more questions.

“Okay. Whatever you say.” I didn’t say anything more even when she went directly to the downstairs loo and washed her hands for a good two minutes. Even Growl lifted his head and looked toward the bathroom before settling down to continue staring out the window at nothing.

I grabbed a bowl of Weetabix cereal and a pack of Smarties—the British chocolate kind, not the chalky American kind—from the kitchen and headed into the living room. Growl gave me a dirty look when I plopped down on the couch, but hey—who was the human here? “Sorry, dude. Move over.” To be nice, because I’d had a great day, I threw a piece of Weetabix at him. He gobbled it up and returned to his perch.

I opened the
Wexburg Register
and started scanning. Of course, I read the Dear Auntie Agatha column first. Her advice was pretty good that day, if I may say so myself. The old girl still had the go juice in her. Then I turned the page and saw several ads for dresses. Fancy dresses. For the May Day Ball, no doubt. One was for the Marks & Spencer nearby, one for Miss Selfridge in Kensington, which I loved. Another was for a shop in our village. It caught my eye, and I folded the paper back to read it more closely.

My heart tripped like a high heel snagged on an uneven sidewalk. So unfair. I mean, if anyone would appreciate both fashion
and
helping others, it was—

At that moment, Louanne snatched the paper from my hand.

“Hey!” I said. “What are you doing?”

She folded the paper back to the front page and then tossed it in my direction with a snort of disgust. “I thought this was the Wexburg Academy
Times
. Not the local paper.”

I caught the paper as it fluttered in my direction. Giggle had had enough, and he jumped off the couch, slinking toward the kitchen. “Since when are you interested in the WA
Times
?”

“Well, uh, since you’re interested in it, of course I am too,” Louanne said. “I mean, anything you like, I like. Right? You’re my big sister and all.”

I raised an eyebrow. Louanne didn’t know I wrote for the paper, just that I delivered it. “Cool! So when do you want to work on a new look for your wardrobe?”

Louanne wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“Want to learn to play the guitar?”

She shook her head some again, harder this time. She was going to get dizzy soon. “Just bring me a paper on Thursday, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, and with that, she ran upstairs and closed her door.

I headed back to the kitchen and put my cereal bowl in the sink. Growl was sniffing the bags and jackets hanging by the back door. I stared out the window toward the garden. Ours was completely overgrown with ivy and other untended greenery. The smattering of stringy plants looked like Louanne’s hair the morning she had woken up with gum tangled in it.

My mom came in and set a couple of bags on the kitchen table. “It’s a real mess out there, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Nothing like your garden in Seattle.” My mom had been famous for her neatly tended garden.

She sighed. “I know. I bought a few geraniums to freshen up the window boxes in the front, but I don’t dare pull any plants back there to do anything else. After all, the yard and house belong to Aunt Maude.”

Aunt Maude wasn’t really our aunt; she was a friend of our grandmother and was renting this house to us. She wasn’t so bad, but she was pretty unpredictable. We never knew what was going to set her off.

“She probably has some dead bodies buried in the back garden. Best not to disturb them and dig up trouble.”

Mom came over and gave me a playful swat, and we laughed. “Can you put these groceries away? I want to plant the flower boxes so they’re blooming by May.”

My mind wandered as I tried to stuff the groceries into our tiny fridge. Ah, May. . . . I imagined it now—I’d find the perfect dress at Be@titude. No one else would have it, of course. I’d arrive just a little late to the May Day Ball on the arm of . . . well, on the arm of someone. Penny would be so glad for me. In fact, we’d probably double-date. Afterward, I’d joke about how I’d worried that I would get to my sixteenth birthday without a first kiss, but clearly . . .

“Savvy!” My mom jiggled my elbow a little. “Are you daydreaming again? You dropped two eggs on the floor!”

“Sorry, Mom.” I went to get a rag. Even Growl seemed to roll his eyes at me. Then I headed upstairs to work on my composition paper. I wondered what Rhys’s composition paper—the one he wanted my help on—was about.

Chapter 6

The next day I sat with the Aristocats at lunch. It’s not like I was a member of the popular crowd—not even on probation, really. But I was good friends with Penny, and Penny had perfect Aristocat lineage. So they tolerated me, anyway. Penny munched on her protein bar. There was an unwritten list of very few “allowable” Aristocat lunch items that you were supposed to commit to memory. Protein bars, energy drinks (diet, of course), cut vegetables, bottles of water. Everything else was frowned upon. I was usually starving by the time I got home. And tonight I wouldn’t have time for a quick stop at Fishcoteque for some fish-and-chips first.