Girl, 15: Flirting for England (27 page)

‘It is stinking cold as well,’ said Jess, pulling on an extra fleece. This camping business had turned a little sour.

‘I’d better go and see how he is,’ said Jodie.

‘I’ll come, too – just for a minute,’ said Flora.

‘Knock, knock!’ said a voice outside the tent. It was Mackenzie. Ben Jones was standing behind him, looking dreamily down towards the river as if he didn’t really mind if he saw any of the girls or not.

‘We’re going now,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Cos it’s all gone pear-shaped with all this rain and people’s legs hanging off and stuff.’

‘Whatever,’ said Jodie. ‘See you on Monday – and don’t forget, Ben, you’re going to show us your scar!’ She reached out and gave the waistband of his trousers a playful little pull. She was such a shameless tart in her bulldozing way!

Ben Jones looked startled and embarrassed, but managed a rueful smile. Just for a split second Jess caught his eye, and they exchanged a psychic message.

Sorry Jodie is such a slapper,
was Jess’s mental message.

Don’t worry, she doesn’t bother me
, replied Ben telepathically.
You’re the one who intrigues me. I want to be alone with you. I want to stare deep into your magnificent eyes. I want to hold your hand for a century. I want to be your partner in Britain’s Olympic kissing team.

Well, that’s what he said in Jess’s imagination, anyway. The New Improved Ben Jones was really über-gorgeous. Jess sighed. He looked away again.

Jodie and Flora went off to the farmhouse, and Ben Jones and Mackenzie said goodbye and strolled off to collect their bikes. Jess admired Ben’s back. His bum was five-star perfection. Mackenzie, though short, was kind of cute, but he just wasn’t in the frame. Flora had said once she thought he looked a bit like Elijah Wood. But right now, Jess had eyes for nobody but Ben, and Flora had eyes for nobody but Gerard.

Jess zipped up her fleece and stepped back inside the girls’ tent. Marie-Louise was packing. She looked up.

‘We are goingue ’ome, yes?’ she enquired.

‘I think so,’ sighed Jess. ‘It’s all gone pear-shaped.’

‘Excuse me?’ Marie-Louise frowned slightly. Jess sighed again.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just an English phrase. Time to call it a day.’ Marie-Louise frowned again. ‘Oh, sorry. Another English phrase. Er . . . how about, the party’s over?’

‘Ah!’ Marie-Louise smiled. ‘I h’understand.’ She went back to her packing. She was doing it immaculately, rolling up items of clothing and smoothing them down in her dinky little bag. She looked as if she was really enjoying herself.

‘I’d better go and tell Fred and Edouard,’ said Jess. She stepped out of the tent and sighed again. The image of Ben Jones appeared in her mind’s eye, surrounded by shimmering light and hovering slightly above the ground. Supernatural rays played around his golden head and he seemed to smile mysteriously while beckoning her to some divine destination, preferably adorned with palm trees.

‘Oh, cut it out, for goodness’ sake!’ she said to herself, aloud. ‘He may be well fit but he’s not the actual Son of God. Control yourself, woman!’ Obediently she stopped thinking about Ben Jones. But she sort of stashed him away in a secret corner of her mind, and she was looking forward to revisiting that sacred corner in the very near future.

Fred stepped out of the boys’ tent, carrying his Stephen King book, which was the size of a brick.

‘So what’s next in this endless round of pleasure?’ he asked, tucking his book inside his jacket to shelter it from the rain. ‘Did I hear a barn mentioned? Shall we adjourn there? Would you like me to read you deeply disturbing extracts from my book until you go screamingly insane?’

‘Normally I’d jump at the chance,’ said Jess. ‘But apparently the show’s over, and we’ve all got to pack. Jodie’s decided, what with Gerard’s ankle and the rain and everything.’

‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ said Fred. ‘I thought the torture would never end.’

‘I’ll just tell Edouard to pack up his spiders and get ready to roll,’ said Jess. She stepped inside the boys’ tent, which predictably smelt of pongy socks. Edouard was sitting on his neatly folded sleeping bag, playing with his phone as usual.

‘We go home now,’ said Jess, speaking, for some reason, like an Indian guide in an old-style Western. ‘Rain. No good. Go home today. Now. I ring mother.’ She got her phone out.

Amazingly, Edouard seemed to understand. He put his phone away and started to pack. Jess called her mum.

‘Thank goodness you rang!’ said Mum. ‘I was getting really worried. Are you all right?’

‘I’m all right, but Gerard’s done something to his ankle,’ said Jess.

‘Oh no!’ gasped Mum in horror. ‘I knew it! I just knew it! Whatever will I say to his parents?’

‘Gerard, not Edouard,’ said Jess. ‘Calm down, for heaven’s sake, Mum.’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Mum. ‘I lost it for a moment there, because they both end in “ard”.’

Jess could see that there was a joke tucked away in there somewhere, but she didn’t have time for it right now.

‘OK, but listen,’ said Jess. ‘Can you come and collect us? Like, now? Because apparently this rain’s going to get worse.’ Fred loomed up beside Jess and started to perform a charade. ‘Oh – and can we give Fred a lift home?’

‘Of course, of course, I’ll come right away,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’ She rang off, sounding hugely relieved, as if she’d been imagining Jess being chased by cattle, falling in the river and having her heart broken a hundred different ways.

Come to think of it, something very similar had indeed happened, but it didn’t seem to matter now.

‘I just hate the way Jodie throws herself at Ben,’ Jess said, putting her phone away. ‘If you were a guy – and you sort of are – wouldn’t it put you right off?’

‘Oh, certainly,’ said Fred. ‘I’d run a mile.’

‘I’d rather be an eccentric old spinster than hurl myself at boys the way Jodie and Flora do,’ said Jess.

‘Just as well,’ Fred replied. ‘As you’re clearly destined to be an eccentric old spinster anyway. I mean, who’d have you?’

Jess pulled Fred’s hair and punched him playfully in the ribs. He gave her a Chinese burn. Edouard looked up from his packing in alarm, then realised it was only a joke.

‘Anyway,’ said Jess, ‘I’ll leave you to do your stuff. Get a move on. My mum will be here in half an hour.’

‘It’ll only take me two seconds to pack,’ said Fred. ‘What else is there to do?’

‘I believe this is your tent?’ said Jess tauntingly. ‘Someone has to take it down . . . ? And fold it up nice and tidily so it fits in the back of my mum’s car . . . ?’ Fred went pale.

‘Information overload,’ he said. ‘Help me, please!’

‘Sorry,’ said Jess. ‘Stuff to do!’ And she ducked out of the tent and skipped off through the rain towards the loo. Before she got there, Jodie came barging down the path.

‘We’re taking Gerard to A&E as a precaution!’ she said importantly. ‘For an X-ray, you know . . . Flora’s just snogging him goodbye. She’ll be here in a min – I just wanted to say . . .’ Jodie leant in towards Jess and dropped her voice to a whisper – well, by Jodie’s standards, anyway. ‘. . . congrats on your utterly brilliant revenge! Water, mud, five-star pain: it was all there, exactly as promised!’

Then she abruptly stopped as Flora appeared, coming down the path and talking on her mobile. Jess was amazed. Did Jodie actually think she and Fred had cooked up Gerard’s accident? If so, she must be quite extraordinarily stupid.

‘Gotta go!’ said Jodie, turning back towards the house. ‘The weekend is cancelled! See you on Monday!’

Jodie went back up the path, passing Flora and ignoring her. You could tell just by looking at Jodie’s back that she was utterly triumphant. The way she brushed past Flora said:
Gerard’s mine now – mine to take to hospital, mine to take home and look after . . . But d’you know what? I couldn’t care less anyway. He’s rubbish, because now I’m fixated on Ben Jones’s appendicitis scar!

Flora arrived where Jess was standing, and quickly finished her phone call.

‘OK, see you in half an hour, then, Mum – thanks! . . . Yes, Marie-Louise is fine!’ Flora put her phone in her pocket and stood looking sorrowfully at Jess. Tears filled her eyes.

‘So, Jess,’ she said with a rather tense, unhappy smile, ‘are we friends, or not?’

‘I can’t think about anything else until I’ve been to the loo,’ said Jess, and walked away. As she sat in the peace and quiet of the outdoor lavatory, she wondered if perhaps she had been a teensy bit harsh to Flora.

On second thoughts, perhaps, no.

Chapter 36

‘Of course we’re still friends,’ said Jess as they walked back down towards the campfire together. But she didn’t manage to say it in that bouncy, sincere, adoring way she might have managed last week.

It wasn’t just that Flora had got off with Gerard after he had seemed to be interested in Jess. After all, Flora hadn’t known he’d held Jess’s hand or said those things. It was more to do with the way Flora had acted once she and Gerard were an item: as if Jess hardly existed.

Once she and Gerard had tasted the delights of snogging in the open air, Flora had barely exchanged a word with Jess. She’d only whispered to her at night to report details of her heavenly evening. And she’d only returned to the campfire to steal a mighty portion of Jess’s breakfast – after publicly announcing that she wasn’t hungry.

That last act of carefree greediness was almost the worst thing of all. Stealing someone’s guy was well, sometimes unavoidable, maybe; stealing someone’s breakfast was a capital offence. At least in Jess’s eyes.

It just seemed to sum up Flora’s character. She was greedy. It wasn’t her fault. She just assumed that she was entitled to things: other people’s French exchange partners, other people’s scrambled egg. She was like a swarm of gorgeous golden locusts.

‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ Flora squeezed Jess’s arm. ‘We’re best mates, then, like always?’

‘Why wouldn’t we be?’ said Jess, with a shrug. But there was definitely something tetchy in the air. Jess was quite enjoying it, actually. Watching Flora squirm was almost the best moment of the weekend so far.

‘Well, it’s like . . . I don’t feel I’ve seen very much of you the past couple of days,’ said Flora.

‘Well, whose fault is that?’ said Jess. ‘You’ve been otherwise engaged.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Flora guiltily. ‘I’m really sorry, Jess. But Gerard’s going home in a few days’ time and we’ve got to make the most of our time together. I might not see him again for months.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Jess. ‘Getting engaged at Christmas, are we?’

‘Oh, don’t be stupid, Jess. Of course not!’ laughed Flora in an anxious, slippery way. It was just as if that very thought was festering in her golden glamorous mind. ‘It’s way too soon for anything like that.’

Way too soon, eh?
thought Jess. A revealing phrase. It showed Flora was thinking big. Jess could almost hear wedding bells – in French.

‘Besides,’ Flora went on, ‘I’ll have to be really tactful from now on, because Jodie’s got it in for me. Stick up for me, won’t you, Jess? She’s not even speaking to me at the moment. Like I’ve committed some horrible crime or something.’

They arrived at the campfire, which was fizzling damply. Marie-Louise was packing up all the plastic boxes and cooking equipment, trying to remember which boxes belonged to which family. Flora immediately knelt down and started to help her. Fred and Edouard were taking down the boys’ tent, badly, and swearing bilingually in stereo. The campsite looked sad and finished.