Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco (3 page)

Jess and Fred dived into the Dolphin Cafe after school. It was one of those rainy afternoons when the windows steamed up cosily and the music and voices became a kind of warm blur.

‘Where’s Her Royal Highness?’ asked Fred, as they squeezed into the corner under the stairs – not the best table in the place, but it was all that was available.

‘Who?’ Jess was baffled.

‘Flora, Prom Queen of Ashcroft School,’ said Fred in a pompous voice. ‘She leaves a trail of broken hearts . . .’ His voice sank to a melodramatic whisper. ‘. . . Pavements, where she walks, turn to marshmallow . . . Bald old men grow hair again when she passes by . . . Mad dogs stop growling and start to recite lines of poetry . . .’

Jess frowned. OK, Flora was amazingly beautiful, but it wasn’t Fred’s job to say so. At Kate Jackson’s party last weekend Flora had been wearing a drop-dead-gorgeous plum satin boned-corset dress with a massive bow at the back – very Hollywood and glitzy. Jess had tormented herself for most of the evening trying to see if Fred was ogling Flora. Shooting sidelong glances at your boyfriend to see if he’s shooting sidelong glances at your hot best friend is kind of exhausting. Maybe Sidelong Glances should become an Olympic event. Once upon a time Flora had had the hots for Fred, but, Jess told herself sternly, it would be a big mistake to sound jealous and stressy.

‘Shut up about Flora being so tactlessly beautiful!’ snapped Jess, drops of stressy spit flying out of her mouth and landing on Fred’s sleeve.

‘No need to drown me!’ Fred pulled a silly face as if the spit was some kind of toxic chemical and wiped his sleeve on his trousers.

‘Well, ordinary girls like me, who look like a camel’s bum, get a bit fed up with all that Flora Is A Goddess stuff.’ Jess tried hard to moderate her tone into something sensible and calm: she knew she sounded majorly stupid.

‘There’s no need to feel jealous of Flora.’ Fred had started to look a bit bored.

‘I’m not jealous of her!’ retorted Jess jealously.

‘I don’t go for the tall blonde type, for a start,’ Fred explained patiently. ‘Flora’s legs are like sticks, that blonde hair is such a cliché, and, let’s face it, she’s a ditzy airhead who thinks that Penzance is in France.’

‘She does not!’ OK, when Fred put on his Flora Is A Goddess act it was irritating, but to say mean things about Flora was totally wrong and unacceptable. ‘Ditzy?’ screeched Jess. ‘An airhead? Uhh, isn’t this the same Flora who gets straight As, beating both you and me in every subject including English?’

Fred shrugged and tried to look charming and irresponsible. ‘I’ll never mention Flora again,’ he promised. ‘Except when discussing the flora and fauna of Australia, of course.’

Jess stirred some sugar into her coffee – always a bad sign. When things were a bit dodgy, a spoonful of sugar seemed comforting, although afterwards she was sure she could actually feel it attacking her teeth and pumping up her waistline flab.

‘Well, anyway,’ she sighed, trying to settle down into normal conversation and beginning to feel she’d sounded stupid and hysterical, ‘Flora’s with Prince Charming.’

‘What?’

‘You know – Jack Stevens!’

Flora and Jack had got together last term when they were in the school production of Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
. Flora had been delighted to discover that Jack’s brooding scowl was just a cosmetic choice, a bit like conditioner, and she insisted that underneath it all he was as soft as a doughnut and so,
so
funny. He was in year twelve and his family had taken Flora skiing at Christmas, so he scored maximum points on the Index of Cool.

‘Oh,
him
,’ said Fred.

‘What do you mean,
him
?’ Jess asked indignantly.

Fred shrugged.

‘But you sounded sneery.’

‘No I didn’t. I hardly know the guy.’ He pulled a dubious face.

‘Fred, you’re jealous! Jack’s a star! And what’s more, he’s totally posh! His dad owns a printworks and Flora says their house is like something out of Jane Austen! Plus they’ve got a holiday home by the sea somewhere – on some cliffs – and a boat.’

‘Oh dear, I seem to have underrated him,’ said Fred ironically. ‘I may just have to lie down and let him walk all over me!’

‘He won’t want to set foot on you!’ Jess informed him with a teasing smile. ‘He’d ruin his shoes!’

She was beginning to feel a tad better. Enjoying witty banter with Fred had been the best thing in her life for months, even if sometimes, when Fred was behaving like an idiot, he got on her nerves a bit.

‘On a different subject entirely
. . . guess what?’ Fred’s eyes were dancing. Some joke was coming, for sure.

‘What?’

‘My mum got a postcard from some old friend of hers – she’s on holiday in Italy, and apparently there’s a church there dedicated to St Fred.’

‘St
Fred
? No way!’

‘Well, I think he’s called St Fredianus or something.’

‘Fredianus? You know, it kind of suits you. In fact, I think I’ll call you that from now on.’ Jess was back in tune with Fred now, bubbling along nicely. ‘How is your mum, by the way?’ Jess loved Fred’s mum, who was always very sweet to her. She’d even baked Jess’s favourite cheese scones last time she was at Fred’s.

‘Oh, she’s OK,’ sighed Fred. ‘She’s getting a crush on her yoga teacher, though – I recognise the signs. I hope she’s not going to elope with him or something. Obviously it would be more glamorous to have divorced parents, but I’m not sure I could bear a stepdad who regularly sits on his head.’

‘Oh well, he can’t be any worse than some of the guys my mum is dating.’

‘Your mum is dating?’ Fred’s eyes got bigger and bigger until the whites showed all the way round.

‘Oops! I wasn’t supposed to mention that! I don’t like to talk about it, of course, because it’s so very traumatic for me, her only daughter, but yes, Mum has joined an online dating agency. Don’t laugh! And don’t breathe a word to anybody!’

‘Online dating?’ repeated Fred, his eyebrows sky high. ‘Your
mum
?’

‘Yeah, I know, it’s so unbelievably gross!’ Jess shuddered. ‘There are these guys – they’re in her checkout basket or something – anyway, you can see their photos and read their biogs and whatever, and they literally all look like weirdos or hobos. It’s horrendous.’

‘So who’s her first victim?’

‘Well, I hope it’s not Mum who’s going to be the victim – I’m getting so nervous about her, it’s ridiculous. Talk about role reversal! I’ll be waiting up till she gets back and texting her every five minutes!’

‘And if she gets in after midnight,’ suggested Fred satirically, ‘you should tell her she’s been grounded.’

At this point the cafe door opened and Jess heard somebody call her name. It was Flora, clinging picturesquely to the sleeve of Jack Stevens.

‘Here we go,’ whispered Jess, while eagerly waving them over towards the two empty chairs at their table, ‘the Prom Queen and Prince Charming. Now, Fred Parsons, if you say one word out of line, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.’

Chapter 4

‘Hi, Parsnip!’ This was Jack’s greeting to Fred.

‘Ah, it’s the prince of darkness!’ This was Fred’s reply. But he also managed a grin, so Jess was satisfied. It was a sly, sarcastic grin, but then that was Fred’s usual.

‘I’ll get a hot choc,’ said Flora. ‘What would you like, Jack?’

‘Just iced water,’ drawled Jack, taking off his flying jacket. ‘Hot in here, huh?’ He tossed back his hair but a few strands fell over his face. Then he smoothed down the collar of his shirt and smiled at Jess. This was something Fred never did. Not the smiling – the smoothing. Fred’s shirt often had one side of the collar down and one poking up. Somehow this gave him the air of a chihuahua who had just woken up from a deep sleep.

‘So, how are my favourite comedy writers?’ Jack included Fred in his smile. It swept across the table like a warm wind from the south. His teeth were big and white and expensive-looking. He had big rubbery expensive-looking lips, too. But, actually, he always seemed really nice. It wasn’t his fault he was rich.

‘We’re stuck with our hosting script for Chaos,’ Jess told him. ‘And the deadline is looming – it’s scary.’

‘That show you did at Christmas was amazing,’ said Jack. ‘You’re going to be the next big thing . . . Jordan and Parsons.’

‘Jordan and Parsons doesn’t sound right,’ Jess mused.

‘It’s the Parsons that’s the problem.’ Jack looked teasingly across at Fred, who was leaning back in his chair and biting his nails in a way that was far from attractive. ‘You should change your name to Gordon. Jordan and Gordon.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Jess. ‘Why should it always be the girl who has to change her name?’ Then she realised it sounded as if she was thinking of marrying Fred. So she pulled a disgusted face and then she sort of caught Jack’s eye, regretted it and blushed. No way did she ever want Jack to fancy her – except in the kind of  secret way you always want your best friend’s boyfriend to fancy you.

‘Fred is good,’ she blundered on. ‘But how about a snappier surname. How about Fred Freak? Fred Fox?’

Fred gave her the kind of look that a snake gives a mouse – kind of sinister, from below half-closed lids.

‘Fred Fry!’ Jess ploughed on. Why was Fred being so unhelpful? ‘Although Fred told me just now that there’s an Italian saint called Fredianus.’

‘Brilliant!’ Jack exploded with laughter and slapped his thigh. ‘Fredianus it is, buddy!’

Fred shot Jess a look that would have curdled custard. At this point, luckily, Flora arrived with the drinks.

‘Guess what!’ she bubbled excitedly, shaking back her blonde hair and ripping off her gilet. ‘Jack’s mum and dad are going to their beach house the weekend after next! We’re all invited! There’s a kind of dorm upstairs with about ten beds so loads of us can come! Jack’s brother George is at uni and some of his mates are coming! You
can
both come, can’t you? It’ll be brilliant!’

‘I’m, uh, not sure . . .’ Fred pulled a strange ungracious face and rubbed his nose. ‘Won’t we be busy organising the Chaos thing?’ He looked at Jess and raised his eyebrows. ‘It’ll be coming up to the fourteenth the weekend after, I think. Must be, yeah.’

Jess felt slightly sick for a moment. Somehow she had imagined that there were weeks and weeks before the dinner dance, even though she’d designed the tickets herself and, of course, knew very well that it was to be on 14 February. But the invite to the weekend by the sea was too good to refuse.

‘Of course we’re coming, Flo!’ she yelled. ‘It’ll be absolutely brilliant! Thanks so much! We can get the organising all done before we go!’

‘Of course, the Aged Parents will be around,’ said Jack with a sigh, ‘so a wild party is out of the question.’

‘Never mind!’ Jess could see Fred was a bit iffy about the trip. He was leaning his head on his hand and pulling his lips about in an unattractive way. Maybe he felt inadequate lip-wise – Jack’s lips were like a sofa; Fred’s were thin and nervy – but Jess wished he would stop doing it.

‘It sounds just awesome!’ she went on fervently. ‘Fred and I had the best time at my dad’s down in St Ives last summer!’