Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco (30 page)

Flora shrugged and looked intrigued.

‘On his way to Canada to have some kind of showdown with his ex.’

‘Oh no!’ sighed Flora thoughtfully. ‘Do you think Mercury is retrograde or something? What else can go wrong?’

‘Plenty!’ said Jess grimly.

Flora threw back her head and stared in disbelief at the ceiling. A chandelier (Egyptian lead crystal globes, no change from £400) sparkled above her head and was reflected in her eyes. Jess noticed the sparkle and gloomily compared the effect with her own house, where dud light bulbs were often tolerated for weeks on end.

‘But Fred . . .’ sighed Flora, still staring at the twinkling chandelier. ‘I mean, Fred . . . He’s so original and strange but somehow, you know, amazing. Why don’t you just freeze him out for a couple of days and then, when he comes back on bended knee, you can make up again?’

Jess hesitated. A sudden uncomfortable thought had wormed its way into the far corner of her mind. Flora had fancied Fred once. She’d had the tiniest crush on him, just before Jess and Fred had got together. If Fred was apparently free and available now, might Flora be tempted to tempt him? Jess felt sick. She gulped hard.

‘The thing is,’ she confessed, ‘I was thinking that if Fred wanted to get back together with me, he’d have to do something really major, like one of those medieval knights on a quest, you know?’

Flora frowned slightly. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Like, slay a dragon or something? Where’s he going to find a dragon these days?’

‘Slay a, well, a symbolic dragon, maybe.’ Jess shrugged. The truth was, she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted Fred to do, but it just had to be massive to make up for all his recent spinelessness and selfishness. ‘Oh, I don’t know what – he’ll have to think of something heroic.’

‘Shall I . . . Would you like me to tell him that’s what you want?’ asked Flora, looking puzzled.

‘No!’ snapped Jess. She didn’t want Flora as a go-between: the dangers were obvious. ‘I don’t even want him to know that that’s what I’m thinking. I want him to work it out for himself. I want him to realise what he’s done and work out a way of putting it right.’

‘But, babe,’ persisted Flora uneasily, ‘what if he gives up? All that heroic stuff, that doesn’t really sound much like Fred, you know. What if he just goes back into his shell and mopes about miserably?’

‘Well, if he reacts like that,’ said Jess, horribly aware that Flora’s scenario was all too likely, ‘then my main job is to forget all about him – put him right out of my mind.’

Flora stared, speechless for a second. ‘That’s the plan?’ she asked, looking less than convinced.

Jess nodded. ‘Yes. Just get over him. I can’t spend the rest of my life being let down by Fred. I’m going to wipe him clean out of my memory banks – starting from now.’

Flora sighed, leaning back against a sofa cushion and working her way through a whole handful of chocolate peanuts. ‘This is so awful – I thought it was just a lovers’ tiff. This is the worst thing that’s happened for as long as I can remember.’ She looked sombre.

‘No need for gloom!’ Jess was determined to change the mood to positive. ‘This is the beginning of a brave new world,
OK
?’

Just then they heard Flora’s front door being opened, in rather a rough and stressy manner, and then there was the alarming and unmistakable sound of Flora’s mum running upstairs,
crying
.

Get to Know Sue Limb!

The first thing Sue ever wrote was the letter ‘S’ and it’s still her favourite letter. As a toddler she wrote on walls, but at school she was given exercise books and filled them with stories of children who lived alone on islands and had adventures with boats and dogs. Though a tomboy, Sue was also a coward and deeply scared of boats, dogs, islands and adventures, but she discovered that writing was a way of experiencing other lives while keeping your feet dry.

As a teenager she realised that if you could make people laugh they didn’t notice how nerdy you were. Sue found that comedy was a way of dealing with the bad stuff that happens in life, such as embarrassment and anxiety. Despite her love of comedy and writing, she ignored these hints from the universe and briefly attempted to be a teacher. Sue hates imposing her will on other people (even her dog had to teach himself to sit and fetch) so her days in the schoolroom were numbered and she escaped from the Ministry of Education. 

Writing for young people has always been a big part of Sue’s working life, mainly because she still doesn’t feel grown up. In recent years she has produced the Jess Jordan books and revisited her early childhood in the
Ruby Rogers
series.

Sue lives in a wild, rocky and remote part of Gloucestershire, on a farm, and when not writing she likes to be out of doors messing about with plants and animals.

A Few More Facts about Sue!

Name: Sue Limb.

Star sign:
Virgo.

Favourite colour:
Green.

Favourite number:
Seven.

Favourite thing to do:
Give my dog a bath.

Favourite food:
Anything with pesto.

Where were you born?
Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England.

Where do you live now?
On a remote farm in Gloucestershire.

What were you like at school?
A tomboy-ish nerd.