Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco (7 page)

Fred pulled a series of embarrassed-but-thinking faces, tossing and turning his head from side to side. ‘I’m sure we can sort it all out in time,’ he said. ‘But you’re going to have to take control. After all, as you once famously told me,
I
can’t organise my way out of a paper bag! See you in English!’ And he ran off along the crowded corridor.

‘Fred is so irresponsible,’ grumbled Jess as they set off towards English. ‘I have to sort all the problems out. It’s always the same. This Chaos thing is going to push me right over the edge and into total insanity. We’ve been so stupid, letting things slide. I’m such an idiot about times and dates and stuff! I’d no idea it would clash with your lovely weekend!’

‘I hate all this!’ hissed Flora. ‘I wish I’d never – oh, forget it.’

‘What?’ Jess asked suspiciously. ‘You wish what? You wish you’d never invited me and Fred?’

‘No, no, no, not that! Don’t be stupid! I wish it wasn’t the weekend before the dinner dance, that’s all.’ Flora sounded rattled.

They arrived at the English lesson, where Mr Fothergill was preparing some kind of ordeal by Shakespeare. Fred was sitting with some boys at the back. Jess didn’t look at him.

‘Right,’ said Mr Fothergill. ‘You’re going to enjoy this. This is the scene where an old man gets stabbed to death behind a tapestry.’

After a large portion of Shakespearian gore, Jess found herself walking home alone again because Fred was at a chess match against Sir John Baxter’s School, a famous toffee-nosed academy in the next town. Flora, as usual, had gone off with Jack. Jess felt tragic and self-pitying, trudging the pavements on her own. Why had Fred gone off to do stupid old chess when there was such a lot of important stuff to organise? And why hadn’t they organised it properly weeks ago? Why did the Dorset weekend have to be just before the dinner dance? Why had God got it in for her? She’d tried her hardest to avoid chocolate.

‘Good news,’ said Granny, as Jess entered the kitchen. ‘I’ve just made a chocolate cake, and it’s a belter.’

‘I was supposed to not eat so much chocolate, Granny,’ Jess reminded her. ‘I made a new year’s resolution not to eat chocolate more than twice a month because of my spots and my massive flabby hips.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that, love,’ Granny assured her. ‘You’re the prettiest girl in the street.’

‘The street?’ complained Jess. ‘That’s a bit small-scale. How about the country, the world, the universe? That’s more the kind of reassurance I’m looking for.’

‘Oh, the universe, then,’ said Granny. ‘I hear those girls from Outer Space are all warts and tentacles, though, so it’s hardly much competition.’

Jess threw her school bag in the corner and got a smoothie out of the fridge. ‘Any good murders today?’ she enquired politely, though her mind was still miserably obsessed with the Chaos chaos.

‘Not really,’ said Granny. ‘Although I did watch a Miss Marple this afternoon.
The Body in the Library
. One of my favourites. Set by the sea down in Devon.’

‘Oh, Granny.’ Jess felt an overpowering urge to share her angst with somebody who wouldn’t be too judgemental. ‘I’ve done something stupid – that weekend in Dorset is just before our dinner dance and we haven’t really started organising it properly yet.’

‘Not started organising it yet?’ Granny looked amused. ‘Tell me all about it, dear!’

Chapter 9

Somehow Jess had hoped Granny would come up with some kind of magic solution, but all she said, after shaking her head and tut-tutting a bit, was, ‘Let me think about it, sweetheart.’

Jess knew that Granny would forget all about her Chaos crisis if there was a particularly gruesome murder on the news. She’d probably forget all about it anyway. Granny was getting a bit forgetful these days. She’d called Jess ‘Madeleine’ last week – that was Mum’s name.

‘Please, God,’ murmured Jess as she climbed the stairs, ‘don’t let Granny get dementia. And if you could possibly organise Chaos for us, that would obviously be a bonus.’ Poor God was going to have his work cut out, but when it came to organising Chaos, he’d be your obvious first choice.

Jess checked her emails and found the latest instalment of
Lord of the Wrongs
from Dad.

. . . Lord Volcano stared, baffled, at the magic shoes. He’d plugged them in and charged them overnight, but he still didn’t have the faintest idea what kind of magic shoes they were; the instructions were in Fishish, and where was he going to find a fish to translate for him? He gazed longingly at the sea below. It must be full of fish. And then a strange thought occurred to him. Why were the instructions in Fishish anyway? Fish don’t have feet, do they? Hmmm. There was something fishy going on here . . .

Maybe these magic shoes weren’t really a present from his long-lost daughter Messica after all. Maybe it was a secret trap, a cruel trick being played on him by Sir Filo Pastry. Maybe they were truth shoes, and the moment he put them on, he’d blurt out all his secrets. Sir Filo Pastry, he knew, would be watching his every move on CCTV. Sir F would be waiting for him to reveal the location of his magnificent treasure, the shimmering Pot of Gold.

If they were the kind of magic shoes that enable you to jump confidently off windowsills and soar effortlessly into the clouds, he’d be able to escape right now. On the other hand, they might be the kind of magic shoes that would turn you into a silver teapot. And handsome though silver teapots can be, Lord Volcano didn’t really fancy having boiling water poured in through a hole in his head on a regular basis. It wasn’t what he would have called a lifestyle.

Thoughtfully he plucked his familiar, Donald, out of his cosy thatched matchbox.

‘Donald,’ he said, ‘I have a task for you. Go to my long-lost daughter who lives two hundred miles away through the forests of Pog, and ask her if indeed she really did send me these magic shoes and, if so, how on earth you’re supposed to switch them on.’

‘But, Master,’ said Donald with a puzzled frown, ‘I’m a snail! It’ll take me three weeks just to get down the wall of this tower!’

Jess paused in thought. It was a relief to think about something other than a dinner dance. She started to type.

‘I’ve thought of that, of course,’ said Lord Volcano with a sneer. Sometimes he wished his familiar was something intelligent and stylish, like a dolphin, but his bath, though large, really wasn’t big enough for an ocean-going mammal. ‘Donald, you’re an idiot. I’ve made a little motor for you – it’s a bit like a racing-car engine but, obviously, scaled down.’

With a few deft movements of his long webbed fingers, Lord Volcano attached the motor to the back of Donald’s shell and pressed the electronic ignition. It roared into life – in a tiny, tinkling way, a bit like a wasp in a jam jar – and propelled Donald violently across the windowsill and down the wall of the tower.

‘Help!’ cried Donald faintly, and, to be honest, slimily. ‘I don’t even know where she lives!’

‘Don’t worry!’ called Lord Volcano. ‘You’ve got SnailNav! Just switch it on!’

‘But how?’ screamed Donald in alarm, as he reached ground level and scorched away through the grass like a dropped firework. Before Lord Volcano could utter a word, poor Donald had vanished.

Jess wished there really was such a thing as magic. She sent the email and stared blankly into space. If only she could order a dinner dance to be delivered to St Mark’s Church Hall on 14 February at 7.30 p.m. And it would help if she could see right into the mind of Fred. Knowing what he was thinking was sometimes so tricky. The witty banter they shared was the best thing in her life, but witty banter wasn’t always appropriate. Sometimes there was serious stuff to talk about, problems to wrestle with. Where was Fred then? In fact, where was Fred now?

She picked up her mobile and hesitated. Should she call him? They had to organise the buffet and the band, if nothing else. Maybe she should ring Dad and ask his advice. Although, strangely, since they’d started writing this book together, they hadn’t communicated by text or phone as they normally did.

She dialled Dad’s landline (he was always losing his mobile). It rang twice and then somebody picked up.

‘Hi, Phil speaking.’

‘Oh, hi, Phil. This is Jess. How are you?’ Phil, Dad’s boyfriend, was great and really, really funny.

‘Oh, good thanks, Jess. How about you?’

‘Oh, fine. Just the usual crises and fiascos.’

‘Life, huh?’

‘Yeah. Er, is Dad there?’

‘No, sorry, Jess. He’s out. Can I give him a message?’

‘No, it’s OK – just say I rang. If he rings back, remind him not to use the landline after ten or Mum goes ballistic.’

‘Will do!’ Phil laughed. There was a slight pause. ‘Sorry, Jess, but I’ve got to go now, I’m in the middle of something. Give my best to your mum.’

‘OK. Lots of love! Bye!’

‘Bye!’ He hung up.

Jess listened to the purr of the dead telephone line. It was a shame Phil had been too busy to talk properly. He’d sounded a little bit preoccupied. Maybe Dad had left a pile of dirty dishes in the sink or something.

Later that evening, after Granny had gone out to see her friend Deborah, Mum got out her laptop.

‘I’m going to give it one more go,’ she said, looking serious.

‘What?’ Jess was beginning to wonder if one last tiny slice of chocolate cake would hurt. She’d only had three very small ones, and she didn’t want Granny to think she was ungrateful.

‘This online dating thing,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t think I should give up too easily, just because Ken was a bit smelly. There’s a guy here who might be quite interesting. He actually does look passable.’

‘Let me see!’ Jess bounded over and stared at the screen. ‘Hmmm . . . after a nose transplant, maybe.’

‘He’s divorced with a teenage daughter,’ Mum went on. ‘That’s partly what attracted me to him.’

‘Don’t drag me into it!’ Jess backed off.

‘I thought maybe you could be friends . . . ?’

‘I’ve already got friends! Mum, I’m not being mean, but you should be thinking about what you want, not about me.’

‘Well, he does look rather nice. His name’s Ed and he’s a builder.’

‘A builder?’ Jess was surprised. Somehow she’d expected him to have one of those arty jobs.

‘I thought maybe he could help me with the built-in storage project for my office,’ said Mum.

‘Mum! This is a dating website, right? If you want him to fix your cupboards and stuff, that’s something totally different.’

‘Hmmm, I suppose so,’ said Mum doubtfully. She really wasn’t focusing properly on this dating business. ‘I thought maybe we could all go out together as a foursome – you know, me and you and him and, er, Polly. His daughter’s called Polly.’

‘Not Polymyalgia rheumatica? Are you sure she’s not an awful disease? Honestly, Mum, you don’t really want your date to be a foursome?’

‘You know, it’s always a bit easier if there are more than just two of you.’

‘But, Mum,
you’re
the one who’s supposed to be dating this guy.’

‘Well, if you like him and we all get on, maybe he and I could go out on our own at a later stage. I thought it would be nice, first, if we could all go to a movie and have a pizza afterwards.’