Girls to Total Goddesses (10 page)

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18

My mind was a complete blank. The key! The key! The key! I felt in my pockets: nothing. What had I done immediately after locking Chloe in? I’d gone into Tam’s room and tried on dozens of outfits. I raced in there. The floor was entirely covered in heaps of clothing, and her dressing table was unrecognisable under mountains of make-up.

I tossed the clothes about, looking for the key on the floor. I scrabbled among the lipsticks. Then I started looking in really insane places: in the bed, under the bed, on the ceiling. It is unusual for a lost key to be found on the ceiling, but I was desperate, and you never know.

I raced to the bathroom and searched on the window sill, in the bathroom cabinet, in the bath, in the loo. No sign of the key. Then faintly, from my room, I heard a feeble cry:

‘Zoe?’ Oh my God! Chloe had woken up.

I ran to the bedroom door and shouted, ‘Hi, Chloe!’ through it, trying to sound wacky and wonderful. Had she discovered the locked door yet or was she still blearily in bed?

‘Zoe!’ she called.

‘Zoe!’ That was Matthew, at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Don’t wake Chloe!’

‘Too late!’ I told him. ‘She’s already awake!’

‘Zoe!’ That was Chloe. ‘Who are you talking to? What’s going on?’

‘It’s only Matthew!’ I told her.

‘Who?’ croaked Chloe sleepily.

‘Paolo!’ Matthew plaintively corrected me from below. ‘Don’t wake her up, it’s not necessary. Tell her to go back to sleep.’

‘It’s only Paolo!’ I shouted.

‘Who?’ Chloe sounded grouchy. ‘Who’s Paolo?’

‘Matthew. You remember? He changed his name to Paolo,’ I reminded her.

‘Ugh!’ responded Chloe with horrible clarity. ‘That creep!’

At this point I staged a coughing fit to obliterate Chloe’s scornful insults. OK, Matthew was strange and khaki in many ways, but it wasn’t necessary to say so to his strange khaki face.

Suddenly, disastrously, the doorknob rattled. Chloe must have got up and was trying to open the door.

‘Zoe!’ she cried, puzzled. ‘The door’s jammed!’

‘No, er, listen.’ I dropped my voice to a whisper. ‘Just chill out for a min, OK?’ Then I raised it to a roar, ‘Matthew, go and make another cup of coffee! For Chloe!’

‘I don’t like coffee!’ grumbled Chloe. ‘What’s wrong with this door?’ She rattled and twisted the doorknob again. ‘I think the freakin’ thing’s locked!’

‘Does she take milk and sugar?’ called Matthew.

‘Milk, no sugar!’ I commanded.

‘I don’t want any coffee!’ snapped Chloe. ‘Zoe, open the door! Why have you locked me in?’

‘Shall I make her some toast?’ called Matthew from below.

‘No! Just coffee!’ I was beginning to lose my rag with him.

‘Zoe! I’ve told you I don’t want any coffee!’ snarled Chloe. She was losing her rag with me, and I didn’t blame her. But on the other hand, I was beginning to lose my rag with her. I tiptoed to the top of the stairs and peeped down: Matthew had gone back to the kitchen. I heard him filling the kettle. I raced back to my door.

‘It’s just to get rid of him!’ I hissed. ‘I told him to make you a coffee so he’d go away and we can talk!’

‘Zoe! Open the door! Why have you locked me in?’

‘You were snoring in the night, so I moved to Tam’s room, and I locked you in so you’d be safe from the murderous prowlers!’ I explained hastily, glad that she couldn’t see my face, which was bright red.

‘I do
not
snore!’

‘You so
do
!’

‘Well, anyway, unlock the door! This is weird!’

‘Chloe, I can’t! I’m sorry! Listen, I can’t find the key.’

‘You
what
?’ roared Chloe indignantly. This was a disaster. ‘You lost the freakin’ key?’

‘I’ll find it in a minute. When I’ve got rid of Matthew. He’s distracting me.’

‘What’s he doing here anyway?’ grumbled Chloe.

‘He just – he brought some paintings round. For me to judge.’

‘What?’ Chloe exploded. ‘Paintings? What paintings? What’s going on? This is like some weird dream.’

‘I decided to offer to help with Jailhouse Rock,’ I gabbled guiltily. ‘And this is what they asked me to do. There’s a competition for kids to design the poster, and I’m helping with the judging.’

There was a brief silence on the other side of the door. Then I heard Matthew’s footsteps in the hall below.

‘Shall I bring it up?’ he called.

‘Noaw!!’ I screamed. ‘I’ll be down in a minute! Just wait downstairs, Matthew!’

‘Just one thing,’ said Matthew persistently. ‘Does Chloe take full-cream milk, skimmed or semi-skimmed?’

‘Semi-skimmed!’ I roared. I heard him go away again – in my present anguish, this was my only consolation. Ten seconds without Matthew was a major treat.

‘Zoe,’ Chloe’s voice sounded different: not panicky any more, but kind of strange and hard, ‘why didn’t you tell me about this Jailhouse Rock stuff?’

‘I forgot!’ I flapped, trying to sound forgetful, but only as part of a bubbly fun package. ‘Stupid of me!’

‘You’re lying,’ said Chloe.

‘OK,’ I admitted hastily. ‘I knew you wouldn’t want to get involved with Jailhouse Rock so I kept quiet about it.’

‘This is so weird,’ raged Chloe, suddenly angry again. ‘Let me out! You haven’t lost the key! You’ve locked me in because you’ve gone mental!’

‘I have lost the key! Just give me five minutes to find it!’ I pleaded. ‘Five! I promise I really have lost the key! I swear on the sacred name of Princess Diana!’

Chloe went quiet for a moment.

‘You’d better find it soon,’ she said menacingly, ‘or I’m going to open the window and shout for help.’

‘Don’t worry! I’ll be back in a minute!’ I assured her, then ran downstairs. Matthew met me in the doorway, carrying a cup of coffee.

‘Shall I take it up to her?’ he asked.

‘No!’ I snapped, grabbing it. Some of the coffee sloshed out and burned my hand. ‘She’s not decent! I’ll take it up to her!’

I carried the coffee upstairs. Matthew stood in the hall, watching. Maybe he was hoping for a glimpse of the indecent Chloe. Luckily the door to my bedroom isn’t visible from the bottom of the stairs, so I crept out of sight, entered the bathroom and placed the coffee on the window sill. Then I went back down to the kitchen.

Matthew had made himself a second cup and was sitting at the table playing with a teaspoon. Oh my God! Maybe Matthew was the sinister midnight stalker! Perhaps he was planning to kill me with that teaspoon right now! I almost hoped he would. It would at least be a way out of my dilemma.

Hastily I made a brief inspection of everything on the window sill, looking for the key. No sign of it. Then I looked behind the toaster. Then in the knife drawer. Then in the cereal cupboard.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked Matthew. ‘Can I help?’

‘Only – the paracetamol,’ I lied. I didn’t want Matthew to know I had locked Chloe in. I couldn’t come out of it well. I would appear either sadistic or incompetent. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache.’

‘There’s some paracetamol over there,’ said Matthew, pointing towards Mum’s little pill stash on top of the fridge.

‘Brilliant! Well done!’ I smiled brightly, getting the paracetamol down. What was I doing now? Taking pills when I hadn’t even got a headache?

‘Zoe!’ There was a faint cry from upstairs. I ran out to the hall.

‘I’ll be up in a minute!’ I yelled.

‘Zoe! Help me!’ called Chloe plaintively. I had to find that key. I raced back to the kitchen. Maybe it was in the fridge!

‘What’s wrong with Chloe?’ asked Matthew, as I looked for the key in the butter dish.

‘She’s – uh, got a headache . . .’

‘I thought you said you’d got a headache?’

‘We’ve both got headaches, OK?’ I whirled round accusingly.

‘Ah,’ said Matthew. ‘I see . . . Uh – could I use your toilet?’ I nodded, dumb and paralysed. I pointed upstairs.

‘Second on the right,’ I said.

He was going to go to the bathroom and see the cup of coffee in there! And Chloe was definitely going to call out, hearing footsteps on the landing. Oh my God! Could things get any worse?

I did the only sensible thing in the circumstances: I slipped out of the back door, ran down the path and hid in the garden shed.

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19

It was peaceful in there. In fact I thought I might stay quite a while – several years if need be. I sat on an upturned box. It splintered and I lurched to the right and struck my head quite hard on the wooden wall.

‘Oh God!’ I cried out in anguish. ‘Why have You got it in for me?’

I stood up for a few minutes, but I felt so tired that in the end I found an old bucket of bulbs, tipped the bulbs out on to the floor, turned the bucket upside down and sat on that.

What if I never found the key? Would the fire brigade have to come and break my bedroom door down? Or would they rescue Chloe through the window on one of those long ladders? I cringed at the thought of my stupidity causing such a major emergency. What if Chloe got hysterical, tried to climb out of the window and fell to her doom?

That terrible thought made me leap up. I had to go back indoors and face the music. I had to get Matthew to break down the door. There was nothing else for it. He would despise me for ever, and so would Chloe, and my parents would be furious at the damage, but there was no alternative. I limped morosely up the path, heaved a huge sigh of trepidation and went back inside.

Chloe and Matthew were sitting at the kitchen table looking completely normal. Matthew was drinking coffee; Chloe, wrapped in my dressing gown, was sipping orange juice.

‘Matthew got me out,’ said Chloe, giving me a contemptuous look.

‘The key was on the kitchen table,’ explained Matthew. ‘I noticed it while I was making that coffee for Chloe, so I put it back on the key board behind the kitchen door.’

Matthew had moved the key! And he’d hung it on the key board! Where all the household keys hang! I had never thought of looking there – because I knew that, even in a moment of temporary insanity, I would never in a million years hang it up in the proper place.

‘Matthew’s going in a minute,’ said Chloe, with a meaningful look. ‘He’s been telling me about this girl he fancies.’ My blood ran extra cold for a split second. ‘But excuse me – I must go and have a bath – if that’s all right?’

‘Sure,’ I said, leaning exhaustedly against the dishwasher. ‘I think I’m going back to bed, because I slept so badly.’ For a moment I was terrified that Matthew would offer to tuck me in and read me a bedtime story, but he just finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand in a way that was far from pleasant, and stood up. How wonderful! He was going. This was the best moment of the day so far – although, let’s face it, there wasn’t much competition.

I didn’t really go to bed after Matthew left, because I knew that as soon as Chloe had finished her bath, there would be something of a showdown. So instead I slumped on the sofa and watched TV. I was shattered, and all my injuries were stinging and throbbing like mad, especially the latest one (the burnt hand from the spilt coffee). My eye was blacker than ever. I was planning to try and make Chloe feel guilty about that, if she was too hard on me about all the other stuff.

Eventually I heard her come out of the bathroom, and a few minutes later she appeared in the lounge and sat down in my dad’s chair (if things had been completely normal she’d have flopped down beside me on the sofa). She had washed her hair and tied it back, and she looked strange and slightly intimidating.

I switched off the TV. Chloe stared at me and raised a very sarcastic eyebrow. My heart sank. I could so not face a row about this now.

‘What on Earth was all that about?’ she demanded.

‘Look, I told you: you were snoring, so I –’

‘No, not the locking me in stuff – the Jailhouse Rock stuff. Those paintings.’ The paintings were still lying on the kitchen table, waiting for me to find the energy to look at them.

‘Yeah, well, like I said: I’ve been helping with Jailhouse Rock,’ I said simply and with a dash of defiance. I shrugged. ‘It’s not a crime. Everybody’s helping. Jess and Fred. Toby and Fergus.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I knew you’d be negative about it. Anyway, I only decided to do it yesterday.’

Chloe thought for a few moments. ‘OK, I know I was against us getting involved,’ she said. ‘But you’re entitled . . . I suppose . . . if that’s what you want. But I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.’

‘Because . . . well, I suppose . . . maybe because you’ve always been a bit weird about Beast.’

‘Zoe, I’ve told you a dozen times, I am not weird about Beast,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d just rather not see him, and if you’d ever sent nuisance love texts to somebody, you’d understand how I feel.’

‘OK,’ I shrugged. ‘But why don’t you help with the publicity and stuff, too? It might be really good fun, and you might, kind of, get over the awkwardness.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Chloe firmly. ‘It’s not really my sort of thing. It’s not what I want to do at the moment . . . Look, Zoe, I have to go home now, I’m sorry. I haven’t even started on my Business Studies homework.’

‘OK,’ I said.

Shortly afterwards Chloe left. We hadn’t had a row, exactly – we weren’t even being frosty, but there was, perhaps, a slight chill in the air.

I spent most of the rest of Sunday looking at children’s paintings. The competition revolved around jails (obviously, since Jailhouse Rock was in aid of Amnesty International). For the first ten minutes, the paintings were adorably sweet. For the next twenty minutes, they were quite appealing. By eleven-thirty, however, I was beginning to flag. By twelve I had looked at ninety-six paintings of people in prison and never wanted to see another painting of a prison for the rest of my life.

The ninety-seventh was different, though. This little kid had had the idea of combining the concept of prison with the fact that Jailhouse Rock was a rock concert. He (or she – the name was R Rogers) had drawn a guitar and the strings on the guitar had become the bars on a prison cell, and a prisoner was peering out between the bars.

It was so clearly the best painting by far that it was hardly worth looking at any more, but I knew I had to choose five, so I had to look at them all again. I selected the four that seemed to be the best. Then I started feeling sorry for the ones I hadn’t chosen. Then I really did get a headache.

I went into the kitchen and made myself a cheese sandwich. Time was dragging on. I began to wonder when Mum and Dad would be back. I sent Dad a text asking how they were doing. How sad is that? If I were a cool goddess with street cred I would have organised a party in their absence, which would have been gatecrashed by five hundred people. Our house would have been trashed and we’d have got on the TV news.

I would, however, have been divorced by my parents so it might not have been all that fun, after all. I could have ended up imprisoned – in a guitar perhaps.

A reply came from Dad:
HAVING LOVELY LUNCH IN SUPERB PUB: ROAST BEEF ETC WISH YOU WERE HERE. BACK 4PM APPROX LOVE M&D.

The sofa beckoned. After about ten minutes of
Heat
magazine I tossed it aside and closed my eyes. I was tormented by the thought that Beast and Charlie might be an item, and that Beast had basically not bothered to call by this morning but had just asked Matthew to come instead. Evidently seeing me was not high on Beast’s list of desirable tasks, so the three centuries I’d spent getting ready to wow his socks off were wasted. I also had the threat of Matthew hanging over me. Surely it was only a matter of time until he made his declaration.

I was dreading seeing him on Wednesday at the Jailhouse Rock meeting, but I was also longing to see Beast at the same meeting, so alternate waves of longing and dread swept over me for the next two days. At least having to wait would give my black eye time to fade and my grazes time to heal.