The Bex Factor
Authors: Simon Packham
Simon Packham was born in Brighton. During his time as an actor he was a blind fiddler on HMS Bounty, a murderous vicar, a dodgy witness on
The
Bill
and a variety of servants including Omar Sharif’s personal footman and a coffin carrier for Dame Judi Dench.
He now writes fiction and lives in West Sussex with his wife, two children, a cat called Pax, and a variety of hamsters.
comin 2 gt u
was his first novel for children, and received great praise for its thrilling narrative, and exploration of cyber-bullying.
Simon’s next novel,
Silenced
, will be published by Piccadilly Press in 2012.
For Clare and Jon
First published in Great Britain in 2011
by Piccadilly Press Ltd,
5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Simon Packham, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The right of Simon Packham to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 84812 163 8 (paperback)
eISBN: 978 1 84812 206 2
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Cover design by Simon Davis
Cover illustration by Sue Hellard
Contents
Bex
His name’s Matthew, Matthew Layton. He doesn’t know mine yet. Two weeks ago he was just a random Year Ten, but as soon as I saw him at the school concert, I was
like,
This is the boy who could change my life forever
.
Come on
,
come on
. It’s the last second of the last lesson of the spring term. All the other teachers let you listen to music or slap on a
Simpsons
DVD. Mr Catchpole
still hands out homework. ‘The bell is for
me
not for you,’ he shouts, scrawling a red line under the learning objective as everyone starts stuffing pencil cases and lesson
planners into their rucksacks. ‘And don’t forget I want ten facts on Mulberry Harbours by the next time I see you. Now, chairs on desks please. And remember to . . .’
This is it. My final chance. I throw myself in front of the girl who broke her arm in food tech, elbow my way through the loitering text messagers in the doorway and speed down the corridor,
past the anti-litter adverts and the
Careless Talk Costs Lives
poster. I’ve been bottling it for nearly a fortnight. How can he change my life forever if he doesn’t even know who
I am?
‘Oi, Bex,’ calls my best mate, Shezza, who’s well shocked to see me running for probably the first time since primary school. ‘What’s up?’
Shezza thinks she’s an expert on guys. I haven’t told her about Matthew because I don’t want another lecture on the Seven Deadly Turn-Offs. ‘Gotta go,’ I gasp,
desperately trying to get my breath back before heading out to the courtyard. ‘Laters, yeah?’
I’m not a stalker, right? I’ve just been following him round for a bit. That’s why I check the music block first – he always takes the same route after school. And when
he doesn’t show, I try the path behind the mobile classrooms, the community reception toilets and the shortcut through the teachers’ car park. But I can’t see him anywhere. Thanks
to old Catchpole’s homework obsession, Matthew must have got away before me.
So I join the straggly blue line slithering through the drizzle towards the main gate, keeping my eyes peeled for a shorter-than-average bog-brush-haired Year Ten. But everyone looks the same.
That’s probably what I hate most about this school; it’s like, ‘
What can we do to make them look really rubbish? I know, let
’
s stick them all in crap polyester
jackets and manky ties. And while we
’
re at it, let
’
s choose the worst shade of dirty seawater-blue we can possibly find.
’
Panic sets in as I get closer to the gate and there’s still no sign of him. Most of the other St Thomas’s Community College clones seem happy to be going home to their achingly
average lives, but I thought I could be different. I thought I’d found the perfect way to stand out from the crowd. What if I’ve left it too late?
Someone screams as a fork of lightning jumps out from behind a cloud, followed by a deafening thunderclap. And suddenly it’s peeing it down. Well, that’s all I need. The skiing trip
and oboe lesson kids race round the car park searching for mummy’s car, the school bus brigade fight for a place in the shelter and a couple of cool dudes act like it’s a walk in the
park. The rest of us leg it down the hill, hoping to avoid the monster puddle at the bottom, and the Year Ten dirtbags queuing up to kick water in our faces.
OK, so let’s get this straight, right? I don’t believe in
anything
weird. Not ghosts, guardian angels, fortune tellers, tea leaf readers, poltergeists, horoscopes, or even
that thing where you write down what you want to happen and it comes true. But maybe, just maybe, I believe in fate. Because halfway down, the sky flares like a gigantic wedding photo, and just for
a split second I see a vision that stops me dead in my tracks.
At first I’m too scared to look back. What if I just imagined it: the boy under the tree; the boy who’s giving his mobile a right old ear-bashing; the boy who’s either
very
wet or crying like a baby. I can hardly believe my luck when I do turn round and see that it’s really him.
Mum’s always saying you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. I’m guessing it wasn’t her life’s ambition to spend 24/7 behind the checkout at OneStop,
but I hope she’s right. The trouble is, I want it so badly that whenever I get anywhere near Matthew Layton, all I can do is smile like a deranged supermodel.
According to Shezza, shyness is just about the deadliest turn off of all. If I don’t ask now, I can kiss goodbye to that brand new life I’ve been dreaming about.
Matthew
It shouldn’t surprise me any more, but when I hear her crying, it still sets me off too. ‘I don’t want to see him, OK?’
‘Why not? He’s your father.’
‘Because he’s a selfish, two-faced idiot, that’s why.’
Mum sniffs into her phone. ‘He loves you, Matthew.’
‘Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it.’
‘Look, he’s got a meeting in London at six. He’ll only be here for twenty minutes. If you don’t come straight home you’ll miss him.’
‘And what a disaster that would be.’
‘Just do it, Matthew. He says it’s important.’
The last time I stood under this tree, I was chucking sticks at it to get the conkers down. It was back in the days when I still thought I had a pretty OK dad, and my mate Curtis Morgan was into
Britpop. ‘Why are you so nice to him?’
