The Paradise Trap (10 page)

‘Show me.’ Coco set off at a brisk pace, much to everyone’s surprise. The cats padded along behind her, protesting that she hadn’t finished her therapy. Sterling seemed astonished that she didn’t want to stay put. Even Holly said, ‘Aren’t you going to change first, Coco? You’re still in your robe and slippers . . .’

‘So what?’ Coco retorted. To Marcus, who was trying to keep up, she said, ‘Is Eddie with Newt? She didn’t take
him
to her party, did she?’

‘No,’ Marcus replied. He was slightly out of breath. ‘Edison’s gone to this really dangerous amusement park—’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Coco cut him off, her tone crisp. ‘As soon as I get a moment’s peace, those two start carrying on like hooligans . . .’

‘But sweetheart,’ puffed Sterling, who was beginning to sweat as he waddled after her, ‘why not let
me
go and get them? You can always stay here, if you want.’

‘Yes! Yes! You can always stay here!’ the cats howled. They were growing more and more alarmed; Marcus could see their tails twitching. ‘You’re booked in for a pedicure!’ they wailed. ‘You haven’t had an ozone bath! You’ll age ten years if you don’t finish your treatment!’

‘I’ll age ten years if I have to worry about Newt,’ was Coco’s response, which didn’t go down well with the cats. One of them hissed. Another glared balefully at Marcus. A third slipped past Coco and planted itself in front of her. ‘You mustn’t go yet,’ it argued. ‘If you stay for a detox sauna, we can offer you a free set of mink eyelashes.’

‘Get out of my way,’ Coco said crossly.

The cat’s tail began to lash back and forth. ‘At least let us remove your conditioning mask,’ it wheedled.

‘No. I can do that myself.’

‘But you can’t,’ the cat growled. ‘You’ll require a special alkaline toner.’

Marcus had had enough. He knew that any further delay would simply mean a build-up of feline reinforcements. So he lunged at the cat, pushing it into a nearby mud bath.

‘
Run!
’ he yelled.

Holly didn’t need any encouragement. She grabbed Coco’s wrist and leaped forward. Marcus was right behind her. As for Sterling, he followed his wife’s example, though he looked rather bewildered and had a hard time matching her pace.

‘Ouch!’ he complained, fending off a cuticle probe. ‘Hey! Guess what? That really hurt! These things can really hurt you!’

Marcus glanced back. Only a couple of cats were now in pursuit; the rest had paused to pull their thrashing, squawking, traumatised friend out of the mud bath. But Marcus was getting worried. It wouldn’t be long before the fastest cat (a snow-white Persian) caught up with Sterling and brought him down like a baby antelope in a nature documentary.

‘Nearly . . . there . . . now . . .’ Holly panted. Sure enough, the lift was in plain sight, about a hundred metres ahead. As he measured the distance with his eye, Marcus noticed something else that was even closer: a plunge pool with hydrotherapy attachments.

He had to veer to the right before he could reach it.

‘
Go! Go!
’ he screeched.

His mother pounded past, dragging her friend. Sterling, however, was beginning to slow down. Red and sweaty, gasping and staggering, he was no match for the snow-white cat – which was down on all fours now, and closing in like a cheetah, its ears back and its hackles up.

Marcus didn’t delay. He hurled himself at the little cluster of shiny chrome taps, pipes and jets beside the plunge pool. Snatching up a deadly-looking trigger nozzle, he pointed it straight at the white cat.

Then he unleashed a high-pressure stream of hot water.

‘Bulls-eye!’ he crowed, as the white cat fell back – turned tail – and ran screeching. The pink cat behind it hesitated. But when Marcus adjusted his aim, the pink cat didn’t stick around for a dose of extreme hydrotherapy. It took offlike a bullet.

‘Come on!’ Marcus bawled. He threw down the trigger nozzle, grabbed Sterling’s arm, and galloped towards the lift – where Holly and Coco were already waiting. Coco was beckoning frantically. Prot was still holding the door open.

Holly rushed to her son’s aid; together they yanked a breathless Sterling into the cramped steel box. Marcus caught a last glimpse of about two dozen snarling, spitting, tiger-sized cats hurtling towards him.

Then the lift door clanged shut, blocking out this awful sight forever.

22

GATECRASHING

T
HERE WAS A BRIEF
,
STUNNED SILENCE
.

‘It’s a good thing cats hate water so much,’ Holly said at last. She’d barely finished speaking when a sudden
thump
was followed by a frantic scratching on the other side of the door.

Marcus quickly pulled the dance-party brochure out of his pocket.

‘Let’s key in this code number,’ he panted. ‘Six-zero-zero-eight-two-three . . .’

Once again, Prot was given the job of pressing buttons. And as soon as Newt’s code had been entered, the scratching noise stopped.

Then the lift began to move.

‘It’s going up again,’ Holly remarked. ‘How can it be going up again?’

No one answered. Sterling was too busy trying to get his breath back; he was doubled over with his hands on his knees, puffing and blowing. Coco was looking around in consternation. ‘Where did this lift come from?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t remember a lift.’

As for Marcus, he was wondering what to do about the enormous, tattooed bouncer at the door of Newt’s club.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘last time I tried to get into Newt’s party, a bouncer threw me out. Because I’m underage.’

Holly frowned, but Coco seemed unconcerned.

‘That’s all right,’ she assured Marcus. ‘You can wait right here with your mum. Sterling and I will go and get Newt.’ Cutting an uncertain look at her breathless husband, she added, ‘Unless you want to stay here too, sweetie?’

‘Nuh-uh,’ Sterling gasped. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ He straightened up, as if to demonstrate how fit he was. ‘I want to see this club. I want to see what it’s like.’

Marcus thrust the brochure at him.

‘It’s kind oflike the spa, only without all those cats,’ Marcus warned. ‘No one in there will want Newt to leave. They’ll try to stop you from taking her. And there are
hundreds
of people.’ After a moment’s reflection, he said glumly, ‘I hope they don’t start throwing bottles at you.’

‘Oh dear. So do I.’ Holly sounded nervous. Once again, however, Coco was completely unfazed.

‘I’ve had more than enough practice making Newt leave parties,’ she said, with complete confidence. ‘A few hundred drunk teenagers never stopped me before.’ Then she turned to her husband. ‘This is taking an awfully long time. How many floors
are
there?’

Sterling shrugged. He was examining the dance-party brochure. ‘
Join Newton Huckstepp and her friends
at the world’s hottest venue
,’ he read aloud. ‘
Meet all her
favourite bands and movie stars . . .

’ Suddenly the lift stopped. The door opened. They heard the throb of muffled music:
ooompa-ooompa-ooompa-
ooompa.
In front of them was a brick wall and a cleaner’s bucket.

Coco blinked. ‘Is this it?’ she asked.

‘I think it may be around the corner . . .’ Holly stuck her head out the door, craning to her left. ‘Oh. Yes. Looks like we’re here, all right.’

‘Then off we go,’ Coco muttered. She seized Sterling’s hand and took a step forward.

‘Be careful, Coco!’ Holly begged. ‘Remember – if you’re worried, we can always come back with the police!’

Marcus stared at his mother. The
police
? His mind boggled at the prospect; how on earth was she planning to explain all this to the police?

Coco seemed equally unimpressed. She waved the suggestion aside. ‘I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘I used to hang out in worse places than this when I was young.’ As she disappeared around the corner, Marcus could hear her voice floating back towards him. ‘If there’s a ladies’ room in here, I might be able to wash this mask off . . .’

Marcus hoped fervently that she wasn’t going to
linger
.

‘They’ll have trouble finding Newt in a mob like this,’ Holly commented. She was still leaning out of the lift, squinting at the dimly lit dance floor. ‘And what if there’s a dress code? What if Coco gets thrown out because she isn’t dressed properly?’

Marcus sniffed. As far as he could recall, many of the dancers he’d seen on his previous visit had been wearing what looked like strips of silver duct tape. ‘I doubt there’s a dress code,’ he mumbled. Then he joined his mother at the door of the lift, where – by stretching their necks – they could just make out a swirling, swaying, steaming crush of bodies. At one point Holly gave a start. ‘Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that the latest James Bond?’ Before Marcus could even shift his gaze, however, James Bond was sucked back into the scrum from which he’d emerged.

After about five minutes – just as Marcus was beginning to feel uneasy – he became aware of a slight commotion at one end of the smoky, cavernous dance floor. Someone was shouting. The movement of the crowd in that particular spot had become less rhythmic and more jagged. Then Marcus spied the tattooed bouncer, who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Though the strobe lights made it hard to work out exactly what was going on, it appeared that the bouncer had become involved in some kind of argument.

‘Oh dear,’ said Holly. ‘I hope that’s not Coco.’

Heads turned. The high-pitched yells grew louder. There was a disturbance in the tightly pressed throng around the bar, where people were being roughly pushed aside.

Marcus squinted into the crush. He was expecting to see Coco and Sterling being escorted out of it by the club’s security team. Instead, Newton Huckstepp came stomping towards the lift, red-faced and furious.

‘
I’m going!
’ she screamed. ‘
How can I stay when you’ve
ruined everything? You always ruin everything with your big,
fat, stupid mouths!
’

It took Marcus a couple of seconds to realise that she was talking to her dad and her stepmother.

23

PARTY POOPERS

‘W
AIT
! N
EWT
! D
ON
’
T GO
!’

About half a dozen teenage girls were chasing Newt, begging her to reconsider. Marcus recognised Hayley, the blonde girl in the shiny red dress, who was urging her friend not to let a couple of dumb jerks spoil the whole party.

‘Everyone’s got embarrassing parents!’ Hayley cried. ‘And nobody cares that you’re in love with Ryan . . .’

‘I’m
not!
’ Newt shrieked. As she charged into the lift, Marcus and Holly shrank against the rear wall – because it looked as if Newt’s entire entourage was about to pile in after her. Even Prot began to trundle backwards out of the way.

But Newt was the only girl who crossed the threshold. Her friends all stopped short, as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

‘You haven’t finished your drink!’ Hayley pointed out. ‘You haven’t heard what that DJ said about you!’

‘Like it even matters, now that everyone thinks I’ve been
stalking Ryan
!’ Newt raised her voice to yell at Coco and Sterling, who were closing in fast. ‘Thanks to a pair of
total morons
with the
biggest mouths on the
planet!
’

Sobbing with rage, she punched wildly at the control panel. Marcus cleared his throat.

‘Ah – Newt?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you . . .’

‘
Shuddup!
’ she snapped, much to Holly’s annoyance.

‘Excuse me, Newton,’ Holly remonstrated. ‘Please don’t talk to my son like that.’

‘Newton!’ By now Coco was trying to push through the gaggle of teenage girls in her path. It wasn’t easy; they kept stepping on her feet with their stiletto heels and spilling their drinks down the front of her bathrobe. ‘Newt, stop pushing those buttons or you’ll land us in even
bigger
trouble!’ she scolded. Then, when Newt ignored her, Coco turned to address her husband – who was busy fending off the tattooed bouncer. ‘Sterling! Hurry up, or she’ll leave without us!’

‘Coming, sweetheart . . .’ Sterling had been shaking up a can of soft drink that he’d snitched from some innocent bystander. Now he yanked at its ring-pull, blinding the bouncer with a spray of carbonated fizz.

Although there wasn’t enough fizz to pick off the teenage girls barring his way, Sterling managed to force himself through them by using his belly as a battering ram.

‘’Scuse me . . . coming through . . . whoops-a-daisy!’ he said.

Marcus, meanwhile, had made a reassuring discovery. ‘I don’t think this lift’s going anywhere,’ he observed. ‘Not if Newt’s pushing the buttons.’ He wondered why. Could it be something to do with the number she was keying in? Or did the problem lie in the fact that she wasn’t a robot?

‘
Go away!
’ she bawled, as her parents joined her. ‘
Leave me alone!
’

‘Sweetie,’ Coco argued, ‘you’re always on the phone to Ryan. That’s why I figured that he had to be your new boyfriend . . .’

‘
SHUDDUP!
’ Newt screeched, covering her ears and screwing up her eyes.

Marcus pulled the amusement-park brochure out of his pocket. Then he leaned down to address Prot.

‘Hey, Prot,’ he instructed, in a quiet, careful voice, ‘I want you to press these buttons: eight-six-five-zero-zero-three . . .’

At that instant, a famous face appeared in the crowd that was building up outside the lift. Though Marcus recognised the face, he couldn’t put a name to it. He felt sure, however, that it belonged to a Hollywood actor. Only a Hollywood actor would have had such perfect, shiny teeth.

‘Where are you going, Newton?’ the actor inquired. ‘I thought you were going to tell me about your poetry?’

‘Oh my God! Newt! Did you hear that?’ Hayley squealed. ‘Get back here
right now
!’

But it was too late. Prot had keyed in Edison’s code number – and the lift door was sliding shut. There was a final glimpse of Hayley’s agonised expression before the whole scene vanished behind a wall of steel.