The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones (4 page)

An awful, hollow bowl of dread appears in my stomach.

“No, don't panic, it's nothing bad!” Red looks mortified. “It's fine. Everyone's fine.”

The bowl feeling goes away, just about. “Well?”

Red gives me a meaningful look, and taps the side of her nose three times, tap-tap-tap.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I'm not telling.”

“What?”

“Sorry!” She doesn't look sorry. “It should be a surprise!” She grins. “I've been thinking about it all night. You're rubbish at keeping secrets: you'd be bound to let it slip. Anyway, no one should know too much about their own future. Where's the fun in life if you know exactly what's going to happen next?”

I curl my fingers under the edge of the bench, feeling the warm solid wood beneath me; gripping on tight. I don't understand.
Everyone
wants to know what happens next. If Tiger could get the letter with her exam results right this second instead of having to worry for another four weeks, of course she'd open it. If that little girl on the Red Dragon had known it would get stuck, of course she'd never have climbed on board.

“But. But that's why I wished you here. To rescue me from doing it all wrong.”

“That's what
you
wished for,” Red says, sitting back and crossing her boots. She squints into the far distance, along the promenade. Something – someone? – catches her eye, and the ghost of a twinkly smile appears in her eyes. “Doesn't mean I have to agree.”

“What? But you have to help me!” I need her. I need to know when to cut my hair, where to buy those boots, how to be Red. How can she not get this?

Red throws me a pitying look. “Didn't say I wouldn't help.” She gazes intently into the distance again, over my shoulder. “Maybe I'm here to rescue you from yourself. You don't always need a carefully planned itinerary, Blue. That's what really needs to change. Life's no fun without surprises. Ignore all the maps and timetables and Top Ten lists. Your future will find you. Trust me. If you relax, sit back – it might just walk right up and introduce itself.”

She flashes me a grin and hops off The Bench, leaving three-quarters of it empty – just in time for a girl to sit down in her place.

“Hiya,” says the girl, in a thick Welsh accent just like Dad's. “Excuse my feet, these boots are killing.” And she starts to unlace her purple boots, right there on the bench, till her socks are off and her sore pink toes are wiggling in the fresh air.

I politely look the other way. I wouldn't want some total stranger staring at my blisters.

“Didn't I see you last night, down the Pav?” she says, lighting a cigarette.

Purple boots. It's the Chinese girl who knew all the words. And here she is, red heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her nose, roll-up burning between her fingers, chatting away like she doesn't mind my dorky flowery shoes, or my ponytail, or the way I must have spent the last five minutes talking to myself on a bench. Like we're already mates.

The girl yawns and stretches, arms up, neck arching back so her hair hangs over the back of the bench, feet off the ground with starfish toes. She's wearing a checked shirt, tied in a knot at the front, and it rides up so there's a bit of tummy showing: a little bit of pudge and hip overflowing her cropped jeans. But she doesn't pull her top down to cover it, like I would. She's busy. She's comfy. This is my bench, the bit of pudge seems to say. I belong here.

I want to take her picture, stinky roll-up cigarette and all.

Red stares fondly at the girl like she's her long-lost bestie. Which must be exactly who she is. Apparently I'm about to score a new friend, without even having to try. I feel warm, all over.

“The Pavilion?” the girl says, in case I haven't understood, jabbing her cigarette at the big peach-painted block on the Pier. “There was a band on. Think they're playing all summer. I can't wait for next weekend, they were wicked lush.”

Red leans over my shoulder. “This,” she whispers, “is where you say,
Oh, that's my parents' band
, and the phenomenon known as ‘conversation' ensues.”

I open my mouth.

I clear my throat.

No words come out. None at all. Not even stupid ones.

The girl lifts her sunglasses and looks me up and down, with a tiny frown.

“Now would be good,” whispers Red, with a touch of urgency. “Oh come on, Blue! This is Fozzie! Your future best friend, Fozzie! This is where it starts. Talk to her! Just open your mouth and—”

Her hands grab my shoulders, to push me to talk. But Red can't grab me. Her hands sink into me, slow, eerie. A wave of cold and damp washes over me head to toe and I feel queasy, the horizon tilting as if we're on a boat, the whole world tipping upside-down and cold cold cold—

And then I throw up all over the girl's purple boots.

 

 

4.
The Shed

 

I don't know what's worse: the fact that I puked on my future best friend's boots before even talking to her, or my mum having to come and collect me. With a plastic bag of spare clothes, just in case, as if this is playgroup and I've had a trouser accident.

“I can't believe it's you!” says Fozzie, when she finds out that the mum she called from my mobile and the pregnant drum-smashing ninja from Joanie and the Whales are one and the same. “I was just going on about how much I loved the band when she got poorly.”

“People loving on your parents: enough to make anyone vom,” says Mum, handing me a bottle of icy water. “How're you doing, Bluebell? Any more to come up?”

I wish people wouldn't talk about sick when you feel sick. I can still taste chunks, even though Red's not around to set me off again. By the time I'd stopped hurling, she'd vanished.

I shake my head gently. “I am so so sorry about your boots,” I croak at Fozzie.

“We'll get you new ones,” says Mum. “Pay for them to be cleaned, maybe?”

“Don't you dare,” says Fozzie. “It's not the first time they've ended up in a bucket. Punters throw up on me all the time. Well, they do when there are any.”

She jerks her head towards the silent Red Dragon roller coaster, outside. We're in the fairground, in a little café called The Shed. Apparently Fozzie's parents own it, along with a couple of the other stalls in the fair, so she works here all summer as a waitress.

She has a job. Like a grown-up.

The Shed sells orange tea in plastic cups, and whippy ice cream. Stale popcorn swings in pointy plastic bags from the serving hatch. Every few minutes, the wooden walls shudder, and glass jars of sugar walk across the tables as the Whirler Twirler next door gets up to top speed. Not that anyone's riding on it. The fairground's practically empty. All the rides are up and running again, except for the Red Dragon – but the POLICE INCIDENT sign and the strings of blue and white tape across the gates aren't much of an advert.

“Electrical fault, that's what I heard,” Mum says.

“Yeah, that's what they reckon,” Fozzie sighs. “It happens sometimes, even in the big theme parks. All the safety stuff kicked in, exactly like it's supposed to. If that little kid hadn't tried to climb out, she'd have been right as rain. Should never have been let on in the first place, mind you. That's our fault, that is: management negligence. Tommo, who was running the ride? Lazy beggar wasn't checking the line carefully enough. He's been given the boot, of course, but, not exactly good advertising, is it? And, well, if she'd have fallen. . .”

Fozzie blows her cheeks out, whistling softly.

I lay my forehead on the cool sticky table. Breathe in. Breathe out.

My mobile buzzes, vibrating through my skull. A text. From Red.

Does this work?
it says. I ignore it. That is a waste of 10p right there. I don't know what to text back, anyway.
Hi. Sorry I vomited all over your best friend's shoes
?

Punters throw up on me all the time, Fozzie said. I'm a punter, not her friend. Just another tourist.

“Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran starts to play from the crackly speakers over the counter. Fozzie starts to sing along in a surprisingly low, gravelly voice as she sashays round the tables, wiping them down. Mum tells her they're planning to add it to the set-list, and Fozzie's eyes light up. She and Mum break into muso chat, about the band opening the Fifties Fest later in the summer, and where Fozzie's heart-shaped sunglasses came from.

Great. Now she's going to be best friends with my mum instead.

There ain't no cure for the summertime blues. . .

I stare out at the empty funfair as it starts to rain. Pirate ship, its flag flapping damply. The famous faces painted on the backdrop of the Whirler Twirler, only halfway familiar: Lady Gaga's second cousin, Beyoncé's evil twin. A little wooden booth painted to look like a gypsy caravan, with a light bulb in a crystal ball perched on its roof, not quite straight. MADAME SOSO, FAMOUS CLAIRVOYANT, it says outside. Inside is a grumpy-looking woman in a skew-whiff purple wig, eating a hot dog. She's got ketchup on her chin, and no customers. You'd think someone who can see into the future would be able to avoid that sort of thing.

“Stick around, if you like, Bluebell. It's going to be dead all day. I'll be stuck talking to myself otherwise,” says Fozzie.

Mum gives me an encouraging look, and I feel a tingle of hope.

“Might get busy over lunchtime. But I've got a little sister,” Fozzie goes on, pointing at a small girl outside. She's leaning against Madame Soso's, watching the Frogger Flipper where you can win a misshapen fluffy dolphin, three goes a pound. She looks about eleven; twelve at most.

That's what Fozzie really means. Take your flowery shoes and go and play at the kiddie table, little girl.

My mobile buzzes again.

OMG! IT DOES WORK! EVEN THOUGH IM TXTNG SAME NUMBER!

“Looks like you're in demand already, mind,” says Fozzie, nodding at my phone as it buzzes a third time.

There's a rattle at the serving window by the counter, louder than the Whirler Twirler, and Fozzie slides it open.

It's the two guys she was with last night: the chubby pirate and Top Hat Boy.

“All right, Fozz,” says the pirate, though he's not actually dressed like a pirate today. “What's all this I hear about some tourist yacking on your feet?”

Top Hat Boy lounges against the window, looking bored. Fozzie laughs with the pirate – a big hoot of a laugh, like the seagulls outside,
argh argh argh
. She lights another cigarette, muttering an explanation and jerking her thumb my way.

Even Top Hat Boy almost smiles.

“Can we go? Please?” I whisper to Mum, my face crimson, and pull her to her feet.

“Bye then, thanks, sorry about the sick,” Mum calls over her shoulder, waving the plastic bag as I drag her away, leaving behind the friends I'll never make.

I'm going back to bed. Preferably for a year, until all this is over and I'm someone else.

Dad makes me a soft-boiled egg with toasty soldiers, like when I was tiny, and brings it in to me on a tray. I sit up in my bunk bed, the top of my head pressing against the ceiling, Milly tucked under one arm.

This is what I really want. Not to be thirteen. To be a tiny nuggety peanutty baby kept safe by my mummy and daddy, for ever.

Halfway down my egg, the back of my neck prickles. There's a sudden draught, like a window being opened.

“Hey,” says Red, brightly. She's standing in the one empty spot of floor, between a tower of Jane Austens and an abandoned pair of jeans, unzipped, still half-holding the shape of Tiger's body like a second skin. They'd make a good photograph, but I don't reach for the camera. I don't want Red thinking I want a picture of her.

“Feeling better, then?” she says, eyeing my plate hungrily.

I pick up a strip of toast and dunk it firmly into the warm egg, a trickle of yellow goop escaping over the lip of the shell. Crunch crunch crunch. Then I lick my buttery fingers, one, two, three.

Red looks like a puppy. A kicked one. I want to punish her, but being mean is hard.

“Go on, you can have some toast, if you want,” I say, grudgingly.

She gives me a weak smile. “Can't,” she says, jabbing her finger at the plate. It slides right through the toast, dissolving into smoke, then re-forming itself, like it did before. “Apparently I don't need to eat. But it's like when you've just stuffed your face, and someone gives you the dessert menu, and there's a big picture of a chocolate brownie on it. I'm not
hungry
. I'm . . . wanting.”

I don't like the sound of
wanting
for a whole summer. Then again, she has just ruined my whole life, so maybe it's fair enough.

I eat another bit of toast.

“You're angry, aren't you?” Red says, ducking her head so her hair flops over her face. “About The Bench, and the, er, upchucking.”

“Did you know that would happen?”

“No! Time-travelling wishes don't come with a manual, you know. Nobody told me I was going to go all wispy and not be able to eat toast either. It wasn't exactly fun from my end either. You know that thing when you need to be sick, but you can't actually throw up? Like that. Yuck. I know I'm sort of here to hold your hand through this summer, but, trust me: we are
not
doing that again.”

She looks greenish at the memory.

“If you didn't know, I suppose it wasn't exactly your fault,” I mumble.

“I swear, I was only trying to help! I knew Fozzie would be there. I was being . . . encouraging.”

“When this was your summer, is that how you met Fozzie? Puking on her boots?”

“Er. No.”

I push the tray away with a sigh. “So that's it, then. It's all gone wrong already. Fozzie's not going to be my friend.”

Amazing, grown-up Fozzie, with her job, and her roll-ups, and her heart-shaped sunglasses.

“Of course she is!” Red makes to punch me on the arm, then snatches her hands back, holding out her palms in apology. “Look, it's like this,” she says, hopping up on to the other end of the bunk; looking relieved, even surprised, that she doesn't wisp right through it. “Um. OK, imagine the future is a map, right? There's a road on the map called Bluebell Jones, with planned-out predictable points on it, like . . . bus stops. Big unavoidable events, like your birthday.” She grins. “And in between are all these little things on that road that don't matter so much; stuff I did when it was my summer. Reading a book. Eating a boiled egg. So: Bluebell Road is there on the map, already planned out, right? But if you've got the map, you can see which things are bus stops, and which ones are boiled eggs. You can climb on a motorbike and take a short cut, get to where you want to go a bit quicker. Maybe jump a fence. Skip a few miles of road completely.”

An odd look flits across Red's face; as if she hadn't realized that was something she knew.

I like the sound of Bluebell Road. Speeding towards my Red future, even quicker than first time around.

“Hang on. You said I was supposed to ignore maps.” I frown. “Throw away the itineraries and the timetables and maps, you said.”

She's perfectly still but for her eyes, darting, curious, looking somewhere else. Then she blinks as if she's only just heard me. “Yeah! Only – not this one,” she says, shaking her head with a smile. “This one's special.”

“
You're
the map?”

“I've seen the map. And I guess I'm another stop along the road, too. And I'm the motorbike. OK, it's a terrible analogy. But you get the idea.”

I do. Sort of. “Me throwing up on Fozzie: was that on the map?”

She hesitates, looking uncertain, then grins again. “That was a wrong turn,” she says proudly. “A detour. The right road's still waiting for you. We just need to get you back on to it. Trust me, Blue.”