Darcy Burdock, Book 2 Page 5

  Koala (Nicola) is explaining that our next big magazine is the autumn issue. It will be celebrating the new school year, welcoming the newcomers and catching up with what happened over summer. She also lets me know that they’ve been working on the magazine through the summer holiday (as they are all year above) and this is the first time a Year Seven has participated, the deadline is short and so she ‘completely understands’ if I haven’t got the time to contribute this issue and could write something for the next one.

  It’s too late for me; I’m so inspired by the idea of autumn that my head is already cooking something up . . . what better than a dark story for autumn? I am imagining a reader curled up in front of a fire preparing for the winter, the leaves dancing outside, a mug of hot chocolate (but you say cocoa instead because that makes you want it more) and a blanket, maybe a Lamb-Beth there to sit and stroke. Yes, a nice dark story.

  ‘I want to do it!’ I blurt out.

  ‘You sure?’ Maggie says. ‘I know you guys get loads of homework in the first year.’

  ‘Hmm . . . if you can call writing your name on exercise books “homework”!’ Olly sniggers, and does those stupid bunny ear speech marks with his fingertips when he says the word ‘homework’.

  ‘I want to. I write lots at home so it won’t make a difference. I am going to write a story,’ I say, thinking aloud.

  ‘Great, Darcy! Welcome to the team!’

  ‘What’s this story about?’ Olly grunts. Jealous.

  ‘Some sisters!’ I improvise.

  Olly and his humungous ego can’t let this one go. ‘Family stories are kind of . . . well . . . old-fashioned – people like to read about football, celebrities and politics.’ He leans back into his chair, stretching his arms over his head, thinking that’s what people do in meetings. The whole table looks to me.

  ‘I think that is not true, Olly. People have got imaginations too and the only thing I find truly old-fashioned is to believe that girls can’t do stuff that boys can actually.’ I blush.

  ‘This is just frustrating,’ he scoffs. ‘I don’t have the time for this garbage. You are writing a story about girly sisters – unbelievable. Stick with that attitude and your story will be . . . pretty . . . dumb.’

  PRETTY DUMB? PRETTY DUMB? I am scowling.

  ‘We will see about that, Olly.’ I lift my head and raise my brows. I feel like an actor.

  ‘We will,’ he grunts, all cocky like he believes himself to be James Bond.

  The pressure is on.

  The bell rings for first lesson and the meeting dissolves to an end, Koala pats me on the shoulder, grinning, and lisps, ‘Great start, Darcy,’ showering me in little flicks of spit that I don’t wipe off obviously, as Mum brought me up properly. I smile back and try to ignore Olly packing his bag furiously and dramatically before grunting as he bowls out of the library. I hope I haven’t just taken on too much.

  The rest of the morning I live in my own head flicking through scenes of my new story like a comic book, zoning in and out of real life and interrupting my own ideas. Inspiration works best like this.

  I am on smiling and hello terms with nearly everybody in my class and finally manage to grab a seat next to Will in French.

  ‘Where were you this morning?’ he whispers.

  ‘I had a meeting.’ I bite my lip, all excited.

  ‘A meeting? What about? Were you in trouble with Mrs Ixy?’

  ‘I thought I was, but no! Phew, it’s good news, they want me to write for the school magazine!’

  Will’s quiet for a moment and doesn’t say anything, but it’s almost as though I can hear his insides churning. He carries on scribbling away in his book, pretending to look busy.

  ‘That’s really good,’ he whispers back. ‘Well done.’ He finishes and then weirdly shifts his body away from me with his head in his hand and starts paying attention to the French class. I peep over his shoulder to see what he’s written and it just says NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO, over and over again, and a heap of scribbles. I don’t know why.

  I try not to worry about Will’s odd behaviour and let myself drift off to the writing book in my head, allowing myself to drift in and out of real land and daydream land at the drop of a hat; allow myself to pass time by whirling away in my head and scribbling and scrawling and imagining and creating and writing as much as I can. Building together my story.

  The first half of the day flutters by so fast that I can’t believe it’s lunch time when the bell rings. Will waits around in the classroom for me to go to the canteen with him but I’ve got so much work to do.

  ‘You ready?’ He grins. ‘I’ve got money, look, let’s hope they’ve got burgers again!’

  ‘Aargh, Will, I’ve got a sandwich today, I forgot to get money off Mum, and then Dad had already made it and . . . but I think I might actually eat it in the library and get this story for the magazine done. If that’s OK?’

  Will stutters, looks like his face has melted off. ‘Sure, I’ll just . . . I’ll just see what some of the boys are doing.’

  ‘Is that cool?’ I say, knowing it isn’t and it is a bit selfish of me; it is only day two and I am already abandoning Will to that cafeteria.

  ‘Course. See you later, hope you get lots done.’

  ‘You too!’ I say back, pleased that I am clearly not completely wrapped up in myself.

  Maggie is in the library too. We write stupid notes to each other and draw pictures of the annoying librarian and before we know it lunch has ended and I didn’t do any writing whatsoever, just hung out with Maggie when I could have hung with Will.

  After a day of me avoiding all lesson-learning by writing, Will and I are walking out of that very schoolish building and he is being a very thoughtful person and asking me lots about my new job as a journalist and what I am writing about, which is pretty pleasant. I explain that even though it’s for the magazine I am getting to write my own short story and it gets to be fictional which means made up in my own brain. I would find facts too hard and strict, and obviously I pretend I had done lots of writing in the library, not messing around with Maggie.

  It’s nice catching up with Will, and then out of nowhere dreaded toxic Clementine struts over with her stupid long tussled but not knotty hair and long legs.

  ‘Will!’ she smiles, all American and fake. Will repels and coils a little, curls up like a little prawn trapped inside a folding deckchair. I put my hands on my hips, ready to blaze her if necessary – but she seems to ignore me completely as though I’m a ghost that only Will can see. ‘It’s my birthday next week and I’m taking ten LUCKY friends to a really posh restaurant in central London and then for ice cream after. The restaurant is so nice, they serve everything on big white plates, would you like to come?’

  DO I NOT EXIST? Not that I would have wanted to celebrate idiot annoying Clementine’s birthday, but really . . . I mean, talk about ill timing. Will won’t say yes anyway, I’m thinking, he knows better than to say yes to that slug.

  Will rolls his sleeves up, giving himself something to do before he whacks her with the big ‘NO’. But instead he smiles and says, ‘Yeah, sure, when is it?’

  My jaw drops. WHAT? Have I been in a coma for the last year? I try to hide the shock from my face but I just can’t.

  Clementine screeches and grabs his hand. I think my nostrils flare. ‘Next Saturday, I’ll bring in details tomorrow, great, catch ya later.’

  NO, not ‘CATCH YA LATER!’ Not ‘CATCH YA LATER’ AT ALL! Clementine strolls off, flicking her hair, her (far too short) skirt flapping in the wind and her BEAUTIFUL school shoes making her look like a model and not like a me and my Dompy terrible feet.

  Will looks a bit happy with himself. How did they become friends then? What have I missed? Then I see the big graze on Will’s elbow.

  ‘What’s that from?’ I point to the new bloody scab.

  ‘Football. I played at lunch time.’

  Oh, you did, did ya? Hmmm. The plot thickens. I bet Will scor
ed a goal and Clementine ran over and smooched him in front of everybody and now they are in love and getting married and I’ll have to cope my whole life with being friends with Will but also having to put up with that beast brute Clementine every minute. I’ll have to go and visit their house in the country and bring them lemon drizzle cake to celebrate their new life when secretly I hate them. OR, what if she forces him to go and live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA with her? She might kidnap him and he won’t ever want to see me and Lamb-Beth ever again? Then I realize I’m getting carried away and feel guilty. There was me going on and on about myself and I hadn’t asked him ANYTHING about himself.

  ‘Did you score a goal?’ I ask, a bit wanting him to be rubbish at football so he doesn’t feel tempted to do something without me again.

  ‘Yeah, three! A hat trick – they put me on their shoulders!’

  ‘They didn’t?’ I gasp. I feel sick. I can’t believe I missed this. I can just imagine how happy that would have made him and I wasn’t there to see it.

  I know Will too well, but just to try and wake up his delusional brain I say, ‘So when are you going to tell Clementine that you’re obviously NOT going to her birthday party at the posh blah blah restaurant with the big white plates?’ I imitate her stupid American accent.

  ‘What? I am going. I want to.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘No, really, I want to.’

  ‘OK, but only to eat the snobby food then?’

  ‘No, I like her. She came to watch me play today, she cheered me on, we spoke, she’s cool, she’s not like that any more. People change, Darcy.’

  Stupid mature gross forgiving but also naïve Will liking horrid poo-face Clementine. I feel guilty and lefted out and upset and regretful for going to the library when really I should have been with Will and then he never would have gone and played any stupid football and would not have changed his mind about Clementine.

  I think I should say something funny from our past to remind Will that I am his all-time best friend, but then I hear, ‘Darcy!’ from behind me. It’s Maggie, with her big curly bunches and happy face.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Will whispers under his breath, but I don’t have time to answer because Maggie has launched in on the magazine and saying a squillion things and won’t stop being excited. I think Will might be looking a bit at Maggie like, Who is this out-of-control girl that Darcy has latched onto? But I can’t help but want to be excited back by Maggie.

  Before I even know it, Will runs over to Annie’s car and gets inside and we didn’t even get a chance to catch up properly. He waves me off. Why do I feel guilty about that? He’s the annoying one for being new best friends forever with Clementine; it should be HIM feeling guilty – not me . . . then again I guess I’m the one that left him to fend for himself at lunch time, turning down his burger money.

  Mum pulls up next to me, Poppy and Hector already in the car looking all like ‘our school is so easy for babies and yours is tough and tricky and hard and scary’. Shut up, you idiots, anyway.

  Mum pulls into the electrical shop to do I don’t know what. This is maybe our most favourite place on the planet. It is a big shop full of televisions all on the same channel which makes your mind go upside-down into mad chaos and then all these stereos plugged in singing the same song. But the truly best bit about the electrical shop is the kitchen section. I mean, it is out of control with brilliance. Thousands of different designed fridges that you can open and close, blenders, microwaves, cookers, freezers, toasters, mixers, ice-cube makers, waffle machines, doughnut machines . . . even a candyfloss maker. Back in the day, when we were younger, our natural instinct was to play house. Poppy always got to play Mum and I had to be the dad but to be honest I was sick of that boring game: there are only so many times I could be bothered to pretend to forget to put the toilet seat down or ‘make a cup of coffee’ plus that deep voice I had to put on to be a convincing dad gave me a really sore sandy itchy throat. So now we do something much cooler.

  The electrical shop is now basically space and Poppy, Hector and I are space cadets. Usually I am captain, but that’s only because I am best at bossing everybody around. All the other people in the shop are either enemy aliens or fellow crew members, depending if we like the look of them or not. Mum or Dad are always the Mother Ship.

  Lots can happen up in space. Whether or not that’s killing a forceful wall of a bazillion green four-eyed monster aliens or simply cruising in the cockpit, there is always work to be done. My most favourite thing to do, however, when in space, is to run around panicking, pressing every single button and gadget I can find in the electrical shop and quickly saying every single slightly technical or complicated sounding word I can imagine.

  ‘Vortex, download a rechargeable disk, countdown vortex zero, hard-drive expandable data chips, field and Internet connection, I can’t get a signal. Collect your bearings, send down the printout, steer the body of the ship over to the homeland. Connect, troops over the system, we’ve got to go now!! Officer Poppy, second in command, press the red button over there on the squasher, you know what the squasher is’ (the blender). ‘There must be a life force out there, Officer Hector, third in command. You’re the only one I trust on this ship if Poppy and I don’t make it back in time, you’ve always been brave and hard-working. If the ship doesn’t make it back or the gravity is rooting back to the electronic chamber of death, you know what to do. For now, watch the DVD doesn’t rotate into the iPad and destroy all previous account numbers and sim cards. For now, know that I honour you. Vortex, all systems on lockdown, punishing the universe with this microwave on voltage wave in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. Release,’ I say as I cling onto the hand-held electric whisk, close my eyes and hold my breath. I think Vortex is my favourite word in this game.

  Chapter Nine

  It’s been a whole week now, and the school magazine job is getting busier and busier, and like Dad’s job it sometimes has to come home with me. I haven’t been free to have fun and see Will, even though I’m worrying that Clementine may be his new best friend it’s just a risk I’m having to take to make sure I get everything done. He seems fine, he plays football and stuff, plus he’s clever so I’m sure his brain is getting fed. I am working like a dog (heard Dad say this), even though I don’t why people say they are working like a dog as all I ever see dogs doing is sleeping, eating and sniffing each other’s bums. Especially Kevin, Henrietta-from-next-door’s dog. I have visited Kevin a few times – he’s a bulldog with bright red eyes and a jaw like the tray you put the paper into in the school printer when it’s jammed. He walks like a gorilla and he slobbers all over everything. He came from a rescue centre so I think he’s got issues so I often steer out of his way in case one day he decides to take those issues out on my leg. For now he just, as I said, sleeps, eats and sniffs bums.

  Cyril pops over, which is annoying as I just want to write, and he wants a cup of coffee and to keep telling my mum that ‘there are no hard feelings’ about his arm being broked. A hard feeling is when somebody is giving you the brushoff because you’ve been horrid. First I’m mad, but then I think it’s generous of Cyril not to give us any of his hard feelings. I really don’t want them and besides I have nowhere to store them, my room is a tip. Cyril also has a sling. It looks like a nappy, with a big pin. I keep staring at it. We say ‘thanks and everything for the seeds’. Even though we can’t even plant them as the weather is still not good. He should have just got us Maltesers. We say goodbye and I settle down to write with a cup of hot chocolate.

  The door goes again. ‘I’ll get it!’ I roar up the stairs. In my head I’m hoping it is Cyril to say, ‘Sorry, I lost my mind and almost forgot to give you these, what was I thinking?’ and hand me a sack of Maltesers, but it’s not, it’s Will. His bike is on the pavement next to him, the wheels still spinning from how fast he must have rode here. Will is really good at changing into his own clothes after the school day is done whereas I can ne
ver be bothered. He looks as though he has even washed too and put fresh gel in his hair.

  ‘Oh.’ My face falls; he will be wanting to spend time with me now but I’ve got writing to do.

  ‘Gosh, don’t seem too happy to see me,’ he laughs with sarcasm, and before I can defend myself he pulls out a DVD from his jacket. ‘I stole this horror film from Annie’s room. I’ve heard there’s zombies in it.’ He grins and goes to walk inside. Lamb-Beth tilts her head at him.

  ‘Sorry, Will, not tonight, I’ve got lots of stuff to—’

  ‘I get it,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry, you have been really busy these days.’ He looks upsetted.

  ‘OK, I’m sure we—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, honestly.’ He turns away, leaps on his BMX and rides away faster that I can shout ‘STOP’ – maybe that’s because I didn’t want him to stop, I’m not even sure. As I shut the door, I manage to capture Mum’s curious face in the reflection of the glass.

  That was silly of me. I think about how much I regretted not spending time with him before, and how I didn’t even see him over the weekend, and now I’ve just ruined my chance to see him now. I go back to the kitchen where my hot chocolate has already gone cold. I look depressed. I can tell.

  ‘How’s Will finding new school, monkey? Hope he’s getting on all right,’ Mum says, as she defaces the picture of an actress in one of her magazines, giving her a unibrow, blacked-out teeth and glasses. This has annoyed me because I know she is trying to dissect my brain and work out why Will and I aren’t being as close as normally.

  ‘He’s fine,’ I say and then carry on writing.

  ‘Do you spend much time with him at school?’ she asks me. ‘Or just mostly with this Maggie girl from the magazine?’