Boy Meets Hamster Read online

  I got in before she could. ‘What do you mean, my mess? I didn’t kick the stupid ball.’

  ‘No, you’re just the reason it was kicked. And you didn’t exactly try to stop it.’

  In the kitchen, Dad was at the sink washing beef out of Mum’s hair. Kayla had escaped the worst of the debris, but she had little brown polka dots all over her previously plain yellow dress. She’d worn weirder things, honestly.

  ‘If I was fast enough to have stopped that ball, I’d be in goal for England,’ I told her, folding my arms and trying not to notice the weight of the phone dragging at my pocket. Could guilt make things feel heavier? If it could, I was going to be walking with a limp before long.

  Kayla would know if Daisy was a girlfriend sort of name. All I wanted to do was ask her about it, but I couldn’t. There were too many other things I needed to say first, and I didn’t know how. Everything I tried seemed to get stuck somewhere on its way out, words and sentences bunching up uncomfortably in the base of my throat. I didn’t have clogged-bum problems, just verbal constipation.

  Kayla must have taken my pained expression as guilt. She glanced over at Mum and Dad. ‘She wanted to go home straight away, but your dad talked her out of it. Said she should stay and get her money’s worth for the holiday.’

  ‘What, £9.50?’

  Kayla shrugged. ‘It probably helped that the manager left looking like she’d taken a swim at the local sewage works. The mystery beef landed on her head.’

  I felt better knowing that it had been Margaret, not Mum, who’d caught the worst of the beefsplosion, but I knew why we were really staying. Jude was happily on the couch watching cartoons, and he’d already pulled his Nibbles hat back over his head. Looking at him just made me sigh. ‘He totally loves that hamster.’

  ‘I’m quite a fan myself,’ Kayla said.

  She was still going on about that? Jude might have adored him, but she knew that Nibbles was the bane of my life. ‘Because of the other night? He wasn’t in any danger, you know. He wears more padding than the riot police.’

  ‘He still saved us,’ she retorted. ‘I don’t know where you were, but I for one was glad to be swept up in his tiny hamster arms.’

  ‘I WAS ON STA—’ I started, before realizing my voice was creeping up to a shout, and my parents weren’t far enough away not to hear it. Quickly I stalked towards my bedroom, beckoning Kayla to follow.

  Then I whispered, ‘I was onstage having the most humiliating experience of my life. Maybe you didn’t notice?’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t,’ Kayla said, hands on hips. ‘But then I’ve never been to the centre of the universe, and that’s apparently where you think you are. We were supposed to be having a night out together. After Jayden-Lee turned up it was like you barely noticed I was there. At least Nibbles helped me get out without a black eye.’

  It didn’t matter that I’d been looking for her, that the first thing I’d thought about when it all kicked off at the karaoke was making sure she was safe. Nibbles had got there first, and now it seemed like Kayla thought he was Superman with a new choice of costume. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Oh my god, you really are in love with him. You don’t know anything about him!’

  She scoffed. ‘You can talk.’

  ‘I know more about Jayden-Lee than you do about that hamster. I know more than you think.’ Or I could, if I just got up the courage to go through his phone. I could feel my face heating up as I tried hard to keep my voice to an angry whisper. ‘For all you know, Nibbles has a girlfriend in every caravan.’

  ‘For all you know, Jayden-Lee has a girlfriend at home. Anyway, I don’t think Nibbles would be like that. He’s family friendly, after all.’

  Kayla’s words felt like a slap. I didn’t know whether Jayden-Lee had a girlfriend at home. I didn’t know if that was who Daisy was. I didn’t know if he had a boyfriend, either, or if there was any way he might want one.

  But I had a way of finding out.

  I could barely look at Kayla any more. ‘Fine – fall in love with someone who dresses as a six-foot rodent. They make late-night documentaries about people like you. But whatever; do what you want. Maybe he’ll take you on a date in his great big plastic ball.’

  She started to draw herself up into a four-foot-eight column of blazing fury, but I didn’t want to stay around to hear what she had to say. I’d listened to so many of her crush stories: the guy with the really amazing beard who turned out to only be twelve, or the one working at the corner shop who was gorgeous until he got a spider web tattooed right over his face. Jayden-Lee was the first person I’d ever told her I liked, and she’d just decided to hate him for no reason.

  I wasn’t going to listen to her drool over a hamster. Before she could even open her mouth I’d stormed out, slamming the bedroom door behind me.

  Not really thick enough to be slammed, the door made a sort of clanging sound and burst open again, leaving Kayla staring open-mouthed as I left.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mum and Dad called after me as I thundered back out of the caravan, but I didn’t want to speak to them either. What would be the point? I hadn’t pulled off the save of the century by putting myself between the ball and Mum’s stew, and I didn’t have a time machine handy to go back and do it now. I felt like I’d just missed a penalty in a critical game.

  Mum might have been fuming over the tragic waste of beef, but that wasn’t my only problem. Troy was probably off reloading with gum somewhere, priming himself to launch at me from the shadows like a disgustingly sticky six-year-old kamikaze. Kayla and Jude had dumped me for a hamster. I had nothing left – nothing.

  Except Jayden-Lee’s phone, burning a hole in my pocket.

  I walked without really knowing where I was going, or what I’d do when I got there. Pacing down the long rows of caravans and past the playground, I stopped for a minute to let the miniature train pass by. It was empty apart from two old ladies with their grey hair pinned back under nylon scarves to keep from getting windblown by the half-a-mile-per-hour thrill ride.

  I considered getting back in the hedgerow and staying there until the worst holiday of my life was over. But I could hear people inside the playground. Ordinary, happy people, who had friends who hadn’t abandoned them. So I kept walking.

  Soon I was back outside the Starlight Showhall, like a thief returning to the scene of his most embarrassing crimes.

  There were posters for the Stardance pinned up everywhere. They were going to have a semi-finalist from a celebrity cooking show as a special guest, and, along with the Park of the Year Award, they were also announcing the prize for the best Elvis tribute. The music was being done by someone who was a Radio 1 DJ back in the dark ages. It didn’t look like the party of the century, really. Still, something felt like it was twisting up inside me as I read.

  I’d been to dances at school. I knew how they worked. The boys stood at one end of the assembly hall and stared at the girls at the other end for the first half of the night. Then gradually people sort of drifted together and paired off.

  I usually skipped that part, and hung out with the other people who were trying not to be noticed at the edges of the room. I could have found someone to pair up with, probably, but it never seemed like it would be fair to pretend I was interested when I wasn’t. Not in any of the girls.

  And boys danced with girls at school. That was just how it was.

  So I knew what standing on your own nodding your head to the music was like. And I knew what it was like when everyone rushed the floor for the big songs with routines you couldn’t help but know. But I didn’t know what dancing with your arms round someone else felt like. I’d never done that at all.

  Jude wasn’t going to grow up thinking he didn’t fit in at dances too. No way. I’d just reached up to tear down the poster when a pair of paws grabbed me tightly round the waist.

  Not again. It was like getting mugged by a fuzzy armchair. Nibbles.

  He spun me round b
efore I even knew what was happening, and raced off down the path. Seconds later he was followed by a small gang of shrieking little girls in party dresses, who must have been on their way to see Minnie and Winnie before they decided to play hunt the hamster.

  As I watched, Nibbles dived in through the showhall doors, and the whole crowd vanished after him, giggling and screaming.

  Fangirls were obviously all part of the job for the world’s most huggable hamster.

  Well, they could have him. I tugged down the Stardance poster, crumpling it into a yellow ball in my fist and throwing it in the direction he’d gone. Then I did the same to the next one. Then another, and another. Soon I’d gone through the whole row of them. There were scrunched-up pieces of yellow paper all down the path, like angry confetti.

  I should have left then, before someone came out to find all their hard work screwed up and tossed on the floor. But I didn’t want to. Part of me wanted to get caught. Maybe it would be the final straw, and they’d throw me out of the park. Jude could stay. I’d just get a coach back to Surrey and live on Doritos and that cheese that comes in tubes from the corner shop until everyone came home.

  It sounded like a really appealing prospect.

  While I waited for someone to show up and hand me a lifetime ban from terrible caravan park holidays, I wandered over to the Twinkle ride outside the main showhall doors. I didn’t have a pound for a go, but there was nowhere else to sit, so I hopped up to use the passenger carriage as a makeshift bench.

  The phone in my pocket made a soft clunking sound as I bumped it against the side of the train. Who wouldn’t put a passcode on their phone? It was as if Jayden-Lee wanted me to find it. He could have done the whole thing on purpose: given the phone to Troy and told him to get caught with it, just so I’d end up having to take it back.

  What if this whole thing was Jayden-Lee’s secret plan? Mine had been totally messed up thanks to Nibbles, and Troy, and the disaster on karaoke night, but maybe Jayden-Lee had taken matters into his own hands. Maybe this was his way of telling me I hadn’t blinded him with extinguisher foam, but with love.

  I thought about how he’d winked at me when I kicked his football back. How he’d been impressed. And he’d been trying to get my attention again today, hadn’t he? He hadn’t meant to turn the stew into a weapon of mass destruction.

  He’d probably wanted me to check his phone the whole time. I fumbled it out into my hands and brought the cracked screen back to life, smiling stupidly at its wallpaper of a BMW exploding in Carjackers 2.

  He liked gaming. I liked gaming. So we had something in common already, and I knew more about him than Kayla thought.

  I swiped into the message from Daisy.

  No kisses.

  It sounded like she was some kind of cousin. I felt my heart soar. The sun parted the clouds to beam a spotlight down on me. In the distance, birds were singing.

  Then a new message flashed up. From Kev.

  And another.

  It was like my body had forgotten how to use its lungs. I wheezed out a breath and tried to take a fresh one, but the air didn’t go anywhere, just got stuck painfully in my throat. My brain was too busy to tell my organs what they were supposed to be doing. It was just flashing up the words ASKED HIM. DATE. TONITE on the screen behind my eyes.

  ASKED HIM?

  DATE?

  TONITE?

  It couldn’t mean me. But what if it did? Had Jayden-Lee talked to his mates about me? We’d played football together, after all. They’d all seen how impressed he was by my skills. What if he felt the same way about me as I did about him? I had to know. Choking down any lingering guilt over invading his privacy, I opened up the message app on his phone and scrolled down again.

  I found Kev’s name.

  And then I ducked, seconds before a football thudded against the wall where my head had just been.

  ‘Oi, Twinkle. You got cleaned up quick. What’re you doing with my phone?’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I went straight into crisis-management mode. I needed to play for time. I had to find a swift, strategic response to deflect Jayden-Lee’s attention from the fact that I had his phone at all, giving me the chance to come up with a flawless excuse for getting caught looking through it.

  ‘Twinkle’s the train, actually.’

  That was it. That was all I managed. My brain’s version of crisis-management mode just involved stating the ridiculously obvious, then completely shutting down.

  Jayden-Lee was looking at me as if I’d just admitted that Twinkle was my favourite show, and that I spent every afternoon on the sofa in a onesie, singing along with the ‘Choo-Choo’ song and crying over heartwarming messages like ‘Friends help keep you on the right track.’

  Which was totally untrue, obviously. I almost never did that. But since my little brother was a massive fan, I couldn’t help picking up a few Twinkle facts, here and there. The problem was that my mind had suddenly emptied of everything else. The only conversational option I had was to launch into all of them.

  ‘Except in the German version, where Twinkle’s called Funky. I think that’s a translation thing, or maybe it’s because Germans have problems with Ws. Did you know they show Twinkle in over twenty-one different countries? Apparently it’s because there aren’t any cultures who get offended by trains, although there are four of them where her voice is dubbed by a man.’

  Jayden-Lee was looking at me the way I look at my shoes when I’ve trodden in something unpleasant. But then, I had just revealed myself as the weirdest trainspotter on the planet.

  I definitely wasn’t redeeming myself for having effectively gunged him at the karaoke any time soon, even if he had sort of paid me back in beef stew.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said, finally. ‘My phone. Where’d you find it?’

  And, somewhere buried deep in my grey matter, a single brain cell sparked back into life.

  ‘Oh, is this yours?’ I held it up, the screen having reverted to black. I’d never even had the chance to click back into the messages. ‘It was lying on the ground out here. I was just checking the contacts to find out whose it was.’

  I was a genius, an actual genius. It was the perfect excuse.

  Jayden-Lee dragged a hand through his hair (which fell back immediately into a flawless sweep, as if he was walking around under an invisible blow-drier) and growled, ‘That little . . . he’s going to pay for this.’ He snatched the phone with a huff and inspected the shattered screen. ‘Least it’s not broken.’

  I curled my fingers back to brush against my palm where he’d touched it.

  ‘Jude’s the same – a total nightmare with my stuff.’

  Jayden-Lee’s lip curled into a question mark. ‘Yeah, I’m sure he runs off with things all the time.’

  He laughed, and I almost caught myself joining in, not because it was funny, but out of some weird feeling that it might make him like me more. But my mind flashed back to the party, and how sick I’d felt about laughing then.

  This was my chance though. The opportunity I’d been waiting for to put him straight about Jude. In five minutes I’d be comforting him as he sobbed over how ignorant he’d been.

  ‘You’ve never seen him on the walker he uses round the house. When he’s nicked my crisps, he can get away like he’s doing the hundred-metre sprint.’ I’d start small, I decided, and build up little details until Jayden-Lee got it.

  He wasn’t looking at me, just staring in through the showhall doors, so maybe the guilt was getting to him already.

  ‘You know, some people get the wrong impression of him. Just because he—’

  ‘Has that hamster gone wonky or something?’ Jayden-Lee muttered.

  I paused. It was a bit off topic, but might be something new we had in common. ‘When hasn’t that hamster been wonky? I can’t be the only one having nightmares about his buck teeth coming for me in the night.’

  Jayden-Lee laughed again, and it was a better sound now. A sound that m
ade me want to punch the air. Now I could add my sense of humour to my right foot in the portfolio of things he liked about me. I was nailing it. ‘He ran by here a little while ago,’ I added. ‘Probably on his way to cause more childhood traumas.’

  ‘Well he’s in there now.’ Jayden-Lee tapped on the glass. ‘Looks like he’s gone off on one.’

  I slid off Twinkle and went to see what he was talking about. Leaning in to peer through the dull glass, I held my breath as our shoulders touched.

  It took a moment to figure out what was going on inside. But I didn’t think it looked wonky at all.

  ‘I think he’s doing ballet,’ I said.

  Part of Nibbles was doing ballet, anyway. Whoever was usually inside the furry monstrosity had taken off the bulky costume and was just wearing the head and paws. From the neck down he was covered by a black, clingy leotard that ran all the way to his wrists and ankles.

  It was strange. I’d always thought the person inside the tubby, bumbling hamster would be tubby and bumbling too. He wasn’t. He was tall and lean and muscular. He looked more like an athlete than someone’s pampered pet.

  And he was doing ballet. As we watched, he kicked a leg lightly up until his ankle touched his ear. It was incredible.

  Jayden-Lee let out an explosive laugh. ‘That has to be the gayest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  I tried really, really hard not to flinch, but I must have done somehow because suddenly our shoulders weren’t touching any more.

  Inside, Nibbles had launched himself from what must have been warm-up exercises into an actual routine. He leaped and spun without stumbling once, but I was barely watching. I’d found my own reflection in the glass and stared at that instead, willing my face to look the same as usual – not hurt at all.

  Falling in love felt a lot like falling into a canal. A sudden shock as you’re plunged into murky depths, with all kinds of unexpected dangers just below the surface. I was starting to think that I might like to climb back out.

  Beside me, Jayden-Lee was fumbling with his phone again. I could see the reflection in the screen, flashing up Kev’s messages. He seemed to be considering something, tapping the phone against his chest.