Boy Meets Hamster Read online

  ‘You going to the pool party tonight?’ he asked.

  I glanced around quickly. Besides me, and the distant figure of a dancing hamster, there was no one else he could be directing the question to.

  I just needed the right response. Not too eager. Casual, yet cool.

  ‘I hadn’t heard about it, but I’m pretty sharp at snooker so—’

  ‘Not that kind of pool, you div. Swimming pool.’ He rolled his eyes back in his head and spoke more slowly, as though English might not be my first language. ‘They’re shutting out all the kids who like to pee in the shallow end and playing some tunes. Wave machine, all that. You going?’

  I hadn’t been planning to, clearly, or I wouldn’t have thought Jayden-Lee’s idea of a good time might involve something my grandad played in the pub. It was lucky I hadn’t gone really wild and suggested a round of darts.

  No, this was a proper party. And he seemed really interested in me being there. But was asking if I was going the same thing as asking if I wanted to go with him? It was a small yet vital difference.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried to act like it wasn’t the most important question I’d ever been asked in my life. ‘Uh, yeah. Might do.’

  ‘You should,’ he said, looking me up and down.

  I stared back. I couldn’t help it. This close up, he barely even seemed real. He was like an artist’s ideal of beauty, painted in tiny, perfect brushstrokes and then breathed into life. It didn’t seem possible that he could be asking me, with my swollen nose, and weird obsession with talking trains, and my beefy family, if I wanted to go out with him.

  He nudged my foot with his. More of a kick, really, but he probably didn’t know his own strength. ‘Come on. Least you won’t have to worry about anyone catching fire.’

  I swallowed down a nervous squeaking noise and cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, um, sorry about that. I was trying to . . . anyway, sure. I’ll come. I’ll see you there.’

  He nodded, once, turning back up the path as he started pressing a reply into his phone (probably about ME, his date with ME). ‘Good. See you.’

  I watched his reflection in the glass door until he was out of sight. Inside the showhall, Nibbles was still dancing – pushing up on to one foot and spinning in a dizzying pirouette that summed up in one motion exactly how I was feeling.

  I didn’t think it looked gay, or strange. I thought it looked beautiful.

  But the whole world looked beautiful to me, just then.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I was going to a pool party.

  (With Jayden-Lee.)

  A party, at a pool.

  (That Jayden-Lee had asked me to go to.)

  (With him.)

  I drifted away from the showhall and headed along the path up to the cliffs in a kind of daze. He hadn’t said it was a date, exactly, but that didn’t matter. He still wanted me to go. He wanted me to be in the same place as him, at the same time.

  Just me, him, and however many people fit around a half-Olympic-sized pool. It was going to be amazing.

  I hadn’t been to anything resembling a pool party since my sixth birthday, when Dad set up a giant inflatable paddling pool in the garden. In hindsight, it had been a mistake to serve so much of the party food on those little pointy cocktail sticks. The garden was a swamp for days after the pool exploded, and we never did find Jack Benjamin’s trunks.

  This party was going to be a much more grown-up, sophisticated affair. There probably wouldn’t even be any sausages on sticks. Instead they’d have a barbeque, and drinks in coconut shells, and songs about summertime for everyone to dance to in their swimsuits.

  But, just when I should have been thinking about the tropical heat, I felt a prickle of cold sweat at the nape of my neck.

  I pictured it again. Sun loungers for catching the artificial rays, and a wave machine lapping at the non-slip pool edge. People pushing each other into the water, splashing around in their bikinis and trunks.

  A shiver ran through me.

  It’s not that I’m insecure about the way I look. I’m fine – I’m just wiry rather than stacked. Dad says I’m built for speed: perfect when I’m racing up the length of a pitch. But Jayden-Lee was easily twice as broad as me, and I couldn’t stick a note to my bare chest to explain the difference between slow- and fast-twitch muscles.

  Or, I could, but I wanted one night without totally humiliating myself.

  It just wasn’t quite what I’d imagined for my first not-a-date. Most people don’t start off a relationship by seeing each other in their pants, and maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think that’s just fine. I tried to picture Kayla being reassuring about it. When the girls in our class had started a ‘bikini body’ diet fad, she’d shown up to one of their parties in a bikini of her own, looking amazing, to point out that any body could wear one. Even a body that had eaten peanut-butter pancakes for breakfast.

  Kayla wouldn’t reassure me. She’d tell me to go in Speedos. But somehow her confidence was comforting all by itself.

  ‘You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not,’ Imaginary Kayla said. ‘Or you’ll never know if he might have preferred who you already were.’

  I hmm-ed, unsure.

  ‘Also, false advertising is a crime. He’ll either end up dumping you or reporting you to the Trading Standards Office,’ she added.

  She might have been a figment of my imagination, but she was right. Besides, it wasn’t like I could show up to the pool party in a disguise. That was the entire problem.

  There was a long bench set up on the clifftop, next to a sign warning people to stay away from the crumbling edges. The seat looked like it had been carved out of the trunk of a single fallen tree. I sat on it and stared out to sea, trying to get some perspective.

  Everyone would be in swimwear. No one was going to care about mine.

  ‘Exactly,’ Imaginary Kayla interrupted. ‘And what else are you going to do, Dylan – turn up dressed for scuba diving?’

  That was an idea. I could pretend I’d thought it was fancy dress.

  ‘Dylan!’ Kayla yelled.

  ‘I know, I know. Where would I even get a last-minute wetsuit from?’

  Actual Kayla tilted her head and looked at me like I’d gone completely round the bend. ‘I know you’re upset, but I didn’t think it was bad enough to make you run away to sea.’

  She must have followed me up here. I hadn’t even noticed her coming up behind the bench, too busy worrying how the rest of me was ever going to match up to my ‘impressive’ feet. I was so startled I didn’t have time to figure out whether I was still supposed to be angry.

  ‘I’m not. Not in just a wetsuit, anyway.’

  She sat down on the opposite end of the bench. ‘Rowing boat?’

  ‘I was thinking something less likely to give me bum splinters. Do you think they do luxury yachts at Starcross Sands?’

  ‘I don’t think they do luxury loo roll. Actually, I know they don’t. You could use the stuff in the showhall loos as tracing paper.’ She pinched her lips together in a way that I knew meant she was trying not to smile. I couldn’t understand why she was even talking to me again, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask, just in case she stopped.

  I tried, ‘Did you want something?’ instead, and hated how nervous my voice came out.

  ‘I did want something, as a matter of fact,’ she said. And I waited for her to tell me to leave her alone forever, or book her a taxi back to Woking, or something. But she didn’t. She shifted closer to me on the bench and said, ‘I want us to be friends again.’

  ‘But you hate me,’ I protested. ‘Back in the caravan you were looking at me like I’d spat in your cornflakes.’

  ‘I didn’t have any cornflakes, Dylan. The only thing your mum bought for breakfast was sliced meat,’ she said. ‘I don’t hate you.’

  ‘You hate Jayden-Lee,’ I tried.

  She gave me an uncertain look, like she wanted to deny it but couldn’t quite get the words out. �
�I don’t like Jayden-Lee. But I respect your decision to love horrible things. I never say a word about your T-shirts.’

  ‘Just because you don’t understand style.’ I tried to narrow my eyes at her, but now it was my turn to bite down on a smile. ‘Your love for that hamster is turning you against me.’

  Kayla shoved her shoulder into mine in a way that was more friendly than violent. ‘I’m not in love with Nibbles. Not to be mean, but that much body hair isn’t for me. I just don’t think he’s the devil incarnate, that’s all.’

  I thought about how unexpected it had been to see Nibbles practising ballet moves – doing something quiet and graceful, instead of crashing around making my life miserable. For some reason I wanted to keep the memory of it to myself. Jayden-Lee hadn’t understood it, so it was probably a stupid thing to like.

  ‘Maybe not the devil,’ I conceded. ‘Something a bit lower on the evil scale, like a zombie or a werewolf. He could be a hampire.’

  Kayla laughed, and I felt as though a tight band that had been wrapped around my chest since last night had suddenly snapped open. Me and Kayla were a team. Spending all day without her had made me feel like I was missing a limb. An arm, maybe. My smarter, more sensible arm, which always knew the right thing to do.

  ‘I think I know what you do hate,’ I said carefully.

  I could feel her studying the side of my face. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Being left on your own. You haven’t got your dad here, and I don’t think I’ve been here half the time, either. I’m sorry. If it helps, it turns out I really hate it too.’

  Kayla was quiet. In the fields that ran up the slopes of the cliff, they were setting up for the end-of-season funfair. I watched the big wheel start to turn and chime out a celebratory tune, as Kayla reached for my hand and slipped her fingers through mine.

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  I looked at her from the very corner of my eye. ‘Does OK mean we’re friends again?’

  She almost started to nod, then stopped herself. ‘It means we’re working on it. We’re in the negotiation phase of re-establishing boundaries and terms.’

  ‘You’re going to draw up a contract, aren’t you?’

  She looked innocent. ‘I might. Don’t worry – you’ll only have to sign it. I’ll deal with all the small print.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about. But there are visitation rights in the contract, aren’t there? We have to hang out with each other to check we can still get along . . .’

  ‘In a civil manner?’ Kayla finished for me. ‘Yes, that will definitely be part of the negotiation package.’

  ‘Great.’ I grinned. ‘Because I know exactly where we’re going tonight.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  There was a strong smell of coconut and chlorine in the air at the Splashdown Swim Centre, and I wasn’t sure whether it was that or the knot of nerves in my stomach that was making me feel so sick. Kayla seemed fine – she’d grabbed a lemonade on our way through the door and was sipping it through a twirly straw, already having stripped down to her pink-frilled swimsuit.

  After some heated debate (Kayla totally told me I should go in Speedos), I’d settled on some long board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.

  Well, a black shirt I’d let Kayla draw pineapples on in glitter eyeliner.

  They must have turned the heating up to full power to match the tropical theme. We’d been there ten minutes and I was already sweating. Everyone was sweating. People in the pool were probably sweating. The whole place was a kaleidoscope of glistening skin.

  Kayla stopped and dipped a bare toe in the water. ‘A few more rubber duckies and this would be good for a bath.’

  ‘Rubber alligators don’t count then?’ I pointed across to where some impromptu races were being held: two pot-bellied lads who had decided to go with the Speedo option were straddling a couple of giant gators and paddling them the length of the pool. There were loads of inflatables in the water: a couple of lilos, several plastic palm trees, and a giant two-seater banana.

  Not to mention enough ornamental flamingos to send Jayden-Lee’s mum into a frenzy. I wondered if she was here. Trying to spot anyone specific in a crowd of half-dressed people wasn’t easy though. For one thing, I didn’t know what Mrs Slater looked like without one of her nylon nighties on. And for another, I really, seriously, didn’t want to think about what she’d look like out of them.

  Even picking out Jayden-Lee turned out to be impossible. If he’d turned up at all. I looked for the tell-tale golden glint of his hair among the dancers on the other side of the pool, but all I could see was that ridiculous hamster doing the hula in front of the DJ stage, with a group of girls who might have been the karaoke fairies trying to throw flower garlands over his oversized orange head.

  Looking at Nibbles now, it was almost impossible to remember how graceful the person inside had looked, tripping lightly through ballet steps in the hall.

  Kayla dug me in the side. ‘There he is.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to make sure I’m on the other side of the pool from him at all times. They say evil things can’t cross running water. It was in a film.’

  ‘I’m not sure a wave machine counts as running,’ Kayla said, ‘And while it’s reassuring to know that you have some life skills, even if they only amount to protecting yourself from fictional vampires, I meant Jayden-Lee.’

  My head snapped round to see where she was pointing. Of course I’d ended up telling her about my maybe-a-date, and even though she still thought Jayden-Lee was one evolutionary step above pond scum, she said she was happy for me. That was how I knew our friendship was getting back on track.

  I hadn’t told her about the ballet, or Jayden-Lee calling it gay, though. That would only have made her think she was right about him being wrong all along.

  That was the problem with Kayla. She’d write him off over one tiny flaw when – as I confirmed when I finally saw him, standing with Kev, Leroy and Dean, and laughing with his mouth open between bites of Kahlua Pork – he was otherwise perfect in every single way.

  Just as soon as I’d talked him out of using insults like gay, or retarded, she’d be totally out of excuses to hate him.

  ‘Is he picking food out of his teeth? Urgh, Dylan, you want to kiss that?’

  . . . OK, just as soon as I talked him out of calling people gay, or retarded, and into some less caveman-like behaviour. Then, he’d be perfect.

  I watched him drag his finger and thumbnail over his teeth, pick out a strand of pulled pork, examine and then eat it. Kayla was squirming beside me. Did I still want to kiss him?

  I had to, didn’t I?

  That was the point of love. People who were in it could overlook each other’s flaws and just see the good bits, and Jayden-Lee had tons of those. Like . . . the incredible angles of his jawline. And those little dark flecks that peppered the green of his eyes.

  And OK, maybe I could admit now that some of what I felt for Jayden-Lee was more to do with the shape of his mouth and the way his autumn-gold hair fell into his eyes than anything else. But love had to start somewhere. Why couldn’t it start with his little lip scar and my right foot, and grow from there?

  While I was watching, he looked up. As though his focus was being guided by fate, I saw him tilt his chin in my direction and start scanning the faces around me. I held my breath, waiting for the jolt of electricity when our eyes finally met across the deckchairs. I could picture it: he’d hold out a hand and walk towards me, and I’d walk towards him, like heat-seeking missiles with each other as a target.

  He smiled as his gaze settled on . . . a girl right next to me, whose friend was trying to re-tie her bikini strings after a slight wardrobe malfunction in the pool. He hadn’t noticed me at all.

  He’d been looking, though. And now he was headed my way, so he’d have to see me, any minute. And I suddenly felt strange about that.

  ‘Do you want to get in the water?’ I asked Kayla urgently.r />
  ‘What? But he’s—’

  ‘I really feel like taking a dip. Who goes to a pool party without getting wet, anyway?’ I was dragging her with me to the pool edge as I spoke, getting out of the line of Jayden-Lee’s sight as quickly as I could. I still wanted to see him, obviously. Just, not yet.

  Not until I’d figured out what I wanted to say.

  Every time I thought about speaking to him at all, my throat seemed to seal shut. At this rate I’d open my mouth and only be able to emit high-pitched squeaks, like I’d been learning how to speak fluent Hamster and wanted to show it off.

  ‘Dylan, you’re still wearing your shirt,’ Kayla was protesting.

  ‘No problem!’ I croaked, with the last bit of oxygen I had left. ‘We don’t even need to get wet.’

  Kneeling down at the side of the pool, I grabbed one end of the giant floating banana and climbed aboard.

  A moment later, after passing over her lemonade for me to hold, so did Kayla.

  ‘See!’ I said, only sounding the tiniest bit panicked. ‘This is nice, isn’t it? They’ve done a good job with the decorating – it really looks like a beach.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Kayla agreed. ‘If you ignore the big signs telling people not to run, and that the water will change colour if you pee in it, it’s just like our own personal paradise. And what is the matter with you, exactly? I don’t think you should be in charge of this banana if you’re in the middle of a breakdown.’

  I was doing a great job of steering the banana, as it happened. With a few initial bumps and scrapes, I’d managed to paddle us almost three feet away from the side of the pool.

  ‘I’m not having a breakdown,’ I hissed over my shoulder. ‘The thing is . . .’

  The thing was, I wasn’t sure I did want to talk to Jayden-Lee tonight. I thought about him all the time, and that was brilliant, because in my head he always said and did exactly the right thing, and he liked me the same way I liked him. He was great, at a distance, like when I was watching him across the pool, or hanging around outside his caravan. Because then he really was perfect. Silent and unreachable, like the kind of star you make wishes on that you never expect to come true.