Boy Meets Ghoul Page 12

  Jude tipped his head back to look up at her. ‘I want to see how many hamsters they’ve got in that van!’

  A vanload of hamsters sounded like it was asking for trouble, considering the problems we were having with just one. I looked up to see what he meant. There was a white van parked outside the hotel.

  ‘That’s not a hamster on the side of the van – that’s a rat,’ I corrected him. ‘And it doesn’t say hamster on it, either. What does it say?’

  Jude frowned hard and tried spelling out the world phonetically. ‘Puh – es – tuh. Pest?’

  ‘It says Pest Control,’ Kayla said, her voice low and serious. ‘And it looks like they’re heading inside our hotel.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jude might have been too young and full of milkshake to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation, but the feeling of dread that settled in my chest on seeing the pest-control van only grew as we passed the few stray Deathsplash fans dedicated enough to lurk outside the hotel all night and made our way into the lobby.

  Four men in beige boiler suits were listening intently while Alfie told them all about the ‘rat’ he’d seen in our corridor. They all wore huge backpacks capable of holding a dozen vicious traps, and as I watched, one of them was thumping a rolled-up magazine against the palm of his hand like a club.

  There was no mistaking what they were here for.

  This was a war on Fluffy.

  Kayla and I slipped away from Mum and Dad while they went to the lifts, trying to overhear the instructions Ms Toshkhani was giving the Ratbusters.

  ‘You will work only at night. We don’t want to upset any guests when, in all probability, this is an isolated outbreak. Start with the rooms allocated to Mr and Mrs Smith – that’s where the thing was last spotted.’ She paused, then added grimly, ‘It had crawled inside a guitar.’

  Kayla let out a small, not un-ratty squeaking noise, and Ms Toshkhani looked up, her face freezing at once. Through unmoving lips, she instructed the men at twice the volume she’d been speaking before.

  ‘Right then. It’s wonderful to hear the problems in the side building are a thing of the past! We won’t be needing your services again.’

  ‘Until after midnight, when no one’s around,’ finished Alfie.

  I was sure I saw her kick him under the counter.

  ‘We have to find this Mr and Mrs Smith,’ I whispered to Kayla. ‘They’ve got our hamster!’

  ‘I know who they are,’ she told me through gritted teeth. ‘Pretend to go to the loo and meet me outside the lifts in ten minutes. I’m going to tell your mum you’re helping me with my tuck and tumble.’

  I looked at her curiously.

  ‘It’s a cheerleading move,’ she snapped. ‘Now go!’

  So I went. I crossed my legs and hopped a bit, trying to look as much like an innocent toilet-goer as possible, just in case Ms Toshkhani realized I was up to something . . . though once I was in the loos, it was a bit harder to hide the fact that I didn’t really have anything to do.

  Kayla had said ten minutes. I checked the time on my phone, locked myself in the toilet stall, and called Leo.

  It was pretty late, so I thought he must’ve been finished for the day and back in his room. Hopefully he wasn’t so worn out by a week of intensive rehearsals that he’d fallen asleep already – it was taking him a long time to answer.

  And then, when he did, it seemed like it might have been by accident. I’d started a video call, but when it connected, all I could see was the underside of his chin. The image was a little bit shaky, but Leo was laughing, and I could hear someone else in the background laughing too.

  Was there someone in his room? It was too dark to see anything properly. Why was there someone in his room?

  ‘. . . Leo?’

  The scene slowly started to tilt. He was leaning sideways. Leaning against whoever he was with, while the phone slipped gradually off his lap. Then I couldn’t see Leo at all, just an upwards angle of the view out of what looked like a bus window.

  He wasn’t rehearsing at all.

  When I thought about it, I’d never actually seen him in his dance gear during any of the conversations we’d had. He never called me from rehearsals. I hadn’t seen any proof that the ‘something’ that ‘came up’ to make him cancel all his plans with me really was a dance show at all. What if it was just someone he wanted to spend the time with more than he wanted to spend it with me?

  And maybe that answered my question of whether it was worth waiting for him. I could be waiting forever while he laughed, and leaned on, and hung out with other people.

  Gritting my teeth tight as something stung in the corners of my eyes, I disconnected the call, flushed the loo (for effect), and pushed open the toilet door.

  It was fine. I didn’t care. There were plenty of other people who liked me, if Leo had stopped.

  Well, there were definitely two people.

  Kayla. And Freddie.

  Stopping by the mirror, I splashed a bit of cold water on to my face – the kind of wake-up call I needed – before going out to see if Kayla’s excuse had worked.

  She was waiting by the lifts, like she’d promised. Since she’d gone upstairs with my parents, she’d pulled her blue-green hair up into a tight ponytail on top of her head, changed into a different outfit (a red top and a short, bright yellow pleated skirt) and had two glittery pom-poms drooping out of her hands.

  ‘What on earth—’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she interrupted, as the lift pinged its arrival and we entered. ‘I hired it from the costume shop at home in case I needed to convince anyone I really was at Camp Cheer this week. And it worked. Now, I’d estimate we have about an hour to track down this hamster before your parents start expecting us back.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, trying to sound businesslike, and not like I was choking down a laugh. From the expression on her face, I wasn’t sure I’d pulled it off – then again, the ponytail was pulling her face so tight that every look she gave me seemed a little bit pained. ‘First things first – you said you knew who Mr and Mrs Smith were?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Kayla said, pushing the lift button for our usual floor. ‘It’s all over the internet. Those are the decoy names celebrities use when they book into hotels. In this case . . . the Deathsplash Nightmares.’

  The lift pinged again and opened into a familiar hallway, but this time Kayla didn’t duck and hide behind me or rush us towards our room. She stepped out, hands on her hips.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, following her as she walked over to the door we knew belonged to the band.

  ‘Not even slightly.’ Kayla glanced back over her shoulder at me. ‘But we don’t have a choice. We’re doing this for Fluffy.’

  She looked determined, but her hand had stopped, curled up in mid-air as if she’d grabbed on to an invisible handle. She was trembling slightly. Pop-star paralysis was striking again.

  It was all up to me now.

  Stepping around her, I raised a hand and knocked on the door.

  It vibrated back at me. Someone was playing loud music in there, and my knock must have been lost under the bass. I tried again, first with one fist, and then with both, hammering as loudly as I could until Kayla grabbed my wrists.

  ‘Careful, you’ll have the rest of the hallway coming out to see what you want before anyone in there hears you. The weird thing is, that’s not Deathsplash they’re playing. The rhythm’s off. I can tell by the way it vibrates under my feet. I don’t think it’s even metal.’

  She elbowed me out of the way and pressed against the door, putting her ear to the wood. ‘No, it’s not. It’s . . . It’s . . .’

  The door swung open, as the jingly beats of Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ rang out into the hall. And Kayla fell forward, straight into the purple velvet arms of the Nightmare’s lead singer: Rick Deathsplash.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Suddenly I was experiencing a little pop-star paralysis myself, unable to do anything ex
cept watch as Kayla fell into the arms of the man she considered the greatest artist in the history of the world . . . and then rolled back out of them again to lie in a primary-coloured pile at his feet.

  Rick raised the mirrored shades he seemed to have been wearing even inside his dimly lit room and looked down at her.

  ‘I don’t touch people,’ he explained in a light drawl. His voice was softer than I’d expected for someone who spent so much time screaming on his records. ‘Germs . . . Alonzo?’

  A man who must have been Alonzo appeared as if by magic at Rick’s side, spritzed the whole of his Cadbury-purple outfit with what looked like hand sanitizer, and then vanished again. Meanwhile, Rick was watching Kayla groan and slowly pick herself up off the floor. My basic motor functions started running again just in time for me to bend down and help her up.

  ‘Well, thank you for coming by. It really was wonderful to meet you. I love the fans.’ Rick had already started to vanish backwards into the room as he spoke, the door closing in his wake. ‘Thank you for your support.’

  ‘Wait!’ I yelped, throwing a hand out to keep the door open a few inches – dropping Kayla again in the process. She growled and started clambering back on to her knees. ‘I have something important to ask you!’

  Alonzo stuck his head around the frame. ‘No impromptu interviews. Rick only answers pre-approved questions.’

  ‘It’s not an interview! I just – I need to know if you’ve seen my little brother’s hamster.’

  ‘Nice try – very creative . . . Have a good evening.’ Alonzo diligently peeled my fingers away from the edge of the door and closed it with a click.

  The beat of Abba’s tambourine was stifled, and the hallway went quiet again. I stuck my hand out to Kayla, but she ignored it as she staggered to her feet.

  ‘You didn’t even—’

  ‘I know,’ I said, slightly hopelessly.

  ‘You just let him—’

  ‘I know.’

  She shook her head, dazed. I didn’t even manage to ask if Rick had seen Fluffy; I just let him think we were crazed fans who’d somehow snuck past security. Of course, if I’d actually tried to get into the room, I think Alonzo might have been ready to tazer me, but still. I’d failed, completely. Miserably. And Kayla . . .

  ‘I met Rick Deathsplash . . .’ she whispered to herself. ‘I met his feet.’

  I guessed it wasn’t quite the deep connection of two creative minds she’d envisaged.

  ‘Still,’ I said sympathetically, ‘at least he probably won’t remember your face?’

  She might have killed me then and there if someone hadn’t cleared their throat from the next doorway along.

  ‘Sorry, kids – did you say hamster?’

  Jenna Deathsplash, vicious destroyer of drum kits, possible macrobiotic diet and chilli-topped hot-dog fan, and Kayla’s ultimate heroine was beckoning us towards her room.

  ‘It was in here,’ she told us, picking up one of six black and gold guitars lined up against the wall. They played electric ones onstage, but these were the retro wooden kind that smashed more impressively in their big numbers. ‘I wouldn’t have snitched, but Antoni’s got a phobia. Said he couldn’t sleep for imagining tiny little feet pitter-pattering about. Then all of a sudden, everyone’s talking about calling in the exterminators, so I found the poor little creature the only route out of here I could.’

  Warily I eyed the curtains flapping in the cool night breeze. ‘Not the window?’

  ‘No, no,’ Jenna reassured quickly. ‘The housekeeping service. I popped him in their basket of miniature shampoos when no one was looking and watched him get wheeled along the hall. So tell your brother I’m sorry, but his hamster must be long gone from here by now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kayla said, in a voice choked up with emotion that might have been Fluffy-related, but probably had more to do with standing in the same room as her long-time idol. I’d never heard her sound quite like this before. ‘You deserve more recognition for humanitarian work like this.’

  Jenna smiled awkwardly. ‘Ah, I don’t know about humanitarian. I like animals, though – I’d have felt guilty if the little guy squeaked his last on my account.’

  ‘Hamsteritarian,’ Kayla amended. ‘Just as noble a cause. Without you, poor Fluffy would be scampering through the great Habitrail in the sky.’

  I knew exactly what was happening to Kayla right then. I knew because it happened to me when I had to talk to someone I really, really liked. When it got so hard to find words at all that my brain just started picking ones at random and joining them together, hoping they made some kind of sense. It was like the reasonable, sensible person usually in charge of my brain got hijacked by a toddler on a sugar high. I’d never seen it happen to anyone else before, though. I hooked my arm through Kayla’s and started walking us backwards before Jenna started to think she was a complete fruit loop.

  ‘Yeah, um, thanks for that,’ I managed, trying to shove Kayla backwards through the door. ‘Really. Maybe now we’ve got a chance of finding him before the Ratbusters do.’

  ‘He’d be stuck on a heavenly hamster wheel . . .’ Kayla was jabbering from just behind me. ‘Digging through celestial sawdust . . .’

  ‘Well, good luck with the concert and everything! Nice meeting you! Night!’ Smiling through tightly gritted teeth, I pushed the door shut as I dragged Kayla out with me.

  ‘Rolling along forever in an Elysian exercise ball, through fields of carrots as far as the eye can see, and lost – lost to us forever!’ Kayla managed to yell out before it slammed. Then she looked at me, wild-eyed, and yelped, ‘Help me! I can’t stop!’ and shoved a pom-pom in her mouth, biting down hard.

  I pulled her down the hall with me and knocked at the door to our room. At least we knew Fluffy wouldn’t be in the line of fire tonight. But if we didn’t find him before the Ratbusters did, then Jude would be devastated – and we didn’t have much longer to do it.

  Visions of me telling my little brother that we had to go home without his hamster joined the ones I was already having of how disappointed Dad would look seeing me on the subs bench for the big match, and of Leo laughing and laughing with someone who wasn’t me. Halloween wasn’t for two days, but I was already being haunted.

  ‘That’s a move I haven’t seen before,’ Dad commented, opening the door.

  Recovering herself (if not her dignity), Kayla picked pom-pom pieces out of her mouth and stalked past him. I was pretty sure she was going to scream into her pillow.

  ‘She’s got the throwing-them-in-the-air part down,’ I said. ‘We’re still having trouble with the bit where she has to catch them with her hands.’

  Dad grinned, ruffling my hair as I walked past. ‘Well, we can’t all be natural athletes, can we?’

  He didn’t know how right he was.

  I checked my phone as I headed to my room – three missed calls from Leo – then silently turned it off for the night.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Next morning, I was ten minutes late to training, and I had twelve missed calls on my phone. There were seven unanswered texts too, and I’d turned off read receipts so Leo wouldn’t even know I’d picked them up. He could spend the day wondering what I was doing, for a change. We always texted good morning to each other, though I was surprised he’d even remembered after the great time he’d clearly been having last night.

  Well, there wasn’t going to be a good-morning text from me today, or any other texts, either. I was completely, totally decided about that.

  I deleted my reply to him for the twenty-third time and strolled through the changing-room doors.

  I’d decided too, that being late didn’t matter any more. I’d had the punishment already, so I might as well do something to deserve it. My whole life was such a disaster that Jez probably wouldn’t give me a chance to play even if I showed up at 4 a.m. and scrubbed every seat in the terraces with my own toothbrush. I dumped my kitbag on one of the benches and wondered if I should bother show
ing my face at all.

  ‘Kershaw? We’ve been waiting for you.’ Jez’s shadow loomed ahead of him through the door. ‘Get your kit on and warm up. Alton’s out injured – you’re playing today.’

  I was playing.

  That morning, we were having a practice match against a local youth team, and I was going to take Freddie’s position. I’d finally have a chance to show I wasn’t just reserve material. My heart leaped into my throat, then promptly turned a spluttering somersault.

  Freddie was injured?

  Jogging out to warm up on the pitch, I spotted Freddie sitting on the bench where I should have been. Lacey Laine was perched next to him in a drapey white dress, looking like she’d just run out of a church in the middle of the ‘Wedding March’. I headed over to them, eyeing the youth team doing their own warm-ups on the other side of the pitch.

  ‘You can’t be hurt – the match is tomorrow!’ I burst out as soon as I saw Freddie. ‘Your mum—’

  ‘Won’t know anything about it – don’t worry,’ Freddie said, flapping his hands out to cool me down. ‘I just told Jez I’d got a toe sprain so he’d give you a go in a spot where you can get some actual play. Once he sees what you can do, he’s bound to let you on tomorrow – even if it’s not in my place.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Freddie was running the risk of getting stepped down or moved to a worse position for tomorrow, all so I’d have my chance. It might have been the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me (if I didn’t count Leo once giving me an umbrella to protect me from an emotional rain cloud, and Kayla staying my best friend even when I’d been a pretty bad friend to her, sometimes). I could have kissed him for it.

  ‘You’re really not hurt?’ I asked.

  ‘Stubbed my toe on one of the benches. I was hopping about when Jez came in this morning. That’s what gave me the idea.’ He looked really pleased with himself. ‘Anyway, I was telling Lacey that I wouldn’t really mind if I didn’t play tomorrow.’

  I looked across at Lacey in surprise.