Boy Meets Hamster Read online

  (Ever since Jude’s been old enough to repeat things, all the bad words in our house have been cleaned up. Even when something much MUCH stronger – or cooler – is called for, I just can’t seem to get the four-year-old-friendly versions out of my system. It’s total bullspit.)

  Twinkle gradually chugged to a halt, and Jude twisted round to look at me. ‘Dylan! I got a haircut!’

  Understatement of the century. It looked more like someone had gone after him with a lawn mower. I forced a smile. ‘You definitely did! You look a bit like Friar Tuck.’

  Jude screwed up his face. I couldn’t tell whether he thought this was a bad thing, or just couldn’t remember who Friar Tuck was. I knew we’d watched the Disney film together – it was probably where he got his love of dumb, oversized animals from.

  ‘You know, the monk one who’s best friends with Robin Hood? Giant talking mole, hits people with a stick?’

  ‘Oh.’ Jude nodded. ‘Cool.’

  Kayla put more money in to set Twinkle off again and I spun around and nearly flung an accidental elbow into her nose. ‘We have got to get him a hat.’

  Which was why, twenty minutes later, I was walking back to our caravan behind a mini-version of Nibbles, my own personal nemesis. Kayla had found hamster hats on the party’s merchandise table, in between the sign-up list for getting your photo taken with the furry monstrosity and a giant wall poster of him. I’d considered buying the poster and using it as a dartboard.

  After Kayla threatened to sue, we got given the hat for free, plus a cupcake, and Jude was put on the list for a Hamster Snuggle Selfie to be taken in a special tent at the funfair at the end of the week. Meanwhile I was somehow going to have to convince Mum that Jude would freak out if he couldn’t keep his new fuzzy orange abomination of a hamster hat on at all times. Including for meals. And in bed. And the shower.

  Kayla nudged my shoulder as we walked. ‘I know how we can keep that hat stuck on forever. All it should take is a bit more gum.’

  She’d been quieter than usual since bullying Stacie into the free gifts. She kept taking out her phone and glancing at it, then putting it away again with a sigh, and staring at her feet. I thought maybe it was guilt. I was just going to reassure her a bit (boiling or freezing Jude probably would have been worse ideas), when I was distracted by a rhythmic thudding noise, like someone boxing a brick wall.

  It was getting louder the nearer we got to 131 Alpine Views.

  ‘You don’t think Alfie’s mum’s going mental on the Slaters’ garden gnomes now, do you?’ The flamingo had caused enough trouble. Gnome abuse could kick off World War Three.

  Kayla shook her head. ‘They all look intact to me.’

  I turned to look just as Jayden-Lee’s Dramavan came into view. The first thing I noticed was that she was right. The second thing I noticed was a ball flying directly at my head.

  Now, there are a few things about me that not everybody knows, and one of them is this: I’m pretty good at football.

  I’m really pretty good at it.

  I don’t play as much as I used to, because the problem with me being pretty good at football was that Dad got completely obsessed. He even stopped going to the Woking United games he’d always attended religiously so he could start coming to mine instead. But any time he turned up to watch me on the school team, it turned into total chaos. He coached a choir of mums to sing rude chants about the opposition and everything.

  When one of his ‘quiet words’ with the ref at an interschool match turned into more of a quiet fistfight, I got kicked off the team for being a disruptive influence. Which was seriously unfair. I wasn’t the disruptive influence; I was just related to one.

  It was probably for the best, even though Dad had to give up his dreams of me being Woking’s next top striker. Freddie Alton was made captain not long after that, and I don’t think I could have played on his team without tripping over the ball.

  I could still take a header when I wanted to, though. In fact, I could do better than that. I headed the ball directly into the side of the nearest caravan, then caught it against my chest on the return bounce. Letting it drop, I brought my leg up under it and passed it between my knee and the side of my foot without letting it touch the ground.

  My keepy-uppy record is legendary, by the way.

  While I kept the ball in the air, I looked up to see Jayden-Lee and a gang of other boys staring at me. One of them had obviously lost control and kicked it my way by accident. Lucky it didn’t hit Jude – he could do a lot of things in his chair, but dodging easily wasn’t really one of them.

  My stomach gave a strange kind of lurch, like that moment when you tip over the highest slope on a rollercoaster.

  I couldn’t say anything about earlier now. His friends were with him, and I hadn’t even told Kayla what he’d said, because I just knew she wouldn’t understand. So I nodded a hello, and flicked the ball towards him off the tip of my toe.

  It swooped right over his head, and over the hand he threw up to catch it. Landing smack in the awning over the Dramavan door, it rolled down one of the support struts, bounced off the birdbath and came to a slow halt right in front of Jayden-Lee’s feet.

  He raised one eyebrow, then the other, and said, ‘Impressed.’

  Then he winked at me. My stomach lurched upwards again. And I felt a part of my heart – hopefully not the part responsible for beating and pumping and all the regular coronary busywork – explode.

  NINE

  ‘Want to play?’

  If they ever opened a museum dedicated to the life and loves of Dylan H. Kershaw, this moment would get its own exhibit. Probably in a little room with a gold rope at the door and signs on the wall telling people not to touch anything. This moment was precious.

  Jayden-Lee nodded towards the ball, then looked back at me. ‘Join in. Kev can go in goal and—’

  ‘Actually,’ Kayla cut in, ‘we were just going to make sure Jude—’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I couldn’t let this perfect opportunity be stolen by the fact my brother had a bald patch. It wasn’t like Jude was crying any more. ‘You can settle him down on your own, can’t you? Just stick on the TV.’

  I shot Kayla a pleading look. It was hard to say exactly what the pointed glare she gave me in return was supposed to mean, but she was my best friend. I knew she’d want me to be happy. She’d want me to have the chance to be winked at again.

  She didn’t specifically say that, obviously. In fact she didn’t say anything before pushing Jude up the ramp into the caravan and slamming the door, but it had to be true. That’s what friends were for.

  Jayden-Lee’s mates crowded in around me. ‘That’s Kev,’ he said, pointing to a tall boy with buzzed brown hair, ‘And Dean, and the loser with the curls is Fauntleroy.’

  For a moment everything went quiet as we all turned towards the boy Jayden-Lee was gesturing at. Fauntleroy’s blond curls were pulled into a neat ponytail and he was shrugging so hard it looked like his head might retract into his neck. ‘Mum says I’m two hundred and twenty-third in line to the throne, so she named me something noble,’ he said, in a Welsh accent. ‘Leroy’s fine.’

  Leroy got the ball and within a minute we were mid-game, a couple of ornamental flamingos having been set up as goalposts. To begin with, every time I got near the ball I’d do something fancy with it, like the Elastico – faking a kick in one direction then snapping the ball back with the inside of my foot – or the Scorpion Kick.

  I knew loads of tricks. But before I’d got through half of them, I noticed that the others were looking a bit . . . less impressed. I pulled off a perfect Maradona Spin and Kev actually yawned.

  So I played a bit worse after that. Quite a bit worse. Weirdly, once I started pretending to be rubbish, it seemed as though they started to like me a bit more.

  We hadn’t been at it long when a woman in a pink sundress rolled up in one of the hire buggies they had on the park and yelled out of the window, ‘Boys! Nice Slice hour a
t the Pie-O-Ria! Come with me if you want to eat.’

  ‘Mum!’ Dean yelled, hi-fiving Kev before they both dived into the back of the buggy. Leroy climbed up and stood on the side of the seat, hanging precariously on to the frame.

  Jayden-Lee sauntered after them, sliding into the seat beside Dean’s mum.

  And then there was no more room in the buggy, which was almost definitely why no one invited me to join them. I was sure Jayden-Lee would have said something about it, or at least said bye, if someone hadn’t started to shout from his pocket.

  ‘HEY, LOSER. LOOOOSER!’

  It was one of those comedy ring-tones; I recognized it from a sketch on one of the shows Mum wouldn’t let me watch. Slowly, Jayden-Lee pulled out a battered green phone, and clicked to answer it just as the buggy pulled away.

  I watched until they were out of sight, then checked the time. We’d only played for twenty minutes, but I was pretty sure they’d been the best twenty minutes of my life.

  ‘He likes me.’ Letting myself back into our caravan, I swooned in the direction of my bedroom and draped myself over the bed. Kayla had given Jude a tin of biscuits to bribe him into keeping his hat on forever and set him up on the sofa with some cartoons. I could hear the Twinkle theme tune playing, but it was just background music to the song in my heart.

  ‘Jayden-Lee likes me. He likes me.’

  Kayla gave me a weird look as she came over to perch on the edge of the bed, and I sat up.

  ‘Don’t you think he likes me?’

  She shrugged. It wasn’t the boundless enthusiasm I’d been hoping for, but Kayla’s always been more practical than romantic. She was the only girl in our class who didn’t develop a crush on the French teacher’s son when he helped on a trip last year, because apparently it’s impractical to like someone whose mum could have a major say in whether or not you fail your GCSEs.

  She really didn’t understand romance at all.

  ‘Well, he definitely thinks you’re good at football. He likes your right foot,’ she said, kicking her own foot out across the six inches of space between the bed and the wall.

  ‘Apart from the fact that I’m going to pretend that trick was fully intentional forever, and not that I was millimetres away from booting one of the windows in –’ which I might have been – ‘He likes my right foot? Seriously? Wow, well I feel really special now, thanks a lot.’

  Kayla sighed. ‘I don’t mean that he can’t like the rest of you, just that the foot’s all we have evidence for. He said he was impressed, didn’t he? So, was he looking you up and down when he said it, in a “this trick shot has made me suddenly appreciate your many charms” kind of way, or was he just talking about the kick?’

  Even Kayla didn’t usually resort to this kind of cold shower. Maybe I should have told her about Leo from the loos, and how I had to make things work with Jayden-Lee, because the only other prospect around here thought I didn’t know how to dress myself.

  ‘So what if it was the kick? I have to start somewhere. It got him to ask me to play. Now I just need to find a unique talent for the rest of my body parts and maybe I’ll have a date for something more than football.’ It was totally doable. I could already wiggle my ears and raise each eyebrow independently. ‘I can work on my face next; that’s probably an important one.’

  ‘Yeah, OK then.’ Kayla pulled her feet up on to the bed and looked out to where Jude was singing along to ‘Twinkle’s Tune Time’. Something was seriously wrong.

  ‘You don’t have to feel guilty about it, you know,’ I told her, snipping my fingers at the air like scissors to show what I meant. ‘Jude doesn’t seem to mind, and I think the hat plan’s foolproof.’

  ‘What?’ Kayla frowned at me. ‘Oh – no, it’s not that . . .’

  ‘And if you’re worried that me and Jayden-Lee becoming Cornwall’s coolest couple means I’ll forget you, you’re so wrong. Everyone needs a token straight best friend to tell them that their feet are their only attractive part.’

  ‘That is not what I said.’ But at least some of the fire was back in Kayla’s voice. ‘Though you’ve already ditched me for him once. But it’s not that, either. I’m just . . . I’m homesick, all right?’

  Obviously it was all right, I just couldn’t really understand it.

  ‘But we’ve been here one day.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And we’re still in England.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘In fact, we’re only three hours down the M4.’

  ‘I know that, Dylan,’ Kayla growled, throwing a pillow at me. ‘I can’t help it. I’ve never been this far away from Dad before. What if he misses me? What if he doesn’t? What if he’s making toast using the ironing board again?’

  The reason Kayla’s so practical, really, is probably because her dad isn’t. It’s been just the two of them ever since her mum went on a trip to ‘find herself’ when Kayla was eight, and ended up deciding that meant losing everyone else. Kayla and her dad are really close now, but sometimes it’s a struggle to figure out who’s taking care of who.

  I stretched a leg out, and nudged her knee with my toe. ‘Hey.’

  She squirmed away, quickly. ‘Gross. Get your disgustingly attractive feet away from me.’

  Laughing, I moved to sit next to her. ‘I thought you came with us so your dad would learn to cope without you.’

  ‘I did.’ She tangled a hand into her hair as though she might be tempted to start tugging it out. ‘But I didn’t know it would be so hard to cope without him.’

  Slinging an arm round her shoulder, I nodded. ‘OK, OK. Listen. I know Cornwall’s a big culture clash, what with all the . . . fresh air and the . . . pasties . . .’

  ‘And the seagulls. And the Elvises.’

  ‘And the hamsters. And I know it’s weird without your dad, but you’re going to get through it. It’s not even for a whole week. And you already know he misses you – how many times has he texted today?’

  She held up her phone. There was a green message:

  Followed by at least six replies in blue.

  And, finally, one that had been sent just a few minutes ago.

  I could sort of see why she was worrying. ‘Did you . . . ?’

  She nodded. ‘I called. He really was asking for a friend . . . I had to tell him I don’t think the goldfish is going to make it.’

  I winced. ‘Poor Flipper. But look, you’ve just got to keep yourself too busy to get homesick. I know last night was a washout, but there’s a comedian in the showhall tonight, and it’ll probably have stopped smelling of sick by now.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kayla kicked her feet against the wall again. ‘I was thinking chocolate and wallowing sounded good. Anyway, you look—’

  ‘No way.’ I was already talking over her, getting to my feet to pull her up off the bed. ‘This is a holiday, not a wallowday. We’re going out, and nothing can stop us.’

  Then Mum burst in through the caravan door, trailing Dad and about a million shopping bags in her wake.

  ‘Hello darling, other darling, other darling’s darling friend,’ she called, breezing past my bedroom and giving Dad a billion instructions on where to put the bags. It looked like they’d wiped out the local supermarket. When she found a good discount, my mum turned into the human equivalent of a plague of locusts.

  I stole a quick glance out of the window to see if the lights were on in the Dramavan. The last thing I needed was for Jayden-Lee to forget his sudden appreciation of my fabulous feet in light of the fact that I’m the only fourteen-year-old darling in the world.

  Mum hadn’t stopped since she hit the tiny caravan kitchen. She was opening and closing cupboards in a kind of blur. ‘You can put the corned beef away, can’t you, Dylan? Six packs for the price of three!’

  I didn’t point out that meant two packs for the price of one, and that we were never going to want to look at a cow again after eating all those. I couldn’t get a word in.

  ‘Anyway, can’
t stop, your dad and I are going to watch a brilliant new comedian. Highly recommended by a gentleman dressed as Elvis in his porky period. You two won’t mind staying in with Jude again tonight, will you? You’ve been partying all day.’

  Yeah, with a gang of four-year-olds. But that was it. Mum turned her whirlwind back towards the door as if I’d been standing there nodding and saying, ‘Yes Mum, I’d love to be trapped in a tin box for the second night in a row. I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to live in a bunker. Don’t mind the crying, by the way, it’s only boredom.’

  There was just one good thing about the visit from Hurricane Mum. She was in and out so quick that she didn’t even notice her youngest son had half a hamster on his head.

  Dad leaned on the kitchen counter, peeled back the plastic on a pack of corned beef and ate a slice straight from the tray.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring the good jokes back for you.’

  He nodded towards Jude and his orange hamster hat. ‘Later, Ginger.’

  Then to me. ‘Later, Rudolph.’

  Then he was gone too. The caravan looked somehow emptier than before, even though it was now full of carrier bags and cheap beef. On the sofa, Jude lifted one hand and waved.

  ‘Hi Mummy. Bye Mummy.’

  Kayla sighed and patted me on the shoulder as she walked past me towards the kitchen carnage. ‘I’ll get the chocolate.’

  TEN

  ‘What did he mean, “Later, Rudolph”?’

  Dad’s jokes could be bad, but it was seriously out of season for reindeer. Although, I wasn’t sure he’d have made any more sense in December. I followed Kayla to the kitchen. ‘Did I grow antlers or something?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘I did grow antlers?’ I reached up and started rummaging through my hair. Maybe something fell on me. Maybe I’d been walking round looking like an escapee from the New Forest all day.

  ‘No, Dylan, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just – well, doesn’t your nose hurt at all?’