Boy Meets Ghoul Read online

  ‘Partly.’ Kayla nodded. ‘She was nice but a tiny bit too free-spirited. I like spirits with a healthy appreciation of rules and rational order.’

  ‘Sounds romantic. Remind me how you’re a death-metal fan, again?’

  Deathsplash weren’t exactly the most orderly band in the world. There was a rumour that Rick Deathsplash once destroyed so many instruments onstage that the band had to play the rest of the set using their own YouTube videos as a backing track.

  ‘It’s organized chaos,’ Kayla said, as she followed me into the training centre Feet of the Future were using for the week. ‘That’s my favourite kind. It just looks out of control while, in reality, every single explosion and smashed guitar is carefully planned. There’s quite an art to it.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Well, maybe you can tell them how much you admire their organizational skills if we bump into them at the hotel. Ask them if they need any spreadsheets made.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Kayla said, rolling her eyes. ‘Anyway, it’s highly unlikely to happen. They’re probably not allowed to get out of the shower without a fleet of bodyguards, let alone run into randoms in the corridors.’

  The training centre wasn’t as impressive as Old Trafford, but it was still pretty huge. Easily as big as my school, but totally devoted to football. Feet of the Future was being held indoors somewhere, on an artificial pitch with its own terraces and everything. I’d never played on an indoor pitch before. I had to admit I was interested to see what it was like.

  Kayla stopped in front of two sets of paper arrows that had been clipped to a pinboard on the wall, one labelled FOTF and one CC. They each pointed in opposite directions. ‘Well, here’s where we split up.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you’re going to Camp Cheer!’ I told her.

  She smiled sweetly at me. ‘Of course you can’t. Because I’m not.’

  ‘Not what?’

  Kayla sighed, as if I’d somehow missed something I should have known all along. ‘Dylan, I’m obviously not going to the cheerleading classes. I hate enforced perk. And frankly I think it’s insulting that the boys all do sport, and the girls are expected to jump around making pyramids and wearing flippy skirts.’

  This was starting to get really confusing. ‘But there are boys in Camp Cheer too – though I don’t think they wear flippy skirts. Cheerleading is a sport. And there’s a girls’ football camp you could have gone to, if you’d wanted.’

  ‘But I don’t like football.’ Kayla was speaking to me slowly, the way she does when she teaches Jude big words.

  ‘You don’t like cheerleading either.’

  ‘Exactly – and that’s why I’m doing neither. I’m going to find an empty room and start working on my props for the Ghoulish Games competition. I’m going to have to make this a full-time job if I’m going to win. And I am going to win. Rick Deathsplash is as good as sweating on me already.’

  I tried not to pull a face at that. The plan still didn’t quite add up. ‘You need props? But what are you going to make? We didn’t bring anything with us.’

  ‘I brought three suitcases,’ she snapped. ‘What did you think I had in them? Three different sets of pom-poms?’

  I hadn’t really thought about it, if I was honest. I’d just assumed that number of cases was normal for girls. ‘I don’t know – make-up?’

  Kayla tutted. ‘I know I used to wear a lot, Dylan, but not actually an industrial amount. Now that I’ve stopped using all that concealer to cover my birthmark, I’ve cut down to just the one suitcase full. I call it, embracing my natural beauty.’

  I rolled my eyes at the sarcasm, but Kayla was still in full flow.

  ‘Anyway, I’d better go before someone notices I’m out of place and tries to draft me into something horrific involving mud and flat footwear.’ Unzipping the huge kitbag she’d slung over her shoulder, she pulled out a printed sign that read DO NOT ENTER: SPORTS IN PROGRESS and waved it proudly at me. ‘This should be all I need to secure an empty room. I’ll come and find you at the end of the day.’

  ‘But—’ I said, as she headed back along the hall.

  ‘See you later!’ she trilled happily, the door sliding closed in her wake.

  I stared at the door for a long time, choking down a knot of worry that she’d get in trouble, before finally slumping round to follow the arrows towards Feet of the Future.

  Before I could get much further, I heard the door opening again, and turned without even trying to hide my relief that Kayla hadn’t actually gone off on her own. ‘I knew you wouldn’t leave me . . .’ I started.

  And then stopped, struck silent by the curious smile on Freddie Alton’s face.

  ‘Never,’ he said, clutching a hand to his heart. ‘Your dad’s as extra as my mum is. I need you around to make me look good.’

  I just stood there, my mouth making curious twisted shapes around words that weren’t managing to happen. He was talking to me, and not even just to laugh at the weirdly romantic greeting I’d accidentally given him. At least, my brain–mouth coordination had been working, before I knew who I was talking to.

  After a moment, he frowned at my clammy silence. ‘Sorry – you must get people taking the piss out of you over it all the time. I know I do. You are from school, right? Dylan Kershaw. I remember I was going to scout you for the first team before that incident that got you banned from extra-curricular sport.’

  I inwardly grimaced. That incident had involved Dad protesting a referee’s bad decision by pelting him with an egg sandwich, thankfully gone soft and soggy from having spent the whole match in Dad’s pocket. The only damage done was to the ref’s shirt and my school football career. I couldn’t believe Freddie Alton knew.

  More than that, he knew who I was.

  It was terrifying. Up till now, I’d been perfectly happy existing in mute obscurity, never having to fear clamming up under the pressure of a tricky question like How are you? or All right, Dylan?

  I had to do something; I couldn’t just stand there woodenly – part boy, part plank.

  So I coughed.

  Freddie carried on. ‘It was a shame – you were really good.’

  Then he stopped, as I went on coughing.

  And coughing.

  ‘. . . Are you all right?’ he asked, finally.

  Weakly, I pointed to my throat and made a helpless croaking sound. Funnily enough, it actually was quite sore now. Fake coughing for five minutes can be pretty rough.

  ‘Oh – sore throat?’ Freddie asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re not contagious, are you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Oh,’ Freddie said. ‘Pity.’

  And he started off down the hall before I could even try to find the words to ask what he meant.

  Following him, we walked out on to the fake turf of the indoor pitch, where a load of other boys were already lining up to be registered. Freddie jogged towards the group.

  And I froze, realizing he wasn’t the only person here I’d met before.

  NINE

  A boy not much older than me with flame-red hair and an upturned nose that made his face look about ten years younger than the rest of him was taking the register. He stood ticking off names from a list, one by one, until an older man stalked across the pitch and grabbed the papers from his hand.

  I knew who he was, obviously. I’d seen him plenty of times on Match of the Day, and once or twice when Mum was watching the evening news. His name was Jez Dutton, and he used to be a top-flight player . . . until he drove through the front of his neighbour’s house and ran over their dog one night while apparently trying to back into his own drive.

  According to the stories on the front of all the papers, he’d been on his way back from an all-you-can-eat curry night at the local pub and had been urgently trying to get home to the loo when he misjudged where his driveway was. He’d backed up straight through next door’s net curtains. He couldn’t see where he was going properly through the sp
ice sweats.

  He got away with a big fine, and he paid for the neighbour’s dog to have wheels fitted on both back legs, but it didn’t stop the papers running headlines like ‘LUNATIKKA’ and ‘VINDALOONEY’. The club fired him, and he hadn’t been picked up anywhere else. It looked like he’d given up to become an academy teacher now.

  I had to admit, it was going to be pretty cool to be taught by an actual celebrity, even if he was mostly famous for accident-by-overeating. The pub had said Jez’s capacity for putting away curries was ‘practically superhuman’.

  But Jez Dutton hadn’t been the person I’d recognized first.

  ‘Come on, sunshine – if your legs don’t work, we’ll have to send you home!’ he yelled across the pitch at me.

  Realizing I hadn’t moved since I’d first walked in, I slung my bag back across my shoulder and ran to join everyone else in the line, shooting anxious glances down the row to see if I’d been noticed too.

  ‘Eyes front!’ Jez snapped, stalking back and forth in front of us. ‘When I’m talking, I’m the only person who exists in your world. I’m your coach, and that means while you’re here, I’m your god. Got it? So don’t let me catch your attention wandering. Now, I’m going to call out some names, and when you hear yours, you’ll call back, “Yes, Jez.” Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Jez,’ most of us chorused.

  He sniffed and turned his head to spit on the pitch before nodding and continuing. ‘Good. Now then – let’s find out who wasn’t man enough to show up once they found out I’d be the one whipping you into shape. Aaron Addington.’

  ‘Yes, Jez,’ a voice called from the other end of the line. Aaron was tall and pale, with spiky black hair and an expression as eager as a Labrador waiting for someone to throw a ball.

  ‘Freddie Alton.’

  ‘Yes, Jez,’ Freddie called, somehow sounding cool and casual enough that he could have been talking to one of his mates. I couldn’t quite help the thrill I got every time I remembered we were actually going to be on a team together, even though feeling thrilled somehow made me feel a bit guilty too.

  Jez went on down the list, calling out names faster and faster, until the replies started tipping into each other, like dominoes. ‘Chidi Daku, Laurie Deering –’ Laurie was the boy who’d been taking the register – ‘Josh Egham, Azi Fayose . . .’

  ‘YesJezYesJezYesJezYesJezYesJez.’

  Then Jez stopped. He cleared his throat and squinted at the registration list before reading out very, very slowly, ‘Fauntleroy Genghis Charlemagne Hughes.’

  All along the line, people shifted and turned to peer at what turned out not to be four boys, but just one.

  One I knew.

  Fauntleroy Genghis Charlemagne Hughes blushed and pushed a hand back through his messy blond hair. ‘Um, it’s just Leroy, actually. Mum got a bit obsessed with ancestry.com and named me after everyone we might be related to – um – I mean . . . Yes, Jez?’

  ‘Yes, Jez,’ Jez growled, ripping off the sheet of paper with the first set of names on it and handing it to Laurie. ‘Get that nonsense corrected to something I can pronounce.’

  As the boy got busy with a biro, Jez continued with the register, but I wasn’t listening any more. I’d been hoping that I’d made some kind of mistake, that there were lots of slightly anxious-seeming boys with haircuts that looked like they’d have been fashionable a couple of centuries ago, and I’d just got a couple of them mixed up. But those hopes had vanished as soon as Jez had squinted at that name.

  I wasn’t going to forget the only Fauntleroy I’d ever met – especially one who’d been friends with the boy I’d had a planet-sized crush on last summer.

  And I didn’t mean Leo. There had been someone else, first.

  Someone who’d made me think I might have had a chance with him . . . before he called me a ‘gaylord’ in front of a whole swimming pool full of people and assorted inflatable animals. He’d insulted Kayla, too. And his little brother had been something small and malevolent you shouldn’t feed after midnight.

  Jayden-Lee Slater.

  I’d thought he was my dream boy for a while, but he turned out to be a waking nightmare. Even if he’d made up for it a tiny bit before we left. Leroy had been one of the gang he’d hung out with. And that meant he’d been at the pool when Jayden-Lee had fallen about laughing over me being gay, like it was the big punchline of the sitcom episode that was my life.

  I was pretty sure that meant Leroy had been laughing too.

  And even if I was sort of over that – and didn’t wake up in the middle of the night with flashbacks of ornamental flamingos and inflatable bananas burned on to the backs of my eyelids very often any more – it meant something more important now.

  After sort of coming out over the summer – to my parents, anyway – I was being a bit more open about being gay. I didn’t see why I had to be scared or ashamed of something just because other people might think I should be. So all my friends at school knew now, and quite a few people who weren’t really my friends but liked to have the latest gossip. It had all been a lot easier than I’d expected. There wasn’t much fuss. They hadn’t run a headline in the school paper: ‘BREAKING NEWS: DYLAN KISSED A BOY, AND HE LIKED IT’.

  So far, it had turned out that not that many people thought it was a huge deal, and that was exactly how I wanted it to be. But I liked to be able to choose when I told people too. And football was still somewhere I hadn’t quite figured out how to be all of me: the part that kicked awesome penalties and the part that kissed awesome boys just never seemed to mix. Football was somewhere I still couldn’t be sure what people would think.

  And anyway, it’s not like I was just going to walk in and announce it. Hi, I’m Dylan Kershaw. I’m nearly fifteen, and if I had to play Kiss, Marry or Kill with the Avengers, all three of my answers would start with Chris.

  But now it looked like I wouldn’t get the choice of keeping it quiet, either.

  I could feel my good mood deflating. There was even a hissing sound as it went down, like a sad balloon the day after a party. Psssst.

  ‘Psssst.’ Or maybe that was Freddie Alton, hissing down the line at me.

  Startled, I snapped out of my worries to hear, ‘Kershaw . . . Has Dylan Kershaw not turned up? Right. First pathetic wuss of the day: Dylan Kershaw.’

  And I watched him underline my name.

  ‘I’m not a pathetic wuss. I mean, I’m here. I mean – yes, Jez?’ I yelped.

  Jez looked up to scowl at me, his forehead folding into a series of leathery wrinkles. ‘Bit late for that. Better not put you in goal – you’ll stick your hand out for the ball ten minutes after the other team have finished celebrating.’

  A low chuckle went down the line. I could feel my ears heating up.

  ‘Sorry. I’m not actually a goalie, anyway, so . . . I wasn’t listening – that’s all.’

  And that was definitely, totally the wrong excuse to use. Jez raised his eyebrows, concertinaing his forehead wrinkles even more.

  ‘What did you just say?’

  Ten minutes later, I was running laps round the edge of the pitch while the others chatted about what numbers and positions they wanted for the big match at the end of the week.

  Somehow, I didn’t think I was off to a very good start.

  TEN

  The whole morning was set aside for warm-up exercises, even though I’d got so warm during my punishment laps that it felt like I might be starting to melt. I lost count of how many Jez made me run before he let me join everyone else, but after a while, I’d begun to sympathize with the way Jude’s hamster must feel when he gets stuck on his wheel.

  After that, we’d lined up to do a set of drills where we had to dodge colourful cones and dribble a practice ball around yet another circuit, while Jez stood on the sidelines eating a bacon sandwich and yelling, ‘FASTER. PICK UP THE PACE, YOU BARREL OF NUMPTIES!’ at us every five minutes.

  I asked Chidi and Josh: none of us knew what a numpty e
ven was.

  After each circuit, we had to run up the pitch and kick the ball through the open goal. Even without a defender, I was the only one to get every shot home. The circuit had been designed to make us too tired and dizzy to focus properly, but striking was my speciality. I even tried out a few confusion tactics I’d use if there had been a goalie – making it look like I was aiming for one side of the net, then slamming the ball into the other.

  I checked Jez’s expression each time I scored, hoping to make up a bit for having messed up over the register. It was weird, though. The more shots I got on target, the less pleased he looked.

  Finally, when we were all so red and out of breath that we looked like a bunch of deflating balloons in spiked boots, a murmur started to go round the other boys. Some of them were nudging each other and looking like they were trying not to laugh, while others just stared off to one side of the pitch.

  I jogged up to see what the fuss was about. From the dark of the players entrance, a figure was emerging. A slight – and slightly orange – figure, with highlighter-yellow hair and a short dress made from what looked like the feathers of a flock of pink ducklings.

  A very, very short dress.

  Lacey Laine, Jez Dutton’s long-term girlfriend, hadn’t dumped him when the Premier League did. In fact, even though he wasn’t officially a player any more, she was still in the news all the time as one of a glamorous group of footballers’ wives and girlfriends. They’d even had their own TV show for a while: WAG Tales.

  I didn’t totally get the whole ‘wives and girlfriends’ thing. Or, actually, what I didn’t get was why boyfriends and husbands never made the same effort. It looked like WAGS had an amazing time, but you never saw groups of players’ boyfriends out shopping in Selfridges, wearing flimsy outfits to show off their back waxes, and piling into exclusive restaurants for fancy lunches.

  If Leo ever became an ultra-famous dancer, I was definitely going to invent a new celebrity acronym just for us. It would have to be one that worked for either gender, too. Like POD – Partner of Dancer. I’d be a brilliant POD. I could give gossipy magazine interviews and have my photo taken laughing with salads all day.