Boy Meets Ghoul Page 5

  That is, if we were still together then. I wasn’t even really sure whether I was a POD now.

  Trying to keep the gloom from setting in, I stood next to Chidi and watched as Lacey Laine skipped over to Jez. She gave him a pink-lipsticked kiss on the cheek, deposited what looked like a paper-bag lunch from some sort of artisan deli in his arms (it had a bunch of celery sticking out of one corner, like weirdly unromantic flowers), and sat down on the subs bench behind him with a copy of MOXY magazine.

  ‘I don’t know what you lot are looking at!’ Jez yelled, knowing exactly what all of us were looking at – though I might have been the only one of us wondering how someone got their skin that shade of orange. Maybe she bathed in the blood of baby carrots.

  ‘Lunch, now!’ Jez shouted.

  So we broke to get lunch. Just like at school, Freddie was instantly the centre of a crowd of the tallest, fittest, fastest boys, all of them jostling with each other to make the loudest joke or get the spot by his side. Popularity is so weird. It’s like some people are just born with a golden glow, and everyone else can’t help but want to hang around them, hoping it might rub off.

  If I glowed at all, it was just the remaining sheen of sweat caused by those laps.

  I hung back while Chidi announced to everyone in the changing room that he’d heard there would be football scouts from professional teams coming to the match at the end of the week, and Laurie said he’d be happy playing any position as long as it was centre forward. Then, once they’d all grabbed their lunches and headed back to sit in the stands, I went to pick up mine. This way, everyone would already have picked their spot, and I could choose my own carefully. I needed to be somewhere far enough away from Freddie that I wouldn’t have to talk to him, and far enough away that Leroy wouldn’t try to talk to me.

  ‘Hello! I’ve been meaning to talk to you all morning,’ Leroy chirped, wandering out of the shower block to my right. ‘Are we the only ones still here?’

  I let my head drop into my hands and sat down on one of the benches. So much for plans.

  Leroy sat next to me, sliding out a small wicker basket and starting to rifle through it. It looked like an old-fashioned picnic hamper. ‘Have you got a headache? Hold on, I should have something for that in here.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I murmured, distracted. ‘Is that where you keep your kit?’

  Leroy emerged triumphant with three packets of pills in his hand – headaches, sore throats and constipation all seemed to be covered. ‘No. I keep my kit in my kitbag, silly. This is where I keep my picnics.’

  One of the sides of his basket was still flipped back. I looked down to see a selection of sandwiches, what looked like mini sausage rolls and scotch eggs, and a tub of chocolate fingers, all laid out in Tupperware.

  ‘Mum says I get very tetchy if I don’t have a decent lunch,’ he explained. ‘No headache? How about some crisps?’

  I only had a boiled egg and a bread roll scavenged from the breakfast buffet in my bag, but I couldn’t stick around. Any minute now, he’d remember his question.

  ‘I’m OK, thank y— Are those roast beef?’

  ‘King of the Monster Munches,’ Leroy agreed, offering the bag. ‘Anyway, I was wondering if you were still dating that dancing hamster?’

  I’d started reaching for a crisp before the bottom plummeted out of my stomach, and now I was stuck with one hand in mid-air, no longer hungry but not wanting to look like I was dissing his picnic. I took a crisp and let it crumble in my fingers before I managed to find an answer.

  ‘Um, sort of. He’s not actually a hamster.’

  ‘He was most of the times I met him,’ Leroy pointed out, digging out an egg sandwich and tucking in as though this was a totally normal conversation to have. ‘How do you sort-of date someone? I saw you kissing at that dance.’

  I didn’t want my memories of that kiss with Leo tangled up with whatever Leroy was going to say about it. I didn’t want him to laugh at something that still definitely counted as one of the best nights of my life, whatever might happen between me and Leo in the future.

  But I didn’t want to pretend it was nothing either, just to throw Leroy off the scent. It would be even worse if I messed up my memories for myself. It wasn’t nothing. It was . . .

  It was everything.

  ‘We’re supposed to be seeing each other,’ I admitted, finally. ‘We just haven’t had much of a chance to actually see each other since the summer. He’s really busy.’

  I shifted uncomfortably on the bench and swallowed the remains of the Monster Munch, hoping it might clear whatever felt like it was stuck in my throat. ‘I – um – don’t talk about it much . . .’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ Leroy said brightly. ‘I understand. I just thought it was kind of cool.’

  ‘Cool?’ I asked, not quite sure if this was the build-up to a joke at my expense.

  ‘Well, yeah. You kissing like that in front of everyone. Like – I’ve got two aunts, and only one of them’s related to me. Do you know what I mean?’

  I guessed he probably didn’t mean one aunt was married to an uncle. Still, this conversation wasn’t going anywhere I’d expected, and I wasn’t certain I hadn’t got lost somewhere along the way. So I said, ‘I think so. They’re gay?’

  ‘Right! So it’s cool you’re cool about it.’ Leroy smiled. ‘Some people get really weird about that kind of thing. Anyway, I’m going to see if anyone wants one of my cocktail sausages. Want to come?’

  He almost skipped out on to the stands.

  And, after a minute of blinking at a row of jockstraps, not quite sure what had just happened, I got up to follow him.

  Just as Jez Dutton appeared, red-faced, in the doorway.

  ELEVEN

  I got another fifteen laps for ‘not being a team player’ and ‘failing to participate in bonding exercises’ because Jez thought I’d been hiding so I could eat lunch alone. Jez wouldn’t tolerate shyness, he’d shouted, loudly enough to make every single person in the stands stare at me.

  By the time we were let out that afternoon, we’d played fifteen minutes of football and I’d ploughed a Dylan-sized groove around the edges of the pitch. Kayla was waiting for me by the park-and-ride bus stop outside. It stopped right by our hotel, so my parents were fine with us getting it back together. She was carrying the same oversized kitbag, but I thought it seemed more suspiciously bulky than it had that morning. She was looking totally innocent, though, as we got on and found a seat by the window.

  Just as the bus began to pull away, everyone who’d really gone to Camp Cheer began spilling out through the academy doors. They were laughing and chatting – it seemed like the cheer coach might have been a little bit nicer than Jez.

  I nudged Kayla. ‘You weren’t wrong – some of them are wearing flippy skirts.’

  Although a lot of the girls were just wearing tracksuits, and there were a couple of boys in the group who didn’t seem to have opted for anything pleated and thigh-high either.

  Kayla hummed non-committally. ‘It’s not the outfits, Dylan; it’s the principle. Can’t you see how happy they look?’

  I leaned over to peer judgementally though the window. ‘Ah, I see. So it’s the cheer part you object to.’

  ‘Only enforced cheer,’ Kayla corrected. ‘I object to smiling just because twenty people with glossy hair and overly white teeth recite a rhyming couplet telling me I should. If I’m not happy, it’s only going to irritate me. And if I am, it might make my genuine smile seem fake. It’s a lose-lose situation, Dylan.’

  ‘I just thought you might want to go and make some friends,’ I said, shrugging.

  Kayla paused. ‘I have more important things to do. Even if they do look nice.’

  ‘I thought you said they had overly white teeth?’

  ‘I mean they look like nice people.’ She tutted. ‘Nice isn’t a physical characteristic. Although . . .’ She was leaning out of her seat now, turning to get a last glimpse of a few cheerleaders
shaking their pom-poms in the air. ‘I suppose the other sense applies too.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ I shook my head. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Forget Camp Cheer. It’ll be like when you played the flute for six weeks, dated half the school orchestra, and caused that incident in assembly where Sam Brolin clapped Ameet Gupta’s ears between his cymbals. Besides, what if you ended up in a long-distance relationship with someone from Manchester! Long-distance relationships are hard, you know. That time our internet went down for the weekend, I nearly pined away with missing Leo.’

  It was true. I hadn’t been able to eat dessert when we went out for Sunday lunch, and Mum insisted on taking my temperature when we got home. I was fine, though. Just lovesick.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind some sort of relationship,’ Kayla said, sounding wistful. ‘I’ve been living in total social isolation since ending things with Summer. Like those gurus who meditate on rocks for months at a time.’

  I didn’t know a lot of gurus, but I hadn’t heard of a meditation technique devoted to playing death metal at decibel levels loud enough to deafen the neighbours, or dealing with bad days by downing ‘crispy cocktails’ – stacks of Pringles loaded with sour Haribo (Kayla said it was going to be the new salted caramel of the food-trend world). Still, I didn’t try to argue.

  ‘Nice to know being friends with me counts as “total social isolation”. What about using an app or something, if there’s no one you like at school?’

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. ‘First of all, I’m almost certain that’s not legal when you’re fifteen, and I don’t want to ruin my bright future as a top barrister because I wanted to swipe a few strangers. And second, don’t they make you write a cheesy tag line about yourself on those? What would I say?’

  ‘How about, “Kayla: always fresh, always tasty”?’

  ‘Did you just read that off the window of the bakery over there?’

  ‘No?’ I averted my eyes from the line-up of sausage rolls and steak slices and turned my attention to the shops on the other side of the street.

  Kayla folded her arms. ‘OK, so what other suggestions do you have for me?’

  I groped frantically for an idea. It was no good: I had to scan the shop fronts for help. ‘Ummm. “Kayla: pick one up for pennies”?’

  She shoved me and shook her head. ‘I think we’re done here. Except – Dylan, what were they selling in that takeaway?’

  I craned my neck to look back at the street we’d just passed. ‘I don’t know which one you mean. Why?’

  ‘Were they selling chicken? I’m sure they were selling chicken.’

  ‘They might have been.’ I shrugged. ‘Why does it matter?’

  Ignoring my question, Kayla was already standing and pressing her thumb firmly to the button on the bar in front of us. ‘Stop the bus – we have to get off!’

  It’s incredible how things can go from normal to crazy in the space of a second. Kayla’s cry must have sounded urgent enough that the bus driver thought there was some kind of emergency. He slammed on the brakes and a busload of people were thrown backwards.

  A woman in a puffa jacket that took up two seats all by itself started to panic. ‘Is it a fire? There’s a fire! Fire!’

  Then a busload of people threw themselves forward, tumbling and climbing over each other in an effort to evacuate as the bus doors slid open.

  Kayla and I were the last to get off. Which made sense, since we were the only ones who knew nothing was burning. The bus driver came charging up the aisle towards us, his eyes wild.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?!’

  ‘Oh, nothing, really,’ Kayla said, and she pointed out of the window. ‘I just didn’t want to get too far away from the chicken shop.’

  For someone who’d just found out that his bus wasn’t about to burn down, the driver didn’t seem too delighted. He pointed at the doors in silence.

  Minutes later, we were standing outside Chick’n Mansion, with a busload of freshly reseated people staring angrily out at us from behind brightly lit windows.

  I wasn’t sure about eating food from a place that didn’t even use the real word for ‘chicken’ in its name. It sounded like it might be a way to avoid breaking the Trade Descriptions Act. But the adrenaline from our public transport adventure took my mind off any potential food poisoning to come.

  ‘That was like an action film,’ I said. ‘I think there’s one where they’re stuck on a bus. I don’t remember anybody getting a lecture about abusing public services from someone’s grandad in that one, though.’

  ‘I stand by my actions,’ Kayla said loftily. ‘It’s not my fault the driver overreacted. Nobody was hurt, and we only had a two-minute stroll to pick up a Chick’n Banquet.’

  ‘You know, we’re probably going to have dinner back at the hotel . . .’ I started.

  ‘We’re not getting dinner!’ Kayla said, as if food was the last reason anyone would go to a takeaway. ‘This is for the Deathsplash Nightmares!’

  I looked up at the window menu of cheap chick’n delights. ‘Aren’t they rich enough to get their own meals?’

  ‘The contest, Dylan. I meant this is for the contest. The first challenge is to take a haunted photo.’

  ‘And you just happened to see something in the window of the chicken shop? If it’s some long-dead rooster come back for revenge, I might have to think about going vegetarian again.’

  ‘Not quite.’ Kayla was grinning. She whipped a white sheet with black eyeholes cut out of it from her kitbag and passed it to me. ‘You’re going to be the ghost. I have to stand out from the crowd somehow, Dylan, and however many people I’m up against, I think I can guarantee no one else will be entering a poultrygeist!’

  TWELVE

  Chick’n Mansion was heaving. It felt like everyone in Manchester had decided on smok’y wingz for dinner. The sound system was playing ancient 80s pop, and the stools at the window were fully occupied by people stuffing their faces. Kayla went in ahead of me, since the plan was that she’d take up a position near the counter and snap pictures while I placed an order, making sure to get everyone’s reactions to seeing a ghost.

  Personally, I was pretty sure the main reaction would be laughter. I looked more like someone who’d been assaulted by the contents of a washing line than anything vaguely scary. I touched my face, grateful for the sheet covering it, took a deep breath to settle my nerves, and pushed my way inside.

  At first, no one seemed to notice a spook in a stolen bedsheet joining the queue for food. Maybe it just wasn’t the most unusual sight in Manchester that night. It was nearly Halloween, after all – the city might have gone mad for costume parties.

  Then a couple of people joined the line behind me, and I heard someone loudly clear their throat. I looked round to see a boy in a shirt and tie, a couple of years younger than me, and a couple of feet shorter. He looked like he was such a fan of his school uniform that he’d forgotten to take it off. Standing next to him was a friendly looking older lady, who was knitting as she queued.

  ‘Bit disrespectful, isn’t it?’ the boy said.

  I wouldn’t have known what to reply even if I hadn’t had a bedsheet over my mouth. I stared blankly at him through my big black eyeholes.

  ‘I said, it’s a bit disrespectful,’ he repeated, louder. ‘That costume.’

  Then he leaned in, gesturing to the whole ensemble with a sweep of his hands. ‘I mean, a ghost.’ He paused. ‘My nan’s very old.’

  I slid my eyes slowly across to his nan, who was probably about sixty. She smiled, not exactly looking like she was about to don a sheet of her own and head off haunting any time soon.

  Not knowing what else to do, I smiled and said, ‘Sorry?’ then turned back around to find the crowds in front of me had all been served, and I was now at the front.

  ‘Can I take your order . . . sir?’ The girl behind the counter had started speaking before she’d noticed what I was wearing.

  I pointed helplessly at
the menu, indicating the Bitz N Bitez Banquet, while she covered her mouth with her hand and tried to pretend she wasn’t laughing.

  This was so embarrassing. Kayla could dress up in her own stupid costumes next time. I looked over to where she was waiting by the wall and caught the flash of a photo being taken.

  Unfortunately I also caught the eye of suit-and-tie boy, who’d moved to the counter next to me. He cleared his throat noisily again, and I quickly stared the other way. I just had to avoid looking at him until I got my food, then I was vanishing out of here. If I could have spirited myself away into the ether, I would have.

  It would be a really useful skill to have, vanishing. If I could just disappear from the corporeal plane whenever Freddie Alton said a polite hello, or Jez Dutton fixed me with a random and totally unprovoked death glare, it would make my life so much easier.

  Unfortunately, there was no chance of vanishing now. I was a bit too conspicuous for that.

  ‘Are you looking at me?’ someone snapped.

  I dragged myself out of my supernatural superpower daydreams to focus on her.

  ‘You are!’ She pointed and nudged her mates. ‘He is! Hey, look. Casper the overfriendly ghost over there’s been staring at me for ages.’

  ‘Are you looking at my mate?’ A girl in black lace-up leggings and a dress that looked like she’d sprayed it on before leaving the house stepped forward.

  ‘What are you looking at? Do I look funny to you?’ the first girl asked, flicking her bouncy blond curls in fury.

  ‘He was looking at my nan too!’ chimed in the boy from behind me.

  That was the last straw.

  ‘Why would I be looking at your nan?’ I snapped, loud enough to be heard through the cloth.

  ‘So now there’s something wrong with my nan?’ the boy demanded.

  I threw up my hands. Nobody was making any sense. ‘I just wasn’t looking at her!’ Snatching up the tub of chicken on the counter, I turned to try to make my escape. ‘I don’t want to look at any of you, I swear!’