Boy Meets Hamster Read online

  A girl with a broken wing climbed up and tackled her solidly to the ground, then growled at me, ‘What’re you looking at?’

  I ran.

  FIFTEEN

  Throwing myself off the side of the stage, I tried to get into the crowd to find Kayla, the exit, anything, but it was like trying to complete an assault course. Every couple of steps I had to dodge a thrown fist, or climb over two people dragging each other across the floor. Someone threw a karate kick sideways and almost got me in the stomach with a sequinned stiletto.

  I’d seen a couple of fights at school before, but they had nothing on this. I just didn’t know how it had all happened so fast. Maybe everyone at Starcross Sands was seething with inner rage about not getting to go on a real holiday, and this was what had made it bubble over.

  I couldn’t see Kayla anywhere. I looked desperately for her pink hair, but all I could see were flying fists and furious faces. It was karaoke carnage. I ducked under a misfired swing thrown by a woman in a leopard-print miniskirt at someone wearing a ‘Birthday Boy’ badge, who looked about fifty.

  ‘WHAT DID YOU GET ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY?’ she was yelling. ‘FLOWERS FROM THE FLIPPING GARAGE!’

  Turning, I checked whether anyone would be able to get out by climbing back over the stage, but the anxious-looking host was lowering a thick grey safety curtain. I noticed there were stains splashed across it from what looked like a decade of thrown glasses of wine and beer, and a few rusty-looking marks that might have been something else.

  So maybe this evening’s outbreak of violence wasn’t a total one-off.

  A growl from behind me pulled my head around towards a purple-faced stranger. He charged at me, like he was a bull and I was something flappy and red. I held up my hands, skittering backwards. What had I done to upset him? Murdered his favourite song, perhaps.

  There was no time to ask questions. Penned in on all sides, my escape route had to be either up or down.

  Or both.

  I went with down first: ducking and sliding between two sets of legs, narrowly avoiding ending up with a trainer logo permanently stamped across my forehead. The next part of my strategy meant going up. Reaching the bar, I clambered to my knees on top of it, giving myself a bird’s-eye view of the fight. It looked like I’d lost him.

  There were bursts of sound and flashes of colour all around me, shifting like a kaleidoscope, but no angry shade of purple. And no pink. No Kayla. Where was she?

  I had to duck to the side as something was tossed on to the bar not far from me.

  No. Not something.

  Someone.

  Jayden-Lee. He seemed to have shaken off the guy he’d been fighting with and picked up two furious hen-fairies instead. One of them had taken off her wings and was whacking him with them.

  ‘Is he causing problems?’ The growl was low enough that I could hear the words rumble like thunder under the rest of noise in the room. It was the huge man who’d charged at me. Now he was talking to the fairies, moving them aside with his meaty hands and stepping between them to pick Jayden-Lee up by the deep V of his collar.

  Without even thinking about it, I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the side of the bar and stood up brandishing it. ‘Get your hands off him!’

  Jayden-Lee stared up at me, lips parted like a fish desperately gulping in air. The man who had hold of him barely gave me a second look, but that didn’t matter. This was my moment. It was the first chance in my life to be the one to save the day, and I was taking it. This romance was playing out exactly like a fairy tale: one where I’d finally overcome enough obstacles to earn my place as the hero.

  I’d never hit anyone in a way that might hurt before – or wanted to. The idea of it made me hesitate for one precious second before a plan clicked into place.

  Jumping down from the bar, I swung the extinguisher up and back, ready to bowl it along the floor and sweep big-n-beefy’s legs from under him. The next moment I was moving forward, an unstoppable force.

  And the moment after that I was being dragged back again, with a pair of arms wrapped tightly round my waist. As I panicked and struggled to set myself free, I managed to set off the extinguisher, spraying a burst of white foam out in front of me.

  Funnily enough, the arms that had me in a steely grip seemed to be made of foam too.

  In fact, they weren’t arms at all.

  They were paws.

  ‘Not now!’ I shouted, trying to kick my way clear of the unwanted embrace. ‘Do you really think this is the right time for a cuddle?’

  The hamster didn’t answer. He just tipped me sideways and scooped one arm under my legs, sweeping me off my feet the way princes rescue their damsels in distress. As my world tilted, I caught sight of Jayden-Lee watching me being saved against my will by something from the mutant petting zoo.

  At least, I think it was Jayden-Lee.

  He was covered from head to toe in white, flame-retardant foam. It looked like he’d been hit by a million custard pies. At least it seemed to have distracted the man who’d been choking him. He’d vanished somewhere back into the room, along with any chance I’d ever had of impressing Jayden-Lee.

  My one shining moment of heroism had just been buried in a fluffy white mess.

  Jayden-Lee wiping foam from his flawless face was the last thing I saw before the hamster started rushing me towards the door. The crowds parted in front of him like the Red Sea in front of a massive, rodent Moses. Anyone who didn’t get out of the way just bounced off his orange padding as he ran.

  ‘Get off me! Let me go – my friend’s in there!’ I yelled. But either my voice was too quiet compared to the rest of the shouting going on, or nothing got through the hamster headpiece, because Nibbles just kept carrying me onwards.

  A frazzled-sounding Stacie started giving instructions through the tannoy. ‘Thank you for living the dream with us this evening. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the showhall will now be closing for the night. Please could all patrons make their way to the exits and vacate the area in a calm and quiet manner.’

  She added, ‘Come again!’ just as Nibbles swept me through the exit and into the dark outside.

  SIXTEEN

  The cool air felt like a slap after having been trapped in the hot, crowded showhall. Nibbles slid me back on to my feet next to the wall, and I immediately slumped against it. For some reason it felt like all the bones in my legs had turned to jelly. My pride was still smarting from having been princess-carried away from my own rescue attempt, but I’d have to regain my balance before I could do anything about it.

  As my eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one standing there.

  ‘Dylan?’

  I took a huge, relieved breath and sighed out, ‘Kayla.’

  Then I turned to Nibbles to ask how he’d known exactly where to take me. But he was gone.

  ‘That’s one heroic hamster,’ Kayla said with a dreamy smile. ‘As soon as the fight broke out, he just picked me up and carried me out here. He’s been bringing people out ever since, like a knight in furry armour.’

  So that was it. Nibbles was just rescuing whoever he happened to bump into, whether they liked it or not. I couldn’t believe Kayla was fluttering her eyelashes over him. ‘I don’t think knights just snuck into battles and kidnapped people, did they? It would be a pretty inefficient way to fight.’

  As I spoke there was the sound of glass smashing, and two men staggered out of the showhall with their arms locked round each other. I couldn’t tell whether they were hugging or fighting, but I edged Kayla a bit further away from the door, just in case.

  ‘He saved you, didn’t he?’ Kayla asked, eyebrows lifting.

  ‘He ruined my life. You have no idea what that hamster just did.’ As I ran her through the bullet points of my own tragic transformation from heroic to helpless, a collage of images formed in my mind. Jayden-Lee’s face as he spotted me on the stage, his lip curling before he broke into a laugh. The look he gave me
as I lifted the fire extinguisher, like he was seeing me in a whole new light. And the disdain in his eyes as they emerged from the foam, that light extinguished. Literally.

  ‘Well, I still think he’s knightly. He didn’t know he was interrupting a “moment”, did he?’ The look on Kayla’s face worried me.

  ‘Don’t you dare. You cannot be falling in love with Sir Prance-a-lot.’

  ‘I’m not!’ she huffed. But her smile didn’t go away.

  ‘Kayla, you can’t. You can’t fall for somebody who spends all day in a hamster suit. He’s probably got fleas.’ Honestly, one close encounter and she was getting all stupid over him. I still wanted to shove him on to his big orange behind.

  ‘You don’t even know him,’ I went on. ‘You don’t know what he really looks like – it could be a girl in there for all we know.’

  ‘Wouldn’t matter to me,’ Kayla said, like that made any sense. ‘Anyway, you think you’re in love with Jayden-Lee, and you’ve never even had a proper conversation.’

  I took a quick, urgent look around to check no one was standing too close. ‘Shut up. Oh my god, people will hear you.’

  I couldn’t believe she was willing to risk exposing my crush just to prove a point about a hamster. ‘It’s different with Jayden-Lee. At least I’ve seen his face. And haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight? Being totally into someone you know nothing about means it’s real, unlike your freaky thing with the hamster.’

  ‘That hamster saved me tonight. Where were you?’ Kayla was raising her voice in a way that I knew was dangerous. Usually this was where I’d know not to wind her up more, but she was so wrong. About the hamster, about me, and especially about Jayden-Lee.

  ‘You know where I was,’ I protested.

  ‘Yes. You were looking for him. Because he was more important than me, again. Do you know what that girl told me, the one you made me speak to?’

  Of course I didn’t. I’d forgotten all about her. But the same painful twinge was back in my chest as soon as Kayla brought her up. ‘Is she dating him?’

  ‘No, she’s dating someone else. Someone who wasn’t very happy about Jayden-Lee using her to get in ahead of the queue. I don’t know whether you could see anything from up on your high horse – sorry, I mean, from up on the stage – but you might have noticed the punch that started the whole fight. The boy is spam, Dylan. He’s complete spam. And if he hadn’t been here tonight, none of this would have happened.’

  All she was doing was proving my point about her wrongness. ‘You just said someone else started the fight. I’m amazed you managed to look up from your phone long enough to notice anything, but you’ve got it wrong. It’s not fair to say Jayden-Lee—’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s not fair!’ Kayla was really shouting now. People were starting to sidle away in case another riot kicked off out here. ‘What’s not fair is I didn’t get to sing tonight because you’re obsessed with that jerk. What’s not fair is that girl probably getting dumped by her real boyfriend because Jayden-Lee told Stacie they were together. She didn’t even know him! None of that’s fair – you just can’t see it. Or maybe you just don’t care about anything else when he’s around. You certainly don’t care about me!’

  She stared at me hard for a moment, daring me to claim otherwise. Then she turned away, walking a few steps before starting to run in the direction of Alpine Views.

  I stood there, feeling like I hadn’t avoided being punched tonight after all.

  The showhall doors opened again and more people ran out, shepherded by a figure in a giant fuzzy suit. Among them were the red-haired girl and the boy Kayla had said was really her date. As I watched, they stopped running, took each other’s hands, then he wrapped her in a tight hug.

  Which just showed that Kayla had got it all wrong. There must have been a misunderstanding somewhere, and it wasn’t Jayden-Lee who was to blame.

  A shadow blocked out the light coming from the showhall, and I looked up to see Nibbles looking over at me. It was him. He’d destroyed everything. At least for me.

  He gestured between me and the space where Kayla had been. I could tell he was trying to ask a question.

  ‘She’s gone,’ I said, the words feeling like a hard lump in my throat.

  I had to bite my lip to keep from adding: and it’s all your fault.

  SEVENTEEN

  The next morning, Kayla was gone before I got up. Mum said she’d found out about some open-air yoga sessions on the cliffs, and had left early to go and practise her downward dog.

  According to the brochure, that’s the name of one of the poses they do, and not as disgusting as it sounds.

  ‘And since you’ve got nothing else to do,’ Mum said, just assuming that without Kayla I’d be incapable of organizing my own social life, ‘you and your dad can take Jude to the playground.’

  She and Jude had spent the morning building Lego creations on the caravan floor. Mum’s was a massive castle, complete with balconies and a tiny, waving queen. Jude’s was a very enthusiastic blob, inside of which a model train had set up home with a family of Sylvanians.

  I had grievous Lego injuries to the soles of both my feet just from getting to the sofa, and was already feeling indignant (and a little bit sulky about not being asked to join in). ‘Me and Dad? Can’t I just take him on my own?’

  Handling Jude was nothing compared to handling my dad. He loved a playground. One of my earliest memories involved being stranded on the bottom bit of the see-saw, while he showed off how high he could get on the swings. It had only been a see for me.

  Jude looked up from his building site. ‘I want Dylan and Daddy!’

  He tugged the hamster hat down on his head and gave me a look, which if I didn’t know better, I’d have taken as blackmail.

  ‘You’ll both go. You can take this time to memorize your father’s face before we lose him to the football screenings at the Dog and Duck. And since you barely seem able to look after yourself –’ Mum flicked her fingers at me like she was brushing off dust – ‘perhaps between the two of you, you’ll make one responsible adult. Go on, go.’

  She’d noticed the state of my nose first thing. Without Kayla to give me a fresh coat, it was looking all mottled and splotchy again. Although that was an improvement on the purple of two nights ago, when my nose hadn’t just been the same colour as an aubergine, but almost the same size.

  And Mum had a point. Two points, really.

  I was incapable of planning a social life on my own.

  And we did see less of Dad once football season properly kicked off. He even organized shifts at the ambulance station around important fixtures. If there was a good game on, he couldn’t be trusted not to try and tune the emergency radio in to Sports Extra.

  We both loved football, but I never went to the pub with him any more. It got lairy in there on match days, and some of the jokes that went flying round were really hard to smile at.

  Here’s something you’d think was a fact if you only watched the Premier League: gay players don’t exist. There aren’t any gay footballers in the major teams. Although that’s not what gets said whenever a striker misses an easy chance to score.

  Being able to kick a ball really well and fancying other blokes are two qualities that never ever occur in the same person, apparently, so I must be a scientific miracle. I think it’s just that no footballer wants to come out because of the things they know will be yelled at them. It’s so stupid.

  But I guess it makes some people uncomfortable, the idea of having gay people around while they’re watching football. They just want to be left alone while they spend ninety minutes staring at other men running about in little shorts. Anyway, the whole atmosphere at the pub just meant that the only football me and Dad really watched together was on the highlight shows at home. At least there I didn’t have to deal with anyone else seeing what he was wearing.

  Dad’s football-watching outfit and his going-to-the-playground outfit were exactly the
same. Full kit. Stripy socks and boots with studs, even though they’re difficult to walk in. And because Mum doesn’t let him buy a new season strip every year – or any year – he wears the same one. The shirt has the name of some mulleted player out of ancient history on the back, and the fabric’s worn so thin on the shorts that you can practically see the hairs on Dad’s legs.

  That’s what he was wearing when we set off from the caravan. I’d put on a hoody and was trying to vanish inside it, like a turtle with a fleecy shell. Dad had accessorized his humiliation mufti with an ancient khaki coat we liked to call his Jurassic Parka. It didn’t really improve the look.

  I watched the curtains closely as we passed the Dramavan, letting out a tightly held breath when not one of them twitched. I might have blown all my chances away along with a blast of extinguisher foam last night, but at least I could try and make it through one day at Starcross Sands without actively increasing my total-loser rating.

  Ducking my head low, I kept up with Jude’s chair. He looked up at me from under the hamster hat. ‘Is Kayla very cross with you?’

  I frowned at him. ‘Kayla isn’t cross with me at all.’

  Which might have been true. Maybe she’d find her inner zen at yoga and come back too chilled out to be angry any more.

  But by then Dad was looking over his shoulder at me. ‘Seemed like it, running off to be a dog this morning.’

  God, I hoped he never said that to her face.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Couldn’t get out fast enough. Asked if I should wake you, but she said yoga’s all about expanding your horizons.’

  That didn’t sound too angry, to me.

  ‘Said it required an open mind, and you don’t have one,’ Dad went on.

  Oh.

  So maybe she was still a little bit angry. I swallowed around a tightness in my throat. Dad watched my chin dip down to my chest and punched me in the shoulder, which he seemed to think was a good way of comforting someone. ‘You want to talk about it, you know who you can ask. I’ve got years of experience talking to women.’