13
There is just one problem with going out to watch the dawn… it kind of wrecks you for school the next day.
I yawn all the way through French and maths and finally fall asleep in history. Frankie jabs me in the ribs just as I am dreaming of picnics in the park in my pyjamas with a boy who may or may not be an angel.
‘Wake up,’ she hisses. ‘At least pretend to listen. What’s up with you?’
‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I had a late night. Dan came over…’
Frankie’s eyes are wide. ‘Whoa… be careful, Anya. I’ve told you before… that boy is bad news.’
‘Frances McGee!’ Mr Goldman yells, and she snaps to attention, blinking. ‘I’m sure you’ve been listening carefully. Perhaps you’d like to tell the class the causes of the Great Fire of London?’
Frankie doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Wasn’t that Dan Carney, Sir?’
The class dissolves into giggles. ‘Most amusing,’ Mr Goldman huffs. ‘Where is Dan, anyway? Our little arsonist not here today?’
A few of the bad-boy crew at the back of the class offer random excuses for Dan. He’s broken his leg, he’s at the dentist, he’s been expelled forever for setting fire to Mr Fisher’s Burberry raincoat. Mr Goldman rolls his eyes.
I have a strong feeling Dan is still curled up in bed, asleep, his wings hanging from the coat stand.
‘Watch out, Anya,’ Frankie says later in the school canteen, flicking through a music magazine, one where all the bands seem to be young and skinny and dressed in black. ‘I like Dan, but he should have a government health warning stamped all over him. Don’t get involved.’
‘Involved in what?’ Kurt wants to know.
‘Girl stuff,’ Frankie scoffs. ‘Crushes, kisses… true lurve. You wouldn’t understand.’
‘How do you know?’ Kurt protests.
‘I just do,’ Frankie says. ‘Seriously, Anya, Dan’s no angel.’
But he’s the only good thing in my life right now, the only thing that makes this place bearable. And sometimes I see a sweet, sad, gentle side to Dan, a side I know Frankie has never seen. Sometimes he makes me miserable, sometimes he makes me mad, but he can make my heart flip over with just one look. And last night was special… so special.
‘You’re not even listening, are you?’ Frankie sighs.
‘It’s OK, Anya. Love is deaf, as well as blind,’ Kurt says wisely. ‘Anyone want a banana chip?’ He offers us a bag of dried brownish discs, and I take one, just to be polite. It tastes like something that may have been a banana, once, very long ago. Possibly in a past life.
Kurt is always trying to tempt us into healthy eating with beansprout sandwiches, tofu quiche and random shrivelled things masquerading as fruit. It’s not really working, so far.
‘Yuck,’ Frankie sniffs. ‘Why call it a banana chip when it tastes nothing like either? It’s more like old shoe leather. If this is healthy eating, I’d rather be fat.’
‘You’re not fat!’ Kurt says. ‘You’re just cuddly. In a nice way.’
Frankie’s lip curls.
‘Get a grip,’ she snaps. ‘I am not cuddly, I’m fat. Don’t go getting any ideas, OK? You are so not my type, Kurt Jones. It’s not just the drooping handknitted school jumpers and the hideous trousers, either. You do equations for fun, and eat vile, shrivelled things that even Cheesy wouldn’t bother with –’
‘What do you mean… hideous trousers?’ Kurt asks, in injured tones.
‘You must know,’ she sighs. ‘You get teased about them often enough.’
‘I don’t mind being a bit different…’
Frankie rolls her eyes. ‘There’s different,’ she explains, ‘and there’s just plain embarrassing. Ever thought of going goth?’
‘Er, no…’
‘Emo? Scene? Nu-rave?’ Frankie continues. ‘Punk, maybe?’
I don’t even know what those things are, and I don’t think Kurt does, either. ‘I’m not really a punk kind of a person,’ he protests.
Frankie chucks her magazine down. ‘Face it, Kurt,’ she says. ‘You need a wardrobe makeover – and I’m not talking about rats or chicken wire.’
She goes up to the counter for a second helping of sponge pudding and custard, and Kurt picks up the magazine, sulking. ‘Look at these people,’ he says, baffled. ‘All that backcombed hair, those skinny trousers. Does Frankie really like all that?’
I bite my lip. ‘I think she does,’ I tell him.
‘She’d like me better if I looked like… like this?’ Kurt says, peering at a poster of a wild-eyed singer with eyeliner and heavily tattooed arms. ‘I will never understand girls.’
‘Frankie is strange,’ I shrug. ‘But she does like you, Kurt.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Kurt says gloomily. ‘She never even noticed I was alive until recently.’
I’ve been invisible myself, and silent too, so I know how Kurt is feeling.
‘We don’t have anything in common,’ Kurt sighs, toying with a slice of lentil quiche. ‘We’re too different.’
‘Different is good,’ I say, thinking of me and Dan.
‘I’m not just different, I’m dull,’ Kurt says. ‘That’s what Frankie thinks.’
‘Not dull,’ I tell him. ‘But if Frankie thinks so, then why not surprise her? You are a smart boy. Think about it. What does Frankie like? What will please her?’
Frankie is coming back to the table with a double helping of sponge pudding and custard, a contented smile on her face.
Kurt begins to grin. ‘Hey, Frankie,’ he says. ‘I was just saying to Anya, I wonder how that crazy cafe is getting on? D’you fancy going along after school, to check it out? I’ll buy you both a cake!’
Frankie raises an eyebrow. ‘I thought lentils and miso soup were more your thing?’ she asks.
‘They are,’ Kurt agrees. ‘But those cakes at Heaven are something else…’
‘Go on then,’ Frankie grins. ‘We’ll come, right, Anya?’
I smile, but my heart starts up a drumbeat that has nothing to do with Kurt or Frankie. Maybe Dan will be there… and maybe, after last night, even Frankie will see that he’s the boy for me.
Maybe.