Keep the Faith (16 page)

He was trying to blind me with geek-speak. ‘And that’s a good thing, is it?’

‘Everything about Lily is good.’

‘If you thought she was so great then why didn’t you visit before?’

‘I wanted to come to her birthday party last year, but . . .’

I folded my arms. ‘What? Had something better to do?’

‘I was a bit scared of meeting you all.’

‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’

He gazed up at me, standing there glaring down at him. But I wasn’t going to be friendly until I was sure about him.

He bit his lip. ‘I wanted to see Lily by herself, but it took me a long time to pluck up the courage.’

Lily herself appeared from behind me and said, ‘Tell Faith about your stop-motion version of
Star Trek
using Lego.’

To be fair, when Arif tells a story involving sci-fi and Lego figures, he’s a lot less rambly than Lily. But my in-depth assessment of his suitability as a boyfriend for Lily had to wait a
bit while I did some dancing and cupcake eating and chatting and snogging with all of my lovely guests. (Apart from the snogging bit: I just did that with Finn.)

I was filling up my fifth plate at the snack table when I bumped into Becky.

‘Good party,’ she said. ‘Some very nice boys.’

I looked round the room. The nearest group of boys were all trying to get the attention of one black-haired girl. One of the crowd of admirers was Ethan.

‘Hey, isn’t she that St Minger’s girl that was at the club night?’ I asked.

Becky nodded. ‘She’s called Dawn.’

‘
Dawn?
Midnight would be more like it. She looks like the angel of death.’

‘She is spookily pretty.’

Which wasn’t what I meant. ‘Why is she at my party?’

‘She came with Ryan. She’s his cousin.’

Which explains why I’m pretty sure I saw her at the New Year party too. I made a mental note to tell whoever organises my next party that it should be by invitation only. At least she
hadn’t brought Cherry with her.

‘She seems to be enjoying herself, doesn’t she?’ Becky said with raised eyebrows.

I think I’d enjoy myself if I had eight boys hanging on my every word. Obviously, I don’t need a pack of boys staring at me. I’ve got a lovely boyfriend. All the same, I was
strangely relieved to see Ethan break away from the group to grab Westy by the neck and shout something in his ear.

Megs came scurrying over. ‘I’ve been talking to Arif.’

‘Oh, I think he seems lovely,’ Becky gushed.

‘He really
is
nice,’ Megs said. ‘I thought he’d be more Lilyish, but he’s actually quite sane. What do you think of him?’ she asked me.

‘I haven’t made up my mind about him yet. It still seems a bit convenient to me that he gets up the nerve to ask Lily out just when she blossoms into womanhood.’

‘Oh no,’ Megs said. ‘You’ve got that wrong. Totally wrong.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Hold on a minute.’ And she wove her way between people to where Arif was talking to Cameron. When she came back, she held out a photo to me. ‘Look at this,’ she
said.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a picture of Lily that Arif carries around in his wallet.’

I took a look. It was at least two years old. Lily was looking extremely long and skinny in a very dodgy pair of dungarees. She was also wearing a baseball cap and sticking out her tongue. It
wasn’t the most flattering picture I’ve ever seen of her. ‘Why has he got this?’

‘Lily sent it to him. It’s the only photo he’s got of her.’

‘He’s probably seen other pictures of her . . .’ Thinking about it, I realised Lily isn’t one of those people that posts pictures of herself looking gorgeous. In fact, in
most of the photos I’ve seen of Lily online she’s wearing a terrible hat or doing something stupid with fruit.

Megs gave me a pointed look. ‘He might have seen other photos, but this is the one that he takes with him everywhere.’

‘Oh.’

‘He says every time he looks at her in that picture it makes him happy.’

‘Oh.’

‘He also said that Lily’s the smartest girl he’s ever met.’

My mouth dropped open. ‘That’s it then,’ I said. ‘He really does like her.’

‘Yep.’

When I said goodbye to Lily and Arif, I leant over to Arif and said, ‘You have my permission to be Lily’s boyfriend, but make sure you look after her, OK?’

He still looked a bit scared of me. ‘You don’t just mean when she’s crossing the road, do you?’

‘Well, that might be a good idea too, but don’t make her sad or I will hunt you down and squash you.’

Arif swallowed. ‘Honestly, you won’t need to hunt me down. I promise I won’t ever do anything to upset Lily.’

And then he gazed at her with such adoration that I suddenly felt empty inside. I looked around for Finn. He and Josh were balancing on the back of the sofa and pretending to surf. Finn waved. I
waved back.

Waving isn’t very soulful, but he did bring me another piece of cake and get Westy to put on my favourite song again. My boyfriend is very sweet.

There’s something else that happened at the party. Something with Ethan. I wasn’t going to write about it because I’m trying quite hard to forget it, but
I have to try and sort out what happened in my head.

He didn’t speak to me for most of the night, which is the first stupid thing he did. I happened to notice that he spoke to a lot of other girls. Which annoyed me. Not because I was jealous
or anything, but because it was my birthday party after all.

After Megs had shown me Arif’s photo of Lily, I went out to the hall to put some of my presents with my coat and Ethan was coming down the stairs.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hey, Faith, nice party that you’ve managed to get someone else to organise.’

‘Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment.’ But I wasn’t sure that it was.

There was an awkward pause.

And then I said something stupid. Maybe I was fishing for a compliment, which was dumb because Ethan is not a big one for compliments. Anyway, the words just slipped out of my mouth. I said,
‘Do you like my dress?’

‘No,’ he said.

Which is a very unkind thing to say to someone on their birthday. I expected him to follow it up with something else rude because Ethan can be pretty cutting sometimes; instead, he looked at me
from under his curls and said, ‘But I like you,’ in this really low voice.

My anger died and my heart started thumping.

And then he took a step towards me and I really thought he was going to kiss me. I felt like I was in a film and the music was doing that swelling to a crescendo thing. I looked into his dark
eyes and even though I was frozen to the spot everything inside me was leaning towards him.

But he just twisted his mouth into a sort of sulky half-smile and said, ‘Happy Birthday, Faith.’

What on earth? What the hell was that about? I think he did it on purpose just to wind me up. I can only hope that my face didn’t look like I was hoping he’d kiss me.

Even though, I think, I kind of was.

I didn’t see him again after that. I did enjoy my party, I really did, but why did Ethan have to mess with me?

Going back to school today has been a nasty shock after all the fun and birthday cake of half-term. Sensible people treat the second half of the term as a gentle slide down
to the next holidays. Not Miss Ramsbottom, but then Miss R is not like other sane human beings. She seems to think that our depressing return to school is a time for renewed energy and for starting
stuff that I am quite frankly too tired to even be sarcastic about. First, she came round all the tutor groups informing us of the new rules she’s thought up. I managed to block out most of
them, but I did hear her mention something about wearing our uniform with pride and not accessorising it.

I said, ‘Not even with a smile?’

She looked daggers at me. ‘Of course you may smile. And if you’re all in the correct uniform then I’m sure that the teachers will be smiling too.’ She attempted to pull
her death mask into a grin. I could almost hear her skin ripping. As smiles go, it was pretty thin.

But the one that Mrs Webber was doing behind her back was fairly broad.

Today’s assembly was all about the Student Council. I didn’t know that we had a Student Council. Judging by their startled bunny looks, as they shuffled about up on stage, they had
only recently found out themselves. They seemed a bit stunned. I suspect that Ramsbottom has hypnotised them so that she can use them like puppets. Which is a new and subtle approach for the
vampire woman in her manipulation of people. Usually, she just shouts, ‘Do what I say!’

Anyway, the Student Council said that they’re very interested in what we think about the way the school is run and what we’d like to see done.

Then they told us what actually is going to be done.

There didn’t seem to be a consultation period between the two things.

So now that we have these brilliant minds championing the students’ needs and fighting our corner to ensure that the school does its best for every member, what innovative and exciting
changes do you think they are bringing about?

We’re getting a suggestion box.

That is democracy for you.

Tomorrow will be my first time looking after Tolde the Toad. I sidled up to Mum and said, ‘So . . . this childcare business. Just give them a biscuit and build a pen
of toys to contain them, is it?’

Mum gave me what she thinks is a piercing look. ‘There’s a bit more to it than that. Think of some games. Try to engage him. Talk about his toys. Ask him questions. Read him a
story.’

It suddenly became clear to me why Mary Poppins was always bursting into song. She was obviously insane after spending so much time talking about stuffed animals and being forced to listen to
children’s answers to questions.

Mum shook her head. ‘Just play with him and keep positive, all right?’

Sounds simple enough.

After school, Megs walked with me to Skye’s house. On the way, I told her about what happened with Ethan at my birthday party, although, when I told her that
I’d thought Ethan was going to kiss me, I tried to sound like I was horrified. Her eyes did a lot of bulging.

‘Why do you think he did that?’ I asked.

‘Dunno, maybe he wanted to snog you.’

‘But there
wasn’t
any kissing. He never said anything about kissing. It was just that he was right in my face. I think he was trying to make me look like an
idiot.’

‘He doesn’t have to get you puckered up for that.’

‘Shut up! I reckon he was just trying to embarrass me.’

‘Either that or he wanted to snog you.’

I was strangely pleased that Megs thought Ethan’s weirdness means he likes me, although I still think he was just messing with me.

We’d reached Skye’s house by this point. I rang the bell and Megs was about to disappear off, but I said, ‘No, wait, you can see her crystal collection when she opens the door
and, if we’re lucky, she might let you stay.’

Skye opened the door wearing a rainbow tie-dye jumpsuit. Needless to say, Megs was not looking at the crystal collection.

‘Hello, Faith, is this your friend? Come in, come in!’

Megs backed away. ‘I was just . . .’

‘No, you must stay! Tolde will be delighted to have two playmates! And there’s plenty of goulash in the kitchen for everyone.’

Ha! What could Megs say? We were both swept inside.

Tolde the Toad was sitting in the cupboard under the stairs building a tower of shoes.

‘Isn’t he creative?’ Skye gushed. ‘I don’t like him to have those noisy plastic toys, because children play better with real-world objects, don’t you
think?’

‘Mmm,’ I said, as I blocked Toad from jabbing me in the leg with the heel of a sandal.

Skye kissed Tolde’s knotty   hair and   picked up   her raffia basket-bag. ‘I’ll be back around seven. Have fun! Eat goulash! Play, dance, create!
Whatever makes Tolde’s heart sing!’

Off she went, slamming the door, which made the whole ancient house sway.

Apparently, what made Toad’s heart sing was for him to continue to jab me in the thigh with various shoes.

When he got bored of the shoes, he threw them down the hallway and started screaming and hammering the floor with his fists.

I looked down at him. His usually pink face was turning bright red. ‘Do something, Megs!’

Megs looked around for something to distract him with.

She found a pot of bubbles in the sitting room beside a half-eaten banana on the mantelpiece. ‘Look, Tolde!’ Megs said in a soppy voice. ‘Bubbles!’

Fortunately, Toad quite liked the bubbles and ran about smashing them with his favourite shoe.

‘Ahh, look,’ Megs cooed. ‘He loves it when you blow bubbles. He’s so cute.’

I didn’t think he looked cute, but he definitely looked less like a tomato that’s about to explode so I was pretty happy that we’d finally found something he likes. Toddlers
are quite demanding. Personally, I only need a skinny cappuccino with cinnamon not chocolate, a selection of magazines and a large plate of doughnuts with most of the sugar brushed off to be
happy.

The bubbles kept him busy for a bit. Then feeble Megs ran out of puff and Toad shouted, ‘Ooh ash! Ooh ash!’

‘What’s he saying?’ I asked Megs. ‘I don’t speak baby.’

‘I think he wants some goulash.’

So we sat him in his tall chair and gave him some goulash. Toad hadn’t actually specified what it was that he wanted the goulash for. I assumed it was eating, but, as Skye keeps saying,
Toad is a creative child, so instead of eating it, he painted with it. Megs and I watched with appalled fascination while he covered the high chair, his clothes, his face and his arms. Then he got
a bit Jackson Pollock and started flinging handfuls on the kitchen floor.

Megs snapped out of her frozen horror and took the bowl away from him. ‘No!’ she said.

I remembered something Skye was banging on about last time I was there. ‘His mum said she doesn’t want to set up barriers to his exploring the world by using negative words like
no.’