Following Flora (16 page)

“I still don't understand why we are going after them,” Twig said as we roared onto the motorway.

“They might have an accident!” Dad shouted. “Zach's mother is a maniac! Flora might run away to Spain! ANYTHING MIGHT HAPPEN!”

Dad swerved to avoid a lorry. Twig screamed.

“I am just doing what any parent would do!” Dad yelled.

“Is Daddy being a hero?” Jas whispered to me.

“In a way,” I whispered back.

We caught up with Zoran and Flora as they pulled out of a gas station on the motorway.

“I thought motorbikes were really fast,” Jas remarked. “How come they're not farther ahead?”

“Zoran is a very responsible driver,” I said. Dad gave a short laugh, swerved again and swore.

“You can't slow down,” Twig told him. “The ferry sails in less than an hour.”

We kept them in our sights right up until the turnoff for Portsmouth, but we lost them in the queue to the harbor, mainly because Zoran managed to avoid the traffic by riding his motorbike down the oncoming lane, which was empty. Then, when we arrived at the entrance to the harbor, Dad had to explain that we were looking for the ferry to Spain, but that we didn't have any tickets and nor did we want to buy any.

“I am looking for my daughter!” Dad cried. “She has run away on a motorbike to find her boyfriend.”

The ticket man, whose badge said he was called Percy Williams, said that was the most exciting thing he'd heard all day, but that boarding for the
Queen Sofia
had already closed.

“We're too late!” Jas wailed.

“Let us through!” Dad snarled at Percy. “My daughter is somewhere in this precinct and I mean to bring her home!”

Percy said he sympathized because he also had daughters, but in his experience there was not a blind bit of use trying to stop them falling in love with unsuitable boyfriends.

“You've just got to let it run its course,” Percy advised. Behind us, a long line of cars were honking their horns. “I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.”

Dad reversed out of the line, parked the car on the side of the road, and tore back past Percy's hut at a sprint, with the rest of us right behind him. Quite a few people were watching by now and a group of kids on a school trip even started to cheer.

“There's no more boat until tomorrow!” Percy shouted after us, but Dad didn't listen. He ran, and we ran after him, all the way to the waterfront, and then he stopped so suddenly we all bumped into him, because there, sitting on a pillar on the quayside, looking out to sea with his rucksack at his feet and his guitar still on his back, watching the
Queen Sofia
pull out of Portsmouth Harbor, was Zach. And there also, walking toward him, clad in leather and carrying their helmets and looking like something out of a Hollywood movie, were Zoran and Flora.

Zach looked up when he heard footsteps behind him. Zoran and Flora both reached out to touch him. Zach said something we couldn't hear. Flora flung her arms around him. Zoran put his arms around them both.

Dad sniffed loudly.

Jas announced, “Daddy, I don't care what you say about us not being allowed to talk to Zach,” and marched over toward the hugging, huddled heap that was Zach and Zoran and Flora. Twig and I followed.

“You missed the boat,” Jas said.

“No, I didn't,” Zach whispered.

Like Grandma says, there's always a choice. Zach's choice was whether to leave or stay. And when he switched his phone back on and read Zoran's text, he made his decision.

Zoran's text said: “Ask Wanda to tell you the truth about why she left you.”

So he did. And I don't know what he said to her, but for once Wanda did tell him the truth.

After Zach's Gran died, Mr. Rudowski gave Wanda a choice: stay at home with them and get medical help, or leave. He said if she stayed he would help her, but that things couldn't go on as they had before, that it wasn't fair to Zach.

“The doctors would have put me on drugs,” Wanda told Zach. “I didn't want that.”

Mr. Rudowski didn't kick her out. Wanda chose to leave.

“Witch,” Flora said fiercely.

“She's not a witch,” Zach said softly. “She's frightened.”

Flora snorted. Zoran frowned at her and she stopped.

“But why did you run away?” Jas wanted to know.

“She asked me to go with her.” Zach said.

Suddenly I remembered how lost he looked at Zoran's concert, when he realized Wanda hadn't come after all. I pictured him as a little boy, laughing with his mum at one of her crazy picnics. And then I thought of him and Mr. Rudowski, living alone in the old house by the river, both missing people who weren't there, and I understood.

I guess a part of Zach will always want to be with his mum.

So Zach left. He went home to Zoran's flat, said nothing, waited till Zoran was sleeping, and crept back to his grandfather's house in the early morning.

“I was going to do it,” he said. “All the way down on the train Mum kept talking about the mountains, about fig and apricot and almond trees, goats and beaches and blue sky. I knew even then that it was crazy, but she made it sound wonderful. Then we arrived, and I switched on my phone, and there was Zoran's text. After Mum told me the truth, all I could think about was Grandad. He lied for her. He let me believe he'd kicked her out so I didn't know she'd chosen to leave me. And he's old and sick, he's completely lost without Grandma, and I've been so angry with him. So I said I wasn't going with her. And Mum—Mum decided to leave.”

Zach's voice wobbled, but he didn't cry. Flora hugged him even closer.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“Me too,” he replied. “As someone very wise once explained to me—it's the people who stay who really matter.”

He looked at me when he said that, and I felt all happy inside.

Far out at sea, the
Queen Sofia
had disappeared. We were all watching it: Twig, Jas, and me with our feet dangling over the water, Zach on one pillar with his arms around Flora, Zoran on another. It was a big moment.

“The ones who stay, and the ones who come after you.”

Dad had crept up on us without any of us hearing.

“I'm glad you stayed, son,” he said.

Slowly, slowly, Zach smiled his amazing smile.

“Come on,” Zoran said. “I'll buy you all something to eat.”

We turned our backs on the sea and walked across the empty quayside to the entrance to the embarkation lot.

“No way is that yours!” Zach said, when we stopped at Bill's Harley.

“It's a long story,” Zoran said.

Twig's phone rang while we were arguing about who should ride into town with Zoran. “It's for you,” he said, handing me the phone. “It's that mad cow you call your best friend.”

“Tell Twig I heard that,” Dodi said. “And where
are
you?”

“Portsmouth,” I grinned.

“What? Where even
is
that? Listen, Jake's had an idea.”

I let Dodi talk. Flora and Zach were sitting together on the motorbike. Dad was on the phone to Mum, trying to explain what had happened, and Jas was talking to Gloria on Zoran's phone. Flora wrapped her arms around Zach and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed. The sun was shining. The sea was blue. It was perfect.

“Tomorrow then,” Dodi was saying.

“Sure,” I smiled, and gave the phone back to Twig.

Zoran rode into town with Zach, and we all followed behind.

THE FILM DIARIES OF BLUEBELL GADSBY
SCENE TEN (TRANSCRIPT)
CRIMINAL ACTIVITY

EXTERIOR. PREDAWN. THE PLAYGROUND OF CLARENDON FREE SCHOOL.

JAKE, COLIN, SAM, DODI, and CAMERAMAN (BLUE) have just scaled the school gates and huddle beneath the window of the staff common room.

CAMERAMAN (BLUE)

Won't it be locked?

 

JAKE

(proud of himself)

Shouldn't be. I slipped in during Saturday detention and stole the window bolts.

 

CAMERAMAN

But isn't there an alarm?

 

DODI

Blue, stop being so
negative
! Jake's thought of everything! He's got thirty seconds before it goes off.

 

CAMERAMAN

Thirty seconds!

 

JAKE

(
assuming the air of a commando officer and brandishing a pair of wire cutters)

All right, lads. I'm going in.

 

Colin gives him a leg up to the windowsill. Jake crouches on the ledge. It looks for a moment as if he will lose his balance and fall, but then he grins down at his friends on the ground and they realize that he is showing off. He pushes the sash open and reaches down for the camera.

CAMERAMAN (JAKE)

And so our intrepid explorer ventures into the scary depths of the Staff Common Room. This is the den where Math teachers lurk, the natural habitat of child-eating French teachers . . . And here, if our bold adventurer is not mistaken, is said French teacher's locker.

 

Picture is reduced to blurred image of common room floor as Jake fumbles in his rucksack. Off camera, there is the sound of heavy breathing, and a sharp click as metal cutters cut through a padlock.

CAMERAMAN (JAKE)

Eureka!

 

A pair of gloved hands picks through the contents of the locker—books, notebooks, a printed scarf, perfume, two bottles of Evian, a packet of crackers, and a cardboard box containing lipsticks, tissues, and an assortment of confiscated telephones. Jake grabs the lot and stuffs them into his rucksack. The screech of a burglar alarm splits the air. Picture goes mad as Jake vaults out of the window.

CAMERAMAN (JAKE)

RUN!

 

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26

I've never run so fast or laughed so much while I was running. We raced to the school gate, scrambled over it, and kept on running until we reached the park, where we collapsed on a bench, panting and still laughing. Jake reached into his rucksack and pulled out Madame Gilbert's box of lipsticks and telephones.

“One of these is yours, I believe, milady,” he said.

“I can't believe you just did that!” I said, taking the box.

“Anything for you, Blue,” Jake said, and that is when I noticed the way that Dodi was looking at him, like he was some kind of superhero.

Dodi likes Jake. I can't believe I never realized before.

Mum came downstairs today. Now that Dad has developed a taste for being heroic, he wanted to carry her down from her bedroom, but she wouldn't let him. Instead he has been driving her mad with his fussing, but you can see that she actually loves it. And Zoran came around on his way back from the stables. His excuse for going over was to pick up his scooter and also to pay the fines Gloria and Bill got for galloping their horses across London looking for Zach, but when he came back he couldn't stop grinning.

Gloria is going to give him riding lessons.

As for Zach, he has finished writing his song for Flora. He played it to her this afternoon in the tree house, and when they came down her eyes were shining. Zach says he's going to play it at Zoran's next concert, but I'm not allowed to film it. And my point about all this is these people, one way or another, are all in love. And however many telephones Jake steals for me or how many roses he gives me, nothing is going to change the fact that I just don't feel that way about him. So this afternoon I went around to Jake's house and did something I should have done a long time ago.

“If it's because of Talullah,” Jake said, “I promise that is completely over.”

“It's not about Talullah,” I said. Then, because I had promised myself I was going to be truthful, I added, “I mean it's not
completely
about Talullah. I just don't want to go out with you. I never
did
want to go out with you in the first place. I only said yes because it felt a bit awkward to say no, which if you think about it is a completely rubbish basis for a relationship. You're amazing because you're the sort of brilliant person who is prepared to break into school to steal back a telephone, but please can we just be friends again?”

It all came out in a rush and I did feel a bit bad because of the criminal activity and everything, but I think he finally got the message. Afterward I went around to Dodi's house to tell her. I could see she was secretly pleased, but she said, “You're mad, everyone wants a boyfriend.”

“Well I am not everyone,” I said.

“I bet this time next week you'll be back together with him.”

I didn't have a milk shake handy, but there was a bottle of water on the table. “You wouldn't dare,” Dodi said, but I did. I chased her all round her garden with it and only stopped when she was so wet you could see her bra through her T-shirt.

Boys can wait. Friends are way more fun.

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 8

People only write in diaries when things are going badly. And lately things have been good.

I had a long chat with Dodi after I'd spoken to Jake, and she admitted that she has liked him for ages, ever sin
ce she
spent so much time talking to him about me. She said she would never go out with him if I minded even the tiniest bit. I told her that I would mind a
lot
if she didn't. They have been together for nearly a month now, and they really are the cutest couple. Now that Jake has found a girl who adores him and who doesn't live in a different hemisphere, he has become the model boyfriend.

Zoran and Gloria—well, let's just say their relationship has extended to beyond riding lessons.

Ron and Hermione kill every rodent that crosses their paths at the stables. Which is nice for them, if not for the rodents.

Jas and Bill have become best friends and are writing poetry together.

Twig finally understood Maisie Carter was just using him as a free babysitting service, and is now pining for a new girl called Bianca.

Flora and Zach are more in love than ever, and Mr. Rudowski has come home.

Me? There's nothing new. And that's just fine. Life's good. Boring. No surprises.

EXCEPT TODAY!!!!

TODAY WAS VERY, VERY, VERY EXCITING.

Today, for the first time, we met Mr. Rudowski.