My Invisible Boyfriend (13 page)

Special Agent Heidi has been working hard on Operation: Simply Belonging. Not on her World Map displaying the distribution of coffee growers versus coffee wealth, or a certain Poem, or even the costume designs for the musical, which is
allegedly the talk of the staff room (“Didn’t even know you could draw, babes. You made me feel ever so silly.”). But a cunning plan is underway, and the foundations have been laid. Henry and Ludo have already been provided with the relevant equipment, stolen from Venables’s props cupboard. I’m well on my way to restoring the Leftover Squad to happiness.

All I need now is to distribute one last item and sort out
my
outfit for Halloween at the Little Leaf. Betsy might have adopted the tea and biscuits but she’s still an American when it comes down it. I’ve seen the photos from last year: There’s going to be some serious festive decoration going on, not to mention a whole new menu. Me turning up dressed as a Schoolgirl Waitress isn’t going to cut it.

Usually the Mothership heads straight home after classes on Fridays, but (uncannily, almost as if some clever person arranged it) Dai’s asked for some extra swim time (which, strangely enough, Henry might have had a text suggesting he goes to watch), so I’ve got a window of an hour or so. I flutter my eyelashes at Dad Man, and he fake sighs, pretending to look the other way as I sneak up the huge Manor staircase to Ludo’s room.

She has a single, which is lucky for whoever might have ended up being her roomie, because the Ludo approach to decoration is insane: every inch of wall covered in photos, postcards, stickers; every mirror draped with necklaces and beads; desk and chair invisible, reachable only by excavation party with laundry basket. Tonight it looks as if a small
explosion may have occurred and destroyed the wardrobe. There are more clothes than I think I’ve ever owned in my entire life, piled up on her bed. I’d assume it was for my benefit, or maybe some consequence of the Girl B scenario, if it hadn’t looked exactly the same last time I’d sneaked up here.

“So we’re going for, like, American Halloween, where you don’t have to be all warty,” Ludo explains, holding up multiple sparkly, un-Heidilike items. “You know, you can be a slutty nurse, or a slutty cat, or a slutty…slut.”

“Maybe I want to be warty,” I say, as she drapes a pink feather boa around my neck and pouts at my reflection in the mirror.

“Oh my God, Heidi, nobody
wants
to be warty. You should let go, you know? Lose the big coat, show a little skin! We could take pictures, send them to your Ed. Or are you worried he’d get jealous?”

“He’d probably laugh,” I say, imagining a squished icing eye crinkling up in amusement. “Besides, he likes me being…me.”

I see her face, reflected next to mine, go still for just a moment. She’s smiling but in a sad sort of way.

PAW.

LOO.

DOE.

Dating someone as perfect as Ed does make it hard on everyone else, I guess. Even if Peroxide Eric weren’t possibly doing the dirty, he’d still struggle to measure up.

Ludo pokes through the selection of stretchy sparkly things on the bed, which wouldn’t fit me anyway, though she’s much too sweet to say so.

“I don’t really have anything warty,” she sighs.

“Well, maybe not warty. But witchy. Traditional spooky stuff. Hey, you know who’d have that stuff? We should go and ask Fili.”

The casual “I only just thought of this and haven’t been planning it at all” tone doesn’t quite come off, but it doesn’t matter: Ludo just flops onto the pile of clothes on the bed.

“Good luck with that,” she says, tartly.

I think about arguing with her, but there’s not much point. I think I only wanted her to come with me so I wouldn’t chicken out. Or to make sure I wouldn’t be the only unwelcome one.

I head up the top flight of stairs alone anyway, and hesitate outside Fili and Yuliya’s bedroom door.

Part of me hopes she won’t answer, but there’s a thump, and the door opens.

Simon.

He’s not really supposed to be upstairs in a Manor bedroom.

Then again, neither am I. And the chickeny part of me is sort of relieved. I’m here to just gently prove I’m still Fili’s friend, more than anything. It doesn’t need to be a big dramatic scene, with weeping and guilty confessions.

Fili’s curled up on her black and silver bedcover, eyebrow
shooting up as Simon shuffles back to let me in, and I mumble my explanation. It feels so odd, seeing her and knowing things I can’t say. It’s like episode 1.10, “Insight,” the one where Mycroft Christie can suddenly read everyone’s minds, and it turns out to be kind of inconvenient and upsetting. Except I don’t have to wear an Ugly Magic Ring to do it.

And maybe it’s Ed who’s got the Ugly Magic Ring anyway, because I can’t figure out what she’s thinking at all as she sighs and waves me toward the wardrobe, instructing me to help myself.

“You
are
coming tomorrow?” I say, poking through the black shirts, and the black skirts, and the…other black skirts. “To the Little Leaf? For lunchtime? There’s this theme for dressing up,” I add, taking the wrapped-up prop out of my Bubble Wrap bag and throwing it to Simon. “Everyone’s doing it.”

“OK,” says Simon, nodding through his wispy hair, then looking to Fili. “OK?”

Fili shrugs. “If that’s what everyone’s doing,” she says softly.

She doesn’t sound exactly pleased about it. But they’ll be there at least. And Operation: Simply Belonging’s Project Pumpkin can’t possibly go wrong.

Betsy does not disappoint.

The rest of town is getting by on moldy-looking pumpkins with a few triangles cut out of them and the occasional
five-year-old dressed as as a witch (and getting some harsh fashion critique from the local emokids sitting on the war memorial). The Little Leaf, on the other hand, has transformed from a weird-looking place into…a slightly more defined weird-looking place. You can barely sit down for rubber spiders. All the usual cakes come with jammy bloodstains and sinister new names. Today’s dunkable biscuit is a range of Unhappy Faces with grumpy and/or scary expressions carved into them (and, thanks to a morning’s giggling, individual names: My Little Dead Pony, Mr. Sad One-Eye, Mouthless Pete). The Daily Wisdom reads T
HE ZOMBIES ARE COMING
:
ENJOY A CAKE NOW, BEFORE YOU CRAVE NOTHING BUT HUMAN FLESH
!

Betsy’s dressed as the Starbucks Mermaid, in shimmery green with two tails tied to her hair and a necklace made from coffee beans. Teddy is Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, with The Lovely Safak in a red wig and blue face paint as his Sally. I’ve cheated a little bit, and gone for an ultra-Gothic take on Wednesday Addams, on account of the hair making it somehow inevitable.

The rest of the Leftover Squad aren’t doing too badly, either. Fili, Simon, and Peroxide Eric in his big gray coat are dressed as usual, while Ludo’s in a tiny sparkly number that must be freezing, but Dai and Henry have stuck to the brief exactly and are wearing matching pajamas with arrows drawn all over them in marker pen. And each couple is wearing the required accessory: a big chunky pair of handcuffs, delivered by Agent Ryder as the central core of Project
Pumpkin. I might not know who Girl B is, why Fili’s so sad, or whether Dai really believes Henry likes him, but I reckon a little enforced romance might just make everything a little happier. If I could be handcuffed to my Gingerbread Ed, I’d do it in a shot.

It seems to be working so far. Dai and Henry look completely delighted to be unable to escape each other. Ludo and Peroxide Eric have theirs around their ankles, meaning they keep falling into each other’s arms. Fili and Simon don’t technically seem to need the help, obviously, but I’m hoping it might help Fili to
feel
less alone.

“I’m guessing you had something to do with this?” whispers Mermaid Betsy in my ear as they awkwardly troop in, tumbling onto the Sofa of Sex and its circle of armchairs.

“We’re the Goldfinch Escape Committee,” yells Dai, giving Betsy a wave, and dragging Henry’s arm along for the ride.

“On the run,” adds Henry. “Don’t report us to the authorities. We’re never going back up that hill!”

“Not till tonight anyway,” says Ludo, peeking out from under Peroxide Eric’s sleeve. “You are coming, aren’t you, Heidi?”

I make my “huh?” face.

“Flick Henshall got released from the clinic,” says Henry. “Apparently someone thought the best way to welcome her back was to throw a party.”

“It’s going to be AMAZING? Like, all the Upper School are going to, like, CAMP at the lake? And have a bonfire?
Eric’s going to spike the drinks and everything. It’s going to be, like, TOTALLY SPESH.”

“It’s a Halloween party really: The Flick thing is just so the Screws won’t close it down.” Dai looks at me. “Sorry, no offense to your dad.”

“None taken,” I say, glancing over at the Bloody Bakewells and wondering how many of them I’ll need to take home for bribery purposes.

“Please come? We can get ready together. I’ll do your makeup. We could dress up all over again! PLEASE?”

“Seriously, please?” says Peroxide Eric, thumping his free booted foot onto the table. “Or I’m going to be deaf in one ear for life.”

It’s a Finch party. Ludo’s going to paint my face like I’m her doll. I will witness at least three people throwing up. The Mothership will probably explode at the whole idea. But we’ll all be hanging out together. It’s the perfect continuation of Project Pumpkin.

“I suppose I could drop by,” I say, twirling the end of a braid. “But only if you all promise to keep the cuffs on?”

“She’s very kinky behind that hairdo, isn’t she?” says a smirking Dai.

“I’ve noticed that,” says Henry. “Good thing her boyfriend’s not here. Who knows what they might get up to?”

HELL.

YEAH.

Agent Ryder is definitely due a promotion: License to Be Awesome (and Watch Telly Whenever You Like). Girl B won’t
get a look in. Dai and Henry are probably about to get married. Fili still looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here, but all this happiness has to be infectious, right?

Not to everyone, though. Betsy, for all her shiny green satin, is looking distinctly unfestive. She waits till everyone’s gone, and the Go Away sign has been flipped, to tell me what a really smart detective would’ve figured out ages ago.

“I’m sorry, honeypie, really I am,” she says, fiddling with her scaly tail. “Looks as if we’ve got the lease on this place till December, but after that, we’re gone. And even with the extra orders from your buddy Henry—which, sweetie, thank you
so
much for trying to help—well, a Saturday waitress is a luxury we can’t afford. We’ve got to save our pennies for the trip, so, well, I’m going to have to let you go.”

“I told her to fire me instead, but apparently there’s some kind of law against it,” says Teddy, tapping his stick-on bony fingers on the counter, looking so genuinely sad under his face paint it makes my stomach flip over.

I see Betsy nervously twiddling her big plastic rings. Safak’s watching, too, in her crazy red wig. So I do a big fake sigh, smile and nod, and give Betsy a hug. She relaxes and smiles properly, for the first time all day.

“You’d better keep coming in here till we close up, you hear?”

“Course,” I say, managing to not let my voice go wobbly. “After all, I get to call him Rupert now, right? Customers’ privilege?”

“Oh, I think so,” grins Betsy, disappearing into the kitchen to wrap up some Two-Nosed Cindys for me.

“I didn’t know your name was
Rupert
!” says Safak, nudging Teddy.

“Damn, Heidi, and I
was
about to tell you how much I was going to miss you,” he moans.

I feel myself go a bit pink. I think I might actually start to cry in a minute, which isn’t at all the kind of thing Agent Ryder does.

“Hey, we’re just hanging out watching DVDs here tonight,” he adds. “I rented
Tron
; it looks like the most eighties movie of all time.”

“You did?” says Safak, wrinkling up her nose.

Teddy nods gleefully.

“Seriously, Heidi, I bet you’d love it. We have popcorn.”

“I think Heidi’s got a party to go to up on the hill, don’t you?” says Safak, a little too quickly.

“Um. Yeah, I suppose so.” I’d much rather watch dorky movies with Teddy than watch Jambo puking, but Wednesday Addams isn’t really supposed to sit on the sofa between Jack Skellington and The Lovely Sally. He’s only offering because he knows of my tragic state of blahness. And I do have a party to go to, where they’ll all be handcuffed to their beloveds, and I’ll be…the newly unemployed dork on her own in the corner.

“I’ll lend you the DVD?” offers Teddy, walking backward as Safak begins to drag him upstairs.

Betsy comes out with a ridiculously huge paper bag of leftover goodies, and I’m definitely going to cry then, so I give her another hug, shove a Miserable Ears into my mouth so I won’t have to say anything, and run.

I get all my sniffling out of the way on the ride home, and once I’ve had a hot bath and eaten some more Unhappy Faces, Agent Ryder is back in charge. I can always look for another job, after all. Teddy really ought to go to art school, with his amazing drawings, even if it does mean after Christmas I’ll have to live without a Betsy to talk to, and Teddy’s lazy smile, and his curly hair, and that little twinkle he gets in his eye when he knows Ludo is breathing a bit quicker just because he happens to be walking by, even though he never says. I can drink lots and lots of tea with them until then.

MYCROFT CHRISTIE: You’re handling this very maturely, Miss Ryder.

HEIDI: I know! I’m great.

MYCROFT CHRISTIE: You’ll be weeping about it in the manner of a fragile girly sort later, however, correct?

HEIDI: Shush. I’m going to a party where all of my friends are being very friendly with each other, and I’m very, very happy, so ner.