Paris Crush (9 page)

He lights up. ‘Really?’

‘Sure.’ A twinge of doubt pricks me as I board the coach, but I ignore it.

Rupert follows me and we squeeze down the aisle together. I grab the seat behind Savannah and he slides in next to me. Treacle’s firmly planted beside Jeff a few rows back. When she spots
me next to Rupert, she gives the thumbs up.

‘Ooh, Gem!’ Savannah kneels on her seat and hooks her chin over her headrest. ‘You’ve bagged Rupert!’

Rupert looks pleased. I send her death rays. She ducks as Bethany drags her hefty handbag past. Wearing more make-up than clothes, the Year Ten princess is hanging onto LJ’s hood like a
desperate poodle.

They push their way to the back and I watch the rest of the Year Tens board. A flash of perfect blonde hair catches my eye. Cindy’s weaving her way up the coach. She takes a row near ours,
on the opposite side of the aisle, and puts her Louis Vuitton on the seat next to her. Then she starts repelling boarders with the ferocity of a pirate.

‘Sorry, seat taken.’ She flaps Will away. ‘I’m saving it for someone.’ Her icy glare is on fast-freeze.

‘Saving it for Sam, I suppose.’ Will sniffs and heads away up the aisle.

Sam’s breezing along the aisle towards her. I wait for Cindy to signal him in like an air traffic controller. But her gaze doesn’t reach him. I strain to see who she’s staring
at, my eyes widening with surprise. In the dim overhead lights of the coach, I catch a glimpse of a face that looks familiar, yet strange.

Barbara?

Her frizzed hair has been smoothed into gentle waves and frames her face, like hands cupping a kitten. Her eyes are smoky, her lashes dark and thick beneath perfectly shaped eyebrows. A hint of
colour shapes her mouth into a perfect kiss. Wowed, I force my mouth shut. She’s had the makeover to end all makeovers. Who knew she was so pretty?

‘Barbie!’ Cindy whips her Vuitton out of the way and pats the seat excitedly. ‘I thought you were going to miss the coach.’

‘Sorry, Cindy.’ Barbara flumps into the seat beside her. ‘I needed the loo.’ She touches her face with a perfectly manicured finger. ‘Have I smudged
anything?’

Cindy looks her over with an expert eye. ‘No, still perfect.’

Sam lets out a whistle as he passes. ‘Looking good, Barbara,’ he says with genuine admiration as he slots himself into the seat behind Rupert and me.

Barbara turns traffic-light red, so Cindy accepts the compliment for her. ‘She’s decided it’s time to unleash her inner goddess.’

I recognize Jessica’s advice and feel a burst of happiness.
Where’s David? He’s got to see this magical transformation.
I scan the advancing stream of students and spot
him following Phil along the aisle.

I watch, breathless. Will he be as impressed as Sam? Barbara’s watching him too, her smoky eyes hopeful, but he doesn’t even look her way. Instead, he slides into a seat beside Phil,
his eyes fixed on his smartphone. Barbara drops her gaze into her lap.

Cindy squeezes her hand. ‘I can’t wait until the Parisian sunshine hits you,’ she tells Barbara cheerfully. ‘You’re going to look even more amazing.’

Parisian sunshine.
The words hit me in a rush. I can’t wait to get there. Already I’m imagining blue sky back-dropping the Eiffel Tower.

‘I can’t believe we’ll be in Paris in six hours.’ I beam at Rupert. ‘Did you say you’d been before?’

‘Yeah.’ Rupert’s smile droops. ‘I only remember it raining.’

‘I hope it’s sunny for us.’

‘If not . . .’ His familiar grin returns. ‘ . . . We could always get a
parapluie
for two-ee.’

The coach engine rumbles into life.

‘Is everyone in their seats?’ Madame Papillon’s standing at the front of the coach counting heads. Mr Chapman and Miss Davis have settled down behind the driver while everyone
fidgets themselves comfortable.

With a jolt, the coach starts to move and Madame Papillon collapses into a seat.

We’re off!

‘What do you get when you toss a hand grenade into a kitchen in France?’ Rupert asks randomly.

I’m gazing out of the window. Blue dawn light is competing with the sulphur yellow of the street lights. ‘I don’t know,’ I answer. ‘What
do
you get when you
toss a hand grenade into a kitchen in France?’

‘Linoleum blown-apart.’

The journey to Dover takes three hours. In Rupert-time, that’s about six and a half days. By the time we see a white cliff, I’ve heard every French joke
that’s ever been invented.

I’m close to sticking my fingers in my ears and la-la-ing the rest of the way to Paris. Then Rupert spots the Eurotunnel terminus. ‘It’s a good job the digging teams met in the
middle, or we’d have two tunnels.’

I wonder how many tunnel jokes he knows.

He starts to demonstrate. ‘Passengers are informed that due to recent budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.’

‘Rupert.’ I turn and face him, teeth clenched.

He blinks back at me, clueless. ‘What?’

‘Can you shut up for just five minutes?’

He blinks again. ‘What?’

‘You’ve been talking non-stop since we left,’ I snap. ‘You’re like a tap I can’t turn off. I’m drowning!’

He looks like I just hit him in the face with a frying pan.

‘You’re a nice guy, Rupert,’ I babble guiltily. ‘But you don’t have to talk all the time to prove it.’

He flaps his mouth, wordless as a beached guppy.

‘Why do you have to talk so much?’ I ask.

‘That’s what she said I should do.’ His brown eyes are hazelnuts, round and blank.

‘Who?’ Has someone bribed him to bore me to death? Perhaps it was Chelsea’s parting gift.

He looks embarrassed. ‘Just . . . just someone.’ A blush is creeping up from his collar. ‘She said girls like to be wooed with words.’ He looks at the headrest in front
of him and acts as if he’s not fluorescing like a pink jellyfish.

‘Wooed with words?’ I echo limply. There’s a light blazing at the edge of my thoughts, like a forest fire approaching. ‘What birth sign are you, Rupert?’

‘Gemini.’

The same as David.

Woo her with words.

I run Jessica’s email to ‘David’ through my head.
Don’t let shyness stop you. If she works on a webzine, she must long to be a writer. So woo her with words. How could
she resist when the stars are on your side?

I close my eyes and let the rumble of the coach drown my thoughts.

I’ve love-bombed myself.

David didn’t write the email. Rupert did! And Barbara wasn’t the apple he was hoping to pick.
I’m
his
pomme d’or
!

Sitting in a coach, in a train, in a tunnel, under the sea is surprisingly boring. I guess it’s how luggage feels in a Boeing 747. Except luggage wouldn’t care if
it had mortally wounded the suitcase next to it. Rupert is keeping his mouth tightly shut. He doesn’t say a word, or even look at me, the whole time we’re submarining our way towards
France.

I fight the urge to break the awkward silence between us, scared I’ll unleash another torrent of jokes. But guilt is knotting my stomach until I can’t stand it any more.

‘I’m sorry I snapped at you,’ I murmur, without looking at him.

Savannah bobs over the seat in front of us. ‘Who’s snapping?’ Her hair drapes over the headrest. ‘I thought you’d both died you went so quiet.’ Her eyes
twinkle. ‘Either that or you were busy . . .’ she glances mischievously along the aisle to where LJ Kennedy and Bethany are trying to suck the faces off each other, ‘. . . getting
to know each other.’

Fortunately, Rupert doesn’t follow her gaze. He’s too busy being pleased. It’s like watching a popped balloon reinflate. ‘I guess I can be a bit too talkative,’ he
confesses. ‘I just wanted to make the journey interesting.’ He sits up with a jolt. ‘I know,’ he says cheerily. ‘Why don’t we have a sing-song?’

A groan sounds from further down the aisle. I crane my neck and see Ryan bury his head deeper into the seat in front. ‘When do we get out of this box?’

Sally’s smoothing his hair with a reassuring hand. ‘You’re doing really well, Ryan. It won’t be long now.’ As she speaks, the train jolts to a halt.

Ryan’s head jerks up, eyes popping with terror. ‘What?’ he gulps. ‘Are we stuck?’

Madame Papillon stands up at the front of the coach. ‘We’ve reached France,’ she announces, lifting her hands with joy. ‘
Bienvenue!
’ As she speaks, the doors
partitioning the carriages slide open and the coach engine shudders into life.

Thirty minutes later, we’re whisking along a motorway. I stare out of the window at the trees lining the wide, clear road.

‘It looks so French,’ I breathe, taking in the wonders of the rolling farmland and houses clustered between fields and valleys.

Ryan’s staring out at the sky, slowly regaining his colour. ‘The tunnel wasn’t so bad.’ He breathes on his window and draws a smiley face.

Sally leans past him and gives his smiley face big ears and a long nose.

‘Self-portrait?’ he asks her. She whacks him with her tote bag.

‘Now, now,
mes enfants
!’ Madame Papillon sways between seats at the head of the aisle. ‘I know we’ve been travelling a long time, but we’ll be in Paris in an
hour. Let’s try and pass the time nicely.’

‘What about that sing-song?’ Rupert pipes up.

Barbara beams. ‘What a lovely idea!’ she exclaims. ‘We could sing “Alouette”!’

Madame Papillon claps her hands together gleefully. ‘
Splendide!
’

Suddenly she’s leading everyone into a hearty chorus of ‘Alouette, gentille Alouette’.

I slide down in my seat as Rupert blasts out a chorus in a throaty baritone. He duets with Barbara across the aisle.

‘
Je te plumerai!
’

‘I wish someone would pluck you,’ I grumble under my breath.

Fingers tap my shoulder. I jerk round, surprised to see a hand poking between the headrests. Sam peers through. ‘Here.’ He’s holding out earphones. ‘Listen to this
instead.’

I take them from him gratefully and jam them in my ears. Relieved as Sam’s music drowns out Rupert, I close my eyes. The song swallows me whole. I’m sucked in, amazed. It’s
brilliant.

And the sound is sort of familiar. As I wrack my brain, trying to work out what band I’m listening to, the motorway winds towards factories and warehouses then feeds us down among blocks
of housing that look more ornate. Then the music softens into a ballad. The guy singing sounds wistful, his voice husky with longing.

Suddenly the road rises and spits us out onto a boulevard. Ancient French buildings line our route; trees wave in front of us like they’re welcoming us into Paris.

‘We’re here!’ Savannah pops up over the headrest again.

I tug out the earphones, excitement buzzing in my chest. I can see the Eiffel Tower. It’s rising in the distance, so familiar it’s almost cartoon-like. Cars zip round the coach as it
glides deeper into the city. I press my nose against the window, eyes wide as I stare at the shopfronts and balconies, and window after window of buildings that look like doll’s houses.

‘Look!’ Marcus is kneeling up beside Savannah. Ahead, the road opens into a chaos of cars. They’re circling the Arc de Triomphe like it’s the most normal thing in the
world. Like they’ve been circling it since the Revolution.

I feel the earphones tug in my hand and look over my shoulder to see Sam pulling the wire back towards his smartphone.

‘What did you think?’ He sounds shy.

‘Of Paris?’ I stare at him.

‘The music.’

‘Oh!’
The music!
‘I loved it.’ He looks shyer.

‘What’s the name of the band?’

‘It’s my band.’

‘
Hardwired?
’ I’m impressed. ‘It’s brilliant.’ I remember the husky ballad. ‘The love song was really sweet.’

‘Thanks.’ He shrugs like it was nothing. ‘It’s just a demo tape.’

A waft of flower and musk swamps me as Cindy leans across the aisle. She thrusts her face past mine and peers between the headrests at Sam.

‘Did you say demo tape?’ she trills. Sam looks flustered.

‘Can I listen?’ Cindy hooks the earphones from him and plugs herself in. ‘Flick it back a few tracks.’

Sam hesitates then starts tapping his phone.

‘Hey, stop there,’ Cindy orders.

I lean back against the window as she pushes between me and Rupert. She presses the earphones harder into her ear. ‘What a sweet love song.’

Sam flushes. As he ducks, self-consciously, under his shaggy fringe, I guess the love song must be about her.

Cindy’s expression has turned to goo. ‘It’s
sooooo
cute.’

With a frown, Sam yanks the earphones out of Cindy’s ears. ‘It’s not finished yet,’ he mutters, slumping back in his seat.

Cindy stares in amazement, but before she can play twenty questions with him, Madame Papillon stands up. Cindy slithers back into her own seat.