The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs (6 page)

Ben kept his head down, let his contribution to the success of the school football team prevent his stock from ever bottoming out completely, and devoted himself to the quest for the Orbs of Power, which was now approaching the status of an obsession. He blamed the quest for what had happened in Mrs James's class, had started, in all honesty, to believe that the trajectory of his life had somehow become bound up with it, that things would not improve until he completed it.

Cursed
, he thought to himself one evening, as his father snored through
Match of the Day
and his mother chatted happily away on the phone to her sister.
It's like the quest has put a curse on me.

* * *

As is so often the case where quests are concerned, it was when things seemed at their bleakest, when the path seemed blocked at every turn, that a chink of light shone through the clouds, illuminating a possible way ahead.

Sean's parents had gone to their timeshare villa in Florida for two weeks, as they had been doing every Easter holiday for as long as anyone could remember, and his sister Cheryl, who was home from university, had announced that she was going to Edinburgh with her friends on Good Friday and would not be back until the afternoon of Easter Sunday. Which could only mean one thing.

House party.

Sean had persuaded Kev Simmons to push out all the stops, and had managed to acquire four crates of cheap French lager. Matthew Hetherington was going to DJ, having allegedly learnt how to do so in Ibiza the previous summer, and pretty much the entire year was invited, even Ben. He was more relieved than he would ever have admitted to anyone; he had been deeply unsure whether he would make the cut. And as the day approached, the gloom that had settled over him during the winter months was lifted even further by a message, this time delivered to him personally by Bonnie Dean, that Grace Matthews was looking forward to seeing him at the party. Why this would be so was unclear to him, such had been his recent status as a social pariah, but he didn't question it; he merely added it to the ever-growing pile of evidence that reinforced his conviction that girls were simply impossible to understand.

When Good Friday finally arrived, Ben paired his best YSL shirt with black jeans and Reebok classics, applied a liberal amount of gel to his hair, and headed off to what he hoped would be a date with destiny, the completion of a quest that had threatened to take over his life, to drag him ever further downwards.

This is it
, he thought, as he walked the short distance to Sean's house.
This is the night everything changes.

Two hours later, he was standing exactly where he always ended up at parties: with Sean and Kev in the kitchen, sipping lager he wasn't enjoying and screaming silently at himself to go and talk to someone, to talk to a girl, any girl.

You play for the football team. You get good marks. You're not that bad looking. Stop being so completely PATHETIC.

‘This party,' announced Kev, ‘is really, really shit.'

‘Piss off,' said Sean. ‘It's not got going yet, that's all.'

‘Oh, it's going,' said Kev, gesturing out towards the living room, which was full of boys and girls from their year and the one above dancing and laughing as Matthew poured tune after tune out of a pair of turntables he had brought with him. This had been greeted with open astonishment by his friends, who had assumed Matthew had been lying about being able to mix. ‘We're just not on board.'

Sean had no response, as what Kev was saying was demonstrably, painfully true. Instead, he opened another can of lager and took a long swig, trying not to grimace at the taste. Ben watched him, already weighing up which line he was going to use when he told his friends he was leaving; the party was already on the verge of becoming unbearable, and he had no appetite for masochism. Then Kev elbowed him hard in the ribs.

‘What the hell?' he asked, glaring at his friend, who merely widened his eyes, as though he was trying to alert Ben to something.

A light cough sounded from behind him, and Ben turned towards the source of it. Grace Matthews was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a bottle of wine in her hand and smiling at him.

‘So,' she said. ‘This is where all the cool people are.'

Sean and Kev erupted in fake laughter, but Ben didn't join in; he was looking at Grace. Her blonde hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and she was wearing a blue top with white edging and a denim skirt that stopped halfway up her long, pale thighs. Her breasts were gentle swells beneath the blue material of her top, but it hadn't even occurred to him to look at them; he was wondering why he had never noticed how pretty she was, how stop-the-clocks, pause-the-CD beautiful.

Focus!
screamed the part of his brain in which the quest, and everything it had come to mean, resided.
This is your chance! You can be done with this tonight! You can finally be free!

But Ben couldn't focus; he stared at Grace Matthews without a thought in his head, and when she skipped lightly across the kitchen, took his hand and announced to Sean and Kev that she was stealing their friend for a while, he let himself be stolen without a single word of protest.

Grace led him up the stairs and into Sean's sister's room. One of Ben's hands was enveloped inside one of hers, the other clutching desperately onto the can of lager he had been drinking before she appeared; at that precise moment, as she pushed him into the bedroom and closed the door, it seemed to be the only thing that made any sense to him.

‘So,' she said, turning to face him. ‘Hi.'

Ben burst out laughing. ‘Hi,' he said. ‘You all right?'

‘I am,' she replied, setting the wine bottle on the bedside table and hopping gracefully up onto the bed. ‘I'm having a perfectly lovely time. You?'

‘I am now,' he said.

Smooth,
whispered his quest-brain.
That's the stuff. More of that.

‘Are you just going to stand there?' asked Grace.

‘Course not,' said Ben, and settled onto the bed with as much elegance as he was able, keeping a respectful distance between them.

‘Cool,' she replied. ‘So. Ben. Why exactly did you call Mrs James your mum?'

A black hole of shame opened up inside Ben's stomach, and his skin began to tingle with embarrassed heat. ‘What?' he managed.

‘Come on,' said Grace. ‘Like we were going to be able to get away with not mentioning it? It's not that big a deal, Ben, really it isn't. I don't know why you let everyone give you so much shit about it.'

‘I didn't
let
them,' said Ben. ‘I couldn't stop them.'

‘You let it bother you, though. That's what feeds them. That's what kept it going.'

‘I know,' said Ben. ‘But … I called a teacher Mum. Seriously. Out loud. There didn't seem to be any way I could get out of it.'

‘You did, didn't you?' said Grace, and started to giggle. ‘You called your English teacher Mum.'

Ben felt himself start to smirk. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘Right in front of everyone.'

Grace burst out laughing, and he felt himself surrender to the infectious sound, felt himself begin to laugh about something that he had believed had come to define him but now felt utterly insignificant. He howled with laughter, rolling onto his side and clutching at his ribs, feeling months of misery and self-hatred spill out of his open mouth. Grace had buried her face in a pillow and seemed to be having trouble breathing, she was laughing so hard; Ben hoped she was all right, as there was absolutely nothing he could do to help her if she wasn't.

Eventually, the tidal wave of laughter began to subside. He gasped for air, as Grace slowly lifted her head and looked at him.

‘Bonnie talked to you,' she said. ‘Right?'

Ben nodded.

‘What did she she tell you?'

Ben swallowed hard. ‘She told me that you were looking forward to seeing me at the party … '

‘And?'

‘ … and that she thought you might still like me. Although I don't think I was supposed to tell you she said that.'

Grace smiled. ‘It's all right. I won't tell her off too badly.'

Ben was suddenly very aware of the temperature in the bedroom; it was as though someone was steadily turning up the thermostat, sucking all the moisture out of him. He was incredibly aware of his tongue, and his mouth felt as dry and rough as sandpaper. ‘Okay,' he said.

Grace tilted her head to one side. ‘
Are
you okay?' she asked. ‘You've gone a bit red.'

‘I'm fine,' he said.

‘Are you nervous around me?'

‘Course not.'

‘Because you don't have to be.'

‘I'm not nervous.'

‘You are. I can tell. Maybe this will relax you. Or maybe not.'

Grace reached down and with an effortless raising of her arms, brought the blue top over her head and threw it onto the floor. She smiled as he stared at her, the colour draining from his face, his mind empty apart from the screeching, triumphant voice of his quest-brain.

This is it! This is going to happen! It's happening! DON'T SCREW IT UP!

‘A quest? What are you talking about?'

Ben could feel his cheeks beginning to burn. He didn't know why he had suddenly decided to bare his soul to Grace Matthews, but he was committed now; there was no going back.

‘Like a pact,' he said. ‘Me and Sean Redman.'

Grace rolled her eyes. ‘Christ. This isn't going to be good, is it?'

‘I don't know,' said Ben. ‘It seemed like fun when we started it, but now I'm not sure. I think it might be sort of stupid.'

Grace leant back against the pile of pillows at the end of the bed and folded her arms across herself. Ben tried not to notice how her forearms pushed her breasts up and in, creating a cleavage that threatened to render him incapable of conscious thought. ‘Come on then,' she said. ‘Out with it.'

‘It was after I came back from Kefalonia last summer,' said Ben. ‘There was this waitress … '

‘There was, was there?' asked Grace. ‘Did you have a little holiday romance with her?'

Ben shook his head. ‘No. I never spoke to her. But I saw her … on the beach … '

‘In a bikini?' asked Grace. There was a set to her jaw, a certain straightness to her mouth that made Ben suspect she was already several steps ahead of him.

‘No.'

‘
Not
in a bikini?'

‘Yeah. Well, sort of. Top half.'

‘So you saw some Greek girl topless on the beach. What's the big deal?'

Ben said nothing. He couldn't work out how to articulate why the moment had seemed so important to him, why it had sent him home lit from within by some unknown fire, ready to make pacts and start quests. After a long moment, Grace spared him.

‘Oh for Christ's sake,' she said, rolling her eyes and fixing him with a look of intense disappointment. ‘They were probably the first tits you'd ever seen apart from your mum's, weren't they?'

Ben didn't reply.

‘Jesus, why are all boys so stupidly
predictable
?' she asked, her pale cheeks starting flush pink. ‘What the hell is it with all of you and tits? You're like dogs after a bone. Tell me this quest then, you might as well. What was it, who could be the first to get a girl to show you hers?'

‘Sort of,' managed Ben. ‘We had to … touch … ' His voice faded away to nothing, driven back into his throat by the look on Grace Matthews' face.

‘You're on a quest to see who can be the first to touch a girl's tits? Is that what you're telling me?'

‘I … '

‘Because you know how pathetic that sounds, right?'

‘I do. But I … didn't. Until now.'

‘And you heard that I liked you, so you thought I was your best shot?'

Ben stared helplessly at her.

‘Do you know why I liked you?' asked Grace, her eyes blazing. ‘Because I thought you might be different. I can get this sort of crap from any of the boys in our year, could go downstairs right now and get it from any of the dickheads dancing around in the living room. You, though? You're sort of awkward, and you try to hide how clever you are, which pisses me off, but you've always been nice to me and I thought you might be a good person, that you might have something about you, something more going on that just football and cider and trying to shove your hand up girls' skirts. So maybe your mate Sean
is
the smart one, because I'm clearly the idiot here.'

Ben reached out a hand towards her, trying to somehow bridge the gap that had yawned open between them. Grace slapped it away, then sat forward, reached behind her back and unhooked the black bra. It fell into her lap as she sat up straight and fixed her eyes on his.

‘Come on then,' she said. ‘Let's get this over with.'

Ben's eyes widened. ‘What are you –'

‘Do what you came up here with me to do. Touch me. Finish your stupid little quest if it means so much to you, then we can go back downstairs and I can try and find someone I actually like to talk to.'

She reached out, grabbed his wrists, and pulled his hands forward, guiding them towards her breasts. Ben realised what was happening a millisecond before it was too late, and pulled back. For a moment his hands trembled as they were pulled in opposite directions, until Ben managed to free them from her grip and plant them firmly onto the duvet cover.

‘What's the matter?' she asked, her gaze locked with his. ‘I thought this was what you wanted?'

‘So did I,' he said.

‘So what do you want now?'

‘I don't know,' said Ben. ‘Not this.'

Grace tilted her head to one side, and regarded him with an unreadable expression. ‘What about your quest?'

‘To hell with it,' he said, and smiled. ‘It was stupid.
I'm
stupid. And I'm sorry I involved you in it. I'm really sorry.'