7
‘This sucks,’ Lily says, looking around the table with a sneer. ‘What are you losers doing here?’
‘Nice to see you too, Lily,’ Frankie says.
Lily just curls her lip. ‘Dan said the vouchers were for special customers,’ she huffs. ‘What makes you all so special?’
‘Our wit, our charm, our sparkling good looks?’ Kurt quips, selecting a slice of cream sponge from the tiered cake plate. ‘Oh, yeah – and we’re willing to put up with you.’
‘Or not,’ Frankie mutters under her breath.
‘Don’t kid yourselves that I want to sit with you no-hopers,’ Lily snarls. ‘I’m only here for the free cake. Dan said he’d come and join me, once he managed to ditch the flyers and the cupcakes. Hopefully, you lot will have gone by then.’
My shoulders slump. Dan Carney may have given me a cupcake, an umbrella and a look that turned my insides to mush, but he definitely didn’t make a date for later. I guess that Lily, with her sparkly eyeshadow and her acid tongue, is much more his type. Anybody would be more his type, really, than me.
Silent, drenched and miserable is not a look many boys go for.
‘Pity this place doesn’t do wholemeal options,’ Kurt is saying. ‘Sugar and cream and white flour are not good for you. What this area needs is a really good wholefood cafe. You can do amazing things with seeds and walnuts and chopped dates.’
‘Get a life, freak,’ Lily snaps, her eyes skimming over Kurt’s lank hair, his skinny shoulders, the sagging school sweater that looks like it came from a jumble sale. ‘Who wants some stodgy old cake stuffed with nuts and seeds and dried fruit?’
Lily’s description sounds a lot like the cakes my mum used to make at the bakery in Krakow, and they were really popular. I’m not about to argue, though.
‘This cream sponge may not be the healthiest cake on the planet,’ Frankie tells Kurt. ‘But it looks like the tastiest… go on, one slice won’t hurt!’
Lily snorts. ‘That’s a laugh! You’re the last person who needs free cake, Frances McGee,’ she says. ‘There must be, like, a million calories in this stuff. You’ll be the size of a whale. Oh, I forgot, you already are!’
I watch Frankie’s cheeks flare crimson and wish I had the courage to slap Lily Caldwell. Frankie’s words poisonous little witch spring to mind. If nothing else, Lily is expanding my English vocabulary.
It’s a pity I don’t have a rat in my satchel to shut her up with this time, but Kurt comes to the rescue instead.
‘Just leave it, Lily, OK?’ he says.
‘What?’ she asks, raising an eyebrow. ‘Leave what? I was just saying. As a friend.’
But Kurt stares her down, and she shrugs, takes a meringue and bites into it, and slowly the sharpness dissolves from her face and she smiles, a soft, sweet, smile.
I blink, looking round the table. Kurt sighs and closes his eyes as he bites into his cream sponge. I don’t think he’s worrying too much about walnuts and chopped dates now. Frankie hesitates over her slice of chocolate cake, then she caves in and tastes it. Her eyes widen, and her lips form a little ‘o’ of pure delight.
‘What the heck do they put in this stuff ?’ Frankie whispers. ‘I never tasted anything like it. Awesome!’
Kurt sighs. ‘No wonder they call this place Heaven!’
‘I suppose Dan did us all a favour,’ Lily says grudgingly. ‘Not just with the free cake, either. His stunt with the flaming exercise book was cool. It got us out of morning lessons, after all.’
Her face darkens as she frowns at Frankie and me. ‘And then I got out of afternoon lessons as well, thanks to you two… and whichever moron stole that flea-bitten rat from the biology lab.’
‘Oh?’ Kurt asks, all innocence.
‘Didn’t you hear? Someone nicked Mr Critchley’s rat while the fire alarm was ringing,’ Lily explains. ‘Probably some animal rights nut who thought it was still legal to experiment on animals.’
‘It is still legal,’ Kurt says.
‘Not in schools. The Head says that rat was Mr Critchley’s pet,’ Frankie points out.
‘Maybe,’ Kurt shrugs. ‘Maybe not. I don’t trust him. He used to keep rats in the lab and kill them so the kids could dissect them, just to show stupid, random stuff, like how long a rat’s intestine is.’
‘Yuck,’ Frankie says. ‘That’s like something from the dark ages!’
‘It wasn’t so long ago,’ Kurt says. ‘My dad went to St Peter and Paul’s, back in the nineties, and Mr Critchley taught him. Dad got excluded for three days, once, for refusing to cut up a rat.’
Lily pulls a face. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she says. ‘I bet your dad’s some saddo hippy loser, just like you.’
Kurt blinks. ‘My dad’s dead,’ he says quietly. ‘He and my mum were killed in a car crash when I was three.’
A shiver runs down my spine, and my cake fork drops on to the tabletop with a clatter.
Lily is mortified. ‘I’m sorry!’ she whispers, her face pale. ‘I didn’t know, Kurt, honest…’
‘Oh, Kurt,’ Frankie echoes. ‘That’s just so sad!’
He shrugs. ‘I was only a toddler,’ he explains. ‘I don’t remember much about them, but I live with my gran, and she tells me stories of the things Dad used to do. I couldn’t believe it when I heard the rat story. I never did like Mr Critchley, but knowing that he got my dad excluded like that –’
‘The loser!’ Lily says angrily. She has changed sides instantly. ‘I’ve always said Critchley is a creep…’
‘And he still keeps a rat in his classroom,’ Frankie breathes. ‘What a sicko!’
‘I guess my dad might have been a bit like me,’ Kurt is saying. ‘He was the sort of person who stood up for what he believed in, and… well…’
Lily’s mouth drops open. ‘It was you!’ she gasps. ‘You stole Mr Critchley’s rat!’
Kurt smiles. ‘I prefer to think of it as a rescue,’ he says.
‘But what… where…’
‘Don’t worry, Lily,’ Kurt assures her. ‘The rat is in a safe place.’
I am glad Lily is sitting on the other side of the table, because that means she can’t see the twitching pink nose that pokes out briefly from Kurt’s rucksack, then disappears again.
‘Hang on,’ Lily argues. ‘Where exactly…’
I chew my lip. If Lily spots the rat, things could get very nasty. A repeat performance of the canteen rat-riots is not what Heaven needs at all.
Luckily, at that moment the steamed-up cafe door swings open and Dan Carney comes in, his black hair plastered to his head, wings dripping.
‘Dan!’ Lily yells. ‘Over here! I’ve been saving you a seat!’
Dan picks his way through the crowded cafe ‘Hey!’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t think it could be so hard to give away free cake!’
‘You should have ditched them into the nearest bin,’ Lily says.
Dan frowns. ‘No, I wanted to do it properly,’ he says. ‘Move up, Frankie, huh?’ Frankie shuffles along into the seat beside Lily, and Dan flops down next to me with a wink. Lily’s smile has turned upside down, but my heart just about flips over.
‘I handed one to a woman whose umbrella had blown inside out,’ Dan is saying. ‘Then there were two little kids in wellies and a guy selling The Big Issue on the corner. I gave him three.’
Dan hangs the dripping angel wings on the back of his chair, grinning, and I find myself grinning right back. He shrugs off his wet jacket to reveal a tight black T-shirt with Heaven printed across the chest, and that’s kind of appropriate as right now I think maybe I’ve died and gone there.
Being invisible is dangerous, obviously, because once you start to materialize again you feel pretty grateful to anyone who happens to notice you’re alive. That’s all it is, I tell myself. It’s not like I am falling for a boy who tears up exercise books and sets fire to his desk.
Even I can see that would be a very bad idea…