The Boyfriend Bet Page 6

  “No.” I said blankly.

  Mum was scowling at me as she was manhandling Peter through the front door. “Now behave, don’t say anything embarrassing.” Mum was hissing at him.

  Sunglasses and hat on, I reluctantly grabbed my jacket and bag and left the house, firmly clutching my note for dear life. Yes, I did feel like a complete fool walking to school with my hat and shades. I must have looked ever so dodgy, maybe even more stalkerish than normal.

  I was right about being late. I hate that feeling as you walk into the much too silent school. Everyone was either already in classes or assembly. I was supposed to be in assembly so on the plus side I thought I could sign in late and give boring assembly a miss.

  No such luck! Mr Harrison walked through the school office just as I was signing in and demanded that I take a seat at the back of the hall. My protests of how I really didn’t want to disrupt assembly fell on deaf ears and he actually escorted me into the assembly hall.

  And worst luck ever, Mrs Davenport was taking assembly today and it really is bad luck because she hardly ever takes assembly. I wondered if we were all in trouble or something. It was also unusually quiet, probably because everyone was too scared of Mrs Davenport singling them out because she loves doing that. There was none of the usual whispering or fidgeting which didn’t help me at all because as soon as Mr Harrison had pointed a seat out at the back for me, all I could hear was the heavy double doors slam shut behind us.

  “Miss Wallis, how nice of you to join us,” Mrs Davenport smiled sweetly as she looked at her watch. It seemed like hundreds of heads turned to look at me, hiding at the back with sunglasses and hat still firmly intact. It’s a wonder Mrs Davenport could even recognize me but of course she did, the old witch.

  “Lose the hat and the ridiculous glasses.” The old bag continued her onslaught against me. Thankfully she then carried on with her talk, whatever it was. She was lecturing everyone about something or other but then again, isn’t she always?

  “Charley Wallis, are you deaf or just stupid?” Mrs Davenport was peering over at me again and I could hear a low hum of laughter. “I think I said lose the hat and the glasses.”

  “I have a note.” I said this so quietly I doubted if anybody even heard me.

  “Pardon?” Mrs Davenport raised her voice.

  “I have a note.” I repeated ever so slightly louder this time.

  “Bring it up here.” She signalled for me to come right away. “I am intrigued.”

  Nooooo! There was nothing for it but to take the note up to her in front of everybody. I was surely going to be torn to shreds. I walked in the most awkward way to the front. I was so stupid that in my rush to leave the house I hadn’t even read the note to see what Mum’s made up circumstances were that justified me wearing a hat and dark glasses at school all day. What if she questioned me about it and I knew nothing about it...oh my god, help me now!

  I swear I could have cried there and then, my stomach was churning as I saw all eyes upon me. “Give it to me,” Mrs Davenport demanded, her arm outstretched, waiting for me to place it in her hand. She practically snatched it out of my grasp and unfolded the note and then gave it a little shake to straighten it up, before deciding to read it out loud!

  “Charley is wearing sunglasses to school today as she has an awful case of pink eye and her eyes are subsequently sensitive to light.” Mrs Davenport wrinkled her nose up and the giggles had already started. “She is also wearing a hat as she has recently discovered she is suffering from alopecia and it’s very embarrassing. Many thanks, Charley’s Mum.” Mrs Davenport was now frowning at me as all of Year Eleven had erupted into a fit of laughter.

  “You expect me to believe your mother wrote this juvenile note?” Mrs Davenport mocked me but I knew that she doesn’t like being lied to and I was going to kill my mum. I mean, whatever possessed her to sign the note ‘Charley’s mum’? I might as well have just forged the bloody note myself. I would have done a better and rather more convincing job than that!

  “Take them off now!” Mrs Davenport threatened. As much as she scares me, the thought of taking my hat off and revealing my hideous hair to everyone was even more terrifying.

  “No.” I said as my heart was thudding loudly against my ribcage while the whole hall fell silent once again. Mrs Davenport’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. No one normally dared defy her, not unless they were up for total and utter humiliation. I sort of swallowed and even my saliva seemed to get stuck in my throat. I wondered if I would ever live it down if I just turned and ran away?

  “Take it off,” Mrs Davenport was now whispering, which was freaking me out more than if she had of shouted. She was just way too calm for my liking. I stared down at her navy blue shoes (yuk)...What was I going to do?

  “Charley, I’ll ask you one more time and then I’ll just exclude you from school.”

  “Ok, I’ll be excluded,” I said quietly. This obviously was not the right answer.

  “TAKE THEM OFF NOW!” Her screech cut through the silence and I wasn’t the only one that jumped.

  I wished I could have been a hundred times braver than I was, but I wasn’t. I guess I was going to have to admit defeat. I wondered where Sam was sitting. At least Riley wasn’t here as he’s in Year Thirteen, but that was the only good thing about the situation. Eurgh, I felt sick! I couldn’t help myself and I stupidly had a quick look into the crowd of very shocked looking pupils. I didn’t see Sam but my eyes stopped when I saw Jay smirking at me. He looked highly amused. I was never ever going to live this down.

  “Now,” Mrs Davenport prompted me. I shakily took the sunglasses off with one hand and the hat with the other, resulting in the much expected giggling and wolf whistles. “On second thoughts put them back on!” The witch instructed me, she looked absolutely horrified at my appearance.

  I’m not sure if this topped the awful Ella and Sam assembly shocker but I just wanted to disappear. “Go and sit down.” She pushed the note back into my hands, looking seriously pissed off that her whole assembly had been disrupted. “Oh and Charley?”

  “Yeah?” I muttered, already walking away.

  “You’re still excluded.” Mrs Davenport smiled.

  Electric!

  That bitch really did exclude me as well. Well, if Mum thought she was going to get all high and mighty with me for getting excluded, she could think again. And I had dance class after school with my own class, as well as helping out with the two younger classes before. Stella also gave me a funny look when I took the sunglasses off. She thought I’d been in a fight but when she heard about Peter and his flying shoe, she also thought it was hilarious.

  Zoe Ryan was the only one to keep making bitchy remarks and jibes throughout our whole dance session. “Stella, she needs to be at the back, nobody wants to look at that!” She’d stopped the whole routine and pointed at me, just as it was my turn at the front. Everyone had laughed but Stella kindly pointed out that it would be a long time yet before we performed in front of anyone and even longer if we didn’t get on with practising and stop worrying about who was standing where.

  It’s always like this, regardless of whether I have a black eye and orange hair or not. Zoe just wants to be at the front the whole time. Whenever we have rehearsals for performances, Zoe kicks up a real fuss about where everyone stands until they get so bored with it and they basically just give in and let her hog the limelight at the front. This is usually fine by me - I’m happy at the back - let the exhibitionists get all the attention!

  I nearly started a screaming match with Mum when I got home. “How stupid can you be to sign the note ‘Charley’s mum?” I yelled at her, after she’d demanded to know how I had got myself excluded.

  “Well, you lot drive me crazy. I obviously wasn’t thinking straight!” Mum offered this lame excuse as an explanation. She didn’t even tell me off for calling her stupid. I should have realised that something was going on there and then. “Do you want me to write you another not
e or ring up and explain?”

  “No, you’ve done enough,” I huffed. I figured I would rather be excluded from school for the rest of the week. Mrs Davenport has probably actually done me a favour. I still had to go to school. It was what Mrs Davenport liked to call ‘internally excluded’ which meant I still had to go in, but I had to spend the week in the isolation room with various bits of work that were given to me to get on with.

  Isolation room - what a joke, it’s not isolation at all! One teacher usually sits at the desk at the front of the room. Normally if they have a free period, they’ve been forced to give up an hour watching over the isolation room. They all look not so thrilled to be there. Occasionally another pupil who has just been chucked out of their class turns up for the rest of that lesson. Of course anyone else who might be internally excluded is there too, so whoever came up with the idea of calling it ‘The isolation room’ was pretty dumb if you ask me.

  “Ok, I’m now going out Charley, look after Peter for me.” Mum just announced this as I noticed that she was all made up (well for her anyway).

  “What! It’s a bit late isn’t it?” I couldn’t believe this, why have I always got to be the babysitter?

  “Well, I had to wait for you to come back from dancing,” Mum smiled. Great, she’d planned it all along and didn’t even have the decency to mention it to me until it was too late for me to make any plans. Crafty or what?

  “Where’s Ella?” I huffed, folding my arms.

  “She’s out.” Mum smiled at me again. On a Monday night? I wondered where she could be. Maybe she had offered to show Riley around somewhere again and I was stuck at home babysitting Peter.

  “Great, so I get punished for my lack of a social life because I look like a freak and can’t go out.” I was having a mini rant to myself now but out loud. “Am I going to get paid?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Mum said, as she grabbed her jacket.

  “Really?” This possibly wasn’t as bad now. I wasn’t going out anywhere anyway.

  “Yeah, I’m paying for your hair on Thursday. I’d say that was more than enough.” Mum chuckled to herself in that annoying way parents do when they think they know everything and we know absolutely nothing and then she shut the door behind her as she left.

  “Mum! Muuuummmm!” Peter was already calling down the stairs. I could tell this evening was going to be fun. Once Peter had had three glasses of squash (honestly, he kept saying he was thirsty), I turned on the T.V in his room and put a DVD on and he finally stopped calling me. Mum usually has a no T.V at bedtime policy for Peter – apparently it makes him grumpy and difficult in the morning - but she isn’t here, is she? If she’s going to land me with looking after snotty little Peter, then I’m going to give him anything he wants to shut him up.

  At last I could finally put my feet up and watch T.V. I was pigging out big time but I could enjoy it as I didn’t have to fight for the remote or have to listen to Mum telling me I’d really eaten enough. And just like that I was plunged into darkness. I absolutely hate the dark! I just froze and waited for the screaming to start from Peter’s room. There wasn’t any...what a relief. It could only mean Peter was finally asleep, thank god. I presumed we’d had a power cut but there is something totally unnerving about the dark. I swear I could hear my heart beating in the silence. It was completely typical that this would happen when I was left alone babysitting Peter.

  I took a deep breath and used my phone to light the way as I walked to the kitchen steadily but carefully. I knew Mum kept candles in here somewhere. I found a bag of tea lights in a drawer. Mum does like her candles but she can only really have them out when Peter’s not around, like at his dad’s or something. Typical bloody Mum though, there were not any matches or a lighter anywhere in sight. Admittedly my phone was not a great torch but you would think the logical thing would be to keep the matches with the candles.

  Great, I would just have to wait until Mum got back, but that could be ages. She didn’t even say where she was going. I could go next door and ask. Simon did come round here on the scrounge this morning, so he obviously thought we were on ‘borrowing’ terms with each other. I desperately tried to think of another solution but the fact was I was shit scared and just wanted some light.

  I knew I had to be quick if I was going to go round and ask because Peter was upstairs and could potentially wake and freak out at anytime. I could leave the front door open though, so I could hear if he was to call out. What if Riley answered the front door, what would I say to him? I felt even more nervous now, but I didn’t want to sit here in the dark all night either.

  Feeling very brave and maybe just a little bit of excitement mixed with dread that I could see Riley, I opened the front door....and screamed! I wasn’t expecting someone to be standing there. I could only make out an outline as the street lights were all out too and it was very dark.

  “Hey, it’s me, Riley.” I heard his voice. I wondered if I’d scared him as much as he had frightened me. “I just came round to check that you were ok?”

  Oh my god! I think my heart did five somersaults or something. Did he just say he had come round to see if I was ok?

  “Um, yeah I’m fine. The dark’s not that scary, is it?” I lied.

  “Um no....of course not.” Riley replied but he didn’t sound all that sure himself.

  “I was just coming to ask you, don’t suppose you have a light?”

  “A light?” Riley repeated.

  “Yeah anything, matches or a lighter? I have some candles and nothing to light them with.”

  “Oh, hang on a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  I stood on the doorstep wishing he would hurry up. Well, clearly Ella was not out with Riley tonight, so that was something. After waiting for what seemed like forever, Riley was back and he actually followed me back into the house! He gave me some matches and I lit a few of the tea lights I’d found and put them on the coffee table, creating just enough light in the middle of the room.

  “Kind of creepy at my house and I’m home alone.” Riley hinted as he took a seat on the floor next to me. I was sitting cross legged with my back against the sofa.

  “Oh well, you’ll have to stay here then,” I said a little too confidently for me. I think the semi-darkness was helping. I knew he couldn’t see me properly, as I could not see him clearly. I could only make him out through the shadows.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you.” Riley said, just like that.

  “What do you mean?” I whispered. I wasn’t sure I was going to like the answer. He could just mean I’m really weird and strange and he’s never met anyone as totally nutty as I am.

  “You’re just so different.” I could actually feel his warm breath on my cheek, we were sitting so close. I hardly dared to move.

  “In a good or a bad way?” I just about managed to whisper.

  “Good.” Riley was so close to me now, I realised I was holding my breath and reminded myself to actually breathe. And then the next thing I knew Riley’s lips were touching mine, kissing me! He was so confident; I can’t believe he just went for that, not that I’m complaining. As I kissed him back, I felt strangely better that it was dark.

  Riley finally broke away and I could tell he was staring at me. I didn’t know whether I should say something; at least the darkness hid my blushes. Ah, it was ok...I didn’t have to say anything at all, Riley practically grabbed me and was kissing me again!

  He was holding me really firmly. I know this is the moment I’d been going over and over in my head ever since I’d first seen Riley moving those boxes into next door, but Sam just kept popping into my head! I kept thinking of all the time I’d spent with Sam, the stuff he used to say and the way he used to kiss me. And then the thought of the day he was caught doing things he shouldn’t with my sister. Ouch that thought just really hurt.

  I wanted to slap myself, what the hell was wrong with me? I was here with possibly the most gorgeous boy in school and I couldn’t get Sam Smith
out of my head. Riley was getting all touchy feely now. He was way too confident considering I don’t really know him all that well.

  “Charley! Charley!” Peter was calling me and I wriggled away from Riley. I actually felt a little bit grateful that Peter had interrupted us like that. I couldn’t get all those confusing feelings out of my head and Riley was being way too forward. It was all a little over-whelming.

  I spent ages (longer than I would normally) making sure all was well with Peter. Was I any closer to winning the bet with Ella or did Riley try this sort of thing with lots of girls? I wanted to believe the first one but I wasn’t so sure. I tried to convince myself that Riley coming round tonight had totally taken me by surprise and that was the reason that everything felt so weird. Yep, that must be it and I did feel a tiny bit smug when I thought of Ella...well a lot if I’m honest.

  “You’re still here then?” I said, as I finally rejoined Riley.

  “Yep. Are you trying to get rid of me?” Riley sounded totally surprised which made me want to laugh. I don’t suppose girls normally try and get rid of him.

  “Nah, only joking.” I smirked as I sat down next to him.

  “Didn’t think so,” Riley said. God, he was so sure of himself, it was unbelievable! I heard the door slam behind us and I naturally assumed Mum was back and instinctively edged slightly away from Riley.

  “Well well, what have we got here?” I heard Ella’s annoying voice. “Riley......is that you?” her voice had changed from cocky to shocked in a matter of seconds. Ha! She’d just realised it was Riley I was with, in the candle lit room. In your face Ella!

  “Hi!” Riley was edging away from me when he realised it was Ella, which obviously bugged me. “Power cut,” Riley offered her an explanation, much to my ever growing annoyance.

  “Oh,” Ella sounded a lot happier now.

  “Charley was scared....”

  “What?” I cut Riley off mid-sentence.