Friends Forever! Read online

  “Pardon?” says Claude.

  “Finished,” repeats McGraw crossly. “When would this term of summer employment cease?”

  “Late August,” Fleur pipes up. “Just in time for us to begin sixth form.”

  We look at McGraw expectantly. His face gives nothing away.

  “Why?” says Claude.

  “Because I have some autumnal employment that would keep you out of trouble,” says McGraw. “We’d call it remunerations for the stress you’ve caused me this afternoon.”

  “Does . . . does that mean you’ll give us references?” splutters Fleur.

  “Not strictly,” huffs McGraw. “You’ve not heard my offer yet.”

  “We’ll do anything!” Fleur says. “Gardening? Painting? Car washing? We can start September first. We’re your girls, Mr. McGraw!”

  “Dog grooming?” announces McGraw, arching one eyebrow.

  Fleur’s face freezes.

  “Having met my three magnificent prizewinning beauties,” McGraw boasts, “you’ll have noticed the plethora of loving attention they need lavished upon them. They’re magnificent animals. But without their weekly shampoo, blow-dry and tooth-brushing session they can get quite, er, unhygienic. It’s a very arduous task keeping poodles.”

  Fleur puts her hand over her mouth. Her face seems to flush green.

  “Their little eyes get quite caked in sleep,” continues McGraw, “and their, er, other parts can get quite matted and unsavory.”

  “Oh God,” mutters Fleur, swaying on her seat.

  “We’ll shampoo your poodles, Mr. McGraw!” smiles Claude. “Every week!”

  “For a year?” threatens McGraw.

  “Oooh! Er, okay! For a whole year!” grins Claude, scrambling around in her pocket for the Harbinger Hall telephone number. “As many times as they need it! We just love poodles. Mmm! Those fluffy little faces! So cute. Fleur can’t wait. Can you, Fleur?”

  “I can’t wait,” says Fleur in a robotic voice.

  “Have we got a deal?” gasps Claude, pushing the piece of paper under his beaky nose. “It’s getting late now—will you call Miss Scrumble?”

  McGraw looks at the telephone number, then at all three of us before slowly shaking his head. Then he begins to dial.

  “A whole year, mind!” McGraw warns. “That’s one hundred and fifty-six shampoos! Ah . . . yes, good afternoon to you. Could you direct my call to Miss Scrumble’s office, please? Samuel McGraw here, headmaster of Blackwell School.”

  Chapter 4

  thumbs-up

  “Apparently Esperance Beach is the best beach to hang out on,” announces Fleur authoritatively as the train chugs slowly south-bound toward Destiny Bay. “That’s the hippest beach with the best breaks! Much less mainstream than Misty Beach. Esperance is where all the hottest surfers go.”

  “What do you mean, breaks?” asks Claude, offering around a box of egg-salad sandwiches that smell vaguely of farts. Claude’s been so much more chill ever since we got jobs. We’d never realized how stressed she’d been about her mum and their money problems.

  “Breaks are waves,” Fleur says. “I’ve been brushing up on my surf jargon. I’m in the mood for a bit of summer lovin’ with a surf dude. I need to speak the lingo.”

  “Awww,” I groan. “I feel a bit sorry for Baz Kauffman. He liked you, y’know?”

  Poor oily-headed Baz was chucked the very instant McGraw put that phone down and confirmed our places at Harbinger Hall. According to Fleur, things were “fizzling out” anyway. Apparently Baz’s hair product overload was starting to annoy her. Fleur reckoned they couldn’t snog without their foreheads becoming glued together. Plus his ears were full of old flaky gel. Double-spew!

  “Look, I’m doing this for you!” says Fleur, filing her nails absentmindedly into Claude’s egg sandwiches. “How can I help you find a new boyfriend if I’m not allowed to flirt with his friends?”

  “Pgghh,” I splutter, not believing Fleur’s benevolence for a second. “I don’t want a boyfriend. I can’t be bothered. Cuh! Boys are just a total waste of time.”

  “Have you gone insane?” tuts Fleur. “What’s the point of coming to Destiny Bay if you’re not up for snogging a surf dude?”

  Claude laughs, scatter-gunning me with egg salad. Fleur puts down her nail file and wrinkles her nose at me.

  “Ugh . . . I get it now,” she moans. “You’re still hung up over that Jimi baboon-breath Steele, aren’t you? Gnnnngnnn! Oh, how I hate him! I wish you’d let Magda beat him up when she wanted to.”

  “I never even think about him,” I blush.

  “Really?” asks Claude tactfully. “So you’ve stopped hacking into his Hotmail account now? ’Cos y’know, Ronnie, that was a bit freaky. Even for you.”

  “He changed his password,” I say, remembering far darker days just after Jimi ran off with Snuff Monster when I used to sit on his garden wall because “being near him was better than nothing.” Jimi’s mum, Doris, used to bring me out mugs of tea.

  Let’s never speak of that ever again.

  “I’m over Jimi Steele,” I say firmly.

  “Good,” says Claude. “ ’Cos would you really want him back anyhow after he’s spent six months being groped by Frankenstein Beak?”

  “No,” I say quietly. It’d be nice to think he wanted me back, though.

  “Anyway,” says Fleur. “Don’t worry, there’ll be no shortage of hot boys at Destiny Bay. It’s going to be one long snogathon!”

  I look at Fleur witheringly.

  “What’s up now?” laughs Fleur.

  “Well . . . it’s okay for you, Fleur, isn’t it?” I tut. “You can speak to boys! You’re an excellent flirt. You’ve got all the best lines. Me? I start acting like a day-release patient the second anyone vaguely hot comes near me.”

  Fleur and Claude start giggling. They’re not arguing with me.

  “Take last month at that Blackwell Centenary Barbecue shambles,” I moan. “When Miles Boon walked over to me for a chat.”

  “Mmm, Miles Boon. He looks so hot right now!” swoons Fleur. “He’s been training for a charity half marathon. He’s totally buff.”

  “I know!” I howl. “So he walks over, and I think, oooh, flipping heck, better start flirting. So I said hello . . . and I gave him two thumbs-up!”

  “You did what?” splutters Fleur. “Two thumbs-up? What, like this?” Fleur holds both her thumbs aloft in an “I’m wacky!” manner.

  “Uh-huh,” I affirm. “That’s it.”

  “Why?” she says in disbelief.

  “I don’t know!” I wail. “And then . . . Claudette, what did I start talking about?”

  “Slugs,” Claude winces.

  “Slugs,” I repeat, placing my head in my hands. “My brain just flipped out and I started jabbering on about garden pest control.”

  “I thought it was quite interesting,” says Claude kindly.

  “Then, worst of all, when Miles started making excuses to leave, I said, ‘Hey, call me sometime.’ And I made a phone sign with my hand!” I illustrate, pulling my thumb and little finger into the internationally accepted gesture of the phone, before clamping it to my face.

  “Noooo!” howls Fleur, biting her fist. Claude’s trying not to laugh.

  “I can only surmise,” I conclude solemnly, “that if I ever want another boyfriend, I may need to cut my own hands off.”

  Fleur and Claude start laughing so loudly now that other people in the train carriage are tutting and rustling newspapers. I can’t blame them for being cross at us really. The LBD have giggled, gossiped and goofed about for well over four hours now. It’s not as if Fleur Swan has any volume control on her head either—at one point she coerced the entire carriage into a Mexican wave.

  However, at least when we’re chattering, it stops me worrying about stuff. I mean, I’m really excited about Harbinger Hall. I’m doing what my nan (RIP) specifically told me to do: I’m off to have a proper adventure. But this hasn’t stopped me worry
ing that I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.

  I mean, come on. I’m hardly the world’s most competent waitress, am I?

  Last Christmas, when I worked at the Fantastic Voyage, so many customers got drenched with soup and gravy that Mum considered serving a complimentary rain bonnet with each dish. The dishwashers used to high-five me whenever a customer got the correct order. I once dropped a chicken drumstick right into a woman’s Louis Vuitton handbag. She didn’t realize until two weeks later when her wardrobe was full of bluebottles.

  Needless to say, I mentioned none of this on my Harbinger Hall application form.

  Another thing freaking me out is that I’ve never been away this long from Mum and Dad before. What if I get, like, really homesick? What if I end up having a complete schizoid fit in the first week and can’t exist without my mother, like the wet fart girls that had to get picked up early from Brownie camp?

  (Okay, this is a long shot. My mother was being extra-specially annoying this morning. Not only did she follow me around the house for two hours checking I had fresh underwear on and giving me unsolicited advice about my bowels, but she then embarked upon a really embarrassing “facts of life” speech. Well, she tried to. At the first smattering of the word “penis” passing her motherly lips, I locked myself in the bathroom, placed a finger in each ear and hummed “Rule Britannia” until she retreated.)

  Despite this, I still felt pretty choked, standing on Platform 4 waving good-bye, knowing I’d not see them for eight weeks.

  “Go on, bail out on me,” Dad groaned. “Leave me with the ayatollah! You just have a good time, forget my plight!”

  “See ya, Dad,” I said, getting a big lump in my throat. “May the force be with you.”

  Then Mum gave me a big hug and pushed me onto the train. “Gone for the whole summer. My little girl!” she smiled, her lip wobbling furiously. “It’s the end of an era!”

  That set me off crying. I’m such a sap.

  Fleur, on the other hand, virtually high-kicked her way onto the train, ignoring Paddy’s sarcastic comment that he’d “see her next week when she got fired.” And as for Claude? Well, she just kissed Gloria and hopped aboard. She just seems really focused on earning some cold hard cash.

  “So, anyway, Esperance Beach,” says Fleur. “That’s where the in-crowd surfers hang out. Y’know, the locals? The pro surfers? All the coolest folk? That’s where we’ll be doing most of our sunbathing.”

  “How do you know all this?” says Claude.

  “Hmmm, well, big sisters have to be good for something, I suppose,” smiles Fleur. “I e-mailed Daphne in Guatemala, and she put me in touch with her friend Suki, who did the last summer season at Destiny Bay.”

  “At Harbinger Hall?” says Claude.

  “Er, no,” says Fleur. “Suki was a tequila girl at the nightclub Utopia. Basically, she stood around in very small, tight shorts with bottles of tequila in a holster belt, blowing a whistle, charging two pounds a shot for tequila. But apparently all the clubbers used to give her at least a pound tip per shot! She made enough in eight weeks for a ticket to Sydney. How amazing is that?”

  “Her mother must be very proud,” mutters Claude.

  Fleur twitters on, oblivious. “So anyway, Suki was giving me the Destiny Bay lowdown. Apparently all the Aussie and Kiwi surfers crash at the Banana Hostel or Sam’s Surf Shack. Or the beach bar called A Land Down Under. Plus there’s an amazing café called Cactus Jack that’s excellent for watching sunsets! Oh, and there’s the Destiny’s Edge Beach Club, which has a roof terrace where they have seventies theme parties. Oh, and there are lots of secret cliff-top parties too!”

  Fleur’s eyes are alive with excitement. “I can’t wait,” she giggles. “We’re free! Free to do what we please!”

  “Fleur, the breakfast shift begins at six o’clock in the morning,” Claude reminds her. “We’re not that free.”

  “Oh, Claude,” tuts Fleur. “We’re only clearing a few plates. How hard can it be?”

  “The place holds two hundred guests,” says Claude. “That’s a lot of plates to clear away.”

  Fleur’s face goes a little white.

  “Incidentally, Fleur,” Claude prods, “have you ever cleared a table before?”

  “Of course I have!” insists Fleur. “Sometimes when Mrs. Duke, our housekeeper, has the day off, I . . . y’know, put my own breakfast bowl in the dishwasher.”

  “Well done, you!” cheers Claude.

  “Oh, shut it, Claude,” laughs Fleur. “You won’t rain on my parade. This is going to be the best summer ever! We’re freeeeeee!”

  “Girls, I think we’re here,” I say as the train begins to pull into a very small old-fashioned station. “Get your bags together, we’re getting off.”

  “Wonderful!” smiles Fleur, taking out her compact and applying hot-pink lip gloss. “Ahhh . . . no Paddy, no Mr. McGraw, no exams, no Cressida Sleeth, no Panama Goodyear, no hassles!”

  We grab our bags, suitcases and rucksacks and tumble off the train, scanning the platform apprehensively. Destiny Bay Railway Station is absolute bedlam, jam-packed with tourists, commuters and gangs of surf boys lugging surfboards. It’s nearly 6 P.M., but the sun is still blazing down, drenching us all with sweat.

  Suddenly I’m feeling nervous again.

  I don’t see Scrumble anywhere. What if she’s forgotten us? What if we’re stranded literally hundreds of miles from home? We know nobody!

  But just at that very second I spy a figure in the crowd that absolutely, 110 percent has to be our new boss, Miss Helga Scrumble. She is standing underneath Destiny Bay’s station clock, wearing an expression that could freeze fog.

  squarepants

  Miss Scrumble is the most peculiar-looking individual.

  She isn’t fat. There isn’t a spare ounce of flab on her. But she’s still a chunky box of a woman. Small, smaller than me, even, with wide shoulders, wide hips, a distinct dearth of waist and a flat, almost rectangular-shaped head. Scrumble’s dark brown hair is chopped into a severe asymmetric bob. Thick black spectacles are perched upon the end of her snoutish nose. Jutting from her square body are stumpy arms and little hoof-feet. Despite the sweltering July sun, she is clad in a gray pinafore, black shirt, black opaque tights and black leather shoes. She could be any age between 18 and 72, but I’m opting for about 45.

  “Miss Scrumble?” smiles Claude politely.

  Scrumble’s beady eyes meet ours. She scans the LBD sniffily, fixing upon Fleur’s butt-cheek-scraping hot pants.

  “Harbinger Hall?” Scrumble says, sounding like a less chipper version of my old Speak ’n’ Spell machine.

  “Yes!” we all chorus.

  “Walk this way,” says Scrumble, scurrying away. From behind she looks like SpongeBob Squarepants’s frumpy grandmother.

  “Phew, it’s hot,” smiles Fleur, trying to break the awkward silence as we load our luggage into the trunk of Scrumble’s clapped-out Volvo Estate car.

  Scrumble pauses to glare at Fleur as if she were an imbecile. “It’s July,” she replies, with the cold dead eyes of a death row inmate. “It’s Destiny Bay. Obviously it’s hot.”

  “Mmm, yes,” says Fleur, doing her best “silly me” face.

  “And besides,” sighs Scrumble, eyeing Fleur’s long brown legs and bare, toned arms with badly concealed bitterness, “I’d have thought, in that outfit, you’d be positively chilly.”

  Fleur’s eyes narrow. She opens her mouth to say something . . . but then she shuts it again firmly. Thank God.

  Seconds later, we’re out on the road, whizzing through the resort toward Harbinger Hall. Destiny Bay, or what we can see of it, seems like a lot of fun. Well, I think so anyhow. We pass through the town at about 120 mph! Scrumble drives like an absolute lunatic, pedal to the metal, cutting cars off at intersections, terrifying pedestrians and cranking the gearbox noisily as the Volvo’s engine roars in disgruntlement. Scrumble clearly has issues about this whole being square shaped thing
—this is payback time for the planet.

  “Oooh, look! There’s A Land Down Under!” Fleur yells as Destiny Bay’s landmarks whiz past us. “And the Banana Hostel! And Utopia! And woweeee, look! Misty Beach! That’s where they have the Big Beach Booty Quake!”

  Misty Beach looks like paradise! Its pure white sands are packed with girls in thong bikinis and buff boys with straggly blond locks carrying surfboards. Several games of volleyball and Frisbee are in progress, while ice creams are slurped and cocktails drunk. It looks like absolute heaven—although our faces are reverberating with too much G-force to see the finer details.

  Quickly, we’re through the main resort, climbing upward on a coastal road, clear blue ocean to our right, lush green forests on our left, the LBD gripping on to our seats in terror as Scrumble overtakes cars on hairpin bends, beeping her horn furiously and splatting kamikaze rabbits that dare to cross her path. Thankfully, after a mile or so of wacky racing, Scrumble chucks on a right-turn signal and cuts over the oncoming traffic.

  “Well, you could see me coming, couldn’t you?” she yells incredulously as a red-faced surfer-hippie in a VW camper makes an exceedingly rude gesture at her.

  “Harbinger Hall Hotel!” gasps Claude as we hurtle up the long gravel driveway through exquisitely tended gardens, narrowly missing two old duffers in a golf cart.

  “Indeed,” says Scrumble, screeching to a halt.

  Before us lies the most breathtaking, sprawling redbrick Gothic ex-stately home. Two beautiful yet rather intimidating turrets mark the east and west wings, and dozens of stained-glass windows twinkle in the early evening sun. In front of Harbinger’s main entrance, which is a silver portcullis at the top of beautiful marble stairs, stands a doorman in a dark green top hat and tails. Several snooty-looking guests are climbing from Jaguars and Mercedes and heading up the steps. None of the clientele looks anything like Big Doggy, the Scandal Children or “Duke of Pop” Spike Saunders. This bunch looks more like Queen Elizabeth II’s posher, even more in-bred relatives.

  “You will never use that main entrance,” Scrumble announces, nodding toward the grand portcullis. “That’s for guests only. Staff use the rear entrance. It’s back there beside the refuse area.”