Dead Romantic (27 page)

‘YES. Who do you think I'm talking about?'

‘There's no need to snap.'

‘There's every need to snap at you, because you . . . you . . . oh, forget it. Just go, all right.' He stood up.

‘No.' I stood up too. ‘You don't own the woods. I can stand here if I want.'

He crossed his arms. This was too weird. I laughed.

‘What's funny?' he whispered.

‘I don't know.' I really didn't know, I wasn't just saying that. ‘I don't quite believe that someone's fallen in love
with me. No one's ever done that before. I mean, I do it all the time and boys never do it back. It's a bit scary.'

He nodded like he completely understood. ‘It's not like a thunderbolt. I tried to explain it to Damian but he didn't really take it in. It's more like a spark. A spark on a bomb. It fizzes and crackles and just keeps getting nearer and nearer until, one day, you're in full-blown you-know-what. And you didn't even see it coming. And then there's nothing you can do about it.'

My heart was going berserk. ‘So you actually like . . . love me?' He nodded.

I frowned. ‘Like Splodge loves Poppy love me?' He nodded again. ‘Like Jack loves Rose? Like Peeta loves Katniss? Like Edward loves Bella?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I can't believe you didn't get the hint.'

In the past, boys had only ever said this kind of thing to me before they pushed me off something or into something, or before just telling me they were joking. But Louis wasn't joking. ‘But why me out of all the girls at college?'

He shrugged. ‘When I saw you on open day, you were wearing your lemon bridesmaid dress thing and leggings, same as the night on the pier when I . . . smashed your face in. These girls laughed at you when they saw you but you didn't take any notice. I just thought you looked . . . kind of . . . like me. It reminded me of before, at St Raph's, when you found me in the toilets and gave me the peppermint. And I thought you were beautiful and stuff then too. I just couldn't tell you cos every time I saw you, I froze. I thought it had gone away when I saw you on open day, but
it hadn't at all. I still felt the same. But you were all about Damian.'

‘I'm not all about Damian,' I scoffed.

‘You really like him. It's okay, I get it. Everyone likes him. I know my place in the pecking order. After Damian, before Splodge. Maybe.'

‘You really think I'm beautiful?' I said.

‘Well, yeah.'

And in a heartbeat Louis Burnett became the most attractive guy I had ever seen, heard or read about. He was every hero in my romance novels, every leading man in every rom-com I'd watched, every hot boy who'd blanked me in the corridors at school, every soap actor or rock star who I'd stuck posters of on my wardrobe. But none of them were really anything like him, because none of them had ever liked me back or told me I was beautiful, and at that moment nothing could have meant more in the world. My chest felt like it was going to burst.

I got the biggest urge to touch him. So I did. I dropped the torch and lifted my hand to touch his cheek. My hand was freezing. His cheek was boiling. I'd known it would be.

‘I knew you'd be blushing.' I put my hand down again.

He laughed. ‘Worst ever. I'm glad it's dark.'

I finally understood it. It had taken me so long, but I got it now. That feeling. Full-blown you-know-what. That volcano kind of feeling when you think you're going to explode if you don't kiss someone. Like when Rose runs down below deck to save Jack and break his handcuffs with an axe, even though the boat's going down and they're going to die for sures. That's how I felt about Louis right
at that moment. Like I'd wade through icy water for him and cut him free with an axe. If I ever had to.

‘Did you really sniff my scrunchie?' I said, smiling. I hadn't told my face to smile, it just did it. ‘Was it so you could pretend you were smelling my hair?'

He nodded. ‘I was going to give it back but . . .' He shook his head again and took a really deep breath. ‘I didn't want to.'

I sniffed the scrunchie again. ‘You haven't . . . done anything to it, have you?'

‘No,' he said. ‘I just liked to smell it, you know. It didn't smell of funeral parlours and disinfectant. It smelled of a faraway place. It made me happy. I liked it.'

‘Okay, you're starting to sound a bit stalky now.'

‘Oh God, sorry.'

‘It's okay.' I smiled. ‘Makes me feel wanted. You are weird though.'

‘So are you,' he said. I shone the torch into his face and he shied away from it. ‘You still wear your bridesmaid dress.'

‘So? You wear a kilt!'

‘You steal from hospitals!' he came back.

‘You work with dead people!' I came back.

He smiled. ‘You're friends with a psychopath.'

I smiled. ‘You're friends with a twat.'

I laughed. He laughed. It was a dead strange feeling. Still scary. Like something really bad or really good was about to happen. I reached out my hand towards him again, and put my fingertips over his heart. It was going bananacakes.

‘What are you doing now?' he whispered.

‘I'm seeing if your heart's beating as fast as mine. Then I'll know, for sure.'

He waited while I shone the torch over his face. I looked at his lips. I imagined how they would feel on mine. ‘Do you believe it now?' he said.

I nodded. His heart was a heavyweight champion. His hand was on my cheek.

‘I'm trying to believe it too,' he said. Slowly I felt him getting closer and closer and closer to my face. It was just his breath against my mouth for the longest time, and in my ears were whooshing noises. I couldn't believe what was happening. His lips touched mine and we pressed our heads together and we kissed, slowly at first, until our lips moved and our mouths were opening and closing around each other's. And though my nose still hurt a little bit as it smushed against Louis', it was the most fantastic moment of my whole life ever. Because his lips weren't a poster or my pillow. They were real live boy lips. I shuffled closer to him so we were completely touching, and he wrapped his arms around me. It felt like we were melded together forever and nothing could come between us, like my Barbie and Ken when I left them by the fire. His hands were on my head. My hands were on his back. His damp hair smelled of grass and boy shampoo. Our tummies touched. I felt a surge I had never felt before, running right the way through me from my mouth to my feet. It was electrical. I didn't ever want to stop kissing him, ever ever ever.

But I had to cos something heavy dropped down from the tree and smacked him hard right on his head.

‘Ahhhhhhhhh!'
Fllllllll-uhhhmmmp
.

‘Louis?'

Louis had totally and automatically passed out flat on his back.

And the hand had landed.

 

 

 

 

P
ee Wee had appeared around the same time as the hand, looking at me like a rotten hand wouldn't melt in his mouth.

‘Bad, bad Pee Wee!' I whispered sternly at him. He panted, smiling at me like he'd done something brilliant.

I picked up the torch and shone it over Louis' still body. ‘Louis?' I said quietly, nudging him in the ribs. I bent over him and put my ear to his warm, t-shirted chest and listened to his heart. There were beats, thank goodness. He was okay.

‘Louis, please wake up,' I said, shaking him by his shoulders. Pee Wee trotted over and started licking his hand. No, not his hand.
The
hand.

I heard a groan in Louis' neck. He was coming round.

‘Oh Louis, thank goodness,' I cried and stroked his hair
away from his eyes.

He levered himself up. ‘Camille? What the hell was . . . what is that?' He was looking directly at the hand Pee Wee was licking.

I didn't think. There were no more excuses now. This wasn't a science experiment with a dead sheep anymore. This wasn't any old drama prop that I could just explain away. Louis knew a dead hand when he saw one. And he had seen one. I grabbed it, scrambled up out of the hollow and started running back towards college as fast as I could before Louis had even got to his feet. I had to get back to the lab, double fast. I sprinted back across the rugby pitches with that naughty Pee Wee yapping at my heels all the way like it was all a big funny game.

At the back of the Science block I flung open the door and we raced down the echoey corridor all the way to the end where the lab was. It was dark inside the college but the closer I got, the better I could see the lab door. Someone was standing outside it. Damian. I slowed, hiding the hand behind my back, dangling by its middle finger like a stinky designer handbag.

Pee Wee pounced on Damian the second he saw him but this time, Damian was having none of it. He picked him up by the collar and flung him straight into one of the metal lockers opposite the lab, slamming it shut.

‘Hey!' I puffed. ‘That's mean! Let him out, now!'

‘What's she doing in there?' he demanded, pointing at the lab door. ‘She's locked it. She's got someone in there.'

‘Who?' I panted as Pee Wee barked and banged inside the metal locker.

Raaaaawwwwwrrrrrffff raaawwwffff raaaaawwwff!

‘Zoe,' he shouted over the racket. ‘She's got someone in there. A bloke. I saw his feet through the window before she pulled down the blind. What's she up to?'

I shrugged, still panting for air. ‘I don't know. It might be perfectly innocent.'

‘Pull the other one. You and her are thick as thieves. That's why she doesn't want to go out with me, isn't it? Cos of this bloke she's got Fritzled up in there.'

‘Um . . .'

‘Come on, out with it.'

I shook my head. ‘I don't know anything.'

Raaaaawwwwwrrrrrffff raaawwwffff raaaaawwwff!

Damian glared at me. ‘What's she doing, Camille? And where's Lou?'

‘He's . . . he's in the woods.'

‘Aw you haven't dumped him already have you? I tell you, you could do a lot worse. All right, so he dresses like a tramp but his heart's in the right place . . .'

‘I know it is.' I stood firm, still clutching the hand behind me. ‘You've got the wrong end of the twig.'

Raaawrrrrrffff raaaaawwwff!

‘Bit of extracurricular Human Biology, is it? What is he, a teacher? That one who takes the girls for netball and does the knicker checks? I always thought there was something wrong with him.' He glanced downwards and frowned. ‘What you got behind your back?'

‘Nothing. Just my bag,' I said, lifting my arm ever so slightly so he just caught a glimpse of the hand, just a glimpse, not a full-on close-up.

His eyebrows raised in a ‘Tell-me-or-die' kind of way.

‘We're . . . we are . . .' I noticed the notice board and a pinned up flyer for the bring and buy sale, the cake stall. ‘We're making a cake,' I blurted out, ‘for the bring and buy.'

‘A cake?' He frowned. ‘What, and he's helping you, is he? Lying on his back on a table? Cobblers.'

‘No, he
is
the cake,' I said, only just knowing where my mouth was taking this particular lie. ‘It's a . . . man cake. A cake in the shape of a man.'

‘What?'

‘It's true. Yeah, it's in the shape of a man because the headmaster wanted us to do it, so we thought it should look like him. It's made of sponge and soft pink icing and there's jam and cream. And we're going to paint on a suit . . . with grey food colouring. It's ginormalous.' My mouth was watering at the thought of jam and cream, until I remembered it didn't actually exist.

‘What's that smell?' Damian frowned again.

‘Bins,' I said, without thinking. The nearest bin was right the way up the other end of the corridor by the gym. I was gripping the rotten hand so hard behind my back that my fingers were starting to sink into its soft flesh. He said nothing. I said nothing. He didn't know what to believe and I didn't know what more I could say to make him believe me. A door
clunked
at the far end of the corridor and a figure dashed through it. It started running towards us, panting.

‘Dame! Damian!' it called out.

‘What?' Damian called back.

Louis pointed at me as he slowed down, his Nikes
pounding the floor, his fringe stuck to his forehead with sweat. ‘They've got body parts. They've cut off someone's hand!'

Damian looked at me. ‘Cake?'

Louis turned to me, sweat glistening on his cheeks. ‘There is no sheep, is there? It's body parts. It's human, the thing you're bringing to life. Isn't it?' He rubbed the top of his head. I looked from Louis to Damian and back again. ‘That's what you've been doing. That's why you were at the hospital and the funeral parlour that night. It all fits now. It's not a sheep, is it? You are doing what her dad did. You're Frankensteining, aren't you?!'