"I know," I"d said, hating myself for it.
"What do you mean?" I could picture her quick frown, the puzzled headshake.
"Naomi heard a rumour..."
"And you didn"t tell me?"
"There"s always rumours, Ruby. I wanted to know whether this one was as true as it sounded." Ruby read the words I wasn"t saying.
"When did you talk to him?"
"Just before lunch." I"d woken him from his hangover word of his transgression had spread whilst he was still trying to sleep it off. "He wanted to talk to you himself."
I hadn"t given Stu much choice. If he hadn"t told her, I would have.
Ruby said nothing. All I could hear was the rattle of the wind as she walked.
"I"m sorry, Ruby."
"I know," she said, then, "It"s not your fault I had such a suckjob for a boyfriend."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. I want to watch Harry Potter."
Fifteen minutes later, Ruby was on my doorstep and we loaded up The Philosopher"s Stone. At the end of the film, she gave me a hug and told me I was forgiven. Her ex-boyfriend was not.
Stuart Garside stopped being someone Ruby cared about when she dumped him. She deleted his number from her phone, binned all his photos and tore up the tickets of the gigs they"d been to. If she could have wiped her memories clean Eternal Sunshine-style, she would have. So that means she won"t want to know he"s here doesn"t it?
RUBY.
Dongle is the least reliable informant ever. As soon as I start quizzing him about Tom"s mysterious fit girlfriend, he backs down.
"Which tearooms?" I ask. There are about a million within a square mile of the seafront.
Dongle mumbles something about the one at the end of the parade.
"What were you doing in a tearoom?" Parvati hijacks the interrogation.
"I go with my nan sometimes." Dongle shrugs. "I"ve probably got it all wrong."
"You usually have." Anna throws a scrunched-up bit of tinfoil at him. She begins to lay meat out on the barbecue trays, and when Owen starts threading marshmallows onto a kebab stick, everyone gets distracted by the thought of eating.
Not me. I"m distracted by the thought of Tom having a girlfriend that no one appears to have mentioned to Kaz.
Not even Tom.
KAZ.
By the time I get back to camp, I"ve yet to decide what to do about Stu ... until I see Owen. Owen, who is in the same year as Stu, who took the same Sociology cla.s.ses. I"m sure I"ve seen Stu wearing one of Owen"s band"s revolting T-shirts. They"re lime green with orange writing and only Hydro"s nearest and dearest would own one, so either Stu"s colour-blind, or he"s actually friends with Owen.
Sensible, keep-the-peace Owen. If there"s one person I can trust on this, it will be the boy-version of me.
The second I step into camp, though, I"m a.s.saulted by introductions. Ruby introduces Anna first, whose dimples pop prettily as she waves across at me in direct contrast to the alarmingly cool Parvati, who gives me a vague smile from behind the kind of sungla.s.ses my sister would envy. The new boy, who has an entire apple stuffed in his mouth like a pig at a medieval feast, is called Dongle, and although I want to ask him the origin of his name, it"ll be half an hour before he can reply. Or breathe.
Ruby sits back down and waves me into the empty chair next to her. Before I"m able to ask her whether the half-empty beer bottle clamped in her fist is her first and remind her she"s a lightweight (literally), Ruby leans close and stares at me as if trying to read my mind. I panic that she somehow knows about Stu.
"How was Tom?"
I"m almost relieved when that"s the name I hear.
"Um ... fine?" I glance away in case she can tell that I"m all aflutter about the way he flirted with me. (Because that"s definitely what he was doing. I"ve decided.) "No news?"
"I don"t really think so." I frown at her, confused. "Should there be?"
"So he didn"t say anything about a girlfriend?" Ruby"s now leaning so far over that she"s about to fall out of the chair.
"No, Ruby, Tom didn"t say anything about a girlfriend," I say quietly, hurt that she"s pushing this particular b.u.t.ton. It"s one I"ve been avoiding ever since we broke up, the thought of my Tom being with someone else... I know we"re supposed to be over and I know I"m not supposed to love him, but that doesn"t mean I"m ready to pa.s.s him on to someone else. Not yet. Not whilst there"s a chance I could hold on to him.
"What about Naj? Or Roly?"
I know what she"s driving at, but I"m not prepared to go with her. "I don"t know whether they"ve got girlfriends either. Perhaps you should ask them?"
Ruby looks very disappointed in me for making that joke. "Or perhaps you should ask Tom?"
I say nothing. I"m not going to. There"s no need. I"d know if Tom had a girlfriend Dad would know. Or Naomi, who knows everything, would know. Besides, even if they didn"t tell me, Tom would have.
Wouldn"t he?
7 * ATTENTION
KAZ.
It does not take long for someone to suggest a singalong. This is a music festival, we have a campfire a badly tuned acoustic guitar is mandatory. No one is surprised when the person to volunteer one is Owen.
"But it"s up in the van. I"m volunteering the instrument, not to go and get it." He pulls out his keys and holds them up. "Any takers?"
Ruby"s the one who leans over. "I"ll go. Kaz, you coming with?"
The look she gives me is one of concern. Ruby wants to make sure I"m all right. Her inquisition about Tom has dampened my mood and it"s this that she wants to check on, but this is the best opportunity I"ll have to talk to Owen about Stu and I can"t let it go to waste.
"I"m pleading intense laziness." I loll further into my chair. "Don"t make me move."
Ruby shakes her head at me, tells me I"m lame. But that"s it. I get away with it. As soon as she"s clomped off up the hill, I nudge Owen with my toe.
"Can I talk to you for a second?"
RUBY.
It"s nice ambling through the field. Everyone"s kind of settled in now, the camps all jumbled up and on top of one another. I pa.s.s a group of lads running down the hill with huge letters spelling out the word MOOBS in fluorescent body paint across their chests.
"Moobs for the win!" I call out as they pa.s.s. "M" stops and turns to jiggle, making me laugh. It"s cool here. I feel like these are my people even if my people vary wildly in age. The couple over there must be my parents" age, although the woman"s wearing a Gold"ntone T-shirt, which makes her tons cooler than my mum.
Not that this would be hard.
Relations between us have kind of broken down after I rang home with my results. There was a moment of silence in which my mum was hoping she"d misheard before she said them out loud and my dad took the phone from her.
"They"re not good enough, Ruby."
"For what?" Even though I knew exactly what he meant.
"For staying on at St Felicity"s."
"I could change-"
"Now"s not the time to discuss this."
Seems like we"re never going to. My parents are determined to book an appointment with the head next week. No mention was made of the alternative a Kalinski kid in state education? Unheard of. If my parents have anything to do with it, I"ll be back to square one, back in my uniform and back in the cla.s.sroom. And Kaz"ll be in the year above. Without me.
KAZ.
Owen knew that Stu was coming. He"d seen him at the Hydro gig Owen played two nights ago and they"d chatted about what they were doing for bank-holiday weekend: going to Remix.
"Did you say about Ruby?" I ask.
Owen looks miserable. "The matter of Ruby Kalinski provides a conflict of interest between me and Garside. I tend not to mention her unless I have to, so I didn"t. And once I"d decided not to say anything to one, it seemed best to stay quiet to the other."
"How quiet?"
"Lee doesn"t know." Owen nods across the campfire to where Lee is currently trying to throw marshmallows into the (generous) target of Dongle"s gaping mouth. "Lee has been blessed with many qualities, but discretion isn"t one of them."
The same could be said of his sister. Sometimes a little white lie saves a lot of ha.s.sle. "So do we stay quiet?"
The movement Owen makes is neither a nod nor a shrug. "Maybe it"s better not to spread the drama. The others aren"t exactly matey with Stu"s lot and it"s not as if I"ll let them invite him over when Ruby"s here."
I"m about to point out that he won"t always be here, but my phone goes. It"s Tom, and all the other thoughts fall out of my head. I stare at his name on the screen before I remember that the done thing is to answer it.
"h.e.l.lo?"
"Hey, Kaz." His voice reminds me of all the times I lay in bed balancing my phone on my ear as we talked until we were half-asleep. "What are you up to?"
Don"t make yourself too available, Karizma, I can practically hear Naomi hissing.
"Hanging out at camp with everyone. Owen"s friends. I think you know them. Dongle-"
"Dongle Dave"s here?" Tom interrupts. "That guy"s a legend!"
Unless legends are made from eating pointlessly large quant.i.ties of foodstuffs, I"m not sure how Dongle qualifies, but then Tom is proud of the fact that he can burp the alphabet. It"s probably a rugby thing.
"Well, er, yes..." I"ve lost my nonchalance now.
"Do you mind if I come over for a bit?" Tom says. "The lads seem to be pairing off with the girls next to our camp and me and Stella-" I hear a faint "Your name is Stella, isn"t it? I haven"t just been making that up?" and a laugh that I a.s.sume means it is. "Me and Stella are feeling a bit gooseberry-ish."
I try and think back to which one was Stella, but I can"t. Either way, it"s not going to change my answer.