Part 15 (1/2)

'My mom's calling me later, so the Neb said it was OK.'

Gina went over to her chest of drawers and took the phone out. 'Sounds like she's sent me a text.' But she opened the message and saw that it wasn't from her mother.

The message read simply: SCARLETT IS A SHORT STORY. NOT A GIRL. DOES THAT HELP? D.

'Oh no!' Gina said, sitting down on the bed, not taking her eyes off the phone screen. 'Oh no!'

Before she would answer anyone's concerned questions, she texted back the reply: I AM AN IDIOT. SO SORRY. G XX.

'Come on!' The shout came from outside their door. 'Time to go down and make sure everything's ready.'

Amy recognized the voice. 'That's Rosie. She said she was going as a frog! We've got to see her costume.'

Gina put the phone back into her drawer, then hurried out onto the landing, where Rosie was indeed dressed up as a frog, but a very cute green frog, complete with a tiara perched at an angle on her head.

'You know, I'm the frog princess: you kiss me and I turn out beautiful.'

'You're already beautiful!' Amy a.s.sured her.

'Look at you guys though whoa!' was her reply.

Downstairs, the three common rooms given over to the party looked amazing. Large cobwebby nets had been draped over the doors and ceilings. Low green lamps gave off a ghoulish glow. Carved pumpkins lit with candles had been scattered around the garden and steps. Mrs K had insisted, due to fire regulations, there should be none indoors.

Gina had come up with most of the inspired suggestions for the Halloween buffet. There was dark spaghetti, slimy pea soup, vampish beetroot soup, and jugs full of the specially mixed blood-red soft drink. Liquorice bugs had been dotted all over the food and plates.

But Gina still couldn't hide her disappointment at the sweet selection. Yes, there were white chocolate mice and skulls, pumpkin lollies and chocolate b.a.l.l.s wrapped in special pumpkin foil, but it just couldn't compete with a proper American Halloween candy spread. What she really wanted to see were jellied pumpkins, chocolate pumpkins, sweets shaped into witches, broomsticks, ghosts and little black cats, seasonally decorated Reese's Pieces made of delicious peanut b.u.t.ter covered in chocolate, and pumpkin pie! When she had suggested making pumpkin pie to Mrs K, she'd received a very blank look.

One of the eager girls who had been posted at a window now announced with a mixture of nerves and excitement, 'I think that's a minibus pulling up. I think the boys are here!'

The music was turned up loud, the disco lights began to whirl around the room and there were several long minutes of almost breathless antic.i.p.ation while costumes were tweaked, eyeliner smudged, lip gloss quickly reapplied. Then, with slightly forced laughter and over-loud 'h.e.l.los', the first group of boys entered the room.

It was hard to tell who was who there were so many guests here all of a sudden and their costumes were so weird and wonderful. There were wizards of course. Lots of blue and black bathrobes had been pressed into service. Then several ghoulish monks, Frankensteins, Draculas, and someone in one of those horrible black and white frozen Scream masks.

'Oh no!' Amy exclaimed. 'I hate those screaming skull things, they give me the creeps. Niffy and I watched that film one half-term and . . . it's just horrible!'

The skull began to approach them, and even though Amy knew it was just a mask, she could feel herself shrinking back.

'Hi!' the skull boomed, and they immediately recognized Angus's voice.

'h.e.l.lo!' They greeted him enthusiastically.

'I didn't know you were coming,' Amy began. 'You should have told us we'd have had something to look forward to.'

'Oh yeah! But I'm only here for the beer,' he joked.

'There isn't any,' Gina warned him; she was now being jostled by the crowd of new arrivals.

'Well, that's the good thing about baggy clothing.' He flapped his black arms about. 'It can hide a lot of bulging pockets.'

'You've brought booze!' Amy whispered excitedly a few mouthfuls of beer and she had a feeling her nerves at seeing Jason tonight wouldn't be quite so bad.

'Yeah, in subtle cans, so from a distance it will look just like c.o.ke.'

'Very clever,' Gina agreed.

As they scanned over the Draculas and a.s.sorted ghouls to see who else they recognized, Min said she had to go to the bathroom and made her way out of the room.

'She looks great,' Angus told the other girls.

'We know!' said Gina. 'We just have no idea who for.'

Then Amy saw the most dapper Dracula of all coming in and knew immediately who she was looking at.

Jason was in his dinner jacket with a white s.h.i.+rt and white bow tie. He'd not bothered with fake fangs or even much white face powder; he'd just attached a silky cloak to his shoulders and swept his hair back from his face in the hope that this would be enough.

'There he is,' Gina prompted. 'Do you want us to hide you?'

'No, no,' Amy insisted. 'I've eaten plenty of garlic.'

'Oh, very good,' Angus laughed. 'That should keep the vampires away!'

With quiet determination, Amy walked steadily across the dance floor, where several witches and a ghoul or two were bravely kicking off the dancing.

As soon as Jason spotted her, he held his arms out wide and gave a leery 'h.e.l.lo, baby,' as his opening line.

Which was a mistake.

If Amy had been angry before, she was furious now. How dare he 'h.e.l.lo, baby' her!

She walked straight past him and into the corridor, hoping he would follow. It was quieter out there and she wanted to make sure he heard her every word. He seemed to get the message and was soon out in the corridor beside her.

They weren't alone there. Small groups of girls and boys were mingling under the netting and the dangling spiders, but Amy came up close to Jason so that she could hiss in his ear.

'Did you send me those flowers?' she began furiously.

'Yeah!' Jason was smiling. 'I knew you'd love them. They cost a fortune. What are you so annoyed about?'

'You were supposed to meet me this afternoon,' Amy went on.

'I know. I'm sorry, I got called into the team at short notice-'

She interrupted him with a sharp: 'Excuse me! Don't you own a mobile? Couldn't you have called me? Or sent a grovelling text? Were your fingers broken this afternoon?'

'I'm sorry, Amy!' he repeated. 'I couldn't find my phone and I couldn't get onto the payphone. I'm sorry.' And here he gave her such a charming smile and stretched out his hand to stroke her hair in such a tender manner that she might almost have relented and leaned up to kiss that shapely, ever so slightly arrogant pout if an image of the gazelle hadn't sprung up so clearly in her mind.

'We could have met in the morning. What were you doing earlier today that was so important?' she asked.