But t h e n she smiled at me. 'Well, getting married got me you, and t h a t makes it all worth while,' she said, giving me a hug. 'Come on, let's go to bed. It's OK for you, you can have a lie-in on Saturday. I've got blooming work.'
She gave me a goodnight kiss and t h e n 69
peered at me suspiciously. 'Have you been drinking beer?'
'Have you been drinking wine?
'I'm not thirteen years old, Cheekyface.'
'I'm very nearly fourteen.'
'Will you w a n t a party?'
'No! J u s t a birthday tea with Carl.'
It was his birthday next. I had his present all ready, carefully wrapped and hidden in the back of my wardrobe. It was an old crystal champagne glass, decorated around the stem with green grape vines. I'd found it in a Cancer Research shop. I wasn't sure how old it was or whether it h a d any real value. I simply thought it was beautiful. I wished I h a d a pair so t h a t Carl and I could drink pink champagne from t h e m on our wedding day.
I dreamed about Carl when I went to sleep, but Miranda was in the dream too, and Raj and Andy a n d Alice. T h e bottle k e p t s p i n n i n g a n d t h e n I seemed to be s p i n n i n g too, round and round until I was totally dizzy. I was in pitch darkness and I couldn't grab hold of anyone to steady myself. I kept feeling for Carl b u t I couldn't find him. He wasn't there any more". He'd somehow crept out of the room.
I woke up and t h e phone was ringing and ringing. It was gone ten. Mum h a d left a cup of tea on my bedside table but it was stone cold now. I r a n downstairs in my pyjamas, wondering if it was Carl, hoping he wasn't going to back out of our Glassworld date.
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It was only Lucy, desperate to know how I'd got on at Miranda's party.
I told h e r exactly w h a t h a d happened, needing to see w h a t she made of it all. She kept giving little squeals.
'That Miranda! What a C-O-W!' she said, spelling it out. It was the nearest she got to swearing. 'Fancy kissing Carl. And he seriously let her?'
'Well, it was j u s t a game. It wasn't serious,' I said anxiously.
'Don't be silly, Titchy, she's trying to take him away from you. She makes me so sick. I wouldn't have any more to do with her if I were you.'
I was pretty sure Miranda wouldn't w a n t any more to do with me now I'd walked out of h e r party. I decided not to tell Lucy t h a t she'd asked me to be her best friend. It would make her even more vitriolic. She suggested we go shopping together in the afternoon but I said I was going to go round to Carl's.
'Oh, OK,' she said. Then, 'Can I come too?'
I took a deep breath. 'Well, we're going to be working on our book together.'
'I could work on it too. I'm good at English, you know I am. In fact I'm thinking of being a writer when I grow up. I've written lots of stories about my teddies.'
I s h u t my eyes. I knew exactly how Carl would r e a c t if I b r o u g h t Lucy along a n d suggested we introduce Billy a n d Bobby and Bernie to Glassworld.
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'Our story's kind of private, Lucy. It's j u s t for Carl and me. We write it in Carl's hut.'
Lucy sniffed at the other end of the phone.
'It's not a dirty story, is it?' she said.
'No it's not!' I said crossly.
'It sounds a bit weird though. What's this h u t like?'
'It's where Carl keeps his glass collection.'
'Yeah, that's a bit weird too, a boy collecting glasses!'
'It's not j u s t glasses. It's all different kinds of glass – he's got the most fantastic collection.'
'Then show me, go on. Please. Ask me over this afternoon and take me round to Carl's.'
'I can't, Lucy. Carl doesn't ever let anyone in the Glass H u t apart from me.'
Lucy rang off, sounding very huffy. I worried t h a t I'd h u r t her feelings, but I couldn't really help it.
I spent the rest of the morning working out new episodes of Glassworld to impress Carl. I invented a new character, a Princess Mirandarette, who lived in a glittering white snow palace. I drew her dressed in black velvet with a white fur h a t and collar and black boots with spiky steel heels. I gave h e r a white snow leopard and a black j a g u a r for pets, and drew a huge black crow perching on her shoulder. I drew Queen Sylviana beside her. She was Queen of all Glassworld and I drew her in her purple robes of state with her ruby crown and her regal ruby high-heels, but she looked pale and powerless standing next to 72
Princess Mirandarette. Her leopard a n d j a g u a r looked like they could eat Queen Sylviana's twin talking Siamese cats for breakfast.
I sighed. I drew King Carlo in the middle of the page, between the Princess and the Queen.
I hadn't left much space for him so I h a d to draw a very slim, pared-down version of His Regal Majesty, leaving out his customary lengthy ermine train. I drew his crystal crown, each point studded with a round ruby; I drew the royal-blue sash over his shoulder; I drew his white silk suit, leaving most of it plain white page but carefully shading it with pale grey; I drew his ruby cuff links j u s t peeping out from his sleeves; I drew his glass boots; I drew his dear face, big brown eyes, small neat nose, soft lips with a perfect cupid's bow. These lips were smiling b u t his eyes weren't looking left at me.
They were turned to the right, towards the interloping Princess.
I suddenly scribbled all over h e r with my black felt pen, ruining my picture.
I made myself cheese on toast for lunch. I knew Jules wouldn't mind if I went next door and ate with t h e m but Carl h a d specifically said afternoon and I didn't w a n t him to feel I was being too pushy. I tried to work out in my head his definition of afternoon. I t h o u g h t he probably m e a n t three o'clock, but when it came to it I couldn't wait any longer t h a n two.
I went out of t h e back door and walked down our garden. It wasn't a garden any more, it was 73
wilderness. Mum h a d long since stopped trying to mow the lawn or do any planting or weeding.
'I've got to prioritize,' she said defensively.
Carl's father mowed our lawn several times the first summer my dad left us, but then he slipped out of the habit and Mum was too proud to ask him. We h a d a couple of student lodgers for a while and they sometimes had a go, but they couldn't seem to work the lawnmower and go in a straight line. Then Mum caught them taking drugs and got rid of them in case I got corrupted and we all got prosecuted.
Miss Miles fiddled around planting a few pansies here and there, b u t she didn't have the strength to mow the lawn. Mum wanted to get rid of the grass altogether. She h a d a vision of a Japanese garden, all smooth grey pebbles and decorative green shrubs.
'One day, when I've got the time and cash,' she said. 'One day . .. when pigs s t a r t flapping their little wings and go flying through t h e air waving their trotters.'
I decided t h a t when Carl and I published the Glassworld Chronicles and made our fortunes I'd t r e a t Mum to h e r J a p a n e s e garden. I'd buy her an embroidered kimono to wear in it. She could lie on a little futon reading haikus and drinking green tea . . .
I waded through nettles and borage and dandelions to the door in the wooden fence at the bottom of our garden. I edged through it into the colourful flowery world of the Johnsons' gar-74
den and walked over to the Glass Hut. I rapped our special knock on the door but there was no answer.
I waited for a minute. I could walk up to t h e house a n d find Carl. Or I could go into the Glass H u t a n d wait for him there. Carl h a d never told me not to enter the Glass H u t without him. He hadn't needed to. It was far more private t h a n his bedroom. I only went there at his invitation.
I knew I should wait. But my h a n d was itching. It reached out as if acting inde-pendently. It seized the handle and opened the door.
I stepped inside a n d closed t h e door after me. I didn't switch the light on. Red a n d blue a n d green glowed t h r o u g h t h e s t a i n e d - g l a s s windows, softening t h e gloom. I gazed at t
h e neat glass rows. I reached out a finger a n d stroked the slippery h a i r of t h e Glass Boy. I lifted a glass goblet, pretending to t a k e a sip.
I took down t h e paperweights one by one a n d peered into each tiny world. My h a n d was trembling slightly, b u t I was very careful.
When I'd touched every single piece of glass for luck I took the big Glassworld book from t h e shelf and sat cross-legged on t h e sofa, flicking t h r o u g h t h e pages. We wrote it in an old marbled accounts book, so large you needed two h a n d s to lift it. We'd stuck in so m a n y paintings a n d d r a w i n g s a n d g e n e r a l a d d i t i o n s a n d 76
amendments t h a t t h e pages stuck out like stiff petticoats, making it even more unwieldy to handle.
The first few chapters were a weird mish-mash. I'd written this very babyish beginning, with lots of bad drawings, rows of Glassworld characters all smiling the same banana-shaped smile, batting their long eyelashes and looking to the left because I'd only j u s t learned how to draw a half-profile a n d was proud of my accomplishment. Their feet all pointed to the left too because I hadn't yet figured out how to draw a foot from the front. They looked like a mad chorus line about to s t a r t doing can-can kicks.
Carl h a d done drawings at the beginning too, but his were all very careful illustrations of Venetian glass-blowing. He'd constructed an e n t i r e Glassworld history from ancient GlassRoman times when the original Glass Palaces were erected. They were embellished wondrously by GlassVenetians, with brilliant chandeliers and mirrors and gigantic glass cabinets glittering with glass ewers, basins, bowls, pots, plates, candlesticks and every size and kind of drinking vessel.
I stipulated t h a t there should be different Glassworld alcoholic beverages for each colour of glass: white wine for the clear glass, red wine for the ruby glass, blueberry wine for blue, cassis for purple, creme de menthe for green glass a n d whisky for amber glass. I spent ages 77
concocting colour-co-ordinated meals for t h e glass plates. I h a d multi-coloured tiny fruit sweets in the millefiori bowls.
We only got into our stride with the story line when we were nine or ten. We started writing proper Glassworld Chronicles, developing the royal family saga. They coped with births, marriages and m a n y deaths. They went to war, fought off foreign invaders and dealt with a revolution by t h e workers in t h e g r e a t Glassworks. They shivered in their ermine robes during the Great Glass Ice Age and shuddered when a violent tempest cracked the Glass Palace from top to bottom.
Carl and I made it up as we went along, acting it out, interrupting each other excitedly, scribbling stuff down until our hands ached. We stayed cooped up in the Glass H u t hour after hour, never noticing the time.
It began to change when Carl started at the grammar. He had so much homework he didn't have time to invent Glassworld – and when he did have the time he didn't have the inclination.
I wondered if Carl h a d been making any notes. I looked around the h u t hopefully. There were two black notebooks on the shelf but they were Carl's proper glass books, one full of descriptions of glass in the Victoria and Albert, his favourite museum, and the other bright with paintings of stained-glass windows all over Britain. There was a square black sketchbook t u c k e d behind t h e m . I flicked t h r o u g h it, 78
smiling. There were drawings of Pre-Raphaelite s t a i n e d glass, b r i g h t felt-pen sketches of Chihuly glass at the V and A, delicate pencil sketches of Lalique glass at Brighton museum.
There were a few blank pages, and then, right at the back, there were Carl's own designs, variations of the Glass Boy. He drew him standing on tiptoe, stretching, sitting, flying with swirled glass wings. As the sketches progressed the Glass Boy came to life. He was running, eyes narrowed against the wind, arms pumping, legs pounding. His leg was drawn back, aiming carefully, about to kick an invisible ball. He was leaping high in the air, arm punching in triumph.
I snapped the sketchbook s h u t and p u t it carefully behind the two glass notebooks at exactly t h e correct angle.
I thought about a glass girl. I tried out several self-conscious poses. Would Carl w a n t to sketch me or would he laugh at me? He'd probably fob me off gently, the way he'd kissed me on t h e nose.
Why wouldn't he kiss me properly? I suddenly panicked, wondering if I h a d t h e most terrible bad breath. Andy hadn't backed away from me, groaning, but maybe he was heroically polite. I tried cupping my h a n d in front of my mouth and breathing out. I could detect nothing but I still worried.
Maybe I didn't smell repellent, maybe I looked repellent. I'd started to get a bit spotty, 79
though I tried hard to disguise it. I still looked embarrassingly young for my age, but I was s t a r t i n g to get a little bit of a figure now, though little was the operative word. I looked a sad scrawny baby compared to Miranda.
Did he secretly fancy her? I was his girlfriend, wasn't I? Why didn't he fancy me? Maybe I should simply ask him. It needn't be such a big deal. He was my best friend, closer t h a n a brother. Why did I feel so shy, so scared?
He came into the Glass H u t half an hour later.
'Hey, Sylvie,' he said, not sounding surprised, nor cross t h a t I'd barged in by myself.
He was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and white trainers, ordinary clothes I'd seen him w e a r a hundred times before, but he looked newly wonderful in them. I looked at the fair peachiness of his skin, the little hollow at his neck, t h e slight swell of t h e muscles on his a r m s , the t a u t n e s s of his stomach emphasized by his plaited leather belt.
'Budge up a bit, Syl,' he said, gently nudging me w i t h his trainers.
I sniffed his warm toast boy smell, but there was another sharp lemony scent, unfamiliar. I sniffed several times.
'Are you getting a cold?' said Carl, opening the huge Glassworld tome and flicking through the early pages.
'What's t h a t smell?'
Carl sniffed too. T o u r shampoo?'
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'No, it's not me, it's you.' I got closer.
'Definitely.'
'Are you saying I pong?' said Carl.
'No. Well, yes, but pleasantly. Like perfume.'
'I'm not wearing perfume! I was j u s t trying out a tiny drop of Jake's aftershave, that's all,'
said Carl.
I stared at his smooth skin. 'You don't shave!'
'That doesn't mean I don't w a n t to smell OK,'
Carl said. 'You wear perfume sometimes.'
I'd once snaffled some of my mum's French perfume but it was old and stale, a long-ago birthday present from my dad. The bottle h a d been gathering dust on her dressing table ever since. I was simply trying to use up t h e perfume so t h a t Carl could have the pretty cut-glass bottle for his collection, but Mum got cross and Carl moaned about the smell, saying it made his nose prickle and his eyes sting.
He seemed totally unaffected by his own aftershave. I wondered if he h a d p u t it on for my benefit. My h e a r t started thudding.
'I love t h a t smell,' I said hurriedly. 'It's much nicer on you t h a n it is on Jake.'
Carl smiled at me, still flicking through the Glassworld Chronicles. 'Do you t h i n k King Carlo a n d Queen Sylviana wear perfume?' he said. 'Aha, they're forced to wear pungent oils and b u r y their regal noses in silken hand-kerchiefs during the Great Summer Stench w h e n t h e Victorian Glassworld sewers collapse . . . '
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'Oh yes, because an enemy spy slipped down a manhole and blew up the brick sewer, so t h a t not only is half of Glassworld mired in filthy mud, the entire royal family having to be carried by sedan chair so t h a t the royal feet aren't sullied, but also giant r a t s have now escaped from the depths of the stinky sewers and now there is a plague of them, over-running Glassworld, biting babies, getting in all t h e food cupboards, running over people's faces in bed at night. So, Queen Sylviana gives her splendid Siamese cats the t a s k of killing all the r a t s — '
'But they are totally useless little lap-ca
ts.
They cower away from the r a t s and hide behind Queen Sylviana's velvet sofa, mewing piteously.
No, no, we need a Pied Piper, fresh from Hamelin. King Carlo spots him strolling non-chalantly through the palace grounds. His pied cloak trails on the filthy floor but none of the m u d sticks to it, and his feet in their n a t t y mis-match boots stay surprisingly mud-free too. His red and yellow garb looks curiously like a football strip. Indeed, as he nears the palace he s t a r t s kicking one of t h e prize pumpkins in the royal vegetable gardens. He breaks into a run, dribbling it nimbly down the ruby gravel drive-way, all the while piping away. Queen Sylviana peers round the royal velvet curtains at the Piper. She catches her b r e a t h at the sight of his sweet face, his broad shoulders, his well-muscled long legs in their pied t i g h t s — '
'No she doesn't! She wonders who this mad 82
fool is, dressed so bizarrely. Red and yellow look ridiculous worn together. How dare he pick any of the pumpkins! Queen Sylviana wants this i m p e r t i n e n t interloper p u n i s h e d . He is banished to the dungeons—'
'OK, he shrugs his shoulders a n d does not struggle because he sees t h a t Queen Sylviana is quite mad. Maybe she's so aware of his physical c h a r m t h a t she's t e m p o r a r i l y u n b a l a n c e d .
Whatever. So t h e Piper l u r k s in his little dungeon. He's been put on bread-and-water rations b u t he's still got his pumpkin, so he passes his time gouging out the flesh with the end of his pipe, munching his monotonous vegetable meal. The r a t s gather in force, their yellow t e e t h glinting by the light of his one flickering candle, but if he plays j u s t eight bars of his h a u n t i n g melody they are hypnotized, utterly catatonic. Ha, rotfatonic! They stay motionless, in aural ecstasy. King Carlo visits this strange new prisoner and sees for himself the extent of his powers. He sets him free and commands him to walk around the town playing his pipe, similarly enchanting every single rat.
He succeeds in j u s t one quick circuit, and t h e n he leads t h e m up up up to Mount Eruption, the terrifying Glassworld volcano, and all the r a t s scamper madly because the mount is red-hot and burning their paws. The Piper is far fleeter, his boots barely touching the ground, so t h a t he isn't even slightly singed, a n d he s t r i d e s u n h a r m e d to the very edge of the fiery inferno, 83