Pandora’s Box. Giselle Green

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СКАЧАТЬ We have to be careful. I’ve told Gordon that my dad won’t let us have boyfriends and he accepts that. So we take whatever snatched time we can get. It helps that Legrange Studios are having a big refit at the moment. It means everything’s a bit chaotic so a lot of the time people are coming and going from all sorts of places where they wouldn’t normally be.

       Mr Legrange nearly caught me out today. I took a short-cut coming in from the courtyard after seeing Gordon. I ran across the new stage area where none of us are allowed to go, yet. It was the quickest route but Mr Legrange caught me and it was the nearest I’ve come to being rumbled so far. It reminds me that I mustn’t get careless. He gave me that look adults give kids when they catch them doing what they’re not supposed to. Luckily, I’ve got a good reputation. I could see him waiting for an explanation so I told him one of the planks on stage was loose and I’d come back in especially to tell him that. He said which plank, and I pointed to one, and he went and jumped up and down on it a few times. He said he’d have it checked out and he let me go, thank god.

      Lily is getting suspicious, too. She’s wondering why I keep finding excuses to go back inside the studio once we’ve already come out. By the time I got through Mr Legrange, I found her waiting, arms folded and looking fed up, by the toilets. I told her I had to use the ones usually reserved for the adults but I don’t think she believed me. God, why can’t she just leave me in peace for once?

      God, they were all at it in those days, weren’t they? Sneaking round behind each other’s backs like there was no tomorrow.

      Why shouldn’t I ring Kieran, come to think of it? So what if Mum won’t like it? She’s had her moments, ‘snatching whatever time she can get’, hasn’t she? Hell, I’m just doing it. I’m ringing him now before she gets back and that’s an end of it.

      I mean, Krok might not even be there. Kieran. I must remember to ask for Kieran. He doesn’t work there every day. I hope he’s there. I’m not actually sure if I’ve rung the right number. It’s been ringing a while. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe I’ll ring back later. Maybe I just won’t bother…

      ‘Hello?’ It’s a woman. She sounds middle-aged. ‘David’s DVDs. Can I help you?’

      ‘Yeah. Er…is…er, is Krok, I mean Kieran, there?’

      ‘Who’s speaking please?’

      ‘Tell him it’s Shelley.’

      She half-covers the mouthpiece with her hand but I can hear her calling out, ‘Kie-ran. Someone on the pho-one for you.’ She sounds vaguely amused.

      ‘Hey, man.’ Kieran’s voice is curt, abrupt; it gives me a shock and I want to put the phone down and just run away. He’ll think I’m a complete nerd.

      ‘It’s Shelley,’ I say stupidly. ‘You know—ShelleyPixie.’

      ‘Oh my god.’ He seems to gasp a bit; I can’t quite make out why. There’s this silence. It stretches on forever. ‘Hey, Shelley,’ he says at last. His voice is soft now, I can make out the echo of an Irish lilt. ‘How come you’re ringing me? Nothing’s wrong, is it?’

      ‘No.’ I’m staring at the symbols I etched into my desk with the sharp end of my school compass: ‘K4S’. I did that the other night when I was on the phone to Surinda and she was waxing lyrical about Jallal. Now I’m feeling embarrassed about it, to be honest, so I’ve covered it up with my mouse mat. ‘I just wanted to say hi.’ I feel like a complete fool. A complete and utter fool. Just thank god that he can’t see me because my face must look like a beetroot. I clear my throat. ‘You haven’t been online lately. I wondered if everything was okay? I…I…’ I was going to say ‘I missed you’. But that’s so much easier to type on a screen than it is to say over the phone. He’s a stranger, after all, I’m thinking. What do I really know about this guy, other than what he wants me to believe?

      And we aren’t supposed to contact strangers we meet over the Internet. Everybody drums that into you. All the time. Especially if you’re kind of fragile, like me. At least he sounds…he sounds like he looks: young and kind and gentle.

      ‘I’ve missed you,’ he says it for me. His voice has gone real low. ‘There’s been so much going on. Granddad’s been ill. And then there’s been this game-show thing…’

      ‘I heard. Sorry about your granddad,’ I remember to say.

      ‘I got you those tickets,’ he tells me, ‘I didn’t forget you were after them. The next filming date is in a week or so. Or you could use them for the final.’

      ‘Did you?’ I can’t believe he did that. He really did it.

      ‘They’re screening the first episode tonight.’

      ‘Yeah, I know.’ My voice has gone kind of funny It’s because my mouth has gone all dry, speaking to him. ‘I’m going to watch it, for sure.’

      ‘I’m counting on it. You can tell me if I look like an ee-jut’. He says ee-jut for idiot. I can feel him grinning. He sounds pleased. If they’ve filmed several at once and he’s still going back then he must have done well and got through to the next round.

      ‘I hope this isn’t a bad time?’ I say after a bit. He’s gone quiet on the other end. I think maybe he’s just as shy as me? I can’t think of anything else to say. Why is this happening? When we talk online my fingers fly over the keys. He makes jokes and I laugh and laugh; he’s so witty and funny and fast. I can hear the front door opening now and I hope it’s just Daniel back from his bike ride, I don’t want it to be Mum back already. I hope if it’s Daniel he doesn’t come in here looking for me.

      ‘Not in the least. We’re never that busy in the morning,’ Kieran is saying. ‘But, Shelley, now that you’re here. I’ve got those tickets for you, like I said. Would you like me to bring them over to you sometime?’

      ‘No!’ My dad would kill me, and Mum, she would really kill me if she even knew I was talking to this man. ‘I mean, my parents…’ I trail off.

      ‘Of course. I understand completely. Never give out your address to someone from the Internet, right?’

      Kieran doesn’t feel like a stranger, though. He’s got a nice voice; it’s everything I thought it would be. I think of Surinda, talking to Jallal for the first time, and I can’t help smiling. She’s right. You can fall in love over the phone. Just a little bit.

      ‘Perhaps we could meet somewhere public, though?’ I don’t want to put him off. This might be the one and only chance I get, and a great wave of bravery lifts me up.

      ‘There’s a fair up on Blackberry Common at the weekend. My mates are doing a mini-gig up there. Do you think you could make it?’

      ‘If I can get someone to help me with the wheelchair,’ I remind him. He hasn’t forgotten, has he? He does still remember that I’m in a wheelchair?

      ‘I’d help you myself but I know you don’t want to meet me alone. And you shouldn’t. You’re sensible to insist on that.’

      ‘How will you find me?’ I ask him. ‘Even if we agree a specific place…how will you know it’s me?’ My heart is hammering in my mouth. I’m actually arranging to meet Kieran! I still can’t СКАЧАТЬ