Sugar Secrets…& Shocks Read online

  “7.30 pm - Movie Premiere with Tom Hanks…” he read aloud haltingly.

  That’s the last time I fall asleep on a newspaper, Matt promised himself, glumly recognising the previous night’s TV listings imprinted on his face.

  He not only needed a pee, he decided, but a shower too - partly to wash away the smudges of black ink, and partly to wake him up from the traces of hangover that were clouding his head.

  And the hangover was to blame for the fact that he wasn’t thinking straight, or listening out for unfamiliar sounds coming from inside the bathroom…

  Matt pushed open the door with a yawn, pulling his T-shirt off over his head as he did so. It was just as he was flicking the lock shut, now dressed only in his boxer shorts, that he realised he was not alone.

  “La, la, la, la-lah-dee-doo dee-doooooo—OHHH!”

  Matt had seen a lot of Cat over the years.

  But he’d never seen quite as much of Cat as he did right that second as she stepped nude and singing out of the shower…

  CHAPTER 10

  NICK TALKS SENSE

  “What is this?” asked Bryan, peering at the small silver object that Matt had taken out of his pocket and laid out on the counter in front of him.

  That taught Matt to try and impress an out-of-touch old rock merchant with his new up-to-the-minute tech no-toy.

  “It’s an MP3 player!” Matt tried to explain. “You know, you download music off the Internet on to it.”

  Bryan narrowed his eyes at Matt as if he was speaking in Swahili. “Looks like a Walkman.”

  “Well, it isn’t. And trust me, Bry,” said Matt, “this is the future of music…”

  At least that’s what the magazine Matt had been reading that morning said. And as he was in serious need of cheering up, Matt had decided to wander down to Central Sounds music shop on the High Street this Saturday morning and treat himself to one.

  “Hey, Matty Boy!” came a familiar voice as the street door opened and Nick Stanton entered.

  “Hi, Nick!” grinned Matt, reaching over and hugging Ollie’s uncle back as hard as Nick hugged him. “How are you doing?”

  “Better!” sniffed Nick, nodding his slightly balding head, making his long, dark ponytail bob about at the back. “This cold bug’s really laid me low since Thursday.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t seen you round the café since I got back or at the gig the other night,” Matt nodded.

  Apart from running the record shop and the End-of-the-Line café next door, Nick also managed The Loud, and it had to take a real illness to keep him away from his boys on a Thursday night, during their regular stint, just along the road, at the Railway Tavern.

  “So what’s this?” Nick asked, thick-voiced, as he pointed at the MP3 player, still sitting on the counter in front of a bemused Bryan. “You’re not trying to bamboozle us old vinyl addicts with modern technology, are you?”

  “No,” laughed Matt. “It’s amazing though. Have you read about them?”

  “MP3s? Yeah, a bit,” nodded Nick.

  “Like I was saying to Bryan just now, they’re the future of music,” said Matt, his eyes shining with excitement. “A few years down the line, you won’t have CDs or anything!”

  “Gee, thanks! That’ll be us out of business then!” Nick grinned wryly at Matt.

  “Oh, right! Sorry - I never thought…” said Matt apologetically.

  “So you obviously got paid well out in Ibiza?” Nick quizzed him, ambling around to Bryan’s side of the counter.

  “Huh? You must be joking!” snorted Matt. “I mean, they get you somewhere to stay and a bit of money, but it’s no fortune. You only get big money if you’re a big DJ. Otherwise you just do it for the experience.”

  “So how come you can afford this baby?” grinned Nick.

  “Credit card,” mumbled Matt, without adding that the bill would eventually go to his dad.

  “What did you buy it for?” asked Nick, picking the MP3 up and studying it. “A welcome home present to yourself?”

  “Something like that,” shrugged Matt.

  “So you had a brilliant time in Ibiza then?” asked Nick, shrugging off his denim jacket and settling down on a stool.

  “The best!” Matt enthused.

  “So why did you come back?” asked Nick, scratching his beer belly through a well-worn Guns’n’Roses T-shirt.

  Matt paused, stunned at Nick’s simple question.

  “It’s only July,” Nick continued, “so why didn’t you stay out for the rest of the season? I know I would’ve at your age.”

  “But… but the regular DJ at Espace is back,” Matt tried to explain. “I only got his spot because his girlfriend was having a baby and he had to be with her in Britain. But he’s back out in San Antonio now, so there’s no way the club need me…”

  “Matt, I know clubland isn’t exactly our scene,” said Nick, indicating himself and Bryan, who was dressed in his heavy metal uniform of old jeans, T-shirt, black leather waistcoat and mullet, “but surely there are hundreds of other clubs and bars in Ibiza, apart from this one you were at…”

  “The Espace.”

  “OK, the Espace,” Nick continued. “They’ll give you a reference, won’t they?”

  Matt nodded. Of course they would; they’d loved him at the club. If the regular DJ hadn’t insisted on a contract, Matt would have got the gig for the whole summer: they’d told him that much on that last night of farewell drinking, before he’d caught his plane home.

  “Well,” said Nick, “why are you hanging around here? you’re in a better position than most other DJ-wannabes. If I was in your shoes, you wouldn’t see me for dust. Eh, Bry?”

  Bryan nodded wordlessly.

  “Yep,” Nick continued, “I’d be out there, trying my luck in every bar and club till someone took me on.”

  Over the years that Matt had known Nick, he’d learned to take most things he said with a pinch of salt, especially his tales of roadying for “the stars” in his youth. But right this second, Nick was making perfect sense.

  Why shouldn’t I just take off? Matt thought to himself. I’m such an idiot! It’s even easier than Nick thinks. All it would take is a couple of calls on my mobile, with the business cards I got handed when I was out there…

  There was nothing stopping him.

  Well, apart from one thing.

  Or rather, one particular person.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE THINGS KIDS SAY…

  Maya couldn’t hold her camera steady for giggling.

  In the play that Vikki had devised, Ravi and Kerry’s little brother Lewis were meant to be warring pirates from rival ships. But while a group of children were saying their lines in the middle of the room, through the viewfinder Maya could see that the boys’ attention had drifted. Rather than staying in character, Lewis was busy showing Ravi his new Pokémon keyring, while Ravi was earnestly picking his nose.

  “OK, boys and girls! That was brilliant!” Vikki called out. “Let’s have a ten-minute break and then we’ll run through the whole play from the beginning. All right?”

  “Yes, Vikki!” came a mumble of voices, before the kids tore off in different directions.

  Maya smiled as Vikki made her way over. “You and Abigail are doing great with them!” she encouraged.

  Abigail was in the far corner, in charge of costumes, wrestling children in and out of appropriate outfits and painting pirate-style moustaches on them.

  “Thanks!” grinned Vikki, flopping down on to a plastic chair. “But I think I’ll sleep for a week after this!”

  Maya sat down next to her and laid her camera on an empty seat. “I get tired just looking after Ravi,” she sympathised. “But trying to keep the attention of all these kids must be tough.”

  “Tell me about it!” Vikki sighed with a smile. “I didn’t realise it’s not just about teaching them drama - it’s like babysitting too!”

  “What, like breaking up that fight earlier?” Maya grinned, remembe
ring when two boys started arguing over who got the biggest cardboard sword.

  “Yeah, that and trying to make sure no one’s hungry or thirsty or lonely or unhappy…” Vikki counted off on her fingers.

  “Or needing the toilet!” Maya added, pointing to a little dark-haired girl of about five who was standing with her legs crossed and her hands clutching the front of her dress. “She’s pretty young, isn’t she?”

  “Uh-oh - she’s Scott’s little sister. He just turned up with her - can you believe it? I think their mother just wanted rid of them both for the afternoon!” Vikki grinned, bouncing to her feet and rushing to the aid of the little girl before the pirates had a puddle in the middle of their stage.

  “Maya, can you look after this for me?”

  Maya turned around to find Lewis standing there, holding out his prized keyring.

  “Of course I will, Lew. What, are you scared you’ll lose it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” nodded Lewis, “‘cause I’ve got to do lots of jumping when it’s my turn to act and it might fall out of my pocket and Kerry will be cross with me.”

  “Kerry would never be cross with you!” Maya smiled at him.

  She and Kerry both adored their little brothers. And for Maya, her great relationship with Ravi came as a real blessing, considering the nonexistent bond with her obnoxious sister, Sunita.

  “But she bought it for me as a present,” Lewis explained, dangling the yellow Pokémon figurine in front of him.

  “Well, let’s keep it safe then,” said Maya, taking it out of his hand and tucking it away safely in the top pocket of her shirt. “I’ll give it back to you when we go and meet her from work this afternoon, OK?”

  “OK,” nodded Lewis.

  He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get back to Ravi, who was having a juice and chatting happily to a couple of girls over by the window. Lewis perched beside Maya, accidentally shoving her camera over with his bum.

  “Oops, careful!” she said, lifting it safely out of harm’s way.

  “What are you taking pictures of?” Lewis asked, eyeing up the Olympus.

  “Well, I’m just taking lots of photos of you lot and Vikki.”

  Maya had been pleased when Vikki told her it would be fine for her to stay and photograph the day’s events. Like the studio portraits, they might throw up that one great shot she needed for the upcoming competition. And from Vikki’s point of view, the duplicate set of prints that Maya had promised her would be very useful for her CV.

  “It’s a big camera. It’s different from mine. Mine’s plastic and is supposed to look like a dinosaur, but it doesn’t,” said Lewis matter-of-factly, staring enviously at Maya’s professional 35mm effort.

  Maya looked at his earnest expression and knew he was dying to have a go with it, but was too shy and polite to say so.

  “Here,” she said, slipping the strap around his neck. “Now the easy bit is that you stare through here. But to get things in focus, you have to twiddle this bit. And then when it all looks right, you press that button there.”

  Lewis was holding the unwieldy camera so tightly in his small hands that his knuckles were white.

  “Can I take a picture?” he asked her, wide-eyed.

  “Yes, of course,” Maya smiled at him.

  “What should I take a picture of?”

  “Whatever you want!”

  Lewis lifted up the camera and scanned the room. Maya gazed around, wondering what he would settle for, when she heard the shutter click.

  “I took a picture of Vikki, but I think it’s spoiled,” he grimaced, lowering the camera.

  “Why? Didn’t you focus it right?” asked Maya.

  “Yes, but that horrible girl Chloe is in it. THAT’S why it’s spoiled…”

  Maya frowned and stared over at Vikki, who was on her way back from the toilet trip, holding the little dark-haired girl by the hand.

  “What’s wrong with her? Why is she horrible?” Maya quizzed him, fascinated to know what the five-year-old could have done to offend him.

  “Because she’s always trying to get Vikki’s attention and she’s not even meant to be here -she’s too little,” Lewis said, crinkling up his nose. “Nobody likes her. Not even her brother. He says she’s a pest. And she’s teacher’s pet!”

  It was only a kid-sized dispute, but suddenly it made Maya think.

  Is that the way everyone sees me at photography club? From those remarks Ashleigh was making, she obviously sees me as a teacher’s pet, but what… what if the rest of them resent me too?

  Click!

  Maya turned round to see that Lewis had pointed the camera right at her.

  “Oops!” he giggled. “Can I take another picture of you? You looked too sad in that one…”

  CHAPTER 12

  ANNA SEES RED

  Sunny and her friends watched the skinny boy with the black hair and the pale angular face as he approached the door of the End-of-the-Line café.

  Leaning over the table, Sunny motioned the other three girls closer to her and whispered something. All four of them erupted into cackles of laughter.

  “Hi, Anna!” said Andy King, walking past the window booth table and wending his way over to the counter.

  ‘“Hi, Anna!” came a girlish echo from the girls’ table.

  Andy glanced over his shoulder quizzically as he sat down on one of the high counter stools. “What’s with them?” he asked Anna.

  “The giggle sisters? Boredom, I guess,” Anna suggested as she stacked a pile of newly-washed milkshake glasses on the shelves behind her. “Don’t look at them - if you pay them any attention, they’ll just act up worse.”

  “Wow, I just realised - that’s Maya’s sister, isn’t it?” Andy whispered, even though the jukebox was playing too loudly for him to be heard by Sunita and her gang. “They look so different, don’t they?”

  Anna nodded. “You mean, from when they gatecrashed Matt’s party? Well, they were heavily in disguise under a tonne of make-up…”

  “You know,” grinned Andy, “Billy still can’t believe he ended up snogging Sunny!”

  Anna smiled wryly. “That’ll teach him not to get drunk, won’t it?”

  “I know Maya was cool about it, but do you think she’s really forgiven Billy?”

  “Oh, yes!” assured Anna. “She knows it was all down to Sunny trying to muscle in, as usual. And she knows Billy didn’t mean to fall for it.”

  “Pretty quiet in here besides them, though, isn’t it?” Andy asked, gazing around at the mostly empty tables.

  As he turned his head, a long, low wolf whistle came from the window booth table.

  “Like I said, ignore them,” Anna instructed him. “Yes it is quiet today. But I guess it’s so beautiful out there that no one’s really in the mood to sit indoors. I know I would be outside if I didn’t have to work!”

  “Yeah… I’m off to the college football pitch myself in a minute,” said Andy. “I just came by to see if I left my jacket in here yesterday - a black denim one?”

  “Oh, it’s yours! Hold on…” said Anna, dipping down behind the counter and rummaging around.

  “Yes. It was so warm that I just walked out without it.”

  “There you go!” Anna smiled, passing the jacket over. “So you’re in the charity match too, are you? Billy roped Matt in yesterday, as a substitute…”

  “I’m not playing, I’m just taking photos,” Andy shrugged. “But, yeah, Billy’s roped everyone in one way or another.”

  “Ollie’s playing, isn’t he?” asked Anna.

  “Yeah, and Joe and Alex. And I think he said he’d asked all the girls to come along too -y’know, to do a bit of cheering!”

  Anna smiled, but felt a twinge of loneliness. It was a beautiful, hot, sunny Sunday afternoon and all her friends were together having fun - while she was stuck at work. Although she was normally too sensible to indulge in self-pity, she couldn’t help feeling really left out.

  “Hey, I meant to say - b
rilliant news about Matt going back out to Ibiza, isn’t it?” said Andy, sliding off the stool.

  Amazingly, Anna managed not to let the shock she felt show on her face.

  “Uh, when did Matt tell you this?” she asked, walking with him to the door.

  “Yesterday - I bumped into him when I left here,” Andy explained, reaching for the door handle. “He was just coming out of Slick Riffs. Said he was going to phone around some people he knew over there, see if he could get something fixed up.”

  “Well, who could blame him?” chirped Anna brightly, holding the door open for Andy, and gripping it tight so that the tremble in her hand didn’t show.

  He’s going back to Ibiza and he hasn’t even bothered to tell me? she suddenly realised, a sudden lump rising in her throat. But he came in here to see me right after he’d been into Slick Riffs and never said a thing! It can’t just be what’s happening at home - it’s got to be more than that. God - is it that Trudie girl? Is that why he hasn’t said anything to me?

  “Listen, thanks for the jacket, Anna - see you later!”

  Anna waved Andy off, letting the door swing closed behind him. But just before he was out of earshot, there came a shout from the girls in the window booth.

  “Poof!”

  The barbed insult was followed by an evil cackle of sniggers.

  Anna glanced at Andy, who was hurrying passed the window with his head down. He had to have heard. Something boiled over inside her.

  “Right!” she barked, striding over to the table where Sunny and her friends were sitting. The girls stopped giggling as soon as they saw the barely contained rage in the waitress’s face.

  “I don’t know which of you little witches said that,” she growled, staring specifically at Sunny, the ringleader, “but consider this a warning. If I ever hear any of you being in any way rude to another customer, you’re all going to find yourselves barred. OK?!”

  Sunny stared back at her with insolent eyes, but said nothing.