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I felt like telling him that if he hadn’t been there Maya would simply have picked herself up and got back on her bike. She wouldn’t have had much choice, cos I wouldn’t have fussed and flapped over her! But I didn’t say anything, cos I didn’t want him thinking I was cold and heartless. It’s just that what with being born only weeks apart, and with our mums being twins, we’ve been brought up almost like sisters, so I really do know her inside out. It is only emotionally, like Auntie Megs, that she is a bit fragile, which is why I always feel I have to be there for her. Sometimes some of my friends get a bit impatient and say why do I bother, but it’s like a sort of duty. I couldn’t just turn my back. It was the only reason I’d agreed to get the bus instead of carrying on cycling by myself.
Linzi Baxter was unfortunately nowhere to be seen as we turned into Orchard Close. I guess it was a bit too much to hope for. She is the sort of person that is always there when you don’t want her to be and nowhere to be seen when you feel like doing a bit of showing off. Probably served me right. Showing off is very pathetic. I don’t usually stoop to it. Unlike Linzi.
I told Jake thanks for the lift, and he said no problem.
“Let me get your bike out for you … there you go!”
I hovered for a few seconds as he drove away, but there were still no signs of life from Linzi’s house. Unless perhaps she was peering from behind the curtain. I wouldn’t put it past her!
I wheeled my bike round the back and went in through the kitchen. Mum was on the phone. I heard her say, “Well, keep an eye on her. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“Was that Auntie Megs?” I said. “Telling you about Maya? She just fell off her bike; she didn’t do any damage. Well, apart from scraping her hand. Nothing to get fussed about.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right, but you know what your auntie’s like,” said Mum. “What’s this I hear about Jake rushing to the rescue?”
“He was just driving past,” I said. “He saw her come off so he stopped to help.”
“Actually carried her over the threshold, so I hear!”
“Yes. Well.” I pulled a face. “It was all done for show. He didn’t have to.”
“Still, good for him,” said Mum. “It’s nice to know the days of chivalry are not completely over.”
“But, Mum,” I cried, “it was so embarrassing! She got all silly and swoony and burst into tears. She wouldn’t have done it if Jake hadn’t been there.”
“Don’t be too hard on her,” urged Mum. “She’s going through a really tough time right now. So’s your Auntie Megs. They’re both missing Uncle Kev and you can’t blame them for being worried about him.”
I sighed. “I know. I do try …”
Maya’s dad, my Uncle Kev, is what my dad calls selfish and unreliable. Dad doesn’t have much patience with him. Mum, more kindly, says he’s just a bit eccentric. Actually, if you ask me he is very eccentric. I do love him, cos he’s also funny and warm-hearted and generous, but I can see why Dad accuses him of being selfish. He is one of those people that can’t ever seem to settle to anything. He was a milkman for a little while, but that didn’t work out, so then he worked in Tesco for a few months, until he got bored and decided he needed something more stimulating and became a postman, only he couldn’t manage to get up early enough in the morning and I think he probably got the sack, though Maya, who is very loyal, always said it wasn’t that at all. It was because his feet hurt.
In between working at proper jobs Uncle Kev has these brilliant ideas for inventing things. He then has to try and find people who will give him some money to start actually making the things he has invented so that he can become immensely rich and Auntie Megs will be able to stop cleaning houses for people that are already immensely rich, such as Jake’s mum and dad.
At the moment Uncle Kev was off on a world tour. It was his latest brilliant idea. He was going to see how far he could get by just walking and hitchhiking, starting with Europe, and then he was going to write a book about his adventures and sell it on Amazon so that Auntie Megs could stop cleaning houses, etc.
He had set off at the end of August and we were now halfway through September and Auntie Megs and Maya were still waiting to hear from him. He had warned them he wouldn’t be using his mobile phone except in emergencies cos he wanted to prove that life without “all this modern technology” was still possible. Typical Uncle Kev!
At least, as Mum said, no news was good news, but I did feel a bit sorry for Maya. I could understand why she was so anxious. I would be anxious if my dad suddenly took off and we didn’t know where he was or when he was coming back. Maybe I had been too hard on her.
“P’raps after tea,” I said, “I might go round and check she’s OK?”
“That would be a nice thing to do,” said Mum. “Auntie Megs would appreciate that.”
I said, “Yes, and we can decide what time we’re leaving in the morning … We’ve got to go by bus from now on. Auntie Megs says her nerves won’t stand us cycling any more.”
Mum laughed. “Well, that’s all right. Going by bus won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t suggest that I could still cycle. It was kind of taken for granted that I’d always be there to watch over Maya. I suppose on the whole I didn’t really mind. Except just sometimes I could get a bit impatient, like when I went round after tea and found her still all frail and suffering on the sofa with a great chunk of cake in her hand. Obviously nothing wrong with her appetite!
“Talk about playing it up,” I said.
She looked at me reproachfully with these enormous blue eyes that she has. Big wide-apart eyes in a tiny heart-shaped face.
“It really hurt,” she said. The tears were already welling up. I am convinced that Maya can actually make herself cry just by thinking about it. “If Jake hadn’t been there I don’t know what I’d have done.”
I was about to say she’d have got up and got back on her bike, but at that moment Auntie Megs came through from the kitchen. She must have heard Jake’s name cos she said, “That is such a lovely young man! Most of them wouldn’t have bothered.”
I thought, that was because there wasn’t anything to bother about. But it wouldn’t have been polite to say so.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. “Eight o’clock at the bus stop?”
Maya nodded, dreamily. “Unless Jake comes by and gives us a lift.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well … you know! If he happened to be passing,” said Maya.
I looked at her, suspiciously. She had this slightly glazed and goofy expression on her face. I knew exactly what it meant.
“You’ve gone and done it again,” I hissed, “haven’t you?”
She gazed up at me, all innocence. “What?”
“Got one of your things.” I mouthed it at her. I couldn’t say it out loud, cos of Auntie Megs being there, though sometimes I think Auntie Megs only hears what she wants to hear.
“If Jake did offer you a lift,” she said, “it would be extremely kind of him, but I don’t think you ought to expect it. Only if he offers.”
“That’s all I meant,” said Maya. “If he offers.” And she gave me this impish smile, like we were in some kind of conspiracy.
I shook my head. If Maya was about to embark on yet another of her all-consuming crushes life was going to be extremely tiresome.
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Eight o’clock next morning found us at the bus stop, glumly waiting for a bus to appear. Well, I was glum. I hate waiting for buses! I suppose I am quite an impatient sort of person.
“This is all because of you,” I grumbled to Maya. “If you hadn’t made all that fuss …”
Maya gazed at me, sorrowfully. “I couldn’t help it! You heard what Jake said … it was a really bad fall.”
“Not that bad,” I said. “You didn’t have to be such a drama queen.”
“I wasn’t! It hurt. It still does. Look!” She held out her hand, palm up, to show me. “I might have needed stitches. It could have got infected.”
I said, “Oh, please! And why do you keep peering at cars like that?”
She started, guiltily. “I’m not!”
“Yes, you are. You’re hoping Jake’ll come by, aren’t you?”
Except she obviously couldn’t remember what sort of car he drove. I could remember. It was a Fiat! I’m quite good at recognising different makes of car. Dad and I sometimes look at car sites together on the internet, picking out ones Dad would like to drive. Dad usually goes for the big posh ones like BMW and Mercedes. I prefer the little ones cos I think they look more cosy. Like little Easter eggs on wheels. Maya’s mum and dad don’t actually have a car so she doesn’t really know anything about them. I bet all she could remember about Jake’s Fiat was that it was small and blue.
I’d obviously embarrassed her, but it didn’t stop her peering.
“Know what?” I said.
“What?”
“You’re being really obvious!”
She frowned, nibbling at a thumbnail. “What’s that s’pposed to mean?”
“You’re making it look like we’re desperate! If you’re not careful some nutter’ll pull up and tell us to get in.”
That scared her a bit. “We wouldn’t have to do it!”
“They might try and make us.”
“So we’d run!”
“I’d run,” I said. “You’d probably trip over and fall flat on your face.”
And this time Jake wouldn’t be there to pick her up.
She bit her lip.
“It’s what happens,” I said, “when people get crushes they can’t control.”
She didn’t try denying that she’d got a crush. Just as well cos I wouldn’t have believed her. I could recognise the signs when I saw them. It wasn’t the first crush she’d had. Not by a long chalk, as Dad would say. Back in Year Six she’d fallen in love with our class teacher, Mrs O’Malley. She’d trotted about after her like a little lost puppy, all beaming and trustful. It had gone on for weeks. Then last summer she’d got this massive crush on a boy called Anil, who worked at the minimart. The minimart was owned by his mum and dad, and Anil used to help out sometimes after school. Maya insisted that we call in there every single afternoon on the way home. It was like the highlight of her day – the moment she lived for. If Anil was there she was in heaven; on days when he wasn’t she was cast into the deepest depths of despair.
Needless to say we always had to buy something, like a tube of Smarties or a KitKat or something. We couldn’t just stand there gawping, though left to herself – that is, without me to hold her hand – it’s what she probably would have done. She was never brave enough to actually say anything. She just felt this desperate need to be near him for a few minutes. It seemed to satisfy her, which was just as well since Anil showed absolutely no interest in her whatsoever. Hardly surprising. He must have been at least sixteen, maybe even older, and with Maya being so tiny he probably thought she was still just a little kid at primary school.
I don’t know how long her obsession would have lasted, but at the start of the summer holidays new people took over the shop and Anil and his mum and dad disappeared and things went back to normal. It surprised me a bit cos I’d really thought Maya would be all broken up and weepy, but luckily Uncle Kev chose that moment to have one of his bright ideas: he and Maya and Auntie Megs were all going to go and live in a cottage on the Isle of Skye for a month. They were going to be entirely self-sufficient, like gas and electricity and stuff had never been invented, and then he was going to write a book about it. Another book.
Well, the book never got written and by the time they came home Maya had more or less forgotten about Anil, but it had been really tiresome while it lasted. I was just hoping this thing she was obviously getting about Jake wouldn’t develop into a full-blown crush. I wasn’t sure I could take it all over again!
She was still obsessively checking out every blue car that drove past. Big ones, small ones; just so long as they were blue. I hadn’t realised there were so many of them. Blue must be a really popular colour! (I would have red if it was me.)
“That was a Toyota,” I said as another one flashed past. “Toyota’s no good.”
From behind me came an indignant squawk: “Who says?”
I spun round. Oh, horrible! Linzi Baxter had snuck up behind us. I’d forgotten she got the bus.
“Ours is a Toyota,” she said.
I said, “Yes, well, we’re looking for a Fiat.”
“Why?” said Linzi.
“Cos it’s what Jake Harper drives.” I couldn’t resist adding, “He gave us a lift home yesterday.”
“Really?” Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like that! I could almost hear the jealous thoughts whizzing round her brain: how come he’s giving lifts to these total nobodies?
In the distance, at the top of the hill, I could see a bus coming towards us. As it drew near Maya suddenly clutched at me.
“Mattie, Mattie! Is that a Fiat?”
This time, she was right. It was a Fiat, and Jake was at the wheel. Maya was already dancing about on tiptoe, waving her arms in the air.
I made a grab at her. “Maya! Stop it!”
“But it’s Jake!”
“I know, but this is a bus lane; he can’t pull up here.”
If I hadn’t got hold of her she’d have gone running off down the road, windmilling her arms in the hope of attracting his attention. I practically had to drag her on to the bus. Linzi followed as I pushed a reluctant Maya in front of me up the stairs. The minute we reached the top deck she raced to the nearest window to watch as Jake drove past. Linzi, to my enormous joy, plonked herself down next to me on the back seat.
“What’s she up to?” she said.
“Oh!” I waved a hand. “I dunno. She thought he might give us a lift again.”
Linzi regarded Maya in silence for a few seconds. Maya was standing with her nose pressed against the glass. She looked like a child wistfully gazing into a toyshop. Linzi shook her head.
“Pathetic,” she said.
I bristled at that. It’s hardly Maya’s fault if she has a mum who is permanently anxious and a dad who is always rushing off in all directions, leaving them to cope without him. It would be enough, I should think, to make anyone pathetic.
“I don’t know how you put up with her,” said Linzi.
“She’s my cousin,” I said.
Lots of my friends wonder how I manage – on the whole! – to be patient with Maya; but they are my friends. Friends have the right to ask that sort of question. Plus they understand when I tell them about Mum and Auntie Megs being twins and me feeling the need to look out for Maya. Linzi Baxter was not my friend and I had no intention of explaining myself to her.
“Why did he give you a lift, anyway?” she said.
The cheek of it! What business was it of hers? I was still trying to think of a suitably crushing response when Maya suddenly decided to join in the conversation. She sank down into the seat in front of us and draped herself over the back, her eyes shining.
“He rescued me,” she said. “I came off my bike, and he rescued me! He was soooo sweet. He picked me up and drove us home and then he carried me into the house cos I couldn’t walk. If Jake hadn’t been there I don’t know what we’d have done. We might have had to call an ambulance! Mightn’t we?”
I shrugged. I did wish Maya hadn’t felt the need to tell everything to Linzi. She obviously wasn’t impressed. She is not the sort of girl to be impressed. She gave Maya this long unblinking stare then said, “Yeah. Right.”
Even then Maya didn’t get the message. Eagerly she said, “Lots of boys wouldn’t have bothered. I don’t know why Jake did! Just cos he’s a really nice young man, my mum says.”
“You don’t think p’raps he fancies you?” said Linzi.
She was being sarcastic. That anyone as cool as Jake Harper could possibly fancy a Year Eight nobody, especially one as small and skinny as Maya, obviously struck her as absurd. I guess it did me, too. To be honest, I hadn’t even considered it. It was only Auntie Megs being his mum’s cleaning lady that had made him stop. Cos he knew who Maya was, that was all. Nothing to do with him fancying her.
“Omigod,” said Linzi, as Maya’s face turned a bright happy scarlet, “she actually thinks he does!”
