10

Where we try and convince Charlie it is a good idea to stay in Barry for the night and he falls for it

Charlie was given his cash prize in an envelope and a bunch of onion-based products in a wicker basket. Honestly, I can’t remember a time he’d ever looked so happy. I had to break it to him that it wouldn’t be practical to carry the basket all the way to St. David’s. He said he’d had enough of onions for a while anyway, so he took the cheese-and-onion chips but gave the rest to Clementine. She turned out to be Big Trev’s mom and the gesture served to smooth over some of the bad feeling.

“It was a well-fought match,” she said, taking the basket. “I’m sorry things got tricky back there with my Trevor. He’s a good boy. Just has a terrible temper sometimes. Shouldn’t dwell. I have to move on and focus on the scarecrow competition. Trevor and I worked night and day on our entry.”

“Which one is yours?” I asked.

“Ones,” she said with a knowing smile. “We did the superheroes.”

“That’s our favorite!” I reckoned they stood a good chance of winning.

By the time Charlie had his photo taken for the Barry Gazette it was getting late. In all the excitement we’d forgotten that we were working in a limited time frame and my anxiety levels were rising. We all called home to let our parents know everything was okay and to keep them from getting suspicious, and then we headed back to the bus stop. But when we got back to Barry Docks there wasn’t any sign of a bus. We checked out the South Wales bus schedule on our phones and discovered that, at six thirty, we weren’t going to make it to St. David’s. So we wouldn’t be staying at Alan’s. Essentially, we were stuck in Barry.

Charlie did not take this information well. In fact, he behaved like a total diva. Just goes to show how quickly one moment in the limelight can affect some people.

“What are we going to do? Mom says I need a full night’s sleep in a proper bed, or I won’t be at my perkiest in the morning.” Charlie said I in a very self-important way.

“We could hitch a lift to St. David’s and still stay at Fred’s new dad’s?” Ben suggested.

“No way—we could be picked up by a murderer or a crazed fan.”

I agreed with Charlie that I did not want our trip to come to murder, but Ben seemed to be taking a far more relaxed view to stranger danger because he said, “I think the chances of that are pretty slim.”

“A murderer or a crazed fan?” I asked, not that it really mattered.

“Both.”

Then a group of older boys walked past, saw Charlie, and started chanting, “There’s only one Charlie Anderson.”

Ben and I looked at them like they’d just dropped out of the Welsh skies. But Charlie, well, he was delighted. He high-fived them all and did the running man on the spot. The older kids cheered some more, and even though they were loud I could still hear Ben mumble something about Charlie having no shame.

Anyway, the fact that there were people cheering for Charlie was enough to convince Ben that there might also be the chance of a murderer lurking around, so we scrapped the hitchhiking idea.

I was beginning to wonder if maybe I should have planned things a teeny bit more carefully before we set off from Andover. I think one thing I’ve learned from the whole experience is that it is a good idea to have a Plan B or even a Plan C ready for when things go wrong and people—in particular, biological fathers—aren’t where they’re supposed to be. But because I hadn’t done any planning about what would happen if we didn’t find Alan Froggley at Cardiff Analytics, I had to rely on my cunning and wing it. As group leader it was up to me to come up with a solution, and as group leader I decided we basically had two options.

Option 1: we could use Charlie’s winnings to get back to a train station and head home.

Option 2: we could find somewhere to stay in Barry for a night. Get a bus to St. David’s early the next morning, find Alan Froggley, and then get back to Andover before anyone missed us.

Thinking about it now, Option 1 does seem like the more sensible thing to do. But at the time it also felt a lot like quitting. Option 2, however, did not feel like quitting. It felt like a very reasonable suggestion. So I didn’t mention the first idea and said, “As far as I can see, we only have one option. What do you think about staying here tonight?”

Opinion was divided.

Ben said, “I’m okay with that. I’m not fussed about going home yet.”

Charlie’s eyes bugged out of his head and he said, “Stay here?”

“It’s just for one night.”

“But where are we going to sleep?”

It was a good question, but I hadn’t quite figured out that part of the plan yet so I said, “We’ll find somewhere.”

“Somewhere? Does somewhere come with a hypoallergenic pillow?”

“Maybe.” I suspected probably not but thought it best not to hit him with a hard no. “It’s only for one night.”

Ben put his arm around Charlie. “Come on, dude, it will be an adventure. Before you’re sent away to Vegans R Us.”

“I’m not at all sure about this,” Charlie said.

“And you’re sure about avocado-and-wheatgrass smoothies? Look, Charlie, in September we’re going to be in seventh year in a new school. We might not even be in the same classes. Wouldn’t it be cool to have this one last adventure together?” Ben said.

“I guess it would, but so would sleeping in an environment that doesn’t trigger my allergies.”

“Don’t you see, Charlie? This is for Fred. His mom’s dead, his Grams is dead. His dad only has one working leg. He’s got this weird crinkly haircut . . .” Ben lowered his voice when he mentioned my hair like it was the worst thing of all. “We have to do this. Charlie, tonight you ate a whole raw onion in one minute thirty-seven seconds. That’s the fourteenth fastest time the people of Barry have ever witnessed. You, Charlie, are fearless.”

Charlie blushed and said, “Ah, it was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing. You were magnificent, Charlie. To the people of Barry, you were a hero. To us, you were a hero. And heroes don’t quit.”

“You think I was a hero?”

“Absolutely,” Ben said. “The way you demolished that onion . . . I’ll never forget it. You are a true hero.”

By this point I’d been swept along with Ben’s motivational talk, so I said, “You’re not only a hero, you’re one of the best friends a guy could have.” Which is true. Not everyone has a mate who’ll eat a whole raw onion for them. And I had two.

“You’re a winner, Charlie.” Ben grabbed us both around the shoulders and shouted, “We’re all winners!”

“You guys!” Charlie grinned. “I’m in.”

Ben gave me a wink. His own special blend of emotional blackmail and flattery had done the trick.

Now that Charlie was on board I decided we probably needed to get practical about things. “Where can we stay that won’t cost us anything?”

It was a puzzling question and we all fell quiet for a moment. Then Ben said, “Guys, I’ve had an idea.”

He really was on a roll and, as ideas go, I thought it wasn’t a bad one. Even if it was just a tiny bit illegal.

Looking back now though, I guess it was the start of all the chaos. But we didn’t know that at the time.