For most of Thursday, I opt for a social coma at school. I’m physically present but not mentally there. Lauren is still away, and I have enough hiding spots to avoid all boys. I spend all of lunch in the Zen Loo. Lovely Gracie heard me in the cubicle. I just told her I was having a nap.
I was glad to get home until I saw what I had to wear for the ghost tour.
There are no two ways about it. I am dressed up in an old lace nightie with a cardigan and batter mix on my face. I look like the ghost of a pancake, not of a little match girl. Also I’m very, very cold. So I may be dying an actual death, too. Teresa has made sure I’m on a main road. This is great for personal safety, but not great for how many people are staring at me. I wish she would hurry up.
Just as I’m seriously thinking of packing everything in and going home, I hear Teresa and the group of ghost hunters she’s with coming toward us. She’s telling them that the church couldn’t be turned into flats until they’d rid the place of the ghost of a sad weeping match girl who had died of cold in the graveyard. I stiffen up, knowing that this is my cue to start moaning and acting generally very ill indeed.
Teresa turns the corner and says, “Behold the match girl. See her terrible rags and then we will tell the horrible story about how no one would buy her matches and how she died because of the cruelty of Victorian society. And how she haunts these posh flats because she wants to remind the rich people of today that having really nice IKEA lampshades and probably under-floor heating, too, isn’t enough. You need to be a NICE PERSON, too.”
I know for a fact that Teresa is saying this because she was jealous that she couldn’t afford one of the posh flats.
At this point, I say in a really feeble voice, “Buy a match from a poor match girl. Buy a match.…”
As I slump like a really ill person, I notice a figure toward the back of the ghost hunter crowd. Staring at me and flashing me a smile that could and would probably bring a very dead person back to life is Danny. And two people who look very like they could be his parents.
And Erin.
And I’m dressed as a match girl with food smeared all over my face.
I’ve probably had worse days in my life, but I can’t remember one.
I wave at Danny. He bounds over to me, leaving Erin with his parents.
“Hello,” I whisper, and pull a this is actually really embarrassing face.
Teresa growls at me, “Ghosts don’t wave at their earthly friends!”
But just as Teresa tries to shoo Danny away, a man in a suit races out from the posh flats and starts yelling, “Oi! YOU! Get lost. You spreading rumors about this place could take ten grand off my property price! Move yourself.”
Aunty Teresa shouts, “This is a public right of way, and I can tell people what I like!”
Someone in the crowd yells, “Is this not true, then?”
“Of course it’s not true!” the man in the suit says. “She’s making money off of gormless tourists like you!”
Teresa goes quiet and then says, “You can’t prove that!”
At this point, all the people in the crowd start tutting and go their separate ways. Teresa says, “No … No! Look! Look at the match girl! She’ll die without your fee.”
Just about everyone rolls their eyes at Teresa.
“Why didn’t you take the money at the start?!” I ask her.
Teresa is furious. “I didn’t think my match girl would start chatting up the customers!”
I am adding Teresa to the doesn’t-like-Millie-much-at-the-moment list.
Danny ignores the fact that I have gone bright red under my pancake mix. “Can I buy some matches, please?” Then he winks.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
“I like to find out about social history. I like to know the facts about different places.”
“Me, too,” I say. “For example, I totally know what to do when a randy elk charges you after you’ve stared at his girlfriend.”
“What’s that?” Danny says.
“Run!”
I think at this point I am both wise and slightly hilarious.
However, I can see that Danny is wondering why I’ve started going on about elk.
Why have I started going on about elk?
“Anyway,” he says, “we’re going for a pizza with my parents. Want to come, too?”
Danny says this very uncomfortably. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t want me to come. Erin and I—it’s just not going to work.
“Er … No. I better get home and check that my aunty is okay.” I also think eating a margherita dressed as a Victorian match girl may not be a good look.
“Okay,” Danny says sort of gratefully. “Catch you another time.”
“Yes!” I say, and I wave good-bye to him and Erin. Erin does not wave back. She’s too busy taking photos.
Good-bye, perfect man. Matches, elk, and the fact I’m a useless person have come between us, but that is this day. The worst day in history. This is like the last day in Pompeii, when Vesuvius exploded. I am currently breathing in hot volcanic ash of embarrassment and dying. I will be discovered two thousand years from now. They will find my fossilized remains and know that I died of terminal spoon.
I just need to get home and talk to someone … anyone.