On Saturday morning the sun was out and everything was looking up. Sasha was speaking to me and the boys were almost behaving. I was still trying to forget that Keith hadn’t returned my calls or texts. But apart from that, it was as perfect as it gets, which is always a sign that it won’t last long.
It didn’t.
The phone went and I pounced on it, hoping for Keith, but getting instead Straggly-beard Man, who leads Denny’s choir, calling to remind him about a big all-day rehearsal in the Olympic stadium itself. Denny pointed out it was on the calendar, and Arthur started up saying he wanted to go to the Olympic stadium over and over again.
“You’ll have to take me, Seren,” Denny said.
“Why me? I can’t, Sasha and me, we’ve got stuff to do.”
“I want to go to the st-a-d-i-um,” sang Arthur.
Mum came downstairs in her dressing-gown and, amazingly, took control. I thought I must have woken up in a parallel universe. She told Denny she’d already done a packed lunch and that they’d be leaving in an hour.
“And me, and me!” Arthur was jumping up and down. I knew it wouldn’t work. I imagined Arthur running wild around the Olympic site, causing Gold Medal chaos. I could see Mum was thinking this too.
“You girls can look after Arthur,” Mum said.
“But we’re filming!” I said.
“I don’t wanna go with girls!” Arthur said.
Mum made a ‘please’ look at me and Sasha. “We’ll do a proper old-fashioned Sunday dinner tomorrow, all of us.”
I gave Mum a look that said Yorkshire pudding hadn’t done it for me since I was seven.
Arthur was jumping up and down, singing, “Gravy! Gravy!”
“But you have to go with the girls, love, just for today.” Mum knelt down and held Arthur by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Art,” she said. “I’m sorry, you can’t come with me and Den. There’s only a pass for one to go in with Den, that’s it. Arthur, you have to be really good and really grown-up for me.” She looked across at me and Sasha. “You too.”
I knew she was right. But I knew it was going to make things a lot harder.
We swung by Jamie’s and picked him up, and me and Arthur walked behind Sasha and Jamie.
Arthur said, “Is it allowed for someone that tall to go out with Sasha?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then it’s OK for Keith to go out with you even though he’s smaller than you?”
“Arthur, you know Keith’s like my extra brother,” I said.
“He is fun though, more fun than Denny.”
I had tried to call Keith loads, but it was ten now and I knew he’d be off at Chinese Saturday School, and then Youth Orchestra. Keith would be cool, wouldn’t he? I took a deep breath, I really wasn’t sure.
We got to the café, and compared to the weekday it was crowded. It still wasn’t full, but half the tables had people having their morning coffee. Worst of all, Nene was hovering by the entrance to the kitchen. I swear her face sort of curled up when she saw us.
“Hello, Nene,” I said, nice and polite, remembering that very soon, in a month or two, I would never have to see the woman again in my whole entire life. “Is Dad around?”
Nene shouted in Turkish into the kitchen and Dad appeared, flustered but less worried.
“Seren, Babes! Sash and... Denny?”
“No! I’m Arthur!”
“But you’ve grown so big,” Dad said with a smile. “I thought you must be Denny!”
Arthur glowed with joy.
“Sasha! I’m sorry. You see how we suffer without you? If I could afford it I’d have you back like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Nene rolled her eyes and crossed her arms more firmly. She muttered in Turkish and although I had no idea what she was saying I could tell she wasn’t dishing out the compliments.
“And who is this young man?” Dad said.
Jamie Kendrick put his hand out to shake Dad’s.
“Jamie Kendrick, Mr Ali.”
“Sasha’s friend,” I said.
“Sasha’s boyfriend!” Arthur said.
We explained about the filming, and Dad was cool, but there was no way we’d get the same effect with the low light and the camera on the phone which, however much Sasha and Jamie tried to big it up, was not a patch on the school one.
Arthur didn’t help. “I’m bored,” he said. “I’m going outside with Mehmet.”
Jamie and Sasha filmed me in tight close-up so we didn’t get any of Nene moaning on in the background, or the other diners. I tried to look lost and, what was the other word? Disorientated. But then Arthur was leaning against the plate-glass window making faces and squashing his nose flat, and it was so disgusting I just burst out laughing.
Then Nene started getting really angry, yelling at Arthur through the glass and then at me, looking me up and down as though I was skankier than dog poo.
“S’all right,” I said to her coolly, “I’ll have a word.”
Nene had a look on her face like she’d swallowed something gross, but I ignored her and went outside and talked to Arthur. I looked back into the café. Jamie was filming us. I waved and Arthur waved too.
“Look, just be good,” I said to him. “Be good for five minutes, then I’ll get my dad to bring you an ice cream, OK?”
“OK.” Arthur nodded. “But she scares me.” He pointed inside to Nene.
“Yeah,” I said, “you and me both.”
Jamie showed me the film of Arthur, and somehow, through the plate-glass with the light behind him, Arthur looked completely angelic, like a curly-haired spirit, or a sprite.
“Oh My God!” I said. “Ariel!”
“What?” Jamie and Sasha said together.
“Wait here. Dad, can you get these two a coffee, and an ice cream for Art? I just got to do something.”
I ran down the street to the party shop on the corner of Dalston Lane and bought the boysiest pair of fairy wings they had. They were white and silver, and I wondered how I was going to make Arthur wear them, given that he would have finished the ice cream by the time I got back to the café.
“Arthur,” I said, out of breath. “Put these on.”
He gave me a look.
“Wear these, and I’ll make Keith put you in the film,” I said. I had my fingers crossed behind my back. Keith might not even talk to me again.
Arthur put his head on one side. “Will it be like Kutest Kiddie?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “A million times better than that. And if Keith wins you might get to be on the big screen at the Rio. Ten foot tall!”
This was true. But it did rather depend on Keith talking to me again, and then liking what we were doing, and finally, winning.
“Like Godzilla!” Arthur said and put on the wings there and then.
I made him stand outside and put his hands flat on the glass and look in. He looked like a child ghost, fuzzy and unreal.
Keith would love it.
Jamie let me film it while he and Sasha had another coffee, and gazed into each other’s eyes. I wished Keith was here to see this. I would have phoned him if he hadn’t been sitting in a hall in Soho talking Chinese.
Nene was humphing at me all the time, and I was glad we were nearly done.
“Thanks, Dad.” I hugged him just before we left.
“No problem, Babes.” He ruffled my hair. “Come back soon. You too, Sasha.”
“Goodbye, Mo,” Sasha said to my dad. Then she turned to Nene, hands on hips. “You know, you think we don’t get what you’re saying all the time? Well, we may not get the words, Mrs Ali, but your tone is crystal clear. And you know what? Now I’m not working here, I can safely say you are the rudest old lady I have ever met! You don’t deserve a granddaughter like my sister, Mrs Ali.” Sasha took Jamie’s arm and walked out.
My mouth must have been flapping open, I was so stunned. I’d so always wanted to say that.
Nene erupted in a volcano of what I bet was classic Turkish swearing.
“Ohmigod! Sasha!” I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile, and ran out after them. “She always thought we were the family from hell. Now I bet she’s sure of it.”
“That woman!” Sasha said. “She slags you off something rotten when you’re not around, and I bet she was doing it just now, in Turkish. All those sly little looks. You deserve better. I’m not having someone bad-mouth my sister, even if I can’t understand what she’s saying.”
I hugged Sasha hard. It felt so good to have a sister again.
We got to the estate and filmed a bit more, with me and with Arthur as Ariel, leading me through the concrete and out to the canal. As we walked along the towpath, we could see the stadium, and Jamie said how he and his football team were doing a display in there, and how much he was looking forward to it.
“Have you been inside yet?” I said.
“Nah... it’s not been open to the public,” he said.
“Denny’s in there today,” Arthur said. “He’s in there with Mum.”
“Do you think we could get in?” I said. “If we could film me in the dress, and Arthur in his wings inside the site, Keith would be so impressed....”
“Would he like that?” Arthur said.
“Yeah, I think he would.”
“Well, come on.” Arthur pulled on my arm. “Let’s have a look then.”
The main entrance was so wide you could have driven two lorries through it sideways. The ‘Avenue of Champions’, Jamie said the school coach had called it, planted with spindly, brand-new trees. But there was a gate, or not so much a gate but one of those poles that comes down, and a guard in a box.
It was obvious he wasn’t going to let anyone through.
Sasha did her best. “It’s my brother, he’s singing in the rehearsal.” She looked at her watch. “We were supposed to meet him inside.” She had her worried face on.
The guard wasn’t having it. “Sorry, love. Passes only.”
Sasha stuck her bottom lip out so far you could have used it as a bookshelf for really heavy books. “Please?”
The guard turned away and went back inside his box. Sasha shrugged.
Arthur was hanging on the pole, still wearing his wings.
“Film that, Jamie,” I said.
The guard noticed his pole wobbling, and then noticed Jamie filming, and was suddenly out again. “No filming on site.”
“It’s only a phone.”
“And you!” He was shouting at Arthur. “Stop that, now!”
The guard started walking towards Arthur, and Arthur jumped down off the pole and ran. Straight down the Avenue of Champions towards the stadium.
“Arthur!” I said.
“Go after him!” Jamie whispered. “Go on!”
The guard was talking into his radio and Arthur was disappearing away down the main road. I ducked under the pole and legged it after him, and caught hold of him just in time.
“Arthur! What are you doing? They could have tazers or anything!”
I could see a sort of golf buggy thing with guards heading towards us so I pulled Arthur along and ran back towards the entrance and under the pole. Then Jamie scooped Arthur up and we didn’t stop running until we’d made it over the little bridge across the canal and back into the estate.
Mum and Denny were already back, sitting in the front room eating pizza in front of the telly.
“There’s some for you in the oven,” Mum said. “Denny was fab, weren’t you, love? And the stadium! You should’ve been there! Anyway,” she went on, wiping her fingers on a bit of kitchen roll. “What have you lot been up to? You look like you’ve escaped from the circus!”
All four of us were red in the face from running and laughing, I was wearing the grey spangly dress over my school trousers, and Arthur had on a pair of white and silver wings.
I turned my phone back on after we’d eaten the pizza. I’d had it turned off most of the day because of the filming. There were about a million messages and texts, all from Keith. I read the first one. SRY, it said. The second one said, REALLY SRY. The third one, FOUND MMRY STK SRY AGN.
The tenth one said, TALK TO ME PLS!!!!!
I was so happy I almost pressed redial right away. But then I had a much better idea.
I downloaded what we’d filmed on Jamie’s phone, and sent it to Keith on the computer, and then went straight round.
He was sitting on the wall outside his shop, waiting.
“Did you see it?” I said. “Have you seen it?”
“The memory stick? I’m really sorry. It was in the bag all the time. I am an idiot.”
“Yes,” I said. “So is the film all there? Everything, the stuff in the Cave?”
Keith nodded. He put out his hand for me to shake, but I bent down and hugged him until he almost choked.
“You’re OK? You’re not mad with me?” Keith said. “Only I felt so down last night, and then this morning when I emptied my bag... I should never have blamed you.”
“No,” I said. “But it’s OK now. We’re OK.”
“Yeah,” Keith said. “We are.” He smiled and pushed his glasses up his nose and I hugged him again.
I was fizzing with excitement. “But have you seen what we did today? I sent it to you. I think you’ll like it. We shot it on Jamie Kendrick’s phone and Arthur’s Ariel and everything!”
He was smiling as much as me.
The day flashed by inside my head. Sasha, Arthur, Keith. I felt so lucky.