The Bex Factor

  Simon Packham was born in Brighton. During his time as an actor he was a blind fiddler on HMS Bounty, a murderous vicar, a dodgy witness on The Bill and a variety of servants including Omar Sharif’s personal footman and a coffin carrier for Dame Judi Dench.

  He now writes fiction and lives in West Sussex with his wife, two children, a cat called Pax, and a variety of hamsters.

  comin 2 gt u was his first novel for children, and received great praise for its thrilling narrative, and exploration of cyber-bullying.

  Simon’s next novel, Silenced, will be published by Piccadilly Press in 2012.

  For Clare and Jon

  First published in Great Britain in 2011

  by Piccadilly Press Ltd,

  5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR

  www.piccadillypress.co.uk

  Text copyright © Simon Packham, 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The right of Simon Packham to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978 1 84812 163 8 (paperback)

  eISBN: 978 1 84812 206 2

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Cover design by Simon Davis

  Cover illustration by Sue Hellard

  Contents

  SOUND CHECK: WEDNESDAY

  AUDITIONS: SATURDAY

  BASIC TRAINING: WEDNESDAY

  POWER BALLADS WEEK: MONDAY

  SHOW SONGS WEEK: MONDAY

  SEMI-FINAL WEEK: MONDAY

  THE FINAL: FRIDAY

  BONUS TRACK

  Bex

  His name’s Matthew, Matthew Layton. He doesn’t know mine yet. Two weeks ago he was just a random Year Ten, but as soon as I saw him at the school concert, I was like, This is the boy who could change my life forever.

  Come on, come on. It’s the last second of the last lesson of the spring term. All the other teachers let you listen to music or slap on a Simpsons DVD. Mr Catchpole still hands out homework. ‘The bell is for me not for you,’ he shouts, scrawling a red line under the learning objective as everyone starts stuffing pencil cases and lesson planners into their rucksacks. ‘And don’t forget I want ten facts on Mulberry Harbours by the next time I see you. Now, chairs on desks please. And remember to . . .’

  This is it. My final chance. I throw myself in front of the girl who broke her arm in food tech, elbow my way through the loitering text messagers in the doorway and speed down the corridor, past the anti-litter adverts and the Careless Talk Costs Lives poster. I’ve been bottling it for nearly a fortnight. How can he change my life forever if he doesn’t even know who I am?

  ‘Oi, Bex,’ calls my best mate, Shezza, who’s well shocked to see me running for probably the first time since primary school. ‘What’s up?’

  Shezza thinks she’s an expert on guys. I haven’t told her about Matthew because I don’t want another lecture on the Seven Deadly Turn-Offs. ‘Gotta go,’ I gasp, desperately trying to get my breath back before heading out to the courtyard. ‘Laters, yeah?’

  I’m not a stalker, right? I’ve just been following him round for a bit. That’s why I check the music block first – he always takes the same route after school. And when he doesn’t show, I try the path behind the mobile classrooms, the community reception toilets and the shortcut through the teachers’ car park. But I can’t see him anywhere. Thanks to old Catchpole’s homework obsession, Matthew must have got away before me.

  So I join the straggly blue line slithering through the drizzle towards the main gate, keeping my eyes peeled for a shorter-than-average bog-brush-haired Year Ten. But everyone looks the same. That’s probably what I hate most about this school; it’s like, ‘What can we do to make them look really rubbish? I know, let’s stick them all in crap polyester jackets and manky ties. And while we’re at it, let’s choose the worst shade of dirty seawater-blue we can possibly find.’

  Panic sets in as I get closer to the gate and there’s still no sign of him. Most of the other St Thomas’s Community College clones seem happy to be going home to their achingly average lives, but I thought I could be different. I thought I’d found the perfect way to stand out from the crowd. What if I’ve left it too late?

  Someone screams as a fork of lightning jumps out from behind a cloud, followed by a deafening thunderclap. And suddenly it’s peeing it down. Well, that’s all I need. The skiing trip and oboe lesson kids race round the car park searching for mummy’s car, the school bus brigade fight for a place in the shelter and a couple of cool dudes act like it’s a walk in the park. The rest of us leg it down the hill, hoping to avoid the monster puddle at the bottom, and the Year Ten dirtbags queuing up to kick water in our faces.

  OK, so let’s get this straight, right? I don’t believe in anything weird. Not ghosts, guardian angels, fortune tellers, tea leaf readers, poltergeists, horoscopes, or even that thing where you write down what you want to happen and it comes true. But maybe, just maybe, I believe in fate. Because halfway down, the sky flares like a gigantic wedding photo, and just for a split second I see a vision that stops me dead in my tracks.

  At first I’m too scared to look back. What if I just imagined it: the boy under the tree; the boy who’s giving his mobile a right old ear-bashing; the boy who’s either very wet or crying like a baby. I can hardly believe my luck when I do turn round and see that it’s really him.

  Mum’s always saying you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. I’m guessing it wasn’t her life’s ambition to spend 24/7 behind the checkout at OneStop, but I hope she’s right. The trouble is, I want it so badly that whenever I get anywhere near Matthew Layton, all I can do is smile like a deranged supermodel.

  According to Shezza, shyness is just about the deadliest turn off of all. If I don’t ask now, I can kiss goodbye to that brand new life I’ve been dreaming about.

  Matthew

  It shouldn’t surprise me any more, but when I hear her crying, it still sets me off too. ‘I don’t want to see him, OK?’

  ‘Why not? He’s your father.’

  ‘Because he’s a selfish, two-faced idiot, that’s why.’

  Mum sniffs into her phone. ‘He loves you, Matthew.’

  ‘Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘Look, he’s got a meeting in London at six. He’ll only be here for twenty minutes. If you don’t come straight home you’ll miss him.’

  ‘And what a disaster that would be.’

  ‘Just do it, Matthew. He says it’s important.’

  The last time I stood under this tree, I was chucking sticks at it to get the conkers down. It was back in the days when I still thought I had a pretty OK dad, and my mate Curtis Morgan was into Britpop. ‘Why are you so nice to him?’

  ‘Because he’s your father,’ says Mum, slurring her words like she does sometimes when she’s losing it. ‘Because, in spite of what you might think, everything that’s happened isn’t just down to Melvin.’

  ‘I never want to see that lowlife again.’

  Even the torrential rain can’t drown the sound of her crying. ‘Look . . . please. Just do it for me and Emily. We need you here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum, I . . .’

  I can almost hear the click in her head as she goes from ‘pathetic and needy’ to ‘raging bull’ in less than a nanosecond. ‘Yeah, that’s right, I forgot. All you care about is that bloody g
uitar. You’re just like him, aren’t you, Matthew? A selfish, two-faced idiot.’

  ‘No I’m not. I’ve got . . . other plans, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh come off it,’ says Mum. ‘It’s not like you’ve got hundreds of friends or anything.’

  What’s that? You don’t want to hear my tragic life story? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel like talking about it right now. I take a deep breath and try to be more understanding, but something tells me that unless God descends from the clouds and beams me up, my rubbish life is just about to get even rubbisher. ‘OK, Mum. If that’s what you really want, I —’

  A new voice comes at me from out of the deluge. ‘You’re not supposed to stand under trees in a thunderstorm.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said, you’re not supposed to stand under trees in a thunderstorm – it’s dangerous.’

  And I’m trying to work out why a drowned poodle should be such a stickler for health and safety when I realise who she is. ‘Hang on a minute, Mum; I’ve just got to —’

  ‘Don’t you dare hang up on —’

  It’s that girl from the choir; the one who’s started sitting opposite me at lunchtime; the one with the serial-killer smile.

  ‘I like your phone,’ she says, shuffling her feet on the soggy grass. ‘It’s well nice.’

  Our wispy breath almost mingles mid-air. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Sorry, were you talking to someone?’ she says, peeling her wet blouse away from her stomach and giving it a shake.

  ‘Not any more,’ I say, slipping my phone into my jacket pocket.

  ‘I really liked that song you did at the school concert. Your guitar playing was . . . awesome.’

  I scan her dappled face for sarcasm. It looks clean, but would you want to risk it with a St Thomas’s girl? ‘Yeah . . . whatever.’

  ‘It’s true. I even filmed some of it on my phone.’

  ‘Oh I get it. You’re going to put it online with a funny commentary, like they did to that Chickenboy kid.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she says, shaking her head so hard that she sprinkles me with rainwater. ‘I just really liked it, that’s all. Have you . . . have you been playing long?’

  ‘’Bout five years.’

  ‘And you wrote that song yourself, yeah?’

  I nod. ‘Death Blows (Life Sucks)’ is a Matthew Layton original. I’m really proud of it.

  ‘But you play other stuff as well, right?’

  ‘I do a few covers, if that’s what you mean.’

  Her face erupts into a non serial-killer smile. ‘Who are you into then?’

  ‘What is this, twenty questions?’

  ‘No, no, I’m just interested, that’s all.’

  Me and Curtis spent hours making lists of our favourite bands. They changed every time, but a few names always made it to the final cut: ‘Hendrix, Bowie . . . Nirvana, The Beatles. And right now I’m really into dubstep.’

  ‘What about Rihanna?’ she says, without even the flicker of a smile.

  ‘Yeah . . . right.’ But it’s all wrong, isn’t it? I don’t do girls, and I don’t do conversation. The last thing I need is a Year Nine groupie. And God’s obviously not going to show up, so I might as well go home. ‘I’d better be off,’ I say, turning reluctantly towards the main road.

  ‘No, wait!’ she says, waving her arm at me like an old lady who’s missed the bus.

  ‘What is it?’

  She closes her eyes and clenches her fists. ‘Maybe you’re not . . . I mean . . . maybe you’re not up for it. But do you want to hang out at mine until the rain stops?’

  It’s perfect – like fate or something. Mum’s always telling me I should make an effort to find some new friends. And a friend who’s a girl means double brownie points, because I know she thinks the stuff with Dad has given me a ‘warped view of relationships’. I just have to put up with whatsherface for an hour and as soon as Dad’s safely on the train, I can ditch her and still be home in time to make tea.

  ‘OK then.’

  Her head practically does a three-sixty degree flip. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, OK then.’

  ‘That’s what I thought you said.’

  Bex

  Can you believe that? I thought he’d be like, Get out of my face and never come back, but ten minutes later we’re dodging umbrellas on the walk home. And you know what? I’m starting to believe it could actually happen.

  Maybe Mum was right. Maybe you can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough. Mind you, my sister Nat was so desperate for Jez from Burger King that she didn’t just have N J tattooed on her butt, she even had his baby – the silly mare. But so far so good, because three steps behind me, is the boy who could change my life forever.

  Shezza says talking’s the easy part. All you have to do is get them to mouth off about themselves – guys love that. But every time I try to ask him about school or his mates, he looks at me like I’d just murdered his whole family and put the photos on Facebook.

  Time to change the subject. ‘Did your mum and dad enjoy the school concert?’

  He reaches for a strand of his hair and slips it into the corner of his mouth. ‘Eh?’

  ‘I was just saying. I bet your mum and dad enjoyed the concert.’

  ‘What makes you think they were even there?’

  ‘I just thought . . .’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  He studies his feet, like an angry chiropodist. I so had him down as a two parent kind of a kid – look at his shiny shoes.

  ‘Well, if they were there, I bet they were dead proud of you.’ I should probably give it a rest – the talking thing – but you don’t know how much I want this. ‘Yeah, I mean, my dad even thought the choir were good!’

  ‘Is that right?’

  I’m going to kill Shezza. If this is the easy part, what am I supposed to do when I get him up to my bedroom? ‘I could send you that video of your guitar solo if you like.’

  I can almost see my brilliant new life disappearing into a black hole of silence. It feels like a whole geography lesson before he looks up from the pavement and flashes me a smile. ‘OK then.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  He takes out his shiny mobile. ‘I said, OK then. Go for it.’

  I can’t believe it when he gives me his number – just like that. And even though he’s still gazing into his phone as we cut across the station car park, I’m making progress at last. At least that’s what it feels like until we come to the subway.

  ‘We’re not going down there are we?’ he says, looking up from his mobile for the first time in twenty minutes.

  As usual, half the lights aren’t working, and the crackly one at the far end seems to wink at you like a dirty old man.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  His face looks paler than a high-school vampire’s. ‘I thought this was the way to the Dogshit Estate.’

  He peers into the subway for, like, a double geography lesson, checking out the graffiti (Dogshit Crew kill Parkside scum) and the stink of stale wee. ‘Couldn’t we go another way?’

  ‘It’s where I live, OK?’

  ‘Oh . . . right,’ he says, flipping off his mobile and burying it in the bottom of his rucksack.

  ‘You got a problem with that?’

  ‘No, no I was just . . .’

  ‘Not scared, are you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He shivers.

  ‘We need to get a move on,’ I say, stepping impatiently into the rancid gloom. ‘Are you coming or not?’

  He checks his watch, thinks for a moment and then nods grimly.

  This time he sticks to me like glue, flinching every time anyone walks past with a dog that’s bigger than a Chihuahua and swapping his Mr Silent act for a nervous-new-kid-on-his-first-day-at-school routine: ‘Is it true the police won’t come here without body armour?’ ‘Have you ever been mugged?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say, so sick of his stupid questions tha
t I can’t resist winding him up. ‘We’re nearly there. It’s left at the brothel then straight on past the crack den.’

  ‘Yeah . . . very funny.’

  But it’s my turn to get jittery when we arrive home and find Dad’s van parked outside. I was praying we could beat them to it, but my heart sinks even further when I realise that Matthew is reading their stupid slogan: Want To Get Plastered? Call Rod McCrory and Son.

  I try not to sound desperate as I fumble for my key. ‘Right, this is it.’

  ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  ‘I didn’t. You never asked. But it’s Bex.’

  ‘No, your surname,’ he says, studying the side of Dad’s van.

  ‘McCrory, Bex McCrory.’

  ‘Maybe I should just go home.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I say, taking his arm and dragging him through the obstacle course of roof tiles and cement bags that lead to the front door. ‘You’re soaked through.’

  ‘Look, are you sure this is all right?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

  A wailing baby duets with a police siren. I push open the front door and bundle him into the lounge. ‘Let’s go upstairs, yeah? There’s something I need to ask you.’

  But it’s too late. Sprawled across the sofa wearing only a pair of DJ headphones and some boxer shorts is the person who could ruin everything.

  ‘Oh crap,’ whispers Matthew, looking round for an escape route. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘He’s my brother,’ I say, kicking closed the front door so he can’t do a runner.

  ‘Kyle McCrory is your brother?’

  ‘I just said so, didn’t I?’

  Kyle is kind of a St Thomas’s Community College legend. Even though he left school, like, two years ago, they still make up dumb stories about him; still call him by that pathetic nickname.

  ‘Special Needs is your . . . brother?’

  Gobsmacked doesn’t come close. ‘Why are you whispering? If you’ve got something to say to him, why don’t you say it to his face?’

  He takes another step backwards. ‘No, no, you’re all right. I was surprised to see him, that’s all.’