Whatever Next? Chapter 14 by Angharad Copyright© 2022 Angharad

---

(title picture Andrea Piacquadio)

Maddy and Drew argued all the way back to the cottage, barely pausing even when in the fish and chip shop. Carol thought they were acting like two sisters, seven-year-old sisters.

“Can I download some of the music tracks from your ‘puter?”

“You’re always telling me my taste in music is pants.”

“It is, but I’d still like to download some.”

“On to your new MP3, or onto your new laptop?” Maddy pouted.

“I don’t care which, as long as I can download to one of them.”

“I don’t know, I’ll have to see,” Maddy pouted some more.

“Okay, I’ll see what Harry has got.”

“I said, I’ll see.”

“Yeah, an’ I said, I‘ll see. I’ll see what Harry’s got.”

“Suit yourself, but if you go to Harry don’t come back to me.”

Drew felt very hurt by this statement and wondered what was behind it. Carol and Josie were too busy talking to notice the noise the two kids were making. Josie was saying she’d like to get a computer so that she could get emails from Jenny and the two kids.

“If you do get emails from Jenny, you’ll be the first. She is hopeless.”

“I suppose she is busy.”

“So am I Auntie Josie, and I can find time to send them.”

“Yes, I know. Jenny is a disappointment.”

“You’ll get them from Dave and Juliette, but Gaby takes after her mum.”

“Take after my mum, what do I take after my mum about, Auntie Carol?”

“Poor emails.”

“I thought I sent good ones.”

“When you send them, they are nice, but they don’t happen too often, do they?”

“I’m a famous celeb now Auntie Carol, even the boy in the electrical shop recognised me.”

“Are the doors going to be wide enough for your head Gaby?” asked Carol.

“Will we get a blue plaque put outside?” asked Maddy.

“Only when she’s dead,” said Carol.

“Gee, thanks!” Drew folded his arms and sulked while Maddy sniggered.

“Did I tell you Harry phoned while you were in the shower?”

“No Auntie Carol, you didn’t.”

“Well, he did, and wants you to call him back.”

“Okay, I will when we get home.”

“Why not use your mobile?” suggested Maddy.

“Battery’s a bit low.” Drew lied, he just didn’t want Maddy sitting next to him when he talked with Harry.

“Oh, okay.” Maddy shrugged and looked out of the car window.

Two minutes later they were back at the cottage, eating the fish and chips out of the paper, ‘because they taste better that way’. It also saved on washing up.

Drew cleaned up all the smelly wrapping papers and shoved them in a bin bag. Then while Maddy made some tea, he called Harry.

“Hiya Gaby, you got my message then?”

“What message?”

“About the bike race.”

“No.”

“There’s a women’s world cup race at Newport in two weeks.”

“Wow, is Nicole Cooke racing?”

“Dunno, but I’ve persuaded my dad to take me up to watch, do you wanna come?”

“When is it?”

“Two weeks on Saturday.”

“I’ll ask Auntie Carol, hang on.” Drew went off and asked the adults who agreed he could. “Yeah, I can come.”

“Oh great, bring your camera and your bike.”

“Bike, why?”

“Dad’s gonna drop us off and we can move about the course if we have our bikes.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Bye the way, I heard Bryanston was challenging us to some sports contests. I know the gym teacher quite well and I asked him if we could do a bike race.”

“What?”

“Well I mentioned we had you coming to the school and that your mum was a world champion, and she said you were good. I also told him you were the one who won the Dorwey race. He was impressed and I think he was gonna seriously think about it. We could hold it at Bryanston, they have huge grounds and we could ride around them.”

“What’s Bryanston?”

“A public school at Blandford.”

“Do they have girls there too?”

“Yeah, it’s co-ed these days.”

“Good, cos we want some girls in the team, and I’ll ask Maddy to ride. She’s quite good when she wants to be.”

“Quite good, she was better than me till I got some training in.”

“Does your games teacher know anything about cycle training?”

“Dunno, why?”

“He could call my dad, he knows a fair bit.”

“Or he could listen to you.”

“What the new girl on the block?”

“Who is also a British champion,” Drew could almost hear the pride oozing from Harry’s voice.

“Don’t tell him that, please.”

“Why not?”

“Because they always expect me to do something to prove it. It gets embarrassing. It will just make other kids jealous.”

“Oh okay, I erm don’t think I told him,” Harry began to blush because he knew very well he’d told ‘Killer Williams’ the games teacher all about his girlfriend. He told loads of other people too, he was proud of her. She was pretty and daring and brill on a bike. So why would he want to keep it quiet? He wanted everyone to know he was going out with her. It hadn’t occurred to him what she wanted.

“You still there?” asked Drew.

“Yeah, why?”

“You went very quiet.”

“Yeah was just thinking about Newport. Just think an international bike race and we can watch it.”

“Yeah, Mum’s not doing those this year, concentrating on the World’s and things. She’s getting a bit old compared to Cookie and the others.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“She’s ten years older than Nicole Cooke.”

“So she’s doing really well then?”

“Yeah, she rises to the occasion and doesn’t like being beaten.”

“I know someone else like that, only prettier.”

Drew felt himself blush at the flattery Harry was laying on him. He was a boy and he was doing this girl thing far too naturally, flirting and even liking other boys, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Everyone who knew had told him, ‘to go with the flow and enjoy the experience’; sometimes he wondered if it was good advice. He likened himself to an undercover detective, playing a part to get the bad guy. In this case, there was a bad guy, Rodney Meadows. Drew was going to do all he could to get him or help the police get him.

Then he came back to real time and Harry was on the phone. “How many other people have you told about me?”

“Erm, erm,” Harry spluttered and felt very warm.

“You have, haven’t you?”

“How, erm, how did you know?”

“I know what boys are like,” Drew felt himself wanting to laugh, yeah, he knew what boys were like, he was one wasn’t he? Or was he? Oh poo, don’t go there.

“Why is it that girls always say that?”

“Do we?” he had said it before he thought about it. Nah, it was just role-play.

“Yes, you do, but boys have no idea what girls are like.”

“So I notice.”

Harry felt himself blush again. “Are you mad at me?”

“Not really, more disappointed.”

“I’m sorry, Gabs, I really am. Can I make it up to you?”

“Yeah go and tell everyone you told about me to forget what you told them.”

There was a long silence from the other end. “I would if I could,”

“Alright. I forgive you, but just check with me next time before you drop me in it.”

“Thank you.”

Without realising it, Drew had done a Maddy on Harry. He had manipulated the boy so that when he asked for a favour, it would be granted without question. As all he wanted was to download music onto his MP3, Harry would have helped anyway. In fact, most of the time, he’d be delighted to help his ‘girl’ as most young men are. But Drew was becoming more of a game player and he was doing it on auto-pilot.

“Maddy broke my MP3 player.”

“What deliberately?”

“No, she stepped on it. I’ve gotta a new one but I need to download some music for it.”

“Have you got anything to read the old one?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Plug the old one into a computer, sometimes it’ll still read the old card.”

“Gran bought me a laptop.”

“Hey, that’s great, can I come over and see it?”

“Yeah, bring some music over will you so I can download it?”

“I’ve got loads on my lappie, maybe that will do? See you in about fifteen.”

Drew set about unpacking his new computer, he was quite pleased Harry was coming over, then the lad could help him set it up. In theory, he knew what to do, but practice didn’t always work out that way. In the past, his dad had always set these things up, so this would be a first.

He freshened his lip gloss and painted his nails again, a matching pearlised pink. Then once it was dry he gave himself a quick squirt of the Bodyshop Musk eau de toilette. Then sat and read the instructions until he knew his nails were really dry.

At this point, Harry arrived. Maddy let him in and Carol allowed Drew to take him up to the bedroom only because the computer was up there. Basically, once out of the box, they only had to plug it in and then register the software, which they couldn’t do because it wasn’t online.

Harry asked Drew for the USB lead for the broken player and connected the two machines up. The computer registered the drive on the player, he spent half an hour saving it all to the computer, then another half hour transferring them to the new player. Drew was so pleased, he danced around the room with glee.

He would never have thought of doing what Harry had done, in fact he’d nearly binned the old player. “Thank you so much, you’re a genius.”

“For you dear lady, anything,” Harry bowed and blushed.

Gaby threw her arms around him and gave him a kiss, “Thank you.”

Harry hugged her tightly and kissed her back. Gaby started to push him away and then he kissed her again and she stopped pushing. He was so strong and he kissed her some more.

Drew was gone, this was a Gaby moment! Drew would have been hitting Harry or throwing up, but somehow Gaby was enjoying the moment. Some strange feeling was happening in her tummy, and it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. It confused and excited her – go with the flow, it seemed the appropriate thing to do, for the moment at least.

Maddy burst into the room, “Oops!” she said loudly.

Harry and Gaby jumped apart as if the polarity between them had suddenly changed from opposite to the same.

“Do you want some tea or anything?” asked Maddy smirking at the two embarrassed teens. “Mum’s just made some fairy cakes.”

“Oh wow, Auntie Carol’s cakes are to die for,” said Drew getting his composure back.

They followed Maddy down to the kitchen where the smells of baking were still in the air. Despite his fish and chips, Drew’s stomach rumbled at the aromas. They each ate several and washed them down with two cups of tea.

“How is the computer Gaby?” asked Josie.

“Brill, Gran, an’ Harry has managed to upload the music off my broken MP3 onto it, then from it to my new MP3.”

“What does that mean in English?”

“It means Harry is a genius and I have all my music.”

“Does that mean I’ve wasted money on a new machine?” Carol sounded peeved.

“No Auntie Carol, it’s still broken but Harry managed to get the computer to read the memory card in it.”

“How did you do that?”

“It’s a bit fiddly but you go into …” He explained the process and saw all their eyes glaze over a couple of minutes later, so he cut it short. “… and then I just downloaded it to the new player, easy really.”

“I think you’re clever,” said Drew touching him on the shoulder. Maddy watched and gave him a very old-fashioned look which confused him.

Maddy had become quite strange with him recently, she encouraged him to do things then criticised him for doing just what she encouraged. He decided to let it wash over his head. No point in getting upset, it was probably jealousy anyway because he had Harry and she had no one, and she was the real girl. Drew had to hold back the smirk that was trying to cross his face if she saw it she’d make his life hell.

“What’s this about going up to Wales for a bike race?” asked Carol.

“Erm, it’s the Women’s Elite Road Race World Cup. It’s the first time it’s held a race here.”

“So why isn’t Jenny racing?”

“Apolinaris aren’t doing it this year, they’re concentrating on tours and the world championships.”

“So who’s racing?” asked Maddy.

“Nicole Cooke may be, although she has had a knee problem and there was talk of her having surgery.”

“Anyone else?”

“The big names are Oenone Wood and Judith Arndt.”

“Really!” said Maddy.

“Yes, the Aussie Wood, is a previous world champion and Judith Arndt is an Olympic champion, I think.”

“How much will that cost?” asked Josie.

“Only something for lunch,” said Harry, “Dad’s taking me anyway, I’ve never seen an International race before.”

“Yeah, we’ll just find somewhere near the top of a hill to stand and watch it. Then go to watch the finish.”

“So there’s no admission charge?”

“No it’s all free, they start off from this huge hotel place and it finishes there too, and they do three laps of a circuit. It’s quite hilly according to the bit I saw on the internet, I’ve got a map here somewhere." He felt around in his pocket and showed them the map he’d printed off.

“Looks interesting,” said Drew, "but I’d really need to see a contour map to see how steep those climbs are. If Cooke is racing, she’s gotta be favourite.”

“I saw something on the BBC about her having knee surgery.” Harry shrugged his shoulders, “So she’s unlikely.”

“Yeah, she crashed in New Zealand, they didn’t have enough marshals on the course and she ran into a van parked on the course. Got some carbon fibre in her knee.”

“Ouch!” winced Maddy, “I bet that hurt.”

“Yeah, it does when you hit something hard at thirty miles an hour.”

“Do the girls go that fast?”

“On the flat they do, the men sometimes cruise at forty, depends on the road surface and wind direction and if they have mountain ranges to climb, then they tend to hold back a bit.”

“So is your dad going to watch it with you?” Carol asked Harry.

“No, he’d like to but my mum wants to go shopping in Newport, so they’ll drop us off with our bikes and we’ll see them later.”

“Oh, just the two of you in a strange town, I don’t know.”

“We’ll be alright, there’ll be loads of people about. All we have to do is get our own lunch.”

“Are you taking a packed one?”

“Hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“Well let me know will you and Gaby can make one up for herself then.” Carol looked at Drew who nodded. He could make himself sandwiches and a drink.

Harry looked at his watch, “I have to go. Give you a call tomorrow,” he said to Drew, who went to see him off.

“They are like two alley cats on heat,” said Maddy with a degree of disdain.

“Jealous are we?” said Carol drying the cups that Josie was washing. Josie nearly dropped one as she stifled her laughter. Carol was obviously under no illusions about her spoilt daughter.

They heard voices in the hallway and Jules walked in with Drew. “Hi, everyone,” she waved. It was quite obvious she had been drinking.