Chapter 8. More and more interesting

The next day was a public holiday, so we didn't have to go to school. But we'd already had plans for this day. First of all, Matron from Craigend had asked us to plant flowers in the "Craigend" garden. We'd agreed of course, because it was only one job we'd received for the two last weeks.

But before going to Craigend we'd decided to go to John's place to ask him about our injured pigeon. And maybe to find out something about the grave with the marble pigeon. So we'd arranged to meet near the shopping mall at ten o'clock to go to John together.

I had my own plans for this morning. I'd decided that it was my chance to be alone with Sunny and to tell her about my feelings. I made up my mind that I should do that tomorrow, no matter how difficult it would be.

While we were walking along the street, I was thinking how to invite Sunny to have breakfast tomorrow with me, before meeting with the others. We came up to the corner of the street, where she had to turn. She smiled and said goodbye. I opened my mouth to ask her to have breakfast with me tomorrow, but my tongue seemed to freeze. I just couldn't say this. Maybe if the others weren't there… Anyway, I babbled "bye" and shut my mouth, sadly watching her walking away.

We went further. I said goodbye to the others and darted around into the side street. I slowly wandered down the street, cursing myself. What's wrong with me? Nick and Richelle never shied away from expressing their feelings. So why then is it so difficult for me?

Because Nick and Richelle are not like you, my inner voice told me the answer. Nick and Richelle both like to be in the spotlight.

Yeah, I'm not like them. I like so much to be next to Sunny. I want so much to tell her that she's the best. But I just crack another joke instead. I wish I knew why.

Then I remembered that Sunny jogged every morning and another idea came into my mind. I thought that if I got up earlier, I could meet Sunny where she jogs most days and invite her to have breakfast with me. She would never know that I met her on purpose. She would think that we met accidently. And we'd be alone till the meeting with the others.

That evening I properly prepared everything for the date. First of all, I made my mother iron my best T-shirt. Secondly, I ran new bright-green shoelace through my joggers.

Before going to bed I read and memorized jokes form the best joke book. Now I could amuse Sunny with my jokes. In the end I set my alarm clock for seven a.m. and went to sleep.

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In my sleep I heard my alarm clock ringing, and without opening my eyes, I switched it off, grumbling something about stupid machines, which didn't understand that it was my day-off, and fell asleep again.

When I opened my eyes, sunlight was streaming through the window. I sat up in my bed and stretched. Then I accidently glanced at the bedside clock. Eight thirty! I jumped out of bed with wail and started running and rushing around my room, preparing for the date.

I pulled on clean jeans and my best, ironed T-shirt, shoved my feet into my new joggers and quickly did up the bright-green laces. Then I suddenly remembered that I forgot to brush my teeth. I dashed for the bathroom, almost knocking Brian down. As quickly as I could I brushed my teeth, but after that my T-shirt turned out to be covered with spatters of toothpaste. I started to rub them till they became almost unnoticeable. Then I glanced in the mirror again and saw that my hair stuck out in all directions.

I grabbed mum's hair styling gel and slathered it on my hair.

'Not bad,' I said, looking at my reflection in the mirror with satisfaction. Then I noticed Brian's new perfume and lavishly sprayed it on myself.

I glanced in the mirror one more time, grabbed my bag and rushed out of the house, leaving Mum and Brian in bewilderment.

At nine a.m. I was already pacing back and forth near the park where Sunny usually jogged past. It was warm, but windy autumn morning. Mum's gel immediately dried. My hair became tough, but somehow the wind had blown it into a mess. My hair started sticking out in all directions again. I suppose I looked like a huge hedgehog or like a rock-star. I didn't know that though. I was sure that I looked great. I noticed that a few women gave me strange glances, but took no notice of them.

All what I cared about was not to miss Sunny. I looked around and found a bench underneath a big tree and settled down on it. Now it was quite difficult to notice me from the road, and as soon as Sunny turned up, I would come up to her, pretending that we came across accidently.

Then I remembered about money and started jerkily fumbling in my pockets. You couldn't leave you money at home, could you, Tom, stupid head! I kept talking to myself. How are you supposed to have breakfast with Sunny without money?

Luckily I found money in one of my pockets. I calmed down and went on waiting.

Sunny didn't turn up. I glanced at my watch nervously. Can she have already been here? Or maybe she changed her usual route? Or maybe she decided not to jog today at all?

I looked around again and saw, of all people, John, the Pigeon fancier. My first thought was to come up to him and asked about our pigeon, but then I changed my mind. If I came up to him, I could miss Sunny. John went towards me, though. But then he abruptly stopped at a wide information sign. A young guy came up to him instantly. As soon as John saw the guy, his friendly face twisted in a malignant grimace. The young guy spread his hands, as if he was apologetic about something and started talking something to John.

All of a sudden I wanted to know what they were talking about. I don't like eavesdropping, but this time I couldn't help myself. So I very quietly came up to the two men and stopped, pretending to read advertisement on the other side of the information sign.

'I'm waiting,' I heard the Pigeon fancier said.

'It's not my fault,' the guy replied with obvious fear in his voice. 'We'll do everything today. I promise!'

'You should have done everything yesterday!' John growled. 'I'm not going to risk my life because of you.'

'But it just to be happen this way,' the guy apologized. 'Look. Today everything will be done. I'm telling you!'

'If everything isn't done today, you can make your will,' John said viciously. 'Now. Tomorrow everything should be lying in the pigeon. Do you know where it is?'

'Yes,' the guy faltered. 'It's the grave with the marble pigeon.'

'Right,' John grinned savagely. 'You know when the customer will be there. And I can assure you, if you don't do everything, you won't leave the graveyard. Is it clear?'

I froze. My hands became cold. Now I perfectly realized that if they saw me, standing there and eavesdropping, I would keep this guy's company in the graveyard. To my happiness, John abruptly turned round and went up the street. The guy sighed with relief and walked past me. I pretended to read the advertisement on the information sign.

I watched him going off, thinking about their conversation. Elmo was right. There's something weird about this grave and the marble pigeon. At that moment I noticed Sunny. She was jogging along the street.

'Sunny!' I ran up to her. 'Hi!'

Sunny smiled in surprise and pulled out the earphones from her ears. 'What are you doing here?' she asked.

'I was just going by, when I saw you,' I babbled, feeling my face becoming hot. 'Listen… Do you want to eat something?'

'I've already had breakfast today,' Sunny grinned. 'But I'd like to drink something.'

'Great,' I really was glad to hear this.

We settled down at a table in the nearest cafe and I ordered two glasses of juice and two bowls of ice-cream. While Sunny was eating ice-cream, I was telling jokes, I'd read yesterday. She laughed. I watched her face. There was something vivid about her face when she laughed. I wished I could stop time and stay in this moment with her forever, feeling something melting inside when she smiled at me.

But I couldn't stop time. Sunny glanced at her watch and said that the others must have been waiting for us. I reluctantly paid for the ice-cream and juice and we headed to the shopping mall to meet with the gang. While we walked I told Sunny about the overheard conversation. She looked worried.

The others had already gathered. Nick and Richelle were standing together. Automatically I noticed that Nick's hands were on Richelle's waist and felt an unbearable desire to hug Sunny. Elmo was saying something to Liz, who half listened to him, standing with her arms folded and watching us coming.

'Where have you two been?' she asked too sternly, giving me her iciest stare.

What did I do to her? I thought in puzzlement.

'You know that before going to Craigend we should go to John to ask him about the pigeon,' she went on. '

'Liz, I don't think that we should go to John today,' Sunny said gently. 'Tom found out something. Tell them,' she turned to me.

'I saw this John guy about an hour ago,' I began. 'He talked to a young guy at the entrance to the park and…'

'At the park?! What did you do there?' Nick interrupted me.

I felt my face getting hot. I couldn't tell them that I was waiting for Sunny on purpose. I just couldn't. 'I…um…I was on my way here…' I mumbled.

'On you way here? Oh, come on!' Nick was never a tactful person. 'What are you talking about? Your house is in the completely opposite direction, and you were supposed to be going here.'

'I decided to go for a walk,' I faltered.

'For a walk?!' Nick exclaimed indignantly. 'So we have to wait for you here while you're walking?'

'I wanted to buy a hot dog,' I finally made up an appropriate excuse. 'They sell very tasty ones near the park, you know.'

'You could buy a hot dog over there, without making us wait for you,' Nick jerked his head towards the hot dog stand, which was a few meters away from us.

'Leave him alone, Nick,' Elmo muttered. It crossed my mind that he clearly understood what I'd been doing on that street.

'Yeah,' I nodded quickly, 'you'd better listen.' And before Nick went on asking his stupid questions, I quickly told them everything, I'd found out. The others, Nick included, were listening to me very attentively.

'We should definitely have another look at this grave,' Nick said when I finished speaking.

'Nick, you perfectly know that we arranged to go to John to ask him about our pigeon,' Liz put in crossly.

'Liz, if you think that I'll go to a man, who promised to kill someone, you're mistaken,' Richelle objected. 'I don't like this John at all. And I don't care if he cured this stupid bird.'

'Richelle, we gave him my cage,' Sunny said calmly. 'So we'll have to go to his place no matter if we want it or not.'

'But we can… we can go tomorrow,' I babbled. 'Or the day after tomorrow. To tell the truth I don't feel like meeting him today either.'

We discussed it for a while and in the end decided to go there in a couple of days. Liz reluctantly agreed. For some reason she was in a snappy mood today.

'Listen, something strange is happening,' Nick insisted. 'We should at least try to find out what's been going on with this grave.'

'And how are you going to find it out?' I turned to him.

'We can watch them,' Nick replied quickly. 'We can hide somewhere near that grave and watch.'

'But we don't know when they're meeting,' I objected. 'Honestly Kontellis, you don't want to sit around in the graveyard all day long, do you?'

'Well I'm not going to spend the whole day there,' Richelle exclaimed immediately. 'I've got better things to do.'

Nick pressed his lips together. You could see that he didn't feel like sitting, crouching behind a headstone all day long either.

'We can divide into groups and take turns watching,' Elmo put in. Sometimes Elmo is as curious as Nick, especially when he has a chance to receive a good story for the Pen.

Of course Nick instantly agreed with Elmo. I didn't mind this idea either. After all it was another chance for me to talk to Sunny. The graveyard isn't very romantic place to talk about love, but I guess it's my destiny.

We decided to watch the grave with the marble pigeon in pairs. Elmo and Liz were to take the first watch straight after school tomorrow.

After that we turned round and went to Craigend.