Plan B

Chapter Twenty-two

“Frankie, are you actually ill or are you just taking advantage?”

Frankie swallowed the remainder of his eighth piece of toast and reached for another.  “Well, considering I almost passed out with my head in the toilet bowl while I was throwing up, I think I’m obviously taking advantage of the fact that a world-famous movie star is looking after me for the day.  After all, I only have a temperature that would get me hospitalised if it went up any higher.”

“How do you do it?” Brookie muttered, stealing the remaining toast and putting the plate on Frankie’s desk.  Rather than complaining about Brookie taking the food, Frankie seemed to be mulling over the question as he chewed.  Eventually, he just tilted his head to one side.

“I’ve had to get by in the past with worse,” he mumbled.

Given the way the boy sleepwalked and sleep talked, and the number of times Brookie had heard him crying during the night, Brookie couldn’t help the feeling that something to do with his roommate’s background had mentally disturbed the child, and that perturbed Brookie even more than Frankie’s uncanny reaction to a high temperature.

News that Brookie was single resulted in a three hundred percent increase in fans at the school gates.  Several of the more persistent ones found places on the school walls that they could scale, and some spent up to an hour and a half on school grounds searching for Brookie and the boys’ boarding house before they were bundled off campus by an irate team of school security guards.  Security at the gates doubled, and there were even rumours circulating that the board of governors was seriously discussing putting barbed wire up on the campus perimeter wall and increasing the number of CCTV cameras.

The main threat, however, came from the fans already at the school.  Upon reflection, Fran concluded that she probably wouldn’t have stuck a spoke in the works between Brookie and Selena had she known exactly how drastic the consequences would be, but she couldn’t say that she totally regretted it now that she’d done it and couldn’t do anything about it, if she discounted owning up.  Predictably, Brookie had become more irritable and tended to spend his entire time in the boarding house, either in his room or the sixth form common room, except for when he genuinely couldn’t afford to skip lessons.  He was working out more than ever before, which led Fran to conclude that it was for her own safety that she never told him she was responsible for Selena dumping him.

The most surprising thing was that the vast majority of Brookie’s female fans didn’t care why Selena and Brookie had broken up: all that seemed to process in their minds was that Brookie was now single and therefore available.  From what Fran could make out due to the internet, Selena was actually receiving more flack for having been Brookie’s girlfriend and then dumping him, alongside stinging ‘congratulatory’ mail for getting rid of him for the public benefit, than Brookie was for apparently having a girl in his room.

Things began to get out of hand when girls started trying to break into the boys’ boarding house.  Anything Brookie left in the main school building, from books to banana skins, was stolen, usually to be followed by a web post with a picture of the item and a caption of how the amazing and droolingly hot Brookie had used it.  Brookie couldn’t actually go anywhere anymore without people taking photos of him, and there were some journalists that even the security guards didn’t seem to be able to kick off site.  By Wednesday afternoon, when she had to flatten herself against the wall so that Arthur and Rico could drag away a kicking and screaming girl who’d appeared on the top floor of the boarding house, Fran was beginning to feel a little guilty about the trouble she’d unwittingly caused.  But she still couldn’t help choking with laughter as Arthur and Rico bundled the girl into the lift and the girl frantically popped her head out again to screech: “Brookie!  Can I be the girl in your room, please?  I swear you won’t regret it!  I love you!”

“Jesus,” groaned Bernard, sinking to the floor beside Fran.  “And I thought things were bad when he was happily taken.”

By Thursday evening, Fran had the smug satisfaction of knowing that she was the only girl in the country who could safely get within a hundred metres of Brookie and stay there.  The upper sixth boys had rallied around Brookie in a way that left Fran absolutely dumbfounded.  It was almost as if they became his own personal bodyguards whilst still making sure that he had a social life.  It was rare for them to let Brookie leave the boarding house alone during the day without making a protective phalanx around him to keep the fans away.  Isaac had even jokingly dubbed himself and the boys who often went with Brookie as “Brookie’s cohort”.

But most impressive of all was Arthur.  Fran was beginning to suspect that he might in part have been chosen as head boy due to his natural crowd-controlling abilities.  He spent a large part of each day making sure that the house wasn’t invaded by rabid fans every time the front door opened, and after watching him single-handedly get rid of a crowd of over a hundred girls – some from in school, others from outside – that was trying to storm the boarding house, all without losing his temper, Fran’s respect for him shot through the roof.

“I don’t understand why more people don’t have a crush on Arthur,” she confided to Aaron as Arthur finally managed to shut and lock the door, slumping against it with his eyes closed.  “He’s so manly.  Did you see how calmly he dealt with them all?”

“Honey, you’re quite welcome to him, but he’s straight,” Aaron told her.  “We all know he’s had his eyes on a girl for quite some time, but apart from the fact that she’s in one of the younger years, we can’t get anything else out of him.”

Fran pretended he hadn’t said anything.  “But still,” she persisted, “he’s been calmly telling girls to get lost all day, and yet still doesn’t even lash out once.  How does he do it?  I would’ve lost it and started a fight.”

“Arthur views fighting as a sport and won’t involve other people who haven’t learnt martial arts.”

Fran glanced across at Arthur as the head boy let out a large sigh, rubbing his eyes, and pushed himself away from the door and headed in the direction of the stairs.

Aaron seemed to pick up on her confusion and deigned to expand.  “Arthur’s the regional karate champion.  He came pretty high in some competition in London over the holidays, too.”

Fran made a mental note to introduce Arthur to Mathilda.  She got the feeling they’d get along pretty well.  Both could be extremely scary without realising it.

“Oh, and by the way,” Aaron added suddenly, “you might want to watch your step outside—”

Fran jumped.  She’d nearly forgotten about Simon and Kevin.

“—It’s only going to be a matter of time before people figure out that the best way to get to Brookie is going to be through you.  Brookie calls it the limelight of hell.”  Aaron paused and tilted his head to one side.  “But at least he has nothing to worry about if pretty girls try to seduce you for favours or information.”

“What do you—?”  Suddenly realising the danger, Fran cut off, her jaw going slack.  Cr*p.  Brookie’s single.  Unless she could convince Mathilda to accompany her everywhere around campus, she was in danger of being mobbed.  Was it really sensible to break those two up?