A second miracle in the form of a new chapter of this story. You're welcome.
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“Remind me again exactly why we’re doing this?”
Not taking his eyes off the road ahead, Leon’s fingers continued drumming absently to the beat of the radio. I’d let him choose the station on one condition: that we’d turn it over the moment any of his songs came on. Though he’d laughed at first, making another comment about my being scared of conversion, he ended up agreeing surprisingly quickly. Then again, I guessed he was probably just as tired of hearing them as me.
“We’re being adventurous, Coraline. Remember we talked about that before?”
“This is hardly what I’d call adventurous,” I pointed out, thinking back to the You are now leaving Walden-on-Sea! sign we’d passed only ten minutes ago. “I doubt we’re even ten miles from home.”
“Adventurous!” he insisted. “The sat nav’s in the glove box, and nobody uses maps anymore. So technically, we have no idea where we’re driving.”
“Technically, yes. But this is where I’ll reinstate my earlier point: we’re not even ten miles from home. I know exactly what’s around here.”
“Well, keep quiet about it, then. Don’t go spoiling the fun.”
I went to mutter something under my breath, but thought better of it at the last minute. I suppose I had to abandon all preconceptions – or maybe that was something I should’ve done days ago, back when I first agreed to Leon’s ridiculous idea of giving me a crazy summer. It was hard to know what to make of it. Part of me was apprehensive; summers, after all, were set aside to help my parents pull through the busiest time of year. I certainly didn’t have the right to go waltzing off with a guy in search of some cliché summer to remember, even if he did happen to be a teen rock star.
And despite knowing this, I found myself going along with it anyway.
“Aren’t you worried your record label’s got some kind of tracker in your car, or something?” I asked.
He shrugged. “If they have, they should’ve come after me by now. I think we’re probably okay.”
“You seem suddenly very lax about getting caught,” I pointed out. “Just two weeks ago you were bursting through the door of the hotel with enough nervous energy to power London.”
His fingers stopped drumming, the song transitioning into its final few chords, giving way to the sound of the presenter’s cheery voices. “I guess I’m getting used to it,” he said noncommittally. “I’ve basically resigned myself to the fact I’m going to get caught sooner or later. The whole point of this summer’s to enjoy myself. I can’t ruin it by worrying the whole time.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“And this kickass disguise has served me pretty well so far,” he added, gesturing up to his newly brunette hair, swooped upwards into a messy quiff containing far too much product. “With a pair of big sunglasses, people don’t even look at me twice. It’s crazy. They pay so much attention to me, but when I’m right under their nose, they don’t have a clue.”
“Well, this is Walden we’re talking about. Considering most of the people there are over sixty, and probably don’t know who the hell Leon McCarthy is, you’re pretty safe.”
“And we’ve just ventured out,” he said, with a mischievous glint in his eye. “See what I mean? Adventurous.”
“If you say so,” I answered, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself smiling.
We drove for about fifteen minutes after that, though I couldn’t be sure of the exact timing. The clock on Leon’s dashboard was broken, permanently stuck on twelve minutes midnight, even though in reality it was no later than nine. In fact, his whole car was a lot more worn-down than I’d been expecting; the words Leon McCarthy tended to bring to mind the image of some flashy sports car, complete with all the latest add-ons. His rough-edged Toyota was miles more understated, with a dent in the bonnet and slightly chipped paintwork. It was just one of a number of things that had surprised me about him.
However, when these fifteen or so minutes were over, what ended up happening was enough to leave me wishing he’d brought a backup sports car.
The engine was making a weird clunking noise; it started off quiet, but rapidly increased in volume until we could barely hear the radio over it. I glanced over to the driver’s seat, my brows already shooting up, hoping to be faced with a calm expression and the reassurance that this was perfectly normal.
“What’s going on?”
Only after the words had left my mouth did I realise the obvious: the car was slowing down, its speed declining until we were barely crawling across the tarmac. Leon hit the hazard lights and salvaged the last of the power to steer the car to the side of the road, removing us from the way of oncoming vehicles. Still, we weren’t in any immediate danger; the road was mostly clear at this time of night.
“Well,” he said eventually, after what felt like a long time to be sat in silence, especially the kind that was so ominous. “Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news?”
“What have you done?” I muttered scathingly.
“The good news,” he said, attempting to inject some positivity into his tone, “is that I happen to know exactly what’s gone wrong here.”
“And the bad news?”
“The bad news…” He paused, his eyes darting in my direction with worried anticipation. “Well, basically, the bad news is that I’ve been incredibly stupid and forgotten that my fuel gauge has been wrong for the past two months, and that quarter-full on the dashboard actually means zero.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean to tell me we’ve just run out of petrol?”
“Well…” He drew out the word, his face twisting into a grimace. “If you want to put it like that, I suppose so.”
“You’ve got to be joking!” I leaned right out of my seat, landing a whack on his arm that was only half playful. “You’re an absolute idiot, you know that? Did it slip your mind that your car doesn’t run on an unlimited supply of petrol?”
“For a while, yes!” he cried, throwing his hands up. “I’ve been preoccupied, okay? I’ve had a lot on my mind. Especially when all I can think about is how pissed my manager’s going to be if she ends up finding me. The petrol on my car was actually pretty low on my priority list.”
I sighed in exasperation. “I can’t believe this.”
“Look, just think of it as—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—adventurous.”
I groaned. “Too late. You said it.”
“Look, it’s fine. I’ve got a spare Jerry can in the boot. All we’ve got to do is find a petrol station and we’ll be able to get enough to tide us over.” He looked at me, a little sheepishly. “You don’t happen to know where the nearest one is, do you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “What? You mean you don’t fancy wandering in a random direction and hoping you stumble across one sometime in the next week? I thought you were all for the adventurous thing.”
“I am,” he said, before adding in a smaller voice, “I’m just not quite that wild.”
I was trying hard to maintain my annoyance, because Leon really had been a total idiot, and it was his fault for landing us both into this situation. Nevertheless, I found a faint smile tugging at the corners of my lips. “There’s a petrol station about half a mile from here,” I told him grudgingly. “We should be able to walk it.”
A beat of silence passed between us before he broke out into his own proper grin. “Thanks, Coraline,” he said. “What would I do without you?”
“I dread to think,” I murmured, already unclipping my seatbelt and clambering out of the car.
As it turned out, the walk didn’t end up being totally unbearable. I knew the area better than anybody, so working out the route to the petrol station wasn’t a problem, even though the sun had long since set in the sky. Streetlights were few and far between, which made for some pretty dark patches along the road, but we got through the worst spots with the help of the light from Leon’s phone. We walked closer than we needed to, the petrol can swinging in his other hand, though I couldn’t work out how this had been initiated. The brisk walk was really the only thing keeping me from shivering; the disappearance of the sun had brought a real drop in temperature, and I’d stupidly left my jacket in the boot of the car.
It was bearable, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t immensely relived when the faint light of our destination came into view a little way up the road.
“You’re a lifesaver, Coraline,” he told me, as we drew close enough to read the words on the blinking sign, some of them close to giving out completely. “Seriously.”
“Oh, I know,” I shot back. “You’d be totally lost without me. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“And you say I’m the arrogant one.”
“You are. Disgustingly so.”
We were approaching the place now, closing the last of the distance between us and the petrol pumps on the forecourt. Before Leon had a chance to retort, I cut him off with a glance to my left. “Are you putting your sunglasses on, or what?”
“Oh, shit, yeah.” Digging into one of his front pockets, his hand enclosed the pair of shades I’d yet to notice him without. “I’m going to look like a right idiot, wearing these at this time of night. The sun’s not even out! What am I going to do, pretend they’re moon glasses?”
I couldn’t help but snigger at that. “You kind of deserve looking like an idiot,” I pointed out. “You were the one who forgot to put petrol in your car, after all.”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Nope,” I said cheerily, as he placed the glasses over his eyes. “Never.”
I was relieved to find that Leon knew his way around a petrol pump; having never owned a car myself, or even learnt to drive, I would’ve been able to make neither head nor tail of it. I was happy to take up the job of holding the can while he filled it up, the weight growing heavier in my arms until I realized not so happily we were actually going to have to lug this all the way back.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked, nodding towards the shop as Leon replaced the pump. A single cashier was visible at the window.
“Chill out, I’m a pro. I know how to slip under the radar.”
The words had barely left his mouth before he took a step forward, suddenly stumbling over a slight bump in the concrete floor. His arms flailed wildly, trying to regain his balance, and it was only sheer fluke that he didn’t fall flat on his face. I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying to suppress the giggling that was now threatening to overtake me.
“What was that you were saying again?”
“That was completely unrelated,” he said quickly. “This floor is really uneven.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you say. Just try not to draw attention to yourself.”
My voice may have sounded confident, but my heart was already pounding beneath the fabric of my shirt. Leon might have been well-practised in disguising himself, but he was doing it on a daily basis. I wasn’t even the one trying to avoid recognition, but that didn’t make me any less nervous; I was convinced one wrong move on my part would give it all away, basically screaming Look! I’ve got a massive celebrity next to me! Notice us!
A wave of air conditioning rushed over us as we stepped into the shop, my trainers squeaking on the polished floor. The place was mostly empty, except for a few other customers and the bored-looking cashier behind the counter, which came as a mild relief.
Leon went to move towards the till, but something in the opposite corner had caught my eye. “Hold on,” I murmured, causing him to stop in his tracks. “Look over here.”
I could see the line of confusion on his forehead, over the shades I’d since realized looked ridiculous inside the bright shop. Still, he followed me mutely in the direction I was heading, not risking speaking aloud in such a confined space.
The news stand, placed along the back wall, was a contender for the most disorganised mess I’d ever seen in my life. Still, the mismatching array of newspapers and glossy magazines was not all that caught my attention; that job lay in the hands of one thing in particular, right in the middle of it all, sticking out like a sore thumb.
“Oh, jeez.”
Leon had noticed it too; he reached right past me, taking the glossy headline right into his hands for a closer look.
It was only some teen celebrity magazine, obviously targeted at girls only Rosemarie’s age. Still, that didn’t deter from the fact Leon’s face was plastered all over the cover, a peppy snapshot taken from a shoot that must’ve dated back months. The headline was hard to miss: Leon McCarthy, M.I.A.?
“I should’ve known it would get out,” he murmured, only loud enough for me to hear. “Nothing stays a secret anymore.”
He was already flicking through the magazine, fingers moving across the glossy pages, trying to find the full article. When it fell open, I noticed the whole spread was covered in a collage of Leon-related pictures, though thankfully none of them seemed to be recent. The effect of his enhanced blue eyes and digitally altered smile, repeated a dozen times over, was a little unnerving. I craned my neck over his shoulder so I could read the text.
Things have been a little too quiet in the world of Leon McCarthy lately, the first line read. Reports of the star’s absence are now beginning to flood in, with some sources even claiming he hasn’t been seen since the beginning of summer. Our bets might’ve been on a spontaneous holiday to a private foreign island, but buzz on social media seems to be suggesting Leon’s still in Dorset, where he was known to be filming his latest music video. His record label have refused to comment.
“It’s only some crappy teen thing,” I said quietly, noticing his concerned expression. “Nobody reads this kind of stuff.”
“’Buzz on social media’? Brilliant. One person catches sight of me and it’ll be all over Twitter in seconds. I’ve got no hope, have I?”
“It’ll be fine,” I assured him. “People make up stuff on the internet all the time. There’ll probably be a rumour circling tomorrow that you’ve been spotted in Scotland. They’ll believe anything.”
He sighed aloud, but returned the magazine to the stand all the same. “I suppose so. Now let’s get out of here as soon as possible. I feel like I’m being watched.”
Moving away from the news stand, we headed to the opposite end of the shop, behind two customers already in line for the till. I couldn’t help but give both the mental once-over: did either look like die-hard Leon McCarthy fans, able to sniff out the fact I was standing right beside him? I only allowed myself to relax after realising they were both in their forties, and there were no official Leon wristbands in sight.
I could feel someone’s eyes on me; glancing to my side, I could see him looking at me from beneath his glasses, the ghost of a smirk threatening to curl his lips. I frowned, half-tempted to ask him what he was looking at, but knew it would be stupid to draw any more attention to ourselves than necessary. All he did was smile, shaking his head slightly, before turning to look straight ahead once again.
Weird.
Then, out of nowhere, two girls emerged from around one of the aisles, sprinting across the shop with alarming speed. For one terrifying moment, I thought they were heading for us, but released a huge sigh of relief when the first went barrelling into the man in front of us, waving something in his face.
“Dad, look!”
She couldn’t have been any older than ten; her skinny stature barely measured half her father’s height. Her dark hair was dragged up into two pigtails, and I realised with a start she was wearing a shirt with Leon’s picture on the front. Dozens of bracelets rattled on her arm, while uncontrolled excitement was spreading right across her face. When I caught sight of what she was waving in her hand, my heart lurched.
“What is it?” her father asked.
“Leon McCarthy!” the two girls screeched in unison, at a pitch I was sure would damage my hearing.
“Look, he’s on the front cover!” the second girl, who I presumed was a sister, squealed. She was dressed in a similar way to her younger counterpart, a hoodie I recognised as also one of Rosemarie’s glittering with Leon’s initials. Her sister waved the magazine a little higher, and I realised it was the same one we’d been inspecting just five minutes ago. “Please, Dad? Can we get it? Please!”
“Oh God, not him again…”
“Dad, this is Leon we’re talking about! Please can we get it? I’ll do the washing up for a week!”
“And I’ll help!” piped up the other girl.
They soon launched into a continuous stream of beginning; at one point, I was sure they were about to get on their knees in desperation. I risked a sneaky sideways look at Leon, and though most of his face remained obscured by the glasses, I could see the way he was biting his lip in an effort to hold back laughter. I hadn’t found it overly funny up until that point, but for some reason, seeing him fighting back hysterics was enough to set me off too.
“Alright, alright!” their dad said eventually, obviously tired of the ear-splitting round of Please please please that had gone on for much too long. “I’ll get it if it’ll keep you two quiet!”
They both let out another squeal, at which it took a conscious effort not to clutch my ears. As they moved forward in the queue, thrusting the magazine at the cashier with every bit of expected enthusiasm, the dad glanced over his shoulder and pulled a face.
“Kids these days, huh?” he said to us, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it is about this McCarthy guy, but he’s got them all hooked.”
The grin on my face was widening at an almost uncontrollable rate, though I was doing my best to rein it in. “He sure has,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level.
I could feel the laughter building in both of us as we paid for the fuel, our mouths clamped shut in a desperate attempt to keep in what was threatening to burst out. The cashier felt like the slowest in the world, counting out our change with painstaking attention to detail, to a point where I didn’t know how much longer I could take it.
We finally got out of the building a couple of minutes later, stepping out onto the forecourt as the shop doors closed behind us. There was a brief beat of silence, in which we just glanced at each other, before bursting into absolute hysterics.
We were both doubled over, clutching at each other in an attempt to keep walking straight, laughing for so long it felt like my lungs were on fire. And in that one moment, that brief snapshot of time in a petrol station halfway through the evening, with nothing but a super-famous rock star for company, it felt like I’d never been happier.
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Apparently, what's supposed to be one of the busiest times when I'm revising for mock exams is in fact when I'm able to churn out another chapter of this story. I have no idea how that works, but I'm not complaining.
Hope you all liked it! I feel like the chapters are getting longer and longer for this story. I think it might end up being more of a novella than a short story, but I'm not sure. I guess I'll just go with the flow. Until next time :)