on her face.
Kurt begins to grin. ‘Hey, Frankie,’ he says. ‘I was just saying to Anya, I wonder how that crazy cafe is getting on? D’you fancy going along after school, to check it out? I’ll buy you both a cake!’
Frankie raises an eyebrow. ‘I thought lentils and miso soup were more your thing?’ she asks.
‘They are,’ Kurt agrees. ‘But those cakes at Heaven are something else…’
‘Go on then,’ Frankie grins. ‘We’ll come, right, Anya?’
I smile, but my heart starts up a drumbeat that has nothing to do with Kurt or Frankie. Maybe Dan will be there… and maybe, after last night, even Frankie will see that he’s the boy for me.
Maybe.
A big yellow cab with a slanting tower welded on to its roof is parked right outside Heaven. It looks like a taxi that’s been badly customized with gloss paint and some random freestyle roof-sculpture. Yellow Submarine Beatles Tours is painted in rainbow shades along the sides.
‘Scary,’ Frankie says. ‘This place gets weirder by the minute.’
Inside, the cafe is almost deserted. Angel-boy Dan is wiping down the tabletops while his little brothers are doing homework at a table in the corner. He looks up with a grin that makes my toes melt.
‘Hey, Anya,’ he says. ‘Hi, Frankie, Kurt.’
‘No wings today?’ Frankie quips. ‘Is that because you’ve been skiving school again?’
‘Shhh!’ Dan says in a loud whisper, looking round to check his little brothers aren’t listening. ‘I wasn’t skiving, I was helping out. I told Mum there was a class trip to Alton Towers, and she let me stay off…’
‘Bad boy, Dan,’ Frankie says, shaking her head. ‘No wonder your halo’s slipped…’
We order Coke floats and cupcakes and settle ourselves at the window table. The only other customer is an ageing hippy in an orange satin coat, sitting in the far corner eating a cheese sandwich from a plastic lunchbox.
‘Hey!’ Frankie whispers as Dan arrives back with the drinks and cakes. ‘He’s eating his own butties!’
‘Oh, that’s Ringo,’ Dan explains. ‘He’s a Beatles tour guide, and he’s started taking his breaks in here –’
Frankie snorts. ‘Don’t tell me, that hideous taxi-thing belongs to him, right?’
‘It’s a yellow submarine, like in the Beatles song,’ Dan says. ‘He brought in a bunch of American tourists yesterday, and they had nine cakes and four giant lattes between them, so we pretend not to notice when he gets the cheese butties out.’
‘You’re nuts,’ Frankie mutters. ‘It’s a wonder you make any money at all…’
A bell chimes as the cafe door swings open and a posse of teenagers come in – Lily Caldwell and some of Dan’s scally friends from school. She looks across and takes in the scene, then leans over and stubs out her ciggy on my cake plate. ‘Sorry,’ she says, not sounding it at all.
‘You’re not supposed to smoke in here,’ one of Dan’s little brothers pipes up, but Lily just gives him a cold stare and he shrugs and goes back to his homework.
‘Comin’ out, mate?’ one of the lads asks. His eyes scan the half-empty cafe, lingering with distaste on Ringo. ‘C’mon, Dan, this place is dead!’
‘I’m working,’ Dan says. ‘Y’know how it is.’
‘You could skive off,’ another says. ‘We’re goin’ into town!’
‘Sorry, not tonight,’ Dan shrugs. ‘Like I said.’
Lily flicks back her tawny curls. ‘Just thought we’d drop in,’ she says softly. ‘We missed you at school today. Sure you won’t come out with us? It’d be fun, promise!’
‘I’m sure it would, Lily,’ Dan says. ‘But… no.’
Lily’s face hardens. Her eyes catch mine, cold and mean, and I realize something. I don’t much like Lily Caldwell, but she really, really doesn’t like me.
‘Suit yourself,’ she says, and the whole gang of them are gone, the door slamming shut behind them. Dan grabs the plate with the stubbed-out ciggy on it, brushing the whole lot into the bin just as his mum comes out from the kitchen, wiping floury hands on her apron.
‘What was that?’ she asks. ‘I thought we had people in!’
‘Just the wind slamming the door,’ Dan says. ‘Sorry.’
The little brothers look up, exchanging glances, but Dan draws a finger across his throat when his mum isn’t looking, and the brothers keep their mouths closed.
‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’ Dan’s mum says, smiling at us. ‘On our first day. I’m Karen Carney – it’s good to meet Dan’s friends from school.’
Dan’s real ‘friends from school’ are slouching off down the street as we speak, Lily lighting up a new cigarette and the boys playing a noisy