Bookshop Girl Page 13

  ‘Realistically I don’t think that at this point, there’s any chance of us getting away from the fact that the demolition will go ahead. It’s scheduled for the near future and I do believe that modern retail units will benefit our town centre in the long run.’ Greg explains this to us and my heart breaks. ‘But, Paige, is it? What you’ve just said has clarified a lot of things for me. I think it’s crucial that the people of Greysworth have access to a bookshop. Thanks to you, I will continue discussions with Mick and Jeffrey, and we will do our utmost to secure a future for Bennett’s on this high street.’

  OMG!

  Mr Kahn, the landlord shrugs and strokes the back of his neck. ‘I suppose we could look into the numbers again … We could try to reach a compromise with the rent, keeping it affordable. Give Bennett’s a chance …’ he offers.

  Is he saying what I think he’s saying?

  Did we – Did this work?

  ‘We haven’t reached an official solution yet but …’ Simmonds smiles. ‘But I’d like to congratulate you on all of your hard work during this campaign.’

  ‘Well, let’s shake on it!’ I demand, before squeezing on the clammy hands of all the men in suits, my knuckles still bleeding and sore from the fire alarm.

  Tony cups his hands around his face in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it! It actually worked. All of this –’ he looks towards the shattered glass and the wet carpet and the home-made placards – ‘the petition, the protest, it seems to have done the trick.’ He smiles. Happy tears well up behind his broken glasses.

  ‘Paige!’ Holly grabs me. ‘You were fierce! Yes, girl! We did it!’ She plants a triumphant Barry M kiss on my cheek.

  I still can’t quite believe it. She’s right!

  We’ve done it.

  Immediately after smooching me, Holly turns to Jamie and kisses him too; she pulls him towards her and they snog for about twenty minutes. OMG, get in there, Hols.

  Somebody blasts Kool & The Gang ‘Celebrate’ through tinny phone speakers and the gaggle of soggy protestors erupt into cheers.

  I stand with my back against the broken shop window and watch them party. In the film adaptation of my life, this is the sentimental end scene, isn’t it? Everything would be shot in soft focus and move in slow motion. I’d be right here, misty-eyed, watching a shop full of quiet, bookish types, who turned out to be pretty hardcore demonstrators, dance and sing and laugh and cry.

  A voiceover would echo as the disco classic fades out. I’d make some kind of observation about how ‘As lame as I expected it to be, sticking around in this bumhole of a town all summer has taught me a few things. One: sulky arty boys who hang around in bookshops aren’t necessarily all they’re cracked up to be. Two: drawing boobs and bums and hands and feet isn’t much different from drawing wax fruit with Mr Parker, but Sue and the rest of the Posers crowd turned out to be way more fascinating than that dusty bunch of grapes. And three: turns out that people are ready to listen to what a bookshop girl with a bad fringe has to say after all. I just had to believe in myself until they did too …

  GAG.

  As the credits roll and Sue waddles towards me, offering me a soggy paper plate of Quorn sausage rolls, a lad on a bike pedals by and yells at the top of his smoke-damaged lungs, ‘BOOKSHOP TOSSERRRRRRS!’

  We all clap and cheer him.

  Wheeeeeeey!

  He wobbles on his wheels and screws up his face, before speeding along the road, away from our butt-kickin’ bookshop-saving gang.

  ‘Make sure no one’s coming!’ I hiss at Holly, who’s standing behind me, keeping a lookout.

  I crouch on the floor with a Sharpie poised; I think I’ve found the perfect spot, just behind the cash desk, like in the old place.

  This new shop is beautiful. It’s clean and bright and airy. It smells like wood and paint, like the basement in IKEA. It has a fluffy new carpet that actually springs beneath your feet. The bookshelves are sturdy and have these theatre-style spotlights pointing at them.

  We are in the process of setting up to open next week. Me and Holly have volunteered to help out before we go to Posers this evening. There are crates and crates of exciting new books waiting to be discovered. Cardboard boxes of things we brought along from the old shop; plus the kettle and the microwave and the tills and the framed, signed posters and the picture from the newspaper of us all standing outside on the high street. In a rare moment of public sentimentality Tony said he’d frame it to hang on display.

  The new Bennett’s is beautiful, but it wouldn’t be the same without a little bit of bookseller graffiti, would it?

  My tongue juts out in concentration as I make my mark in honour of the old shop.

  I hear Holly rummage through a box, and remind her to be on guard.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asks, reading the address on a padded envelope. ‘FAO Paige Turner, Bennett’s Bookshop, Greysworth. God, it weighs a ton!’

  It must be another uni prospectus. More fancy embossing, more course descriptions, more plans. I mentally run through the list of destinations it could take me to. London. Brighton. Manchester. Glasgow.

  ‘That’s weird, though.’ I frown, my knees clicking. ‘All the other brochures I’ve sent for have been delivered to my house … not here …’

  Holly shrugs and tears at the brown paper.

  She blinks. She won’t stop blinking at what’s inside.

  Now she’s screeching.

  And jumping up and down like she needs a wee.

  ‘What is it, Hol?!’ I ask, baffled and still crouching on the floor. I haven’t seen her this excited since we spotted Blaine Henderson doing community service. As gorge as I once believed him to be, high-vis yellow is not his colour and he cannot make picking up litter behind Argos look hot.

  She shakes her head in disbelief and reads from a small piece of card.

  ‘Dear Paige,

  Thank you for your email. I’m so sorry to hear about your bookshop closing. I think it’s a great shame that we are losing so many bookshops and libraries up and down the country, and I think it’s hugely commendable that you and your friends are trying to challenge that. As for your friend Holly, it’s always humbling to hear that readers enjoy my books. Please find enclosed a copy of the finished manuscript for the final instalment of the I’m a Murderer trilogy. It is for Holly to read, enjoy and write all over!

  Best of luck,

  Paula Williamson.’

  Wow!

  That’s amazing! I never thought she’d actually –

  ‘Paige!’ Holly has huge tears in her eyes, as she runs her fingers over the handwritten note over and over, to check that it’s real and not a hologram or a mirage. Then she cries some more and laughs hysterically. ‘I can’t believe you did this! I love you, you absolute nutter!’

  She clambers up behind me and squeezes me as I hold my Sharpie poised in position …

  I can feel my knees buckle and try to hold my hand steady as I scrawl …

  ‘ONE DAY I’LL WRITE A BOOK ABOUT THIS PLA—’

  I know I have to be quick, though. Tony would kill me if he –

  ‘Crap! Paige, be careful!’

  ‘What the HELL are you DOING, Paige?!’

  Uh-oh.

  I turn round to see him standing there, veins bulging out of his head. He delves into one of the cardboard boxes, rummages around inside and produces that same old bottle of Dettol and same old yellow J-cloth that were used to clean up after the OAP armchair incident.

  Well, it may be a shiny new shop, but I guess some things will never change.

  Read on for a sneak peek at Paige's next adventures …

  Book two coming soon!

  ‘Crap! I totally forgot to pack sun cream!’ My best friend Holly panics through a mouthful of Cool Original Doritos, sunglasses sliding down her nose.

  I squint at the gloomy clouds through the window of the train and wave goodbye to stinky old Greysworth, which is shrinking further and further into the distance away from
us.

  ‘Holly. Look around. It’s October. I don’t think you’ll need your factor fifty.’

  ‘It’s not a real holiday without the smell of sunblock though, is it?’

  ‘Well … we could just pretend that we’re on some chic city break. And that we’ve packed trunks filled with vintage fur coats and Dr Zhivago hats …’ I glaze over, imagining that the rows of patio gardens and abandoned trampolines whizzing by are actually snow-covered pine trees.

  I mean, really, it’s not like we’re not about to catch a plane to some wild bender in Magaluf or set sail on a once-in-a-lifetime, all-expenses-paid, trip around the Caribbean like the ones you can win on telly competitions.

  Nope.

  It’s way cooler than that.

  Me and Holly have blagged ourselves half term at the Skegton-on-Sea Book Festival!

  It’s one of the biggest book festivals in the country; authors and journalists and TV presenters flock from all over to be there. Apparently tickets always sell out within the first hour of going on sale because they have such high-profile guests.

  I found that out the hard way, staring in disbelief as the SOLD OUT message flashed on my phone screen in the middle of a French lesson.

  ‘Ça va, Paige?’ Monique, the class assistante asked as she knelt beside the bubble-gum encrusted desk, watching me groan in despair. I mean, it was all her fault. If she hadn’t picked on me to join her in some cringy role-play a la pharmacie, then I’d have snagged tickets for me and Holly before it was too late, rather than wasted precious moments of my life making up the French word for ‘Strepsils’.

  We had been so prepared. The events programme had been announced weeks ahead of tickets going on sale and as soon as we heard that our all-time favourite (and most dreamy) hot-shot author was flying in to do a talk and promote his brand new graphic novel, we knew we had to be there, front and centre.

  Tickets for the whole week cost one hundred pounds. That’s right, one hundred pounds. One hundred and one pounds fifty if you count the booking fee. Think of all the millions of Freddo Frogs and penny sweets you could blow that on.

  We both work part time at Bennett’s Bookshop, and signed up to all the extra hours we could get just so we had enough money for those tickets. We unpacked crates of heavy new books before college. We vacuumed the shop after the last dawdlers had left the building and we even missed Gracie Partridge’s rainy birthday BBQ just so that we earned double pay on the bank holiday weekend. But all for nothing …

  After we lost out on tickets, we were gutted for approximately an hour and a half, until lunch break that same day. But as we slumped on blue wheelie chairs in the common room, I had an idea.

  ‘We will get there, Holly.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ she gasped as she burnt the roof of her mouth on a baked-bean panini (one of our school canteen’s delicacies).

  ‘Think about it; we are Bookshop Girls! Books are what we do! If we can’t get into the festival as fans, then we’ll get in there as booksellers. As industry insiders.’

  She nodded, eyes wide and cheeks stuffed like a hamster before swallowing a hot lump of cheesy beans dramatically. ‘Maybe Tony knows somebody at the festival who could sort us out …’

  It turned out that our grumpy bookshop boss did know the woman who coordinates SBF (as those in the know call it). They went ‘way back’ according to Tony, who shifted uncomfortably and adjusted his glasses as we begged him to put our names forward. He ummed and ahhed at first. It’s a lot of hard work. Really full on. It’s not like Greysworth. He said he wasn’t sure it was a good idea, seeing as both of us are still under eighteen. There might not be someone on hand to supervise us. He didn’t know if we’d cope.

  I reminded him that we’re very mature for our age and beyond capable and that I was told by my orthodontist that I only have to wear my retainer three nights a week, which technically makes me a WOMAN, and he squirmed and said he’d see what he could do and the rest is history.

  We’ll be manning the bookstalls, selling the relevant novels to festival bookworms and setting up stock to be signed by Big Shot Writers. It’s basically like we’re being PAID to go on a BFF HOL and SELL A FEW BOOKS! GET IN!

  We’ve never actually been on holiday together before. Well, not if you don’t count the residential trip to Milton Keynes Outdoor Adventure Centre in Year Six. That was different. We didn’t really want to spend a week building rafts while teachers wore jeans and hoodies, masquerading as Normal Human Beings. What’s so normal about building a raft anyway? This will be way better. Our first hol. Just the two of us. Not a sick bucket in sight.

  ‘I wonder what our Festival Boss will be like …’ Holly opens the true crime paperback she’s obsessing over.

  ‘Tony didn’t give much away. Let’s just hope she loves Spontaneous Karaoke Without the Actual Backing Tracks and celeb spotting as much as we do.’

  ‘Oh, I have something for you to add to The List,’ my partner in crime announces, making grabby movements with her fingers for me to pass her my sketchbook.

  I pop the clasp on my new-old suitcase.

  I bought it in a charity shop especially for this holiday. It’s a vintage powder-blue hat box with a rubber handle. I cleaned the outside of it with a face wipe. The inside is made of fabric so there wasn’t much I could do there but spritz a bit of perfume around and hope it didn’t make my clothes smell like the manky old cuddly toys in Save the Children.

  My notebook is squashed inside the case; it’s all dog eared. The List is scrawled inside the notebook.

  ‘Find out if Tony and our festival Boss were romantically involved.’

  Ew. Holly’s such a creep sometimes. One of the many reasons we’re soulmates.

  We drew up a list of things we want to see/eat/Instagram while we’re on this hol. The list is constantly edited and expanded. What started off as a fun ‘To Do’ has turned into some huge saga.

  Here’s a few things we’ve included so far:

  Get as many selfies with famous people in the background as poss.

  Target: At LEAST TWENTY.

  Win the jackpot on the 2p machines.

  Self-explanatory really. It’s a seaside town. Surely there will be amusements. Surely somebody has to win on those penny pushers. Right?

  Sample chips from every chippie in town.

  Rate them out of ten. Chip connoisseurs. We KNOW the best chippie in Greysworth is Abington Plaice; now we’re exploring a new town, and a seaside town at that, we must find the finest chips. Saltiness. Tastiness. The best in Skegton.

  Learn to love mushy peas.

  This is Holly’s entry and she refuses to remove it from the list despite the fact that I’ve told her NO ten thousand times. No way, I’m not on board with that. Way too green and way too gross.

  Smash the patriarchy.

  This is just on my daily to-do list so it should go without saying but it feels good to tick something you know you’ll do anyway. Like, ‘getting up’. Or ‘brushing teeth’. Zero tolerance for crusty male privilege? Tick.

  We take it in turns to play ‘Guess What Song I’m Lip-Syncing To’ and Holly wins because I can’t resist doing Britney every time and as everybody knows it’s scientifically impossible to do Britney without the Head Movements. She fist-clenches along to some mystery power ballad as I pull her headphones out.

  We are now approaching Skegton-on-Sea. Doors will open on the left hand side. Please ensure you collect all of your baggage before leaving the train.

  ‘We’re here!’ I jump out of my seat and we frantically shove the evidence of our chocolate feast into the little flappy bin.

  We stretch our legs on the platform and take it all in. It feels like we’ve just walked onto the set of The Railway Children. It’s so quaint and old-fashioned. The only clue that we’re not actually about to run along the tracks with Bobby, Phyllis and Peter is the big orange vending machine and the discarded McDonalds paper bag that catches the wind and glides along in the breeze
.

  ‘Breathe! Breathe it in!’ Holly inhales dramatically. ‘That seaside air!’

  I copy her. I close my eyes and let the cold wind batter my cheeks. Picture myself as a Disney mermaid, all scales and shell-boobs, washed up on a big rock and doing the best hair flick of all time.

  ‘Right. Yes. Yeah. Thirty crates should be arriving later today. We need access to the cafe tent … ’ A woman speaks into a phone and walks straight towards us.

  Holly looks at me for an explanation and I shrug.

  Still fully involved with the convo on her phone, this woman stops before us, flashes a smile and holds out her hand, as if for me to shake.

  ‘Right, OK, many thanks. Do not be late.’ She ends the call and grabs my hand. ‘I’m Penny. Head of Ops at Skegton Lit Fest. I take it you’re Paige and Holly from Bennett’s Bookshop in Greysworth?’

  She talks without breathing and it throws me. I stumble over my words. ‘Yes. Oh hi. Yes, I’m Paige.’

  ‘And I’m Holly. Thanks for having us.’

  ‘Not at all. Thanks for helping out.’

  This is when I notice that she has one of those earpiece thingies in her ear. It’s attached to a microphone that clips around her neck. Like she’s performing at the Brit Awards or something.

  ‘There is so much to do. Follow me, this way; I’ll show you to your accommodation.’

  So she’s our Festival Boss.

  ‘She doesn’t strike me as someone who’ll be up for karaoke with us, Hol,’ I whisper.

  ‘Well, that hands-free mic begs to differ! It’s official: I’m making it my mission to have a go on that thing before we’re back at this station.’

  I snort with LOLs and double-step to keep up, lugging my hat box after me.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, I’d just like to acknowledge how weird it is to actually be writing actual acknowledgements. Although the making of Bookshop Girl has felt like millions of hours in my pants with my laptop, and thousands of Jaffa Cakes, and hundreds of repeats of Robbie Williams’ Greatest Hits, there are tonnes of gorgeous people who have helped in making it a Real Thing, with a barcode and pages and acknowledgements.