Chapter 21

Monday 30th November 1998

Okay, look. I don’t hate Ricardo. He’s always seemed like a decent guy. Personable, helpful, smart, and at least fairly funny. I’d never seen him angry or upset.

But I was getting more and more infuriated with him as each day passed.

“No, I swear on my mother’s life, this huge lion came right up to our truck!”

“That’s crazy!” Dakota enthused with giddy awe.

Ricardo chuckled a little at that.

“Far and away, best holiday I’ve ever been on.”

“Lucky! I’ve never been on safari. Best I’ve had is the zoo,” my crush remarked. Great, now she’d start telling him the anecdotes she told me back in August. What was a precious moment for me would be a casual tale told on the street for him.

Why was I overhearing this conversation? Because Kendal had insisted we go to the corner shop near the school, which happened to be along the route that Ricardo took to get home. And because, for whatever reason, my friends were all now dead-quiet as though they wanted to subject me to this.

On my part, I had nothing to say that could actually intervene. I was just trying (and failing) to ignore it, and praying that we would reach the corner shop as soon as humanly possible.

Luckily, it wasn’t all that far at all.

“I’m sure the zoo was wonderful, but it looks like this is your stop,” Ricardo noted as our journey brought us to the shop.

“You can come in with us,” Dakota pointed out, but he shook his head a little.

“I have to get home quickly. But I want to hear your zoo stories, next time, okay?”

“Sure!” she smiled back cheerily.

“Bye,” he smiled back, before turning to the rest of us. “Bye all.”

A chorus of farewells broke out from Bao, Kendal, Zahid, Harriet and myself. With a parting wave, he continued off on his way.

“Aaaah,” Dakota began, turning to us, “he’s so easy to talk to.”

“Sorry we’re difficult,” I grumbled without meaning to.

Her smile dropped. Guilt hit me like a fist.

“No, I didn’t mean that…” she muttered, looking downwards.

“So, err… we gonna buy sweets or…?” Bao spoke up, slowly shuffling towards the shop door while still facing the rest of us. Someone had to walk around him while leaving the shop, rolling her eyes as she did.

“Please,” Zahid responded with a nod, unashamedly breaking off from the awkward moment I’d generated and striding over to Bao. Kendal all but lunged after him, and that was seemingly enough for Bao to head through the door. As Kendal and Zahid followed, Dakota joined them, all but floating off.

“That wasn’t cool,” Harriet informed me, as if I hadn’t realised myself.

“Yeah… sorry…”

“I know this is hard on you,” she continued, putting a hand on my shoulder, “but you can’t let it get to you like this.”

Like it’s so easy not to.

“Just speak to her. Ask her out. I’m sure she’ll say yes.”

Say yes to the guy who just upset her?

“Why would she when she’s got him?” I asked while locking my bike up to a nearby metal fence. She groaned, but I continued: “If he wasn’t around then maybe I’d have a slither of a glimmer of a chance. Hell, be my guest, tell him to back off.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Harriet spoke firmly. “I’m giving you the opportunity to prove yourself.”

“No, you’re giving me the opportunity to lose to a better guy,” I growled, and then walked to the shop’s door because, as far as I was concerned, the conversation was done.

“… what?” I heard Harriet ask behind me as I entered the shop.

It’d been a while since I’d been in here, and it hadn’t really changed. Typical corner-shop affair, fairly small with closely-packed aisles. The others had already seemingly spread out across the limited space. I idled my way around, glancing at this and that, not really browsing. At most, I would pick up a drink and a chocolate bar or something-

“GUYS.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that exclamation from Bao (I’d almost call it a bellow). Perhaps because of my mindset at that moment, I assumed the worst and took it as something desperately serious.

All of us – Harriet included now – hurried over to him at the sweets aisle. In his hands was a pack of Starburst, held like a delicate baby chick.

“I found… I found a pack of Opal Fruits…” he spoke quietly, as though a loud noise would frighten the confection away. But yes, there it was: not Starburst, but the recently-retired home-grown branding. It hadn’t been panic in Bao’s voice, but excitement.

“Maaaaaan!” Kendal enthused. “Thought we’d seen the last of these!”

“They’re sweets…” Zahid remarked in response to the fawning.

“I mean… it is pretty cool to see them again…” I reasoned.

“They’re sweets…” Zahid reiterated.

“Eh, let them have their fun,” Dakota chuckled softly.

“We’ve got to buy these,” Bao insisted, bringing the pack close to his chest to guard it. “This’ll be the last chance we ever get to eat Opal Fruits.”

“Bao. They’re literally the same thing as Starburst.”

Zahid had pinched his brow with that statement. I was starting to remember his early exasperation with Bao’s behaviour (and of course Kendal’s).

“I mean… they’ve combined Lemon and Lime and added Blackcurrant, so…” I chimed in rather needlessly. Bao pointed rapidly to me in agreement, still keeping the pack to his chest with his other hand.

“I can’t believe this is such a big deal…”

“I can’t believe you’re making such a big deal about it being a big deal!” Bao retorted, immediately before Kendal pushed him off in the direction of the counter.

Zahid looked to the heavens in exasperation.

“Not much of a sweet-tooth?” Harriet asked him lightly. He grabbed a Snickers from the shelf.

“Just couldn’t care less about a rebrand,” he shrugged.

“Can you give him this for today?” she asked him, with a sudden aura of purity around her like a halo had illuminated above her head. “I promise, if he keeps it up tomorrow, I’ll talk to him about it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Zahid relented with a dismissive wave of his chocolate-holding hand. “Don’t know who made you his life-coach…”

“I’m his girlfriend, ‘life-coach’ is part of the job description,” Harriet jested, just as Bao scurried back over to us.

“Sorry, was also gonna get some other sweets…” he muttered while picking up a few more treats.

…

The Opal Fruits continued to be treated as a huge deal all the way back to Dakota’s, with Bao having asked for a second bag and wrapping the pack up in that like impromptu bubble-wrap. Even with that added protection, he still put the main bag down ever-so-gently when we got in.

“See, the goodness of chocolate balances out the boredom of homework,” Kendal explained as we began to settle down in the living room, “so it probably won’t be too bad.”

“Is that why you got four chocolate bars?” I asked her while she dug out a Milky Way.

“Nah, Mum and Dad are strict on chocolate and stuff. Two a week, no more, no less! And y’know, a girl’s gotta get her fix any way she can.”

She unwrapped and took a desperate bite, letting out a pleasured “mhmm” as the taste hit her palette.

“So, your parents are with chocolate like Alex’s are with money?” Bao chimed in.

“I said it’s not like that!” I whined. “I just don’t bring my wallet to school! I’ve got my passport and National Insurance number card thing and everything in there…”

“Someday, when you’re out with your wallet,” Zahid began with what struck me as peculiar phrasing (I had a mental image of myself on a date with an oversized wallet), “someone’s going to mug you and steal your identity.”

I bit back on my immediate reaction – “who would want that?” – and instead let a light smirk form on my face.

“Not if my sword has anything to say about it!”

Our homework quickly came out – luckily, most of us didn’t have much to do (Bao had the most, courtesy of IT), so we figured it wouldn’t take too long. We ate and drank as we worked, though Bao kept the Opal Fruits tucked away.

By the time we finished, it was already growing dark outside. 4:40pm, or thereabouts.

“Okay. Are we ready, people?” Bao asked with almost ceremonial tone as he began to unravel the wrapped-up bag.

“Let’s do this!” Kendal barked back, bouncing on the spot having consumed all of her chocolate already (and washed it down with Ribena).

“Steady on there,” Dakota spoke to her soothingly, patting her shoulder to no effect.

All the while, Zahid was sat with his elbow on the arm of his usual armchair, cheek resting in his hand. Maybe it was how that slightly stretched the side of his face, but he looked deeply unimpressed with the whole affair.

Bao dug his hand into the plastic bag, and his face switched to panic.

“Aah-!”

He quickly withdrew the pack, inspecting it closely, panic giving way to confusion.

“What is it?” Harriet asked, while Bao looked inside the bag.

“I… thought the pack had torn open or something… huh…”

He proceeded to tip the bag up on the coffee table, pouring out a number of individually-wrapped sweets. A cascade of red, orange, yellow and green scattered across the table.

“That’s more than a pack’s worth…” I observed (read: stated the obvious).

“The god of sweets shines favourably on us, I guess,” Bao shrugged off the bizarreness, reaching for an Orange-

And it bounced away from him.

“Huh,” Zahid spoke up. “For the first time today, I’m actually interested in Opal Fruits.”

“Is this another weird monster thing?” Harriet looked to us as if we could provide any solid answers.

“Dunno, but if it is, we can still eat them, right?” Kendal blurted, still bouncing rapidly, eyes fixed on the sweets. Bao was shadowing the particular Orange chew with his hand, watching it bounce away like something out of a cartoon.

“Hang on…”

I reached out for a Strawberry, and just like with Bao, the red-wrapped sweet began to avoid me with short hops around the table.

“They only respond when you try to grab them.”

I switched to a Lime, and as expected, the Strawberry stopped moving and the Lime started in its place.

“Sweets that don’t want to be eaten,” Dakota commented. “And they’re definitely not from the original pack, Bao?”

“It’s sealed up tight,” he nodded, trying and failing to pin down his chosen sweet now.

“So, err, we’re not eating them?” clarified Kendal.

Dakota’s response was to stand up, hold her hand out straight in front of herself, and summon her spear. Below, on the coffee table, all of the sweets jolted as though startled, and scattered at speed: as they did, they appeared to sort themselves by flavour, with Strawberry and Lime escaping to the hallway and Orange and Lemon scooting into the dining room.

“Why did I know that was going to happen…?” our leader sighed, lowering her arm in dismay.

“Yeah, was pretty obvious…” Bao agreed innocently.

“Zahid, with me, dining room. Alex, Kendal, upstairs. Bao, stay here with Harriet, keep an eye on things,” Dakota ordered us. “All the windows should be shut, and unless they can open doors, they’ve got no way out.”

“We’re… hunting sweets?” I summarised bluntly. “I keep thinking we’ve hit peak weirdness and then stuff like this happens…”

“Let’s go let’s go let’s go!” Kendal chanted, grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the room. I almost tripped up as we barrelled up the stairs, and by the time we hit the landing and Kendal began scanning her surroundings like an over-alert meerkat, I was wondering if Dakota had paired me with her as punishment for my comment earlier.

“Main bedroom door is open and so’s the loft door so who’s gonna go where or shall we both go together?”

“You dash up to the loft, look around there and meet me in the bedroom,” I instructed her.

“Lewd!” she chirped while already heading for the stairs up to the loft conversion.

… it took me until I’d actually walked into the bedroom to realise what she was implying…

I did what pretty much anyone would do, and dropped to my knees, getting low on the floor to inspect under the bed. A group of green-wrapped sweets was huddled together, seemingly quivering in fear. No Strawberry ones… seemed like the flavours had completely separated.

“Hey there,” I spoke to them gently. “I guess you’re upset about the fact they merged you with Lemon for Starburst, right? Throwing in Blackcurrant and you’re like ‘who’s this new purple one?’ I don’t know what I’m saying…”

I sighed. Talking to Opal Fruits. Was this entire affair just one intense breakdown?

“It sucks being scared. I get it. I really do. And if I had a solution, I’d tell you, but I’ve no idea what to do. So if you are scared, and if you can hear me and I’m not just talking to animated sweets… I dunno. We can work this out together, or something?”

“You talking to Opal Fruits, Alex?”

I jumped at the surprise of Kendal’s presence, whacked my head on the edge of the bed, and felt the embarrassment finally catch up to me as I groaned in pain.

“Strawberry ones up in the loft, I tried to eat them but it’s like they don’t wanna be eaten which I guess makes sense, I guess the Lime ones are under there?”

I’m sure her speech was getting faster every time she spoke…

“Err… yeah…” I nodded, trying to fight off the pain in the back of my head. “Let’s just leave the room, close the doors and head back downstairs, I guess…?”

“You’ve gotta be more proactive!” my companion insisted, summoning her bow and donning her Painter garb.

“Whoa, wait, what’re you gonna do?”

“Shoot ‘em, duh!”

“They move whenever you go for them and you’re using arrows, all you’re gonna do is poke fifty holes in the floor.”

“Nah, cos I can do this!” she grinned, dropping to the floor and firing an arrow straight under the bed. Something pink zoomed out the other side, hitting the far wall – a glowing pink net with the Opal Fruits inside, still hopping about.

“Did it with the Strawberry ones too!”

“Well-played,” I smiled to her.

And then what I can only describe as a downpour of Lime Opal Fruits descended upon the two of us. Bombarded, we raced out to the hallway, not even getting the chance to retrieve the snared bunch as more sweets seemed to rain down from nowhere.

“This is making me so hungry…” Kendal whimpered, watching the sweet-fall with longing eyes.

The Opal Fruits were quickly piling up on the floor, masking the carpet and the bed’s duvet.

“Wanna bet the same thing’s happening in the loft?” I asked Kendal, who nodded vigorously in sugar-rushed response. This time, I moved at the same time as her, only we didn’t need to go far at all. Several jumping red chews were already on the short set of stairs, where the torrent from the loft’s ceiling was partially hitting the steps.

“Hey, look at that, you were right!” she cheered.

“Think you could fire something to block the ceiling?” I suggested, summoning my sword all the while.

“I’ll give it a shot- ha! Wordplay!”

She dashed to the stairs, making sure she had a clear aim. By the time I joined her, she’d already fired, her arrow rapidly expanding into a huge sheet which filled out the ceiling.

“I’m smashing this today!” my friend whooped with another huge grin, and I started grinning too because damn it, her joy was getting infectious.

Sadly, it took mere moments for the sheet of pink to develop a bulge at the middle. Evidently, it wasn’t stopping the sweets, simply blocking them.

“I think we need a Plan B…” was the first remark out of my mouth.

“And I think we should ask Dakota,” Kendal added.

“Good call.”

Funnily enough, we found Dakota and Zahid at the foot of the stairs as we headed down them.

“Raining sweets?” Dakota asked us.

“Raining sweets,” I confirmed, rubbing the back of my head a little.

“And y’know, this is still better than Bao obsessing over that pack…” Zahid chimed in, actually looking a little pleased with the turn of events.

“I take it the pack’s still fine?”

… which probably sounded like I was concerned for it.

“As in, nothing weird’s going on with it?”

The four of us all looked at one another in awkward uncertainty.

“Yeah, we should go and check…” Dakota said with an air of embarrassment. She led us back to the living room, where Bao was now sat on the sofa with Harriet, looking bored.

“Hey guys, again,” he spoke up as we entered the room. “What’s up?”

“The Opal Fruits are calling in reinforcements,” Kendal explained succinctly. “Is your pack still-?”

“I’ve had it in my hands the whole time,” he assured us. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Hey… y’know what I think?” Zahid began. “If you open the pack and eat the damn sweets, the hordes will back off.”

Bao gasped indignantly.

“I can’t just do it on-the-fly! This is a special moment!”

“That’s my point,” he growled back. “You’re making a huge deal out of this. Maybe they are too? Whatever the hell’s going on, you’ve got a pack of sweets so just open it and eat the damn things!”

“But-!”

Harriet put a hand on Bao’s shoulder.

“He does have a point… even if it doesn’t work, it’s worth a try, right?”

He looked at her and the expression on her face for several seconds, her staring back firmly yet kindly. All the while, the sounds of Opal Fruits pouring through the dining room door and tumbling down the stairs became apparent.

Soon enough, Bao sighed.

“Okay… we’ll try…”

Bringing the pack forth, he opened it ever-so-gently, being careful not to tear it (Zahid scoffed next to me). With the dozen-odd sweets inside unveiled, he placed the pack on the coffee table and looked up to the rest of us.

“Anyone else having one?”

“Sure!” Kendal beamed, hurrying over and kneeling on the opposite side of the table.

“Gotta start Orange,” Bao claimed, taking one from the pack and gently unravelling the wrapping, while red, orange, yellow, green gradually poured into the living room, vaguely animated.

Slowly, Bao put the sweet in his mouth.

Then spat it into his palm.

“Damn, it’s rock-solid…”

The flood of sweets encroaching on us swiftly came to a halt.

“… Bao-bear…” Harriet spoke as realisation hit her first, “was the pack out-of-date?”

“Ooooh… it might have been…”

He sounded so disappointed.

“Great. All that for nothing,” Zahid sighed. “Now can we bin them and get on with our lives?”

“Yeah… just lemme unwrap a few to keep the wrappers…” Bao agreed glumly.

At the doorways, the huge number of Opal Fruits rapidly began backing out – as much as that makes sense for animated sweets – pretty much reversing back out of the room to where they’d come from.

“Wait, no! I still wanna eat you!” Kendal yelled out, chasing after the Strawberry and Lime sweets as they retreated up the stairs.

…

The rest of the evening went as normal. Bao was still a little browbeaten over not getting to eat a final pack of Opal Fruits, but had cheered up enough by the time we were leaving.

As he and Harriet said their goodbyes to the rest of us, she gave me a stern look.

“Talk to Dakota,” she told me, with force I’d only seen directed at Bao before. It was, frankly, intimidating.

Once again, I wound up being the last one to leave. Since Saoirse had gone home almost a week ago, Dakota was once again on her own when we weren’t around. It was almost painful for me to leave her.

“Hey… I’m sorry about earlier…” I said, hoping my sincerity was coming across.

She said nothing for a moment, which unnerved me to no end.

“And I’m sorry if you guys feel ignored when I’m talking with Ricardo,” she eventually replied. “You know I care about you, a lot, right?”

“Mhm…”

That much made sense, considering how much time she’d spent with us all.

“I do. Ricardo’s… Ricardo, and…”

She exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment.

“Sorry. I’m not good with… articulating things like this.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her, a lie for the sake of courtesy because I so desperately wanted insight and yet, in the moment, I was terrified of the truth. “So long as we’re all good…”

“Yeah. We’re good,” she told me, giving me a hug for good measure. “Seeya tomorrow, Alex.”

I hugged her tight. I didn’t want to let go.

“Seeya tomorrow…”