Ivy Lane: Autumn: by Cathy Bramley

think it’s sweet that you’ve got a crush . . .’ said Hayley, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging. I narrowed my eyes.
At your age
, she’d been about to say, I knew it. She raised her eyebrows at me innocently.
    There was another part to the plan, but we’d decided not to share it with the teenagers so as not to cause any embarrassment. I was aiming to have a quiet word with Charlie tonight; I would even tell him the truth about Aidan and me if necessary. I was dreading it, to be honest, but despite everything that had happened during the past year, Charlie did seem to act rather over-protectively towards me and I wanted to let him down gently.
    I was determined to get it right with Aidan this time. We had been very close,
so close
, to kissing before I’d spotted poor Dougie, who was now completely recovered and embarrassed about causing us all heart attacks. Not that I was getting desperate or anything, but if Aidan didn’t kiss me tonight I would probably self-combust with unfulfilled lust.
    It was five o’clock in the afternoon and so far today, I had had great fun. I had spent the whole day with Gemma – the first time we had ever done that outside of the allotments. She had picked me up this morning and driven me to Mike’s car mechanics’ business on the other side of Kingsfield. It was based in an old Victorian building with huge tall garage doors and ornate brick detail around the roofline. That was where the beauty began and ended though. The forecourt was littered with cars, cars and more cars in various states of repair. The brickwork was grimy, the ground was sprinkled with oily blobs and inside the garage the smell of petrol was over-powering.
    The welcome, however, was warm and over a cup of builders’-strength tea, Mike told me about ‘a little smasher’ that had just come into his possession: a sunshine-yellow hatchback, low mileage, one careful lady owner and – though he said so himself – an absolute bargain.
    And so with trembling knees, I took it out for a test drive. Mike, bless his heart, came with me. I imagine that he was every bit as nervous as I was given the circumstances, but if so he didn’t let on.
    I can’t say that I was at ease at the wheel, but I had done it, that was the important thing, and after pottering at twenty miles an hour for fifteen minutes, I had delivered us safely back to the garage and the deal was done. All I had to do was sort out the insurance and once Mike had given it a thorough service, fitted new tyres and fiddled about under the bonnet I would have my very own car.
    This afternoon had been all about getting ready for tonight’s party. Hayley and Mia had joined us back at my house; Hayley, because she said she couldn’t walk to the party in her outfit on her own, which was a bit worrying, and Mia because she idolized Hayley.
    Thankfully since all that business over the thefts at Ivy Lane had been cleared up, Hayley and the other community service people had been made to feel a lot more welcome. Hayley had made friends in unexpected places and had even been helping Helen with her juice bar business. So far we’d watched Hayley make toffee apples with the last of the apples from my tree, Mia make dead men’s fingers from rolled-up bread with almonds for nails and ketchup for blood and now we were carving pumpkins for the Best Carved Pumpkin competition.
    I was glad of the company and the distraction; knowing that I would be seeing Aidan again tonight at the Hallowe’en party had made it one of the longest weeks of my life.
    ‘Wow, Hayley! That’s amazing,’ cooed Mia as Hayley attached an intricate stencil to her pumpkin and began punching holes through the skin with a screwdriver.
    ‘Cheers,’ said Hayley, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘I designed it on the computer. This pumpkin is a winner, I’m telling you. Which just goes to show,’ she flashed us a grin, ‘five years at secondary school to get two measly GCSEs – one