Free Cassie's Crush by Fiona Foden

trimmed the pup’s nails with the clippers.
    â€œSure,” I said. “There’s no one else booked in right now. Is Pip your dog too?”
    â€œNo, he’s my aunt Maggie’s,” Sam told me.
    â€œYou’ve got a very doggie family,” I said.
    He grinned and said, “Yeah, I suppose I have.” We looked at each other. It felt nice. I wished Ollie had a Sam-type effect on me because with Sam I can be normal instead of nearly fainting with stress.
    Then things got embarrassing. Dad came out to fix a broken windscreen wiper on the van and said, “Hi, son” to Sam.
    â€œHi, Mr Malone,” Sam said, maturely.
    Pip was all finished. Sam had paid me and was leading him away when Dad said, “I’m going through town – need a lift home, lad?”
    I wished Dad would stop calling Sam “son” and “lad”. But Sam didn’t seem to mind. “That’d be great, Mr Malone,” he said.
    â€œOh, call me Colin,” Dad said as they climbed into the car. Pip sat in the back, panting at the window with his pink tongue hanging out.
    Sam waved through the window as Dad pulled away. I waved back, remembering that the cheese-mobile stinks worse than ever – and almost sobbing with relief that it was only Sam that Dad was driving home and not Ollie.
    As soon as they’d gone, Marcia was on the phone, back from her “date”, which seemed to have lasted all of thirty-five minutes.
    â€œSo where did you go?” I asked her.
    â€œI told you, the dry-cleaner’s.” She sounded a bit sheepish.
    â€œYes, but where did you go then?”
    â€œUm, nowhere, Cass. We just sort of stood there.”
    â€œWhat, and talked?” I asked.
    â€œWell, yeah … but he’s a bit quiet, really. In fact, he hardly said a word. It was a bit awkward, Cass…” Sounded like I’d had a better time going to the garden centre with my parents in the cheese-mobile.
    â€œDid he kiss you?” I asked.
    â€œGod no!” she yelped. “Eugh! Daniel Herring? Are you kidding ?”
    â€œWhat d’you mean, ‘eugh’? You like him, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone.”
    â€œI told you, Mum was nagging me to help with that cupboard…” So that really was the only reason she went. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t seem completely right to me.
    â€œAnyway,” I said, “never mind Daniel. D’you think you can find out Ollie’s address so we can personally deliver an invitation?”
    â€œI’m sure I can,” Marcia said, just as a gale of laughter burst through Ned’s bedroom wall. “What was that noise?” she asked.
    â€œMy brother’s got a girl in his bedroom,” I hissed.
    â€œWhat, Ned ? Are you sure?” We giggled over that, and Marcia sounded like her usual, confident self again – not someone who’d agreed to a date which she hadn’t wanted to go on. We finished the call, and when the redhead finally left, Ned refused to discuss her. My big daft brother just sat there smirking at dinner as if lovely thoughts were whooshing around in his head.

Henry came round to see Beth and I heard him straining on the toilet. It was the grossest thing ever. It’s hard to imagine Ollie doing anything icky, like a poo or something – like the queen, the way you can’t picture her plonked on the loo with her knickers down, even though she must poo or she’d die.
    The stink from the loo was so bad it infected the whole of upstairs, like something dead and rotting. Mum was snapping at Dad for being lazy, and Beth was accusing me of stealing her phone charger, hairbrush and even her stupid cuticle-pusher stick, the one she uses to prod at her nails, so I phoned Marcia and Evie and told them to meet me by the beach huts. It was drizzling by the time I got there, and to make things worse, they were late.
    I waited and