Free Cassie's Crush by Fiona Foden Page A

waited, figuring that we should get started on the party invitations as soon as possible. Then we can get Ollie’s address (maybe I could ask Sam in a casual way?) and deliver one to make sure he gets it. I’m sure he’ll come. He looks like a party person. He’s always messing about and laughing as if he has no worries at all. Unlike me, who has about eighty thousand.
    Evie turned up, finally, and then we spotted Marcia running along the damp sand towards us. “What d’you want to do?” Evie asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said, feeling a bit stupid now. The three of us perched on the steps in front of one of the beach houses and gazed at the wet remains of Ollie’s bonfire (I was thinking of it as Ollie’s fire. Sam, Daniel, the Leech and the others had melted away in my memory). Marcia was shivering, and Evie was grumbling that we should have brought our swimming stuff and gone to the pool, or found out what was on at the cinema. She always forgets that I have almost zero money to my name.
    â€œLet’s get a hot chocolate,” she said, so we went to the Marine Café. Marcia and Evie said they’d pay – they always have plenty of cash – so I asked for whipped cream, a Flake and mini marshmallows.
    The marshmallows reminded me of the bonfire on the beach, and I started to feel all melty again.
    â€œCassie. Cassie!” Evie was hissing across the table.
    â€œWhat?” I’d been lost in marshmallow dreamland for a moment.
    â€œLook!” she hissed again, eyes stretched wide. She was pointing through the window. It was steamed up, so everything was blurred, and at first I couldn’t see what she meant. Then I realized it was Ollie, crossing the road towards us.
    A marshmallow squidged itself in my throat. He was outside the café now, peering at the menu on the wall next to the door. “He’s gonna come in,” Evie announced, and I tried to transmit hot chocolate cravings to his brain as I gulped the marshmallow down. Even through the blurry window, he still looked cute with his biscuit-coloured skin and his light brown hair slightly messed up in that I-don’t-really-bother-with-it way. Some of the boys at school have that blown-forward hair that you know they’ve spent ages poking and gelling in the morning. Not Ollie, though. He doesn’t need to do anything to look gorgeous.
    To calm myself, I spooned a blob of cream into my mouth, and when I looked back, he’d gone. “Let’s follow him!” I blurted out.
    â€œWhat?” Marcia exclaimed.
    â€œIt was your idea,” I insisted. “The whole Operation SOOP thing. Come on, we’d better be quick…” She gulped her hot chocolate down.
    We slammed our money on the table (well, Marcia and Evie did) and hurtled out of the café. In the distance, Ollie was striding along the drizzly seafront with his hands thrust into his pockets. My heart was pounding as we followed him, and we hung back so he wouldn’t spot us.
    â€œSubject stopping to check his phone,” I whispered. “Subject now putting phone back in pocket and walking at a leisurely pace…”
    â€œSubject going to kiosk to buy something,” Marcia chipped in.
    â€œSubject buying a Coke,” added Evie.
    â€œNo, Pepsi,” I corrected her. We lurked about, pretending to look at prizes in the amusement arcade window, until he set off again.
    â€œEr, why are we doing this again?” giggled Evie.
    â€œTo gather information,” I reminded her. “The more you can find out about someone, the easier it is to get to know them.”
    â€œAnd we’re not stalking,” she added with a smirk.
    â€œOf course not,” I retorted.
    We crept onwards as Ollie swerved away from the seafront and headed towards the middle of town, which was all dismal and damp. Then he started hiking up the hill towards the posh houses.
    â€œSubject walking