A Bump on the Head - Caroline Tailby (latest ebook reader .txt) 📗

coffee shop we went to; she said our teas were on her.”
Blousey had an answer to that one. “Ever since he stole those splurge guns and fought of Dandy Dan everybody’s practically worshipped him. Of course,” She laughed. “Tallulah’s even more jealous of me as his girlfriend now but we’re still best friends. In fact,” Her tone changed to light. “she’s coming around tonight. Bringing lots of make-up.”
“I love make-up!” I said enthusiastically. “Could she give me a makeover?”
“Sure thing, kid.” There was suddenly a knock at the door. Blousey grinned, her blue eyes glittering. “Here she is now!” She left me sitting at the table.
I looked at the cocoa. I hadn’t drunk any of it yet, but I raised the cup to my lips with high hopes…and was disappointed. It wasn’t as creamy as the one Bugsy had made for me and had a slightly blander taste. Don’t get me wrong, it still tasted good, but not as exhilarating as the other one.
I heard the door opening and some voices. One of them was Blousey’s, and the other was a warm, gravely voice. Obviously, Tallulah’s. After a short time they came into the kitchen and I grinned, my eyes lighting up.
“Hi, Tallulah!”
“Hey, Liana! You ready for a makeover, honey?”
“Sure! But how did you know I’d want one?”
“Blousey and I have arranged it all,” She emptied her handbag onto the table. “Until Bugsy’s back, we can enjoy ourselves.” They were behaving like teenagers! I’d thought Blousey and Tallulah were adults, like, twenty-six or something, not sixteen. It felt too rude to ask how old they were.
“Tallulah!” said Blousey, laughing. “Come on, we’re twenty-four!” Question answered! “You’re acting fourteen.”
“So what?” she said, turning to me. She had a compact of eyeshadows in her hand. “What colour?”
“You got blue?” I asked.
“Essential. Need it for my speakeasy costume.” Oh yeah. On my first night here all the showgirls had been wearing blue eyeshadow. She took a small brush out of the compact and seemed to be getting some shadow on it, then she reached towards my eyes, which I closed. The brush tickled my eyelid as Tallulah applied the make-up. “That suits you!” she said. “It’s the same shade of your eyes.”
“Did you bring that pink nail varnish?” Blousey asked, digging in the handbag. “It’s probably at the bottom somewhere,” replied Tallulah, picking up a small tube from the table. I didn’t realise what it was until she pulled off a lid to reveal…a mascara wand. My shadowed eyes widened.
“You are wearing mascara?!” I exclaimed. Seriously! I thought Tallulah and Blousey (who was now painting her nails pink) were wearing false eyelashes!
Tallulah looked puzzled at my exclamation. “Mascara’s been around for sixteen years,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Don’t forget, Tallulah,” said Blousey.
“Oh yeah.” I guessed what they were talking about. Most likely still believing I was confused. “Anyway,” continued Tallulah. “Would you like some of this on?”
“I can do it myself,” I said. “Have you got a mirror?”
“I got one,” said Blousey. She fished in her pocket and brought out a little circular mirror, and then handed it to me. I looked in it and applied the mascara across my eyelashes, exactly the way I wanted it so it didn’t look like false lashes.
“What colour would you like your nails?” Tallulah asked me as I finished, making me jump so the mascara wand nearly went in my eye. I regained my composure and looked at the colours she’d got. There was a nice silvery blue that I liked, but there was one that really caught my eye. It was a deep, rich magenta purple that reminded me of the dress I’d worn to my friend Louise’s eighth birthday party. “That one!” I said, pointing to it. “Oh, that’s my favourite,” said Blousey, looking where I was pointing. “Trouble is I don’t have any clothes that go with it.”
“I haven’t either, but I don’t care,” I said. “That pink varnish you’re wearing looks great with your dress, Blousey.” It genuinely did. Instead of the blue rosebud dress she’d worn yesterday, Blousey was now in a pale pink knee-length dress decorated with a bluebell pattern. She smiled. “Thank you!”
“Let’s do this for you then, Liana,” said Tallulah, taking the brush out of the bottle. She hesitated. “Or can you do that yourself as well?”
“Nah, go ahead,” I said. I’m rubbish at doing my nails. The varnish always goes everywhere and then my mum yells at me for making a mess on my bedroom carpet. I decided to play it safe.
I held my hands out and Tallulah started to paint my nails. The colour was just as beautiful as it had seemed, and it was a lot more vibrant now I actually saw it on my nails.
We mucked around for a while longer, and eventually Tallulah held up a mirror a little larger than Blousey’s. By this time she’d applied a lot more make-up to my face. “How’s that?” she grinned.
I stared at my transformed face in the mirror. Gone was my pale skin, which was now bronzed with foundation. My eyes looked alive with the mascara and eyeshadow, and we’d used a bit of eyeliner too. Not the liquid one you can get today. Kohl pencil, but it still looked great. My cheeks were polished with blusher and my red lipstick glittered in the lamplight of Blousey’s kitchen.
“Wow,” I said breathlessly. “Thanks, Tallulah. I look like a movie star!”
“Glad you like it,” smiled Tallulah. “I do that nearly every day, make myself up.”
“You’ve had plenty of practice then,” said Blousey. She was looking amazing herself; she’d applied pink eyeshadow the same shade as her dress, and she’d actually let me do her mascara (“You made it look a lot better than when I do it!”). So had Tallulah. Her lips were glazed with a slightly darker shade of lipstick.
The telephone suddenly rang. “Aw, man!” I said. “Bet that’s Bugsy!”
“I’m not surprised,” said Tallulah, nodding towards the clock on the wall. “It’s eight o’clock already.”
Blousey answered the phone. “Hello?...Bugsy! Hi!...Right, OK. Shall I send Liana back to yours?...Yes, well…Tallulah went a bit crazy with make-up!...Does she have to?...Yeah, she’s got some with her….See ya then! Call me when she gets back…Bye!” She hung up, then turned to me and Tallulah, shrugging. “Sorry, Liana. Bugsy said you might get ill if you don’t take that make-up off.”
“Oh, come on!” Tallulah seemed to be speaking on my behalf. “I spent two whole hours doing her up!”
“Sorry.”
“What about the nail varnish?” I cut in. “That won’t make me ill.”
“That’s an exception. But you gotta take all the rest off.”
“Rats,” I said.
“Damn it,” said Tallulah.
Once we’d got all my make-up (except the nail varnish) off, much to my disappointment, Blousey and Tallulah led me to the door. I smiled as Blousey opened it.
“Thanks for having me,” I said politely.
“Anytime,” said Blousey. “Come over again, will ya? That was fun.”
“We’ll see ya, Liana,” said Tallulah.
“Bye.” I walked away from the door and closed it behind me. Now, what did Bugsy say?
It’s down the lane, left at the grocery store and you’ll recognise the street. And my house.
I could see a grocery store up ahead, so I started to walk towards it.
The street felt different now I was on my own. It was still very serene, but it didn’t seem so safe. I knew feeling that way was silly, it was only twilight and lights were on in houses, but the security I’d had with Bugsy was gone. I tried to shake off the sinister feeling. I thought about something else…maybe I could get Bugsy to make another cocoa when I got back. That comfort drove me on, and the security crept back into my body. I continued walking down the street, until a whisper startled me. A male voice.
“Hey, kid.”
I turned in surprise. A tall guy was standing on the corner of an alley, and I recognised his face slightly. My heart started pounding as I realised it was from my two dreams.
He started to come towards me. I wanted to run, to get away from him, but my legs seemed frozen to the spot. He spoke again. “Your name Perry?”
I gasped. He knew my name?! “Erm…yeah.” My voice was a frightened whisper.
“Liana Perry?” Uh-oh.
“Ye-es.”
“You a friend of Bugsy Malone’s?” Oh my god.
“Uh…huh.”
The guy turned his head and nodded with a smile on his face. “Got her!” Four other men emerged from the alley behind him. The same men from my dreams. They were all carrying guns…and they pointed them at me.
I wished I’d kept my make-up on at that point because I bet the colour drained from my face.
“What…what are you doing?!” I was hyperventilating. My heart pounded against my chest.
“Don’t ask questions, honey,” said a second member of the gang as two others grabbed hold of my arms and the last pointed his gun into my back. “Just come with us, all right?” Well, they weren’t leaving me much choice, were they?
“Man,” said the one pointing the gun in my back. “Dandy Dan’ll love this one.”
I think my heart stopped beating for a second.
They started to push and pull me through the alley (they had to because I’d started struggling in panic) which led through to another street. I recognised it as the high street Bugsy had shown me. A couple of cars were parked at the side of the road. I was shoved into the back seat of one and the two who’d been holding me got in the front. The rest got in the other and I felt the engine start. The two men started talking.
“You’re absolutely sure this kid’ll be useful?”
“No. But Yonkers seemed to be.”
“So did the boss.”
“What are you guys talking about?” My confidence had returned to me, so I said that quite angrily.
“Button your lip, sweetheart,” said the gang member who wasn’t driving, turning his head so he could see me. “You’ll have to wait to see what we’re talking about.”
“Why not just tell me now?”
“I said, button your lip!”
I buttoned my lip. The tone he used sounded threatening.
The car journey continued for about five more minutes in silence, eventually halting outside a large house. It looked pretty stately to me. The car door opened and I was dragged out, too frightened to try and escape. If I hadn’t been that might have been my chance.
They pulled me up to the gates and I began to notice in the fading sunlight that the house wasn’t just a large house, but a mansion. A beautiful one, brickwork painted white with what seemed like acres and acres of lawns and gardens. The kind of mansion that made me feel that if it had belonged to a friend, it wouldn’t have seemed so sinister. Because I knew it couldn’t be anything else other than the worst thing I feared.
The gang continued to drag me to the stone steps leading up to the humungous wooden door (about the height of a two-storey house). I missed my footing on the one third up from the bottom and stumbled, then tripped. “Oof!”
“Watch your step,” said the man who had startled me back on Blousey’s street. His tone gave me goose bumps.
Through the doors my eyesight was greeted by the kind of hall you only see on visits to National Trust stately homes (only not quite as boring, because I was in a situation that had no room for boredom). There were so many doors, all of them made of dark oak, and entrances to corridors that my vision went fuzzy trying to make sense