Chapter Twenty-Six – Valentine Boo Part III


Boo arrived at the school disco with Mommy and immediately headed for a small group of girls. Her friends were all together and it looked like they were all discussing the price of the sweets rather than who got cards from whom.

Boo was not at all surprised to see Emma with James, she smiled and waved. Emma stuck her nose in the air and headed for the drinks dragging poor James along with her.

Boo smiled to herself, then spotted Harry. He was with a group of boys, some of which she did not really like too much. Harry noticed that she was looking and walked over. Just at that moment, the DJ started playing, well, something. Boo recognised it as a song by Carly Rae Jepsen, “I Really Like You”. She rolled her eyes, it was obvious that the DJ was going to spend the next hour and a half playing love-songs for Valentines night to a bunch of 8,9 and ten year old children.  When she had finished rolling her eyes, she realised that Harry was still rolling his eyes.

‘Tragic huh’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure what is worse, this song or the way it is going to set up the rest of the disco’.

‘I’ll tell you what is worse, my mum loves this song, she keeps playing the video, I think she is in love with Tom Hanks’. They giggled together.

‘Oh thank you for the card’, Harry smiled at her. ‘But tell me, when did you deliver it ?’ it as hand delivered and I did not know that you know where I live’

‘Oh I had a friend deliver it, he knows everything’.

‘He knows ?’

Boo blushed, Harry was jealous.

Boo grabbed Harry’s hand, come on, lets get a soda.

As they waited in line for the drinks, Boo spotted Dragon, he was as usual attempting to hide behind the curtains and once more, as usual, his legs and feet were sticking out of the bottom. Every so often someone would trip over his feet and then look back and totally fail to see what they fell over, usually blaming their shoe-laces. It was quite a lot of fun to watch. But she needed to talk to him..

‘Harry,’she began, ‘can you get me a bubble-gum float please. I need to go to the reading room for a moment?’

Harry looked a little confused, then noticed the menu board, an bubble-gum float was apparently bubble-gum ice-cream floated in bubble-gum soda.

‘Sure, no problem’.

Boo skipped off and grabbed Dragon’s paw and manoeuvred him into the hallway, mostly by waving an open bag of cheese and onion crisps under his snout.

‘Dragon, I need you to fix the shed in Daddy’s garden, it is way too big, it covers the whole garden’.

‘And that is not good ?’. Dragon looks a little quizzical.

‘No Dragon, that is not really very good, it needs to be smaller, at most I’d say about three meters square. ‘

‘How long is a meter ? ‘

‘Boo held out her arms, about this big’.

‘Hmm, Ok, I’m on it.

With a swoosh he disappeared.

Boo went back into the hall, the DJ was now playing Kid Rock’s “First Kiss”. Yet another cringe worthy song that was totally out of place. Harry had two large bubble-gum floats and he offered her the larger one.

‘I got you a double-float’, I thought you might appreciate it.

Boo smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

Harry went bright red. Well not all of him, his tongue was still bright blue from the bubble-gum ice-cream.

For the next hour Boo and Harry ignored the terrible songs that the DJ played, they got steadily worse until the DJ announced ‘After this track, we will have a slow one, so all you little Romeo and Juliet’s can have a quick smooch before you go home.

Boo and Harry burst into simultaneous hysterics.

Partly because this penultimate track was Eden XO’s utterly dreadful ‘Weekend’ and partly because of the idea of smooching.

Boo, recovering a little noticed that Dragon was looking over the DJ’s shoulder, he must have returned from the shed fixing while she was drinking her bubble-gum Soda. She waved to him and mimed ‘Happy’ to him.

As the track finished, much to the relief of everyone in the school, the DJ seemed to fall over very rapidly. There was a short pause and then, to everyone’s great relief, Pharrell Williams “Happy” blasted out of the speakers.

Finally, something that everyone could dance to.

Suddenly the centre of the hall went from empty to crowded as everybody stared to dance, Boo waved a thanks to Dragon, who was pinning the DJ down. Everyone was happy, everyone clapped along, children, teachers and even the headmaster who had popped in to make sure everyone was happy danced.

Mysteriously the track was played three times in a row, by which time everyone was not only super happy, they were also super worn out.

Boo and Harry walked out hand-in-hand, to find that Boo’s mommy was chatting to Harry’s mommy, both of them smiled first at Boo and Harry, then at each other. Both grabbed wet wipes and attempted to clean up the worst of the blue-bubble-gum stains around their children’s mouths too.

‘See you on Monday’ Boo and Harry said to each other at the exact same time.

‘Ahh, how sweet’ said the mothers.

An hour later, they were home, Mommies boyfriend was teasing Boo about how many Boy’s she had ‘snogged’. He was also cooking stir-fry, which Boo thought smelled wonderful.

She went to her room, Dragon was sleeping on the floor as usual, she bent down and waved some Roast Chicken crisps in front of him face. His eyes sprang open and he inhaled the crisps. She rubbed his chin a little. ‘Thank you for fixing the music, it was dreadful’.

Dragon smiled, ‘I think that the only ones that were disappointed were Emma and James. They looked like they were ready to start smooching’.

Boo grinned, ‘well, thank you anyway.’

‘Oh and I fixed the shed, the new one is three by three, by three. I hope he likes it.’

Boo pondered for a moment. ‘No’, she thought, ‘not even Dragon would be able to find a shed three metres tall’.

A little while later Boo, Mommy and Mommies boyfriend were all playing dominoes, this had recently become a habit and they were all getting very good. So good that they now played with two sets just to make it even more difficult.

Boo’s phone bleeped ‘TaaaaaaaaDaaaaaaaaaaah’. It was a text message from Daddy, she read it, smiled, re-read it, grinned, then the photo came thorough, the shed was indeed three meters tall. Somehow Dragon had found a two story shed and had taken it upon himself to put the ride-on lawn-mower on the top floor….

Boo dissolved into tears of laughter, so much so that it put her off the game and she gave Mommies Boyfriend an opening to get his last domino out….