Noisy Neighbours (The Midnight Beast Fanfic)

Part 6: Ash - Cactus

“Can you two speak to each other? It’s painful to watch you two sit there silently,” Dru said, exasperated.

Stef then held his hand out to Maisie.

“Hello, Maisie,” he said nervously. “My name is Stefan James Donald John Abingdon. Do you have a boyfriend?"

WOAH. MAN. WHAT?

Talk about getting straight to the point!

I then wondered if I should do that too - y'know, just get to the point with Natalie.

Maisie looked stunned (well, she looked stunned anyway, but whatever) and blushed a light rosy pink colour. She shook her head, looking very innocent and shy.

Stef then just nodded. "Um... cool," he said, his voice rising weirdly and then said nothing.

What a total let-down! What the HELL was he doing? You couldn't just ask somebody whether they had a boyfriend or not and then not say ANYTHING AT ALL. Stef, man, I thought, You have so much to learn.

PLUS, it was so bloody obvious he wanted to ask her out.. He was being such a bloody chicken about it! He was the confident one who claimed to be able to get with any girl he wanted and here he was, being a total idiot, being so pathetic that he couldn't even talk to a girl he so obviously liked. He was becoming bloody obessed with her and all he could do was look at her, in a daze. Mind, she was doing the same, but whatever.

The point was, Stef Abingdon was being a total idiot.

But then again, was I being a pathetic idiot as well? I sort of liked Natalie, right? But not properly and plus, I wasn't completely obsessed with her *ahem Stef*. And I'd known her for A DAY. And the reason I'd got to know her was because she had come down to our flat to complain we were being to loud. She'd probably never imagined we'd be in her flat sharing pizzas. Likewise, I'd never thought we'd ever get neighbours like Natalie and Maisie and Jay.

Actually, especially Maisie - I mean, what was she DOING to Stef?

I swear, I'd NEVER seen him like this. EVER.

I then realised the countless glasses of fizzy juice had made me need the loo, and I asked where it was.

"Just back there," Jay said vaguely, waving her arm around.

"Thanks."

I trooped off round the corner and found several doors. Unsure of which one, I'd opened the first door, and I was presented with a small, modern and supremely organised bedroom. It looked like a showroom straight out of an interior design catalogue.

On the wall there was an entrance certificate from Imperial, with the name Natalie Bennett printed on it. I knew her name now! I flipped out my phone and typed her name into the Facebook search bar - bring it on!

Aha! I'd found her - Natalie Bennett. Her profile picture was group photo of her, Jay and Maisie. Studying at ICL, part-time job as a sales assistant at Zara, born April 1st - HAHAHAHA April Fool's day, what a JOKE - in London (with an accent like THAT?). Page bookmarked!

I decided I might as well have a little snoop around whilst I had the opportunity. Her room was immaculate - not a single thing out of place. Her  furniture was all polished dark wood, except for her desk which was dark black glass, with a wafer-thin laptop sitting on top of it and a skinny dark phone kept it company.

I had a closer look at her bookcase; there were a bunch of thick university books and papers neatly organised together. There were several Puffin classics organised alphabetically, DVDs and CDs - I had a little scan through them to see if she had ours. Nope.

She also had some pretty weird stuff; a pink and purple lava lamp, a TY Spongebob soft toy, a light-up globe of the earth, a Newton's cradle, a large plastic Pikachu model (I also managed to spot some Pikachu slippers on the floor) and a fat cactus plant. There were also a load of photos inside sleek picture frames - her family, friends, quite a few with Jay and Maisie and... damn it! There was one of her with another guy, wearing matching T-shirts and had their arms round each other and were making goofy peace signs.

Just when I'd thought Natalie was single (and had managed to rule Nathan out), I had to be deceived and be told that she had a boyfriend. Damn damn damn! Why hadn't Facebook told me her relationship status? WHY?!

Shuffling footsteps were coming nearer - shit! There was nowhere to hide within the room because it was so small. I pretended to be super interested in the fat cactus plant. With any luck, it might just be somebody else needing a pee.

It was really fat and round, sitting in a brown plant pot, with really pointy spines. I'd never really ever paid attention to cacti before and was intriguied at the spikes - they weren't as skinny as I'd always imagined and a lot more yellow in colour. There were dark verticle lines embedded into the main body of the plant, as if it were wearing a green pinstripe suit and -

"Oh, uh... what are you doing in here?" she asked, curious.

Oh, crap. "Um, I thought the loo might be here?" I said, unconvincingly. Not that that made sense - I genuinely didn't know where it was and thought it would be here.

She raised her eyebrows and smirked. "Well, clearly it's not. It's the room next to this."

She was about to leave - aargh, I had to know!

"Hey, Natalie?"

"Yes?"

"Uh... Is this your boyfriend?" I asked, pointing at the photo.

She glanced at the picture I was pointing at and then burst out laughing uncontrollably, clapping her hands together. Should I laugh too? But I didn't know why it was so funny, so obviously not. I just stood there, looking blank faced. Looking rather stupid, probably.

"That's... my brother!" Natalie gasped, between her laughs. Every time I thought she had just about managed to stop, she went into another fit.

Why was I such a bloody embarassment?!