Chapter Seven

“Maybe that would have been a good ride to go on last.” Mark considered, looking down at his water soaked jeans.

“You suggest it now…” Rose said.

“When my hair dries, it’s gonna look terrible.” Chloe moaned to anyone who wanted to listen. “It’ll be all frizzy and horrible.”

“Oh Ben, what about your hair?!” Rose joked.

“It’ll look just as bad Clo.” Ben sympathised.

Chloe looked at Ben crossly. “You have a cap on.”

“It might still have got wet…”

“Again, you have a cap on.”

“To hide my shame at being outshined by your beauty.” Ben said.

Mark made throwing up noises.

Chloe smiled and looked up at Ben. “I look awful with frizzy hair.” She warned him.

“I don’t care.” He said, putting his arm around her waist.

“Oh believe me, when you see what I look like you will.”

“It’s the face I like, not the hair.” Ben reassured her. “Not that I don’t like the hair, the hair’s great, I just meant that it’s not important.” He added quickly.

“I know what you meant.” Chloe said, smiling at him.

“You look really odd with un-straightened hair.” Rose told Ben.

“Rose!” Chloe reprimanded.

“How do you know what I look like?” Ben asked.

“There’s a photo on the internet.” Rose informed him.

“Oh god, is there really?”

“Yep. It’s very funny.”

“Thanks Rose, I really appreciate that.” Ben said.

“It’s not bad odd, you just look different.”

“What do you think about it Clo?” Ben asked, looking at his girlfriend.

Chloe tried not to smile. “I think it’s… actually quite funny.” She gave in.

“Oh that’s really nice, thanks very much.” Ben said, looking hurt.

“I’m sorry, Rose is right, it’s just coz you look so different and I’m not used to seeing you with hair like that. It doesn’t look horrible. But it is quite weird how you look like a completely different person.”

“Yeah, you do actually.” Mark chipped in.

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. Completely different.”

“Oh.”

“Personally I like the wet look.” Chloe said, smiling evocatively at Ben.

“Oh really?” Ben asked.

“Yep, very sexy.”

“Well in that case, I’ll have to try it more often.” He said, smiling back and leaning down to kiss Chloe.

“What do you think about having lunch next?” Mark asked.

“Good idea, I’m starving!” Rose said.

“Yeah.” Ben and Chloe agreed.

“Where do you want to eat?” Mark asked. “And also, what do you want to eat?”

“No idea. Anything.” Rose said helpfully.

“Okay, well I think there’s a few café type places dotted around this place. We could go to one of them, see what they do there.” Mark suggested.

Everyone agreed that was the best move and so they decided to carry on walking until they found somewhere that sold food. They didn’t have to walk very far as round the next corner, there was a café in the style of a wooden hut with seats inside and outside, opposite a large grassy picnic area with wooden benches, trees giving shade and a stream running through the middle with a small bridge over it, allowing access to the other side.

“Wow, this is lovely.” Chloe said with wide eyes.

“Shall we eat here then?” Mark asked.

That sounded like a good idea to everyone so they walked over to the menu board propped against the hut. They chose something they wanted to eat and went inside to order.

“I’m paying for this then am I?” Ben asked.

“You don’t have to pay for me and Rose if you don’t want to.” Chloe said.

“Don’t be stupid, I want to pay for you two. And Mark I suppose.” Ben said, glancing at Mark and grinning.

“Okay, but you don’t have to.” Chloe reminded him.

“I know.” Ben said simply.

They placed their orders and when they got their food, decided they’d sit on the grass on the other side of the stream, as it was quieter and a little bit more private.

“This is so nice.” Chloe said, when they’d sat down. “Being here with you three. It’s just like the most perfect day imaginable.”

“Yeah, thanks for bringing us here. It’s really great.” Rose said gratefully.

“Well you didn’t think we’d just kick you out of the hotel and expect you to get home on your own without spending any more time with us did you?” Ben asked.

Rose smiled. “No, but you didn’t have to do this. It’s lovely.”

She looked at Mark, noticing that he was looking at her. Their eyes connected but they didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to.

“So what time are we leaving here then?” Chloe asked. She always liked to know what was happening and when.

Ben looked at his watch. “Well me and Mark don’t need to be back in London for a specific time but we’ve got stuff to do tomorrow so we can’t get back too late. How long does it take to get to your house?” he asked Chloe.

“About two hours.”

“Okay, so it’s 1 o’ clock now and it’ll take us say 5 hours there and back. Um…I reckon we want to be leaving here at about 4. What do you think Mark? What time did you arrange the car to pick us up?” Ben asked.

“4.”

“Well why didn’t you say before I used up all my brain trying to work it out?” Ben asked.

“I wanted to see if you’d get it right.” Mark said, amused.

Ben shook his head. “Anyway, that means we can spend about an hour at your house before we have to go back.” Ben said to Chloe. “That is, if you want us to.” He added.

“Of course I do.” Chloe said smiling. “But I must warn you, you will be very scared of my room.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s covered in a1 stuff.” Chloe said.

“Nah, I think that’s really nice.” Mark said. “Not scary.”

“No but really, it is very a1. And you especially will be scared.” Chloe said, looking at Ben.

“Why?”

“Coz of a certain poster I have of you.”

Chloe looked at Rose and they burst out laughing.

“What’s it a poster of?” Ben asked.

“Well it’s of you…” Chloe said, between giggles.

“And…?” Ben prompted.

“No, I can’t say, it’s too sad.”

“Oh go on.”

“Okay, but it’s very very sad.” Chloe said.

“It really is.” Rose confirmed. “Even I’m not that sad.”

“Okay, I got this poster of you from a magazine and it’s meant to be life size, but I measured it and it’s about 5 inches too short…” Chloe started laughing again and so did Rose. “So I, I measured 5’10” on my wall and put it up at your proper height. So it’s like you’re in my room.”

Chloe hid her head in her hands in shame as Mark and Ben stared to laugh.

“She did warn you it was sad.” Rose said.

“Well I just thought it would be more realistic if I put it at your proper height.” Chloe giggled. “I’m very sorry for being so strange.”

“It’s okay, just maybe I won’t mention that when I tell people about you.” Ben said, grinning. He clearly thought it was very funny.

“Well I could actually take it down now, seeing as I have the real thing.”

“But that would mean I’d have to stand against your wall the whole time.” Ben said.

“I don’t see that that’s a bad thing.” Chloe said.

Ben slid his arms around Chloe’s waist, pulling her back against him. “I think that if I was in your room I’d want to do a lot more than stand against the wall.” He said with a mischievous grin, quietly enough so that Rose and Mark couldn’t hear but loud enough to make Chloe giggle.

“Well, you never know, I mean, you’re coming back to my house today…” she said.

“So I was thinking, maybe we could go back to Chloe’s house right now.” Ben said, starting to get up before grinning at Chloe and sitting back down next to her.

“What?” Rose asked, not getting it.

“Ben wants to stand against my wall.” Chloe explained.

“Right…” Rose still didn’t get it, but gave up trying to understand. It just wasn’t worth the trouble!

About an hour later, they’d finished eating and Ben was lying down on the grass with Chloe leaning against him. Rose and Mark were messing about by the edge of the stream, trying to push each other in although Mark did have a slight advantage!

“No, ahh! Let go! That’s not fair!” Rose shouted as Mark grabbed firm hold of her arms and forced her forward, closer to the edge of the water.

“Why isn’t it fair?” he asked innocently.

“Uh, hello? You’re like five million times stronger than me!” Rose protested.

“Never mind. You’re still going in!”

“Never mind? Mark, let go of me!!! If you get me wet, you’re dead!” she threatened.

Mark didn’t exactly seem very scared and pushed her still closer.

“I’ll take you with me.” Rose warned.

“No you won’t.” Mark said confidently.

“I so will!”

“And how are you going to do that if I throw you in?”

“Argh! You’re so mean!”

Mark stopped moving and turned Rose round to face him.

“I’m not mean, you made up the game.”

Rose grinned. “You are mean. Any nice person wouldn’t be trying to drown me!”

“Guess I’m mean then.” Mark said, smiling at Rose and loosening his grip on her a little.

Seeing her chance, Rose stepped backwards and catching him off guard, somehow managed to pull Mark round and push him so he fell backwards into the shallow water. However, her plan was foiled somewhat by the fact that as he was falling, Mark grabbed her hand and pulled her after him so they both ended up in the stream, very wet but in hysterical laughter.

Ben and Chloe looked round as they heard the splash and when they saw Rose and Mark in the stream, they got up and rushed to the edge.

“What happened?” Chloe asked.

“Rose tried to kill me.” Mark said, between laughs.

Rose gasped. “I did not.”

“Can you believe that she pushed me in?” Mark asked, playing for the sympathy vote.

“Really?” Chloe asked, slightly incredulously.

“No! He’s such a liar! He was trying to push me in but I’m obviously just so much stronger than him so I won.” Rose giggled.

“I think we’ll leave you to it.” Ben said, shaking his head and walking with Chloe back over to where they were before.

“So what do we do now?” Rose asked Mark. “We’re kinda wet.”

“Ah yes, there is that.” Mark said, standing up.

He offered his hand to Rose, and pulled her up. Not letting go of her hand, he pulled her closer to him and, seizing the moment, kissed her, wrapping his arms around her as he did so.

So there they were, standing in the middle of a stream, soaking wet, kissing, in full view of everyone. Obviously, neither of them cared, they didn’t even notice the crowd that had started to gather, mostly consisting of little kids laughing and pointing at them.

“Yes!” Chloe exclaimed from where her and Ben were watching Rose and Mark from under a tree.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Look!” Chloe pointed over to the stream.

“Oh finally!” Ben said, smiling. “They really took their time about that didn’t they?”

“They could have chosen a less public moment though.” Chloe considered. “Can’t take them anywhere can we?”

“I know, it’s dreadful. They should be making people pay to see that!” Ben joked.

“Well we’ll just pretend we’re not with them.”

“Good plan.” Ben agreed. “When they come over, if they ever finish, we’ll just run away.”

“Yeah, then everyone will just think they’re some crazy psychos.”

“Which they are anyway.”

“That’s true.”

Back in the stream, Mark and Rose were attempting to climb out of the stream. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a very easy task as there was hardly any bank, but they could hardly stand up they were laughing so much.

“Oh god, here they come.” Chloe told Ben.

“Okay, after three…” He said quietly as Rose and Mark finally managed to get out of the stream and started walking towards them.

“One… two… three! GO!” Ben shouted.

Chloe and Ben stood up and ran off in the opposite direction to Rose and Mark, leaving them standing there, very puzzled.

“What was that about?” Mark asked, looking over to where Chloe and Ben had disappeared round the corner.

“No idea.” Rose said. “They’ve obviously been taking drugs again.”

Mark shook his head. “I wish they’d stop doing that.” he said jokingly.

“Do you think we should go after them?” Rose asked.

“Nah, they’ll probably be back in a minute.”

“What are we gonna do about our clothes?”

“Take them all off!!” Mark laughed. “No, I dunno, I guess there’s not much we can do really is there? It’s a nice day so they should dry pretty quickly.” He looked down at his dripping wet clothes. “Or maybe not.”

“We probably look so stupid.” Rose observed.

“Do you care?” Mark asked.

Rose thought for a moment. “Actually, no. Do you?”

“Not really, I think it’s quite funny.”

Mark looked up to see Chloe and Ben walking back over towards them.

“Where did you two disappear off to?” he asked.

“We’re too embarrassed to be seen with you so we thought we’d run away instead and pretend we didn’t know you.” Ben said.

“Oh great, thanks.”

“Well you can hardly blame us, look at the state of you two!” Chloe said, grinning at Rose and giving her a thumbs up.

Rose just looked away embarrassedly, hoping Mark hadn’t seen Chloe’s gesture. “How long have we got left?” she asked.

Mark looked at his watch. “About 2 hours.”

“Ah, that’s not very long!” Chloe said sadly.

“Well we better make the most of it then.” Ben said. “Let’s go on some more rides!”

“Can we go in the mazes?” Chloe asked, spotting a sign saying ‘Amazing Mazes’ which pointed down a path they hadn’t yet been on.

“Oh yeah, these are great! We got totally lost last time.” Mark said.

“Yeah, we split into two teams didn’t we? Me and Lucy and you and Rupert. We were meant to be racing to see who could get to the middle first, but we ended up meeting up and being lost together! It took us about an hour to get out but it was so much fun!” Ben reminisced.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go in them then.” Rose said, not sure she wanted to be lost in a maze with Mark for an infinite amount of time… hang on a minute, was she crazy? Of course she wanted that! “I mean, shall we split into two teams then?”

“I’m with Chloe!” Ben said.

“Fine by me.” Rose said.

“Yep, cool.” Mark said, grinning at Rose.

“Do I get a choice?” Chloe asked. “Maybe I don’t wanna be with Ben.”

“Don’t you?” Ben asked, looking a bit disappointed.

“Shut up, of course I do! I was only joking! What are you like?!” Chloe said, taking Ben’s hand.

The group neared the entrance to the three interlocking mazes and split off into two pairs; Chloe and Ben, and Rose and Mark.

“So whoever gets to the middle first wins. Okay?” Mark said.

“Alright, let’s go then! Me and Chloe’ll go left and you two go right, okay?”

“Okay, see you in the middle!!” Rose said as the two pairs headed off in different directions into the big maze.

Chloe and Ben ran hand in hand down the first thin passageway. Ben stopped when they reached a clearing.

“Come on! They’re gonna beat us!” Chloe shouted, already deciding which path to take next. She looked round at Ben who was standing by one of the hedge walls. “Come on!!!!”

“You come here.” Ben said.

“Ben, they’re gonna beat us, we haven’t got time!”

Ben laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll get there before them, just come here first. I haven’t had any time alone with you since last night.”

Chloe looked torn between beating Rose and Mark to the middle of the maze and making the most of being alone with Ben. Despite her competitive nature, she gave in to Ben and went over to him.

“That’s better.” He said, slipping his arms around her waist.

Chloe smiled and put her arms around his neck. They stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, not saying anything. The moment lasted for ages, until Chloe suddenly got incredibly self-conscious and looked away. When she looked back, Ben was still looking at her. His hands moved from her waist to her hair and he started stoking it gently, hardly even noticing he was doing it.

“You’re so beautiful.” He said finally.

Chloe didn’t know what to say. She smiled uneasily.

“Um, thanks…”

“Why do you do that?” Ben asked.

“What?”

“Every time I compliment you, you go all funny. You never accept what I say.”

Again, Chloe was lost for a reply. “Don’t I?”

“No! Don’t you believe me when I say things to you?”

Chloe looked at him. “I do, but…” she smiled. “Oh I dunno, all this is just a bit hard to believe that’s all, I’m a little bit all over the place at the moment!”

“Well I order you to accept my compliments from now on.” Ben said, smiling back.

“Oh well there you go, consider me told!”

“I should think so. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Don’t you?”

“No!”

“Oh.”

“Are you surprised?”

Chloe shrugged. “People lie.”

Ben frowned. “I don’t.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“I won’t! Not ever.” Ben added.

Chloe gave him that same uneasy smile that he didn’t understand again before saying,

“We better go find the middle. Rose and Mark are probably way ahead already.”

Rose and Mark were not “way ahead already”. They were in fact, currently having great fun running in and out of an archway from which a curtain of water fell, randomly stopping and starting. The game was that they stood on either side and took it in turns to run through, hoping not to get wet. Seeing as they were both already soaked through, it didn’t really matter, but that wasn’t the point. A game was a game, pointless or not. So far, Rose had been caught twice and Mark once.

“Go! Go!” Rose shouted as she crossed over to Mark’s side, giggling.

Mark ran to the other side just as the water started again.

“Haha! You have to run through that!” he laughed.

“Do I have to?” Rose asked reluctantly.

“Yes, it’s the rules, GO!!”

Rose screamed as she ran straight through the curtain of water into Mark’s arms. He kissed her but Rose broke away.

“That’s just an excuse so you don’t have to run through it as well.” Rose accused him.

“Damn, you’ve foiled my amazing plan.” Mark smiled.

“I should make you stand underneath the water for that.” Rose said.

“Terribly sorry.” Mark said. “How can I ever make it up to you? Oh I know, like this.” Mark said, pulling her closer and kissing her again. This time Rose didn’t object and by the time they stopped, the water had done the same.

“I can’t believe this, it’s another dead end!” Chloe shouted in exasperation as she came face to face with yet another green wall.

“But haven’t we just run into one of those?” Ben asked puzzled.

“Yeah, surely they’re not all closed off. This is way harder than I thought.” Chloe admitted.

“Okay, right, lets think about this logically.” Ben said, taking Chloe’s hand. “Where have we just come from?” he asked her.

Chloe pointed behind her. “Over there.”

“And where did we come from before that?” Ben asked.

“Um… oh I know! Down that curvy path. So… left.” Chloe answered.

“Okay, so that means…” Ben trailed off.

“You have no idea do you?”

“No.”

Chloe and Ben both laughed. At this rate they were never going to see Mark and Rose again, let alone beat them to the middle!

“So what do we do now?” Chloe asked Ben.

“Um, cry? Try and climb over the walls? Shout very loudly until someone comes to rescue us? Or, we could do this…” Ben suggested, kissing her briefly.

“Nah, don’t like the sound of any of them, they’re all rubbish!” Chloe announced.

“Well fine, I didn’t really want to kiss you anyway.” Ben told her.

Chloe smiled at him. “Really?” she asked.

“Um, let me think about this for a second, no not really.” Ben laughed. “Come on, let’s see if there’s a path we haven’t tried yet.” He sighed.

“What’s the time?” Chloe asked, following him down an identical path to the one they’d just come from.

“It’s half 2.”

“I swear we’re just walking down a path and then being transported back to the start without noticing so we keep doing it and actually, we’ve been walking down the exact same path for the last half an hour.” Chloe theorised.

Ben looked at her and smiled. “You are insane.” he said fondly.

“I know. Insane and proud. Ooooh, I could have a t-shirt saying that, then people would just stay away from me, that’d be great!” Chloe said, continuing to walk. “So do we have a plan then?” she asked Ben, totally missing his bemused expression.

“Nope, I propose we just keep walking coz you’d think eventually we’ll go the right way.”

“You’d think.” Chloe highlighted the key words from his sentence.

After another 10 minutes of still not getting anywhere, Chloe started to look fed up.

Ben looked around to see if anyone was near them. “No, coz we’re in an alternate universe where there is no middle.” He muttered to himself.

“What?” Chloe looked up from where she’d been deep in thought.

“Oh nothing. Shall we cheat?” Ben asked.

“Cheat? How?” Chloe asked.

“Okay, come here.” Ben instructed.

Chloe did as she was told.

“Now step onto my hands.” Ben said, crouching down and cupping his hands together.

Chloe put one hand on his shoulder and one against the hedge in front of her and stepped onto his hands. Slowly, Ben lifted her up so she could see over the hedge.

“Oh my god, we’re miles away.” Chloe looked behind her. “Ben, we’re still in the second row!” She said with disbelief.

“What?”

“We’re nearer to the entrance than the middle.”

“Can you see Rose and Mark?” Ben asked.

“Um… oh yeah, uh!” Chloe gasped. “They’re like, one row away from winning.” She said.

“Okay well can you see how to get to the middle?”

“Errr, hang on. You okay to hold me here for a bit?” Chloe asked considerately.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You hardly weigh anything.”

Chloe tried not to beam at the compliment. Quickly she composed herself and started looking for a quick way to the middle, preferably before Mark and Rose got there. “Right… we need to go… up that path past two turn-offs.” She said, pointing down a path to the right of where they were standing. “And then forward for two turn-offs, left for one and then we have to go diagonal into the different coloured hedge bit. I can’t see anything else, but it should get us pretty close. Closer than we are now anyway.” She added as Ben lowered her towards to ground. “Thank you.” She said, smiling at him.

He smiled back. “That’s okay.”

“Shall we go then?” Chloe asked, aware that Ben was still looking at her even after she’d turned round. She looked behind her to see if he was following her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve done that twice now.” She accused him.

“What?”

“Looked at me in that really strange way. It’s very unnerving, I can’t tell what you’re thinking.” Chloe said.

“Sorry, I didn’t know I was doing it. It wasn’t on purpose.” Ben lied, knowing full well that his expression was different coz of a change of thought. Something that he’d been trying not to think about, coz it sounded so silly, but the more time he spent with Chloe, the harder he found it not to think that way…

“We must be really close now, we’ve been going in this direction for ages!” Rose reasoned as she and Mark walked in a straight line down their chosen path.

They were looking a lot more positive than Chloe and Ben, but they had good reason to be as, although they didn’t know it, they were very very close to the middle. One wall away in fact.

“Yeah, I reckon we’ve only got another couple of layers to get through. We’ve been through all the three mazes now and that’s the secret. A secret that actually Ben doesn’t know.” Mark considered.

Rose let out a laugh. “What? He doesn’t know how to get to the middle?”

Mark smiled. “No. I must have accidentally forgotten to tell him that.”

“You’re such a cheat! I really didn’t think you were like that.” Rose confessed.

“It’s not cheating, just concealing perhaps what some people would call vital information. And plus, I bet you five hundred pounds that Ben’s cheated at least once already.”

“Oh what a trusting friend you are.” Rose laughed again.

“He’s always cheating! He’s a very bad loser, he’ll probably go off into a little sulk when we win.” Mark told Rose.

“When we win, I like that.”

“We were always going to win Rose. Ben’s hopeless at everything! That’s why he’s such a bad loser. He probably wouldn’t be so bad if he actually won something occasionally.”

“You’re so mean to him!”

“Oh come on, you don’t even like him.” Mark said casually.

“What?!” Rose was so stunned at this little revelation that she stopped walking.

“It’s not a big deal, you don’t have to like him.”

“No, but I do.” Rose insisted.

“It’s obvious you don’t. Rose, I don’t mind, really, it’s not that important.”

“Why do you think I don’t like him?”

“Because of the way you look at him sometimes. Plus, what you said about him and Chloe earlier. It’s just little things. I doubt he’ll have noticed though, don’t worry.”

“Mark, no seriously, I do like Ben.”

“Okay, so you don’t hate him but you think he’s annoying don’t you?” Mark asked.

“No!” Rose protested.

“Rose, be honest. Seriously, I don’t mind if you don’t like him. I’m not asking you to be best friends with him, just put up with him, for Chloe’s sake more than mine.”

I don’t dislike Ben.” Rose said again, this time quieter, but more forcefully.

“Okay.”

“No Mark, it’s not okay! Coz you think I hate him; I can tell you don’t believe me. But it’s not true, I do like Ben. I don’t even really know him very well yet anyway. God, what do you want me to do? Go and sleep with him?!” Rose joked, even though she was somewhat annoyed.

Obviously, this joke didn’t go down quite so well with Mark as he span round and shot her a look that clearly said, ‘that wasn’t even remotely funny.’

“I didn’t say I wanted you to do that. And I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. All I said was that if you didn’t like him, you could say. I’m not gonna take offence.” Mark explained, a little harshly.

Rose was confused at this outburst. Obviously there was a lot she didn’t know about Mark.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” She said.

Mark looked at her for a minute and then he put his arm around her.

“Come on, let’s go and find that middle.”