by Jean Ure
“Melia!” I yelled at her, but she took no notice.
“Nup… dow…”
“Like, she really does as she’s told,” marvelled Jem. “Without any argument!”
I said, “She does, normally. Melia!”
“She’ll get herself run over,” said Skye.
I yelled again. “MELIA!”
This time she heard me. She looked up, wobbled, and went crashing slap bang into a woman who was walking past. The woman glared and snapped, “Do you mind? Just watch where you’re going!”
“Oh, God, this is so embarrassing,” said Skye.
I went marching back and clamped my arm through Melia’s. “Don’t do that!” I said.
She immediately looked crestfallen. “Sorry sorry sorry s—”
“Sh!” I put a finger to my lips. “You could have got run over! Then what would Mum say? She’d be really mad!”
“She’d tell me off?” Melia’s lip quivered. I said, “No! I’d be the one she told off. And that wouldn’t be fair, would it?”
Slowly, Melia shook her head, waving it from side to side. Left… right. Left… right.
“It’s OK,” I said. “No one’s mad at you.” Still holding her by the arm, I hustled her back to join the others. “Let’s hurry or you’ll be late for school.” I nearly added, “You wouldn’t want that, would you?” but just in time I bit the words back. It might have started her on her head-waving again. I was already learning that once she got going on something she found it almost impossible to stop.
St Giles is a bit further on down the road from our school, but we all walked there together, even Skye, though I think secretly she would have preferred to let me and Jem go by ourselves. Melia had quickly recovered from being yelled at. As we left her at the entrance to the playground, she waved at us, windmilling with both arms, crying, “See you later, lallagator!”
“Yeah,” I see. “Three thirty.”
We turned, and headed back up the road.
Skye said, “Well.”
There was a silence.
“It’s only four weeks,” I said.
Lots of things happened at school that day. Sometimes you have days when you just drift about from class to class in a kind of dream, so that when you get home and your mum says “How was school?” you have to think really hard to remember that you’ve even been there. Other times, life is just crammed with incidents. This was one of those times, which was why, later on – well! It’s why the thing happened. My mind was full. I’m not trying to make excuses; just explain.
The first incident occurred in second period, which was maths with Mr Hargreaves. He had decided that we were all to mark our own homework, which I reckoned was a bit of a cheek considering he is the teacher and marking homework is part of what he is being paid for. If he’d taken it away like he usually did it would at least have postponed the moment of discovery. The fact that I’d only answered half a question…
I would have liked to have had a discussion about it. “Why should pupils be expected to mark their own work?” After all, these things are important, they are all part of politics, and we are supposed to take an interest in politics. I did put up my hand and suggest that marking our own work might not be such a good idea since it could encourage people to cheat, but Mr Hargreaves just gave a short sharp bark of rather threatening laughter and said he would like to see anyone try.
“You needn’t think you can just write down the correct answers and give yourself full marks… I shall need proof of how you got them.”
Glancing over Skye’s shoulder, I saw that she had not only written down her answers but had shown all the working out, a whole page and a half of neat figures with plus signs and minus signs, not to mention signs for a load of other stuff which I didn’t properly understand.
I sat dismally watching as she placed a small red tick by the side of every question. Jem had given up and was drawing faces on the cover of her maths book. They were always the same face: cheekbones you could slice bread with, enormous eyes, and long swishy hair. Jem has this dream that one day she will become a model. She is pretty enough, but what Mum calls ‘pint-sized’, meaning that if she went wandering into a field of long grass she would simply disappear from sight. Most models seem to be about 10 feet tall.
Skye is tall, and she is also skinny, but I am not quite sure she is pretty enough. In any case, she has far loftier ambitions such as, for instance, becoming prime minister. Well, that is what she once said, when a visitor at primary school asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up. She was only six at the time, so everyone thought it quite funny. But it wouldn’t surprise me. “The British Prime Minister, Skye Samuels.” She is bossy enough! And of course she is clever. When Mr Hargreaves asked if anyone had got full marks, hers was the only hand that went up.
Daisy Hooper groaned and rolled her eyes, but Daisy Hooper is our sworn enemy and suffers from torrents of raging jealousy. Most people just accept that Skye is some kind of boffin brain and automatically expect her to get full marks.
I must say I was a bit annoyed when Daisy claimed to have scored five. I looked at her through narrowed eyes, trying to assess whether she had found some foolproof method of cheating. I wouldn’t put it past her.
Me and Jem were the only two people, apart from Cara Thompson, who didn’t get any marks at all. Cara had been away at the start of term, so she had an excuse. Me and Jem didn’t, apparently. That was what Mr Hargreaves said.
“Simply no excuse! I’ve told you over and over, till I’m blue in the face… if you don’t understand something, let me know! Don’t just sit there like puddings, in some kind of mindless fog.”
Daisy slewed round in her desk and gazed at us with an air of satisfaction. She just loves to gloat.
Mr Hargreaves, meanwhile, went on at some length. I have noticed, with teachers, that once they get on one of their hobby horses they seem unable to get off. They lash themselves up into a state. They say things that are really, in my opinion, quite uncalled for, such as, “Do you actually take pleasure in upsetting me?”
Daisy smirked. Skye, sitting stiff and straight between me and Jem, was obviously trying to pretend she didn’t know us. Jem was putting the finishing touches to one of her faces, giving it big pouty lips and eyelashes like spiders’ legs.
“Well?” roared Mr Hargreaves.
I jumped. It is just as well I don’t have a weak heart.
“What do you have to say for yourselves?”
Jem muttered that she was sorry. I explained, very earnestly, that I hadn’t liked to interrupt.
“Whaddya mean,” bawled Mr Hargreaves, “you didn’t like to interrupt?”
“When you were talking,” I said. “You talked the whole lesson. It’s rude to interrupt when people are talking.”
Mr Hargreaves breathed, very deeply. I watched his face turn from red to purple. Daisy spun round again, to study me.
“Frankie Foster…” The words came out between clenched teeth. “If ever I have an apoplexy, you will be the cause of it!”
It wasn’t a good start to the day.
Later on, in English, Miss Rolfe said she wanted to test our use of language. We were all to write a short paragraph describing the person sitting next to us.
“I want more than just lists… brown hair, blue eyes, that sort of thing. Be imaginative!”
I snatched up my pen, quite eagerly. Unlike numbers, which swarm inside my head like hordes of angry wasps, words are more orderly. They line themselves up in ranks, waiting to be chosen. And I do think I have quite a good imagination.
“What are you saying about me?” Skye craned over to look. I shoved her away.
“Gerroff!”
“Are you being rude?”
“I’m being imaginative.”
“Well, then, so am I,” said Skye.
This is what I wrote about her: “Skye has long hair the colour of hay. It is wispy, like a shredded net curtain. She is tall as a tree, and thin as
a pin, with legs like stilts. Her eyes are grey like the sky when it is full of rain clouds, and her nose is a pointed pencil. Her mouth is a small 0 with two rows of perfect ivory stumps.”
This is what Skye wrote about me: “She has a round face, snubby-nosed and covered in blotches. Her mouth stretches wide like an elastic band with large strong teeth like a horse. Her eyes are round as marbles, to match her face. They are faintly blue in colour. Shapewise, she is rather like a box, with arms and legs sticking out at the corners. Her arms are covered in blotches like her face, and her legs are what some people call sturdy and some call tree trunks. She likes to play hockey, and they are very good legs for that.”
“Blotches?” I shrieked, as we stood in line with our trays at lunch time.
“Freckles,” said Skye.
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“I was being imaginative! And anyway, what about this?” She delved into her bag and pulled out her rough book. She’d actually made notes! “Wispy, like a shredded net curtain… thank you very much! And what are you sniggering about?” She turned accusingly on Jem.
“It’s funny,” said Jem. “Like you saying Frankie was shaped like a box.”
“Well, she is!”
“Yes, and you’re thin as a pin,” I said. “With legs like stilts.” Jem gave a happy cackle and left the lunch queue to do a stilt-like prance up and down. “And Frankie’s –” she began on a heavy clump, clomp – “are tree trunks!”
We both turned our backs on her.
“Is my nose really like a pointed pencil?” said Skye.
“I just meant it was noble,” I pleaded. “Not snubby, like mine.”
“That wasn’t meant as an insult.” Skye was quick to assure me. “You have a sweet little nose! Sort of… tilted.”
“Yes, and you have nice teeth.”
“You said they were stumps!”
“I couldn’t think what else to call them. I did say they were perfect!”
“And I said you had good legs for playing hockey.”
In the end, we forgave each other. It was Jem we couldn’t forgive, with her foolish giggling.
“So rude,” I grumbled. “Just because she’s the pretty one.”
Rhianna Shah had described Jem as looking like a “colourful wild flower”. As Skye said, totally naff. To be fair to Jem, she didn’t gloat over it, so that by the end of the afternoon, as we went down to the locker room to collect our coats, I was grudgingly prepared to accept her apology.
“It was just – you know! Kind of funny at the time,” said Jem.
I pointed out that I didn’t reckon she would find it very funny if someone said she had legs like tree trunks, at which she looked suitably ashamed and agreed that she probably wouldn’t.
“But you did say Skye had legs like stilts.”
“Stilts aren’t as bad as tree trunks.” Tree trunks are insulting.
“You said her nose was pointy!”
“She said mine was snubby. It isn’t snubby, is it?” I turned anxiously to look in the nearest mirror. My nose looked back at me… snubby. “It is!” I wailed. “It’s ridiculous!”
Some of the others crowded round, eager to offer their opinions.
“It’s not so much snubby, as…”
“What, what?”
“Sort of…”
“Blobby?” suggested someone.
“Yeah, blobby! Like a blob.”
“You could always try sleeping with a clothes peg on it. I read about someone doing that.”
“Did it work?”
“Dunno.”
“What about plastic surgery? You could get a whole new nose if you had plastic surgery. You could choose whatever shape you wanted!”
“Don’t think my mum’d let me.”
“Some mums do. What about that one that gave her daughter a boob job for her birthday?”
“Boob job?”
“It was on the news. Twelve-year-old girl gets boob job.”
The conversation surged on, taking me with it. I wasn’t ’specially interested in boob jobs, seeing I had none to speak of, but I always like to hear about these things. It adds to one’s store of knowledge.
It wasn’t until Skye suddenly came clattering down the steps that something clicked in my brain.
“I thought you had a piano lesson?” I said.
“It’s been cancelled. I thought you were going to pick up Melia?”
Melia. Omigod! What was the time?
“It’s nearly twenty to four!” yelped Jem.
Panic-stricken, we galloped up the steps and across the yard. Skye, on her stilt-like legs, galloped with us. Me and my tree trunks forged ahead, pounding down the road with my heart hammering. Please let her be there, please let her be there, please please please!
But she wasn’t. The school playground was empty. Not a sign of anyone.
“If you’re looking for that daffy girl you were with—”
I spun round. Daisy Hooper was coming out of the newsagent with her friend Talia.
“She went wandering off. That way.” Daisy flapped a hand. “Few minutes ago. Didn’t look like she knew where she was going.”
We all set off at a run. Melia was headed in totally the wrong direction. She was headed into town, towards the main road. Did she even know how to cope with main roads? Suppose she tried to cross over? How was I going to go back and admit to Mum that I’d completely forgotten about her?
“MELIA!” I shouted.
“There she is.” Skye pointed. I recognised the blue uniform of St Giles and the slightly splay-footed walk of Melia. Oh, God, she was about to step into the road!
“Melia,” I bellowed, “wait!”
We caught up with her just in time.
“Frankie!” she cried. She had tears rolling down her cheeks. “I got lost!”
“It’s all right,” I said, soothingly. “I’m here now. Let’s go home!”
We all made a huge great fuss of her, even Skye, and took her into the newsagent to buy her some sweets and cheer her up.
“Have whatever you want,” I said.
Melia beamed and shouted,
“Sticky Fingaz!” Sticky Fingaz are these really gross sucky things made to look like human hands, except they are bright red, and gooey, and ooze all over the place. I grew out of them when I was about nine years old. Watching Melia slurp and chomp as she attacked each finger I began to have a bit of sympathy with Mum, who always claimed she couldn’t bear to watch me eat them. It was a somewhat disgusting sight, but it made Melia happy.
Daisy was still lounging about outside. She made a loud splurging noise as we walked past. “I see you found her, then.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
Melia turned, and beamed a big squidgy beam in Daisy’s direction.
“I got Sticky Fingaz!”
“Yeah, great, go for it,” said Daisy.
“Snot face,” I said, as we walked away.
I think Skye was quite relieved when we reached Sunnybrook Gardens and parted company. She is a bit more sensitive than me and Jem; she gets embarrassed quite easily. But she was very loyal, she didn’t try to distance herself, like walking ahead or anything.
“See you tomorrow!” shouted Melia.
“Listen, it’s probably best not to tell Mum about getting lost,” I said as we made our way up the road. “It would only worry her. So we won’t say anything. OK?”
“OK.” Melia nodded. Up-down, up-down. She did everything so vigorously.
I was on tenterhooks as Mum demanded to know why we were so late.
“I was getting worried. You should have been here twenty minutes ago!”
Melia beamed. Her lips, and her tongue, and even her teeth were stained bright red. She’d consumed almost the entire hand; she just had one knuckle left.
“Frankie bought me Sticky Fingaz,” she said. “And we met this girl called Snot Face!”
Mum said, “Snot Face?”
“It�
�s not her real name,” I told Melia. “It’s just what I call her.”
“Snot Face!” Melia chuckled happily. She held out her last remaining knuckle. “Can I give to Rags?”
I was so grateful to her that I said yes. She had kept my secret so I reckoned she deserved to give Rags a treat. She was all right, was Melia!
Chapter Five
Sometimes on a Saturday morning, if nothing else is happening, we like to go into the shopping centre and mooch round the shops. We don’t usually buy anything as we don’t usually have any money, but it’s fun just to look. Dad finds it amusing. He says he imagines us pathetically standing there, with our noses pressed to the glass.
“Watching all the rich people inside!”
I have tried pointing out that if I got a bit more pocket money I wouldn’t have to stand with my nose pressed to any glass, but Dad says, “Go on! You enjoy it.”
It’s true, we do. We have these games that we play, like the Wedding Game, when we pick out our favourite wedding dresses; and the Ugliest Outfit on Earth game, when we giggle our way round the fashion department at Turton’s, pointing at stuff we think is hideous and going, “Yeeurgh! Imagine being seen in that!” You have to be careful as the ladies in the fashion department are rather snooty and posh, and they don’t always like you giggling and pointing. It’s probably just as well we have Skye to keep us in order. She says that left to ourselves me and Jem would go completely over the top. She could be right! We do tend to egg each other on.
We’d made arrangements that Saturday to meet up at 11 o’clock in our usual place. I’d thought it was just going to be the three of us, but Mum assumed automatically that we were taking Melia.
“To the shopping centre?” I said.
“Why not? She’d love it!”
I said, “Yes, but…”
“But what?” said Mum. “Don’t tell me you’re getting tired of her already!”
“It’s not that,” I said. It wasn’t that I was tired of her. I mean, she was really sweet and obliging, and after all she had kept quiet about me forgetting to pick her up. But she’d been with us for nearly a week now, and I’d learnt that you really did have to watch her the entire time for fear she’d go wandering off in the wrong direction, or strike up a conversation with total strangers. Even go with total strangers.