by Jean Ure
“We are still friends,” said Jem, “aren’t we?”
“I s’ppose so,” I said.
We’d patched things up, but it wasn’t the same. For the rest of the day they went out of their way to be extra ’specially nice to me. It felt very odd. Skye asked if I needed any help with my maths homework. Jem insisted on giving me half a KitKat. In English, which was the last period of the day, Skye even passed me a note saying I really DO have a music lesson at 3.30. Skye never passes notes! It just wasn’t normal.
When school let out I went off by myself to collect Melia. Skye had her music lesson – “Frankie, I’m going to my music lesson now!” Jem didn’t have anything. She walked with me as far as the gate, then stopped.
“Oh, look,” she said, “I don’t mind coming with you, if you like.”
“Please don’t bother,” I said.
I was feeling a bit hurt, to tell the truth. You expect your friends to be there for you no matter what. Jem started to bleat a protest, but I cut her short.
“’s all right,” I said. “Me and Melia can manage by ourselves.”
The minute I’d said it, I wished I hadn’t. If I’d accepted her offer we could have made up properly and then it would have been me and Jem together and Skye the odd one out. Now it was me.
Melia wanted to know why I hadn’t brought the others with me.
“Where are they?”
I said, “Skye’s got a music lesson.”
“Where’s Jem?”
“Jem’s… in detention,” I said. And serve her right! It was where she ought to be.
We arrived home to find Mum in something of a froth over the state of our bedroom. Angel’s bedroom, as Mum reminded us.
“Poor Angel keeps her things so neat and tidy! She’d have a fit if she saw what you two had done to it. Are you aware of the dreadful mess you’ve made?”
I had to admit that I wasn’t. I find that when you are living in it, mess doesn’t seem like mess, it just seems like the natural state of things. Quite cosy and comfortable.
“Well, I advise you,” said Mum, “to go and have a look… pretend you’re someone going in there for the first time.”
“I’ll pretend I’m you,” I said. “You do that,” said Mum.
So I did, and I saw what she meant.
“Look at this!” I said to Melia. “Could it be more disgusting? Clothes all over the place!” I kicked a pair of jeans out of the way. They flew up and draped themselves over the dressing table. Angel’s frilly pink dressing table with the triple mirrors that she could admire herself in. Melia giggled.
“It’s not funny,” I said, still being Mum. “It’s very squalid and repulsive and you and me are going to clear it up. Just don’t touch any of Angel’s things. OK?”
“OK!” Melia nodded.
“First we’ll pick up the clothes,” I said, “then we’ll get rid of all the plates and cups and stuff, and all the books and shoes and – everything!”
Once I get going on a job, I like to do it thoroughly. It’s the getting going that’s difficult; I quite enjoy it once I’ve started. As soon as we’d cleared some floor space, and put the clothes away, and taken all the dirty dishes down to the kitchen, I said that we would dust and vacuum.
“Make it, like, really spotless! I’ll vacuum, and you can dust.”
I like using the vacuum; I like the way it goes splurging round, sucking things up. It is very satisfying. I am not so keen on dusting as I find it is a rather fiddly sort of job, especially when there’s loads of stuff that needs picking up and putting back. I told Melia not to bother.
“When there’s stuff that needs moving, just blow. And don’t touch anything on the shelves.”
Angel’s shelves are crammed full of little itty bitty things that she likes to collect. Breakable things, mostly. I might have known that Melia couldn’t resist.
“What’s happening?” I shrieked, as something whizzed past my ear and landed in front of the vacuum cleaner. “What are you doing?”
She’d gone and knocked a glass animal to the floor. I only just managed to avoid sucking it up with the vacuum cleaner. Fortunately it wasn’t broken, but something inside me just suddenly snapped.
I said, “Listen, doofus.” Melia stood there, blinking. I jabbed at her. “I thought I told you not to touch?”
It was like the top of my head was about to explode. I felt like smashing things and shrieking. Instead, I jabbed at Melia again; quite hard.
“Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say…” I jabbed again, and she stumbled and fell backwards against one of the beds. “Don’t touch any of Angel’s stuff ?”
Melia cringed away from me. “Frankie, I didn’t,” she whimpered. “I didn’t!”
“So how did it get on the floor? If you didn’t knock it there?”
“I just blew on it, like you said.”
“I didn’t say blow a gale!”
It was like Turton’s, all over again. Breathing on the glasses. Getting us into trouble. I wasn’t surprised Skye and Jem didn’t want to be seen with us any more.
I stuck the glass animal back on the shelf. “You’re lucky it’s not broken,” I said, “cos this time I’d have told on you. I don’t see why I should always get the blame for everything. Like when you messed up Tom’s science project. Oh, it’s Frankie! It’s always Frankie. You never owned up! And you broke Mum’s mug!”
Melia stuffed her fist into her mouth and chewed agitatedly at her knuckles, staring up at me as she did so. Her eyes were big and frightened. I began to feel a bit ashamed.
“It was just that it was Mum’s favourite,” I said. “I got it for her birthday. It took me ages to save up for it. Oh, look, stop eating yourself!” I had these visions of her gnawing her knuckles down to the bone and it would all be my fault for yelling at her. “Let’s just get on and finish the room. You can vacuum, if you like.”
She brightened up at that; it’s what she’d wanted all along. While I went round blowing – gently – Melia went round, bashing and battering, with the vacuum cleaner, cheerfully sucking up everything in her path, including a stray sock that had got overlooked. After which, the vacuum cleaner didn’t work any more.
Determinedly, I didn’t say a word. I simply unplugged the thing and took it downstairs to the kitchen, with Melia trailing apprehensively behind me. I had this idea I might be able to do something with a screwdriver, like Dad had once done when I’d accidentally vacuumed up one of Rags’ squeaky toys. It was just bad luck that Mum and Angel came in while I was still working on it. I’d have got it going again, I know I would!
“Oh, God,” cried Angel, “now she’s gone and broken the vacuum cleaner!”
“Frankie, what have you done?” said Mum.
“It’s all right,” I panted, wrestling with the screwdriver, “it’s just a sock.”
“Well, don’t yank at it like that!”
“She’s broken it,” said Angel. “She breaks everything!”
Mum sighed, and shook her head.
“We were cleaning the room,” I said, “like you wanted.”
Angel narrowed her eyes. “I hope you haven’t been touching any of my stuff?”
I said, “I haven’t been anywhere near your rotten stuff.”
“You better not have!”
I became aware of Melia’s hand creeping into mine. I squeezed it, reassuringly.
“I’m going up to have a look,” said Angel. “If I find you’ve touched anything—”
“Well, you won’t,” I said, “cos we haven’t. Wouldn’t want to! It’s all rubbish.”
That night, as we lay in bed, I whispered to Melia that I was sorry I’d poked her and called her doofus.
“I know you were only trying to help.”
It is what I do myself. All the time! I just try to help. Things simply have this annoying habit of going wrong.
A sudden gurgle came from Melia’s bed.
“What?” I said.
“Doofus!”
I heard the mattress creak as she threw herself about, giggling. A few little prickles of anxiety ran down my spine. Doofus was a word I’d picked up from Dad. I’d heard him use it on the telephone one day, when he was ringing the Council to complain about something. He’d said, “Listen, doofus!” I’d remembered it, cos it was funny. But I didn’t think, probably, that it was very complimentary.
“Hey, Melia,” I said.
She was still giggling.
“Oi!” I leant across and prodded her. “You’d better not tell Mum I called you that,” I said. “I don’t think she’d like it.”
Chapter Nine
Next morning, at breakfast, Mum was going on about the vacuum cleaner.
“Your dad got it working again, but it still beats me how you managed to get a sock stuck in there.”
“Guess I just didn’t notice it,” I said.
“Who could miss something the size of a sock?”
“She could,” said Angel; while at exactly the same moment Melia spluttered, “Doofus!” and spat a mouthful of cereal across the table. Tom went, “Bloody hell!” I found one of Melia’s feet and trod on it.
“What did she say?” said Angel.
“Didn’t say anything,” I said.
“She did! She distinctly said something.”
“Well, whatever it was, she wasn’t saying it to you.”
“Excuse me,” said Angel, “I wasn’t aware people were conducting private conversations. How rude is that? In front of everybody.”
“She was saying it,” I said, “to herself.”
Melia put a finger to her lips. “Not supposed to mention.”
“Mention what?”
“Doo-fus.” She mouthed the word, silently, then giggled and shot me this sly glance, like we were in some kind of conspiracy together.
“Say again?” said Angel.
There are times when you have to move fast. I did so.
“OK!” I shoved back my chair and grabbed Rags’ lead from its hook on the door. “Let’s go!”
Melia giggled all the way up the road. She also hopped on and off the kerb. “Doofus!” she chanted. “Doooo-fus! Doooo—”
“Stop it,” I said. “If you don’t stop it, I’ll tell Mum it was you that vacuumed the sock!”
Later that day I got Dad by himself for a few minutes.
“Dad, what’s a doofus?” I said.
“A dimwit,” said Dad.
“You mean, like, someone stupid?” I thought about it for a second. “Was that person at the Council stupid?”
“Which person at the Council?”
“The one you shouted at! You called them doofus.”
Dad looked a bit ashamed. “I was under extreme provocation.”
I reckoned I was under extreme provocation too, what with my supposedly best friends deserting me, and Melia nearly breaking one of Angel’s glass animals, not to mention sucking socks into the vacuum cleaner. Plus she’d broken Mum’s mug. And messed with Tom’s science project. And I always seemed to have to take the blame. But I knew Mum would say that was no excuse for calling her doofus. Not if it meant stupid.
“It’s not really something you should call people,” said Dad.
I said, “Not even in fun?”
“Well… yes, that would probably be OK. So long as you were just joking.”
But I hadn’t been joking, I’d been furiously angry. I made a solemn vow, right there and then, that for the rest of Melia’s time with us I would be kind and patient and understanding. No matter what she did, I would not let myself be provoked.
There was no sign of Skye or Jem at our usual place on Monday morning, but that was all right; I wasn’t expecting them to be there. Melia was doing her hopping thing again, bashing into people and not looking where she was going; but that was all right too. That was just Melia. You only had to think of people being blown up, or people dying of starvation, to realise that Melia hopping wasn’t really all that important. So I didn’t yell at her, I just very firmly took her by the hand and clamped her to my side. So what if Daisy Hooper came along and jeered? As it happened, she didn’t; but even if she had I wouldn’t have let it bother me. In the general scheme of things, what was Daisy Hooper? Lower than an earth worm, cos earth worms are useful.
I think what I was being was philosophical. I think that’s the word. It’s what Dad says when things don’t go according to plan: you have to be philosophical. Meaning, I guess, make the best of things.
I was trying very hard to make the best of things. I did find it difficult, though, at school.
Skye and Jem were going out of their way to pretend that nothing was wrong. They were being just sooo polite and sooo considerate. I knew it was because they were feeling guilty. They were trying to make up to me for the way they had behaved, but I had this little knot inside me which just kept getting tighter and tighter.
By the end of the week I was feeling really miserable. I didn’t have much patience when Melia started nagging me, Saturday morning, to take her to the shopping centre.
“Pleeeze, Frankie! Pleeeze! Let’s go shopping, Frankie!”
I wasn’t in the mood for shopping. I pointed out that we had gone to the shopping centre last Saturday and the Saturday before.
“I don’t spend my entire life going shopping. There are other things to do.”
Even if I wasn’t quite sure what. We’d already taken Rags for his walk. Angel was off with her latest boyfriend, Tom was in his room, Mum was with one of her ladies, Dad was out working. It was just me and Melia. I hadn’t made any plans with Skye or Jem, and while we don’t always do things together at weekends it was hard to escape the horrid nagging suspicion that they might have made plans without me. I didn’t think that they would; but they just might have.
“Frankie, Frankie, please!” Melia was dabbing at me, patting me with her hands. “Please, Frankie!”
“There wouldn’t be any point,” I said. “I haven’t got any money.”
“Got your pocket money,” said Melia.
I said, “I’m saving that.”
“Got the money your dad gave you.” She shot me this sly glance. She could be quite cunning, at times; I thought she’d have forgotten about Dad’s money. “We could go to the Pick ’n’ Mix, Frankie! Cos we didn’t go there last week, did we?”
“No, we didn’t,” I said. We’d been too busy hustling Melia back home before her trousers fell down.
“So we could go there today?”
“I’m not spending Dad’s money on sweets,” I said. “That’s going towards a new mug for Mum. To replace the one you broke.”
For a moment she looked uncertain, but then she brightened. “I’ve got pocket money! I could buy sweets.”
In the end, I gave in. I knew she wouldn’t let up cos once she got going on something she never stopped. Besides, what else did I have to do? Nothing. Just sit around the house and brood as I pictured Skye and Jem giggling together without me. My two best friends, planning things behind my back! If they could still be called best friends. Best friends don’t desert you when you need them most. Cos honestly, it wasn’t much fun on my own with Melia.
We went to the Pick ’n’ Mix and she bought some Sticky Fingaz for herself and a big Munchy bar for me. I didn’t really want a Munchy bar but Melia seemed anxious for me to have one and I thought it would be ungracious to refuse. While we were perched on the edge of the Wishing Pool, with me half-heartedly nibbling and Melia sucking on her Sticky Fingaz, I saw this girl from our class coming towards us. Melissa Diaz. I didn’t honestly expect her to do more than just say hello, cos she’s one of Daisy Hooper’s gang, at least I always thought she was. I was quite surprised when she stopped and settled down to chat.
“Where are the others?” she said.
She meant Skye and Jem. People were used to seeing us together.
“We’re not stuck with super glue,” I said. “We do go places on our own occasionally.”
�
��Someone told me you’d quarrelled.”
Scornfully, I said, “We don’t do quarrels.”
“Oh. OK!” Mel shrugged. “Must have got it wrong.”
“Who was it, anyway?” I said. “I s’ppose it was Daisy.”
“She makes things up,” said Mel. “I don’t hang out with her any more.”
“Really?” I said. “Since when?”
“Since for practically ever… not since the beginning of term, if you want to know.”
I said, “Why? What did she do?”
“Didn’t do anything, particularly. I just went off her.”
“Well, she’s not a very nice person,” I said.
Mel rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it! D’you remember, at juniors, that mousy girl? Elsa?”
“She ran away.”
“Yes, and that was cos of Daisy. Bullying her.”
I said, “I never knew that.”
Mel said darkly there were lots of things about Daisy that I didn’t know.
“She can be so mean you wouldn’t believe! I thought that was really nasty the other day, when she was making fun of that girl.”
“Which girl?”
“That one she’d seen you with? The one you said had learning difficulties?”
“Oh, you mean M—” I stopped. Omigod! Where was Melia? She’d gone! One minute she’d been perched on the edge of the Wishing Pool, happily slurping her Sticky Fingaz; the next minute, not a trace.
“What’s the matter?” said Mel.
I said, “Melia! She was here, just a second ago. Right here, next to me! Didn’t you see her? You must have seen her!”
Mel shook her head, doubtfully. “I don’t think so.”
“But she was right here!”
“I didn’t really notice. Maybe she’s just…”
“What?”
“Gone to buy something?”
I was about to say she didn’t have any money, but that wasn’t quite true, she did still have some of her pocket money.