by Jean Ure
“It’s not going to be a complete head, and I know exactly how we’re going to do it, thank you very much. We just need you to play your part, same as everyone else.”
“It really doesn’t matter if you can’t act,” said Dodie, anxious as ever to reassure. “I can’t act, either! Fawn’s the only one that really can.”
I thought, Well, and me, maybe. After all, I had made them laugh.
“You just have to say the lines,” said Tabs. “That’s all.”
We might as well have saved our breath. The more we tried to reason with her, the more she refused to budge. She just stood, like a block of cement. In the end she became so sullen that we just gave up.
Everybody was so angry with her! I really couldn’t blame them.
“Honestly,” said Fawn, “she is such a pain! I’ve written her a really nice little part, a really nice little part. I don’t know why I bothered!”
Chantelle turned to me. “Can’t you say something?”
I said, “Like what?”
“I don’t know! Think of something!”
They were all doing that thing they did, that laser thing with their eyes. All boring into me. You’re her friend! You think of something!
Not for the first time, I found myself almost wishing that I hadn’t got tied up with Rachel in the first place. This was a thousand times worse than just being embarrassed by her! It was turning all the others against me.
Rather tearfully, I rang Mum and told her that I didn’t want to sleep over at Rachel’s that weekend after all. Mum naturally wanted to know why, so I told her, thinking she would take my side and agree that Rachel was behaving selfishly and being totally disloyal. Instead, she seemed to think that I was the one being disloyal.
“I thought Rachel was your friend?” she said. “Friends are meant to stand by each other.”
“But, Mum,” I cried, “she’s letting people down!” And not just the others. She was letting me down, as well. Friends weren’t supposed to do that.
“Well, I don’t think it would be very kind if you backed out at this stage,” said Mum. “Not when she’s so excited about it. That’s what you told me!”
It was true: Rachel was excited. And I had been quite looking forward to seeing where she lived and meeting her auntie and the gran she sometimes mentioned. But that was before she’d gone and upset everyone! And now they were all turning on me like it was my fault. Like I was responsible for her behaviour.
“It’s only the one night …” urged Mum. “I really think you should go. After all, you did promise.”
I pouted into the phone. “Oh, all right,” I said. “If I must.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Mum. “You were happy enough at the beginning to have Rachel as a friend.”
I thought again, rather vengefully, that none of this would ever have happened if Nat hadn’t gone and got the chicken pox and breathed it over me. I’d already have made friends with Fawn and the others before Rachel even arrived on the scene.
Rachel herself was obviously feeling anxious. She asked me, on Thursday evening, if we were still having our stay-over.
“Sleepover!” I snapped.
In almost frightened tones, like she’d committed some sort of crime, she said, “Sorry! Sleepover. You are still going to come?”
I was aware of the others standing nearby, their ears flapping. I muttered, “Yes, of course I am.”
Her face immediately lit up with one of her big goofy smiles. “Oh, goody!” she said. (I winced. Oh, goody?) “My auntie’s going to pick us up. She’s ever so looking forward to meeting you.”
“Me too,” I mumbled.
The others had their own plans for half term. Dodie was flying out to Hong Kong to be with her mum and dad; Tabs was going to stay with her sister, who lived on the Isle of Wight; Chantelle was spending the week with Fawn.
“Have fun,” said Fawn, as we all prepared to go our separate ways on Friday.
“Just see if you can do something,” hissed Chantelle.
She meant, do something to make Rachel change her mind. I promised that I would try, though to be honest I really didn’t want to. Rachel would only clam up again and I would get impatient and I just had this feeling that it wouldn’t do the slightest bit of good.
Still, I’d promised Chantelle that I would give it a go. Sitting on the train, with Rachel sitting opposite, I dutifully racked my brains trying to think of some way I could bring the subject up, but nothing came. We just sat there in silence, me staring out of the window and Rachel reading a magazine. It was most unlike Rachel not to be chattering practically nonstop and actually I think she was only pretending to read cos quite suddenly she leaned forward and said, “You know why Fawn’s so desperate to do this scene, don’t you?”
I said, “Yes, she wants to beat the Buttercups!” It wasn’t supposed to be a competition, but I’d discovered there was a strong rivalry between the two dorms. Not so much between the Days. “She wants ours to be the best!”
“It’s not just that,” Rachel said, scornfully. “It’s cos she wants to play Titania and get all dressed up and look pretty so everyone will go on about how wonderful she is.”
I was quite shocked when Rachel said that. I couldn’t think how to respond. I had never, ever known Rachel to be vindictive. It just wasn’t her.
“As for making you play that horrible ugly Bottom,” she said, “that’s really mean!”
“Bottom’s not horrible,” I protested. “He’s funny! It’s a good part.”
“It’ll make you look stupid,” said Rachel. “Why can’t she play it herself, if it’s so good?”
“Well, cos she’s more suited to Titania,” I said.
“Huh!” Rachel snorted.
“Anyway,” I added, “she’s not making me play Bottom. I can always say if I don’t want to.”
“Ho, yes!” Rachel made a scoffing sound. “You just try it!”
I frowned. I was starting to feel quite uncomfortable. Something was going on here. Something I didn’t understand. Rachel had been so thrilled about going to the theatre, almost like it was the first time she’d ever been. She’d talked about it for days before and for days afterwards, until, as usual, we’d all got sick of hearing about it. Now, just the idea of playing a tiny little part in a tiny little scene and she was acting like we wanted her to do something disgusting. It was Shakespeare! You couldn’t get much more proper than Shakespeare.
“Would you have liked to play Titania?” I said.
“I don’t want to play anything,” said Rachel.
“But why not?”
“Cos I don’t!”
Again, it was all she would say. As a rule, when she didn’t want to talk about things, she burst into peals of giggles. Not this time; it was like she was feeling threatened in some way. I decided that I would have to let the subject drop or the weekend would be unbearable. I’d done my best; I couldn’t do any more.
I went back to staring out of the window. Rachel went back to her magazine. I slid my eyes sideways. It was a fashion magazine. Rachel wasn’t into fashion! Unless, perhaps, she was trying to learn? I watched her for a while. She was just flicking through the pages. Right through to the end, then back again to the beginning. The silence began to feel uncomfortable.
“What sort of car does your auntie drive?” I said.
“A red one,” said Rachel.
She said it quite solemnly; she wasn’t being funny. A red one. I could have said, No, I meant what make?, but I wasn’t really interested in the make. I’d just been trying to get some kind of conversation going.
“My dad’s got a new car,” I said. “We never had one before. Just a van.”
“My auntie’s never had one before,” said Rachel. “She only passed her test a few months ago.”
Well, at least we were talking again. Not about anything very inspiring, but it was better than just sitting saying nothing.
By the time we pulled into Rachel’s station
, we were back to normal. I’d moved over to sit next to her and we were going through her magazine together, commenting on the models and what they were wearing.
“That’s pretty,” said Rachel, pointing to something utterly hideous. Skin-tight trousers, bright green with yellow stripes like a snake. Yuck!
“You’d have to have the figure for it,” I said.
“Like Fawn,” agreed Rachel. “She could wear just about anything.”
We both sighed.
“She is so lucky,” said Rachel.
She didn’t sound like she was jealous. Just a bit envious. But I was a bit envious too, so that was all right.
“Look, there’s my auntie,” said Rachel, as we left the train.
She pointed to someone waiting at the barrier. A big bony person, wearing thick tweedy sort of clothes and clumpy shoes. Definitely not a fashion icon! But she had a large friendly face, which broke into a beam just like Rachel’s, which made me feel immediately that I was going to like her.
She said, “Hello! Are you Zoe? I’m so glad you could come – we’re very excited about it. I’m Auntie Helen, by the way.”
She stuck out her hand, so I stuck mine out, and she laughed and pumped it up and down.
“Oh, you’re going to have fun,” she said. “Rachel’s arranged a real spread … all her favourite foods! Very naughty, but once in a while doesn’t hurt. Just don’t go telling your mum!”
She winked as she said it, and Rachel giggled, so I did too. It was all a bit odd, and not what I was expecting, but it’s nice when you go somewhere and you’re made to feel welcome. I’d once visited a friend from primary school and been totally miserable the whole time, cos her mum had made it plain as could be that she didn’t really want me there. Rachel’s auntie Helen made it seem like I was doing them some sort of favour, like I was royalty, or something.
I don’t quite know what sort of place I’d imagined Rachel living in. A gingerbread cottage, maybe. Certainly something different. I was quite surprised when the car pulled up outside a perfectly ordinary block of flats.
“I’ll just see you both inside,” said Auntie Helen.
I was puzzled. What did she mean? She wasn’t going to stay?
“Oh, I don’t live here,” she told me. “It’s just Rachel and her gran. I have a place of my own.”
It wasn’t terribly cheerful inside the flat. Dark, and poky, and a bit dingy. Rachel’s gran was sitting in an armchair with a rug over her legs. She looked quite stern and forbidding. Old too. Far older than either of my grans. She was dressed all in black, with her hair scraped back into some kind of bun. I couldn’t decide if it was white or just very blonde, like Rachel’s. White, I think.
Auntie Helen said, “Auntie, this is Zoe. Rachel’s friend. Zoe, this is Rachel’s gran.”
The old lady just nodded. She didn’t even say hallo. She didn’t even smile. She hardly even moved her head. I felt my heart sink. Rachel’s gran obviously didn’t want me here. I knew I shouldn’t have come!
“I’ll settle the girls,” said Auntie Helen, “and then I’ll be off.”
Still the old lady didn’t say anything. Just sat there, looking grim. Auntie Helen said, “Auntie? Is that all right?”
The old lady shrugged a shoulder.
“Come on, then, girls! Let’s go and sort out what you’re eating.”
We followed Auntie Helen down the hall to a poky little kitchen.
“Here we are,” said Auntie Helen, handing us a couple of Tupperware containers. “I got it all ready for you. Enjoy! What time do you think you’ll want to go home tomorrow, Zoe?”
I felt like saying, I’d like to go home right now! But of course I couldn’t. I mumbled, “After breakfast, maybe?”
“As early as that?” Auntie Helen seemed surprised.
Ever so quickly I said, “Mum wants me back. We’re going somewhere.”
“Oh! All right, no problem. I’ll be round about ten o’clock to pick you up. Is that OK?”
I nodded. There wasn’t much else I could do.
“See you both tomorrow, then. Have fun!”
I so didn’t want Auntie Helen to leave! I felt like I was being abandoned in some kind of witch’s den with a big black spider lurking in the corner, waiting to pounce. I am not the sort of person to be scared of things. Like, I have never been scared of the dark, for instance, or even of spiders if it comes to that, but the atmosphere in this place was definitely spooky. I’d noticed that since we’d arrived even Rachel had been strangely subdued. Not at all her normal bubbly self.
We stood in the doorway, clutching our Tupperware containers. Rachel said, “We’re going to go and eat our tea now, Gran.”
The old lady inclined her head and made a grunting sound. I was struck by a sudden guilty thought: maybe she’d had a stroke or something? Maybe that was why she just sat there looking disagreeable and not saying anything?
“We’ll probably stay in my room,” said Rachel.
The old lady waved a hand, like, Suit yourself.
Rachel led the way back down the narrow hall and threw open a door with a flourish.
“This is my room!” She sounded like she was really proud of it. It was how I’d felt when I’d finally got a room of my own in our new big house and didn’t have to share with Nat any more.
Rachel’s room was cramped, the same as the rest of the flat, but unlike the rest of the flat it wasn’t dingy and dark. There were bright yellow curtains and a bright yellow duvet cover with a pattern of red flowers. Rachel obviously had a thing about yellow. It is not a colour I really go for, but at least it cheered the place up. Like the pictures pinned to the walls and all the ornaments scattered about. The pictures looked like they had come from calendars. Flowers and birds and cherry trees. Not a pop star in sight! The ornaments seemed mostly to be animals – like, there was a donkey wearing a straw hat and a bear standing on its hind legs beating a drum – but there was also an old-fashioned lady wearing a crinoline and one that looked like a shepherdess. The sort of thing my gran has.
It was all a bit odd and not at all like my bedroom, but it was friendly and cosy, so I immediately began to feel a bit happier. Rachel did too; I could tell. She was suddenly back to the Rachel who sometimes drove me mad but who I realised, again, I was actually quite fond of. With all her giggles and her weird behaviour, she was too good-natured for anyone to stay cross with for long. (Though I still thought she was being selfish and unreasonable, refusing to take part in Fawn’s Shakespeare’s scene. It was hard to forgive her for that.)
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor with her Tupperware box.
“I thought you knew?” I said. I sank down beside her. Her room was so tiny there was only just space for the two of us. “I thought you were the one that chose it all?”
“I told Auntie Helen what to get, and – yes!” She’d peeled back the lid of her container. Triumphantly, she showed me the contents. “All my favourite goodies! What’s in yours? See if it’s the same!”
Obediently I peeled back my own lid. My eyes did this boggling thing, like staring so hard they nearly fell out of their sockets. I said, “Blimey!” Blimey is one of my dad’s favourite expressions. I don’t use it very often, but just sometimes it’s the only word I can think of.
“What, what?” said Rachel. “Let’s see!”
I held out the container. It was like a dozen Christmases all rolled into one. Crunchie bars and Mars bars, crisps and Pringles and sausage rolls, big puffy marshmallows, Chocolate Oranges, little cakes with bright pink icing.
“Is it all right?” said Rachel. “Is it the sort of thing you like?”
I said, “It’s the sort of thing my mum would go demented about.”
Rachel’s face fell. “Would she be angry?”
“She wouldn’t be angry. She’d be like, Omigod, Zoe, all that sugar! How about your gran? Doesn’t she mind?”
Rachel shook her head. “Gran doesn’t
know. Auntie Helen kept it a secret. Like when we went to the theatre? That was a secret as well.”
I was puzzled. “You mean your gran wouldn’t have wanted you to go?”
“She wouldn’t have let me. She’s very strict. So whatever you do,” said Rachel, earnestly, “you mustn’t mention it to her.”
I promised that I wouldn’t, though it didn’t really seem to me at all likely that I would ever be given the opportunity to do so. The horrid old woman obviously didn’t want to talk to me.
“She doesn’t say very much,” I said, “does she? Your gran.”
“Not since my granddad died,” said Rachel.
That immediately made me start feeling guilty again, like when I thought maybe she’d had a stroke.
“Did she love him a lot?” I said. I was thinking of one of my own grans, who had been what Mum called inconsolable when Granddad had died.
“Not really,” said Rachel. “I don’t think anybody did, really.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I reached out for a sausage roll.
“Auntie Helen says he wasn’t a very loveable sort of person,” said Rachel. “She says that Gran isn’t, either, but it’s not her fault. She’s been crushed.”
I frowned, and nibbled on my roll. This was turning into a very odd conversation.
“Why did Auntie Helen call your gran ‘auntie’?” I said. I wasn’t that interested. It was just something to break the silence.
“Cos that’s what she is,” said Rachel. “Auntie Helen’s dad was Granddad’s brother. Auntie Helen’s been crushed as well, but she’s getting over it. She doesn’t think that Gran ever will. Not now. She’s been crushed for too long, and anyway she’s too old. You won’t ever tell anyone, will you?”
“Um – n-no,” I said. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
“People wouldn’t understand,” said Rachel.
I wasn’t sure that I did. But in any case, who would I tell? Maybe Fawn and the others. They would be interested to know what it was like, having a sleepover with Rachel. But if she’d rather I didn’t, then I wouldn’t.