‘Yes he is,’ said Jodie.
‘I thought they’d all be . . .’ Mum waved her hand in the air, trying to find words to describe angelic well-mannered children with neat uniforms and posh voices. ‘The little ones look pathetic and that Harley’s a ragbag. His sleeves end halfway up his arms!’
‘He can’t help being tall,’ I said.
‘He’s not tall, Pearl, he’s incredibly freakily gigantically elongated,’ said Jodie.
‘Shut up,’ I said.
‘Pearl, don’t use that expression, it’s horrible.
And I don’t know why you’re arguing. He is a bit freaky looking.’
‘You shut up too!’ I said.
‘Pearl!’ Mum looked astonished.
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Jodie clapped her hands, roaring with laughter.
She got told off too, but Mum didn’t put her usual energy into it. She kept nibbling at her lower lip, looking all around the room. She fiddled with the tattered strips of wallpaper.
‘You’ve made such a mess of it, girls,’ she said.
She paused. ‘It looks like I’ve made a mess of things too. Maybe we’d have been better off staying where we were. Everything’s gone topsy-turvy. I thought it would be such a step up for us all, a chance for you girls to turn into little ladies, but look at you! You’re already running wild. Even you, Pearl. Imagine, telling me to shut up!’
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said.
‘She was just upset because you were having a go at her Harley,’ said Jodie.
‘He’s not my Harley,’ I said hotly.
‘Then why are you blushing? He’s your boyfriend!’
‘Stop teasing her, Jodie. You’re being silly. You’re too young to have a boyfriend, let alone our Pearl.’
She looked at us both. ‘So, what do you think? Is it a mistake, our coming here?’
‘Of course not. It’s lovely here,’ I said.
‘You really think so, Pearl?’ said Mum. ‘You’re such a bright girl. I wanted to give you the chance I never had. And this is a good school, and you’ll be able to be taught properly and you’ll talk nicely and have good manners – and never ever say shut up to your mother!’
‘ I’ll say shut up,’ said Jodie. ‘Excuse me, Mum, you’ve got two daughters, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know, and one of them drives me completely crackers,’ said Mum, pulling Jodie’s 134
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spiky ponytail. ‘So? What do you think, Jodie? Are you happy here?’
Jodie frowned. Then shrugged. ‘It’s a laugh,’ she said lightly. ‘So, can we get on with our wallpaper stripping?’
‘If you do it properly. I want every little scrap off.
You need to soak it and use a scraper. Then I’ll see if Dad’s got time to give it a quick coat of emulsion.’
‘No, we’ll do it,’ said Jodie. ‘ Please, Mum.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Mum. ‘Get it all stripped first.
Don’t you dare leave it looking such a mess.’
‘We’ll do it all, Mum, promise,’ I said.
It took much, much longer than we thought.
Jodie got fed up after a while and flopped down on her bed, her legs in the air, turning her feet at different angles to admire her high heels. I wanted to flop too but I kept patiently stripping. I hoped I might find more signs of the little servant girl – a scrap she’d stuck on the wall, her height marks, a little scribbled heart with the initials of her sweetheart – but there was nothing. I had to make her up. I started telling Jodie the story but she kept yawning.
‘Your stories are so girly, Pearly. Look, let me tell it.’
I didn’t like the way she told it at all. She made the cook get more and more angry with the little servant girl, beating her with a wooden spoon, tapping her hands with her ladle, whacking her about the head with her saucepan . . .
‘Until one day little Kezia the kitchen maid got soooo fed up, she crept up behind the mean old cook, throttled her with her own apron strings, and then stuffed her in a giant pot and boiled her in a 135
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great soup. Everyone feasted royally on the cook for a fortnight, smacking their greasy lips with pleasure.’
‘No they didn’t,’ I said. ‘Why do you always have to muck the story about, Jodie? It’s silly always making it creepy and weird. You always spoil stuff.’
Jodie sat up. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell you any stories any more.’
My stomach knotted. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said quickly.
‘Yes you did,’ said Jodie. She jumped to her feet.
‘I’m bored anyway. See you.’ She walked to the door, humming a little tune.
‘Jodie! Don’t go! Look, you can’t go. We promised Mum we’d finish scraping off the wallpaper,’ I said.
‘ You promised. So you finish it,’ said Jodie. ‘I’ve got better things to do.’
‘But that’s so mean! You can’t just leave me,’ I said.
‘Yes I can,’ said Jodie. She waved her hand in the air and went out of the door.
‘Come back!’ I called. ‘Don’t be like that. You know I love your stories. Jodie? Jodie, please.’
I waited, my heart pounding. I hoped I might hear her shoes clip-clopping back along the corridor. She might just be playing a joke on me.
She’d come bursting into the room any minute, laughing at me.
But she didn’t.
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I sat where I was, savouring every second of my happiness.
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10
I didn’t know what to do. I wondered about running after her, but I knew Mum would be so cross if we left the wallpaper half stripped. I couldn’t blame her. It did look very ugly with tatters hanging everywhere.
I carried on for five minutes, scraping, picking, pulling. It was so much worse doing it all by myself.
I felt more and more worried about Jodie. Maybe she’d be furious with me for not following her. I couldn’t stand the rare times when she was in a sulk with me. I flung my scraper down and went running after her, hoping she might be mooching about just outside the back door. There was no sign of her. I looked all around the back courtyard, then right round the front of the house. I still couldn’t see her.
‘Jodie?’ I called. ‘Jodie!’
There was no answer. There was no point running all over the grounds when I had no clear 139
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idea where she’d be. I ran back to the house, thudding along the gravel path, and then in through the back door. I wondered if she’d somehow crept back inside. She might be there in our bedroom, waiting for me. But the room was empty, looking uglier than ever.
I felt like bursting into tears. I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ I whispered to myself.
I picked up the scraper and started all over again.
‘I’ll show her,’ I muttered. ‘Why should I feel so bad? She’s the one who’s being mean. Mean mean mean. Why should I always do what she says just because she’s my sister?’
I scraped scraped scraped. I felt as if I was scraping myself free from Jodie.
I told my Kezia story to myself. Poor Kezia was feeling miserable because Pansy was mean to her, making her do half her work as well as her own. I scraped with renewed vigour, and when I’d got the last little shred of wallpaper off, I squatted down in the soft damp crinkled mound. I drew a tiny pencil portrait of Kezia, looking forlorn in her ugly uniform, her dress drooping down to her ankles, her boots much too big and sticking out sideways.
Then I heard footsteps and jumped up hopefully
– but it was Mum.
I dropped the pencil on the floor and s
at in front of my tiny drawing.
‘Good heavens, what a mess!’ said Mum, kicking the wallpaper with her toe. ‘Still, you’ve done a magnificent job, girls.’ She looked round. ‘Where’s Jodie?’
‘She’s . . . she’s just gone out for a little while,’ I said.
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‘Well, I’m dishing up lunch at one sharp,’ said Mum. ‘Right, dear, I’ll find you some black plastic rubbish bags and you can pick all the wallpaper up.
We’ll speak to Dad about that emulsion. What colour would you like? A nice sugar-pink?’
‘Pink’s too little-girly,’ I said.
‘You are a little girl!’ said Mum.
‘No I’m not. I’m nearly eleven.’
‘Oh yes, practically middle-aged.’
‘Don’t laugh at me, Mum!’
‘Well, honestly, pet. Don’t you grow up too soon. I don’t know how I’m going to cope when there are two teenagers in the house. What do you want for your birthday, dear? Come on, anything you like.’
‘Books.’
‘You always choose books! Can’t you think of something else? Give it some thought. Now, I’m going to put the veg on. I’ve got two lovely big dishes of toad-in-the-hole coming along nicely. You be in the dining room by one o’clock, OK?’
I stuffed the wallpaper into the plastic bags, even clearing up the last shreds with a dustpan and brush. Then I went through our flat, along the dark corridor and into the steamy kitchen. Mum was hovering over the pans on the range, red in the face.
‘Where’s Jodie?’
‘She’s just coming,’ I said.
I wanted to be in the dining room early so I could maybe have a minute or two with Harley. I was there too early. I wandered up and down the empty room, round and round each table and bench, wondering what it would be like when all the children were there. These magic summer holidays 141
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wouldn’t last for ever. The school would be crowded with strangers at the start of term.
I’d been so excited at the idea of living in such a beautiful gothic mansion as Melchester that I hadn’t thought properly about the children. I’d read the Harry Potter books, but obviously the pupils wouldn’t be trainee wizards. I’d had a hazy picture of jolly girls playing tricks on the French mistress and having midnight feasts. I hadn’t got as far as imagining boys. Harley was totally unexpected.
What would the other boys be like? I didn’t mind little boys like Zeph and Dan but I hated big boys.
I’d once seen an old film of Tom Brown’s Schooldays on the television. Tom was horribly bullied. He’d even been hooked above the open fire and roasted like a rack of lamb.
I stared at the big fireplace at the end of the room. The grate was full of pine cones. It didn’t look as if it was ever lit, which was a relief.
I wondered if Harley was bullied at all. He was so tall he’d tower over all the other boys, but he was also very thin and spindly. I wasn’t sure he’d be much use in a tussle or an outright fight. Maybe he kept to himself, hiding away from trouble, like a badger.
I thought about that magical shared moment, shutting my eyes to see the strange night-time animal standing still in the moonlight.
I felt bad not telling Jodie, but Harley was right.
She couldn’t keep quiet and still for more than a few seconds. Besides, she’d been mean to me, very mean, leaving me to strip all the wallpaper myself.
My arm and shoulders ached and I had blisters on my fingers and thumb. I felt proud of myself.
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I swung my arms round and round to ease the ache and then felt foolish because Miss Ponsonby and the three little children were filing silently into the dining room and saw me doing my windmill impressions. Zeph laughed at me. Dan copied me, flinging his own arms about, and his legs too.
Sakura simply stood still, blinking timidly. She was wearing an old-fashioned smocked dress that was much too big for her. The short sleeves hung like bells past her sharp little elbows and the skirt hem brushed the top of her white socks. She looked pathetic, but her small hands were stroking the soft cloth proudly.
‘That’s a lovely dress, Sakura,’ I said. ‘Don’t you look pretty!’
She smiled radiantly, her big black eyes glowing.
‘My daddy sent it to me. It’s my new summer dress,’
she said proudly.
‘You’re very lucky,’ I said. I paused. ‘Are you going to see your daddy this summer?’
‘Oh no. He’s in Tokyo,’ said Sakura, as if it was a different planet altogether.
‘I haven’t got a daddy,’ said Dan, making his transparent man walk along the tabletop.
‘Have you got a mummy?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Dan. ‘I have a granny but she’s not very well.’
‘I’ve got a mummy and I’ve got a different daddy now and I’ve got to stay at school until I’m a good boy,’ said Zeph. ‘I’m bad.’
‘I think you’re a very good boy,’ I said.
‘I’m not. I threw paint on the floor, didn’t I, Undie?’
‘I think it was an accident,’ said Miss Ponsonby kindly.
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‘It wasn’t,’ Zeph muttered. ‘I just felt like doing it.’
Miss Ponsonby chose not to hear him. She settled the three children on the bench. I poured them all glasses of water which they lapped at furiously, like camels. Dad came strolling in, his toolbelt dragging on his hips like a gun holster. Zeph and Dan clam-oured for his attention, wanting to see his hammer and chisel and screwdriver. Dad let them pull them out of their pouches. Zeph immediately started hammering the table, while Dan aimed the screwdriver at him like a gun, going ‘ Bang bang!’
‘I think they’re too little for real tools, Mr Wells,’
said Miss Ponsonby, wrenching them out of their fists.
‘I’ll see if I can find you some plastic tools, boys,’
said Dad. ‘Didn’t you use to have a toy set, Pearl?’
‘I don’t want a toy hammer, I want a real one, said Zeph.
‘I want a real gun and then I could really shoot you,’ said Dan.
‘Now, now, that’s not very nice,’ said Mum, coming into the dining hall with the first trayful of food. She raised her eyebrows at Miss Ponsonby.
‘Kids, eh?’ she said. Then she looked round.
‘Where’s our Jodie?’
Jodie burst into the room, hanging on Harley’s arm. Mr Wilberforce and Miss French and Jed were with them. Jodie muttered something and they all burst out laughing.
‘Oh dear, we’ve been keeping you waiting, Mrs Wells,’ said Miss French.
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Mum stiffly.
‘Blame it all on me, please!’ said Mr Wilberforce.
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‘Me and my hibiscus. I had young Harley here clipping away and Jodie sweetly came to lend a hand.
Then Frenchie strolled along to see what we were up to and that dratted mutt of hers ran riot, knocking the stepladder over and chasing all through my flower beds.’
‘I’m so sorry, Harold,’ said Miss French. ‘It’s appalling, I simply can’t get him to behave.’
‘Jodie had the devil of a job catching him, didn’t you, dear?’ Mr Wilberforce nodded at Mum. ‘She’s a sparky kid, your Jodie.’
Mum smiled and fiddled with the hot plates on the trolley. Mr Wilberforce sat down, breathing in appreciatively.
‘Something smells totally delicious. What are you spoiling us with today?’
Mum lifted the lid of her big serving dish with a flourish.
‘Oh my! Toad-in-the-hole! What joy!’ said Mr Wilberforce.
‘How to
tally gorgeous!’ said Miss French, smacking her lips together.
They sounded so over-the-top I wondered if they were teasing Mum, but she took their compliments at face value.
‘I’ve always had a light touch with my Yorkshire pud,’ she said proudly.
‘So the brown bits are toad, are they?’ said Jed.
‘Do you roast them or fry them?’
Mum knew he was teasing, and gave him a quick rap on his knuckles with her serving spoon.
Jodie and Harley came over to my bench. I turned to Sakura and started complimenting her on her dress all over again. I saw Jodie sit right up 145
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the other end of the table. She still had a firm hold of Harley. My friend Harley. The first real friend I’d ever had.
‘Hey, sit down, Harley! I’m starving, aren’t you?
My mum’s toad-in-the-hole isn’t bad nosh, actually, but isn’t there anywhere round here where you can get decent food – chips and pizza and stuff? Don’t you get McDonald’s in the country?’
‘There’s a chip van on Friday night in Melchester village, but that’s two miles away,’ said Harley.
‘Oh, wow, wild night life, a chip van once a week,’
said Jodie. ‘Pity you haven’t got a real Harley. We could be out of here like a shot.’
‘Yeah, like I’m old enough to have a motorbike licence,’ said Harley.
‘You’re so tall lots of people would think you’re sixteen or seventeen,’ said Jodie.
It was almost as if she was flirting with him. It was so mean of her. She didn’t even like him that much. She carried on chatting, quieter now, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I chewed a piece of sausage over and over again, unable to swallow. Harley was probably telling her about the badgers right this minute. He was obviously fed up with me already. He had Jodie for a new best friend.
I spat a mouthful of sausage gristle into my hankie. I fed the rest of my meal to Zeph. Sakura wasn’t eating hers either, prodding her sausages gingerly, as if they might leap up and croak at her.
‘They’re not real toads,’ I said.
‘I know,’ said Sakura, but she still inspected each one, on the look-out for bulbous eyes and warts.
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My Sister Jodie Page 11