by Judi Curtin
‘You’d have a huge, big, fat belly,’ she said.
We all fell around the place laughing, while Shannon looked hurt.
‘What?’ she said.
Mrs Connery’s face went very pink and angry for a minute, and then she recovered.
‘Oh, Mr Gowing,’ she gushed. ‘What wonderful work you are doing with these daaaahling little children.’
‘Maybe it’s time to move on to the next class,’ said Mrs Parker, heading for the door.
Just then Ella nudged me and pointed at Joshua. He was tearing a large strip from the page of his maths book. He crumpled it up, put it into his mouth and chewed for a second. Then he took it out, and balanced it on his thumb.
‘He wouldn’t dare,’ breathed Ella.
‘He—’
Before I could finish, Joshua lined up his middle finger and took aim. The gross squishy ball sailed through the air. It seemed to hover for a long moment, before descending and ending up right down inside the front of … Mrs Connery’s dress.
Mrs Connery screeched like she’d been shot.
Mrs Parker looked like she was going to explode with anger.
Mr Gowing put his head in his hands and groaned.
It was the funniest thing I had ever, ever seen.
That night I phoned Victoria to tell her the story.
‘So I take it your school won’t be getting the computer grant?’ she said, as soon as she’d stopped laughing.
‘That’s the best part,’ I said. ‘Amy heard Mrs Connery telling Mrs Parker that it was clear we needed all the help we could get. The new computers arrive next week.’
‘So your new school isn’t all bad?’ she said.
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘And I forgot to tell you, I came top of the class in Geography yesterday.’
‘But you’ve always been rubbish at Geography.’
I smiled to myself.
‘Not any more. Mr Gowing manages to make it so interesting, it seems easy now.’
Victoria sighed.
‘Sometimes my school seems very boring compared to yours,’ she said.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I warned her.
‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I’d better go. Mum’s shouting at me to do my piano practice. See you tomorrow at Po—’
She stopped.
‘Sorry, Eva,’ I forgot,’ she said.
‘That’s OK,’ I said, even though it totally wasn’t.
You see, pony club was paid for six months in advance, and the time I’d paid for had run out a few weeks earlier. There was no way I could afford to go any more.
‘It’s not the same without you,’ she said.
I could feel tears of self-pity gathering in my eyes, but I shook them angrily away.
‘Give Jewel a hug for me,’ I said, and then I hung up, not trusting myself to say any more.
Chapter Seventeen
Next morning, Mum handed me five euro. ‘Here, Eva,’ she said. ‘Go and do your magic in the market again.’
I put the money into my pocket, and grabbed my hoodie.
‘I might be a while,’ I said. ‘I might meet up with some of my friends.’
‘No problem,’ said Mum. ‘Just be home in time for lunch.’
Once again, there was a big crowd around Ruby’s stall.
Who ever would have thought that potatoes and carrots and onions would be so popular?
Without saying anything, I slipped behind the stall, and took my place beside Ruby. She glanced at me but didn’t say anything. She didn’t smile either, but her face didn’t look quite as closed and suspicious as usual. I decided to take that as a good sign.
We quickly fell in to a routine. I weighed and packed the fruit and vegetables, while Ruby took the money and gave the change.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Ruby after a while.
I looked up to see Mamie advancing towards us.
‘She doesn’t look happy,’ I said, suddenly feeling guilty about the bad apple I’d given her the week before.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Ruby. ‘She never looks happy,’
Mamie pointed a bony finger in my face.
‘You gave me a bad apple last week,’ she said.
I smiled my best innocent smile.
‘I wasn’t here last week. It must have been my identical twin sister. She’s very naughty. How about I make it up to you by giving you a special deal on bananas?’
She narrowed her eyes.
‘How special?’
‘Seven for a euro, ‘I said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘This is a special deal, just for you. I swear to you, no one else has got bananas at this price today.’
I wasn’t telling a lie. It was a deal specially for Mamie. You see, Ruby’s uncle had ordered extra bananas by mistake. We had to get rid of them before they went bad, so all that morning we’d been selling nine for a euro.
Mamie had a cunning look on her face.
‘How about eight for a euro?’ she said in a pathetic, whiny voice.
I gave a big theatrical sigh.
‘You drive a very hard bargain,’ I said.
Mamie smiled, showing a mouthful of rotten brown teeth.
‘I know,’ she said happily, as she paid for her bananas and went on her way.
The man from the stall next door came over.
‘You’re better than a pantomime,’ he said. ‘This is for you!’
He handed me a small paper-wrapped bundle. I half opened it to see a small chunk of crumbly cheese with blue lines running through it. The strong smell attacked my nostrils at once.
‘Thank you,’ I said, turning and putting it safely into my handbag.
My handbag would smell of stinky socks for weeks, but I knew it would be worth it to see Dad’s face when I gave him a present of his favourite cheese.
Hanging around the market was turning out to have lots of unexpected advantages.
The morning passed very quickly, and before I knew it, Ruby and I were once again packing up the stall for the day.
‘Do you want some fruit?’ asked Ruby.
‘Oh, yes, please,’ I said fishing in my pocket for the five euro, and handing it to her.
She waved the money away. ‘You’ve helped me,’ she said. ‘I can’t take your money.’
‘But––’ I began.
‘No,’ she said, almost fiercely. ‘I can’t take your money. I should be paying you for all the work you’ve done this morning, but I can’t afford to. So at least let me give you some stuff.’
I put my hand on her arm. ‘It’s OK, Ruby,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind helping, and I don’t have anything else to do on Saturday mornings.’
Now that I can’t afford to go to pony club any more.
Ruby pulled her arm away.
‘It’s easy for you,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be poor.’
Ha.
I hadn’t a whole lot of experience in the past, but I was learning quickly.
Then I looked closer at Ruby. Her clothes were cheap and old-fashioned. I wouldn’t be buying new clothes any time soon, but my old ones were a whole lot nicer than anything I’d ever seen Ruby wear.
By now Ruby had filled a huge bag with fruit and vegetables. I knew this wasn’t a time for arguing, so I put my money back into my pocket, and took the bag from her.
‘So can I help you again next Saturday?’ I asked.
She looked up, and her hair fell back from her face, giving me a rare look at her huge brown eyes.
‘If you want to.’
I nodded.
‘I do want to.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, and as she turned away, I thought I could see the tiniest hint of a smile on her face.
I thought I was getting used to my new life, but that all changed when I went to visit Victoria at her place the next day.
She led me through the huge hallway, where I walked extra slowly so I could enjoy the beautiful smell from the big bowl of lilies on the hall table.
I’d always liked Victoria’s bedroom, but now it seemed even nicer than before. One wall was painted in swirls of bright pink and purple, and her bed was covered with a huge heap of matching fluffy cushions. Her wardrobes were painted white, with cute heart-shaped handles. I didn’t need to look inside to know that they were full of all the clothes she’d bought on her recent trip to London with her parents.
I wanted to live like this.
I deserved to live like this.
And I was still being nice.
I was helping loads of people.
I was helping Ruby.
So why weren’t Madam Margarita’s words coming true?
Why wasn’t I back where I belonged?
Why wasn’t I back in my real life?
I sat on Victoria’s bright pink inflatable chair, and she threw herself on to the fluffy purple rug.
‘How was pony club?’ I asked.
‘OK,’ she said cautiously, like owning up to enjoying it would have been a crime.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Just because I can’t go, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.’
She smiled at me gratefully. ‘So what did you do yesterday?’ she asked.
‘I went to the market and spent the morning helping a girl from my class to sell fruit and vegetables,’ I said.
‘Yeah right,’ she said laughing. ‘But really, what did you do?’
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t blame Victoria for not believing me about the market. After all, if someone had told me a few months earlier how my life would have changed, I wouldn’t have believed them either.
Only trouble was – it was all too true.
But some things are much too complicated to explain.
So I just shrugged and said, ‘Not much really.’
Chapter Eighteen
I wouldn’t say I was getting to like my new school, but after a while I didn’t hate it quite as much.
Dawn was always really kind to me. She gave me an extra-big smile whenever she saw me.
I don’t know if she ever figured out how I’d been involved in the way her life changed.
Maybe she just remembered seeing me that day, and thinking about it made her feel happy.
I wouldn’t ever want to spend a whole lot of time with Mr Gowing (after all, he was a teacher), but I have to admit that he was turning out to be quite nice. Soon I decided that, as teachers go, he was probably as good as it gets.
He seemed to like me too. (Maybe that was because every time there was a horrible job to be done, I was the first to volunteer. And whenever anyone in the class was struggling with their work, I nearly tripped over myself in my rush to be the one to help.)
Most days I sat with Ella, Chloe and Amy. At first I felt guilty when I saw Ruby on her own at the other side of the classroom. But then I noticed that any time I caught her eye, she gave me a fierce look, which I took to mean that she wanted me to stay away. In the end I decided that sometimes she was quite happy to be on her own, and I even though I couldn’t really understand it, I began to admire her independence.
The next Saturday, I went to the market even earlier than usual. Ruby looked surprised, but she didn’t say anything. As the day went on, she never got exactly talkative, but we did chat a bit. It turned out that she was quite funny – in her own very, very quiet way.
After a few hours, I’d just finished serving a nice old man, when I looked up and saw something that shook me for a second. It was Emily, one of my old friends from The Abbey. She was with a girl I didn’t know.
‘Hey, Emily,’ I said without thinking – without remembering that Emily hadn’t contacted me for months.
Emily turned. She looked at me for a long time.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said in the end.
‘So how’s it––?’ I began, but she was already walking away.
‘Who was that?’ asked the girl with Emily.
‘Oh, no one. Just someone I sort of knew a very long time ago.’
I felt a sudden flare of anger.
She said I was no one.
How dare she?
I sat next to her for two whole years.
I invited her to my birthday party.
She ate three slices of my birthday cake.
Suddenly I realised that the banana I was holding was squashed to a pulp in my clenched fist.
Then I felt a gentle hand on my arm. Ruby took the squashed banana from my hand and put it in the bucket of damaged stuff that she saves as pig food.
‘Know what?’ she said quietly. ‘That girl should cop on to herself and make a bit more effort with her appearance.’
I looked at Emily who had stopped at a stall nearby.
‘But she…’ I began before I noticed the wicked smirk on Ruby’s face.
‘You’re joking,’ I said and Ruby nodded.
I looked at Emily in her turquoise high heels, which matched her turquoise handbag, which matched her turquoise eyeshadow, which matched her turquoise nail varnish, which matched her turquoise belt, which matched her … well you get the idea. Emily was dressed for the Teen Choice Awards, not a Saturday morning in the market. She looked totally ridiculous – and that made me very, very happy.
I grinned at Ruby, but she had already turned away to tidy the vegetables.
When the market was over, I helped Ruby to close up the stall.
Once again, she gave me a huge bag of fruit and vegetables.
Once again she refused the five euro that I offered her.
But this time she didn’t vanish as soon as the bag of food was safely in my arms. We stood together outside the locked-up shed. Ruby looked embarrassed, and that made me feel embarrassed too.
I’d never before spent so much time in the company of someone so strange – or someone I knew so little about.
‘I’d better go home,’ I said in the end.
‘Wait,’ she said.
I waited, but for a long time, nothing happened, except that Ruby’s cheeks turned from pale pink to deeper pink and then to a strong dark red that matched her name perfectly. Then she was muttering, ‘I got you something.’
She put her hand into her pocket and then removed it, holding her closed fist towards me.
I wondered what she wanted to give me. The thing I wanted right then was a big pile of fifty euro notes, or the winning ticket for that night’s lottery, and there wasn’t much chance Ruby was going to give me either of those.
This girl was so weird I half expected her to say that she was giving me her pet slug.
‘I’ve noticed that you like purple,’ she said.
Not a slug, so.
Maybe it was a very pretty grape or a squashed-up flower.
I love getting presents, but I couldn’t bring myself to look forward to this one.
I rearranged the bag of fruit and vegetables so that it was propped up on my hip, held steady with my left hand. Then, very slowly and cautiously, I stretched out the open palm of my right hand.
Very slowly and cautiously, Ruby opened her fist, and something dropped from her hand into mine.
Then we stood there, like an evil fairy had turned us into stone.
‘Wow,’ I gasped when I’d got tired of standing there, looking like an idiot made of stone.
I’m used to beautiful things, but I think this might have been the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was a bracelet made of tiny purple and mauve beads. As I moved my hand, the bracelet shimmered in the light, almost like it was half alive.
‘Wow,’ I said again, just before I realised that I couldn’t take presents from Ruby. How could I take anything from a girl who had so little?
‘But I can’t …….’ I began.
Ruby jumped back like I had punched her.
‘It’s OK. I didn’t buy it,’ she
said.
For one second a horrible thought floated into my mind.
‘I didn’t steal it either, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘I’d never think that of you,’ I said, telling a total lie.
I looked at the bracelet again, and slipped it on to my wrist.
It felt cool and silky against my skin.
It matched my purple top perfectly.
‘My mum made it,’ said Ruby. ‘I told her I wanted to give you something for helping me, so she made you this. I hope you like it.’
I stepped forwards ready to hug her, then decided against it. Ruby so wasn’t a huggy kind of girl.
‘I don’t like it,’ I said.
Ruby’s face fell, and I rushed to finish what I had started to say.
‘I love it. I absolutely love it.’
Then, for the first time ever, I saw Ruby give a proper smile, and it was almost like she had given me another present.
As we walked out from the market together, I saw Ella coming along the street with Chloe and Amy. I felt a sudden flush of embarrassment. The more I got to know Ruby, the more I liked her, but the other girls probably still thought of her as the class loser. I wondered for a second if I could duck back into the market, but before I could move, the girls were in front of us. Beside me, I could feel Ruby becoming tense and alert – like she was ready to be offended.
But I needn’t have worried.
‘Hey, Eva. Hey Ruby,’ said Ella, like seeing us together was the most normal thing in the world. ‘We’re going for hot chocolate. Do you want to come?’
‘No,’ said Ruby.
‘We’d love to,’ I said at the same time, and half-dragging Ruby behind me, I followed the girls into the coffee shop.
‘Let me buy you a hot chocolate,’ I said to Ruby, brandishing my five euro note.
She shook her head fiercely. ‘I can pay for myself,’ she muttered, and I realised that I had insulted her proud spirit.
‘Whatever,’ I said, half-relieved that I’d be bringing most of the money back home to Mum and Dad.
Soon the five of us were seated around a big table, stirring marshmallows into our hot chocolate and talking about stuff. Ruby didn’t exactly look relaxed, but she didn’t look like she wanted to run away and hide either.