Alice in Time

by Penelope Bush

  Now I’m doubly worried. School! Aargh!

  Chapter Four

  When I wake up in the morning I’m really tired and it’s a huge effort to get out of bed. I’m a bit disappointed. Rory always bounces out of bed way too early and runs round like a lunatic. I had sort of assumed that, as a seven-year-old, I too would be full of energy. Then I remember that I hardly got any sleep last night, so it’s not exactly surprising that I feel like this. Mum’s been in and left my clothes out ready for me to put on. That’s a bit weird – like having a personal maid. Still, I’m not complaining. I go into the bathroom, wash my hands and face and clean my teeth.

  Normally, about now, on a school day, I’d be panicking. Am I having a bad hair day? Have I got too much make-up on? Will I be made to go and wash it off during registration? Or have I not put enough on? Do I look like one of the geeks? Have I done all my homework? How horrid is Sasha going to be today?

  Instead I brush my hair out and try and decide what to do with it. I’m tempted to do one French plait down the back, but realise that it might take some explaining to Mum, because I’m sure I couldn’t do that when I was seven.

  In fact, I doubt I did anything for myself at that age, the way Mum is running around after me. That might go some way to explaining why life was so hard after Rory arrived. Mum suddenly stopped doing anything and even had trouble getting out of bed some mornings. I wasn’t very well prepared for looking after myself.

  I put on the long white socks, skirt, white shirt and red sweatshirt. It’s got Cromwell Primary School embroidered round the school shield, which has an owl in the middle. I remember I always loved that owl.

  I make my way downstairs and realise my stomach is knotted again, but I think it might be because I’m excited as well as nervous. It feels like my first day at school, but the problem is – it isn’t. For Mum, and everyone at school, this will just be a normal day. For me, on the other hand, it’s going to be a very strange experience.

  I pass the sitting room on my way to the kitchen and notice there’s a load of bedding folded up on the sofa. If Dad slept in there last night things must be bad. I really need to give some thought as to what I’m going to do about the Mum – Dad situation. I’ll have a proper think after I’ve got this school thing out of the way. At least I won’t have heaps of homework tonight.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ says Mum on the way to school. We’re walking there, but not very fast, because of Mum’s waddle. I’m thinking about what lies ahead for me. I went through my school bag after breakfast. It would appear that we’re doing Ancient Egypt, Our Town – Past and Present, and we’ve got spellings today. I’m in Year Three, which means my teacher is Miss Carter. I liked her. She was fun and kind.

  But it’s not the work and the teachers that are worrying me, I finally admit to myself. It’s the other children and how I’m going to behave around them. OK, it’s not even the idea of ‘other children’ that’s making my stomach turn somersaults. Let’s face it – it’s Sasha. I feel like a condemned prisoner being led to the gallows. If Sasha at fourteen is a bitch and a bully, what’s she going to be like at seven? Not only that, if I’m her friend, I’ll probably have to sit next to her all day.

  Mum takes my hand as we cross the main road and, when we get to the other side, I don’t let go. She doesn’t seem to find this odd, but as we approach the school gates, my grip tightens.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ Mum asks, picking up on my anxiety.

  And because I can’t say, ‘I’m terrified, can we go back home, please?’ I make do with, ‘Nothing – I’m fine.’

  Just as I’m contemplating pulling a sicky, right here, right now – I’m sure I can convince Mum I’m ill after yesterday – she’s waving me off, saying, ‘I’ll see you at three, love,’ and she’s gone!

  I hover at the gate, watching all the children madly tearing around the playground. Come on, Alice, I tell myself. For heaven’s sake! They’re only a bunch of kids!

  Someone’s tugging at my sleeve. ‘Did you bring it?’ I turn round and there’s Sasha. God, she looks hilarious, all little and puny – but still a bit scary. Her hair is pulled back into a high ponytail and she’s jumping up and down. She’s only seven, I tell myself. How bad can it be?

  ‘Why are you staring at me like that? Did you bring it? Give it to me, quick.’

  ‘Bring what?’ I ask cautiously.

  ‘The skipping rope, stupid. Like I told you. How are we going to play the game without a skipping rope?’ she asks, stamping her foot.

  I wish I knew what she was talking about. I haven’t skipped for years. I look around the playground at the other children. I recognise some of them from my school – the secondary school, that is. They do look funny, sort of like themselves but not. I spot Luke O’Connor playing tag – he looks quite cute. And there’s Chelsea Fuller and Clara White, Sasha’s cronies. They’ve both got skipping ropes.

  ‘Why don’t we go and play with Clara and Chelsea?’ I say to Sasha. Not that I want to – at all – but it might get her off my back for a bit.

  ‘What? Don’t be silly, we hate them.’ We do? Oh. OK. ‘That’s why you were meant to bring the skipping rope today, so we can play the game before they do.’ This, obviously, is making no sense to me.

  ‘And this is important – because . . . ?’ I say.

  ‘Because,’ says Sasha, seriously exasperated now, ‘otherwise, everyone will think we’re copying them, when really it’s them that’ll be copying us.’

  Oh, yes, of course. As if I haven’t got anything better to think about.

  ‘Have you seen Imogen?’ I ask desperately. If ever I needed a friend it’s now, and thankfully she’ll still be talking to me because we haven’t argued yet.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Im–o–gen,’ I say slowly and clearly.

  ‘Never heard of her,’ says Sasha. ‘I can’t believe you forgot the skipping rope. I thought you were my friend.’

  Luckily, the bell rings at this moment so I don’t have to tell her that actually, I’d rather hang from a rope by my hair than hang around with her.

  As everyone runs to line up in their class groups I get the chance to worry about why Imogen isn’t here, and why Sasha hasn’t even heard of her. She was my best friend at primary school, not Sasha.

  Then I remember – she didn’t come to this school from the beginning. They moved here from London and Imogen became my friend – when? If only I could remember when.

  We file into the cloakroom and hang our coats up. I decide to try and keep a low profile until I’ve got used to being back here. If I just follow what everyone else does it shouldn’t be too difficult.

  When I walk into class 3C I come over all nostalgic. There’s stuff stuck up all over the walls, things we’ve painted and written. There’s a huge blue and gold sarcophagus that we’ve painted; obviously part of the Ancient Egypt project. I remember that from before, because it scared me all the time it was up on the wall. I look at it now and wonder why. OK, the eyes are a bit spooky, but I can’t have been that much of a wimp at seven, could I?

  There’s a nature table in the corner covered with leaves and pine cones and a bird’s nest. Behind Miss Carter’s desk there’s even a blackboard. By the time I reached Year Six these had all been replaced by white boards and laptops. I’m just wondering what hasn’t been invented yet – like iPhones and maybe even MP3 players – when Miss Carter comes in. I’m so happy to see her again that I nearly run up and hug her. Not really a cool thing to do.

  ‘Settle down, children,’ she says and everyone rushes to their seats. I hang back a bit until I can see which chair is left and, of course, it’s the one next to Sasha.

  ‘Wake up, Alice,’ calls Miss Carter. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through today.’

  We start with a spelling test, which is painfully slow but not what you’d call demanding, as the hardest word is ‘thought’. Still, I’m unaccountably pleased when I get 20 out of 20 and Sasha only ge
ts 17.

  ‘Very good, Alice. Well done, come and get a sticker,’ says Miss Carter, and I go up and she sticks a smiley sun on to my red sweatshirt. When I get back to my seat, Sasha pinches me on the top of my arm.

  ‘Ow! What was that for?’ I say.

  ‘Smarty pants,’ is her only reply. I get the feeling Sasha doesn’t like being outsmarted, but since she’s not particularly bright, I decide that she’s just going to have to get used to it.

  It’s fun getting everything right. Whenever Miss Carter asks a question, both Sasha and I put our hands up. She shoots hers up and stretches it as far as it will go, ramrod straight, whereas mine sort of flops around in the air, halfway up. I soon discover that Sasha is in the habit of putting her hand up whether she knows the answer or not. She might as well stick a sign on it saying, Over here! Me! Me! Please notice me. It’s pathetic really, and after she gets a couple of answers wrong – and I get them right – she’s in a very bad mood indeed.

  This isn’t improved at playtime when the rest of the girls start playing the game that Sasha was so desperate to start. It turns out to be called ‘Ponies’ and consists of one girl being the pony and holding the rope round her waist while the other stands behind, holding each end of the ‘reins’. The pony then trots round the playground neighing, while the other one – the rider – runs behind.

  We’re sitting on the playing field, in the shade of a big oak tree. Sasha is still blaming me for forgetting the skipping rope. As you can imagine, I am hugely relieved that we don’t have one, or I would be running around neighing and feeling like a right idiot.

  ‘Let’s play “Puppies” instead,’ says Sasha.

  I don’t want to know what this entails, but she’s telling me anyway.

  ‘I’ll be the little girl, you’re the puppy and I come into the pet shop and buy you and then I take you to the vet – I’ll have to be the vet as well but that’s OK – and then I take you home and teach you loads of tricks.’

  Even Sasha has to take a breath occasionally, so I butt in. ‘I don’t feel like playing Puppies. Let’s just sit here and do nothing.’ This is definitely the wrong thing to say. Sasha puts her hands on her hips.

  ‘What is wrong with you today? We can’t do nothing. Look, you be the puppy . . .’

  It occurs to me that the seven-year-old Alice was a bit shy and timid and probably fell in with whatever Sasha told her to do. Mind you, she is extremely bossy.

  But sitting under the tree I look at her and realise that she’s just a kid, not much older than Rory, and I’ve had a lot of experience handling him. This girl has made my life hell for the past seven years, and I suddenly wonder why I let it happen. Why did I let her take control of my feelings and trample all over them?

  She might have found the seven-year-old Alice a walkover, but not this one. I’ll play with her if she wants. I’ve just thought of a brand new game. It’s called ‘Cat and Mouse’ and I am going to be the cat. I’m going to toy with Sasha and then I’m going to chew her up and spit her out.

  ‘Sasha?’ I say in my sweetest voice. ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you have a bit of a problem?’

  ‘What kind of puppy do you want to be? A Labrador or a spaniel?’

  ‘Listen, I’m telling you this because I’m your friend, OK?’ I say in a sympathetic tone, placing my hand on her arm. Now I’ve got her attention.

  ‘Telling me what?’

  ‘About your problem. You know, why no one else will play with you. Don’t get cross with me for telling you, I just think you should know.’

  Sasha looks confused and, I’m glad to see, also slightly worried. ‘What do you mean, no one else will play with me? What problem?’

  I look her in the eye. ‘Sasha, the thing is – your breath really smells.’

  Goal! She looks mortified, but this is Sasha we’re talking about, and the mortification lasts only a second before it’s replaced by defiance.

  ‘It does not!’

  As she says this I pull away slightly and wrinkle my nose.

  ‘You’re a liar, Alice Watkins, and I’m not playing with you any more,’ and she runs off. I watch her go. This isn’t going to be easy, but I know I can do it. It requires subtlety, which is something that Sasha doesn’t understand. Mind you, I must have made some headway, because rather than going to join the other girls in the playground, Sasha has run into the cloakroom, no doubt to check on her ‘bad breath’.

  I make my way round the playground telling everyone that Sasha has an illness, and that it is very contagious, and they’d be advised to keep their distance and not let her breathe on them. Otherwise, they too will get Bratalgia, which stunts your growth and makes you extremely fat in later life.

  I soon discover that my former timidity and shyness is paying off. Everyone believes me – it seems that the younger Alice was not a girl to tell lies or be nasty. Yippee! My job just got a whole lot easier.

  When Sasha comes out of the cloakroom she gives me an evil look and runs off to play with Chelsea and Clara. As she talks to them, they back off slightly and Clara even puts her hand over her nose. I can see that they’re explaining to her that Ponies is a two-person game and then they trot off across the playing field. Sasha looks around and in her desperation picks on Lauren Hall and Mary Butler. She couldn’t have made a worse choice. Mary, I happen to know, is the vainest girl ever born. When she’s fourteen, she will spend all her lunchtimes in the loos putting on make-up. So, when Sasha approaches them, Mary lets out a little squeal, grabs Lauren by the hand, and runs off. The thought of catching a disease that will make her fat drives Mary to the furthest corner of the playing field.

  Sasha comes back to me. ‘Look, I’m sorry I just called you a liar. I think you must be right.’ She looks really upset.

  Bearing in mind the saying, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’, I say, ‘That’s OK. How about that game of Puppies then?’

  Mercifully, the bell goes before she gets a chance to pat me on the head and buy me off the imaginary shopkeeper.

  As we’re standing in line to go in, I surreptitiously kick the boy standing in front of Sasha. Luckily for me it’s Jake Hudson, the biggest and meanest boy in the school. When I say big, I mean in every way. He’s big-boned, big-headed and big-mouthed. When he turns round I’m innocently talking to the girl behind me, and he thinks his attacker is Sasha. He pushes her so she stumbles into me and I fall back on to the girl behind who treads on the girl behind her. A chorus of protest goes up along the line and mutterings of, ‘It wasn’t me, it was Sasha,’ can be heard.

  ‘Watch it, Stinky!’ says Jake to Sasha. If I remember right, Jake calls everyone Stinky, but Sasha has obviously forgotten this piece of information and as we file into the classroom, I see her breathing into her hand, trying to smell her breath.

  Sasha is uncharacteristically quiet all afternoon, which leaves me to get on with writing a brilliant story in literacy. Miss Carter is very impressed and gets me to read it out in front of everyone. I know that if I’d had to do that when I was seven I would have died of embarrassment. Now, although I’m a bit nervous because everyone is staring at me, I just imagine that I’m reading a story to Rory. Afterwards I get another sticker and when Miss Carter is putting it on my jumper, next to the other one, she says, ‘This really is an amazing piece of work. If you hadn’t done it in class I would have thought you’d had some help with it.’

  I decide it might be a good idea to tone down my ‘brilliance’ a bit. I don’t want to cause a stir or get noticed too much. I’ve got too many other things to think about without being labelled a child genius – tempting though it is. Mind you, Miss Carter’s next words burst my bubble a bit.

  ‘Watch your handwriting though, Alice, it’s getting a little bit messy.’ I’ll have to work on making it more rounded and childish.

  When I get back to my desk, I’m expecting another pinch from Sasha, but to my surprise she smiles at me and says, ‘That was a really good story.’
She looks almost proud to be my friend – which is a deeply weird experience.

  ‘You look happy,’ says Mum when she picks me up. ‘Did you make it up with Sasha?’

  ‘Oh yes, me and Sasha are fine now,’ I tell her as I skip along beside her. My good mood stays with me all afternoon and I help Mum make the tea and then we play a game of ludo. It’s not until seven o’clock, when Mum’s telling me it’s bedtime, that I realise Dad hasn’t come home. I was too busy thinking about Rory’s absence to notice Dad hadn’t showed up. I’m so used to him not being around that I forgot he should be here, with us.

  ‘Daddy has to work late tonight,’ Mum tells me as we pack the game away. She doesn’t sound too happy about it and she looks tired, so I decide not to kick up a fuss about having to go to bed so early. Besides, I’m exhausted after my day at school. Then I remember that she’s been at work all day. ‘How was Miss Maybrooke?’ I ask her.

  ‘Fancy you remembering that. She’s a lovely lady, we got along really well and she made me sit and drink tea most of the time. She said a woman in my condition shouldn’t be working, but I explained to her that I didn’t have a lot of choice. I tidied her kitchen up a bit, though. She lives in a lovely house, really unspoiled – well, apart from the bathroom that is. It’s nearly all original.’

  Mum’s perched on the side of the bath, watching me to make sure I brush my teeth properly, but I don’t mind. It’s nice talking to her, like this.

  When Mum’s tucked me in and kissed me, she goes downstairs and I get my notebook out. I open it and review my list.

  1. Stop Sooty from getting run over.

  Short of keeping him locked in a cupboard for the rest of his life, I’m not sure how I’m going to manage this. Perhaps I could give him some road safety lessons. Or some traffic aversion therapy. That might work, I’ll have to give it some more thought.

  2.Stop Mum and Dad from splitting up.