Phil and Maddie were sooooo envious when they came home from school.
But most of the time Grandad looked after me. He only had a little job nowadays, delivering newspapers early in the morning.
‘Funny, that,’ he said. ‘My very first job was delivering newspapers too.’
When Grandad got back from his newspaper round he’d have a little flop on Phil or Maddie’s bed. He said he was just resting his eyes, but he sometimes snored. I rested my eyes too. I don’t think I snored.
We both woke up in the middle of the morning.
‘Time for elevenses,’ said Grandad.
Sometimes it wasn’t exactly eleven o’clock, so he’d say, ‘Time for twenty-five-past-tensies,’ or, ‘Time for ten-to-elevensies.’
He’d go down to the kitchen and make us both a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and a marshmallow on top.
‘It’s naughty but it’s nice,’ he said.
He always drank his all up. Mostly I just had a couple of sips of mine, but I managed to eat the marshmallow.
Then Grandad would make me up my very own story. Not a Phil-and-Maddie-and-me story. This was a story about Tina the Butterfly Princess. She didn’t look a bit like all the other princes and princesses. She was a teeny weeny girl who slept in a walnut shell when she was a baby. She was bright green all over, which attracted a lot of rude comments. The King and Queen were very worried, but the nurse simply wrapped the strange green baby up in a big cocoon in the royal nursery. Tina slept and slept – until one day she burst out of the cocoon and spread out beautiful wings. She wasn’t a little girl princess any more. She was a butterfly princess. She flew all over the royal gardens, daintily landing on flower after flower, while everyone marvelled. I loved loved loved my Butterfly Princess story.
After that I’d have another nap while Grandad read his newspaper.
Then Grandad would fix lunch. He got worried when I didn’t feel like eating anything. ‘Perhaps we’d better try you on nectar. Isn’t that what butterflies eat?’ he said.
He made me teeny-tiny bite-sized sandwiches of bread and butter and honey. ‘Honey’s a bit like nectar,’ he said.
He served them on my doll’s tea-set china. They looked so pretty I had to eat one. And two more. Grandad was very pleased with me. In the afternoon I had another sleep. I seemed to be doing nothing but sleep.
‘That’s right, you’re our little Sleeping Beauty,’ said Grandad. ‘Sleep’s good for you, pet.’
I certainly knew that Grandad was good for me.
Dr Jessop’s pills worked and the pneumonia went away, but I was still very weak and droopy.
‘You need bed rest, Tina. You can’t go back to school yet – not for another week at least,’ said Dr Jessop.
‘You lucky, lucky thing, Tina!’ said Phil and Maddie.
Then someone very surprising came to visit.
I heard the knock on the front door. I heard Mum and Phil and Maddie. I knew by the sound of their voices that they were very surprised.
There was a lot of talk downstairs, and then I heard Mum say, ‘I’ll take you up to see Tina.’
I wondered who it could be. I was sure it wasn’t Gran or Grandad. Maybe it was Mrs Richards?
I practically fell out of bed when Mum brought Miss Lovejoy into my bedroom! Was she going to tell me off for staying away from school for so long?
‘Don’t look so worried, Tina, I’m only here on a fleeting visit,’ said Miss Lovejoy. ‘I just came to see how you are. Philippa and Madeleine have been keeping me up to date with the news. I gather you’re on the mend now.’
I nodded.
‘You still don’t look very well, dear.’
Dear!!!
‘I’m glad you’re being looked after so well. I know you won’t be back to school for a little while, so I’ve brought you a few books and your exercise books – you can do a bit of catching up when you feel like it.’ Miss Lovejoy put a very big heavy carrier bag on the end of my bed.
When I felt like it??? I didn’t ever feel like doing multiplication or learning spellings, even when I was well. And that carrier bag looked chock-a-block with homework.
‘What do you say, Tina?’ said Mum. ‘It’s very kind of Miss Lovejoy to come here, isn’t it?’
I gave a little nod again. ‘Thank you, Miss Lovejoy,’ I mumbled.
Miss Lovejoy sat down beside me on the bed. It felt weird having her so close.
‘We’re all missing you, you know,’ she said. She paused. ‘Even Selma seems a bit woebegone.’
I was astonished.
‘Perhaps she just misses having someone to tease,’ said Miss Lovejoy. ‘Anyway, the class have all written you Get Well Soon letters. They’re in the carrier too.’
‘Selma’s written me a Get Well letter?’ I asked.
‘Yes – every single member of the class.’
‘Even Phil and Maddie?’
‘Yes. I told them not to tell you. I wanted it to be a lovely surprise,’ said Miss Lovejoy. ‘Well, you rest as much as you can and get completely better.’
She gave my hand a little pat, just like a fond auntie, and then she let Mum see her out of the house.
Phil and Maddie came charging into the room.
‘Wow! Fancy Miss Lovejoy coming to visit you. She never said she was going to,’ said Phil.
‘Did she give you the letters? We all had to do one. It was weird writing a letter to you, Tina,’ said Maddie.
‘Did she tell you off at all?’ asked Phil.
‘No. No, she was actually quite nice. She called me “dear” and patted my hand,’ I said, still stunned.
‘She never!’ said Maddie. ‘It can’t have been our Miss Lovejoy. It must have been her much nicer twin sister.’
‘She did bring me heaps of school stuff though,’ I said, sighing.
I wriggled along to the end of the bed and started delving in the carrier bag. There were school books and my project books and exercise books. I sighed.
Then I found a big folder of letters. Twenty-seven letters – one from everyone in the class. They’d all drawn a picture too. Some of them were of me in bed, looking poorly. Mick had given me hideous spots and a speech bubble saying, ‘Phew! Moania.’ Peter drew me so small that I looked like a little insect in weeny pyjamas. Alistair had drawn me like a medical illustration with arrows. One pointed to my forehead and said High temperature; another pointed to my arms and legs and said Aches and pains; one pointed to my tummy and said Feeling sick. He was the only one in the whole class who spelled pneumonia correctly.
Harry drew me completely well, and scoring a goal in a football match. I liked Harry’s letter. I liked Neera’s too. She drew all her brothers and sisters and her mum and dad, and even her granny and auntie, all saying Get well soon, Tina! I liked Phil’s letter. She drew Nibbles and Speedy and Cheesepuff in little hamster beds, blowing their noses with tiny hankies, pretending they’d got hamster pneumonia. I liked Maddie’s letter too. She drew the three of us together holding hands, but she drew me absolutely huge, my head almost off the page. She wrote: You’re going to get completely better, and so big and strong that you’ll be the tallest of all three of us.
There were only two letters I didn’t like.
Kayleigh drew a very ugly pin-girl who didn’t look anything like me and wrote one sentence: Dear Tina, Get better, from Kayleigh.
Selma did a rubbish picture too. She gave me cross-eyes and a crooked mouth, and made my arms and legs look like matchsticks. She wrote: Dear Tina, I hope you get better soon. I can’t wait till you can come back to school. From Selma.
I can’t wait till you can come back to school . . .
I knew what that meant all right. I can’t wait to GET you!
I scrumpled Selma’s letter up and stuffed it back in the carrier bag. There was still something else down at the bottom. It was a bulky parcel wrapped up in pretty paper and tied with a blue ribbon. There was a small card attached to it, which said: A little pres
ent from Miss Lovejoy.
‘Miss Lovejoy’s given you a present?’ said Phil.
‘Open it, quick!’ said Maddie. ‘I bet it’s a spelling book or maths tables – something ultra-boring like that.’
It wasn’t at all boring. It was a wonderful present. It was a little book all about butterflies, a proper grown-up sketchpad, and a tin of colouring pencils.
Chapter Ten
I OPENED UP my new drawing book straight after breakfast the next day. I knew exactly what I was going to draw: I was going to do a whole book of butterflies.
I looked in the butterfly book Miss Lovejoy had given me. I wanted to copy each butterfly carefully and get its markings exactly right. I looked for a postman first. I couldn’t find one. Then I looked for an emerald swallowtail. No luck either. I tried searching for a blue morpho, but there wasn’t one.
I couldn’t help thinking that Miss Lovejoy’s book wasn’t much good. I closed it with a snap.
‘Have you got fed up already?’ asked Grandad.
‘Yes! I can’t find any of the really good butterflies. There’s no postman!’ I said crossly. ‘No emerald swallowtail, no blue morpho. This is a rubbish book.’
‘Hey, hey, calm down, madam. I can tell you’re getting better – you’re in a right stroppy mood,’ said Grandad, chuckling.
He picked up my book and flicked through it. ‘Here, isn’t this a blue whatsit?’ he said.
I peered. ‘Oh. It is a pretty blue, but it isn’t a blue morpho – it says it’s an Adonis blue. I do like it though. I’ll draw that one first.’
‘You know what?’ said Grandad. ‘We’re both a bit thick, Tina. This is a book about British butterflies. Your Mr Postman and the other two came from Africa. You can only see those butterflies in special enclosures. But maybe you’ll get to see these butterflies flying about the garden.’
‘Oh, I do hope so!’ I said.
I settled to drawing my Adonis blue butterfly, and then I selected the bright blue pencil from my tin. I coloured it in ever so carefully, making the blue darker near the wing tips, and leaving a white fringe all round the edges of the wings. Even the Adonis blue’s body was blue and very furry. It was just like Gran’s blue fun fur jacket.
I read all about Adonis blue butterflies, pointing along with my finger because the print was quite small. Then I carefully printed the following underneath my Adonis blue:
I was very careful to copy the spellings properly because I wanted my butterfly book to be perfect.
‘Where are there chalk grasslands, Grandad?’ I asked.
‘Mm, let’s think . . . I know. Your gran and I used to climb up Box Hill when we were courting. We went up a little chalky path – it was ever so slippy! And there was certainly grass everywhere. Perhaps that’s your chalk grasslands.’
‘Will you take me when I’m better?’
‘I think that path might be too much of a struggle for you, pet. And I’m pretty sure I’d never manage it nowadays.’
‘We could try,’ I said determinedly. ‘What’s marge-or-am, Grandad?’
‘Not sure, pet. I think it’s some kind of herb. You use it for flavouring in cooking, if you’re into fancy food.’
‘What’s ragwort?’
‘Maybe that’s a herb too. Or a weed? Little Weed!’ Grandad said ‘Little Weed’ in a funny voice. Little Weed was in a television programme he used to watch when he was little. There were Flower Pot Men in that programme too. They spoke in even funnier voices. Grandad likes to pretend to be them as well.
We watched some of the CBeebies programmes I used to like when I was little. There was a new one I’d never seen before called Ruby Red. This funny lady, Ruby, dressed up as lots of different people. She even dressed up as a cat and licked milk out of a bowl, and then she was a donkey with big ears going ‘Hee-haw, heehaw.’ She didn’t have proper costumes, but she was so good at acting you really believed she had turned into all these people and animals.
I’d have loved Ruby Red when I was little. I liked her a lot now.
After lunch (bite-sized pieces of cheese on toast and weeny carrot sticks served on my doll’s tea set) I had a nap, and then Grandad said he had a big surprise. He had to go downstairs to fetch it, then staggered back into the bedroom with an enormous box of Lego.
‘It’s a treat for all you girls, but I thought you and I could make a start on it this afternoon, eh, Tina?’ he said.
We had a lovely afternoon starting to build Tower Bridge.
I got tired after a bit, but Grandad didn’t.
We all did a bit of building when Mum and Dad and Phil and Maddie came home.
So this was my new life, day after day. I had stories and treat meals and cuddles and television, and we did lots of Lego-building.
I nearly forgot about school. Once or twice I looked at the school books Miss Lovejoy had brought me, but then I popped them back in their bag. I didn’t feel like writing about the Ancient Egyptians, however you spelled them, and I certainly didn’t want to do any spelling or sums.
But I did draw lots of butterflies.
I drew a brimstone – a male one so I could colour it in bright yellow, with an orange spot on each wing.
I drew a large white and a small white butterfly.
I drew a small tortoiseshell butterfly.
I drew a meadow brown butterfly.
I drew a large skipper butterfly.
I drew a red admiral.
I drew a green hairstreak.
I drew a peacock all over again, but this time it was even better than the one I did for Miss Lovejoy. I drew its antennae properly. These are the sticking-out bits on its head so it can smell and touch. I divided its body carefully, making the top thorax hairy and the abdomen stripy. I wished I had a hairy chest and a stripy tummy.
‘My word, you’ve been a busy bee,’ said Grandad, flipping through my drawing book. ‘Or should I say busy butterfly?’
Grandad had been busy too. He had built an enormous Tower Bridge in our bedroom. He did nearly all of it himself, though he let me put in the last few bricks. There was hardly room to move in our bedroom now.
‘We’ll keep it until Monday, when Tina goes back to school,’ Mum said when she saw it. ‘Then we’ll have to break it up and put all the bricks back in the box.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Grandad. ‘Oh well. Maybe I’ll take Tower Bridge home with me and build it all over again.’
‘No you won’t!’ said Gran, who’d popped over after work to see how I was.
I wondered how I was. I didn’t feel sick or headachey any more. My chest didn’t hurt and I hardly ever coughed. I didn’t feel wobbly when I stood up. I was eating almost normally. In fact, I could manage a big bowl of ice cream now. So was I really better? Well enough to go back to school on Monday like Mum said?
I thought about school. I thought about Selma.
‘I don’t feel very well,’ I said in a tiny voice. I hung my head and went all floppy. ‘I don’t think I’m ready to go back to school yet.’
Mum looked at me carefully. She felt my forehead. ‘I think you’re right as rain, young lady. School on Monday!’
On Sunday night I dreamed I was back at school and Selma had grown much, much bigger – ten times bigger than me. She picked me up and Phil and Maddie couldn’t stop her. Even Miss Lovejoy couldn’t stop her. Selma just pushed them out of her way with one massive hand, keeping tight hold of me with the other. She marched me out of the classroom, down the corridor and into the toilets. Then she opened a cubicle door and threw me into the lavatory and pulled the chain.
I truly didn’t feel very well on Monday morning. I wouldn’t get up when Mum called. I didn’t eat any breakfast. I cried when Mum told me off.
‘Now, lovey, this simply won’t do,’ she said, pulling me close and giving me a hug. ‘You really are better now. You have to go to school today. You can’t stay home for ever.’
‘Why can’t I?’ I wept.
‘You know why, sill
y. It’s the law that all little girls have to go to school.’
‘I’ll break the law. I’ll go to prison. I’d sooner go to prison than to school,’ I declared.
‘It would be me going to prison, silly, for not sending you,’ said Mum.
‘You can’t put our own mother in prison, Tina!’ Phil put her arm round me. ‘Don’t worry about Selma.’
‘Phil and I told her that you were very, very ill and it was all because she pushed you and upset you,’ said Maddie. ‘That shut her up a bit!’
‘Yes, she’s been much quieter ever since. She hasn’t done anything horrid to us at all,’ said Phil.
‘I think she’ll still do horrid things to me,’ I said.
‘Well, I won’t let her. And Harry won’t either,’ said Maddie. ‘I told him what Selma did to Baby, and he said that if she ever tries any tricks like that again he’ll gang up on her with all the boys. That’s half the class! She’ll be powerless then.’
‘I think Selma could beat half the class, easy-peasy,’ I said.
‘And I told Neera, and I know she’ll look after you too, and all the girls on my table,’ said Maddie.
‘And I’m going to look after you because I’m your mum and I love you very much,’ said Mum. ‘So much that I’m prepared to do battle with Miss Lovejoy all over again and have you put on another table altogether if it kills me!’
I felt a little bit cheered up with all this support. I got ready for school and put all the books and pads Miss Lovejoy had brought me in my satchel. I felt worried all over again. I hadn’t got round to doing any work. I hung my head. ‘Miss Lovejoy’s going to be cross with me!’ I said.
‘No she won’t. I’m sure she’ll understand that you just didn’t feel well enough,’ said Mum. ‘Tell you what – take your drawing book to school too. Show her all those lovely butterflies you drew.’
So I put my butterfly drawing book in my satchel too. But I still felt very, very scared as we walked to school. I felt as if all my butterflies were in my tummy, fluttering around.
The Butterfly Club Page 7