I had three pairs of socks on under my wellies, two pairs of gloves, a hat and scarf and a backpack full of my overnight things. Jess and me were staying at Toby’s because we didn’t want to wake our families up, coming home at three in the morning.
As we drove out of Polgotherick, it started to full-on snow. You couldn’t see anything outside the car windows but white. Toby’s dad put the wipers on and slowed right down. He and Toby’s mum talked about turning back, but Toby and Leah begged them not to.
Jess was looking as nervous as I felt, though probably not for the same reason. I couldn’t tell if my legs really had turned into lead weights, or if I was imagining it. I definitely wasn’t worried about getting stranded in the snow because Toby’s parents were bound to have packed plenty of emergency blankets and rations.
Toby’s mum phoned the organisers and they said enough people were already there to start the event, so it wouldn’t matter if we were a bit late. She explained to Jess and me that it wasn’t like a regular race where you all have to set off together. The teams set off one after another and were timed individually. The one that recorded the fastest time at the end was the winner.
I still didn’t really understand how it worked. I just clocked the worrying words ‘race’ and ‘winner’. When we finally got out of the car, our feet sank up to our ankles in snow. I suddenly remembered the tough trudge through the pine needles in the woods at the bottom of Beacon Hill.
‘How did the snow get so deep so quickly?’ I said.
‘It’s probably been snowing up here on and off all day,’ said Jess. ‘You always get more snow away from the sea, especially on high ground.’
Toby’s dad gave us head-torches and we set off down a track from the far side of the car park. It was dark, but the snow gave everything an eerie glow. It stuck to the trunks and branches of the trees on either side, making them look like ghost-trees, reaching out.
We could hardly see any distance into the woods, but you could tell they weren’t like the little woods at Beacon Hill. The trees were huge and the tracks were wide, and it felt like you could walk forever and never reach the other side.
After a few minutes we saw a glimmer of light up ahead and, coming closer, made out a camping table under a row of lanterns hanging from a rope between the trees. There were people milling around. Toby’s dad signed our team up and got our map and stuff.
We had to find ten places, in the right order. They were called control points. He showed us where they were on the map. Each one would be marked by an orange and white flag. I peered into the darkness between the trees and wondered how we were ever going to find them.
Toby’s mum and dad did the map-reading while the rest of us pretended to understand how they did it and went in the direction they pointed. We all wanted to be the first one to spot the flag.
We hadn’t even found the first one when an owl hooted close by and Jess jumped out of her skin. She grabbed hold of my arm. She wouldn’t let go. She isn’t an outdoors kind of person even in the daytime, and she’s scared of all wild animals, including toads. Seriously. Even though she knows five facts about them, number one being that they don’t have any teeth.
It was like being in a three-legged race with Jess clinging onto me, but we still managed to find four of the flags before Toby and Leah. We raced around the dark woods, stopping every few minutes to read the map, waiting for directions. Other people’s torches bobbed in the darkness round about. We heard their voices through the trees. We had no idea which control point they were looking for, or who was making the fastest time.
When we finally got back to the start-point and recorded our finish time, I couldn’t believe it. We had been running around in the woods for two whole hours! I didn’t even feel tired. I could have done it all again.
It turned out I was wrong about Toby’s family; we didn’t win, but they didn’t mind. ‘It’s the taking part that counts,’ said Toby’s dad. ‘Did you enjoy it?’
Did I enjoy it? It was the best night ever, even if we didn’t see the sparkling stars or the moon. But as we walked back down the wide track towards the car, the clouds parted, and there it was, half-full, silver-white, dazzling bright. It seemed to float up into the sky.
The moon lit up the snow, casting shadows under the trees, as dark as sun-shadows. We grinned at each other in the sudden light, seeing every detail of our faces, even the pinkness of our cheeks.
‘Me and Leah put the tepee up again this afternoon,’ said Toby. ‘Shall we sleep in it tonight?’
I grinned, and I couldn’t stop grinning, all the way back in the car.
Chapter 17
The best books and the body you want
You know when your Gran has a huge house-warming party and you think, ‘If a single nother person says how much I’ve grown I’m going to make a break for it and build a snowman in the garden?’
But then the guests go, and it’s just your family and your sister’s boyfriend, and Mr Kaminski from next door, and Jane and Magnus from the Happy Haddock, sitting around amongst the dirty dishes, and you’re really glad you didn’t?
Well, that’s what happened to me because, all of a sudden, things started to get interesting.
Mum said, ‘That was a peach of a party!’
Dad said so it should be, considering the amount of effort that went into it.
‘Not that I minded helping, of course, but it was tough trying to get Nash House up to Your Perfect Home standards at the same time as doing a full-time job and writing a book.’
‘Yes,’ Gran said. ‘Sorry about that.’
She glanced at Mr Kaminski and they both got this really shifty look.
‘Is there something you aren’t telling us?’ said Dad.
‘W-e-ell… not really,’ said Gran. ‘I mean… I don’t want you to be cross!’
Outside the big bay window, it was starting to get dark. The snow had lost its dazzle and the sea looked steely-grey. Gran had plumped for a lunchtime party because she wanted her guests to see Nash House in all its day-time glory, with its freshly painted outside walls, new windows and front door.
‘Your mother is wonderful, kind woman,’ Mr Kaminski said to Dad. ‘Always, she only trying to help.’
Dad looked at Gran. He raised his eyebrows. She took a deep breath.
‘It was after your weigh-in,’ she said. ‘Your fitness plan didn’t seem to be quite working but you said you didn’t have time to bother about that – you just had to get on and write the book.’
Mr Kaminski said that although some books, such as, for example, Daphne’s “How to handle stress at work,” were obviously not based on proper research, the best ones were.
‘And we are wanting your book should be one of best ones,’ he said.
‘So we decided to adjust your ideas and do our own test-run,’ said Gran. ‘We came up with a plan about how to get fit in four weeks, then I set the date for my party for four weeks’ time, and we got started.’
Dad said, with respect, it was a well-known fact that there were only two main aspects to getting fit and those were diet and exercise. If his test-run hadn’t got the right results, that might be down to the quality of his guinea pigs. No offense!
‘I know,’ said Gran. ‘That’s why we used the same guinea pigs.’
We all looked at each other.
Gran said, when it came to diet, fitness was not the same as thinness. It was no good starving yourself stick-thin and being as weak as a wafer – that wasn’t the kind of body you would want. It was about being a healthy weight, and the best way to achieve that was by eating a healthy diet.
One thing you could say for Mum’s nutritious yet adventurous cooking was that there was always plenty of fresh fruit and veg.
‘That’s why none of you really had a weight problem in the first place,’ she said.
‘This dinner-in-box is very bad,’ said Mr Kaminski. ‘Is too small, always you are hungry. You eat many, many snacks. You get fatter.’
You could see the light-bulb flick on above Matt’s head.
‘Is that why you cancelled our six-month anniversary?’
Primrose was sitting on his lap. Any sensible person would have thrown her off.
‘I couldn’t even do it up by then,’ Primrose protested, as if it was a perfectly reasonable explanation. ‘We’d just done Dad’s get-fit-in-four-weeks-plan.’
Matt gave her a massive hug. He said she could put on fifty kilos and dress like a bag of potatoes, she would always look beautiful to him.
‘There’s no-one in the world like you!’ he said. He got that bit right, anyway.
Gran said that, with Mum cooking again so we didn’t go pigging out on crisps and bicks between meals, she and Mr Kaminski reckoned our diet was sorted.
‘So then we thought about exercise, and we asked ourselves why going for a jog every day before breakfast hadn’t worked. We decided it must be because you didn’t really want to do it.’
Mum muttered that she had, in fact, told Dad at the outset that she didn’t like jogging. Primrose said she didn’t see how anyone could like jogging or any other form of exercise for that matter, if it meant getting out of bed an hour before you had to.
‘The thing about exercise is it’s hard,’ said Gran. ‘You’ve got to want to do it, and that means it’s got to be something you enjoy. So we thought, “What would Primrose enjoy? Making a bit of extra pocket-money!”’
‘Is why I say to Jan, make leaflets, ask Primrose to deliver,’ said Mr Kaminski.
‘It was an unexpected bonus when Primrose and Matt got back together and found they liked walking on the beach by moonlight,’ said Gran.
‘And leaving that leaflet from the leisure centre,’ Mum said. ‘How cunning was that? You knew I was feeling bored and I’ve always loved swimming.’
Gran grinned at her. Mr Kaminski looked pleased with himself.
‘Also we think, what will Peony enjoy? Is dogs!’
I looked at Jane. ‘So the vet didn’t really say Magnus was depressed?’
She shook her head.
‘But he must have been, because look at him now. He’s like a different dog!’
‘Another unexpected bonus,’ said Gran.
Magnus sat up. He knew we were talking about him. I stroked him and he wagged his tail. Jane said she might take up walking him herself now. It might help her to trim down too.
‘Does that mean you won’t need me any more?’ I said. I was surprised how disappointed I felt. Plus, if walking Magnus every day was what got me fit enough to go orienteering, I had to keep it up. Then, by Easter-time, climbing up Snowdon would be a piece of cake!
‘Not at all,’ said Jane. ‘Two walks are better than one for Magnus and anyway, if I discover that I don’t enjoy it I’ll find excuses not to do it, like your gran says.’
‘But what about Dad?’ said Primrose. ‘He doesn’t really like any exercise except football, and he’s on the bench.’
Gran said that for the slightly more lazy person such as Dad, exercise had to be not so much enjoyable as unavoidable. That’s why she’d had him running up and down to the Harbourside Stores for her on endless errands, and doing strenuous jobs around the house.
Dad isn’t the sort of person who holds a grudge – he can’t be bothered. He grinned at Gran.
‘Well, it worked!’ he said. ‘Ray’s just told me I’m back on the team.’
Dad’s team coach, Ray, had been at the party, along with half the population of Polgotherick.
‘It worked for me too,’ Primrose said. ‘When I was deciding what to wear this morning, I tried on my anniversary dress… and it fits!’
‘And I can keep up with Stella again,’ said Mum. ‘Clearing that garden yesterday, she was the one who had to take the first break.’
I joined in. ‘I had to run around for two whole hours when we went orienteering, and I didn’t get tired at all.’
Gran and Mr Kaminski looked delighted. Now Dad would just have to make a few small tweaks to his book and all the ideas would be properly tried-and-tested. The key to fitness was healthy meals and exercise you enjoyed.
Dad shook his head. He said he had discovered that writing a book was like doing exercise – it was harder than you thought. You wouldn’t do it unless you really wanted to.
‘I found I really didn’t want to write a book about fitness – especially not after it turned out my ideas didn’t seem to work.’
‘But what about all those tens?’ I said.
Dad said, ‘Oh, I have been writing a book, only not about fitness. I spotted a paperback called, “Slow down, chill out”, when I was at the library and I thought, “I could write a book like that!” After all, I’m always trying to stop you lot getting your knickers in a knot and I’ve spent my whole life testing out my ideas!’
Dad said the title of each chapter was one of his mottoes. Chapter one was called, ‘Better late than having to set the alarm.’ Chapter two was ‘Nature abhors a vacuum cleaner.’ Then there was ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth getting someone else to do it’ and ‘If at first you don’t succeed, give up.’ The second-to-last chapter was, ‘He who hesitates might get out of doing things,’ and the last one was, ‘When the going gets tough, there’s always TV.’
‘Ed thinks that should be the title of the book. I emailed it to him yesterday. He loves it – he says it’s going to make our fortune!’
Dad said people had never understood him. Everyone thought he was lazy, or joking around. They didn’t understand that doing as little work as possible and maxing out on chill-time was a perfectly reasonable choice.
‘You’ve got to decide what’s important to you,’ he said. ‘Well, for me, the most important thing is having plenty of time for sports, mates and my three best girls.’
That took the wind out of our sails. It was as if we were seeing him for the first time.
‘What?’ said Dad.
Jane gave herself a little shake.
‘This calls for a celebration,’ she said. ‘Supper at the Happy Haddock – my treat!’
Gran said she would have loved to, but she and Mr Kaminski had plans.
‘It’s a good job this top isn’t too tight,’ she said. ‘I may need to fit into it again in six months’ time.’
They were going on a date! My gran and Mr Kaminski, who were both a million squillion years old.
‘This is New Year wish I could not tell,’ Mr Kaminski said, with a happy sigh.
The rest of us walked down to the Happy Haddock. It was snowing, big soft floaty flakes. When we got down to the harbour, we built a snowman right outside Jane’s pub. Then we played snowballs until our fingers froze.
But after four weeks on Gran’s secret fitness plan, not one of us felt tired at all.
Have you read all the Peony Pinker books?
How to get what you want by Peony Pinker
978-1-4081-3287-6
How to get the family you want by Peony Pinker
978-1-4081-3286-9
How to get the friends you want by Peony Pinker
978-1-4081-5236-2
By Jenny Alexander
Published by A&C Black
£5.99
First published 2011 by
A & C Black
Bloomsbury Publishing plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP
www.acblack.com
This electronic edition published in December 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Text copyright © 2011 Jenny Alexander
Illustrations copyright © 2011 Ella Okstad
The right of Jenny Alexander and Ella Okstad to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
> All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781408165904
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How to Get the Body You Want by Peony Pinker Page 8