by Jean Ure
I gaze down at Mr Pooter, who’s gone back to sleep with Blue Bunny between his paws.
“The problem is, of course,” says Auntie Ellen, “you’ve never been properly socialised. Shut away with your mum all the time…it wasn’t natural.”
I wasn’t always shut away with Mum; only after she got sick. She needed me! There wasn’t anyone else. Only Stevie, and she couldn’t be there all the time. It used to worry Mum so much. She said to me once, “Oh, Lol, I never wanted it to be like this!”
It wasn’t, to begin with. I can still remember, when I was little, how I used to have birthday parties. We used to have special treasure hunts, all round the house. Mum used to spend days working out the clues and hiding presents. I used to invite all the girls in my class, and they always, always came. all of them.
Mum tried ever so hard to keep going. It was just, in the end, it got too much. She didn’t have the energy. It wasn’t her fault!
Auntie Ellen can obviously read my thoughts. “I’m not blaming your mum,” she says. “It’s just the way things were. But you have to make an effort, Laurel. It’s up to you. Anyway.” Auntie Ellen stands up. “Now that you’ve packed your bag, how about coming downstairs to join the rest of us?”
I know that I have to make an effort. Auntie Ellen is making one, even though she’d probably rather not. I would also rather not! I desperately don’t want to. But I can hear Mum’s voice. She sounds so sad.
“Come on, Lol,” she says. “Don’t let me down. Fair’s fair! Your aunt is doing her best.”
With a little sigh, I slide off the bed and hoist Mr Pooter into my arms.
“Now why did you have to go and do that?” says Auntie Ellen. “Why disturb him? He was quite happy as he was.”
I tell her that Mr Pooter likes to sit on my lap. “He always sits on my lap at night.”
She makes an impatient clicking sound with her tongue. “Oh, very well! Bring him if you must.”
I go downstairs and sit on the sofa, cuddling Mr Pooter. We all look at the television. I’m not sure what it is that we’re watching; I’m locked away, safe inside my ice house. Tomorrow I’m going to be at this new school. Smaller, and not so mixed.
“Is there a library?” I’ve said it before I can stop myself. Everyone turns to look at me.
“Is there a library where?” says Uncle Mark.
“At the school.”
“You mean Bennington?” says Auntie Ellen. “Of course there is!”
“All schools have libraries,” says Holly.
I know they do. It was a really dumb question! It’s just that I am starting to feel a bit anxious.
Under cover of the television, Michael leans across and whispers, “It’s OK, I’ll show you.”
I whisper back, “Thank you.” I’d like to assure him that I won’t talk about God or do anything embarrassing, but the television’s gone all low, so I can’t. But I decide it will probably be best if I keep very quiet at this new school. Otherwise, it seems, every time I open my mouth I go and say something stupid or something that offends people.
Ice Lolly makes a vow: she will speak only when spoken to.
CHAPTER FOUR
Friday morning. In the car on the way to school. I’m sitting in the back with Michael, Holly’s in the front with Uncle Mark. She always has to go in the front. She says she gets sick, otherwise. I think I might get sick if it was a long journey as I’m not very used to travelling by car. I don’t know what would happen in that case. I suppose I would have to use a plastic bag, which would be totally disgusting.
Something else which is a little bit disgusting…there is a smell wafting up from my sweater. Mr Pooter was sleeping on it during the night and brought up a bit of yellow stuff. I thought I’d got it all off, but there must be some I missed. I quiver my nostrils, trying to sniff the air without making it obvious what I’m doing. Michael doesn’t seem to have noticed, so maybe I’m just imagining it. I think Mr Pooter must have made himself a nest because my sweater was all scrumpled and catty-smelling. He dribbles quite a lot. He can’t help it. It is what old cats do.
“So!” That is Uncle Mark, booming out from the front of the car. “How are you getting on, Laurel?”
For a minute I think he means how am I getting on with my sweater, searching for bits of bile I may have missed. Bile. That is what the yellow stuff is called. But of course it is not what he means at all. He is talking about school.
“Made any friends yet?”
I have been at this school for two weeks, now. If I were Holly, I would probably have made a whole gang of friends. But you can’t make friends unless you talk to people, and I am scared that if I open my mouth something inappropriate will come out. It is what Auntie Ellen accuses me of. Making inappropriate remarks. She says, “You really must think before you speak, Laurel.”
So I am thinking how to answer Uncle Mark’s question, but I take so long that in the end he gives up.
“Maybe on your birthday,” he says, “you can invite some of your classmates for a pizza. When is your birthday? End of July, isn’t it?”
That is weeks and weeks away. He is saying to himself that surely by then she will have made friends. I have made one friend. Mrs Caton, in the library. I know I am her friend because she has made me a library assistant and told me I can go into the library whenever I want and she will always be there if I want to talk. I don’t worry about making inappropriate remarks when I’m with Mrs Caton. She is a book person, like me! But she is not the sort of friend that Uncle Mark is thinking of, which is why I don’t mention her. He would say that a grown-up doesn’t count. I am supposed to be making friends of my own age.
“Anyway,” he says, “I don’t imagine you’re having any problems with your actual school work?”
Michael answers for me. “No,” he says, “she’s one of the clever ones.”
Holly contorts her face and makes a vomiting sound. Michael tells her to shut up. “What do you know about anything, pea brain?”
Uncle Mark says that he would expect me to do well. “You take after your mum. She was always the bright spark of the family. First one to make uni!”
Jealously, Holly says, “I bet you could have gone if you’d wanted.”
“Not without a struggle,” says Uncle Mark. “I wasn’t that way inclined. But your mum, Laurel… she just flew through everything!”
I glow when he says that about Mum. and I love that I take after her! Not that I fly through everything, and I don’t really think Mum did, either, cos we always used to giggle about how she still had to add up on her fingers.
“Well, OK,” says Uncle Mark, “so what’s happening today? What’s on the menu?”
“Friday, fish and chips! Yum yum,” says Holly.
“He doesn’t mean food, stupid,” says Michael. “He means lessons.”
Holly turns pink. “Then why doesn’t he say so?”
Uncle Mark explains that he was trying to be funny. “In a pathetic kind of way.”
“Menu means food,” says Holly, all self-righteous. “Timetable means lessons.”
Uncle Mark groans. “All right, I give in! What’s on the timetable?”
Michael rattles through it. “Maths, history, English…hey!” He nudges at me. “Your turn to read!” He tells Uncle Mark how Mr Tinsley always has someone read a passage from one of their favourite books for the last ten minutes of double English. Today it’s going to be me. I’ve been looking forward to it all week.
“Sounds right up your street,” says Uncle Mark. “What book have you chosen?”
He’s talking to me, so I have to answer, though for some reason I find that I suddenly don’t want to. Reluctantly, I say that I’m going to read from Diary of a Nobody.
“Diary of a Nobody? Never heard of that one,” says Uncle Mark. “What’s it about?”
Holly shrills out from the front seat. “It’s about some boring old man writing his diary!”
“A children’s book?” Uncl
e Mark sounds surprised. “Whatever happened to Harry Potter?”
“We had Harry Potter last week,” says Michael. “Lots of people did it.”
“So what are you doing when it’s your turn?”
Michael says he’s going to read something from a book about the ancient Egyptians. “Mummies, and stuff.”
“More interesting than boring old men writing their stupid diaries,” says Holly.
I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to tell Uncle Mark. I wish, now, that I hadn’t chosen Diary of a Nobody. I was going to do it with all Mum’s different voices, but suppose people just think I’m showing off? I realise that I’ve made another of my mistakes. I’m always making mistakes. Like my inappropriate remarks. Maybe I can go to the library at lunchtime and find something else. I don’t want one of Mum’s favourite books being sneered at!
Period 1 on a Friday is maths. It’s not one of my best subjects, though I’m better at it than Mum was. at least I don’t have to use my fingers! When we went shopping together, Mum always gave me the job of adding the prices and checking the change. But next year, when we’re put into different sets, I don’t think I’ll be in the top one. Not for maths. I will for French and English, and maybe history and geography. and Spanish, if I do it. If I’m still here. I suppose I will be. I can’t think of any reason I’d be anywhere else.
For a moment, as I unpack my bag and take out my maths books, I desperately wish I was back at Gospel Road. I don’t care what Auntie Ellen says about this school being better, and smaller, and not so mixed, I’d got used to where I was. I think maybe I am not very good at coping with change. I am not a very adventurous sort of person.
I gaze round at the rest of the class. It is hardly mixed at all. Almost everybody is English. Maybe everybody. There are two black kids and a few Asians, but they are all English. They all speak English. They were all born here. At Gospel Road, people came from everywhere. All over the world. I am scared I shall forget how to say hello in all those different languages. I can remember French and German; they’re easy. Bienvenue and willkommen. And Spanish and Italian. Bienvenido, benvenuto. But I can’t remember Urdu or Gujarati! And Polish and Turkish. They are all disappearing, cos I don’t hear them any more and there’s no one I can ask. at Gospel Road we had them written out and stuck on the classroom doors. They don’t do that here.
I’m squeezing my eyes tight shut, trying to visualise some of the words and see if it will jog my memory. Suddenly I hear the voice of Mr Gurney, telling Carla Phillips that he’s not having her and Maisie Thompson sitting together any more.
“You’re here to learn maths, not fritter away your time painting your nails and doing each other’s hair. Maisie, change places with Tiffany. And Carla, you can come down here and sit next to Laurel. I want you where I can see you.”
My heart sinks. Carla’s like the class bad girl. Does whatever she pleases. I sort of admire her, in a way, though I don’t really like her. She probably doesn’t like me, either. If she’s ever noticed that I’m here, which she may not have done.
Mr Gurney says, “Well, come along, come along! We haven’t got all day.”
Carla snatches up her bag and comes banging resentfully down the aisle, crashing into desks as she goes. She lets herself fall with a big THUMP into the seat next to mine. My pen bounces off the top of the desk and I bend down to get it. On the way back up I catch Carla’s eye. She glares at me and curls her lip. I feel like saying, “It’s not my fault,” but that would just make her even madder. Maybe she thinks it is my fault. If I hadn’t been sitting by myself, Mr Gurney might not have moved her down here in the first place. She’s incredibly angry. All huffing and puffing and slamming things about. Mr Gurney ignores her and starts drawing triangles all over the board. I do my best to concentrate, though it’s difficult with Carla behaving like some kind of hurricane.
After a few minutes she stops all her frenzied activity and starts sniffing the air. She leans in towards me and sniffs again. Then she makes a noise like “Yeeuurgh!” and catapults away from me, clapping her hand dramatically across her face. Mr Gurney spins round.
“Now what’s the problem?” he says.
In muffled tones, from behind her hand, Carla announces that she’s being gassed.
“What are you talking about?” says Mr Gurney.
Carla pegs her nose between finger and thumb. “There’s a smell.”
Now everyone’s sniffing. Mr Gurney snaps, “Live with it!”
“But it’s disgusting! It’s like stale sick.”
“Too bad,” says Mr Gurney. “Just settle down, settle down!”
Mr Gurney goes back to his triangles. Carla, with a flounce, moves her chair into the gangway and sits with her back towards me. I think very hard of Mr Pooter. Poor little old cat, it’s not his fault. Mum always said what a clean boy he was. He used to spend hours grooming himself; he doesn’t do it any more. I’ll have to brush him. And clip his nails. Stevie told me I must make sure they don’t grow too long, now that he can’t do these things for himself. She even gave me a special pair of clippers and showed me how to use them.
I look venomously at Carla’s back, trying to picture her as an old woman, unable to look after herself. I see her all warty and gnarled and people holding their noses and complaining that she smells. It makes me feel a bit better.
At the end of class Carla turns to me and says, “Don’t you ever wash?”
I don’t say anything. I’m not going to tell her about Mr Pooter, she might say something unkind.
“Honestly, you stink.” She wafts the air. Other people gather round. Their noses twitch.
“What is it?” says Maisie.
“Whatever it is,” Carla hooks her arm through Maisie’s as they go off together, “it’s repugnant.”
How does she know a word like that? Even I don’t know it. Repugnant, repugnant. It’s obviously something unpleasant. Something to do with smells. I make a mental note to find out.
Next lesson is PE and a girl called Luisa complains that she doesn’t want my clothes hanging anywhere near hers, so I bundle them up and leave them in a heap and then get into trouble from Mrs Eaton for not hanging them on a peg. Luisa tells me that she’s sorry, but, “You do smell.”
Now it’s lunch, which I eat by myself. No one wants to sit next to me on account of my being so repugnant. Afterwards I go into the girls’ cloakroom and try soaking bits of toilet paper and using it to sponge myself, but the toilet paper just crumbles and leaves bits like confetti all over my sweater, so now I’m wet as well as repugnant. I am beginning to understand why it was that Stevie always had a bit of a smell attached to her.
In desperation I take the sweater off and stuff it into my bag. My blouse is all crumpled and creased from being under Mr Pooter all night, but it doesn’t have any yellow stains on it so it is not quite as repugnant.
I go upstairs to the library and immediately start to feel happier. Down at the far end the library is full of people working on the computers, but here at the books end it is mainly just me and Mrs Caton. She is really pleased to see me.
“Oh, Laurel,” she says, “I’m so glad you’ve come! There’s a whole load of books that need putting away and neither of the others has turned up.”
She means the other two library assistants. They are simply not reliable.
“What would I do without you?” she says, as I start shelving books.
I don’t honestly think she would be able to manage. Not only do the others not always turn up, but sometimes they put books back in the wrong places.
I ask Mrs Caton if she knows what the word repugnant means. She says, “Disgusting, maybe? If that makes sense. How was it used?”
Even though she is my friend, I can’t bring myself to tell her. It is too shameful. But I say that it makes sense.
“It’s an unusual word,” she says. Then she smiles and says, “You like unusual words, don’t you?”
I’m so pleased she’s no
ticed. Me and Mum were always on the lookout for new words. I tell Mrs Caton that just the other day I discovered a really good one: seersucker. I tell her how I looked it up in the dictionary and what it meas. It means a sort of thin cloth that comes from India.
“I think it’s such a lovely word…seersucker! Only it doesn’t sound like cloth, it sounds like something you’d say to someone if they were being stupid, like you might say, Oh, don’t be such a seersucker! Cos words don’t always mean what you’d think they’d mean, do they?”
Mrs Caton agrees that they don’t. She asks me what I’ve chosen as my favourite book to read from in English this afternoon.
I say that I had been going to read from Diary of a Nobody. “Do you know Diary of a Nobody? It’s a grown-up book, not a children’s one. It’s really funny! It’s all about this man, Mr Pooter, that’s writing his diary. He keeps making these terrible jokes, like I’m ’fraid, my love, my cuffs are rather frayed, so that everyone goes groan. And then there’s his wife, she’s called Carrie. She says he’s a spooney old thing. And he’s got this son, Lupin, who causes him lots of trouble. He gets in a real state about Lupin, cos of Lupin not having any respect. Mr Pooter’s got respect. Like at work, there’s his boss, Mr Perkupp. And Mr Pooter says You are a good man, Mr Perkupp, and all the young boys that work in the office start laughing at him, cos they haven’t got any respect either. You ought to read it,” I say.
“I will, I will,” says Mrs Caton. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we have it on the shelves, but—”
I thrust my hand into my bag. “I could lend you it to you, if you like.”
“No, really, Laurel, I’ll look for it in the public library. They’re bound to have it.”