Fizzypop

by Jean Ure

  “Look, just shut up for a minute and let Frankie talk,” said Skye.

  I was quite flattered when she said that; it’s not very often anyone invites me to talk. Jem, needless to say, went off into a sulk.

  “All I was wondering,” I said, “was where did she go?”

  “I thought London,” said Skye.

  “But she left Jem – I mean, the baby – whoever it was, she left it here. Why go all the way to London and then come back just to leave a baby in the churchyard?”

  Jem made a loud, impatient, trumpeting noise. “She didn’t come back! She wasn’t there.”

  “But she said—”

  “In the end I found my way to London.” Jem obviously knew the article by heart. “Obviously she didn’t go there till she’d had me. I reckon what happened, she covered things up as long as she could, like with baggy sweaters and stuff, cos you can do that,” said Jem. “I’ve heard of people doing that! They suddenly have babies and nobody even knew they were pregnant.”

  “Yes, you said that before,” said Skye.

  “Well, I’m just telling you… that’s what obviously happened. Course, someone must have helped her. A friend, or someone. Maybe the one the police spoke to. Your auntie’s friend’s sister, who said she didn’t know anything. That’s cos she’d have been sworn to s— Oh!” Jem suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth. “We should have asked her! Your auntie! We should have asked her where she was.”

  “What, her friend’s sister?”

  “Don’t you see?” Jem flung out her arms. “She could be the one who helped her! Why didn’t you ask?”

  My mouth opened and shut like a goldfish. I glanced at Skye, to see if she had the answer, but it seemed she was just as clueless as I was. Why hadn’t we asked? It was obvious, now I came to think of it. Mia couldn’t have managed by herself; she’d have needed a friend.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have left things to you!” cried Jem. “We’ll have to go back.”

  “No, we can’t,” said Skye. “I promised Mum I’d be home.”

  “So me and Frankie’ll go back.”

  I somehow didn’t fancy that. The last thing I wanted was to be a nuisance. “Maybe I could ring her,” I said.

  “Now! Ring her now!”

  So that was what I did, standing in the middle of the street, calling Auntie Cath to ask if she knew where we could find her friend’s sister. Auntie Cath seemed a bit surprised.

  “Why would you want to know that?”

  Lamely, I mumbled that I was researching a project for school.

  “Sounds to me,” said Auntie Cath, “like you’re sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong! All this about Mia running away from home to have a baby… Even if she did – and it’s a big if – it doesn’t give you the right to go poking about in her private life.”

  I protested that I wasn’t, but of course I was, so I expect it didn’t quite ring true.

  “In any case, you’re out of luck,” said Auntie Cath. “I lost touch with my friend Anna years ago, I have absolutely no idea where she’s living. Or where her sister is. And I’m afraid I wouldn’t tell you, even if I had. If you want to do research, I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff you can get off the internet.”

  I muttered, “OK. Sorry.”

  “That’s OK, I’m not having a go at you. I think perhaps you just got a bit overenthusiastic.”

  “You don’t have to tell Mum,” I said, “do you?”

  “No, don’t worry, I won’t tell your mum!”

  That was a relief. I didn’t want Mum jumping to conclusions and reading me one of her lectures. How many times have I told you, Frankie, not to interfere?

  Jem was disgruntled. She said, “I bet she does know, really!”

  “I’m not asking her again,” I said.

  “If you’d asked her while we were there she might have said!”

  “If you hadn’t kept talking all the time when we’d already told you not to,” said Skye, “we might have had a chance. Now she’s all suspicious and thinks we’re prying.”

  “It was you that made her suspicious,” said Jem. “Going on about me wanting ten babies!”

  We were bickering now; all accusing one another.

  “I blame you,” said Skye as we parted company, Jem going off down Addersley Drive and me and Skye continuing straight on.

  “Why me?” I said. “Why do I always get the blame for everything?”

  “You were the one that gave her the idea. It hadn’t ever occurred to her to go looking for her birth mum till you went and suggested it.”

  “Huh!” I brooded for a while, wondering whether to pursue the matter or just let it drop. I decided to let it drop. I am used to people saying things are my fault; it’s nothing new. “Do you reckon Mia really could be her mum?” I said.

  Skye thought about it. “It all fits. I just don’t see how she’s ever going to be able to prove it.”

  I sighed. I didn’t either. We seemed to have explored every possibility. But now she had come this far, she couldn’t just stop.

  It was what Jem herself said next morning, as we met up for school. “I can’t just stop!”

  “No, you can’t,” I said. “There’s got to be other things we can do.”

  I glared at Skye, daring her to be negative, but she nodded in a brisk and businesslike way and said, “We’ll make a list.” Skye is always making lists. She makes lists of everything. Things to Do, Things to Remember, Things to Look Up, Things to Think About. “We’ll do it at break,” she said. She looked warningly at me and Jem. “Not during lessons!”

  At break we were heading to our usual spot when this big bossy girl from our class, Daisy Hooper, came bounding up.

  “Why are you lot always going off on your own?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I said.

  “Well, I would,” said Daisy. “What are you up to?”

  “We’re a secret society,” I said.

  “What kind of secret society?”

  “Not the kind that’d let you join!”

  Daisy sniffed. “Wouldn’t want to.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “Cos people shouldn’t have secret societies! It’s anti-social.”

  “Not that it’s any business of yours,” said Skye, “but since you’re obviously dying of nosiness I don’t mind letting you in on it.”

  What?

  Jem gave a little screech. “Don’t tell her!”

  “She’s got to, now,” said Daisy.

  “We’re conducting very important research,” said Skye. “It’s what’s known as an ongoing investigation.”

  Ooh! Cool.

  “What’s that mean?” said Daisy.

  “Means it’s nothing to do with you,” I said.

  She is such a busybody! Always poking her nose in.

  “Right,” said Skye, as Daisy went flouncing off. “Let’s get on with it and do the list.” She took out a pen, and her rough book. “THINGS TO TRY.” She stood, pen poised. “OK! Who’s got any suggestions?”

  It turned out that nobody had. Skye tutted, impatiently.

  “You’ve had the whole morning to think of something!”

  “So have you,” said Jem.

  “Yes, but she’s your birth mum. And she –” she pointed her pen at me – “was the one that started it all!”

  I said, “You were the one that said make a list.”

  “I didn’t expect to have to do it by myself!”

  We were bickering again. We never bicker!

  “OK,” said Skye. “Calm down. Think.” So we thought. This is what we came up with:

  THINGS TO TRY:

  1. Ask Mum

  2. Ask Mia

  3. Ask a government department

  It wasn’t much of a list, but it was all we could think of.

  “Might as well start at the beginning,” said Skye. “Ask your mum. That’s the easiest.”

  “No.” Jem shook her head, very fiercely. “I ca
n’t!”

  Asking her mum had been my contribution, so naturally I felt the need to defend it. I pointed out that it was the one thing she could do immediately, and maybe put herself out of her misery. But Jem just said, “I can’t.” She then added that Liliana had been round again, with the latest pictures from her photo shoot. I took this to mean that Jem was having another surge of bitterness and resentment towards poor Mrs McClusky.

  “I reckon that Liliana’s just winding you up,” said Skye.

  Jem scowled. “She doesn’t have to wind me up, I’m already wound up. I keep thinking how that could be me, going to photo shoots!”

  “Well, all right, we can’t force you,” said Skye. “But I don’t see how you think you’re going to ask Mia.”

  “I’ll write to her,” said Jem. Asking Mia had been her suggestion. “I’ll write and ask her!”

  “I already tried that,” I said. “I wrote one in my head. It doesn’t work.”

  “Maybe if we all sat down together,” pleaded Jem.

  “You can’t just write to celebs out of the blue, asking them if they’re your mum,” objected Skye. “I think we ought to try a government department. After all, that’s what they’re for. To help people.”

  We looked at her, doubtfully.

  “It’s a democracy!” cried Skye. “It’s our right! We’ll Google it,” she said, as we went back into school. “How to find your birth mother. It’s just a question of knowing where to look.”

  Skye has this touching faith in computers; she reckons you can ask them pretty well anything and they will come up with an answer. She promised that we would go to the library and do it at lunch time, but guess what? All the computers were in use; we couldn’t get anywhere near them.

  “This is just so frustrating,” moaned Jem.

  She was so busy being frustrated, swinging her bag and bashing at things, that she almost missed the squawks of triumph as Daisy Hooper and her mob came thundering up the steps from the main corridor.

  “So much for you and your silly secret society,” crowed Daisy. “We just heard that Mia Jelena’s going to be special guest at Speech Day!”

  “What?” Jem spun round.

  “You heard,” said Daisy. “But we heard first!”

  Well! You would have thought such a piece of news would send Jem into instant overdrive. I waited for her to start fizzing and popping, but she fell strangely silent and stayed that way all afternoon. She didn’t even respond when I elbowed Skye to one side and passed her a note. Something was going on!

  She waited till school finished, till we were almost home, before she broke it to us: “I’ve decided what I’m going to do!”

  Chapter Ten

  Needless to say, we were both desperate to know what she was planning.

  “You’re going to speak to her!”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re going to give her a letter?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re going to… ” We stopped. What else could she be going to do?

  Whatever it was, Jem wasn’t saying. She’d gone all bright-eyed and fizzing. But she still wouldn’t tell!

  “What is she up to?” I said, as Jem went racing off. Skye shook her head.

  “Just hope she knows what she’s doing.”

  I felt sure, by next day, she would be so bursting that she would have to tell us. We nagged at her and pleaded, but all she kept saying was, “You’ll have to wait and see!”

  “Well, but if you’re not going to go and speak to her,” said Skye, “and if you’re not giving her a letter…” She paused, hopefully.

  “You’re sending her a text!”

  “How could I?” said Jem. “I don’t know her number.”

  “Is it something you’re going to do on Speech Day?”

  “Not telling!”

  “If it is,” said Skye, “you’d better make sure it’s not something that’s going to get you into trouble.”

  “Ooh, no, I might get put in the Book!” Jem gave a little squeal of mock terror and clapped her hands to her face.

  “Mrs Stanhope’d get really mad if you made a scene in front of all the local dignitaries.”

  Mrs Stanhope is our head teacher. She is very tall and elegant and rather stern.

  I said, “Are you going to make a scene?”

  I had this vision of Jem marching into the hall waving a home-made banner, or even worse, suddenly jumping up and shouting, “That’s my mum!” It is the sort of thing she would be capable of. But she just said again that we would have to wait and see.

  It wasn’t like Jem; she is usually hopeless at keeping secrets. They just come bursting out of her! Skye said later that it was worrying.

  “I don’t want to get in trouble. Everyone knows we’re her friends. They’ll think we egged her on!”

  “I’m not egging her on,” I said.

  “I didn’t say you were! I said that’s what people would think. Anyway, it was you, at the beginning.”

  We were back to that. It was all my fault. As usual. Blame Frankie!

  “There is such a thing as free will,” I said.

  “Yes, like there’s egging people on and putting ideas in their head. Oh, this is going to be disastrous!” cried Skye. “I can feel it in my bones!

  Speech Day was on Friday evening, in the main hall. It was a big event. Everybody’s parents came, as well as the local dignitaries. I’d gone last year, with Mum and Dad, to watch Angel being given second prize for “All-round performance”. Hah! What a joke. She wouldn’t get one this year. Mum said since she’d discovered boys her school work had gone right off. Boys were all she ever thought about. How sad is that?

  “At least I did get a prize,” she said.

  “Not when you were in Year 7.”

  “I did so! I got ‘Highly Commended’. What have you got?”

  I hadn’t got anything, as she very well knew. But Jem had been chosen to read out her essay! That was better than any old measly prize.

  “She’s going to read it out in front of all the dignitaries!”

  “Big deal,” said Angel. “It’s only the Mayor!”

  “And Mia. She’s a celeb.”

  “Yeah, like she’ll be really impressed.”

  It was at this point that Mum intervened to say she really wished we’d stop trying to score points off each other. “It’s become extremely tiresome.”

  “But Mum, it is a big deal,” I said. “Only two people out of the whole school get to read out their essays.”

  “I agree,” said Mum. “It’s quite an achievement. What is Jem’s essay about?”

  “It’s called ‘Beginnings’,” I said. “We all had to do one. Including her.” I pulled a face at Angel, who stuck out her tongue. Talk about infantile! You would never think she was in Year 10. “Jem wrote this lovely stuff about her mum and dad. Saying how they were her real mum and dad, and being adopted made her feel special? Miss Rolfe said it was heart-warming.”

  “It sounds it,” said Mum. “I hope her mum and dad are going to be there to hear it?”

  I knew that they were, cos Mrs McClusky had told me, just the other day, when I’d been round at Jem’s. She’d been quite giggly and excited.

  “I don’t know what she’s written, she won’t tell us, she says it’s a secret. We’re totally in the dark!”

  I assured her that there was no need to worry. “You’ll really like it,” I smiled at Mrs McClusky. “You’ll be ever so proud!”

  All the rest of the week Jem continued, in a quiet sort of way, to fizz and bubble. You could see she was just dying to open her mouth and let it all spill out, but somehow she managed to resist. The nearest she came was a series of high-pitched squeaks, like a bat, before immediately clamping a hand to her mouth and spluttering, “No! I can’t tell you!”

  “You’re really going to do it?” said Skye, as we walked home after school on Friday.

  “I’ve got to!” For just a moment there seemed to be a slight
note of doubt in Jem’s voice. Skye pounced, immediately.

  “Do you really think you ought to?”

  Jem sucked in her lower lip and started nibbling at it. “Got to,” she muttered.

  “You haven’t got to. Whatever it is—”

  “I’ve got to!”

  Now she wasn’t just nibbling, she was actually chewing. Ouch! Painful.

  “Leave her alone,” I said to Skye.

  “I don’t want her doing anything stupid! You know what she’s like.”

  “It’s her business,” I said. “Nothing to do with us.”

  “Oh!” Skye reared up in pretend amazement. “Look who’s talking!”

  “We shouldn’t interfere,” I said. I felt good, saying that. Mum would approve! “If you really think it’s right,” I told Jem, “then I reckon you should go ahead. Do it! Whatever it is, it’s up to you.”

  “I have to,” said Jem. She gazed with an air of tragic apology at Skye. “It’s the only way I’ll ever get to know!”

  Me and Angel, and Mum and Dad, were all going to Speech Day. Tom could have come if he’d wanted, but like I said, he’s an alien. He’d rather stay indoors and zap things on his computer than mix with real people. What with Angel being so obsessed by the opposite sex, and Tom not being quite human, I sometimes reckon I’m the only normal child that Mum and Dad have.

  The hall was already filling up when we arrived. Mum and Dad went off to find seats, while me and Angel joined our year groups. I slid in next to Skye.

  “Where’s Jem?”

  Skye nodded. “Down there. At the front.”

  She was sitting with the prizewinners! “Where’s her mum and dad?” I twisted round to look and saw them at the end of a row. Mrs McClusky caught my eye and waved. I waved back.

  “This is going to be so much fun!” I said.

  It would be fun hearing Jem, it would be fun hearing Mia. It might even be fun watching all the prizewinners go up to get their prizes. It has, however, to be admitted, there are great stretches of Speech Day that are monumentally boring. I remembered from last year how the Mayor had dirged on and on, until I got all itchy with the effort of trying to sit still and not wriggle. She dirged on this year too. I don’t know what she dirged about cos halfway through I zoned out (but made sure to keep a polite smile on my face in case one of the teachers was watching).