by Jean Ure
“There,” said Mum. “What do you think?”
I gazed at Emilia. She stood there, pink and proud, holding out the skirt of her dress.
“Go on, then!” Her mum nudged at her. “Give us a twirl!”
Emilia twirled, and the skirt frothed and foamed. Mum and Mrs Duffy both clapped.
“Well?” said Mum. “Don’t you think she makes a lovely little dewdrop?”
It was kind of surprising, but she actually did. I mean, thirteen is way too old to be wearing a dewdrop dress, especially if you’re a bit on the large side, but Emilia just looked so sweet and so eager that I found I was suddenly clapping too.
“I reckon she ought to win first prize,” I said.
“I reckon she should,” said Mum.
Emilia beamed. A big banana beam that lit up her whole face.
“Off you go then!” Mum gave me a little push towards the door. “Go and put the kettle on, I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Oh, and Frankie… thank you,” she whispered; and she nodded at me, and smiled, like for once I had done something good.
I bundled off down the hall with Rags, walloping at him playfully with my school bag. I love it when I have Mum’s approval! It doesn’t happen all that often.
Angel was in the kitchen, texting someone, her thumbs flying about all over the place. She prides herself on being this champion texter. When me and Rags came bursting in she shouted, “Oh, God!” at the top of her voice and went rushing out, still texting. She is completely mad.
She is also very messy; the whole table was covered in her stuff. Books, and pens, and sticks of make-up. A hairbrush (with hair in it). Bits of used tissue. Her purse, her keys, a packet of chewing gum, with a lump of chewed gum stuck on to it. Everything just rolling about. Quite disgusting, really. I mean the gum, and the hair. Yuck! I knew what had happened. Her phone had started ringing, and in her eagerness to get to it she’d simply upended her bag and tipped out the contents on the kitchen table. Well, they could stay there! Wasn’t my job to tidy up after her.
I put the kettle on and went into the garden with Rags, where we played with his ball for a while until it suddenly occurred to me that the clump of dead sticks he was trampling on might not be dead sticks at all, they might be some sort of plant. In which case, Mum would not be happy.
I decided to go back in and do something noble to make up for it. Just in case. I would clear away Angel’s mess and I would lay the table! Nicely, the way Mum likes it. Sometimes, if she’s been working late, we just make a little bit of space at one end, with everything all scrunched up. When we do that Mum says things like, “Oh, your nan would despair!” or “Whatever happened to proper family meals?” She would be pleased if she came out to find knives and forks and plates all properly laid out, and I wouldn’t feel so guilty about the plant. If it was a plant.
I picked up Angel’s bag and started scooping stuff into it. I chucked the tissues into the bin but I left the lump of chewing gum. I wasn’t touching that, thank you very much. The book was lying open, so I thought maybe she’d been doing her homework, but then I saw that it was called Fangs of Love and had a black cover with bright red blood dripping down from the title. Cool! I wondered if she’d let me borrow it when she was done. I like books with black covers, especially if they have blood on them.
I thought I’d better mark the place as she would only get mean if I didn’t, so I laid the book, very carefully, face down and still open, on top of the dresser. I didn’t even dog-ear the page; I didn’t want to give her anything to moan about.
Mum came in just as the kettle was boiling.
“Look!” I said. “I laid the table for you.”
“Lovely,” said Mum. “That makes me very happy.”
“I thought you’d like it,” I said. “Oh, and I wanted to tell you… you know you said about me interfering? With Jem? Looking for her birth mum? Well, she and her mum have made it up. They’re friends again. And it’s all down to me!”
“Really,” said Mum.
“Yes, cos if I hadn’t pushed her – not that I did! I didn’t push. I just had the idea. And you said I shouldn’t have, but if I hadn’t she and her mum might still not be talking. And now they are! So it’s all worked out. So that’s good, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said Mum. “I’m glad to hear it. Go and tell your brother and sister that tea’s ready.”
That was all she had to say? I’d thought she might at least have apologised, or something. Accusing me of interfering!
Mum said, “Frankie?”
“Yeah, OK.” I went into the hall and yelled, “AN-GEL! TOM! TEA’S READY!”
“Thank you,” said Mum. “Remind me to put some ear plugs in next time.”
What did she think? I was going to go all the way upstairs?
Tom came into the kitchen just as Dad arrived back from work. Mum said, “There, now, isn’t that nice? All of us sitting down together, for once.”
“Except Angel,” I said. “D’you want me to call her again?”
“Yeah, try shouting a bit louder,” said Tom. “Put a bit of effort into it.” He sniggered. “Couldn’t hardly hear you before.”
Excuse me? Mr Kaye, who takes us for drama, says I have this really POWERFUL voice. I don’t go all high and shrill like Angel; anyone would have to be deaf, not to hear me. But I went back out to the hall and bellowed obediently up the stairs: “ANGEL-MUM-WANTSUS-ALL-TO-SIT-DOWN-TOGETHER!”
Dad had his hands over his ears. “That’s grievous bodily harm, that is,” he said.
“Tom said I didn’t shout loud enough!”
Tom sniggered again.
“I think you’ll find he was being funny,” said Mum. “Still, at least she’ll have heard you this time… along with half the neighbourhood.”
Seconds later, Angel’s footsteps came clunking down the stairs.
“You didn’t have to shout,” she said. “I’m not deaf.” And then she looked at the table, laid for tea, and shrieked, “What have you done with my stuff?”
Dad’s hands flew back to his ears. I pointed silently at the dresser.
“What about my book mark? Where’s my bookmark?”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve saved your place.”
“BUT WHERE’S THE BOOKMARK?”
Dad groaned.
I said, “There wasn’t any bookmark.”
I might as well not have bothered: Angel just went on shrieking.
“Where is it? What have you done with it?” She tipped up her bag, scattered the contents and began madly scrabbling through. “Where has it gone? My autograph from Robbie!”
Dad said, “Who’s Robbie, when he’s at home?”
“He’s this boy at my school,” said Tom. “He’s in Year 11 and he’s got this band called Death’s Head and all the girls go stupid about him.”
“He signed my hankie,” wailed Angel.
“If you mean that bit of old tissue,” I said, “I put it in the bin.”
“In the bin?” Angel’s voice rose to a bat squeak. Dad winced. “You put Robbie’s autograph in the bin?”
“I didn’t know it was an autograph!” Who goes round collecting autographs on paper hankies? Not to mention using them as bookmarks. “It just looked like a bit of used tissue to me.”
“GOD!” Angel hurled herself at the bin and threw back the lid. “Ugh! Yuck!” She pulled out a sodden tissue. “This was my most treasured possession and you’ve gone and ruined it!”
“Oh, now, be fair,” said Mum, “she didn’t mean to. She was only trying to help! She was laying the table for me.”
“She didn’t have to go and throw my autograph in the bin! Why can’t she just leave my things alone? I’ll never forgive you for this,” panted Angel. “Never, as long as I live! My autograph from Robbie!”
“I’m sure Tom could get you another,” said Mum.
Tom looked startled.
“Or maybe we could dry it out. Let me have it.”
Resent
fully, Angel said, “It’s got muck on it.”
“It’s only a bit damp, don’t panic. We’ll put it on some kitchen roll and it’ll dry out just fine.”
“If it’s that important,” I said, “you should have got it laminated.”
Angel turned on me, furiously. “You can’t laminate a paper tissue!”
“Well, or you could have stuck it in an autograph book, or something. That’s what I’d have done.”
“I’m not interested in what you’d have done! You’ve already done it, as far as I’m concerned.”
Mum laughed. “For goodness’ sake! Stop being so melodramatic.”
“But it’s my autograph from Robbie!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
Angel made a sound like, “Humph!”
“Sit down and eat your tea,” said Mum.
“I don’t want any tea!” Angel had her mobile out, and was frantically texting again. “I’m going back upstairs!”
The door slammed behind her.
“Well, I never,” said Dad. “Poor old Frankie!” He pulled a sympathetic face. “Can’t do anything right, can you?”
Mum put her arm round me. “Don’t worry, beanie, it’s not the end of the world.” Beanie. That was my pet name when I was little. “You know what your sister’s like… a bit of a drama queen.”
I was really grateful that for once both Mum and Dad were on my side. Quite an unusual state of affairs! But as Mum had said, I was only trying to help. It’s all I ever do; I don’t set out on purpose to upset people. Not even Angel. I don’t like upsetting her.
“She’ll get over it,” said Mum.
In the meantime, I reminded myself that it was entirely thanks to me that Jem was happy again. I might have chucked my sister’s most treasured possession in the waste bin, but at least I had helped one of my two best friends make it up with her mum. That had to be worth something!
… Out in July!
Can’t wait until then? Turn over for a
sneak preview…
All I’m saying is, I didn’t set out to cut a hole. It wasn’t like I woke up in the morning and thought, “Today I shall cut a hole in my carpet.” It just seemed like a good idea at the time, as things so often do. Then afterwards you wonder why, only by then it’s too late. This is something that happens to me rather a lot. I am quite unfortunate in that way.
What I was doing, in actual fact, wasn’t thinking about cutting holes so much as trying to find a way of fitting my corner cabinet into a corner. Gran had given me the cabinet when she moved out of her house into a flat. It’s really cute! Very small and painted white, with pink and blue flowers all running round the edge, and tiny glass-panelled doors. Gran used to keep china ornaments in there. Shepherdesses and milkmaids and old-fashioned ladies selling balloons. I keep my collection of shells and fossils and interesting stones with holes in them. Gran knew I’d always loved her corner cabinet. I was so excited when she gave it to me! But the thing is, it is a corner cabinet. That is why it is shaped like a triangle. It has to stand in a corner.
I’ve only got two corners in my bedroom. This is because it’s the smallest room in the house, tucked away under the roof, and is shaped like a wedge of cheese. The big front bedroom is Mum and Dad’s; the one at the back is Angel’s; the little one over the garage is Tom’s; and the one the size of a broom cupboard belongs to me. Mum says that when Angel goes to uni, Tom can have her room and I can have his. And when Tom goes to uni, I can take over. But since Angel is only fifteen, it seems to me I’m going to be stuck in my broom cupboard for years to come.
I don’t really mind; I quite like my little bedroom. It’s cosy, like a nest. And I love the way the roof slopes down, and the way the window is at floor level. The only problem is, is the lack of corners! My bed is in one, and my wardrobe in the other. I’d tried fitting Gran’s cabinet into the angle between the roof and the floor, but it was just the tiniest little bit too tall. If I could only slice a couple of centimetres off the bottom of it …
That was when it came to me. If I couldn’t slice anything off Gran’s cabinet, how about cutting a hole in the carpet? It just seemed like the obvious solution! What Dad calls lateral thinking. I reckoned he would be quite pleased with me. He is always telling us to “think outside the box” and “use your imagination.” That was exactly what I was doing!
Also by Jean Ure
Ice Lolly
Love and Kisses
Fortune Cookie
Star Crazy Me!
Over the Moon
Boys Beware
Sugar and Spice
Is Anybody There?
Secret Meeting
Passion Flower
Shrinking Violet
Boys on the Brain
Skinny Melon and Me
Becky Bananas, This is Your Life!
Fruit and Nutcase
The Secret Life of Sally Tomato
Family Fan Club
Special three-in-one editions
The Tutti-Frutti Collection
The Flower Power Collection
The Friends Forever Collection
Copyright
FRANKIE FOSTER : Fizzy Pop
Text copyright © Jean Ure 2010
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN-13 978-0-00-736265-3
EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007432233
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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