Flora said probably, yes. Mum said that what mattered to her and Dad was that their children were happy.
‘Happy!’ Mr Valenta nearly choked laughing. ‘They will be happy if they are successful, and they will be successful if they are rich.’
Mum said she thought success shouldn’t be measured by how rich you were, but by how fulfilling your life was. Mr Valenta didn’t listen.
‘For example, you …’ He pointed at me. ‘Did I or did I not see you the other day, sitting on a car filming a ball game in the street?’
Marek started, but when I looked at him he was doing his usual thing of staring at the floor with his hair over his eyes.
‘Blue is interested in making documentaries,’ Mum said. Her voice was shorter than usual, but Mr Valenta didn’t notice.
‘Documentaries!’ he cried. ‘My, my, my.’
Dad, who had been turning various shades of red throughout this conversation, knocked back his whisky and poured himself another. Flora looked at me and rolled her eyes. I rolled mine back. Twig pressed his lips together like he was trying not to laugh. Jas came back in, carrying a wailing Pumpkin.
‘He’s got another tooth coming through and it’s making his bottom red,’ she announced.
Twig snorted. Flora handed him a tissue as his eyes started to water. Mr Valenta said he didn’t believe in babies being allowed downstairs after seven o’clock.
Jas said, ‘How would you like to be stuck in a room all on your own if your bottom was sore?’
Twig exploded and ran out of the room to laugh his head off on the landing where he thought we couldn’t hear him. Mrs Valenta said she thought perhaps they should go. Mum agreed that it was getting late.
‘Well!’ she said, as the door closed behind them.
Dad cried, ‘Please promise me you will never invite those people here again?’
‘Shh!’ Flora was standing by the open window. Outside, Mr Valenta was still holding forth.
‘A most unusual family,’ he was saying. ‘Not the sort of neighbours one was expecting, not people like us at all.’
‘No, dear.’
‘I hope you are not friends with them, Marek.’
‘No, Tata.’
They moved on, out of earshot.
‘Not people like us at all.’
Flora’s imitation was perfect. We laughed so hard our tummies hurt, but still – no wonder Marek Valenta is the way he is.
‘Poor kid,’ Flora said later, as we finished up the crisps. ‘No-one should be made to dress like that.’
‘I’d go to Wales like a shot if my dad was like that,’ Twig said. ‘In fact, I’d quite like to go to Wales anyway.’ His eyes shone, and I knew he must be thinking about some rare birds, or animals, or rock formation they have there.
‘Boarding school,’ Jas sighed.
‘Ten miles of running a day,’ Flora reminded her. ‘Rather him than me.’
After they’d gone, Dad insisted we had takeaway pizza for dinner, and we ate it straight from the box on the living room floor in front of the TV.
‘I bet Mr Valenta doesn’t do this,’ he gloated through a dripping mouthful of cheese.
I imagined them all sitting down to dinner across the square. They probably have a huge dining room like the ones you see in films set in castles or something, with straight-backed chairs and acres and acres of gleaming table between them, and different knives and forks depending on what they’re eating.
‘You’ve got tomato sauce on your chin,’ Jas informed me.
I rubbed it away and licked my fingers. It was delicious.
Definitely rather him than me, I thought.
Tuesday 14 September
Zoran came round on his way home from teaching a music lesson. We sat in the garden and he told me that Gloria exchanged contracts yesterday with the people who want to buy her stables.
‘We should be moving just before half-term,’ he said. ‘I thought you would like to know.’
‘So you’ll be leaving,’ I said sadly, and Zoran nudged me with his elbow the way he always does and said, ‘Yes, but your father will be coming home then because we will be with your grandmother,’ and wasn’t that a nice thing, and as I grew up I would understand that life is made up of people coming and going but when you love them, they are somehow always with you.
Zoran is adorable, but he does go on.
Jas came out, balancing a pair of cushions, an A3 drawing pad and Pumpkin in her arms. Zoran hurried to help her.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Art.’
She wedged Pumpkin between the cushions, sat cross-legged on the grass in front of him and began to draw. Pumpkin gurgled, stuffed his fist in his mouth and lurched slowly sideways until he was lying flat on the mat.
Jas threw down her sketchpad. ‘I hate art!’
Zoran asked why didn’t Jas try to draw something less wriggly. Jas explained about the art show and the circle of life. ‘It was Pixie’s idea. Because he’s a baby. Pixie believes that when people die, they’re born again as something else. She says that’s what the circle of life means. It’s not just flowers.’
‘Wouldn’t flowers be easier?’ Zoran asked.
‘Everyone does flowers,’ Jas said.
She propped Pumpkin up again. He grinned and this time threw himself back down on the mat with a happy squeal.
‘Does it have to be a picture?’ Zoran asked. ‘Because you could write a poem. You’re good at that.’
‘A poem’s not art.’
‘The reason art changes people’s lives,’ Zoran said, ‘is that it makes people look at things differently. It’s exactly the same with poetry. You could stand up and recite it, and call it performance art.’
‘Do you really think that?’ I asked.
‘That Jas should write a poem?’
‘That art changes people’s lives?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, but when Zoran left, I walked with him to the end of the road, and then I came back very slowly, looking under cars at every drain cover I passed, and peering into every dark corner, imagining them all turned into flowers and animals.
If I was as good as the chalk artist, I wouldn’t hide my drawings under cars or in dark alleys. I would have a huge exhibition on enormous canvases, and invite everyone I know to come and look at it, and post photographs of it all over the internet, and nobody would ever not listen to me again, or tell me what makeup to wear, or that my clothes were boring.
Thursday 16 September
We are studying a book in English called Of Mice and Men by an American writer called John Steinbeck. It was on our reading list for the holidays, but when Miss Foundry asked who had read it, only swotty Hattie Verney said she had until Dodi grabbed my hand and shoved it in the air.
‘Stop it!’ I hissed. ‘She’ll only make me talk about it!’
I thought Miss Foundry would die on the spot, she was so pleased.
‘Bluebell Gadsby!’ she cried. ‘I knew, among this group of Philistines, I could rely on you!’
Tom smirked. Colin giggled. Jake said, ‘What’s a Philistine?’
‘A Philistine is an uneducated idiot,’ Tom said. ‘Like you.’
‘Come and stand at the front, Blue,’ Miss Foundry trilled. ‘Tell us all about the book.’
That is exactly why I didn’t want to admit to having read the book. Miss Foundry always makes us stand at the front. I shuffled up to the white board and turned towards the class. A sea of faces looked back at me.
I cleared my throat. ‘It’s about …’
‘Please, Miss!’ Hattie was almost falling out of her chair in her desperation to answer the question, but my mind stayed absolutely blank.
‘It’s about …’
I don’t know why Flora wants to be an actress, I honestly don’t. Standing up to talk in front of people is the worst form of torture that has ever been invented.
Miss Foundry said, ‘Bluebe
ll?’ but my brain stayed empty.
My eyes fell on the front row, where Marek Valenta was behaving in a most peculiar way.
‘I …’
Marek puffed himself up and out, like he was trying to make himself look really big. Then he drew his finger across his throat and dropped his head to one side with his tongue hanging out, like he was pretending to be dead.
‘It’s about this big man,’ I gasped. ‘His name’s Lennie. He’s like a giant, and he’s strong, so strong he keeps killing things by mistake. He doesn’t mean to because he’s nice, but he kills a mouse, and a puppy, and then a girl, and then his best friend shoots him to stop other people killing him.’
Everyone looked shocked, except for Miss Foundry who I think was disappointed by my synopsis.
‘It’s good,’ I added, but it was too late.
‘I’m not reading that,’ Jake protested.
‘Can’t we read something cheerful?’ Tom asked.
‘Of Mice and Men is a masterpiece!’ Miss Foundry declared.
‘Has a book got to be miserable, Miss?’ asked Colin. ‘To be a masterpiece, I mean?’
‘Course it has, stupid,’ Jake said. ‘Look at Harry Potter.’
‘Harry Potter’s not a masterpiece,’ Hattie said.
‘Of course it’s a flipping masterpiece!’ Jake insisted.
‘It’s not, Jake. Not like Steinbeck.’
‘Then how come everyone’s read Harry Potter and no-one’s read this mouse book?’
‘Class, please!’ Miss Foundry cried.
But everyone was shouting at everyone else by then, and I think she knew it was hopeless trying to get our attention. She started to distribute worksheets instead, which we all ignored.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered to Marek as I walked back to my seat.
He stared down at his desk, but I think I saw him smile.
Sunday 19 September
Flora left for Scotland very early this morning, to her super-exclusive country house theatre school near Glasgow. Dad came home from Devon again especially to take her and last night we had a big farewell dinner for her. Zoran and Gloria came too, and Flora didn’t stop showing off all evening.
‘Of course, I have already acted in a feature film,’ Flora said. ‘So I’m probably way ahead of the others already.’
Gloria, who with her tight black clothes and long wavy hair and bright red lipstick looks more like a supermodel than a horse person, said if the school was that exclusive, wouldn’t the others have loads of experience too? Flora, who loves Gloria but loves the limelight more, said, ‘Yes, but a feature film.’
‘A feature film I wrote,’ Dad commented.
‘In which you didn’t have any lines,’ Twig added.
Flora said she didn’t just get that part because Dad wrote it and it didn’t matter about the lines, it was her facial expressions that mattered. Pixie said she was sure Flora was absolutely wonderful in Dad’s film, she couldn’t wait for it to come out and she was sure next time they would let her speak. Flora cried that her part in the film had been very important and the great tragedy of her life was being surrounded by people who didn’t understand her.
‘That’s not tragedy,’ I said. ‘Tragedy is like Lennie in Of Mice and Men, who kills everything he loves.’
Flora said we’d be sorry when she ended up dead. Twig thought that was so funny he got hiccoughs. Flora gripped her plate like she was trying to stop herself from throwing her chocolate cheesecake at him. Mum took it away from her and gave it to Dad, who started to eat it. Gloria said, why didn’t Zoran play something on the piano?
I love it when Zoran plays. Then Flora started singing, all the old songs Zoran likes, things like ‘Stormy Weather’ and ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’, and even though her voice isn’t the best, no-one minded because she was happy again. Pumpkin woke up and Mum brought him down, and we all sat in a heap on the sofa, with Mum leaning against Dad on the floor, and then Gloria sang a flamenco song she learned from her Spanish grandmother and it was exactly the sort of evening our family does best.
Just for a minute, I think Flora forgot about her exciting new life, because her voice wobbled when she said goodbye to us all last night. ‘Don’t get up tomorrow,’ she ordered. ‘I don’t want weepy dawn farewells on the doorstep.’ But I heard Dad come up before it was even light to wake her and I got up anyway. I wrapped my duvet round my shoulders and sat on the stairs while they packed the car with bags of clothes and her vintage turntable and boxes of books and records and a new duvet and her favourite pillow and a bicycle and kettle and mugs and a big cake in a tin Mum made for her, until there was no room for anything except her and Dad squeezed into the front.
Mum pulled Flora into a hug and said again about the thermal underwear.
‘Mum!’
‘I’m going to miss you so much.’ Mum started to cry.
‘Blue, stop her!’ Flora said. ‘This is exactly what I didn’t want.’
‘I’m going to miss you too,’ I admitted.
‘I’ll be back for Christmas.’
‘Christmas!’
‘Maybe before.’
I shuffled down the stairs and Flora put her arms round my duvet.
‘Don’t be too much of a dork,’ she said.
‘Don’t be too much of a diva,’ I replied.
And then she was leaving, in her fabulous new drama school purple fedora and her fabulous new drama school orange angora coat, perched on top of her fabulous new drama school chunky heeled leopard skin ankle boots, and it felt like all the air was being sucked out of the house.
She turned at the door and dropped into a low curtsey, the sort actresses do when they’re taking a curtain call, and started doing that comedy waving with her hand sticking round the door. Mum started to cry again. I tunnelled an arm through my duvet to hug her. The door closed.
‘Flora!’ Jas appeared on the landing looking like a wild mad animal, her hair even more tangled than usual, her nightie bunched in her hand above her knees as she tore down the stairs.
‘Flora!’ she shrieked. She threw open the door and ran into the street, where Flora was about to climb into the car. ‘Don’t go!’ she sobbed. ‘Please don’t go.’
She flung herself in Flora’s arms. Flora’s eyes met mine over Jas’s shoulder and I swear they were wet as well.
‘I have to go, Jazzcakes,’ she whispered in her ear. Mum took Jas by the hand and prised her away. Flora got in the car.
‘Remember what I told you,’ she said to Jas. And then they drove away.
*
Flora is the most annoying person in the world to live with. Everywhere she goes, there is mess. The bathroom is covered in half-squeezed tubes of foundation and cotton-wool pads covered in makeup, and the landing is covered with clothes leading right up to her bedroom, and there are damp towels draped over banisters and shoes all over the hall and the smell of her perfume and hairspray everywhere, but that’s all gone now.
Jas cried for ages, first with Mum, then, when Mum had to go out, with Pixie.
I thought Pixie would do something Pixieish like yoga, but actually she was quite tough, in a gentle sort of way.
‘I don’t see why she has to go,’ Jas sobbed, and Pixie said that everyone has to leave sometime, because everyone has to grow up and you can’t grow up unless you have adventures, and you can’t have adventures if you just stay at home.
‘Look at me,’ Pixie said.
‘Are you having an adventure?’ Twig asked, and Pixie said she was.
‘But you’re just here with us.’
‘Still an adventure.’
‘Do you miss home?’ I asked, and Pixie said yes she did, every single day, but the good thing was she didn’t realise how much she loved home until she went away.
‘So you’ll go back,’ Jas said.
‘In a few years’ time, I suppose.’
‘A few years!’ Jas started crying again and said she didn’t see why people needed to grow up
at all. Pixie said they just did.
Later, I asked Jas what Flora meant when she said ‘Remember what I told you’. Jas said it was nothing.
‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if it was something?’ I asked.
‘Something like what?’
‘I don’t know.’ I thought of Jas, standing at Pumpkin’s window in her nightie. ‘Something about school?’
Twig, who was lying on the floor reading a science magazine, snorted something like, ‘School is for idiots’. Jas sniffed and said she quite agreed.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked.
Jas said, ‘Not really’, and that I sounded like Mum.
When a child tells you that you are like a parent, it is like a parent telling you that you are being sensible – the last thing in the world that you want to be.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want my help, I won’t give it.’
Tuesday 21 September
Dodi wants me to go out with Tom.
It started when we were standing in line outside the science block, waiting for class to start. Colin isn’t in our group for science, so it was just me and Tom standing with Dodi and Jake, trying not to listen to their conversation.
‘What do you want to do this weekend?’ Jake asked Dodi.
Dodi tossed her hair over her shoulder and sighed ‘I don’t know, anything,’ and why didn’t we all go to the cinema. Sometimes I think the only reason she keeps her hair that long is so she can toss it when she’s annoyed, but Jake totally failed to read the signals.
‘Poodle,’ he murmured. ‘I was thinking just me and you.’
Behind their backs, Tom made a puking gesture. I giggled.
Dodi spun round and glared at us. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.
‘I made a joke,’ Tom explained. ‘Blue thinks I’m hilarious. Don’t you, Blue?’
‘Hilarious,’ I choked, and Tom patted my hand approvingly.
Later, on our way out of lunch, she held me back from the others.
‘He totally likes you,’ she said. ‘And he’s totally cute, if you ignore the spots.’
‘I don’t think he does like me,’ I said.
Time for Jas Page 3