‘Nothing is more important than for all of us to be happy,’ she said, in her fierce I’m-not-crying voice, and pulled me into a hug.
I do love Mum, especially when she listens.
Tuesday 12 October
Flora Skyped. She has a cold. This time she was dressed in a thick fleecy dressing gown, a polo-neck jumper, flannel pyjamas, bed socks, two shawls and a woolly hat, and she kept on blowing her nose.
‘That is what comes of floating around rivers in your nightie,’ Mum scolded. ‘Even if you were wearing wellies.’
Flora said that had nothing to do with it. Pretending to be tragic heroines, Flora said, was the best bit about acting school, and why do people make such a big deal about wearing nightclothes outside?
‘It’s just like wearing a dress,’ she said. ‘The reason I got ill has nothing to do with drowning. It’s the house, Mum. It’s so damp my sheets are actually wet when I go to bed, and there’s no heating.’
‘I’m sure they’re not actually wet,’ Mum said. ‘Not dripping.’
Flora said they were totally dripping and she had to dry them with a hairdryer. ‘I’m practically dying,’ she said. ‘I have to come home right now.’
Mum said, ‘But you’ve only just left!’
‘I am sorry,’ Flora huffed, ‘if the prospect of my imminent return fills you with displeasure.’
Twig said, ‘Oh my God, she even talks like she’s in a play.’
Flora changed tack. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a job.’
‘A job?’
‘A friend wants me to be in his play. It’s Romeo and Juliet. I’m Juliet.’
Mum said that was wonderful, who was this friend and where was he putting on the play? Flora said his name was Angel, he’s done loads of plays already and this one would start in a pub in North London, but that it would definitely get transferred to a proper theatre.
‘Definitely?’ Mum asked.
‘Possibly,’ Flora conceded.
‘But you’re in Scotland,’ I pointed out.
Flora said she knew that, and that was why she had decided she was going to leave drama school.
Mum repeated, ‘Leave? But you’ve only just got there!’
‘You don’t understand!’ Flora cried. ‘Everything we do here is useless! We have whole classes just teaching us to breathe. Breathe! Yesterday I had to lie on the floor and learn how to massage my tongue.’
Mum said she was sure massaging your tongue was very useful.
‘I want to do Angel’s play,’ Flora said.
Mum said, ‘No,’ and closed the laptop.
Saturday 16 October
Zoran and Gloria drove to Devon today. The stables and the flat are almost empty. We helped them load the furniture and things Gloria wants to keep into the removals lorry she hired, together with all the horsey things that aren’t still needed in London. Earlier in the week, they took all the last things to the dump and charity shops. An auction company took away the things they could sell, like her iron bed-frame and her dad’s vintage motorbike, and the council came to take away the fridge and dishwasher and old mattresses. There is nothing left now but the horses themselves, enough feed for a few days, hay nets and brushes and water pails and halters and all the other things horses seem to need. They will be here until Friday with Gloria’s friend Penny in charge of the volunteers who will have to exercise them. Skye and his parents are going to help Zoran and Gloria unload when they get to Devon.
It’s strange seeing the stables like this. I don’t care what Mum says about endings being the start of new beginnings. It was already dusk as Zoran and Gloria drove the truck out of the yard, that sort of early dark damp cold which makes you realise summer is over and isn’t coming back for a very, very long time.
I felt sad.
Twig and I sat around for a while after they had gone. We waved them off from the entrance to the yard, and then we petted the ponies we used to ride back in the days when Grandma forced us to have lessons, and then we wandered back through the passageway to the riding ring, and sat on the ground with our backs against the wall.
The ring doesn’t even look like it’s part of a riding school any more. They’ve taken up the fence that bordered it and packed that off to Devon too. All that’s left is a large rectangle of sawdust with a circular track round the edges made by the ponies, with a wall on one side and a concrete pedestrian area on the other where kids kick balls and hang out on their skateboards, and a motorway overhead, and one brave plane tree reaching up towards the light.
‘Zoran says that the people who have bought the stables are going to tear them down to build flats,’ I said. ‘So there will be nothing to remind people that twelve ponies once lived here. And don’t you dare say they’ll be happier in Devon. I know they’ll be happier in Devon. The point is they won’t be here.’
Twig just stared at the empty yard.
‘Do you ever think,’ I asked, ‘about how much has happened? I mean, I’m only fourteen, and I feel like millions and millions of things have happened to me, so much that I can’t imagine there’s any more room for new things ever again. And yet here are Zoran and Gloria, who are practically ancient, off to start a brand new life.’
‘I miss Jas,’ Twig said. ‘Do you think Jas will even come to Devon?’
‘Of course she will,’ I said. ‘She loves Devon. And she loves all this, really. She’s just distracted right now. Anyway, she has to. She’s only ten.’
But when we got home, Jas was marching round the house in a black and white mini-kilt, knee-high socks, a tatty old blazer of Flora’s and an old tie of Dad’s, with back-combed hair sprayed grey, black lipstick, tonnes of eyeliner, her face plastered in white stage makeup and fake blood dripping down her neck.
‘Take a photograph,’ she ordered before I was even in the door. ‘I have to send the girls a picture of my outfit.’
‘Once again,’ Mum shouted, appearing behind her with her a wailing Pumpkin on her hip, ‘you are not going out dressed like that.’
‘I’m a zombie schoolgirl,’ Jas informed me. ‘For Halloween. Tell her.’
‘You are a zombie,’ Twig agreed. ‘But I’m not sure you’re a schoolgirl. Not in Year Six, anyway.’
Jas said, what was that supposed to mean? Twig said, what did she think it meant?
‘You just look much older than you are,’ I said.
‘But that’s the whole point!’ Jas wailed. ‘Courtney says Halloween is going to be huge this year. She says we have to have the best costumes, or else.’
‘Or else what?’ Twig asked, but Jas wouldn’t say.
‘Why is Halloween going to be huge?’ I asked.
‘Mrs Doriot-Buffet,’ Mum sighed. ‘It’s because she’s American. She’s been dropping leaflets all round the square, saying we have to decorate.’
‘Everyone’s going to be here!’ Jas cried. ‘Everyone! Blue, take the picture!’
I took the picture. Jas emailed it to Courtney. She and Mum argued late into the night about hemlines, makeup and how many shirt buttons Jas was allowed to undo.
Monday 18 October
The chalk artist has responded at last!
Flowers, vines, cats, birds. Today’s drawings were all over the pavement outside our house, the same motifs we used when we drew on it, but so much better they made me wish all over again I could be as good on the outside as I am in my head. The artist’s roses looked like real flowers had bloomed all over the pavement. The ivy looked like it was growing through the cracks, and the cats looked they were about to pounce on birds that were actually flying. Apart from all that though, they were the same drawings.
Jas crouched down to look at them, tracing one of the cats with her finger. ‘It’s like a picture book,’ she said. ‘Like a different world. Like in Mary Poppins.’
Twig scoffed, ‘What, you think if you jump into them you’ll end up in a magic world?’
‘I wish we could,’ Jas said. ‘I wish Mary Poppins li
ved with us. Pixie’s hopeless. All she’s done is those wings, and that wasn’t any help at all.’
‘Jas, are you OK?’ I asked.
Jas sighed, stood up and said please could we now go to school. ‘I can’t be late,’ she said. ‘We’re having a meeting about Halloween.’
‘You and the Cupcake Crew?’ Twig said.
‘Me and my friends,’ she corrected.
‘I’ll catch up with you,’ I told Twig. ‘I just want to take a few pictures.’
Mrs Henderson came out while I was photographing.
‘It wasn’t us,’ I assured her. ‘In case you were wondering.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she replied. ‘These are far too good.’
‘Do you know who it could be?’ I asked. She shook her head, regretfully like she wished she did know, not so she could tell them off but to say how pretty the drawings were.
Zoran is right. Art does change people.
‘I haven’t a clue,’ she said. ‘But it seems to me, after your antics the other day, that whoever did this has been watching you.’
‘Do you think it’s creepy?’ I asked.
‘In a way,’ Mrs Henderson said. ‘But it’s also rather lovely.’ Dodi made me run out of school as soon as the bell went, to avoid seeing Jake, and said that if he saw us I had to tell him we were doing homework together at my house, but when we came out Jas was waiting for me, sitting on the low wall just outside our gates, all bunched up with her face on her folded arms.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
She shook her head of perfectly straight, glossy hair and the tip of her nose went red. ‘I just wanted to go home with you.’
I glanced at Dodi. She looked back at the playground and said, ‘Come on, then, let’s go!’
Jas stared at Dodi, then at me, and bit her lip.
‘Hurry up,’ Dodi said.
Maybe it’s because Dodi is an only child, but I don’t think she understands that sometimes there are things you can say to your own sister that you can’t say to, well, your friend’s sister.
Jake came out as I tried to explain. ‘Let’s leave them to it, Poodle,’ he said, and she walked away with him, looking back at me like she wanted to kill us all.
One of the school coaches pulled up, full of boys singing rugby songs. The doors opened and Twig appeared, covered in mud with a big slit in his lip that was bleeding. He saw us from the top of the steps and ran over.
‘I played my first match!’ he said. ‘And I scored! Well, I almost scored. I would have if I hadn’t dropped the ball. What’s up with Jas?’
‘I’m guessing it was those cupcake girls,’ I said.
‘I will kill them,’ Twig vowed. I think maybe the blood dripping from his lip was making him a bit mad. ‘I’ll get the team to help. They’re good at hurting people. Look at my lip!’
We walked home, just the three of us. This time it took two cups of tea and a multi-pack of chocolate biscuits for Jas to tell us her story, which is basically that Courtney hates Jas’s costume. Or rather, that she hates it on Jas.
‘If she wears this,’ Courtney had said, like Jas wasn’t even there, ‘she will look better than us.’
Megan, Courtney, Chandra and Fran had decided to dress up as witches. But after seeing Jas’s costume, they decided it would be much better for them to be zombie schoolgirls. So Courtney told Jas to bring the whole costume in tomorrow, including the makeup and Flora’s blazer and grey hairspray and Dad’s tie, and Jas asked but what about her?
‘You can be a witch,’ Megan said.
‘Not a zombie,’ Courtney warned.
‘Don’t even try it,’ Chandra giggled.
‘You can’t dress like us,’ Fran explained. ‘Not until you’re one of us.’
Jas asked if she would still get the cupcake necklace.
‘Seriously?’ Twig looked disgusted.
‘What did they say?’ I asked.
Jas said they just laughed.
She came into my room after her bath this evening, while I was reading a long ranting message from Dodi all about how Jake won’t leave her alone about booking the theme park for her birthday, and it was all my fault because if I had been there I could have stopped him. I threw the phone on my bed and shuffled up on my window seat to make room for Jas. In pyjamas, with her long hair still damp from washing and smelling of apple shampoo, you remember Jas is only ten. She pulled the spare blanket off my bed, wrapped it round her shoulders and sat on my window seat in a forlorn little ball. I sat next to her and put my arms round her.
‘Devon soon,’ I said. ‘It’ll be better there. You can forget all about those stupid girls.’
She leaned into me and sniffed.
“You will come with us on Thursday to say goodbye to the horses, won’t you?’ I said, and she nodded.
‘Who is doing the pictures, Blue?’ she asked.
My phone pinged. Dodi again, this time saying should we all get together on Friday before I go to Devon – her, Jake, me and Tom.
Tom. The dachshund drawing. Suddenly, I knew that I really didn’t want the chalk artist to be him.
Ping! ‘Well? What do you think?’
I don’t understand how exactly Dodi thinks I can save her from Jake, but I do know one thing: I don’t want to go out with Tom, and I do want Dodi to stop going on about it.
It’s my turn to stand up for myself.
Tuesday 19 October
Dodi and Jake have split up, and I think that it’s my fault.
‘So I told Tom you like him,’ she whispered as we filed into English, ‘and he wants to talk to you after class.’
‘You did what?’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, and skipped across the room to her desk.
Today Miss Foundry announced that after halfterm school will be organising a trip for the whole class to go and see a theatre adaptation of Of Mice and Men, and that this would be a wonderful opportunity to see Steinbeck’s work brought to life.
‘The dramatic tautness of the narrative!’ Miss Foundry cried. ‘The tragic irony of fate! Take these forms home for signing and bring them back before the holidays!’
Poor Miss Foundry. She looked so disappointed when no-one reacted to her announcement.
‘It will be fun!’ she insisted.
‘Yay!’ I said feebly, feeling sorry for her, and ‘Yay!’ Tom echoed, presumably feeling sorry for me.
Dodi beamed, watching us.
I have never left a classroom so fast at the end of any lesson. The bell went and I just bolted, but Tom came right after me.
‘Blue!’ he called.
I stopped running. I mean, I didn’t want to. I would happily have run straight out of school and all the way home just to avoid having that conversation with Tom, but people were starting to pile out of other classrooms and they were blocking my way. Tom caught up with me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so embarrassed.
‘The thing is …’ he paused to clear his throat, and that is when I started to feel properly angry with Dodi and not just annoyed, because I love Tom, I really do, but I also really, really don’t want to go out with him and it’s not fair of her to make him think I like him.
‘Listen,’ I interrupted, but at the same time another voice said, ‘Blue,’ and Marek appeared.
‘Are you going to go to the play?’ he mumbled.
‘Probably,’ I said.
‘Cool.’
That was all. But by the time I looked round again, Tom had gone.
Dodi was so annoyed she didn’t talk to me all day.
‘I’m sorry.’ I was still conciliatory as we put our things away in our lockers. ‘I just don’t like him.’
I wouldn’t have said what I did if Jake hadn’t asked. And none of it might have happened at all if Marek or Tom hadn’t been there. But Marek and Tom were there, and Jake did ask.
‘You do like him,’ Dodi said. ‘You just won’t admit it.’
A few lockers away, Marek was talking to Tom. I
remembered how he stared at lunch the other day when Dodi was nagging Tom to come to the stables. How it made me realise that she never listens and is always deciding things for me.
And then I remembered how she called Jas’s poem stupid.
And how yesterday, she was more concerned about her and Jake than how my little sister was feeling.
‘I’m not asking you to marry him,’ Dodi grumbled.‘I just think it would be nice. Then we can go on …’
‘Double dates,’ I said. ‘You said.’
And I’d just had enough.
‘Tom?’ I called out.
‘Now what are you doing?’ Dodi asked.
‘Can you come over here?’
Tom bounced over.
‘I don’t like you,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry. I mean, I love you, but not like that. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not in the least,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t like you either. That’s what I was trying to tell you at lunchtime.’
Dodi went red. Tom and I both burst out laughing, and once we started we couldn’t stop. I could see that people were staring at us and that Dodi was furious, but it only made me laugh more. It was so – so liberating. Like I hadn’t realised just how much I hated her going on at me about Tom until now, and how good it felt knowing that it was over.
Jake said, ‘Blue doesn’t like Tom? But Poodle, why did you say she did?’ and we laughed even more.
‘Go on,’ I hiccoughed. ‘Tell him.’
And I think I knew then it was wrong. Because I didn’t just feel free, I felt powerful – like I could say whatever I wanted. And I wanted to say a lot.
‘Tell him,’ I repeated, when Dodi stayed silent, ‘the real reason why you want me to go out with Tom.’
Time for Jas Page 7