Time for Jas

by Natasha Farrant

  ‘And I’ll tell you why,’ she said. I think that however hard she tries Dodi will always sound bossy. ‘It’s because it wasn’t about what Jas can do at all. It was about Flora. It was typical Flora. “Look at me, how amazing I am.” What Jas should have done is be normal. Dressed up like a witch or a vampire like every other ten-year-old, and hung out with her friends and stuffed her face with sweets. Now she has to lie low. And when I say low, I mean practically underground. When you’re up against cupcake girls, you can’t win. All you can do is stay out of their way.’

  Which is easy for her to say. No-one I know would ever dare to mess with Dodi Cartwright.

  ‘She can’t just give up,’ I said. ‘She can’t just let them win. Look at …’

  Look at us, I was going to say. What would have happened to us if I hadn’t stood up to you? You would have carried on bossing me around, and I would have got more and more resentful, or possibly even ended up going out with Tom … But we had stopped at the crossroads, waiting for the lights to change, and Dodi was staring at her phone with a soft expression on her face, reading a text from Jake.

  I didn’t say anything. Instead, as we hurried into school, I asked ‘Did you see the fairy portal last night?’

  ‘Fairy portal?’

  I started to explain about the chalk drawing, but Jake was walking towards us across the playground, and Dodi – as usual – wasn’t listening.

  Marek doodles all the time. How could I never have noticed? I watched him in the classes we had together. He never stops. I always thought he must be as swotty as Hattie, whose note-taking skills are so legendary they were actually once the subject of an entire assembly, but if you bother to look properly when you think he is writing he is actually drawing. I tried to peep over his shoulder in Maths when I went to sharpen my pencil, but he slammed his book shut.

  I just thought – he hadn’t even met me when I saw the first drawing – the zebra under the car. He didn’t even know me!

  Does that mean it isn’t him? But the doodling … the dachshund … the ponies!

  He sits in class, impeccably dressed in those clothes no-one else our age would ever wear, his hair perfectly combed and his shoes perfectly polished, and I can’t imagine him stealing out at night, chalks in hand, to draw dogs or bluebells or galloping ponies. But then I think of Marek watching us in the park. Of Marek at our party – Do you miss Prague? Very much.

  There are hidden depths to Marek Valenta. The question is, how do you discover them?

  Wednesday 3 November

  Flora had her first non-Skype rehearsal yesterday. She was still giddy with it this morning.

  ‘I love Peter and Barney and Maud,’ she burbled over breakfast. ‘They’re lovely. Everyone on my course is lovely. But they’re babies, you know? The people in Angel’s play are grown-ups. Real actors. Just one rehearsal and I can feel myself …’ She took a deep breath.

  ‘Growing,’ Pixie said.

  ‘Exactly!’ Flora beamed at her.

  ‘How long is she staying?’ Twig muttered, as we left for school. ‘Because I thought I was glad to see her, but now she’s driving me nuts.’

  Dad called Ms Foulkes-Watson on Monday morning, and she was categorical. ‘Flora can choose,’ she said. ‘Drama school, which will provide her with tools for a long acting career, or a one-off part in a two-bit production only a handful of people will see.’

  ‘It is Shakespeare,’ Dad pointed out, but Ms Foulkes-Watson said any fool can put on Romeo and Juliet, and Angel del Castro was famous for what she called, ‘disastrous experimental productions’.

  ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘Nobody will see it.’

  Mum says she doesn’t know if she is more furious or disappointed. Dad says there’s no point forcing Flora to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Flora is walking on air.

  I think Jas is happier now. On Monday morning, I thought she was going to be sick. Literally. She came down dressed entirely in black, with her hair in plaits tied with red ribbons and her face slightly green. After school, when we tried to ask her about her day, she just said ‘fine’ and stuck her chin out and refused to give any details but later on I’m sure I heard her crying in her bedroom, and I didn’t know how to make her feel better. But then today when she came home, she sat down at the kitchen table, pulled her writing book out of her school bag and started scribbling away.

  ‘What are you writing?’ I asked.

  ‘Please tell me it’s not another poem about the cupcake girls,’ Twig whispered.

  ‘I can hear you, Twig,’ Jas said. ‘And I’m not stupid. This has nothing to do with them. It’s for a poet called Nancy Chikado who is coming to visit school on Friday.’

  ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea, Jas.’ I tried to smile encouragingly at Jas at the same time as I frowned at Twig. ‘She’ll love that.’

  ‘She is amazing,’ Jas said. ‘She grew up in a refugee camp, and came here when she was fourteen years old all on her own without her family, and she wrote poetry the whole time. She says that writing poetry saved her, because when she was writing she stopped thinking about how awful everything was, and tried to focus on what was beautiful. Poetry saved her, Blue.’

  ‘Poetry hasn’t saved you,’ Twig pointed out. ‘It’s only got you into trouble.’

  Jas told him he didn’t understand a thing.

  The Film Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby

  Scene Nine

  Of Mice and Men

  Evening, a London West End theatre. It is the interval in the middle of the dramatisation of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and the oak-panelled, heavily mirrored, red-carpeted foyer is swarming with fourteen and fifteen-year-olds, all brought here by enthusiastic English teachers and all, truthfully, more excited by the prospect of sweets and ice-cream than by the play itself. The noise levels, as they swarm around ushers with their trays of goodies, are deafening.

  Alone and unnoticed, CAMERAMAN (BLUEBELL) ignores her fellow students and instead focuses her camera on the wooden skirting, where a paper cut-out of a chalk mouse is stuck to the wall. She follows the direction in which it is pointing. Beyond the sweeping staircase, by the theatre doors, there is an identical drawing. She walks over to it and out into the street. The next mouse is not on paper, but drawn directly on to the pavement, at the corner of a dark and shady alley.

  Cameraman hesitates. Should she go in? On the one hand, she has to know what this is leading to. On the other – it’s a dark and shady alley …

  Curiosity wins. Cameraman steps into the alley, which after a few feet opens into a scruffy yard at the back of the theatre. There are wheelie bins and a fire escape, and almost certainly rats. Cigarette ends litter the ground, empty coffee takeout cups, a crushed drinks can. Double doors into the theatre, wide enough for the most extravagant sets, are closed. It is a world away from the bright lights, the bars and cafés, clubs and theatres of Shaftesbury Avenue.

  Cameraman scans the walls. Two more mice, pointing the way towards another passageway at the back of the yard. Her heart thumps. What if, in the dark, a murderer lurks, waiting to pounce?

  But why would a murderer lure her here with pictures of mice?

  Telling herself to be brave, Cameraman creeps closer and peers into the passageway.

  And gasps. Because there before her, finally, is her proof.

  Marek Valenta stands with his back to her, drawing. At his feet lie his perfectly tailored coat and his grown-up cashmere scarf. On the wall before him, in white chalk on dirty London brick, a chalk giant of a man is materialising. He wears rumpled dungarees, heavy work boots, a soft brown hat. Sitting on his outstretched hand, so lifelike you can almost see his whiskers quiver, is the final mouse.

  Cameraman catches her breath. Marek Valenta’s hand freezes. Then slowly, slowly, he turns around.

  Thursday 4 November

  We stared at each other for ages.

  I reached out to touch the mouse. Brushed chalk off my hands. Turned to stare at him again.
He was very pale – even paler than usual – his teeth biting his lower lip as he watched me.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

  ‘I love it,’ I said.

  A voice crashed into the quiet of the yard – Miss Foundry, looking for us.

  ‘Quick,’ I said. ‘Before she sees the picture.’

  We squeezed into our seats with seconds to spare.

  ‘Where were you?’ Dodi asked.

  ‘I just went for a walk.’

  On stage, people shot each other and shouted and died, but I barely even noticed. A few seats down from me, Marek sat with his eyes fixed on the actors, and my head whirled with questions.

  The same questions as always.

  Why do you do it?

  Why me?

  I’ll talk to him on the Tube on the way home, I thought, but when we came out there was a massive black four-by-four waiting in front of the theatre, blocking the traffic, with Mr Valenta in a navy blue coat and his Paris trilby jumping up and down in front of it, waving.

  For a moment, I thought Marek was going to turn back into the theatre, but Mr Valenta spotted him and started shouting ‘Marek! Marek! Over here!’ and he was forced to go outside.

  ‘We have been to the opera!’ Mr Valenta cried. He looked different from when he came to our house. Sort of … happy. I remembered what Mrs Valenta had said about him wanting to study music. Maybe the opera had put him in a good mood. ‘We came to collect you so you could ride with us!’

  Tom clapped a sympathetic hand on Marek’s shoulder, pushing him towards the car. Mr Valenta looked at him suspiciously. Tom saluted and clicked his heels. Jake and Colin burst out laughing and also saluted.

  ‘Don’t!’ I protested.

  ‘It’s only a joke! He looks so …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So rich.’

  ‘Well it’s not funny.’

  They didn’t see Marek’s face as he got into the car, bright with embarrassment and anger and nothing like the boy I saw during the interval, drawing a giant and a mouse on the wall of a darkened alley.

  ‘Strange boy.’ Dodi was standing beside me, watching me. I turned away so she wouldn’t see me blush.

  Friday 5 November

  I thought Jas really was ill this morning, because she came down for breakfast looking very, very pale, and didn’t eat a thing even though Flora got up specially to make her pancakes. She just sat in her chair looking very small, staring straight ahead with enormous dark eyes and looking like a hummingbird or maybe a tiny parrot, because she was dressed from head to toe in her brightest clothes, including her pink and orange tights and her rainbow hair ribbon.

  ‘What is going on?’ I asked, as Flora cut up pancakes and made clucking sounds to try to make Jas eat.

  Twig said that today was the day that the refugee poet Nancy Chikado was going to Jas’s school, and that Miss Jamison (the librarian who loves poetry) liked the poem Jas wrote for her so much she asked Jas to read it in assembly in front of the whole school.

  ‘And the …’ I gestured discreetly towards Jas’s outfit.

  ‘Nancy Chikado loves colours. She’s famous for it. She says they remind her of her home.’

  We watched in silence as Jas took a minuscule sip of water from her glass, then ran towards the bathroom.

  ‘Stage fright,’ Flora said, scoffing Jas’s untouched pancakes. ‘She’ll be fine once she gets started.’

  I didn’t think about Jas again until this afternoon, because the minute I got to school all I could think about was seeing Marek. Then, when I did see him, I didn’t know where to look and spent the whole day trying to avoid him, but also sort of hoping he would talk to me, and laughing too loudly whenever he was near so he wouldn’t realise all I could actually think of was him, and the drawing of Lennie and the mouse.

  Do you like it? I love it.

  What else could I have said? Should I have said?

  It’s so good. You are obviously very talented at drawing. I am extremely impressed.

  Why did you draw a zebra with a bluebell in its mouth?

  I too would like to be an artist.

  It was exhausting.

  It never occurred to me that Jas wouldn’t be fine, because she’s recited poetry in front of people before, but when I got home I saw at once that things were extremely wrong.

  Flora went to see her with Mum and Dad, and she told Twig and me everything.

  The assembly hall was packed, Flora said. It’s not big enough to hold the whole school but every single child was there to see the poet, from the tinies right through to Year Six, sitting on benches at the back and on the floor at the front and crammed into every inch of space, all facing the stage.

  ‘It smelled of feet,’ Flora said. ‘I’d forgotten that about school. Feet, and a sort of cabbage.’

  ‘But what happened?’ Twig asked, because Jas was lying face down on the sofa but nobody had told us why yet.

  ‘Jas did really well,’ Flora said. ‘Honestly, you would never believe how nervous she was this morning. She wasn’t shaking at all. I could tell, you know, because she was holding her poem, and the paper was completely still. She went right to the middle of the stage, like she’s supposed to, and then …’

  And then, just as she was about to begin, there was a commotion at the back of the hall and Megan, Courtney, Chandra and Fran appeared. All dressed completely unlike themselves in the loudest colours you could imagine, and calling, ‘Sorry sorry sorry’ as they squished and squashed just about the entire school, ignoring the teachers trying to catch them, until they arrived right at the front, brandishing a huge white cardboard box.

  Ms Smokey, who is the Headteacher, asked what on earth were the girls doing and please could they sit down. Megan said they just had a present for Miss Chikado and they spent ages doing it and please could they give it to her? Ms Smokey started to say, ‘Later, please go and sit down’ but Megan was already on the stage, and Courtney was handing her the box, and Nancy Chikado was opening it and exclaiming oh, how lovely! and showing it to everyone, and it was full of …

  ‘Cupcakes!’ Flora said. ‘Dozens of them, in every hideous colour you can imagine.’

  Jas whimpered, still on the sofa. Flora stroked her head like she was a cat.

  The hall went wild when the cupcakes appeared. The younger kids were all, ‘Can I have one?’ and the older ones were all, ‘Yay, we can make noise because the younger kids are,’ and by the time Miss Jamison said, ‘Now Jas is going to read us her poem,’ the bell was ringing for morning lessons and Jas was looking ill again.

  ‘She couldn’t say a single word,’ Flora whispered. ‘She just stood there on stage with her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish and not a squeak coming out, and those monster cupcake girls just watching, swishing their hair about with horrible smug smiles on their horrible faces.’

  Jas’s wardrobe is practically empty now. I went into her room this evening to check she was all right, and found her once again surrounded by a pile of clothes to throw out. Except this time they weren’t the drab, sensible things she doesn’t like to wear, and they certainly weren’t the new pastel hoodies she made Mum buy her so she could look like the cupcake girls. They were her stripy tights and her green jumper, her purple leggings and her too-small dress, Flora’s old lacy cardigan and the rainbow ribbon.

  ‘But they’re your happy clothes,’ I said.

  Jas said she didn’t care, and she was never going to wear them again.

  Saturday 6 November

  There are fireworks in the park tonight for Bonfire Night. Flora tried to convince Jas to go with her.

  ‘There’s a fair!’ Flora said. ‘Music, candy-floss, people, fun!’

  ‘Everyone from school will be there,’ Jas said.

  ‘You can’t avoid your whole school for ever.’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘Come with me,’ Twig said. ‘I’m going with the rugby boys. We’ll protect you.’

  Droppi
ng the rugby ball during the Halloween parade doesn’t seem to have damaged Twig’s standing with the team at all. Apparently, they keep telling him how awesome his family are. They think Flora set fire to Mrs Doriot-Buffet’s hedge on purpose.

  Jas said thank you, but she would rather stay at home.

  Pixie has gone away for the weekend, and Mum and Dad were invited to a party. I said I would stay at home with Jas and Pumpkin.

  ‘But the fireworks!’ Flora said.

  ‘We can watch them from the roof.’

  At first, after we made up, I thought that everything with Dodi was back to normal. And it is – sort of. It’s just that now she has decided she is so in love with Jake, neither of them have time for the rest of us any more. I spoke to Grandma this morning, and she said all actions have consequences and I should have thought about that when I told Dodi to be truthful with Jake, but I honestly don’t know how I could have foreseen that Dodi telling Jake he got on her nerves would lead to the Great Romance of the Century.

  Other consequences of Dodi and Jake are that Tom has been so inspired by them he has decided he is in love with Hattie, and that Colin has gone off in disgust to hang out with some of the other boys in our year. And the overwhelming consequence is that I have no-one to go to the fireworks with.

  The house was very quiet after the others had gone.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I asked.

  Jas said she didn’t want to do anything. Then the house phone rang, and it was Todd asking to speak to Jas because he didn’t have anyone to go to the park with either.

  ‘Tell him to go away,’ Jas said.

  ‘But he’s your friend!’

  ‘I don’t have any friends.’

  Apart from the one after Iris died, it was the most miserable Bonfire Night I have ever had. Jas and I went to the shops and I tried to buy sparklers, but they told me I was too young. We walked back past Marek’s house, on the other side of the square, but all the lights were out again, even the one on the top floor.