Eva's Holiday

by Judi Curtin

‘I’ll go,’ he said in a bored voice, like he’d done nothing except answer the door all morning.

  He opened the door and stood there for a second. Then he closed the door and ran back over to us.

  ‘There’s someone out there, but I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl,’ he whispered.

  ‘What did they want?’ asked Dad.

  Joey shrugged, ‘Dunno. Didn’t ask did I? I was too busy trying to decide what it was.’

  Mum nudged me.

  ‘Go and see who it is, there’s a love.’

  I sighed and got up and went to the door. Our visitor was still standing on the step. She was a girl, but I could see why Joey had been confused. She had short, untidy hair that looked like it had been cut by a blind hairdresser. She was dressed in what looked like a boy’s tracksuit, and runners. She looked about my age. She stared at me, and I stared back at her.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, as ‘hi’ seemed a bit too friendly for this strange, silent person.

  ‘Hello,’ she said back, and then we looked at each other some more.

  I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed.

  Would it be rude to say, what do you want?

  In the end I couldn’t take any more. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked, sounding like somebody’s ancient old granny.

  The girl looked like she was about to laugh.

  Was she going to laugh at me?

  I was wearing Victoria’s blue hoodie, and one of Ella’s totally cool tops, so how dare someone wearing a boy’s tracksuit laugh at me?

  ‘I don’t need help, thanks,’ she said.

  And there was another long silence.

  This was totally stupid.

  ‘I’ll go inside, so,’ I said.

  Now the girl went red.

  ‘No! Don’t go. I live over there,’ she said, pointing vaguely in the direction of our hedge. ‘I saw you arriving yesterday.’

  Oh no!

  Had she heard me shouting at Mum and Dad and acting like a total baby?

  I could feel my face going red now, giving me something in common with this strange girl.

  Then I tossed my head. Why did I care what she thought of me anyway?

  ‘And?’ I said coolly.

  ‘… and I was wondering if you’d like to … I don’t know … go for a walk or something?’

  Great.

  There was a crazy girl living at the other side of our hedge, and she wanted to be my friend and do totally fun stuff like going for walks.

  Summer was looking up.

  Not.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We’ve just got here, and I probably have to help my mum and dad around the house for a while. I––’

  Suddenly Dad was at my shoulder.

  ‘Who’s this, Eva?’ he said, like I was supposed to know.

  ‘I’m Kate,’ said the girl.

  I turned and made a face at Dad. ‘Kate asked me to go for a walk with her, but I was just telling her how you and Mum need me to stay here and do a few jobs for you.’

  Dad beamed at me. ‘Oh, that’s very kind of you, Eva, but I think we’ll manage without you for a while. You go off and have fun with your new friend.’

  ‘But I haven’t even had my breakfast yet!’ I wailed.

  Dad shoved the piece of toast he had in his hand towards me.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Have mine.’

  I took the toast and made another face at Dad, but he ignored it. He practically pushed me outside.

  ‘See you later,’ he said, as he closed the door behind me. ‘And don’t rush back, we’ll be absolutely fine.’

  I stood outside the closed door. Part of me wanted to run around to the back of the cottage, and climb in through a window. If I did that though, I knew Mum and Dad would just make me go back out again, so I’d still have to go on the stupid walk, and I’d be in heaps of trouble as well.

  I looked at Kate.

  ‘OK’ I said in my most bored voice. ‘It’s too cold for the beach, so where are we going to go?’

  She shrugged. ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Home,’ I said.

  I thought that was quite funny, but Kate didn’t even smile.

  ‘Let’s just walk in to town, so,’ she said.

  There’s a town?

  I really wanted to know more about this town, but that would have involved having a conversation with Kate, so I bottled up my curiosity and looked bored again Kate started walking and I walked beside her. What else could I do?

  Chapter Five

  We walked along the rough, narrow road. The only sound came from the rattling of the small stone that Kate was kicking along in front of her. It was weird walking along beside this silent person. I started to feel nervous, which I knew was stupid. I was totally fed up. This was supposed to be a holiday, not an ordeal.

  Talking would probably have helped, but there was no way I was starting a conversation. Kate was the one who had called for me, and had come up with the idea of this stupid walk. If she wanted to be my friend, she could do the talking bit.

  But after what felt like half an hour, the silence was getting to me, and I knew I couldn’t take it any more.

  ‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, me neither.’

  Was I owning up to having something in common with her?

  Kate didn’t seem to care much, but I tried again anyway.

  ‘Have you lived here all your life?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate.

  ‘And is your school near here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again, not making any effort to help the conversation along.

  I felt like shaking her, but even if I’d been brave enough to do it, I had a horrible feeling that she wouldn’t react.

  Then, without thinking, I flicked my fingers under the collar of Ella’s top, and made it stand up over the neck of Victoria’s hoodie. As I did this, Kate looked over at me. She reached up, and almost touched my collar, but pulled back at the last moment.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said.

  ‘Do what?’ I asked.

  I was confused, but glad that I’d got a reaction from her at last.

  ‘Don’t do that … that thing with your collar.’

  This was getting crazier by the second.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I asked. ‘Is there a law against it in this part of the world?’

  Kate didn’t answer for a minute, and when she did, she spoke so quietly I could hardly hear her.

  ‘That’s what they do.’

  ‘Who are “they”,’ I asked, looking around nervously.

  Kate stopped walking and glared at me.

  ‘The cool girls. That’s what they do all day long – fix their collars.’

  Now I stopped walking too.

  There were cool girls in this place?

  Where were they?

  How could I find them?

  How quickly could I get away from this loser and make some proper friends?

  I tried not to sound too interested.

  ‘Er, who exactly are the “cool girls”?’

  Kate gave a big long sigh.

  ‘There are two of them. Cathy and Lily. Lily lives near here, and she goes to my school. We were best friends in Junior Infants.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Junior Infants was a long time ago,’ she said.

  ‘And Cathy?’

  ‘Cathy comes to stay in the town for the summer. Lily’s a pain all year round, but when Cathy shows up, she turns into a total nightmare.’

  ‘What kind of a nightmare?’ I asked.

  If these girls were cool enough, I might be able to overlook their faults.

  ‘They think they are so great,’ said Kate. ‘They wear fancy clothes and they spend all day fixing their collars and admiring their nails. Years ago they used to have normal hair, but now it’s shiny and they toss it around all the time.

  She stopped talking and looked a
t me.

  ‘At least you don’t do that hair straightening thing.’

  (That’s because Mum had confiscated my hair-straightener the week before. Another sense of humour failure. Just because I decided to straighten the hair on that stupid porcelain doll she keeps on the mantelpiece. Just because I didn’t know that instead of going all straight and shiny, the doll’s hair would melt and burn and then fall out. And Mum waited until I’d spent an hour cleaning the straightener, before she took it from me.)

  I suddenly remembered that my hair was all curly. I could feel my face going red again as I tried to flatten my hair with my fingers.

  But then I remembered that I didn’t care what Kate thought of me, so I put my hands into my pockets.

  ‘I take it Cathy and Lily aren’t friends of yours these days?’ I said.

  Kate shook her head.

  ‘No way. Who’d want to be friends with them?’

  Me?

  Cathy and Lily sounded like the perfect friends for me.

  Kate started walking again, and I followed her.

  I had made up my mind. I’d be a nice, generous girl. I’d walk wherever Kate wanted me to walk. I’d even talk to her, if that’s what she wanted.

  Then, as soon as I got the chance, I’d find the cool girls, make friends and that would be that.

  The summer would be sorted.

  Chapter Six

  At last Kate stopped walking. ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘This is town.’

  ‘But this is the village.’

  Kate didn’t answer.

  I looked around. We were standing on a narrow street. There were two tiny shops with buckets and shovels and beach balls hanging in the doorway, a post office, a pub with a petrol pump outside and a few brightly-painted houses.

  I almost laughed. Then I saw Kate’s face. She was glaring at me, almost daring me to say something bad about the place. And suddenly I felt afraid. Kate wasn’t like any other girl I’d ever met. I didn’t know how to act around her. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  What did I think?

  I thought that this was the most pathetic place I’d ever been to in my whole life. That’s what I thought.

  But what I said was, ‘What do you do around here?’

  Kate shrugged.

  ‘Do? I don’t know. What do you do where you live?’

  I had to think. I’d only been gone for a day, but already, home seemed so far away, it was an effort to remember.

  ‘Well, if I have money, I go to the cinema, or I go bowling, or I go shopping. Sometimes I just hang out with my friends.’

  I felt like crying.

  Ruby was already settled into her swimming camp. I wondered what Victoria and Ella were doing now. Whatever it was, it had to be more fun than what I was doing. Everything was more fun than what I was doing.

  And suddenly, I’d had enough.

  ‘This is the biggest dump in the whole world,’ I shouted. ‘I’d die if I had to live here forever, and I’ll probably die just from staying here for the summer.’

  I knew it was rude and mean, but I couldn’t stop myself. I said lots more stuff like this, only stopping when I ran out of breath.

  I looked at Kate. Why wasn’t she shouting back at me?

  Why wasn’t she defending her home?

  She just folded her arms and gave me that look of hers, the one that I couldn’t make any sense of.

  ‘Let’s walk back, so, will we?’ she said, like I hadn’t said anything bad at all.

  And because I couldn’t think of anything else to do, we walked back towards our house.

  ‘My mum’s going to make me do loads of stupid jobs this afternoon,’ I said after a while, trying to break the silence.

  ‘My mum …’ began Kate, but then she stopped.

  ‘Your mum what?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kate.

  I didn’t bother asking her again.

  If she wanted to be like that, what did I care?

  Kate said nothing else at all on the way back, and neither did I.

  At last we were at our house. Kate and I stood outside and looked at each other. There was no way I was asking her in. I just wanted to be very far away from her. She was way too weird for me.

  And suddenly I heard myself saying, ‘Why don’t you call over again tomorrow?’

  What was all that about?

  I wished I could reach out and grab the words before they got to her ears.

  Kate was so not the kind of girl I wanted to be friends with, so why was I asking her to call for me again?

  Maybe because I felt guilty about all the bad stuff I’d said?

  Kate didn’t answer for ages.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said in the end. ‘If I have time.’

  And then she seemed to vanish into the hedge, and was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  After breakfast the next morning, Dad said he’d show Joey how to measure wood for new skirting boards. Joey was dancing around, all excited, like Dad had just promised to show him the secrets of the universe.

  ‘Why don’t you invite your friend over for tea tonight?’ said Mum as soon as they’d gone outside.

  ‘Because she’s so not my friend,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘And I don’t want any more to do with her.’

  ‘Dad said she seemed like a nice girl,’ said Mum.

  ‘She’s not nice,’ I said. ‘She’s weird. Totally weird.’

  ‘That’s what you said about Ruby when you met her first.’

  ‘That’s so not the same,’ I protested. ‘I admit Ruby’s a small bit weird sometimes, but she’s nice too.’

  ‘And remember how hard you worked with Ruby and her mum? Remember how you helped them and how good that made you feel?’

  She was right, but there was no way I was admitting that.

  ‘That’s all ancient history,’ I said. ‘Can’t you understand, Mum? This is my summer holiday. I don’t want to hang around with weirdos. I want to meet normal people, and have fun.’

  Mum did the pouty thing with her mouth that showed me she was disappointed in me.

  Just then there was a loud knock at the door.

  ‘Try to be nice,’ said Mum.

  I almost weakened, but then I remembered that somewhere out there, Cathy and Lily, the cool girls, were waiting. I had to be tough.

  ‘I’ll get the door,’ I said. ‘I’m going to get rid of this girl once and for all.’

  ‘Eva,’ said Mum in a shocked voice, but I ignored her. I’d made up my mind.

  I went to the door, practicing the line I’d thought of over breakfast.

  Sorry, Kate, I’d love to come out with you, but I can’t. I need to do family stuff – totally boring I know. In fact, it could go on for weeks – maybe even for the whole summer.

  But when I opened the door, Kate was standing there, with one hand held out in front of her. She looked half-defiant, but also a bit lost and afraid.

  ‘I found some wild strawberries,’ she said. ‘Do you want to share?’

  I opened my mouth, but I found that I couldn’t say the words I’d planned so carefully.

  So I reached out and took one wild strawberry from Kate’s still-outstretched hand. Feeling a bit like Snow White taking the rosy apple, I tasted the strawberry. The sudden sweetness took me totally by surprise.

  ‘Wow! This is so yum!’ I said.

  Kate looked embarrassed. ‘There are lots more and they’re perfectly ripe,’ she said. ‘I can show you tomorrow, if you like.’

  And even though I didn’t want to be part of any tomorrow that included Kate, I found myself smiling, and saying, ‘I’d like that thanks.’

  Then we stood there and no one said anything, and it was totally, totally awkward.

  After ages, and ages, Kate spoke again, ‘Want to go for a walk?’

  And even though I don’t really ‘do’ walks, I just shrugged, and said, ‘Whate
ver.’

  Very strange.

  Kate led the way and I followed. Looked like we were walking to ‘town’ again.

  ‘Do you think we’ll meet the cool girls?’ I said after a while.

  Kate shook her head.

  ‘I hope not,’ she said, almost spitting the words out.

  Then we walked some more without saying anything.

  Just as we came near the village, Kate stopped walking.

  ‘There they are,’ she said. ‘Look, over there,’

  I looked where she was pointing, and saw two perfectly normal-looking girls sitting on a wall opposite one of the shops. I tried to flatten my curly hair, and then fixed my top.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Kate. ‘Introduce me.’

  Kate took a step backwards.

  ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to know them.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You trust me; I do want to know them. Now introduce me, or I’m going home.’

  ‘So go then,’ said Kate defiantly, but when I turned, she caught my arm.

  ‘Ok,’ she said. ‘I’ll introduce you.’

  I grinned. I love getting my own way.

  ‘It’s easy to remember who’s who,’ said Kate grumpily. ‘Lily’s the one with the dark hair, and she’s mean, and Cathy’s the one with the blonde hair, and she’s really, really mean.’

  ‘You can say what you like,’ I said. ‘But I’m not going to let you put me off.’

  Kate didn’t answer as she slouched over towards the two girls. I followed, trying not to look too happy.

  The girls looked up as we approached, then one said something to the other and they both began to giggle. Kate’s steps became even slower, but she kept walking.

  Soon we were standing right next to the two girls, who were busy ignoring us.

  I nudged Kate, but she didn’t respond.

  I gave a small cough, but the two girls just continued admiring their nails. (I couldn’t really blame them – they both had totally cool fake nails on.)

  ‘We’d better go,’ said Kate finally, pulling at my arm.

  I dug my heels in. There was no way I was going without being introduced.

  Eventually Kate gave a huge sigh.

  ‘Cathy, Lily, this is Eva,’ she said.