My Friend Miranda

by Im Griffin

  “She slammed right into me Miss! I think I’ve sprained my wrist.”

  “Don’t worry Jasmine, I saw the carnage with my own eyes,” Miss Timpson said grimly. “It’s a terrible shame that when some of us were enjoying that so much, others just had to go and spoil it.”

  As far as I could see the only people who’d been enjoying it had been Miss Timpson, Mrs Mistletoe and Miranda, but I obviously didn’t say so. Miss Timpson was gearing herself up to dispense punishments.

  “Every single member of the sea can report to me this lunchtime at one o’clock sharp. You’ll be on litter-picking duty.”

  There was a collective groan. Litter-picking duty meant trudging round the hockey pitches wearing protective gloves and collecting the discarded condoms and chocolate wrappers which the local youths chose to deposit there.

  “I can’t Miss,” Geeta whined. “I’ve got netball practise.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Miss Timpson turned on her in a fury.

  “Well I don’t care, Geeta Khan! People who refuse to take dance seriously don’t deserve to play netball. Perhaps this will help you reassess your priorities.”

  Geeta started muttering about how unfair it was since she hadn’t really been involved, but as the adjacent bit of sea I knew otherwise. The crest of the wave had encompassed a fair bit of Geeta, and in fact she’d probably been the one to knock Vikki over. Good on her!

  For her own unfathomable reasons Miranda was almost as annoyed as Miss Timpson about the abrupt ending to the storm, and she made the mistake of telling Trisha this (not directly of course, but she said it to Jasmine while Trisha was in earshot). Trisha interpreted Miranda’s comments as a personal criticism and reacted as she always did, with self-righteous indignation. She came stomping across at lunchtime and demanded to know ‘what rumours’ Miranda had been spreading. Miranda was completely nonplussed.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t been spreading any rumours.”

  “About me in dance,” Trisha snarled.

  “Oh!” Miranda realised her potential mistake. “Well I said to Jasmine it was a shame about her wrist. But I didn’t say it had anything to do with you.”

  As far as Trisha was concerned this was as good as a direct accusation, and not the kind of thing she had to take from Miranda.

  “You cheeky little cow! What gives you the right to go round bitching about me? I suppose you’re disappointed because I ruined your crappy dance routine aren’t you?”

  Miranda kept quiet and Katherine and Vikki giggled appreciatively. Encouraged by them, Trisha gave Miranda a little push. “Oops,sorry Sturdy. Did I push you? I was just practising my sea ready for next time.”

  I really didn’t want to get involved but Miranda seemed incapable of saving herself. I called to her across the classroom. “Come on Miranda, we’ve got an orchestra rehearsal. Mrs Bingley will go mad if we’re late again.”

  She picked up her bag and attempted to move past Trisha, who stood aside with exaggerated politeness but gave Miranda a sharp nudge with her elbow. Miranda stumbled slightly and caught her foot on the table leg.

  “Watch where you go now Sturdy,” Trisha warned as Miranda pitched forward and just managed to grab hold of the table. “We can’t have you upsetting Mrs Bingley.”

  Miranda scuttled over to me and we left the room to the accompaniment of hearty cackling from the three witches. Once outside I noticed she was close to tears.

  “Oh Mim,” I gave her arm a little squeeze. “Don’t let them get to you, they’re like that with everyone. I mean, do you remember what Trisha said about my hair?”

  Miranda gave a feeble smile but we both knew it wasn’t the same really. Being told you had crap hair was one thing, but being pushed around and poked at was quite another.

  Chapter 8

  One of the many things Miranda and I had in common was that we were almost invariably hungry. Despite my doorstops of bread and peanut butter on the morning bus, I usually suffered hunger pangs during the first lesson and was starving by break time, when I would feverishly rip the cling film off my package of two digestives. My mum didn’t believe in giving us chocolate money.

  The hour and a half from then up to lunchtime was a long, hard slog, and Miranda and I typically spent the ten minutes just before lunch wriggling around impatiently, and passing each other notes scrawled with ‘I’m famished’, and ‘wonder what’s for dinner?’ We were usually disappointed: the dinner ladies were in league against us, and the things we actually liked (vegetable lasagne, chicken fried rice and spring rolls) only seemed to come round once in a blue moon, whereas scoops of creamed potato made an appearance almost every other day, and great silver trays full of watery scrambled eggs were served up at least once a fortnight.

  Friday was the only day when satisfaction was guaranteed, because we always got pizza and chips. Miranda and I smothered the chips in tomato ketchup and poured vinegar onto our plates until it formed a deep brown pool at the bottom, thus ensuring that the pizza crust was completely sodden. The others thought I was mad when I did that at home, but Miranda understood.

  Unfortunately the timetabling of the pizza and chips posed a dilemma for our class in that Friday was also needlework, and therefore the day when a minor cold might suddenly transform into a serious case of flu. It seemed to me bitterly unfair that we were fated to miss out on chips, when Nancy had needlework on Mondays and could lounge in bed safe in the knowledge that she was missing creamed potato and some creation made from cheap mince.

  Miranda and I used our charms as best we could to optimise the content of our dinners. I was quite small and thin, and I hoped that by hunching my shoulders and lisping “Can I have a very lot please?” to the dinner lady serving my food of choice, I could avoid eating the creamed potatoes and mushy vegetables altogether. If the worst came to the worst, we were allowed as many slices of rubbery brown bread as we liked, and Miranda had discovered that this tasted bearable if made into tomato ketchup sandwiches.

  Since neither Miranda nor I were given money for snacks during the school day, we could not afford sweets on a regular basis. However, we had discovered a bargain shop called ‘Charlie Ball’s Discount Warehouse’ just off Piccadilly, where packets of cheap biscuits could be had for 15p, so we sometimes shared some chocolate Bourbons or coconut rings. Similarly, if we met up at the weekend, we would go to one of the 50p shops in Salford precinct, where you could get three packets of out-of-date wagon wheels or an all-butter sultana cake for 50p.

  Our best discovery was the Cut Price Gregg’s bakery near school. We went past it on the bus every day, but it took us a while to realise that it was a special cut-price shop, presumably selling the leftovers from the other branches. Once in the know we would peer out to read the posters in the window and drool over the bargains on offer.

  “Doughnuts are 10p Miranda! Imagine, no need to choose between jammy or iced, just have one of each.”

  “And any pasty for only 20p! What kind would you get?”

  “Cheese and onion, probably.”

  “Yeah, but the meat and potato are nice too.”

  “Not when your big sister’s a vegetarian.” Nancy was a strict vegetarian and her horror stories about ground-up eyeballs and intestines had put me off cheap pies for life.

  The problem was that the shop was always shut when we went past at eight o’clock in the morning, and shut again on our way home from school. We were forbidden to leave school at lunchtime, and, although Miranda had suggested we could make a special trip out on a Saturday, this somehow seemed a bit excessive.

  Our chance finally came on Founders’ Day. There was school in the morning as usual, but because we had to go to the Free Trade Hall in the afternoon for some dreary service commemorating the founding of the school, which started at three and was apparently guaranteed to run until at least six, we got a long lunch break with the freedom to do what we liked. Most people went into town to have lunch at MacDonalds and wander round Top
Shop, but with the money Miranda and I had been given for this purpose, we could have a cut-price feast in the park instead.

  For a while we just stood outside the shop, examining the delicacies displayed in the window. There were all the usual Gregg’s cakes on offer at ridiculous prices: apple turnovers, iced finger buns, slabs of parkin and big round chocolate cakes, decorated with cherries and walnuts and presumably designed to feed a whole family. They were 50p, and therefore well within our budget. In the end we got a pasty and a doughnut each, a bag of potato cakes and a chocolate cake to share. Miranda had a flask of Ribena to wash it all down.

  We went across the road to Platt fields, and found ourselves a bench overlooking the duck pond. Miranda had heard that Platt fields were full of drug addicts and rapists, but the only people we saw were women pushing prams and munching from their Gregg’s paper bags. Our picnic was nothing if not substantial, and it was a mistake to save the chocolate cake until last, because we were already quite full by that point. Miranda produced her Swiss army knife and waved it above the cake.

  “You can have all the walnuts if you like, they make my mouth swell up.”

  Miranda claimed nuts as another of her allergies, although I found it suspicious that she had no problem with peanut butter.

  “Alright then.”

  She removed the walnuts from one half of the cake and deposited them on the other. I gawped at her.

  “What, are we having halfeach?”

  “Well, yes. There’s no point in leaving any is there? It’ll just get squashed on the way home.”

  The cake was duly hacked in half, and then into quarters, to make its consumption slightly more manageable. Even so, I felt slightly self-conscious holding such a huge gooey lump, but I reasoned that the women with the push-chairs had probably been there themselves.

  It was good cake, layered with generous quantities of butter-cream, and coated with thick icing. It was also very sickly, and although Miranda chomped resolutely through her half, I ended up chucking lumps to the pigeons. I don’t like pigeons, and it was quite satisfying pelting them with bits of walnut and witnessing their confusion.

  Afterwards we sat idly on our bench, swigging Ribena and taunting the pigeons by throwing them twigs and pieces of grass, which they optimistically took to be food. I casually looked at my watch.

  “Oh my God! Miranda, it’s twenty to three! We’re supposed to be there by now to get our cellos out.” The junior orchestra was scheduled to scrape its way through something, and as the entire cello section Miranda and I were fairly central to proceedings.

  “Aargh!” Miranda spilt Ribena down her chin and leapt to her feet in panic.

  “We’ll have to run for it!” We hoisted the cellos onto our shoulders and set off at a brisk pace. Miranda was no runner, and before long she was whingeing.

  “Janet, slow down...my cello strap’s digging into me...”

  I spotted a number 41 bus approaching, which would take us all the way to the Free Trade Hall.

  “Speed up Miranda, sprint! There’s a 41 coming!”

  I pounded towards the bus stop, where luckily for me there was yet another woman with a push-chair signalling to stop the bus. My cello was swinging dangerously back and forward on my shoulder and as I skidded to a halt it kept going, making a nasty thudding noise as it hit the bus shelter. Still, there was no time to worry about that. I looked round to find that Miranda was a good hundred yards away, and had slowed to virtually walking pace to adjust her cello strap.

  “Miranda, run! You’ll miss the bus.”

  The woman with the push-chair winked at me.

  “Don’t you worry love.”

  The bus had stopped, and it was one of those special ones with a low platform so that push-chairs can be wheeled right on. But oh, what luck! The woman was fussing around with her infant, unclipping its straps and levering it out of the seat.

  “I won’t be a minute chuck!” she called cheerfully to the driver.

  Next thing, a jam-stained toddler was thrust into my arms. He’d been at the Gregg’s doughnuts as well.

  “Hold him a minute will you?” She laboriously folded up the push-chair, and even more laboriously carried it onto the bus and arranged it in the luggage rack, peering over her shoulder to check Miranda’s progress. The driver glanced at his watch and muttered something under his breath.

  “Alfie likes to sit on my knee on the bus,” the woman explained to him.

  Finally, Miranda was there, puffing and wheezing.

  “My asthma...”

  We all climbed aboard and I gave Alfie back to the woman.

  “Thanks for that.”

  “Oh no bother at all. These bus drivers need to learn a bit of patience.”

  She gave the driver a contemptuous flash of her pass and sauntered down the aisle. Miranda and I collapsed into the nearest seat, our cellos wedged in front of us.

  “I’m dying...” Miranda moaned.

  “Oh, don’t be such a drama queen.” I checked my watch anxiously. “We’re cutting it pretty fine.”

  In fact, it was exactly two minutes to three when we got there, and Mrs Bingley was panicking a bit.

  “Atlast, Janet and Miranda, where have you been? And Miranda, what on earth is that on your face? You’ll have to go and wash it off...no wait, there’s no time. Come here instead.”

  Miranda stood obediently while her face was scrubbed at with Mrs Bingley’s handkerchief.

  “Now quick, get your cellos out and queue up with the others. We’ll just have to hope they’re in tune.”

  We weren’t actually playing until about an hour into the service, but the powers that be had decided it would cause too much disruption if we were to march on part way through. This meant that besides suffering the embarrassment of the performance itself, we had to sit in full view of everyone, and were therefore strictly forbidden to whisper, pull faces at one another, or even yawn, which I had already told Mrs Bingley was physically impossible.

  Twenty minutes in and still only part way through the ‘opening remarks from the chairwoman of the governors’, I noticed that Miranda was looking distinctly green and glassy-eyed. I prodded her knee with my bow, and mouthed, “Are you ok?”

  She shook her head, and made subtle throwing-up gestures.

  “Too much cake” I mouthed, and she made a ‘don’t mention that word’ kind of face, quickly resuming her blank expression in response to a furious stare from the Mrs Bingley.

  The chairwoman finally ground to a halt and we rose to our feet with a scraping of chairs to sing the Founders’ Day hymn. It was about us treading the way that countless girls before us had trod. We had just got to the end of the first verse:

  “And some are long forgotten, long spent their hopes and fears,

  Safe rest they in thy keeping, which changeth not with years.”

  Suddenly there was a choking sound next to me and before I had even had time to glance sideways Miranda was pushing past, her hand clapped over her mouth. She ran across the stage and disappeared through the swing doors.

  I wondered if I should go after her, but the Mrs Bingley’s distraught face told me this was not a good idea. She looked pointedly at the music on the stand, and I realised with an awful sinking feeling that the junior orchestra was next on the programme. What was worse, we were performing a kind of medley thing based on Saint SaënsCarnival of the Animals, and the part called The Swan was a very exposed cello solo, with only a few piano arpeggios in the background. Neither Miranda nor I could play it in a half-decent fashion, but we usually had quite a laugh soaring up and wildly over-shooting the high notes, and generally tossing our heads around in hilarious imitation of Esmerelda and similarly pretentious cellists. However, I somehow suspected it wasn’t going to be so funny with just me.

  Never had a hymn with six long verses been over so quickly! All too soon, we were sitting down again and the music teacher’s baton was rising to lead us into the first animal, the lion. It began with
an introduction on the piano – Esmerelda had reluctantly been drafted in for the occasion - and then the violins came in to begin their usual massacring of the tune. All I had to do was play some long notes, but within a few bars I had noticed that something was very wrong. I checked the position of my fingers against the piece of sticky tape I had stuck to my fingerboard, and they were definitely in the right place. Nonetheless, I did not sound good. Mrs Bingley had already picked up on it and was frowning at me and tapping her ear; the gesture she used to indicate that she could hear something particularly horrible. Damn! It occurred to me that this was bound to be the result of my collision with the bus stop. My cello had been knocked way out of tune.

  There was absolutely nothing I could do. The piece was continuous with no breaks where I could discretely attempt some tuning, and in any case, it sounded as if the cello required major wrenching of the pegs at the top, which was a serious operation. I decided that my best tactic was to adopt silence, and from then onwards I simply pretended to play, waving my bow around just above the strings.

  This strategy seemed fine for the animals where I just provided accompaniment, in fact I began to wonder whether the junior orchestra needed Miranda and me in the first place. However, it clearly wasn’t going to work forThe Swan, and as my solo became gradually closer, I began to panic. Next time Mrs Bingley turned my way I did my best to signal my plight, pulling horrendous faces and pointing to the tuning pegs. Her look of horror indicated that she had grasped the situation, but she had to turn away quickly to do something about the percussion player, who was about two bars ahead of the rest of us.

  By the time she was next able to turn back, we were nearing the end ofThe Fossils, and The Swan was next up. She held up her hands in a ‘what will become of us’ kind of way, and I shrugged despairingly. Then, in an instant, we were both struck by the same thought. I turned to look at Miranda’s cello, sitting neatly on its side by Miranda’s chair, and the music teacher pointed to it excitedly. Quickly, I put my own failure of an instrument down, and hauled Miranda’s into position. The violins were just strumming their first pizzicato chords, and there was no time even to check whether it was in tune; I slid my hand up to fourth position and launched in.