by Im Griffin
After we’d been down a few times Miranda asked if she could have a go on her own. I didn’t see why not so she got in and I pushed her off as hard as I could. I watched her for a few seconds and then started rolling snowballs, ready to launch an attack on Ella and Tom as soon as they came back. When I turned round I couldn’t see Miranda at first and then I spotted her much further to the right than we normally went. She wasn’t steering very well and the sledge had begun to arc off course towards an area where the ground dropped down abruptly to the river.
“Miranda!” I called. “Try and steer left a bit.”
She twisted round to look back up at me and this made her veer even further to the right. She was reaching the edge of the steep ground and the sledge was accelerating dramatically. I shouted as loud as I could.
“Stop the sledge Miranda! Put your feet down!”
I don’t know if she heard me but it didn’t matter because the next moment she lost control of the sledge and it caught on something and flipped over, sending Miranda face-first into the snow. The sledge skidded on its own for a few metres and bumped to a halt. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least she had stopped before she got to the river.
I waited for her to get up but she didn’t. Perhaps she had hurt herself and was crying a bit.
“Come on Miranda!” I shouted down to her. “You’re ok now.”
Still there was no sign of any movement whatsoever. I called for my dad but he was just starting to pull Ella and Tom up from the bottom of the next slope along and was too far away to hear me. I set off running down to Miranda, slow and clumsy in my wellies and duffle coat.
If she was pretending I was going to kill her.
This side of the hill was exposed to the wind and the snow had been blown into deep drifts. I could feel it spilling over into my wellies and more than once I stumbled and nearly fell. By the time I reached Miranda I was out of breath and panting. I tried to roll her onto her back but she was heavy in her layers of snowy clothing and it took me a couple of attempts. Then I screamed.
Miranda’s face was yellow and waxy and she was making funny gasping noises, like a fish pulled from the water. Perhaps she was going to die. I looked up and yelled but my dad had already seen me and was running down the hill towards us. I wondered if I should slap Miranda’s face like they do in films when people are hysterical but I couldn’t bring myself to. Then my dad had arrived and he was bending down next to Miranda.
“I think she’s having an asthma attack. Where’s her inhaler?”
“She usually keeps it in her coat.”
I felt in her duffel coat pockets but it wasn’t there. My dad shoved the coat up and rummaged through the layers of cardigans. He pulled the inhaler from her trouser pocket and put it in her hand. “Come on now Miranda. Try to use your inhaler.”
At first it seemed as if she wasn’t going to respond and I wondered if we would have to hold her mouth open and squirt it in ourselves. Then she gave a moan and made as if to sit up. Dad had her head propped up on his knees and he supported her arm as she lifted the inhaler to her mouth. She sucked it in with a huge gasp and began to breathe little raggedly pants of breath.
When we got back home mum only needed one look at my dad to know that something was wrong. “What’s happened Jim? Is it one of the children?”
He made a shushing noise and gestured towards the car.
“Miranda had quite a bad asthma attack. She’s ok now – just a bit shaky – but I think we should take her home tonight.”
Then he went back to the car and carried her in, and we put her on the couch with a duvet on top and fed her hot blackcurrant and mince pies. While mum was packing the stuff up dad and I walked up to the top of the road to phone Miranda’s parents, as we didn’t have a phone in the house.
“You phone them up and tell them what happened,” dad said. “And then I’ll just speak to them for a minute.”
I dialled the number and the phone was picked up almost immediately, catching me off guard.
“Hello Mrs Sturdy,” I squeaked. “It’s Janet.”
“Oh!” She became shrill and anxious. “What is it? Has something happened to Miranda?”
“Yes, but she’s fine now. She had an asthma attack this morning.”
Mrs Sturdy launched into twenty questions about the attack: what had caused it? Had she stopped breathing? Did she have her inhaler with her? I answered as best as I could while dad fed 10ps into the phone, until he eventually seemed to decide that the conversation had gone on for long enough and spoke to Mrs Sturdy himself. I hopped up and down to keep warm and tried to ignore the high-pitched sound coming from the phone.
We eventually seemed to pacify Mrs Sturdy and went back to the house. Miranda was carried out to the car in a sleeping bag, although she was perfectly capable of walking. I felt sorry for Miranda but I couldn’t help feeling she was milking it a bit, coughing weakly and talking in a feeble little voice.
It took us longer than usual to drive back to Manchester because the roads were so bad, and then we had to go straight to Miranda’s house. As the car drew up I could see Mrs Sturdy standing waiting at the kitchen window. She came running out and would have yanked open the car door herself if my dad hadn’t beaten her to it. Mr Sturdy was following close behind her.
“Are you alright Miranda? Are you sure you’re breathing properly now? You know what I’ve told you about not overdoing things.”
Miranda did her feeble voice again. “I’m ok.”
I was a bit sorry for my dad; it felt as if Mrs Sturdy was accusing him of not looking after Miranda properly.
“She wasn’t running fast or anything Mrs Sturdy,” I said. “It was just because she fell out of the sledge and I think she panicked a bit.”
Mrs Sturdy smiled weakly at me and seemed to pull herself together somewhat. “Well at least you’re all safe and sound now. Let’s get Miranda inside.”
Mr Sturdy carried Miranda in and the rest of us trudged along behind, me with Miranda’s overnight bag. Ella and Tom were bickering and prodding each other because they’d been in the car for too long.
Once Miranda was installed on her own couch there didn’t seem much else to say. Mrs Sturdy offered us a cup of tea but I don’t think she really wanted us there and I was glad when my mum said we had to get going.
Tea was toasted sandwiches because it was late, and we were allowed to put scoops of ice cream in our coke to make ice cream sodas. Afterwards Ella and Tom went straight to bed but I stayed up for a bit. I asked my mum didn’t she think Miranda’s parents had over-reacted a bit? “I mean, it’s not like she was going to die or anything.”
Mum sighed and came to sit down next to me.
“You must never speak to Miranda about this, but do you know why her mum and dad are so old? Because before they had Miranda they tried for years to have a baby, and her mum had three miscarriages. She was twenty-two weeks pregnant when she had the last miscarriage – that means she had to go into labour just as if she was having a real baby, but she knew all the time it would be born dead. Is it any wonder that Miranda’s so precious to them? And they never even dreamed they’d manage a second baby – they must have been overjoyed when Ben came along.”
I felt stupid and embarrassed. “How do you know?” I muttered.
“I had a good chat with Miranda’s mum at parents evening. The other thing is that you must take Miranda’s asthma seriously.”
“I do! But sometimes she just puts it on to get out of doing games.”
My mother sighed again. “Miranda’s had her asthma since she was born. When she was three and Ben was just a baby she had an attack during the night and stopped breathing completely. They had to drive her to the hospital and she was turning blue and going all floppy. I can’t imagine the state they must have been in.”
“So what happened?”
“Fortunately the doctors got her hooked up to an artificial ventilator and breathing again. But a few more minutes and it would hav
e been too late – she’d have suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen.”
Now I felt completely horrible. “No one told me.”
“Well I’m telling you now. You’re lucky because you’ve always been strong and healthy, but it’s not like that for everyone.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I’d had enough of this. “I’m going to bed.”
Chapter 12
By the time we returned to school Miranda was her usual self again. She said that she hadn’t done much revision because she’d been resting and it seemed like rather a convenient excuse to me, given that she wouldn’t have done anything anyway. Back in the chaos of our classroom before registration, the two key questions were ‘What did you get for Christmas?’ and ‘Have you done any revision?’ The cool reply to the first question was ‘a stereo, a new coat, pyjamas, record tokens, some make-up, a bottle of perfume, tons of chocolates, oh, and some other stuff’, while the obligatory response to the second was ‘No! I can’t believe it! I’m going to fail everything!’ punctuated by girlie shrieks.
Amanda Parker returned from two weeks in Disney Land with extra blonde streaks, a tan and multicoloured miniature plastic clothes pegs attached to her blouse collar. Apparently they were ‘dead trendy’ in America. Plastic clothes pegs rapidly became the ultimate fashion accessory; Amanda distributed a few among her favoured friends, although in the least desirable colours like brown and green, while Vikki Charlton wrote to her cousin in San Francisco who sent her a whole tub of them, and Rachel Halliwell’s mum got her some on a shopping trip to the sales in London.
Miranda and I were consumed with jealousy. We sat on our favourite radiator near the lockers, picking old chewing gum off the pipes and discussing how we could acquire some clothes pegs. Between us we could not think of a single friend or relative in America. I fantasised about getting the train to London, but the plan was a non-starter for several reasons, not least because we had no idea where the clothes peg shop was.
In the darkest moment of despair, Miranda became strangely pragmatic.
“There’s no point whingeing about what we can’t have. We’ll just have to make our own.”
“Make our own! What, with little clothes peg-shaped moulds?” I suggested bitterly.
“No,” Miranda replied with infinite patience. “We’ll get full-size wooden clothes pegs and paint them. We can clip them onto our bags.”
I thought the plan was destined for disaster and said so. Miranda didn’t push it, but merely repeated her intention of turning up with a clothes pegged bag on Monday, and the bell went then for afternoon lessons so we left it at that.
At the weekend I had Bury Youth Orchestra practise all day Saturday, and a concert at Bury town hall in the evening. On Sunday we went to my grandparents’ for dinner, and my grandma made my favourite pudding: lumps of sticky ginger cake wallowing in thick alcoholic custard. All in all, I completely forgot the clothes pegs.
It was really cold on Monday morning, and at first I didn’t notice Miranda in the bus station, her duffle coat hood pulled down over her face. Then I spotted her bag with the pegs attached; it was as if she had a row of beautiful butterflies perched along her arm. She had painted them completely so that no wood was visible. Some of them were covered with flowers and hearts and had a hippy look about them, while others were decorated with intricate Celtic scrollwork, which Miranda said she had copied from a book about illuminated manuscripts. She had used oil paints and varnished on top, and the pegs positively glowed with colour. I was taken aback by her artistic talent, as I had been when I saw the embroidered table mats at her house.
“Wow Mim, they’re fantastic! It must have taken you ages!”
“Most of the weekend, really. Do you like them then?”
“Yeah! They’re really pretty. Much nicer than those tacky plastic things.”
The bus came, and we climbed on and established ourselves in our usual seat. Miranda reached into her bag and shyly handed me something. “I made one for you.”
The background was done in rainbow stripes, and Miranda had painted little silver stars over the top, and a big yellow sun at one end. It was really beautiful; in fact, it was probably the nicest out of the whole lot.
“Oh Miranda, it’s gorgeous. I’ll wear it with pride!” I clipped it onto the pocket of my rucksack, and then we got our sandwiches out, and started talking about other things. I could tell Miranda still had half a mind on her pegs though; she kept looking down at them and stroking their smooth varnished sides.
When we arrived at school we went to do our piano practise, so by the time we got to the classroom it was fairly busy. Miranda walked over to her desk and put her bag down on top, and there was immediately a flurry of interest in her clothes pegs.
“Wow! Look at the things on Miranda’s bag! Oh, they’re clothes pegs aren’t they?”
“Where did you get them from?”
Miranda was pink and excited. “I made them. I just bought some normal wooden clothes pegs and painted them.”
“You didn’t! What really? They’re dead professional.”
I had worried that someone might use the pegs as an opportunity to poke fun at Miranda, but the class’s enthusiasm was entirely genuine. Vikki had unclipped one of the Celtic pegs, and was chatting away to Miranda as if they were old friends.
“Celtic stuff’s really cool, isn’t it? My mum’s got some jewellery a bit like this.”
Then someone spotted the peg on my bag. “Oh, look! Janet’s got one too! Did Miranda make it for you?”
“Yeah. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Hey Miranda, would you make one for me?”
“Yeah, and could you do me one of those Celtic ones?”
“We’ll pay you for them.”
There was no way Miranda was going to refuse. “Well, I could make you one each if you like. And you don’t have to pay me; I got the pegs from the 50p shop.”
Miranda spent every night that week painting pegs. She brought in some of the books she had used for her designs, and people picked out what they wanted. Vikki had a swirling Celtic pattern with a green snake, and Trisha had a pink one with little silver sequins stuck on. The girls from the other classes were horribly jealous, but Vikki declared that the pegs would be exclusive to 1M, which made Miranda’s task slightly more manageable. In fact, I doubt she’d have cared if the whole school wanted one, she was enjoying more popularity than she had ever dreamt of, and even Mrs Trotter commented that “Our Miranda’s looking very perky at the moment, isn’t she girls?”
On the Saturday night after her week of glory, Miranda came to stay ay my house. My dad took us swimming and afterwards gave us free reign to eat as many of the chocolates in the Roses tin as we liked. I think he was slightly taken aback when he returned to the sitting room half an hour later to find only a few coconut ones and orange creams lurking in the bottom, but it was his own fault.
We went to bed reasonably early, because we had provisions stashed away for a midnight feast, and it’s not so exciting if you’re awake already. However, in reality of course, we ended up lying in bed and talking for hours.
“I can’t believe how much everyone liked your clothes pegs!”
“I know. Vikki said I should enter them in an art competition or something.”
“Or you could sell them in shop. I bet loads of people would buy them.”
“Mm.” Miranda was more focussed on her recent social success. “School’s been loads better this week. It feels like I fit in more.”
“Yeah...” I couldn’t bring myself to be too enthusiastic, because I knew how fast the tide of public opinion could change.
“I mean,” Miranda continued. “Do you remember last term when Trisha started pushing me around because of that thing in dancing?”
Did I remember? I still felt bad that I hadn’t done more to help Miranda, and I had assumed we would stick to what I considered a tacit agreement never to discuss the incident. I hoped she wasn’t going to start apport
ioning blame this far down the line.
“You were great...” Miranda sighed fondly, and I thought for a moment I’d misheard her.
“Who, me?”
“Yes! You rescued me by saying we had to go to orchestra.”
“Well, I couldn’t just leave you standing there.”
Miranda turned over onto her side. “When I went home after that I told my mum I didn’t want to go back. But she said it would get better and it has.”
There was an awkward pause during which I felt extremely uncomfortable, and then I managed to change the subject and get Miranda onto Geeta Khan’s new bra, which she had flaunted proudly ever since returning from holiday. The part of me that wasn’t discussing the merits of front- versus back-fastening was busily analysing our recent conversation. Did Miranda really expect so little of me that she considered my late intervention to be sufficient evidence of friendship? Ben’s comments about her lack of friends at her old school came back to me, and I wondered if she had never known anything better. Most of all, I wished she hadn’t told me about wanting to quit school. She had left me with a horrible sense of responsibility, and it just didn’t seem fair.
The obsession with decorative clothes pegs quickly gave way to exam fever. On the first day Miranda and I revised frantically on the bus into school and then locked ourselves in our music practise room until registration, because we knew that the shrieking and hysterics in our classroom would only make us more nervous. When we got upstairs Mrs Mackintosh was making the class put the desks in straight rows with big gaps in between to stop anyone cheating. She called the register and then she told us to take two pens each out of our pencil cases and put our bags at the front. I derived considerable satisfaction from knowing that the equations Vikki had written in miniature script on her rubber would be no use to her.
Most people had brought in a lucky mascot. The girlie types like Amanda Parker had awful fluffy toys with big soppy eyes and ribbons round their necks. Jasmine Allardyce came cradling a Sam Sad dog that took up most of her desk, and Mrs Mackintosh said it would have to sit on the floor because she wouldn’t have room to write otherwise. Miranda had brought her trusty blanket, which raised a few laughs, and I had my lucky clothes peg and Tom’s best marble: bottle green with a pattern of turquoise and gold spots like a peacock feather.