My Friend Miranda

by Im Griffin

  Chapter 19

  I came back to school after the half term holiday vowing to make a fresh start with Miranda. She was after all my best friend, and as I had already found out in those few days of not talking after Amanda Parker’s party, hanging around on my own was miserable. It was true that I was getting increasingly close to Sinead, and had even occasionally allowed myself to fantasize about what it would be like beingher best friend, but that was stupid: she was already best friends with Rachel, and I would just have to lump it. The other thing, of course, was that Miranda was suffering quite badly at the hand of the class bullies, and, as everyone who was well clear of the situation kept reminding me, was in need of my support.

  Unfortunately Miranda seemed to be rubbing me up the wrong way all the time. We argued over the most ridiculous things, like how to pronounce scone, which flavour of Monster Munch was best, and whether you should make cake icing with milk or water. It also felt like we didn’t have as much in common as we used to, which I suppose was my fault for having changed. I just didn’t want to play German hopscotch or hide and seek in the music block at lunchtime anymore, and I wasn’t interested in hearing Miranda’s Billy Connolly impression again – it wasn’t all that good. Furthermore although I didn’t know what I wanted to do at the weekends, and I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to do it anyway, I was beginning to feel there was more out there than handstand competitions in the shallow end of Broughton baths and sitting in Miranda’s back-garden with the mangy old guinea-pigs for company.

  Another issue was that I was becoming increasingly concerned about my appearance, and my weight in particular. When we were weighed at the beginning of Autumn term I’d been four stone ten pounds, a skinny little girl with a bony chest and matchstick legs. Now I’d suddenly developed wobbles on the inside of my thighs and a stomach that wasn’t flat anymore, and when I weighed myself on my Grandma’s scales they said I was five stone twelve pounds. That meant I’d gained over a stone in less that a year! Obviously I knew that I was approaching puberty and was supposed to be putting on weight: hips widening, breasts developing and all the rest of it, but I didn’t want things to get out of hand. If I kept on at the rate I was going I’d be ten stone by the time I was sixteen, and a hideous twelve-stone lump when I started university.

  The only solution was to cut down on my food consumption, or at least on my locust-like devouring of things like cut-price Greg’s doughnuts and family packs of out-of-date Wagon Wheels. Miranda was no help at all with this. Unlike me, she’d always been on the plump side, and was used to her stomach folding itself into little rolls of fat when she bent over. Although she might have liked to be thin, she knew it was never going to happen and so she’d embraced the world of full fat and high sugar head-on. But I was determined she wouldn’t drag me down with her! I began to refuse my share of the packets of cheap biscuits we usually munched on the way home and to have an apple for pudding at lunchtime while Miranda worked her way through jam roly-poly or bread and butter pudding.

  I tried not to turn into one of those self-righteous types who nag other people about what they’re eating – I always hated it when Nancy tried to make me feel like a fat pig for having seconds at home. Nonetheless I must have been irritable from low blood sugar or something, because Miranda only needed to ask, “Aren’t you having any crumble?” to set me off on a tedious diatribe about saturated fat and calories and the percentage of people in Britain who were clinically obese.

  I suppose the bottom line, although it was so horrible I could barely admit it even to myself, was that Miranda embarrassed me. She was a liability in social situations, where she seemed to have no concept of things that were too uncool for general discussion, and would cheerfully witter on about her church’s sponsored walk or the barbeque she’d been to at her Aunty Maureen’s, while everyone else either cringed or sniggered behind their hands. Then there was the misery of having to partner her in things she was rubbish at, like tennis now that it was summer. Being Miranda’s tennis partner was particularly depressing because although I wasn’t great, I knew I looked ok if I was playing with someone good - my dad and I always kept a decent rally going – but Miranda was so utterly useless that our sessions together were a complete waste of time.

  Typically I would begin by gently lobbing the ball directly towards her racquet, but she would inevitably miss it and have to run after it, wheezing pathetically. There would be an inhaler break. Then she would start again by hitting the ball to me, but she would execute such a bizarre mis-hit, with the ball either trickling over the net after making contact with the wood of her racquet, or sailing over my head to way beyond the back line, that I would probably miss it too. And so our ‘warm-up session’ would continue. About half-way through the lesson Miss Timpson would usually get us playing doubles, but we still stayed with our original partners, meaning that Miranda and I generally ended up with Honey and Louise, who if anything were even worse than us.

  The hellish tennis doubles were only one example of the way that Miranda dragged me down to her level. Increasingly I felt that Vikki and Trisha’s bullying campaign against Miranda was tarring me with the same brush, and although they never approached me outright, I hated the sensation of being constantly watched and judged. Where once I had felt safe and secure to hear people refer to ‘Janet and Miranda’, now I wanted to scream at them to stop lumping us together, that I was a person in my own right.

  In particular I was fed up that Miranda and I were always conspicuous by our lateness. I was by nature a very punctual person, but Miranda was slow at the best of times, and in her current absent-minded state she was worse than ever. Getting changed after swimming had become a nightmare, as she was always last and seemed incapable of hurrying. I generally waited for her but in a state of nervous panic because we had maths next and Miss Heaney did not appreciate shoddy timekeeping.

  My patience finally ran out on the day of the monthly maths test. I had stressed to Miranda that a prompt arrival was crucial, but she was still being her usual slow self. The changing room was empty save for a couple of girls in the corner putting their shoes on, me fretting in the doorway, and Miranda standing dreamily in the middle wearing only her knickers, vest and skirt, carefully towelling dry her hair. It was some time since the bell had gone.

  “Miranda, come on!” I moaned. “We’ll miss half of maths at this rate.” I took her blouse from its peg, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it towards her. “Here you go!”

  The bundle thudded gently against Miranda’s stomach before falling down into one of the drainage channels that ran across the changing room floor. Miranda looked at it and then across at me.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “To speed you up a bit!” I replied in exasperation. “Pick it up before it gets soaked.”

  Miranda bent down but the damage was already done. One arm was still dry, the rest was wringing wet.

  “I can’t wear this now,” Miranda said. “You’ll have to get my PE shirt out of my locker.”

  “THERE’S NO TIME MIRANDA!” She shrank back and even I was a bit surprised at how cross I sounded. “The maths test will already have started and I’m not getting into trouble again for being late. Besides which, it’s not my fault you’re such a useless catch.”

  Miranda stuck her lip out. “You could have warned me before you chucked it at me.”

  I couldn’t stand this any more. “Look Miranda, I’m going. Put your blouse in the drying room and just wear your jumper until lunch time.”

  I got to maths just as Miss Heaney was giving the test papers out and only received a minor telling off. Miranda arrived at least ten minutes after me and should have incurred Miss Heaney’s wrath on at least two counts: her extreme unpunctuality and her lack of blouse, but as usual these days she seemed to get away with it.

  At lunchtime I got the impression that Miranda was deliberately avoiding me. She dashed out of maths while I was still packing my bag, and was nowhere to b
e seen in the dining hall. I had lunch with Rachel and Sinead instead, and only bumped into Miranda on my way back to our form room. She was leaning against the wall in animated conversation with the dreaded Eileen Fisher. I went up to them.

  “Did your blouse dry ok?”

  “Yes, no thanks to you.” Miranda turned back to Eileen.

  “So are you coming to music now?”

  Miranda gave it a few seconds before deigning to look at me again. “Sorry, did you say something?”

  Eileen smirked and twitched her bushy eyebrows at me. I was livid.

  “No, forget it.”

  So began our next stand-off. For the rest of the day we ignored one another, and when I made my usual end-of-the-day dash for the number 23 bus Miranda deliberately lagged behind. The next day by the same unspoken agreement we partnered other people in French role-play, and didn’t even eat our lunchtime pizza and chips together, which was one of the great traditions of Fridays. Half of me missed her – no one else understood why I drenched my pizza crust in vinegar – but half of me was just relieved to have a bit of peace and quiet. And it was definitely her turn to say sorry this time.

  Unfortunately it had been arranged for ages that I was going to Miranda’s house that weekend, and so late that afternoon she was forced to speak to me.

  “You’re still coming tomorrow aren’t you?”

  “Don’t suppose I have a choice.” To have done otherwise would have created too much fuss, both at home and at Miranda’s, and would also have elevated our dispute to a more serious and frightening level.

  “I’ll meet you at the bus stop then. Half past eleven.”

  My bus the next day was early and Miranda wasn’t there when I got to her stop. I dismounted and stood uncertainly on the pavement outside the Tattoo Parlour, wondering if I should set off seeing as I knew the way. Then I spotted her familiar figure just rounding the corner onto the main road. I was about to wave when I remembered we weren’t on communicating terms, so I kept my arms clamped firmly by my sides. We walked towards one another, giving no sign of recognition. As we drew level she executed a neat U-turn and so we continued to her house, maintaining a tense, stony silence.

  Inside Miranda’s house it was all go. Ben was rolling marbles down Miranda’s ‘Smash the Rat’ tube which he had positioned on the stairs; her mum was trying to prepare a picnic; and her dad was fussing around asking where did they keep the bin-bags? Amid so much confusion it was easy to do the not-speaking thing without anybody noticing; Miranda was set to work making a flask of tea, and I chopped cheese and tomatoes for the sandwiches. Twenty minutes later we were all ready and Miranda’s dad was triumphantly brandishing a whole roll of bin-liners.

  “I wish you’d tell us where we’re going,” Ben moaned.

  Miranda’s dad just tapped the side of his nose mysteriously and led us out to the battered car with its distinctive smell of hot plastic and banana skins. Miranda climbed in and I reluctantly followed behind her. She swept her skirt up onto her lap so there could be no chance of me sitting on it and hung grimly onto her door while we went round corners, as if any fleshly contact would be the worst thing ever.

  We set off down some motorway or other and after a few minutes I saw signs for Birmingham and realised we were on the M6. Normally I’d have been excited – this was the way to Alton Towers after all – but today I was too fed up to care. In any case, we only went a few miles before taking the exit for Northwich. Sounds thrilling, I thought sarcastically to myself. There were flat dreary fields stretching out on either side of us, and occasional apathetic-looking trees.

  When Miranda’s dad turned off down a bumpy farm track I decided it must be a pick-your-own strawberries, although it was a bit early in the year. Then he just ground to a halt next to one of the fields.

  “I passed this field on my way home from that conference the other day,” he said proudly. “Isn’t it great?”

  We stared blankly out. To be sure, it was quite a pretty field compared to its immediate neighbours, full of daisies, buttercups and dandelions, but at the end of the day it was just a field.

  “Dad....” Ben whined. “Why have you brought us to a field?”

  Oh God, I was thinking, a long tedious country walk. Just what I don’t need. However, I had reckoned without the creative thinking of Miranda’s dad, who was eagerly waving his bin-liners.

  “Not just any old field, Benjamin! This field has the finest crop of dandelions that I have ever seen. And we are going to pick them to make dandelion wine.”

  There were collective groans from the back seat. If it had been my own dad I’d have joined in too, but as it was I thought I’d better keep quiet.

  “Not again!” Miranda exploded. “Last time it was damsons off those trees you discovered in Phillips Park. Then before that it was elderflowers from next to the river. Oh, and wasn’t there a time you had us picking blackberries in a graveyard? That was sick!”

  “Dandelions will be easy though,” Miranda’s dad said soothingly. “No nasty prickles, no awkward high bits...Come on, we’ll make it into a competition. Miranda and Janet together, Ben and Alice together, and I’ll pick on my own. The fullest bag wins a prize.”

  Miranda took our bag and we stomped off to the furthest corner of the field out of earshot of the others. She put the bag down and we stared at it with hatred. I actually didn’t mind the idea of picking dandelions – there are plenty of worse ways to spend an afternoon, but if Miranda wasn’t going to make an effort, I was damned if I was.

  Miranda picked a single dandelion and flung it into the bag. “Get on with it then!”

  I followed her example, tossing individual flowers in with maximum aggression. It was hard work being so angry, and I looked enviously across at Ben and his mum, who were laughing and stuffing handfuls of dandelions into their bag.

  After an hour or so Miranda’s dad called us all over. “Come on everyone! Time for a break and some lunch.”

  We trudged back to the car. Miranda’s mum was struggling to manage a hugely over-stuffed bag, and her dad was already on his second bag. Ben pointed with glee at our limp offering.

  “Look at Miranda and Janet’s bag! They’ve hardly picked any!”

  “What’s up with you two then?” Miranda’s dad asked, putting his arm around Miranda’s shoulders. “I expected great things after the Monopoly championships.”(Miranda and I had organised a Monopoly tournament a few weeks ago and slaughtered Miranda’s mum and dad in the final).

  Miranda shrugged her dad off. “Nothing’s up! We’re not in the mood for it, that’s all.”

  Lunch was a rather strained affair. Miranda’s parents had realised there was something wrong with Miranda and me, but were too tactful to ask about it. Fortunately Ben chattered on regardless, or there would have been some very painful silences. After lunch Miranda’s dad suggested we should swap teams.

  “Give Miranda and Janet a chance to learn from the masters!”

  I was with Ben, which turned out to be quite good fun. In between furious spurts of picking we giggled a lot and threw handfuls of grass at each other. By the time Miranda’s dad decided it was time to go home we had filled a bin bag and a half between us, and devised the ‘geronimo picking technique’, where you just sweep your hand along the ground and grab everything indiscriminately; you get loads of dandelions that way, but also quite a lot of grass and daisies. It was only a shame that I had to get back into the car beside Miranda and be all stand-offish again.

  The prize was an ice-cream for everyone on the way home. Ben protested that this wasn’t fair as he had clearly picked more than other people he could mention, but he was told not to be such a bad sport. I had a Cider Barrel ice-lolly, although I know they don’t have real cider in. Miranda had a bright green ‘lager ‘n lime’ lolly and I was desperate to try it, but there was no way I was asking.

  By the time we got back to Miranda’s it was quite late, and I had to go home for tea. Miranda’s dad offered me a lift
but I said I’d get the bus. I didn’t think I could take any more discrete concern. Miranda was instructed to escort me to the bus stop and she wandered along without looking at me, scratching vigorously at a new patch of eczema. I walked behind, struggling with my conflicting emotions of anger and sadness. At the bus stop we stared awkwardly at the pavement.

  “Janet...” Miranda said pleadingly.

  She met my eye for a moment and I could see she was almost in tears. But this time it was up to her to apologise; she was the one at fault. I left it for a few seconds before turning away.

  “See you Monday then.”

  She pulled her cardigan around her and set off dejectedly. I felt tired and empty, and as if on cue, a thin, dirty drizzle began to fall.

  I could probably have kept up the silence indefinitely, but a couple of days later Miranda initiated an uneasy truce. We didn’t bother with cake this time, and there was no pretending that the whole thing had been a silly misunderstanding either. From then onwards I felt that my days with Miranda were numbered, and it was just a question of finding myself a new best friend to move onto. I was frightened by the prospect of loneliness – break times spent hanging around on the fringes of other people’s groups, and tennis lessons where I would be the odd one without a partner – but sometime I thought that even no best friend at all would be better than the endless bickering and moody silences I had to endure at the moment.

  Chapter 20

  Sinead and I sat together in art because we were making sculptures whereas Miranda was doing a painting, and I generally spent the whole lesson moaning on about how fed-up I was.

  “It’s like, everyone else has changed a bit through the year, got new glasses or had their hair cut or whatever, but Miranda still looks exactly the same. And she acts the same too. I can imagine she’ll still be playing German hopscotch and reading Swallows and Amazons books when she’s forty.”(Miranda had tried to introduce me to the delights of Swallows and Amazons when I stayed at her house and I had been unimpressed – they were only marginally better than Enid Blyton, and distinctly juvenile compared to the Young Adult section of the library where I now chose my books).