My Friend Miranda

by Im Griffin

  I pummelled my clay angrily before continuing. “And I know Trisha’s being a complete cow to her, but I don’t see what I can do about it. It’s hardly my fault!”

  Sinead nodded sympathetically. “You’re doing your best, but you can’t be responsible for Miranda. That’s not fair on you.”

  It was great to hear someone say that. I was so tired of my mum asking how Miranda was coping, Mrs Mackintosh calling me back after registration for a concerned word, and Nancy having a go at me because she’d found Miranda crying in the toilets and where had I been? Sometimes I felt like Miranda’s personal bodyguard. I picked clay out from under my fingernails and turned the conversation around to Sinead’s friendships.

  “Anyway, what about you and Rachel?”

  This prompted exaggerated grimacing and eye-rolling from Sinead; she and Rachel were barely on speaking terms at the moment, and Sinead didn’t even know whether she was supposed to be going on holiday with Rachel’s family anymore. The problem was that Rachel was the queen of mood swings: on a good day she was great, but then there were the days when she would pick a fight as soon as you opened your mouth. Yesterday she and Sinead had fallen out over the political situation in Northern Ireland; Rachel had made some bad-tempered remark about ‘those nutters across the Irish sea’, Sinead had taken exception to it given that most of her family lived in Enniskillen, and a full-on slanging match had ensued.

  Sinead stopped pulling silly faces and tried to give an honest reply. “I don’t know really. Rach can be a real laugh sometimes, but she can be such a miserable cow as well. I’m not sure I can be bothered with it anymore.”

  We both knew where this conversation was going. There had been a guilty voice at the back of my mind for ages saying I’d rather have Sinead as my best friend than Miranda, but until recently I had honestly been trying to sort things out with Miranda, if only because of the guilt trip everyone was putting me on. Then there was the fear of making a fool of myself: Sinead and Rachel could be really intimidating on the occasions when they did their cosmic twins, joined-at-the-hip act, and there was no way I’d have tried to break that up. But now it looked as if Sinead was thinking the same as me. She squeezed her clay into a long sausage and prodded it savagely with a palette knife.

  “This is stupid. You’ve had enough of Miranda and Rachel and I are arguing about everything. Can’t we just ditch them and start going round together?”

  I could feel my cheeks flushing and a big cheesy grin spreading across my face, but I kept my head down and concentrated on my rolling pin.

  “Alright then. But what will you do about going to France with Rachel?”

  Sinead waved her hand casually in one of her ‘que çera, çera’ gestures, and that was that.

  Unfortunately there was still the small matter of telling Rachel and Miranda, so we had an emergency meeting in one of the music practise rooms to decide what we were going to say. Sinead wasn’t that worried about Rachel; it seemed virtually inevitable that their friendship would soon disintegrate, and Sinead suspected that her place on the French trip might even have already been offered to Jasmine Allardyce.

  “She’ll probably be relieved. And I bet she’ll use it as an excuse not to give me my strawberry lip-gloss back.”

  However, breaking the news to Miranda was a different matter entirely. I knew it sounded big-headed, but I wasn’t sure how she’d cope without me, especially since she’d effectively be losing Rachel and Sinead at the same time. That would leave a couple of alright girls who’d talk to her, like Lynn Docherty and Gillian Mailer, but beyond them she’d be stuck with the complete social rejects.

  “I’ll never forgive myself if she starts hanging around with Eileen Fisher,” I wailed.

  Sinead felt pretty bad too, and she suggested that perhaps I should leave telling Miranda until Friday afternoon, so that she could have the weekend to get used to the idea. The problem was that it was only Monday and now that we’d decided I just wanted to get it over with.

  “No, I’ll tell her tomorrow. Either before school or at lunchtime.”

  “Ok,” agreed Sinead. “But whenever you do it,please be my partner in tennis tomorrow morning because otherwise I’ll be stuck with Lisa again, and she’s crap.”

  I didn’t say that I probably wouldn’t be much better after several weeks without actually getting the opportunity to hit the ball, and then the bell went and we had to run to get out books ready for the afternoon.

  I hung around in Piccadilly for ages in the morning in the hopes of catching Miranda first thing, but she failed to show up. It was typical that she’d decided to be sick on the day when I had to tell her. By break-time she still hadn’t arrived, so it looked like I was going to get a proper game of tennis for once.

  Sinead and I endured the obligatory warm-up jog round the tennis courts and then bagged a place on one of the tarmac courts. It made a change from the shale courts Miranda and I usually got stuck playing on, which positively encouraged the ball to bounce off at weird angles. Sinead hit a lovely under-arm shot to me and I gently lobbed it back, so that it went almost exactly to her racquet. She returned it to the left of me, and I reached across just like the woman on Miss Timpson’s demonstration video and executed a perfect back-hand. This was what playing tennis was supposed to be about! I was so engrossed in having a real, actual rally that I didn’t notice Miranda bouncing across the tarmac until she was right behind me.

  “Hi Janet, I’m here now! They said I’ll only have to wear my brace for another six months!”

  I remembered that today was the day she was going to the orthodontist to have her brace tightened. Well it was too bad; I wasn’t going to leave Sinead on her own now.

  “Sorry Miranda but I’ve started playing with Sinead. I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “Oh.” Miranda stopped bouncing and looked around her uncertainly. “Who can I play with then?”

  It was with immense relief that I spotted Honey on her own on the end shale court. “Why don’t you partner Honey? I think Louise has sprained her wrist.”

  Miranda nodded glumly and set off to the end court. Sinead breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief and I grinned back at her but inside I felt like the meanest person in the world. Telling Miranda was not going to be easy.

  I made it through the rest of the morning and managed to corner Miranda after maths. “Are you coming to lunch Miranda?”

  “Ok.” She looked painfully grateful. “Aren’t you having lunch with Sinead?”

  I turned to go so that Miranda couldn’t see my face. “No, I think she’s got athletics practise or something.”

  Lunch felt like the last supper. They had yesterday’s pasties for 10p and Miranda and I had two each followed by large helpings of jam roly-poly. I was in too much of a state to worry about calories, and besides, I was going to need my strength. Miranda was evidently relieved that we seemed to be friends again – clearly the tennis thing had just been a temporary misunderstanding – and she was at her most talkative for days as she chattered on about last night’s television and her visit to the dentist, doing her best to make it into a story to entertain me. I waited until she had finished scraping her bowl within an inch of its life, a habit that never failed to annoy me, and then suggested a session in the music block.

  Our favourite practise room, number nine, was free, and there were still a couple of Ribena stains on the keys from the last time we’d been there together. I sat on a chair and Miranda perched on the piano stool and tinkled the keys absent-mindedly. “Do you want to play our duet?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe later. Look Mim, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Miranda nodded and plonked out a few bars of Chopsticks. I felt the familiar wave of irritation rising inside me.

  “Miranda, could you stop doing that?”

  “Ok.” Miranda swivelled round to face me. “What’s up partner?”

  I couldn’t look her in the eye so I stared at a bit of flu
ff on the carpet.

  “I don’t really know how to say this but I think maybe we shouldn’t be best friends any more. We haven’t been getting on properly for ages.”

  Miranda looked as if she’d been slapped across the face. I had thought she’d been half-expecting this but it was clear now that the thought had never really crossed her mind. She picked at her eczema, and screwed her face up, holding her breath to stop herself from crying. Eventually she was composed enough to speak.

  “Can’t we give it another try first? I know I can be a bit annoying at times, always going on about my guinea pigs and stuff, but I won’t do that anymore. And I don’t mind if you partner Sinead in tennis, if you want.”

  This was awful. I didn’t want Miranda to beg and to promise that she’d change. That wasn’t the point.

  “Honestly Mim it’s not your fault, this is nothing to do with you.”

  I was aware I was coming out with all the soap opera clichés but I didn’t know what else to say. Perhaps I should just get it over with once and for all.

  “I want to be best friends with Sinead.”

  “Oh.” Miranda was silent for a while. “Have you been planning this for ages then?”

  “Not really. It just kind of happened.”

  “You’d already decided when you came to my house last weekend, hadn’t you? That’s why you were acting so weird!”

  “No Mim, and you were hardly a ray of sunshine yourself. Look, can’t we still...”

  But Miranda was already picking up her bag to go.

  “I expect you think I’m really stupid. I suppose you were hoping I’d get the message after tennis. Well pardon me for being such a thicko!”

  She made it though the door with her dignity intact but she was obviously about to start crying. I ripped one of my finger nails off with my teeth and then cursed when it started bleeding everywhere, because I’d left my hanky in my bag upstairs.

  I met up with Sinead just before afternoon lessons began. She could tell from my face that something bad had happened.

  “Did you tell her then?”

  I nodded sombrely. “She hates my guts. She thinks we’ve been plotting this for weeks.”

  “Oh God. Is she blaming it all on me?”

  I was too fed up to give Sinead the satisfaction of a guilt-free conscience. “Partly. Anyway we’d better go.” Miranda was nowhere to be seen.

  We had history first and although Miranda was late, she didn’t get told off. The teachers all seemed to handle her with kid gloves these days. As Sinead and I set off to Latin I caught her eye and smiled weakly, but she stared past me with an expression of pure hatred. I had never seen her look like that before – she didn’t have it in her to hate people.

  In Latin we went round the class translating two sentences each of some dreary story about Quintus going on a hunting expedition. I had told Miranda time and time again that all she had to do was work out which two sentences she was going to get, and then look up the vocabulary in the section at the back so that she was prepared, but she never listened. Today she sat in a total dream, and jumped visibly when Mrs Bentley read out, “Quintus fortiter processit et venabulum emisit...Miranda!”

  I held my breath. There was no way Miranda would know what venabulum meant. She started shakily, “Quintus...”

  Mrs Bentley tutted impatiently. “What’s fortiter Miranda? Come on, we did this last week.” Miranda stared miserably at the page in front of her. The seconds ticked by. Usually when placed in this position Miranda would attempt to sneakily look the word up in the vocabulary section or would at least make a few random guesses until Mrs Bentley gave up in despair, but today she was saying nothing. She just didn’t care anymore.

  “Miranda...” Mrs Bentley said warningly.

  Suddenly and without warning, Miranda began to cry. Huge racking sobs of grief that seemed to tear her lungs apart and reverberate through her whole body. Nine months ago she’d hardly had a care in the world, but thanks to us that had all changed. The class watched in horror as snot collected on the end of her nose and dripped down onto her Latin book. I wondered if any of them had any idea what we’d done.

  Mrs Bentley hoisted her bulk up out of her chair and waddled over to Miranda’s desk. “Miranda dear, are you alright?

  Miranda scarcely heard her; the asthma had kicked in and she was fighting for breath, rummaging frantically though her bag for her inhaler. I leapt up from my chair and grabbed the bag, having seen the bulge of the inhaler in a side pocket.

  “It’s here Miranda, in the top. Here you are.”

  She sucked ferociously on the inhaler and there was a collective sigh of relief as she began to breathe more normally. Mrs Bentley was visibly shaken.

  “Do you think you can walk now Miranda? I think I’d better take you to the nurse.” She turned to Geeta, who was form monitor. “Make sure everyone stays quiet, Geeta. I’ll be back soon.”

  She placed her large arm around Miranda’s shoulders and escorted her still sobbing from the room. Ripples of excitement ran through the class.

  “I thought Miranda was going to die then!” said Vikki, ever the voice of tact.

  “She might have done if Janet hadn’t found her inhaler,” Geeta replied knowledgeably, because her dad was a doctor. “You saved her life Janet.”

  I smiled weakly. The last thing I needed was to be treated as some kind of heroine, when it was mainly my fault Miranda was in such a state in the first place.

  “What’s up with her anyway? “Vikki asked curiously, as she sidled up next to me. “Is she still sulking about the talent competition?”

  Trisha sniggered and I longed to put my hand on the back of her head and ram her stupid catty face down onto the wood of her desk. Instead I was as off-hand as I could manage.

  “It’s not like we’re best friends anymore or anything. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Ooh!” Vikki slunk back to her place in an exaggerated fit of pique, leaving me to dwell in silence on the events of the day, and my final act of betrayal in publicly disowning Miranda.

  It was no surprise when Miranda failed to put in an appearance the next day. Once again, Mrs Mackintosh kept me behind after registration.

  “Janet dear, I realise you and Miranda aren’t as close as you were, but I think she still needs your support. She’s not very well at the moment.”

  I mumbled something non-committal.

  “Do you know why she was so upset in Latin yesterday?”

  What was I supposed to say? Well actually Miss, it was my fault? She’s been having a tough time recently, and I knew full well about it, but I went ahead and let her down anyway, and I think she just couldn’t take anymore? I remained silent and picked at the scab on my sore finger.

  Mrs Mackintosh tried another tack “Do you think she might be happier in a different class?”

  Again, what could I say? It was true that there were some thoroughly unpleasant people in our class who had made Miranda’s life a misery, but I had a sad feeling that there was something about the openness and innocence of Miranda that would make her a target for bullies wherever she went. They had found her in her old school and again in 1M, and if she moved classes there would probably be another Trisha sitting there waiting.

  I shrugged ambivalently. “I really don’t know Miss.”

  Mrs Mackintosh gave a deep sigh.

  “Well, I suppose that’s all for now Janet. You’d better run along or you’ll be late for lessons.”

  At the door I turned round to face her. I couldn’t bear to leave without asking.

  “Do you know when Miranda’s coming back Miss?”

  There was a long pause – too long for my liking.

  “Her parents are going to keep her at home for a few days to see how she feels. They were talking about a boarding school, but I hope it won’t come to that.”

  A boarding school! What about Miranda’s guinea pigs? Mrs Mackintosh saw the look on my face.

  “You could try ph
oning her at the weekend. It might help if she feels she has friends to come back to.”

  Chapter 21

  I never did phone Miranda at the weekend, and she never did come back. Mrs Mackintosh told me a few weeks later that her parents had decided maybe a boarding school was the best thing after all, and I wondered again what had happened to Angela and Uncle Roger. Would Ben look after them properly?

  Somehow things didn’t quite work out between Sinead and me, and by the end of term she was best friends with Anita Chetty. I think I always partly blamed her for what had happened to Miranda, and although she was sympathetic at first when I seemed to dwell excessively on Miranda’s departure, she eventually got fed up and accused me of being a miserable old cow.

  Basically I don’t think anyone really understood how I felt, except perhaps Gillian Mailer, who gave me a card for Miranda (I never posted it), and Eileen, who stopped me in the corridor in tears to tell me that she wished Miranda hadn’t left. As always I was repulsed by Eileen’s rank breath and ravaged skin, rendered even fouler by coagulating snot, but then I remembered how Miranda had always had time for Eileen and I did my best not to mind.

  I thought about what it would be like if I chanced upon Miranda in the street and what I might say to her. “Hey Mim, fancy coming to Broughton Baths sometime?” Or “How about a chocolate milkshake in MacDonalds? I’m buying.” I even fantasized about bumping into her on the River Irwell path, by that tree she used to swing on, but I never went down there.

  Next year we got a new girl in Miranda’s place, and I ended up being best friends with her; she was called Carys, and she was from Wales and quite funny. She didn’t do sliding down banisters though, and she didn’t like her pizza crust drenched in vinegar, and those were two things that I missed.

  fin