Shine On, Daizy Star

by Cathy Cassidy

  Pixie has ten friends coming, some from school and some from Little Seals, all with an adult in tow to make sure they stay safe. Spike is coming too – if anyone asks, Becca is planning to pass him off as somebody’s big brother.

  ‘Can we ask Murphy?’ Pixie wants to know.

  I’d love to invite Beth and Willow and Murphy, but there’s no way I can risk it at the moment – what if someone mentioned the Haddock, or sailing around the world?

  ‘I don’t think Murphy will be able to make it,’ I bluff, feeling really mean and guilty. ‘He’s busy that afternoon. Definitely.’

  Pixie looks disappointed, but still, she is counting down the days. I’m counting too. I finally have a plan to escape the sponsored swim…

  I never did like rollerblades. They may be all clumpy and heavy, but you can’t trust them – they might slither off in a hundred different directions, without any warning at all.

  Just what I need.

  I dig Becca’s old blades out from the back of the cupboard and strap them on.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Becca asks. ‘You’re rubbish on those. You have no sense of balance.’

  ‘I’m going to learn,’ I say grimly. ‘I am going to conquer all my fears. First swimming, now rollerblades…’

  ‘You’ll have a pet worm next,’ Becca says.

  ‘Ewww. I don’t think so.’

  I slither up and down the hallway a few times experimentally. It’s not as bad as I remember.

  ‘Look,’ Becca says. ‘Are you sure about this? I can’t hang around. I’m meeting Spike by the sweetshop.’

  ‘I’ll be fine!’

  I clomp down the garden path after Becca and Pixie, my schoolbag swinging. ‘Wait for me!’ I yell. ‘Hold on… urghhh!’

  I collide with next-door’s rose bush, and Murphy Malone legs it across the road to rescue me. ‘Rollerblades, for school?’ he asks, hauling me upright again. ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘I am looking for my star quality,’ I inform him. ‘It could be rollerblades, right?’

  ‘Wrong,’ Murphy says as I lurch off the pavement and into the gutter. ‘Look, Daizy, hang on to me, or we’ll never get to school.’

  ‘It’s a shame you’re busy on my birthday, Murphy,’ Pixie pipes up. ‘I really wanted you to come to my mermaid party.’

  ‘What day is your birthday?’ Murphy asks.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Pixie tells him. ‘The party is right after school.’

  Murphy grins. ‘That sounds great,’ he says. ‘I’m not busy at all. I’ll be there, Pixie. You can count on it.’

  ‘But Daizy said –’

  ‘Help!!!!’ I yell, wobbling about a bit and sliding into the gutter to distract Pixie. By the time they’ve hauled me out and brushed me down, Pixie has forgotten my fib about Murphy being busy. I am off the hook – for now.

  Except that Murphy is going to come to the party. What if he finds out that I’ve been hiding the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me from him? I don’t even want to think about it.

  It takes forever to get to Stella Street Primary, with Murphy propping me up on one side and Pixie on the other. Beth and Willow run over to see what I’m doing, and even Ethan Miller looks up from his footy game.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Beth hisses. ‘People are looking, Daizy!’

  ‘I’m just trying to improve my technique…’

  ‘You don’t have a technique,’ Murphy says kindly. ‘Sorry, Daizy – blading is not your star quality.’

  ‘C’mon, Daizy,’ Willow says. ‘This is slightly embarrassing…’

  Embarrassing? Willow doesn’t know the meaning of the word. This is nothing.

  ‘I can do it,’ I protest, shaking them all off. ‘I… yeeeow!!!!’

  I hurtle across the playground at an alarming speed, slicing through a skipping game and scattering a whole bunch of Year Threes who are playing hopscotch. Then my legs seem to slide in different directions, and I land on my bum in the middle of the footy game, right at Ethan Miller’s feet.

  ‘Daizy Star,’ he says, laughing. ‘I know I am irresistible to girls, but you don’t have to throw yourself at me!’

  ‘Shut up, Ethan,’ I snap.

  Pixie, Murphy, Beth and Willow crowd around to see if I’m OK. I wrench off the rollerblades and pull a face.

  ‘My ankle!’ I groan. ‘I think I’ve twisted it!’ Rollerblading is not my star quality, I know that, but how about acting? I think I’m doing OK.

  I stagger to my feet, hobbling slightly.

  Suddenly, Ethan Miller elbows my friends aside, grabs me around the waist, flings me over his shoulder and marches off towards the school building.

  ‘Ethan!’ I yell. ‘You idiot! Put me down! NOW!!!!’

  ‘You need help,’ Ethan grunts. ‘That ankle could be nasty.’

  Forget the ankle – I could be nasty, if Ethan Miller doesn’t put me down. ‘Stop it!’ I scream, wriggling and kicking and flailing my arms. ‘Beth! Willow! Do something!’

  My friends exchange dark glances.

  ‘Honestly!’ Willow says. ‘Some people would do anything to get attention!’

  They scowl at me and walk away.

  Ethan barges right through the double doors and comes to a halt abruptly just outside the staffroom, dumping me to the ground like a sack of potatoes. ‘We need a doctor,’ he yells, hammering on the door. ‘Daizy’s hurt her ankle!’

  ‘I’ve hurt everything else as well, thanks to you,’ I scowl. ‘You’ve just about shaken me to death!’

  Miss Moon appears in the doorway, and Ethan prods me gently with one sparkly-white trainer before swaggering back to the playground.

  ‘So, Daizy, what seems to be the problem?’ Miss Moon asks kindly, and I wonder where to begin, because there are so many problems it doesn’t bear thinking about. Then I realize that she’s talking about my ankle. I sit down on a bench under the coathooks while Miss Moon takes a look at it. It isn’t red or swollen, and Miss Moon says she’s sure it isn’t broken. I won’t need an X-ray.

  ‘You may have sprained it,’ she tells me. ‘Keep your weight off it for a couple of days and see your doctor if it doesn’t ease up. And stay away from those rollerblades!’

  ‘What about the Big Swim tomorrow?’ I ask, trying to sound anxious. ‘What if…’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Miss Moon says. ‘But it’s not looking good, I’m afraid.’

  I have to agree – it’s not looking good at all. I may have got myself out of the sponsored swim, but my two best friends have gone all huffy on me again, and that hurts. Ethan Miller has a lot to answer for.

  I head off down the corridor sadly, remembering to limp.

  On Pixie’s birthday, I hobble downstairs, groaning. My ankle is cocooned in bandage from the first-aid box in the bathroom. It looks like I have a watermelon under my stripy socks.

  ‘Daizy!’ Dad exclaims. ‘Your poor ankle!’

  ‘It’s worse,’ I tell him. ‘All swollen and sore.’ My fingers are crossed behind my back, so it doesn’t really count as a lie.

  Last night, Mum checked me over and said that sprains could be nasty, even if there was no swelling or bruising. She made me sit for hours with my leg up on the sofa, with a packet of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel strapped to my foot.

  I could have got frostbite, seriously.

  The trouble with having a nurse for a mum is that you can’t get away with things easily, not when those things are body-related. A nurse might see through the act and decide that there’s nothing wrong with you, or, worse, that you need to be rushed to casualty right away.

  I couldn’t take any risks. I decided to go mad with the bandaging and hope that Mum would be too busy doing birthday stuff with Pixie to unravel it and prod at my ankle all over again.

  It seems to be working.

  Mum is busy making breakfast while my little sister skips around her like a whirlwind, opening presents and shrieking with glee. ‘A mermaid doll! I always wanted one of those! A Slinky!
Wow, a charm bracelet… with a mermaid charm, and a boat, and a fish, and a seahorse! Look, Daizy!’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘Happy birthday, Pixie!’

  ‘I’m seven!’ Pixie trills.

  ‘I know. Just wait till your party, later… you can have my pressie then! It’s a surprise!’

  Becca appears, all smudgy eyeliner and crimped hair, and hands a large, silver-wrapped package to Pixie. It turns out to be orange flippers, which sets Pixie off squealing all over again. Dad brings in the post, mostly cards and parcels from Gran and Grandad for Pixie. ‘Have you seen Daizy’s ankle, Liv?’ he asks.

  ‘Ouch,’ Mum says, glancing down at my foot. ‘I was sure that the cold compress last night would do the trick. Shall I take a look?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her. ‘I put on a bandage. I’ll still be OK for the Big Swim, won’t I?’

  Mum shakes her head slowly. ‘I don’t think so, love,’ she says. ‘No swimming for you.’

  I pull a face, but inside I am jumping for joy.

  ‘After all your hard work at the Baby Dolphins too!’ Dad says. ‘I know how much you wanted to show us what you’d learnt!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Daizy,’ Mum says.

  Maybe she is, but I’m not.

  Result!!!

  The Big Swim is going well.

  The younger classes go first, class by class, their teachers totting up the total of lengths and widths. Miss Moon tells us how far a width is in actual metres, and how far a length is, in actual metres, and asks us to work out how far our school has swum altogether.

  My head aches with the effort, just like when we have maths questions about dividing up cakes and sharing hundreds of lemons between a certain number of people. I always want to suggest that they should just take one slice each, and whizz up the lemons with some sugar to make lemonade. But that’s not the right thing to put, I know, because the answer is always a fraction or a decimal or some other long and complicated number.

  Murphy works out that the total distance swum so far is 3.78 kilometres, which sounds pretty unimpressive, even to me. They should have shipped Pixie in from the infant class, because I bet she could swim a kilometre all by herself.

  In the afternoon, it’s our turn. We are the oldest class, with the strongest swimmers, and we have all afternoon to notch up a few more kilometres. We file out to the poolside, everyone in swimsuits and shorts… except for me. I’ve been asked to look after the refreshment table, which means topping up the orange squash and arranging the biscuits in pretty patterns. It beats floundering around in the pool, anyhow.

  There’s just one problem – Beth and Willow. Ever since the rollerblade fiasco, they’ve been acting moody, mean and not at all sympathetic. I looked at Becca’s magazines again, and they said that hormones can cause irrational mood swings at puberty.

  Poor Beth. Poor Willow. I think.

  ‘Shame you’re missing out,’ Beth says, not sounding sorry at all. ‘Especially now you can finally swim.’

  ‘Your ankle looks sore,’ Willow chimes in. ‘And weird.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ I quip.

  ‘We did warn you,’ she says sniffily. ‘That whole rollerblade thing was mad. You were showing off, Daizy, trying to impress Ethan. And he’s so nice he was taken in by it!’

  I blink. ‘Er, no!’ I protest. ‘That’s not how it was!’

  ‘So how was it?’ Beth asks, but of course, I can’t answer that. A fake rollerblading accident? An imaginary sprained ankle? It all sounds kind of crazy.

  Beth raises an eyebrow. ‘Whatever,’ she says, linking arms with Willow. ‘You used to tell us everything, Daizy Star… but you’ve changed. Lately, it’s like we don’t even know you any more!’

  My eyes sting with tears. I watch Beth and Willow walk away and I want to call after them, tell them about the ankle and the swimming and the Haddock in the garden, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t know if they’d listen, or even care.

  The two of them slide into the water, giggling and fluttering their lashes at Ethan Miller. Miss Moon blows a whistle and the swimmers are off, thrashing their way up and down the pool while she adds up the lengths in her notebook.

  I slump at the refreshment table, filling paper cups and wondering how my life got so muddled. Right about when I started keeping secrets and telling lies, I guess, but I’m in too deep to back out now. Aren’t I?

  Ethan Miller hauls himself out of the water and swaggers over for a drink, grinning. He’s been swimming for ages, but his spiky hair is still vertical, as if held in place by superglue.

  ‘Twenty lengths,’ he tells me, dripping steadily on to the biscuits. ‘Not bad, eh?’

  ‘Suppose.’

  ‘How’s the ankle?’ he asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I sigh. That much, at least, is true.

  ‘Sorry about yesterday,’ Ethan says. ‘I over-did the heroics a bit, but I was only trying to help.’

  ‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks. I guess.’

  Maybe Ethan Miller is not as bad as I thought? Then again, maybe he’s worse.

  ‘Pity you’re not swimming,’ he smirks. ‘I was looking forward to seeing you in your bikini!’

  I shudder. ‘I don’t own a bikini,’ I tell him. ‘And if I did, you’d be the last person on earth I’d want to see me in it. Ewww.’

  ‘Why?’ Ethan wants to know. ‘I don’t mind you seeing me in my swim shorts!’ He strikes a pose, flexing his arms to show off imaginary muscles.

  It’s enough to put you off your Jammie Dodgers, seriously.

  I catch sight of Beth and Willow, huddled at the poolside, stony-faced. I want to tell them I don’t care about Ethan Miller, that he’s a vain, vacant, footy-mad lout with a fixation for hair gel and worms, but they wouldn’t listen.

  Apart from Ethan Miller’s crack about the bikini and Beth and Willow’s silent treatment, the afternoon is a great success.

  ‘It’s a shame the Evening News didn’t turn up,’ Miss Moon sighs. ‘A piece in the paper could have pulled in a bit more money. Still, we can’t complain. Well done, Year Six! You’ve all been wonderful!’

  Murphy makes some quick calculations and announces that Year Six have swum 3.32 kilometres, which added to the rest gives a grand total of 7.1 kilometres.

  ‘Another great idea, Daizy,’ Miss Moon says. ‘Thank you. We haven’t quite managed to swim to Brighton or Paris or Timbuktu, but we could easily make it to the big B&Q store on the outskirts of Basingstoke…’

  Amazing. And all without even getting my feet wet…

  Pixie’s mermaid birthday party is in full swing. I’ve changed out of my uniform into a green top and ruffled skirt, but I feel a bit overdressed when everyone else is in swimsuits. My stripy socks and bandaged ankle don’t help matters, but still, I’m in a party mood.

  I didn’t even have to worry about Beth and Willow finding out about the party – neither of them even bothered to say goodbye as the kids from Stella Street Primary left.

  On the poolside, the squash-and-biscuits table from earlier has been covered with a bright cloth and laden with plates of pizza and sausages on sticks. The green jelly shivers under the bright lights and Becca’s mermaid cake sits in pride of place.

  Music pumps out at full blast – even the lifeguard has perked up. Small children are laughing, yelling and splashing all over the shallow end of the pool, which has been cordoned off and filled with floats and rafts in half a dozen rainbow shades.

  Murphy is clowning around in Pixie’s new orange flippers and even Spike is lurking in the background, wearing black skull-print shorts that come down past his knees, a black mesh vest and black fingerless gloves.

  ‘Who is that boy?’ Mum asks, frowning.

  ‘Do we know him?’ Dad wonders.

  ‘He’s Charlotte’s big brother,’ Becca chips in, giving me a meaningful look. I think this might be true, except that as far as I know, Charlotte is a spotty Year Seven kid, and she is not at Pixie’s mermaid party.
Luckily, Mum and Dad don’t seem to know this.

  Pixie is in mermaid heaven. She squeals when she sees the cake and is almost speechless when I unveil the mermaid’s tail. She spends ages hopping about the side of the pool in it and posing with the tail curled around her, like a mermaid on a rock. She says it’s her best present ever, and gives me a big hug, leaving soggy handprints on my new party top.

  Some of the other presents are… unusual.

  Murphy gives Pixie a bag of custard doughnuts, and Spike hands over a live newt in a jam jar, which makes Mum scream. Pixie loves it and says she’s going to call it Nigel.

  ‘Are you sure he’s not some dodgy friend of Becca’s?’ Dad grumbles from the poolside. ‘I don’t like the look of him. Kids today are so… worrying. The sooner we leave all this behind, the better!’

  Murphy sits down next to me on a white plastic chair, dripping wet and wearing orange flippers.

  ‘What did your dad mean?’ he asks me. ‘The sooner we leave all this behind, the better?’

  Ah.

  ‘You know Dad,’ I bluff. ‘Always talking junk.’

  Murphy gives me a hard look. ‘You’re hiding something, Daizy Star. You’ve been acting strangely for weeks. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ I insist.

  ‘Beth and Willow have noticed too,’ Murphy says. ‘We’re all really worried.’

  ‘Beth and Willow aren’t even talking to me,’ I wail. ‘They’re all huffy because I haven’t asked them for a sleepover lately, and because I crashed into Ethan yesterday. They think I like him. And they think I’m being secretive and now they don’t want to be friends any more…’ My eyes prickle with tears, and I have to blink them away.