‘You’re crazy,’ Beth says. ‘Totally, completely and hopelessly crazy, Daizy Star.’
‘I know,’ I say.
‘Best friends tell each other everything,’ Willow adds. ‘You can’t just start hiding stuff and hoping it will go away.’
‘We’d have been there for you,’ Murphy points out. ‘We could have helped.’
‘I know. I’ve been an idiot.’ I look at my friends, waiting for them to tell me I haven’t been an idiot after all, but they just nod and sigh and shrug their shoulders.
That’s it then. Idiot. Official.
‘I lied to you,’ I sigh. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I lied, and then I had to keep ON lying. About the swimming lessons, and my ankle… everything, really.’
‘Did you lie about not liking Ethan Miller?’ Beth wants to know, and I just about choke on my butterfly cake.
‘No!’ I protest. ‘I do not like Ethan, OK? I’m not that crazy!’
‘OK,’ Beth grins. ‘Just checking.’
‘Lying was bad news,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t let you come over to the house, in case you saw the sawdust or the maps or –’
‘The Haddock,’ Murphy finishes for me. ‘It’s kind of hard to miss it, Daizy.’
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ I tell them. ‘You are my best, best friends and I will never lie to you again.’
‘Promise?’ Willow asks.
‘Promise.’
We stretch our hands out, touching our fingertips together under the soft fairy-light glow, to make the shape of a star. It’s something Beth, Willow and I have been doing for years – we’ve never included Murphy in it before, but he’s quick to catch on.
‘A friendship star,’ he says. ‘Cool.’
‘Friends forever,’ Willow says.
‘And ever,’ Beth echoes. ‘And, Daizy, we are here for you, seriously. Even if your sister has turned into a spooky goth-girl with a green-haired boyfriend. Even if you can’t swim or rollerblade to save your life. We are your friends, Daizy Star, and we always will be. So what if your dad has flipped and you’re going to be stuck on this weirdo boat for the next few years, dying of boredom in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and keeping a lookout for icebergs and pirates and sharks…?’
‘Beth,’ Willow says gently. ‘I don’t know if that’s helping.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Beth says. ‘Sorry, Daizy. Sailing around the world might be OK. You might get to sit on the deck, sipping pink lemonade as the sun sets, with dolphins jumping all around…’
I frown. ‘I’m more likely to be wearing orange waterproofs, hoisting a wet sail. It rains a lot in the Atlantic Ocean.’
‘You’re going around the world,’ Willow says. ‘There must be hot places involved!’
‘Sure,’ I agree. ‘Places with tarantula spiders and giant lizards and scorpions and crocodiles. Places with monsoon rains and hurricanes and tidal waves, where they eat raw fish and yak’s cheese and sweet-and-sour pigs’ trotters…’
‘You’ll be missing loads of school,’ Beth says.
‘I don’t want to miss school!’ I argue. ‘I don’t want to leave you guys, or Miss Moon. I’ll be so lonely! I’ll miss the tyre swing in the park, and custard doughnuts, and sleepovers, and the Literacy Hour. I might never get to find out what my star quality is!’
‘You will, Daizy,’ Murphy says kindly.
‘Sure you will,’ Willow says. ‘And we’ll miss you too, like mad. We’re just trying to make the best of it.’
‘I know.’
The trouble is, there isn’t really a best.
I do not get to be Star of the Week – it goes to Ethan Miller, who somehow managed to swim more lengths than anyone else in the sponsored swim. I guess Miss Moon thought this was more worthy than making a public spectacle of yourself while wearing a fake mermaid’s tail – or maybe word of my shameful near-drowning never actually reached her. I hope not.
There is a report in the newspaper, two sentences squashed in between the Scout Jumble Sale and the Women’s Institute Tea Dance, just as I’d feared. It forgets to mention that we need donations for the play-park project, so there are no fat cheques in the post. We are still hundreds of pounds short of our target.
At this rate, the infant kids will be old and wrinkly before their promised play park ever appears.
I never do go back to Baby Dolphins. Dad says that one-to-one practice is the best way to learn to swim, and now that he is on a gap year, he has time to help me do it.
We go to the pool every day after school. Pretty soon I can swim a width with armbands and a float, and then with just the float. After that, the float disappears and Dad tows me about the pool with a hand under my chin, or gets me to lie back with my head on his palm as if it was a pillow. I can’t relax, though. I keep remembering the swimsuit with the darn in it, or the mermaid’s tail, and I panic and go as stiff as a board and sink like a stone.
‘Let go of the fear, Daizy,’ Dad says. ‘Lean your head back, and imagine you’re as light as a feather… floating on air. Close your eyes,’ he says, his voice soft and soothing. ‘Breathe deeply. Trust me, Daizy, trust me.’
I shut my eyes and try to imagine a glassy, turquoise sea warmed by a tropical sun. I am in the Galapagos Islands, a million miles away from the chlorine-stink of the pool, with giant turtles and iguanas watching me from a white sandy beach.
My arms float out to either side and my legs drift up to the surface of the water like the points of a star, and for a moment I really am floating, held up by the water. I can’t even feel Dad’s hand beneath my head.
‘That’s it, Daizy,’ Dad whispers in my ear. ‘Lie back. You’re on your own… you have been for the last minute or so, and you’re doing a perfect star float!’
It takes a few more sessions before I can add in the arm and leg movements, but pretty soon I am swimming on my back. It won’t be long till I suss those froggy leg movements and start swimming on my front too. I’m getting there.
‘Now I really can sail around the world with you,’ I tell Dad. He smiles, but the smile looks a little bit sad, somehow.
He’s promised to make me a special certificate on the laptop to say I have conquered my fear of water and can swim. I’m going to keep it forever.
That’s the day that Dad announces he has changed his mind about sailing around the world.
‘I may have been a little bit selfish, trying to make my dream come true,’ he says. ‘I can see now that sailing around the world was not a dream you shared with me.’
‘More of a nightmare,’ Becca huffs, but Mum just gets up and hugs Dad very hard, and Pixie asks if that means we can put the swing back up in the garden again. I just grin, because I can’t quite believe my ears.
‘Doing things for selfish reasons is never a good idea,’ Dad tells us. ‘All that hassle. We’d have had to rent out the house, Livvi would’ve had to hand in her notice, you girls would’ve had to take a year out of school… and for what? Just so we could sit under a palm tree drinking pineapple juice on a deserted beach in Koh Samui…’
It sounds cool, put like that, but we try not to feel sorry.
‘No, if I ever did turn our lives upside down, there’d have to be a better reason,’ Dad said firmly.
‘Aren’t you disappointed?’ I ask.
Dad laughs. ‘To tell the truth, I’m relieved,’ he says. ‘Building the Haddock was the toughest challenge ever. That boat just wasn’t going together the way it should have… Perhaps woodwork isn’t my strong point?’
‘Perhaps not,’ Mum agrees politely.
‘We’d never have got past Dover in that old crate,’ Becca adds. ‘Face it, Dad, the thing’s a wreck.’
That’s what gives me the idea, really.
‘Dad, what exactly are you going to do with the Haddock?’ I ask. ‘It can’t stay in the garden, can it?’
Dad frowns. ‘It might have to. I can’t think who else would want it.’
‘I can,’ I say.
That’s how
the Haddock comes to take centre-stage in the new adventure playground at Stella Street Infants.
It isn’t easy getting it there, of course – we have to take down the whole of the back fence. Dad arranges to borrow a tractor and trailer, but even so, it takes half of Silver Street to haul the wretched thing on to it. The Haddock is towed slowly along to the school and handed over to a team of council workers.
Dad has tears in his eyes as they attack it with chainsaws. Pretty soon, all that’s left is the top part of the hull, the deck and the cabin – they bury it fifteen centimetres into the ground, then lay springy blue tarmac all around it. They slice a chunk off the mast and arrange the scramble nets, rigging and rope ladder, then paint sharks and stepping stones on the blue stuff. The balance-beam plank and the sandbox go in next, and even Becca turns up to watch as they raise the pirate flag and carry the dressing-up box into the cabin while all the little kids cheer.
‘Finally,’ she says. ‘We can relax. The madness is over.’
Well, maybe. Life returns to normal, or as normal as it can be with Dad still not working. I can breathe again. I still have my best friends, even if Beth and Willow are still obsessed with Ethan Miller. Trust me, I will learn to live with it.
I still have Murphy and custard doughnuts and afternoons down at the tyre swing, and Becca and Pixie and Spike and even Nigel the newt. I can swim now, just about, and I am the proud designer of the new play park, and that’s pretty cool. As for Year Six, it’s just as good as I knew it would be. I still have Miss Moon, and the whole year stretching out ahead of me to discover my star quality and follow my dreams.
‘Sailing around the world wasn’t quite the dream I thought it would be,’ Dad sighs. ‘Still, this gap year is a gift. I’m not going to waste a single moment. What’s the point of getting out of the rat race unless you use the time to change the world?’
‘Change the world?’ I echo.
Mum laughs. ‘Oh, Mike, stop winding us all up!’
Dad just raises an eyebrow, and the smile dies on Mum’s lips. Becca stops chewing and Pixie’s eyes widen in horror, but I’m not worried. Dad’s joking, I think. He wouldn’t… he couldn’t hatch another dodgy plan. Not after the sailing around the world disaster. Surely?
There is silence at the table, and my heart starts up a loud, heavy drumbeat of doom.
‘Listen,’ Dad says. ‘I’ve got a plan…’
Shine On, Daizy Star Page 8