by Jean Ure
for all Pumpkins, everywhere
Contents
Cover
Title Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Finale
Also by Jean Ure
Copyright
About the Publisher
THIS IS THE story of a drop-dead gorgeous girl called Pumpkin, who has long blonde hair and a figure to die for. Skinny as a rake, thin as a pin, with long luscious legs right up to her bum.
I wish!
It is my sister Petal who has long luscious legs and a figure to die for. I am Pumpkin, and I am plump. Dad, trying to make me feel better, says that I am cuddly. Some people (trying to make me feel worse) say that I am fat. I am not fat! But I did go through a phase of thinking I was and hating myself for it.
I am the middle one of three. There is my sister Petal (drop-dead gorgeous), whose real name is Louise and who is two years older than I am. And then there is Philip, known as Pip, who is two years younger. So you see I really am stuck in the middle. An uncomfortable position! Well, I think it is. Pip, being the youngest, and a boy, is spoilt rotten. (Mum would deny this, but it is true. She is the one who does the spoiling!) Petal, on the other hand, being the oldest, is treated practically as an adult and allowed to do just whatever she wants.
At the time I am writing about, when I got all fussed and bothered thinking I was fat, my sister Petal was fourteen, which may seem a big age when you are only, say, six or seven, but is nowhere near as grown up as she liked to make out. She was still only in Year 9. My Auntie Megan, who is a teacher, says that Year 9s are the pits.
“Think they know everything, and know absolutely nothing!”
Petal was certainly convinced that she knew everything, especially about boys. To hear her talk, you’d think she was the world’s authority. She was boy mad.
What do I mean, was! She still is! She’s worse than ever! I suppose it is hard to avoid it when you are so drop-dead gorgeous. Petal has only to widen her eyes, which are quite wide enough to begin with, and every boy on the block comes running. She ought by rights to be a dumb blonde airhead. I mean if there was any justice in the world, that is what she would be. But it is one of life’s great unfairnesses that some people have brains as well as bodies. That’s Petal for you. She is not a boffin, like Pip, but she can pass all her exams OK, no trouble at all, without doing so much as a single stroke of work, or so it seems to me. Well, I mean, the amount of socialising she does, she wouldn’t have time to do any work. Even in Year 9 she was busy buzzing about all over the place. This is what I’m saying: she’s the oldest, so she could get away with it. Nobody ever bothered to check where she was or who she was with.
Actually, I suppose, really and truly, nobody ever bothered to check a whole lot of things about any of us. About Petal and her boyfriends, me and my fatness, Pip and his secret worries. This is probably what comes of having a dad who is (in his words, not mine!) “just a slob”, and a mum who is a high flyer.
It was Dad who stayed home to look after us when we were little, while Mum clawed her way up the career ladder. It was what they both wanted. Dad enjoyed being a househusband; Mum enjoyed going out to work. She’s into real estate (I always think that sounds more impressive than estate agent) and she pushes herself really hard. Some days we hardly used to see her. It was always Dad who sent us off to school and was there for us when we came home at teatime. It was Dad who played with us and read to us and tucked us up in bed. I think he made a good job of it, even though he calls himself a slob. By this he means that he is lazy, and perhaps there may be just a little bit of truth in it. It is certainly true that he always considered it far more important to stop and have a cuddle, or play a game, or go up the park, than to do any housework. But that was OK, because so did we!
Mum used to despair that “the place is a pigsty!” Well, it wasn’t very tidy, and the washing-up didn’t always get done, and sometimes you could write your name in the dust, but we didn’t mind. We looked on it as one big playground. Poor Mum! She really likes everything to be neat and clean. And ordered. Dad has other priorities. His one big passion is food. Unfortunately, it is a passion which I share…
Petal is lucky: food leaves her completely cold. She can exist quite happily on a glass of milk and a lettuce leaf. She is a vegetarian and won’t eat anything that has a face. Which, according to Petal, even includes humble creatures such as prawns. I know that prawns have whiskers. But faces???
“They are alive,” says Petal. “They don’t want to be eaten any more than you do.”
In spite of her obsession with boys – and clothes, and make-up – I suppose she is really quite high-principled.
Pip is just downright picky. Where food is concerned, that is. He won’t eat skin, he won’t eat fat, he won’t eat eggs if they’re runny (he won’t eat eggs if they’re hard), he won’t eat Indian, he won’t eat Chinese, he won’t eat cheese and he won’t eat “anything red”. For example, tomatoes, radishes, beetroot. Red peppers. Certain types of cabbage. Actually, any type of cabbage. Oh, and he absolutely loathes cauliflower, mushrooms, Brussel sprouts and broccoli. It doesn’t really leave very much for him to eat. He is Dad’s worst nightmare.
Now, me, I am Dad’s dream come true. I would eat anything he put in front of me. And oh, boy! When he was at home, did he ever put a lot! It really pleased him to see me pile into great mounds of spaghetti or macaroni cheese.
“That’s my girl!” he’d go. “That’s my Pumpkin!”
When Pip started school full time, Dad went to work as a chef in a local pizza parlour, Pizza Romana, only we all know it as Giorgio’s, because Giorgio is the man who owns it. He is a friend of Dad’s and that is how Dad got the job. It means he has to work in the evenings, and quite often Mum does, too, so we are frequently left to our own devices. But it doesn’t stop Dad trying to pile up my plate! He brings home these enormous great pizzas, which Pip won’t eat (on account of the cheese) and Petal just picks at (on account of her sparrow-like appetite) so that I am expected to finish them off. If I don’t, Dad is disappointed.
“What’s all this?” he would cry, opening the fridge and seeing half a pizza still sitting there. “Come along, Pumpkin! Don’t let me down!”
Pumpkin is Dad’s pet name for me. Pumpkin, or Pumpkin Pie. My real name is Jenny. Jenny Josephine Penny. Dad calls us his three Ps: Petal, Pip and Pumpkin. I don’t know how Petal became Petal; probably because she is so beautiful, like a flower. Pip is short for Pipsqueak. Meaning (I think) something little. Pumpkin, I am afraid to say, rather speaks for itself.
It didn’t bother me so much being called Pumpkin when I was little, but it is not such fun when you are twelve years old. It is not dignified. It brings to mind a great round orange thing. Mum says it is a term of endearment and nothing whatsoever to do with great round orange things. Huh! I wonder how she would like it?
At school, thank goodness, I am usually just Jenny, or Jen. Nobody knows that at home I am Pumpkin. Only my best friend, Saffy, and she would never tell. We are hugely loyal to each other. Saffy is the only person in the entire world that I would tell my secrets to, because I know she can be trusted and would never betray me. Needless to say, I would never betray her, either, except maybe under torture, as I am not very brave. If people started pulling out my toenails with red hot pincers, or trying to drown me in buckets of water, I have this horrid feeling that I might perhaps talk. But not otherwise! Like the time in Juniors when she confided to me this big fear she had that she was not normal. She’d heard her mum telling someone how she’d been born in an incubator. Saffy, that is.<
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“I think I may have developed in a test tube… I could be an alien life form!”
Well, we were only nine; what did we know? Poor Saffy was convinced she was going to start sprouting wings or turning green. Later on, of course, she discovered that she had been born too early and had been put in an incubator, so then she stopped worrying about being an alien and got a bit boastful.
“I was a premature baby!”
Like it was something clever. If ever she starts to get above herself I remind her of the time she thought she was an alien, but I have never told a living soul about it and I never will. Her secret is safe with me! Because that is how it is with me and Saffy.
Maybe because of being premature, Saffy is incredibly dainty. She is not terribly pretty, as her nose is a bit pointy and her mouth is rather on the small side, but she is very sweet and delicate-looking. She has green eyes, like a cat – she really ought to be called Emerald, not Sapphire! – and feathery red-gold hair. Oh, and she has freckles, which she hates, but which personally I think are really cool. I would like to have freckles! I once tried painting some on out a rather horrible boy in our class yelled “Spotty!” at me, so I didn’t do it any more.
Alone of all us three pennies, I take after Dad. Mum is slim and graceful: Dad is tubby. He is also a bit thin on top, which I am not! I have fair hair, like Petal – quite thick. But whereas Petal’s is thick and straight, mine unfortunately is thick and curly. Ugh! I hate curls. Another thing I once tried, I spread my hair on the ironing board and ironed it, to get the kinks out, but instead I just went and frizzed it up into a mad mess like a Brillo pad. I didn’t try that again! Saffy suggested I should hang heavy weights off it, which seemed like it might work. So I collected up all these big stones from the garden and spent hours in my bedroom sewing little sacks for the stones to go in, I even stitched ribbons on to them – pink, ‘cos I wanted them to look nice in case anyone saw me – and I tied them on to my hair and went to bed all clunking and clanking in the hope that I would wake up in the morning with my hair as blissfully straight as Petal’s.
Well. Huh! What a brilliant idea that turned out to be. First off, I had to sleep on my front with my nose pressed into the pillow, as a result of which I nearly suffocated. Second, every time I moved a stone would go clonk! into my face. Third, I woke up with a headache; and fourth, it had no effect whatsoever on my hair. All that hard work and suffering for absolutely nothing!
I should have learnt my lesson. I should have learnt that it is foolish and futile to put yourself through agonies of pain in a vain attempt to be beautiful. But of course I didn’t. Saffy says, “Does one ever?” I would like to think so. I would like to think you reach a stage where you are content to be just the way you are, without all this stress about freckles and hair and body shape; but somehow, watching Mum put on her make-up every morning, watching her carefully select what clothes to wear (like when she has a client she specially wants to impress) Somehow I doubt it. I feel that we are doomed to hanker after unattainable perfection. Until, in the end, we get old and past it, which surely must be a great comfort?
Although in my plumpness I take after Dad, I think that in many other ways I take after Mum. I am for instance quite ambitious. Far more so than Petal, though not as much as my little boffin brother, who will probably end up as a nuclear physicist or at the very least a brain surgeon. But I wouldn’t mind being a high flyer, like Mum – if only I could make up my mind what to fly at. Sometimes I think one thing, sometimes another. Over the years I have been going to be: a tour guide (because I would like to travel); an air hostess (for the same reason); something in the army (ditto); a children’s nanny (I would go to America!); or a car mechanic.
It is so difficult to decide. I once tried speaking to Dad about it, because I did think, at the age of twelve, I ought to be making plans. Dad said, “Rubbish! You’re far too young to bother your head about that sort of thing. Just take life as it comes, that’s my motto.”
“But I want to know what to aim at,” I said.
Dad suggested that maybe I could follow in his footsteps and be a chef. He was all eager for me to start straight away. I know he would like nothing better than to teach me how to cook, but I feel I am already into food quite enough as it is. I don’t need encouragement! I’ve seen Dad in the kitchen. I’ve seen the way he picks at things. He just can’t resist nibbling! Sometimes when he cooks Sunday lunch Mum tells one of us to go and stand over him while he is dishing up.
“Otherwise we’ll be lucky if there’s anything left!”
She is only partly joking. Dad did once demolish practically a whole plateful of roast potatoes before they could reach the table. He doesn’t mean to; he does it without realising. I can understand how it happens, because I would be the same unless I exercised the most enormous willpower. I think food is such a comfort!
I could see that Dad was a bit upset when I showed so little enthusiasm for the idea of becoming a chef. He said, “Don’t let me down, Plumpkin! Us foodies have got to stick together.”
I thought, Plumpkin? I looked at Dad, reproachfully, wondering whether I had heard him right. You couldn’t go round calling people Plumpkin! It was like calling them fatty, or baldy, or midget. It wasn’t PC. It was insulting!
“Eh? Plumpkin?”
He’d said it again! My own dad!
“It’s up to us,” said Dad, “to keep the flag flying. Beachballs versus stick insects! There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know, in having a healthy appetite.”
Saffy has a healthy appetite. She eats just about anything and everything and never even puts on a gram. Life is very unfair, I sometimes think.
I managed to get Mum by herself one day, for about two seconds, and said, straight out, “Mum, do you think I’m fat?”
She was whizzing to and fro at the time, getting ready for work.
“Fat?” she cried, over her shoulder, as she flew past. “Of course you’re not fat!”
“I feel fat,” I said.
“Well, you’re not,” said Mum, snatching up a pile of papers. “Don’t be so silly!” She crammed the papers into her briefcase. “I don’t want you starting on that,” she said.
“But Dad called me Plumpkin,” I wailed.
“Oh, poppet!” Mum paused just long enough to give me a quick hug before racing across the room to grab her mobile. “He doesn’t mean anything by it! It’s just a term of endearment.”
“He wouldn’t say it to Petal,” I said.
“No, well, Petal doesn’t eat enough to keep a flea alive. You have more sense – and I love you just the way you are!”
“Fat,” I muttered.
“Puppy fat. There’s nothing wrong with that. You take after your dad – and I love him just the way he is, as well!”
With that she was gone, whirling off in a cloud of scent, briefcase bulging, mobile in her hand. That’s my mum! A real high flyer. It is next to impossible to have a proper heart-to-heart with her as she is always in such a mad rush; but it would have been nice to talk just a little bit more.
It was definitely round about then that I started on all my fretting and fussing on the subject of fat.
BEFORE GOING ANY further I think I should describe what was a typical day in the Penny household.
Typical Day
8am. In the kitchen. Mum standing by the table, blowing on her nails. (She has just painted them with bright red varnish.) Mum is wearing her smart grey office suit, very chic and pinstriped. She looks like a high-powered business executive.
Petal bursts through the door in her usual mad rush. She is no good at getting up in the morning, probably because she hardly ever goes to bed before midnight. (As I said before, she is allowed to get away with anything. I wouldn’t be!)
Petal looks sensational even in our dire school uniform of grolly green skirt and sweater. The skirt is pleated. Yuck yuck yuck! But Petal has customised it; in other words, rolled the waistband over so that the skirt barely covers her b
ottom. Her tiny bottom. And nobody says a thing! Mum is too busy blowing on her nails and Dad wouldn’t notice if we all dressed up in bin bags. But wait till she gets to school and Mrs Jacklin sees her. Then she’ll catch it! But not, of course, before all the boys have had a good look…
Mrs Jacklin, by the way, is our head teacher and a real dragon when it comes to dress code. Skirts down to the knee. No jewellery. No stack heels. No fancy hairstyles. It makes life very difficult for a girl like Petal. It doesn’t bother me so much.
I am sitting at the table trying to finish off my maths homework, which I should have done last night only I didn’t because I forgot – a thing that seems to happen rather frequently with me and maths homework. I, too, am wearing our dire school uniform but looking nothing like Petal does. For a start, there is just no way I could roll the waistband of my skirt over. I wouldn’t be able to do it up! There is a hole in my tights (grolly green, to go with the rest of the foul get-up) and I suddenly see that I have dribbled food down the front of my sweater. From the looks of it, it is sauce from yesterday’s spaghetti. Ugh! Why am I so messy?
It is because I take after Dad. He is also messy. We are both slobs!
Make a mental note to change my ways. Do not wish to be a slob for the rest of my life. Begin by going over to the sink and pawing at spaghetti marks with dish cloth. Have to push past Pip to get there. Pip is down on his hands and knees, packing his school bag. He is a compulsive packer. He puts things in and takes them out and puts them back in a different order. Everything has to be just right.
Query: at the age often, what does he have to pack??? When I was ten I just went off with my fluffy froggy pencil case and my lunch box and my teddy bear mascot. Pip lugs a whole library around with him.
“Don’t tread on my things!” he yells, as I cram past him on my way back from the sink.
Pip is wearing his school uniform of white shirt and grey trousers. He looks like any other small boy. Perhaps a bit more intense and serious, being such a boffin, though I am not sure he is quite the genius that Mum makes him out to be. Although I don’t know! He could be. My brother the genius…