Becky's Problem Pet

by Holly Webb

  Luckily, when Annabel poked her nose round the door of the first lot, the Year Tens seemed to have gone. Becky’d mostly stopped crying anyway, so it was more TLC she needed than tissues. Finally, Annabel reckoned she was in a fit state for the third degree, and ignoring Katie’s frowns, she met Becky’s eyes where she was gazing at her reflection in the mirror.

  Becky looked away, and pretended to be very interested in washing her hands, but Annabel wasn’t having that.

  “Becky, you have to tell us what’s going on, you know.”

  Becky looked back at her sister’s reflection. It was slightly easier to face down a glass version of Annabel than the real thing, but not much. “I don’t have to tell you anything, actually,” she said, feeling miffed. Why did Annabel assume that every detail of Becky’s life was there for her and Katie to discuss? Then her common sense kicked in with the answer – because it always had been, of course. The triplets, even though they were as different in personality as they were identical to look at, were also very, very close.

  Becky sighed, and then turned to face the real Annabel, and Katie too. She gave a small smile – it was about all she could manage. “Anyway, I can’t tell you what’s going on, ’cause I don’t know. Don’t look at me like that!” she protested, seeing their disbelieving faces. “Really I don’t. I was sitting there trying to work it out.”

  “But do you like him?” demanded Annabel, refusing to let this slip through her fingers.

  “Who, Jack?”

  “No, David, you idiot! Of course David!”

  “Well, yes, but—” Becky caught Annabel’s gleeful glance at Katie. “But, Bel, I don’t know whether I like him that way, or just as a friend, or what. And I haven’t a clue what he thinks about me. So it doesn’t make any difference whether I do or not.”

  “Of course it does!” Annabel exploded. “What are you talking about? If you like him then we find that sort of thing out! How useless can you be?” She softened this last comment with a hug – she adored Becky, but sometimes she could be really feeble! “This is so exciting! You could end up going out with him – I can’t believe you’re going to be the first one of us with a boyfriend!”

  Katie was looking blank. Like Annabel, she’d always assumed that her popular, outgoing, fashionable sister would be going out with boys first. That it should be Becky came as a big shock. She could cope with the idea of Bel and boys – but now she was feeling rather left out, and confused.

  “Stop it!” said Becky urgently. “Look Bel, just go back about ten steps, OK? I knew this would happen! He isn’t going to be my boyfriend, Katie, so stop looking at me as though I’ve grown fur or something. We’ll just forget it – ignore it, and everyone else will stop bothering about it too.”

  “Yeah, right!” laughed Annabel. “No way, Becky. You can’t do that. Even if Max was lying and David doesn’t know about all this, someone’s bound to tell him what Max and Amy said. You can’t just pretend it never happened.”

  Becky looked like she might start to cry again, and Annabel softened her voice. “Look, it’s OK, honestly. You’ve got us to help you, and the others, we’ll find out what’s going on.” Annabel carefully glossed over the fact that Katie was looking as though she didn’t want to have anything to do with this plan, and scowled at her. “Won’t we?”

  “I suppose,” Katie agreed, very hesitantly, for her. “If that’s what you want, Becky,” she added doubtfully.

  “But I don’t know what I want!” Becky wailed.

  Annabel was about to launch into an impassioned explanation of how this was complete nonsense and they couldn’t just do nothing, when the bell went. Becky wasn’t sure whether she was glad or not – at least in lessons Annabel couldn’t keep going on at her about David (much) but now she had to go back into class and face everybody staring, which was going to be just as bad. . .

  Chapter Eight

  Meanwhile, Annabel was absolutely right. David hadn’t been in the classroom when Amy and then Max were mouthing off, but someone had told him what was going on – and it was about the worst possible person.

  Max lost no time when he saw David come in with Jordan and Matthew.

  “Hear that Becky Ryan made you look a bit stupid,” he said, smirking.

  David looked nonplussed. He got on all right with Max normally – he’d been pretty disgusted with him after he’d attacked Katie though. “What?” he asked warily.

  “Becky – she’s been making a play for Jack, you know, as well as you. You should do something about it, mate, you shouldn’t just let her get away with it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. . .” David stammered.

  “Oh, I think you do,” Max snarled nastily. “You’ve been two-timed. Everyone knows, they’re all laughing at you.”

  David looked round worriedly, and several people did seem to be staring at them.

  Max gave a mean snigger as he walked away – he could tell he’d really got to David, even though David hadn’t seemed to know what he was on about. Maybe Amy’s information was wrong? But it didn’t really matter anyway – the point was to upset the triplets as much as possible, and they’d certainly managed that.

  The triplets raced back into the classroom to get their stuff ready, Becky carefully avoiding looking at anyone, except to give Fran a quick smile. She didn’t know what kind of comments she was going to have to put up with from everybody, but she certainly wasn’t going to give people a chance by catching anyone’s eye. She managed to keep this up for the rest of the day, staring at her books and doing her best to pretend that she wasn’t actually there.

  It was harder to zone out the interested muttering that she could hear every so often from some of the girls, though – comments along the lines of “Did she really?” and “So what did he say?” Everyone seemed fascinated, but Katie and Annabel were doing very well at giving the impression that anybody who dared to mention boys to Becky might be frozen by a combined icy glare, and the triplets and their friends moved from lesson to lesson in a protective block.

  On the way home, though, Becky was in a state again. All afternoon Jack had avoided looking at her – and more to the point, so had David. But they were the only ones who had, and Amy and Max’s gleeful grins, together with the constant whispering from the rest of the class, had made her feel sick.

  “Everyone’s talking about it! It’s so horrible – they think I’m horrible – I don’t know what to do.” She turned hopefully to Katie. “Do you think Mum would let me stay off school tomorrow?”

  “Well, for a start, no. And do you actually want Amy and Max going round school tomorrow smirking because they think they’ve got to you?”

  “They have got to me!”

  “That’s not the point, Becky,” put in Annabel. “People’ll just gossip more if you’re not at school – it’s a bad idea, honestly.”

  Fran and Saima, who were walking home with them, nodded seriously, and Becky’s shoulders slumped again.

  “I just hate it when I can feel people are talking about me,” she said miserably.

  Annabel grinned at her. “Becky, most of the girls in the class are probably jealous! They’d love to be the centre of attention like this. You’ve got to go back to school tomorrow and act like you couldn’t care less. Like you think it’s funny.”

  Becky whirled round. “Bel! It’s not funny. I hate it. Amy and Max are laughing their heads off, Jack’s never going to speak to me again and David – ” She stopped, and Annabel looked at her with interest – so did Fran and Saima.

  “David what?” enquired Annabel, looking at Becky’s red face and practically purring. “You do like him!”

  “David might really be upset, is all I was going to say,” Becky muttered.

  “So what are you going to do?” asked Saima excitedly.

  “Are you going to talk to him about it?”
Fran suggested.

  “No!” Becky exclaimed in horror.

  Katie looked almost relieved, but Annabel was positively affronted. “You have to! You can’t just leave it like that. Besides,” she added cunningly, “you’ve got to speak to him. He’s going to be wondering what’s going on – you can’t just leave him like that, it’s mean.”

  Becky sighed. Annabel was right – although she knew perfectly well her sister was being sneaky, she couldn’t just let David stew over the whole thing. But it was going to be so embarrassing! How could she go up to him and basically ask if he’d mind telling her if he fancied her or not, because everyone was gossiping about it?

  “You could even ask him out! I’m sure he does like you!”

  Becky shuddered at the idea, and Annabel looked at her impatiently. How could Becky not be as desperate as she was to know what was going on? She wanted all the juicy details, and unless Becky had a personality transplant in the next day or so, she was not likely to get them. She sighed crossly. And then she had an idea. “Why don’t you let me talk to him?”

  “You can’t do that!” exclaimed Katie.

  “Why not? Becky wants to know whether David likes her. Don’t you?” Annabel nudged Becky, and Katie, Saima and Fran all stared at her expectantly.

  “I – I suppose so,” Becky murmured.

  Katie made a huffing noise, and Annabel glared at her. “Just because you aren’t interested in going out with somebody, it doesn’t mean Becky can’t!” she snapped.

  “Oh, I suppose not.” Katie shrugged. “It seems so silly, though. If Becky likes him, why can’t she talk to him?”

  “Excuse me, I am here, you know!” Becky put in irritably.

  Katie and Annabel both looked at her apologetically.

  “Sorry Becky,” soothed Annabel, then she turned back to Katie. “But really, can you imagine Becky trying to talk to David about all this? It would be torture. For both of them probably. It would be much easier if they had a go-between, and I’ve offered, so I don’t see what the problem is. All I’m going to do is find out if he likes her or not, then Becky can take it from there. Can’t you?” She whisked round to Becky at this point, and pinned her with a “do as you’re told” stare. Becky nodded mutely.

  Katie just shrugged. She thought the whole thing was mad, but if they wanted to – well, it wasn’t up to her, it was up to Becky. She was just a bit worried that Annabel was taking over for her, and pushing Becky further than she really wanted to go. “So you’re going to talk to David tomorrow?” she asked Annabel.

  Becky made a frightened kind of noise – this all seemed to be going way too fast. What if David said he wasn’t interested at all? She’d die. But Annabel nodded determinedly at Katie.

  Katie frowned back worriedly. “Well, OK – but you need to tell us every word.”

  “Excellent,” said Annabel, satisfied. “Tomorrow at break?”

  She was asking Becky, but Becky had a strong feeling that it wasn’t really up to her any more. She nodded anyway. Annabel in go-ahead mode was hard to say no to – and this was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  Next morning, after Becky had spent a worried evening at home avoiding Annabel, who kept trying to show her clothes that would be good to wear on her first date with David, and then woken up about three times in the night after weird dreams involving going on a date with a giant rat, she ran into another problem.

  The triplets walked into the classroom for registration, and were met by a spooky hush. Annabel and Katie breezed on in, ignoring the sudden silence completely, but Becky’s cheeks flamed as she desperately tried to avoid all the interested looks.

  Amy and her lot were giggling and pointing, and Max was smirking. David appeared to be staring out of the window and not looking at her at all, luckily – where was Jack? She caught him staring at her speculatively when he thought she wasn’t looking, and then he blushed redder than she had as he realized she’d noticed. It was so funny that she grinned, and he turned quickly back to his mates and started talking very fast.

  The grin seemed to make Becky feel better – how silly were all those girls who were staring? Didn’t they have anything better to do? But her sudden lift in spirits didn’t last long. Jack was so nervous that he was talking too loud, and as Becky sat down she caught some of his conversation with his friend Ben.

  “Nope. I don’t reckon it’s happening. I’ve had them weeks, and Two’s not even fat – what’s the point of keeping the things if they’re not going to have any babies? I’m just going to give up and cut my losses.”

  Becky and Fran exchanged horrified looks. Cut his losses? Did that mean One and Two were heading for the snake shop? Would Jack do that? Watching his sulky face, Becky decided that of course he would. Now what was she going to do?

  At least panicking about the rats’ future gave her less time for obsessing about what was going to happen at break. Annabel’s excited wriggling and constant conspiratorial glances were a bit of a problem, though. She was obviously looking forward to this enormously. Becky spent the small amount of time that she could spare from worrying about those poor rats worrying that she was really weird somehow. Why was it Annabel who was so keen on all of this, and not her? Shouldn’t she be excited, being about to find out whether David liked her? And actually, although she thought David was really nice, and very sweet and funny, all she felt was horribly nervous that he was going to catch her and Katie spying on them. She shuddered. How embarrassing would that be. . .

  The double lesson before break seemed to race past, and Annabel led the others back to their classroom to dump their bags.

  “What do we do now?” Becky asked anxiously.

  “Absolutely nothing, that’s the whole point!” said Annabel, very firmly. “Just find somewhere you can watch, and stay out of my way!”

  Katie and Becky and the others decided to stay in the corridor and watch from one of the big window sills. The last thing they wanted was for Amy and her little gang to see them following Annabel around, and demand to know why they were lurking in that suspicious way. They’d just have to trust Annabel to report back.

  Annabel’s plan was pretty simple. Once she’d spotted David (reading a football magazine on the steps with Kieran, another boy from their class) she approached the boys with her sweetest smile.

  “David?”

  David looked up, confused. Obviously this was one of the triplets, but it wasn’t Becky, as he’d thought for a split-second. It was Annabel, who didn’t really talk to him much – he’d had a couple of good football conversations with Katie, but Annabel was a bit girly – he didn’t feel like he had much in common with her. “Er, hi. . .” he managed, at last. After the stuff Max had said yesterday, he didn’t really know how to react to her.

  Annabel’s high-power charm smile was still in place, and Kieran was starting to look as though he might spontaneously combust.

  “Can I talk to you in private?”

  David wasn’t immune to the smile either, and he got up and trotted after her, without asking why. Annabel took him over to the chestnut tree where the triplets often sat, as it was fairly quiet there.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Becky,” she said seriously.

  David managed to look excited, embarrassed and terrified at the same time. It was quite impressive, Annabel thought, especially when you considered how much of his face was covered up by that irritatingly too-long hair. She turned up the wattage on the smile.

  “She’s really upset about this whole thing with Max. He’s been spreading these horrible rumours, telling everyone that she’s chasing after you and Jack and being really cruel to you.” She paused, but David unhelpfully didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry if this is the first you’ve heard of it, but we thought you ought to know it just isn’t true – Becky’s only been talking to Jack because he’s got these two pet rats and she’s worried ab
out them. He wanted to breed baby rats for snakes to eat, and she hated it, so she’s been trying to stop him.”

  David got as far as an enquiring eyebrow.

  Annabel continued, although admittedly the smile was starting to look very slightly strained. David was tough.

  “So when Max had a go at her” – Annabel was encouraged to see David stiffen up here, and decided to pile on the sympathy plea – “she was really devastated. She didn’t want you to think she was doing what he said. Which is why I’m talking to you. And we wondered if anything Max said was true – you know, whether you actually were upset because you like Becky, or if he just made all that up?”

  She looked at him hopefully. David looked deeply embarrassed, and peered worriedly at Annabel from under his fringe. Was this all some elaborate plot to make him look really, really stupid? Then he decided he didn’t care – he might think Annabel was a bit too girly, but she was so similar to Becky, and Becky he liked a lot. So he chose to trust her and go for it.

  “Yes.”

  Annabel managed a controlled squawk. “Yes, he made it up?!”

  “No, no, sorry. I mean yes, I do like her. She’s really sweet. And very pretty. You, er, all are. I never said anything to Max about it, but it’s true.” Then he appeared to be struck dumb, and just stared over her head at one particular leaf as though it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

  Annabel took a deep breath, and smiled widely at him. Finally! How difficult could it be to get a straight answer? “Thanks, David. I’ll tell her.”

  She watched, giggling, as David shot off to the other side of the playground as though the leaf had suddenly grown fangs. Then she bolted – she had to go and tell Becky!