by Candy Harper
Mrs Webber has sorted it so that we can use the school hall for the box meeting after school on Thursday. She has even agreed to store the boxes in her cupboard till Saturday, when she will come into school especially to supervise us collecting the boxes before delivering them. I did suggest that supervision wasn’t necessary, but she looked at me and said, ‘Faith, you’re helping the aged. That’s one miracle. If I expect to leave you unsupervised with a load of boys without trouble that would be asking for two miracles and Santa Claus doesn’t like us to be greedy, so I will be there on both Thursday and Saturday and I will organise tea and biscuits.’
She’s not a bad old thing. I said, ‘Mrs Webber, you’re not a bad old thing. Perhaps you would like one of our Christmas boxes for the elderly?’
And she just said, ‘Get away with you.’ Which is what adults say when they think you’re being quite funny, but they don’t want you to get cocky.
It’s all quite short notice, but I have put up loads of posters and Megs got me Ethan’s email address from Cameron, so I have emailed him a poster to put up in his school. Fingers crossed that plenty of boys turn up.
Cameron has texted Megs to ask if he can sit next to her at the box meeting. Megs is quite pleased.
In fact, she’s been discussing colours for bridesmaids’ dresses.
Dragged round to Granny’s house for tea. I had a stomach ache so I asked to be left at home, but Dad said, ‘We’ll all have a stomach ache by the time we get home so it doesn’t make much difference.’
While we were there I made the mistake of mentioning the Christmas box meeting tomorrow, thinking that Granny would be impressed with how organised I am; instead she said, ‘What time is the meeting?’
This question made me feel sicker than the flabby vegetable lasagna Granny had just served us.
‘Why do you want to know what time it is?’ I squeaked.
‘So that I’m not late, silly.’
I tried desperately to explain that there was no need for Granny to attend, but she is adamant that we will require her help.
Now both Mrs Webber and Granny will be at the meeting ready to hamper my attempts to get friendly with Finn. Maybe it will work out OK, sometimes two ancient people are better than one because they distract each other by talking about the weather and how everyone under twenty-one should be whipped and sent to bed without any supper.
As usual, on the way back from Granny’s we were expected to get excited about a trip to the nearby twenty-four-hour Tesco. Sam and I had abandoned Mum and Dad, and then I spotted a packet of frozen peas that had burst open so we were having a friendly pea fight, when who should float down the aisle? Finn. It’s almost as if my thinking about how to charm him at the meeting had conjured him up. I can’t think of another good reason for him being there. I’m wondering now if perhaps he wandered in by mistake.
He said, ‘Hey, Faith.’ As if he wasn’t surprised to see me or the peas in my hair at all.
‘Hello, Finn.’
He looked at Sam. ‘Hey, little dude.’
Sam said, ‘My name’s Sam. Are you the one she fan—’
He didn’t get to finish that sentence because I whacked him over the head with a box of frozen fish.
‘Whoa, Faith! Hey listen . . .’ Finn leant towards me and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me how attractive he found me, but instead he said, ‘Make sure you get the dolphin-friendly tuna.’
‘Um. OK.’
‘Because dolphins are cool.’
Sam started laughing. ‘Yes, Faith, dolphins are cool and save the rainforests and—’
I smacked him again.
Finn squinted at me. I hoped he didn’t think I was a violent person.
He said, ‘About this box thing.’
‘What box thing?’
‘Christmas boxes? You said there was a meeting? So, are you, like, collecting boxes for old people or something? Shall I bring you some boxes?’
Sam said, ‘I think flowers are more traditional than boxes.’ And he started flicking peas at me again.
I said, ‘We do need boxes. Shoeboxes are best . . .’
‘Do the grannies love boxes then? Crazy.’
‘Well, we put some presents in the boxes.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really.’
A pea bounced off my head and hit Finn’s shoe. He picked it up and handed it back to Sam. There was a long pause while Sam looked between the two of us and I tried to discreetly stamp on his toe.
Finn was quite happily admiring the range of frozen chips.
I said, ‘Soooo . . . I’ll see you at the meeting?’
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll bring some shoes. See you later, Faith.’ And he wandered off to the pet aisle.
All in all it was a bit of an odd encounter.
He seems to like animals.
That’s nice. Shows a caring nature.
I like animals.
As long as they don’t moult, dribble or bite.
I’m worried about tomorrow. My stomach ache has got worse. It’s probably a stress ulcer.
In some ways the box meeting went very well. In other ways less well.
I thought that Granny had already shown me what embarrassment was that time she took me nightdress shopping with her and kept grabbing old men to ask them if they preferred stretch satin or winceyette, but she’s taken me to new depths today. It started off pretty well (mostly because Granny was late and Mrs Webber was keeping a low profile behind her tea table). Tons of people showed up from all years of our school and the boys’ school. Although not all of them brought boxes with them. Cheek. What do they think this is? A dating agency? I sent them to the corner shop; I said the minimum entry requirement was a box of Matchmakers.
Then Granny decided to perk us all up by arriving wearing what looked like a run-over squirrel as a hat. Just in case there were a few people who hadn’t noticed her (like the blind and a couple of emo girls who had those hoodies that zip right over your heads) she bellowed to me across the hall, ‘Faith, are you going to introduce me to your friends?’
I scooted over to her quickly and said, ‘Sorry, Granny, it would take too long to tell you the name of everyone in this hall.’ Ha. I thought that would show her that she’s not the only popular one. And she looked almost impressed until one of the Tarty Party came stropping past in a cloud of pound-shop body spray and said to me, ‘Urg, what are you doing here?’
Granny gave me a piercing look. I tried to give her one back, but to be honest I think the sharpness of her nose gives her an unfair advantage.
‘I’ll just assist where I’m most needed, shall I?’ she said. Before I had time to answer she’d decided that the people who most needed her help were a group of boys. And conveniently one of the boys was being dropped off by his beardy granddad. In fact it was the granddad that Granny seemed to be ‘helping’ the most. Honestly, some people think of nothing but boys. I, on the other hand, was completely focused on getting the boxes wrapped (with just half an eye on the door waiting for Finn to turn up).
Some people’s wrapping was a bit sketchy. Good job we’d brought along a load of cheap-but-cheerful paper. Elliot, it turns out, has hidden gift-presentation talents. He soon had the girls flocking around him saying things like, ‘Do mine, Elliot,’ and, ‘How do you get your corners so smooth, Elliot?’ Angharad (who had come over a bit pale when she saw Granny’s squirrel-torture hat) had cheered right up and was stood next to him looking very proud. When he asked her to curl some ribbon for him I thought she was going to cry with happiness. I didn’t get to watch the sweet but incredibly slow unfolding of their lurve for long though, I had to go and persuade Westy that a spud gun wasn’t a suitable present for a pensioner. It is exhausting being the responsible one, but someone had to do it. Mrs Webber seemed to have nodded off behind the tea table. (Why are teachers always so tired? It’s not like they’ve got a proper job.) And Granny certainly wasn’t thinking about the safety of old people. In fact I�
��m pretty sure she was thinking about the snogging of old people. One with a beard in particular. Ew gross. I have almost put myself off my late-night snack of the chocolate tree decorations that I found hanging around somewhere. (Actually, they were hanging around on the tree, but I’ve only taken the ones from the back.)
So with Webber snoozing and Granny schmoozing it was left to me to go round checking everyone else’s boxes. I also asked people to write a Christmas card to pop in too. You know what old people are like about cards; they like them as much as a proper present.
I was admiring Ethan and Westy’s boxes when Granny finally remembered that she wasn’t there to flirt and came to stick her nose in. My stomach was aching a bit again so I’d just sat down when she swooped in on me. I had been hoping that my illness was making me look sort of pale and interesting, but Granny said, ‘Why are you wincing like an old man trying to get his socks on?’
Westy sniggered.
‘Have you got a tummy ache?’ Granny went on.
I said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ But it was too late.
‘Are your pants too tight?’
That made Westy double up laughing.
‘Is the pain on one side?’
I wanted to tell her that the pain was in my bottom and that she was it, but I settled for trying to distract her by saying, ‘Look! Isn’t that an old man with a large moustache over there?’
‘Because if it’s on the left it might be appendicitis. Although we thought you had appendicitis a couple of Christmases ago, didn’t we? But that turned out to be trapped—’
She didn’t get to say ‘wind’ because I pulled her hat over her mouth and said, ‘You mustn’t catch cold, Granny.’
There was a bit of a pause while we all watched Granny extract squirrel tail from her nose. I will say this for my granny, she has got some class. She pushed back her hat like she was a film star and said, ‘Do you know what would be nice?’ like nothing had happened. ‘It would be nice to have a spot of music.’
Westy, bless him, behaved as if he chats with mad old grannies every day of the week. He said, ‘Yeah, I like to listen to music when I’ve got to do difficult stuff like wrapping presents or Maths homework or sitting still. Do you like thrash metal, Mrs Faith’s Gran?’
‘Is that one of the shouting ones?’ Granny asked.
‘Yeah, like this.’ And Westy stood up and gave us a burst of one of his favourites along with some air guitar.
Granny beamed at him, which just goes to show that she had taken a shine to him because if I so much as whistle she clutches her ears and reminds me that my primary school Music teacher put me in the ‘listeners” group for a reason.
‘Well it’s very energetic, isn’t it?’ Granny said. Then she started wittering on about the ancient music that she likes to listen to. ‘And you should see me do the twist, young man,’ she said to Westy.
‘Is that that crazy dancing?’ Westy asked.
So Granny treated us to a one-woman demonstration of how old people used to dance before they had music videos to teach them how to do it properly. She stuck out her elbows and jerked about. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought she was being electrocuted by the Christmas tree lights. Westy, on the other hand, seemed delighted. But then Westy is delighted by pictures of animals in hats. I was worried that Granny’s bones would snap, but Westy actually started twisting about with her. I wished I could climb into a Christmas box. Clearly what Granny needed to keep her busy was something to criticise, so I sent her over to the Tarty Party table to tell them where they were going wrong with their hair and makeup.
‘Wow,’ Ethan said, ‘your gran—’
‘Is crazy?’ I suggested. ‘Is obviously determined to embarrass the hell out of me?’
‘I was going to say “reminds me of you”, but I’m sensing that that’s not what you want to hear right now.’
‘No, I don’t want to hear it now. Or ever.’
‘Listen, Faith, before I annoy you by comparing you to a fun and vivacious old lady, I wanted to talk to you . . .’
I was trying to work out whether being compared to Granny was OK if it made me fun and vivacious, so it took me a minute to realise that Ethan had trailed off.
He started again. ‘There’s something—’
Then I heard a ‘Hey, Faith,’ behind me. It was Finn. With a large box. He grinned his big lazy grin at me and Ethan.
Ethan looked from Finn to me and said, ‘Well, it’s only a matter of time before Lily gets her hair tangled up in the sellotape. I might just go and help her out with that.’ And he disappeared. Leaving me alone with Finn.
Finn’s attention seemed to have drifted off, but then he said, ‘Big crowd.’ And he admired the chaos for a bit.
I, on the other hand, admired his cheekbones, or at least I did until I realised what I was doing and then I blushed and admired my shoes until the silence had gone on too long and I was forced to say, ‘What’s in the box?’
‘Oh. Yeah. My dad works at this place and he said that maybe you would like these for your Christmas old people thing.’ He opened up the box.
It was full of individually-wrapped scented soaps. His dad is a manager at the Apple Blossom toiletries warehouse. The soaps are seconds because the labels have been stuck on a bit wonky, but I doubt the elderly are going to notice that. They’ll be in lavender-scented heaven.
I said, ‘That’s amazing. Thank you so much.’
Then I saw Granny heading towards us. My granny was about to meet Finn. And probably say something. It was unlikely to be a good something that made me sound like the kind of cool girl that Finn should think about dating. I panicked. I looked around the hall desperately for Megs. When I caught her eye I tried to mime: Granny alert! Granny approaching fit boy of my dreams. Help me! Only, obviously I didn’t want Finn to know that there was anything strange going on so I attempted to act it out using only my eyebrows and a touch of my left ear. Fortunately, Megs strained what little brains she has and managed to get the general gist. She whizzed across the room, took Finn by the elbow (I’m a bit jealous of that part, imagine what it would be like to touch his elbow . . .) and steered him off to look at her selection of gift tags. And I was left with Granny to hand out the soap.
There was enough soap to put one in every single box. All eighty-seven of them. They wouldn’t all fit in Mrs Webber’s cupboard so we stacked some of them under her desk. Then Mrs Webber snorted back into life (I can only imagine that Mr Webber is a man with a very strong stomach if that’s what he has to deal with before breakfast every morning) and she said that I’d better make a speech.
I said, ‘What? Talk in front of all these people?’
Mrs Webber said, ‘Faith, I’ve seen you shout across a lunch room with three hundred girls in to tell Megan you’ve got something stuck in your toenail. I’m sure you can manage to tell your friends when you’re next meeting to hand out these boxes.’
‘Couldn’t you do it? You’re a teacher so you’ve had the part of your brain that gets embarrassed removed, haven’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be wearing those shoes.’
‘Just get on with it, Faith.’
She is such a mean old boot. Why can’t people with naturally foghorny voices and no shame help out shy and gentle types like myself?
I stood up on a chair and said, ‘Shut up, you turnips! Thank you all for coming today and bringing all these super things for the lovely oldies. You’ve done a really good job. We’re going to be handing out these boxes at the old people’s home on Saturday morning so if you’d like to spend some more time chatting up the opposite sex . . . ahem, I mean making the elderly happy then you need to be here, in the hall again, at exactly ten o’clock.’
At the end Mrs W chimed in and said, ‘Let’s thank Faith for all her work in organising this.’
And everybody gave me a round of applause. It was lovely. As you know, Mrs Webber has always been my favourite teacher.
Granny had to rush off to get ready fo
r a date (she’d only left three hours to put on her makeup, which I think was cutting it a bit fine) so Megs and I had to get a lift home with Dad. While we were waiting outside for him to pick us up, Finn strolled past.
He said, ‘So, like, what day was it again that we’re delivering these boxes?’
‘Saturday.’
‘Cool. I’ll be there.’ And he sauntered off.
I squeezed Megs’s hand and said in a very discreet, low voice because he might still be able to hear us, ‘Oh. My. Goodness. That is practically a date.’
‘If it is, you should stop talking in that Mr Hampton voice. I don’t think Finn is into creepy Science teachers.’
I can’t wait for Saturday.
When Dad finally turned up several minutes late he asked if I’d had a good time with Granny at the box meeting.
I gave him a death stare. ‘Have you ever had a good time with Granny? Anywhere? Ever?’
‘Oh dear, bit embarrassing, was she?’
‘She danced.’
‘I see.’
‘She sang.’
Dad had the decency to suck in his breath at this point.
‘She told several people that they’re too fat. And . . .’ I was wincing at the memory, ‘. . . I think she was trying to chat up one of my friends.’
Dad shook his head. ‘Do you know, Faith, you’ve just described the way she behaved at my wedding.’ He sighed. ‘At least you haven’t got two albums of photos to remind you of the happy day.’
‘No, but Westy’s friend has already put her bone-crunching “dancing” on the internet.’
Miss Ramsbottom hauled me into her office for another little chat today. My heart sank into my socks because I thought the car thing was finally coming out. I kept repeating what Ethan had said to me: They’ll get over it. But it turns out that for once Ramsbottom was not angry with me. Although, it’s hardly surprising that I hadn’t guessed this because it seems that her not-angry face is pretty much the same as her angry face (bloodless and haughty). Still, there was no mistaking the ringing praise in her words. ‘It seems you have avoided trouble this week.’