‘You have snatched fame from beneath our feet, Bryony Bell,’ Angelina said grimly, slipping her arm round Melody’s waist. Emmy-Lou, two fat tears poised to pop out of her huge blue eyes, clung to the straps of Angelina’s octopus jeans.
Then they all clung silently together like a small, furious, chorus-line, almost spitting venom at Bryony.
‘Hang on, hang on,’ Bryony said, putting her hand on Emmy-Lou’s curly little head. ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘Mum told us,’ Melissa whined. Melissa had a very long fringe which always hung in front of her eyes. When she put on her whiny face — which she quite often did — Big Bob said she looked like a Cairn terrier with distemper.
‘She said she found out when she went to the bank to withdraw money from the Special Expenses Account and there was …’ Melissa inhaled deeply and wetly, but before she had sucked in enough air to go on Emmy-Lou concluded, in a voice choked with tears,
‘… not a sodding brass farthing!’
‘That’s what Mum said,’ Melody put in. ‘So don’t dare deny it!’
‘It’s downright criminal,’ Angelina went on. ‘Here we all are, bursting with talent, destined to become the stars of the future; and now that destiny is hanging in the balance -and why?’ She pressed her forefinger against Bryony’s chest and prodded her hard in time with each syllable: ‘Your sel-fish-ness, Bry-o-ny Bell!’
‘Mum says you can twist Dad round your little finger,’ Melissa whined.
‘So?’ said Bryony, removing Angelina’s finger and trying to push past them all. ‘Why shouldn’t I get new skates? My old ones are nipping my toes and the ball-bearings have gone and the wheel stops sometimes don’t. Just because you’re going to be big TV stars. Just because I can’t sing…’
Bryony stopped as Clarissa swept downstairs with Little Bob in her arms. Immediately, everyone except Emmy-Lou straightened up and tried to look innocent.
‘Sure Bryony’s to give the skates back this very minute, Mum?’ Emmy-Lou said, reaching up to clasp Clarissa’s hand. ‘Sure she is?’
Bryony gasped in utter horror. They couldn’t. They simply couldn’t.
A terrible silence descended. Even Little Bob stopped gurgling and pointed a chubby, wet and accusing little finger at her. Bryony appealed to Clarissa.
‘Dad said I could keep them for another week. Oh Mum, please …’
But Clarissa shook her head, clamped her lips tightly together, and sucked all the air out of her cheeks. Bryony’s heart plummeted. This did not auger at all well.
‘I’m sorry, Bryony,’ Clarissa said at last, her voice shaky. ‘It’s a question of priorities. If we win TV Family Star Turns, the first thing we’ll do is buy you the Viper 3000s again. But we have to have costumes, Bryony. We need to match, and we need to look glamorous. You know what the telly’s like — it’s all image.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a real shame, love, I know.’
‘But Mum,’ Bryony tried again, ‘I need the Vipers. I’ve got an idea and without the Vipers it just won’t work. Just one more week …’
Clarissa was not to be moved.
‘I know you, Bryony. You’ll say you won’t scuff them, but you will. Fetch them,’ she said, kindly but firmly. ‘With the box. Your father will take them to the post office first thing tomorrow morning.’
Then she turned to the other children, her eyebrows high and her emerald green eyeshadow flashing a warning. ‘And if I hear one more word about this from you lot, I’m warning you — there’ll be hell to pay. This is not easy for Bryony. Understood?’
Angelina and Melody blushed deeply and looked at their toes contritely. Melissa opened her mouth to whine and had her foot stepped on by Melody. Emmy-Lou nodded sagely and said, ‘We hear you, Mum.’ Then they all muttered their apologies and trailed back into the living room to rekindle the flames of sisterly devotion.
Eyes burning, Bryony climbed the stairs. Never had the clouds above her head seemed so dark. When she got to her bedroom she knelt down and slid out the Viper 3000s box, lifted the lid for the last time and watched her tears fall at last, to lie sparkling like diamonds on the white fibreglass composite uppers.
‘Sorry, Abid,’ she whispered as she laid the rollerskates to rest, covered them over with tissue paper, and said goodbye.
When she plodded back down to hand them over, Clarissa took the box with a reassuring smile. ‘Chin up, Bryony,’ she said. ‘We’re bound to win, and then you’ll get them back.’
‘Is Dad home yet?’ Bryony asked.
‘I believe he is,’ said Clarissa frostily. ‘I’d check the potting shed, if I were you. And tell him his dinner’s on, though I’m blowed if he deserves it.’
Chapter: Six
‘Oh Dad…’
Big Bob was sitting in the shed on a tea-chest padded with faded gold cushions, polishing his big brown boots. When he saw her, he gave Bryony such a sympathetic look that she nearly burst into tears all over again. Putting the shoe brush back in the box by his side, he wiped his dungarees and patted his knee. Bryony perched precariously on it, leaning on his shiny little bald patch to balance herself.
Talk about being in the doghouse, Bryony,’ Big Bob sighed. ‘Didn’t expect your mum to go looking at the Special Expenses Account this week.’
‘Do I really twist you round my little finger, Dad?’ Bryony asked suddenly, hooking her pinkie under Big Bob’s shirt collar and tugging. ‘Did I really wheedle at you till you got me the Vipers?’
Big Bob patted Bryony’s back and smiled.
‘Not a bit of it, lass,’ he assured her. Then he lowered his voice. ‘Just between you and me and the potting compost,’ he whispered, ‘I sometimes think The Singing Bells go a bit over the score, so to speak.
‘The little ‘uns are really mad at me, Dad,’ Bryony said. ‘It’s like they think I’m a traitor.’ She gave a long sigh. ‘Well, maybe I am. Maybe we both are — not thinking they’d need costumes.’
‘There’s more to life than being able to sing, Bryony,’ Big Bob said comfortingly. ‘When God was giving out vocal chords, you and me weren’t too far up the queue. So, singing’s just not in our genes and that’s all there is to it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be a star — you mark my words!’
‘I think you’re a star,’ Bryony said, smiling bravely. ‘But Dad,’ she went on, ‘there’s another problem. The Vipers are vital for the success of a plan I’ve got, and now Mum says they’ve got to go back tomorrow.’
‘A plan, Bryony, love?’
Bryony slipped off Big Bob’s knee, shifted the box of shoe-cleaning materials, and knelt at his feet.
‘It’s my pal Abid Ashraf. You know — the big shy quiet one? Got asthma and a lovely singing voice and doesn’t like being looked at?’
Big Bob nodded. “Course I know Abid,’ he said. ‘Heart of gold, that boy, and clever with it. So what’s up, Bryony?’
‘He’s got to play the swan part in the school play and it’s making him really miserable, and I had this idea that I could do it — on skates! You know — really smooth ‘n’ elegant, balancing on one leg a lot and with loads of arabesques. And Abid could still sing, but he’d be offstage so no one could see, so he wouldn’t feel embarrassed.
‘If only Mrs Quigg had seen the Viper 3000s,’ she sighed. ‘That would have clinched it. The swan costume’s white, you see.’
‘Sure, Bryony,’ said Big Bob thoughtfully. ‘I get the picture.’
He put his hands on his knees and rocked to and fro, whistling through the gap in his front teeth. He always did that when he was thinking, and Bryony sat silently, hopefully, waiting. Sure enough, after a few moments the whistling stopped and Big Bob leapt to his feet, gave his thigh a swipe, and said ‘Yeeee-hah!’ — which was what he always did when inspiration struck.
‘Actions speak louder than words — that’s the key to it!’ he beamed. ‘Like when I was courting your mother. Flipping terrified, I was, to ask her to marry me — she being a singer, you know, and
me just a humble joiner. So, guess what I did?’
‘What?’ said Bryony, eyes sparkling.
Big Bob glanced at the shed door and lowered his voice. ‘Went out and spent half my wage packet on a bouquet of red roses, then got down on one knee and presented her with them!’
And he lowered himself down on his right knee to demonstrate.
‘So a bunch of flowers did it?’ Bryony asked. ‘As easy as that?’
‘Well … not just a bunch of flowers,’ Big Bob told her with a wink. ‘Right in the middle of the roses, I hid a box. And when your mum opened it, what do you think there was inside but a ruby ring, winking up at her from the black velvet lining. Like a tiny beating heartful of love, that ruby was. Cleaned me out for years Bryony, but it did the trick!’
Bryony gazed dreamily at her father. ‘That is so romantic, Dad. But what’s it got to do with me and old Mrs Quigg? Sure as anything I’m not marrying her!’
‘What I said, Bryony: actions speak louder than words. You have to do the dance for her, never mind telling her about it. Catch her off her guard then dazzle her — bowl her over — like I did with your mother! OK?’
‘Without the Viper 3000s, though?’
Big Bob rummaged about among the shoe-cleaning materials and took out a tube.
‘Fetch your old skates, lass,’ he told her. ‘Your dad’ll fix it!’
* * *
After four coats of shoe whitener, the black skates looked marginally better. Big Bob held them up hopefully.
‘Well…’ said Bryony, ‘I suppose they’ll have to do. Oh — by the way, Dad — dinner must be ready. We’d better not be late.’
Big Bob set the skates on top of some plant pots to dry and heaved himself up. But just as Bryony opened the shed door he motioned to her to come back to the tea-chest. Suddenly very serious, he sat down and took both her hands in his.
‘Before we go in, I want a word with you, Bryony lass,’ he said. ‘A serious word.’
He cleared his throat a number of times and Bryony frowned down at him.
‘What is it, Dad?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’
In answer, Big Bob asked her a question. ‘All this Singing Bells telly stuff, Bryony — is it bothering you? You feeling a bit left out?’
Bryony hesitated. It was on the tip of her tongue to smile and say, ‘Not a bit of it, Dad — water off a duck’s back!’ as she would usually have done. But today the words stuck in her throat.
‘I don’t care about not being in The Singing Bells,’ she whispered, as much to herself as to Big Bob. ‘I don’t care about not being on the telly and not getting a glitzy costume and not taking a big bow with Mum and the little ‘uns.’ Her voice faltered. All the little dark clouds seemed to have merged into one huge one, which had squeezed itself into the potting shed to hang heavily above her head.
Big Bob gave her arms a gentle squeeze.
‘Because you know, lass,’ he went on huskily, as though Bryony had not spoken at all, ‘that if you did mind, it would be quite OK. No harm in thinking about yourself now and then, Bryony … Mmmm?’
Bryony nodded, then gave a very loud, long sniff. In the distance, a gong called out to them across the garden, drowning out the birds’ evening songs then fading to an eerie echo. When Bryony looked back at Big Bob, she noticed with surprise how very blue his eyes were. Blue, like hers, she thought for the first time.
Filled with tears like hers, too.
‘I do, Dad,’ Bryony admitted at last. ‘I mind.’
Big Bob nodded. That’s my girl,’ he said. ‘Better out than in.’
The gong’s echo vanished and was replaced by a chorus of high-pitched voices trilling ‘It’s time for tea!’ tunefully. Big Bob got up, and they both moved slowly towards the door and out.
‘Remember what I said about actions speaking louder than words, Bryony?’ Big Bob said, as he closed the shed door behind them. ‘Tomorrow morning, know what I reckon you should do?’
‘What, Dad?’
As they made their way along the path, Big Bob rested his stubbly chin on Bryony’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. And, later, as she squeezed a fat worm of tomato ketchup onto her fish and chips, Bryony looked round the table and remembered everything he had said.
She smiled to herself as she munched her battered cod. Tomorrow morning was going to be different from all other mornings, she thought. Tomorrow morning, Bryony just knew, that big dark cloud was going to get itself a silver lining.
Chapter: Seven
The next day was Saturday, and on Saturdays singing practice began an hour later than on weekdays because The Singing Bells needed their beauty sleep.
Bryony was up at the crack of dawn as usual, however. She had work to do. The night before, she had carefully extracted the middle pages from her Maths homework book, and pencilled in some ideas. Before breakfast these ideas had been revised, redrafted, and neatly rewritten in a variety of colours of felt tip pen.
That done, she held the completed sheet up and checked to see that it all worked properly. It did — like a dream. Bryony smiled with satisfaction. She had created a perfectly failsafe system, and the hour was fast approaching when she would put that system into action. Breaking off a small piece of Blu-Tak from the slab on her desk she set off downstairs with a spring in her step. Things were about to change in the Bell household, she thought grimly. It wasn’t going to be popular, but there was going to be a bit of equality at last. And a bit more time to call her own.
No sooner had she arrived in the kitchen than The Singing Bells began their practice. Bryony beamed as she watched the water gush into the kettle. She hummed to herself as she set out the cereal bowls, running a spoon along their sides in time with the voice exercises. Deftly, she caught the slices of toast as they shot into the air and juggled with them on their way to Clarissa’s tray. And when the strains of the Bell Family Song rang out she joined in lustily, throwing an extra teabag into the pot, just to celebrate.
‘Morning, Bryony! How’s my princess?’
Big Bob was first down for a change, the Viper 3000s box under his arm, and when he saw Bryony he gave her a ‘Well, then?’ kind of look.
‘Mission accomplished, Dad,’ Bryony grinned back, nodding in the direction of the toaster. The piece of paper and the Blu-Tak were hidden behind it, ready for the Moment of Truth.
‘Morning, Angelina,’ Bryony brightly greeted the first sister to appear.
‘Good morning, Bryony,’ Angelina said with frosty politeness, one eye on Big Bob.
‘I trust you slept well?’ Bryony enquired. ‘You certainly sound in excellent voice.’
Angelina darted a suspicious look in Bryony’s direction, but Bryony smiled charmingly as she passed her the milk jug.
All the other little Bells took their seats, each glaring at Bryony and then exchanging glances with one another. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.
They all began to eat in stony silence. ‘I think,’ said Big Bob at last, putting his toast down wearily, ‘we might let the matter of the Viper 3000s rest now? They’re here in their box, and I’m posting them back to Sk8s ‘R’ Us this morning. Neither your sister nor I ever set out to rob you of your chances of fame and fortune, as I’m sure you know, and we deeply regret any anxiety our actions may have caused. ‘So -water under the bridge, Mmm? Bygones be bygones?’
He picked up the box and stood up.
‘Sure, Dad,’ the little Bells chorussed primly, ‘No hard feelings at all.’
‘There’d better not be,’ Big Bob replied, ‘or heads will roll.’ And he backed out of the kitchen, his eyes never leaving them.
After Big Bob had left, the little Bells continued eating without a word to one another. Then, as though there had been a signal, Angelina stood up and pushed her chair back, and all the others, except Little Bob, did the same. But before they could leave, Bryony sprang up, side-stepped towards the toaster, $$$ytly grabbed what was behind it, and as the procession moved to
wards the kitchen door she pushed past and stood, hands on hips and legs apart, barring their exit.
‘What’s this?’ whined Melissa.
‘We are in no mood for childish games, Bryony,’ said Melody.
‘We’re in a hurry, Bryony,’ said Angelina, giving her a push. ‘We’ve a rehearsal to go to…’
‘We can’t hang around all day playing,’ Emmy-Lou put in, pulling at Bryony’s right knee. ‘Not like some.’
But Bryony stood her ground. She held the piece of paper up to the wall and, very slowly and deliberately, stuck its four corners down with the Blu-Tak. The little Bells each gave a gasp as they surveyed it.
What on earth …?’
‘Over my dead body!’
‘Blimey!’
‘“Bell Family Duty Rota — Phase I — Mornings” … You have to be joking!’
‘No,’ said Bryony simply. ‘I have never been more serious in my life.’
‘But-but-’ Angelina began.
‘But you do breakfast!’ whined Melissa, looking more like a Cairn terrier with distemper than ever before.
‘Correction,’ said Bryony, holding up one finger, which was a technique borrowed from Mrs Ogilvie. ‘I did breakfast. I’ve always done breakfast because you always have to do your singing practice. But something’s come up. I have demands on my time too. So, until further notice, we’re all going to chip in.’
The little Bells opened their mouths to protest, took one look at Bryony’s finger, and closed them again. Little Bob started to wail.
‘Cut that out!’ Bryony shouted, glaring at him and then at her sisters, as though they might start wailing too. She picked up Big Bob’s cereal spoon, wiped it on her nightie, and pointed at the Duty Rota. ‘I want you all to listen very carefully — I will say this only once.’ She tapped the chart.
‘You will see that this Duty Rota contains all the morning tasks,’ she explained. ‘Each task has a code name and a specific colour. For example, “Set table” is denoted by the pink letters “S.T.”
Bryony Bell Tops the Bill Page 3