Strawberry Crush

by Jean Ure

“She couldn’t remember telling you that Poppy needed roadwork,” I said.

  Maya bit her lip. She’s usually quite protective of her mum – just like I’m usually protective of her. But not today! Today I was just too angry. Her accusing me of being jealous was the last straw. What did I have to be jealous of?

  “I’m going home,” I said, and I turned and stalked off, down the hill.

  “Mattie!” Maya’s voice came wailing after me. “Mattie, I’m sorry! We could still take Poppy to the park.”

  “Don’t want to,” I said. “Not interested.”

  “Mattie, please …” Her feet pattered up behind me. She caught at my arm, but I wrenched it away.

  “Leave me alone! I don’t want to know.”

  I hurtled on down the hill, leaving Maya standing forlornly with Poppy. I hardly ever get mad with her. Not properly mad. But she really can try my patience!

  When I got home Dad wanted to know why I was in such a bad mood, banging doors and wearing what he calls my gargoyle face. I didn’t tell him it was because of Maya. Dad’s not as understanding as Mum. Mum would have discussed it with me and calmed me down, but Dad would just have started on again about Uncle Kev and how Maya and Auntie Megs were his responsibility, not mine or Mum’s, and that would have made me even more cross and resentful than I was already.

  By the time we met up for school next morning I’d managed to cool off a bit. I really hate it when we fall out! It doesn’t happen very often, cos Maya hates it, too. One or other of us always ends up being all grovelling and apologetic. Sometimes both of us. Like that morning at the bus stop.

  “I’m really sorry I accused you of being jealous,” said Maya.

  I said, “I should hope so! Cos I absolutely am not.” And then, feeling generous, I added that I was sorry, too – except that I couldn’t quite think what I was supposed to be sorry for. Maya quickly reminded me.

  “It was really mean of you to say I’m making an idiot of myself! Jake told me, he’s always happy to give me a lift.”

  I made a sort of grunting sound. I wasn’t going to quarrel with her again, but just because Auntie Megs was his mum’s cleaning lady and Jake was naturally kind and polite didn’t mean he necessarily wanted Maya popping up every five minutes and trying to get into his car. Well, I hoped it didn’t – and not because I was jealous. Just that Auntie Megs would be horrified if she thought there was any sort of boy/girl stuff going on. Even Mum, who is very relaxed about almost everything, wouldn’t want me going out with an eighteen-year-old.

  “P’raps you just ought to be a bit careful,” I said.

  Maya looked at me, wide-eyed. “Careful of what?”

  I said, “Well … you know! Being too pushy. Some people might even say you were throwing yourself at him.”

  That made her colour up.

  She said, “That is so not true!”

  “It so is!”

  “It so is not!”

  We were on the verge of falling out again. Sullenly, Maya said, “What’s your problem, anyway?”

  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Why would I get hurt?” said Maya “What d’you think’s going to happen?”

  Crushingly I said, “He’ll get sick of you, that’s what!”

  She was a bit subdued after that. We hadn’t exactly quarrelled, but I knew she wasn’t happy with me, and when Mum told me and Dad, later on, that there still wasn’t any news from Uncle Kev, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her all over again. How scary would it be not knowing where your dad was or when – if ever – he was going to come back? I should have been more understanding. Having a slanging match really didn’t help.

  “To be honest,” said Mum, “it’s getting a bit worrying. He still hasn’t been in touch. If it goes on much longer Megs is really going to crack up.”

  Dad, very scathingly, said, “The man is a menace. She’d be better off without him.”

  “Unfortunately she loves him,” said Mum.

  I said, “So does Maya! We had to write essays last term about our family, and Maya’s was all about Uncle Kev and how wonderful he was.”

  Dad snorted. Mum said, “Well, of course to her he’s wonderful! He’s her dad.”

  “When he’s there,” said Dad.

  Mum asked me, when we were alone together, how I thought Maya was coping. I said, “OK, I guess.” I didn’t tell her that she was totally preoccupied with getting Jake to take notice of her. I was beginning to wonder if this was what always happened when Uncle Kev went off on one of his jaunts. I seemed to recall he’d been away when she’d developed her huge great crush on Anil.

  “I just hope to heaven he comes back soon,” said Mum, “or at any rate gets in touch. This is where I really wish your gran were still with us! She was always so good at keeping Megs on an even keel. We do our best, don’t we?” She gave me a hopeful smile. “I know it puts a lot on your shoulders and I know it makes your dad angry, but Megs is like a part of me. I can’t just wash my hands of her. And never think I don’t appreciate it, the way you look out for Maya. I feel bad that you have to do it, but—”

  “Mum,” I said, “it’s OK! You don’t have to feel bad. I do it cos I want to, not cos I have to.”

  “Oh, Mats!” Mum held out her arms. “Come and give me a hug … Maya doesn’t know how lucky she is to have a cousin like you!”

  I get all squishy when Mum says nice things to me. I’m more used to being told I’m too noisy, too talkative, too fidgety. I can cope far better with that!

  I was especially patient with Maya for the rest of the week, but when she begged me to go with her again to the Music Club I dug my heels in. Enough was enough! If she wanted to go and gaze at Jake she would have to do it by herself.

  “I don’t know what you need me for anyway,” I said.

  “Cos otherwise I’ll be on my own! There isn’t anyone else from our year.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Since when has Emily not been in our year?”

  Maya said Emily didn’t count. “She’s on another planet.”

  Where did Maya think she was?

  I said, “The thing about Emily, she goes for the music.”

  “So do I,” insisted Maya. “I’m trying to learn.”

  I told her – not being nasty, just being firm – that she would have to learn by herself. I had other things to do.

  “You’re right,” said Cate as we wandered round the field after lunch. “It’s time she stood on her own feet. I know your mums are twins and all that, but you’re not always going to be there for her.”

  “And anyway,” said Lucy, “what’s she expect you to do? Act as some sort of go-between? Please, Jake, my cousin has this gi-normous crush on you. I hope you don’t mind if she stares a little bit?”

  Nasreen giggled. I supposed by now most people must have noticed that Maya was in a state of complete infatuation. Except maybe Jake himself. Boys aren’t always very quick at picking up on these things.

  I couldn’t resist asking Maya, as we walked down Sheepcote Road after school, whether she had actually learnt anything from going to the Music Club.

  “Loads!” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like …” She pressed the tip of her finger against her nose, making it go all tip-tilted. “It’s difficult to explain. You’re so not musical!”

  I said, “Neither are you.”

  She turned her big blue eyes on me. “That’s why I’m trying to learn!”

  “So what was the music?”

  She had to think about that. “Something called … Nigma?”

  “Nigma?”

  “It had a bulldog in it!” She announced the fact, triumphantly. “He jumped into the water and you could hear all the splashing sounds.”

  “And his name was Nigma?”

  “Something like that.” She waved a hand, impatiently. “What’s it matter what it was called? It’s what it sounded like that’s important.”

  “I
suppose he was there?” I said.

  She nodded, pinkly. She didn’t bother asking who I meant. “He’s incredibly musical,” she said. “He stayed behind afterwards to ask questions.”

  “What about Hope? Did she go?”

  “Hm.” Maya nodded again; not quite so enthusiastically this time. “D’you really think she’s pretty?”

  “Drop-dead gorgeous,” I said.

  “Really?” I could see Maya struggling. “I suppose her hair’s not bad.”

  I said, “I would die for hair like that!” Long and thick and straight, like she’d laid it out on the ironing board and ironed it. And honey-blonde! I am a sort of reddish brown, very wild and wiry. Unfortunately I take after Dad in that respect. Maya takes after Mum and Auntie Megs. Although her hair is rather fine and wispy it is quite a pretty colour.

  “I suppose –” Maya said it grudgingly – “some people might think she was attractive. If they like big women. She’s awfully masculine.”

  So not true!

  “Athletic,” I said. “Like Jake.”

  I wasn’t quite sure why I’d said that. I knew it would upset her, but she needed to face up to things. Jake is athletic; Hope is athletic. Maya is anything but! We had reached the bus stop by now and were standing there, waiting for our bus, when a car drove past. It was Jake’s Fiat. There was someone with him. I couldn’t see who it was; just caught a glimpse of blonde hair. Maya had obviously caught it, too.

  Jealously she said, “That wasn’t her, was it?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “Might have been.”

  “Honestly?”

  “It certainly looked like her,” I said.

  “I’m not sure that it was,” said Maya.

  “Well, whoever it was,” I said, “she had gorgeous blonde hair.”

  I suppose I could have set her mind at rest by telling her I knew for a fact that Jake and Hope Kennedy weren’t an item, so even if it had been her it didn’t mean anything. But that would have been encouraging her, and encouraging her was the last thing I wanted to do.

  “I think you have to accept,” I said kindly, “that you’re not the only person Jake takes in his car. He does give lifts to people other than you.”

  That Saturday we had a really good walk. Maya had promised me, on her honour, that a) she would wait for me and b) we would take Poppy to the park as usual.

  “Cos her nails are nice and short now. And I know you don’t want us doing any more roadwork.”

  She made it sound as if we were going to the park as a special favour to me. I automatically felt suspicious. There was an air of secret excitement about Maya, like something was going on that she didn’t want me to know about. Plus I found it hard to believe that she’d given in so easily.

  It was possible she had just run out of excuses, but experience had taught me that Maya in the grip of an obsession could be really sneaky.

  When we got to the park that Saturday I half expected Jake’s Fiat to pull up at the kerb. Or even to see Jake himself, in the park. I just couldn’t understand why Maya was all quietly fizzing and bubbling. What had she got planned?

  We let Poppy off the lead and walked slowly after her, round the path, as she went joyfully skipping off across the grass to greet her friends.

  “This is so much nicer for her than roads,” I said.

  Maya agreed that it was, now that her nails were short. Still keeping up the pretence even though she knew I was on to her.

  “By the way,” I said, “That music with the bulldog …”

  “Nigma.”

  “Enigma. Variations.”

  She looked at me wonderingly, like, what is she talking about?

  “Emily told me. She said it’s Enigma Variations and it’s by someone called Elgar. She says her dad has it on CD and she’s been listening to it since she was five years old.”

  “Yuck,” said Maya.

  “She wasn’t boasting,” I said. Emily doesn’t boast. She just takes that sort of thing for granted, like it’s perfectly normal. It obviously is, in her family. “I told her you were trying to learn about classical music, and she said if you wanted you could borrow her dad’s CD.”

  “We haven’t got a CD player,” said Maya.

  I said, “We have.”

  “Hm.” She didn’t sound madly enthusiastic. “I s’ppose I could give it a go.”

  “If you listened to it over and over,” I said, “some of it might kind of sink in, then you could sing it to Jake next time you manage to talk him into giving you a lift. That would impress him!”

  I only said it to be provocative. Maybe to make her a bit ashamed of herself. She wasn’t supposed to take it seriously! But omigod, I could tell that she was. She was actually considering it.

  “So could I borrow your CD player, do you think?”

  “Well, you could,” I said, “though prob’ly best not, now I come to think about it. Considering you can’t sing in tune.”

  “Neither can you,” said Maya.

  “What’s that got to do with it? I’m not the one that wants to impress her boyfriend! Not that he is,” I said hastily. Not quite quick enough! A happy pink glow of contentment was already spreading over her face. I really don’t know why I say these things; it’s just putting ideas in her head. A sort of mischief gets into me and I can’t resist it.

  “He’s far too old,” I said, “and in any case he’s probably already got a girlfriend.”

  The pink glow slowly faded. “You don’t really think he’s going out with Hope Kennedy?”

  “Well, he was giving her a lift,” I said.

  “If it was her,” said Maya.

  “Whoever it was.”

  “Doesn’t mean it was his girlfriend!”

  “I put it to you …” I said. It’s what Dad says to Mum when he wants to make a point: “I put it to you”. “How likely is it that someone like Jake Harper wouldn’t have a girlfriend?”

  Maya munched uncertainly on her lower lip.

  “Well, there you go,” I said. “I rest my case.” Another of Dad’s favourite expressions, meaning end of. It drives Mum mad! Maya just fell silent. She didn’t seem to be sulking; just preoccupied. I tried to think of some way of changing the subject. I really didn’t want to talk about Jake.

  “You know your mum is coming round this afternoon,” I said. “Mum’s going to do her hair for her. Are you coming as well?”

  “I can’t this afternoon,” said Maya. “I’ve got things to do.”

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Just things,” said Maya.

  We don’t usually keep secrets from each other, but she obviously didn’t intend to tell me. Something was up, and I didn’t know what! It wasn’t long before I found out. I was sitting in the kitchen while Mum saw to Auntie Megs’ hair. I like to watch Mum at work. Sometimes in the holidays I go and help out at her salon, just sweeping the floor or making cups of coffee for the customers. I might want to be a hair stylist when I grow up; I’m not sure. I might also want to be an animal trainer. I haven’t yet decided. It seems to me that if you take up hairdressing you have to be prepared to do a lot of talking. It is not just about cutting and styling, you have to keep up this chitchat all the time. (Chitchat is what Dad calls it.) I do, quite naturally, talk a fair bit, but I am not sure I would want to do it as part of my job. Mum is really good at it. Like today, while she was busy blow-drying she was also doing her best to reassure Auntie Megs that nothing had happened to Uncle Kev and that she was bound to hear from him soon.

  “You know what he’s like! Time gets away from him. He’ll come breezing back home and you’ll say, Where have you been all these weeks? And he’ll be, like, Weeks? I don’t believe it! Look what happened when you got married … ten minutes late for his own wedding!”

  Auntie Megs gave a rather tearful sort of smile. “I thought he wasn’t going to turn up.”

  “But he did! He always does – in the end. He just has no sense of—” Mum broke off. “Did I hear so
meone at the door?”

  I leapt up. “I’ll go!”

  “Was that the bell?” shouted Dad, from somewhere upstairs.

  “It’s all right,” I yelled. “I’ve got it!”

  Just as well it was me that answered the door and not Dad. He would have been at a total loss! I was a bit at a loss myself. I found Maya standing in the porch, tears streaming down her face and her head all done up in a towel.

  I said, “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t speak for sobbing. I dragged her in and pulled her through to the kitchen.

  “Maya!” cried Auntie Megs. “What’s happened?”

  “I –” Maya choked. “I – I – my hair!”

  This last bit came out in a loud wail. Mum put down the dryer.

  “All right,” she said. Very calm – Mum is always calm. “Let me see. What have you done?”

  Gently but firmly Mum unwound the towel. Auntie Megs gave a shriek. I nearly shrieked with her. Maya’s hair had turned bright yellow and looked like bits of stringy elastic.

  “Oh, dear,” said Mum. “What did you use?”

  Maya gave a great snotty sniffle and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. Pretty disgusting, but I forgave her. I reckoned I’d be giving snotty sniffles if I’d gone and turned my hair into bits of yellow elastic – especially when Mum reached out and gave a little experimental tug and some of the bits broke off.

  Auntie Megs screamed. Maya sobbed. Even I felt somewhat alarmed. Only Mum refused to panic.

  “Maya,” she said, “tell me what you used.”

  Maya gulped, and choked. “It was something – something I got – from the chemist. I just put it on – like it said – and left it for a bit, and …”

  “How long?” said Mum.

  “I don’t know! Not very long.”

  “Obviously longer than you should. Did you not read the directions?”

  “I read them,” wept Maya. “I just thought – I thought …”

  “You thought if you left it on longer it would be more effective. I’m afraid it’s damaged your hair, but not to worry, we’ll do what we can. You won’t go bald! Let me just finish with your mum.”

  “No! No!” Auntie Megs waved a hand. “See to Maya first!”