by Holly Webb
“Sounded like it,” said Becky sadly. “I s’pose she might change her mind if we’re little angels for a few days – maybe.”
Annabel stretched out on her bed, and propped her chin on her hands. Mum was really busy with work and she’d been tired and distracted for the last few days. Maybe she’d come round when things calmed down?
Katie and Becky joined Annabel on her bed, to feel depressed in unison, and Annabel rolled more on to her side and took the band off the end of Katie’s tight plait. She unravelled it and started to redo it in lots of tiny ones. Becky joined in, grabbing a box of stretchy bands from Annabel’s bedside table.
Katie gave an irritable twitch, and said she wished they’d mess around with their own hair, but it was more for show than anything else, and when Becky poked her in a “lie down” kind of way, and Annabel told her to shut up and keep still, she subsided, grumbling, but enjoying the attention, liking all being friends again.
“You should wear your hair like this, you know,” Annabel told her about ten minutes later. “It suits you. You shouldn’t always just scrape it straight back.”
“I suppose it’s OK,” admitted Katie, staring into the mirror. “So much fuss, though. And it flicks about everywhere.” She shook her head to demonstrate and the plaits whisked round her face. “See?”
“Yeah, well, the simple answer is not to do that, dimwit. Anyway, I’ve just thought” – Annabel was standing by the door – “Dad might have replied to our email. Let’s go and see.”
Mum hadn’t said they had to stay in their room, but the triplets had a feeling that was what she’d meant, so they sneaked up the staircase to the study on fairy-feet. Then Annabel and Katie perched on half the chair each, and Becky knelt beside them, all peering impatiently at the screen as the computer chugged maddeningly slowly through its warm-up routine. Dad had answered and Mum was right, he sounded really excited, positively gleeful. He assured them he wouldn’t have even the slightest hint of jet lag – in fact he said he’d dance the night away, which made Annabel glance triumphantly at the other two. He promised he hadn’t forgotten their present, either. All in all, it should have been a really brilliant email for the triplets to read – instead it was absolutely infuriating. All this excitement about a party that wasn’t going to happen!
“Oh well,” said Katie gloomily. “Do you think we’d better tell him it’s all off?”
“No, leave it for a bit – you never know,” Annabel advised, hopefully. “Come on, it’s too depressing. Let’s go and do something else.”
“Mmm, homework,” Becky agreed sadly. “We’ve got loads, remember? Come on.” And she led the miserable trio back downstairs to fetch their stuff. Then she and Katie headed back up to their room with their piles of books, and Annabel settled herself on the stairs to make ugly faces at her history homework.
Chapter Six
Mum was still quiet and tight-lipped next morning, so the triplets tiptoed round her, and got themselves out of the way as quickly as possible. The group round the tree was dismal that morning, after the triplets broke the news. They didn’t really go into details, just said that they’d had a row with their mum and it looked like the party was off.
“And the worst thing is,” Annabel spat, scowling across the playground at Amy and co, “I was really looking forward to not inviting them. They’re going to gloat like mad, I can tell.”
“So not fair,” agreed Saima, shaking her head sadly. “She just didn’t deserve a party.”
“You never know,” said sensible Fran, putting an arm round Becky and giving her a quick hug, “your mum might change her mind. Anyway, there’ll be other parties. My mum promised I could have a sleepover soon. It is a total pain, though,” she added, catching a triumphant gleam in Amy’s eyes as she whispered excitedly to Emily and Cara. How on earth could she have found out already?
But they had. The triplets and their friends were back by the chestnut tree at break, gloomily sharing each other’s crisps, when Amy and her followers sauntered by. Amy stopped by them, folded her arms and flicked back her strawberry-blonde hair. “So, I hear your party’s off then?” she sneered. “Not that I’m convinced you were ever having a party. It all sounded a little bit too – convenient. Don’t you think?” she asked Emily and Cara, who were standing on either side of her, slightly behind, like evil henchmen in some bad film.
“Definitely,” sniggered Emily.
“They so made it up.” Cara nodded sagely.
Amy smirked down at the triplets, who were speechless. “Oh, look. They’re too upset to speak. Poor babies,” she said, her voice like poisoned honey.
Annabel gathered her wits and smiled up at Amy. “I don’t know why you’re bothered,” she replied, equally sweet, “it’s not as if we’d ever have invited someone as stupid as you anyway.” Then she feigned complete interest in her nails, and ignored Amy’s furious face. Katie and Becky and the others told her afterwards that they’d never seen anyone go that colour – sort of bright white, but with scary pink slashes over the cheekbones.
“Oh, Bel, it was classic,” giggled Saima. “She is so going to kill you horribly if she ever thinks she can get away with it though. You’d better be careful, she’s really nasty.”
They were totally cheered up for the rest of the morning and they all trooped into French, last lesson before lunch, still cackling every time they saw Amy.
Becky suddenly sobered up. “Oh no, I completely forgot, I meant to go over my vocab again at break. I’m sure I’ve forgotten those stupid verbs, even if I did spend ages on it last night.”
“You’ll be fine,” Katie told her. “I tested you, remember? You knew it loads better than I did.”
“Umm, Katie? Becky?” Annabel’s voice was very quiet. “What are you talking about?”
Five faces turned to look at her in horror.
“Oh, Bel!” Saima gasped. “You didn’t forget?”
“Forget what?” wailed Annabel in a panic. “What are we supposed to have learned?”
“Oh, just all the French vocab we’ve done so far!” snapped Katie. “Annabel Ryan, how could you be such a total and utter fruitbat? Mr Hatton kept reminding us all of last week! Have you really not learned any of it?”
“No,” whispered Annabel huskily, her eyes huge and dark blue with panic. “I’m dead! What am I going to do?”
There was nothing her sisters could do to help – not even a last-minute crash course in how to say “I am eleven years old” and “I am from England” in French, because Mr Hatton had already arrived and was chivvying everybody to sit down so he could dole out test papers. Katie noticed Max murmuring to one of his mates, and pointing out Annabel. Great! He’d heard them talking about it. (He gave her a horrible smirking look as he noticed her watching.) She was so worried about Annabel that she couldn’t summon up much more than a disdainful stare, and it didn’t seem to have much effect. Now Max was bound to do all he could to make things worse.
The Test (it definitely had capital letters) was long, a page of A4 with two huge columns of words and phrases, one in French that they had to translate, and one in English that they had to find the French for.
Although they were normally very honest, Katie and Becky would have helped Annabel with the test – how could they not, when she looked so upset? But Mr Hatton was notorious at Manor Hill for being massively-strict when it came to tests. He gave out detentions if anyone so much as flickered an eyelash in someone else’s direction, and he was already convinced that the triplets had some kind of ESP that could beam the French for rabbit halfway across the classroom. Becky and Katie were trying like mad (why did all those triplet mind-reading stories never work when they most needed them?) but Annabel still had her nose about five centimetres from her test paper and was clearly trying not to cry. At times like this, wearing her long, thick blonde hair loose was very useful – she could hide behind it
.
Mr Hatton gave them twenty minutes to do the test, and then made everyone swap papers so they could mark each other’s. Megan looked down at Annabel’s answers, slightly horrified – there practically weren’t any. Annabel was sitting up a bit more now, but completely behind a curtain of hair. She’d even taken her clips out, so that it hung straight down round her face. A hand emerged from behind her hair to mark Fran’s answers (mostly right).
Mr Hatton’s other mean habit was making people tell him their test scores out loud – he had to put them down in his marks book, but he could easily have gathered them in and checked for himself. Instead he went round the room, rolling his eyes and muttering to himself at the marks.
“Francesca? Thirty-five – at last, someone who did actually learn the work properly. Rebecca? Thirty-four, yes, good. Katherine? Thirty, try harder next time, please. Annabel? I beg your pardon?”
“Six,” muttered Annabel again, really on the verge of crying by now.
“Six. I see. . . Did I ask for comment?” He suddenly turned on the rest of the class, who had erupted in a wave of amazed muttering and – from certain very predictable corners – stifled sniggering. “See me at the end of the lesson. Right, the rest of you. Megan?” And so it went on.
There wasn’t much time until the end of the lesson, and when the bell went everyone surged to their feet, eager for lunch and the opportunity to go and be pleasantly shocked at people who managed to mess up their birthday parties and get six out of forty in a test on the same day. The triplets stayed put. “See you in the dining hall,” Katie murmured to the others as they straggled out, still looking anxiously at Annabel.
Mr Hatton turned from the desk where he was packing up his books and things, and raised his eyebrows in a typically French-teacherish way. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that I asked for Annabel to stay behind to explain her disgraceful test results. The other two, wait outside.” Katie and Becky shuffled out sheepishly, leaving Annabel staring at the desk – and the test paper. Mr Hatton picked it up between finger and thumb, as though it might bite him, and waved it at Annabel. “Did you learn any of this?”
The hairy thing that was Annabel shook itself – no.
“Well, at least you’re not stupid enough to pretend that you did. Something more important came up, did it?”
The hair shook again, and a small mutter emerged. “Just forgot.”
“I see. Well, you’ll be in detention on Friday, doing the test again, and if you don’t get at least thirty, you’ll keep on taking it until you do. Clear?”
The hair nodded violently.
“Good. Detention slip. Don’t forget to get it signed by your mother.”
Outside the classroom, Katie and Becky were desperately trying to listen through the door, but Mr Hatton had shut it firmly behind them and it was no good. At last it clicked open, and the hair trailed out. They took one look and realized that emergency measures were needed. Katie grabbed Annabel’s schoolbag, and they took one arm each, practically carrying their sister towards the girls’ toilets, where they installed themselves on the big window sill above the radiator (luckily not occupied by gossiping make-up-swapping Year Tens for once) and hugged Annabel between them. The triplets were in that small, fortunate group of people who didn’t look completely awful when they cried. When Katie swept Annabel’s hair back off her face she was streaming tears, but apart from that she just had a fetchingly pink nose. Becky dug around in her rucksack till she found a packet of tissues, and for five minutes they handed them to Annabel, patted her heaving shoulders and murmured soothing nothings. It took about that long for Annabel to start calming down enough to sniff, “Thanks,” when the next tissue appeared.
“Try and make that one last, Bel,” Becky advised, “you’ve gone through the whole packet and there’s never any loo paper in here.”
“’K.”
“You are a twit, Bel,” said Katie affectionately. “Did he put you in detention?”
“Mm-hm. Got to do the test again,” heaved her sister, still half sobbing. “And Mum has to sign a slip. She’ll be so cross.”
“She won’t,” they assured her, hopefully, exchanging glances. Unless she was still in that twitchy mood because of all the work she had on, of course. . . Katie looked down at Annabel, and felt a wave of elder-by-two-minutes-sisterly sympathy roll over her. It was mean of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help it – she felt so much better when Annabel was being useless and relying on her to sort things out. Super-efficient party-organizing Annabel had been a nasty shock.
“Do you want any lunch, Bel?” she asked.
“Don’t know. Maybe a bit.”
“Come on, then.” Katie slid down from the window sill, and they soaked a few paper towels in water for Annabel to wash her face.
“Honestly, Bel, if you smile and look normal, no one would ever know you’ve been crying,” Becky assured her. “Just think back to before school and the look on Amy Mannering’s face – that’ll cheer you up.”
They headed off to the dining hall, Katie and Becky still treating Annabel as though she were a delicate piece of china.
“You all right, Bel?” Saima asked anxiously as they slid into their seats, and all the others looked at her worriedly.
“I’m fine. Really. I’ve got to do the test again, that’s all.” Embarrassed, Annabel grabbed her sandwiches, and did a very good impression of someone who thought tuna and lettuce was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
Katie and Becky heaved sighs of relief. Hopefully things were OK. Annabel was looking much better, they could just forget about it – until they got her home and could start stuffing her brain with French vocab, that was.
Or maybe not. “Oh no, Becky, look,” Katie murmured. “No, over there, idiot. Max! He’s definitely coming this way.”
Without realizing it, they both fluffed themselves up like cats, stiffening their shoulders, tensing all over. Max was definitely coming over to be nasty. He stood on the other side of their table, next to Saima, who put down her first spoonful of chocolate pudding and glared up at him in disgust.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
Max ignored her, sat down in a spare seat and grinned at Annabel who was still clutching her sandwich and looking at him like a rabbit caught in headlights. She knew he was about to be horrible, and she was still feeling too upset and shaky to stand up to him.
“Don’t look so worried, Annabel. Even you can remember the French for that,” he nodded at her lunch. “Un sandwich. Easy. Go on, repeat after me. . .”
After all their desperate mind-reading attempts in the French lesson, it was typical that Katie and Becky should be able to manage it now. One split-second glance at each other, and they knew what they were going to do. Becky sprang up from her seat, muttering something about having lost her bag, and oh no where was it? (Under the table, very obviously.) As soon as Becky had effectively masked them from Miss Fraser, who was on lunch-duty, Katie went into action. Leaning over the table, she reached out to Saima. “Oh, Saima, look, you’ve dropped custard down your front. Here, let me – oh no!” This was a very over the top, theatrical exclamation, as she waved wildly at the nonexistent custard – and swiped the entire chocolatey bowlful off the table and down Max’s front and all over his trousers.
“Oooh, Katie, look what you’ve done!” cooed Becky. “Poor Max, it looks awful. . .”
“Max, I’m really sorry, do you want to borrow my PE kit to change into?” asked Katie in an ever-so-concerned voice. “I don’t know how I could be so clumsy!”
Max was speechless – for about ten seconds. Then he stood up, ignoring the sniggers as people caught sight of the state he was in. He looked round for the teacher on duty. “Miss Fraser! Miss Fraser!” The triplets’ class teacher came over, trying hard to wipe the smile from her face – Max did look very funny.
“Oh, dear! What happened, Max, did you have an accident?”
“No!” snapped Max furiously. “They did it on purpose, I know they did.”
Miss Fraser raised her eyebrows. “Really? And who is ‘they’?”
“Them! Those triplets, they spilt it all over me!”
Miss Fraser looked round at the triplets, who were looking mildly surprised – as though they had no idea what he was wittering on about, but then this was Max, and really, what could one expect?
“Katie? Is this true?”
“No, Miss Fraser!” Katie sounded hurt. She couldn’t act as well as Annabel, but when it was absolutely necessary, she could pull something like this off. “It was Saima’s pudding, and I did knock it over, but it wasn’t on purpose. I told Max, I said I was really sorry. I said he could borrow my tracksuit trousers if he wanted – he’s going to need something. Shall I go and ask Mrs Hagan for some paper napkins?”
Miss Fraser surveyed the triplets again: Katie looked mildly embarrassed at having caused all this mess, Becky was looking worriedly at the state of Max’s clothes, and Annabel looked quiet and pale – not at all like someone who’d just pulled off the kind of stunt that Max was claiming. In fact, it was lucky for the triplets that Annabel was still feeling a bit fragile, otherwise she would have been having trouble holding back her giggles.
“No, I think Max needs to go and change. Really Max, if it was an accident, and Katie has apologized, I’m afraid it’s just one of those things. Have you got your PE kit in school to wear instead?”
Max growled something vaguely like yes. He knew perfectly well that it hadn’t been an accident, but there was no way he could prove it. He stomped off, a wave of tittering following him through the dining hall. Miss Fraser returned to the other side of the hall.
“Sorry, Saima,” chuckled Katie. “It was too good to miss. I’ll go and get you some more pudding.”
“No, it’s OK, it wasn’t that nice. I can’t think of a better place for it, really, unless you’d got it in his hair. . .” Saima sounded dreamy as she considered the possibilities of Max with his hair stiff with school custard.