The Strawberry Sisters Page 12

‘Wow, Lucy,’ Chloe said. ‘That is actually really nice.’

  ‘Why do you sound so surprised? You sound like Mrs Horton when she’s telling me that I’m allowed to go out to play for once because I’ve behaved in the lesson.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘Or at least I think that’s what she sounds like. She hasn’t said it for a long time.’

  ‘Chloe just means that it’s a lovely flower,’ I said.

  Lucy pouted. ‘It’s not a flower.’

  ‘Really? Because it’s a good one,’ Chloe said.

  ‘It’s not a flower.’

  I took a closer look. ‘But it’s got petals and a stem and leaves and everything. What is it then?’

  ‘It’s a bee swatter.’

  Amelia looked up from her snipping. ‘A bee swatter? Seriously?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy in a voice that was stretched out tight like a rubber band. ‘You put a bit of honey in here.’ She pointed to the top of the rolled-up stem. ‘And the bee sniffs it.’ She mimed a sniffing bee. ‘And you keep very quiet.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘And he crawls in and then when he’s inside you go . . . WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!’ She slapped the flower hard against the bed. ‘And your bee problem is solved.’

  Amelia bit her lip. Chloe squeezed her mouth shut and looked out of the window.

  ‘So what’s with the petals?’ I asked in a voice with only a tiny wobble of a laugh in it.

  ‘Obviously, it looks like a flower so you can lure the bee in.’

  A snort escaped from Amelia. ‘Lucy, for a seven-year-old, you use the word “lure” far too much.’

  ‘Still looks like a flower to me,’ Chloe said.

  ‘That’s because you’ve got the brains of a bee,’ Lucy said.

  Chloe stuck her tongue out.

  ‘Mum can use it as a flower,’ I said to Chloe. ‘She can put in a vase on the mantelpiece.’

  Lucy scowled. ‘She can if she wants people to say, “Why have you got that bee swatter in a vase?”’ She gently wrapped her creation in some of the flowery wrapping paper and stuck it down with a piece of Sellotape bitten off with her teeth. ‘Urgh, can we get some strawberry-flavoured Sellotape?’

  ‘They don’t make strawberry Sellotape,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Yes they do. I saw it in the shop; it’s got little pictures of strawberries on.’

  ‘What do you think my Hello Kitty tape tastes of?’ I asked. ‘Cat?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘What does cat taste like?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Fluffy.’ And Lucy scooped up her bee swatter parcel and flounced out of the room.

  ‘She would know,’ Amelia said. ‘Remember when next-door’s cat bit her? She bit it back.’

  When we’d finished the decorations, we moved on to our presents. Amelia locked herself in the bathroom so I didn’t know what she was doing. Chloe made a bead bracelet for Mum. She always makes bead bracelets for Whoopees, but she chooses all the different beads to mean something so it’s extra cool. She used a handful of smiley-face beads to represent Mum’s pupils and in the middle she put a big gold-star bead to show what a good teacher Mum is.

  ‘That’s original,’ Amelia said when she came out of the bathroom and saw that Chloe was making her usual bracelet present. She hasn’t completely given up saying rude, sarcastic things.

  ‘Just because you’ve chucked away all the bracelets I worked hard to make for you,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Look, Amelia,’ I interrupted. ‘I’ve made Mum some more marking labels.’

  I’d thought really hard about a present that would be useful to Mum. So I used Dad’s computer to make more labels. This time they were for maths books; they said ‘Always show your working!’ ‘Practise your table facts’ and ‘Use the chunking method’.

  ‘Nice, you’ve done a good job,’ Amelia said. She looked sideways at Chloe. ‘We’ve all done a good job. Mum’s going to love it.’

  Chloe’s shoulders relaxed a bit and things went smoothly for the rest of the evening.

  I was almost asleep when Chloe and Amelia came to bed. I heard Suvi whisper to them, ‘Have you got everything you need packed up?’

  ‘Yep,’ Chloe said. ‘Thanks so much for helping us today.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  I heard the floorboards creak as she crept away and Amelia said, ‘Suvi?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  I couldn’t see in the dark, but I was pretty sure that Suvi was doing her smiley eyes.

  It felt nicer in our bedroom than it had for a long time. I didn’t worry about anything as I drifted off to sleep. It’s amazing what a difference a tiny thing like a ‘goodnight’ can make.

  We raced home from school the next day and Amelia and I decorated while Chloe made fairy cakes. Lucy was at After School Club, but we promised to use the things she’d made the night before.

  When we were little, we used to decorate each other’s bedrooms with bead necklaces and bits of Christmas tinsel. The paper bunting looked much fancier, and Amelia had shown us how to make tissue-paper flowers and string them into a garland too. We looped that right across Mum’s bedroom. It looked awesome.

  Lucy had drawn a series of pictures, including one of all of us eating fairy cakes and one of the inspectors being blown up. We arranged them like a comic strip on the door. Then we went to help Chloe ice the cakes. They were still slightly warm from the oven, which made the icing a bit melty, but Chloe studded them with sugar roses and overall they looked really pretty.

  When Mum’s car drew up, we scrambled back up to her bedroom with our presents and the cakes on a cardboard cake stand. We heard Lucy first.

  ‘Count to twenty then come upstairs,’ she told Mum.

  ‘This is very mysterious,’ Mum said.

  Lucy came thundering upstairs to join us. She looked up at the bunting and the flower garlands and mimed a ‘Wow’.

  I had to hold in a giggle while we listened to Mum coming up the stairs and along the landing. She tapped on the door.

  ‘Come in!’ said Lucy in such a serious, deep voice that my giggle escaped.

  Mum pushed open the door and looked round at the pretty paper decorations and the parcels and the cakes on the bed.

  ‘Oh, girls, it’s a Whoopee!’

  Her voice was a little bit wobbly.

  Lucy held on to the end of the bed and jumped up and down. ‘For you! Because you’ve been inspectored.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything more likely to cheer me up. What a lovely surprise! Who made these cakes?’

  ‘I did,’ Chloe said. ‘Shall we eat some?’

  ‘Let her open her presents first,’ Amelia said.

  So Mum opened her things. She put on her bracelet and she tucked my labels into her work bag straight away.

  ‘They’ll save me hours, Ella!’ she said. ‘That’s a true gift.’

  Amelia’s present looked a bit small. It was just an envelope. Mum opened it and pulled out a letter. While she read it, her eyes were smiley like Suvi’s, but full of tears too.

  When she’d finished reading, she pulled Amelia into a hug.

  ‘What was it?’ Lucy asked. ‘What did she give you?’

  ‘I think it was a private letter,’ Mum said.

  Amelia was bright pink. She shrugged. ‘I just said I’m sorry I’ve been such a whiney idiot and that I can see now that maybe moaning about Dad wasn’t the best way to show my support for Mum, and that perhaps I could babysit for you pack of crazy monkeys some time.’

  It sounded like she was going to try and carry on being not horrible. I thought that was a brilliant present.

  ‘But you’re supposed to make something!’ Lucy said.

  ‘She did make something,’ Mum said. ‘She made amends.’

  ‘That means she’s sorry,’ Chloe explained to Lucy.

  ‘Well, she could have done that ages ago,’ Lucy said. ‘Open mine!’ she said to Mum. ‘Mine’s better than a sorry. Mine’s got a whole roll of crêpe pap
er in it.’

  Very gently, Mum opened Lucy’s parcel. She smiled when she got to Lucy’s creation.

  ‘That is the most beautiful fl—’

  ‘Bee swatter,’ Lucy interrupted.

  ‘Obviously,’ Mum said. ‘Quite clearly the most beautiful bee swatter I have ever seen. Thank you so much, girls.’

  Chloe put on some music and Lucy acted out how to use the bee swatter again. Then Chloe imitated Lucy trying to persuade Madame Donna to wear a blindfold so that she can throw knives at her.

  We laughed and laughed.

  ‘Goodness, girls, you’ve really helped me forget all about those stupid inspectors,’ Mum said.

  ‘What were they like?’ Lucy asked. ‘Did they tell you you’re rubbish?’

  Amelia jabbed Lucy in the ribs. ‘What?’ Lucy asked. ‘It was Mum that said she hadn’t done enough work.’

  Mum’s face clouded. ‘Lucy’s right. I wasn’t properly prepared for this. I kept putting things off, which I’m always telling you lot not to do. And then, when I did finally get down to it, I kept staying up too late and wearing myself out. I don’t think I’ve set a very good example.’

  Amelia had coloured up again. ‘You kept putting off your work so you could do things with us and sort stuff out for us.’

  ‘That’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m your mum.’

  ‘But we’re not babies any more. We could do more to help you.’ Amelia looked round at us. ‘We can make our own packed lunches and do our own washing and ironing.’

  Lucy’s eyes lit up.

  ‘I’ll do Lucy’s ironing,’ Mum said firmly.

  ‘We can keep on making the tea when you’ve got a meeting after school,’ Chloe said.

  ‘We could do it every night,’ I said.

  Mum smiled. ‘Maybe a couple of nights a week.’

  ‘And we could all do a better job of keeping the house tidy,’ Amelia said. ‘Instead of leaving it to Mum.’ She looked at me. ‘And Ella.’

  I blushed. I hadn’t realised that Amelia had noticed me helping Mum recently. It was nice to know she had.

  ‘I can feed Buttercup,’ Lucy said.

  Mum ruffled her curls. ‘Thank you, girls. And I’m going to make sure that I work hard when you’re at your dad’s and then I can enjoy spending time with you when you’re at home without feeling guilty.’

  ‘You know what else you should do sometimes when we’re at Dad’s?’ Amelia said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Go out with your friends and have fun.’

  ‘I might just do that.’ Mum pulled us all into one ginormous hug. ‘You really are wonderful. And I’m sorry that things have been a bit chaotic around her for the last couple of weeks.’

  ‘It hasn’t been chaotic for the last couple of weeks,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s more like the last few years.’ But she said it in a smiling way.

  ‘I like our house,’ Chloe said. ‘It’s not chaotic, it’s . . . full. Of our things and us and us doing stuff.’

  ‘Well, that’s not so bad then. But I am sorry that I’m such a stressed-out old badger.’

  ‘You’re not!’ I said.

  ‘Not all the time anyway,’ Chloe said.

  And that’s true because, even though sometimes my mum goes mad because there are crumbs all over the sofa, sometimes she lets us lie on her bed and eat Whoopee fairy cakes with no plates at all.

  ‘How’s Thunder?’ I asked Chloe. It was Sunday evening and we were washing up the tea things at Dad’s house.

  She stuck a finger in the custard jug and licked it. ‘Better. I had a talk like you suggested.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, “Are you being funny with me because I said I didn’t want to go to the disco with you?”’

  That wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that I imagined her saying when I told her to talk to him. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He just mumbled and went bright red. So I told him it wasn’t because I didn’t like him. I mean, he’s not very good-looking, but he is quite good at football and he’s excellent at fitting things in his mouth.’

  ‘Did you tell him that stuff?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And did that cheer him up?’

  ‘Seemed to, which is pretty dumb really because obviously I like him and obviously we have fun together.’

  ‘Do you know what, Clo? I think that you’re the sort of person who knows things without people having to say them, but some people need help seeing stuff clearly. You have to tell them how you feel.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s definitely true about Thunder.’

  ‘I’m like that too.’

  She nodded. ‘I think, even though she’s all prickly, that’s really what Amelia is like too.’

  We thought about that for a minute. I knew Chloe was right. The last couple of weeks had shown that Amelia wasn’t the tough girl we’d thought she was.

  ‘Anyway, thanks for helping me with Thunder; we’re definitely good friends again now.’

  Dad came into the kitchen while Chloe was talking.

  ‘Thunder?’ he said. ‘Is he a new friend?’

  Chloe squirted more washing-up liquid into the already bubbly water. ‘He’s not exactly new any more.’

  ‘Oh. And what about you, Ella? Who’s your best buddy at the moment?’

  ‘Kayleigh of course and Ashandra next door, remember?’

  Dad crossed his eyes. ‘I can hardly keep up.’

  He was trying to be funny, but for some reason it made me mad. Really mad.

  ‘That’s because you don’t try! You don’t know anything that anybody is doing because you’re never here and when you are you don’t listen to us.’

  My words hit him in the face like gravel.

  He blinked a bit. ‘Well, I know I’ve been busy lately.’

  ‘You’re always busy!’

  ‘Ella, listen, I—’

  ‘No, you listen. You told me that you were looking forward to watching Kirsti grow up, but you’re already missing her doing cute stuff because you’re working late. And it’s not just about Kirsti; you’ve got us as well. We haven’t finished growing up; you should be enjoying us too!’

  I stumbled towards the door. Chloe put a hand on my arm, but I shook her off. ‘I’m going to Ashandra’s,’ I said. And I went out before either of them could stop me. I even slammed the door.

  I didn’t actually go straight to Ashandra’s because I was too upset. I walked all the way down to the roundabout in a rage. It took me a while to calm down enough to go back and ring on Ashandra’s doorbell.

  She opened the door herself. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I was just going to call for you. I wanted to talk to you about something.’

  She took me up to her room. Ash’s bedroom is like a library; one wall is covered in shelves full of books and in front of the books she puts interesting stuff like the fossils her dad takes her hunting for or the little figures that you get in Kinder Eggs. She’s even got a tiny family of dolls sitting there. Ash would never hide anything she liked under her bed.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You look a bit funny.’

  ‘I had a row with my dad.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? You never row with people; at least, normally you never do.’

  ‘I’m cross with him. He doesn’t listen to me.’

  She put an arm round me. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  I shook my head. I knew that if I talked about it I’d cry.

  ‘Do you want a Coke and some cookies?’

  I nodded.

  Ashandra brought them upstairs and then we played on her computer. She talked about cheerful things instead and I was glad she did.

  ‘Kayleigh showed me this really good website where you can learn all the different kinds of horse tack,’ she said.

  ‘That’s good.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I wanted to apologise to you, Ella. I shouldn’t have been so rude about Kayleigh to you.’
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  She was watching me very closely so I gave her a little nod.

  ‘I mean, you know what I’m like. I want things to be perfect and I can be a bit stroppy, especially when other people are more laid-back. Obviously, Kayleigh doesn’t know that and she probably just thought I was evil.’

  I laughed. ‘You were both a bit hard on each other.’

  ‘I know. Kayleigh says that she was worried that everyone at secondary school would be better at stuff than her and that they’d make her feel like an idiot, so when I started bossing her about she got really angry.’

  That made sense. Kayleigh is definitely more likely to shout than to cry when she’s upset, but I was surprised to think of Ash and Kay getting stressed about school. And also a bit shocked that they didn’t tell me about it.

  ‘It’s understandable really,’ Ash said.

  I smoothed out her pillow. ‘How come you two suddenly started understanding each other?’

  I thought that she was going to say that my tough attitude forced them to take a good look at things, but instead she said, ‘We were worried about you.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yeah, you didn’t seem like yourself. We started talking about if you were OK in maths and we thought that maybe we’d upset you so we came up with the idea of going riding to cheer you up.’

  I nearly laughed. Sitting on top of one of those giant stompers is not my idea of being cheered up.

  ‘But then we talked a bit more and . . . I think she’s nice.’

  ‘She is. So are you. That’s what I kept telling you two.’

  ‘Maybe we just needed to work it out for ourselves.’

  I smiled.

  ‘But I feel really bad that you got in the middle of it all. I’m sorry I was all bossy and rude. I feel even worse now that I know you’re having problems with your dad.’

  I sniffed.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it now? If you don’t, we could watch a DVD, but we can, you know, if you want.’

  It all came pouring out. How he’s always late home from work, even on Wednesdays when he’s supposed to be seeing us, and how even though he makes Plans for the weekend half the time he’s still thinking about work. And how it’s hard to get him to listen to me because when he does pay anyone any attention he’s talking sports with Chloe or cooing over Kirsti.