Have a Little Faith Read online

  Being mean to Angharad is like stomping on a kitten. I wanted to smack the tart, but Megs dragged me away and we went to hang out under the trees outside instead.

  I said, ‘They’re so rude. How would they like it if I pointed at them and called them thick and ugly?’

  Megs said, ‘You do call them that.’

  ‘Yes, but like, if I said it to their faces.’

  ‘You do say it to their faces.’

  ‘Shut up, Megs. I’m not the one stealing other people’s lunch space.’

  ‘I don’t think you can stop them sitting there,’ Angharad said. ‘That table hasn’t got your name on it.’

  Megs said, ‘Actually, it has. Faith wrote it on the underside with a glitter pen last term.’

  I was going to give them all a lecture on how we shouldn’t let the Tarty Party push us around and how we should unite our year together against the Evil Oranges to ensure that we have the freedom to sit where we like, but then I spotted that Lily had a packet of Giant Chocolate Buttons so I stopped talking and started chomping – you know, just to help her keep down her sugar intake for the day. I’m always thinking of others.

  I don’t know why, perhaps it’s the plucky way I continue to believe in human kindness, but I thought it would be a good idea to share my musical ambitions with the bunch of losers who hang around my house and claim to have some kind of genetic link to me. Dad just started laughing and my freak little brother said, ‘A choir? Oh yes, that’s where they put the people who aren’t good enough to perform solo, isn’t it?’

  So I said, ‘A concrete-filled box? Oh yes, that’s where they put the brothers who don’t deserve to live, isn’t it?’

  Then Mum wafted in reading her astrology magazine and said, ‘What a grim image, Faith. Can’t we start the day with something more uplifting?’

  Sam smirked and said, ‘Faith is already uplifted. She’s wearing a push-up bra.’

  So then I wrestled him to the floor and jammed my knee in his throat.

  Mum was right. It is nice to start the day with something uplifting.

  Megs came round so we could talk about our dire situation. I wanted to discuss ways to punish Miss Ramsbottom for splitting us up, but Megs had her own ideas (even though I’m always telling her not to). She says that we should be really well-behaved to make Ramsbottom think we have reformed our ways.

  I said, ‘Megan, I don’t know why you think I’ve got a vacancy for another person telling me to be good, but I haven’t. If you’re looking for a job with me, I can offer you drinks waitress or chief polisher of my shoes instead.’

  Megs gave me a stern look. ‘How are you getting along in 10SW?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ The truth is that even though Lily is delightfully mad and Angharad is cute, I am missing Megs.

  ‘Have you done your startled beetle impression yet?’

  I mumbled.

  ‘Did anyone laugh? No? I didn’t think so.’

  ‘Yeah, well—’

  ‘And I know you think Lily is all that . . .’

  ‘What do you mean, “all that”?’

  ‘. . . But I bet she can’t do your mum’s signature so you don’t have to do PE and you’ve got no one to translate what that Australian teaching assistant is saying, have you? You’re lost with me, aren’t you?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Let’s face it, Faith, without me you’re going to wither and die.’

  ‘Oh, it’s true!’ I said. ‘I can’t take it, Megs. 10SW is mostly full of swots who don’t even know any good poo jokes. What are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.’ Megs was getting a bit of a crazy look in her eyes. This is what happens when I let her have her own way, but I’ll have to worry about getting her back under my thumb later because what she was saying did make sense. For once.

  ‘You are going to behave,’ she said grimly. ‘You are going to be on time, you’re going to do your homework, you’re going to say polite things to your classmates and you’re going to smile at teachers.’

  ‘Steady on, Megs, I don’t want them locking me up for obvious insanity.’

  ‘If we want to get you away from 10SW then these are the kind of sacrifices you’re going to have to make.’

  She may have extracted a promise from me. But since she dragged it out of me by dangling a KitKat under my nose I don’t think it’s legally binding. But I do need to get back to Megs. She is a turnip, but she is my turnip so I will give this crazy good behaviour business a go.

  I have kept my word to Megs and been angelic all day. Well there was a little bit of fun in Maths, but nothing serious.

  Megs and I were talking about our first choir rehearsal with the boys. (It’s this Friday, so we don’t have much time to prepare.) Becky and Zoe who sit in front of us in Maths have signed up too. During class, Zoe (who loves to speak her mind, i.e. to say something nasty) pointed a finger at me and said, ‘But you can’t really sing, can you, Faith?’

  Which is nonsense. I just haven’t got a traditional sort of voice. I said, ‘What do you mean, I can’t really sing?’

  ‘Well, I mean you can’t sing at all.’

  I gave her a hard stare.

  ‘It’s just that everyone else there is going to be experienced and trained and, you know . . . not awful.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that I am going to be surrounded by voices from heaven?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Who the monkey do you think is going to notice my unconventional tone then?’

  ‘Maybe just those people who have ears.’

  ‘I’ll mime.’

  Zoe seems to have forgotten my obvious acting talent. For example I did an amazing performance last year as the stomach in our mid-Biology-lesson show, What happens to things we eat? The girls who played the food really did look partially digested when I had finished with them. Despite this, Zoe seems to think I lack the skills to pull off a bit of lip-syncing. So to prove her wrong I moved my lips while Megs talked for the rest of the lesson. Admittedly, Mrs Baxter did call us ‘a pair of silly beggars’, but not before we had got away with Megs answering three questions about fractions through me. It was only when she got the giggles and made me mouth the words to ‘Little Bo Peep’ that we were busted.

  I mean, how can I be expected to behave myself when I get provoked into things like that?

  Chucked it down with rain today, which meant we couldn’t sit under the trees at lunchtime. I was struck with a stroke of genius and Megs and I went to the sports hall. (I wanted to bring Angharad and Lily too, but Megs didn’t look keen when I suggested it, so I didn’t ask them.) Once we had shuffled past some insane Year Sevens who were practising formation skipping in their own time we slipped into the gym equipment cupboard.

  Three crash mats in a pile is actually not an uncomfortable place for a lunchtime snooze.

  Granny came round this evening. I told Mum that I would be busy with homework and wouldn’t be available to have my fingernails criticised. But ever since Miss Ramsbottom rang my crumbly parents to discuss my tutor group move, Mum and Dad have decided that it’s good for me to have them tell me what to do.

  ‘You’ll stay and be uplifted by some quality inter-generational family time,’ Mum said.

  Which meant sitting still while Granny told me what’s wrong with the youth of today. Eventually she paused. She didn’t do it on purpose; it was because she was choking on her false teeth. While she was hooking them out I decided to tell her what’s wrong with the old people of today. I started with Miss Ramsbottom. Surprisingly, Granny seemed quite interested. She even told me to stand up for myself.

  I asked, ‘What did you do with teachers you didn’t like?’

  ‘Put frogs in their beds and porridge in their wellingtons.’

  ‘Thanks, Granny. Next time Miss Ramsbottom annoys me on a day when we slip through a time warp to a girls’ boarding school in the nineteen-twenties I’ll make sure that I use that advic
e.’

  Granny has dyed her hair again. She used to be chestnut-brown, but now she is bright blonde.

  I said, ‘Your hair looks very . . . young, Granny.’ Which seemed to please her.

  She said, ‘Oh, yes, my hair always gets blonder in the summer.’

  Yeah, right. Why is it that when I tell a teeny white lie my mother tells me that if I send dishonesty out into the universe I’ll get dishonesty right back, but when Granny tells a whopper like that we just have to smile and nod?

  Anyway, I think Sam scored a point for the side of truth when he came bounding into the room and said, ‘I like your wig, Granny.’

  Ha. Granny didn’t flinch though, she just said, ‘Raymond says I look like a film star.’

  I said, ‘Is he the one who lost his eyes during the war?’

  ‘Faith, I’m too young to know anything about the war and you’re thinking of Oscar, who lost an eye in a knife fight in the jungle.’

  It’s so embarrassing when your grandmother has more boyfriends than you do. She spent the rest of the evening talking about them. I think she’s got enough for a football team now.

  After Granny had gone I noticed that the new packet of Penguins was missing from the biscuit tin, even though I never saw her go to the kitchen. That woman is a biscuit-stealing ninja.

  Rang Megs to discuss what we will wear at the rehearsal tomorrow.

  ‘We’ll have to wear uniform, Faith. It’s straight after last lesson,’ Megs said.

  ‘We could change. You’d be surprised how quickly I can get into a nice outfit in an emergency. Once, I was in the garden in my trackies when I spotted a fit boy cutting next-door’s hedge; by the time he turned round I was in hot pants.’

  ‘Everybody will be in uniform.’

  ‘It’s not a uniform, it’s a fabric force field guaranteed to repel all boys. And it’s bottle green.’

  ‘It’s all right for you, you’ve got ginger hair.’

  ‘Auburn, my hair is auburn, not ginger, Megan, and what has that got to do with it?’

  ‘Redheads can wear green. It makes you look like something out of an Irish fairytale.’

  ‘Are you calling me a leprechaun?’

  ‘I’m just saying you look better than I do. What kind of sicko designed our uniform anyway?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Megs, I can think of only one group of people who would want teenage girls to look so hideous. It has to be their fathers.’

  In the end, I’ve decided to improve my uniform by wearing opaque black tights for leg lengthening effect. And my black patent kitten heels for kittening effect. And obviously my push-up bra.

  It’s not that I’ve got no chest, it’s just that it all needs rounding up and pointing in the right direction, otherwise it could get lost under my jumper. But at least I’ve got something. It could be worse, I could be as flat-chested as Zoe, who went and had a seriously ill-thought-out cropped hairdo last term. When she went to the inter-schools hockey championship, the St Mildred’s PE teacher took one look at Zoe and said, ‘We don’t play mixed-sex teams.’

  Which just goes to show. Sport doesn’t pay.

  I tried to pack the necessaries (kitten heels, spare tights, deodorant, perfume, toothbrush, artist’s case of makeup etc.) in my school bag, but I couldn’t get everything to fit, so I took out the other junk (Maths textbook, contact book, badly-made packed lunch suggesting I am a neglected child – why have I got a hippy for a mother? Nobody else is expected to last through double Physics in the afternoon after just some bean sprout mix and a handwritten horoscope). Anyway, everything fits in now. Except the makeup.

  I’ll just have to wear it all.

  Ooh la la. What an awesome day.

  When we got to the hall for rehearsals the first thing I noticed was Vicky Blundell (Year Ten’s biggest bimbo and ‘affectionately’ known as Icky to me and my friends). She was flexing her metre-long false nails and circling the boys like a vulture. A vulture with its skirt rolled over till you could practically see its vulture knickers. And we all know those are the worst kind.

  The chairs were still out from assembly and all the girls seemed to be sitting on the right-hand side and all the boys on the left. Except boys don’t sit. They loll. And lounge. And sort of sprawl over about three chairs and rest their massive trainered feet on anything available – their bag, the piano, each other’s head . . . Anyway, I was horrified (not by the feet, it would be hard for them to hold themselves up if they just had stumps) by this boy/girl divide. What was everybody thinking? How were we going to meet anybody interesting (i.e. male) if we were on opposite sides of the room? There they were, all the younger girls, looking at their music and humming under their breath, and not even trying a bit of eyelash fluttering. It was almost as if they had come there to sing!

  Then the Year Elevens arrived. They certainly weren’t shy and all available seats on the boys’ side started filling up. I panicked and desperately looked for space, pulling Megs along. Then I saw Icky Blundell again, with a large pack of boys on one side and two empty chairs on the other. I don’t know what came over me. I said, ‘Vicky! Thanks for saving us seats.’

  Icky looked me up and down and said, ‘There are only two chairs. Where’s your backside going to sit?’

  What a cow. Just because she’s about two foot nine and her scrawny behind would fit into a teacup.

  I said, ‘I know my healthy proportions must be intimidating, Vicky. I’ve been meaning to ask you about your rickets. Did you not get any sunlight as a child because your parents were too ashamed to take you outside?’

  Megs elbowed me in the ribs. Three boys sat in front of us had turned around and were staring at me.

  One of them said, ‘Wow, I’d hate to see what you’d say to someone who hadn’t saved you a seat.’

  We chatted to the boys for the rest of the rehearsal (except when Mr Millet rudely interrupted to say things like, ‘Open the back of your throat’ and, ‘Now try it in tune’ and, ‘If I have to speak to you one more time, girl-with-the-red-hair . . .’). The one that spoke to us first is called Ethan. He’s got dark, curly hair and quite good eyes. (Good to look at rather than to look with. Although, I’m assuming that they work well enough because he didn’t trip over anything.) Ethan’s friends are Cameron (who has spiky, brown hair and a cheeky grin) and Elliot (who, quite frankly, is a bit on the titchy side of small). Elliot didn’t say much, but Ethan and Cameron were both quite funny. I could tell that Megs was really into Cameron. Straight away she started tossing her head about so much that I had to keep fishing her hair out of my mouth.

  Icky Blundell tried to get in on the conversation a few times, but I was pleased to see that the boys didn’t seem to think much of her.

  At one point Icky turned to Ethan and said, ‘I’m here because Mr Millet invited me especially. He says I’ve got a unique voice.’

  Ethan just looked at her and said, ‘I’m here because my social worker says I’ve got to learn to mix with other teenagers and stop taking my homicidal rage out on girls with false nails.’

  Fantastic. Disliking Icky is quite near the top of my list of requirements in a boy. I think these rehearsals are going to be fun.

  My parents seem to think that just because I have vowed to impress people with my cheerful and cooperative attitude at school that they can expect the same sort of thing at home. When am I supposed to rest? When do I get time to be the real me?

  Mum’s latest unfair demand is that I tidy my room. I said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Clutter in the house clutters the mind. I don’t want to see that kind of chaos every time I walk past your room.’

  ‘I could close the door.’

  ‘I want your room tidy by lunchtime.’

  ‘Doesn’t all this ordering me about go against your hippy principles? Shouldn’t you allow me ownership of my personal space and let me develop my sense of order in my own time?’

  ‘I think we’d be waiting a long time if we did that, don’t you?’


  What I think is that my mum only sticks to her flower-power philosophy when it suits her. I didn’t say that out loud because she often gets quite shirty when faced with the truth, so instead I said, ‘Why are you a hippy, Mum? Have you really got no sense of style or do you genuinely like tie-dye?’

  She rolled her eyes, but then she smiled and I thought I might have hit on a good distraction technique. ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘To be honest, when I was young being a hippy was something I got into because it annoyed your granny. You know what conservative views she’s got. Talking about peace and free love was an easy way to wind her up.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you’ve eaten lentils and worn those terrible tasselled skirts for all these years just to irritate Granny? Wow. I am a much better daughter than you; when I do something deliberately to annoy you, I only keep it up for a day or two. A month at the most.’

  ‘No, Faith! I didn’t keep it up just to get Granny’s goat. My beliefs are very important to me. And hippies are good people. Just look at the lovely women we met at that cooperative in the summer. They were so relaxed and friendly. People like that don’t judge.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, I got a pretty vicious look when I put a Marmite jar in the green glass recycling bin.’

  ‘Yes, well they’ve got strong views on that sort of thing and so have I. Don’t you think it’s vital to preserve the planet for you and all the other children that will come after you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do think we should take care of the environment, I really do.’

  ‘Right then, we can start with the home environment. Get tidying.’

  If there was ever any doubt as to where I get my evil genius from, I think it’s just been cleared up.

  So here I am, tidying.

  I am so bored.

  If they had hired me a maid for my birthday, like I asked, none of this would be necessary.

  I’m finished. My mess will no longer disturb the delicate balance of my mother’s mind.