Strawberry Sisters Page 9

  She smiled. ‘And no using the drill?’

  ‘I won’t let Lucy anywhere near it.’

  ‘I suppose it is daytime.’

  ‘Yep. And we all know that burglars and kidnappers only come out at night.’

  I regretted joking because her smile disappeared. ‘Perhaps I’d better not.’

  ‘You definitely should; you deserve a day out.’

  She thought about it. ‘You haven’t even got Ella here to help . . . But I suppose, if you promise not to let Lucy out, not any further than the garden . . .’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘We were talking about our book group going for coffee sometime. Maybe I could see if anyone is free then we could just go to that place down the road.’

  So Mum made some phone calls and arranged to meet Susan and two other book club people at the cafe, then she hopped in the shower and put on her favourite flowery dress. By the time she kissed us goodbye, her hair was bouncing around her face and her eyes were bright and she looked much happier.

  When I closed the door behind her, I realised that I was smiling too. The thing about doing something horrible, like keeping Chloe and Lucy out of trouble when you should be enjoying your Saturday so that Mum can have a nice time, is that it does make you feel good.

  In the kitchen, Lucy shrieked.

  But you do still have to get through the horrible bit.

  After I’d combed all the soggy Weetabix out of Lucy’s hair, and told Chloe that she wasn’t allowed to pelt Lucy with mushed-up cereal even if Lucy did call her Lumpy Bum, there wasn’t any more trouble. Chloe went back to ball-kicking in the garden and when I went to check on Lucy she was curled up on the broken sofa in the Pit and hunched over her notebook, scribbling away.

  ‘Is that your friends book?’ I asked.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So what are you writing?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, scratching the pen furiously across the page like she was underlining something.

  ‘Who’s the top scorer then?’ I asked.

  She looked up at me with what I think she imagines is a chilling stare. ‘You don’t have the security clearance for me to share that information with you.’

  ‘Fine.’ I backed out of the room.

  Mum should never have let her watch James Bond.

  Mum seemed really pepped up by her time out. The next morning, I found her making sandwiches in the kitchen.

  ‘We’re going to the beach for a picnic,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit cold for that?’ I asked.

  ‘Nonsense! The sun’s out today. Anyway, it will be invigorating; a brisk walk along the front and then I promise we’ll go and play in the arcade on the pier.’

  I do quite like going to the arcade. They’ve got this great shooting game where you have to team up with the vampires to kill all the zombies. Me and Chloe are on the top scorers list.

  ‘Unless you’ve got other plans?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Nope. Absolutely nothing.’

  Chloe appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What about you, Chloe? Do you want to come to the beach or are you going out with Thunder?’

  Chloe pulled a face. ‘I’m not that keen on Thunder at the moment.’

  Mum put down the butter knife. ‘That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? It’s not his fault they won’t let girls on the youth squad.’

  ‘I know it’s not! But I can’t help it; whenever I see him, he talks about rugby and it makes me cross, so I’m just . . . avoiding him a bit.’

  ‘Come and sit down, sweetheart,’ Mum said, pulling out a chair for Chloe and another one for herself.

  Chloe sighed and sat down.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you and Thunder. Because you remind me of myself and Imogen.’

  ‘Really? I hope I’m you because Imogen has got hair coming out of her ears.’

  ‘Actually, you are me because I think we’ve both had to struggle with the same problem with our friends.’

  ‘What problem?’

  ‘Well, you know that Imogen and I have been friends for a long time? Ever since we first started teaching, we’ve been mates. We don’t see each other so much since we moved out of London, but we used to spend a lot of time together.’

  ‘And?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘We both got married at around the same time and we were both really looking forward to having children. But although it seemed like all of our friends were getting pregnant it didn’t happen for me and Imogen.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.

  Mum smiled at me. ‘I’ve never mentioned it before; it seems incredible now that I’ve got you lovely lot, but for a year or two I worried that I would never have a baby.’

  ‘But then you did,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Ah, but before that Imogen got pregnant.’

  ‘Did you feel bad?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So I bet it was hard being around her,’ Chloe said. ‘Did you avoid her?’

  ‘It was certainly tempting. The thing is that we all know how important it is to look after your friends and be there when things are tough for them, but it’s important to share their good times too. If you care about your friends then you need to show them friendship when times are hard and you need to be happy for them when they get the things they want. Even if that thing is what you desperately want for yourself.’

  Chloe flopped forward. ‘I know I’m supposed to be happy for Thunder, but I’m not. I’m just not. It’s not fair.’

  ‘I think you’re mixing up how you feel about what’s happened to you and what’s happened to Thunder. They’re two different things. You’re allowed to be sad that you’ve missed out on joining a rugby squad, but that shouldn’t stop you from being pleased for Thunder. You want Thunder to do well and be happy, don’t you?’

  Chloe propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Yes, but . . . you’re making it sound easy. Maybe it should be different things, but it isn’t separate inside me; it’s all mixed up like when Lucy swirls her shepherd’s pie together. I keep trying to be pleased for him, but I’m not.’

  ‘Then sometimes you have to do what I did at Imogen’s baby shower. You pretend. You take all the friendship and love you have for that person and you use it to cover up how bad you’re feeling and you say, “Congratulations!” And sometimes, if you’re lucky, saying that will help you to really feel it.’

  ‘Do you think Imogen knew how you felt?’ I asked.

  ‘I expect she had an idea. And I think she appreciated the fact that I didn’t push her away or tell her it wasn’t fair. Sometimes being a really good friend is as much about what you manage not to say as what you do say.’

  I could see Chloe was mulling this over. ‘So you’re saying I have to say well done to Thunder?’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything. Just remember that Thunder hasn’t got on to the squad to hurt you.’

  ‘OK, I’ll think about that.’ She stood up. ‘And Mum?’

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘When we get to the beach, am I allowed to go paddling?’

  Monday lunchtime, I was walking across the cafeteria when I spotted Chloe with Thunder. Thunder was clearly in the middle of telling a story. He was on his feet, miming throwing a rugby ball. As I got closer, I heard Chloe say, ‘That’s awesome. They’re definitely going to pick you for the match team.’

  She sounded happy, but when I looked at Chloe’s face I could see that, even though her mouth was smiling, her eyes weren’t. She was really trying to be pleased for Thunder, just like Mum had said. As I walked past, I gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. She looked up and smiled, a real smile, but there wasn’t time to say anything because the bell rang and I had to get to my next lesson.

  I wasn’t much looking forward to physics without Lauren again but, just after I’d sat down, Bartek came up to me and said, ‘Can I sit here?’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  He grinned at me and I smiled back,
but then I had to pretend to look for something in my pencil case because I was worried that I was blushing, which was silly because what on earth was there to blush about?

  We didn’t actually get to chat much because Mrs Padley is pretty strict, but Bartek did show me a cartoon he’d drawn of Mr Garcia with steam coming out of his ears. He’s nearly as good at drawing as he is at singing.

  At the end of the lesson, he said, ‘I’m looking forward to singing with you at rehearsal.’

  And I realised I was looking forward to it too.

  When Mum and Lucy got home that evening, Lucy was unusually quiet. She didn’t jump on anything or shout at anyone; she just sat on the sofa with the corners of her mouth turned down.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Ella asked her.

  Lucy didn’t answer.

  Personally, I think that when Lucy decides to keep her mouth shut we should all just be grateful for the peace and quiet, but Ella seemed dead set on getting her to talk.

  ‘Do you want a biscuit?’ Ella asked.

  Lucy shook her head.

  ‘What would you like?’

  I could see the struggle on Lucy’s face; she was obviously determined to keep her silence up, but she couldn’t resist the offer of whatever she wanted. I wondered what Ella would do if Lucy said she’d like a puppy.

  Lucy opened her mouth, paused till she was sure she had mine and Ella’s full attention and then announced, ‘I want to be a bat.’

  It’s not just hedgehogs and rabbits that Lucy likes. She’s also very fond of bats and her idea of having a good time is hanging upside down on the climbing frame in the skatepark down the road, pretending to be a bat.

  ‘Will one of you take me?’ Lucy asked, fluttering her eyelids in what I think she imagines is an appealing way, but really just makes her look like she’s got something in her eye.

  I waited. If you wait long enough, someone else will always volunteer.

  Ella sighed. ‘I could take you quickly, but I have got a lot of homework to do.’

  ‘I suppose I could go,’ I found myself saying.

  ‘Why don’t you both go?’ Mum said from the hall. ‘That way you’ll have someone to talk to while Lucy is getting battish. Tea will be on the table in twenty minutes anyway.’

  So we put on our coats and went down the road to the skatepark.

  Lucy swung into position on the climbing frame and wriggled with pleasure. Weird.

  ‘Do you feel better now?’ Ella asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘Because bats don’t have rubbish friends that say their secret friends book is stupid.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because they’re not silly enough to have a secret friends book in the first place,’ I said.

  Lucy put her fingers in her ears and swung about a bit. Ella and I stood shoulder to shoulder for warmth.

  ‘You never told me what you did at Princess Crystal’s house on Saturday,’ I said. I’d asked her twice, but she’d managed to change the subject both times.

  Ella rubbed at the ground with the toe of her boot. ‘We played table football and made cupcakes.’

  ‘Wow, don’t tell Chloe! If you throw in some wrestling and a farting competition, that’s her idea of heaven.’

  Ella didn’t look like she’d had a heavenly time.

  ‘Was Crystal a brat again?’

  Ella rubbed her mittened hands together. ‘She’s nice to me,’ she said. ‘She let me choose what kind of cupcakes to make and she said I was the best at icing.’

  ‘What’s the problem then?’

  Ella looked like she had a pain in her stomach; she hates criticising anyone. ‘I just think she’s a bit rude. The lady who cleans her house was doing the hoovering in the games room when we wanted to play in there and Crystal said, “You’ll have to do that later,” to her like she was a servant or something.’

  Frankly, I was just amazed by the idea of anyone having someone else come to clean their house and I wondered if I could convince Mum that a cleaner was a good way to spend her money, but I tried to focus back on what Ella was saying. ‘You know you don’t have to go there, don’t you?’ I asked.

  Ella didn’t answer that. ‘I talked to Kayleigh about it. She thinks that maybe Crystal will get better and not be so rude,’ she said. ‘Or maybe I’ll stop minding.’

  I didn’t think either of those things was likely to happen, but I decided that Ella probably had to work that out for herself.

  Wednesday morning is always a bit of a scramble because everybody has to remember to pack anything that they need to take to Dad’s. Mum tells us to do it the night before, but only Ella is ever that organised.

  I’d crammed everything I reckoned I needed into my bag and was trying to have a nice quiet pee, while everyone else was flapping, but before I could finish Chloe came barging into the bathroom.

  ‘I’m famous!’ she said triumphantly.

  I was going to shoo her away, but being famous is probably just about important enough to interrupt my privacy for.

  ‘She means she’s in the newspaper,’ Lucy explained, following her in, holding a copy of The Echo.

  I tutted. That wasn’t the kind of famous I was thinking of and now there were two of them just staring at me on the loo.

  ‘Oh, come right on in, take a seat, why don’t you?’ I said.

  Chloe sat down on the side of the bath. Seriously?

  Once I’d pulled up my school trousers and washed my hands, I took the newspaper from Lucy and had a good look at the page she was pointing at.

  ‘That is actually quite cool,’ I admitted. Chloe was right there on page seven, with a photo of her holding a rugby ball and everything.

  ‘And look! Did you see what it says? The rugby club have said that they’re going to run girls’ training too! Because of me!’

  ‘That’s fantastic!’ And I have to admit that I did end up doing a little dance with Chloe right there in the bathroom.

  ‘Does this mean Chloe’s going to be on telly?’ Lucy asked.

  Chloe twirled in front of the mirror. ‘I might be! I could be on the news like Thunder was.’

  ‘Will you have to start wearing sunglasses and will those people with cameras follow you around and put you in a magazine with a picture of your knickers showing?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ I said. It’s bad enough that Chloe flashes her knickers when she does cartwheels in the park. I’d die of embarrassment if her knickers made it into a gossip magazine.

  ‘She’s not really famous then,’ Lucy insisted.

  ‘Famous enough,’ Chloe said, cutting out the article with Mum’s nail scissors that are absolutely only ever to be used to cut nails.

  ‘Well done, Clo,’ I said and grabbed my face wash to put in my bag, but as I was running down the stairs a horrible thought hit me. My history essay was due tomorrow and I hadn’t even started it.

  I found Mum in the kitchen.

  ‘Can I ring you tonight?’ I asked. ‘After your book club? Because I’ve got this history thing to do and Dad is rubbish at history.’

  Mum wiped up the ring of milk and cornflakes Lucy had left around her cereal bowl. ‘It’d be better if you could make it before book club.’ She hesitated. ‘I think I might be popping to the pub after we’ve finished.’

  She turned to the sink so I couldn’t see her face, but I was already convinced something was going on. ‘Who are you going with?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, just someone from the group.’

  She sounded a little bit flustered. ‘Mum! It’s not a man, is it?’

  She couldn’t help laughing. ‘It is a man, but there’s nothing to get excited about. I just enjoy chatting to him. You don’t mind, do you?’

  I hated it when my dad started dating Suvi. Even if my parents didn’t want to be together, I couldn’t see why he needed a girlfriend. But I understand a bit better now. Grown-ups like grown-up company. And romance. I didn’t m
uch like the idea of Mum getting smoochy with someone, but if anyone deserved to be happy it was Mum, so I concentrated on saying something that was both true and nice, and I managed to come up with, ‘I think it’s a great idea for you to have some fun.’

  Mum let out a sigh of relief; I guessed that maybe she’d been a bit worried about telling me and how I’d react, so I was pleased that I hadn’t made a fuss.

  ‘Don’t mention it to your sisters just yet, will you?’

  I nodded. I was pleased that Mum had told me an almost-secret; it felt as if she was treating me more like an adult.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll be around to discuss history until about six thirty.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Or you could always ask Suvi to help with your homework.’

  Even though I’d been getting on better with Suvi, I still wasn’t sure that would go well, so I chose to ignore that suggestion.

  ‘I’d better get to school,’ I said, scooping up my bag. ‘I hope you have a nice time tonight.’

  ‘Thank you, Amelia.’

  ‘And remember,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Don’t stay out too late. You’ve got school in the morning, young lady.’

  During dinner at Dad’s house, I got a text message from Lauren saying she was coming back to school the next day. Even though Suvi is normally huffy about people having their phones at the table, someone must have told her about Lauren because when I read out the message she said, ‘This is excellent,’ and helped me to some more green beans, which I suppose, in her wholefood world, is the closest thing to a celebration.

  The next morning, Dad was surprised to find me in the kitchen already spooning up my cereal when he came downstairs.

  ‘I normally have to prise you out of bed,’ he said. ‘Getting you away from your duvet is like trying to peel two slices of processed cheese apart.’

  I beamed at him. ‘I’m giving you a day off from cheese-peeling.’ Actually, for once, I was really looking forward to going to school because I’d be able to see Lauren.

  Even though I left early, by the time I got to our tutor room, Lauren was already there.