The Strawberry Sisters Read online

  ‘Urgh!’ Amelia groaned. ‘Don’t put pictures in my head. I’ll never be able to eat again if I think about Chloe and Thunder kissing.’

  ‘Does he want to kiss you?’ I asked.

  Chloe pulled a face. ‘If he tries to kiss me, I will tie his lips in a knot. And punch him. A lot.’

  ‘So are you going to say no thanks?’

  ‘No. I’m going to say, “Why on earth did you ask that stupid question? Don’t ever ask me a soppy thing like that again or I will pull out your intestines and strangle you with them.”’

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ I said.

  Amelia raised her eyebrows. ‘If he wants someone who’s nice, he’s friends with the wrong person.’

  ‘But it must have taken quite a lot of courage to ask you,’ I said.

  ‘More like a lot of stupidness.’ Chloe puffed out her breath.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Suvi asked, coming into the room. ‘Amelia is pulling a face like I’m asking her to lay the table, but I didn’t even do that.’

  ‘Thunder has asked Chloe to the disco,’ I said.

  I thought Suvi would say, ‘That’s nice,’ in the way that grown-ups do when they don’t really get what’s going on, but instead Suvi looked at Chloe.

  ‘You don’t want to go to the disco with this Thunder?’

  ‘No! He’s my friend. All that boyfriend-girlfriend stuff is gross.’

  Suvi spread her hands. ‘Then tell him this.’

  ‘She can’t!’ I said. ‘He’ll be so upset. Why don’t you just go with him? It’s only one night.’

  ‘It’s for you to choose,’ Suvi said to Chloe. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’

  ‘Don’t worry, she never bothers about other people’s feelings,’ Amelia snapped from behind her magazine.

  Chloe slapped down her phone. ‘Fine. I’ll tell him no nicely.’

  But everyone was still frowning.

  Except Lucy. She was blowing raspberries at Kirsti.

  Dad wasn’t back in time for dinner so we ate without him. I worried about Chloe the whole time I was eating. It’s not that I thought that what Amelia said about Chloe not bothering about people’s feelings was true; I just wasn’t sure that Chloe understood how hard you have to work to be friends with someone.

  I volunteered to do the washing-up with Suvi.

  ‘Please can you talk to Chloe?’ I asked her. ‘I’m afraid she’s going to fall out with Thunder.’

  Suvi handed me a plate to dry. ‘Do you think this boy will stop being friends with Chloe if she says she doesn’t want to be his girlfriend?’

  I didn’t know the answer to that. Thunder and Chloe seemed to have fun together, but wouldn’t he be cross if she said no?

  Suvi turned to face me. ‘I don’t think your sister should try to be someone that she is not to make another person happy.’

  ‘But you have to think about other people’s feelings! You can’t just do whatever you like!’ I said.

  Suvi thought for a moment. ‘Sometimes it’s right to make sacrifices for people you care about,’ she said. ‘But you can’t do it every time. And you can’t do something that goes against who you are. Chloe doesn’t want a boyfriend; if she pretends, it’s no good for her or Thunder.’

  That sort of made sense. ‘But how are you supposed to know when to make sacrifices?’ I asked.

  Suvi scraped a plate. ‘Sometimes you don’t. You have to make a balance. There’s compromising and then there’s standing up for your own feelings and what you believe in.’

  ‘Like you with the squash and the TV.’

  Suvi smiled. ‘Exactly. I don’t want to give up my beliefs on TV, but I want you girls to be happy so I can compromise on the squash.’ She put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re a nice girl, Ella.’

  That surprised me. I didn’t know that Suvi had thought about what kind of girl I am.

  She squeezed my shoulder. ‘There’s squash and there’s TV. You have to try to remember the difference. Don’t let people put TVs all over your house, Ella.’

  Which basically means something else that my nana used to say: Don’t let people walk all over you.

  Sometimes people say things that you think are probably good advice, but you have absolutely no idea how you could ever actually do them.

  The next day, as we walked into art class, I hoped that the lesson would go smoothly and I wouldn’t end up feeling like I was having to compromise things I believe in, like my belief that Ashandra and Kayleigh really should be friends.

  In the end, it was a definite improvement, but they weren’t exactly working together. Kayleigh explained her ideas for our panel and then Ashandra got people into groups to work on different bits. They hardly spoke to each other, but at least they didn’t argue.

  On the bright side, Kayleigh came to Hockey Club and we all got changed in the same corner of the changing room without her or Ash saying anything bad.

  I was definitely getting better at hockey. Sometimes the ball went where I wanted it to go. Sometimes I still completely missed it. When we were practising passing in a triangle, I took a big whack at the ball and ended up missing it and spinning right round.

  ‘You’re supposed to be playing hockey,’ Jasmine said, ‘not prancing about.’

  And then she hit her ball. Really well.

  If I was giving out hockey skills, I wouldn’t give them to anyone who couldn’t be kind to someone who wasn’t as good as them.

  I thought that was the end of Jasmine’s nasty remarks, but, when I was helping Mrs Henderson collect up all the bibs and balls, she sauntered over and said, ‘It’s not going to work, you know.’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘You keep trying to get your two loser friends to all be loser friends together, but you’re forgetting something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They hate each other. They could hardly bear being at the same table in art, could they? Which is funny because you’d think that they’d enjoy being sad and stupid together.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I said.

  She tilted her head and looked at me in such a smug, know-it-all way that I wanted to bash her with a hockey stick.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘They’re just getting to know each other. Besides, it’s none of your business.’ And I carried a stack of cones off to the PE cupboard.

  When I got to the changing room, Kayleigh and most of the other girls had already gone, but Ashandra was waiting for me. Her fists were clenched.

  ‘Do you know what Kayleigh just called me?’ she asked. ‘Snooty. She actually called me snooty to my face.’

  My shoulders sagged. They didn’t really hate each other, did they?

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it,’ I said.

  ‘She did. I’m not speaking to her again.’

  ‘What about the art competition?’

  ‘It would be all her fault if we lost.’ She bit a nail. I knew she didn’t want to lose. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You can be our go-between; you can tell her my plans.’

  It seemed like Jasmine was right.

  Ashandra picked up her PE bag. ‘She’s your friend, Ella – though I can’t see why – you’ll just have to sort her out.’

  I tried to talk to Kayleigh during history. ‘Ashandra’s really upset,’ I whispered.

  ‘I’m upset too!’ she said a lot less quietly. ‘She’s always going on at me.’

  ‘Could you maybe talk to her?’

  ‘No! Listen, Ella, you’ve got to stop always trying to shove us together. We’re too different.’

  She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the lesson and when the bell went she rushed off. By the time I got to RE, she was already sitting with Nisha from Hockey Club. Ashandra was with Erica; she didn’t look up when I walked past her desk. It seemed like they were both cross with me. I didn’t understand why. All I’d ever wanted was for everybody to be friends.

  Neither of them cared how hard I’d tried to be nice
or the effort I’d put into us doing things together.

  I was fed up with both of them.

  ‘Did you speak to Thunder?’ I asked Chloe that evening while we were watching TV with Lucy.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I didn’t want to go to the disco with him.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said, “Oh.”’

  I was going to ask her what kind of ‘Oh’, but I’m pretty sure that Chloe doesn’t realise that there are different kinds.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Chloe said. ‘I don’t know why everyone else had so much to say about it. I just told him the truth and now everything’s back the way it was.’

  It all seemed very simple and easy. I didn’t quite believe it. I couldn’t see how telling someone something they really didn’t want to hear would lead to anything but trouble. But before I could ask any more Amelia came in and switched off the TV.

  ‘Move it, you scrapings from the bottom of the pickle jar. There are people capable of intelligent conversation coming round and I don’t want them repulsed by the rubbish that comes out of your mouths.’

  ‘What stuff comes out of our mouths?’ Lucy asked indignantly.

  Amelia pointed at her. ‘Nonsense.’ She pointed at me. ‘Mumbling.’ She pointed at Chloe. ‘Partially chewed food.’

  ‘It’s not like I want any of it to escape!’ Chloe said.

  ‘So if you could just retire to the Pit I’d be grateful.’ She picked a grubby T-shirt, two mugs and an empty crisp packet off the floor and pushed them into my hands. ‘Well, not grateful, but I won’t cut anything off while you’re sleeping.’

  ‘We can’t go to the Pit. Lucy has taped up the door,’ I said.

  ‘Why don’t you untape it then?’

  ‘Because we’re not you,’ Chloe said, giving Amelia the evil eye. ‘So we respect people’s right to Sellotape things up if that’s what makes them happy.’

  Lucy scowled horribly. ‘Yeah, that’s what makes me happy.’

  ‘All right, then you can go to the garden, or your bedroom where you can enjoy the scent of cheese and rotten eggs, or you can run into oncoming traffic. In fact, you can choose any place you like as long as it’s not here.’

  In the end, Chloe went to film Thunder in the bear suit on a roundabout, Lucy headed down to the Pit and closed the door firmly behind her and I hung about in the kitchen, making a cup of tea very slowly.

  Amelia’s friends arrived. Even though she does say some quite mean things, she seems to have loads. I’ve seen her at school in a big crowd, but today there were six of them. They’re less stampy and jumpy than Chloe’s friends, but they still talk quite loudly. When Amelia opened the door to her best friend Lauren, she tutted. ‘Are you here again? Why do you keep turning up? Is it because you’re desperate for the intellectual stimulation I give you?’

  ‘Actually, it’s for the biscuits,’ Lauren said.

  They laughed.

  I finished making my cup of tea and crept down the hallway. I could hear them talking in the sitting room.

  ‘What on earth are you wearing, Milly?’ Lauren asked.

  I’d seen Milly’s flowery dress. I thought it was nice.

  ‘It’s vintage,’ Milly said.

  ‘It certainly smells vintage,’ another girl said.

  ‘No, wait a minute,’ Amelia said. ‘It is vintage; it reminds me of what my great-aunt Anne was wearing the last time I saw her.’

  ‘Was she one of those really stylish old ladies with diamonds?’ Milly asked.

  ‘No, she was living with a million cats and she hadn’t changed her clothes since the seventies.’

  I winced, but Milly didn’t seem to mind. ‘You’ll be sorry when I set my cat army on you,’ she said.

  Everybody laughed, including Milly and Amelia.

  I sat on the stairs and thought about Amelia. She never seemed to get upset about things like me. If I was more like her, I wouldn’t worry about Ash and Kay getting on. Amelia wouldn’t let herself end up in the middle of two people being horrible. No one ever hurt Amelia’s feelings.

  I sighed. I’d tried really hard at being nice and then I’d put lots of effort into using Chloe’s way of getting people to be friends (and had the hockey-ball bruises to prove it), but it had all ended up with Ashandra and Kayleigh fighting.

  My big sister would never put up with this.

  It was time to try Amelia’s method and get tough.

  I was really glad I’d decided to be more like Amelia because about seven seconds after I called for Kayleigh the next morning she started moaning about Ashandra again.

  ‘She’s a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I know she’s really brainy and sometimes she does say funny stuff, but she’s driving me mad. She keeps waving lists in my face and telling me that we’re behind schedule for the art project. You’ve got to talk to her.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  I could feel my cheeks getting hot. ‘No, I’m not talking to her. You talk to her.’ I couldn’t believe I was saying this stuff, but I must have sounded at least a tiny bit like Amelia because Kayleigh just looked sideways at me and didn’t say anything else.

  On the way to maths, Ashandra pulled me aside. ‘Kayleigh is so frustrating! Tell her that if we don’t pick up the pace we’re never going to be finished in time. And then we’ll lose and I know that doesn’t sound like a really big deal, but they’ll probably make us wear T-shirts that say “loser” on them for the rest of our school career.’

  She was waiting for me to laugh.

  ‘And hats. T-shirts and hats with those little propeller things on,’ she added, looking less sure of herself.

  Even though that was quite a funny image, I didn’t laugh.

  ‘So can you tell Kayleigh that we’ve got to get a move on?’

  I bit my lip. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean no? Don’t you want us to win this competition?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Then I remembered Amelia never admits to caring about anything. ‘But it’s not my problem,’ I said. ‘You two need to talk to Miss Gardner.’

  Ashandra stared at me. Eventually, she said, ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  It was amazing. No wonder Amelia was always bossing people about. If you say something like you mean it, people actually pay attention.

  When we got to maths, we discovered that Mr Garibaldi (or Mr Very-Baldie as Jasmine calls him) had done a seating plan. It’s not a good sign when teachers do that because it means they have Had Enough and are about to get really bossy and Kieran is going to be kept in at lunchtime. Nobody was very happy about the plan. Ashandra and Kayleigh were put next to each other; if I’d been caring about things, I would have been pleased, but they both looked horrified.

  Amazingly, even though they didn’t speak to each other for the whole of maths, Ashandra and Kayleigh went off at breaktime to speak to Miss Gardner. I went too, but I tried to look like I was just there in a casual way and not because I was desperate for them to sort things out. Amelia never looks desperate.

  ‘Miss Gardner?’ Ashandra said. ‘We’re having some problems.’

  Miss Gardner looked up from her laptop.

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  ‘About us being the coordinators,’ Kayleigh said.

  ‘Really?’ Miss Gardner walked over to our panel and pulled the cover off. ‘I thought you were progressing well yesterday. I like the pagoda.’

  Ashandra nodded. ‘That’s the Fogong Temple Pagoda.’ She hesitated. ‘It was Kayleigh’s idea to use lolly sticks for the wood effect.’

  Kayleigh looked at her. ‘Ashandra made the people who are good at fiddly things stick them on while the rest of us were working on the dragon’s head.’

  ‘I love the idea of the dragon’s head; it really makes your piece original.’ Miss Gardner studied the panel some more.

  ‘It’s looking really good, isn’t it?’ I said.
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  ‘But we keep having arguments,’ Kayleigh said.

  ‘Perhaps you could carry on with this great work, but skip the arguments,’ Miss Gardner suggested.

  They didn’t look sure.

  ‘Do you know why I chose you two to be in charge?’ she asked them.

  ‘I do,’ I said because I was being tough and bold and Amelia never minds answering questions that aren’t exactly addressed to her. ‘Ashandra is good at sorting out things and people, and Kayleigh is really creative.’

  ‘Exactly, Ella. And it seems to me that you’re using those skills well. Maybe you just need to appreciate what the other person is bringing to this project.’

  Ashandra frowned and Kayleigh looked at her shoes.

  ‘Kayleigh told me that you’re really good at getting people working,’ I said to Ashandra.

  Kayleigh shrugged, but I could see that Ash was pleased. I turned to her. ‘And don’t you think the way Kay moulded that dragon’s head is amazing?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Ash said. ‘It does look pretty good.’

  ‘I think you’re going to get better and better at working as a team,’ Miss Gardner said.

  Ash and Kay seemed to believe her.

  I thought about what Miss Gardner had said while we were waiting for Miss Espinoza to take afternoon registration. It just goes to show that getting tough was a good idea. Although Ash and Kay still weren’t exactly chatty. Kay was hurriedly trying to finish her history homework before the next lesson and Ash was over at Erica’s desk.

  I wondered if she was telling her about our chat with Miss Gardner. I tried to work out what she was saying from her face, but Jasmine blocked my view by climbing on a desk and starting to bend over backwards like that woman Lucy loves on Secrets of Magic who can fit herself into a tiny box. Jasmine went completely over into a bridge; she didn’t even put her hands out until the last minute. It was quite impressive. Then she pushed off with her legs and flipped over into a standing position again. All on top of a tiny table. It was amazing, but Amelia never says anything is amazing so I didn’t either. Jasmine’s friends did though; they all started cooing and telling her how fantastic she is.

  Jasmine smirked. ‘Mrs Henderson says I’m the most talented gymnast this school has ever had.’