After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby (6 page)

They went nuts at home.

‘What a thoroughly irresponsible thing to do!’ scolded Zoran.

‘Poor Jaws! Poor Caspar! Poor Betsy and Petal!’ cried Jas.

‘You could have lost them! You could have killed them! You could have broken the cars!’ shouted Twig.

‘To say nothing of that poor girl, being publicly humiliated! You should be ashamed of yourself, Blue,’ said Zoran, but I could see that he was trying not to laugh.

And yet here’s the thing.  They all screamed at me when I got home, and Zoran is still being all disapproving, but they made me play the video. And then after I’d played it, they made me play it again. And again. And each time, it became a little bit less about cruelty to Dodi and to rats and a lot more about animal stardom.

‘Doesn’t Betsy look cute in the Alfa Romeo!’ cooed Jas.

‘And Caspar!’ cried Twig. ‘Isn’t he brave?’

‘That woman is wrong and completely discriminatory,’ said Zoran. ‘I’m sure exactly the same thing happens in French classrooms.’

‘Not
exactly
the same thing,’ said Flora. ‘Surely never
exactly
the same thing. This is unique, this is.’ And they all stared at me like they couldn’t believe it was me who had done it.

Later, when the Babes had gone to bed, Flora told Zoran everything Joss had told her about Dodi and Cressida during detention, when they were supposed to be working on a maths assignment but were actually having a fierce whispered argument in the back of the classroom with the rats chewing everything in Flora’s messenger bag (the one she has customised by turning all the flowers into skulls). It was almost dark by the time they let us out of school. We all walked home together and Flora apologised for not realising what a cow Dodi was being to me.

‘I knew you weren’t friends any more,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t realise she was actually being horrible.’

‘You must have noticed Blue was unhappy,’ said Joss.

‘No more than usual,’ said Flora, but she said it nicely, and she took my hand and squeezed it, which is as close to ‘sorry’ as you get from Flora.

‘I wish you’d come to me,’ she said.

‘Joss found out first.’

‘Thank you, Joss,’ said Flora stiffly. ‘For looking after my sister.’

‘Anytime,’ said Joss. Flora sniffed and said this didn’t mean she approved of cruelty to animals.

‘I wish you’d told me too,’ said Zoran.

‘I will next time,’ I promised as I went up to bed, because it seemed to be what he wanted to hear. I yawned. Flora and Zoran stood together at the bottom of the stairs, looking concerned, but I left them to it. I got undressed and into bed, and now I am lying here, thinking about what Zoran said about feeling ashamed of myself.

Dodi’s house backs on to a huge communal garden, and at the end of Year 5, when Mum said we were old enough to walk there on our own, we
lived
there. We went there every day after school through all of that last summer term, and we played there for hours, long complicated pretend games invented by Iris. Dodi’s mum brought our tea out and we were so hungry but having so much fun that we ate it as we played.

Until the Mouse Picnic.

The picnic when for once we were playing so hard we forgot about tea, and a field-mouse – a teeny-weeny field-mouse – scampered out of the undergrowth to nibble at a jam sandwich.

Iris saw it first. She stopped running and she whispered ‘oh, oh, oh’ like it was the sweetest, most important thing she had ever seen in her entire life, and she tiptoed towards it.

I stood still and watched. The mouse looked up and sniffed. Its whiskers twitched, but it really liked that sandwich and Iris walked so softly, so softly . . . She untied her bandana – she told me later that she was going to catch the mouse with it.

‘And I would have, too,’ she complained. ‘If it hadn’t been for Dodi.’

Dodi didn’t think the mouse was sweet. She didn’t stop, or say ‘oh, oh, oh’, or watch with bated breath.

Dodi saw the mouse, screamed, and fainted dead away.

I had forgotten all about it until Joss asked. I’m worried that I’m starting to forget lots of things about Iris. Because that story is as much about Iris as it is about Dodi.

Really, I suppose, it is about the three of us, and how we used to be.

Back when we were friends Dodi wore glasses just like mine, little wire-framed ones which made her look a bit mad because one of her ears is higher than the other so they were always crooked, plus her mum always made her wear her hair in bunches, which made the mad crooked thing worse. Now she’s all glamorous with contact lenses and her hair all layered, and the point is, Zoran doesn’t have to put up with her meanness. He doesn’t spend his days being miserable and lonely or having chairs pulled out from under him.

Good things happened today. Really good things.

People whispering ‘Nice one, Blue’ in detention, Jake high-fiving me as we all left. It’s like a spell has been broken. Suddenly I’m visible again, and I like it.

I don’t care what Zoran says. Today was absolutely perfect.

Zoran had a long conversation with Mr Bateman this morning in the front garden. He said that Mr Bateman had come to apologise for Joss’s part in what he calls
the great rat debacle
, and said that Joss had a history of what he called ‘unruly behaviour’.

‘He saved me,’ I said, and Zoran said, ‘Even so’ and sniffed.

Zoran is very traditional.

Joss came round when the others were all out, Flora at a rehearsal and Zoran at karate with the Babes. He said it was to bring stuff back, like rat food and a water bottle, and the bag he took them to school in, but then he hovered on the doorstep sort of looking over my shoulder until I asked him in.

It was strange being alone in the house with him. Very different from talking on the roof when everyone was asleep.  I made tea, and he slumped down at the kitchen counter to drink it.

‘I’ve been grounded,’ he said.

‘Because of yesterday?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ Joss pulled a face. ‘And I was supposed to be going home today. One of my friends is having a party.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I stammered.

‘Don’t be silly!’ He smiled and his whole face lit up, like the party didn’t matter and he’d already forgotten about it. ‘It was totally worth it. The look on God’s face when he realised she’d wet herself!’

I felt a twinge of guilt at that, but Joss was grinning all over his face now and it was impossible not to grin back, and then before I could say anything Zoran and the Babes were piling into the house with Flora right behind them and it was impossible to get a word in edgeways.

‘How could you do it?’ cried Jas, meaning how could Joss be so cruel to the rats. She has decided she hates him, even though she has never actually spoken to him.

‘How
did
you do it?’ asked Twig.

‘Don’t encourage him,’ said Flora.

‘But I really want to know!’

They all crowded round him except Zoran, and Joss looked as relaxed as if he was in his own home surrounded by his oldest friends. ‘We did loads of planning,’ he said. ‘But they’re obviously very well trained.’

‘I always said they enjoyed the car rides,’ nodded Twig. ‘Didn’t I, Zoran? And you never believed me.’

‘I’m going to make lunch,’ said Zoran.

I invited Joss to eat with us but he said he couldn’t because he was theoretically grounded for the rest of his life and had to get back.

‘There wasn’t enough food anyway,’ said Zoran when he had gone.

Joss texted me as soon as he got back to say his grandparents had gone out and did I want to go and watch a movie. Flora came with me. She said Joss might have saved me from Dodi’s bullying but she didn’t trust him further than she could throw a cat.

‘Which is also cruel to animals,’ I told her. ‘And you sound like Zoran. I don’t think he likes Joss either.’

‘Zoran is not entirely devoid of sense,’ said Flora.

She decided we should watch
Twilight
.

‘But he’s a boy,’ I said, and she said duh, of course, and that this was a test.

‘He’ll hate it!’

‘Its
why
he hates it that’s important.’

I haven’t been inside Mr and Mrs Bateman’s house for ages. They used to have a party every Christmas but they stopped a few years ago, Dad says because a lot of their friends died or moved away and they found they didn’t really like the people who were left. Not even us, he says, and no wonder because we are so noisy, what with Flora’s music and everybody shouting all the time. So now there are no parties and at Christmas they just give us jars of homemade marmalade, but their house hasn’t changed a bit.

It should be exactly like ours, but it isn’t. I mean the layout is the same, but our house feels quite cool and dark and echoey because the floor in the hall is these old marble tiles and in the other rooms it’s all wood Mum had painted black to show off the carpets they bought in Anatolia when they went back-packing there with Flora when she was a baby. We have to stuff cushions and scarves on our windows to stop them from rattling when it’s windy, and we have these massive thick curtains because of the draughts, royal blue velvet with random crimson flowers Mum started embroidering then gave up. Joss’s grandparents’ house is very quiet and warm, because they have pale green carpet everywhere and these new windows that don’t let in draughts. All their furniture matches.  Mr and Mrs Bateman have grey hair and wear beige cardigans and do a lot of gardening. It seems quite extraordinary to me that Joss is their grandson.

Joss passed the
Twilight
test. He laughed out loud at the sparkly vampire bit and he squirmed through all the love scenes, but he liked the camera work and he thought Victoria, the beautiful evil she-vampire, was awesome.

‘The other one, the little female vampire, she was cool too,’ he said when it was finished.

‘Alice,’ said Flora. ‘I love her hair.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Joss, ‘but I liked the way she ripped that psycho vampire’s head off at the end.’

Flora looked almost approving, but then she frowned and asked him what he thought about the film’s anti-feminist message and the way it reinforces gender stereotypes. Only Flora can ask questions like that and not sound like a nerd.

‘I didn’t,’ said Joss. ‘Think about it, I mean.’

‘The weak and feeble woman, the strong dominant male!’ cried Flora.

‘I thought women liked dangerous men,’ said Joss and Flora went pink. And then I asked Joss if he wanted to see the footage from yesterday and he said ‘Hell, yeah!’ and we all huddled up on the sofa to watch it and Joss laughed and laughed.

‘It’s brilliant!’ he said. ‘And doubly amazing seeing as you were filming in secret.’

‘It wasn’t very secret by the end.’

‘Blue’s always filming stuff,’ grumbled Flora, like what she meant was ‘the amount of filming she does, she b****y well should be good’.

‘Well it shows.’ Joss smiled at me and Flora’s grumbling didn’t matter so much. And then we all sat on the sofa a bit more and Joss flipped through other things I had filmed before. He laughed at the one of himself climbing over our garden wall, and then he said let’s have a drink and Flora said no.

‘I don’t drink,’ said Flora. ‘And Blue’s too young.’

I said I’d like a drink, Joss said ‘That’s my girl’ and gave me a hug, but Flora ignored us.

‘We have to go,’ she said, and I have never heard her sound so prim. ‘We’re having dinner with our parents.’

‘Woohoo,’ said Joss.  

Flora went pink again.

‘Come on, Blue,’ she said. ‘We’re going home.’

I wriggled out from under Joss’s arm.

‘You could come too,’ I told him.

‘I’m not sure I could bear the excitement,’ he whispered.

‘You’ve got a crush on him,’ said Flora on the way home.

‘I do not!’ I told her.

‘Yes you do. You’re falling for him big time.’

‘We’re
friends
!’

‘Well I don’t think you should hang out with him,’ said Flora. ‘He has a very dodgy attitude towards women.’

‘Just because he didn’t agree with you about gender stereotypes,’ I mumbled, but we were already home and she swept into the house without listening to me.

People who think that being friends with a boy is the same thing as having a crush really annoy me.

And so now here we all are, waiting for the
parents
. We laid the table, and Jas decorated it with some late roses from the garden and ivy which she trailed around the plates. Flora got out Mum’s recipe books and she and Zoran are learning how to make chicken casserole and dumplings, because Flora has said she will scream if she ever so much as sees another sausage. They are listening to the Rolling Stones as they cook, and even though Flora says the Stones are ancient she is singing along just as loudly as Zoran. Dad has called from Paddington and Mum has called from Heathrow and they are both on their way home. The Babes are dancing round the kitchen, and I am going to join them.

Dinner was hopeless. I mean properly hopeless, as in all the hopes we had that it was going to be a lovely evening were dashed almost immediately. If I had filmed it, which I didn’t because Flora wouldn’t let me, it would have gone something like this (after everyone had kissed, and Mum had exclaimed over the table decorations, and Dad had poured wine for him and Mum and Zoran, and we had started to eat and got over the surprise that dinner was actually nice, and Jas had told the parents all about Friday and the rats):