Jacky Daydream (23 page)

‘No, I didn’t copy, I
didn’t
,’ I lied.

I was getting scared Marion might tell Mr Townsend. I glanced at him anxiously.

Marion saw me looking. ‘I’m not a telltale,’ she said.

‘There’s nothing to tell because I didn’t copy, so there,’ I said.

‘I know you did,’ said Marion. She paused. ‘And
Jesus
knows too!’

I couldn’t help looking up to see if I could spot Jesus peering all the way down from Heaven, sucking his teeth and shaking his head at me. But at least Mr Townsend didn’t know, and I cared about him much more than I did about Marion’s Jesus.

I managed to pass muster in all the other
lessons
. I shone at English. I liked it best when we could make up stories, but I tried hard when we were told to write factual accounts too. Sometimes I blurred the distinction between the two. Mr Townsend set us the subject ‘My Day Out’.

I chewed the top of my pen, deliberating. Marion set to work, scribbling away with her fountain pen, writing about her day out in the country in Daddy’s Morris Minor. It was all right for her. We didn’t have a car so we didn’t have Days Out. We hardly ever went out as a family, Biddy, Harry and me. It wouldn’t work – Biddy would nag and bicker, Harry would snap and sulk, I’d pick my hangnails and start pretending.

Well, I could
pretend
a Day Out, couldn’t I? I got cracking with a sigh of relief. I decided we’d go for a Day Out in London. I didn’t invent a posh car for us. I wanted to be convincing. I took us by train from Kingston railway station. I embellished the journey with a few imaginary treats. I had a
Girl
comic and a packet of Spangles to suck while Mummy and Daddy chatted and laughed and looked out of the window.

I knew what to do with us when we got to Waterloo. We went over the bridge to the Strand. I was proud of my authentic details. I walked us up the Charing Cross Road to Foyles. I knew this was the biggest bookshop in London. I had several
books
at home with the distinctive green Foyles sticker inside. I described my book-browsing session in loving detail, fantasizing about the different books in the children’s section. I decided Mummy would buy me
What Katy Did at School
and Daddy would buy me
Tennis Shoes
by Noel Streatfeild.

Then we went to Hamleys, the big toyshop in Regent Street. I looked at the dolls with Mummy and the toy trains with Daddy, and they bought me a tiny teapot no bigger than my thumbnail for my doll’s house. Then we had lunch at Lyons Corner House, the only restaurant I knew in London.

I had another gnaw of my pen, deliberating over our afternoon. I decided we’d go to the zoo. I’d been there once when I was five to see baby Brumus, the polar bear, so this pretend time we went to see Brumus grown up, and the monkeys and the lions and the giraffes. I had a ride on a camel and an elephant. This wasn’t fantasy – children really could have special rides on the animals in those days. It had actually been very uncomfortable on that baby Brumus visit. I’d been placed between the camel’s humps and I was scared I might slip sideways. You sat on a special seat for the elephant ride, but I’d been strapped in with a lot of over-excited boys who kept poking me, and they all shrieked with laughter and
said
rude things when the elephant relieved itself.

I walked us all round the zoo, Biddy and Harry and I all licking Wall’s ice-cream wafers. Biddy wasn’t a woman who’d willingly walk to the end of the road in her tiny size-three heels, and she actively disliked most animals, so my imaginative powers were stretched to the limit.

I let us all have a sit down and
another
slap-up meal in Lyons. Our Day Out wasn’t over yet. I extended it into the evening. I decided to take us to the cinema to see a film called
The Bad Seed
.

Biddy and Harry had actually seen this film when it was on in Kingston. I’d longed to see it. I’d seen stills from the film in
Picturegoer
, a magazine I bought every now and then in case it had photos of Mandy.
The Bad Seed
starred another child film star, Patty McCormack. My heart still belonged to Mandy, but I did fall in love with Patty McCormack’s wonderful ash-blonde hair, styled in a fringe at the front and then two long beautiful plaits. She looked incredibly sweet and innocent and childish, with her neat hair and checked frock and little red tap shoes. It was a thrilling shock to read a paragraph about this new film and find that Patty played a child murderer.

I begged Biddy to take me to see the film but she said it wasn’t suitable. After she’d seen it herself I made her tell me all about this little girl
Rhoda
, who drowned a boy in her class because he beat her in a spelling test. He was in a pond and he struggled hard to haul himself out, but Rhoda took off her tap shoe and
hammered his fingers
so he had to let go. This appalled and impressed me. Ann was the only girl I knew who wore tap shoes, and she was a sweet kind girl and one of my friends – but I decided not to argue with her all the same.

I wrote about Biddy and Harry and me going to see
The Bad Seed
. I recounted the plot at length. I’d listened avidly to Biddy. Every now and then I embellished or invented, as always.

‘We all agreed it was the best film we’d ever seen. It was the end of a perfect day out,’ I wrote, finishing just as the bell went.

‘You’ve written
heaps
,’ said Marion, comparing her sparse page and a half with my six, seven,
eight
pages.

I shrugged modestly. I might be rubbish at maths, but I could certainly write.

I hoped Mr Townsend would like my composition. When Biddy asked me if I’d had a good day at school, I told her I’d written the longest composition ever.

‘What was the subject?’ Biddy asked, as she peeled the potatoes for our favourite treat supper, roast pork chops.

‘“My Day Out”,’ I said, starting to shell the peas for her. I loved doing this and helping myself to the tiny peas in the flat pods – but I always jumped if I found a maggot.

‘Mm,’ said Biddy absent-mindedly, slicing the potatoes and arranging them in the roasting tin. ‘So what did you write about? Did you tell about the time I got you all the Mandy photos in Wardour Street?’

‘No, I forgot. I did put about looking at the dolls in Hamleys though,’ I said.

‘Did you say I bought you those Old Cottage dolls?’

‘Well, no, you didn’t buy them with me on a day out – they were my Christmas present,’ I said.

Biddy raised her eyebrows at me and shoved the roasting tin in the oven. She started shelling peas too.

‘You could have juggled with the facts a little to make a good story,’ she said. ‘You
love
your dolls. And they cost a fortune.’

‘Yes, well, I put a lot else. I said you gave me lots of treats – and we all went to
The Bad Seed
in the evening,’ I said.

Biddy jumped as if she’d found a maggot as big as a snake. ‘You said I took you to
The Bad Seed
!’ she said.

‘You and me and Daddy,’ I said.

‘But we
didn’t
take you!’

‘Yes, I know, but I was juggling with the facts to make a good story,’ I said, echoing her exactly.

This was not a wise plan. She thought I was being deliberately cheeky and gave me a good shake.

‘How on
earth
could you put such a stupid thing? As if I’d ever take you to a film like that. Did you say what it was
about
?’

‘Yes, I told the whole story,’ I said, my head juddering. ‘All about Rhoda and the little boy and the tap shoes and how she killed him.’

‘You stupid
idiot
!’ said Biddy. ‘What sort of mother will he think me, taking you to a film like that! Have you handed this composition in?’

‘Yes, at the end of the lesson.’

‘Then he’s probably marking it right this minute,’ said Biddy. ‘Well, you must go and tell him first thing tomorrow morning that it was a pack of lies.’

‘I can’t do that!’ I said, starting to cry.

‘If you don’t tell him, I’ll come to the school and tell him myself,’ said Biddy, and I knew she meant it.

I spent a sleepless night worrying about it. Mr Townsend would be so hurt and shocked when he found out I was a liar. He’d never like me again. He’d be fondest of saintly Marion, who would never ever lie.

I went to school early, feeling sick. I didn’t tell Cherry why I was so quiet. I didn’t try to play with Ann. I didn’t bicker with Marion. I didn’t giggle with any of the boys. I just stood in a corner, head bowed, fists clenched, as if I was already wearing a placard round my neck proclaiming me a LIAR.

Mr Townsend strode in cheerily, swinging his briefcase. He sat down at his desk, opened up his case and pulled out our green English notebooks.

My stomach lurched. I wondered if I ought to make a dash for the toilets. Mr Townsend looked up and saw me gulping like a goldfish.

‘Are you all right, Jacky?’ he said.

‘Yes. No. I don’t know,’ I mumbled. I took a deep breath. ‘Have you marked our English compositions yet, Mr Townsend?’

‘Yes, I have.’ He beckoned me closer. ‘I thought yours was particularly interesting, Jacky. Well done.’

Any other time I’d have spread my wings and flown round the classroom at such sweet praise. But now I felt I was falling. I was going down down down through the parquet flooring, through all the layers of earth we’d learned about in geography, until I tumbled into Hell itself, where I belonged.

‘I’ve got to tell you something awful, Mr Townsend,’ I whispered.

‘And what’s that?’ he said, his head on one side.

‘It wasn’t
true
, my Day Out,’ I said. ‘We didn’t
go
to London and we didn’t go to Foyles and Hamleys and Lyons Corner House and London Zoo.’

‘Didn’t you?’ said Mr Townsend.

‘It was all lies. And . . . and . . . and I definitely didn’t go to
The Bad Seed
. Mummy says she’d never take me to a film like that. I just made it all up.’

‘Very convincingly,’ said Mr Townsend.

He didn’t sound too shocked or horrified. He looked as if he was trying not to laugh!

‘So did you believe it all?’ I asked.

‘Well, not quite all of it,’ said Mr Townsend. ‘I rather think
The Bad Seed
is X-certificated. I don’t suppose they’d have let a nine-year-old go into the cinema.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Mr Townsend, are you cross with me for telling lies?’

‘I don’t think you were really lying, Jacky. You were just making things up. There’s a big difference. You’ve got a very vivid imagination.’

I took the deepest breath in all the world. ‘Do you think I might be able to write stories one day?’ I asked.

‘I’m sure you will,’ said Mr Townsend solemnly.

I wanted to throw my arms round his neck and kiss him.

A week or so later Mr Townsend suggested we all might like to start a special project for English.

‘I’m going to give each of you your own notebook,’ he said.

He patted a pile of brand-new green exercise books. School stationery was in short supply. We were taught to fill in every single line in our exercise books, even using up the fuzzy backing to the covers. We had to keep dipping our scratchy school pens far down into a thick gravy of congealed ink before we were allowed to top up our inkwells. Now we were being given a whole new notebook each. It was a sign that Mr Townsend was taking this special project seriously.

‘What is our project going to be on, Mr Townsend?’ Julian asked eagerly.

He was the class swot, a highly intelligent, sweet, tufty-haired boy who waved his arm all the time in the-classroom, asking endless questions and knowing all the answers.

‘I think I will let you all choose individual projects, Julian,’ said Mr Townsend. ‘I want you to write about whatever interests you most. Maybe a special sport, a hobby, a period of history, a type of animal, a favourite country – whatever you like.’

‘Could I possibly do astronomy, sir?’ said Julian.

A few children groaned. Other teachers would have groaned too and mocked Julian’s pedantic politeness, but not Mr Townsend.

‘I think that would be an excellent choice,’ he said.

The rest of 3A had less esoteric choices.

‘Bags I do football!’

‘No, I’m doing football.’

‘Me too.’

‘Can I do rugby?’

‘Can I write about my dog?’

‘I want to write about France – we’ve been there for our holidays.’

‘I want to write about birds. I’ve spotted heaps in my I-Spy book.’

‘Can I write about Gilbert and Sullivan?’ asked Cherry.

‘You what?’

‘Who are they?’

‘Are they your boyfriends?’

‘They wrote operettas. Mum and Dad sing in them and they’re ever so funny,’ said Cherry.

There were sniggers.

‘Funny ha ha, or funny peculiar?’ said Jock, screwing his finger into the side of his head to indicate loopiness.

‘No, no, they
are
funny,’ said Mr Townsend. ‘
I’ve
sung in
The Pirates of Penzance
, Cherry.’

This instantly gave Gilbert and Sullivan a total seal of approval.

‘Please may I write about ballet?’ Ann asked.

‘I wonder if I could write about Jesus?’ Marion asked. ‘What are you going to write about, Jacky?’

‘Maybe . . . maybe I could write a story?’ I said.

‘No, it’s a
project
. You can’t write an ordinary old story,’ said Marion.

‘Yes I can,’ I said. ‘Well, I don’t just want to write a
story
.’

I went up to Mr Townsend’s desk, not wanting to shout it out in front of all the others.

‘Please could I write a novel for my project, Mr Townsend?’ I said.

He hadn’t mocked Julian or Cherry. He didn’t mock me either.

‘I think that’s a brilliant idea, Jacky,’ he said.

I danced back to my seat and nodded my head at Marion. ‘Did you hear that? Mr Townsend said it was an excellent idea,’ I said.

‘He’s just being kind,’ said Marion. ‘Anyway, you can’t write a whole novel.’

‘Yes I can,’ I said.