Authors: Candy Harper
Really nice.
That’s all I’m saying.
JUNE
FRIDAY 1ST JUNE
Miss Ramsbottom started today’s assembly with what, I think, she thinks is a smile. It’s not a real smile, she just stretches out her already thin lips until they almost disappear. She only ever does it when she wants something. I started calculating how many steps we were from the door and wondering if Ramsbum had any weapons concealed about her person.
She fixed us with her laser gaze. ‘Today I want to talk about something that I know is very important to you all.’
I waited for her to start a nice chat about doughnuts or women’s rights or something else that I can either eat or get enthusiastically shouty about. Instead, she told us how the school has taken great strides in becoming greener. It’s not even true. They have the heating on in the summer and we’ve been asking for more recycling bins for ages. Although, the ICT department are quite strict about paper use; the teachers go nuts when you print out a really quite short magazine for just three hundred of your closest friends.
But I got the impression that suddenly Miss Ramsbottom was feeling very keen on the eco thing. It soon became clear why that was.
‘This year,’ she said. ‘The Green Schools Alliance will be holding their conference here at Westfield High, and as part of the proceedings there will be a presentation on the initiatives that we have set in place as a school. I am looking for girls to deliver the presentation and to act as school tour guides.’
Suddenly the entire hall was completely still. We all know that when Miss R is looking for victims it only takes an ill-timed fidget and you find yourself hauled off from your friends and made to sign your life away. I haven’t forgotten when she made me ‘volunteer’ to wash bird poo off the head’s car just because I tried to pass the time, during one of her super dull speeches on appropriate behaviour, by doing a very small amount of punching Lily in the head.
‘I’m sure you’re all keen to volunteer to represent your school.’
I concentrated on making myself invisible.
‘I will place a signup sheet on the activities noticeboard and I look forward to seeing it full by the end of the day. Dismissed.’
But no one wanted to be the first to stand up just in case Miss R swooped down on them and took their names for her list. It took several minutes before I convinced the girls to make a break for the door.
At lunchtime, I was congratulating myself on having managed to avoid Ramsbum all day when Angharad said, ‘Actually, I might sign up for the Green Schools thing.’
‘Really?’ Megs asked.
‘I think the environment is important, don’t you?’
Megs nodded. ‘Of course, but I’m pretty sure that ozone layer will be just as happy with me in Juicy Lucy’s as it would be with me sweating it out for Miss Ramsbottom.’
‘I think the environment would actually be happier if we’re happy,’ Lily said through a mouthful of banana.
We all stared at her.
‘Because Mother Nature always looks like that sort of person, doesn’t she? Like she cares if you’re happy.’
Before we could get any further into whether the environment is worrying about Lily’s happiness levels, Ang said firmly, ‘I like getting involved with things and I think it will be fun.’
Which made me wonder if perhaps I should spend more time reading Geography textbooks like Ang does, because then everything else really would seem super super fun. But what it comes down to is that Ang is my friend, and I always support my friends in their crazy ideas (and the fact that I point out their craziness and maybe even make them a t-shirt about it, is really only a formality).
‘It’s madness,’ I said to Ang. ‘But you can sign me up, if you want some company.’
‘Me too,’ Megs said.
Lily nodded her agreement.
Ang hesitated. ‘Thanks, but you’re just saying it to be nice, aren’t you? You don’t need to because I can definitely do this by myself.’
‘But you don’t have to,’ I said.
Angharad swallowed. ‘I’d like to.’
She seemed determined to stand on her own two feet so we didn’t argue anymore. To be honest I was quite relieved because spending time with Ramsbum is asking a lot, even from a friend.
SATURDAY 2ND JUNE
Megs came over this afternoon while my parents were out shopping with Sam. Granny was at one of her carnival float meetings, so once we’d scoured the kitchen for snacks that weren’t made of seaweed or tofu, we went upstairs to my room. Apart from a lingering whiff of Granny’s old lady perfume, a peach cardigan and a load of sweet wrappers, my room seemed pretty much as I left it. Except for something black on the floor.
‘Old people,’ I said. ‘So untidy. If she keeps this up, I’ll dock her pocket money.’ And then I did something really rash: I bent down and picked the thing up. Now, I’ve never really given much thought to my granny’s underwear, but I suppose I had a vague sort of idea that she would wear a garment that covered that whole terrifying area completely. Something that went from waist to knees. Maybe Victorian style bloomers. I never expected my granny’s undergarments to be black and lacy.
Or in my hands.
As soon as I realised what I was holding I threw them away from me. Unfortunately, Megs had already settled herself on the bed and they landed on her head.
At first she didn’t quite understand, she pulled them off her pony tail and opened them out.
‘What the? Are these your granny’s?’
I couldn’t speak. I managed a bit of a blink.
‘Please tell me they’re clean.’
‘I don’t think even my crazy granny keeps her clean undies on the floor.’
‘Gross!’ Megs squealed, and she flicked the knickers away from her, towards me. I tried to bat them back, but they got stuck on my shirt button.
Megs yelped with laughter.
‘Get them off me!’ I shook from side to side, trying to dislodge them without actually handling them.
Megs was rolling around on the bed in hysterics.
‘Megan Baptiste! Help me now!’ I shouted, but she was no use at all. When you’re facing a peril like this, you’ve really only got yourself to rely on; so I grabbed a pencil from my desk and managed to hook the knickers off my button and back in the direction of Megs. But she was too quick and scrambled away like a mad dog was coming at her. Which meant they landed on my pillow.
‘Oh my God!’ I gasped. ‘Don’t leave them there! I’ll never be able to sleep again!’
‘Do something Faith!’
So with remarkable bravery (and the sort of presence of mind that makes me wonder why the prime minister never phones me for advice), I wrapped my hand in Granny’s cardi, picked up the knickers with my protected hand, stepped out on to the landing and threw the whole old lady pant-parcel on to Sam’s bed. I closed his bedroom door and hopped back into my room.
Megs and I doubled over laughing and shaking and panting like two people who have just disposed of a hand grenade.
Eventually Megs started to say, ‘I can’t believe your granny wears a tho—’
‘Stop right there!’ I gripped her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. ‘We must never speak of this again. Understand?’
She nodded.
And then we tried to carry on like normal. Like people during the war bravely making a cup of tea in their bombed out kitchen.
But, to be honest, life will never be the same again.
Some things you just can’t unknow.
SUNDAY 3RD JUNE
Lily rang me. ‘What are you up to?’ I asked.
‘Arif came round yesterday to help me with my prepping.’
‘Your prepping? What are you prepping for?’ To be honest, Lily has never struck me as the sort of person that gets prepared for stuff. Normally, she just lets big things happen and then she does or says something crazy. Which is also what she does when nothing big has happened. When you think about it like that, she’s actually a remarkably stable person.
‘I’m prepping for a zombie apocalypse. Or an alien invasion. Or a plague of locusts. Basically, anything that’s going to restrict my access to Marmite.’
‘Right.’ Always with the Marmite. I’m not saying it’s not a tasty treat on toast, but it’s not what I’d grab in an emergency.
‘I started thinking that if something terrible happened there are a few things that I’d want to make sure I had.’
‘I see, so what have you packed in your emergency bag?’
‘Marmite.’
‘Obviously. What else?’
‘A mini vacuum cleaner. Because there won’t be any power for the big one, will there? And a zombie mask – so I can blend in.’
‘What if it’s vampires not zombies?’
‘I’ve got two Tic Tacs I can tape to the zombie mask mouth for fangs.’
‘Have you got some sort of locust costume?’
‘I decided locusts are probably scared of zombies.’
‘Uh huh.’ I was starting to wish I had some chocolate to get me through this conversation. ‘What else?’
‘A bass recorder.’
‘A recorder? One of those instruments that they made us squeak out Hot Cross Buns on at primary school?’
‘Yep, but a bass one.’
I snorted. ‘Because an ordinary one wouldn’t do?’
‘Well, you
can
knock someone out with one of the little ordinary ones, but, as I’m sure you know, it’s much quicker and less tiring to the arm muscles if you use a big bass one.’
I thought we should move on from my familiarity with the relative effectiveness of various instruments as weapons so I said, ‘Is that it?’
‘Finger paints, salad tongs and a chocolate Santa.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘Yep, I’m pretty pleased.’
There was a pause where I could almost feel Lily’s satisfaction radiating down the line. She’s clearly going to sleep well tonight.
‘Hey Lils,’ I said. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about Angharad. Is she really okay about doing this Green Schools thing by herself?’ Normally, Ang is so timid about talking to people she doesn’t know well.
‘I think so. Now we’re getting a bit older she’s trying hard to build up her confidence. She doesn’t want her shyness to hold her back.’
I hadn’t realised that Ang had been thinking about all this. ‘So you don’t think we should do Green Schools?’
‘Nah. We love Ang so much that we always want to help her and look after her but I reckon the best thing we can do is to let her have the opportunity to stand on her own two feet.’
This was a good point but I was so surprised that Lily had made a good point that it took me several seconds to get my mouth to say, ‘Good point.’
‘Mmm, that’s why I didn’t go to France. She was scared to go without me but I wanted her to know that she can do anything she wants.’
Wow. Lily had taken my breath away. First zombie death by bass recorder and then this remarkably insightful and kind attitude towards Angharad. ‘Lily, how do you manage to be both loopy and brilliantly perceptive at the same time?’
‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s all the Marmite I eat.’
MONDAY 4TH JUNE
I love half term. I even like waking up at the normal time just so I can enjoy going back to sleep. I think they should give us quarter terms too.
Good job I’ve been getting plenty of sleep though, since Granny kept me up late last night. After dinner she announced, ‘I’ve got to make some tissue paper flowers for the carnival float. I need them for tomorrow.’
Mum stared at her, but Granny went on unabashed. ‘I expect you’d all like to help?’
Mum stopped staring and started clearing away dishes. Sam and I looked at our plates and Dad actually got under the table and started scraping up that sticky green stuff that’s been there all week.
‘Come on! Who will help?’
‘Why haven’t you mentioned this before?’ Mum asked.
I shot Granny an almost sympathetic look, this is the kind of shrieky response I get when I politely ask for art supplies for a project on Mexico a full twelve hours before it’s due in.
‘I’ve been busy,’ Granny said. ‘But I must get them done tonight because I promised, and if I don’t come up with the goods I’ll never hear the end of it from Mrs Moore.’
Mum tutted. ‘The children have been lounging around the house all day. You could have got them helping then. It will be Sam’s bedtime soon.’
Granny shook her head. ‘I couldn’t fit it in earlier, I had a lunch date.’
‘Some things are more important than romance,’ Dad said from under the table.
Granny eyed Dad’s backend. ‘Well, we all know that’s your attitude.’
Mum scowled. ‘Insulting my husband isn’t going to make me more likely to help you out of the mess you’ve got yourself into.’
That sentence sounded familiar. Except when I hear it she says ‘insulting your father’. I was actually starting to feel quite sorry for Granny so I said, ‘I’ll help.’
Dad backed out from under the table. ‘Marvellous. That’s that solved then. What a great opportunity for Faith to improve her, er, helping skills. I expect you’ll want to work out here in the kitchen. The light’s very poor in the sitting room. We’ll just shut ourselves in there with the TV and the scotch and keep out of your way.’
And they were gone. All three of them skedaddled off without a backward glance. In the hallway I heard Mum say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the light in here, is there?
And Dad said, ‘There will be when I get the bulb out.’
That was the last we heard from that shirker.
As the only responsible, kind-hearted member of my family I pushed Granny out of my favourite chair and said, ‘Right then, let’s get started. How many flowers have we got to do?’
‘Five hundred.’
‘Good grief! Couldn’t you have enlisted your army of gentlemen friends to help?’
She smiled. ‘Who do you think made the first five hundred?’
Which just goes to show that she’s not as helpless as Mum makes out.
‘This is what you do, Faith.’ And she showed me how to pleat the tissue paper, trim the ends and tie it in the middle. ‘Then you fluff it out and . . . ta dah!’
It really was quite a sweet little flower. We only needed 499 more.
So we folded and snipped and fluffed and folded some more. It was quite fun to begin with. Then the hand cramp set in. I started getting a bit sloppy with the scissors.