My Sister Jodie (2 page)

‘Quite!' said Mum. ‘Moorcroft's a rubbish school. The kids aren't taught properly at all. They just run wild. Half of them are in trouble with the police. It was the biggest mistake in the world letting our Jodie go there. She's heading for trouble in a big way. Just
look
at her!'

I thought Jodie looked wonderful. She used to have pale mousy hair in meek little plaits but now she'd dyed her hair a dark orangy-red with streaky gold bits. She wore it in a funny spiky ponytail with a fringe she'd cut herself. Dad said she looked like a pot of marmalade – he'd spread her on toast if she didn't watch out. Mum said Jodie had ruined her hair and now she looked tough and tarty. Jodie was thrilled. She
wanted
to look tough and tarty.

Then there were her ears. Jodie had been begging Mum to let her have her ears pierced. Mum
always said no, so last year Jodie went off and got her ears pierced herself. She kept going back, so there are five extra little rings up one ear.

‘You've got more perforations than a blooming colander,' said Dad.

Mum was outraged at each and every new piercing.

‘Hey, hey, they're only pretty little earrings,' said Dad. ‘It's not as if she's got a nose-stud or a tattoo.'

‘
Yet
!' Jodie whispered to me.

She'd tried going to a tattoo parlour but they said she was too young. She inked butterflies and bluebirds and daisy chains up and down her arms and legs with my felt pens instead. She looked incredible in her underwear with her red-gold hair and her earrings and her fake tattoos – but her clothes were mostly as dull and little-girly as mine. Jodie didn't have enough money to buy much herself. Mum was in charge when it came to clothes-buying. Dad didn't dare slip Jodie some money any more. She'd told him this story about her clunky school shoes rubbing her toes sore, so he gave her forty pounds for some new ones. She bought her first pair of proper high heels, fantastic flashy sparkly red shoes, and clacked happily round the house in them, deaf to Mum's fury. She let me try them out. They were so high I immediately fell over, twisting my ankle, but I didn't care. I felt like Dorothy wearing her ruby slippers in
The Wizard of Oz
.

Jodie was wearing the clunky school shoes this morning, and the grey Moorcroft uniform. She'd done her best to customize it, hitching up the skirt as high as she could, and she'd pinned funny
badges on her blazer. She'd inked little cartoon characters all over her school tie. Mum started on a new nag about the tie, but she interrupted herself when she heard the letterbox bang.

‘Post, Pearl. Go and get it, pet.'

I'm Pearl. When I was born, Mum called me her precious little pearl and the name stuck. I was born prematurely and had to stay tucked up in an incubator for more than a month. I only weighed a kilo and was still so little when they were allowed to bring me home that Dad could cradle me in one of his hands. They were very worried about Jodie's reaction to me. She was a harem-scarem little girl who always twisted off her dolls' heads and kicked her teddies – but she was incredibly careful with me. She held me very gently and kissed my little wrinkled forehead and stroked my fluffy hair and said I was the best little sister in the whole world.

I picked up the post. A catalogue for Mum (she wrote off for them all – clothes, furniture, commemorative plates, reproduction china dolls – anything she thought would add a touch of class to our household) and a letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Wells – Mum and Dad. A proper letter in a big white envelope, not a bill.

I wondered who would be writing to them. I hoped it wasn't a letter from the head of Moorcroft complaining about Jodie. I knew she and her friends had been caught smoking once or twice, and sometimes they sneaked out of school at lunch time to go and get chips and didn't always bother to go back again. Jodie didn't
like
smoking, she told me privately; it made her feel sick and dizzy, and she
also said the school chips were much better than the pale greasy ones in polystyrene pouches from the chippy, but she was trying to keep in with Marie and Siobhan and Shanice. They were the three toughest girls in Jodie's class. If you kept them on your side, you were laughing.

‘Pearl?' Mum called.

I fingered the letter in my hand, wondering if I should stick it up under my school sweater until we could steam it open in private. But then Mum came out into the hall and saw the letter before I could whip it out of sight. She barely glanced at the catalogue, even though it was the one for little enamel pill boxes, one of her favourites. She took hold of the letter and ran her finger under the seal.

‘It's for Dad too,' I said quickly. He'd be softer on Jodie; he always was.

‘Mr
and
Mrs,' said Mum, opening it.

There was a letter inside and some sort of brochure. I peered at it as best I could. I saw the words
boarding school
. My heart started beating fast.
Boarding school, boarding school, boarding school!
Oh God, they were going to send Jodie to boarding school. I wouldn't be able to bear it.

‘No, Mum!' I said, my voice a little squeak.

Mum was reading the letter intently, her head moving from side to side. ‘No what?' she murmured, still reading.

‘Don't send Jodie away!' I said.

Mum blinked at me. ‘Don't be silly,' she said, walking back into the living room. She flapped the letter in front of Dad's face.

‘Look, Joe, look!' she said. ‘Here it is in black and white!'

‘Well I'll be damned!' said Dad.

‘I told you so!' said Mum triumphantly.

Jodie pushed her cornflakes bowl away and got up from the table, taking no notice.

‘Sit down, Jodie,' said Mum.

‘But I'll be late for school,' said Jodie.

‘It won't matter just this once,' said Mum. ‘Sit
down
! You too, Pearl. Your dad and I have got something to tell you.'

‘What?' said Jodie, sitting back on the very edge of her chair. ‘You're getting a divorce?'

‘Don't be ridiculous!'

‘You're going to have another baby?'

‘Stop it now! Just button that lip of yours for two seconds.'

Jodie mimed buttoning her lips. I copied her, zipping mine.

Mum glared. ‘Now, don't start copying your sister, miss! Shame on you, Jodie, you're a bad example. It's just as well you'll be making a move. I can't believe how badly you behave nowadays.'

‘You
are
sending her off to this boarding school!' I wailed.

‘
What
boarding school?' said Jodie, looking startled. ‘You mean you're getting rid of me?'

‘No, no, of course we're not,' said Dad. ‘We're
all
going. I've got a new job. We both have, your mum and me.'

We stared at them. New jobs? At a
school
? Dad worked as a carpenter for a small building firm and Mum was a waitress at Jenny's Teashop opposite the town hall.

‘Are you going to be teachers?' I said doubtfully.

Dad burst out laughing. ‘Heaven help any pupils
if I had to teach them their reading and writing! No, no, sweetheart, I'm going to be the school caretaker and your mum's going to be the school cook. We saw this advert for a married couple and it seemed like we might fit the bill.'

‘It's time for a move,' said Mum. ‘We need to get you girls away to a decent environment where you can grow up into little ladies.'

Jodie made a very unladylike noise. ‘We like it here, don't we, Pearl? We don't want to go to some awful jolly-hockey-sticks boarding school.'

I picked up the school brochure. I shivered when I saw the coloured photograph of the huge grey Victorian building. My fingers traced the gables and turrets and the tower. It was called Melchester College, but it was just like my dream-world Mansion Towers.

‘Look!' I said, pointing. ‘Look, Jodie!'

Jodie looked too. She bit her lip, fiddling with the little row of earrings running down her left ear. ‘We'd live
there
?' she said.

‘There's a special caretaker's flat,' said Dad.

‘It's got all the mod cons even though it all looks so old fashioned,' said Mum.

‘So you've both been to see it? When?' said Jodie. ‘Why didn't you tell us? Did you fix it all up behind our backs?'

‘Hey, hey, none of it's been fixed up,' said Dad. ‘We haven't even been to see the college ourselves. We went to this interview at a hotel in London while you two were at school. We didn't say anything because we didn't want to get your hopes up. To tell the truth I never thought in a million years they'd take me on. I mean, I'm fine with wood
but I'm a bit of a botcher when it comes to plumbing or painting.'

‘Don't be silly, Joe, you're a skilled carpenter and a fine odd-job man. What else could they possibly want?' said Mum.

‘No, no, I think we got the job because of your cooking and management skills,' said Dad, reaching out and patting her hand. ‘You were dead impressive at the interview, Sharon – the way you had that list of sample meals all sorted out, that was fantastic.'

‘Where
is
this Melchester College? Why can't I still go to Moorcroft? I don't mind a long bus ride,' said Jodie.

‘It would have to be a
very
long bus ride – it's a good hundred miles away, right out in the country,' said Mum. ‘No, you'll be moving, thank heaven.'

‘No I'm not,' said Jodie. ‘I'm staying with all my mates at Moorcroft.'

‘I hate that word. It's
friends
,' said Mum. ‘And that's the whole point of us moving away. I'm sick to death of you hanging around with that deadbeat crowd, acquiring bad habits. We're moving in the nick of time, before you start seriously studying for your GCSEs and before Pearl starts secondary school. You girls need to make something of yourselves – and now we're giving you a golden opportunity.' Mum stroked the shiny brochure. ‘Melchester College,' she said slowly and reverently, as if it was a magic word like
Abracadabra.

‘Melchester College!' Jodie mocked. She glanced at the brochure. ‘It looks dead posh. It says it's for four-to thirteen-year-olds. Who could send a little kid of
four
to boarding school?'

‘It's a day school too; not everyone boards. It's very select, naturally. It prides itself on the teacher/pupil ratio and the outstanding pastoral care,' said Mum, quoting.

‘So what does that mean?' said Jodie.

‘It means it's a very good school,' Mum snapped. ‘It costs a great deal of money to send a child there. It's a
wonderful opportunity for you two.'

‘You mean we're supposed to have lessons there?' said Jodie.

‘That's the whole point!' said Mum. ‘You've learned nothing this last year at Moorcroft. We're going to have you repeating Year Eight, getting properly taught.'

‘I'm not repeating a year with a lot of posh kids all
younger
than me!' said Jodie.

‘But given the right coaching, you could pass this Common Entrance exam and win a scholarship to one of the public schools,' said Mum.

‘
What?
Are you crazy, Mum? I'm not going. Ab-solute-ly no way!' Jodie was shouting.

‘Hey, hey, Jodie, listen to me,' said Dad. ‘We'll be there all through the summer holidays so you'll have lots of time to settle in. I know you're going to love it when you get there.'

‘I won't, I'll hate it. I'm not going. You can't make me.'

‘Of course we can. You'll do as we say. You're our daughter.'

‘I wish I wasn't! Maybe I'm not. Maybe you adopted me and that's why I'm so different and never feel like I fit in,' Jodie yelled.

‘Don't start, Jodie, you're doing my head in,' said Dad. ‘Don't spoil it all. Like your mum says, it's a wonderful opportunity. We thought you girls would be thrilled to bits.'

‘Well, we're not, are we, Pearl?' said Jodie. She looked at me.

I looked back at her helplessly.

‘Do you really want to go there?' she asked, astonished.

I struggled. I nearly always copied Jodie, even if it got me into trouble. But we didn't always have the same ideas, although we were such close sisters. Jodie had hated it at Moorcroft at first. She'd been horribly teased about her girly plaits and neat uniform and nice manners. She had cut off her hair and changed her clothes and learned to talk tough so now she was fine, one of the gang. Some of the kids were even scared of her. I'd be scared of her myself if she wasn't my sister.

I knew
I
wouldn't be able to manage Moorcroft. I had nightmares about going there in September. I got horribly teased
now
, in Year Six in the Juniors. I was still very small for my age and looked very babyish; I worked hard and came top in class; I was useless at sport; I always had my head in a book; I blushed whenever a teacher talked to me in class; I never knew what to
say
to all the others. It was as if I had an arrow up above me:
Tease this kid!

Melchester College looked like the sort of place where
everyone
wore proper uniform and worked hard and tried to come top. And even if the lessons were awful, Jodie and I would still be living in a real-life version of Mansion Towers. Maybe we'd even be able to share a tower room!

‘You
can't
want to go there, Pearl,' said Jodie.

‘I think I do,' I mumbled.

‘Well, I
don't
,' said Jodie. She folded her arms. ‘You go, Pearl. Fine. But no one's going to make
me
go there.'

‘I can't go without you!' I said, starting to cry.

‘There now, you've reduced your sister to tears. I hope you're proud of yourself,' said Mum. ‘Why do you always have to spoil things for everyone? Poor little Pearl. Say sorry to her, Jodie, she's sobbing her heart out.'