Pick 'n' Mix (4 page)

“You'll see her tomorrow,” I said. I took the phone back. “Gotta go. Melia's covered in compost!”

Later, when we went up to bed, Mum said, “Now, you girls, I don't want you lying awake talking half the night. It's a school day tomorrow. So into bed, lights out, and straight to sleep. Right?”

Melia said, “Right.” She put a finger to her lips. “No talking!”

“You've got it,” said Mum. “And that means you too, Frankie. Rags, are you going to stay downstairs?”

“Mum, no,” I said. “He always sleeps with me!”

Sometimes he sleeps on the floor, and sometimes he sleeps on the bed. Sometimes, in the depths of winter, he even tries to sleep
in
the bed. But mostly he lies on top, taking up far more than his fair share of the duvet and grumbling whenever I turn over. To be honest, it's not really what I'd call comfortable, but I'm used to it by now. It wouldn't feel right, sleeping without Rags.

Mum muttered something about “dogs' hairs all over the place” and Rags galloped upstairs with me as usual.

“No talking,” said Melia, as she got into her nightie.

She said it again as she got into bed. And then again as I turned off the light. And then again as she lay down. After that there was silence for a bit. All I could hear was the sound of Rags contentedly huffing and scrabbling as he settled himself on top of the duvet. And then, through the darkness, came a whisper: “Rags! D'you want to come and sleep with me?”

“He sleeps with me,” I said.

Melia heaved a sigh. I wondered if she was missing her mum and if maybe I ought to tell her that she could have Rags, just for the one night. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. He was my dog, and he slept with me! I was really pleased when he showed no signs of moving. I reached out a hand and gave him a pat.

“Good boy!”

I think then I must have fallen asleep, cos the next thing I remember there was a thump as Rags jumped off the bed and I heard the sound of whispering and rustling.

“What are you doing?” I shot up the bed and switched the light back on. Both Rags and Melia started, guiltily. “What are you giving him? You're not giving him
chocolate
?”

I sprang out of bed and snatched a half-eaten bar of KitKat out of Melia's hand.

“Chocolate's poisonous to dogs! It can kill them!”

Tears of fright sprang into Melia's eyes.

“Don't ever,
ever
,” I said, “give chocolate to dogs. Not
ever
!”

“I'm sorry,” said Melia. The tears welled over and rolled down her cheeks. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm s—”

“Just don't ever do it again,” I said.

“I won't, I won't, I won't, I w—”

“
Ever.
”

“I promise, I p—”

“Sh!” I grabbed Rags and hauled him back on to my bed. “No talking. Mum said!”

She put a finger to her lips. “No talking. No talking! N—”

“That means QUIET,” I said. “Go to sleep!”

Melia fell asleep almost immediately; I could hear her making little whiffling noises. I stayed awake for hours. Rags spent the entire night crammed up close, with his head next to mine and his whiskers all stiff and prickly against my cheek. Really uncomfortable! But I was just so thankful I'd managed to stop Melia feeding him chocolate.

Chapter Four

“Now, don't forget,” said Mum, as she saw me and Melia off to school next morning, “you're picking Emilia up at three thirty. Right?”

I said,
“Right.”

“Emilia, Frankie's going to come and collect you at the end of school, so you just wait there for her. Don't try coming home by yourself. I want you to come with Frankie.”

“Come with Frankie.” Melia nodded. “Wait there for her.”

“That's it! Good girl. Frankie, just make sure you're there.”

I said, “Mum, we've already agreed!” We'd been over and over it. “I already
said.
”

“Well, I'm just reminding you. It's Emilia's first day, we don't want anything going wrong.”

“
Mu-uum!
”

I did think she might have a bit more faith in me. All I had to do was collect Melia from school and bring her back home. Nothing to it! I'd been taking Rags up the park by myself since I was eight years old. At least Melia wasn't likely to go running off, or getting into punch-ups, or rolling in fox poo.

“OK, OK!” Mum held up her hands. “Enough! I've said my piece. Off you go, see you later.”

“See you later, lallagator!”

Melia chanted it as we walked up the road. I wondered whether to tell her that the word was alligator, not lallagator, but decided it wasn't really important.

“Look,” I said, “there's Jemma and Skye.” They were waiting for us on the corner. More often than not, it's me and Skye waiting for Jem, with Skye threatening to go on without her. Curiosity had obviously got Jem out of the house on time for once. “Skye's the tall one,” I told Melia, “Jem's the little one.” Tall and skinny: small and bubbly. “Jem's the one you spoke to on the phone.”

Melia beamed her big banana beam and went gambolling up to them, hand at the ready.

“HELLO, SKYE! HELLO, JEM! I'M MELIA!”

The words came out in her normal bellow. A couple of girls on the other side of the road turned to see what was going on. One of them was Daisy Hooper, who is in our class. Trust her to be passing by at exactly the wrong moment! Not that I was ashamed or anything, but Daisy Hooper is the sort of girl who likes to store things up. I could see her clocking Melia, wondering who she was.

Jem, who is never fazed by anything, simply giggled and said, “Hi, Melia!”

“
HI!
” shouted Melia.

Skye sent me a worried look.

“It's all right,” I said. “She's just happy. I've got to drop her off at St Giles and pick her up again later. Hey!” I dug Jem in the ribs. “Did you do your maths homework?”

“Did what I could,” said Jem.

“I couldn't do
any
of it!”

“That's cos you weren't paying attention in class,” said Skye.

I said, “I was paying attention!” I just don't have the sort of brain that can cope with numbers. They whizz about inside my head, all mad and shrieking. “It's all right for you,” I grumbled. “You're like some kind of machine.”

“I pay attention,” said Skye. “I
listen.
”

That may have been true. It was still an extremely irritating sort of thing to say.

“Honestly,” I wailed at Jem, “I only managed to answer half a question!”

“I did three.” Jem announced it, proudly. “Look!” She dived into her bag and pulled out her maths book.

“Let's see,” said Skye. “See what you've got. Hm…” She frowned. “No. 1's wrong, for a start. So's no. 2! And no. 3. They're all wrong! I think you must have gone and added instead of taking away, or something. They don't bear
any resemblance
to the right answers!”

“Oh, well.” Jem took her book back. She didn't seem bothered. “At least I tried. I ought to get marks for that.”

“I
tried
,” I said. “I just—”

“Hang about!” Skye suddenly stopped. “What's she doing?”

Omigod.
We'd forgotten about Melia; we'd all gone walking on, leaving her to trail behind. She seemed to be playing some kind of game, jumping on and off the kerb, chanting to herself.

“
Up…
dow…
nup…
dow…
nup
…”

“Stop her,” said Skye.

“Melia!” I yelled at her, but she took no notice.

“
Nup
… dow…”

“Like, she really does as she's told,” marvelled Jem. “Without any argument!”

I said, “She does, normally.
Melia!
”

“She'll get herself run over,” said Skye.

I yelled again.
“MELIA!
”

This time she heard me. She looked up, wobbled, and went crashing slap bang into a woman who was walking past. The woman glared and snapped, “Do you mind? Just watch where you're going!”

“Oh, God, this is so embarrassing,” said Skye.

I went marching back and clamped my arm through Melia's. “Don't
do
that!” I said.

She immediately looked crestfallen. “Sorry sorry sorry s—”

“Sh!” I put a finger to my lips. “You could have got run over! Then what would Mum say? She'd be really mad!”

“She'd tell me off?” Melia's lip quivered. I said, “No! I'd be the one she told off. And that wouldn't be fair, would it?”

Slowly, Melia shook her head, waving it from side to side.
Left
… right.
Left
… right.

“It's OK,” I said. “No one's mad at you.” Still holding her by the arm, I hustled her back to join the others. “Let's hurry or you'll be late for school.” I nearly added, “You wouldn't want that, would you?” but just in time I bit the words back. It might have started her on her head-waving again. I was already learning that once she got going on something she found it almost impossible to stop.

St Giles is a bit further on down the road from our school, but we all walked there together, even Skye, though I think secretly she would have preferred to let me and Jem go by ourselves. Melia had quickly recovered from being yelled at. As we left her at the entrance to the playground, she waved at us, windmilling with both arms, crying, “See you later, lallagator!”

“Yeah,” I see. “Three thirty.”

We turned, and headed back up the road.

Skye said, “Well.”

There was a silence.

“It's only four weeks,” I said.

Lots of things happened at school that day. Sometimes you have days when you just drift about from class to class in a kind of dream, so that when you get home and your mum says “How was school?” you have to think really hard to remember that you've even been there. Other times, life is just crammed with incidents. This was one of
those
times, which was why, later on – well! It's why the thing happened. My mind was full. I'm not trying to make excuses; just explain.

The first incident occurred in second period, which was maths with Mr Hargreaves. He had decided that we were all to mark our own homework, which I reckoned was a bit of a cheek considering he is the teacher and marking homework is part of what he is being paid for. If he'd taken it away like he usually did it would at least have postponed the moment of discovery. The fact that I'd only answered half a question…

I would have liked to have had a discussion about it. “Why should pupils be expected to mark their own work?” After all, these things are important, they are all part of politics, and we are supposed to take an interest in politics. I did put up my hand and suggest that marking our own work might not be such a good idea since it could encourage people to cheat, but Mr Hargreaves just gave a short sharp bark of rather threatening laughter and said he would like to see anyone try.

“You needn't think you can just write down the correct answers and give yourself full marks… I shall need proof of how you got them.”

Glancing over Skye's shoulder, I saw that she had not only written down her answers but had shown all the working out, a whole page and a half of neat figures with plus signs and minus signs, not to mention signs for a load of other stuff which I didn't properly understand.

I sat dismally watching as she placed a small red tick by the side of every question. Jem had given up and was drawing faces on the cover of her maths book. They were always the same face: cheekbones you could slice bread with, enormous eyes, and long swishy hair. Jem has this dream that one day she will become a model. She is pretty enough, but what Mum calls ‘pint-sized', meaning that if she went wandering into a field of long grass she would simply disappear from sight. Most models seem to be about 10 feet tall.

Skye is tall, and she is also skinny, but I am not quite sure she is pretty enough. In any case, she has far loftier ambitions such as, for instance, becoming prime minister. Well, that is what she once said, when a visitor at primary school asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up. She was only six at the time, so everyone thought it quite funny. But it wouldn't surprise me. “The British Prime Minister, Skye Samuels.” She is bossy enough! And of course she is clever. When Mr Hargreaves asked if anyone had got full marks, hers was the only hand that went up.

Daisy Hooper groaned and rolled her eyes, but Daisy Hooper is our sworn enemy and suffers from torrents of raging jealousy. Most people just accept that Skye is some kind of boffin brain and automatically expect her to get full marks.

I must say I was a bit annoyed when Daisy claimed to have scored five. I looked at her through narrowed eyes, trying to assess whether she had found some foolproof method of cheating. I wouldn't put it past her.

Me and Jem were the only two people, apart from Cara Thompson, who didn't get any marks at all. Cara had been away at the start of term, so she had an excuse. Me and Jem didn't, apparently. That was what Mr Hargreaves said.

“Simply no excuse! I've told you over and over, till I'm blue in the face… if you don't understand something, let me know! Don't just sit there like puddings, in some kind of mindless fog.”

Daisy slewed round in her desk and gazed at us with an air of satisfaction. She just loves to gloat.

Mr Hargreaves, meanwhile, went on at some length. I have noticed, with teachers, that once they get on one of their hobby horses they seem unable to get off. They lash themselves up into a state. They say things that are really, in my opinion, quite uncalled for, such as, “Do you actually take
pleasure
in upsetting me?”

Daisy smirked. Skye, sitting stiff and straight between me and Jem, was obviously trying to pretend she didn't know us. Jem was putting the finishing touches to one of her faces, giving it big pouty lips and eyelashes like spiders' legs.

“
Well?
” roared Mr Hargreaves.

I jumped. It is just as well I don't have a weak heart.

“What do you have to say for yourselves?”

Jem muttered that she was sorry. I explained, very earnestly, that I hadn't liked to interrupt.

“Whaddya mean,” bawled Mr Hargreaves, “you didn't like to interrupt?”

“When you were talking,” I said. “You talked the whole lesson. It's rude to interrupt when people are talking.”

Mr Hargreaves breathed, very deeply. I watched his face turn from red to purple. Daisy spun round again, to study me.

“Frankie Foster…” The words came out between clenched teeth. “If ever I have an apoplexy, you will be the cause of it!”

It wasn't a good start to the day.

Later on, in English, Miss Rolfe said she wanted to test our use of language. We were all to write a short paragraph describing the person sitting next to us.

“I want more than just lists… brown hair, blue eyes, that sort of thing. Be imaginative!”

I snatched up my pen, quite eagerly. Unlike numbers, which swarm inside my head like hordes of angry wasps, words are more orderly. They line themselves up in ranks, waiting to be chosen. And I do think I have quite a good imagination.

“What are you saying about me?” Skye craned over to look. I shoved her away.

“Gerroff!”

“Are you being rude?”

“I'm being
imaginative.
”

“Well, then, so am I,” said Skye.

This is what I wrote about her: “Skye has long hair the colour of hay. It is wispy, like a shredded net curtain. She is tall as a tree, and thin as a pin, with legs like stilts. Her eyes are grey like the sky when it is full of rain clouds, and her nose is a pointed pencil. Her mouth is a small 0 with two rows of perfect ivory stumps.”

This is what Skye wrote about me: “She has a round face, snubby-nosed and covered in blotches. Her mouth stretches wide like an elastic band with large strong teeth like a horse. Her eyes are round as marbles, to match her face. They are faintly blue in colour. Shapewise, she is rather like a box, with arms and legs sticking out at the corners. Her arms are covered in blotches like her face, and her legs are what some people call sturdy and some call tree trunks. She likes to play hockey, and they are very good legs for that.”

“
Blotches?
” I shrieked, as we stood in line with our trays at lunch time.

“Freckles,” said Skye.

“Then why didn't you say so?”

“I was being imaginative! And anyway, what about this?” She delved into her bag and pulled out her rough book. She'd actually made notes! “
Wispy, like a shredded net curtain
… thank you very much! And what are you sniggering about?” She turned accusingly on Jem.

“It's funny,” said Jem. “Like you saying Frankie was shaped like a box.”

“Well, she is!”

“Yes, and you're thin as a pin,” I said. “With legs like stilts.” Jem gave a happy cackle and left the lunch queue to do a stilt-like prance up and down. “And Frankie's –” she began on a heavy clump, clomp – “are tree trunks!”