The Strawberry Sisters (7 page)

The rest of my first week at St Mark’s was OK. I liked the lessons and most of the teachers. I tried to speak up in classes and not to look like a goldfish. Ashandra and
Kayleigh seemed to get on all right, but not brilliantly. I remembered what Mum said about people adjusting and what Suvi said about Mum being smart. Maybe it would take a few more weeks before we
were completely best friends forever.

It was Dad’s turn to have us for the weekend, but he arranged for us to stay at home instead because Suvi’s parents were coming from Finland to meet baby Kirsti. I wondered if there
would be lots of relations coming to see the baby and if that meant we would miss lots of weekends with Dad, but Mum said that she would take us to the beach all day Saturday so that was a bright
side.

Lucy wasn’t interested in the beach; she was just cross about not seeing Dad.

‘What are they for me?’ she asked Amelia on Friday night when we were watching TV.

‘What are who for you?’ Amelia said, without taking her eyes off the screen.

‘Suvi’s mum and dad. They’re Kirsti’s nana and grampy, aren’t they? So what are they for me?’

‘Two old Finnish people.’

‘She means they’re not anything for you. You’re not related to them,’ Chloe said.

‘Why not? How come Kirsti gets everyone?’

‘You’ve got people in your family,’ I said. ‘Like us lot.’

‘Kirsti has us lot too.’

‘Here, I’ll show you, Lucy,’ I said. I found a pen and an old envelope on the coffee table and I drew out Lucy’s family tree for her. ‘See, here’s you and
here’s Kirsti. I used a dotted line because she’s your half-sister. And here’s Suvi. I did a dotted line for her too because she’s your stepmum not your real mum.’

‘She’s not our stepmum,’ Amelia said. ‘She’s not married to Dad.’

I ignored her. ‘And the straight lines are your sisters and the wiggly lines are for grandparents.’ I was pleased with the diagram; it made everything neat and clear. I liked looking
at how I fitted in with all the people around me.

‘That’s stupid,’ Lucy said, snatching the envelope from me.

‘But it makes it easy to understand. You can see exactly what the relationship is between people.’

‘What’s a relationship?’

‘The connection between you and another person. How close you are to someone.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t get how I feel from a map. I just feel it.’

But I noticed that she didn’t let go of the envelope and her eyes kept running along the dotted line between her and Kirsti.

We had a brilliant time at the beach with Mum (apart from Chloe whacking Amelia round the head with a deckchair and Amelia calling Chloe a cow, but after that they didn’t
speak to each other so it was more peaceful). We didn’t get home until really late so I slept in on Sunday. When I came down into the kitchen, Amelia and Lucy were already there, eating toast
and reading. Amelia was hunched over one of those books that has a painting of a lady on the outside and lots of long words on the inside and Lucy was flicking through a catalogue of tools.
She’d circled lots of things on the hammer page.

‘Where’s Mum?’ I asked.

‘She’s asleep in the sitting room,’ Amelia said.

‘She fell asleep writing lesson plans and drinking coffee,’ Lucy added.

‘Did you put a blanket over her?’ I asked.

Lucy shook her head. ‘No, but I did drink her coffee.’

‘You’re not supposed to drink coffee,’ Amelia said. ‘Remember that time Dad gave you an espresso and you tried to ride your bike down the library steps?’

‘That wasn’t because I had coffee; that was because I was training to be a stunt girl.’

I went and put my duvet over Mum.

While I was pouring cornflakes, Chloe came into the kitchen with her new friend, Thunder. I’d seen him at school. He looked large from across the cafeteria, but he looked really large in
our kitchen, trying not to knock anything off the counter with his big bottom.

‘This is Thunder,’ Chloe told us.

‘Why are you called Thunder?’ Lucy asked.

‘Because you can hear him coming from miles away,’ Chloe said.

Thunder didn’t say anything. He just looked from Chloe to Lucy to me to Amelia and back to Chloe. ‘How many of them are your sisters?’ he asked.

‘All of them,’ Chloe said.

‘Wow. You’ve got a lot. When that new one at your dad’s house gets bigger, you’ll have enough for a five-a-side team.’

Chloe looked at us again. ‘They’d need a lot of work.’

‘I’d need a lobotomy before I’d play football,’ Amelia said.

‘That’s when they chop your brain out,’ Lucy explained to Thunder.

‘Sport is for people who can’t read,’ Amelia said and she picked up her grown-up book and flounced out.

‘Sport is for people who aren’t noodle-armed sofa-monkeys!’ Chloe called after her.

‘If you haven’t got a really sharp knife to chop out the brain,’ Lucy said to Thunder, ‘you can do what the Egyptians did and pull it out through the nose with a
hook.’

‘Thanks,’ Thunder said as if she’d actually given him a useful tip.

I peered into the giant carrier bag Thunder had with him. There was a bear’s head in it.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Bear suit,’ Thunder said, like that was perfectly normal.

‘What for?’

Chloe got a piece of paper out of her back pocket and unfolded it to show us. ‘It’s a project,’ she said.

There were a lot of little cartoon bears on the paper, all of them doing different things.

‘We’re going to be famous,’ Thunder said. ‘We’re going to film Big Bear in loads of crazy situations and when it goes viral we’ll be millionaires.’

‘How?’ Lucy asked.

‘Because everyone will want to watch it.’

‘But how will that make you money?’

Thunder’s face fell. I’m not sure he’d really thought things through.

Chloe gave him a reassuring punch on the arm. ‘We’ll sell T-shirts, won’t we, Thunder? And mugs and key rings.’

Thunder beamed.

Lucy went off to add a crochet hook to the list of things she wants and Chloe unlocked the back door.

I sat down to eat my cornflakes. ‘What are you doing, Clo?’

‘We’re going to dig up worms.’

‘For the bear video?’

‘No, this is a different project. We’re going to feed them to Buttercup, except we’re going to change her name. What do you think of Attila the Bun?’

I didn’t like it. ‘Mmm.’

Chloe looked at me. ‘We can always just keep her as Buttercup.’

‘I don’t think she’ll eat them,’ I said. ‘Rabbits don’t eat worms.’

‘This one will,’ Thunder said. ‘We’re going to turn her into a meat eater.’

‘It’s the first step to creating a vampire bunny,’ Chloe explained as they walked out into the garden.

Our garden is much bigger than you’d expect it to be by looking at the front of the house. It’s narrow, but the overgrown lawn slopes a long way back to a group of trees that we call
the forest. Near the house is Buttercup’s hutch and a shed which is jammed full of old scooters and buckets and spades and pots with dried-up plants in. Chloe rummaged around in there until
she found a trowel.

While I ate my cereal, I watched them chatting and wiggling worms in front of Buttercup. They laughed a lot. Half the time I didn’t even know what they were laughing about, but I could
tell they were both having fun.

Lucy came back into the kitchen and rifled through the cupboard under the sink. She pulled out some jam jars and a stack of old newspapers.

‘I need some paint,’ she said.

‘What sort of paint?’

‘The white sort.’

‘I meant, what do you want to paint? Is it a picture or are you making something?’

‘It’s secret.’

Lucy says that a lot. She doesn’t tell you anything unless she has to. ‘I’ve got a set of watercolours that I got two birthdays ago,’ I suggested.

‘Is that those titchy little squares? That look like sweets?’

‘Yep, except there’s no pink because Chloe ate it to see if it tasted like sweets too.’

‘Did it?’

‘No.’ I rinsed out my cereal bowl. ‘But it did make her sick pink.’

‘I don’t want those ones. They’re too small. I need lots. Like when you get those buckets of paint.’

‘I think there are some tins on the shelf in the shed.’

I glanced out of the window again. Thunder was rolling around on the grass and I could hear Chloe shouting, ‘Who’s the worm master now?’

‘Can you get them down for me?’ Lucy asked, opening the back door.

‘No way.’

‘Why not?’

When Lucy gets into trouble, anyone who saw what she was doing and didn’t stop her gets into trouble too. Mum says she’s only seven and we have to take care of her. It’s a bit
like getting a baby crocodile to behave. Except even more bitey.

‘I’ve got to look the other way in case you’re doing something Mum ends up saying you shouldn’t have,’ I said.

Lucy huffed, but she knows the rules.

I turned my back and studied the calendar carefully. It was still on June.

There was some banging from the shed and then I heard Lucy walking back across the kitchen.

‘Lucy? You’re not going to paint anything really bad, are you?’ I said, keeping my back to her.

‘Of course not.’ She bumped me as she went past. ‘I’m going to paint something really good.’

When they’d finished poking worms at Buttercup, Chloe and Thunder went to meet some more of their friends to go bowling and Amelia was shut in her room, so I went to find Lucy. She was in
the Pit with something heavy in front of the door.

‘Go away!’ she said. So I did.

I was pretty bored with no one to hang around with so, as a last resort, I decided to do some homework. Mum woke up and helped me learn my French vocabulary. Then, while she was making
Lucy’s costume for her Harvest Festival performance, I worked on my chemistry homework. Chemistry is definitely one of my biggest bright sides at school. It’s nearly as cool as maths.
After I’d finished, I copied out the periodic table so I could stick it next to my bed and learn all the symbols.

When Chloe came home from bowling, I packed up my coloured pencils and went to talk to her.

‘Can I ask you something?’

She flopped down on the sofa. ‘Yes, but don’t sit next to me. I’m very sweaty. Thunder wanted some shots of Big Bear bowling, but that suit is really hot. It is quite good
though; little kids think you’re a teddy bear.’ She fanned herself with one of Mum’s magazines. ‘Except the ones that think you’re going to eat them. Either way, they
all scream their heads off.’

‘What did Buttercup think of the worms?’

‘She’s not keen. Thunder thinks we should try them wrapped in lettuce.’

‘You’re good friends with Thunder, aren’t you?’

She yanked off her trainers. ‘Yep, he’s an idiot.’

‘You’ve got lots of friends.’

‘Yeah, loads.’

‘Do your friends all get on together?’

‘Well, Thunder is always stamping on people, but in a nice way. Most of the time everyone gets on and we have a good laugh.’

‘How do you do it? How do you get people to have fun together?’

She peeled off her sweaty socks. ‘I suppose we do stuff.’

‘Does that make people get along?’

She creased up her forehead. ‘I think so. If you go kayaking with someone and then you nearly drown and then you don’t drown, it makes you quite friendly.’

That sort of made sense. I suppose if you’re trying not to fall into a raging river then you wouldn’t have time for arguing.

‘But we don’t do kayaking at school,’ I said.

‘Kayaking is best, but you could do rugby or join the swimming team or anything where you’re all doing it together.’

I’m not crazy about sport like Chloe is, but I thought it was a good idea. Being super nice didn’t seem to be helping Ashandra and Kayleigh become best friends so maybe I needed to
get them to join a team with me, then they could see how much fun we could all have together.

Later on, Mum managed to persuade Lucy to come out of the Pit and Chloe to stop playing computer games. She couldn’t make Amelia come out of her room, but the rest of us had a
biscuit-making competition without her; Chloe and Lucy against me and Mum. Chloe pretended to like her and Lucy’s banana and chilli cookies, but Mum’s and my chocolate chip ones were
nicer. Mum agreed; she gave me a big high five when we did the tasting.

Chloe was right; it does feel good to be part of a team.

‘I thought you were right off PE,’ Kayleigh said on Monday morning when I asked her about joining a team.

‘I’m just off basketball.’

She pushed an escaping strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to play polo.’

‘The one on horses or the one in a swimming pool?’

‘On horses of course.’

‘I’m not sure our school has got a team for that.’

In the end, we decided to take a look at the sports noticeboard before registration. There were a lot of teams, but most of them seemed to be already filled and the notices were about practices
or matches. They were looking for more people for gymnastics, but you had to do a try-out for that. I can’t even do a cartwheel so I didn’t think I had a very good chance of getting
chosen.