Authors: Natasha Farrant
‘And my brogues were hand-stitched in Italy!’ Mr Valenta beamed, showing two gold teeth that are probably encrusted with diamonds. ‘Only the best will do!’
Dad, who has come home for a few days from looking after Grandma in Devon, tugged at the sleeve of his cardigan to hide the holes at the elbows.
Mrs Valenta, who looked very posh in a silk dress and heels but is much nicer than her husband, said how pretty our piano was and asked who played.
Mum said, no-one since our ex-nanny Zoran moved out. Mrs Valenta said her husband used to play the violin.
‘Extremely well, actually,’ She said. ‘He was accepted at the Conservatoire in Prague. He wanted to be a professional musician.’
A funny look passed between them at that moment. Mr Valenta looked annoyed, but also lost – like he hadn’t expected her to say what she did, and had no idea how to react. She gazed back at him looking nervous but also defiant, like she was daring him to react.
It was so quick, I don’t think anyone else noticed. Then Mr Valenta laughed.
‘But there was no money in it!’ He waved his hand to dismiss all talk of pianos and violins, and went back to his lecture about clothes. ‘I see these young people at Marek’s school, with their dirty jeans and their hoods on their heads. How can you learn, dressed like that, hmm?’ He swept us with an imperious gaze. Dad tugged at his cardigan again. ‘I wanted Marek to go to the proper British boarding school, with suits and shirts and ties. St Llwydian. It is in Wales – do you know it? The pupils run ten miles every day before
breakfast to be fit and strong. But he begged me no.
I want to be normal, Tata. I do not want to do the running or wear the shirts and ties. I want to stay in London which reminds me of Prague.
Fine, I said. Go to school with the hoody boys, but if your grades or behaviour are ANYTHING SHORT OF EXEMPLARY …’ – everyone’s eyes turned to his upheld finger – ‘it is off to St Llwydian with you! Eh, Marek?’
‘Yes, Tata.’
I don’t think a single one of us would have stood Mum or Dad talking to us like that for one second, but Marek didn’t so much as blink.
‘Do you miss Prague, Marek?’ Mum asked gently.
‘Yes.’ Marek blushed as he replied, and didn’t dare look at his father. ‘Yes, I do. Very much.’
‘I would like to go to boarding school,’ Jas said thoughtfully. ‘If it was like the Chalet School or Hogwarts. I think it would be infinitely better than real school.’
Mr Valenta squinted at her and asked what she was talking about. Mum explained they were boarding schools in books. Mr Valenta said he was pleased to hear that Jas was a reader, but he hoped stories didn’t get in the way of her schoolwork and said that Marek here didn’t waste his time reading for pleasure, did he?
‘No, Tata.’
Jas glared at Mr Valenta. Upstairs, Pumpkin started to cry. Mum nudged her. Jas left, still glaring, but Marek’s father had turned his attention to Flora, asking if she was off to university.
Flora said she was going to drama school.
‘There’s no money in acting,’ Mr Valenta declared. ‘Not unless you make it to the very top. Are you going to make it to the very top, young lady?’
Flora said probably, yes. Mum said that what mattered to her and Dad was that their children were happy.
‘Happy!’ Mr Valenta nearly choked laughing. ‘They will be happy if they are successful, and they will be successful if they are rich.’
Mum said she thought success shouldn’t be measured by how rich you were, but by how fulfilling your life was. Mr Valenta didn’t listen.
‘For example, you …’ He pointed at me. ‘Did I or did I not see you the other day, sitting on a car filming a ball game in the street?’
Marek started, but when I looked at him he was doing his usual thing of staring at the floor with his hair over his eyes.
‘Blue is interested in making documentaries,’ Mum said. Her voice was shorter than usual, but
Mr Valenta didn’t notice.
‘Documentaries!’ he cried. ‘My, my, my.’
Dad, who had been turning various shades of red throughout this conversation, knocked back his whisky and poured himself another. Flora looked at me and rolled her eyes. I rolled mine back. Twig pressed his lips together like he was trying not to laugh. Jas came back in, carrying a wailing Pumpkin.
‘He’s got another tooth coming through and it’s making his bottom red,’ she announced.
Twig snorted. Flora handed him a tissue as his eyes started to water. Mr Valenta said he didn’t believe in babies being allowed downstairs after seven o’clock.
Jas said, ‘How would
you
like to be stuck in a room all on
your
own if your bottom was sore?’
Twig exploded and ran out of the room to laugh his head off on the landing where he thought we couldn’t hear him. Mrs Valenta said she thought perhaps they should go. Mum agreed that it was getting late.
‘Well!’ she said, as the door closed behind them.
Dad cried, ‘Please promise me you will never invite those people here again?’
‘Shh!’ Flora was standing by the open window. Outside, Mr Valenta was still holding forth.
‘A most unusual family,’ he was saying. ‘Not the sort of neighbours one was expecting, not people like us at all.’
‘No, dear.’
‘I hope you are not friends with them, Marek.’
‘No, Tata.’
They moved on, out of earshot.
‘Not people like us at all.’
Flora’s imitation was perfect. We laughed so hard our tummies hurt, but still – no wonder Marek Valenta is the way he is.
‘Poor kid,’ Flora said later, as we finished up the crisps. ‘No-one should be made to dress like that.’
‘I’d go to Wales like a shot if my dad was like that,’ Twig said. ‘In fact, I’d quite like to go to Wales anyway.’ His eyes shone, and I knew he must be thinking about some rare birds, or animals, or rock formation they have there.
‘Boarding school,’ Jas sighed.
‘Ten miles of running a day,’ Flora reminded her. ‘Rather him than me.’
After they’d gone, Dad insisted we had takeaway pizza for dinner, and we ate it straight from the box on the living room floor in front of the TV.
‘I bet
Mr Valenta
doesn’t do this,’ he gloated through a dripping mouthful of cheese.
I imagined them all sitting down to dinner across the square. They probably have a huge dining room like the ones you see in films set in castles or something, with straight-backed chairs and acres and acres of gleaming table between them, and different knives and forks depending on what they’re eating.
‘You’ve got tomato sauce on your chin,’ Jas informed me.
I rubbed it away and licked my fingers. It was delicious.
Definitely rather him than me, I thought.
Zoran came round on his way home from teaching a music lesson. We sat in the garden and he told me that Gloria exchanged contracts yesterday with the people who want to buy her stables.
‘We should be moving just before half-term,’ he said. ‘I thought you would like to know.’
‘So you’ll be leaving,’ I said sadly, and Zoran nudged me with his elbow the way he always does and said, ‘Yes, but your father will be coming home then because we will be with your grandmother,’ and wasn’t that a nice thing, and as I grew up I would
understand that life is made up of people coming and going but when you love them, they are somehow always with you.
Zoran is adorable, but he does go on.
Jas came out, balancing a pair of cushions, an A3 drawing pad and Pumpkin in her arms. Zoran hurried to help her.
‘What
are
you doing?’ he asked.
‘Art.’
She wedged Pumpkin between the cushions, sat cross-legged on the grass in front of him and began to draw. Pumpkin gurgled, stuffed his fist in his mouth and lurched slowly sideways until he was lying flat on the mat.
Jas threw down her sketchpad. ‘I hate art!’
Zoran asked why didn’t Jas try to draw something less wriggly. Jas explained about the art show and the circle of life. ‘It was Pixie’s idea. Because he’s a baby. Pixie believes that when people die, they’re born again as something else. She says that’s what the circle of life means. It’s not just flowers.’
‘Wouldn’t flowers be easier?’ Zoran asked.
‘
Everyone
does flowers,’ Jas said.
She propped Pumpkin up again. He grinned and this time threw himself back down on the mat with a happy squeal.
‘Does it have to be a picture?’ Zoran asked. ‘Because you could write a poem. You’re good at that.’
‘A poem’s not
art
.’
‘The reason art changes people’s lives,’ Zoran said, ‘is that it makes people look at things differently. It’s exactly the same with poetry. You could stand up and recite it, and call it performance art.’
‘Do you really think that?’ I asked.
‘That Jas should write a poem?’
‘That art changes people’s lives?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, but when Zoran left, I walked with him to the end of the road, and then I came back very slowly, looking under cars at every drain cover I passed, and peering into every dark corner, imagining them all turned into flowers and animals.
If I was as good as the chalk artist, I wouldn’t hide my drawings under cars or in dark alleys. I would have a huge exhibition on enormous canvases, and invite everyone I know to come and look at it, and post photographs of it all over the internet, and nobody would ever not listen to me again, or tell me what makeup to wear, or that my clothes were boring.
We are studying a book in English called
Of Mice and Men
by an American writer called John Steinbeck. It was on our reading list for the holidays, but when Miss Foundry asked who had read it, only swotty Hattie Verney said she had until Dodi grabbed my hand and shoved it in the air.
‘Stop it!’ I hissed. ‘She’ll only make me talk about it!’
I thought Miss Foundry would die on the spot, she was so pleased.
‘Bluebell Gadsby!’ she cried. ‘I knew, among this group of Philistines, I could rely on you!’
Tom smirked. Colin giggled. Jake said, ‘What’s a Philistine?’
‘A Philistine is an uneducated idiot,’ Tom said. ‘Like you.’
‘Come and stand at the front, Blue,’ Miss Foundry trilled. ‘Tell us all about the book.’
That
is exactly why I didn’t want to admit to having read the book. Miss Foundry
always
makes us stand at the front. I shuffled up to the white board and turned towards the class. A sea of faces looked back at me.
I cleared my throat. ‘It’s about …’
‘Please, Miss!’ Hattie was almost falling out of her
chair in her desperation to answer the question, but my mind stayed absolutely blank.
‘It’s about …’
I don’t know why Flora wants to be an actress, I honestly don’t. Standing up to talk in front of people is the worst form of torture that has ever been invented.
Miss Foundry said, ‘Bluebell?’ but my brain stayed empty.
My eyes fell on the front row, where Marek Valenta was behaving in a most peculiar way.
‘I …’
Marek puffed himself up and out, like he was trying to make himself look really big. Then he drew his finger across his throat and dropped his head to one side with his tongue hanging out, like he was pretending to be dead.
‘It’s about this big man,’ I gasped. ‘His name’s Lennie. He’s like a giant, and he’s strong, so strong he keeps killing things by mistake. He doesn’t mean to because he’s nice, but he kills a mouse, and a puppy, and then a girl, and then his best friend shoots him to stop other people killing
him.
’
Everyone looked shocked, except for Miss Foundry who I think was disappointed by my synopsis.
‘It’s good,’ I added, but it was too late.
‘I’m not reading that,’ Jake protested.
‘Can’t we read something cheerful?’ Tom asked.
‘
Of Mice and Men
is a masterpiece!’ Miss Foundry declared.
‘Has a book got to be miserable, Miss?’ asked Colin. ‘To be a masterpiece, I mean?’
‘Course it has, stupid,’ Jake said. ‘Look at Harry Potter.’
‘Harry Potter’s not a masterpiece,’ Hattie said.
‘Of course it’s a flipping masterpiece!’ Jake insisted.
‘It’s not, Jake. Not like Steinbeck.’
‘Then how come everyone’s read Harry Potter and no-one’s read this mouse book?’
‘Class, please!’ Miss Foundry cried.
But everyone was shouting at everyone else by then, and I think she knew it was hopeless trying to get our attention. She started to distribute worksheets instead, which we all ignored.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered to Marek as I walked back to my seat.
He stared down at his desk, but I think I saw him smile.
Flora left for Scotland very early this morning, to her super-exclusive country house theatre school near Glasgow. Dad came home from Devon again especially to take her and last night we had a big farewell dinner for her. Zoran and Gloria came too, and Flora didn’t stop showing off all evening.
‘Of course, I have already acted in a feature film,’ Flora said. ‘So I’m probably way ahead of the others already.’
Gloria, who with her tight black clothes and long wavy hair and bright red lipstick looks more like a supermodel than a horse person, said if the school was that exclusive, wouldn’t the others have loads of experience too? Flora, who loves Gloria but loves the limelight more, said, ‘Yes, but a
feature
film.’
‘A feature film I wrote,’ Dad commented.
‘In which you didn’t have any lines,’ Twig added.
Flora said she didn’t just get that part because Dad wrote it and it didn’t matter about the lines, it was her facial expressions that mattered. Pixie said she was sure Flora was absolutely wonderful in Dad’s film, she couldn’t wait for it to come out and she was sure next time they would let her speak. Flora cried that her part in the film had been
very
important and the great tragedy of her life was being surrounded by people who didn’t understand her.
‘That’s not tragedy,’ I said. ‘Tragedy is like Lennie in
Of Mice and Men
, who kills everything he loves.’