Time for Jas (8 page)

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

She shook her head of perfectly straight, glossy hair and the tip of her nose went red. ‘I just wanted to go home with you.’

I glanced at Dodi. She looked back at the playground and said, ‘Come on, then, let’s go!’

Jas stared at Dodi, then at me, and bit her lip.

‘Hurry
up
,’ Dodi said.

Maybe it’s because Dodi is an only child, but I don’t think she understands that sometimes there are things you can say to your own sister that you can’t say to, well, your friend’s sister.

Jake came out as I tried to explain. ‘Let’s leave them to it, Poodle,’ he said, and she walked away with him, looking back at me like she wanted to kill us all.

One of the school coaches pulled up, full of boys singing rugby songs. The doors opened and Twig appeared, covered in mud with a big slit in his lip that was bleeding. He saw us from the top of the steps and ran over.

‘I played my first match!’ he said. ‘And I scored! Well, I almost scored. I would have if I hadn’t dropped the ball. What’s up with Jas?’

‘I’m guessing it was those cupcake girls,’ I said.

‘I will kill them,’ Twig vowed. I think maybe the blood dripping from his lip was making him a bit mad. ‘I’ll get the team to help. They’re good at hurting people. Look at my lip!’

We walked home, just the three of us. This time it took two cups of tea and a multi-pack of chocolate biscuits for Jas to tell us her story, which is basically that Courtney hates Jas’s costume. Or rather, that she hates it on Jas.

‘If she wears this,’ Courtney had said, like Jas wasn’t even there, ‘she will look better than us.’

Megan, Courtney, Chandra and Fran had decided to dress up as witches. But after seeing Jas’s costume, they decided it would be much better for them to be zombie schoolgirls. So Courtney told Jas to bring the whole costume in tomorrow, including the makeup and Flora’s blazer and grey hairspray and Dad’s tie, and Jas asked but what about her?

‘You can be a witch,’ Megan said.

‘Not a zombie,’ Courtney warned.

‘Don’t even try it,’ Chandra giggled.

‘You can’t dress like us,’ Fran explained. ‘Not until
you’re
one
of us.’

Jas asked if she would still get the cupcake necklace.

‘Seriously?’ Twig looked disgusted.

‘What did they say?’ I asked.

Jas said they just laughed.

She came into my room after her bath this evening, while I was reading a long ranting message from Dodi all about how Jake won’t leave her alone about booking the theme park for her birthday, and it was all my fault because if I had been there I could have stopped him. I threw the phone on my bed and shuffled up on my window seat to make room for Jas. In pyjamas, with her long hair still damp from washing and smelling of apple shampoo, you remember Jas is only ten. She pulled the spare blanket off my bed, wrapped it round her shoulders and sat on my window seat in a forlorn little ball. I sat next to her and put my arms round her.

‘Devon soon,’ I said. ‘It’ll be better there. You can forget all about those stupid girls.’

She leaned into me and sniffed.

“You will come with us on Thursday to say goodbye to the horses, won’t you?’ I said, and she nodded.

‘Who
is
doing the pictures, Blue?’ she asked.

My phone pinged. Dodi again, this time saying should we all get together on Friday before I go to Devon – her, Jake, me and Tom.

Tom. The dachshund drawing. Suddenly, I knew that I really didn’t want the chalk artist to be him.

Ping! ‘Well? What do you think?’

I don’t understand how exactly Dodi thinks I can save her from Jake, but I do know one thing: I don’t want to go out with Tom, and I do want Dodi to stop going on about it.

It’s my turn to stand up for myself.

Dodi and Jake have split up, and I think that it’s my fault.

‘So I told Tom you like him,’ she whispered as we filed into English, ‘and he wants to talk to you after class.’

‘You did what?’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, and skipped across the room to her desk.

Today Miss Foundry announced that after halfterm school will be organising a trip for the whole class to go and see a theatre adaptation of
Of Mice and Men
, and that this would be a wonderful opportunity to see Steinbeck’s work brought to life.

‘The dramatic tautness of the narrative!’ Miss
Foundry cried. ‘The tragic irony of fate! Take these forms home for signing and bring them back before the holidays!’

Poor Miss Foundry. She looked so disappointed when no-one reacted to her announcement.

‘It will be fun!’ she insisted.

‘Yay!’ I said feebly, feeling sorry for her, and ‘Yay!’ Tom echoed, presumably feeling sorry for me.

Dodi beamed, watching us.

I have never left a classroom so fast at the end of any lesson. The bell went and I just
bolted
, but Tom came right after me.

‘Blue!’ he called.

I stopped running. I mean, I didn’t want to. I would happily have run straight out of school and all the way home just to avoid having
that conversation
with Tom, but people were starting to pile out of other classrooms and they were blocking my way. Tom caught up with me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so embarrassed.

‘The thing is …’ he paused to clear his throat, and that is when I started to feel properly angry with Dodi and not just annoyed, because I love Tom, I really do, but I also really,
really
don’t want to go out with him and it’s not fair of her to make him think I like him.

‘Listen,’ I interrupted, but at the same time another voice said, ‘Blue,’ and Marek appeared.

‘Are you going to go to the play?’ he mumbled.

‘Probably,’ I said.

‘Cool.’

That was all. But by the time I looked round again, Tom had gone.

Dodi was so annoyed she didn’t talk to me all day.

‘I’m sorry.’ I was still conciliatory as we put our things away in our lockers. ‘I just don’t like him.’

I wouldn’t have said what I did if Jake hadn’t asked. And none of it might have happened at all if Marek or Tom hadn’t been there. But Marek and Tom were there, and Jake did ask.

‘You do like him,’ Dodi said. ‘You just won’t admit it.’

A few lockers away, Marek was talking to Tom. I remembered how he stared at lunch the other day when Dodi was nagging Tom to come to the stables. How it made me realise that she never listens and is always deciding things for me.

And then I remembered how she called Jas’s poem stupid.

And how yesterday, she was more concerned about her and Jake than how my little sister was feeling.

‘I’m not asking you to
marry
him,’ Dodi grumbled.
‘I just think it would be nice. Then we can go on …’

‘Double dates,’ I said. ‘You said.’

And I’d just had enough.

‘Tom?’ I called out.

‘Now what are you doing?’ Dodi asked.

‘Can you come over here?’

Tom bounced over.

‘I don’t like you,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry. I mean, I love you, but not like that. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Not in the least,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t like you either. That’s what I was trying to tell you at lunchtime.’

Dodi went red. Tom and I both burst out laughing, and once we started we couldn’t stop. I could see that people were staring at us and that Dodi was furious, but it only made me laugh more. It was so – so liberating. Like I hadn’t realised just how much I hated her going on at me about Tom until now, and how good it felt knowing that it was over.

Jake said, ‘Blue doesn’t like Tom? But Poodle, why did you say she did?’ and we laughed even more.

‘Go on,’ I hiccoughed. ‘Tell him.’

And I think I knew then it was wrong. Because I didn’t just feel free, I felt powerful – like I could say whatever I wanted. And I
wanted
to say a lot.

‘Tell him,’ I repeated, when Dodi stayed silent, ‘the real reason why you want me to go out with Tom.’

I can’t believe I said that now. I wish I hadn’t.

‘Poodle?’

Dodi burst into tears and ran away.

Pixie has given Jas a tiara. ‘To channel your inner princess,’ she told her. ‘You could wear it for Halloween.’

‘I don’t want to be a princess,’ Jas said, but she wore the tiara anyway so as not to disappoint Pixie. Flora Skyped later and said how much she liked it.

‘Don’t you think it’s drippy?’ Jas asked.

‘You’re thinking of the wrong princesses,’ Flora told her. ‘You’re thinking of the ones who wear pink and droop about waiting for Prince flipping Charming to come and slay their dragon.
I’m
talking about the sort of princess who wields swords and wears armour and gallops about killing the dragons herself
while
wearing a tiara. Show me.’

Jas jumped on to a chair and started making stabbing, thrusting moves with an imaginary sword. Everyone cheered, even Mum who didn’t have a clue what was going on.

She is taking it to school tomorrow.

‘Seriously?’ Twig said. ‘After the wings?’

‘I’m not going to wear it,’ Jas said. ‘I’m just going to
show
it. For Halloween, to see if I can go as a princess.

She wore the tiara all evening, even in the bath, but afterwards when she was drying and straightening her hair, I tried it on too. And there
is
something about tiaras. Something not Barbie but glamorous and powerful and strong. I waved regally at the mirror.

Imagine all the power you would have if you were a queen.

I don’t know what you’re supposed to do when you’ve stood up to someone, or been mean to them. It’s not something that has ever happened to me before. I waited all evening for Dodi to text me about what happened this afternoon, but tonight my phone has been silent. It was Tom who messaged later, to say that Jake and Dodi had spent ages talking, and that Jake had finished with her. So then
I
texted
her
.

‘I’m sorry,’ I wrote. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen.’

She hasn’t answered. Suddenly powerful doesn’t feel so good.

There wasn’t time to think too much about the drawings, because we had to go and fetch Jas.

She didn’t come with us to the stables. School broke up for half-term at lunchtime, but when Twig and I raced round to the primary school to collect her, she said she was going to the shopping centre with Courtney, Megan, Chandra and Fran.

‘But what about the ponies?’ Twig asked.

‘Shh!’ Jas begged. ‘They’ll hear you!’

‘You’re not allowed to go shopping on your own,’ I said.

‘I won’t be on my own, I’ll be with them. Please let me! Please?’

‘But Jas, with them?’ I asked.

She looked so desperate, as Megan and Courtney and Chandra and Fran swished up to us, and they actually seemed so nice, like none of the things she told us about them could ever have happened, and it seemed to matter so much, that I said all right, fine.

‘But I’ll come and pick you up at the shops.’ I pulled her aside to tell her my conditions. ‘We can’t go home without you, or there’ll be a fuss.’

I told her to meet us by the ice-cream place in the shopping centre at three o’clock. We were five
minutes late arriving but she wasn’t there. I scanned the crowds for her.

‘Over there,’ said Twig. He pointed. Jas and the four swishy girls were standing in a huddle by the cupcake stand, about twenty metres from us. The four girls were talking. Jas was shaking her head and backing away.

‘We have to rescue her!’ Twig started running towards them, but I held him back.

‘Don’t make things worse,’ I said.

But now another group was approaching them. Five boys. Four dressed like any other boy, in jeans and T-shirts and trainers and hoodies. One, tiny in comparison, wearing a waistcoat and a bow tie.

‘That must be Todd,’ I said. ‘Remember, she told us about him?’

The cupcake girls nudged each other. Jas took another step away. The tallest girl (Courtney) pulled her back while the dark-haired one (Chandra) snatched her bag and started rooting around inside it. And then everything went very fast.

‘A freak for a freak!’ Chandra cried, jamming Jas’s tiara on her head.

The hoody boys pushed Todd towards Jas. He stumbled. She put her hands out to stop him falling. The girls pushed her closer to him.

‘Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!’

As the taunts and laughing grew louder, I thought I saw Jas stand taller. The light glinted off her tiara, and just for a moment she was the princess Flora had talked about – eyes flashing, nostrils flared, off to kill a dragon.

‘Shut up!’ she snarled. ‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’

‘What’s the matter, Your Majesty?’ Courtney crowed. ‘Isn’t he your boyfriend?’

‘We have to help her!’ Twig said. We both started to run, but then we stopped again, because Jas was already pulling Todd away. The cupcake girls and the hooded boys all roared with laughter, but Jas marched with her nose in the air, and because she had her back to them they couldn’t see how hard she was trying not to cry.

We took them home and fed them cake.

‘I thought they wanted to be my friends,’ Todd explained as he ate.

‘Same,’ Jas said. ‘I thought they liked me now I dress like them. I wish I’d gone to see the ponies instead. At least I know they love me.’

‘I hate looking like everybody else,’ Todd said.

‘Me too!’ Jas cried. ‘Oh, me too!’

Todd stayed for supper. He called his mum to tell her where he was, and Pixie spoke to her too, using a
very grown-up voice no-one had ever heard before, and he and Jas locked themselves away in her room with a bag of Flora’s old makeup, ‘To look as unlike ourselves as possible,’ Jas announced.

Dad came back from Devon this afternoon – for good, this time. He rang the doorbell three times then flung the door open shouting, ‘I’m home!’ and then he laughed and laughed when Jas hurled herself down the stairs screeching ‘Daddy!’

‘Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?’ he cried, because Jas was transformed. There was no trace of the sad little girl trying not to cry in the shopping centre. The effect of all that makeup was spectacular – like when we were covered with chalk, but more defined. Jas was luminous in shades of gold eyeshadow, lipstick and bronzer over a pancake thick layer of foundation. Todd was darkly shimmering in variations of black and silver.

‘We’re the sun and the moon,’ Jas told him. ‘Did you get it?’

Dad said he didn’t get it immediately, but he did now.

‘It’s like we’re magic.’ Jas gazed at herself in the hall mirror. ‘Nothing can hurt you when you’re magic.’

I wish Jas could have seen the horse mural this morning, and the people’s faces looking at it.

‘They look real,’ said the small volunteer. ‘Are they going to stay here forever?’

‘They’ll wash away with the first rain,’ I told her.

‘But then what’s the point?’

I don’t know what the point is, why someone would go to all that trouble to make something that’s only going to disappear. I only know that for the short time they will be there, despite the obvious hurry of the artist – the blurred edges, the hastily filled in background – those ponies gallop across that wall like they are about to burst out and charge straight at you, and while you are looking at them you forget about everything else, and that is magic too.

I sent Dodi a photograph of the drawings at the stable. I thought maybe that would show her how things hadn’t changed – I mean, that I still hoped we were friends. That I want us to be friends.

‘Still don’t know who’s doing it,’ I wrote, but she hasn’t answered.

Tom knows about the stables now, of course, because Dodi told him. But I’ve just remembered something – he can’t have known about the drawings we did on the pavement, because he was in Bristol that weekend and by the time he came back to London, the rain had washed them all away.

Also I know that Tom doesn’t like me like that, so I don’t see why he would go about the place leaving drawings for me.

The zebra under our car.

The bluebells on the way to school.

The flowers and vines right outside our house.

The dachshund. Who else knows about the dachshund?

Think, think, think. When did the drawings first appear?

At the end of the summer holidays, the week before school started. When … oh my God! It can’t be!

At the end of the summer holidays, the week before school started – when Marek moved into the square!