Mate’s a disgusting word. I close my eyes and see Mum and Kenneth mating in Mum and Dad’s big bed. There are hairs all over his body like on the Campion leaves, and little black spots of blood all over Mum. “I feel sick,” I say, but no one hears.
“I thought the Bee Orchid was self-pollinating,” Kenneth says. “I mean, despite all that fancy bee mimicry.” I don’t get what he’s saying, but I can tell he’s showing off, as usual.
Miss O-L beams at him like he’s the cleverest boy in the class. “Yes, normally it is - in Britain anyway. But this hybrid must be the result of pollination by an insect. You see, Bee Orchids and Fly Orchids don’t grow close together as a rule, and even when they do, their flowering times rarely overlap.”
Elaine squats down again. “Gosh!” she goes, “the markings on the flowers are just amazing.” She’s wedged herself between Duncan and Ruth and their three fat bottoms stick up in a row. Mum said to me last night they ought to call it bottomizing, not botanizing. That gave us a fit of the giggles. It was a good job Kenneth had gone home because I don’t think he likes jokes.
“It must be priceless,” Ruth sighs, as she focuses her camera. She’s another one that can’t stand children. Every time I’m anywhere near her, she sort of edges away, like I’ve got mumps or measles or something.
“Yes,” Miss O-L agrees. “One can’t value it in cash terms. It’s just a wonder of nature, to be admired in its natural habitat.”
“It’s the imported tropical varieties that fetch big money,” someone else chips in. “I’ve seen them in growers’ catalogues for hundreds of pounds apiece.”
“And did you hear about that new hybrid,
Paphiopedilum
Princess Sophia? - it fetched thousands!”
I still don’t know what a hybrid is, but I’m too shy to ask in case it’s something rude. Miss O-L loves questions, though. She sort of dribbles with excitement if she thinks you’re interested.
At last she gets up from her knees, creaking a bit and nearly overbalancing. Her skirt’s all creased and there’s a smear of earth on her cheek. “I think this would be a good point to break for lunch,” she says. “There’s a picnic area round the other side of the hill.”
I drag myself up the path, listening to them still twittering on, and eventually we reach the benches and tables. “I’d rather sit in the shade,” I whisper to Mum. “I don’t want any more freckles.” I already get teased about them at school. Some of my class are really vile. I heard Sharon telling Rick the other day that her Mum said we were well shot of my Dad, because he was a sponger and a slob.
Mum offers to sit with me but I know she’d rather be with Kenneth, so I say I’m OK on my own. I watch him unpack his rucksack. It was his turn to bring the picnic today, so it’s yuk like pongy cheese and chunks of sweaty liver sausage and stale brown bread with a smear of margarine.
Mum brings me over my lunchbox and a plastic cup of orange juice with horrid little shreddy bits floating on the top. “I’m not hungry.”
“Well, try and eat something, love.”
OK, I think - for
your
sake, Mum. I bite into the bread. The crust is rough and hard. When Dad was around he used to take me roller-skating and afterwards we’d go to McDonald’s and have Coke and Mega Macs. I can taste the soft whiteness of the bap all jumbled up with the dark sweetness of the Coke, and feel the melted cheese gooey on my tongue.
I glance at Mum. She has her hand on Kenneth’s knee while he stuffs his face with liver sausage. I ram the lid on my lunchbox and bung it into my rucksack, then I march over to where they’re sitting. “I’m going for a walk,” I tell her.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“No.” I point down the hill, the way we’ve come. “I saw a fallen tree and I want to climb along it.”
“Well, be careful, love, and don’t go far.”
As soon as I’m out of their sight, I race back towards the orchid. An idea’s been forming in my mind. Whatever hybrids are, they’re obviously worth a lot, and if this one’s meant to be so special, it could sell for thousands of pounds. Dad’s always broke. That’s why Mum kicked him out. She said as fast as she earned money, he chucked it down the drain. But if I could
give
them money, things might be all right again.
I look up and down the hill. I can’t see anybody. Quick as a flash I get my lunchbox out and dump Kenneth’s rotten picnic in the middle of a bush. Then I scrabble at the soil around the orchid. I mustn’t damage the roots. Roots are important, Miss O-L says. But my hands aren’t strong enough to loosen them, so I hunt around for a pointed stone and use it as a digger. At last the roots come free and they’re even weirder than the flowers. There’s two round bits like little new potatoes (one of them sort of old and shrivelled), and above them, growing from the stem, some pale, damp, creepy things that remind me of Kenneth’s fingers. I keep looking up to make sure no one’s watching as I wrap the plant in my paper serviette and put it in the lunchbox. And, once I’ve smoothed the patch of soil, you can hardly tell the orchid’s gone. It isn’t very big and it was hidden by the clump of grass. And anyway we’re not coming back along this path. Miss O-L’s already said we’re going down the other side of the hill, so she can show us some Common Twayblades - whatever
they
are.
I stuff the lunchbox in my rucksack, right down at the bottom under Panda and my sweatshirt. Mum doesn’t know I take Panda everywhere - out of sight, of course. Dad gave him to me the day I was born. He said he was my birth-day present.
I have one last look round, then I walk across to the fallen tree, like I’ve just finished my lunch and I’m going exploring. I won’t climb along the trunk, though. It’s too risky with the rucksack - I don’t want to bang the lunchbox.
Dad’s
lunchbox. I imagine him munching the orchid, and little gold coins spilling from his mouth like crumbs. Charlie’s excited too. He’s barking like mad and leaping over the tree trunk, and then he licks my hand because he knows my insides are all fluttery.
“Tilly! Tilly!”
I jump up in a fright. Mum must be coming to find me. The pale pink of my rucksack seems to be blushing deep, deep red as I try to hide it behind my back.
“Are you OK, love?” Mum asks.
“Mm.”
“Eaten your lunch?”
“Yes. Some.”
I let her squeeze my hand this time. I love her ever so much.
We walk back together to the others. They’re packing up their things. Elaine is putting sun-cream on, but she hasn’t got a mirror so her face is white and smeary. Duncan is eating chocolate. He doesn’t offer
me
any. He just breaks off the squares and gobbles them up without stopping, one after another. Ruth pounces on the wrapper and puts it in the rubbish bin, along with every tiny scrap of paper she can find. She’d put me in, too, if I’d fit. They’re complaining about litter and transistor radios and people who leave gates open and don’t control their dogs. I know they’d complain about Charlie, because he’s noisy and messy and bounces about all over the place.
“Ready?” Miss O-L says. Some of her hair has come out of its clip and there’s a bit of lettuce caught in her front teeth.
They all answer “Yes,” except Ruth, who says “I’ll catch you up, if you don’t mind. I want to take a few more pictures of the orchid.”
My heart stops beating, honestly it does. And the little piece of bread I ate starts swelling in my stomach, and soon it’s as big as a whole knobbly loaf and fills up my insides. Ruth is getting bigger, too. She’s tall anyway, and as I watch her walk away her head seems to touch the sky.
Stop
her, Miss O-L, I want to shout. Tell her she’s not allowed to go off on her own. Tell her you’re in a hurry. Tell her …
But I can’t say a single word. I can’t even grunt or croak. The loaf of bread is still growing and growing and now it’s blocked my throat. And there’s great lumps of concrete stuck to my feet, so when the group sets off in the other direction I’m left stranded on my own.
Mum comes back for me. “Tired, love?”’ she asks. She looks tired herself.
I make a sort of choking noise and she links her arm through mine. My legs won’t work but somehow we catch up because
her
legs shunt us along.
“‘Now, if we’re lucky,” Miss O-L is saying, “we may see a Common Twayblade with a third leaf. My colleague spotted one last week in West Dean Woods.”
I pull my arm out from Mum’s and look back over my shoulder. Ruth has disappeared. Any minute she’ll find that the orchid’s gone.
“Yes, Duncan, that’s correct - the Common Twayblade grows in every part of Britain except Shetland. And it’s pollinated by beetles and ichneumon flies. They’re attracted to the nectar secreted in a groove in the centre of the lip …”
All at once there’s a shout behind us. “Stop! Stop! Something terrible’s happened …!”
Everyone turns round. Ruth is stumbling over the grass towards us. She’s out of breath and flapping her arms about. “It’s
gone
!” she cries. The orchid’s gone. It’s not
there
! I can’t believe it!” Her voice is a sort of wail. “Somebody’s dug it up by the roots.”
I close my eyes. There’s a horrible silence. And then everybody’s shouting. The voices are black and fierce and buzzing like angry wasps. Kenneth’s stings worst of all - he’s disgusted, he’s outraged, and if he finds the culprit he’ll …
I open my eyes a crack and see his face all screwed up and scary, like the Ogre in my fairy-tale book. And then Duncan starts. “It must be vandals!” he shouts. “Did you see anybody, Ruth?”
“No, not a soul. That’s what’s so extraordinary. I just can’t understand it. Unless, of course” - she wheels round and grabs me by the shoulder - “
Tilly
saw someone when she went off to play on that tree? Did you, Tilly?” She makes my name sound like a swear word and her fingers are digging into my skin.
“N… no,” I stammer.
“Are you quite sure?”
“Yes … No …”
“And what’s that supposed to mean, pray?”
“‘Er, yes, I did see someone.”
“Who?”
“A vandal.”
“Oh, really? And what did this
vandal
look like?”
“Big. And … ugly. With a scar on his face.”
Kenneth elbows Ruth aside and raises his hand for silence, like he’s suddenly in charge. Then he steps towards me and bends right down, so his face is close to mine. I can see the black hairs in his nose and little blobs of sweat on his top lip. His voice isn’t loud and snarly any more, but soft and sort of dangerous. “Tilly, would you kindly open your rucksack and show us what you’ve got inside.”
“Kenneth!” Mum claws at his arm. “Surely you’re not accusing - ?”
“I’m not accusing anybody. It just so happens that Tilly’s the only one who left the group and spent time on her own. As Ruth happened to notice too.”
“I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous. She just went off to explore, didn’t you, love?”
I nod. I hate lying to Mum, but I feel I’m breaking into pieces.
“Fine,” Kenneth purrs, with a dreadful sickly smile. “If she has nothing to hide, then she won’t mind us seeing her rucksack, will you, Tilly?”
“No, you can’t. There’s … there’s something private in it.”
“I bet there is,” Ruth mutters. Her lip is curled in a sneer.
“It’s only Panda,” I blurt out. “I know it’s babyish to bring him, but Dad gave him to me, ages ago, and … and …” I’m crying. I can’t stop.
Mum wipes my eyes with her hankie. “Look, love, no one minds about Panda. Just get him out and show them and that’ll be the end of it.”
My fingers are shaking, so it’s hard to get the rucksack off my back. Mum helps and then she opens it and takes Panda out and holds him up.
“Ah!” the lady in the glasses smiles, “he’s a darling, isn’t he?”
I could
kiss
her, she’s so nice. I wish I hadn’t forgotten her name; it was something long and foreign.
“OK?” I say to Kenneth. “Can I put him back now?”
“Just one second, young lady.” He gives me another horrible smile. “I’d like you to take the
other
things out, if you’d be so kind.”
“Kenneth, I can’t believe you’re doing this! Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?”
“Well, let me give her a hand, then.” He snatches the rucksack and tips it up on end. Out falls the lunchbox, and he grabs it.
I stare down at the ground. I can see a tiny purple flower. I wish Miss O-L would tell me what its name is and whether it’s pollinated by bees or flies or …
Then, before I know what’s happened, there’s a sort of ringing in my ears and everything goes black. I put my hand up to my face. It’s burning and stinging and I feel sick. Kenneth has hit me, I think.
“You could go to prison for this!” he shouts, “you thieving little brat!”
I’m sobbing and my nose is running and everything’s wet and blurry. But I feel Mum’s arms close round me and hear her shouting back at him, “How dare you hit my daughter!
You
could go to prison - attacking an innocent child.”
“Innocent? She’s a thief.
And
a bare-faced liar. She commits an act of vandalism and then swears blind she’s -”
“Look at this great bruise! You might have done permanent damage.”
“And what about the damage
she’s
done? Digging up a priceless specimen -”
“It’s only a plant, for God’s sake! Your trouble, Kenneth, is that you think flowers are the most important things in the world. Well, they’re not. They’re - ”
“And your trouble, Lesley, is that you don’t belong in this group. You know nothing about botany. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that you know nothing about anything.”
“If I want your opinion I’ll ask for it, thank you very much! And if I’m so pig-ignorant, why did you invite me?”
“Please stop this!” Miss O-L begs. “Let’s try to behave like civilized adults. It won’t help matters if we all get so worked up.”
But Kenneth takes no notice and goes on shouting at Mum. “I certainly wouldn’t have invited you if I’d known you’d bring your loathsome brat.”
“That’s it! We’re going. And I intend to report you, Kenneth Parker, for assault. And, as for you stuck-up lot,” she yells at the others, “you can
stuff
your wild flowers, you wankers!”
She seizes my hand and pulls me along, full tilt down the hill. We trip and slither on the loose stones. Trees are flying past and the path slips and slides away from us, like it’s escaping too. I fall and graze my knee but she yanks me to my feet and we scramble on again. There’s a roaring in my ears and I’m sure my chest is going to burst. When we reach the bottom we can hardly breathe, we’re so puffed. And I’ve got a stitch and my cheek hurts terribly.