Becoming Jo

by Sophie MacKenzie

  I shake my head. “He’s obviously forgotten how humiliating it is to be paid for ’cos you can’t afford something.”

  “Maybe not,” Meg acknowledges. “Still, I’m sure you can make it up with him. Maybe leave it today, talk to him at school tomorrow?”

  “I guess.” I wipe my eyes, feeling a little better. “So did you buy anything at the shops?”

  “This.” Meg holds up a lacy top I hadn’t even noticed was in her hands. “What do you think? It was, like, next to nothing in the sale. I reckon the colour will work really well with my grey cut-offs.”

  “You’re so good at that stuff,” I say, meaning it, but also wanting to offer my sister something nice as a thank you for her sympathy over Lateef.

  “D’you really think so?” Meg beams. “Hey, look at this.” She pulls out her phone, scrolls down the screen and hands it to me.

  Dreams Dress Design, Ringstone. Summer Intern wanted.

  I read on. It’s a holiday job starting in a few months’ time to cover the whole summer off school, from mid-July to early September. Apart from the fact that the job is unpaid, it would surely be perfect for Meg.

  “Are you going to go for it?” I ask, looking up at her.

  Meg shakes her head. “Nah, I’d never get it. It’s not really my thing anyway. I just think it’s really cool that Dreams has an office in Ringstone.”

  “Right.” My mind goes into overdrive as I imagine how Meg would feel if she did get the internship. I’m sure she’s only saying she doesn’t want the job because she doesn’t feel confident in her ability to impress a bunch of professional designers.

  Meg burbles on about some dress she’s seen, but I’m not really listening. She might not believe in her design talents, but I do. I wish there was a way of helping her see how creative she really is.

  My mind drifts to Lateef again. Meg is right about leaving things for today and trying to make up with him tomorrow. The Easter break starts in a couple of weeks and Lateef and I had planned to spend the entire time hanging out together.

  I don’t want to miss all of that.

  I don’t want to miss Lateef.

  I decide then and there to find him as soon as possible at school tomorrow morning, and explain why I was upset and that I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful, I just don’t want to be his charity case.

  We can be friends again, I’m sure of it.

  It doesn’t even occur to me that I might be wrong about this.

  The next day I’m walking through the playground, looking around for Lateef. I’m dawdling a little. Meg and Beth have already disappeared inside, leaving me with Amy, who for some reason is also in no rush to get into school. I spot him at last – he’s on his own for once, looking for something in his school bag. It’s the perfect opportunity to talk to him. I hurry over.

  “Hey.”

  Lateef glances up, briefly, then looks back at his bag.

  “Can we talk?” I ask.

  “What about?” Lateef doesn’t meet my eyes. “How you think I’m so desperate I want to buy your friendship?”

  I suck in my breath. “I don’t. Lateef, please, I don’t think that. I—”

  But Lateef is already walking away. I stare after him.

  “Wow, he’s really upset.” Amy walks up.

  “Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “He’s so angry with me.”

  Amy purses her lips. “I don’t know that he looked angry,” she says thoughtfully.

  I glance at her.

  “I’d say,” she carries on, “he looked more hurt.”

  Is that true?

  A crowd of year sevens rush past us, storming into the school, their voices turned up to high volume. The doors shut behind them and silence falls. It’s a fresh, bright morning. The sun glints off Amy’s golden hair.

  “Lateef isn’t hurt,” I say, genuinely bemused. “You didn’t hear what he said. He’s angry, talking nonsense, because I didn’t like the way he swooped in with his money and—”

  “He thinks you don’t like him any more.” Amy stares at me, her sharp blue eyes sparkling. “Which destroys him because he likes you, you idiot.”

  She rolls her eyes in that spectacularly annoying way of hers, then stalks off inside the school building. I gaze after her.

  She’s got it all wrong. Lateef and I are just friends – good friends. The best. He doesn’t like me – not in that way.

  I’m sure of it.

  Chapter 3

  Another two weeks go by, the end of term passes and still Lateef keeps his distance. Meg’s out every day, busy babysitting the little Gardiner boys. She comes home every afternoon full of stories about the arts and crafts they did together or how they played ball in the park. It sounds boring to me, but Meg seems super happy. Certainly a lot happier than I am. Without Lateef, I’m more miserable than I have been for ages, so I throw myself into a new Tallulah mystery, writing non-stop all day and most of the evening on the first Wednesday.

  It’s Beth’s birthday on Friday – we’re having a tea party. Just family – Beth doesn’t want a big fuss. Normally Beth bakes all our birthday cakes. I decide this year I’ll make one for her. I’ll make a three-tier chocolate sponge with proper buttercream icing. It will be good to focus on something outside of my own troubles, as well as a nice thing to do for my sister.

  Early on Thursday afternoon, when Beth is over the road, playing Uncle Jim’s piano, I set to work. First step is to shoo Amy out of the kitchen. She disappears without any complaint, which strikes me at the time as odd, though I’m soon distracted fetching the flour, butter, sugar and eggs and weighing what I need in mum’s old scales. I add a few heaped spoons of cocoa powder and mix everything together with the hand beaters. We used to have a proper mixer but Amy dropped it last year when she saw a spider and Mum can’t afford to replace it just yet.

  I pop the mixture into three tins and shove them in the oven, feeling very pleased with myself.

  Twenty minutes later and I’m not so happy as I remove the cake tins and discover all my sponges are flat as pancakes.

  “Could you have made more mess, Jo?” Meg says drily, wandering into the kitchen.

  I look up. The kitchen is in a bit of a state. Eggshells are littered across the countertop, there’s an expansive sprinkling of sugar on the floor by the sink and the self-raising flour bag has tipped over and cascaded half its contents over the baking trays which I pulled out of the cupboard earlier, didn’t use and forgot to put back.

  “My cakes haven’t risen,” I say mournfully.

  “You probably didn’t let the butter and the eggs come to room temperature before you used them,” Meg says.

  I stare at her. “How do you know to do that?”

  “Bake Off,” she says with a grin. “It’s pretty basic stuff actually.”

  “Right.” I sigh. “Well I’m going to have to start again.”

  “I’ll help,” Meg says. And the two of us set about creating another cake. This one is smaller – there isn’t much butter left, but thanks to the fact I haven’t put anything away, at least all the ingredients are at room temperature.

  The kitchen looks like a tornado has hit it after we’ve finished – Meg is no better at clearing up after herself than I am – but we do end up with two properly risen sponges.

  “So have you applied for that summer intern job yet?” I ask, as we set the cakes on the wire cooling rack.

  “Nah, I told you, I’d never get something like that,” Meg says. “I’m hoping Mrs Gardiner will need me to babysit the twins over the summer anyway.”

  A few minutes later she skips off to meet some friends in the centre of Ringstone. I make a stab at clearing up but I’m not really concentrating as I wipe cake mixture off the countertop. I’ve just had the most brilliant idea… Why don’t I apply for that internship on Meg’s behalf?

  I’m sure she’d love to do the job; it’s just that she lacks the confidence to apply. And it will be a way of saying thank you for helping me with
the cake.

  I hurry upstairs, fetch my laptop and find the ad online.

  I go to town on the application, writing – as Meg – a far more colourful description of her talents than I would dare to produce on my own behalf. I stress how ambitious I, Meg March, have always been to become a designer, how I’m always studying designs and sketching my own ideas. That last part is a bit of an exaggeration of course, but what the heck, I need to make Meg look as good as possible. I create a new email address using Meg’s name and send off the application.

  I pad downstairs to carry on clearing up in the kitchen, and my thoughts drift to Lateef again – and how he won’t speak to me. He might have come from extreme poverty, landing in Britain without either funds or family, but he’s spent the past seven years with everything he could possibly want offered to him on a plate. He must have forgotten what it’s like to be poor. There’s no other explanation for him not understanding why I was upset.

  I gaze around at the kitchen. A selection of cake tins plus the mixing bowl and what looks like every utensil from the cutlery drawer are still spread across every surface. I check the time. Mum will be home any second. I don’t want her to walk in on all this mess.

  “Amy, give me a hand, will you?” I call next door, where Amy is watching TV.

  “I’m busy,” she yells back.

  “But Meg and I made the cake,” I say, going over and standing in the doorway. “It’s only fair you should clean up afterwards.”

  “Yeah, right.” Amy sticks her chin in the air. “What did your last slave die of?”

  “You are so annoying,” I growl, stomping over to the huge pile of washing up.

  I clear away most of the dirty pans then mix up a bowl of buttercream icing. Beth is great at putting little swirls on cupcakes and I’m determined to make a lovely pattern on top of her cake, but as soon as I fill an icing bag and try to pipe out little swirls on the top, the cake shifts and all I create are splodges. I try everything: wedging the cake, piping with one hand.

  It’s a lot harder than it looks.

  Mum returns about ten minutes later. “Oh dear,” she says, looking at the messily iced cake.

  “I know,” I wail. “And I wanted it to be so nice for Beth.”

  Mum laughs. “Come on. Nothing we can’t rectify.” She takes the cake from me and with expert hands smooths flat the icing I’ve been struggling to apply. She takes the bag and pipes a few decorative rose shapes across the top, then hands me a tube of coloured sprinkles to scatter over them.

  It’s all done in about two minutes and with epic effect.

  “That looks brilliant,” I enthuse, hugging her. “Thanks, Mum.”

  She smiles. “Why don’t you go over to see Lateef? Remind him about Beth’s birthday tea?”

  I shake my head, miserable suddenly at the mention of his name. I haven’t talked to Mum about my bust-up with Lateef, but I’m certain Meg will have filled her in on the details.

  “I tried to talk to him when we were still at school. He wouldn’t listen.”

  “So? Try again,” Mum says.

  I frown, surprised at how emphatic she sounds.

  “Why do you think he’s so angry with you?” Mum asks.

  “Because I said he should have asked before buying me a festival ticket.”

  “Well, I think perhaps he should,” Mum says. “And you both should have asked me and Uncle Jim for permission. But is that really why he’s angry?”

  I shrug, feeling slightly wrong-footed.

  “Did anything else happen?” Mum asks. “Did one of you … say something else?”

  “Well…” I squirm. “I did accuse him of trying to buy my friendship with the ticket.”

  Mum sighs. “Do you really think that’s what he was doing?”

  “No,” I admit. “I think that he was trying to do a nice thing for me using his birthday money, but he got a bit carried away and made it sound like he could get anything he wanted with his masses of money even though he knows I don’t have any…” I stop, my face flushing as hurt and anger rise inside me again.

  “So he was clumsy, maybe a bit tactless and definitely very impulsive.” Mum tilts her head on one side. “Remind you of anyone, Jo?”

  I meet her gaze. A few moments pass as I let what she’s said sink in.

  “Do you think I should have let him pay nearly a hundred pounds for a ticket for me?” I ask, feeling suddenly uncertain.

  “No, absolutely not,” Mum says. “But I also think that if he wants to spend his birthday money on a treat for you both there were better ways of reacting … perhaps you could have said you’d go halves on the ticket? I know you have money saved for a laptop. Perhaps you could contribute some of that?” She hesitates. “Either way, you need to consider how much Lateef’s friendship matters to you. Whether or not you can find it in your heart to apologize for anything you may have said that was hurtful.”

  “Suppose he won’t listen?”

  “Then at least you’ll have tried.”

  I hesitate a second, then look around the kitchen at the icing bags strewn across the worktop.

  “Don’t worry about clearing this up,” Mum says. “I’ll get Amy to help.”

  I can’t help but grin at that. And I’m still grinning as I rush out of the house a few seconds later. Lateef has to listen to me now. Our friendship is too important for him not to.

  Chapter 4

  Uncle Jim lets me in before I’ve even knocked. I can hear Beth in the distance on the piano. Jim presses his finger to his lips. “I saw you from the window. Beth thinks I’m upstairs, not listening,” he whispers. “It’s the only way she’ll play.”

  I nod. “Is Lateef in?” I whisper back.

  Uncle Jim points upstairs and a moment later, I stand outside Lateef’s bedroom door, knocking and getting no reply.

  “Lateef, please let me in!” I call out, not caring if anyone downstairs hears me.

  The bedroom door opens. Lateef is standing there. He isn’t smiling. “Announce yourself to the entire world, why don’t you,” he mutters.

  I hesitate for a second, then push my way past him into the room. “If you’d let me in sooner I wouldn’t have had to shout,” I snap.

  “Have you been in a food fight?” Lateef asks.

  I glance across the room to his mirror. Jeez, I look a state. Mixture from Beth’s cake – I’m not sure which attempt – is daubed across my forehead and left cheek, while there are greasy butter stains all down my top.

  “It’s Beth’s birthday tea tomorrow,” I explain. “Remember?”

  “Of course,” Lateef says. He indicates a carefully wrapped package on his desk. “I was going to drop that off for her seeing as you probably don’t want me to come any more.”

  I look away. Of course Lateef should be there. Beth would want that too. “I was making a cake for her. It was a nightmare.”

  “I bet.” A smile twitches at his lips.

  Silence falls. I gaze around Lateef’s bedroom. As usual, it’s crammed with gadgets: a PC, an Xbox and several sets of game controllers, a proper camera plus tripod, a line of model motorbikes under a row of identical posters and even a woodworking bench in the corner. There’s a walk-in closet full of designer clothes, a big orange couch, a double bed with an orange cover and a bedside lamp with a football base and a tangerine-coloured lampshade.

  “There’s a lot of orange in here,” I say, feeling slightly at a loss.

  “I love orange. It’s the colour of the dress my mum was wearing the last time I saw her.”

  “Oh.”

  Lateef pauses. “Why are you here, Jo?”

  I take a deep breath. “OK … so … you’re my best friend and I’m so sorry I upset you,” I say. “I’d give anything to take back what I said about you trying to buy my friendship. That was mean and … and untrue. Obviously.”

  A moment passes. Another. I fix my gaze on Lateef’s face. He stares back, a million expressions passing through his eyes.
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br />   “I was just shocked that … that you’d spent so much money…” I stammer. “But I’d love to go to Manning Plains, if you still want to. So long as you let me go halves on my ticket, because—”

  “It’s OK.” Lateef cuts me off. “I’m sorry too. Uncle Jim said I was tactless. And he suggested going halves too, so … so…” He looks up. “I’m sorry if … that I … offended … upset you…”

  “That’s OK,” I say.

  There’s an awkward pause. “So, er, Beth’s birthday?” He clears his throat. “I got her this big knitting set from Aspen’s … like wool and patterns and stuff. Do you think she’ll like it?”

  I gulp. “I’m sure she’ll love it,” I say. “Though to be honest, Beth never wants anything. Except…” I hesitate, meeting his gaze. “Except I’m sure she’d like it if you were friends with me again.”

  “Wouldn’t that make her birthday all about you? Still, if it’s what Beth wants…” Lateef says, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “Even if it means I have to eat your cake.”

  “I wouldn’t make you do that.” I grin. “There are limits even to friendship.”

  “So, have you seen that YouTube thing with the clown and the puppies?” Lateef asks.

  “No” I say.

  “Look.” He reaches for his phone.

  And, just that that, our friendship is back.

  Beth loves her birthday cake. She also loves her presents: the fresh flowers and bath oils from Amy, the new top from Meg and the book from me. Lateef adds a jumbo bag of mixed sweets and chocolates – all Beth’s favourites – to his knitting-set gift, while Mum has lined up private piano lessons to go through the Easter and summer holidays. Though Beth is super appreciative about everything, you can tell that it’s this last present that makes her the most happy.

  Luckily, Aunt Em is away for work so she doesn’t come, though she does send Beth a bunch of fat, white lilies. The formal arrangement of heavily perfumed blooms tied together with expensive-looking satin ribbon is about as far away from Beth’s personality as a bunch of flowers could be, but Beth is characteristically sweet-natured about it.