Strike a Pose, Daizy Star

by Cathy Cassidy

  I decide to focus on something I might actually be able to do something about – helping the residents of the Twilight Years Rest Home.

  I talk to Willow and Murphy first, explaining about Beth’s gran.

  ‘The oldies at the Twilight Years Rest Home are just along the road from us in Stella Street,’ I say. ‘Yet we never see them. We never even think about them. But every person in there is probably someone’s gran or grandad, right? Maybe their grandchildren live miles and miles away, or maybe they don’t have any at all … they must be so lonely!’

  ‘So, what can we do about it?’ Willow asks.

  ‘We can liven things up,’ I say brightly. ‘Put on our fashion show! They’ll love it!’

  You think?’ Murphy asks doubtfully.

  ‘Definitely!’ I say. ‘The fashion show was cool, everyone said so. Besides, we have the clothes now and we know what to do. It would be easy!’

  ‘Maybe,’ Willow shrugs. ‘But … well, bubble-wrap ballgowns and sweet-wrapper jeans may not be their kind of thing. Wouldn’t we be better thinking about what elderly people might actually like?’

  I frown. Willow and Murphy could be right, but I cannot let go of the idea. I have another reason I think we should put on the fashion show again, but it’s a selfish one – it will mean I get another shot at fame. And that might just save me from life on an offshore island with only a goat for a friend.

  ‘I think they’d like the fashion show,’ I say. ‘But, I suppose we could think of other things too, things that are more their style.’

  ‘Good plan, Daizy,’ Murphy says.

  ‘But … what do old people like?’ I puzzle.

  Willow raises an eyebrow. ‘I guess you’d better find out.’

  I do some research. I start out by asking Beth what her gran used to like, and the answer is tea, baking and pottering around the garden. Margie Brown next door says she likes bingo, old-time dancing and making jam tarts, and Bert Brown, of course, says gardening. I ask everyone at school to find out what the oldies they know like too, and gradually I draw up a list:

  I come up with a plan, and I think it is a foolproof one. As well as the fashion show, we will have a bingo game, an old-fashioned dance and lots of tea served with homemade cupcakes.

  All I have to do now is make sure Year Six – and Miss Moon – agree to help. It takes a while to find the courage, but eventually I manage to put my hand up in the middle of the Numeracy Hour.

  ‘Miss?’ I say. ‘I have an idea, and I need your help!’

  ‘Oh? What is it, Daizy?’

  ‘I have been thinking,’ I say. ‘About the Twilight Years Rest Home, just along from the school. I have been worrying about the residents. They are old, and I think they might be very bored and lonely. I think we should try to make friends with them.’

  ‘The Twilight Years Rest Home?’ Ethan Miller smirks. ‘Don’t tell me. It’s a home for retired vampires.’

  ‘It is not!’ Beth blazes. ‘My gran lives there, and she is not a vampire!’

  ‘Sorr-ee,’ Ethan says. ‘It was a joke! Twilight! Geddit?’

  ‘Quiet, Ethan,’ Miss Moon cuts in. ‘It’s a great idea, Daizy. It would be wonderful to make some links between Stella Street Primary and the Twilight Years Rest Home. I will see what Mr Smart says, and if he is happy I can make a few phone calls, see if we can set something up.’

  ‘Oh!’ I blink. ‘That would be brilliant, Miss Moon!’

  ‘We should all respect our elders,’ she tells the class. ‘Senior citizens have lived long lives, worked hard, raised families. They have been through good times and bad. They might be battling with illness, perhaps without friends or family nearby.’

  ‘I’ve never thought about it like that,’ Ethan says.

  ‘Well,’ Miss Moon says kindly. ‘Not many of us do. But we can think about it now, can’t we? Well done, Daizy, for suggesting this!’

  ‘I thought we could put on a show, try to cheer them up.’

  Beth is smiling, really smiling, for the first time in weeks. I am pretty sure I can put a smile on the faces of the old folks at the Twilight Years Rest Home too … and that would make Beth really happy, I know it would.

  It might even put me in the running for a Star of the Week award … and more importantly, putting on the fashion show means I have another shot at fame. This time, I will make sure that I am centre stage. All I have to do is invite the press along to our Twilight Years event – and get my photo taken.

  Even if there are no actual model scouts hidden away among the nurses and carers of the Twilight Years Rest Home, there might be a few scanning the newspapers for new talent. And my picture will jump out at them, and my woven net-and-brown-paper dress will stun everyone with its beauty and originality.

  People will be amazed. ‘Who is that girl?’ they will ask.

  ‘So fresh-faced, so unusual, so different,’ they will say.

  ‘So thoughtful, so kind, so caring,’ they will add.

  And by the end of the following week, I will be signed up to one of the top modelling agencies and far too busy shooting cover sessions for Vogue magazine to go and live on an island in the middle of nowhere with no friends, no school and no custard doughnuts.

  It could happen, couldn’t it?

  The next day, Miss Moon calls the matron at the Twilight Years Rest Home, who is delighted at the offer of some free entertainment. A date is set for next Monday afternoon – just after our return from the Isle of Muck. We will put on a mini version of the fashion show, along with tea and music, and Bert and Margie from next door will do a bit of a foxtrot. Everyone wants to help, even Ethan, who offers to set up a five-a-side football match for the oldies.

  I glare at him. ‘Some of them are in their nineties,’ I snap. ‘Some are in wheelchairs or on Zimmer frames. I want to cheer them up, not finish them off!’

  Ethan pulls a face. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he says.

  As far as I know, Ethan never thinks of anything but football, mirrors and hair gel, but I suppose there could always be a first time.

  A reporter from the local paper has promised to come along, and Miss Moon has asked me to do a short speech to explain about the green fashion show and how everyone at Stella Street Primary would like to help make the Twilight Years Rest Home a happier place.

  I promise to come up with something impressive. I don’t think that speech-making is actually one of my skills, but I am bound to be able to jot down a few ideas this weekend. After all, it’s not as if trudging around the Isle of Muck is going to be ultra-exciting, is it?

  ‘Leave it to me, Miss Moon,’ I say.

  Then it will be tea and homemade cakes and biscuits, although I think I may actually cheat and buy some custard doughnuts from the bakery. I don’t want to take any risks with one of Dad’s creations. What if one of the oldies ends up choking to death on a lentil brownie?

  Luka has put together a new 1950s/60s soundtrack for the fashion show, using CDs his own grandparents have, but admits he doesn’t have a clue what kind of music people would waltz and foxtrot to. I think hard. My sister Becca plays the violin, and she is in the school orchestra. She probably has a couple of classical waltz CDs I can borrow.

  Better still, how about a live performance? A plan begins to form in my head.

  Becca is still in mourning. Even though Spike keeps phoning the house and asking to speak to her, she won’t come to the phone.

  ‘If I could just see her, Daizy,’ he hints, whenever I happen to answer. ‘Talk to her properly. I’m sure I could make her understand. Do you think you could get her to meet me?’

  There is about as much chance of that as of getting Dad to give up on his dreams of nettle farming on the Isle of Muck, but I cannot bring myself to tell Spike that. It is all very stressful.

  Playing for the oldies might just cheer Becca up and take her mind off Spike.

  ‘Becca?’ I ask her after school. ‘Will you come and play the violin at the Twilight Years
Rest Home on Monday afternoon? And ask a couple of friends from the orchestra? It’s for a really, really good cause!’

  Becca sighs dramatically. She has been doing a lot of that lately. I bet she misses Spike as much as he misses her, but I know my sister – she will never admit she was wrong.

  ‘Maybe,’ she says, in a tiny, tragic voice.

  ‘Please?’ I beg. ‘It would mean so much to me. If we really do move to the Isle of Muck, this could be my last ever chance to win a Star of the Week award.’

  She rolls her eyes.

  ‘Go on then,’ she sighs. ‘I expect the teachers would let me, if I explain. They are always saying we need more practice playing to a live audience. I could ask Sophie and Rachel too.’

  ‘You could always ask Spike,’ I venture.

  ‘I will never ask him anything again,’ Becca growls. ‘He is nothing to me now.’ And she bursts into tears.

  ‘Becca,’ I say bravely. ‘Do you think … with Spike … well, do you think you could have been just a teeny bit … well … hasty?’

  ‘If he loved me he would run away to Paris with me,’ Becca snuffles.

  ‘I think he does love you,’ I tell her. ‘He just doesn’t want you to live in a cardboard box. He wants you to be safe and happy and not live under a bridge or in a doorway. Becca … admit it. It wasn’t a very good idea, was it? Do you think you might have been … well … wrong?’

  ‘No way,’ Becca sniffs. ‘You’ll understand when you are older, Daizy.’

  I am not sure about that. I don’t think I will understand Becca, not even if I live to be 103.

  I’ve been trying to pretend our trip to Muck isn’t really happening, but finally the fateful day dawns. Actually, it doesn’t. We set off for Scotland at four on Saturday morning, which is practically the middle of the night. Becca, Pixie and I sleep for the first few hours, snuggled in soft blankets in the back of the car, and when we wake up it’s eight o’clock and raining hard, and we are at a service station near Stoke-on-Trent.

  We eat cereal and drink hot chocolate, and suddenly, it is an hour later and Dad says we have to get a move on because there is only one ferry going to the Isle of Muck today, and missing it is not an option. That’s when things start to get stressy, because we hit a traffic jam around Blackburn that brings the whole motorway to a halt.

  ‘Come on!’ Dad mutters. ‘We have a ferry to catch!’ But the rain keeps lashing down and the traffic crawls at a snail’s pace.

  ‘I don’t want to live in a place where it rains all the time,’ I say.

  ‘How do you know it rains all the time?’ Pixie asks reasonably. ‘We’re not even in Scotland yet!’

  ‘I might come off the motorway and take a side road,’ Dad says anxiously. ‘We have to make it in time for that ferry.’

  So we come off the motorway, take a wrong turning and get lost in a place called Oswaldtwistle. In the end we have to go right back on to the motorway again, and nobody even dares to speak to Dad after that. We are hours behind schedule and unless the car suddenly sprouts wings we are not going to make it to Mallaig by half past two.

  ‘They’ll be expecting us on Muck,’ Dad worries. ‘They’re meeting us off the ferry! There are six other families interested in this cottage, you know. If we can’t even get ourselves to the island on time, the islanders might decide we are not the right people for their community.’

  ‘If they think that, they are not very understanding,’ Mum remarks. ‘We can’t control the weather or the traffic on the M6, can we?’

  We drive on in silence, not even stopping for lunch, and even though we are in Scotland now it is very hard to get excited. Especially when you never wanted to go in the first place.

  I have a feeling of impending doom.

  We arrive in Mallaig just in time to see the ferry vanish into the cold, misty horizon.

  Now what?’ Mum sighs as we sit in the car, looking out to sea.

  ‘I will text Hamish,’ Dad says decisively. ‘He will know what to do.’

  So Dad texts his contact on the Isle of Muck, and a text comes back telling us to drive down to the next village and look for a small red fishing boat called Lady Muck, which may be able to give us a lift over.

  ‘Hamish will get a message to the fishermen, so they will be expecting us,’ Dad says, driving on. ‘See how everyone pulls together? This is the place for us, I can feel it in my bones!’

  When we reach the village, we see a damp, stony beach stretched beside an iron-grey sea and a red fishing boat moored against the seawall. Dad runs over to it, waving. He talks for a few minutes to a man in a yellow waterproof hat and then hurries back to us through the driving rain.

  ‘They’re ready to leave,’ he tells us. ‘We can just park the car down on the beach, out of the way.’

  ‘On the beach?’ Mum echoes, frowning.

  ‘I think that’s what he said,’ Dad shrugs, veering off the road and driving down across the dunes. ‘He’s got quite a strong accent, but I’m getting to grips with it already.’

  He parks neatly on the wet shingle and we pile out of the car and trudge back towards the fishing boat. We are bundled aboard and into the tiny cabin as the engines fire and roar and the boat moves slowly out from the quayside. We huddle together in a tiny space that stinks of fish. Rain lashes the cabin windows as the boat lurches through the waves.

  Two red-faced fishermen ask Dad why he wants to move to an island.

  ‘The fresh air!’ he tells them. ‘The wide-open spaces! The freedom!’

  ‘It’s no’ an easy life, ken?’ one of the men says gruffly, and Dad says that actually, his name isn’t Ken but Mike, which makes the fishermen laugh and roll their eyes. We clamber ashore two hours later, just as the light is fading. Hamish is waiting for us with a big umbrella that threatens to blow inside out at any minute.

  ‘Welcome to Muck!’ he declares. ‘It’s a shame you can’t see it in the daylight, but I know you’re going to fall in love with it!’

  I know I am not.

  Hamish loads us into the back of a jeep, drops our bags off at a cute little guest house and drives a short way along a single-track road. When we get out again, it is pitch-black and we are standing in a muddy field as Hamish squelches forward, leading us by torchlight towards a tiny hut.

  It looks very different from the picture of the whitewashed cottage with roses round the door that Mum and Dad fell in love with. It seems smaller, and older, with peeling paint and no sign of roses anywhere.

  ‘Is this it?’ Mum asks.

  ‘The picture you saw was taken in the summer,’ Hamish admits. ‘The cottage has been empty a while. It just needs a little love and attention to be a happy family home again.’

  The lights flicker on and we can see that somebody has placed a vase of wintry branches hung with berries and catkins on the window sill to make it seem more welcoming. ‘What happened to the last people?’ Mum asks.

  Hamish looks shifty. ‘They weren’t right for Muck,’ he says, with a shrug. ‘City types, you see. Not everyone is cut out for island living.’

  ‘We are,’ Dad says, trying to be chirpy. ‘We’re going to love it here!’

  But the cottage is cold and slightly musty with spiderwebs hiding behind the doorways. We troop upstairs. The floorboards creak beneath our feet and we have to duck to avoid hitting our heads on the sloping attic roof. We peer politely into one, two, three bedrooms.

  ‘Dad?’ I ask, alarmed. ‘We need four bedrooms, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Dad agrees. ‘We’ve talked about this, though – we’d have to look into building an extension.’

  ‘The property is rented,’ Hamish points out. ‘Any alterations would have to be approved by the Island Committee.’

  ‘How about bunk beds, girls?’ Dad grins. ‘You and Pixie would like that!’

  ‘Share a room?’ I frown.

  ‘With Daizy?’ Pixie echoes, faintly horrified.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,�
� Mum promises, but my heart sinks and I am suddenly homesick for the little bedroom where I have shared so many sleepovers and heart-to-hearts. There would be no sleepovers here, that’s for sure. How could my friends even come to visit when the island is so far away? It took us a whole day to get here.

  A good clean and a coat of paint would make everything look brighter, but nothing can change the fact that the rooms are tiny and the windows small. So much for more space and freedom – we have more space at home.

  ‘Of course, we would be spending more time outdoors here,’ Dad says, reading my mind. ‘We’d be on the beach, in the fields, tending the animals, out in the fresh air and sunshine.’

  We all turn to look at the window, where rain is hammering against the glass. Fresh air and sunshine seem as unlikely right now as unicorns in the garden.

  ‘Let’s head over to the community hall,’ Hamish says. ‘The committee cannot wait to meet you. There’ll be a buffet supper to welcome you – all very informal.’

  It doesn’t feel very informal, though, when we are sitting in a row on hard wooden chairs, facing the committee. Dad explains all about his plan to make nettles into the next great British supercrop. ‘Think of it!’ he beams. ‘Field after field of rich, green nettles, as far as the eye can see.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Hamish says, looking a little anxious. ‘It’s certainly an unusual idea.’

  Dad passes round samples of nettle super-smoothie and nettle flapjack. The committee nibble and sip politely, exchanging worried glances.

  ‘Let’s leave the nettles aside for now,’ a bearded man says. ‘Do you think you and your family have the qualities needed to survive a long, hard island winter, Mr Star? It’s not always an easy life for ex-townies.’

  ‘We want to be islanders,’ Dad says. ‘We want the space to keep our livestock. We want to follow our dream. We are nettle farmers! We are country people trapped in the town – we can’t wait for the long, hard winters! We don’t care about things like TV shows and oven chips. We prefer nettle stew!’