‘Nan,’ she said after a while. ‘You know why I’m making this marmalade, don’t you?’
Nan nodded. She handed May the knife. ‘Now you do it.’
May started carefully slicing.
‘So you don’t think,’ she said to Nan, ‘that making this marmalade to win my friends back is like trying to pick up water with chopsticks?’
Nan shook her head.
May sliced silently, a bit confused. After a while she looked at Nan again.
‘Why did you change your mind?’ she said.
Nan gave her a little smile.
‘Modern Chinese wisdom,’ she said.
Walking to school on Monday, May felt like she’d been hit by a truck.
Well, her arms did.
She’d never chopped anything for so long.
But it was worth it. As she walked, she could hear the jars of cumquat marmalade clinking gently in her schoolbag.
May smiled, even though her insides were prickling with anxiety.
If this didn’t work, she’d still be grateful that Nan had discovered modern Chinese wisdom.
But she hoped it would work. Which was why she’d set out earlier than usual. To make sure her toaster, the one Nan had pulled out from under the house and dusted off for her, was set up and plugged in before Julie arrived.
It felt good, arriving at school this early.
With a hopeful skip, May went in through the school gate.
And discovered she wasn’t early enough.
Julie was over by the jazz dodgeball socket, behind a very large folding table.
Hundreds of paper plates were laid out on the table. And tubs of butter. And bags of bread. And jars of marmalade.
Good grief, thought May. She’s making toast for the whole school. She must want friends even more badly than me.
April and June were with Julie, crouching over several toasters.
May felt like giving up. Turning round and going home. Telling Nan she felt ill, which was true.
But the thought of doing that made her feel even worse.
What a sad waste of so much hard work and cumquat marmalade and modern Chinese wisdom.
Instead, May stood behind a tree and waited.
After a while, Julie went into the girls’ toilet.
She’s probably feeling nervous, thought May. With so much at stake. Or else she’s got a few cappuccino machines plugged in there.
May, feeling quite nervous herself, went over to April and June. They looked startled when they saw her.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said April. ‘This is embarrassing.’
‘I just wanted to give you these,’ said May.
She took the jars of cumquat marmalade out of her bag and put them on the table.
April and June stared at them.
‘Julie’s already got marmalade,’ said June. ‘From that France place. This is really embarrassing.’
‘Taste it,’ said May.
April and June looked doubtful.
May took the lid off a jar and held it out to April.
April glanced around nervously to check that Julie was still in the toilets. Then she stuck a tiny part of the tip of one finger into the cumquat marmalade and tasted it.
Her eyes widened.
She tasted some more.
June tasted some too. Her eyes widened as well.
‘These jars are for you,’ said May to April and June. ‘But if you want to use them this morning, that’s fine with me.’
She walked away, back to the tree.
After a while, Julie returned to the table.
May watched as April and June showed her the jars of cumquat marmalade. They didn’t point to the tree, so it didn’t look like they were telling Julie who the marmalade came from.
Julie was frowning, annoyed, probably because she could see this new marmalade didn’t come from Paris. But there wasn’t time to do anything about it.
Kids were arriving at school. Coming over to the table, curious. Helping themselves to toast.
More and more of them, arriving in groups.
April, June and Julie were suddenly frantic with the toasters, keeping up the supply.
Kids were buttering their own toast. And, May saw, smearing on their own marmalade. Some chose Paris, some cumquat.
May forced herself to keep breathing as she watched. Her insides were aching.
There was a swarm around the table now and the toast-makers were barely keeping up. The playground was buzzing.
Still more kids were arriving.
And teachers.
For a moment it looked like the teachers were going to stop the whole thing, until one of them nibbled a slice of toast that a student handed her and then stared at it, amazed.
May guessed it had cumquat marmalade on it.
Gradually, she saw, the crowd was realising that the two marmalades were very different. People were grabbing jars of cumquat marmalade and sticking their fingers in and having another taste.
Telling their friends to taste it too.
May couldn’t hear what was being said in the hubbub, but she could see lots of kids talking to Julie with excited hand movements that looked grateful and very enthusiastic.
Julie, glowing, was responding with the sort of hand movements people use when they’re boasting that their marmalade comes from Paris.
May knew this was the moment.
The moment to go over and tell everyone the truth. Tell them who they should be thanking for the marmalade. And then it would be her that everyone would be excitedly crowding around, desperate to be her friend, begging her to bring cumquat marmalade every morning.
And she could. There were thirty-seven more jars of it at home.
She’d be Cumquat May, the leader of the Cumquat Club, the most popular girl in the whole school.
It was a wonderful thought, and May was tempted.
Very tempted.
She took a step forward.
Then stopped.
She thought about Nan. About friendship and weapons of war. She thought about Dad too. About listening carefully to your own heart.
May felt lucky to have so much wisdom in her life. And so much love.
Perhaps though, she thought, it’s time I started working out some wisdom of my own.
The thought glowed inside her, warm as the filling in a just-made dumpling.
May stood there a while longer.
Then she gave one last look at the clamouring mob of excited marmalade fans, turned, and walked slowly away across the playground.
When she was halfway across, she saw that over on the other side a solitary figure was sitting against the fence, eating from a plastic lunchbox.
As she got closer, he looked up and gave her a friendly grin.
It was Karim.
May smiled back, went over and sat down next to him.
He offered her his lunchbox.
She took it.
‘Nice dumplings,’ she said.
Vic didn’t slow down when he reached the pet shop.
‘Mind your backs,’ he called out as he sprinted straight inside. ‘Urgent delivery coming through.’
Vic knew kids weren’t meant to run in shops, and he knew at this speed there was a danger of tripping over a kennel and ending up nose-first in a sack of pigs’ ears. But he had to take the risk. He was seriously late.
Nothing must slow him down.
Please don’t stutter, thought Vic as he thudded into the counter. Please don’t stutter, please don’t stutter, please don’t stutter.
Behind the counter, Mr Pappadopoulis looked up, frowned at Vic and began to stutter.
‘H – h – h – h – h – h – h – h – h –’
No, thought Vic. Please. I haven’t got time for this.
‘H – h – h – h – h – h – h – h – h –’
Vic knew what Mr Pappadopoulis was trying to say.
‘Hello,’ said Vic, getting in first to save Mr Pappadopouli
s the trouble and more importantly to save time.
‘W – w – w – w – w – w – w – w – w –’
Please, begged Vic silently. Let me do the talking.
Mr Pappadopoulis didn’t.
‘W – w – w – w – w – w – w – w – w –’
Once again, Vic guessed what Mr Pappadopoulis was trying to say.
‘What,’ said Vic, ‘can you do for me? Thanks for asking.’
He reached into his sports bag and took out Monty.
‘Gran’s tortoise needs a clip,’ he said.
Mr Pappadopoulis peered at Monty and frowned again.
‘T – t – t – t – t – t – t –,’ he said. ‘T – t – t – t – t –’
‘Toenails, that’s right,’ said Vic. ‘Gran’s hoping you can do it. Her hands shake too much and the last time I tried, I accidently dropped Monty into a laundry bucket full of starch.’
Monty blinked.
So did Mr Pappadopoulis.
‘I know,’ said Vic. ‘Poor Monty. The last thing a tortoise needs is to end up stiffer and even slower. But I was in a rush and I slipped.’
‘S – s – s – s – s – s – s –,’ said Mr Pappadopoulis.
Vic was puzzled for a moment, then got it.
‘Sling him over to you? Thanks, Mr P,’ said Vic, handing Monty to Mr Pappadopoulis. ‘Sorry I can’t stay to chat, I’m in the school athletics team and I’m late for the District Championships. My phone number’s on Monty’s tummy. Bye.’
As Vic sprinted out of the shop, he glimpsed puppies, fish, guinea pigs and terrapins all looking at him disapprovingly.
That was a bit unkind, the pets’ faces said. Don’t you know anything about stuttering? Don’t you know that rushing a stutterer is the worst thing you can do?
Vic pushed the guilt away and sprinted down the street. Those puppies and fish and guinea pigs and terrapins obviously didn’t know anything about being in a district championship relay team.
Vic glanced at his watch.
Twenty-eight minutes till the team bus left.
Enough time.
Probably.
The tortoise was done, only the hair to go.
Please don’t gossip, thought Vic as he rushed into Uncle Riad’s hair salon. Please don’t gossip, please don’t gossip, please don’t gossip.
Uncle Riad was with a customer, blow-drying a cascade of Beyoncé curls. He looked up, saw Vic and gave him a grin.
‘How’s the champ?’ he said. ‘I was just telling Leonie here what a killer you are on the track. How you’re gunna blow the opposition away today. Wipe the track with ’em. Bring home a fistful of trophies. Even better, those engraved silver carving platters.’
‘I’m only in the relay team,’ muttered Vic.
‘Vic runs the final legs of all the relays,’ said Uncle Riad to Leonie. ‘The four times one hundred metres, the four times two hundred metres and, wait for it, the four times four hundred metres. Creams ’em every time.’
Leonie looked impressed.
‘Thanks, Uncle Riad,’ said Vic. ‘But I’m in a bit of a hurry.’ He took Gran’s wig from his sports bag and held it out. ‘Gran says it needs a trim.’
Uncle Riad didn’t even look at the wig, just kept on gossiping to Leonie.
‘You’d never have guessed,’ said Uncle Riad, ‘if you’d seen his wobbly thighs when he was little. He didn’t walk till he was two and a half.’
Vic wondered if Uncle Riad had heard any part of ‘needs a trim’ and ‘bit of a hurry’. Maybe Uncle Riad had a build-up of hair clippings in his ears.
‘Vic’s parents would be so proud if they could see him now,’ Uncle Riad was saying to Leonie. ‘Be a winner, that’s what they always told him. That’s why they called him Victor.’
Take the wig, begged Vic silently. Please take it.
‘Throw yourself at life,’ said Uncle Riad, looking fondly at Vic. ‘That’s what his dad always said. Go full pelt. Do whatever it takes to get in front of the other mongrels.’
Take it, pleaded Vic. Take it, take it, take it.
‘If only his parents were still here to see what a champ their son has turned into,’ said Uncle Riad. He sighed. ‘If only they hadn’t driven quite so fast. Through that red light.’
Vic glanced at his watch.
Thirteen minutes till the bus left.
He stuffed the wig into Uncle Riad’s hands. Uncle Riad stared at it, frowning.
‘What happened?’ he said.
‘Got a bit melted in the toaster,’ said Vic. ‘I was in a hurry, making Gran’s toast and trimming her split ends at the same time. Bye.’
He turned and sprinted out of the salon.
The sounds of the hair dryer and Uncle Riad’s voice drifted after him.
‘Blow ’em away, champ.’
Please don’t be gone, thought Vic as he ran towards the school gate. Please don’t be gone, please don’t be gone, please don’t be gone.
If the bus was gone, so was his place in the team. Mr Callaghan the sports teacher was fanatical about being on time. He didn’t like lateness at the finishing line, or anywhere.
Vic’s chest was hurting with effort and stress.
Thirteen minutes from Uncle Riad’s salon should have been plenty, he thought bitterly. It would have, if the streets hadn’t been jammed with dawdlers and slowcoaches.
Old people who needed to peer into every shop window, probably looking for a product that would get starch out of their pants.
Gangs of teenagers meandering along, gawking at their phones, probably checking the Guinness Book Of Records website to see if they’d broken the record for the slowest dawdle through a shopping centre.
Families pausing all over the footpath to taste each other’s ice-creams.
Vic had very nearly crashed into a mum and dad and kids with chocolate and pistachio moustaches, and he’d felt a bit jealous. Then, as he’d pushed past them, a bit sticky.
Please don’t be gone, begged Vic again.
He sprinted through the school gate and round the corner of the library to the staff carpark.
There it was. The team bus.
He’d made it.
‘Victor,’ said a voice. ‘What are you doing here?’
Vic stopped and turned round.
Mr Downie the principal was coming out of the library.
‘Didn’t you get our message?’ said Mr Downie.
Vic looked at him, confused.
‘We sent you a text last night,’ said Mr Downie. ‘You’re not running today. Sorry.’
Vic stared.
Not running?
‘I discussed it with Mr Callaghan,’ said Mr Downie. ‘We agreed you haven’t been putting in your best times lately and you could do with a rest. Didn’t you look at your phone?’
Vic was so dazed he could hardly think.
He had to admit he probably hadn’t looked at his phone last night, what with his evening training program and cooking Gran’s tea and Uncle Riad coming round and challenging him to an arm wrestle.
‘Have the weekend off, Victor,’ said Mr Downie. ‘Do something relaxing. Take it easy.’
The principal went back into the library.
Vic slumped against the wall. It was true, his times had dropped lately. But he’d hoped it was just temporary while he was saving up for new running shoes. Which had taken longer than he’d planned because he hadn’t wanted to put extra financial pressure on Gran. It was hard enough for her, with all the debts Mum and Dad had left.
The strange thing, though, was that even when Uncle Riad had found out he needed new running shoes and bought him a pair, plus a luminous green singlet that said Champ, his times hadn’t picked up.
That was very strange.
And worrying.
Vic stared numbly across the carpark.
Mr Callaghan was getting onto the bus. He gave Vic an embarrassed wave. The bus door closed behind him. Vic could see the faces of the athletics team silhouet
ted in the windows.
The bus started to drive away.
Vic heard a voice inside his head.
‘Be a winner,’ said the voice. ‘Because if you’re not a winner, you’re a loser.’
He wasn’t sure if it was his dad’s voice, or Uncle Riad’s, or Donald Trump’s.
Vic didn’t care.
He gripped his sports bag and ran after the bus.
By the time Vic caught up with the bus, it was going quite fast.
It had started slowly, turning a few corners, but now it was on a long straight downhill street and was already in third gear.
Vic was running the race of his life.
He’d stopped feeling the pain in his legs several hundred metres back. All he could feel now was a searing fire in his chest and the blood pounding in his head and his eardrums about to explode.
And lower down, in his guts, sadness.
Which he wasn’t surprised by.
He’d been dumped. Dumped by the team he’d done so much for. Including giving up ice-cream because of the risk of flab.
Vic was tempted to stop running and give the sticky patch of chocolate and pistachio on his shoulder a good lick and just enjoy it.
But he didn’t.
He forced a last spurt of effort into his legs, ignored the agony in his lungs, caught up with the bus and pounded on the back window.
In the driver’s-side rear-vision mirror he saw the driver’s face go wide-eyed with shock, and Vic remembered just in time to drop back as the driver hit the brakes.
As Vic staggered up the steps onto the bus, he saw it wasn’t just the driver who was in shock.
Mr Callaghan and all the kids were staring at him too. Mouths almost as wide as his, and he was the one gasping for air.
As soon as Vic saw Mr Callaghan’s face, he knew he was going to get his place in the team back. And he did. Mr Callaghan started giving it to him even before the bus door was closed.
‘That was amazing, young man. An amazing piece of running. In the light of such an improved performance . . .’
Vic tried to let Mr Callaghan know that he needed to sit down.
He couldn’t speak for the moment, so he let Mr Callaghan know by getting very dizzy and dropping his bag and almost fainting.
Mr Callaghan jumped up and lowered Vic into his seat.
‘Head between your legs,’ said Mr Callaghan. ‘Get some blood back to your brain.’
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