by Anne Fine
‘I don’t need chumming to school,’ I told Mum when she was still scouring the cupboards hopelessly for her scarlet plastic bosun’s helmet at seven minutes to nine. ‘You don’t have to come with me.’
‘You don’t have to go,’ she countered irritably.
‘I do,’ I insisted. ‘It’s a schoolday, isn’t it? I’m not sick or injured, am I?’
‘Don’t push your luck, Minna,’ she said, climbing into her wellies and scowling.
So we set off to school through the gale. You’ve never seen anything like it. The street was absolutely clean! All of the litter had been washed away – even the tatty old cardboard boxes outside number twelve, and those great lengths of stair carpet on the corner that the dustbin men have refused for four whole weeks to shove into their mechanical chewer.
The main road was amazing, too. Cars were crawling along with their drivers hunched forward and peering through little arcs on the windscreens. The tyres hurled wide sheets of filthy gutter water up in our faces. Mum spat and cursed. Her wellies were flooded.
And just at that moment, I noticed Gran. She was staggering out of her cul-de-sac, into the wind, fighting her umbrella which looked just as though it were fighting her back.
I squeezed Mum’s arm.
‘Look’ I said, pointing. ‘Gran! And we’re going the same way’
Mum blinked raindrops off her eyelashes, and looked. Then she shouted to me over the wind:
‘I’m not slowing up. Not in this weather. And now I’m this wet, I’m not going back either.’
And, with that, she strode on with her head down against the spiteful winds and the rain.
Gran was striding along, almost beside us. She clearly had the same idea. The weather was far too awful to slow up, or take a longer route, or go back home and set off again later. She was going to brazen it out, just like Mum.
The two of them were practically side by side now, each striding along into the wind, and neither of them so much as giving one tiny little sideways peep at the other.
And that was their big mistake! For the oddest thing was happening. The strangest sight! Both of them were changing. It was almost as if the storm were playing its own little private joke on the pair of them.
Mum’s hair was changing back to its normal colour! First, little streaks started running like tiny bright-blue rivers down her cheeks, over her ears, and down the back of her neck. Her hair was gradually returning to mousey-brown, the colour it was before she went royal blue. The dye was washing out, faster and faster. And the spikes were collapsing. The wind was blowing them flat. Mum didn’t notice, but by the time we reached the corner, she looked as clean and neat and tidy as she does in the photo that was taken of her at convent school.
(Gran loves that photo. She keeps it on the mantelpiece at her house in a special fur frame. Mum says it makes her look like a wally, and slams it down on its face whenever we visit. If the frame wasn’t fur, she’d have smashed it by now, doing that.)
And Mum wasn’t the only one looking different. Gran was changing, too. As she marched into the same fierce wind, her neat little parting was whipped away, and patches of her hair stuck up in clumps, like Crusher’s after his football practice. Her hair was wet, too, making the blue look bluer. Gran no longer looked like someone who’d been to the hairdresser only ten days ago. She looked like someone who’d been dragged backwards through a hedge.
Then, as we reached the school gates, the wind gave one last, amazing flourish. It whipped Gran’s hair up into spikes. It whipped a nice neat parting into Mum’s straight brown hair. And it whipped the umbrella clean out of Gran’s grasp.
Mum reached out and caught the handle automatically, as it flew past. Then, since she couldn’t think of anything else to do with it, she turned to Gran to hand it back.
Gran turned to her, to take it.
Both of them stared.
Gran stared at neat, sweet, tidy Mum, looking just like she used to look in her favourite photo on the mantelpiece.
Mum stared at punky, spiky, blue Gran, looking a bit like Crusher Maggot on a bad morning.
Tears came to Gran’s eyes first.
‘Look at you! You look lovely!’ she cried, and reached out to give Mum one of her giant hugs.
‘And you!’ Mum squealed with pleasure, hugging her back. ‘You look smashing, just smashing!’
‘What a wonderful surprise!’
‘Oh, you are too! Really!’
I sighed, and shook my head. Then the school bell rang. I walked away, and neither of them even noticed. They were far too busy praising one another for their beautiful hairstyles.
It’s a good job there are no mirrors hanging on our school wall, I reckoned. But you never know… In my experience, most of their silly squabbles get sorted out in time, if you just ignore them.
2
A Really Boring Ride in the Country
As soon as school finished, I ran straight home. Even though it was a beautiful day, Mum was inside, sitting on the sofa with Crusher Maggot, watching a video and munching crisps. Crummy Dummy was jumping up and down in her cot as usual, trying to bump her head on the ceiling.
I said hello to Crummy Dummy first.
‘Hi, babe,’ I drawled in my American gangster voice. ‘How’s life behind bars?’
She smiled and dribbled down her chin. She likes me so much. While I was tickling her tummy, I asked Mum:
‘What are you watching?’
‘Horror film,’ Mum said. ‘Curse of the Blood of Dracula. Pass the fizzy’
I knew she meant the bottle on the table because that was redcurrant, and redcurrant was the colour Crummy Dummy was dribbling. I don’t care very much for it myself, and especially not while Curse of the Blood of Dracula is on the video. So I gave the bottle straight to Mum. She took a couple of swallows and passed it on to Crusher. He had a slug, then pushed the bottle between the cot bars.
‘Here, Crummy Dummy,’ he said. ‘Have a swig.’
I sighed. I do get a bit fed up with fighting the same old battles all the time.
‘You really shouldn’t let Crusher give that stuff to the baby,’ I told Mum.
Now Crusher sighed. You could tell that he thought I was nagging.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘It rots her teeth.’
‘She’s hardly got any,’ Crusher argued.
‘More are in there, growing,’ I insisted. ‘And drinking fizzy is a terrible habit.’ I turned to Mum. ‘You really shouldn’t buy it,’ I told her. ‘It’s full of sugar, colourants and additives. It has no goodness in it at all.’
Now Mum was sighing as well. But, let’s face it, it’s not my fault that I’m for ever having to nag. Left to herself, she makes a terrible parent. If I’m not careful, she forgets all my visits to the dentist, and lets me stay up way past my bedtime, even on schoolnights, and never checks I’ve done my homework properly, or changed my socks. I think she ought to make more of an effort, really. I think she ought to run the house a bit better, and dress Crummy Dummy up in nicer clothes (and stop everybody calling her that – her name is Miranda!). I think she ought to buy wholemeal bread instead of white sliced, and take that safety pin out of her ear. I think she should stop being cheeky to the man from social services, and spending their weekly cheque on clothes that glitter, and bits for Crusher Maggot’s old car.
And I don’t think that I ought to come home from school on a beautiful afternoon to find her sitting in a darkened room, watching a video. There are far better things to do.
I didn’t say anything, though. There was no point. The film was coming to an end, anyway. A very sticky end. A crush of flailing vampires was slowly drowning in what should have been the blood of Dracula, but looked more like orange squash because the colours on the telly have not been right since Crummy Dummy fiddled with the buttons.
Mum stretched, and opened the curtains.
‘Game of cards, Minna?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I can’
t,’ I said. ‘I haven’t done my homework yet.’
‘You could do it later.’
‘No, I can’t,’ I told her firmly. ‘I want to go down to the launderette after tea. I’m out of socks.’
Mum sighed. I don’t think she finds me easy. I bet she hopes Crummy Dummy grows up a bit different, more like her, not bothering about things like homework and clean teeth and matching socks, and ready to drop whatever she’s doing to have a bit of fun. Because Mum is good fun, even if some of the neighbours do tighten their lips when she strides past in silver boots, and the Health Visitor thinks she shouldn’t have trimmed Crummy Dummy’s hair into a mohican so soon, and I am always having to go on at her.
‘Crusher? Fancy a game of cards?’
Crusher stood up, knocking a pile of crisp packets on to the carpet.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m off to buy a bit for the car.’
Mum looked around. Crummy Dummy was the only one left, but she can’t play cards. She simply puts them in her mouth and sucks the edges till they’re soggy.
‘It’s tea-time, anyway,’ I reminded Mum. ‘Better leave the cards till after.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Mum agreed. But I could see she didn’t like it because she dragged her boot heels along the lino, following me into the kitchen. We were out of butter. And out of bread. And out of tea-bags. I had to borrow two pounds from the emergency tin, and leave Mum clattering the dirty breakfast plates off the table, while I went down to the shop.
And that’s how it happened that no one was in the room when the television and the video were stolen. No one except Crummy Dummy, that is. And she didn’t raise the alarm. She didn’t even make a noise, Mum said. Not one squawk. She just sat there in her nappies and watched. Probably thought it was as good a show as any on the telly when the thief sneaked in through the open front door, past the kitchen where Mum was, and into the room, picking his way softly and carefully through all the crumpled crisp packets lying on the floor ready to crackle, lifting the telly and the video, and carrying them out without a sound. He even must have slipped a square of milk chocolate to Crummy Dummy through the cot bars on his way out. We found it dribbled down her, after.
Everyone realized what had happened at the same moment. Mum came out of the kitchen just as I came back from the shops and Crusher Maggot strolled in the back door.
‘Hello,’ said Crusher. ‘Where’s the telly?’
‘And the video.’
‘Gone!’
‘Who’s taken them?’
‘Have we had burglars?’
‘What’s going on?’
You can imagine the fuss. Mum nearly had a fit. Crusher was furious. The video belonged to him. He brought it round to our house months ago to tape the Cup Final, and never took it home again. I was just going to mention to Mum how silly it was of her not to have made sure we had proper insurance, when Crusher said:
‘What about Crummy Dummy? She was here all the time. She must have seen whoever it was who came in and stole them.’
Mum lifted Crummy Dummy out of her cot and tried to get her to spill the beans; but since she can only say bokkle and bye-bye and tac (that’s cat backwards), it wasn’t any use. Mum soon gave up.
‘I suppose we’ll have to phone the police,’ she said.
‘Police?’ said Crusher. He didn’t sound too keen. But Mum went off next door in her silver boots to borrow their phone. Crusher sat, sunk in gloom, facing the empty space and bare wall that used to be our television and his video. I didn’t mind too much. I only watch the nature programmes and the documentaries. And I’m beginning to suspect that television kills conversation.
Crusher’s conversation was none too interesting. All he kept saying was:
‘If I find out who it was, I’ll rip his ears off.’
The police, when they finally turned up, didn’t seem bothered. (Of course, it wasn’t their telly or their video.) There were two of them, one old, one young. The old one said this sort of thing happens all the time in an area like ours. He didn’t hold out much hope for our getting the things back. He hadn’t anyone spare at the moment to send out looking. Crusher glared at him then, as much as to say: ‘You’re not doing all that much yourself, are you, just standing here gassing. Why don’t you go out looking?’ But the old one didn’t notice, and the young one was just leaning against the draining-board staring at Mum. You could tell that he disapproved of her and fancied her at the same time. So could the old one. He took him off.
Two seconds after they’d gone, Crusher flung himself face down on the sofa, and beat the cushions with his fists.
‘No!’ he howled. ‘No! Tonight! At ten o’clock! The Snooker Final!’
Great chunks of sponge kept shooting out of the cushions. Poor Crusher was beside himself. Mum and I tried desperately to think of something to distract him.
‘We could take that nice walk along the deserted railway line,’ I suggested. ‘It would do Crummy Dummy good to get some fresh air, and there are some smashing wild flowers beside the track.’
Mum pretended to throw up in Crusher’s old wellies.
‘All right,’ I said crossly. ‘You think of something.’
She thought of something.
‘A ride. A ride in Crusher’s car.’
‘Where?’
‘Down the dog track?’ Mum suggested hopefully.
‘No,’ I insisted. ‘Somewhere nice. In the country.’
‘Boring,’ said Mum. ‘Really boring.’ But I’d made up my mind. And Mum was too busy trying to get Crusher Maggot to pull himself together to argue for long enough to wear me down.
So off to the country we went in Crusher’s car. It’s a real crate. Crusher says the reason it’s bare and rusty in patches all over is because it’s such a good car that it’s worth saving up for a proper respray It eats up petrol and it won’t go fast. Crusher says that’s a ‘sophisticated design safety feature’, but Mum and I think it’s because the gearstick’s bent and Crusher can’t force it into fourth gear. We wouldn’t dare to say so, though. He’d stop the car and make us walk.
We bowled along. Nobody overtook us. (The roads were quite empty. ‘They’re all at home, getting ready to watch the snooker,’ Crusher said bitterly.) Trees flashed by on either side. (‘It’s nice to go at a speed where Crummy Dummy can see the birds clearly,’ I said to Mum.) The petrol-gauge hovered on full. (Then, prising her boots off, Mum caught the glass in front of it by mistake with her heel, and the needle dropped suddenly to halfway-empty.)
‘This was a good idea,’ Mum said, stifling a yawn.
And that was when Crummy Dummy screeched.
‘Greee-eee-eee-eee!’
You’ve never heard a noise like it. It was worse than the howl Mum let out the day she spilt green nail polish all down her new sequinned tracksuit.
Crusher threw his foot on to the brake. The car lurched to a halt in the middle of nowhere.
‘What on earth…?’
Crummy Dummy was bouncing up and down so hard that her nappy was squelching.
‘Greee-eee-eee-eee!’
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘Maybe she’s got a pin stuck in her.’
‘Of course she hasn’t.’ I was hurt. ‘I put that nappy on her.’
She did it again.
‘Greee-eee-eee-eee!’
‘She’s all excited about something.’
‘What’s she looking at?’
‘Nothing.’
‘She must be looking at something. Her eyes are open.’
I craned my neck round beside hers, to try to see what she was looking at.
‘She’s looking at that hill over there.’
‘What hill?’
‘That hill.’
‘That boring old hill? That’s nothing special.’
So Crusher put the car back into gear. We’d hardly gone a couple of feet before:
‘Greee-eee-eee-eee!’
The same noise again, as piercing as on
e of those whistling kettles, and Crummy Dummy struggling like mad.
Crusher was getting irritated.
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘It’s just that hill. She’s staring at that hill.’
We all stared through the car windows. Outside was a huge hill, green with pines in places and bare in others where they’d chopped them down.
‘Why would she stare at that?’ asked Crusher, mystified. ‘It’s about as exciting a scene as the test card on telly. One great big boring hill, covered in patches of boring pointy pine trees in boring straight rows, with boring zig-zag cart tracks between them.’
‘I bet that was a nice hill once,’ said Mum. ‘Before the Forestry Commission got at it, and turned it into a matchstick factory.’
‘Greee-eee-eee-eee!’ Bounce, bounce, bounce. A nice quiet ride in the country? Some hopes.
‘She’s trying to tell us something,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, do I? But I know she is.’
We all stared at the hill. Suddenly Mum’s eyes began to glaze over.
‘It’s starting to remind me of something,’ she said.
‘What is?’
‘That hill.’
‘That hill!’ Crusher was getting really impatient now. ‘How can a boring old hill covered in spiky little Lego trees with zig-zags all over remind you of anything?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mum said. ‘But it does.’
So we all sat and stared some more. Then Crusher said:
‘Me too. It’s beginning to remind me of something.’
I shook my head. I thought they were both crazy. Unti –
‘Me too! Me too! But, don’t you see?’ I shouted. ‘Don’t you see? It’s not something it reminds you of at all. It’s someone!’
‘Someone?’
‘Don’t understand.’
‘Look again!’ I said excitedly. ‘Look!’
They all looked again, except for Crummy Dummy, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the hill, or stopped screeching and bouncing, from the very first moment we drove round the corner and saw it.
The hill was round. Sort of head-shaped. The little pointy trees stuck all over it looked just like green-dyed spikes of hair on a punk’s head. The fire-breaks looked like zig-zag partings. The longer you sat and looked at the hill, the more it looked like someone, someone punk, someone with green hair and zig-zag partings.
