Freaks Out!

by Jean Ure

  I said, “It?”

  Her eyes slid away.

  “What d’you mean it?”

  I might have known it was too good to be true. When I questioned her more closely I discovered that in fact it had only been one hairy monster and it hadn’t even been a proper monster, if it came to that, just one tiny little mouse. Jem tried arguing with me, like she always does. She is a very argumentative-type person. She said that as mice went it had been pretty huge, it seemed to her, plus everybody knew that mice didn’t come singly.

  “They live in nests. With other mice.”

  She said there was obviously a whole family of them hiding away somewhere, and that if you stayed and watched, you’d probably see hordes of them come out and run across the floor. I told her rather sharply that in that case she had better be prepared to sit in the kitchen all night, and maybe, if lots of mice appeared, and if they were really big mice, I might be prepared to put them on my list.

  Jem immediately said, “What list?”

  I said, “List I’m making of stuff that happens, ready for when Skye lets us open up and have a look.”

  “So what’s happened so far?” said Jem.

  I had to admit nothing, apart from Daisy Hooper getting whacked on the ankle, which I didn’t honestly think we could count. Jem said she reckoned I still ought to make a note of it.

  “And Mum’s mouse. Cos these things aren’t ever straightforward.”

  “Yes, but you can’t just twist them to mean anything,” I said. “They’ve got to have a bit of resemblance to what’s written down.”

  Jem said, “Clonk – Daisy. Monster – Mum. That’s two of mine, and they do have some resemblance! It could be,” she said, “that I’m the one with psychic powers. Not everybody has them. How much of what you wrote has come true?”

  Loftily I said, “Too early to tell. I’m waiting for proper scientific proof.”

  I certainly wasn’t putting Daisy Hooper’s ankle on the list, and I wasn’t putting Jem’s mum. Jem could argue as much as she liked. An ankle is not the same as a head, and one small mouse isn’t the same as a horde of huge furry monsters. On the other hand, something very remarkable happened later that day. I got home to find that a leaflet had been pushed through the letterbox. It was there, lying face up on the mat.

  TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS EXCITING OPPORTUNITY!

  GET FIT, HAVE FUN!

  SIGN UP NOW FOR ONE MONTH’S FREE TRIAL AT THE

  GREENBANK LEISURE CENTRE.

  Well. That was more like it! It was exactly what I’d written: An exciting new opportunity will arise. It should be grasped with both hands.

  If I could just get someone to grasp it… I rushed into the kitchen to show Mum.

  “Mum,” I cried, “look! You can have a month’s free trial at the Greenbank Leisure Centre!”

  Mum said, “Oh, Frankie, I don’t have time for that. I’m far too busy.”

  It’s true that Mum is quite busy, doing dressmaking and stuff for all her ladies, but I’d have thought a bit of fun and keeping fit would have brightened up her life.

  “Not really,” said Mum. “I’d sooner put my feet up and have a cup of coffee.”

  What can you do? I try to be helpful.

  I showed the leaflet to Angel, suggesting she might like to grasp the opportunity, but she seemed to think I was insulting her.

  “Why should I need it?” she shrieked. “Are you implying I’m fat?”

  I said, “No, but it’s free.”

  “So you do it,” said Angel.

  Next I tried Tom, who just grunted, which is pretty much all he ever does.

  “You mean, you don’t want to?” I said.

  “Gotta be joking,” said Tom.

  Dad was my last chance. I reminded him what the government had said about us all taking more exercise to stop from getting fat and flabby, but Dad laughed and said he got quite enough exercise watching sport on TV, thank you very much.

  Honestly! What a family. An exciting new opportunity and not a single one of them would grasp it. Still, I put it on my list. It was the first real sign we had had. A proper sign. Not like Jem and her hairy monsters. After all, you can’t blame horoscopes if people are too stupid to follow their advice. I just wish I knew which one of the family it was!

  I couldn’t make up my mind whether to tell Jem or not. I knew if I did she would only start arguing again about ankles being the same as heads and tiny little mice being huge furry monsters, but, anyway, as it happened, I didn’t get the chance. Skye was with us, as usual, as we walked into school, and we were together all the rest of the day.

  Skye was in a really glumpish sort of mood. Even in maths, when Mr Hargreaves wanted to know if anyone had the answer to some weird mess he’d scrawled all over the board, she didn’t put her hand up. I could tell Mr Hargreaves was surprised, cos Skye always has the answer to everything. Me and Jem exchanged glances over her head. Something was definitely not right.

  We discussed it in whispers in the cloakroom at break. Should we ask what the problem was, or should we just go on pretending not to have noticed? We still hadn’t reached any decision when Skye came out of a cubicle and wanted to know what we were gossiping about.

  “Not gossiping,” said Jem.

  “So why are you being all furtive?”

  I couldn’t think of any answer to that. Jem, her brain whizzing into overdrive, said, “Oh! You know,” and waved a hand rather vaguely about the empty cloakroom, but Skye didn’t pursue the matter. She obviously wasn’t that interested.

  Last class of the day was drama with Miss Hamilton. Me and Jem adore drama! Whenever we’re told to choose partners, we always choose each other. Never Skye! Not if we can avoid it. Drama is one of the few classes Skye is useless at. She can’t act to save her life. It’s because she can’t show her feelings. Me and Jem like nothing better. We are full of feelings! Sometimes, Miss Hamilton says, we overflow. Skye says we swamp. But I think we are just naturally expressive.

  Today, Miss Hamilton said, we were going to do improvisation, making up our own short scenes with a partner. Hooray! I love improvisation. Seems to me it’s far more fun making up your own words than having to stick to other people’s.

  “So,” said Miss Hamilton, “find yourselves a partner.” Me and Jem immediately bagged each other. We didn’t even think of Skye. “I want one of you to be unhappy, and the other one has to find out why, and try to comfort her. OK?”

  Jem begged me to let her be the unhappy one.

  “Please, Frankie, please!”

  I didn’t mind. I’m good at comforting. I’m a people person!

  We waited impatiently for our turn. I hate having to sit and watch while everyone else gets up and does things. Specially when they’re not very good at it. Some of them were OK, like Brittany Fern, crying cos her pet goldfish had died. I think that losing your goldfish would be quite upsetting. I know you can’t take a goldfish to bed with you or cuddle it, like I can Rags, but I daresay they have their own little fishy ways that you get fond of.

  Daisy Hooper was pathetic, as usual. She’s another one that can’t act; she just thinks she can. She lumped herself into the middle of the floor and started bellowing about how she’d been promised a trip to Disneyland and then at the last minute it had been cancelled, sob sob, boo hoo. Like anyone cared. Hardly in the same class, I would have thought, as losing your goldfish.

  Skye did her scene with a girl called Lucy Westwood that hardly ever speaks above a whisper. It was a bit embarrassing, really, what with Skye all wooden and saying how she’d failed this really important exam – oh, disaster! – and Lucy whispering how sorry she was. Well, I think that was what she was whispering; it was hard to tell.

  Me and Jem were left till last. Top of the bill! Stars are always on last. Not meaning to boast, but I do think we are more talented than most people in our class. What I couldn’t quite understand, as we took the stage – well, the centre of the room, actually – was why a seri
es of tiny little squeaks were coming from Jem, like she’d got the giggles and was fighting to suppress them. This was serious stuff! Jem was supposed to be unhappy and I was going to comfort her. What was there to giggle at?

  I was soon to discover. Miss Hamilton said, “All right, you two, off you go!” I felt that she was expecting something really special from me and Jem. I’d already put my face into sympathetic mode, letting my mouth droop and my eyes go all big and swimmy. It’s something I’ve practised in the mirror. I’ve practised lots of faces in the mirror. Evil ones, soppy ones, scaredy ones. All kinds! You never know when they might come in useful, like if you’re going to have a career as an actor. Not that I am, probably, but I like to think that I could. If I wanted.

  I turned to Jem, who was still making little squeaks, and said, “Oh dear, Jem, you are not looking very happy! Is something the matter?” Instantly, Jem stopped squeaking and burst into loud, heart-rending sobs. Real sobs. I don’t know how she does that! It’s a gift that she has.

  I was immediately sympathetic. “What’s wrong?” I said. “Tell me what’s wrong!”

  “It’s my great-great-grandmother!” sobbed Jem.

  Pardon me? Her great-great-grandmother? Great-great-grandmother?

  “She died!” Jem’s voice came out in a tragic wail. Someone, somewhere, sniggered. It had to be Daisy Hooper. I put an arm round Jem’s shoulders and very gently said, “I’m so sorry. How old was she?”

  Jem hiccupped. “A hundred and ten!”

  Without thinking, I said, “Is that all?”

  I wasn’t being sarcastic. It was just, like, an automatic response. But Daisy Hooper sniggered again. I just knew it was her! Frowning, because sniggering was in such bad taste, I offered Jem a paper hankie. Well, a pretend one, really, cos I didn’t have my bag with me. Jem mimed taking it and dabbing at her eyes.

  “Mum says she was still a girl,” Jem sniffled miserably into her pretend hankie. “It was all so unexpected!”

  This time, other people sniggered. Something was going badly wrong. We weren’t supposed to be a comic turn! I decided that it was up to me to pull things together. Soothingly, I stroked Jem’s hair.

  “Try not to be too upset. After all, she did have a good long life.”

  “Yes,” said Jem, “but that’s not all.” She hiccupped again, rather wildly. “My great-uncle just died as well!”

  Giggles were breaking out like a rash all over the room. I began to feel rather desperate. I don’t mind being laughed at when I’m doing something stupid, but I was being sympathetic. I was trying to comfort.

  “Were you very close?” I said.

  “Yes!” Jem howled it at me. “He came to my christening. It’s the only time I ever saw him, and now I’ll never have the chance!”

  At this she collapsed totally, her whole body racked with violent sobs. Everybody except me and Miss Hamilton was in fits. Well, and Skye. She wasn’t in fits. I could see her sitting stiff and straight on her chair, not even a slight twitch of the lips. Like I said, Skye is not noted for her sense of humour. I, on the other hand, am the first to laugh if anyone tells a joke. Sometimes, if I’m watching television, for instance, and it’s a comedy show, I’ll laugh so much I’ll fall off my chair and roll about on the floor clutching at myself. It really annoys Angel.

  “Overdoing it,” she says.

  Jem was overdoing it. She was making us look stupid! I was quite relieved when Miss Hamilton stepped in and said enough was enough.

  “I wasn’t really looking for a comedy duo, but maybe that’s your way of dealing with emotions?”

  Jem told me afterwards, as we all walked back from school together, her and me and Skye, that she’d got so impatient having to sit there and listen to everyone else, especially Daisy Hooper dirging on about Disneyland, that when it came to our turn she just couldn’t stop herself. I grumbled that she might have warned me what she was planning to do, but she said it wasn’t planned.

  “It just happened!” And then she had the cheek to add, “You must admit, it was funny.”

  I pursed my lips and stayed silent.

  “Quite funny? A little bit funny? Just the tiniest teeny bit funny?”

  “If you really want to know –” Skye, who had been marching ahead like she wasn’t really with us, suddenly swung round – “it was stupid and childish and totally insensitive!”

  With that, she swung back and went striding on, her legs clacking open and shut like a pair of scissors, her shoes clump-clumping as she went. Me and Jem were like stunned. I was somewhat annoyed with Jem myself. I’d been looking forward to showing off my people skills, being sympathetic and offering comfort, but even I didn’t think she deserved to be yelled at.

  “What did I do?” Jem sounded bewildered. “I didn’t do anything!”

  We broke into a trot, racing along behind Skye.

  “Hey!” Jem caught hold of Skye’s sleeve, trying to slow her down. “Tell me what I did!”

  “You know what you did.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Well, you ought.”

  “But I don’t!” Poor Jem was looking so dejected I felt I had to stand up for her.

  “She was just having a bit of a joke,” I said.

  “She was being insensitive! Making fun of –” Skye choked – “people dying!”

  “Only her great-great-grandmother,” I pleaded. “She was a hundred and ten.”

  “So what?” To my horror, there were tears streaming down Skye’s cheeks. I don’t think I’d ever, ever seen Skye in tears. Not even when she broke her wrist, back in primary school and was in agony. “Just because someone’s old it means there aren’t people that love them?”

  I said, “No, of course not.”

  “Then why make a joke of it?”

  Sounding somewhat nervous, Jem said, “I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”

  “No, you just didn’t think!” Skye swiped the back of her hand angrily across her eyes. “You never do! You say these things without ever bothering to consider other people’s feelings.”

  Jem chewed uncertainly on her bottom lip. I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking. It had just come to me that Skye’s gran, who lived with them, was a very old lady. Skye’s mum and dad are quite old, like her dad is practically a senior citizen. Just a short while back Skye’s gran had celebrated her ninetieth birthday. She had had a special birthday party, with people coming from all over the world. Skye had been really excited. She had told us proudly that her gran was going to live to be a hundred and get a telegram from the Queen.

  Now I was starting to have horrible feelings. From the look on Jem’s face, I guessed that she was also having them. Perhaps we should have started having them sooner, when we’d noticed how unhappy Skye was, but it is so difficult when one of your closest friends won’t confide in you.

  Jem was signalling at me furiously. Do something!

  To be honest, just for a moment, I felt a bit resentful. I mean, why pick on me? I wasn’t the one that had laughed about my great-great-grandmother dying. But then I looked at Skye and reminded myself that I was a people person. Jem wasn’t a people person. She was bubbly and funny, but she didn’t always consider other people’s feelings.

  It had to be up to me.

  I took a deep breath, and swallowed. Jem waved her hands at me, like Say something, say something! I took another breath and did another swallow.

  “Um… Skye?” I dabbed rather nervously at her arm. Skye isn’t at all a touchy-feely person like me and Jem. If it had been Jem, I’d have put my arm round her properly, like friends should, but you can’t do that with Skye, it makes her uncomfortable. “I wish you’d tell us what’s wrong!”

  Stiffly, she moved away. “Nothing’s wrong! Just leave me alone.”

  I didn’t dare dab at her again. I took another breath and did a little hop and skip to catch her up, but before I could say anything Jem had gone blundering in, crash bang wallop, the way that she does.
r />   “If there’s nothing wrong,” she said, “what are you crying for?”

  Skye turned on her fiercely. “I’m not crying!”

  “You were just now,” said Jem.

  “I was not!”

  “You were,” said Jem. “You—”

  I frowned and kicked Jem quite hard on the ankle. Jem said, “Ow!” and looked at me reproachfully. I was sorry if I’d hurt her, but she really can be quite unhelpful at times. It’s strange how some people just seem to totally lose their heads in a crisis.

  “Thing is,” I said, “we are supposed to be friends.”

  “We are friends,” muttered Skye.

  “Well, but friends tell each other things.”

  “It’s what they’re for,” said Jem. “Wouldn’t be any point having them otherwise.”

  “It’s not like we’re trying to pry. We’re just worried about you.”

  Skye didn’t say anything to that, but at least she had stopped marching and slowed down to a more normal pace. I had this feeling that she wanted to talk, she just didn’t know how to get started. Suppose this was drama with Miss Hamilton? What would I say?

  “It’s not your gran, is it?” The words burst out of me. “Skye? It’s not your gran?”

  The tears sprang back into her eyes. She dashed them away ferociously on her sleeve. Timidly I said, “S-Skye?”

  So then, at last, she told us. How two weeks ago, her beloved gran had had a stroke and been taken to hospital. How she had died over the weekend.

  “She was so brave,” said Skye. “She fought so hard! And now she’s gone, and I’m going to miss her so much. She was just, like, always there for me, you know? Like if I was worried about anything, I could always go to her. And that time I was off school for weeks, when I was ill? She was the one that looked after me. She always looked after me! She was the one I went to if I was in trouble, like once when I got this really bad mark for English, like really really bad, and I couldn’t tell Mum or Dad, I was just so ashamed, so I told Gran and she made me realise there was more in life than just passing exams, and it sort of cheered me up for a bit, cos I knew she was right, even if Mum and Dad wouldn’t probably agree, and now she’s not here any more and I don’t have anyone to turn to!”