Freaks Out!

by Jean Ure

  “You have us,” I said.

  “I know.” Skye sniffed, and nodded, and tilted her chin. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I just couldn’t bear to talk about it.”

  But now that she had, she admitted it did make her feel a bit better.

  “Talking does help.”

  “Talking’s what you have to do,” said Jem. “When Poppy died I talked and talked.”

  Poppy was a guinea pig that Jem had had at primary school. I could remember her talking. We had all been sympathetic cos, I mean, a guinea pig is like a member of the family, like a cat or a dog. I was a bit concerned, though, in case Skye might think it was wrong to compare her gran to a guinea pig. Anxiously, I said, “Of course, it’s not the same.”

  “I’m not saying it’s the same,” said Jem. “Just that talking is good.”

  “It is,” said Skye. “And you’re right, it’s what friends are for. So thanks, you guys!”

  We parted company as usual at Sunnybrook Gardens. Skye waved quite cheerfully, and said, “See you tomorrow!” I realised it was the first time she’d done that for ages. She was obviously feeling lots better. I was pleased to think it was all because of me – well, and a little bit because of Jem. To be fair to Jem, she had tried. But I was the one who’d got Skye to talk!

  I told Mum about it when I got home.

  “She’s been so miserable. But she just wouldn’t say anything, you know? She never does.”

  “I guess she doesn’t find it easy,” said Mum. “She’s not exactly one of nature’s chatterboxes. Unlike someone I could name!”

  I said, “Mum, are you talking about me?”

  “Well, if the cap fits,” said Mum.

  I thought about it. It’s true, I suppose; I do get told off quite a lot for talking, though not nearly as much as Jem. The thing about Jem, it has to be said, she doesn’t always stop to think before she opens her mouth. Like this one time when a girl in our class, Amy Shah, was telling us how she was trying to lose weight, saying she didn’t want to lose too much, just a tiny little bit, and Jem goes jumping in and says right, cos if she lost too much it would look really silly, a tiny little body with a huge great face on top of it. Daisy Hooper went, “Ooh, nasty!” and Lucy didn’t speak to Jem for the whole of the rest of term. Jem never properly understood what she’d done to upset her.

  “All I said was she’s got a big face and it would look silly!”

  Like comparing Skye’s gran to a guinea pig. I’d have been well pleased if she’d gone and undone all my good work.

  “Anyway,” said Mum, “do I take it Skye’s feeling better?”

  “Loads! Of course, she’s still sad.”

  “She will be,” said Mum. “It’ll take a while.”

  I couldn’t help wondering how I would feel if it was one of my grans that had died. I sat in the kitchen, trying to imagine it, but the thought of either of them not being there any more was just too upsetting. And that was only in my imagination. Plus I only get to see my grans once or twice a year, like at Christmas or on birthdays. Skye’s gran had actually lived with her. No wonder Skye had been so down.

  I wished, now, that we’d been nicer to her. We’d been so horrid, that day we were writing horoscopes and she’d driven us mad by inventing all these insane rules and ordering us around. We’d kept tutting, and rolling our eyes, and pulling faces behind her back. She must have known we were doing it. I wished we hadn’t! But at least now we’d made up for it a bit.

  I suddenly became aware that Rags had ambled across the kitchen and laid his big doggy head on my lap. He gazed up at me, full of love. He is such a sweet boy! He always knows if you’re feeling a bit low.

  Angel came bursting through the door as I was making crooning noises and rubbing my cheek against Rags head.

  “What’s up with you?” she said. “You in pain or something?”

  I said, “Skye’s grandma has just died.”

  “Oh.” Angel wandered across to the fridge. “I thought p’raps an elephant had trodden on your foot.” She yanked open the fridge door and stood there, peering inside. “Hey, Mum, are we out of yogurt?” she said.

  She can be just so insensitive at times. Well, all of the time, really.

  “Mu-u-um!” She slammed the fridge door shut. “We’re out of yogurt!”

  “Skye’s very upset,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Like anyone would be.” Any normal person.

  Angel helped herself to an apple and sank her teeth into it. She chewed noisily.

  “I thought her gran was ancient. Like about a hundred and three, or something.”

  “Doesn’t mean Skye didn’t love her! How’d you feel if one of our grans died?”

  “God, do you have to be so morbid?” cried Angel. “They’re not going to die! They’re nothing like that old.”

  It was a sort of comfort. In my mind, I’d already been picturing funerals and graveyards. I do tend to get a bit carried away. It’s the curse of having an active imagination. I don’t think Angel has any at all, which is why she is so insensitive.

  Next day, on our way into school, Skye turned to me and said, “Guess what?” The way she said it, my heart sank. Sometimes when people say “Guess what?” it means, “Hey! Guess what? Good news!” Other times it’s more like, “Hey, guess what? We’re having double maths. Yuck, yuck!” In other words, something bad.

  I just knew from the glum tone of Skye’s voice that this was one of those other times. Not good news. I immediately felt anxious. Skye had seemed so much happier when we’d parted company the previous day. What could have happened to make her all upset again?

  Jem, who had been prancing about on the pavement burbling something about her mum trying to force her to eat sprouts (I wasn’t really listening), stopped halfway through a sentence with her mouth hanging open. She slid her eyes in my direction.

  “You’ll never believe it,” said Skye.

  Obediently, in chorus, me and Jem went, “What?”

  “We can’t find Gran’s pencil!”

  For just a minute I couldn’t think what she was talking about, and then it came to me. I remembered how, in primary school, Skye had brought in this very special pencil that belonged to her gran, and had belonged to her gran before. It was silver, and had been made by Skye’s great-great-something-or-other-granddad, over a hundred years ago. Skye had explained that it was a family heirloom.

  We’d all had a go writing with it, twisting the lead up and down. Our teacher had said it was what used to be called a propelling pencil, but was now mostly known as an automatic pencil. Skye had told us, with great pride, that her gran was going to leave it to her when she was gone.

  “She’s going to put it into her will.”

  And now, it seemed, the pencil had vanished.

  “We’ve searched everywhere! We think maybe she took it out into the garden one day and it dropped out of her bag and she didn’t realise.”

  Jem said, “Why would she take it into the garden?”

  “Cos she used to like to sit out there, doing the crossword. And she always used her pencil.”

  I had a faint memory of Skye’s gran sitting in the garden. An old, old lady, very thin and frail, with white hair. A rug round her knees and the newspaper on her lap.

  Skye, choking slightly, said her gran hadn’t been able to do the crossword for months. Not since last summer.

  “She couldn’t see well enough. That’s why Dad thinks she might not have known she’d lost it.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Jem. “If it’s silver, it could be valuable.”

  “Like I should care about that?” Skye glared at her. “I don’t want to sell it! I just want to have it cos it was Gran’s, and it would make me think of her.”

  “Yes.” Jem nodded wisely. “I can see that.”

  “Dad says we’ll have a look round the garden, but he doesn’t hold out much hope cos we had builders in and they churned everything up. He says it could
be buried somewhere.”

  “Or the builders could have stolen it,” said Jem. “I mean,” she added, “if it’s valuable. They wouldn’t care if it had belonged to your gran.”

  I wasn’t quite sure it was right to accuse the builders of stealing. My dad’s an electrician. He goes into people’s houses all the time to fix things. He wouldn’t dream of stealing! Skye didn’t seem to think the builders would, either.

  “Dad says they could have dumped rubble on it when they built the extension.”

  “Could always get them to come in and dig it up again,” said Jem.

  Skye said yes, she could just see her dad doing that. “It’s already cost him a fortune!”

  Jem looked hurt. “I’m only trying to be helpful.”

  “I know.” Skye thrust her hair back over her ears. “I just thought I’d tell you, that’s all. Cos of us being friends and everything? I know there’s nothing you can actually do.”

  “’Cept listen,” said Jem.

  “Which you have.”

  “Has it made you feel better?”

  Skye said that it had, but I could tell she was only saying it to keep Jem happy. She was really upset about not being able to find her gran’s special pencil. I wished there was something I could suggest! I didn’t seem to have contributed very much to the conversation. Jem at least had tried.

  I worried about it all the rest of the day. Skye had made a real effort. She had opened up to us – well, to me, mainly. I was the one she’d turned to – Jem had been too busy burbling about sprouts. Skye had said, “You’ll never believe it!” and all I’d managed to say in reply was, “What?”

  I have often thought that when I leave school I should like to be someone that helps people. Someone that people can turn to when they are in trouble, like for instance, if their marriages are breaking up. I believe it is something I would be good at. I would not only listen patiently to what they had to say, I would also give practical advice and offer words of comfort. I wouldn’t just say what?

  I felt like I had let Skye down. I really hadn’t been any use at all.

  At the end of school me and Jem walked home by ourselves, as Skye had a meeting to go to. She is always having meetings. She is our class representative on the school magazine and takes her job very seriously.

  “Do you think we helped this morning?” said Jem. “I think we did! Don’t you?”

  “Dunno.” I kicked at an empty can, sending it flying across the pavement and into the gutter. I find there is a lot of satisfaction to be gained from kicking at things.

  We watched in silence as a car drove past. Right over the can, squashing it flat. Jem said, “Hm!” And then, “Don’t you think so?”

  “See, I’m having these horrible feelings,” I said.

  “’Bout what?”

  “That it’s all my fault.”

  “Dunno how you work that out,” said Jem. “You didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I might have done.”

  “How?”

  “Well, like… if I’m psychic, or something?”

  “You?”

  Jem did this squirrelly thing that she does, bunching up her mouth as if chewing on nuts. I could see she wasn’t impressed. She was the one that was psychic, or so she thought. Her and her clonks on the head and big furry monsters. I, on the other hand, was serious.

  “I’m really worried,” I said. “I did this horoscope about losing something precious, and now it’s gone and happened!”

  “You don’t know that for sure. You don’t even know if it was the one Skye picked.”

  “No, but suppose it was?”

  “Well, suppose it was,” said Jem. “Depends what you wrote. What did you write?”

  I frowned, trying to remember. “A treasured possession will be lost, but do not despair. It will turn up.” I’d been quite proud of it at the time. I thought it read like a real proper horoscope such as Crystal Ball might have done.

  “I can’t see what you’re so fussed about,” said Jem. “What’s the problem? ’Cording to you, it’s going to turn up.”

  “But I didn’t say when. It could be months – it could be years!”

  And in the meantime, poor Skye was desperately unhappy all over again.

  “You still don’t know,” said Jem, “if it was the one she picked. Even if she did, it doesn’t mean you’re psychic, necessarily. Could just be coincidence.”

  “You didn’t seem to think it was coincidence when Daisy got clonked on the ankle, or when one tiny little mouse ran across your kitchen floor. You even tried saying an ankle was the same as a head!”

  “I didn’t say it was the same. I said it was a head of sorts. A sort of head. Anyway, you wouldn’t let me have it, so why should I let you have yours?”

  “We’re not in competition,” I said.

  “That’s not the point. You’ve got to have proof.”

  “I could always try asking Skye. See if it’s the one she got.”

  “That’d be cheating! Unless you’re going to tell me which one you got?”

  I said, “The one I got was totally meaningless, if you must know. It was one of yours,” I added, in case she had forgotten.

  Jem flushed. “If you’re going to be insulting—”

  “Oh, look,” I cried, “don’t let’s quarrel! We’ve got to think of Skye and how we can help find her gran’s pencil for her.”

  “Well, if you’re so psychic,” said Jem, “I don’t reckon it should be any problem.” She cackled. “Just look in your crystal ball!”

  While it is true that Jem is one of my very, very, VERY best friends, and I wouldn’t want to be disloyal or anything, it has to be said that most of the time she talks absolute twaddle. This is what Mr Hargreaves calls it.

  “Twaddle! Absolute twaddle!”

  She is quite happy doing it, I don’t think she even realises, but it does mean that me and Skye don’t always pay very much attention, so that on the rare occasions when she does happen to say something sensible, or come up with a good idea, it tends to get overlooked. It wasn’t till ages later, not till the middle of the night, that it suddenly struck me: Just look in your crystal ball!

  I hadn’t taken any notice at the time cos I knew it was just Jem thinking she was being funny. She didn’t really believe that I was psychic. But suppose I actually was? I really might be able to use my powers to find Skye’s missing pencil!

  I was so excited I could hardly wait for getting-up time. Mum was quite amazed to find me downstairs in the kitchen, all dressed and ready, without her having to yell at me. I said, “Mum, I know you don’t believe in horoscopes, but do you think some people have special powers?”

  “How do you mean?” said Mum.

  “Well, like when the police call people in to help with murder enquiries, and they go into trances and tell them where the body’s buried.”

  Mum said, “Ah, but do they?”

  “They do on television,” I said.

  “They do a lot of things on television. What’s all this sudden interest in the supernatural, anyway?”

  “I’m just trying to think of a way to help Skye.” I explained to Mum about the special pencil and how nobody could find it. “I was wondering, maybe, if one of us might have psychic powers.”

  It had to be me, if it was anyone. Jem had shown no traces, despite her ramblings about clonks on the head and big furry monsters. As for Skye, she reckoned, like Mum, that it was all nonsense. So she couldn’t be psychic. Whereas I kind of had this feeling that I might be.

  “If I were you,” said Mum, “I wouldn’t go meddling in that sort of thing.”

  I pounced, eagerly. “Why not?”

  “You never know what it might lead to.”

  “Might lead to us finding Skye’s pencil!”

  “Yes, and it might lead to one of you getting disturbed, or frightened.”

  “But, Mum,” I said, “we’ve got to do something. Skye’s, like, really upset!”

/>   “In that case, why don’t you offer to go and help her have another look? Three pairs of eyes are always better than one.”

  I said, “She has looked. She’s looked everywhere.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to give it another go. I certainly wouldn’t start messing around trying to read tea leaves.”

  Read tea leaves? What on earth was she talking about?

  “It’s what people used to do,” said Mum. “Back in the days before tea came in tea bags. You’d make a cup of tea and let the tea leaves settle, then you’d try and read things into them.”

  Aha! This sounded promising.

  “What sort of things?”

  “The usual stuff. You will meet a tall, dark stranger, or go on a long journey, or come into a fortune… that kind of thing.”

  I crinkled my nose. I needed to get to the bottom of this!

  “How did they do it?”

  “Oh, don’t ask me! They just called it reading the tea leaves.”

  “What, like, they spelled out messages?”

  “So it was claimed. Something to do with the patterns they made.”

  I frowned, trying to imagine a crowd of tea leaves in a tea cup. Maybe if they were all bunched together it would mean one thing, and if they were scattered it would mean another. But what?

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Mum. “Nobody took it seriously. Just a few crackpots.”

  I thought, Yes, or those with psychic powers… I wondered if you could do it with tea bags. Like if you tore a tea bag open and put it into a cup, would it make tea leaves?

  I suggested it to Mum, and she said, “No, it wouldn’t! It would just waste a tea bag. Don’t even think about it.”

  But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was so excited that I rang Jem.

  “We’ve got to get some tea leaves!” I said.

  “What for?” said Jem.

  “So we can find out where Skye’s pencil is. Does your mum have any?”

  “What? Tea leaves?”

  What else?

  “Dunno,” said Jem. “Dunno what they are.”

  “Things you make tea with!”