Recipe for Rebellion (Zodiac Girls)

by Cathy Hopkins

  “Zut alors,” he said when he finally stopped.

  “I know,” I said as I caught up with him. “It’s awful isn’t it?”

  “Hhmm. Not awful. Just empty. Each room it says, nozing.”

  “Nozing?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” said Sushila.

  “Correct,” said PJ. “Nozing. I have no idea who lives ’ere. Vot kind of person. Vot zey like. Vot zey don’t like.”

  “That’s what I said,” said Sushila. “It’s unlived in. Like a hotel.”

  “Exactly. A blonk canvas…”

  “Blonk?” asked Suhsila.

  PJ nodded. “Yes. Blonk, blonk…”

  “Oh blank?” I asked.

  PJ nodded. “Yes. A blonk canvas. Vich is marvellous. Vere shall ve begin? Alex. Nat. Take notes. Mizz Harvey Jones. Vot vould you like? You von ze prize, so ve do vot you vant. Any ideas?”

  “Er…” I was suddenly seized by a momentary panic. What if we did a makeover and Aunt Esme didn’t like it? I had no idea what her taste was really like. As long as everywhere was clean seemed to be the most important thing. “Um… Aunt Esme likes neat and tidy so maybe we should go for something simple, uncluttered.”

  “Ve could,” said PJ. “But vot vould you like?”

  He sat on the sofa and indicated that I should sit next to him. I perched next to him while his team stood behind like slaves guarding a pharaoh.

  PJ snapped his long bony fingers. “Colours, samples,” he said and Nat produced a pile of books from a huge bag and placed them on the table. “Okay, Danu and friends. Ve ’ave to make some choices.”

  We spent the next half-hour poring through fabric samples, paint samples, catalogues of furniture, lights, floors.

  “Do you vant traditional, modern, exotic, romantic? Vot you vant?”

  I looked up from one of the books. “Um… something to make it look more homely. More like a place where people live, not just pass through. Somewhere you’d like to come back to.”

  PJ stared off into the distance as if visualising it in his mind. “Yes. I zink ve can do that. Yes. Leave it all viz me, Danu, ve’re going to totally transform ze place!”

  Oh dear, I thought. I do hope that Aunt Esme will be happy with the result. It was one thing acting the sulky teenager. Another redecorating her flat. Doubts were beginning to set in.

  “Er, perhaps we ought to do just one room to start with… or maybe even one corner of a room? What do you think?”

  PJ looked at me as if I had slapped him. “I zink zat zere are ozzers who vould have died to have zis prize. I zink zat zere are ozzers who appreciate who I am. And vot I can do.” He clapped his hands and Nat and Alex stood to attention by his side. “Come on. Ve’re leaving.”

  As I watched them go, I looked around at the cold empty room. If I let PJ go, I’d still be coming back to this night after night. Nothing would have changed. I remembered Joe’s words, “think big”. Dare I risk the wrath of Aunt Esme by going for the transformation or should I opt for not rocking the boat and leaving everything as it was? I ran after them.

  “PJ, PJ. No. Please don’t go. I’m sorry and I really do appreciate such a great prize. Please stay. Do what you have to.”

  PJ turned back from the front door and snorted. “Pfff! It’s alvays ze same. People resist change more zan anything else.” He put the back of his hand on his forehead and looked up at the ceiling with a pained expression. “If only zey knew.” He looked back at me. “You ’ave to break down to break through you know. Can’t make an omelette vizout breaking eggs.”

  “I know. Yes. Yes. Whatever, just don’t go. I’m thinking big. I really am. I’m not resisting. Please make an omelette. Let’s do this thing!”

  PJ clapped again and this time, he almost smiled. “Excellent. Ve’re going to have some great fun here.”

  Later that night when PJ had gone, I checked the astrology site to see if there were any other competitions or surprises to look out for.

  There was just one word.

  Mars.

  Now what’s that supposed to mean?, I asked myself as I got into bed. Mars is the name of a chocolate bar. One of my favourites in fact but what would that have to do with anything? Joe was intent on getting me to fatten up a bit. Maybe he was saying eat more chocolate? No problemo there. Or maybe he meant the planet Mars. It’s one of the ten. I knew them all off by heart now. Sun. Moon. Mercury. Mars. Venus. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. Pluto. And I’d been looking them all up in my astrology book. Jupiter was the planet of joy and expansion. Pluto the planet of death, rebirth and transformation. Venus of love, harmony and beauty. Now what was Mars again? I knew I’d read it somewhere… Mars… But before I had the answer I had drifted off to Zzzzzz…

  Chapter Eleven

  Red planet

  PJ was true to his word. At six the next morning, he arrived with his team. Plus builders. And decorators. And carpenters.

  By six thirty, the flat was a hive of activity with hammers banging and drills drilling. No way could I stay there with all the din so when Rosa left to go to one of her cleaning jobs, I left too with the intention of going into Osbury to see Joe and have a wander around the shops.

  “I hope what PJ is doing is going to be all right,” I said as we stood at the bus stop.

  Rosa sighed, shrugged and, in the same way that I had when I was trying to tell her that my mum was dead, she acted out a gun being put to her head then someone trying to cut her throat.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Aunt Esme’s going to kill me.”

  Rosa shrugged again then smiled. The bus came round the corner and we both got on. I glanced back up at the tower block and I swear I could see stuff being chucked out of the windows and floating down to the ground below. I closed my eyes quickly and prayed that they weren’t throwing out any of Aunt Esme’s prize items.

  When I got to Osbury, I went straight to Joe’s deli to get some breakfast and see if he had anything in store for me.

  “Zodiac Girl reporting for duty,” I said with a salute when I spied his jolly face behind the counter.

  His face lit up to see me. “Danu. Sit. Eat.”

  A few minutes later, he had put a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms and toast in front of me. I told him about PJ arriving and how he seemed to have taken over the flat and he nodded as if that was exactly what he expected.

  “That’s what Pluto does when it touches a chart,” he said. “It is the planet of transformation. Of death and rebirth.”

  A fleeting feeling of panic went through me and I prayed that the death wasn’t mine when Aunt Esme returned from her trip.

  When I had finished breakfast, I intended to go and mooch around the shops. It was half term after all and I needed a break from my bad girl act at school. It had been very tiring. Joe however had other plans. As I ate the last mouthful, he handed me a piece of paper then checked his watch.

  “You’re just in time, the class starts in ten minutes,” he pointed out of the window. “Out to the road, turn right and it’s in the village hall.”

  “Class? But Joe, it’s half term,” I moaned but then I glanced down and read the leaflet.

  Are you puny? Picked on?

  Kicked around? Hair pulled? Bullied?

  Had enough? I bet you have.

  No need to suffer. You can put an end to it all

  with Mario’s Martial Arts.

  I do kung fu. Tae Kwon Do. Hari Kari. Whack ’em back.

  No experience necessary. All ages and sizes welcome.

  Osbury Village Hall. Wednesday morning. 9.30am.

  Be there. Or be pathetic.

  “Hari Kari?” I asked. “Isn’t that a way of killing yourself with your own sword Japanese style?”

  “It is,” said Joe with a chuckle. “Mario can be a tough taskmaster when someone irritates him. In the past, he used to overact to pupils who didn’t pay attention but don’t worry, he’s mellowed slightly. I doubt he’ll be forcing anyone to do Hari Kari
here. What he will do though is teach you to look after yourself.”

  “But I have you Joe,” I said. “You can do that ‘turn yourself into a centaur’ thing if I’m in trouble.”

  Joe put his finger up to his lips. “Shush. We don’t want that getting out. I’m not really supposed to do that in public but those boys… well they annoyed me…”

  “Remind me never to annoy you… or this guy Mario,” I said. “Although it was pretty cool when those boys saw you…”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” beamed Joe. “Got rid of them all right. But I am only your guardian for a month. You have to learn to defend yourself.”

  I nodded. Interesting, I thought. He hadn’t denied what I had seen the other night. So it wasn’t my imagination after all.

  “Why me, Joe?”

  “Why what, Danu?”

  “Why am I a Zodiac Girl?”

  Joe looked at me with a gentle expression. “Same reason that you have the hair you do, the eyes you do, the personality you do and the experiences you do. It’s in your chart. Usually being a Zodiac Girl happens at a turning point in someone’s life. A make-or-break time. The planets conjoin to assist but after that it’s what you make of it.”

  “I see,” I said. I was certainly at a turning point in my life. No doubt about that.

  Joe cleared my dishes away. “Go on then. Off you go.”

  I wasn’t going to argue. Before he had come to my rescue the other night, I had felt scared despite my tough act. And the moment that the boys had pinned my arms back had replayed over and over in my mind when I’d tried to go to sleep later that night. What I should have done. Said. How I should have reacted. I knew I wasn’t as fit as I used to be when I lived at home with Dad and played lots of sport at school. Plus I’d lost a lot of weight since moving in with Aunt Esme and her lettuce leaves. The one thing I did know though was that the experience the other night in the square with the boys wasn’t one I wanted to repeat. Next time I wanted to be fit and fight back with confidence.

  I got up and took up a kung fu stance. “Ah so, here I go,” I said with an Eastern accent and karate chopped the air.

  “Just asking to be Hari Kari-ed,” laughed Joe. “Now get over there.”

  I made my way over to the village hall and when I got inside I saw that the class was already underway. A group of about ten people were sitting on mats while in front of them, one of the most striking men I had ever seen paced up and down. He was tall with skin the colour of dark chocolate and dressed in black tracksuit bottoms and a sleeveless T-shirt that revealed well-toned muscles on his arms.

  I jumped as he yelled, “AGAIN”, at someone on the mats.

  “Yes sir!” a skinny young boy in the front row squeaked.

  “YES SIR!” said the man as he put his face close to the young boys. “Let’s have some ENERGY YOU MOUSE OF A MAN!”

  The boy pulled back and looked like he was going to cry. “Yes sir,” he squeaked again.

  I closed the door quietly behind me and began to tiptoe in so as not to disturb the class. As I was attempting to creep towards the seated group, the man at the front stopped. Without even turning in my direction, he boomed, “WHAT time do you call this? You’re LATE.”

  “Oh. Yes. Sorry. Er… I only just found out about the…”

  He turned around. He really was remarkably good-looking, like a Hollywood movie star. Deep brown eyes, wonderful cheekbones and a chiselled jaw. He was almost too good-looking to be real and I felt myself blush as his gaze brushed over me.

  “Rule number ONE. I like my students to be on TIME. Understood?”

  “Yes SIR,” chorused the gathered audience.

  “You. Dreadlocks. Sit,” he shouted at me like a sergeant major.

  Pff, I thought, no need to be nasty. Just shows that looks aren’t everything.

  “RUUUULE two. I like my students to be TIDY. We’ll be working in close proximity. Nooooooooooo dreadlocks whipping about the place. You. What’s your name?”

  “Dee sir,”

  “Deeser? What kind of name is that?”

  “No sir. Dee sir. Short for Danu.”

  “So why did you say Deeser? Don’t you know your own name?”

  “I was being polite. Calling you sir, sir.”

  He hesitated for a moment before roaring, “CorRECT. Now sit and get rid of those dreadlocks before the next class.”

  You might be impressive to look at, I thought, but I’m not going to take that from someone I’ve only just met who’s not even a teacher at my school.

  “Why should I sir? They are clean.”

  “They don’t suit you,” he said. “You’re a very pretty girl and you’re doing yourself no favours.”

  “I… ah…” I was speechless. That wasn’t the answer I’d expected. And part of me felt flattered that he’d said I was pretty.

  “SIT!” the man suddenly boomed at me.

  “Sit, sit,” whispered a weedy-looking boy to my right as he pulled on my hand. “If you get him mad, he takes it out on us in the exercises. Pleeeeeease.”

  The boy looked like he needed all the help he could get and I didn’t want to make life difficult for him.

  “Sorry sir,” I said, saluted Mario and sat down.

  “Sooo. As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted. My name is Mario Ares. This is my class. I work you hard but I get results. No pain, no gain. By the time you all leave here, you will be experts in judo, Muay Thai, Ju-Jitsu, aikido, kendo…”

  “Hari Kari,” I called out before I could stop myself. Being cheeky in class had clearly become a habit.

  Mario fixed me with a cold stare. “Okay. You. Stand. Approach.”

  “Now you’re for it,” said the skinny boy next to me.

  I strode up to the front.

  “Okay, dreadlocks,” he said when I reached the front. “Introduce yourself to the class.”

  I turned to face the assembled group which consisted of two very fat boys, three very skinny boys, two boys with bright red hair and very pale skin, two old ladies, one dressed in a pink track suit who was obviously besotted with Mario, the other who looked like she had broken her leg and an Indian girl who looked about Rosa’s age.

  “I… my name is Dee, short for Danu. Harvey Jones.”

  I went to sit down.

  “And why are you here?” asked Mario.

  “What – like on the planet or here in this village hall?”

  “Don’t you get clever with me young lady. I meant here in the village hall.”

  “To learn self-defence.”

  “SIR,” bellowed Mario.

  “SIR,” I bellowed back.

  “Now hit the deck,” said Mario.

  “Hit the deck?”

  Mario pointed at the floor. “Give me twenty you girlie wuss.”

  “Girlie wuss?” I felt outraged. I wasn’t girlie. And I wasn’t a wuss. No-one was going to speak to me like that.

  “Do them yourself,” I replied. “And if anyone’s the girlie wuss round here, it’s you.”

  The group gasped in horror.

  “Exactly what I thought when you walked in here,” said Mario. “Brat. Spoilt brat. Bet you always get your own way, don’t you?”

  “What are you going to do if I don’t do them? Give me lines to do? Expel me?”

  Mario narrowed his eyes and fixed me with a cold stare again. I stared back. I was good at staring matches. I could make my eyes go out of focus and do it for ages. I had been champion at my last school. Plus I felt angry with Mario. Just who did he think he was? I had come to a self-defence class. Not to join the army. I turned to leave.

  Mario dismissed me with a flick of his hand and turned his back on me. “Go on then. Run away little dreadlock princess. Have your own way. No time for timewasters here.”

  It was then that I read the logo on the back of his shirt: Red Planet Martial Arts.

  Should have known, I thought. Red Planet. Mario was Mars.

  Chapter Twelve

>   Worms

  I felt close to tears when I got out of the class. I ran to a bench on the other side of the green away from the pavements that were now busy with morning shoppers. What a horrid man, I thought. He didn’t know me at all or he wouldn’t have said those things. Girlie wuss? Wuss? I wasn’t. No way. I had been really brave when Dad had left. I hadn’t cried at all after he’d hugged me goodbye then picked up his suitcase and gone out to the taxi that took him to the airport and the other side of the world. It was only later when I was in my room with Snowy and Blackie that I had let the tears flow. And even though I wanted to, I hadn’t cried when I’d said goodbye to Mrs Wilkins when my taxi had arrived to take me to Aunt Esme’s a couple of days later. I knew it would upset her too much if she saw me crying. And I hadn’t cried when I said goodbye to Fran and Annie and Bernie and Jane. I knew they’d be upset too. They were all blubbing like proper girlie wusses when the car drove me away. But not me.

  No, the only time I lost it was when I had to say goodbye to Blackie, Snowy and Spot. How was I to explain my disappearance to them? I could tell that they knew that something was going on because Snowy kept getting into my suitcase every time I tried to pack and Blackie would sit at the end of my bed looking at me with great sad eyes. On the morning that I left, I’d taken Spot an apple then gone and sat in the middle of the garden at the back of our old house with Snowy and Blackie on my lap for a last cuddle and then I’d howled like a baby. Mind you, so did Blackie and Snowy. We were a trio of howling howlers. But I’d been brave apart from that. I’d been brave the first time I’d found myself alone at Aunt Esme’s with no company except for the telly and the dead pot plant on the balcony. I’d been brave when I started school and everyone was running around saying hi to their friends and not one person asked who I was or what I was doing there or tried to make me feel welcome at all. And I’d been brave when Trev and his horrible mates had tried to steal my phone. So girlie wuss? How DARE he? He had no idea what I had been through. And to call me a spoilt brat and a princess on top of all that. I hated him. And I hated Joe for having sent me to him. He was supposed to be my guardian and be looking after me, not introducing me to cruel insensitive meanies.