I think Will and Annie’s mum died the year after that photograph was taken because Will says he doesn’t really even remember her. But Annie does, I am sure. Will said he thinks she was ill even in that picture but it’s difficult to imagine because she looks so joyful. I didn’t know anything about Will’s dad other than he lived in the countryside with a new girlfriend and some new babies. I don’t think Annie and Will like their dad very much because whenever they mention him (which is rarer than seeing a shooting star) the other one rolls their eyes in annoyance or changes the subject. There are not any photographs of their dad anywhere in the house, but I bet he was the photographer of the picture by the TV. The one where everybody is smiling back into the lens, happy to be together.
My thoughts are broken when I am ushered back to class with the taste of milky tea in my throat and the sugar granules of shortbread frosted around my mouth. My class teacher, Mrs Ixy, isn’t one bit cross with me, and she takes me to our English class personally so she can walk in with me and check everything is OK. I hope Will is OK.
English was the subject we all thought I’d be best at because of my writing, but if you didn’t know already there is this whole entire other half to English which is all about tenses and nouns and verbs and punctuation and grammar and spelling and it actually isn’t just, ‘Hey, let’s read from this great book all morning.’ And so now it’s become a bit harder for me. Because I can’t spell very good, or do grammar either.
I panic in the classes where I used to be as cool as a carrot. Or is it a cucumber? I just can’t remember and I don’t even know what makes cucumbers so much cooler than the rest of us. Maybe it’s because they come with a drink inside their bodies . . . they should make crisps with drinks inside the bags, don’t you think? So when you get thirsty from all the salty munching it’s already there and waiting to be drunk? I’m so exhausted by my genius brain and instead of ‘finding the grammatical errors’ in the paragraph that Mr Yates has given us, I imagine that I will become really high up at the Palace of Ideas and then I can leave this boring school at the drop of a scarf . . . or is it a hat? Whatever. I find the tangerine from earlier in my pocket and start peeling it again. The peel is coming away from the flesh in a lovely winding curl, like ribbon or a pig’s tail that just keeps turning and turning. I’m trying so major hard not to tear the peel so that it comes off in one fancy impressive spiral. One that will really impress Will when he’s back. Peeling is about patience and confidence . . . I guess that’s what life is about too.
Peel. Peel. Peel. My head trails off into a dreamy place . . .
‘Darcy! Darcy? Hello, anybody home? DARCY BURDOCK?’
‘Huh?’ I wobble out of my chair.
‘I said, how many grammatical errors did you spot in the paragraph?’ Mr Yates shoves his big round face close to mine, his hands all clasped together in an I know the answer to everything kind of way.
‘Erm. Lots?’
The class erupts into deep brain-frying laughter.
‘How many is lots then, Darcy?’
‘Like loads?’ I panic. Everybody is staring at me, and the paragraph in front of me is untouched, with fewer marks on it than a brand-new pair of trainers.
‘So when somebody asks you . . . say, for example . . . how old you are . . . would you say lots or loads?’ The laughter comes again, like a water pistol of embarrassment shooting me straight in the face.
‘No.’ I am defensive, my back straightens up.
‘So why would you use it now? I want you to be specific.’ He’s getting right on my nerves. I’m about to pop, I’ll risk it now, get into trouble for it, I don’t care, all I care about is Will right now.
‘OK, I’ll be specific, I found none. I found NO grammatical errors in the paragraph!’ I shout, and then add in my head, BECAUSE I WASN’T PAYING ATTENTION.
And the class goes quiet.
‘Correct answer.’ Mr Yates slaps his thigh in teacherish pleasure. I am in shock. ‘The truth is, this paragraph is grammatically correct. It was a trick test!’
The class protests in chorus, complaining and moaning and tutting and sighing and throwing me jealous evils.
‘Looks like somebody has been working really hard this year, great work, Darcy.’ Mr Yates collects up the paragraphs, mine being the only one untouched. I look down at my tangerine peel, only to see I have removed the whole peel from the fruit in one. Yesssssssssssss!
It’s lunch time and Will still hasn’t come back into class and Mavis can’t give me any more information, though she does say, ‘If I hear anything at all you’ll be the first to know.’
I sellotape the tangerine peel into my writing book, as I am worried it might get damaged if I leave it to roll around my bag unsupervised. Then I decide to trace the outline of the peel in black marker: should it go missing I will then have some visual evidence that I did create it. Then I hear lots of hushed laughter and snickering happening in a huddle near to me and I look up and see wretched Clementine, the WORST girl from America, telling a story. A big gaggle of girls are all listening to her every word as she pulls some faces that could easily be in the most annoying faces in the ‘hall of fame of annoying faces’ that I have ever seen. I try to make out what they are talking about but I just can’t and I don’t want to earwig in too hard in case it seems like I CARE about Clementine’s gossip. When obviously I don’t, though obviously you know I kind of do a bit. But only because I have a curious and marvellous brain.
I look down onto my page again so I can concentrate on listening and not looking. Then I hear the clip-clop of inappropriate-footwear-for-school patter past me whilst I’m tracing the peel, and Clementine and the terrible girls do that horrid laugh that immediately makes you feel like you’re a fly that has got stuck up somebody’s nostril and they are literally snorting you out. She shakes her head at me and lets her long legs walk her to the lunch room where she probably won’t eat anything except gossip.
Chapter Six
I let a rottenous poisonous wash of regret leak into my head and begin beating myself up about all the times I’ve argued with my parents in front of Will. Moaned about them or complained or shouted at them or tried to run away from them, like a spoiled baby brat ghoul. And how he never made me feel bad or wrong or stupid. He just stood by me and let me do what I needed to do; he never judged me or made me feel awful. He just let me be me, when all along he never had a parent at all. Except his sister Annie. I mean, I know she’s a bit bigger than us, but she takes care of Will every day; cleans his clothes, cooks for him, talks to him, understands him, drives him places, loves him. I guess she is his mum and dad and big sister all in one go. I can’t imagine having to suddenly be a parent to Poppy and Hector – that would be a disgusting disaster. Wow, she truly is a hero.
I am walking out of school ready for home when I am nearly run over by the sprint of Maggie, who I know from the school magazine. She is currently 100% a witch, I gather, by all this black lipstick and nail varnish that she is wearing. But not one bit a terrifying witch, because it is impossible for her to not make a massive goofy smile all the time, even when she is delivering bad news, like now.
‘Darcy!’ she pants, completely out of breath. ‘Can I borrow you for five minutes?’
‘Of course,’ I say, but in my brain I am thinking, Borrow me? What am I? A vacuum cleaner? A whisk? A suitcase? You don’t borrow a person, surely?
‘What for?’ I ask, as we wind our way back into the school and towards the music huts. This is where all the music lessons happen and Maggie, with her inky black fish lips, says, ‘Do you know Clementine? An American girl? She’s in your year.’ And I say, ‘Yes,’ and manage to stop myself from also saying ‘unfortunately’ because you never know when people might be secret friends. Maggie nods and says, ‘I thought so. Darcy, she’s stolen Olly Supperidge as her new boyfriend off of Koala and Olly has dumped Koala!’ And before I can react Maggie opens up the door to the main music hut where Koala (Nicola) who is the edito
r of the school magazine is sprawled out across the keys of the grand piano, sobbing. Oh dear.
I can’t help but be selfish about this a bit. Firstly, I hate being involved in stuff like this. This is for girly girl girls that want to talk about hairspray and diets and manicures, i.e. NOT ME. And secondly, I cannot imagine anything WORSE in the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD THAT EVER BEED THAN OLLY SUPPERIDGE GOING OUT WITH CLEMENTINE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is a double-duo nightmare. My enemies, uniting! Nothing will ever be the same again. Ever.
Maggie nudges me, bursting me from my mind bubbles of fear. I shrug. What does she want me to do?
‘Hi, Koala Nicola.’ I step forward towards her. I flash back to when I first met Koala Nicola and she was this big growed-up editor and now she is a complete walrus sea lion snorting out a zombie gunge fountain.
‘Darcy!’ she bellows through big break-up tears that are the same size as gobstoppers. Crying over a boy? Crying? I can’t believe this.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask gently.
‘No. Do I look OK?’ she hisses, slobbery, blubbery, globbery snot and dribble pouring out of her eyes, nose, mouth.
‘Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?’ I ask timidly.
‘YES!’ She sniffles and wipes the tears from under her eyes. She looks like an absolute mighty moose-beast and it’s tricky not to laugh. She breathes in and tries to focus on not fully transforming into a puddle of slime. Her eyes are red – it looks like she has been rubbing salt and lemons into them. ‘You need to talk to Clementine and tell her that Olly is not a nice boyfriend.’
I sigh deeply. ‘Koala, I don’t know Clementine very well . . .’
‘You have to. You have to tell her immediately so that she dumps him and then he will go back out with me!’ Her face floods some more as she falls back across the piano, howling.
‘Clementine hates me, she is never going to listen to me.’
‘What about your friend Will? Can’t you talk to him?’ she splutters. ‘Doesn’t he fancy her? Can’t he go out with her instead?’ I don’t know why but this annoys me so much. Just because her stupid Olly Supperidge has finally managed to go out with someone who is as disgusting as he is doesn’t mean that my friends have to get dragged into this too.
‘No. He does NOT fancy her, and anyway even if I WAS going to do that, WHICH I AM NOT, I couldn’t anyway because Will isn’t in school.’
‘There must be something you can do.’ Her eyes reach into mine, completely desperate and yearning.
I’m thinking, Yeah, I could tell you to shut up and grow up and stop lowering yourself to crying and begging over such a waste. But I don’t. Instead I say, ‘Yes, I can help you with the magazine while you are having this crisis.’ And then I say, ‘Get yourself home, wrap up in a duvet and have some Maltesers.’
This actually works: Koala Nicola sits up and dries her eyes with her jumper. ‘You’re right. I should get home.’ She sniffs and slides some more bogey syrup onto the cuff of her jumper.
‘This piano will think it’s at the bottom of the ocean if you cry into it any more, Koala Nicola,’ I say, and then Koala Nicola laughs and I smile back, relieved to finally be able to let a grin go. The piano floats to the bottom of the ocean, crashing into the seabed with a clunk.
OLLY AND CLEMENTINE? Of all the villains in the history of villainy this has to be the worst. Oh no. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.
At home, over peanut butter eaten straight out of the jar with a teaspoon, I talk to Mum about Will’s dad coming to the school gates. She says I probably shouldn’t ring Will today because he hates me calling him on the phone at ‘the best of times’ so he won’t want to speak on the phone tonight. Sometimes he pops by on his BMX after school and I look out of the window occasionally to see if he does, but there’s no sign of him.
‘Almost forgot!’ Mum says, smiling. ‘This came for you today, it’s from Grandma, look at the handwriting.’ She is right, I could recognize her handwriting anywhere, it’s all loopy and shaky.
‘What is it?’ I’m shocked because it’s not my birthday or anything. I begin to tear it open – it’s that kind of brown envelope that if you rip it in the wrong place loads of fluff comes out of the packaging as if you’ve asked for a delivery of rabbit fur or the insides of a vacuum cleaner to be sent to your house. ‘What about the others?’ I ask, the others meaning Poppy and Hector. They will go mental if I have a present and they don’t.
‘She sent them sweets, don’t worry.’
My face falls.
‘AND before you moan, yes, you can have sweets too, don’t panic.’ Gosh, she knows me so well.
It’s an ancient copy of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, all cracked and yellowing and smelling of dust and musk. The front cover is amazingly excellent. It’s all old-fashioned with a beautiful sleeping woman with long blonde hair and flowers all around her. A note slips out onto my lap when I turn the book over.
One hundred years! Whoa, is that dinosaur time? I don’t say this out loud in case it’s not.
‘Open it up,’ Mum suggests, and inside is even loopier faded old writing from one hundred years before. It says:
‘WOW!’ says Mum. ‘What are the chances of that? Your grandma finding a book that’s over one hundred years old dedicated to a you that’s from her grandma? How amazing. You’ll have to write and say a big Thank You.’
I am really chuffed with the book and I keep stroking it and touching it.
‘Let’s have a look then?’ Mum lifts it up. ‘I love that old book smell, isn’t it wonderful? All that history, think about all the fingers that would have touched these pages, all the memories.’
I think about the Darcy this would have belonged to. Who was she? What did she look like? Was she like me?
And then Dad’s key turns in the door and we hear him yell, ‘Mum, kids, in the car!’ Isn’t it funny how Dad calls Mum ‘Mum’? And Mum calls Dad ‘Dad’? Like they are each other’s parents. Children are not allowed to call parents by their first names because they get upset. I’ve got a girl in my class who does it, but she’s a show-off.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask, laying the book down and putting my coat on. Perhaps this is going to be a spontaneous McDonald’s trip, which would just be fantastic right now. A vegetarian-ish one. Of course.
‘Don’t ask questions!’
‘This is silly, I’ve got a pie in the oven!’ Mum complains. She has a little sprinkle of flour on her sleeve.
‘Turn the oven off.’
‘I was painting my nails pink!’ Poppy shows her hands to Dad – to be honest it is not a bad thing that Dad has interrupted this, she is not doing a good job.
‘You can finish them when we get back, Pops.’
‘I need a poo though,’ Hector says, panicking a bit.
Dad releases a long-drawn-out breath. ‘All right, quickly, everybody’s got five minutes to run around and do what you need to do.’
And then, more like fifteen minutes later, we are all in the car.
‘Now can you tell us where we’re going?’ Mum asks, peering round every corner and bend.
‘We’ll be there in two seconds.’
‘Is it Disneyland?’ Hector screeches.
‘No, Hector, that’s really far away,’ Poppy says archly, blowing on her nails.
‘How far?’ Hector asks.
‘Far,’ I say.
‘Fart?’ questions Hector.
‘If it’s two seconds we should be here by now really,’ Poppy remarks to Dad, all smug.
‘Is it Fart away? In a kingdom Fart Fart away?’
‘Sure, whatever, Hector. If you like,’ I say, and then he does the biggest fart ever and it rumples the car seat and stinks like old cabbage and baby nappies. We all have to cover our noses with our jumpers.
‘Here we are!’ Dad pulls up outside a building full of enormous washing machines.
‘The launderette?’ Mum frowns.
‘No! There! Look.’
I kne
wed exactly where he meant, it was Paws, Claws and Plenty More, the local pet shop, and outside of it chalked on a massive blackboard was this:
‘There’s only one thing that can cure a mouse problem and that’s—’
‘A fish!’ Hector cries in joy and screams his way over to the door of the pet shop.
‘A fish. Apparently.’ Dad smirks, but Mum doesn’t. She is likely thinking, WHAT A TERRIBLY STUPID IDEA. But Poppy and I can’t help ourselves as we run after Hector to the window of the pet shop, squealing and commenting on everything we can drink in with our eyeballs.
The pet shop smells all sawdusty and dog-foody. There are lots of tins, pots and tubs and boxes of various toys to give to cats and dogs and rabbits and hamsters and gerbils, and mice too – if you like the mice you have in your house, not like us obviously. Then there are these big scary cardboard boxes with POSTMAN LEGS written on them and inside are huge mahoosive big bloody bones that make me feel a bit sick.
‘Are they really postmen’s legs?’ I whisper-ask Mum.
‘No, monkey.’
‘MONKEY? MONKEY LEGS?’ I yell.
‘No, I was calling you “monkey”. They probably belonged to some cows.’
Darcy Burdock Book 3 Page 4
