Then, she stands up, lifting her arms up to be a ghost, ‘Ohhhhh,’ and floats around the room with the torch under her chin. ‘I’m a ghost.’
Matilda screams, ‘Stop it, Biddy!’
But Biddy can’t hear her because ghosts don’t have ears.
So Matilda jumps up and screams, ‘Mummy!’ louder, bashing on the door. Then opening it and running down the hall. ‘Biddy’s scaring me!’
‘Oh, Bumble Bee’s Bubble. I think I’m in trouble,’ Biddy says. ‘Do I really look scary?’ She looks in the mirror and puts the torch under her chin. And she does! She looks wickedly, monstrously scary. I love Biddy’s scary face way past infinity and impossibility put together. Especially when she screws up her mouth and growls. This is too much fun.
Until—‘Brigid Lucy.’ Mum opens the door. ‘What did you do to Matilda?’
Biddy quickly pulls the torch away from her face and says, ‘Nothing.’
But it is too late, Mum has already seen her wicked wizard face. ‘Brigid Lucy!’ she yells. ‘What-on-earth-are-you-doing?’ and snatches the torch from her, pulling Biddy’s wizard’s cape off. ‘What-is-wrong-with-you? Why did you frighten Matilda? And why have you messed your room up again?’
‘I was just playing best friends,’ Biddy explains. ‘Matilda wanted to play!’
But Mum doesn’t listen. She pulls the curtains back and turns our wizard cave into a boring old bedroom again. ‘Brigid Lucy,’ she says, ‘you-are-incorrigible.’ (That is an adult word meaning very very naughty.) ‘You can stay in this room till your father comes home.’
Biddy lies on her bed sucking her thumb. I try to get her to read or play. But she closes her eyes. I feel all alone like Biddy isn’t my friend anymore. So I go and sit on the windowsill and watch the clouds turn pink and purple as the sun goes down and all the people come home from work.
Chapter three
manners and niceness
After hours and hours, nearly one whole day, Dad comes home. Then Mum and Dad come to Biddy’s room. Biddy sits up, pulls her thumb out and tucks it under her pillow so they won’t tell her off about being too-old-to-suck-your-thumb.
Mum tells Dad about Biddy being rude. And messing up her room. Twice! And then deliberately scaring Matilda ‘out-of-her-wits’.
Which is not true. We didn’t deliberately scare Matilda. We were just being scary and… Anyway, Mum should have been looking after Matilda, not falling asleep and making us look after her when we are only kids.
But Mum doesn’t care. She says that Biddy is ‘the-eldest’ and needs to be ‘a-help’ rather than ‘a-hindrance’ (which is like a fence I think). And ‘stop-going-out-of-her-way-to-be-naughty’.
‘I didn’t go out of my way,’ Biddy says. ‘I was––––’
‘Brigid Lucy!’ Mum yells. Then she takes a deep breath and says quietly, ‘You have to learn that there are consequences for your actions.’
‘But I wouldn’t have played pirates if you didn’t send me to my room,’ Biddy says. ‘That’s the consequence of room-sending.’
‘Brigid,’ Mum says, telling Biddy to ‘be-quiet’.
But Biddy stands up and keeps talking. ‘And I wouldn’t have played Crystal Balls except I wasn’t allowed to play with my toys. That’s the consequence of no-playing-with-toys.’
‘Brigid Lucy!’ Mum yells. Then her face goes all red and her eyes go watery like she is going to cry.
Dad tries to put his arm around Mum to say, ‘It’s okay.’
But she doesn’t listen. She stands up and walks out the door.
Dad looks at Biddy.
Biddy looks at Dad.
Dad says, ‘Brigid!’ as if he is going to tell her off.
But then he stops.
‘Brigid,’ he starts again. ‘Mum is…’ then he runs out of words again.
He takes a deep breath and thinks hard.
‘Is Mum crying?’ Biddy asks, her voice going croaky. And thinking about Mum crying makes Biddy’s eyes fill up with tears and a big knot fills her throat.
Dad takes another deep breath, then he says all in a rush, ‘We will not go to the Botanic Gardens on Friday if you don’t start behaving.’
‘You can’t!’ I yell. ‘That is not fair. We are going to play imagination games at the Botanic Gardens.’
‘No Botanic Gardens?’ Biddy starts to cry. ‘What about my best friend Princess Isolde on her white horse and the frisbee?’ Tears pour down her cheeks.
‘Biddy, don’t cry,’ Dad says. And, ‘Okay we will go.’ And, ‘Biddy, listen to me.’ He holds Biddy’s face in his hands. ‘We can go to the Botanic Gardens but you have to be good. You have to help Mum.’
Biddy stops crying. ‘I do. I will,’ she says wiping the tears away. ‘I’ll help Mum with her jobs.’
Dad lifts his eyebrows.
‘I could take little Ellen to the park,’ Biddy says.
Dad shakes his head.
‘What if I walk to the shop and buy the milk and bread (and perhaps a very small ice-cream).’
‘No,’ Dad says shaking his head harder.
‘Mum would never let me go down the street on my own, would she?’ Biddy agrees. ‘But I could do it surreptitious.’ (That’s an adult word meaning sneakily.)
‘Brigid!’ Dad says it like a warning.
‘Okay,’ Biddy says. ‘It has to be something Mum wants me to do.’ She pulls her mouth sideways to think better.
‘Manners and niceness,’ I tell her. ‘Those are the only things that Mum likes.’
‘I could be nice to Matilda,’ Biddy says.
Dad nods his head.
‘I could play with baby Ellen when Mum is busy.’
Dad nods his head harder.
‘And I could smile.’ Biddy practises smiling. ‘And,’ she says, ‘I will be very, very polite.’
Dad nods his head, holding his smile down in the corners of his mouth.
Biddy stands up tall and does a pretend smile. Then she practises saying, ‘Please.’ Then, ‘Thank you.’ And, ‘Excuse me.’ And finally, she burps and says, ‘Pardon me.’
Dad laughs big and loud. ‘It’s a deal then,’ he says, taking hold of Biddy’s hand. ‘You will be good and help Mum.’ He shakes her hand as he says, ‘And I will take you to the Botanic Gardens on Friday.’
Why is he shaking her hand? Maybe when they shake hands it binds their words to help them become true.
Dad stands up. ‘Now let’s go and get our dinner.’
‘Yes, Daddy,’ Biddy says. Then she says, ‘Thank you,’ and walks with him down the hall to the dinner table with a very polite smile on her face.
Chapter four
Dad does it wrong
Biddy is so good and polite at dinner. She doesn’t talk with her mouth full or kick Matilda under the table. She doesn’t fiddle, or jump up and down or fill her mouth too full.
But Mum and Dad don’t notice. Mum just says, ‘Stop-playing-with-your-food,’ when Biddy is only trying to find a bit of food she likes.
There is nothing yummy to eat, so she asks politely, ‘Could I please have fish and chips?’
‘Brigid, stop it!’ Mum says. ‘You are being too silly for words.’
‘“Silly” is a word,’ Biddy says.
Which is true. But Dad doesn’t think so.
‘Brigid Lucy,’ he says getting up. ‘Come and help me stack the dishwasher!’
‘Stack the dishwasher? Yes, Biddy, do,’ I yell. I adore the dishwasher. She is like a special magical helper. Like, you know, the elves in the shoemaker story. How they made the poor shoemaker’s shoes for him? The dishwasher is exactly the same, except she can only wash dishes.
Me and Biddy are the best helpers. Dad rinses the plates and Biddy puts them between the wires. The knives and forks have their own little special cage.
‘Am I being a good girl, Dad?’ Biddy asks.
‘Yes, you are,’ Dad says. ‘Put the sharp knives downwards so you don’t cut yourself.’
When
we are finished, Dad says, ‘Good helping, Biddy,’ as if he is a teacher.
Then he reaches up to get the special dishwashing powder from the high-up POISON—DO NOT TOUCH cupboard.
All the magic get-well potions that Biddy’s granny makes and all the poison cleaning bottles have to go up high in there because little Ellen and Matilda might drink them and die dead.
Dad pours a little teeny bit of powder into the pocket in the door of the dishwasher. Then he closes the door.
‘That is not enough,’ I say. ‘That tiny bit of powder can’t wash all those dishes.’
But Dad doesn’t care. He turns the dial and… clunk! He tells the magical dishwashing machine to wash the dishes with not enough powder. It’s wrong. Dad often does things wrong. Like, when he baths us, he doesn’t use soap. He just lets us play in the water till the dirt soaks off.
Now he’s done the dishwashing wrong.
‘Biddy,’ I say, ‘Dad did it wrong.’
But she ignores me.
I run out onto the end of her nose. ‘Dad didn’t put enough powder in!’ I yell, waving my arms. ‘The dishes will come out dirty.’
Still she ignores me.
I run to her ear. ‘We have to put in more powder!’ I scream as loud as I can.
Just then I hear … Click! What’s that? Biddy is opening the dishwasher. ‘Yes! Biddy,’ I yell. ‘Now put some more dishwashing powder in!’
She looks up at the POISON—DO NOT TOUCH cupboard and shakes her head, remembering that she is not allowed to go in that cupboard.
‘Biddy,’ I say, ‘this is an emergency. Sometimes you have to do “not-allowed” things in an emergency.’
But she doesn’t. She reaches across the kitchen bench. She picks up the dishwashing detergent off the sink. Good idea. If it can wash dishes in the sink it can wash dishes in the dishwasher.
‘Biddy, you are my goodest, bestest clever girlfriend ever,’ I say.
Biddy holds the dishwashing detergent with both hands, aims it into the open door of the dishwasher and squeezes.
An arc of detergent squirts into the dishwasher. Splosh! All over the plates and cups and knives and forks.
Then she puts the detergent back on the sink and closes the dishwasher. The light comes back on. Wrrrr! Clink! The dishwashing machine is happy. She starts washing straightaway.
‘See, Biddy,’ I say. ‘We are the best team. We don’t need other friends. We are going to the Botanic Gardens to play imagination. Yippidyloo!’
‘Mum will be so happy with my helping,’ Biddy says and skips on the spot. ‘She will buy me a new purple sparkly frisbee,’ she says. ‘And me and my friend Princess Isolde will spin it through the air like a magical flying saucer. And everyone else at the Botanic Gardens will see us.’ Then remembering that she promised to be nice to Matilda, she says, ‘And I will give Matilda my old frisbee. It still works, even if it is pink.’
Chapter five
splendiferous bubbles
Look, bubbles! You know bubbles? Those all-round and see-through things, with rainbows glistening on their skin? There are hundreds of tiny ones collecting along the edge of the dishwasher like foam.
I know all about foam. When there is a big storm in the Great Bushland the rain makes humongous waterfalls. They rush bubbling and foaming over the cliffs. It is fun to watch.
But you can’t swim there. Slivigools like to wash their hair in this foamy waterfall water. It makes it sparkle with light and smell like the sun. If you swim there, the slivigools will wrap their hair around your legs and pull you under and drown you dead.
But I’m not scared of this foam. This is dishwashing foam, not slivigool foam. I want to dive into it and kick the foamy bubbles up into the air.
Biddy does too. She picks up a handful of bubbles and throws them above her head. They float like sparkling droplets of water.
There’s a big bubble. Some of the little bubbles are staying on the dishwasher, growing bigger and bigger, until one by one they let go and float in sparkling colours through the air.
I wish I could go for a ride on one of those big floating bubbles.
Biddy wants me to go for a ride, too. She reaches her arm up and catches a huge bubble on her hand.
‘Thank you! Thank you, Biddy!’ I yell and run along her arm to the bubble. It is beautiful. It’s got a whole rainbow shimmering on its side.
I touch it.
It’s a bit sticky. And soft.
Hey, let go! My hand is stuck to the bubble.
I pull and pull. But I can’t get my hand back. I put my foot up to push. No way! Now my foot is stuck, too!
I’m getting sucked into a bubble.
‘Biddy!’ I shout. ‘Help me, please!’
Gulp!
I’m inside the bubble. Everything outside looks strange and huge. Biddy’s hand is like a giant’s hand. She lifts me up to her face. Her face is all warped. Her eyes are small and her mouth is so big it is like a fillikizard dragon’s. She’s opening her mouth.
‘No! Biddy, don’t eat me!’ I yell. I close my eyes and cover my head with my hands.
Suddenly the bubble wobbles. I open my fingers. And my eyes.
Biddy is blowing. She wasn’t going to eat me! She was just blowing the bubble into the air.
I’m floating. In a bubble. I can see the top of the fridge where Dad puts his keys so Matilda can’t play with them and lose them.
And there’s the inside of the POISON— DO NOT TOUCH cupboard. I can see all the bottles full of magic and poison.
Biddy is far away down below. She looks like… well, just like Biddy, but smaller. I float up and up and up, until I’m nearly touching the ceiling. Then the bubble hangs in the air for a moment and starts to sink down again.
Biddy slides across the slippery floor, gets under the bubble and blows me up again. I float and stop and start floating down again. ‘Biddy, blow at me again!’ I yell as my bubble sinks toward her.
She skids across the bubbly floor and blows me up again.
This is splendiferous fun.
‘Bubbles!’ Matilda yells, reaching her arms through the baby rail that keeps her and little Ellen out of the kitchen. Her eyes are wide with excitement. ‘Daddy, look. Bubbles in the kitchen.’
‘What?’ Dad says. ‘Where?’ He’s in the doorway, looking around the kitchen.
I look too. There are bubbles everywhere glistening all over the floor, sparkling on the bench top, floating in the air like tiny silver jewels. They look so beautiful.
But Dad doesn’t think so. ‘Brigid Lucy! What have you done?’
Biddy opens her mouth to explain.
But Dad doesn’t listen. He just jumps over the baby rail, and slip! One foot goes left and the other one goes right. He waves his arms. He skips his feet. He skids. He slides and plonk! He falls on the floor. Whack! He hits his head. Slump! He sprawls out on the floor.
‘Daddy!’ Matilda starts to cry really loud. ‘Mummy. Daddy.’
‘What’s going on?’ Mum looks through the doorway and sees Dad on the floor. ‘What’s happened?’ She is climbing over the baby rail telling Matilda, ‘It’s okay, darling.’
‘Don’t come in here,’ Dad yells, holding his head. ‘The floor is slippery.’
Mum looks around the bubbly kitchen. ‘How much powder did you put in that dishwasher?’ she yells at Dad, her voice very grumpy.
‘The right amount!’ Dad yells back.
‘Well, how did this happen?’ Mum asks, carefully stepping toward him, one hand on the bench and one on her belly.
‘Careful!’ Dad says. And, ‘Stay there.’ He holds his hands up to catch her when she falls. ‘What about the baby?’
Baby? What’s he talking about? Oh, she means little Ellen! She is in her highchair. I can see her through the doorway crying, ‘Wahhh! Mummy,’ her face red and covered with food. She is strapped in safe. So she can’t climb out and fall on her head.
But what about me? I’m going to crash on the floor. ‘Biddy,
’ I yell. ‘Quick! Blow me up again or I’ll hit the ground and burst!’
But Biddy has forgotten me. She is slip-sliding across the floor to Mum and Dad. ‘Is Dad alright?’ And, ‘Shall I ring the ambulance. I know how to do it––I have to ring 000 and say my name, Brigid Lucy. And tell them my address, 13 Haphazard Street…’
Mum puts her hand up. ‘No, Biddy, darling,’ she says, ‘but can you please go and comfort Matilda and little Ellen? And walk carefully.’ Then reaching up to the POISON—DO NOT TOUCH cupboard, she says, ‘I won’t be a minute. I’ll just get some of Granny’s special Rescue Remedy and arnica for Dad’s head.’
Biddy smiles and says with her best good girl voice, ‘I certainly can,’ and walks straight past me to the ‘Daddy! Mummy!’ crying Matilda.
‘What about me?’ I yell. ‘If I hit the floor I’ll be stuck in all that sticky bubbly foam and drown to death.’
But Biddy doesn’t care.
I start to run. The bubble spins. I’m running inside the bubble, like a mouse in a wheel, spinning it round and round. And the bubble stops sinking. It floats. I run and run trying to float the spinning bubble toward Biddy.
But it’s going crooked. Straight towards Matilda! Puff. It bursts on Matilda’s arm. I’m standing on Matilda’s arm!
Suddenly she stops crying. She stands absolutely still, looking at her arm as if she can feel me.
But then, ‘Good stopping crying, Matilda,’ Biddy says, putting her arm around her.
And I quickly run up Biddy’s arm and into her hair. Safe!
Me and Biddy are such a good girlfriend team.
Chapter six
tragic consequences
‘It’s okay, darling. Daddy is fine,’ Biddy says in a mother kind of voice, and we get little Ellen out of her highchair and wipe her face and cuddle her and she stops crying.
Mum puts us all in the bath together. And me and Biddy ‘play-very-nicely’ with Matilda and little Ellen, even if they only want to play duckies and boring little kids’ games like splashing.
Brigid Lucy Needs A Best Friend Page 2
