Pinch me, I'm dreaming...

by Maggi Gibson

  I, of course, refuse to accompany them. Paradiso’s are the biggest superstore chain in the country and they still use far too much plastic in their packaging, which, as I have pointed out to the managing director, is hugely damaging to the environment. They stock eggs from factory chickens that have been treated disgracefully, they sell genetically modified food products which will probably cause us all to grow extra thumbs or worse, and they pay their staff peanuts.14

  ‘OK, OK, OK!’ Mum says, backing out of the door and trailing Pip with her. ‘Spare me the politics! We need to eat, Sassy. And food at the festival will cost an arm and a leg. So you stay at home, you keep your principles intact, and we’ll get the shopping.’

  While they’re gone I make the final choice of what I’d like to wear on stage. Last night Cordelia and Taslima – and Megan – came round. They were so-o-o-o excited.

  Each of them brought an outfit for me to try. Megan came up with a zingy pink, tight-fitting short dress. Everyone said I looked really cool in it, and it did make my legs look long, but when I picked up my guitar and strummed it a few times, there was a problem.

  ‘Oh no!’ Megan gasped. ‘Now it looks like you’ve no skirt on at all!’

  I strummed a few times more and wiggled my hips.

  ‘And now we can see your knickers!’ Cordelia dissolved in a puddle of giggles.

  ‘In any case, zingy pink just isn’t you, Sass,’ Taslima said, wrinkling her nose. ‘You’re giving out all the wrong kinds of messages. Pink messages.’

  ‘I bet Magnus would love it!’ Cordelia stopped giggling just long enough to say. ‘Maybe I should phone him!’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ I said, tugging the dress off and passing it back to Megan. ‘And thanks, Megan. It’s a lovely dress, but I don’t want to start my career with my knickers on show! It’s a bit too Arizona Kelly for me!’

  ‘OK, OK, OK! Try my stuff next,’ Cordelia said, drying her eyes and pulling a tiny red-and-purple kilt from her tote bag. ‘I’m working on this kind of tartan theme at the moment. You know, kind of Scotty-Dog-Goth.’ (Cordelia’s stuff is all stunning, and cos she designs and makes it herself, it’s totally unique.)

  So I stepped into the kilt and pulled on its matching lacy purple top. Cordelia insisted I also wear purple fishnet tights and black Doc Martens that laced right up to my knees. Then she fastened a little red dog collar studded with diamonds round my neck and a smaller one round each wrist.

  I stared in the mirror. I looked like a kid that’s been let loose in a fancy-dress shop. It just didn’t work. This time it was Megan who fell on the floor, laughing hysterically.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ she snorted, ‘is how Cordelia looks so fantastic in everything she makes, but no one else can carry it off!’

  ‘I think we instinctively dress the way that suits us,’ Taslima said, carefully folding the dress she’d brought along and putting it back into her neat little case. ‘And you should wear what you always do, Sass. What you like yourself in. You know, cargo pants or jeans. A vest-top or Tee.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Megan. ‘The way you dress is the way you are, Sassy. Kinda wild and natural.’

  So that’s why I’m setting all my trousers and tops out on my bed now, so I can find what I think would look best on stage. In the end I choose a pair of tight blue jeans and a sky-blue vest with fluffy white clouds floating across it. I choose a plain silver chain with a little dolphin charm to wear round my neck. I turn the jeans up to just below the knee. Then I pick up my guitar and pose in front of the mirror. It looks fine. Good enough. And I like the bare feet. Maybe I should always perform in bare feet.

  Anyway, I remind myself as I take everything off again and pack it into my overnight bag, it’s my singing that counts, not the way I look.

  It’s almost nine o’clock that night and I’m in the kitchen mooching for something to snaffle, when the doorbell rings.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I shout, stuffing a muffin in my mouth, not expecting it to be for me. I open the door and there stands Twig. He smiles shyly and my heart does a back-flip and lands unsteadily.

  As we go through to the kitchen, Twig nods at the rucksacks piled high in the hall. ‘You’ve got all your packing done, then?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah, we’re off first thing.’

  ‘So you won’t have room for anything else?’ he smiles through his flop of hair.

  ‘Mum says you can’t come. I already asked.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ he pulls a sad-clown face. ‘But you might have room for this.’ And he produces a small bundle from behind his back and holds it out to me.

  I open it out. It’s a white cotton T-shirt. On the front it says BOYCOTT PARADISO’S. I turn it to the back. There’s a drawing of the Planet Earth, all beautiful and blue and green like the way it’s supposed to look from outer space – but with a huge ugly black insect sitting on top of it, and a big chunk eaten out of it. Above the planet it says PARADISO’S. Underneath it says: ARE PARASITES.

  ‘It was one of Megan’s old ones. So I recycled it,’ Twig grins. ‘And did the drawings, of course.’

  Just then Pip comes clattering downstairs.

  ‘What’s a pa-ra-site?’ she asks, peering at the Tee Twig’s just given me.

  ‘It’s an organism that feeds off other living things, gobbles them up and gives nothing in return,’ Twig says, but Pip just looks more confused.

  ‘Like when Brewster gets a tick in his fur,’ I explain. ‘It sucks blood from him and gets big and fat and doesn’t do him any good at all.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ says Pip. ‘How can a superstore be like a tick? One’s tiny and the other’s huge. Anyway I don’t really care.’ She flicks her hair and twirls a couple of times. ‘Do you like my new dress?’

  Twig and I stare as she supermodel-catwalks up and down the kitchen.

  ‘New dress?’ I gasp. ‘How come you got a new dress?’

  ‘Cos I went shopping with Mum,’ Pip smiles.

  ‘You got it in Paradiso’s?’ I ask, surprised.

  ‘Yes, we did,’ says Mum as she floats through in her silk dressing gown, her hair piled high on her head and plastered with some sort of weird dark-green paste. ‘And, before you ask, it’s henna. A natural hair dye. I’ll be rinsing it off in a few minutes.’

  ‘But it’s GREEN!’ I blurt. ‘I am not going anywhere with a GREEN mother.’

  Mum looks pityingly at me. ‘It washes out, silly. And then my hair will be a beautiful rich auburn. You’ll see. I used to henna it when I was young.’ She pauses to look at the T-shirt Twig has designed.

  ‘Paradiso’s are Parasites,’ she reads. ‘So Sassy has brainwashed you too, Twig?’

  ‘Not at all,’ says Twig. ‘Everyone knows that Paradiso’s gets away with murder.’

  ‘With murder?’ Mum laughs, filling the kettle to make a cup of tea. ‘Isn’t that a bit strong?’

  Just then Dad comes into the kitchen and Pip tosses her hair and does a few twirls for him.

  ‘Maybe not murder,’ Twig concedes. ‘But almost as bad. Paradiso’s uses little kids in sweatshops to make their clothes. They have to work really long hours in horrible conditions and hardly get paid anything. That’s how they keep their prices down.’

  ‘Is what Twig says right, Angus?’ Mum asks Dad. ‘Do you know anything about this?’

  Dad sighs heavily. ‘There is evidence. Yes. And your dress is lovely, Pip. Very you.’

  ‘So how come no one told me?’ Mum continues, indignant.

  ‘Well, I have tried –’ I begin, but Mum’s not listening.

  ‘Why’s it not all over the papers?’ she goes on. ‘I mean, if I’d known I would NEVER have bought that dress for Pip! To think that a little kid her age might have had to work long hours to make it! That’s dreadful.’

  ‘Paradiso’s are so powerful,’ Dad sighs. ‘They aren’t just a supermarket. They own newspapers and TV stations. They control a lot of the media.’

  ‘So how com
e you two know all about their sweatshops?’ Mum asks me and Twig.

  ‘The Internet,’ I say.

  ‘Websites like YouSaveTheySlave.com,’ Twig adds. ‘The info’s out there if people want to find it. But, to be honest, most people would rather have their cheap clothes. Not ask too many questions.’

  Just then Pip comes back into the kitchen in her pink frilly dressing gown. Solemnly, she hands Mum a Paradiso’s bag.

  ‘What’s this?’ Mum says.

  ‘It’s that dress,’ Pip says quietly. ‘You can take it back to Paradiso’s. I don’t want it. Not if little kids were forced to make it.’

  I stare at Pip. Can this really be my fashion-daft, shopaholic little sis?

  Mum gives her a big hug – and almost covers her in green slime from her hair. Pip pushes her away.

  ‘See,’ Pip says, smiling at Twig. ‘Sassy and you aren’t the only ones with princey-thingies around here. I can be an eco-warrior too!’

  ‘And you’re the best little sis in the world,’ I grin, planting a kiss on her cheek.

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘And the prettiest! And now I’m going to bed to get my beauty sleep.’

  And with that, and a double twirl, she waves goodnight.

  Twig and I wander outside to get away from the parentals who are totally clogging up the kitchen. It’s dusk and the scent from the roses and honeysuckle by the fence hangs heavy in the air.

  We wander to the old swing at the bottom of the garden. I sit down and sway gently backwards and forwards. Twig looks down at me and smiles.

  ‘I love the T-shirt,’ I say, trying to sound normal, but feeling all light-headed. ‘I’ll wear it on stage on Saturday night. It’s perfect. It’s like I can make a statement, you know, without saying anything.’

  ‘I wish I was going to the festival,’ he says quietly.

  ‘I wish you were coming too.’ I smile up at him.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What do you mean – really?’ I laugh and the sound seems unnaturally loud in the still evening air.

  ‘It’s just…’ he begins, then stops.

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Well, things are going to change for you. You’re going to meet people like Phoenix Macleod…’ Twig hangs his head and his hair flops over his face.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you wouldn’t want me there, not really,’ he mumbles.

  I stand up suddenly so my eyes are level with Twig’s. He lifts his head and I hold his gaze and the whole world seems to spin.

  ‘I’m not interested in Phoenix Macleod.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘I’m not,’ I smile. Then add jokingly, ‘Anyway, Phoenix Macleod’s way too old for me. He’s at least fifteen!’

  ‘Megan doesn’t think he’s too old. He’s her ideal guy.’

  ‘But he’s not mine… And I do wish you were coming to the festival.’

  Above us the sky’s almost dark.

  ‘So are you going to make a wish?’ Twig points to a single tiny star twinkling high above the trees.

  I love wishing on the first star. When I was little I used to wish for childish things, like a new bike, or a pet rabbit. There are so many important things I could wish for now. Like world peace, or an end to cruelty to animals, or for someone to discover a fuel that doesn’t cause global warming, or a miracle cure for cancer.

  But I’m not going to wish for any of those. Not this time. Cos there’s something I’d like more than anything. Something special just for me.

  Twig takes my hand and pulls me towards him, and I’m standing so close I can feel his breath against my cheek.

  I look up at the star and make my wish. Silently.

  ‘So what are you wishing for?’ Twig whispers.

  ‘Can’t tell you,’ I say softly, ‘or the wish won’t come true. And it’s too important to spoil it.’

  Twig’s thoughtful for a moment. ‘You didn’t wish for a platinum disc or something like that, did you?’ he teases.

  ‘Nope,’ I reply.

  Then we sit together on the picnic table, holding hands, till the sky looks like a blue-black sea with diamonds swirling through it.

  ‘Twig,’ I say into the darkness.

  ‘Yeah?’ he says softly.

  ‘Are you my boyfriend now?’ I ask nervously.

  He squints at me through his flop of hair, then looks down at our clasped hands.

  ‘Looks like it,’ he smiles. ‘Are you my girlfriend?’

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ I say, holding up my wrist. ‘That’s why I’m wearing your friendship bracelet.’

  ‘So I’ll see you when you get back from the festival?’

  ‘Yep,’ I smile. ‘I guess so.’

  Just then Mum opens the kitchen door and lets Brewster out for his late-night sniff around the garden.

  ‘I have to go,’ Twig says as golden light spills from the open door across the lawn. He stands up and lets go of my hand. ‘Be brilliant at the festival.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. And I’ll wear the T-shirt. For luck.’ His face is only inches from mine, and I think he’s about to kiss me. Then Mum shouts for Brewster and Twig disappears into the deepening darkness.

  I sit on in the garden, rocking slowly backwards and forwards on the swing, gazing up at the sparkling scatter of stars, the lovely milk-white moon.

  And I don’t mind if the wish I made on the first star doesn’t come true right away. Cos Twig’s my boyfriend, and I’m his girlfriend. It’s all official now.

  So it can only be a matter of time until he kisses me… can’t it?

  The following morning Mum insists we must drop into Paradiso’s on our way to the Wiccaman so she can return Pip’s unwanted dress. Otherwise, she reasons, it will be next week before she can take it back, and they might be difficult about giving a refund.

  So once we’re all piled into the van with our rucksacks and my guitar and Pip’s little pink roll-along suitcase and Brewster and his dog bowl, and Dad’s been given his final instructions on where to find the stash of extra toilet paper and how to work the microwave and what to feed – and not feed – Houdini, Mum starts up the engine and we go chugging off down the road.

  Mum looks stunning, her hennaed hair glowing a rich dark chestnut in the sun. She’s not wearing her usual clothes either, but has dug out some old stuff I didn’t even know she had. A creamy cheesecloth blouse with little bells on the cuffs that jangle every time she moves her hands, a long, floaty patchwork skirt, a pair of flat sandals with little diamonds studded in them. And she’s remembered to put her jewellery on too – bangles and earrings and a necklace. She looks totally mad, but kind of attractive with it.

  As always, Paradiso’s car park is mobbed. Mum eventually trundles the van into a space and we all tumble out. But then she can’t find the bag with Pip’s dress, so Cordelia has to climb back inside and psychically detect it. Eventually she finds it under Brewster’s bottom. It’s a bit crushed – and warm – so Taslima smoothes it out and flaps it in case it smells a bit doggy, then pops it back in the bag and hands it to Mum.

  By this time Megan’s decided she needs the loo again, even though we all went – on Mum’s orders – when we left the house, so we decide to lock the van and while the others go into Paradiso’s I’ll let Brewster have some fresh air.

  While Megan and Cordelia and Taslima head to the toilet, Pip goes with Mum to the Customer Care counter. ‘It should only take a minute,’ Mum says.

  Five minutes later I’m still waiting at the door with Brewster on his lovely new yellow lead.

  Five minutes after that Cordelia and Megan and Taslima come back from the loos and join me. Five more minutes pass. Still no sign of Mum or Pip.

  ‘I’m going in to find them,’ I say at last. ‘Mum’s probably decided she needs more shopping.’

  And so we all traipse into the store. Only to find Mum still at the Customer Care counter. Looking anything but cared for.

  ‘I think you’re being unnecessarily d
ifficult!’ Mum says through gritted teeth. (Always a danger sign.) The Customer Care lady puffs herself up inside her uniform and eyes Mum coldly.

  ‘I’ve explained to you already, Madam,’ she says, bundling the dress back into its carrier bag and pushing it across the counter to Mum. ‘The labels have been cut off. You have not provided a valid purchase receipt. We cannot give you your money back. And,’ she smiles smugly, ‘how do we know your little girl hasn’t worn it already?’

  ‘Because I’ve just told you so!’ Mum counters, waving her arms in a tinkling of exasperation and tiny bells.

  ‘And you think I should take your word for it?’ The Customer Care lady runs a disapproving eye over Mum… then Pip… then all of us.

  ‘I most certainly do!’ Mum retorts. ‘And I can’t see why not –’

  ‘Well, let’s just say we’ve had some bad experiences with you New Age hippy types before,’ the Customer Care lady says sniffily. Then she signals to a big burly security guard in a Paradiso’s uniform. ‘Bill,’ she calls. ‘Can you see these people off the premises! And, Madam,’ she says to Mum. ‘Perhaps you could teach your children to read?’ She points to a ‘No Dogs’ notice on the wall. ‘Dogs are not allowed in Paradiso’s stores. For hygiene reasons.’ She adds sniffily, ‘But then you types wouldn’t know anything about that!’

  The security man moves towards us. Mum looks like she’s going to swing for the Customer Care lady, and I’m thinking, well, this is it, the end of Dad’s career as a politician, when Cordelia grabs my arm.

  ‘Do you mind,’ she says to the security guard in a really loud voice so everyone around stops and turns. ‘Brewster is a BLIND dog. Don’t you dare put a finger near him or I’ll order him to bite – and I’ll let the papers know!’

  Everyone turns and stares at me and Brewster.

  ‘Here, Sass,’ Cordelia says, ‘you know you should be wearing your dark glasses when we’re out in public.’ And she sticks her sunglasses on me.

  ‘What’s more,’ Pip says to the Customer Care lady, in a clear, sweet voice. ‘We are not New Age hippies. We are from the Children’s Sunshine Home for Sick Kids. That’s our van out there in the car park. The one with the rainbows on the side. We painted it ourselves, even though…’ her voice falters and her chin trembles as she brings her acting skills into play. Cordelia puts a protective arm round her.