by Hilary McKay
Not pleasant. Horrible, in fact. But better than being full to bursting with bread and butter and peanuts. After that it usually only took one. Sometimes not even that. Sometimes just the chocolatey, dark, slightly oily smell that came when the wrapper was torn open.
“I can’t believe it,” said her mother, long afterward, and looking back on the time herself, Beth also couldn’t believe it.
But it was true.
On Monday morning, the same morning that Dingbat via the sheepish one dumped Caddy on her own doorstep, and Caddy via the path of a speeding truck pushed Ruby into the arms of the head of the academy, Juliet came down from her bedroom in an unusually unselfish and kindly mood and began to make breakfast. Large banana-and-raspberry-jam sandwiches, dropped into a toasted-sandwich bag and cooked in the toaster.
The sweet, nutty smell of them was so appallingly delicious that Beth could not bear to stay in the house. She went to visit Treacle in his stable, and while she was there she ate a good deal of hay.
She did not come back until she judged that the torment would be over, but she timed it completely wrong. When she returned Juliet was watching a jug of hot chocolate go round and round in the microwave. A large jug.
“I made enough for you as well,” said Juliet with pride. “And I made you a sandwich! There on the table! I invented the recipe all myself. Go on, have it! They’re lovely!”
There was nothing Beth could do but eat it. And afterward there was nothing she could do but drink her hot chocolate.
“If we had marshmallows we could float them on the top,” said Juliet. “Never mind, we’ve got squirty cream!”
“Oh, Jools! No thank you!”
“Too late!” said Juliet cheerfully. “Beth?”
“Mmmm?” asked Beth, digging through cream so thick she needed a spoon.
“What happened to your boots?”
“What?” asked Beth, startled.
“Your cowboy boots that you wouldn’t let me wear.”
“Oh, them. They’re somewhere around.”
“Could I borrow them for drama? Because we’re all making plays in groups, and my group is doing Puss in Boots. I chose it. And I’m Puss. I arranged the whole thing because of your boots. So can I? Can I? Can I?”
“They’d be much too big.”
“That wouldn’t matter because I’m a cat. All boots are too big for a cat! So is it all right?”
Beth groaned, partly because of the hot chocolate and toasted sandwich resting so uneasily on her Norman conscience, partly because of Juliet’s phenomenal persistence.
She groaned, but gave in.
“All right. I don’t care. They’re put away somewhere.”
“I’ll find them!”
Juliet was gone, prudently vanishing before her sister could change her mind. Beth was left sitting at the crumby breakfast table and worrying that once again she had failed to meet the standards of the Norman diet. Worse still, she was penniless, her last pocket money having been withheld by her mother until she heard what it was to be spent on. “Since you’ve had more than enough Mars bars!” her mother had said.
Hot chocolate with cream. Banana. Butter. Jam. Toast.
A large amount of hot chocolate, banana, butter, jam, and toast.
I must get hold of a Mars bar, thought Beth in desperation, and she called upstairs, “Jools!”
“What?”
“Have you got any money?”
“Not real money,” said Juliet, who kept a china pig stuffed with toy money, tokens, Monopoly notes, and foreign coins, none of which the sweet shop would ever accept. “Everyone in our play group wanted to be Puss.”
“So?”
“So I had to bribe them,” said Juliet, in a surprised isn’t-that-what-everyone-does? voice. “I can’t find your boots anywhere.”
Her voice was muffled, as if she couldn’t breathe easily. It came from Beth’s bedroom, and when Beth went up to investigate, she found her there. The only parts of Juliet that were visible were her feet sticking out from under the bed. The entire room looked ransacked (which was not surprising, because it had been).
Juliet’s own bedroom, Beth noticed through the open door, was quite the opposite. Everything immaculately neat as always. All Juliet’s possessions lined up in straight lines.
All of them clearly visible.
Including the most recent.
The temptation was too much for Beth.
She stole the Mars bar.
“I’ll go to the stable and look for the boots there!” she called to the sticking-out feet, and ran.
All the way up the hill Caddy had searched for Beth, hurrying against the flow of schoolgoers, right back to the turnoff to Beth’s house, along the lane, up to the kitchen door (swinging open but nobody in), and finally to Treacle’s stable, from which came the sound of outraged exclamations.
“You stole my Mars bar! Stole it! Stole it! Stole it and gobbled it and NOW YOU’VE THROWN IT UP!”
And there was Beth, drooping on a hay bale beside a very nasty puddle, and Juliet, absolutely dancing with rage in the doorway.
“Look!” she shrieked, when Caddy arrived. “Look what she’s done! THAT WAS MY MARS BAR!” And she grabbed Caddy and hauled her in to inspect the actual evidence, now all mixed up with toast and hay and looking absolutely frightful.
“SHE STOLE IT!” roared Juliet, nearly falling over with her rage.
Caddy sat down and put an arm round Beth and said, “Don’t, Juliet, she’s not very well.”
Beth sobbed. Retched, and sobbed again.
“WHAT A WASTE!” cried Juliet, as more Mars bar appeared. “WHAT A PIG! WHAT A WASTE! WAIT TILL I TELL MUM!”
“Juliet, stop it!” said Caddy. “Beth can’t help it. She’s poorly. It must be a tummy bug. Saffy and Indigo said there was one at their school last week. Anyone can catch them. We stayed away from the hospital in case the baby caught it.”
Caddy’s heart sank as she spoke. She wouldn’t be able to go again now, not after being with Beth.
Beth understood what she was thinking. “It’s not a bug,” she said.
“No, it’s not!” agreed Juliet, still raging. “It’s pigness and stealingness!”
“Juliet!” begged Caddy, dropping straw on the awful patch to put it out of sight. “Stop it! Don’t be unkind! No one’s sick on purpose . . .”
Beth’s sobbing grew worse.
“It’s Mars bars!” said Juliet. “That’s what it is! She eats them all the time. Hundreds of them! Thousands of them! No wonder she’s sick!”
“I have to,” sobbed Beth.
“What?”
“I have to, I have to, I have to,” said Beth, while Juliet and Caddy stared. “I hate it, but I have to!”
“But, Beth, of course you don’t . . . ,” began Caddy, and Beth said, “Don’t you understand anything? Mars bars make me sick.”
Juliet and Caddy stared.
“So when I eat too much . . .”
“You don’t eat too much,” said Juliet, with scorn. “You hardly eat a thing . . .”
Beth clutched her stomach.
“. . . except Mars bars!” said Juliet.
“I eat too much and I can’t stop growing,” wailed Beth.
It became so quiet that they could hear Treacle’s hoof steps, swishing through the long grass toward the stable door. He had gone away at the beginning of the shouting, but now he came plodding back and nudged Beth’s drooping shoulders.
Caddy’s face was completely puzzled. Juliet was the first to speak. She said, “But you can’t stop growing! You have to!”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” agreed Caddy. “We all do. You, me, Ruby, Alison. Juliet. All of us.”
Beth groped past her and went to loop her arms round Treacle. She said, “Treacle, Treacle.”
“Treacle?” asked Caddy. “Is that why? Treacle?”
“Of course it is!” snapped Beth, and Caddy became silent again.
Juliet was beginning to
understand at last. After all, more than anyone in the world, she was aware of her sister’s growing. She always had been. It was part of her life.
“You grow out of things,” she said. “And I grow into them. And then I have them. Mostly.”
“You’re lucky,” said Beth.
“Lucky?” Juliet thought about that before she agreed. “I mostly don’t mind.”
Beth raised her head and looked at her in astonishment. It had never occurred to her that Juliet might mind.
“Well, I do mind the school sweaters,” admitted Juliet. “Because they’ve always gone bobbly. They never look new. And when I had your old scooter it took ages to peel all the pony stickers off. Same with your desk when you got a new one for big school.”
“Oh.”
“And I mind very much,” continued Juliet (enjoying this good grumble), “when teachers at school say ‘Oh, you must be Beth’s sister!’ and say how nice you were and everything, compared.”
“Compared to what?”
“Compared to me.”
“They don’t say that!”
“They think it, though,” said Juliet. “I’ve seen them.”
“When?”
“Lots of times! When I kept that money I found in the cloakroom. When I slapped yucky Josh when he tried to kiss me! When I posted my birthday sweets down the playground drain so I didn’t have to share them. That Christmas when I was Mary . . .”
“That was terrible,” said Beth. “It wasn’t funny. It was just awful.”
“I didn’t mean for everyone to be so mad,” said Juliet. “I only said . . . because it was a girl doll. And Jesus was a boy . . . Anyway, it just proves I’m not as nice as you. And I’m not like you. And I can’t do the things you do.”
Juliet paused. And looked at Treacle.
Caddy looked at him too. And at Beth’s sad, defiant face, and her long legs, and her hungry eyes.
“It won’t work,” Caddy said.
“What won’t?”
“Not eating, and being sick. Trying to be Norman-sized! That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? I remember you talking about it! I thought it was a joke!”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“You’ll have to think of something else, Beth. You could keep Treacle like a sort of pet, I suppose . . .”
“Very expensive, just for a pet,” said Juliet.
“What do you know about it?” demanded Caddy.
“Only what Mum and Dad say. When Beth’s not there.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Beth, but that wasn’t true. She did believe it.
“It wouldn’t be keeping him just for a pet if you would ride him, Juliet,” she cried. “Oh, Jools! Why won’t you!”
Beth was crying again, but Juliet was shaking her head. Shaking it and shaking it, and backing away to the door as if somebody was about to make her ride Treacle right then.
“I won’t,” she said. “I can’t. You can’t make me. Not if you eat a million Mars bars and are sick a million times. You should let Treacle go back to the riding stable, that’s what you should do! And stop wasting all the money! I’m going!” said Juliet, and went.
For a very long time neither Beth nor Caddy spoke. Caddy thought, school. They were beyond late; it must be nearly lunchtime. She thought, Ruby. Alison. Dingbat. She thought of the firework baby, and that it couldn’t catch Mars bar sickness, and that that was one good thing. She thought about Juliet’s last words, and about Treacle and Beth. She remembered Treacle running to the fence in the hope of meeting ponies. He would probably be happy back at the riding stables.
“Juliet’s right,” said Caddy.
Beth shook her head.
So for the second time that day, Caddy was brave. Braver than the first time, because after all it is not very brave to drag your friend away from a speeding truck if the alternative is worse: friend jam, all over the road. Instead Caddy was brave in a cold, knowing-the-consequences way. She said what nobody had so far dared to say.
“You’re already much too big for Treacle, Beth. Already. Now.”
Then Beth said what Caddy had known she would say. “I thought you were my friend. I hate you. Go away. Get out of here. I hate you. I hate you forever.”
Shouted it, with her fists clenched and her eyes blazing and her face white, and in the middle of her shouting Juliet appeared, and with her someone else.
“I telephoned Mum,” said Juliet, “and she’s here.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
PINK HAIR AT SCHOOL
OF ALL THE GIRLS, ALISON WAS THE ONLY ONE TO MAKE IT TO school that Monday. Alison, and her world-stopping hair. Deep, deep fuchsia, shading to a luminous rose at the ends. Dingbat was not the only boy whose heart missed beats when he saw it. Alison stalked to school through a crowd that parted and sighed, “Ahhh.”
Straight to the headmaster’s office went Alison. “To save them bothering to send me here,” she explained to him.
“I see.”
“Nobody in this school listens to anything I say.”
“I’m listening.”
“I don’t mind being suspended.”
“No. I know that.”
“This pink. It looks pink, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“It isn’t. It’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s reflected. The actual color is the opposite. It’s about light. It’s everything not pink. Am I right?”
“You are right,” said the head, and paused. “Now, this student Alison. This don’t-care, rebellious Alison. It’s not real either, is it? It’s an illusion. It’s reflected. The actual Alison is the opposite. Am I right?”
Alison stared, shattered with horror at being so completely understood, and she thought with thankfulness of Tasmania, where no one had learned to read her mind.
“Anyway, I’m leaving,” she told the head.
“If that is true, it’s a great pity,” he said calmly. “Our loss completely. Nevertheless, at this moment you are here. And your hair (which looks wonderful). So what am I to do? Suspend you? You wouldn’t care. Chop your head off? Ridiculous!”
“What, then?”
“Well, I’ll ask you to think about it. Not in a rush, over the next few days.”
“Is that all?”
“And tie it back for science.”
“Okay.”
“And try not to start a fashion.”
“Me?”
“Thank you, Alison.”
Dingbat caught up with her at lunchtime, following her out of the dining hall.
“Ali, Ali, Ali,” he called, mowing down year sevens in his hurry to get to her. “Ali, I love it! I need to talk to you, Ali. I need to tell you it’s finished with Caddy and me!”
“What?”
“I finished it. It’s over. Beth and Ruby, too!”
“You finished it? Since when?”
“Since this morning.”
“But none of them are in school today.”
“Aren’t they?”
“Didn’t you notice?”
“I only noticed you,” said the mesmerized Dingbat, and Alison’s heart lurched with sadness, because now it was too late. Her secret hope that one day her three friends would grow tired of Dingbat and leave him to notice only her could never happen.
However, Dingbat mustn’t know.
“Is that why they’re not here today? Caddy and Ruby and Beth? Because you dumped them?”
“I didn’t dump them personally,” said Dingbat virtuously. “I got a mate . . .”
“You got a mate?” repeated Alison, and she fell out of love in one blissful, releasing moment and turned her thoughts entirely to revenge.
“Well, it’s nicer, isn’t it, if you send a mate? Less, you know . . . stressy. Anyway, you and me, Ali! How about it?”
She was just the right height for him to rest his chin in the pink hair. “Mmm?” he said, resting it. “Okay? You and me? And listen to this idea I had, after I saw you last night.”
“I’m listening,” said Alison.
“I do my hair a color too! Pink even! Yes? What do you say? Because I think you have really great style, Ali! Special! Just like me!”
Alison stepped back to look at him. Dusty gold unraveling hair. Unrepentant green eyes. That smile.
“Would you really do that, Ding?” she asked, reaching out to hold his hand, smiling with pleasure at the lethal nature of her thoughts. “Pink?”
“Tonight. Come and help me.”
“I can’t. I’m grounded till the end of time.”
“Oh, Ali!”
“I know. Bye, Ding.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
SAFFRON AND INDIGO ON THE DOORSTEP
CADDY WANDERED HOME FROM BETH’S HOUSE SO SLOWLY that it was the middle of the afternoon before she arrived. She had a door key in her pocket, and she hoped the house would be empty.
It wasn’t. As soon as she opened the door she knew that. She could hear her father upstairs. It sounded like he was moving furniture and not enjoying it. Something crashed, and Caddy heard a howl of pain, and then the telephone rang in the kitchen. Bill fell downstairs, grabbed it, caught sight of Caddy, stared till his eyes bulged, said, “Yes, yes, thank you, she’s here now,” and put down the receiver.
He said, “Caddy.”
“Hello,” said Caddy. “I’m back.”
School had rung. Ruby’s grandparents had rung, all four of them. The police and the local paper had rung. Someone whose name Caddy’s father could not catch had left a message on the answering machine on behalf of Dingbat. It said, “Ding says if it doesn’t work out with Alison he’ll be right back.” Eve had rung from the hospital saying everything was wonderful. Fingers crossed. Beth’s mother had rung some time ago to say Caddy was on her way home. In between, said Bill, many people from London had rung, including Bill’s accountant who organized his income. (“When I’m allowed to earn anything,” said Bill.)
Everyone who had rung about Caddy had a different conflicting story: Caddy’s friend had fallen in the road. Caddy, last seen, was hurrying to school. The driver of a truck had been stopped several miles out of town. He’d been driving too fast, but he knew nothing about Caddy. Caddy was not hurt, but her friend had grazed knees and was rather shaken. The reason Caddy was not at school was that she was looking after another girl, who was sick. It was nothing infectious, and Caddy was on her way home.
