by Gwyneth Rees
Matthew and Dad are planning to paint Matthew’s bedroom together. It was Juliette who suggested that and Lizzie thinks it’s a good idea too. Matty wants to paint the walls black so he’s arguing with Dad about that now. Matthew says that he doesn’t find black a depressing colour and that it’s his room so he ought to be able to paint it whatever colour he likes.
‘I suppose Jake is painting his room black as well, is he?’ Dad said, drily, as they had yet another discussion about it over breakfast the other day.
‘I can do stuff without Jake having to do it first, Dad!’ my brother snapped, looking cross.
‘You could’ve fooled me,’ I put in, loudly. (I say that to my brother a lot now. Holly started me on it and I’ve discovered that it really annoys Matty, especially if I throw in a dismissive little shoulder shrug to go with it.)
Matty whirled round to glare at me. ‘Esmie, you are so . . . so . . .’ He seemed to be struggling to find a word that was sufficiently horrible to describe me, so I made a big thing of sitting waiting, cupping my face in my hands and resting my elbows on the table while I smiled up at him sweetly.
Dad laughed. ‘I do believe we have another teenager on the way!’ he said, pulling a face of mock horror at the thought. ‘Now, Matthew, about this decorating . . . Your bedroom does belong to you – the space between the walls. The walls however are all mine – and they’re staying a normal colour. Got it?’
I rolled my eyes. Juliette is right. Their arguing is boring.
I found Juliette sitting in the living room. The Saturday paper was open in front of her and some of the adverts on the lonely-hearts page were circled.
‘I am fed up with these pathetic Englishmen who are too scared to ask me out,’ she said. ‘I am thinking of putting in an advert myself. What do you think?’
‘Juliette seeks Romeo . . .’ I giggled.
She frowned. ‘I shall not be putting that,’ she said, firmly. ‘I shall be putting something far more sophisticated. I just cannot think what.’
‘How about this?’ I said, grabbing some paper and composing what I reckoned was the perfect ad for Juliette.
‘You really think that describes me?’ Juliette gasped, when she had read it.
‘Oh, yes!’ I laughed. ‘Definitely! And you’ll get so many replies, you’re bound to fall in love with one of them and then you won’t want to go back to France after all!’
‘Esmie, I have something for you,’ Juliette suddenly said, jumping up. It turned out she’d bought me the videotape of Mary Poppins. ‘I thought we could watch it this afternoon, just the two of us.’ One of Dad’s friends had got hold of some tickets for a football match that afternoon so Dad and Matthew were going together.
We waited until they’d left and then Juliette and I settled down to watch Mary Poppins together. I really enjoyed it, especially when they ride the horses on the merry-go-round and all the horses take off and end up on the racecourse and Mary Poppins ends up winning the race. And I loved the bit where everyone goes floating up to the ceiling and the part at the end when the children’s dad starts noticing them at last. But when it got to the bit where Mary Poppins had to go home, I started to feel really sad. I mean, I knew that it was time for her to go because she’d fixed everything by then, but the children were still going to miss her really badly.
‘Do you think she’ll ever come back and see them?’ I asked Juliette, in a small voice, as the film finished.
‘Of course she will,’ Juliette replied, firmly. ‘Those children will always be special to her! She will never forget them!’
I looked at her. ‘They won’t ever forget her either,’ I said, solemnly.
‘Forget Mary Poppins?!’ Juliette gasped in horror. ‘I should hope not!’
And we both started to laugh.
