Pick ‘n’ Mix

Skye said, “What kind of looking after?”

“Well – you know! Just making sure she’s OK. I promised Mum we’d be responsible for her.”

“Us?” Skye was starting to sound a bit alarmed.

“She’s ever so sweet,” I said. “She won’t be any trouble.”

“You reckon?”

“It’ll just be, like, seeing her to school and picking her up again, checking she doesn’t get lost. That kind of thing. Actually,” I said, “I’m quite looking forward to it.” Well, I had been.

Just at the moment all I could think of was what Mum was going to say.

Jem put her arm through mine. “I don’t mind helping look after her,” she said.

I beamed at her, gratefully; at least I had the support of one of my friends. Skye was gnawing at her lip, her forehead all crinkled. She is such a pessimist! If I listened to what she had to say I would never go anywhere or do anything. I suppose it is what comes of having this massive great brain, like a computer. Instead of just looking straight ahead, she whizzes frantically about, all up and down the side roads, in and out of blind alleys, searching for things that could go wrong. A bit too complicated for my liking. I think I am quite a straightforward type, though Mum would probably say I tend to act without thinking, which is what she said when I accidentally set fire to Dad’s garden shed and almost certainly what she was going to say when I tried to explain why I’d cut a hole in my carpet…

I gulped as we reached Sunnybrook Gardens, which is where the three of us go our different ways.

“Wish me luck,” I said.

“What for?” said Jem. “Oh! Yes. Your carpet.” She giggled. “Hope your mum doesn’t get too mad!”

“Blame it on Rags,” urged Skye.

Maybe I could. After all, it was sort of his fault. If he hadn’t chewed the fronds I could have snipped them off and nobody would ever have known. I could tell Mum that I’d cut the hole after he’d done his chewing. I could say I’d been trying to tidy things up and the knife had slipped, so then I’d thought I might as well make the hole triangle-shaped and put the cabinet on top of it. Yes! That would work.

I crashed through the front door, all prepared with my story (in case Mum had already made the dreaded discovery and was waiting for me like a great hovering cloud at the top of the stairs). But then Rags came bounding down the hall, full of his usual doggy ecstasy at seeing me again, and I knew that I just couldn’t do it.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I won’t blame you!”

While me and Rags were having a hug-in, the door of the front room opened and Mum looked out.

“Oh, Frankie, there you are. I’ll be with you in a minute, I’m just seeing one of my ladies. You and Angel go and make a start on your bedrooms. Tell Angel she doesn’t have to move every last item… concentrate on clothes.”

I said, “OK.” Trying to make like it was no big deal and that my heart wasn’t already starting to sink like a lead balloon.

Angel was in the kitchen, texting someone. She is always texting. I said, “Mum wants us to get on with moving things.”

Angel pulled a face.

“She says not every last item. Just clothes, mainly.”

Angel said, “If you think I’m leaving all my stuff for you to get your grubby hands on—”

There was a pause, while she went on texting.

I said, “What if I do?”

Irritably, she said, “Do what?”

“Think what you just said.”

“Then you’d better think again!” Angel snapped her phone shut and went flouncing ahead of me, up the hall. “Let’s get this over with. And you can clear up all your mess,” she added.

I said, “What mess?”

“The mess in your room.”

“How do you know there’s any mess in my room?”

“Cos there always is. Just because I have to exist in a cupboard for the next few weeks doesn’t mean I have to live in a tip.”

I sniffed as I went up the extra little flight of stairs to my room. The clothes were still on the floor, where I’d left them. I was about to pick them up when I had another of my bright ideas. It just struck me suddenly, as these things do. I think I must have a very active sort of brain.

I left the clothes where they were, seized an armful of stuff from the wardrobe and went plunging down to Angel’s room, crossing paths with Angel on the way back up.

“Mess,” she said, as she came back down. “What are you doing with that rug?”

“I thought you ought to take it with you. Cos, you know, I might spill stuff on it or something.”

“Good thinking,” said Angel.

I galloped back up, kicked the clothes out of the way, and carefully laid the rug on top of the bald patch. It looked a bit odd, cos of sticking out at an angle, but at least it covered things up. It would have been perfectly all right if Angel hadn’t gone and interfered. She came in with another load of clothes, took one look at the rug and said, “It’s supposed to go here, by the side of the bed.”

“That’s boring,” I said. “That’s where everybody has them.”

“Yes, for a reason,” said Angel. “It’s where they go.”

“Not if you’re being creative.”

She isn’t creative; that is the problem. I don’t think she has very much in the way of imagination. Before I could stop her she’d snatched up the rug, revealing the bald patch in all its horror. I cringed. I’d been secretly hoping that by some miracle it might have shrunk a bit during the day, but if anything it seemed to have grown even worse.

Angel shrieked, “Oh my God!”

That was the moment when Mum appeared in the doorway.

“Now what?” she said. There was a distinct note of tetchiness in her voice – and that was before she’d seen the bald patch. It didn’t bode well. “Don’t tell me you two are at it already?”

Angel said nothing; just pointed, with quivering finger. Mum walked to the end of the bed. She looked. There was a rather nasty moment of silence.

“All right,” said Mum. She took a long, deep breath, like she was counting to ten. “So how did it happen?”

“It wasn’t Rags’ fault!” I said. “He found some loose ends and he tugged on them!”

Mum’s eyes followed the trail from the edge of the bed to the base of the cabinet.

“These loose ends?” More fronds had sprouted overnight; a whole forest of them, short and bristly. “Frankie,” said Mum, “what have you been doing?”

I tried my best to explain. All about the cabinet and the lack of corners. How I hadn’t actually set out to cut a hole.

“You mean, it just happened? All by itself?” Mum shook her head. She didn’t sound cross; just kind of… defeated. “Words fail me,” she said.

It’s a pity they can’t fail Angel occasionally. I have never known anyone go on like she does.

“Well, that’s it,” she said. “I’m not living in this tip! You can just get your stinky clothes out of my room and bring them back up here. Look at it! Look at the state of it! How could I invite any of my friends round? They’d think we were too poor to have decent carpets!”

“We are,” said Mum. “That’s what I find so depressing. I don’t know what your dad’s going to say, my girl, but you’d better brace yourself. He’s not going to be best pleased.”

“She’s a vandal!” shrilled Angel. She swept a load of clothes out of the wardrobe and marched across to the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” said Mum.

“Going back to my own room!”

“You’ll do no such thing. You come back here! You agreed to swap.”

“That was before she hacked the carpet to bits. Why should I be expected to live in squalor?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop being so melodramatic,” said Mum. “You’re only going to be in here for a few weeks, it won’t kill you.”

I knew what Angel’s game was. She hadn’t really wanted to swap rooms in the first place; she was just using the carpet as an excuse. Mum obviously knew it too, cos she told her sharply to pull herself together.

“Put those clothes back and go and get the rest of them. And you, Frankie, start clearing your drawers. Let’s at least get the job done before your dad arrives home. You’d better be prepared. It may well be,” said Mum, “that he’ll decide to stop your pocket money for the next few months until we’ve saved enough to replace the carpet.”

“Dunno why you’d bother,” said Angel. “Might just as well put down a load of straw.”

“I wouldn’t mind straw,” I said.

“No, you’d probably be happier in it… then you could wallow, like a pig.”

Angel went banging off down the stairs. I shouted after her: “I like pigs!”

“I wouldn’t get too cocky if I were you,” said Mum. “That’s Dad’s van I just heard pulling in. Do you want me to break the news, or would you prefer to tell him yourself?”

“Rather you did it,” I mumbled.

“That’s probably a wise choice,” said Mum.

Chapter Three

Sometimes my dad can be so lovely! He wasn’t anywhere near as cross as I’d thought he’d be. I reckon Mum was a bit put out. She’s always complaining that she’s the one that has to keep telling us off, and that just now and again it ought to be Dad’s turn. This was definitely his turn. But when I rather desperately explained about the lack of corners, and my bedroom ceiling not being high enough, he laughed. He actually laughed. Mum gave him such a look.

“Well,” said Dad, “now I’ve heard everything!”

“Hacking her carpet to bits,” grumbled Mum.

“Not good,” agreed Dad. “Definitely not good. But I have to admit, there’s a certain muddleheaded logic to it.”

I don’t know why he said that. Muddleheaded. What was muddled about it?

I told him that I’d been using my imagination. “Like you always say we should. Don’t just give up, look for a solution. That’s what you’re always telling us.”

“True,” said Dad.

Mum made an impatient huffing noise. “So what do we do about the carpet?”

“She’ll have to live with it.”

“Like that will be any hardship.” Mum said it rather bitterly. “She already exists in a tip, as it is.”

“Well, that’s her problem. I guess we should just think ourselves lucky she didn’t go for the other option.”

“What’s the other option?” I said.

“Cutting a hole in the ceiling?”

“Oh!” I was entranced. “I never thought of that.”

“Precisely! Let us be thankful for small mercies.”

“I can’t say I’m exactly brimming over with gratitude,” snapped Mum. “One perfectly good carpet ruined, and Angel in a sulk, which is all we need.”

Dad said, “What’s she in a sulk about?”

“Having to live in a pig sty for the next four weeks. And who could blame her?”

Mum left the room, obviously in somewhat of a huff.

“There, now,” said Dad. “You’ve really upset her. You’d better go and apologise.”

I said, “I have apologised!”

“Well, do it again. And make sure you mean it! The only reason I’m being as lenient as I am – which is far more than you deserve – is that I’m proud of you for offering to help out with Emilia.”

I glowed. I love it when Dad is proud of me! It doesn’t happen that often.

“It’ll be like work experience,” I said.

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. I just hope you’re not taking on more than you can handle.”

I said, “Da-a-ad!” Why did everyone doubt me? First Mum, then Skye, now Dad. “I know what I’m doing!”

“Yes, and I’m sure you mean well,” said Dad. “But from what I can gather, Emilia is quite a handful.”

“Dad, she’s sweet! And we couldn’t let her go to strangers.”

Dad ruffled my hair. “This is why I’m letting you off lightly. But please don’t go cutting any more carpets!”

Jem and Skye were waiting for me as usual next morning, on the corner of Sunnybrook Gardens.

“So what happened?” cried Jem. “Was your mum furious?”

“You’d better believe it,” I said.

“Not surprised.” Jem giggled. “Cutting holes in your carpet!”

“Is she going to make you pay for it?” said Skye.

“No.” I twirled, triumphantly. “She wanted to. She tried to get Dad to say he was going to stop my pocket money, but Dad just laughed. He thought it was funny.”

“Funny?”

“He said it showed logical thinking.” I didn’t add the bit about muddle-headed; it didn’t seem quite necessary. “He told Mum they just had to be grateful I hadn’t made a hole in the ceiling.”

Jem crinkled her nose. “Why would you have done that?”

“Cos of it being the other option?”

Jem looked at me, doubtfully. She doesn’t have a logical brain like me.

“If you can’t make the floor lower,” I said, “you make the ceiling higher. Right?”

“How d’you make a ceiling higher?”

“Dunno. With a drill, I s’ppose.”

“I bet even your dad would get mad then!”

“Maybe.”

“I reckon he spoils you.” Skye said it rather sternly. “My dad wouldn’t let me get away with cutting holes in things.”

Skye wouldn’t cut holes in things. She might have an enormous brain, but she is not in the least bit practical. I told her that Dad liked to encourage us to use our imagination, and to find ways round our problems.

“Anyhow,” I said, “he’s pleased cos of me saying I’ll look after Emilia. She’s coming this afternoon, Mum’s going to pick her up.”

“Ooh, can we come and see her?” said Jem.

I hesitated.

“Please, Frankee! Can we?”

“It might p’raps be better if you waited till tomorrow.” I didn’t want to put her off, but I had this feeling Mum might accuse us of crowding if all three of us turned up. “She’ll probably be a bit, like, confused just at first?”

“Exactly,” said Skye. She gave Jem a shove. “Stop being so pushy.”

“Me being pushy? Huh! I like that,” said Jem.

They bickered happily all the way to school. Normally I’d have joined in, but I was thinking about Emilia, wondering just how much looking after she was going to need. I didn’t really, properly know her; only just to say hello to when she’d come round with her mum. I couldn’t even have said how old she was, until Mum told me. I’d never have guessed she was thirteen. She was the right size for thirteen, but she didn’t look thirteen. She didn’t behave like thirteen. More like eight was what Mum had said. Thinking back to when I was eight, which was only quite a short time ago, I couldn’t remember that I’d needed any looking after. I’d gone to and from school by myself, I’d gone to the shops by myself, I’d even taken Rags up the park by myself. But both Mum and Dad seemed to think Emilia would need special treatment and that I would have to keep an eye on her.

Well, that was all right! I could do that. ’Specially with Jem being so eager to help. Skye obviously wasn’t that keen. Unlike me and Jem, she is not really a people person. She can sometimes be a bit prickly and awkward. But I wasn’t too worried. After all, we were friends and friends do things together.

I galloped home at the end of school to find that Mum and Emilia had just arrived. Mum said, “Emilia, this is Frankie. You know Frankie, don’t you?” Emilia gave a big banana beam and held out her hand.

“I’m Melia,” she said.

I shook her hand and said, “Hi, Melia.”

Mum shot me a suspicious glance in case I was making fun, but I wasn’t! It just came out like that: Melia. It seemed more friendly than Emilia.

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