Daizy Star and the Pink Guitar (3 page)

L
uckily, I am eleven years old now. I am very nearly grown-up, and quite wise and mature compared to when I was ten and three-quarters.

When a disaster unfolds right in the middle of my living room, which seems to happen quite a lot these days, I am not about to run for cover, screaming. I am not about to pretend it isn’t happening or try to keep it secret or lie awake for long hours all through the night, tossing and turning and having stomach-churning nightmares, like I did with Dad’s last big plan.

No, those days are gone.

Slamming gates and hanging upside down on tyre-swings will not cut it, either.

I am eleven now, and I am going to deal with this problem in a mature and sensible way. I will stay calm at all times, and listen, and gather information. The more I know, the more I can do to stop this whole thing from happening.

I even have a notebook, so I can jot down important points and then use them to come up with a plan later.

While I was out at the park, Dad made some cabbage and kidney-bean soup for tea, with the misguided idea that this will cheer us up and win us over to his cause. Yeah, right. Anyway, now he is happily stirring it, filling us in on the little details of his big African dream.

Becca is yelling that Dad is a deranged lunatic whose only dream is to rip our lives into tiny shreds and scatter them to the four winds, and Pixie is still trying to decide whether she would rather have a zebra or an anteater as a pet.

Mum is sitting at the kitchen table, head in hands, shoulders shaking. I worried at first that she was crying, but no, she is laughing. In a slightly alarming kind of way. I am starting to think that I am the only sane one in my whole family, when thankfully Mum says something distinctly un-crazy.

‘Africa?’ Mum says, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘You want us to abandon everything and go to live in Africa so you can build a school and dig a well and keep a herd of goats?’

School
, I write.
Well. Herd of goats
.

‘Mike,’ Mum smirks. ‘Have you gone mad?’

‘What’s mad about it?’ Dad asks, puzzled, and Mum just rolls her eyes.

‘We have a nice home here. I have a job – a job that is keeping us afloat, by the way, now that you have decided you don’t want to be a teacher any more,’ Mum says patiently. ‘The girls have school, and good friends. And none of us – NONE of us, Mike – except you … want to go and live in Africa. Not right now. OK?’

‘We cannot put our lives on hold, waiting for the right time!’ Dad says. ‘We have to do this NOW. Malawi needs us. Think of what we could do! We have skills, Livvi, skills that could really help an African village. I can teach … teach kids who truly want to learn. You can nurse and save lives, help children to grow up strong and healthy. Can’t you see what a difference you could make?’

Mum frowns. ‘I know, but that’s not the point …’

‘What is the point, Livvi?’ Dad demands.

‘What do you really want from life? Money?

Status? A flat-screen TV? Or would you like to know that you had saved lives, made a difference to the world?’

‘A new TV would be quite nice,’ Pixie muses. ‘We could watch my
Little Mermaid
DVD on it.’

‘There won’t be any TV in rural Malawi,’ Becca snaps, and Pixie’s lower lip quivers a little.

‘Livvi?’ Dad repeats. ‘Voluntary work was always a dream of yours, before the kids came along. You cared. You wanted to make a difference.’

‘I know,’ Mum says. ‘I still do. I mean, I’d like to, of course, but –’

‘No buts, Livvi,’ Dad says. ‘Just consider it, that’s all I’m asking. All of you. I am asking you a difficult thing, I know. I am asking you to think about others, not yourselves. Is that too much to ask?’

‘Think about others?’ Becca squeaks, outraged. ‘Think about OTHERS? When do YOU ever think about others, Dad? You cook up these crazy ideas and expect us to go along with them, but you never, ever think about how we might feel!’

There are tears streaming down Becca’s face, making her eyeliner run into rivulets of black.

‘I want what’s best for you!’ Dad argues. ‘This would be the experience of a lifetime! Yes, there would be challenges, but you’ll thank me one day, I promise you!’

‘Wanna bet?’ Becca growls.

‘There are health risks to consider,’ Mum points out. ‘We’d have to have lots of jabs, and take malaria tablets every day. Is that fair on the kids?’

Malaria,
I write in my notebook, feeling slightly alarmed.

‘Life isn’t fair!’ Dad says with passion, setting the table with soup bowls and spoons. ‘Do you think it is fair for the children of Malawi? Do you know what those children would DO for a bowlful of this lovely cabbage and kidney-bean soup?’

Becca whirls round, lifts the steaming soup pan from the cooker and chucks the whole lot down the sink.

‘Stuff your disgusting cabbage soup!’ she yells, in between sobs. ‘Stuff your kidney beans! I hate you! I am not going to live in Malawi and milk goats every morning, and that is final!’

Stuffed kidney beans
, I write.

Things are starting to look kind of bleak. Becca has stormed off to her room, and Mum has marched upstairs to change and run a relaxing bubble bath to calm her nerves. Pixie is in the living room, watching a DVD of
The Lion King
to prepare herself for life in Africa.

Dad looks at me across the table, sad-eyed and glum.

‘What about you, Daizy?’ he asks. ‘Do you think I’m crazy too?’

‘Um … only a little bit,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t worry about Becca. She is very dramatic these days. I think it’s her hormones. Or maybe something to do with being a Goth?’

‘Maybe,’ Dad sighs. ‘I’m just trying to follow my dreams. Is that so wrong?’

‘Um …’

‘Your mum and Becca are not convinced,’ he says. ‘I wish I could make them understand. At least you and Pixie are more open-minded, more adventurous, willing to give things a go.’

‘Er … right,’ I mutter. If Dad knew I was plotting to overthrow his plan, what would he think then? I smile guiltily and Dad ruffles my hair, the way he used to when I was Pixie’s age.

I haven’t the heart to tell Dad that this dream has even less chance of happening than the last one. How can it? Mum is not crazy about the idea of living in Malawi and Becca is outraged at the very idea of it. I let out a little sigh of relief. It’s not going to happen, surely … not when Mum is so firmly against it all.

‘What have you been writing down?’ Dad asks, spotting my notebook.

I close it quickly.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just making a list of … um … useful things for Malawi.’

Dad’s face lights up. ‘That’s my girl,’ he grins. ‘I knew you would understand. I just knew I could count on you, Daizy Star!’

Oops.

I
am in love.

I know it’s love because my heart is racing and whole flocks of butterflies are doing triple somersaults in my tummy.

Beth and Willow said this would happen. They said it was inevitable, a part of growing up, and that I had better watch out now I was eleven because my hormones would be bubbling away like one of Dad’s nettle and wheatgrass smoothies. I mean, ewwww! And then just when I least expect it,
BAM!
I’d be in love.

This happened to Beth and Willow earlier in the term, with Ethan Miller. He is without doubt the yuckiest boy I have ever met, the kind who spends hours in front of the mirror perfecting his hair-gelled spikes and playing with his mum’s fake tan. Ugh. His only skills are football and winding people up.

Still, you cannot choose who you fall for, I suppose. And now I have fallen too, head over heels, just like Beth and Willow said I would. They assumed it would be with a boy, of course, but who says you can’t fall in love with a pink guitar?

After all, a boy might let you down, but a guitar never would. It stays faithful and true to the end, and it’s always there when you want to let off steam. And this weekend, obviously, there has been a lot of steam.

It is kind of tragic, really. I am discovering my star quality, I’m sure I am – and now perhaps it could be snatched away from me forever. Who knows, maybe I am swapping a future as the world’s most talented rock princess for a life of milking goats under the blistering African sun.

In between writing tragic rock songs about living in a tin hut on the shores of Lake Malawi, I have spent hours and hours on the Internet, researching life in Africa.

It hasn’t really helped me to come up with a plan to stop Dad’s mad idea. It has just made me feel very, very gloomy.

‘Did you know that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world?’ I ask Beth and Willow, next day at school.

‘You might have mentioned it,’ Beth says patiently.

‘Once or twice,’ Willow sighs.

We are in the school lunch hall, eating sausage and mash with baked beans. I bet they don’t have
that
in Malawi.

‘I can understand why Dad wants to go over and help,’ I tell my friends. ‘I mean, some villages have no clean water at all. They have all these scary diseases and there aren’t enough hospitals or clinics or medical supplies to make people better, or even enough doctors and nurses. And there aren’t enough schools or teachers for kids like us to have a proper education …’

‘Lucky things,’ says Ethan Miller, leaning over to spear a sausage from my plate. ‘No school! Just imagine!’