Dustbin Baby (18 page)

‘Hey, hey, none of it's been fixed up,' said Dad. ‘We haven't even been to see the college ourselves. We went to this interview at a hotel in London while you two were at school. We didn't say anything because we didn't want to get your hopes up. To tell the truth I never thought in a million years they'd take me on. I mean, I'm fine with wood but I'm a bit of a botcher when it comes to plumbing or painting.'

‘Don't be silly, Joe, you're a skilled carpenter and a fine odd-job man. What else could they possibly want?' said Mum.

‘No, no, I think we got the job because of your cooking and management skills,' said Dad, reaching out and patting her hand. ‘You were dead impressive at the interview, Sharon – the way you had that list of sample meals all sorted out, that was fantastic.'

‘Where
is
this Melchester College? Why can't I still go to Moorcroft? I don't mind a long bus ride,' said Jodie.

‘It would have to be a
very
long bus ride – it's a good hundred miles away, right out in the country,' said Mum. ‘No, you'll be moving, thank heaven.'

‘No I'm not,' said Jodie. ‘I'm staying with all my mates at Moorcroft.'

‘I hate that word. It's
friends
,' said Mum. ‘And that's the whole point of us moving away. I'm sick to death of you hanging around with that deadbeat crowd, acquiring bad habits. We're moving in the nick of time, before you start seriously studying for your GCSEs and before Pearl starts secondary school. You girls need to make something of your- selves – and now we're giving you a golden opportunity.' Mum stroked the shiny brochure. ‘Melchester College,' she said slowly and reverently, as if it was a magic word like
Abracadabra
.

‘Melchester College!' Jodie mocked. She glanced at the brochure. ‘It looks dead posh. It says it's for four- to thirteen-year-olds. Who could send a little kid of
four
to boarding school?'

‘It's a day school too; not everyone boards. It's very select, naturally. It prides itself on the teacher/pupil ratio and the outstanding pastoral care,' said Mum, quoting.

‘So what does that mean?' said Jodie.

‘It means it's a very good school,' Mum snapped. ‘It costs a great deal of money to send a child there. It's a wonderful opportunity for you two.'

‘You mean we're supposed to have lessons there?' said Jodie.

‘That's the whole point!' said Mum. ‘You've learned nothing this last year at Moorcroft. We're going to have you repeating Year Eight, getting properly taught.'

‘I'm not repeating a year with a lot of posh kids all
younger
than me!' said Jodie.

‘But given the right coaching, you could pass this Common Entrance exam and win a scholarship to one of the public schools,' said Mum.

‘
What
? Are you crazy, Mum? I'm not going. Ab-so- lute-ly no way!' Jodie was shouting.

‘Hey, hey, Jodie, listen to me,' said Dad. ‘We'll be there all through the summer holidays so you'll have lots of time to settle in. I know you're going to love it when you get there.'

‘I won't, I'll hate it. I'm not going. You can't make me.'

‘Of course we can. You'll do as we say. You're our daughter.'

‘I wish I wasn't! Maybe I'm not. Maybe you adopted me and that's why I'm so different and never feel like I fit in,' Jodie yelled.

‘Don't start, Jodie, you're doing my head in,' said Dad. ‘Don't spoil it all. Like your mum says, it's a wonderful opportunity. We thought you girls would be thrilled to bits.'

‘Well, we're not, are we, Pearl?' said Jodie. She looked at me.

I looked back at her helplessly.

‘Do you really want to go there?' she asked, astonished.

I struggled. I nearly always copied Jodie, even if it got me into trouble. But we didn't always have the same ideas, although we were such close sisters. Jodie had hated it at Moorcroft at first. She'd been horribly teased about her girly plaits and neat uniform and nice manners. She had cut off her hair and changed her clothes and learned to talk tough so now she was fine, one of the gang. Some of the kids were even scared of her. I'd be scared of her myself if she wasn't my sister.

I knew
I
wouldn't be able to manage Moorcroft. I had nightmares about going there in September. I got horribly teased
now
, in Year Six in the Juniors. I was still very small for my age and looked very babyish; I worked hard and came top in class; I was useless at sport; I always had my head in a book; I blushed whenever a teacher talked to me in class; I never knew what to say to all the others. It was as if I had an arrow up above me:
Tease this kid!

Melchester College looked like the sort of place where
everyone
wore proper uniform and worked hard and tried to come top. And even if the lessons were awful, Jodie and I would still be living in a real-life version of Mansion Towers. Maybe we'd even be able to share a tower room!

‘You
can't
want to go there, Pearl,' said Jodie.

‘I think I do,' I mumbled.

‘Well, I
don't
,' said Jodie. She folded her arms. ‘You go, Pearl. Fine. But no one's going to make
me
go there.'

‘I can't go without you!' I said, starting to cry.

‘There now, you've reduced your sister to tears. I hope you're proud of yourself,' said Mum. ‘Why do you always have to spoil things for everyone? Poor little Pearl. Say sorry to her, Jodie, she's sobbing her heart out.'

‘I think you should all say sorry to
me
, trying to force me off to this stupid snobby school. I'm not going. I'm not changing my mind, not in a million years,' Jodie shouted, and she slammed out of the door.

But that night when I started crying again in bed, she sighed and slid under the duvet beside me.

‘Stop all that blubbing, silly. Do you really really really want to go to Melchester College, Pearl?'

‘Yes. But not without you,' I sobbed.

‘You're going to have to stand on your own two feet
some
time,' said Jodie. ‘But all right – I'll come too. Just so as I can look after you. OK?'

‘You'll really come to Melchester College?' I said, putting my arms round her neck and hugging her tight.

‘Yes. I'll hate it. But I'll come, just for you,' said Jodie. ‘Now quit strangling me and snuggle up and go to sleep.'

I wonder how many times we said the words
Melchester College
over the next few weeks. Mum tried out special traditional school-dinner recipes every day: shepherd's pie, toad-in-the-hole, meat loaf. They were all pretty horrible but she did real puddings too, jam roly-poly and treacle pudding and sherry trifle, and they were absolutely wonderful. Dad kissed his fingertips and said each dish was truly scrumptious. He even sang the ‘Truly Scrumptious' song from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
to Mum, and she giggled and did a little dance, swishing her skirts and twirling around. They were fooling about like teenagers all of a sudden, not acting like Mum and Dad at all.

Mum didn't nag Jodie so much, although she got really really mad when Jodie went out with Marie, Siobhan and Shanice on Thursday night, supposedly to a church youth club. Jodie promised she'd be in around half ten. She didn't get home until way past midnight, wobbling in her high red heels.

‘Drunk!' Mum exploded, and she slapped Jodie's face.

I was sitting at the top of the stairs, shivering in my nightie, anxiously gnawing at a hangnail on my thumb. The slap was such a shock I ripped the hangnail halfway down my thumb, making it bleed. It was so sore that tears sprang to my eyes. Jodie didn't cry, though when she came up to our bedroom, one side of her face was still bright scarlet from the slap.

‘Oh, Jodie! Are you
really
drunk?' I asked, wondering whether she was going to start reeling round and falling over like comic drunks on the telly.

‘Not really
really
drunk,' said Jodie, peering at herself in the mirror. ‘I did feel a bit weird when we came out of the club, but then I puked into the gutter and I felt better.'

‘Did they have real drinks at Shanice's youth club then?' I said.

‘As if !' said Jodie. ‘We weren't
at
her youth club. We went proper clubbing – the under-eighteens night at the Rendezvous.'

‘You never!'

‘You
didn't
, dear – you've got to remember to speak nicely now you're going to Melchester College,' said Jodie, imitating Mum's voice.

‘Ssh, Mum will hear!' I said, giggling. ‘So what was it
like
, clubbing? Was it scary? Did you dance with any boys?'

‘I danced with heaps of boys,' said Jodie. ‘More than Shanice and them, and they got a bit narked and went off without me. Marie said I was a slag because I let this boy snog my face off.'

‘You
never
! Didn't. Whatever.
Which
boy?'

‘I don't know. He told me his name but I couldn't hear it properly because it was so noisy. Marty or Barty. Maybe it was Farty?'

‘Jodie!'

‘He wouldn't leave me alone and I let him slobber all over me just to annoy Marie because she'd said she fancied him. She was welcome to him actually. To all of them. Just as well I couldn't hear them talk. It was just rubbish anyway. I don't like the way boys just want to dance and snog and touch you up. They don't want to be
mates
.'

‘I don't like boys either,' I said. ‘Some of the girls in my class have got boyfriends. They say I'm a baby.'

‘Well, I'm a baby too, because
I
haven't got a boyfriend, and I don't want one either,' said Jodie, rubbing her lips fiercely with the back of her hand.

She flopped down on her bed and pulled the duvet up to her chin even though she was fully dressed, with her high heels still on.

‘Night-night, Pearly Girly,' she said, closing her eyes.

‘Hey, you've still got your shoes on!'

I knelt on her bed and wiggled her shoes off her feet. She had a hole in her tights, her big toe sticking through comically. I waggled it and Jodie giggled sleepily.

‘Give over. Come to bed, Pearl,' she said, reaching out and pulling me in beside her. ‘You're freezing, like a little snowman!' she said, cuddling me close.

‘We don't ever have to have boyfriends, do we, Jodie? We can still have our own place together, can't we?'

‘Mansion Towers,' Jodie mumbled.

‘I can't believe we're going to live in Melchester College,' I said.

I closed my eyes, nestling against Jodie in her warm bed. I saw us wandering the grounds of the college together, having picnics on the lawn, paddling in the lake, picking raspberries and strawberries in the kitchen garden . . .

We didn't have any kind of garden at home, because Dad's workshop took up all of our back yard. He pottered out there most evenings, but I don't think he ever did much
work
. He watched his little portable telly, brewed himself a cup of tea and enjoyed a bit of peace and quiet. Mum was forever on to him to make her new kitchen units but he never seemed to get round to it, just managing the odd cupboard or shelf.

I'd begged him to make me a doll's house. I'd hoped for a miniature Mansion Towers, but he made me a small square four-roomed house with a wobbly chimney stuck on top. He'd tried so hard, sticking special red-checked paper on the outside to look like bricks. I gave him a big hug and kiss, but privately I thought the house was hideous. I furnished it with a plastic bed and chair and tables and tried to play games with a family of pink plastic people, but it wouldn't become real. I had much more fun playing house in a cardboard shoebox with a paper family.

Jodie had never wanted a doll's house. When she was little, she'd asked Dad to make her a rocket, which was a challenge for him. He struggled hard, because he could never say no to Jodie. He handed over his rocket proudly. It was hollow, with a little hinged door, pointy at one end, touched up with shiny grey paint. It looked like a big wooden fish. Jodie held it in her hand, looking puzzled.