Freaks Out! (3 page)

Quick as a flash, Jem said, “I'm not saying everything does! Just some things.”

In the meantime, we kept our eyes fixed firmly
on Daisy Hooper. I guess I wouldn't have minded if she'd got clonked on the head, but all that happened was she got whacked by a hockey stick. On the ankle, not the head.

Jem tried claiming that was just as good. She said you had to know how to interpret these things – they were never straightforward. Clonk on the head didn't have to mean clonk on the actual
head
, it could just as easily mean clonk on the
top part
of something, such as for instance the top part of the foot, which was, of course,
the ankle.
Well, if you looked at it one way it was.
The ankle
was on top of
the foot.
In other words, it was
the head
of the foot. And Daisy had been clonked on it and was now all bandaged up and hobbling.

We wouldn't normally wish ill upon someone, but Daisy Hooper is
such
a disagreeable person. Really loud and overbearing. And mean. She is so mean! Plus she hates us and we hate her.

Jem was eager to open up all our bits of paper and check whether
clonk on the head
had been
matched to Daisy's star sign or someone else's. She said, “I know which sign she is, I asked her, she's Libra! So please can we just look?
Please
, Skye?
Please?
”

But Skye said no. She was very firm about it. The end of term was when we were going to look. Not before.

Jem grumbled to me later that “Skye can be such a bore at times!”

I had to admit she was being a bit more bossy than usual.

“Why do we put up with it?” wondered Jem. “It was our game – we invented it. Then she comes barging in and takes over. I think we should tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“That we've had enough! We want all our bits of paper back, and we'll play the game without her.”

“Thing is…” I hesitated.

“What?”

“I wouldn't want to upset her.”

“But she's upsetting us!”

“Yes, but she's been really funny just lately. Like there's something on her mind.”

“Mm.” Jem thought about it. “She has been a bit odd.”

“It's no use asking her, you know what she's like.”

“
Secretive
.”

She is a very controlled sort of person, is Skye. Unlike me and Jem, who tend to splurge, Skye prefers to keep things to herself. She wouldn't dream of splurging.

“What we've
not
got to do,” I said, “we've not got to nag, cos that'll only make things worse.”

“Make her all ratty.”

“We'll just have to be patient.” Mum is always urging me to be patient. She says patience is a virtue. I don't get it, myself, I don't think it's natural; I mean you want something to happen, you want it to happen
now.
But as I said to Jem, sometimes you just have to wait.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Jem waved a hand. “Wait till she gets over it.”

“Or till she feels like telling us.”

“Whatever.”

“In the meantime,” I said, “we can still go on watching, see if anyone gets clonked.”

We watched like hawks all the rest of the week, but nobody got clonked. Nothing, as far as we could see, happened to anybody, though Jem did turn up for school one morning bubbling over with excitement and obviously bursting to tell me something. She made it clear she couldn't do it while Skye was there, cos she kept pointing at Skye behind her back and pulling faces. If Skye hadn't peeled off at the school gates to go and talk to one of the teachers, I really think Jem would have
exploded. Her face had gone bright scarlet with the effort of not saying anything.

“Guess what?” she squeaked, before Skye was even properly out of earshot. “Guess what happened?”

I said, “Tell me, tell me!”

“Huge hairy monsters!” Jem announced it in a trumpet-blast of triumph. Heads swung round to look at us.

I said, “Where?”

“In the kitchen,” whispered Jem. “All across the floor!”

Wow! Our first bit of evidence. I stared at her in awe. Skye must have stuck the huge hairy monsters horoscope to the star sign that belonged to Jem's mum. So predictions
could
come true!

“I reckon most people would have screamed,” said Jem. “I didn't! Not even when it ran across Mum's foot.”

I said, “
It?
”

Her eyes slid away.

“What d'you mean
it
?”

I might have known it was too good to be true. When I questioned her more closely I discovered that in fact it had only been
one
hairy monster and it hadn't even been a proper monster, if it came to that, just one tiny little mouse. Jem tried arguing with me, like she always does. She is a very argumentative-type person. She said that as mice went it had been pretty huge, it seemed to her, plus everybody knew that mice didn't come singly.

“They live in
nests.
With
other
mice.”

She said there was obviously a whole family of them hiding away somewhere, and that if you stayed and watched, you'd probably see hordes of them come out and run across the floor. I told her rather sharply that in that case she had better be prepared to sit in the kitchen all night, and
maybe
, if lots of mice appeared, and if they were really
big
mice, I might be prepared to put them on my list.

Jem immediately said, “What list?”

I said, “List I'm making of stuff that happens,
ready for when Skye lets us open up and have a look.”

“So what's happened so far?” said Jem.

I had to admit nothing, apart from Daisy Hooper getting whacked on the ankle, which I didn't honestly think we could count. Jem said she reckoned I still ought to make a note of it.

“
And
Mum's mouse. Cos these things aren't ever straightforward.”

“Yes, but you can't just twist them to mean anything,” I said. “They've got to have a
bit
of resemblance to what's written down.”

Jem said, “
Clonk
– Daisy.
Monster
– Mum. That's two of mine, and they do have some resemblance! It could be,” she said, “that I'm the one with psychic powers. Not everybody has them. How much of what you wrote has come true?”

Loftily I said, “Too early to tell. I'm waiting for proper scientific proof.”

I certainly wasn't putting Daisy Hooper's ankle on the list, and I wasn't putting Jem's mum. Jem
could argue as much as she liked. An ankle is
not
the same as a head, and one small mouse isn't the same as a horde of huge furry monsters. On the other hand, something very remarkable happened later that day. I got home to find that a leaflet had been pushed through the letterbox. It was there, lying face up on the mat.

 

T
AKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS EXCITING OPPORTUNITY!
G
ET FIT, HAVE FUN!

S
IGN UP NOW FOR ONE MONTH'S FREE TRIAL AT THE
G
REENBANK
L
EISURE
C
ENTRE.

 

Well.
That was more like it! It was exactly what I'd written:
An exciting new opportunity will arise. It should be grasped with both hands.

If I could just get someone to grasp it… I rushed into the kitchen to show Mum.

“Mum,” I cried, “look! You can have a month's free trial at the Greenbank Leisure Centre!”

Mum said, “Oh, Frankie, I don't have time for that.
I'm far too busy.”

It's true that Mum
is
quite busy, doing dressmaking and stuff for all her ladies, but I'd have thought a bit of fun and keeping fit would have brightened up her life.

“Not really,” said Mum. “I'd sooner put my feet up and have a cup of coffee.”

What can you do? I try to be helpful.

I showed the leaflet to Angel, suggesting she might like to grasp the opportunity, but she seemed to think I was insulting her.

“Why should I need it?” she shrieked. “Are you implying I'm fat?”

I said, “No, but it's free.”

“So you do it,” said Angel.

Next I tried Tom, who just grunted, which is pretty much all he ever does.

“You mean, you don't want to?” I said.

“Gotta be joking,” said Tom.

Dad was my last chance. I reminded him what the government had said about us all taking more
exercise to stop from getting fat and flabby, but Dad laughed and said he got quite enough exercise watching sport on TV, thank you very much.

Honestly! What a family. An exciting new opportunity and not a single one of them would grasp it. Still, I put it on my list. It was the first real sign we had had. A
proper
sign. Not like Jem and her hairy monsters. After all, you can't blame horoscopes if people are too stupid to follow their advice. I just wish I knew which one of the family it was!

I couldn't make up my mind whether to tell Jem or not. I knew if I did she would only start arguing again about ankles being the same as heads and tiny little mice being huge furry monsters, but, anyway, as it happened, I didn't get the chance. Skye was with us, as usual, as we walked into school, and we were together all the rest of the day.

Skye was in a really glumpish sort of mood. Even in maths, when Mr Hargreaves wanted to know if anyone had the answer to some weird mess he'd
scrawled all over the board, she didn't put her hand up. I could tell Mr Hargreaves was surprised, cos Skye always has the answer to everything. Me and Jem exchanged glances over her head. Something was definitely not right.

We discussed it in whispers in the cloakroom at break. Should we ask what the problem was, or should we just go on pretending not to have noticed? We still hadn't reached any decision when Skye came out of a cubicle and wanted to know what we were gossiping about.

“Not gossiping,” said Jem.

“So why are you being all furtive?”

I couldn't think of any answer to that. Jem, her brain whizzing into overdrive, said, “Oh! You know,” and waved a hand rather vaguely about the empty cloakroom, but Skye didn't pursue the matter. She obviously wasn't that interested.

Last class of the day was drama with Miss Hamilton. Me and Jem adore drama! Whenever we're told to choose partners, we always choose
each other. Never Skye! Not if we can avoid it. Drama is one of the few classes Skye is useless at. She can't act to save her life. It's because she can't show her feelings. Me and Jem like nothing better. We are full of feelings! Sometimes, Miss Hamilton says, we overflow. Skye says we swamp. But I think we are just naturally expressive.

Today, Miss Hamilton said, we were going to do improvisation, making up our own short scenes with a partner. Hooray! I love improvisation. Seems to me it's far more fun making up your own words than having to stick to other people's.

“So,” said Miss Hamilton, “find yourselves a partner.” Me and Jem immediately bagged each other. We didn't even think of Skye. “I want one of you to be unhappy, and the other one has to find out why, and try to comfort her. OK?”

Jem begged me to let her be the unhappy one.

“
Please,
Frankie,
please
!”

I didn't mind. I'm good at comforting. I'm a people person!

We waited impatiently for our turn. I hate having to sit and watch while everyone else gets up and does things.
Specially
when they're not very good at it. Some of them were OK, like Brittany Fern, crying cos her pet goldfish had died. I think that losing your goldfish would be quite upsetting. I know you can't take a goldfish to bed with you or cuddle it, like I can Rags, but I daresay they have their own little fishy ways that you get fond of.

Daisy Hooper was pathetic, as usual. She's another one that can't act; she just thinks she can. She lumped herself into the middle of the floor and started bellowing about how she'd been promised a trip to Disneyland and then at the last minute it had been cancelled, sob sob, boo hoo. Like anyone cared. Hardly in the same class, I would have thought, as losing your goldfish.

Skye did her scene with a girl called Lucy Westwood that hardly ever speaks above a whisper. It was a bit embarrassing, really, what with Skye all wooden and saying how she'd failed this
really important exam – oh, disaster! – and Lucy whispering how sorry she was. Well, I think that was what she was whispering; it was hard to tell.

Me and Jem were left till last. Top of the bill! Stars are always on last. Not meaning to boast, but I do think we are more talented than most people in our class. What I couldn't quite understand, as we took the stage – well, the centre of the room, actually – was why a series of tiny little squeaks were coming from Jem, like she'd got the giggles and was fighting to suppress them. This was serious stuff! Jem was supposed to be unhappy and I was going to comfort her. What was there to giggle at?

I was soon to discover. Miss Hamilton said, “All right, you two, off you go!” I felt that she was expecting something really special from me and Jem. I'd already put my face into sympathetic mode, letting my mouth droop and my eyes go all big and swimmy. It's something I've practised in the mirror. I've practised lots of faces in the mirror. Evil ones, soppy ones, scaredy ones. All kinds! You never
know when they might come in useful, like if you're going to have a career as an actor. Not that I am, probably, but I like to think that I
could.
If I wanted.

I turned to Jem, who was still making little squeaks, and said, “Oh dear, Jem, you are not looking very happy! Is something the matter?” Instantly, Jem stopped squeaking and burst into loud, heart-rending sobs.
Real
sobs. I don't know how she does that! It's a gift that she has.

I was immediately sympathetic. “What's wrong?” I said. “Tell me what's wrong!”

“It's my great-great-grandmother!” sobbed Jem.

Pardon me? Her great-great-grandmother? Great-
great
-grandmother?

“She died!” Jem's voice came out in a tragic wail. Someone, somewhere, sniggered. It had to be Daisy Hooper. I put an arm round Jem's shoulders and very gently said, “I'm so sorry. How old was she?”

Jem hiccupped. “A hundred and ten!”

Without thinking, I said, “Is that all?”

I wasn't being sarcastic. It was just, like, an
automatic response. But Daisy Hooper sniggered again. I just knew it was her! Frowning, because sniggering was in
such
bad taste, I offered Jem a paper hankie. Well, a pretend one, really, cos I didn't have my bag with me. Jem mimed taking it and dabbing at her eyes.

“Mum says she was still a girl,” Jem sniffled miserably into her pretend hankie. “It was all so unexpected!”

This time, other people sniggered. Something was going badly wrong. We weren't supposed to be a comic turn! I decided that it was up to me to pull things together. Soothingly, I stroked Jem's hair.

“Try not to be too upset. After all, she did have a good long life.”

“Yes,” said Jem, “but that's not all.” She hiccupped again, rather wildly. “My great-uncle just died as well!”

Giggles were breaking out like a rash all over the room. I began to feel rather desperate. I don't mind being laughed at when I'm doing something stupid,
but I was being
sympathetic.
I was trying to
comfort.

“Were you very close?” I said.

“Yes!” Jem howled it at me. “He came to my christening. It's the only time I ever saw him, and now I'll never have the chance!”

At this she collapsed totally, her whole body racked with violent sobs. Everybody except me and Miss Hamilton was in fits. Well, and Skye. She wasn't in fits. I could see her sitting stiff and straight on her chair, not even a slight twitch of the lips. Like I said, Skye is not noted for her sense of humour. I, on the other hand, am the first to laugh if anyone tells a joke. Sometimes, if I'm watching television, for instance, and it's a comedy show, I'll laugh so much I'll fall off my chair and roll about on the floor clutching at myself. It really annoys Angel.

“
Overdoing it
,” she says.

Jem was overdoing it. She was making us look stupid! I was quite relieved when Miss Hamilton stepped in and said enough was enough.

“I wasn't really looking for a comedy duo, but
maybe that's your way of dealing with emotions?”

Jem told me afterwards, as we all walked back from school together, her and me and Skye, that she'd got so impatient having to sit there and listen to everyone else, especially Daisy Hooper dirging on about Disneyland, that when it came to our turn she just couldn't stop herself. I grumbled that she might have warned me what she was planning to do, but she said it wasn't planned.

“It just happened!” And then she had the cheek to add, “You must admit, it was funny.”