Leap of Faith (14 page)

‘Steady on!’ Granny snapped when one of my petals ended up a bit spiky. ‘We want blossoms not cactuses.’

‘It’s cacti,’ I said.

‘Actually it can be either, but we want neither. You’d better stop and make the tea.’

Honestly, you do one extremely large favour for the woman and she just wants more, more, more.

I made the cup of tea anyway. To Granny’s credit she didn’t even pause to sip, she said, ‘Fetch me a straw!’ and with that she managed to drink tea and carry on with the flower folding. She’s quite stubborn when she wants to be.

I found that by putting two whole biscuits in my mouth at the same time I could keep snipping and take on vital sugar at the same time.

Granny eyed at the biscuit plate. ‘Feed me a biscuit,’ she said.

‘Granny,’ I said, spraying a fair amount of bourbon crumbs in her direction. ‘I know you’re getting on and obviously you’ve got some sort of false teeth issues that I can’t even bring myself to think about too much, but I’m pretty sure that you can still manage a bit of biscuit crunching. Suck it if you have to, just don’t make any slurpy noises. I get enough of that from Megs and Cameron.’

‘I don’t need you to chew it for me, I’m not a baby bird.’

She’s not a baby anything.

‘I just want you to put it in my mouth. My hands are busy.’

It was true, even being a bossy old witch wasn’t slowing her production line.

Anyway, I poked a biscuit into her mouth and managed to avoid getting any granny dribble on me.

On and on we went. Granny babbled on about what a smug-chops Mrs Moore is and I really did want to help Granny get one over on her, but my fingers were getting stiff and slowing me down.

At ten o’clock I stopped to count. I was a good deal more depressed when I found out how many more we had to go.

Mum appeared in the doorway. ‘Gosh, you’ve done well,’ she said. ‘Are you nearly there?’

‘No!’ Granny and I barked together.

Mum looked at her watch. ‘You might have to finish in the morning.’

‘I’ve got to deliver them at eight,’ Granny said waving the scissors about as if I’ve got eyes to spare.

‘Oh. Well, I do think it’s time Faith went to bed,’ Mum said.

To be honest I was ready to put my head down on the piles of flowers, but I kept on chopping. ‘I can’t go to bed,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t finished.’

‘That’s your grandmother’s problem. She shouldn’t have left her homework to the last minute.’

‘Is she always this unsupportive?’ Granny asked.

‘It’s not her fault,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t understand our creative clocks.’

Mum tsked. ‘Creative clocks? More like last minute loonies.’

Granny sat up tall. ‘I’ll make sure that Faith has adequate rest.’

‘Fine.’ Mum shut the door while muttering to herself.

‘Adequate rest?’ I asked Granny.

‘You don’t need more than two or three hours do you? If I had your young body I could run the country and still have time for caravan holidays and jazzercise.’

In the end we actually finished just after midnight.

‘Phew!’ I said. ‘Next time you’ve got a project on you can leave me out of it. Unless it’s some sort of cake eating marathon. I could really help you shine there.’

‘Don’t tell your mother how late we stayed up.’ Granny pulled me to my feet. ‘Thank you, Faith. I could never have got them all done without you. In fact, while we’ve been working, I’ve been thinking . . .’ she twisted her mouth in an effort to get the words out. ‘You’re not a complete disappointment to me.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Thank you Granny, and I’ll take this opportunity to tell you that your nightmarish behaviour is not entirely unremitting. Overall, you’re not a bad old bag of bones.’ I yawned. ‘Now that we’ve opened our hearts I think we’d better get to bed before Mum grounds us both.’

TUESDAY 5TH JUNE

Granny has been swanning about with a smug look on her face. Mrs Moore was late to the float decorating session and when she did get there she hadn’t made as many flowers as Granny. We got to hear all the smart remarks she made about Mrs Moore not keeping her promises. She’s actually quite funny when she’s being mean.

She must be picking up a few hints from me.

WEDS 6TH JUNE

I went into town with the girls to meet up with the boys. Ethan was in really good form; taking the mickey out of everyone. In fact, I was pretty funny myself. At one point, I did my best impression of Icky and Ethan gave me a high five. I couldn’t help thinking about what it would be like if we were going out, and cracking jokes together. We’d have a great time. Shame he’s got someone else to do a double act with. Although, I couldn’t help noticing that Dawn wasn’t with him.

Later, while we were sat by the fountain having a milkshake, Westy shuffled over and sat down next to me. I haven’t had a good chat with him in ages. Looking at him with his two milkshakes and a four pack of muffins, I felt really sad that things have been weird so I said, ‘All right, Westy?’ and I really meant it.

He nodded and I thought he meant it too. I wanted to say something about everything that had happened, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable so I just said, ‘Everything . . . all right then?’

‘Yeah, yeah, I mean . . . you know how sometimes things are a bit not all right, but then you stop being dopey and it’s all all right again?’

I sort of understood. ‘Uh huh.’

Westy put down his snack and ran his crumby hands through his hair. ‘So . . . yeah, I’m all right. Are you all right?’

‘I am,’ I smiled. ‘I feel more all right knowing you’re all right, because you know I think you’re great, don’t you?’

Then he gave me a bear hug that has probably displaced a number of my internal organs.

THURSDAY 7TH JUNE

Granny has been locked in my room all day working on her costume for the carnival.

There are some things that I enjoy about the carnival (candyfloss, the floats that throw out sweets, the fairground rides) and there are other things I don’t enjoy. Mostly, Granny’s carnival costume. Every year, she manages to choose an incredibly inappropriate outfit. I’ve suggested over and over again that she really embraces the carnival spirit and goes for one of those costumes that completely covers you – like a tree. Or the back end of a horse, but she always ignores my good advice in favour of more spangly options. I don’t like to think about what she’s going to come up with this year.

It can’t possibly be worse than the time she was on an Arabian Nights float and went as a belly dancer.

FRIDAY 8TH JUNE

You’d expect a witty, intelligent, attractive girl like me to have plenty of invitations on a Friday night, wouldn’t you? Actually, I only had one, it was from Granny. She said, ‘You’ve got a face like a spanked behind. Why don’t you pretend to be a normal person instead of a teenager and make some polite conversation? If you’re good I’ll let you help me sort my pills out.’

Granny takes a million vitamins and supplements. Every Friday she sorts them all out into a box with little compartments with days of the week on them so that she knows what to take when, and doesn’t get confused. Personally, I think she needs more than a plastic box to stop her doing daft things.

I sat down with only a small amount of groaning and started reading pill bottles to stop myself from strangling Granny with one of Mum’s dreamcatchers.

‘Why do you take all this stuff anyway?’ I asked.

‘Keeps me fit and healthy.’ She beamed at me with her false teeth and her wrinkly face.

‘Whoa, imagine what you’d be like without them. It would be like one of those films when the mummy comes to life and crawls out of the tomb and its face is all mouldy and its arm is hanging off.’

‘Don’t be rude. When you’re my age you’ll count yourself lucky if you’re in such good shape as I am.’

Just to prove Mrs Webber wrong when she says I can’t control my mouth, I didn’t say anything about Granny’s shape. Which is roughly the shape of a pear. One that’s been in the fruit bowl so long that no one wants to eat it, but no one wants to put it in the bin either because they’re worried if they touch it, it might be all mushy on the bottom. That sort of shaped pear.

When we finished our exciting pill-based task I let Granny talk me into playing cards with her. She taught me poker then I taught her Scabby Queen. The best thing about Scabby Queen is that you get to pinch the loser’s hand with your finger nails, which means that even if your opponent is super annoying you can still have a good time.

We’d just opened our third family-sized bag of popcorn when Mum came in.

‘You two look like you’re enjoying yourselves.’

Granny and I scowled at each other.

‘What are you playing?’ Mum asked.

‘Scabby Queen,’ Granny said.

Mum frowned at me. ‘I don’t think you should be playing that violent game with your grandmother.’

‘But she loves violence!’

‘I know. But she’s an old lady and I’m not sure it’s good for her to have you attacking her hands like that.’

‘Don’t be stupid, she hardly even bleeds.’

Granny nodded in agreement, but she didn’t say anything because she was taking advantage of me being distracted by Mum’s wittering and cramming her mouth with more than her fair share of popcorn.

Mum shook her head. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing.’

‘I’ll go gently on her.’

Which was a lie. If you show an enemy like Granny a little kindness, they’ll have your head off before you know it.

SATURDAY 9TH JUNE

Today was the carnival. When Granny came downstairs she said, ‘It’s a shame your little French friend doesn’t arrive till next Saturday. I’m sure she would have enjoyed today’s festivities.’

I looked Granny up and down; she was wearing a very small dress and a very big hat. ‘Yes, I’m sure she would have found it all very amusing,’ I said. ‘What are you wearing? Is that your costume?’

‘Of course it’s not my costume!’

‘Oh, silly me, can’t think why I thought you were in fancy dress. Maybe it was those feathers on your head? But I expect I’m a little behind the times. No, wait, I am a teenager and at the forefront of fashion, so I’ll stick with my original thought, what on earth are you wearing?’

Granny struck what she thinks is a model pose. ‘I always look tasteful whether I’m keeping it casual in nautical slacks or dressing up in sequins.’

‘Hmm. You do know that most old ladies’ idea of getting dressed up is a fresh pair of tights and a nice floral top from Marks and Spencer?’

‘Thank you Faith, when I get old, I’ll bear that in mind.’

She stroked the purple velvet of her dangerously short skirt. ‘Anyway, you wouldn’t want me to look dull, would you?’

Which just goes to show that she doesn’t listen to a word I say, because I have asked her repeatedly if she could try looking dull. Like a proper grandma. But I managed to keep my thoughts to myself because I didn’t want her to change her mind about giving me a lift into town. When she dropped me off I said, ‘Good luck with your float.’

‘Thank you Faith, I’m sure our flowers will look marvellous.’

‘Listen, when they’re announcing the winners, just remember one thing will you?’

‘What’s that?’

‘We don’t like losers in this family. If you fail you can sleep on the floor tonight.’

‘I won’t fail.’ And she bared her dentures in an impressively aggressive fashion. I’m amazed she hasn’t had them sharpened into fangs.

I found Megs, Cam, Ang, Elliot, and Westy under the clock tower as arranged. Ethan and Lily were late.

‘Is Dawn coming?’ I asked Westy in a super casual fashion.

‘Don’t think so. They don’t, you know, go everywhere together all the time.’

I couldn’t help being a tiny bit pleased.

When Ethan turned up five minutes later I tried not to notice that he was looking rather nice. He was wearing a pale blue t-shirt. I’m not used to seeing him in light colours. It made him look sort of softer. I found myself staring at the point where his arm came out of the sleeve. I wanted to push back the fabric and touch his shoulder.

We walked through town and positioned ourselves near the end of the float route, where it was less crowded.

‘Best spot for making sarcastic remarks,’ Ethan said to me. ‘By the time they get here hopefully half their float will have blown away and the carnival princesses will be pulling each other’s hair.’

‘That’s a bit of a stereotype,’ I said. ‘I’m sure carnival princesses are quite capable of sorting out their differences in a civilised fashion.’

‘Like you do?’ he asked.

‘Yep. And we all know that that means a sensible discussion followed by a swift wallop to anyone who still disagrees with me.’

The sun was out, but it was pretty windy. I hoped that whatever Granny’s costume was made of, that it was strong enough to hold up to a stiff breeze.

The first float came round the corner. It had some sort of love theme and was covered in hearts and flowers in a bewildering range of pinks, reds and oranges.

‘Wow,’ Ethan said. ‘That’s eye-catching.’

‘Mmm hmm, definitely feels like they’ve caught my eyes. On fish hooks.’

‘Look.’ Ethan pointed back at the float. ‘They’re dancing.’

The three middle aged couples on the float were attempting a tango.

He grimaced. ‘I hope the next float is an ambulance one. I can hear their backs cracking from here.’

The wind was whipping about making my eyes water. I wiped at them.

‘Is that a tear of joy?’ Ethan asked. ‘Are you moved by the spectacle, Faith?’

I smacked him on the arm. ‘Actually, their wrinkly grinding has ruptured my already damaged eyes and now I’ve got eyeball fluid running down my cheeks.’

He snorted. ‘You’re funny.’

Which I knew was a huge compliment coming from him. ‘Thanks. You should try cracking a few jokes yourself, instead of being so serious and polite all the time.’

He grinned at me. ‘Faith, I know we’ve had our ups and downs but I just wanted t—’

‘Yoo-hoo! Faith!’ someone bellowed from a passing float.

I froze.

Obviously
, it was Granny interrupting what was clearly something very important and heartfelt that Ethan was about to say.