My Sister Jodie (13 page)

‘Oh, for heaven's sake! We're not doing any
harm
,' said Jodie. ‘Why are they so fussed about all these attic rooms? It's not like any of this stuff is really
worth
anything. No one would want it, ugly old stuff,' she said, kicking the massive wardrobe. She kicked too hard and hurt her foot.

‘Ow!' she moaned, hopping on one leg. She wasn't good at balancing on just one high heel and nearly toppled over. She grabbed hold of Harley. ‘Whoopsie!'

He sighed. ‘No wonder you're falling over. Look at your stupid shoes,' he said irritably.

‘You sound like my
mother
,' said Jodie, tossing her ponytail. She marched out of the room, exaggerating each step.
‘Wibble-wobble, wibble-wobble,'
she chanted, making her ankles do just that.

Harley raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged, grinning. I felt guilty. It was as if we were ganging up on Jodie, but it was exciting all the same. Whenever we'd ever met anyone new before, they'd always wanted to be Jodie's friend, not mine. But Harley definitely seemed to want to be
my
special friend. Seeing the badger together had been like a magic enchantment.

We heard Jodie tapping down the long corridor, trying more doors.

‘Come
on
, you guys,' she called.

‘She's an old bossy knickers, your sister,' said Harley. He was busy rearranging the mirrors, adjusting them carefully. ‘Here, Pearl, take a look.'

I bent down and saw myself reflected in the mirror – and then again and again and again, multiple Pearls endlessly smiling and smiling,
until I felt dizzy, not sure which one was
me
.

‘
Hey!
' Jodie called. ‘Come here! Wait till you see what
I
've found!'

‘Oldest trick in the book,' said Harley, pulling faces in the mirror beside me. ‘Don't take any notice, Pearl.'

Jodie kept calling, sounding really excited.

‘I don't think she's kidding us,' I said. ‘Let's go and see, Harley.'

I ran out of the room and down the corridor. Jodie was right at the end, standing in front of a door.

‘Look!' she said, leaping up and down.

‘Look at
what
?' I said. ‘It's just another door.'

‘It's right at the end of the corridor! Can't you guess which door it is!'

‘I don't know.'

‘It's got to be the door into the tower!' said Jodie.

‘Oh, wow!'

‘But it's properly locked, see,' said Jodie, pointing upwards at the bolt. She jumped up but didn't get anywhere near it. ‘
Harley!
' she hollered. ‘We
need
you. Come on, Daddy-Long-Legs, this is a job for you.'

Harley strolled slowly along the corridor, refusing to hurry.

‘Come
on
! We need you to undo the bolt!'

Harley reached up and grappled with it. It had been partly painted over. At first it looked as if it wouldn't budge at all, but Harley kept pulling at it.

‘Lift me up.
I
'll do it,' said Jodie, tugging at him.

‘Just give me a chance, will you?' he said. He bashed at the bolt with the side of his hand. It seemed to give a little.

‘Do it again!' said Jodie.

‘It bloody
hurts
,' said Harley, but he went on bashing until the bolt slid undone.

‘Hurray!' said Jodie, rattling the door handle.

It still wouldn't open. Jodie pushed and shoved it. She even tried kicking it.

‘You can't get in, Jodie,' said Harley.

‘I
will
get in,' she said. ‘You'll see.'

‘
WE'LL HAVE TO
find the key,' said Jodie. ‘We've
got
to get into the tower.'

‘I think it's all blocked up anyway,' said Harley.

‘Well, we can
un
block it,' said Jodie. ‘There's definitely a room up there because you can see a window on the outside. Maybe the really really naughty Melchester College pupils are shoved into the tower and languish there. Hey, I can hear someone calling. It's very faint, very hoarse, very desperate – listen!'

We knew she was kidding, of course we did, but we still listened. Then I heard someone calling, very faint and far away but still distinct. Harley and I stared at Jodie's mouth as if she was performing some clever act of ventriloquism. She looked taken aback.

‘I
did
hear something,' she said.

We listened again. There was another faraway cry.

‘Jodie! Pearl!'

‘Oh God, it's Dad,' said Jodie. ‘Quick, we don't want him catching us up here!'

She slipped off her red shoes and we started running madly down the long corridor, past all the attic rooms, towards the stairs. Harley ran awkwardly alongside us, lifting his legs up oddly, knees high, like a galloping pony. We got to the stairs at last and skidded down them, sliding on the old lino, green and slippery as seaweed. Then we squeezed back through the gap by the big cupboard.

Dad's voice was much louder now.

‘Quick, don't let's hang round in front of the cupboard, it'll look way too suspicious,' said Jodie.

‘In here,' said Harley, shoving us into a classroom. We stood still for a moment, trying to catch our breath.

We heard Dad calling again, louder now.

‘We're in here, Dad!' Jodie yelled. She nodded at us. ‘Act like we've been here ages,' she hissed.

She sat at a desk, slipped her shoes back on and put her feet up on a chair. I sat beside her. Harley started a chalk drawing on the old-fashioned blackboard. He drew a broad head with a long snout.

‘What's that? A dog?' said Jodie.

‘I bet Pearl can guess,' said Harley.

‘It's a badger,' I said proudly.

Then Dad came into the classroom, dirt and oil already smeared on his new work clothes. ‘
There
you are!' he said. ‘I've been looking all over for you. Where have you been?'

‘Just hanging out here, Dad,' said Jodie.

‘I came looking for you along here only ten minutes ago,' said Dad.

‘Oh well, we've been in some of the other classrooms too. Harley's been showing us around, haven't you, mate?' said Jodie.

‘That's me, utterly matey,' said Harley. ‘Always ready to oblige.'

‘Well, lad, Mr Wilberforce wants you to oblige him. He wants you to help him lop his hibiscus.'

‘Isn't that Jed's job?' Harley asked mildly.

‘Let's all go and help Jed!' said Jodie.

‘No, no, you need to help your mother, Jodie. You too, Pearl. What were you thinking, sloping off? There's so much work to be done. You two go back to our flat pronto and get cracking.'

‘Yes, Dad, no, Dad, at the double, Dad,' said Jodie, saluting and clicking her high heels.

He pretended to take a swipe at her. She dodged, laughing. Dad shook his fist at her but he was grinning. Harley was watching, looking wistful. I wondered what it would be like not to have a dad. My sympathy made me brave.

‘Maybe see you later, Harley?' I said.

‘Sure,' he said, smiling at me.

‘Oooooh!' Jodie squealed when we were going along the basement corridor together. ‘
Maybe see you later
!' she repeated, in my voice. ‘You bold girl. Practically making a date with old Harley Not Davidson!'

‘I wasn't!' I said, going red.

‘You're blushing. Fancy, you've only been here five minutes and you've got yourself a boyfriend.'

‘He's not my boyfriend!' I protested, shoving her. ‘He's just a
friend
friend.'

‘You've really got a thing going between you, what with all this booky-booky talk, and little smiles like you've got a big secret together.'

‘Shut
up
. It's not like that. He's just being kind to me, the way he's kind to Dan and Zeph and Sakura.' I paused. ‘Isn't he?'

‘He
likes
you, stupid. It's obvious.'

‘Well, he likes you too,' I said.

‘No, he doesn't. I irritate him,' said Jodie. ‘Still, I intend to have my pick of all these posh guys when the term starts. And I
might
just click with old Jed.'

‘Jodie, he's much too old!'

‘I like older guys. And they like me. Look at Bernie. He really fancied me.'

‘Oh, Jodie, he was just kidding around.
You're
kidding, aren't you?'

‘Maybe,' said Jodie. ‘I do reckon Jed though. His
eyes
! And that grin of his – wow!'

She burbled on about him for ages while we were sorting our bedroom. I couldn't work out if she was serious or winding me up. She kept teasing me about Harley too. It made me feel important, grown up, on a par with Jodie herself.

I unpacked my boxes, arranging my real doll's house and my shoebox Mansion Towers and my snow globes and my little plaster poodles and my scrapbooks and my jars of beads and my fairy lamp and my three little black teddy bears. I looked at them without enthusiasm. I flicked Edgar, Allan and Poe with my fingernail so that they fell over on their backs, furry paws in the air.

‘
Ouch!
OUCH
! OUCH!'
said Jodie, pretending to be the bears.

‘They look a bit silly, don't they? All my stuff is so babyish. Shall we make our bedroom really stylish and sophisticated, no girly stuff at all?'

‘You're one hundred per cent girly, Pearly,' said Jodie, laughing at me.

‘Yes, but I don't have to stay girly for ever,' I said.

‘True,' said Jodie. ‘Though I
like
you girly. I had plans to make this a lovely pretty pink room for you, with ruffled curtains and satin ribbons. We could scrape off all this scuzzy wallpaper and paint it white and you could paint little roses all over, you're good at them. You could paint little pink poodles too, yeah? And what else could we paint? Pink fairies with their own fairy palace? Yeah,
loads
of fairies like those soppy books you used to read, a whole flock of fairies. You could have a fairy dress with little net wings—'

‘And a fairy wand, and I could poke you in the tummy whenever you teased me,' I said.

‘I'm
not
teasing,' said Jodie.

She saw the little torn piece of wallpaper by my bed and pulled it. A big strip came away, exposing the whitewashed wall.

‘There! It comes away easy-peasy. We can strip it all off and get it painted in no time.'

‘Jodie! Don't! You're tearing it all!'

‘Of course I am. It's all got to come off, dopey. We can't paint on top of this old wallpaper.'

‘But what will Mum say?'

Mum said a great deal when she came in to check on us. She seized hold of Jodie, hitting out at her.

‘How
dare
you! Look at the mess you're making! You're wrecking your whole room!'

‘
Ow
!' Jodie screamed. ‘Don't you
dare
hit me!
You're not allowed to hit kids. If they found out here, they'd sack you. Stop it!'

‘
You
stop it then,' said Mum, her arms swinging at her sides. ‘And I didn't
hit
you. I smacked you, like any good parent.'

‘
Bad
parent. You could be prosecuted,' said Jodie. ‘Better watch out I don't tell on you to Mr Wilberforce, Mum.'

‘Don't you dare try to blackmail me, young lady. Look, for pity's sake, can't you try to
help
, not hinder? You too, Pearl. Why didn't you try to stop your sister making such a terrible mess?'

‘We're sorry, Mum,' I said.

‘No we're not! We
are
helping. You said we could redecorate the rooms and that's just what we're doing. You
said
, Mum.'

‘Later, once we're all straight. We haven't even unpacked yet, and I'm trying to give everywhere a good scrub. I've been down on my knees on that kitchen floor. I don't know who the cleaners are but they deserve to be sacked. There's grease an inch thick around that cooker. We'll have cockroaches if we don't watch out, and I've found mouse dirt in the pantry. It's disgraceful, a total health hazard. The very least you two could do is give me a hand with the cleaning, but you run off and play flipping Hide and Seek with that great gangly boy, and
then
you rip your room to shreds!'

Mum was red in the face, tears spurting down her cheeks. We'd never seen her so worked up before. I felt tears pricking my own eyes. Even Jodie looked worried.

‘Mum? Hey, don't cry,' she said, giving her a hug. ‘Look, we can always stick the wallpaper back on
the walls if that's what you want. And you can smack me all you like if it makes you feel better. Go on, have another bash, feel free!'