Strawberry Sisters (5 page)

‘We haven’t done that much work on it,’ I said. ‘We could still swap around parts.’

Milly and Jasveen looked at each other.

‘The thing is,’ Milly said, ‘the mother is the biggest part. It needs to be someone who is prepared to do a lot of rehearsing.’

‘I am,’ Lauren said. ‘Completely committed.’

Milly rolled her eyes. ‘But are you definitely going to be here? You’ve just had a whole week off and you missed loads of days before half-term too.’

‘I’m here now,’ Lauren said in a cold voice.

‘Yeah, she’s better now, aren’t you, Lauren?’

Lauren didn’t answer that; instead, she said, ‘If you want the part so much, Milly, you can have it.’ And she walked off to talk to Olivia and Bethany on the other side of the
room.

‘I was just saying,’ Milly said. ‘If we want it to be good, we all have to be here to practise.’

‘Maybe Milly and Lauren could both learn the mother’s part and the maid’s part,’ Jasveen said. ‘Then we could see who does it best.’

Milly shrugged. ‘I suppose we could do that. But whoever is playing the mother has to be here for absolutely every single lesson.’

‘Lauren will be,’ I said.

And I hoped it was true.

The next day we were nearly late for school. Mum had been so busy reading the final few chapters of her book for the first book club meeting that night that she forgot to wake
anybody up. When we finally scrambled out of bed, it was chaos while we all dashed about. Lucy and Chloe ended up wrestling over a piece of toast and I was still brushing crumbs out of my hair when
I got to school. Which was when I realised that I’d left my geography homework on the kitchen table. Even though I got into trouble about that, I still had a fun day with Lauren.

We managed to arrive at our maths lesson at the exact same time as Cute Josh. He actually smiled at us and said, ‘Hi, Lauren. Hi, Lauren’s friend.’

I was completely dazzled by how white his teeth were, but Lauren was very cool and said, ‘This is Amelia.’ And he nodded as if that was a genuinely interesting piece of information
for him. I tried nodding back, but I seemed to have lost control of my own neck and it ended up being quite a big nod, more of a bow really. Luckily, Josh had already turned away and sat down.

We took the seats across the aisle from him and, while we were working on the equations Mr Ireland put on the board, I noticed that Josh finished them nearly as quickly as Lauren, which is
impressive because Lauren is very good at maths.

The first thing Milly said when we walked into the drama studio was, ‘Oh good, you’re here.’ Which I thought was pretty rude. It’s not like Lauren could help being sick
before. When we got down to working on our scene, Milly agreed that Lauren could try being the mother for this lesson. She was excellent.

When the bell went, Jasveen said, ‘That went really well.’

And we all looked at Milly.

Milly might be a bit bossy, but one of the things I love about her is that she’s never selfish.

‘You were brilliant,’ Milly said to Lauren. She took a deep breath. ‘You should definitely be the mother.’

‘Thank you!’ Lauren squealed and she pulled us all into a hug.

I really think our group’s performance could be the best.

Later on, we had my favourite lesson, music, and Mr Garcia told us that at tomorrow’s rehearsal he’d be choosing soloists.

‘I know we’ve got a few concert singers in here so if you’d like to audition tomorrow then please can I ask you to put your name on this list.’ He waved a clipboard
about. ‘I’ll pass it round.’ And he handed it to Mark on the front row who immediately passed it on as if it was something dirty he didn’t want to touch. Some people are so
immature.

Mr Garcia was in full rambling mode by the time the clipboard got to us. I had a quick look at who else was on the list. There were some good singers on there. I really hoped I was in with a
chance; I love performing and it’s so cool when you get to do it with a whole orchestra. I wrote my name in big letters and slid the list across the table to Lauren.

‘I don’t think I’m going to audition this time,’ she whispered.

I stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I don’t think I want a solo.’

Unbelievable. ‘Why not? We love having solos.’

‘Yeah, but you have to go to extra rehearsals and everything. Besides, you know me: I’m the shy and quiet type.’

That was obviously supposed to be a joke, but I didn’t think it was very funny. What on earth was going on with her?

‘And I know that spending time with Mr Garcia is always a treat, but I’m not sure I can deal with too many of his jazzy jumpers.’ She crossed her eyes.

I couldn’t take this in. Lauren and I had auditioned for every singing role possible ever since we started at St Mark’s. Part of the reason we became best friends was because we were
the two singing narrators in our Year Seven end-of-year show. ‘So you’re really not even going to audition?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘I just don’t fancy it.’

Mr Garcia sent a laser look in our direction so I had to stop asking questions, even though I was absolutely certain that Lauren hadn’t told me the real reason she didn’t want to
audition. Something weird was going on and I was determined to find out what.

But when the last bell went, and I finally got to speak to Lauren without being interrupted by an annoying teacher, she just brushed me off.

‘Why don’t you want a solo in the concert?’ I asked while we were packing up our bags.

‘I just don’t,’ she said.

‘But we always audition for solos.’

‘I’m just getting over the flu. I don’t think I’m up to auditioning tomorrow.’

I looked at her. She was still very pale. If anything, she looked worse than she had that morning.

I squeezed her elbow. ‘You should’ve just said if you were feeling ill again.’

‘I’m not feeling ill!’

I dropped her arm.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just tired. You don’t need to worry. I’ll still be in the concert; we’ll have a good time, yeah?’

I was so surprised that she’d snapped at me that I hardly heard her.

She stuffed her arms into her coat. ‘I’ve got to meet my mum in the car park. See you tomorrow.’

And she was gone.

I blinked a bit. Maybe I was being unfair; maybe Lauren was a bit washed out after being ill and I should just get over my disappointment that she wasn’t up to auditioning for a solo. But
I couldn’t help remembering yesterday morning when Lauren had been insisting that she was perfectly fit.

I headed downstairs and out of the main entrance. There was a bit of a bottleneck where the path narrows and hundreds of kids were all rushing to get as far away from school as fast as they
could and someone bumped me with their backpack. I swung round to tell them what I thought of them and found myself face to face with Cute Josh.

‘Sorry, Amelia,’ he said.

I opened my mouth to reply, but he was already moving away with his crowd of friends. Cute Josh had remembered my name. And we’d practically had an actual conversation. Lauren was going to
be sorry she’d missed this. I pulled out my phone and sent her a quick text with a lot of exclamation marks.

Ella and I got to the gates, where Chloe was leaning against a tree, at the same time.

‘Why are you two so crazy-happy?’ Chloe asked us. ‘You’ve both got a smile like when you put a quarter of an orange in your mouth.’

I looked at Ella. I hadn’t noticed, but she did seem cheerful. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed.

‘I wouldn’t say I’m crazy-happy,’ I said. To be honest, I was still confused by Lauren. But Josh had certainly cheered me up a bit. ‘However, it’s true that
there are occasional moments in this soul-destroying dungeon of doom that don’t suck all the joy out of me.’

‘To be fair,’ Chloe said, ‘you weren’t exactly full of joy to begin with.’

‘True.’ I turned to Ella. ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘What level of joy-suckage are you at?’

‘I am pretty happy,’ she admitted. ‘Crystal has asked me to be her partner in hockey!’

She made it sound like a princess had invited her to a royal ball.

‘Who’s Crystal and what’s so great about her?’ I asked.

‘Is she any good at hockey?’ Chloe interrupted. ‘Because if you’ve got a good partner then she can really help you work on your skills.’

‘She is good at hockey and she’s good in other ways too.’

‘What ways?’ I asked.

Ella screwed up her nose. ‘Well . . . she’s really popular.’

‘You’re popular too, Ella,’ Chloe pointed out. ‘Your class chose you to be tutor captain, didn’t they?’

When people pay Ella compliments, it’s almost as if she doesn’t hear them. She just carried straight on and said, ‘I was surprised because I didn’t even think that
Crystal knew my name. Ashandra and Kayleigh had already made a pair, so I thought I was going to be left on my own, but then Crystal asked me. She’s . . .’ Ella struggled to find the
words to tell us how wonderful this girl was. ‘She’s not at all scared of the teachers. And she always thinks of funny things to say when Kieran shouts out rude things and she does
dancing competitions and she wears her hair in a fishtail plait and she’s got pierced ears.’

I pulled a face. ‘She sounds like one of those girls that does beauty pageants.’

‘She’s not like that. She’s fun. And she’ll definitely be able to help me with my hockey. I was really lucky that she chose me.’

I could feel the buzz of Josh speaking to me slipping away. I didn’t like the idea of anyone lording it over Ella. Except me occasionally of course.

‘I don’t know why you’re talking like she’s a superstar and you’re amazed that she’s noticed you. You’re good at lots of things too.’

Ella sighed. She obviously felt that we were missing the point. ‘I’m just saying that she’s very cool.’

‘You’re cool,’ Chloe said.

And, even though I wouldn’t have said that myself, I was glad that Chloe had.

‘I’m not cool! I’m just normal. Crystal is like someone from the telly. Or America.’

I opened my mouth to say what I thought about Crystal, but Chloe interrupted me. She told us what happened when she went to see the head of PE to tell her she wasn’t happy about not being
allowed to try out for the rugby youth squad. It was a long story and, by the time Chloe had got to the point, we’d reached Dad’s door and I rang the bell.

‘So basically you’re saying that Mrs Henderson told you there’s nothing she can do,’ Ella summed up.

‘Yep,’ Chloe said as Suvi was opening the door. ‘She doesn’t care at all.’

‘Hello, girls.’ Suvi smiled at us. ‘Don’t forget to take your shoes off. Who doesn’t care?’

‘The head of PE. She doesn’t care that I can’t be on the rugby youth squad.’

Suvi’s smile disappeared. ‘They still won’t let you play? And this teacher will not help?’

‘She says it’s nothing to do with her.’

Suvi growled in her throat. Ella twitched. We’d never heard Suvi make that sort of noise.

‘What a woman! How can she say this?’

Even Chloe was surprised by Suvi’s reaction. ‘Well, she doesn’t actually run the squad or anything. It’s run by th—’

‘She’s your teacher, yes? And you are a big strong girl. Very big, very strong and you wish to play rugby. How is it that she can say it’s not her business? Doesn’t she
care that all the time girls are giving up sports because society is telling them to think about their nails instead? Does she know about all the talented women who cannot get funding to
participate in their sports while they’re throwing money at the mens?’

Normally, I correct Suvi when she makes a mistake in English, but somehow the words didn’t come out. I concentrated on unzipping my coat.

‘This makes me angry,’ she muttered.

Nobody said anything. We could see she was angry. There were two pink spots on her freckled cheeks and it was one of the few times I’d ever heard her raise her voice. Suvi is a very calm
person. She doesn’t get angry when Kirsti screams. She doesn’t get angry when Dad completely forgets what she’s asked him to do. She didn’t even get angry when I found out
she and Dad were having a baby and I called her a cow.

Lucy popped out of the sitting room. ‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded. ‘Why is Suvi all excited?’

‘For some things you must shout. This isn’t right and it’s making me angry that it’s happening to someone special.’

Chloe looked surprised. ‘Do you mean me?’

‘Of course you. All you girls are special.’

Now I was surprised. I would never have expected Suvi to describe me as special.

‘And this is important. You should never let someone tell you that you can’t do something because you’re a girl.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve already said that,’ Chloe said. ‘It hasn’t made any difference.’

‘Sometimes just saying isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to do as well.’

‘Do what exactly?’

‘Come with me,’ said Suvi, drawing Chloe into the kitchen. ‘I have some ideas.’

I pulled off my tie and settled down on the sofa. Lucy stretched out on the rug in front of me, her face screwed up in thought.

‘What?’ I asked her.