Freaks Out! (6 page)

I looked rather hard at Jem.
That
wasn't very encouraging.

“Mind you, he did find your auntie's engagement ring for her.”

Jem shot me a smug glance. I wondered if this was the famous auntie that had splattered tomato ketchup all over the place.

“How long did it take?” said Jem.

“I can't really remember. A few weeks, I think. She was going spare, and then it turned up somewhere very odd. Somewhere she'd never even thought of looking.”

Jem nodded wisely. “He led her there. It's what he does. He leads you to things.”

“Well, he'd better lead us to Skye's pencil a bit quicker than he led your auntie to her engagement ring.” I said it rather sternly as we parted company at the front door. “We can't wait for ever!”

“I suppose –” Jem turned hopefully to Skye as we walked into school next morning – “you didn't find your gran's pencil yet?”

Very slowly and sadly, Skye shook her head. I felt so sorry for her. She looked really dejected.

“Not even a hint?”

Skye seemed puzzled. “What sort of a hint?”

“Well, like… a sign, sort of? Like suddenly something tells you to go and look in a certain place, or you suddenly see something and it gives
you an idea, or…” Jem's voice petered out. “That sort of thing,” she said rather lamely.

“Dad still thinks it got buried when they built the extension. In which case,” said Skye, miserably, “it'll be there for ever.”

“You don't actually
know
that,” I said. “Not for certain.”

“It's the only thing we can think of. We've searched and searched all over the place.”

“Maybe we should come and help look?” I turned to Jem. “We could do that, couldn't we?”

Jem nodded, brightly.

“After all,” I said, “three pairs of eyes are always better than one. What d'you think?”

“S'pose you could, if you wanted,” said Skye. “Don't really see that it'll do much good.”

She was being a bit ungracious, but I forgave her.

“We'll come back with you after school,” I said. “We'll look in your gran's room. We'll look
all over.
”

“Yeah. All right.” Skye hunched a shoulder, like,
Suit yourself. It'll only be a waste of time.
I knew
she couldn't help it; she was still upset at losing her gran. If we could just do something to find her pencil for her, it would make her so happy.

“Who knows? We might be shown a clue,” said Jem. “I wouldn't be surprised!” She bounced and swung her bag over her shoulder. “Might just come to us, like…
Look under the carpet,
or – or
Look in the corner,
or—”

Skye gazed at her rather irritably. She'd probably looked under the carpet already. And in the corner.

“Well, I mean, you never know,” said Jem. “My auntie thought her engagement ring had gone for ever, but then this voice told her to go and look in this particular place that she'd never looked in before and there it was, after all that time!”

“How long?” said Skye.

“Don't really know. But she got it back!”

“So where was it in the end?”

But of course Jem didn't know that, either. Skye shook her head as we walked in through the school gates. I jabbed at Jem with my elbow.

“Did you do it?” I hissed.

She hissed back at me. “Yes!”

So that was why she thought there might be a sign. I just hoped Saint Anthony had been paying attention when she talked to him.

We went back with Skye after school and Skye told her mum that we were going to have another search of her gran's bedroom.

Her mum said, “I'm afraid you won't find anything, but by all means give it a go.”

Skye's mum is as different as can be from Jem's. There is nothing round and jolly about her. She's loads older for a start, almost like
she
might be someone's gran. She is quite nice, but she teaches science and is ferociously clever in a rather forbidding sort of way, which is maybe, I sometimes think, the reason Skye finds it so difficult to talk about her feelings. What I mean is, you can't ever imagine her and her mum settling down to a cosy chat, like I can with my mum.

She asked us, as we prepared to troop upstairs, if
we'd be staying to tea. If it had been Jem's mum we would have said yes please, and we'd all have got together in the kitchen and just grubbed around.

“Help yourselves! Go look in the cupboard, see what you fancy.”

That's what Jem's mum would have said. But we knew with Skye's mum it would have meant the table being properly laid, with knives and plates and cups and saucers, so we very politely said no, thank you, we had to get home.

“This is Gran's room.”

Skye flung open a door and we walked into this really sad, empty space. The bed was stripped and all the surfaces were bare. Me and Jem gazed round helplessly, waiting for a sign, but none came. Skye watched as we made a show of opening drawers and peering under the bed. There was absolutely nothing to be seen. Whatever had been in the drawers was no longer there, and there weren't even any fluff balls under the bed. (I have masses of dog hairs under mine.)

Rather desperately we opened the wardrobe, but all we saw was a row of hangers without anything hanging on them. I felt goosebumps go thumping down my spine and wished we hadn't come. It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago an old lady had been living there, all happily surrounded by her things. Her knick-knacks, as one of my grans calls them. Now it was like she had never been. No wonder Skye was so unhappy.

Mrs Solomons was waiting for us as we trailed back down the stairs.

“No luck? We've been through it with a fine tooth comb; it's hard to know where else to look. I'm afraid –” she patted Skye's shoulder – “you're going to have to reconcile yourself to the fact that we're not going to find it.”

“We've
got
to find it,” I said, as me and Jem went on our way. “You'd better have another talk to Saint Anthony.”

“I can't do that,” said Jem. “It would seem like nagging.”

“You don't have to nag! Just apologise for bothering him and ask if he can get a bit of a move on. Only say it nicely, of course.”

“He'll do it as fast as he can,” said Jem. “You can't hurry a saint. He's probably busy.”

I looked at her rather hard. “You did do what we agreed, didn't you? You did promise you'd go to church
every Sunday
?”

“I told him I'd go every Sunday that I could.”

“That's not what we said!”

“You mean it's not what
you
said.”

“But you agreed!”

“Excuse me,” said Jem, “but who was talking to him, you or me? You don't know anything about these things! You wouldn't even know how to
begin
talking to someone like Saint Anthony. It's no use making promises you mightn't be able to keep.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Jem just went battering on without giving me a chance.

“Suppose I got the flu, or there was suddenly mountains of snow, or we got flooded, or
something? That'd be an act of God. I could hardly be held responsible for an act of God!”

I still didn't see why she couldn't just have done what we agreed and promised to go every Sunday. Saint Anthony, presumably, being a saint, knew all about acts of God; he didn't need Jem reading him a lecture. Now he'd probably got the hump and wouldn't help us at all.

I said this to Jem and she went bright red and said, “That's blasphemy, that is!”

Now
what was she on about?

“Taking his name in vain,” said Jem. “You can't talk about a saint like that!”

“All I'm saying –” we'd reached Jem's block of flats, where we parted company – “I'm just
saying
, it would be nice if you could ask him to make Skye a priority. That's all.”

I decided that I would give Saint Anthony until the weekend. If he hadn't made a move by then, it would have to be up to me. Which, as a matter of fact, it usually is. I've noticed this before. Skye does
a lot of thinking, and Jem does a lot of talking, but I'm the one that takes action!

 

Jem was eager to know, next morning, whether anything had happened yet.

“Like… any clues, or anything?”

Skye said, “Why do you keep on about clues all the time?”

“I just wondered,” said Jem.

“You heard what Mum said… I'll just have to accept that I'm never going to find Gran's pencil. Ever!”

“You might do,” said Jem. “You shouldn't give up hope. I mean, look at my auntie.”

I'm sure she thought she was being supportive, but I could see that all she was doing was making Skye even more upset than she already was. It would have made me upset if I'd had to hear about her auntie's engagement ring all over again. Well, what I mean, I
did
hear it all over again, but at least I hadn't just lost my gran.

I told Jem later that I didn't think she ought to keep asking Skye the same question over and over.

“She'll let us know if anything happens.”

“But I did what you wanted!” said Jem. “I spoke to him again. Saint Anthony! I got back to him.”

I think my mouth must have dropped open. I said, “
Really?
”

“Really! See, I thought about it, and I knew you couldn't do it, cos I mean you wouldn't know how, so I waited till I was in bed and then I had a word with him.”

She made it sound incredibly important,
having a word with him.
But I guess it is pretty important, talking to a saint.

“What did you say?”

“I said –” Jem clasped her hands and tilted her face heavenwards – “I said,
Please, Saint Anthony, hear my prayer—
” She broke off at this point to explain that that was what you had to do. “Like, you can't just say ‘Hi,' or ‘Anybody there?' You have to use the right sort of language.”

I said, “Yes, I can see that, but what exactly did you say?”

Jem tilted her face back up. “
Please, Saint Anthony, hear my prayer and help my friend Skye find her gran's pencil. And if you could be very kind and make it a priority, cos she's really, really miserable, I could probably manage to go to church every Sunday for at least a year.
”

I said, “
Probably?
For a
year
?”

“I know,” said Jem, “it's a terribly long time, but I thought it was the least I could do.”

She was positively oozing with the spirit of self-sacrifice. I could almost see this little halo of light hovering just above her.

“I could hardly offer him anything less,” said Jem. “Not if we want him to make it a priority.”

I had actually been going to suggest she might have offered him more. I mean, what good was a year? Being a saint is pretty serious stuff, I would have thought. Saints
suffer.
Horrible things happen to them, like being pierced with
arrows and burned at the stake. I couldn't see Saint Anthony was going to be satisfied with one measly year. Seemed to me it was a bit of an insult, really.

I said this to Jem, but she rather pompously informed me that I had no idea what I was talking about. She said Saint Anthony hadn't been pierced with arrows
or
burned at the stake, and she reckoned a year was about right.

I said, “We shall see. I'm giving him till the weekend.”

“Then what?” said Jem.

“Then I shall take over,” I said.

 

Later that day, first period after lunch, we had PE. It was hockey with Miss Turnbull, and I just knew that everyone except me and Daisy Hooper were hoping it would rain. All the rest of my class are total wimps, like, “Yeeurgh, mud!” and “Ouch, my ankle!” and “Please, miss, can I be excused?” Skye says hockey is barbaric. Even Jem, who can run
really fast when she wants, complains that it is pointless.

“Just churning up and down, whacking at things.”

I happen to enjoy churning up and down.
And
whacking at things. So does Daisy. We are great rivals when it comes to hockey. Miss Turnbull always puts us on different teams and tells us to pick. Neither of us ever wants to pick Skye. Not even loyalty to a friend would make me pick her unless I absolutely had to cos of no one else being left.

Today she looked so forlorn, trailing her hockey stick behind her as if it were some kind of poisonous snake that might sink its fangs in her leg at any moment, that I went into total meltdown and heard myself calling her name before I properly realised what I was doing. Daisy shot me a look of triumph, like, “Gotcha!” Having Skye on your team means you are almost doomed to lose, and I do hate losing! Especially to Daisy. But I think it must be really humiliating to be left till last all
the time, and Skye can't help being useless at sports. Jem simply can't be bothered, but Skye has no ball sense whatsoever, and I think her legs must be too long for her body, cos when she runs it's like she's wobbling about on stilts.

That day she was even more useless than usual. Miss Turnbull kept encouraging her to “Move, Skye! Move!” But then when she did move she got in people's way, and the game surged round her, with everyone yelling and sticks clashing, until in the end she just stopped dead, like she was confused by it all, and this huge great girl called Roseanne Stubbs charged into her and sent her flying. Miss Turnbull told her to go straight to the office and get herself checked out, and, oh yes, my team lost, which I'd known they would.

Skye didn't appear for our last class, and when we went to the office afterwards Mrs Tully said that she'd sent her home. I immediately texted her:
You OK?
She texted back,
Ha ha, got outa hockey!
Jem craned over to see.

“Oh, clever,” she said. “She did it on purpose!”

But I didn't really think that she had.

“Just one more day,” I said to Jem. “If nothing's happened by this time tomorrow…”

Jem said, “What?”

“I shall have to take matters into my own hands!”

The truth was, I was still feeling guilty in case it was my fault.
A treasured possession will be lost…
Suppose that really
was
the horoscope Skye had picked? Suppose I really
was
psychic?

“We can't afford to let things just dribble on.”

“But you can't bully a saint,” pleaded Jem. “Saint Anthony is very popular. He's one of the most popular saints there is. There's people all over the world asking him to find things for them. Surely we could just give him till Monday?”