Just Peachy (5 page)

“How d’you manage about homework?” I said. We get quite a lot of it at Sacred Heart. “How d’you concentrate?”

“Front room,” said Millie. “Me mam’s put a desk in there, and the computer. Nobody’s let in till I’ve finished. Me mam – oops!” She stopped, and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Shouldn’t have said that, should I?”

Said what? Me mam? I looked at her, puzzled, as I inserted the straw in my carton of juice. “Why shouldn’t you?”

“Not proper use of English. Sister Agatha told me off about it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sister Agatha.” She was one of the strictest of the nuns. She took us for English and made us all quiver and quake. The only other nun who actually took classes, Sister Marie Clare, who took us for music, was really sweet and gentle. We loved Sister Marie Clare. She would never have told Millie off for saying “me mam”.

“My
muthah
,” said Millie, sounding like the Queen. “
Thet
is the way one should speak.”

I giggled. “What were you going to say about your
muthah
?”

“Oh, just that she reckons if I’ve been lucky enough to be given a scholarship I’ve got to really work hard and show that I deserve it. She was the one that pushed me into it. Her and Mrs Hennessy at primary school. I didn’t want to! I wanted to go to Winterbourne with all me friends.
My
friends,” she corrected herself.

“I wanted to go to Winterbourne,” I said.

“Really? Why didn’t you?”

“Mum thought it was too big and I’d get lost.”

“How about the others? Where do they go?”

“Well, the twins are still at primary. Coop and Charlie—” I sucked vigorously on my straw. “They’re at this place where my dad used to go.”

“Is it posh?”

I said no, though in fact it is, quite. It’s where the MP sends his son.

“So why didn’t you go there?” said Millie.

I tried to think of a reason. “It’s got boys,” I said. “I have enough of boys at home.”

“I have enough of girls,” said Millie. “Not that I’m boy crazy or anything. I think it’s pathetic when girls can think of nothing except boyfriends. I mean,
yuck
! But you want to try living with three Diddy People.”

I thought that I wouldn’t mind if they were as sweet as Millie’s little sisters.

“They are just so cute,” I said. “And it’s amazing, how they all look so alike – they could almost be triplets. And if you were photographed with them,” I said, “you could even be…” I couldn’t think of the word. “What’s it called when people have four babies all at once?”

“Quadruplets.” Millie did the thing with her nose, making it go all crinkled. “How about your lot? Do you all look the same?”

I shook my head as I sucked again at my straw, glugging up the last few drops from the bottom of the carton. I don’t look like
anyone
in my family. Charlie and Coop are quite big, like Dad, with dark hair. The twins are smaller, and more gingery, like Mum, with pale skin and freckles. I am a
bit
big, which is to say I am not small, and I do have pale skin, but my hair is blonde and I’m the only one with blue eyes, so that nobody ever says, “Oh! Aren’t you like your dad?” or, “Ooh, you take after your mum!” like they do with the others.

When I was little I used to have this fantasy that I’d been kidnapped from royalty and then abandoned, and that Mum and Dad had found me in an orphanage. I think I must have read a story where this had happened. When I got a bit older I stopped thinking that I was royalty but still felt that I had to be
someone
– someone different, that is. I even (eek!) used to wonder if Mum had had a secret love affair and that Dad wasn’t my real dad at all. But they are so much in love that I don’t honestly think this can have been the case. I am just odd, and that is all there is to it.

Millie was looking at me expectantly.

“So what are they like?” she said. “Your lot?”

“Mm… well.” I busied myself unwrapping a Kit Kat. “They’re OK. I’m sort of… in the middle.”

“Better than being the oldest. At least you don’t have to act as babysitter. Or do you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t have to do that.”

I nibbled on my Kit Kat. Millie sat waiting. I had to tell her something, it was only fair. It’s what friends do: they ask about each other’s families. I’d heard all about hers, about her mum being a school dinner lady and her dad driving his bus all the way up to town. Now it was my turn.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want,” said Millie. “I expect I’m just being nosy.”

But she wasn’t. She was just taking a normal interest. With fierce concentration I started folding my Kit Kat wrapper into a concertina as I told her about Charlie having played Gwendolen in a musical version of
The Importance of Being Earnest
and how it was Coop that had written the music.

Millie said, “Wow!” Her eyes widened. “He wrote the
music
?”

“It’s what he does,” I said. “He’s like some kind of musical prodigy.”

“Like Mozart!”

“Dunno about that,” I said.

Sister Marie Claire was into Mozart. She was always playing us bits in the hope that some of it would rub off on to us and stop us listening to nothing but pop, but to me it just sounded tinkly. Not a bit like the sort of stuff that Coop wrote.

“He did this thing called
Holes
,” I said. “All crashing and banging. The reason it’s called
Holes
is cos every few bars there’s, like, total silence? Like a row of knitting with dropped stitches.”

Actually, as far as I was concerned, the silences came as a relief cos the music itself was just noise. Well, that was how it seemed to me. It didn’t have any tune. It didn’t have any rhythm. You couldn’t sing to it; you couldn’t dance to it. But I’m not musical, so what do I know? Mum says he’s a genius, and she is probably right.

“You ought to tell Sister Marie Clare,” said Millie. “She’d be well impressed!”

I wriggled uncomfortably. “That’d be like boasting.”

“It wouldn’t if I told her.”

I bent my head over my concertina, carefully folding it in half, and then half again, only second time round it was too thick and wouldn’t fold properly. Millie sat watching me. I looked up and saw that she was frowning.

“I won’t tell her if you’d rather I didn’t,” she said. “Not if it’s supposed to be a secret.”

I said that it wasn’t a secret, it was just…

“What?”

“Just…”

“It’s all right.” Millie said it kindly, like she’d taken pity on me. “’Tisn’t any of my business. Let’s get this stuff downstairs and I’ll show you where I do my homework.”

I’d often wondered what actually happened when you went to a sleepover. I had this vague idea that you might try out new hairstyles, or make-up, or play games on the computer. Then later, when it was dark and you were safely tucked up in bed, you’d tell each other ghost stories and make your flesh creep. Oh, and eat stuff! Popcorn, or sardines, or toasted marshmallows. Not that I actually knew what toasted marshmallows were; I think they were just something I’d read about in books. Most of my ideas seemed to come from books. Real life often turned out to be quite different.

Like my sleepover with Millie. We didn’t do any of the stuff I thought we’d do. Neither of us was really very interested in hairstyles or make-up, and playing games on the computer would have meant staying downstairs in the front room, which wasn’t anywhere near as cosy as Millie’s bedroom. We did try a few ghost stories, but we weren’t very good at it and Millie got the giggles, which gave me the giggles, and her mum came into the room and said, “Girls, it’s one o’clock in the morning!”

Millie said, “Sorry, sorry, we’ll be quiet as mice.”

“You could maybe try going to sleep,” said her mum; but we were far too wide awake for that.

We’d spent the whole evening talking. Just talking! We’d talked about school, about our favourite subjects and our favourite teachers. We’d talked about our favourite books, our favourite TV programmes, our favourite singers. I’d never met anyone I felt so at home with as I did with Millie. I reckoned we could have gone on talking all night without ever running out of subjects.

We almost did go on all night. Every now and then there’d be a bit of a silence, then one of us would go, “Are you asleep?” and the other one would bounce over in her bunk and go, “No! Are you?” and that would set us off again.

Next morning I met Millie’s dad. He was a little tubby man with sandy hair and a bald patch in the middle and I was terrified in case Millie did what she had threatened to do and told him how I’d said he was the cream of the cream. She’d obviously remembered cos she gave me this impish grin like,
Shall I tell?
and I felt my cheeks grow all hot and hectic. Katy, the smallest of the Diddy People, immediately squealed, “Peachy’s gone pink!” And then she gave a reproachful yelp as Millie kicked her under the table. I know it was Millie cos she told me so later. She said, “No manners, the younger generation.” And then she added, “You needn’t have worried – I wasn’t going to say anything.”

I was grateful to her. It would have been too embarrassing!

“I knew you didn’t want me to,” said Millie, “so that’s why I wasn’t going to. Friends have got to be able to trust each other.”

When it came time to go home, later that afternoon, Millie’s mum wanted to know whether anyone was coming to pick me up or would I like a lift?

“She wants to go by bus,” said Millie. “I’m going to take her down the bus stop and make sure she gets the right one.”

Millie fussed over me like a mother hen. She said, “Get
off
the bus at the Town Hall Gardens, stay
right where you are
and wait for the number 2b.” She repeated it. “2b. Yes?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“That’ll take you to the bottom of Tay Hill. Then when you come to school on Monday you can get the same bus all the way. Dead easy!”

I felt quite proud of myself, buying my ticket, getting on and off buses all on my own. Pathetic, really, but everyone has to start somewhere. Mum was surprised when I walked in.

“I thought you were going to call me?” she said.

Carelessly I told her that I had come by bus. “It’s dead easy! And a whole lot greener than cluttering up the roads with private cars.”

Mum said, “Be as green as you like, but just don’t use that word in front of your dad.”

Dad is one of those people that thinks global warming is a government plot. It is something that makes him very angry. But then there are just so many things that make Dad angry.

“Anyway, I take it you enjoyed yourself?” said Mum.

I assured her that I had.

“Well, don’t forget,” said Mum, “next time it’ll be Millie’s turn to come here.”

“Omigod, that was awesome!” said Millie, on Monday morning. “Dad said we’re like a pair of old gossips. Yack, yack, yack! He said he couldn’t think what we found to talk about all that time. I told him,” said Millie, “we could have gone on talking all night.” She slipped her arm through mine. “We must do it again!”

I knew she was waiting for me to say, “Yes, and next time you must come round to mine.”

If only Mum and Dad and all the others would just go away somewhere for the weekend and leave me on my own. But some hopes! Mum wouldn’t hear of it.

“You do
want
to do it again?” Millie sounded anxious. “Say if you don’t! I won’t be hurt.”

But she would be; anyone would be. And I
did
want to! I just didn’t want Millie finding out about Dad and having to be introduced to the rest of the family. I didn’t think I could bear it if Millie got all blown away by Coop and Charlie, same as everyone else. I could still remember a girl in my class at Juniors going, “Charlie McBride is your
sister
?” Like on the one hand,
Wow!
and on the other hand,
You’ve got to be joking!
With her eyes swivelling all over me and this look of pitying wonderment on her face. How could the great Charlie McBride have a sister like that?

I so didn’t want the same sort of look from Millie!

I assured her that I couldn’t wait for us to have another sleepover. “And this time we
will
talk all night!”

“Let’s do it really soon,” begged Millie.

I said that I would ask Mum. But I kept putting it off and putting it off, so that when Millie reminded me, a few days later, I had to quickly think up an excuse, like I hadn’t had a chance, Mum had been just
so
busy.

“She’s always, like, flying around, you know?”

“You mean like properly flying?” said Millie.

Idiotically I said yes. Stupid, stupid,
stupid.
Mum hates flying! She is always scared that the plane is going to plummet.

“I
will
ask her,” I said. “Soon as I can get hold of her.”

Millie didn’t remind me again, she probably thought it would be too much like nagging, but I knew she was eagerly waiting for me to come up with something.

Mum had said, “Don’t forget,” and I didn’t, cos how could I? It nagged at me all the time. I felt sure that sooner or later Mum was bound to ask me, “When are you having Millie over for that sleepover?” But then, before she could do so, things happened that put me and Millie right out of her mind. Things are always happening in the McBride house. There is never a dull moment.

First off, Dad was shortlisted for yet another radio award, and we all went out to celebrate. Dad kept saying, “Whoa! Just because I’ve been shortlisted doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to win.” But we all knew it probably did. Dad is hugely popular, though I’m not quite sure why. I guess listeners enjoy it when he’s rude to people and shouts over the top of them and says that their views are moronic.

Anyway, no sooner had we gone out celebrating with Dad than the twins took part in some horsey thing, a gymkhana, and we all had to go and cheer them on as they jumped their tiny little ponies over enormous great jumps and had them weaving in and out of poles and doing other clever things, for which they both won rosettes. A woman came up to Mum and barked, “Amazing kids! Brilliant little riders. Wouldn’t be surprised if we see them representing England one of these days.”

Mum beamed and said, “The next Olympics!”

Two days later Charlie came bubbling home with the news that she had been picked for the school’s hockey team.

“The
first
team, Mum! I’m the youngest player they’ve ever had!”

So that was another celebration. We do a LOT of celebrating in our family. At least it made Mum forget about Millie coming for a sleepover, so I was grateful for that though of course it didn’t solve my problem. I knew I couldn’t go on putting Millie off for ever.

And then I had an idea. Suppose I invited Millie back, like the following weekend, but then at the last minute I told her my gran had rung and was paying us a visit: “It means I’ll have to move in with Flora so that Gran can have my room!”

Millie would be almost certain to suggest that I went back to her place again instead. Wouldn’t she?

Yesss!

I was all set to put my plan into action when Gran herself went and ruined it. She actually did ring up! Not to say that she was coming to visit, but she must have asked after me or done something to jog Mum’s memory, cos immediately she put the phone down Mum turned to me, quite accusingly, and said, “I thought you were going to ask Minnie to stay over?”

“Millie,” I said.

“Millie. Yes! So when are you going to do it? How about this Friday?”

I couldn’t see any way out. Well, I suppose I could have told Mum that Millie was doing something else on Friday, but I couldn’t
keep
telling her that. Sooner or later she would start to get suspicious and think we’d fallen out. Then she would discuss it with Gran – “Something’s gone wrong, I think they must have quarrelled.” Then Gran would want to talk to me and find out what had happened. Worst of all, Millie might decide she didn’t want me as a friend any more. I did
so
wish I had a normal family! An ordinary family. Like Millie’s. A mum that was a school dinner lady, a dad that drove buses. And three funny little Diddy People!

But you get what you are given. You can’t choose what you are born into. And in any case, as I reminded myself, not everyone sees things the same way. Maybe Millie would meet my family and think they
were
just ordinary.

I could only hope.

She was so happy when I asked her. Her whole face lit up. She said, “Ooh, yes please, I’d love to!”

I at once decided that I would stop being what Dad calls a worry wart, always imagining the worst and thinking up disasters. Me and Millie were going to have fun! With any luck Charlie would be out with her latest boyfriend (she went through boys at the rate of about one a week) and Dad would be at one of his special fundraising dinners. They were the two I most didn’t want Millie to meet. I wasn’t so bothered about Coop. He is not as intimidating as Charlie and when he is in the throes of one of his compositions he tends to live in a world of his own. He probably wouldn’t even notice that I had Millie round. As for the twins, they are just something that has to be put up with. Like hurricanes or a force-ten gale.

I asked Mum, “On Friday, when Millie comes over, can we take our tea straight up to my room?”

“If that’s what you want,” said Mum. “So long as you at least stop off to say hello before disappearing.”

I said, “Absolutely!” Thinking to myself that all we had to do was say hello to Mum, then scuttle upstairs as fast as could be and shut ourselves away.

Friday after school we walked down to the bus stop together. Proudly I told Millie that I always got the bus now.

“It’s much better than Mum driving me,” I said.

“I’ll tell my dad,” said Millie. “I’ll tell him I’ve converted you!”

When we got off the bus at the bottom of Tay Hill, Millie stopped her usual chattering and fell strangely silent. She kept glancing about her at the houses and seemed uncomfortable.

“Which one is yours?” she said.

I pointed. “That one over there.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t posh!”

“It’s not,” I said, but looking at it through Millie’s eyes I could see that it might appear so. “Honestly,” I said, “it’s just got lots of rooms.”

“Lots of rooms
is
posh,” muttered Millie.

“Not really,” I said. “Last year the roof sprung a leak and we had to keep running up and down to the attics with buckets!”

“You’ve got
attics
?” said Millie.

We’ve got a basement as well, but I didn’t tell her that. I hoped she wouldn’t notice.

Mum was in the kitchen; so were the twins. They were both shouting at the tops of their voices. Something about this very special pony that they simply had to have.

“He’s a palomino!”

“He’s gorgeous!”

They briefly broke off as me and Millie came in, then immediately started up again.

“Ginny’s grown out of him, Mum, that’s why they’re selling him on.”

“We could still keep either Polo or Whisky.”

“
Mum?
”

They hovered, like a couple of annoying little tug boats bobbing up and down on a choppy sea.

“Mum,
please
? Can we?”

“I don’t know,” said Mum. “I can’t decide anything right now. Go and speak to your father.”

My heart sank. Dad was here? I had been so praying he would be out! I didn’t want Millie being frightened. Dad can be really overwhelming.

“Right.” Mum shooed the terrible pair, still clamouring, out of the kitchen, and closed the door. “Minnie! How lovely to meet you at last.”

“Millie,” I said.

“Millie! Of course. So sorry! Terrible with names.”

“It’s very kind of you to have me,” said Millie. I stared at her. Why was she putting on that funny voice, like she was pretending to be the Queen?

“No, no,” said Mum. “The pleasure’s all mine. I’m just so happy that Peachy’s made a friend.”

“I understand,” said Millie, still in her careful voice, “that you’ve been doing a lot of flying just lately?”

“Flying?” said Mum. “Me?”

Mum looked puzzled, Millie embarrassed. I jumped in hastily.

“Flying
about
. I was telling Millie how busy you always are.”

“Oh. Yes! I suppose I am.” Mum said it vaguely, as if she wasn’t quite sure. “Help yourself to some tea, whatever you want. There’s some…”

The rest of the sentence was drowned out by a piercing shriek of “
Mu-u-u-um
!” as Charlie came bursting through the door. She stopped at the sight of Millie and flapped a hand. “Hi.”

Millie said, “Hi,” in a rather subdued voice.

“Mum, you’ve got to help me,” begged Charlie. “I can’t find my shorts. I need them for the match tomorrow!”

“They’re all washed and ironed and put away,” said Mum.

“But they’re not in my drawer!”

“Of course they’re in your drawer. I put them there myself.”

Mum disappeared down the hall with Charlie wailing behind her. I said, “That’s my sister Charlotte. She’s always losing things – she’s totally useless. Let’s get our tea and go upstairs.”

I yanked open the fridge and started grabbing stuff. Cartons of fruit juice, little chocolate pots, carrot sticks. Then I rushed to the cupboard and snatched a couple of bags of crisps and a packet of biscuits. I wanted to get Millie safely smuggled upstairs before the twins or Charlie came crashing back. Unfortunately, on our way down the hall we bumped into Dad barrelling out of the sitting room, shouting as he went.

“Don’t badger me! I’ve told you, I’ll think about it!”

He then saw me, with Millie. “Hello!” he said. “Who are you?”

I said, “This is Millie. She’s staying the night.”

“Really? Jolly good!”

Dad went roaring off, leaving me and Millie to make our way to my bedroom. All along the side of the stairs there are glossy photos of Dad with the awards that he has won. It’s Mum who hangs them there; she is very proud of Dad. I am so used to them I almost never notice them any more, but Millie paused, very carefully, to study each one.

“Is your dad famous?” she said.

The smart answer would have been, “If he were famous, you wouldn’t have to ask. Ha ha!” But I am not very quick at saying smart things. I only think of them hours afterwards, when it is way too late. So I just wriggled a bit and said, “Not really.”

“But he’s won all those awards!”

“Only for being on the radio,” I said. “It’s not like being on the telly.”

Millie looked at me doubtfully. “He must be a
bit
famous.”

“Just a minor celeb,” I said, pulling Millie into my bedroom and firmly shutting the door.

We sat on cushions on the floor to eat our tea. We talked a bit as usual about school, and how some people, such as Zoe Kingman, were rather obnoxious and chucked their weight about – “Thinks she’s the big cheese,” sniffed Millie – and how others, like Janine Corrie, known as the Mouse, were quite friendly; and Millie told me what the Diddy People were up to, and I told her how the twins were horribly spoilt and always got their own way cos neither Mum nor Dad could bear to say no to them; but it wasn’t the same as when we were at Millie’s.

It had been so warm and cosy in Millie’s cluttered little room. My room was warm, cos of the central heating, but it wasn’t
cosy
. There was too much space! Plus I was suddenly aware of how much stuff I had that Millie didn’t. My own television, for instance; my laptop. Shelves full of books, and china animals. Big puffy cushions, a walk-in wardrobe full of clothes. I’d always just taken it for granted. Now I had a horrible feeling that it was making Millie uncomfortable.

I was too much of a coward to say anything. Millie is bolder; she always says exactly what is on her mind. As we finished tea she came out with it: “Is this why you didn’t want to invite me back?” She waved a hand, taking in my room with all its bits and pieces. “Cos I’m not posh enough?”