My Sister Jodie (34 page)

Jodie raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything.

I swallowed. ‘You don't mind, do you, Jodie?'

‘Of course not,' she said. ‘So, did you have fun?'

‘Well, sort of. We played this lap-dancing game and then we made out we were a girl band. That was my idea, actually.'

‘Good for you,' said Jodie.

‘Well, it was all a bit silly really.
We
have much more fun,' I said.

Jodie shrugged.

‘You know we do,' I said. I pulled her nearer to me. ‘Jodie, where were you? Don't have secrets from me. I hate it so.'

Jodie tapped me lightly on the end of my nose. ‘Nosy!' she said.

‘Were you seeing Jed?'

‘
No!
Look, I wasn't seeing anyone, I just went for a walk.'

‘No you didn't. It's pouring with rain outside.'

‘I didn't say I was outside. I went for a walk
inside
.' Jodie made her two fingers walk upwards.

‘You were upstairs? You didn't go up to the attics all alone?'

‘I went all the way up to the tower room.'

‘You didn't! How did you get the door open by yourself?'

‘I moved a trunk out of one of the rooms and stood on it to reach the bolt. We didn't relock it after we went up there, you and me and Harley. So I could get in easy-peasy.'

‘In the
dark
?'

‘Yeah, I should have taken your torch. But I was OK once I got up the stairs. It was so weird up in the tower room by myself.'

‘Weren't you scared, Jodie? What about the ghost?'

‘I wasn't scared,' she said. Then she grinned at me, tucking her mad hair behind her little pierced ears. ‘Well, of course I was scared at first. So scared I was practically wetting myself. All the way up those dark stairs I kept thinking that the ghost would be up there, waiting for me, reaching out with her pale hands—'

‘Stop it! Oh, you're so mad, how could you still go up!'

‘I wanted to see if I had the bottle. It was like a test. Could I risk the Curse of the Tower Room! The more frightened I got, the more I simply had to make myself. When I got up to the tower room at last and stepped out onto the carpet, I felt something trailing over my face and I just about died. I screamed like a total nutcase and swatted the air, shrieking, “
Get away from me!
'' Then I realized it was just a stupid cobweb and I started laughing at myself and then I wasn't scared at all. I felt fantastic, up there all on my own, with the rain beating against the windows. I walked round and round in a circle. I even started running round until I felt completely dizzy.'

‘You shouldn't run! Those floorboards are so old
and creaky. You could have fallen right through. Oh, Jodie, please, please don't go up there ever again, promise me.' I clung to her, nearly in tears.

‘OK, OK, don't get in such a state! I promise.'

But we both knew Jodie didn't always keep her promises.

I DECIDED I
wouldn't go and play with Harriet and the others after school no matter how much I wanted to. I wouldn't even go off with Harley. I'd find Jodie and stick with her, no matter what.

I saw Mr Wilberforce go over to the Year Eight table at tea time the next day. Jodie was lolling on the end of the bench, staring into space, taking no notice of the girls giggling opposite her. Harley was sitting beside her but she was ignoring him too. She was staring up at the ceiling. I wondered if she was imagining herself up in the tower room. She jumped when Mr Wilberforce came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. He murmured something in her ear and then walked off. Jodie slid off her bench and followed him, everyone staring at her.

I scuttled over to Harley.

‘What's happening?'

‘Mr Wilberforce just said he wanted to see her in his study,' said Harley.

‘Your sister is
so
much trouble,' said Jessica, her eyes shining maliciously. ‘You should have
heard
what she said to Mr Michaels today! I shouldn't wonder if she gets
expelled
. I mean, the way she acts, the way she looks!'

I took no notice of their silly tittle-tattle. I turned and went to follow Jodie. Harley came with me. We sat on the stairs, waiting for her to come out of Mr Wilberforce's study. I kept picturing him, stern but still kindly, cataloguing all Jodie's crimes, minor and major. I saw her cheeking him, trying to make him laugh. He'd get fiercer then, cutting her down to size. I turned his big pink hands into scissors going
snip snip snip
at my sister, so she got smaller and smaller until she was just little shreds of skin and purple fluff.

I craned my head, listening anxiously. Harley dared to creep right over to the door and put his ear against it. He tried listening for a while and then tiptoed back.

‘I can't really hear anything,' he whispered. ‘There's just the buzz of Mr Wilberforce's voice but I can't make out what he's saying.'

‘And Jodie?'

‘She doesn't seem to be saying anything at all.'

This seemed a very bad sign. I started biting my nails.

‘Don't,' said Harley, pulling my hand away from my mouth and keeping hold of it.

‘He wouldn't really expel her, would he?' I whispered.

‘I don't know.
I
've been expelled, because I never fit in anywhere.'

‘Jodie doesn't want to fit in here,' I said.

‘But you do. You've made friends with that funny girl with the plaits.'

‘Harriet.'

‘And all her cronies.'

‘Yes, Freya and Sheba are OK. I suppose Clarissa is sometimes.'

‘And you've made friends with me too. I'm OK-ish, aren't I?'

‘You can leave out the
ish
,' I said. ‘You know I like you best, Harley. I like it here, ever so. But if Jodie gets expelled, we'll have to leave and Mum will be so cross with Jodie, and Dad will be so hurt and it will be just awful for her.'

I pictured Jodie, pale and defiant, trying hard not to cry. I felt my own eyes getting watery. Then the study door opened and Jodie bounced out, positively beaming. She saw us, shut the door behind her, and then strutted over to us, grinning all over her face.

‘Hey there,' she said, giving us a little wave. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Waiting for you!' I said.

‘Oh, sweet,' said Jodie. ‘Well, I've got to run.'

She started striding off down the hall to the main door.

‘Where are you going?' I said, running after her. ‘Oh, Jodie, are you really all right? What did Mr Wilberforce say to you? Did he get really cross with you?'

‘No! We're, like,
friends
, you know we are. Oh, he said a bit of boring stuff about working harder and not cheeking that sad sap Michaels – but mostly he's ultra pleased with me.'

‘Who are you trying to kid, Jodie?' said Harley.

‘It's true! He said he's noticed how good I am with the little kids, Zeph and Sakura and Dan, and how they're all a bit unsettled now that term's started, so he wants me to spend more time with them, especially after tea. Not just our three:
all
the littlies under seven. He wants me to read them bedtime stories and make a fuss of them.'

I wondered if Mrs Wilberforce had had a word with her husband.

‘That's a brilliant idea,' I said.

Harley pulled a face. ‘More like crazy,' he said. ‘Jodie's not exactly Mary Poppins.'

‘Jodie's
better
than Mary Poppins,' I said firmly.

Harley's eyebrows hitched an inch up his face.

‘No, truthfully,' I said. ‘Jodie was always wonderful to me when I was little.'

‘You're still little now and Jodie's frequently horrible to you,' said Harley. ‘She bosses you about so.'

‘No she doesn't, she just looks after me. She was like a second mum to me, always playing with me and teaching me stuff. She was magic,' I said.

She proved herself magical to all the little ones. She went along to tuck them up that evening. She told them she was a purple princess and she gave every small child a tiny purple tattoo to show they were her special princelings.

Zeph wanted an elephant tattoo. Jodie did her best. It didn't show up very well on his dark brown skin so she outlined it with silver. Sakura wanted a purple lotus flower, which was easy enough. Dan wanted a daisy, even easier. The other children were also easily pleased, the boys mostly wanting flash cars and jet planes and guns, the girls
wanting cuddly teddies or birds or butterflies.

Jodie told the boys a bedtime story about a superman schoolboy who drove his own limo, and then she went to the girls' house and told them a story about a baby teddy called Little Paws. The boys loved her, the girls loved her. They all begged her to kiss them goodnight.

She went to visit them for an hour or so every evening. I sometimes went too, lurking in a corner, listening to her. I didn't mind a bit when she talked to the boys, in fact I sometimes cuddled up with Dan and his man while Jodie told everyone stories. Dan was always a little stand-offish in his odd little outfits, but when he was dressed in his soft striped pyjamas, he seemed to lose several years and become this cuddly little baby. Even his man stopped being so freaky because Dan wrapped a big hankie round him for a nightshirt, covering up his disconcerting innards.

It was a much weirder experience going to the girls' house because Jodie treated them exactly the way she used to treat me. In fact ‘Little Paws' was
my
story, made up to celebrate the birth of my first teddy bear. I felt so proud of Jodie when all the little girls ooohed and aaahed at every aspect of the story – and yet I also wanted to clap my hands over their ears because ‘Little Paws' belonged to me.

I caught Jodie fishing Edgar, Allan and Poe out from underneath my duvet.

‘They're
my
bears, Jodie,' I said.

‘Of course they are, baby. I just want to show them to all the littlies. I've made up the coolest bear story for them called “Purplelocks''. They'll simply love it, especially if I act it out.'

‘You're not acting it out with
my
bears,' I said childishly.

Jodie stared at me and then laughed. ‘Who's gone all green-eyed then?' she said.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' I snapped.

She was right, I
was
jealous, especially when Sakura hung on Jodie's every word and begged to hold her hand. I'd always felt that Sakura was my special little girl but I hardly got a look-in now.

Jodie was still ostracized by most of the others in her class but she truly didn't seem to mind now. Both Matron and Undie complimented her on her relationship with the little ones, though Undie seemed understandably peeved. Miss French congratulated her. Mr Wilberforce took Mum and Dad to one side and told them that Jodie was doing a sterling job with the small children and seemed to be settling down at last.

‘You're turning into a little treasure, Jodie,' said Dad, picking her up and whirling her round, the way he did when we were little. ‘We're so proud of you, aren't we, Shaz?'

Mum nodded and mumbled something vague but she didn't really praise Jodie properly. She seemed distracted, not properly focused any more. She concentrated hard when she was cooking but the rest of the time she seemed in a daze. She watched a lot of television, but she didn't laugh at any of the sit-com jokes or shout out the answers to the quiz shows. She didn't nag us or question us or correct our grammar. It was much more peaceful but a little weird.

Mum still got irritated when Miss French told her what to do.

‘Pumpkins!' Mum exploded. ‘That stupid woman's ordered thirty blooming pumpkins so that the little kids can carve silly faces for Halloween – and then she wants me to make pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie and pumpkin tart and pumpkin risotto and pumpkin kiss-my-bum. What a ridiculous waste of money – pumpkins are the most tasteless, useless veg. Then she wants umpteen kilos of apples, and these aren't even for eating – they're for
bobbing for apples
! What a waste of bloody food, pardon my French, getting kids sticking their heads underwater to bite lumps out of apples. I ask you!'

‘You have to enter into the spirit of Halloween, Mum,' said Jodie.

‘It's all silly American nonsense,' said Mum. ‘It's all rubbish, this trick-or-treating lark, little kids dressing up as ghosts and ghoulies and skeletons and pestering for money.'

‘Yay!' said Jodie.

She started preparing all her little children for Halloween. She sweet-talked Matron into letting her have a stack of old worn sheets so that most of the little kids could have ghost costumes. She invented specific and wonderfully scary costumes for Zeph, Sakura and Dan. She stole an old-fashioned scythe from Jed's garden shed and made Zeph a Grim Reaper. She dressed Sakura in her black gym leotard and black tights and then painted white bones all over her, turning her into a skeleton.