Pick 'n' Mix (5 page)

We both turned our backs on her.

“Is my nose really like a pointed pencil?” said Skye.

“I just meant it was noble,” I pleaded. “Not snubby, like mine.”

“That wasn't meant as an insult.” Skye was quick to assure me. “You have a sweet little nose! Sort of… tilted.”

“Yes, and you have nice teeth.”

“You said they were stumps!”

“I couldn't think what else to call them. I did say they were perfect!”

“And I said you had good legs for playing hockey.”

In the end, we forgave each other. It was Jem we couldn't forgive, with her foolish giggling.

“So rude,” I grumbled. “Just because she's the pretty one.”

Rhianna Shah had described Jem as looking like a “colourful wild flower”. As Skye said, totally naff
.
To be fair to Jem, she didn't gloat over it, so that by the end of the afternoon, as we went down to the locker room to collect our coats, I was grudgingly prepared to accept her apology.

“It was just – you know! Kind of funny at the time,” said Jem.

I pointed out that I didn't reckon she would find it very funny if someone said she had legs like tree trunks, at which she looked suitably ashamed and agreed that she probably wouldn't.

“But you did say Skye had legs like stilts.”

“Stilts aren't as bad as tree trunks.” Tree trunks are insulting.

“You said her nose was pointy!”

“She said mine was snubby. It isn't snubby, is it?” I turned anxiously to look in the nearest mirror. My nose looked back at me…
snubby.
“It is!” I wailed. “It's ridiculous!”

Some of the others crowded round, eager to offer their opinions.

“It's not so much snubby, as…”

“What, what?”

“Sort of…”

“Blobby?” suggested someone.

“Yeah, blobby! Like a blob.”

“You could always try sleeping with a clothes peg on it. I read about someone doing that.”

“Did it work?”

“Dunno.”

“What about plastic surgery? You could get a whole new nose if you had plastic surgery. You could choose whatever shape you wanted!”

“Don't think my mum'd let me.”

“Some mums do. What about that one that gave her daughter a boob job for her birthday?”

“
Boob
job?”

“It was on the news. Twelve-year-old girl gets boob job.”

The conversation surged on, taking me with it. I wasn't 'specially interested in boob jobs, seeing I had none to speak of, but I always like to hear about these things. It adds to one's store of knowledge.

It wasn't until Skye suddenly came clattering down the steps that something clicked in my brain.

“I thought you had a piano lesson?” I said.

“It's been cancelled. I thought you were going to pick up Melia?”

Melia.
Omigod! What was the time?

“It's nearly twenty to four!” yelped Jem.

Panic-stricken, we galloped up the steps and across the yard. Skye, on her stilt-like legs, galloped with us. Me and my tree trunks forged ahead, pounding down the road with my heart hammering. Please let her be there, please let her be there, please please please!

But she wasn't. The school playground was empty. Not a sign of anyone.

“If you're looking for that daffy girl you were with—”

I spun round. Daisy Hooper was coming out of the newsagent with her friend Talia.

“She went wandering off. That way.” Daisy flapped a hand. “Few minutes ago. Didn't look like she knew where she was going.”

We all set off at a run. Melia was headed in totally the wrong direction. She was headed into town, towards the main road. Did she even know how to cope with main roads? Suppose she tried to cross over? How was I going to go back and admit to Mum that I'd completely forgotten about her?

“MELIA!” I shouted.

“There she is.” Skye pointed. I recognised the blue uniform of St Giles and the slightly splay-footed walk of Melia. Oh, God, she was about to step into the road!

“Melia,” I bellowed, “wait!”

We caught up with her just in time.

“Frankie!” she cried. She had tears rolling down her cheeks. “I got lost!”

“It's all right,” I said, soothingly. “I'm here now. Let's go home!”

We all made a huge great fuss of her, even Skye, and took her into the newsagent to buy her some sweets and cheer her up.

“Have whatever you want,” I said.

Melia beamed and shouted,

“Sticky Fingaz!” Sticky Fingaz are these really gross sucky things made to look like human hands, except they are bright red, and gooey, and ooze all over the place. I grew out of them when I was about nine years old. Watching Melia slurp and chomp as she attacked each finger I began to have a bit of sympathy with Mum, who always claimed she couldn't bear to watch me eat them. It was a somewhat disgusting sight, but it made Melia happy.

Daisy was still lounging about outside. She made a loud splurging noise as we walked past. “I see you found her, then.”

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

Melia turned, and beamed a big squidgy beam in Daisy's direction.

“I got Sticky Fingaz!”

“Yeah, great, go for it,” said Daisy.

“Snot face,” I said, as we walked away.

I think Skye was quite relieved when we reached Sunnybrook Gardens and parted company. She is a bit more sensitive than me and Jem; she gets embarrassed quite easily. But she was very loyal, she didn't try to distance herself, like walking ahead or anything.

“See you tomorrow!” shouted Melia.

“Listen, it's probably best not to tell Mum about getting lost,” I said as we made our way up the road. “It would only worry her. So we won't say anything. OK?”

“OK.” Melia nodded. Up-down, up-down. She did everything so
vigorously.

I was on tenterhooks as Mum demanded to know why we were so late.

“I was getting worried. You should have been here twenty minutes ago!”

Melia beamed. Her lips, and her tongue, and even her teeth were stained bright red. She'd consumed almost the entire hand; she just had one knuckle left.

“Frankie bought me Sticky Fingaz,” she said. “And we met this girl called Snot Face!”

Mum said, “
Snot
Face?”

“It's not her real name,” I told Melia. “It's just what I call her.”

“Snot Face!” Melia chuckled happily. She held out her last remaining knuckle. “Can I give to Rags?”

I was so grateful to her that I said yes. She had kept my secret so I reckoned she deserved to give Rags a treat. She was all right, was Melia!

Chapter Five

Sometimes on a Saturday morning, if nothing else is happening, we like to go into the shopping centre and mooch round the shops. We don't usually buy anything as we don't usually have any money, but it's fun just to look. Dad finds it amusing. He says he imagines us pathetically standing there, with our noses pressed to the glass.

“Watching all the rich people inside!”

I have tried pointing out that if I got a bit more pocket money I wouldn't have to stand with my nose pressed to any glass, but Dad says, “Go on! You enjoy it.”

It's true, we do. We have these games that we play, like the Wedding Game, when we pick out our favourite wedding dresses; and the Ugliest Outfit on Earth game, when we giggle our way round the fashion department at Turton's, pointing at stuff we think is hideous and going, “Yeeurgh! Imagine being seen in that!” You have to be careful as the ladies in the fashion department are rather snooty and posh, and they don't always like you giggling and pointing. It's probably just as well we have Skye to keep us in order. She says that left to ourselves me and Jem would go completely over the top. She could be right! We do tend to egg each other on.

We'd made arrangements that Saturday to meet up at 11 o'clock in our usual place. I'd thought it was just going to be the three of us, but Mum assumed automatically that we were taking Melia.

“To the shopping centre?” I said.

“Why not? She'd love it!”

I said, “Yes, but…”

“But what?” said Mum. “Don't tell me you're getting tired of her already!”

“It's not that,” I said. It wasn't that I was
tired
of her. I mean, she was really sweet and obliging, and after all she had kept quiet about me forgetting to pick her up. But she'd been with us for nearly a week now, and I'd learnt that you really did have to watch her the entire time for fear she'd go wandering off in the wrong direction, or strike up a conversation with total strangers. Even
go
with total strangers.

“You know, Frankie, I did warn you,” said Mum.

“Yes,” I said, “I know! It's just –” I waved a hand. “The others.”

“Jemma and Skye? Oh, come on, I'm sure between the three of you you can manage all right! Or are you saying they're tired of her?”

“N-no. Not exactly.”

Just that it wasn't the same, with Melia tagging along. I didn't think Jem would mind; I wasn't so sure about Skye. Twice in the past few days she'd made excuses not to walk home with us. But I had promised Mum. She was relying on me! And I did owe Melia.

“It would make her so happy,” said Mum. “And it would help me out. I have two of my ladies coming this morning for fittings.”

What she meant was she couldn't watch over Melia and see to her ladies at the same time. You just never knew with Melia what she was going to get up to. She might even open the front door and let Rags go rushing out. I had this vision of him joyously galloping up to the park by himself. Running across the road, straight under the wheels of a car… it made me go quite weak and watery just thinking of it. You had to watch out for Rags just as you did for Melia. It was that that decided me: I told Mum that I would take her. Anything rather than Rags being run over.

Melia's face lit up with one of her big beams when she heard the news.

“Shopping centre! Shopping centre!” She held Rags' front paws and they danced up and down together. “We're going to the shopping centre!”

“Not with Rags,” said Mum.

“Not Rags?” Her beam faded. She loved Rags; she always wanted to include him in everything. She'd have taken him to school with her if she could. “Put him onna lead?” she pleaded.

“Not in the shopping centre. They don't like dogs in there.”

“Mm.” Melia nodded, wisely. “I suppose in case he does a whoopsie. People might walk in it! Ugh, yuck! I walked in one, once. I got it
all over.
Pooh, pooh!” She held her nose. “What a pong! W—”

“Yes, well, this is it,” said Mum. “You can't be too careful. Off you go now!” She gave me this little encouraging smile as she held open the front door. “Have a good time!”

I could see at once, from the look on Skye's face, that she hadn't been expecting me to bring Melia. Melia bawled, “HELLO, SKYE!” at the top of her voice, as usual. Skye said, “Yeah, hi,” and gave me this agonised look.

“I couldn't help it,” I hissed. “Mum's got fittings all morning.”

“What about your dad? Isn't he there?”

“Dad's working.”

Jem appeared at this point, and Melia went lolloping off to meet her.

“Hello, Jem! We're going to the shopping centre!”

“We've had her all week,” said Skye. “Couldn't one of the others take a turn?”

I had to remind her that I was the one who'd originally offered to be responsible. Right from the start Angel had made it clear she wasn't going to get involved.

“And Tom's worse than useless.”

Even Skye couldn't argue with that.

“Melia'll be OK,” I said. I said it as much to convince myself as to convince Skye. “So long as we just remember to keep an eye on her.”

It would have been all right if we hadn't gone into the China & Glass department of Turton's. We never go into the China & Glass department! It was Skye's fault; she was the one that took us there. She said she wanted to look for something for her nan's birthday present. She wasn't going to
buy
anything; she just wanted to see what was on offer. But it obviously wasn't a sensible place to take Melia.

We did our best to keep an eye on her. We kept
all
our eyes on her. We didn't relax for a minute, hardly. You couldn't with Melia. Wherever we went, she wanted to finger things. She kept snatching stuff up and shouting, “Hey, Frankie! Want one of these? Jem, Jem, how about this?”

If she wasn't touching, she was knocking things over. I mean, she didn't even
need
to touch. All she had to do was just breathe and things went toppling down. Like we were walking past this stand with really expensive glasses, all sparkly like diamonds. Jem was telling us about her guinea pig, how she'd thought she'd lost him.

“Honestly, we hunted
everywhere.
And then, guess what? Mum found him, all curled up in her –” she lowered her voice – “her
underwear
drawer!”

So, yes, OK, me and Skye had been listening to the underwear story, but out of the corner of my eye I was still watching Melia.
I
didn't know she was going to make a sudden dart. How was I to know? I'm not a mind reader! In any case, Melia's mind was really muddled. It was that that made her behaviour so unpredictable.

The first I knew was when she reached out a hand and crooned, “Ooh! Lovely glasses!” And before we realised what was happening one of them went bouncing to the floor. Thank goodness it was soft carpet! Cos those glasses, they cost £15 each.
£15!
Just for a glass.

This really snotty woman came rushing over. Boy, was she ratty! She told us we ought to know better than to go round touching things.

“We weren't touching,” I said. I'd seen Melia's hand; it hadn't even
reached
the glasses. “We were just looking.”

“Well, don't!” snapped the woman.

We felt really humiliated. Nothing like that had ever happened to us before! And anyway, it wasn't fair to put the blame on us. We'd already told Melia not to touch; we couldn't very well tell her not to
look
. Or to stop breathing. Cos I reckoned it was the breathing that had done it. Breathing too heavily and creating a draught. They obviously couldn't have stacked their glasses very well if just a little bit of breath could upset them.

We got out as fast as we could. It was Skye who led the charge, racing ahead like a daddy long legs with Jem whizzing in hot pursuit and me dragging Melia by the arm. Even though I had hold of her, she still managed to crash into a display stand and knock a bunch of hats to the floor, and then, just to make matters worse, almost trample on one.

“I thought you were going to keep an eye on her?” panted Skye.

I said, “I am! But she moves too fast.”

We decided it would probably be best if we left Turton's altogether and went somewhere else.

“Somewhere she can't break stuff.”

It was Jem who suggested the HMV shop. “Go and have a look round.”

“Can I touch?” said Melia.

I said, “Yes, but only if you put things back where you got them.”

“
That's
a mistake,” said Skye.

Big
mistake. We shouldn't ever have told Melia she could touch things. Before we know it, it's all gone to her head and she's snatching up CDs, one after another, crying, “Frankie, do you like the
Pink Crystals
? Jem, do you like
Groove
? Do you like
Voice Over
? Do you like
Scream
?” Shouting out the names of these bands, really loud for everyone to hear, so that all over the shop people are looking at us and sniggering, and Skye's like, “Omigod, does she have to?”

Jem's got a fit of the giggles and Melia obviously thinks she's impressing people cos she starts on this pretend swooning and fainting when she finds one of her favourites.

“Pieter Kruger! Yum yum!” She's pressing the CD to her lips and making slobbery kissy noises over it. “Yummy yummy yummy, y—”

Skye makes a strangulated yelping sound and bolts for the exit. I grab the CD and stuff it back into the rack, then seize hold of Melia and march her out, followed by Jem, still giggling.

“Well, I'm glad
someone
finds it funny,” hissed Skye.

By now it wasn't just Jem who was giggling but Melia too, except that she wasn't so much giggling as giving these great swooping cackles like something out of a comic strip.
Hoo hoo hoo!
I don't think she really knew what she was laughing at; she just wanted to join in with Jem. Skye tutted, impatiently.

“Your face,” choked Jem. She contorted her features into a mad grimace, her teeth bared and her lips pulled back. “If you could have seen it!”

Skye doesn't like to be laughed at. I don't suppose anyone does. But it is worse for somebody like Skye, who is always so serious and tries so hard to be dignified.

“This is a
disaster
,” she said.

“Oh, I dunno,” said Jem, “I think it's quite fun! You're having fun, aren't you?”

She nudged at Melia, and Melia beamed proudly. I guess she thought she was pleasing us.

“Let's just
go
,” said Skye.

I said, “What, you mean go home?”

She looked at me, long and hard. “What else would you suggest?”

Jem giggled again. “We could always go into Smith's and let Melia trash the magazines.”

“Yes, yes!” Melia clapped her hands. “Go into Smith's! Go into Smith's!”

“No, thank
you,
” said Skye.

I thought she was probably right, and that it might be best to take Melia back home. I wasn't honestly sure how much more my nerves could stand.

“Mind you, we shouldn't ever have been in China and Glass in the first place,” I said. “Might have known she'd knock something over.”

Skye stopped. She put her hands on her hips.

“Are you saying it was my fault?”

“I'm just
saying.
I don't even know what we were doing there! Wasn't like you bought anything.”

“Hey, hey!” Before me and Skye could fall out, Jem had come prancing up, with Melia in tow. “Let's go into Boots and try out lipsticks!”

It was one of our favourite pastimes, going into Boots and sampling the cosmetics. I was tempted, in spite of myself. It seemed a bit of a waste, being in the shopping centre and
not
going into Boots.

“Oh, come on!” said Jem. “There's nothing she can break.”

“Famous last words,” muttered Skye.

Well, she didn't break anything. She didn't knock anything over. She didn't start shouting and draw attention to herself. In fact, to be honest, we kind of forgot about her for a few minutes. It was almost like it was just the three of us, same as usual. And then I said, “Oh, God, where's Melia?” and we all started flying about in a panic. We found her happily standing in front of a mirror with a tube of lipstick in her hand. She'd gone mad and plastered herself! Bright green eye shadow, with cheeks like big red beach balls and eyelashes sticking out in spider's legs, stiff with mascara. She'd painted her eyebrows soot black, two furry caterpillars crawling across her brow, and was busy coating her lips with purple lipstick. I snatched it from her.

“That's not a tester!”

“Oh, God, oh, God,” moaned Skye. “Put it back, quick, before someone sees!”

We bundled out, in a panic – and then immediately began to worry in case we might have been caught on camera.

“It's theft,” said Skye. “We could be done!”

“You were the one that said put it back,” said Jem.

“You were the one that said go in there!”

“Yeah, well, so? You didn't have to come! You could have stayed outside.”

“I would have if I'd known she was going to start stealing stuff!”

“Maybe we should go back and, like… pay for it?” I said.

“Don't see why
we
should have to pay for it,” said Jem. “She's your responsibility.”

“Oh, for goodness' sake!” snapped Skye. “Let's just go and get it over with.”

Nervously, we crept back into the store. I was expecting any moment a hand to descend on my shoulder. I felt like a criminal! I
was
a criminal. We had to get to that lipstick immediately and pay for it!

Fortunately it wasn't one of the expensive brands, but all the same I was grateful when Skye insisted on paying half. The lady who took our money was worried cos she said the lipstick had been opened. I told her that was all right.