Pick 'n' Mix (9 page)

Determinedly, I didn't say a word. I simply unplugged the thing and took it downstairs to the kitchen, with Melia trailing apprehensively behind me. I had this idea I might be able to do something with a screwdriver, like Dad had once done when I'd accidentally vacuumed up one of Rags' squeaky toys. It was just bad luck that Mum and Angel came in while I was still working on it. I'd have got it going again, I know I would!

“Oh, God,” cried Angel, “now she's gone and broken the vacuum cleaner!”

“Frankie, what have you done?” said Mum.

“It's all right,” I panted, wrestling with the screwdriver, “it's just a sock.”

“Well, don't yank at it like that!”

“She's broken it,” said Angel. “She breaks everything!”

Mum sighed, and shook her head.

“We were cleaning the room,” I said, “like you wanted.”

Angel narrowed her eyes. “I hope you haven't been touching any of my stuff?”

I said, “I haven't been anywhere near your rotten stuff.”

“You better not have!”

I became aware of Melia's hand creeping into mine. I squeezed it, reassuringly.

“I'm going up to have a look,” said Angel. “If I find you've touched anything—”

“Well, you won't,” I said, “cos we haven't. Wouldn't want to! It's all rubbish.”

That night, as we lay in bed, I whispered to Melia that I was sorry I'd poked her and called her doofus.

“I know you were only trying to help.”

It is what I do myself. All the time! I just try to help. Things simply have this annoying habit of going wrong.

A sudden gurgle came from Melia's bed.

“What?” I said.

“Doofus!”

I heard the mattress creak as she threw herself about, giggling. A few little prickles of anxiety ran down my spine. Doofus was a word I'd picked up from Dad. I'd heard him use it on the telephone one day, when he was ringing the Council to complain about something. He'd said, “
Listen, doofus!
” I'd remembered it, cos it was funny. But I didn't think, probably, that it was very complimentary.

“Hey, Melia,” I said.

She was still giggling.

“Oi!” I leant across and prodded her. “You'd better not tell Mum I called you that,” I said. “I don't think she'd like it.”

Chapter Nine

Next morning, at breakfast, Mum was going on about the vacuum cleaner.

“Your dad got it working again, but it still beats me how you managed to get a sock stuck in there.”

“Guess I just didn't notice it,” I said.

“Who could miss something the size of a sock?”

“She could,” said Angel; while at exactly the same moment Melia spluttered, “Doofus!” and spat a mouthful of cereal across the table. Tom went, “Bloody hell!” I found one of Melia's feet and trod on it.

“
What
did she say?” said Angel.

“Didn't say anything,” I said.

“She did! She distinctly said something.”

“Well, whatever it was, she wasn't saying it to you.”

“Excuse
me
,” said Angel, “I wasn't aware people were conducting private conversations. How rude is that? In front of everybody.”

“She was saying it,” I said, “to
herself.
”

Melia put a finger to her lips. “Not supposed to mention.”

“Mention what?”

“Doo-fus.” She mouthed the word, silently, then giggled and shot me this sly glance, like we were in some kind of conspiracy together.

“Say again?” said Angel.

There are times when you have to move fast. I did so.

“OK!” I shoved back my chair and grabbed Rags' lead from its hook on the door. “Let's go!”

Melia giggled all the way up the road. She also hopped on and off the kerb. “Doofus!” she chanted. “Doooo-fus! Doooo—”

“Stop it,” I said. “If you don't stop it, I'll tell Mum it was you that vacuumed the sock!”

Later that day I got Dad by himself for a few minutes.

“Dad, what's a doofus?” I said.

“A dimwit,” said Dad.

“You mean, like, someone stupid?” I thought about it for a second. “Was that person at the Council stupid?”

“Which person at the Council?”

“The one you shouted at! You called them doofus.”

Dad looked a bit ashamed. “I was under extreme provocation.”

I reckoned I was under extreme provocation too, what with my supposedly best friends deserting me, and Melia nearly breaking one of Angel's glass animals, not to mention sucking socks into the vacuum cleaner. Plus she'd broken Mum's mug.
And
messed with Tom's science project.
And
I always seemed to have to take the blame. But I knew Mum would say that was no excuse for calling her doofus. Not if it meant stupid.

“It's not really something you should call people,” said Dad.

I said, “Not even in fun?”

“Well… yes, that would probably be OK. So long as you were just joking.”

But I hadn't been joking, I'd been furiously angry. I made a solemn vow, right there and then, that for the rest of Melia's time with us I would be kind and patient and understanding. No matter what she did, I would not let myself be provoked.

There was no sign of Skye or Jem at our usual place on Monday morning, but that was all right; I wasn't expecting them to be there. Melia was doing her hopping thing again, bashing into people and not looking where she was going; but that was all right too. That was just Melia. You only had to think of people being blown up, or people dying of starvation, to realise that Melia hopping wasn't really all that important. So I didn't yell at her, I just very firmly took her by the hand and clamped her to my side. So what if Daisy Hooper came along and jeered? As it happened, she didn't; but even if she had I wouldn't have let it bother me. In the general scheme of things, what was Daisy Hooper? Lower than an earth worm, cos earth worms are
useful.

I think what I was being was philosophical. I think that's the word. It's what Dad says when things don't go according to plan: you have to be philosophical. Meaning, I guess, make the best of things.

I was trying very hard to make the best of things. I did find it difficult, though, at school.

Skye and Jem were going out of their way to pretend that nothing was wrong. They were being just
sooo
polite and
sooo
considerate. I knew it was because they were feeling guilty. They were trying to make up to me for the way they had behaved, but I had this little knot inside me which just kept getting tighter and tighter.

By the end of the week I was feeling really miserable. I didn't have much patience when Melia started nagging me, Saturday morning, to take her to the shopping centre.

“
Pleeeze
, Frankie!
Pleeeze!
Let's go shopping, Frankie!”

I wasn't in the mood for shopping. I pointed out that we had gone to the shopping centre last Saturday
and
the Saturday before.

“I don't spend my entire life going shopping. There are other things to do.”

Even if I wasn't quite sure what. We'd already taken Rags for his walk. Angel was off with her latest boyfriend, Tom was in his room, Mum was with one of her ladies, Dad was out working. It was just me and Melia. I hadn't made any plans with Skye or Jem, and while we don't always do things together at weekends it was hard to escape the horrid nagging suspicion that they might have made plans without me. I didn't
think
that they would; but they just might have.

“Frankie, Frankie, please!” Melia was dabbing at me, patting me with her hands. “Please, Frankie!”

“There wouldn't be any point,” I said. “I haven't got any money.”

“Got your pocket money,” said Melia.

I said, “I'm saving that.”

“Got the money your dad gave you.” She shot me this sly glance. She could be quite cunning, at times; I thought she'd have forgotten about Dad's money. “We could go to the Pick 'n' Mix, Frankie! Cos we didn't go there last week, did we?”

“No, we didn't,” I said. We'd been too busy hustling Melia back home before her trousers fell down.

“So we could go there today?”

“I'm not spending Dad's money on sweets,” I said. “That's going towards a new mug for Mum.
To replace the one you broke.
”

For a moment she looked uncertain, but then she brightened. “I've got pocket money! I could buy sweets.”

In the end, I gave in. I knew she wouldn't let up cos once she got going on something she never stopped. Besides, what else did I have to do? Nothing. Just sit around the house and brood as I pictured Skye and Jem giggling together without me. My two best friends, planning things behind my back! If they could still be called best friends. Best friends don't desert you when you need them most. Cos honestly, it wasn't much fun on my own with Melia.

We went to the Pick 'n' Mix and she bought some Sticky Fingaz for herself and a big Munchy bar for me. I didn't really want a Munchy bar but Melia seemed anxious for me to have one and I thought it would be ungracious to refuse. While we were perched on the edge of the Wishing Pool, with me half-heartedly nibbling and Melia sucking on her Sticky Fingaz, I saw this girl from our class coming towards us. Melissa Diaz. I didn't honestly expect her to do more than just say hello, cos she's one of Daisy Hooper's gang, at least I always thought she was. I was quite surprised when she stopped and settled down to chat.

“Where are the others?” she said.

She meant Skye and Jem. People were used to seeing us together.

“We're not stuck with super glue,” I said. “We do go places on our own occasionally.”

“Someone told me you'd quarrelled.”

Scornfully, I said, “We don't do quarrels.”

“Oh. OK!” Mel shrugged. “Must have got it wrong.”

“Who was it, anyway?” I said. “I s'ppose it was Daisy.”

“She makes things up,” said Mel. “I don't hang out with her any more.”

“Really?” I said. “Since when?”

“Since for practically ever… not since the beginning of term, if you want to know.”

I said, “Why? What did she do?”

“Didn't do anything, particularly. I just went off her.”

“Well, she's not a very nice person,” I said.

Mel rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it! D'you remember, at juniors, that mousy girl? Elsa?”

“She ran away.”

“Yes, and that was cos of Daisy.
Bullying
her.”

I said, “I never knew that.”

Mel said darkly there were lots of things about Daisy that I didn't know.

“She can be so mean you wouldn't believe! I thought that was really nasty the other day, when she was making fun of that girl.”

“Which girl?”

“That one she'd seen you with? The one you said had learning difficulties?”

“Oh, you mean M—” I stopped. Omigod! Where
was
Melia? She'd gone! One minute she'd been perched on the edge of the Wishing Pool, happily slurping her Sticky Fingaz; the next minute, not a trace.

“What's the matter?” said Mel.

I said, “Melia! She was here, just a second ago. Right here, next to me! Didn't you see her? You must have seen her!”

Mel shook her head, doubtfully. “I don't think so.”

“But she was right here!”

“I didn't really notice. Maybe she's just…”

“What?”

“Gone to buy something?”

I was about to say she didn't have any money, but that wasn't quite true, she did still have some of her pocket money.

“The Pick 'n' Mix.” I said. “She could have gone back to the Pick 'n' Mix!”

I set off at a mad gallop. Mel galloped with me. I was so sure Melia would be there; there just didn't seem any other place she would go. But while everybody remembered her, it seemed that nobody had seen her. Not since we'd been there half an hour ago, buying Sticky Fingaz.

“I just don't know where she could be!” I wailed.

“Could she have gone home?” said Mel.

“No!” I shook my head. “She wouldn't know how to get there.”

“So maybe she's just, like… wandering around? Looking at things? I mean… she wouldn't go with anyone, would she?”

That was my big fear. I knew she'd been warned not to talk to strangers, cos she'd told me so herself – “Mustn't talk to strangers!” But suppose someone offered to buy her some sweets? She might be tempted to go with them. I began to feel a bit sick and shaky.

“Think,” urged Mel. “Where else does she know? Apart from the sweet shop?”

“Um… mm… Boots!” It suddenly came to me. “She knows Boots!”

I would have given anything to find Melia breaking open lipsticks and smearing them over herself; but we went round the whole store and there wasn't a sign of her. I was beginning to panic. Mel turned on me, quite fiercely.

“Where else? There's got to be somewhere else! She must know other places.”

I forced myself to calm down. I thought back to that first Saturday, when she'd embarrassed us in the HMV shop, shouting out the names of bands at the top of her voice.

“HMV,” I said.

We raced there at breakneck speed. I prayed that I would hear Melia's loud, tuneless voice; but again, there was no sign of her.

“O-kay.” Mel said it very slowly and carefully. “What about… ” She gazed round. “The Ladies! What about the Ladies?”

“Yessss!”

She knew the Ladies, all right. That was where she would be!

But she wasn't. And by now even Mel was starting to wonder if we should go to the police.

“But how do we find them?” I whimpered. “I don't know where the police station is!”

“You have to ring 999,” said Mel. “Or maybe we could go into Turton's and get them to do a thing on their loudspeaker system like when they've found a child?
Would the mother of whoever it is please
—”

“Turton's!” I practically screamed it. “She could be in Turton's!”

And oh, she was! We arrived, puffing and blowing, just as she was ambling out into the precinct.

“MELIA!” I charged up to her. She beamed at me, like totally unconcerned. “Where have you been?”

“Been in the shop.”

“Why? What for?”

Her eyes slid away. “Just wanted to.”

“I've been worried sick,” I said. “You know you're not supposed to go wandering off like that!”

She chewed at her bottom lip, but she didn't seem very repentant. More like she was trying to stifle a giggle.

“We've been looking all over for you,” said Mel. “We were going to call the p'lice!”

That sobered her. She clutched at the front of her anorak and looked at me, big-eyed.

“I still might,” I said. “Get them to lock you up!
Honestly
.” I hooked my arm very firmly through hers, gluing her to my side. “You gave me the most horrible fright I've ever had! What d'you think your mum'd say if she came out of hospital and I had to tell her I'd gone and lost you?”

She chewed again at her lip, but she wasn't giggling any more. She muttered, “Sorry, Frankie.”

“I should think you jolly well ought to be! I'm going to take you home, now. I've had enough of this place.”

“I'll be off, then,” said Mel. “Glad it all ended happily.”

I called after her, “Thanks for staying with me!”

She flapped a hand. “Don't mention it.”

I genuinely did feel grateful to her; it is horrid being on your own in that sort of situation. I'd been really scared for a few minutes. Melia wanted to know if Mel was my friend. I told her she was just a girl in my class.

“Not like Jem 'n' Skye?”

I said no, not like Jem and Skye. Jem and Skye had deserted me.

“Where
is
Jem?” said Melia.

“Dunno,” I said. “At home, I s'ppose.”

“Why didn't she come shopping with us?”

“Guess she didn't want to.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. Probably had other things to do.”