Becky Bananas (12 page)

Mum was cross, because she fell off and ruined all the decorations. She said, “That cat! I’ll have its guts for garters!”

But she didn’t mean it. Mum loves her cats. I love them, too, but I still think about Kitty.

After you left Bethnal Green, you started at
a new school.

I
t felt quite peculiar when I first went to Oakfield. Where I went in Bethnal Green, with Stacey Kitchin, there were boys. At Oakfield there are only girls. Mum said she thought this was a good thing. She said, “Boys would only distract you.”

Uncle Eddy winks and says, “What she means is, boys distracted
her!”

Mum had heaps of boyfriends when she was young. She was always having battles with Gran because Gran thought some of her boyfriends were unsuitable and because Mum used to defy her by staying out later than she should have done.

I wonder if I will ever have a boyfriend? Uncle Eddy says, “You bet you will! Dozens of ’em!” But sometimes I am not sure.

Sarah has one. Sort of. He is a friend of her brother Barney. He is fourteen and very handsome, or so Sarah says. I have never seen him. She has only met him
twice, once at her brother’s party and once when she went to their school’s sports day with her mum. But at least it is a start.

I have never even met a boy. Not properly. Sarah says if I didn’t spend so much time at ballet classes I could get out and about and do other things and that way, perhaps, I would extend my social life, but all I want is to become a dancer!

It is quite posh at Oakfield Manor. Lots of the people there have parents who are seriously rich. Mum and Uncle Eddy sometimes have arguments about it. Uncle Eddy says Mum is a class traitor and should be ashamed of herself. For sending me to a posh school, he means. He says it sort of jokingly, but at the same time I think he is a little bit serious.

Mum always retorts that she doesn’t want a daughter of hers going to a dump like she had to go to, and then Uncle Eddy says that she hasn’t done so badly for someone who went to a dump, and Mum says, “No, but I’ve had to fight every inch of the way. I want to give my kids all the advantages that I never had.” She says that if Uncle Eddy had kids, he would feel the same.

I don’t know whether he would. He is very fierce about that sort of thing. Politics, and that.

On the other hand, when he came to see me and Zoë one time, and afterwards I was telling him about Zoë’s mum being really poor and how it didn’t seem fair that some people had simply loads of money while others had none, he told me not to worry myself too much about it because it was “just the way of the world”.

I said that I didn’t worry all the time, only just now and again when I was with someone like Zoë and it made me think about things, and he said, “Don’t think too much. Just concentrate on being happy.” I said, “But
you
think.” And then I asked him whether he really believed that it was wrong for me to go to Oakfield and be privileged, which is what he once told Mum that I was, and he looked sort of … stricken. I think that’s the word. And he put both his arms round me and hugged me really hard and said, “Little Becky, you grab all the privileges you can.”

So maybe it’s all right. Even if it isn’t, there is nothing I can do about it. You have to go to the schools that you are told to go to. And I would hate to leave Oakfield now!

This is partly because I am used to it and partly because of Sarah. We have been best friends almost since that first moment in the playground when she called me Becky Bananas. That is a long time! Other
people quarrel and stop being friends, but Sarah and I don’t like quarrelling. Sarah’s mum and dad do it all night long, from the minute her dad gets in to the minute they fall asleep. Sometimes they do it right round till morning. Sarah has heard them. She finds it quite upsetting and that is why she never does it herself. She just laughs if people try to quarrel with her.

I don’t quarrel, because of not having any bottle. If I’d got bottle I’d have said something to Elinor Hodges for calling my mum immoral. That is a hateful thing to say about someone’s mum. I bet Sarah would have said something. She wouldn’t have quarrelled, but she would have said something. I wish that I had!

I like going to Oakfield. I even like wearing the uniform, which some people think is naff.

It is bright red, and I think that is far more interesting than brown or navy, which is what most schools have. I like the little waistcoats, as well; I think they are cute. I even like the Latin motto on our blazer pockets.

It means, through hard work to the stars. The stars are what I am aiming for! But it is true that you have to work hard to reach them.

Doing ballet is
very
hard work. I can’t wait to get back to it! Every day that I’m not taking class is a day lost from my life. Miss Runcie says, “Don’t worry, you’re still young and flexible. You’ll catch up.” But soon I will be twelve, and twelve is not young! Not for ballet.

I can’t afford to waste any more time. I must go back to class
immediately.

It is no use thinking about ballet just at the moment. I am thinking about Oakfield now. I am thinking about what a good school it is and how lucky I am to go there. That is what I am thinking about.

We do lots of interesting things at Oakfield. School plays, for instance. And carol concerts, where we raise money for charity. We all get to vote which charity we’re going to do it for. Sometimes it’s children, sometimes it’s animals, sometimes it’s for people that are starving. There was a picture in the school magazine last Christmas of Elinor Hodges presenting the cheque. She only got chosen because she had less order marks than anyone else. In fact she didn’t have
any at all, which is because she never does anything wrong. Sarah says it’s sickening, but I suppose she can’t help it. It’s just the way she is.

Sarah gets order marks for being cheeky and answering back. (A bit like Mum!) I get order marks for being what Sarah calls “daffy”. By this she means that I sometimes daydream instead of paying attention so that when I am asked questions I haven’t any idea what the teacher has been asking me, and as a result I give these really silly dumb replies. And then I get given order marks!

What I daydream about, mostly, is being on stage with Darcey. She might be dancing Princess Aurora, for example, and I will be dancing the Lilac Fairy.

Or she will be Swanhilda and I will be one of her Friends.

Or maybe we will be in
Sylphides
together.

Those are the sort of things I dream about.

Per ardua ad astra
! Nothing that is worth getting is got easily. That is what Uncle Eddy says.

Something quite exciting happened to you in Oakfield.
Yes! We had a Book Week and I met this
famous author.

L
ast year, it was. We had this Book Week. A person came from a publisher’s to tell us all about how books were made and an author came to tell us how she writes her stories, and at the end of the week we all dressed up as Characters from Literature and did a quiz. I got two prizes! One was for dressing up as Pocahontas (I would really like to have dressed up as Posy, from
Ballet Shoes,
but I didn’t think anyone would recognise me) and the other was for coming second in the quiz. I was given two book tokens and I spent them on a book about Darcey!!!