Candyfloss (17 page)
Authors: Nick Sharratt
We sat cross-legged on the library floor while Susan built me a book house. I copied her, and then started making an elaborate tall block of flats. We turned our fingers into people and made them walk in between the houses and climb all the stairs to the high rooftop of the flats. Then the library door opened suddenly and we both got such a fright that we jumped, and the book block of flats juddered and fell to the ground with a great clatter and crash.
Miss Van Dyke stood glaring at us. Miss Van Dyke, the deputy head and the scariest strictest old bat teacher in the entire school!
‘What on
earth
are you doing, you two girls! This is a library, not a nursery playroom. What a way to treat books! Why aren’t you in your classroom? First lesson started twenty minutes ago! Now put those books back this minute – carefully! – and then come with me. You’re in Mrs Horsefield’s class, aren’t you?’
We nodded, too scared to say a word. Miss Van Dyke marched us briskly along the corridors and then prodded us into our classroom as if we were cattle. Everyone looked up at us, mouths open. Rhiannon’s eyes glittered triumphantly. I peeped
shame
-faced at Mrs Horsefield. She had given me a gentle warning and I’d let her down horribly.
‘These are your pupils, I believe, Mrs Horsefield,’ said Miss Van Dyke. ‘I discovered them in the library building houses with the books, if you please! I wonder why you didn’t send someone to look for them. They’ve been missing from your lesson for nearly half an hour!’
Oh no, now I’d got Mrs Horsefield into trouble too. Maybe we’d all have to stand outside Miss Van Dyke’s office in disgrace, with our hands on our heads, Susan, Mrs Horsefield and me.
But Mrs Horsefield was smiling calmly. ‘I knew where the girls were, Miss Van Dyke. They were taking part in my special bonding project.’
Miss Van Dyke frowned. ‘There’s nothing about bonding projects in the national curriculum for Key Stage Two.’
‘I know that, Miss Van Dyke, but sometimes one simply has to use one’s initiative to improve classroom dynamics.’
I didn’t have a clue what Mrs Horsefield meant. Maybe Miss Van Dyke didn’t either. She glared at Susan and me.
‘Why didn’t you explain, you silly girls?’ she said. She marched off,
stamp stamp stamp
, as if she wished we were bugs she could squash with her sensible shoes.
Susan and I stared in awe at Mrs Horsefield. She raised her eyebrows at us and made shooing gestures with her hands, so we scurried to our seats.
‘What are you
playing
at, Smelly Chip?’ Rhiannon hissed.
I ignored her. She poked me hard with her bony elbow. I shuffled to the edge of my seat, as far away from her as possible. Susan turned round and gave me a sympathetic grin. I grinned back. Rhiannon could poke a hole right through me and I wouldn’t care, just so long as Susan stayed my friend.
15
MUM RANG EARLY
the next morning. I sat cross-legged stroking Lucky while she told me that:
- She had a lovely tan already.
- The shops in the Victoria Arcade were incredible.
- They’d been to a concert at the opera house.
- They’d walked over the Harbour Bridge.
- They’d seen koalas and kangaroos (but only in Sydney Zoo).
- Steve was working wonders at the new branch and getting a great team together.
- Tiger had taken his first staggering steps and had learned to say ‘
G’day
.’
‘So much has happened, Floss!’ said Mum. ‘So, darling, what about you? What’s your news?’
I took a deep breath. I didn’t quite know where to start.
‘Are you all right, Floss? Oh God, what is it? Is Dad looking after you OK?’
Dad was looking at me anxiously as she spoke. I gave him a big smile and a thumbs-up.
‘Dad’s looking after me splendidly, Mum,’ I said.
‘Then what is it? How’s everything at school? Are you up to speed with all your lessons? Is Rhiannon still being friendly?’
‘Everything’s fine at school. Mrs Horsefield’s being especially nice. Rhiannon’s being especially
nasty
, but I don’t care because Susan and I are best friends now. She’s coming over to play on Saturday.’
‘How will your dad look after you both when he’s got the café to run? How
is
the café? Are you getting any more customers?’
I thought hard. I didn’t want to lie to Mum but I didn’t want to tell her the whole truth either. ‘Dad’s coping,’ I said. ‘And he’s expecting lots more customers soon.’
‘That’ll be the day,’ Mum said unkindly. ‘Oh well, Flossie, take care, my little love. I’ll ring you next week, OK?’
I covered the phone with my hand and mouthed at Dad, ‘How can Mum ring next week? We won’t be here!’
Dad took the phone from me. ‘Hi, Sal. I’m glad
everything
’s working out for you. Now listen, I’m making a few changes at the café. We’re going to have a different phone number. I’ll let you know. What? Oh, just general changes, keeping up with the times, aiming at different customers. Yeah yeah. Yes, of course Floss wears clean socks every day – and yes, she washes her hair. What hairdresser? I think she looks cute all curly. Listen, Sal, we’ve got to go now, she’ll be late for school. Bye now.’
He put the phone down and mopped his brow. ‘Phew!’ he said, flopping back in his chair as if someone had let all the air out of him. I came and climbed on his lap. He went ‘Ph-e-e-e-e-w’ again, acting it out, while I giggled.
‘I am so bad,’ said Dad. ‘I should tell your mum exactly what’s happening. But if I do she’ll insist you join her in Australia. Of course
I
should insist that’s what you do. In fact I
am
insisting. We’ll phone your mum back and come clean and tell her.’
‘No no no no no! Insist all you like, Dad, but I’m staying, OK?’ I looked at the clock. ‘Though I’d better be off right this minute or I’ll be late for school. Mrs Horsefield was so kind to Susan and me yesterday and I don’t want to let her down.’
Dad let me slide off his lap but he kept hold of me by the shoulders. ‘What’s all this about Rhiannon being nasty to you?’
I shrugged my shoulders under Dad’s hands. ‘Oh, she’s just being a bit mean,’ I said.
Understatement of the Century!
Examples of Rhiannon’s Extremely Unkind, Unfair and Mean Behaviour (in just one day!):
- She sat at the extreme edge of her seat and held her nose whenever I moved.
- She called me Smelly Chip over and over again, and got half the class calling me that too.
- She called my dad Smelly Belly Chip.
- She told everyone my mum’s walked out on me for ever.
- She said I begged her mum to buy me new clothes when we went to Green Glades and said I didn’t even say thank you when she spent a fortune on me.
- She wrote
Smelly Chip and Swotty Potty/Pongy Twit and Spotty Botty
all over the walls of the girls’ toilets. She wrote other stuff too – too rude to include in this list! - She jogged the desk whenever I started writing.
- She snatched my best felt-tip pen and stabbed the point on the desktop, ruining it.
- She tipped my packed lunch onto the floor, accidentally on
total
purpose. - She tore the cover right off my maths book and scribbled inside it.
I could continue my list, easily reaching 50. Make that 100!
But here’s another
lovely
list:
Examples of Susan’s Incredibly Sweet and Comforting and Kind Behaviour:
- She kept turning round and smiling at me all through lessons.
- She said Rhiannon was a pathetic parrot repeating the same stupid words over and over.
- She said she couldn’t wait to meet my dad next Saturday.
- She said she wanted to meet my mum when she came back from Australia.
- I told her about the designer denim outfit and she said it sounded embarrassingly awful.
- She tried to rub out all the ‘Smelly Chip and Swotty Potty’ rhymes in the girls’ toilets. They remained clearly visible because Rhiannon had used biro, so Susan got her thickest black marker
pen
and scribbled right over them. - She pushed her chair right back against our desk to steady it.
- She lent me her own felt tips.
- We salvaged my banana and my apple and my Kit-Kat, but my special cheese salad sandwiches (Dad was trying hard to think Healthy Eating) spattered all over the floor, grated cheese and tomato slices and little leaves of lettuce covered in dirt. Susan shared her tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches with me, and they were delicious. She also gave me half her apricot yoghurt (taking turns with the spoon) and a little bunch of black grapes. I insisted she have half my Kit-Kat and half my banana and half my apple. We ended up having a total feast.
- After lunch Susan mended my maths book with sellotape while I drew a picture of two girls, one serious with specs and shiny brown hair, one smiling with crazy yellow curls. They were writing an elementary sum on a giant piece of paper: 1 + 1 = 2
BEST FRIENDS
. I stuck my picture over Rhiannon’s scribbles and my maths book was as good as new.
Better
.
When I had to hand in my maths classwork for marking, Mrs Horsefield smiled and shook her head at the picture. This gave me courage.
‘Mrs Horsefield, I was thinking,’ I said earnestly.
‘I wish you’d think more about your maths, Floss,’ said Mrs Horsefield, going
cross cross cross
against each sum.
‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘No, the thing is, Mrs Horsefield, I wonder if I could move desks so I could sit next to Susan? It wouldn’t cause any major disruption, seeing as Susan doesn’t have anyone sitting next to her.’
‘What about Rhiannon?’ said Mrs Horsefield.
‘I think she’ll be very very pleased
not
to have me sitting next to her,’ I said.
‘Yes, I gathered you two have fallen out big time,’ said Mrs Horsefield. ‘You girls! You have more dramas than a soap opera.’
‘So . . . is that a yes?’ I said.
‘I’m going to have to think about it. If I let you change desks I’m going to have a whole posse of little girls wanting to swap places. Probably half the boys will start too.’
‘Oh
please
, Mrs Horsefield.’
‘Look, I’ve already done you and Susan an immense favour yesterday. You can’t trade on being my special favourites, you know.’
‘
Are
we?’
‘I’m a very good teacher and we all know very
good
teachers don’t have class favourites, but if I did, you two
might
be contenders. Now, run along. I’ll have a little think about you and Susan and your seating arrangements. Meanwhile, see if she’s any better at teaching you maths than I am!’
Susan did try and show me stuff but my mind wouldn’t stay still and concentrate properly. We’d start on this sum about six men digging a hole in a field. I’d wonder
why
they were digging this hole. Was it going to be a swimming pool? I saw them in dusty jeans, digging like crazy, and then one of them got a hosepipe and filled up the pool with sparkly water and they all stripped off and jumped in, splashing each other and spouting water like whales . . .
‘So what do you think the answer is, Floss?’ Susan asked.
I stared at her, because I’d forgotten all about the question.
Susan sighed and rolled her eyes, imitating Mrs Horsefield. ‘Could you just concentrate, Floss?’
‘I’d much sooner concentrate on you coming round next Saturday, Susan. We’ll be in a bit of a mess because Dad and I are moving out on Sunday.’
It still didn’t seem
real
. Nowadays I kept getting this weird feeling that my home life had turned into the longest oddest dream. I felt like a boat that had lost its anchor, and now I was bobbing out to sea and the waves were getting bigger and bigger.
It
felt much safer when I was at school, because that mostly stayed the same.
I
was
late for school that morning. Ten whole minutes. I crept into the classroom and whispered to Mrs Horsefield that I was very sorry. She wasn’t really
cross
, but she did shake her head and sigh at me. It made me feel really bad.
‘You’re such a teacher’s pet, Smelly Chip,’ Rhiannon hissed. ‘Anyone else would have got
really
told off. It’s just because old Horsey’s
sorry
for you. That’s the reason anyone’s ever nice to you. That’s why my mum made me invite you round last Saturday. I didn’t
want
you to come. You’re no fun. You’re a total
loser
, just like your sad fat Smelly Belly Chip dad.’
‘You shut up about my dad,’ I hissed.
She didn’t shut up. She said it again. She added bits, poking at me with her ruler. I suddenly snapped. I grabbed the ruler and poked her back hard, right in the ribs.
‘Ooow!’ Rhiannon screamed.
Mrs Horsefield got to her feet. ‘For goodness’ sake! Stop that screaming, Rhiannon!’
‘I’ve been
stabbed
,’ Rhiannon shrieked.
‘Let me have a look,’ said Mrs Horsefield, sighing. She came over to our desk and looked at Rhiannon’s front. She pressed gently all round Rhiannon’s waist.