My Sister Jodie (29 page)

‘Oh, that's beautiful. I love jewel names. I used to be friends with a girl called Garnet at my old school,' said the wispy girl. ‘I'm Harriet. My friends call me Harry.'

‘I'm Clarissa,' said the pretty girl. ‘We're all boarders; we share a bedroom. How come you were boarding in the holidays, Pearl? Are your parents abroad?'

‘No, they're here. They work here.'

‘What? You mean they're teachers?'

‘No.' I took a deep breath. ‘My mum's the catering manager.'

They looked blank.

‘She's the cook.'

Clarissa raised her eyebrows.

I stuck my chin out, suddenly brave.

‘She's a brilliant cook, just you wait and see what your lunch is like,' I said. ‘And her cakes are awesome.'

‘Oh, will she make
us
cakes?' said Harriet. ‘So what about your dad? What does he do?'

I considered saying he was the site manager. I decided it was pointless.

‘He's the caretaker,' I said.

‘Oh, so he's that lovely man who took my trunk. He's so funny – he pulled my plaits and called me Polly Pigtails,' said Harriet.

‘Oh yes, that's Mr Wells. He gave me his hankie,' Freya sniffed. ‘He's ever so kind.'

‘Yes, that's my dad,' I said proudly.

‘My trunk was
so
heavy no one could budge it but
your dad lifted it right up,' said a tall black girl with wonderfully complicated plaits all over her head. ‘He called me Polly Pigtails too.'

‘You always bring heaps too much stuff, Sheba; you're hopeless,' said Clarissa. She paused, looking at me again. ‘So, is Harley your boyfriend?'

‘No!' I said.

‘Clarissa's got a boyfriend – Jeremy Mendleson. He's in Year Eight too,' said Harriet.

‘I think I'm getting a bit fed up with him actually,' said Clarissa, wrinkling her nose.

‘Have you got a boyfriend, Harriet?' I asked.

‘No, they all tease me and say I'm too little.'

‘They all say I'm too
big
,' said Sheba. ‘But I don't care. I mostly can't stick boys.'

‘I can't stick them either,' said Harriet. ‘They're so
silly
.'

‘Mmm,' said Freya, blowing her nose.

‘Yes, maybe I won't bother getting a new boyfriend,' said Clarissa, glaring down the line at a group of boys at the end. They were making silly belching noises and fighting duals with rulers, proving our point.

‘You don't like boys, do you, Pearl?' asked Harriet.

‘No. Except for Harley,' I added quickly.

‘So you hung out with Harley all the holidays?' said Harriet. ‘What did you guys do together?'

I wished I could tell her. I knew she'd have been impressed. But I smiled mysteriously instead, shrugging my shoulders.

I couldn't believe they were all being friendly to me, even Clarissa. I was still worried about school time though. Who would I sit next to? Would the
lessons be very different? I'd always been top at my old school, but perhaps I'd be bottom here. Clarissa and Sheba and Harriet and even weepy Freya seemed such bright, intelligent girls. They probably knew heaps more than me.

Our teacher was called Mrs Lewin. She was surprisingly young and pretty with dark hair falling past her shoulders and little rings on every finger. I thought she might even be one of the students at first. She came clacking along the corridor in pointy boots, saying hello to everyone in the queue. She put her arm round Freya and gave her a little hug. She gave
me
a little hug too.

‘So you're my new girl, Pearl. I do hope you'll enjoy being at Melchester. Now, who would you like to sit next to?'

I ducked my head shyly.

‘Can she sit next to me, Mrs Lewin?' Harriet said.

I felt my face go pink. ‘Oh please, yes, can I sit next to Harriet?' I said.

‘You can call me Harry because we're friends now,' she said.

I was friends with Harry; I was friends with Sheba and Freya and even Clarissa. By the end of lessons I was friends with all the girls in my class. I knew all the boys' names and quite liked Joseph and Haroon, two quiet boys who enjoyed reading. There were only fifteen of us in the whole class so it was easy to get to know everyone.

I realized I couldn't be top of our class. Haroon was incredibly clever and Sheba was absolutely brilliant at maths – but I seemed to do the best in English and history. We had a wonderful double lesson about the Victorians and then Mrs Lewin
told us to write a story set in Victorian times, trying to get all the details correct. Most of the girls wrote about being grand ladies in crinolines, but I wrote about Kezia and Pansy. I got so carried away I wrote pages and pages and pages.

Harry leaned over and peered. ‘You're writing like an entire
novel
,' she said.

‘I'm sorry,' I said anxiously. I never dared write much at my old school because the others only ever wrote two sides, and that was in very big writing, three or four words per line. You were considered a show-off and a swot if you wrote more.

Harry didn't seem to mind at all.

‘Maybe you can write some of mine too!' she said.

We had to read our stories out loud. My heart started thudding when Mrs Lewin picked me. I read in a teeny-tiny voice at first, waiting for the class to start sighing and yawning and poking me in the back. There wasn't a single sigh or yawn or poke! They sat up straight, listening as if they were actually enjoying my story – and when I got to the end,
they clapped
!

I couldn't believe it – all my new friends applauding me as if I was an actress on the stage! I couldn't wait to tell Jodie – but now I
couldn't
tell her. It would be unbearably horrible boasting to Jodie that I had four new friends and a lovely teacher and I'd enjoyed every minute of lesson time.

Jodie wasn't stupid. She saw me wandering along the corridors with my little group of friends; she saw me trading sausages with Harry at lunch time; she saw me sitting on the lawn at break, showing all of them how to make bead bracelets like mine. She saw, but she didn't comment.

I saw Jodie sauntering along by herself, humming a little tune, hitching her skirt up even higher, all alone but acting like she didn't have a care in the world. I saw the other girls in her class, three tall dark-blonde girls, alarmingly alike, so I never quite worked out which was Anna, which Sophia, which Rebecca; they were just AnnaSophiaRebecca. They walked along arm in arm, heads together, all of them giggling. Sometimes it looked as if they were giggling at Jodie.

Jodie had never really got on with other girls, not even back in junior school, but the boys had always been in awe of her. But these Melchester boys weren't the right sort to appreciate her. They were mostly quiet and awkward, backing rapidly out of her way whenever she came near them. There were two loud-mouthed idiots, James and Phil, who chatted her up the first day. Jodie had flirted back automatically. Then they waylaid her after school, wanting her to go off into the woods with them.

‘Why? What did they want you to do?'

‘What do you
think
?' said Jodie. She sighed at me. ‘They certainly didn't have badger-watching on their dirty little minds. Honestly, the cheek of it! As if I'd ever be seriously interested in a pair of spotty goons half my age! I whacked them both hard about the head to teach them a lesson.'

They started calling Jodie names after that. Horrible names that made me burn.

‘It makes me want to punch their teeth in,' I said.

‘I wouldn't try, little titch.'

‘Well, I'll get Harley to punch them. He's tall enough.'

‘Harley couldn't punch his way out of a bag of wet
lettuce,' said Jodie. ‘
I
'm the one who can pack a good punch. Leave me to fight my own battles, Pearly.'

I spoke to Harley in private.

‘Why are they all being so hateful to her?'

‘They're not
all
hateful. James and Phil are morons but the rest of the boys are OK. The girls are being a bit spiteful though.'

‘What are they saying?'

‘Oh, just stupid stuff,' said Harley uncomfortably.

‘Like what? Tell me!'

‘Stuff about her hair and her earrings and the way she talks,' said Harley. ‘So of course Jodie plays up to it, acting really tough when she's around them. And she swears a lot. She swore in class today.'

‘At the
teacher
?'

‘Well, not exactly. Mr Michaels was talking to her about her English literature essay. We had to comment on the balcony scene in
Romeo and Juliet
. Jodie wrote this total rubbish about falling in love and said real teenagers wouldn't say a lot of fancy stuff you could barely understand, they'd just sneak off together and start snogging.'

‘Oh no,' I said. ‘Was Mr Michaels furious?'

‘He was very fair at first. He tried to explain that she'd get no marks at all if she answered that way in an exam. Jodie said she didn't care, she just wanted to say what she thought. Mr Michaels said it was irrelevant what Miss Jodie Wells
thought
, fascinating as that might be, and Anna and the others all sniggered. Jodie got angry and said, “That's just stupid,'' using the F-word as an adjective, and we all went quiet. Mr Michaels missed a beat and then he said, “Are you calling
me
, etc. etc.'' and I prayed that Jodie wouldn't get even crazier.
Luckily she climbed down a little and said sulkily that she was simply referring to the principle of English essay writing when you weren't supposed to say what you really thought.

Mr Michaels nodded coldly at her and said, “Well, that's just as well, because if I thought you were subjecting
me
to personal abuse, I would have to report you, whereas if you're merely attacking our system of education, I can simply give you extra homework. You're to learn the entire balcony scene off by heart by tomorrow, young lady, and I shall require you to recite it in front of the whole class.''

‘How mean of him!'

‘Well, I thought it was quite good of him, actually. Jodie seems determined to wind him up and yet I can't quite see
why
.'

‘She's always been a bit like that. She's OK if she really
likes
a teacher, but she just mucks about if she thinks they're rubbish.'

‘But I still don't see why. If she was really thick, I could see why she needed to be the class clown, but she's quite bright. She doesn't
know
that much, but she's ace at arguing her point, and she's very quick to catch on.'

I didn't like Harley talking about Jodie like that. He sounded patronizing.

‘Jodie's ever so clever,' I said firmly.

Harley gave me a funny look. ‘I bet she's not as clever as you are. Maybe
that
's why she messes around so – because she knows her little sister will always do better.'

‘That's silly,' I said. ‘Jodie doesn't think like that at all.'

Harley raised one eyebrow in an extremely irritating way.

‘You think you're Mr Know-it-all, Harley, but you know zilch about Jodie and me. I'm not speaking to you any more.'

I marched off with my head in the air. My heart was thumping. I hated quarrelling with anyone. I especially hated quarrelling with Harley. Now I'd walked off, and we hadn't properly fixed up whether we were going badger-watching tonight or not. We couldn't meet up late at night any more. Everything was different now that term had started. The boys' house was locked at ten o'clock now. The male teachers took it in turns to sleep in the master's room, keeping an eye on everyone. We'd tried meeting up in the early evening after tea, but so far hadn't glimpsed so much as a snout.

I stomped back to our flat. Dad was dozing on the sofa, a wood shaving caught in his hair like an alien ringlet. Mum was sitting at the table with her calculator, doing her accounts. Her forehead was puckered as if someone had tried to stitch her eyebrows together. She muttered as her fingers tapped.

‘That bloody Frenchie,' she said. ‘I'll show her.' She glared and then focused on me. ‘All right, poppet? Been playing with Harriet and Freya and Sheba and Camilla?' Mum enunciated each name carefully, so proud of my posh new friends. ‘Better get on with your homework now. Jodie's in the bedroom doing hers.'

Jodie was in our bedroom but she certainly wasn't doing homework. She was sitting in front of the mirror in her bra and knickers, her hair piled
on top of her head. It was soaking wet and a startlingly different shade, a weird purply-black. She saw my face in the reflection.

‘Hi! I'm your new Goth sister,' she said. ‘Like my new black persona?'

‘Oh, gosh. Well. It's different.
Very
. . . Goth.' I touched a wet strand tentatively. ‘Is it
meant
to be purple?'

‘Yes,' said Jodie determinedly. ‘Well, no, it's actually meant to come out black. I don't think it helps that it's already dyed orange. Perhaps it'll get blacker when it dries.'

‘Mmm,' I said.

I dabbed at Jodie's hair with the towel to hurry the process. Her scalp was a vulnerable pinky-purple, the colour of a just-born baby. I put my arms round her, resting her damp head against my chest. Little strands of her hair slithered about like lurid earthworms.

‘What do you think Mum will say?' I said.

‘I don't care what she says,' said Jodie. ‘
I
think it looks great.'

‘So do I,' I said.

Jodie put her head closer to the mirror, peering. ‘Maybe I should dye my eyebrows too.'

‘No!' I said.

‘Well, I need something matching.'

‘You could paint your nails?'

‘I haven't
got
any nails,' said Jodie, waggling her fingers.