The Wish Pony (6 page)

‘How did it go?' Mum asked me as soon as I was in the door. ‘Are you and Sarah talking again?'

‘I told you it wouldn't work,' I said, ‘and it didn't. Sarah didn't even read the card. As soon as she knew it was from me she just threw it in the bin. I hate her. It was one of my favourite cards, too.'

Mum shrugged. ‘Hate's a big word,' she said.

‘She said it first.'

‘You're just going to have to try harder, pumpkin,' Mum said. ‘I think you must have really hurt Sarah. She's not a vindictive kid.'

‘Why are you taking her side? She's the one who dumped me for the new girl.'

‘After you tried to cheat from her.' Mum shook her head at me, ‘I think you have to take responsibility here, Ruby.'

It was okay for her to say that. She'd even made me change
my
sorry note. I'd written it out roughly first and then had to give it to Mum to check. She wouldn't pass my first note.

‘You can't say that, Ruby, not if you want to be friends.'

I'd written:

Dear Sarah,
I am sorry I called your mum fat. She isn't – but you know that, anyway. I'm not sorry I called you a toadface. Going off with Bree like that isn't fair. We've been friends since kinder and that should mean something. But I shouldn't have called your mum fat.
Ruby

Mum's version read:

Dear Sarah,
I am sorry I called your mum fat and you a toadface. I'm also really sorry that I tried to cheat on the maths test. I know I haven't been a good friend to you lately, but I hope you'll forgive me and that we can be friends again. I miss you,
Ruby

‘That's your letter,' I told her, ‘not mine.'

‘That's the kind of letter yours should have been.' Even her mouth had looked stern.

‘I don't want to write it.' Mum hadn't been there. She didn't know.

‘I want you to write something more like this,' she insisted.

 

So eventually I'd written:

Dear Sarah,
I'm sorry I called your mum fat – we all know she isn't. I would like to be friends again – I know I haven't been a particularly good friend recently, but I'd like a second chance.
Ruby

What I wrote hadn't mattered in the end, because Sarah had just taken the card between the very tips of her finger and thumb and dropped it straight into the bin without even looking at it or at me. That was that. She sat down next to Bree and they peered into each other's lunchboxes as though they were the most interesting things in the world.

By the end of lunch my card was buried under a soft pear, a half-eaten orange, fruit roll wrappers, a bit of cheese sandwich, five apple cores and quite a mound of scrunched up paper bags. That was only what I counted going in. I didn't have much to do. I'd finished
The Secret Garden
at recess.

‘So,' I said to Mum, ‘all that rewriting was wasted, wasn't it? I may as well have just written the first one. She wasn't ever going to read it. We shouldn't have wasted one of your cards, either. Particularly not the little dog card. I loved that one.'

‘There are other little dog cards in the world,' Mum said, pushing her hair off her face. ‘What matters is that you made the effort.'

I stared at her. She didn't get it at all. Sarah had thrown the card in the bin in front of everyone. I'd been humiliated.

‘I'm not going back there,' I said, lifting my chin. ‘I'm never going back. I hate everyone.'

Mum sighed, ‘Don't be ridiculous, Ruby. You'll be at school tomorrow morning as usual. Don't give me a hard time. Don't give yourself a hard time. You know these things blow over in days. Before you know it, the three of you will be best friends as though nothing happened.'

‘That's so stupid,' I shouted, ‘that's so stupid, Mum. They hate me and I hate them. I'm never going back. Ever. You'll have to drag me there. You'll have to drag me every step of the way.'

I slammed out of the kitchen and into my bedroom. Why didn't grown-ups know anything? I threw myself on to the bed and thought about Sarah's face and Bree sniggering behind her hand.

But I couldn't cry forever, it was too boring. So eventually I stopped and got up and wondered what to do. I'd done all my homework at the beginning of the week except for the maths and I wasn't going to do that until I really had to, so I thought I'd pack up the Wish Pony and go and see Magda and take her back
The Secret Garden
.

Mum was being sick again, so I left a note for her on the kitchen table telling her where I was. I put the Wish Pony in my pocket and wandered across the road.

Magda opened the door straight away.

‘Well, well,' she said, ‘that Wish Pony must still be working for me.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I just this minute wished that there was someone who could help me and then you walk in. Magic.'

‘What do you need help with?' I asked cautiously. It was my experience that when grown-ups wanted help it generally wasn't with fun things, like licking the chocolate muffin bowl, but boring things, like taking out the garbage or the compost.

Magda waved a packet in my face. It was henna. The pack said ‘Gold'.

‘It's easier to do this with two people,' Magda said, ‘you don't mind pretending to be a hairdresser for a while, do you?'

Now, that sounded like fun. And it was – first we mixed the powder with water, then I wrapped Magda's shoulders in an old towel and then, finally, I smeared the henna all over her hair, rubbing it well into the roots. It was like mud.

‘It's disgusting,' I said, ‘really, Magda – it's impossible to believe that this would change the colour of your hair.'

‘I know,' Magda said, picking up a chunk of the henna which had fallen on the table and putting it calmly back in the bowl, ‘but it does. Very good, Ruby – now how long does it say it has to stay in?'

‘Half an hour,' I said reading the packet.

‘Oh, I should think it would need far more time than that. Let's set the oven timer for an hour and a half.'

‘Do you think that's wise?'

‘It's all natural,' Magda said, ‘and natural things take longer to work than chemicals, so it makes sense, doesn't it. They're probably just being cautious on the packet. I want a deep colour, nothing insipid.'

In the end, though, the henna stayed in for two hours because Magda and I talked about
The Secret Garden
for ages. I hadn't really liked it at first – it was so different from the books I usually read. I didn't tell her that I nearly didn't even give it a proper go because Mary's mum died in the first few pages – I wasn't in the mood for reading books about mums dying. But I had kept reading because the book was so strange and Mary was so horrible.

‘Didn't you love the garden?' Magda said. ‘The secret one?' Her fingers smoothed the cover of the book as though she was stroking someone's hair.

‘Oh yes,' I said, ‘I wish we had somewhere like that. I wish I had a garden of my own, like Mary does. Our garden is so boring. All it's got in it are tree ferns. Tree ferns and really sharp grass that cuts you if you even look at it.'

‘It's good to grow native Australian plants, though,' Magda said. ‘I think I'd plant more if I was ...' she stopped as though she'd been about to tell me a secret and thought better of it.

‘If what?' I asked.

‘Oh, if I had more time and energy,' she said. ‘Native plants are good for the birds. Your garden is probably why we have so many rosellas and parrots around.'

‘They eat the new tree-fern fronds,' I said, ‘and Dad gets mad and shouts at them through the window. I'd like a garden with more flowers in it.'

‘You know, a garden doesn't have to be in proper beds or anything,' Magda said, ‘you need to think outside the boxes sometimes, Ruby.'

‘Magda, I think we should wash your hair out now,' I said. I didn't like being told how to think.

‘Perhaps you're right. If I stand over the laundry sink, could you do the honours?'

‘Of course, ma'am,' I said in my best hairdresser voice. ‘Come over this way, please.'

The henna was almost harder to get out than it was to get it. It really did look like mud. But what was more surprising was that underneath Magda's hair was practically glowing. I gulped. I wasn't sure that radioactive orange was exactly the colour Magda had in mind.

‘How is it?' she asked.

‘Well ...' I said desperately, ‘it may have been better to follow the instructions, Magda. It's pretty bright.'

‘Better bright than not there at all. How bright?'

‘Hmmm.' I couldn't think of anything quite the same colour and intensity of Magda's hair. ‘Well ... you know these vests that road workers wear?'

‘That's not bright, Ruby, that's fluorescent.'

‘It's not quite as bright as those. But you'd never be run over.'

Magda demanded a mirror and studied herself in it while I towel-dried the back vigorously, hoping some of the colour would rub off. It didn't.

‘Henna fades, of course,' Magda said later. ‘If I remember rightly it fades pretty quickly really. Also the weather is becoming distinctly chilly. I shall have to air my winter turbans. They should do the trick. Just until it fades slightly. Other than a certain dayglo feel I think it's been a very successful job. Thank you, Ruby. I think you should go home now. I need to lie down for a while. All this hairdressing is a little wearying for an old woman like me.'

‘It will go with the coat,' I said, ‘you're quite right about that, Magda, and I do think when it fades a teensy little bit, it will make you look younger.'

‘Thank you, Ruby. Would you like to take another book with you?'

‘Is it all right if I do?' I was a little ashamed at my part in Magda's hair.

‘Yes, of course. I recommend Mrs Molesworth's
The Cuckoo Clock
. And pay attention when you read it, Ruby. If you can read it – it's so ancient. That was one of the first books ever given to me when I was a young girl. Now I must lie down. Close the door behind you.'

I picked the book out of Magda's book basket on the way out and looked at it curiously. It looked old, but smelt even older. When I opened it up, a dead earwig fell out. There were pictures inside it of a little girl wearing an old-fashioned dress staring up at an old clock. It certainly didn't look like the most exciting book in the world. But Magda's words stung a little – if you can read it – as though she expected me to just give up. So I tucked it under my arm vowing to start that night and read at least five pages every night until I finished it. Five pages was nothing. I'd still have reading time left over for something ... for something more ... interesting.

When I got home I put the Wish Pony back on my dressing table. ‘I'm sorry,' I told him, ‘I did mean to show you your old friends, the Red Soldiers, Egypt and Emperor, but I just forgot. Next time?' It seemed to me that he bowed his head just a fraction of a millimetre, but it was probably just the afternoon light sliding through the holes in my curtains.

‘I wish I had a secret garden, new curtains and a new best friend,' I told the Wish Pony, ‘and I wish you worked. Maybe you still only work for Magda. And, let's face it, that didn't go entirely to plan.'

Mum had stopped throwing up and was sitting in the kitchen, reading the paper. She looked up. ‘Thanks for the note,' she said. ‘How was Magda?'

I told her about the hair and she laughed, right out loud, the way I remembered from before she became pregnant and sick.

‘So do you think she'll wear Indian turbans until the colour fades?' I asked. ‘That will look very odd, Mum.'

‘Not Indian turbans,' Mum said, grinning at me, ‘old lady turbans. Here, bring me a piece of paper and I'll show you.'

She drew a kind of Magda face, topped with a turban that she coloured in green to contrast with the orange hair.

‘Oh,' I was disappointed. I had imagined Magda in an Indian turban, maybe covered with jewels, like something out of Mary's India in
The Secret Garden
.

‘Takeaway for dinner? Do you mind? I don't think I could face pizza, but noodles sound pretty good.'

‘Sure,' I said. I was so sick of noodles but I didn't tell Mum that because she still looked pale. ‘Can I get chicken and something, though – not black beans?'

‘Of course. Homework?'

‘No, I've done it all. I'm going to read this,' I showed her the old book, ‘Magda lent it to me.'

‘Good heavens,' Mum said, ‘I've never heard of it. Are you sure you're going to like it? It's very old-fashioned. Look at the illustrations. They're gorgeous! But old.'

‘Oh, I expect I'll like it,' I lied, skimming the first few lines, ‘anyway, it's something to do.'