‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. It was so much easier just telling them. If I wrote them down I’d have to plan it all out and remember all the boring stuff about punctuation and paragraphs. And never beginning a sentence with ‘And’.
Mum was looking at me anxiously.
‘Great,’ I said, sounding false. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘You don’t have to write the stories,’ said Mum. ‘I just thought it might take your mind off things. But it’s not meant to be hard work, it’s meant to be fun.’
‘Do I have to do it like at school?’
‘No, you write it however you want,’ said Mum. ‘Draw pictures too, if you like.’
I started to get more enthusiastic. I decided I’d do lots of pictures. I’d colour them in. I’d maybe use a certain nearly new set of beautiful felt-tip pens.
Maxie never seemed to use them nowadays. He’d done a handful of his wonky doughnut people during the Christmas holidays, but then he scribbled over all of them with the black pen.
Gran said she’d take them away from him if he just did silly scribbling, though she said it wasn’t Maxie’s fault, he was far too young to own such an expensive set of pens.
Mum said Gran didn’t have the right to take them away from Maxie, though she did privately beg Maxie to use them properly. She’d found a lot of black scribble on the wall beside Maxie’s mattress and had spent ages scrubbing with Vim.
Maxie didn’t use his pens at all after that, though he guarded the big tin carefully and shrieked if Vita or I went near them.
I waited until he was fast asleep in his bear lair and Vita was snuggled up with Dancer. Then I crept out of bed, tiptoed across the carpet and very cautiously felt under Maxie’s mattress. I found the great big smooth tin of felt tips and gently eased them out, careful not to make them rattle. I took them to the bathroom with me. I put all the towels bunched up in the bath to cushion it and then hopped in with my new notebook and Maxie’s pens.
I opened the red notebook up and smoothed out the first page. I selected the black pen, ready to write ‘Dancer the Reindeer’ in my best swirly handwriting. The black came out as a faint grey trickle. It was all used up.
Maxie had obviously been doing a lot of secret scribbling somewhere or other. It looked like Mum was going to have to buy another can of scouring powder.
I chose the scarlet pen instead. It came out the palest pink. Maxie had used the red up too! I tried the gold, the purple, the brightest blue. They were nearly all completely used up. The only pens still working were Maxie’s least favourite colours, the dark greens and all the browns.
I couldn’t understand it. I’d not seen Maxie using them. How could they possibly all be used up already?
I had to start my Dancer story using my own inferior gel pens. I didn’t know how to get started properly. It sounded so silly and babyish writing Dancer the Reindeer did this, did that. It was so much more interesting when she told her own story.
I had a sudden idea. I crept back to the bedroom, eased Dancer out from under Vita, and went back to my special bath. I put Dancer on my right hand and tucked a pen between her paws.
‘What’s this?’ she said, twiddling it around.
‘You know what it is. It’s my special pink gel pen, to match your pretty pink nose. I want you to write your story for me, Dancer. Tell it like an autobiography, right from the beginning, when you were born.’
‘When I was a tiny fawn, all big eyes and no antlers?’ said Dancer.
She breathed in deeply, wriggled the pen more comfortably in her paws, and began.
I am Dancer, a reindeer. I was born in a blizzard, such a deeply snowy night that my poor mother could not find shelter for us. She did her best, arching her poor weary body over me, while I nuzzled up to her weakly, up to my snout in thick snow. You would think this chilly start in life would leave me susceptible to colds, but although I am of dainty build even now in my middle years, I have always prided myself on my stout constitution. I never have a cold or a chill or any bout of flu. My nose stays prettily pink, never ever red and shiny. I would feel I was seriously blemished if I was famous for being a red-nosed reindeer, and had a popular song written about me.
I do not wish to boast but I am sure I am equally famous for my dancing skills. I can do ballroom, I can bop like a demon, I can tap up a storm, but my speciality is ballet. I am the Anna Pavlova of the reindeer kingdom.
I pressed Dancer’s pink nose and made the ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ music tinkle. Dancer twirled round and round, her net skirt whirling. She pirouetted up and down the bath and then jumped on and off the taps.
‘I’m doing my tap dance now!’ she announced.
We both hooted with laughter.
‘Em?’ Mum knocked at the bathroom door. ‘Em, what are you up to in there? What are you doing out of bed? Who’s in there with you?’
‘Just Dancer, Mum,’ I said. I clambered out of the bath and let her in.
‘You and Dancer! You’re a daft girl,’ said Mum. ‘I can’t get over the way you kids act like she’s real. You’re daft as a brush, babe. Still, you’re good at making up her stories. Have you started writing them in your new book?’
‘Yep!’ I said, flashing a page at her.
‘You’ve been writing in the bath?’ said Mum, looking at the scrunched-up towels.
‘It’s my special writing couch, Mum,’ I said.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she said. ‘You’re not meant to be writing now. You’re meant to be fast asleep in bed.’
‘Haven’t you heard of burning the midnight oil, Mum? I’m inspired!’
‘You’ve got an answer for everything, my Em,’ said Mum, giving me a hug. ‘Let’s read your story then.’
‘Not yet. Not till it’s all finished and I’ve filled the book right up.’
‘There, it was a good idea of mine, wasn’t it? I got blank pages instead of lined so you can do as many pictures as you like. Maybe Maxie will let you borrow his fancy felt tips if you ask him really nicely.’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
I decided not to tell on Maxie. I needed to do my own investigating first.
I didn’t tackle him directly. I simply kept an eye on him the next day. I watched him sneak the dark brown pen out of his tin and stick it down his sock when he was getting dressed.
I followed him round doggedly, though it was very tiring. Maxie dashed here, charged there, darted up and down the stairs, running riot everywhere. He jumped on Mum, he badgered Gran, he tugged my hair, he pinched Vita. He knocked the cornflakes packet over, he spilled his juice down his front, he tripped over the vacuum and screamed blue murder – but he didn’t take the felt pen out of his sock to scribble.
I waited patiently, biding my time. Maxie went to the loo. I followed him upstairs to the bathroom and waited outside. I waited and waited and waited. Gran was right, Maxie had started to take an awfully long time in the loo.
I was needing to go myself. I got fed up waiting. I knocked on the door. ‘Maxie? Come on out, you must be finished now.’
‘Go away, Em,’ Maxie said, the other side of the door.
‘Maxie, you’ve been in there fifteen minutes. What’s the matter? Have you got a tummy upset?’
‘No! Just bog off!’ Maxie yelled crossly.
He knew he wasn’t meant to say this. It was an expression he’d picked up off a television programme and it drove Gran nuts.
‘I’m not bogging off anywhere, Maxie. You come out!’ I paused. ‘I know what you’re up to in there!’ I hissed through the keyhole.
‘No you don’t!’ said Maxie, but he sounded panicky.
‘You come out or I’ll tell,’ I threatened.
Maxie went quiet. Then he suddenly unlocked the bathroom door and came out.
‘You’re not allowed to lock yourself in, you know that,’ I said. ‘What if you get stuck?’
‘I’d jump out the window,’ said Maxie. ‘Like this.’ He jumped along the hallwa
y like a giant frog. He was jumping slightly awkwardly, his hands clamped over his T-shirt chest. I knew that problem. He was hiding something.
I played along with him, jumping too, pretending to be a fellow frog. Maxie croaked delightedly, wobbled, and threw out his arms. It was my chance. I slid my hand up his T-shirt and grabbed. I came away with a giant wad of crumpled pink loo-roll.
‘Yuck!’ I said, dropping it immediately.
‘Don’t, don’t, don’t!’ Maxie screamed, though I’d already done it.
‘Maxie, what are you playing at? You throw the used loo-roll down the toilet, you don’t stick it up your T-shirt!’ I said. I caught hold of his wrists as he scrabbled to get hold if it.
‘Give it me back!’ Maxie roared.
‘No, it’s dirty!’ I cried.
But when I looked properly I saw it hadn’t been used in the way that I’d feared. There were at least twenty separate sheets of loo-roll. Each one had been scribbled over with Maxie’s brown felt pen. Not any old angry silly scribble. This was a very careful painstaking up and down long string of nearly-letters, all the way down to the bottom of each strip. Then there was a wobbly M for Maxie and a whole line of uneven xxxx.
‘These are letters, Maxie,’ I said. I let him go and started smoothing them out.
‘Give them back,’ said Maxie, hitting me.
‘Who are these letters to, Maxie?’ I asked, although of course I knew.
‘Shut up, Em!’ Maxie wailed.
‘Emily, what are you doing to your little brother?’ Gran called from downstairs.
‘Nothing, Gran. I’m just sticking his head down the loo and using it like a toilet brush,’ I called.
‘You’re doing what?’ Gran shrieked.
‘Joke, Gran, just joking,’ I said. ‘I’m just sorting Maxie out, that’s all.’
Then I knelt in front of Maxie on the landing, my nose nearly touching his. ‘They’re letters to Dad, aren’t they, Maxie? You haven’t forgotten him one little bit. You just don’t want to talk about him because it hurts, right?’
‘No no no,’ said Maxie, but big fat tears were starting to spurt down his cheeks.
‘What are you saying in your letters? Are you asking him to come back?’
‘I’m saying I’ll be a big brave boy if he comes back,’ Maxie wept.
‘Dad doesn’t mind you being little and silly,’ I said. I gave him a big hug. He struggled for a bit but then relaxed against me, rubbing his thatch of black hair into my neck.
‘I’ve written him millions and millions of letters,’ he said.
‘But what did you do with them all?’
‘I posted them. Properly, in the postbox down the shops. Gran wasn’t looking,’ Maxie said proudly.
I thought of all those tattered loo-roll letters clogging up the bottom of the postbox.
I nearly cried too.
9
WHEN WE WENT back to school we had to learn how to wire up a circuit in technology.
‘That’s good,’ said Gran. ‘My entire house needs rewiring and I haven’t got the money to get it sorted. Maybe you’ll do it for us, Em.’
She didn’t really mean it. She was being sarcastic.
Mrs Marks, our teacher, suggested we use a clown’s face with a dicky bow tie and a nose that could light up if we wired the circuit properly.
‘Don’t let’s do a boring old clown,’ I begged Jenny and Yvonne. ‘Let’s do Dancer, and have a pink light for her nose!’
‘You’re obsessed by that flipping reindeer,’ said Yvonne, who’d heard one too many Dancer stories.
In our art lesson I painted a portrait of Dancer in the style of Picasso, with her antlers lopsided, her legs all over the place and both her eyes on one side of her head. I thought it was a very good painting. I gave it to Vita as a present but she wrinkled her nose at it.
‘Dancer doesn’t look a bit like that,’ she said. ‘Even Maxie knows where the eyes go on your head, one either side of the nose.’
‘Well, you can stick Dancer’s antlers right up your nose,’ I said crossly.
In drama we had to act out the Seven Deadly Sins. I chose Wrath. I got very angry indeed. I had Jenny and Yvonne as my partners and they got quite scared when I screamed at them.
‘I was just acting,’ I said.
‘Well, you’re a bit too good at it,’ said Jenny.
I wasn’t good at maths at all, I was totally hopeless. We were learning about percentages and I was 100 per cent hopeless at it. Mum found me rubbing out frantically on Sunday night, unable to get the right answer to anything.
‘Can’t you tell the teacher you don’t understand how to do them?’ said Mum. She peered at my messy figures. ‘I don’t have a clue. Can the other children do it? What about Jenny and Yvonne?’
‘Yvonne’s brilliant at maths. Jenny sits right next to her and she can copy off her. Then when we have homework Jenny gets her dad to do it.’
Mum sighed. ‘Well, even if your dad was home here, he couldn’t do any sums to save his life. You could try asking your gran.’
I decided I’d sooner get into trouble at school. Gran was in a really mean crabby mood a lot of the time now.
‘I know she’s a bit cross, Em. She’s tired having to work so hard. She’s paying all the bills now and she’s fed up about it,’ Mum whispered.
I knew money was a Big Problem. Dad hadn’t sent any more cheques at all, and Mum wasn’t making much money at the Rainbow Hair Salon.
‘Gran thinks I should report Dad and get the courts to make him send child support regularly,’ said Mum. ‘I know I maybe should, but it seems so awful. And if he hasn’t been able to get work in Scotland then he won’t have any money anyway. I’m sure he’d send something if he could.’
We were learning about the Tudors in history. Henry VIII made Dad seem like a very good husband. I hated it when Gran went on and on about him. I was sorry her work made her tired, but at least she was just sitting in an office, not on her feet all day like Mum. We were learning about an Indian village in geography where old ladies like Gran had to trek backwards and forwards with great sticks or big water pots on their heads, and toil all day in the fields.
I had to do an awful lot of toiling at school in PE because we were practising for our sports day. It was all right for Yvonne. She came first every time we raced, she jumped the highest and the longest, she leaped the furthest in the sack race, she won the egg and spoon race without cheating with Blu-tack. She even won the three-legged race tied up to Jenny. Yvonne would have won a no-legged race.
At least Jenny was almost as slow as me when we practised. We huffed and puffed at the very end of each race. I think Jenny might have been able to run a little bit faster but she was kind enough to slow down and keep me company, so we were equal last. As Jenny and Yvonne were partners in the three-legged race Jenny suggested she and I join up for the wheelbarrow race.
We didn’t do too terribly when I was the runner and Jenny was the wheelbarrow, but after a few minutes Mrs Marks blew her whistle and said we had to swap roles. My heart started thudding. All the wheelbarrows had to be pushers. All the pushers had to be wheelbarrows. I was more like an armoured truck than a wheelbarrow. I was much much much too heavy for Jenny to lift. She tried valiantly but couldn’t haul my legs up.
‘Don’t, Jenny, you’ll hurt yourself,’ I said, lying on the ground, scarlet as a lobster because everyone was staring at us and sniggering. ‘I’m far too flipping fat.’
‘No, no, it’s because my arms aren’t strong enough. I haven’t got any muscles,’ Jenny insisted kindly.
I had another traumatic moment in English. Mrs Marks said we were going to spend the term reading and writing stories about dilemmas and issues, children going through all sorts of problems.
‘What, like kids being bullied, Mrs Marks?’ Yvonne asked.
‘That’s certainly one area for us to explore. So why do you think some children are bullied?’
‘Because they’re wim
ps?’
‘Because they look weird?’
‘Because they’re fat?’
I felt the whole class looking at me. I stared straight ahead, wanting to die.
‘There’s a Jenna Williams book all about bullying, Mrs Marks,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘The Girl Gang. Please can we all read it? It’s got all sorts of dilemmas and issues in it.’
‘You girls and your Jenna Williams books,’ said Mrs Marks. ‘Isn’t it time you branched out and read something else? Still, you can choose bullying as your homework topic, Jenny, and write me a book report on The Girl Gang.’
‘Can I do it too, Mrs Marks?’ said Yvonne.
‘And Emily?’ said Jenny.
I smiled at her gratefully, but I wanted to do my own topic.
‘The dilemma of being a girl obsessed by a glove puppet?’ said Yvonne.
‘Oh, ha ha,’ I said.
‘So what do you want to do, Em?’ Jenny asked.
‘Oh, just stuff about dads,’ I mumbled. ‘Well, what it’s like when your dad isn’t always there.’
Jenny patted my knee understandingly.
‘I bet there’s a Jenna Williams story about that,’ said Yvonne.
‘Yep, Piggy in the Middle.’
It was about a girl called Candy whose mum and dad split up and they kept arguing over who was to look after her. Candy had this cute little toy piglet called Turnip that she took everywhere with her.
I’d read it at least five times so I could write a book report straight away. I wrote four whole pages. Then I drew a picture of Candy and her mum and her new family and her dad and his new family. I even did a picture of Turnip in his own little shoebox sty.
‘You’re a very quick reader, Emily,’ said Mrs Marks, when I handed my report in the very next day. ‘I tell you what, why don’t we find you a few more books about children going through the same situation as Candy in Piggy in the Middle.’
She started sorting through the classroom shelf of children’s classics, the ones that no one ever looks at, let alone reads.
‘No one ever got divorced back in olden times,’ I said.
‘No, they didn’t get divorced, but families still split up, or children lost their fathers in some sad way,’ said Mrs Marks. ‘Try reading A Little Princess, Emily, I think you’ll enjoy it. Then there’s Little Women and The Railway Children.’