'Russell, wait, will you!' I bellow in frustration. 'What are you doing here?'
'I felt mean leaving you to do all this shopping. I thought the least I could do was come and find you and help you carry it. I had no idea why you suddenly had this urgent desire to act like the Wonder Woman of Waitrose.
'What?' I blink at him.
'Don't come the wide-eyed innocent with me, Ellie! I had no idea you had a thing going with that shelf-stacker guy in the silly hat.'
I burst out laughing, which makes Russell even more furious. 'Oh, Russell, listen. I hardly know him.'
'Oh yeah? The way he was looking at you made me feel sick. He obviously fancies you like mad.'
'The one thing I do know about him is he's gay.'
Now it's Russell's turn to stand with his mouth open. 'What?'
'He's gay, Russell. And if he fancies anyone, it's you. He said he thought you looked very nice. He's obviously smitten.'
Russell is going very pink. 'Right. Well. That's cool. Though I hope you made it plain you're my girlfriend.'
'You were acting like you're really jealous,' I say.
'Nah, of course I wasn't. I just thought you were making a monkey out of me.'
'But I wasn't.'
'That's right.'
'So we're still friends?'
'We're more than friends, silly,' says Russell, and he takes my hand and twists the ring lovingly on my finger.
He helps me carry the shopping all the way home. Anna is very grateful to us both. Russell's having a cup of tea with us when Dad comes home, early for the first time in ages. He's carrying a huge box of Sainsbury's groceries.
'Dad! I went to Waitrose,' I say.
'Well, we won't run short of butter and tissues for a while now,' says Dad.
'Thank you for getting all the stuff, anyway,' says Anna, fumbling in her handbag. 'How much did it come to? I'll pay you out of the housekeeping purse.'
'For God's sake, I can buy a few groceries. I can still earn a bob or two. Not as much as you, perhaps, but enough,' Dad says sharply.
It's hopeless. I thought they might just make it up now but they seem to be back to hating each other, though they have to be icily polite in front of Russell. I help Anna unpack the second lot of stuff, opening up Dad's box of tissues when I sneeze again. I do hope I'm not going down with Eggs' cold. He is over the sniffles and now coughs all over everywhere instead.
Dad and Russell make slightly uneasy small talk – uneasier still when Russell starts on about Cynthia rushing out to buy an Anna Allard designer sweater. Dad's conversation dwindles to the odd grunt. Russell realizes he's on quicksand and hauls himself to safety by talking about the Art competition. He has the nerve to boast about his elephant cartoons.
'My elephant,' I mutter.
Russell sighs. 'I told you, Ellie, if I win I'll go fifty–fifty with you. Though it's not your elephant, it's my cartoon elephant.'
'Still, Ellie's always drawn dinky elephants ever since she was a little girl,' says Dad, drinking the cup of tea that Anna's poured for him, though he doesn't actually acknowledge her. 'Why didn't you do your elephant yourself, Ellie?'
'Oh, she was too late to enter the competition,' says Russell, as if I had simply been too idle to get it together in time.
'No, I did have a go,' I say. 'I didn't draw elephants, though. I did a little blue mouse.'
Dad looks up at me. 'Not Myrtle Mouse?'
'Yes.'
'Is this another of your special characters?' Russell asks. 'Can't I draw mice any more without you making a fuss? Maybe you'll tell the Walt Disney organization to watch out too!'
I ignore Russell. I'm looking at Dad. I rather hope he keeps quiet. He doesn't.
'Myrtle was invented by Ellie's mum,' says Dad.
Russell looks at Anna.
'No, her real mum.'
Anna flinches. I don't think Dad means it nastily. His whole face has softened.
'She made up Myrtle Mouse when Ellie was little. She wouldn't go to sleep until her mum made up a Myrtle Mouse story.'
'We made her up together, Dad. And I always drew pictures of her. Well, I used to copy Mum's at first, but then I did my own.'
'So you've copied your mum's drawings for the competition!' Russell shouts. 'You little hypocrite! All that fuss about my copying Ellie Elephant. And I didn't copy you anyway.'
'I didn't copy my mum.'
'You just admitted it in front of all of us!' Russell insists.
'That was when I was little. I reinvented Myrtle. She's not a bit like the little mouse my mum made up, not now. She's mine,' I say defensively.
'Rubbish! If you've used your mum's design that's really cheating,' says Dad.
I want to kick him. Anna looks like she does too. 'Don't be so unfair! Ellie's just used a little child's character as a jumping-off point for her own artwork,' she says. 'Of course she's not cheating. What a thing to say to your own daughter! What's the matter with you?'
'I'm jealous, aren't I? At least, that's what my precious daughter thinks.'
'Dad! Anyway, I'm not even eligible for the stupid competition. I sent my entry in too late. They'll probably just chuck it in the bin.'
Chapter Eleven
Girls cry when
their dreams
come true!
Eleven
Girls cry when
their dreams come true!
I am dying. I'm hot all over and yet I'm shivering. My nose is all bunged up, my throat is raw, my head aches, my chest hurts. I know I'm really really ill. I'm sure I've got pneumonia. Double pneumonia. No, triple. Hang on, I've only got two lungs. It feels like they're both blown up like balloons, about to burst.
Everyone thinks I've just got Eggs' cold. This isn't a cold. How could anyone feel so awful with a mere cold? Yet no one seems remotely sympathetic. Dad and Anna made me go into school yesterday, which was so unfair. And a waste of time. I couldn't concentrate on any of the lessons and could barely crawl across the hockey pitch. OK OK, I suppose I'm usually inattentive and appalling at Games, but I couldn't even paint properly in Art, my best subject.
We are still stuck in the still-life slot. I like animated life a lot more, though I suppose Mr Windsor did his best to make it interesting for us. He showed us copies of these weirdly lovely seventeenth-century Spanish paintings of cabbages on string, and then he dangled a whole load of real cabbages in the air for us to copy. Magda had a little go at flicking one cabbage into another to see if they'd go dong dong dong backwards and forwards like those smart executive toys, but they just made a dull thwack and got their strings all tangled. Mr Windsor said if we didn't settle down sharpish he'd lop off our heads and string them up instead.
So we settled, sort of, though Magda kept moaning that the smell of cabbages was making her feel sick. I couldn't smell anything at all but I felt sick anyway. I tried hard at first but my cabbages looked like giant green roses and I lost heart. I painted in a little cartoon bunny up on its back legs, mouth open and drooling, desperately trying to leap up and reach the dangling feast. Magda and Nadine were duly appreciative but Mr Windsor wasn't amused.
'We all know you're an inventive cartoonist, Ellie, but it's getting a little bit predictable the way you fall back on cartoons whenever you're having trouble with a serious subject.'
'Oooh!' Magda said mockingly.
'That's enough, Magda! You three girls are starting to annoy me. I shall split the three of you up if you carry on like this.'
'No one could ever split us up,' Magda muttered, but not quite loud enough for him to hear.
'Now, come on, Ellie. Paint over the rabbit and look a little harder at your cabbages. You haven't got the texture of the leaves right at all. They look far too limp.'
I felt limp all day long at school. I didn't really feel like going out with Russell. Nadine was going round to Magda's house and they were going to sort out all their stuff to see what to wear to Big Mac's party. Nadine isn't remotely interested in any o
f the boys there. She's still dippy about this Xanadu fan Ellis who keeps e-mailing her. Still, she said she'd come along to give Magda moral support.
'I'll give you moral support, Mags,' I say, a little wounded.
'Yeah, but you'll be sitting in a corner snogging with Russell all night, won't you?'
'No I won't. Well, not all the time. And there'll be dancing—'
'God, does Russell dance?' says Nadine.
I give her a very dark look.
'Sorry, sorry!' she says hurriedly.
We are best friends again, but things are still slightly edgy. Every time I catch Nadine looking at me I wonder if she's thinking, FAT FAT FAT.
I've always said I love Magda and Nadine absolutely equally, but I suppose secretly I've always liked Nadine just a teeny weeny bit more, simply because we've known each other since we were four and we've shared so much together. But now I sometimes wonder if maybe Magda is just that little bit nicer. Nadine can be such a bitch at times. And almost too wild. I thought she was mad to get involved with Liam. Then there was that time she insisted we go off with those scary guys in their van, when we tried to go to the Claudie concert. And now she's gone truly crazy, confiding all sorts of secret stuff to a total stranger.
I tried having one more go at telling her how risky this can be but she just laughed at me. She's starting to laugh at me more and more now. She acts like I've become Ms Dull and Deadly Boring since going out with Russell. Which is ridiculous. Isn't it?
I didn't have such a great time with Russell last night. I was feeling lousy but he'd set his heart on going to this fantasy film full of men with helmets and bare chests who zap people with one point of their finger. There were hardly any women in it, just a few silly maidens shrieking in see-through nightie things and a token evil old crone who ended up sinking under a sea of snakes. I thought it was DIRE but Russell lapped it up. He got irritated with me when I moaned and sighed and snuffled. He lectured me for ages afterwards, telling me about this cult comic strip the film was based on.
'You should take an interest, Ellie, seeing as you want to do illustration when you're older. Graphic novels are where it's all happening. No one wants twee little picture books about girly mice.'
I was so insulted – on my mum's behalf as well as mine – that I marched off without even giving him a kiss goodnight. Not that he'd have wanted one anyway. My lips are all chapped and my nose is red and very runny, enough to douse the desire of even the most impassioned boyfriend. Which Russell is.
I just don't get boys. One minute he's looking down on me, lecturing me about everything, expecting me to tell him he's wonderful. The next minute he's looking up to me, treating me like the most amazingly exciting girl in the world just because I have two breasts, appendages stuck on the front of half the world's population, for God's sake.
I wish he could be a real friend, like Magda and Nadine. Though Nadine isn't always a friendly friend now. She's always been a bit moody, right from when she was little. Thank goodness Magda is always happy-go-lucky and fun to be with. She can go on about boys and make-up and clothes a bit too much, but basically you couldn't get a better friend.
She brought me some of her mum's special lime cheesecake yesterday to cheer me up. I protested feebly about the mega-million calorie content.
'It's lime, Ellie. Lots of vitamin C. Very very good for colds. This cake is medicinal, so blow the calories.'
So I did. I must admit I felt a lot better with a tummy full of cheesecake. Magda's mum is such a brilliant cook. Anna used to be OK, but for the last couple of months she hasn't really cooked anything, just heated stuff in the microwave. Still, how can she spend time cooking now she's so busy with her designing? It's OK for Magda's mum. She runs the restaurant with Magda's dad. Cooking is part of her career, so there's no conflict.
There's still every kind of conflict between Dad and Anna. I can hear them downstairs at breakfast now, and Eggs is yelling too.
I'm not getting up. I can't get up. I'm too ill. Much much much too ill.
I pull the duvet over my head and curl up in my dark little lair, breathing heavily. I'm having a little doze when there's a knock on the door. I peek out of the duvet. It's Anna with a tray: orange juice, coffee and a croissant and a little bunch of grapes.
'For the invalid,' says Anna.
'You're a darling,' I say thickly, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. There's a letter on the tray too. 'What's that?'
'Isn't it Russell's handwriting?'
'No, his is more twirly.' I open the envelope. I unfold the letter. I find my glasses. I read the letter. By the time I get to the end, the sheet of paper is vibrating because I'm trembling so much.
It's only from Nicola Sharp, the brilliant illustrator who does all those funny Funky Fairy picture books! I used to have a full set of all the Rainbow series. When I was four I thought Ultraviolet the coolest little fairy ever and wanted all my clothes to be purple, right down to my socks and knickers.
Dear Eleanor Allard,
I'm one of the judges in the children's cartoon competition. I have to make it plain straight away that you haven't won – we haven't even had our final judges' meeting yet. And I'm afraid your entry can't be short-listed because it arrived a week after the closing date, without an entry form. Now I don't think this matters in the slightest, but the company sponsoring the competition is being incredibly strict about this and insists your entry (and a host of other latecomers too) must be declared ineligible.
Normally I'd just think this is a shame and forget about it, but I can't forget you or your Myrtle Mouse. I see lots of children's and young people's artwork, some of it very very good – but I can honestly say your Myrtle is outstandingly original. I'd be proud to have invented her myself.
You are going to have to be an illustrator when you grow up!
With every warm wish,
Nicola Sharp
I give such a shriek that Anna shakes my breakfast tray and spills the coffee. 'Ellie, darling, what is it?'
'Oh, Anna!' I say – and I burst into tears.
Dad and Eggs come running in. 'What's happened? Have you scalded yourself, Ellie?' Dad yells.
Anna puts the tray down. She looks at the letter and then flings her arms round me. 'You clever girl! Look what Nicola Sharp's written about our Ellie!' she says, thrusting the letter at Dad.
'Nicola Sharp! She's the lady who makes up the Raspberry Red Fairy, the one who blows lots of raspberries,' says Eggs, demonstrating in case we might not understand.
Dad's asking questions, Anna's laughing, I'm crying, Eggs is blowing raspberries, all of us squashed into my tiny bedroom. It's as if we're a proper happy family again, us four Allards together – but then Dad has to spoil it. He's shaking his head as he reads the letter.
'Well done, Ellie,' he says flatly.
'Well done? Is that all you can say?' says Anna. 'Come on, it's wonderful! It's simply amazing that Nicola Sharp picked Ellie's entry out of hundreds, maybe even thousands! Fancy her saying she wishes she'd invented your Myrtle Mouse herself!'
'But she's not Ellie's Myrtle Mouse,' says Dad. 'Ros invented her.'
There's a little silence. Dad rarely talks about my mum, especially not by name. He gives a sad softness to the one syllable. Anna flinches.
I stare at Dad. I feel as if he's snatched all my happiness away. My flu floods back. I hurt all over.
'But Ellie's made Myrtle Mouse her own, you know that!' Anna says sharply.
Dad is looking down at Nicola Sharp's letter. He quotes one word: 'Original.'
It's enough. I know Dad's right ... in a way.
Anna argues fiercely that he's wrong wrong wrong.
'I know you have huge problems with my silly old sweaters becoming a success, but I'm amazed you're not even big enough to be pleased that your own daughter is so talented.'
Dad sucks in his breath. Anna is so angry, breathing hard, red in the face. Eggs is frightened. He slips his hand in mine. I squeeze it tightly,
needing to hang onto him for my own sake.
It's all spoilt. Dad's right. I didn't invent Myrtle. But it felt as if I did.
I need to talk about it. I phone Magda. I wait for quite a while before I try her, because Magda likes to sleep late at weekends. Well, she likes to sleep late every single day but her mum generally unwinds her from her duvet in time to get to school. I wait until twelve, when I feel there's a reasonable chance of finding Magda up and alert.
I've waited too long. She's already gone out.
'I think she's round at Nadine's, Ellie,' says Magda's mum.
'Oh. Right. Fine.'