‘Don’t be such a silly baby,’ said Mum.
‘Harley saw my knickers,’ I wailed.
‘Well. They’re clean, and they’re perfectly decent.
It doesn’t really matter, you’re only a little girl. It’s much worse for Jodie but she doesn’t seem to care.
Typical!’ said Mum. ‘Now come on, Pearl, stop making such a silly fuss.’
I had to do as she told me. I pulled on my clothes, tugging hard at my horrible knickers, shoved my feet into my sandals and then stomped after Mum into the kitchen. Harley and Jodie were sitting swinging their legs on the edge of the big table, eating their cookies. Jodie was wearing her high heels with her jeans. Harley’s legs were so long they hovered an inch above the ground. He looked 160
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at me. I felt as if Mum’s oven was switched on inside me.
‘Hey, Pearl, you’re as red as my shoes!’ Jodie laughed.
I could have hit her.
Harley nodded at me. ‘Hi, Pearl,’ he mumbled. He was a little red too. ‘Sorry to burst in on you like that. I was just offering to help with your decorating. Not that I’ve ever done any so I’m maybe not much cop at it.’
‘You’ll be great, Harley,’ Jodie interrupted. ‘You can do the ceiling. We won’t need to bother with a stepladder!’
I wished Jodie wouldn’t always tease him about his height. He made sarcastic ho ho ho noises but it was an obvious effort. I suddenly stopped fussing so about making such a fool of myself and thought about Harley instead.
‘We’d love you to help, Harley,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, we don’t really know what we’re doing either.’
‘Well, don’t make too much of a mess,’ said Mum.
‘And for pity’s sake watch what you’re doing. I don’t want purple smears all over everywhere. Why ever did you have to pick purple? It’s such a harsh colour.’
‘You’ve got harsh girls, Mrs Wells,’ said Harley.
‘They certainly keep me in line. Especially Pearl –
she’s so fierce.’
Mum blinked at him, taking him seriously.
‘Yeah, too right,’ said Jodie. ‘She’s been bullying me for years. Burly Pearly! Watch out, one kick from her little black patent shoe can send you flying.’
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I stuck my tongue out at Jodie.
‘Hey, watch out! See the deadly venom sac in her pretty little neck! One strike of that pink tongue and you’ve had it, dead within five seconds,’ said Jodie.
‘Stop being silly, girls,’ said Mum. ‘Would you like milk or juice with your cookies? Or maybe a cup of tea?’ She looked at Harley. ‘I’ve got Earl Grey tea,’
she said proudly.
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Wells,’ he said. ‘That would be lovely.’
Jodie rolled her eyes. ‘Coo, what’s this Earl Grey, Mum?’ she said, putting on a funny mock-Cockney accent. ‘What d’you mean, it’s tea? What’s up with good old PG Tips, eh?’
Mum glared at her, sighing heavily. We drank our posh tea and ate our cookies and then set off to do more painting.
‘Are they your really old clothes, Harley?’ Mum said doubtfully.
They were too small for him, the jeans ankle high, but they were still bright blue, and his skimpy sweatshirt looked pristine.
‘Don’t worry, Mum, Harley can strip down to his underpants like us,’ said Jodie.
Mum’s head jerked in horror.
‘Joke!’ said Jodie.
‘One day you’ll go too far, young lady,’ said Mum.
‘Not far enough,’ Jodie muttered.
We spent hours and hours peacefully painting.
Jodie played her favourite CDs very loudly, singing along, painting in time to the music. She waggled her bum too and did a little tap dance in her red shoes. Harley painted with great sure wide strokes, 162
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up and down, up and down, but when he came to the pencilled drawings of Kezia and Pansy, he made a little purple arch round them. He bent right down and pencilled in a gangling boy in livery saying, ‘I am Frederick the footman. I am friends with Kezia.’
‘And Pansy!’ said Jodie.
‘Yeah, OK.’
‘Well, write it in!’
Harley started writing. ‘ And bossy-boots shouty-pouty Pansy is my worst enemy,’ he said slowly, as if he was printing it.
Jodie charged over indignantly but saw he’d simply added ‘ and Pansy’.
Harley winked at me.
I painted with careful, finicky little strokes. My hand was steadiest so I painted right along the skirting board. Then I got my own box of paints and coloured Kezia and Pansy and Frederick in very carefully.
We were nearly finished by the time Mum sounded the gong for tea. The smell of paint had made me feel a bit sick, but as soon as I sat down at the table between Harley and Jodie I was suddenly ravenous. I wolfed down my tuna and sweetcorn sandwich and my egg and tomato roll, I crunched all my carrot sticks, I slurped up my yoghurt, I golloped down my grapes, and I ate three of Mum’s home-made cookies, oatmeal, chocolate and almond.
‘Well done, dear!’ said Mum, patting my shoulder as she passed. ‘It’s lovely to see you with such a healthy appetite.’
Dan looked at me mournfully. ‘You could share your cookies with me,’ he said. He made his man 163
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stomp over to my empty plate. ‘Dan and me are still hungry. Feed us!’ Dan made him say in a funny fierce voice.
I fed them both pretend mouthfuls.
‘No, no, we want real food!’ they insisted.
‘You’ll have to ask my mum. I’m sure she’ll give you more,’ I said.
Dan blinked over at Mum in her white overall and checked trousers. ‘That’s not your mum!’ he said, giggling. ‘That’s Mrs Wells, the new cook lady.’
‘I know, but she’s my mum as well,’ I said.
‘She’s my mum too,’ said Jodie, giving the last cookie to Dan.
Dan munched, considering. ‘She’s my mum too then,’ he said happily.
Jodie laughed at him but it made me want to cry.
‘Imagine, poor little Dan thinking our mum is his mum,’ I said when we were back in the bedroom, finishing off our beautiful purple room. Harley was still with us, doing the finicky overhead corners.
‘Perhaps she can be a communal mum,’ he said.
‘I’d like to appropriate her myself. She’s very kind, very patient, and she makes excellent cookies.’
‘You’re nuts!’ said Jodie. ‘Our mum’s a good cook, I grant you that, but she’s ever so un kind and im patient.’
‘Oh, Jodie, she’s not,’ I said.
‘She might seem like that to you because you drive her mad,’ said Harley. ‘I’m sure she’s sweet to Pearl.’
‘ Everyone’s sweet to Pearl,’ said Jodie. ‘Even me!
So what’s your mum like, Harley?’
‘Don’t be so nosy, Jodie,’ I said, though I badly wanted to know too.
‘She’s a cow,’ said Harley matter-of-factly.
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‘What?’
‘You mean she’s horrid to you?’
‘She’s always perfectly civil. In fact she goes out of her way to take me out for posh lunches and gives me elaborate presents, but her heart isn’t in it. I don’t think she even has a heart. If she was transparent like Dan’s man, you’d see a big empty space between her lungs and her liver. She doesn’t love me, though she smarms all over me. I embarrass and irritate her. I don’t think she’s even loved any of her boyfriends. She’s stuck with this last one the longest, but then he’s the richest. A shipping magnate, no less.’
‘Are you making this up, Harley?’ I asked uncertainly.
/> ‘Oh no, this is way too banal and boring. I could invent much better bad family backgrounds. There!
Look, I’ve painted that corner to perfection. I think my extremely expensive education is wasted. I’d be a brilliant painter and decorator.’
‘Is your stepfather horrible to you?’ I asked.
‘Not particularly. He tried hard with me at first.
He even took me to a football match. We sat in the manager’s box. But I hate football. I haven’t got a clue who any of the players are, so it was all a bit wasted on me. He still tried though. He took me to cricket, which was like watching this purple paint dry, and he wanted me to take up basketball training because of my height. He just couldn’t seem to get the fact that I’m not a sporty type. He only stopped trying when I stole his credit card.’
‘You did what?’ said Jodie, eyes big.
‘You didn’t!’ I said.
‘Yes I did. Well, he’s rich. He wasn’t going to miss 165
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it. So I ordered all sorts of stuff online – not even stuff I really wanted; mainly stuff for the sheer hell of it. I set myself a task of doing it alphabetically, so I ordered an apple tree and a whacking great Victorian birdcage and a set of china and fifty pairs of Damart underpants. It was great fun – it took hours and hours – and then the stuff kept arriving for weeks.’
‘Did he know it was you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘So what did he do?’
‘He said I was warped and twisted and a stupid berk but he was more baffled than angry. My mum sent me to an extremely expensive psychiatrist and I made up all these bizarre fantasies just to wind him up. Any way, they couldn’t work out why I was so mad or bad or whatever, so they sent me off to boarding school.’
‘Yeah, yeah, loads of parents do that, but how come you’re here in the holidays?’ Jodie asked. ‘Did they just, like, dump you?’
‘On the contrary. I dumped them,’ said Harley. ‘I couldn’t stand the idea of going home. Well, there isn’t a home any more. My ma’s rented out her London flat. She and the moneyman are spending their summer on a bloody great yacht in the Greek islands. I get seasick in a rowing boat on the Serpentine, and even if I didn’t, their uninterrupted company would make me puke. So I opted to stay put here. They could hardly contain their joy and delight.’
‘I think you’re a bit cracked,’ said Jodie. ‘I’d fancy life on a luxury yacht, wouldn’t you, Pearl?’
I shrugged. ‘It depends who with.’
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‘Hey, pity you didn’t make it right through to Y
with your internet shopping, Harley. You could have bought your own yacht, then we could sail round with you. We wouldn’t make you puke, would we?’
‘Well, Pearl’s OK. You’d maybe make me retch a little bit every now and then,’ said Harley.
‘Cheek!’ Jodie took her paintbrush and dabbed it up at him, streaking his nose purple.
‘Jodie!’
Harley dabbed her back, giving her a purple beard.
‘Stop it, you two!’ I shrieked.
They turned to me, and I ended up with two purple ears and a long purple streak in my hair.
‘Oh God, I didn’t mean it to go in your hair, Pearl.
I do hope it washes off, babe,’ said Jodie, looking worried. ‘Still, purple’s a cool colour. Maybe I should have a streak too. Do you think it would clash with the orange? Let’s be the Purplehairs. Come on, Harley, join the club. I’ll paint your curls. It’ll give you a punky kind of edge.’
Mum went crazy when she saw us. She sent Harley off, and then scrubbed my ears with white spirit until I thought they would fall right off. She washed my hair with it too, sitting me in the bath and attacking me with a flannel as if I was a baby.
She couldn’t quite haul Jodie into the bath too, but she made her wash her own hair.
Dad thought it funny, which made Mum even madder. When she left me alone at last, my ears were no longer purple, they were dark red, like raw meat. I put my hands over them, my head still ringing.
‘I’m sorry, Pearl,’ said Jodie. She sat on my bed 167
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and gave me a cuddle. ‘I know I started it.’
‘You always start it,’ I said, sighing.
‘I know, I know. I’m a meany old sister. No wonder you’re fed up with me.’
‘What makes you think I’m fed up with you?’ I said.
‘Well, you just want to go round with old Harley Not Davidson now,’ said Jodie.
‘No I don’t!’ I said, though I could feel myself going red.
‘It’s OK. He’s OK, in a weird geeky kind of way.
So what does it feel like to have a boyfriend?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I said, going even redder.
‘Yes he is! You cheeky little squirt – I didn’t have a boyfriend when I was ten.’
‘I’m very nearly eleven. And he’s not my boyfriend. He’s just my friend.’
‘So what sex is he? He’s a boy, right? So that makes him a boyfriend by my reckoning. And this from the girl who said not so long ago that she didn’t ever ever ever want a boyfriend.’
‘You said it too!’
‘Yeah, well, I haven’t got a boyfriend yet. Though I’m working hard on Jed.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’
‘Don’t you think he’s really good looking?’ said Jodie.
‘Yes, but he’s grown up, Jodie!’
‘So am I, nearly,’ said Jodie, unpinning her hair and shaking it out in a little red cloud around her head.
‘Yes. Exactly. You watch out,’ I said. I thought of Jed and his dark gypsy eyes and his wild hair and his swagger. ‘I don’t like him, Jodie. He’s kind of 168
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creepy. He makes me go all shivery.’
‘He makes me go shivery too,’ said Jodie, running her fingers through her hair, pretending to act sexy.
‘Stop it,’ I said, giving her a little push. ‘You watch out. Don’t do anything with him, will you?’
‘Like what?’ said Jodie.
‘ You know. Kiss him.’
‘I bet he’s a seriously great snogger,’ said Jodie.
She started kissing her own arm in a slurping sort of way, murmuring, ‘ Oh, Jed, oh, Jed. ’
‘You are bad,’ I said.
‘No, you’re the bad girl. At least I keep my clothes on when I’m around Jed. You’re the girl who strips off and flashes her knickers at her boyfriend.’
‘I didn’t mean to! Stop teasing me,’ I said, giving her another push.
She pushed me back and we ended up having a push-and-shove wrestling match on the bed. Jodie was stronger than me but I managed to get one arm free and started tickling her. She creased up laughing and we both rolled over and giggled like crazy, lying on our backs. Jodie took hold of my hand.
‘You still love me best though, don’t you, Pearl?’
‘You know I’ll love you best for ever and ever and ever,’ I said.
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It was a real Japanese gown in red silk.
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12
When we woke up, Mum was hanging our black velvet curtains at the window.
‘Oh, Mum! Have you made them already?’ I said, sitting up and hugging my knees.
‘Well, I don’t know who else would have been fool enough to stay up till past midnight stitching away at the damn things. Black velvet! I’ve never heard of such a thing. You could have made this room so fresh and pretty and yet you’ve turned it into a funeral parlour,’ said Mum.
‘OK, start mourning your little corpse daughters,’
said Jodie, crossing her h
ands on her chest and lying back on her bed. She rolled her eyes up and opened her mouth slightly, looking so alarmingly dead I hit her with my pillow.
‘Stop messing around, you pair of idiots,’ said Mum. ‘There! Well, they drape nicely, I’ll say that for them. You might as well have the black rug now, Pearl, to set them off.’
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‘Is it still my birthday present?’
‘Well. Part of it. I was thinking, maybe you’d like a little party,’ said Mum, sounding hopeful.
She’d always longed to give Jodie and me a proper girly party, where we wore pretty dresses and played old-fashioned games like Musical Bumps and Pass the Parcel and ate sausages on sticks and trifle and fairy cakes.
Jodie had always been up for a party, especially her own, but she’d wanted to wear her jeans and play Murder and eat takeaway pizzas. The last time she’d had a party she’d started a mad game of football in the living room and broken Mum’s Lladro china lady. That put an end to Jodie’s parties.
Mum had tried hard to encourage me along the party route but I was always far too shy.
‘You know I don’t like parties,’ I said now. ‘Can’t I just have a birthday tea?’
‘We could turn it into a little party,’ said Mum.
‘We could ask those three poor little moppets. I bet they’ve never been to a party in their lives. Think how they’d love it.’
I imagined Zeph jumping up and down for Musical Bumps, Sakura delicately opening a parcel, Dan with trifle all round his mouth, and I couldn’t help smiling.
‘All right, if it’s just them,’ I said.
‘Don’t you want that Harley to come too?’ said Mum.
I swallowed. ‘I don’t think he’d want to come to a party,’ I said.
‘Rubbish!’ said Jodie. ‘He’d want to come to your party, Pearl. OK, so your party guests are the three 172
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littlies and long tall Harley and me. Do I get to invite someone too?’
‘It depends,’ said Mum. ‘Who do you want to invite? Not that Miss French and her wretched dog!’
Jodie spluttered.
‘Well, you’ve got very thick with her. I dare say she’s a perfectly nice lady but she’s a bit full of herself, if you ask me. And I’m not having that Shep. He’ll wreck the place, and anyway, Pearl’s frightened of him.’