It was also strange that everyone made such a fuss if I drew a few dinosaurs, whereas Angie found it funny when Matty made Scaly and Spiky-Thumb attack each other savagely. I knew why, of course. I was the girl who’d gone a bit weird ever since her mum had left her.
Matty was a bouncy girl with a lovely family so nobody thought she was weird, no matter what she did. I was a droopy girl with only half a family so Dad and Aunty Sue and Miss Hope were worried that I was disturbed when I was just playing normally. It wasn’t fair.
It also wasn’t fair that Matty was going to be a bridesmaid on Saturday, wearing the most beautiful dress in the world – and I wasn’t.
‘Matty’s soooo lucky,’ I said to Dad as he was driving me home.
‘Yes, she is,’ said Dad.
‘I wish I was going to be a bridesmaid.’
‘I know, love.’
‘I’ve never ever been to a wedding.’
‘Come to think of it, neither have I,’ said Dad.
I didn’t say anything else until we got home. It wasn’t bedtime yet. Dad suggested we might watch a DVD together, but there wasn’t anything I fancied. Dad brought out the battered cardboard box of Ludo that he’d had when he was a boy. We played one game, but it wasn’t really exciting when it was just the two of us. So then we just sat on the sofa together, staring into space.
‘Dad?’ I said.
‘Yes?’
‘Dad, why didn’t you and Mum get married?’
‘Well . . . not all mums and dads marry, you know.’
‘Yes, but didn’t Mum want a lovely wedding?’ I couldn’t help thinking that if Mum and Dad had been properly married, she mightn’t have gone away. If they’d been married, it would have taken a while before they could get divorced. Mum would still belong to us until then.
‘Mum didn’t fancy a wedding at all,’ said Dad. ‘She laughed at the idea. She said she couldn’t stand the idea of prancing about in a white dress. She was always so funny and lively and unconventional. She always wanted to do things differently. You know what she was like, Tilly.’
‘Yes,’ I said uncertainly.
‘You do remember her, don’t you?’ asked Dad, looking startled.
‘Yes, of course I do. But I don’t know how to think about her. Sometimes I just love her and want her so much. And sometimes I hate her for going away and not coming back,’ I said in a very small voice.
‘I feel exactly the same way,’ said Dad, and he reached out and pulled me close for a cuddle. ‘Tell you what,’ he added, talking into my hair. ‘We’ll have a very special day out on Saturday. Where would you like to go?’
‘Not the zoo,’ I said.
‘Not the zoo,’ said Dad. ‘Perhaps we could go shopping at the Flowerfields Centre?’
I knew Dad hated going shopping, especially at the Flowerfields Centre. I rather wanted to go, but I shook my head.
‘Then how about an amusement park?’ Dad suggested. ‘You know, one with those roller-coaster rides.’
I thought about it. I knew Matty would be wildly envious if I told her I’d been to one. She was forever begging her mum and dad to take her, but they wouldn’t because they thought Lewis was too little.
I’d never admit it to Matty in a million years but I felt I was maybe too little too. I hated the thought of being up so high and then swooping down, screaming my head off. I imagined my head literally unscrewing and spinning through the air like a ball.
‘I think I might feel a bit sick on a roller-coaster ride,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s a relief. I didn’t really fancy it either,’ said Dad. ‘We’ll cross an amusement park off our list. So, how about a park park? A big ornamental park with a lake and statues and little bridges?’
It sounded a bit boring, but I said yes. And it was actually quite interesting. There was an amazing crystal grotto like a very big dark cave with thousands of crystals glittering all around us. I held Dad’s hand and imagined little goblins scuttling about our feet. I tried to get Dad to join in making up a little tribe of goblins, but he wasn’t very good at it. He just started listing Dopey and Sneezy and all those other dwarfs in Snow White.
Then we climbed up to a Turkish tent at the top of a little hill and sat in it surveying the grounds below. Dad told me that servants used to come with refreshments for eighteenth-century people visiting the garden.
‘What sort of refreshments?’ I asked, wishing they still came now.
‘Well, it’s a Turkish tent, so perhaps they served Turkish coffee and Turkish delight,’ said Dad, trying hard, because he knew he’d failed at the goblin game.
‘Right, you pour the coffee and I’ll open the box of Turkish delight,’ I said, pretending.
‘Oh look, I just happen to have some Turkish delight in my pocket,’ said Dad.
It wasn’t actual Turkish delight, it was a handful of Quality Street in shiny paper, which was actually even better. Dad let me have the caramel and nut wrapped in purple. He had a thin yellow toffee stick. Then I twisted the coloured wrappers round my finger and turned them into tiny glasses, and we toasted each other and drank pretend wine.
The best place of all in the park was a little castle up another hill. It looked just like a picture in a fairy-tale book.
‘Can we go inside?’ I begged.
‘I think it’s just a folly, a pretend castle,’ said Dad, but he was wrong.
There was a door, and you could go up a winding staircase right to the top and peer out of the turrets. All the rooms were disappointingly empty.
‘Well, they’re just waiting for us to move in and furnish it,’ said Dad. Then he saw the excitement on my face. ‘I’m pretending!’ he added quickly.
It was still fun deciding on beautiful crimson carpets as soft as fur so we could pad about barefoot, and huge velvet sofas and Chinese cabinets for all our things, and two four-poster beds, a big one for Dad and a little one for me. It was strange how we could furnish the castle so splendidly when we didn’t have a clue how to make our new house a comfortable home.
We stayed in the castle a long time, pretending we were the king and the princess of all the land, the meadows, the woods, all the way to the hazy blue hills on the horizon.
‘Happy?’ said Dad.
‘Yes, happy-happy-happy,’ I said.
We came down from the castle and walked all the way back through the park, our feet aching now. We spotted a walled kitchen garden near the entrance.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Let’s see what we’re growing, and then I’ll decide what to cook for us for our supper, O King.’
‘Promise it’s not turnips, Princess,’ said Dad, playing along with me.
But we were distracted from our vegetable survey by music and laughter coming from behind the wall. We went to have a look. There was a long white marquee all lit up with sparkling lights, with people in lovely clothes gathered inside.
‘It’s a party just for us!’ I said. And then I realized. I saw a lady in a long white frock and a man in a black suit cutting a huge tiered cake. It wasn’t a party. It was a wedding.
It wasn’t Matty’s Aunt Rachel’s wedding. These bridesmaids wore primrose yellow. They’d have looked much prettier in raspberry pink. One of them looked round and stared at us.
‘Come on, we can’t gatecrash a wedding,’ said Dad.
We went back to the car park and drove home. We didn’t pretend. We weren’t in the mood any more.
Chapter Five
THERE WERE LOTS of official photographs taken at Matty’s Aunt Rachel’s wedding but I didn’t get to see them until later. I just saw the photos on Matty’s mobile phone. She smuggled it into school and showed me in the girls’ toilets at break time. They were mostly selfies: Matty and her aunt, in her white bridal gown holding her bouquet of deep pink roses; Matty and her two cousins, all in raspberry pink; Matty and Lewis and a boy cousin, all of them sticking out their tongues; Matty still sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes too; Matty licking her
lips holding a huge ice-cream sundae. Someone else had taken photos of Matty on the dance floor, with a big stain all down the front of her bridesmaid’s dress.
‘Oh no, you’ve spilled something on it!’ I gasped.
‘What? Only a little bit. Well, I didn’t get any on the skirt.’
‘But what’s the matter with the skirt? It’s all hanging down at the back!’
‘It’s just the way I’m dancing. Oh no, wait a minute. I was mucking about under the table—’
‘In your dress?’
‘Shut up! You sound just like my nan. She was nag, nag, nag at me all day long, and she kept grabbing hold of me, licking a corner of her lacy hankie and then scrubbing at my face. Yuck! Anyway, when I got up from under the table, I caught the stupid heel of my pink shoes in the hem of my skirt, so perhaps that’s why it’s hanging down,’ said Matty.
‘Oh, Matty, you’re hopeless,’ I said.
‘Yeah, that’s what Nan and everyone kept saying. But Uncle Ethan was laughing at me – he’s the one Aunt Rachel married. He’s much, much nicer than Aunt Rachel. He gave all us bridesmaids presents. He gave my cousins Lucy and Rebecca dinky little silver bracelets, but do you know what he got me? A silver Swiss Army knife, those ones with all the little gadgets. It’s seriously cool. I wanted to bring it to school but Mum said I might do someone serious damage and wouldn’t let me. Wait till you next come to tea, Tilly. You’ll be very impressed.’
‘So long as you don’t do me serious damage,’ I said.
‘Don’t be daft – you’re my best ever friend. And I’ve got a special present for you, only I mustn’t say what it is. Mum says it’ll spoil the surprise.’
‘Go on, tell me!’ I said, all agog.
‘Nope. My lips are zipped,’ said Matty, miming it. ‘But you’ll like it, honestly.’
I couldn’t think what it could be. Perhaps it was a present from the wedding. Amanda had been a bridesmaid at a wedding and she’d brought a little white net bag tied with a white ribbon into school. She said it was a wedding favour. There were pink and white sugared almonds in the bag and she shared them with Cathy and me. I wasn’t actually that keen on sugared almonds but I felt honoured all the same.
Perhaps Matty was going to give me another wedding favour? But she seemed extra excited about this present. Maybe it was more than a few sugared almonds? Maybe Matty’s Uncle Ethan had given her a dinky silver bracelet as well as a Swiss Army knife? I would love a silver bracelet! I became extra excited too.
I hoped Matty would invite me to tea that very day, but she didn’t. She didn’t invite me the next day either, though I’d told Aunty Sue I was sure she would.
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep messing me about, Tilly,’ she said. ‘Your dad says you can go to Matty’s house any time you want, but it’s not very considerate to me. I get your tea and sometimes your supper in specially, and then at a drop of a hat you say you’re not coming so it’s all wasted!’
I didn’t see how my tea and supper could be wasted. Teacakes kept for weeks in the cupboard and frozen pizza kept for months in the freezer. Aunty Sue liked to moan just for the sake of it. I wished I didn’t have to go to her house. The days I didn’t go to Matty’s I’d be absolutely fine at home. I could make myself a sandwich and read a book and watch a DVD and draw and colour perfectly well all by myself.
I tried to remember what it was like when Mum was still with us and she came to fetch me from school. We had whippy ice creams on the way home, sometimes with two kinds of sauce and a chocolate flake. We played very loud music and danced. We even danced up and down on the beds. We pretended that we lived in Greenland and the duvet was our igloo and Stripy teddy was a polar bear. Mum gave us each a big bar of chocolate and we pretended it was whale meat and blubber. We laughed and laughed, saying the word blubber over and over again.
We were always laughing in those days. We played dressing up, getting all Mum’s clothes out of her wardrobe. She made me up to look like a fashion model and bought me a long blonde wig so I looked like a fairy princess. We painted together in Mum’s room – she painted on canvas and she let me paint straight on to the wall.
When Mum left and Dad decided we had to move away and make a fresh start, he had to paint those walls over and over in white paint to cover up all my silly scribbles.
It wasn’t always like that though, painting and laughing and playing games. But I didn’t want to think about those times. It was generally safer not to think about Mum at all.
I had a whole long list of good things to think about. There was Dad for a start. My new blue bedroom. All my favourite books. My big set of Caran d’Ache crayons. Fish and chips for supper most Saturdays. And top, top, top of the list, my best friend Matty.
I kept wondering what this mysterious present was going to be.
‘I think you can come to tea on Wednesday,’ said Matty. ‘But we won’t know for sure till Mum comes to collect us. I have to check it’s back.’
‘What’s back?’
‘Ah, that would be telling!’ said Matty, maddeningly.
I ran out into the playground with her on Wednesday afternoon. Angie was smiling and she did a thumbs-up sign to her.
‘Hurray, it is back!’ said Matty. ‘OK, you have to come to tea right now!’
‘Just let me tell Aunty Sue,’ I said.
Aunty Sue wasn’t at all pleased. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times, Tilly, you have to give me some warning. If I’d known you didn’t need me, I’d have gone into town or popped to the garden centre or had a cup of tea with one of my friends. But I’ve made the effort to come and meet you instead, so you must come home with me. You can go to tea with Matty tomorrow.’
‘Can’t you still do all those things now?’ I asked.
‘No I can’t. It’s too late in the day. And your daddy wants me to take you home and give you your tea. So stop arguing, dear,’ said Aunty Sue. She said the word ‘dear’ as if it meant ‘annoying little girl’.
‘But Dad likes me to go to tea with Matty. And he pays you just the same each week, whether you have to look after me or not,’ I said.
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that!’ said Aunty Sue, little pink patches standing out on her face. ‘I shall have to have a word with your father. I’m not having a nine-year-old lay down the law to me.’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Matty, running up to us. ‘Oh please, dear Aunty Sue, you absolutely have to let Tilly come to tea with me tonight because we’ve got her a ginormous surprise and if I have to wait till tomorrow I shall simply burst. You do understand, don’t you, Aunty Sue?’
‘I understand that you’re an affected little madam and you’re a bad influence on Tilly,’ said Aunty Sue. She said it under her breath. Perhaps she didn’t mean us to hear, but we did.
We stared at her, shocked. Angie sensed something was wrong and came over to us, Lewis skipping along beside her.
‘Hello! We’re hoping Tilly can come to tea tonight, if it’s all right with you?’ she said politely.
‘No, it’s not all right,’ said Aunty Sue. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m going to phone your father, Tilly, and tell him he’ll have to find someone else to look after you. Goodbye.’ She turned on her heel and marched off by herself.
‘Oh goodness,’ said Angie. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her.’
‘I upset her,’ said Matty. ‘She said I was affected and a bad influence.’
‘But you’re not! Not a bit. She’s horrid to say that,’ I said fiercely. ‘She was really upset with me, because I’d much, much sooner go to tea with you than with her.’
‘Still, I think your dad might be upset with all of us, because Sue has gone off in a huff and maybe won’t look after you any more, Tilly,’ said Angie.
‘Tilly doesn’t need Aunty Sue. She’s got us. She can come to tea with us every day, can’t she, Mum?’
‘Of course she can,’ said Angie. ‘Would you like that, Tilly?’
‘I would absolutely love it!
’ I said, though I was a tiny bit worried that Dad would fuss.
But then I forgot to be worried, because as soon as we got to Matty’s home she said, ‘Let’s give Tilly her present now, Mum, please!’
Angie smiled and went to fetch something in a big protective bag. There was a glimmer of pink inside the thick plastic.
‘Can you guess what it is, Tilly?’ Matty said excitedly.
My heart was thumping hard in my chest. Angie unzipped the plastic, and there was the raspberry-pink bridesmaid’s dress, soft and silky and unsullied.
‘I’ve just collected it from the dry cleaner’s,’ said Angie. ‘They’ve got that horrible stain off and turned up the torn hem. It’s as good as new now. We all wanted you to have it, Tilly, because you looked so beautiful in it.’
‘You can play dressing up as a princess,’ said Matty. ‘And if anyone you know is getting married, you can offer to be their bridesmaid with a ready-made dress.’
‘But it’s your dress, Matty. What if you need to be a bridesmaid again?’ I asked.
‘Never ever again!’ she said. ‘And luckily no one in my family will ever ask me now.’
‘You’d better phone your dad, Tilly, and tell him where you are,’ said Angie.
My heart started thumping all over again. I hated worrying Dad. Angie dialled his number and then gave the phone to me.
‘Pickard Brown Chartered Accountants, Michael speaking, how can I help you?’ said Dad in his work voice.
‘It’s me, Dad,’ I said, in a very small voice. ‘It’s about Aunty Sue.’
‘I know. She’s already been on the phone to me. I gather you were cheeky to her,’ said Dad.
‘I didn’t mean to be. And then she was cheeky to Matty and me.’
‘Well, don’t let’s go into it now. I’ll come and pick you up from Matty’s house when I get home from work – and then I’ll try to find someone else to fetch you from school in the future,’ said Dad wearily.