Blue Lavender Girl (11 page)

Today I was feeling a bit disappointed that all the excitement was over. Then I opened the door and there on the doorstep was a big bunch of lavender, like before! This time the note was unsigned and said to come to the Blue Lavender Tea Palace at nine o’clock tonight and to wear my special dress. I changed at Jenny’s and made sure I looked as good as the other night.

When I got to the Tea Palace I saw that although most of the decorations and things had been removed, the party lights were still up, and the whole thing looked magical. Jackson was standing there in his suit and we couldn’t stop smiling at each other. He had music playing from a music system, and
didn’t say a word to me, just took my hand and waltzed with me around the dance floor, and then we did a foxtrot and another waltz, (thank God not a rumba, because I look like a stunned chicken doing that). He held me really close, like he didn’t care about having the hold right; I didn’t care either, I just wanted to be near him. He said he had wanted to dance with me ever since I called him those very-bad-but-creative names the first time we met, since the first time he saw my eyes full of fire. I told him I had wanted to dance with him since, ‘Ohhh, about Wednesday,’ and he laughed and said that no-one has a brain quite like mine and that I wasn’t getting away this time.

Then we went for a walk in the lavender field and he just pulled me close and kissed me. It’s the first time I’ve been kissed without a million other people around and rock music blaring and it was VERY nice. In fact they need to invent a whole new word for how nice it was.

He loved it when he noticed that I was wearing my old black boots underneath the dress, and I explained that those other kinds of shoes are great, but not for having adventures in. For some reason that made him kiss me again.

We were talking laughing and kissing and dancing until it was almost midnight and I had to do my Cinderella act again. I can’t
believe
it. I’m going to just lie here and think about it for hours.

In the last two weeks since the party there have been so many family meetings and phone calls and goodbyes. I don’t feel the same need to write in this diary now as I feel so excited and happy, instead of angry and annoyed like before. The
great
news is that I am going to the same boarding school as Jenny, starting next week! They do such
amazing
subjects, I even get to learn to play the electric guitar! I get to do ballet too, which will help with my
ballroom dancing. Jenny and Libby and I have applied to room together and have made a pact to work hard and be top of the year, which will definitely be a first for me! They say it’s a cool place, that you actually want to do the stuff because they make it so interesting.

I just got my school book list and there’s a hundred things on there, but I know I can do it. Especially as the first novel I need to read for English is
Jane Eyre
!! Sorted!

The old couple have moved into a seniors’ centre and can’t take Buddy, so I get to
keep
him! They told me they’d miss him, but they knew I’d look after him really well. I think he’s one of the things I’m happiest about! He may be a funny-looking dog, but he’s
MY
dog now, and I love him. My new school has a kennel for dogs so I don’t have to worry about Mum developing any mysterious allergies!

I have been at home for the last week, and I now bring my mum a cup of tea every morning and she loves that, and we chat for a few minutes before she starts her day. I have been helping out a bit at the kids’ club she runs for the church and I really get why she stays late, there’s so much to get done. She loves the meals I’ve been cooking too, and Aidan is
home so he’s been teaching me even
more
recipes.

When I told Dad about how I learned to ballroom dance, he pulled back the sofa and did a quickstep with me. I had
no
idea he could do that! Then he showed me the train tickets they have bought to get me home from school every second weekend. I think that I’ll get on much better with them this way, I won’t get so grumpy and take them for granted. Dad and I are even having conversations, mostly about ordinary things, but I like that.

I know I’ll miss Kira and Dee, but you do need to move on with your own life sometimes. I like them a lot, I just don’t really like myself when I’m with them.

I am allowed to go to Aunt Maisie’s for mid-term, and Jackson is working on his parents so he can be at the Big House at the same time. Jenny will be with her parents in New York for that week, but she says that Jackson and Bob’s school and ours are always meeting up for dances and debates and sports matches, so we’ll all be back together really soon.

I am sitting in the same room as when the power cut happened. It’s the same room, but so much better. It’s funny how the whole world changed when I did.

Hope you enjoyed Tia’s story, now meet Tammy in
Copper Girl

I wish I was international, you know, jet set and everything. That way I could be booking a plane ticket somewhere and not just sitting in the bedroom I’ve had for the past fourteen years re-reading my
text messages. ‘Chat 2 ya! Mmwah! CU xxx’; that’s all it said, like she was going off to dance class and I’d see her after!

I was minding the shop when it first came through and I was so angry I almost threw the phone at the Pringles display. I thought that it should
mean
something to her that our little group is being split up, at least for the summer. Charlie’s Dad is
such
a pain; he hasn’t even called her much since Christmas, but then he sends for her to join him in Canada without even thinking that she might have a life. What pisses me off most is that Charlie didn’t seem to care about months of being ignored by him and all those conversations we had about it, instead she got all excited about Vancouver and sailing and her Dad’s dog and stuff and didn’t even ask me how I was going to survive on my own.

I spent this evening downstairs minding the shop, pretending to study and dying to get back to my room so I could cry. My eyes kept welling up and I had to pretend to all the regulars that I had hayfever.

At least Hellie will be around for another week, but then it’s worse because she doesn’t expect to be back
EVER
. She’s another one who could work a bit harder at being upset! You’d swear all this was normal. And it’s worst for me because I’ll be doing
the same things as usual except on my own. They’ll be having real adventures and meeting amazing people.

They are the best friends I’ve ever had and at fifteen I’m way too old for getting new ones. I can’t think of one other person I know who I could stand for more than a minute-and-a-half.

I don’t want Mum to hear me crying in case she thinks it’s about Gran and gets all upset herself. I mean, I
am
still upset about that, but I find I can only really cry about one thing at a time, otherwise I get all confused, and the tears stop, and I just feel a more muddy kind of awful.

I have started writing this because last night I saw a film about a girl who found a diary that a girl wrote two hundred years ago and it was
really
interesting. Maybe this will be interesting in the twenty-third century, because God knows there is nothing good about my life right now. In fact the best thing is Johnny Saunders and I only ever walk past him at the bus stop and don’t even say anything. Next week I won’t even have that, because the exams will be over.

Maybe I should explain about cars and microwaves and iPods and all that, but I suppose they will have better history books in two centuries
time, so they won’t need those kinds of details from me. I would
love
it if I was important or did something like a really historical person.

Copper Girl
by Judy May, Out Now!

Copper Girl
by Judy May, 2006

ISBN-10: 0–86278–990–7

ISBN:-13: 978–0–86278–990–9

For other great O’Brien books check out our website

JUDY MAY grew up in Dublin and is an international traveller and adventurer. She has visited over thirty different countries and has lived in Kathmandu, Paris and New York. She has a degree in Drama and a Masters in literature from Trinity College, Dublin. Her ballroom dancing teachers are Ian Waite and Camilla Dallerup from the BBC’s
Strictly Come Dancing
series.