Fruit and Nutcase (18 page)

What was totally and utterly amazing was that he knew all their names. I’d say, “What’s this pink one?” and he’d say, “That’s an anemone.” And then I’d say, “What’s the blue one?” and he’d say, “That’s a delphinium.”

He probably couldn’t spell them (neither can I!) but he knew all there is to know about them,
like what sort of soil they grow in and when you have to plant them and whether they’re the kind that come up every year or the kind that die out.

Being really interested in flowers myself, because of the garden that I am one day going to have, I learnt as much as I could and tried to store it all inside my head. What I did was I drew pictures of all the flowers that Oliver had grown and put their names by them.

I bet Tracey Bigg doesn’t know half as much as Oliver! I bet she doesn’t know anything. I think Oliver’s really clever, being able to grow all those flowers and remember their names. Nobody helped him. He did it all on his own. I thought to myself that I would tell Cat about Oliver’s flower garden when we went back to school. She’d be dead impressed! It’s almost as good as writing a book.

Maybe
as
good. In a different way.

Oliver was only staying with his nan for three weeks. After that, he and his mum and dad were off to Ireland to live in a caravan for a bit. I would love
to stay in a caravan! I think it would be really neat.

You would have little beds one on top of the other, and little tables that folded away when you didn’t want to use them, and a little stove for cooking on, and a little teeny bathroom with a shower.

Everything would be lovely and warm and cosy and if you met someone you didn’t like, such as for example Tracey Bigg, you would simply drive on to somewhere else.

Oliver said that the caravan he and his mum and dad stay in in Ireland isn’t the sort that you could drive places in. It is in a caravan park and cemented to the ground.

I don’t care. It would still be fun!

I felt a bit miserable when Oliver went off to Ireland. I suppose I’d sort of got used to having him around. He promised he’d send me a postcard with an Irish stamp on it, and he did! It’s lovely. On the front there’s this picture of a little funny creature that Nan said was called a leprechaun
and on the back he’d written a message:

It wasn’t much of a message, I suppose, but it gave me a happy feeling, especially as nobody had ever sent me a postcard before. Also I know that it is very difficult for Oliver to pick up a pen and write real words. I expect his mum and dad had to help him. He is a worse speller even than me!

He is also funny – he makes me laugh when he does his Tracey Bigg rhymes! – but a bit pathetic, as well, so from now on I am going to look after him. We have vowed that we will stay together, and when Tracey Bigg or the Murdo gang start their nonsense I will stick up for us. Oliver has said that he will stick up for us, as well, but I don’t think it would be wise to rely on him. But that is all right! I can do it for both of us.

I won’t mind so much about going back to school now that Oliver and me have decided to be friends. It’s not so bad if you have someone
to go round with. You can share things and have secrets and tell each other jokes. And we can sit together in class and choose each other for partners. And it won’t matter if people jeer and sneer and say we’re no-hopers, ‘cos there’ll be two of us.

Anyway, we’re not! Oliver has his flower bed, and I have written a book!

Well, nearly. When I’ve finished this chapter I will have.

Once a week while I was at Nan’s, Mum and Dad rang me to report how they were getting on at their classes. They were ever so excited about it! Mum said, “We’re coming along a treat, Mandy! The teacher said that being willing to learn is half the battle.”

Dad said, “We’ll be reformed characters. You’ll see!”

Nan still wouldn’t let them come and visit me. She said that they had got to learn how to stand on their own two feet, and that it would only unsettle me. She said, “You’re doing very nicely. I don’t want them coming and setting you back again.”

Wow! It was news to me that I was doing very nicely. I’d thought I was just one big pain
in the you-know-what.

Then one day Auntie Liz rang up and I listened at the door while Nan was speaking to her.

I know you’re not supposed to eavesdrop but I wanted to hear if Nan talked about me, which she did, so I reckon that made it OK. If people are going to talk about you then I think it’s only fair you should be able to listen to what they’re saying. That’s what I think.

Anyway, this is what I heard Nan say. She said, “As a matter of fact, her manners have improved by leaps and bounds since she’s been with us. She’s quite a different child, you’d hardly know her.”

Next Auntie Liz said something that I couldn’t hear, and then Nan said, “I don’t think you’d need have any worries. She’s
not a bad girl at heart. I’m really quite proud of her.”

Help! Faint!

That weekend, Uncle Allan and Auntie Liz came to visit, and they brought Jade with them. Jade remembered me! She was ever so happy to see me, she cried, “Mandy, Mandy!” and came running over for a cuddle. I remembered my manners and talked dead posh, just like the Queen and was as good as good can be. They let me take Jade into the garden and we played skipping games and hopping games and I didn’t use gutter language once!

When they went home that evening Auntie Liz said, “Well, Mandy! We’ll have to see about getting you down to visit us some time.”

I never
ever
thought she’d let me go to Croydon again. It didn’t exactly make up for
being away from Mum and Dad, but it did give me this lovely warm feeling of being approved of.

Yah boo and sucks to Tracey Bigg! I bet she hasn’t got a little cousin like Jade.

I was so grateful to Nan for telling Auntie Liz nice things about me that I thought I really ought to start making more of an effort to be helpful to her, and I racked my brains thinking what I could do. She wouldn’t let me check her shopping lists or make suggestions about what to give Grandy for his tea. But there had to be something!

And then I had an idea and thought that as a surprise I would re-organise her kitchen for her while she was upstairs one day having her afternoon nap. I did this for Mum, once, and she was ever so pleased. She said, “Oh, Mandy, that’s brilliant!” It was, too. Before I got at it Mum’s kitchen had been a proper mess, what with saucepans on the floor and the chip pan under the cooker (once we even found
mouse droppings
in it).