Lottie Project (8 page)

‘Still. I bet you’re going to be the best-ever squeakiest-cleanest cleaner they’ve ever had,’ I said.

‘The start of a whole new career,’ said Jo. ‘Do you think I’ll make it to the Champion Floor Cleaning Polish trials, hmm?’

‘You bet. So you’d better get into training quick. When do you start?’

‘Tomorrow.’ I heard Jo gulp. ‘At six. In the morning. Oh, Charlie, I must be mad. I could claim income support and lie in bed till noon.’

‘Still, you don’t have to fib to Grandma any more. You really have got a job.’

‘I can just imagine what she’ll say when she finds out I’m a cleaner.’

‘No, you’re not a
cleaner
. You’re . . . you’re a state-of-the-floor supervisor, right?’

‘You’re a sweet kid, Charlie.’

‘I was a snotty kid earlier. You coming home then? I’m starving.’

‘Yes, I’ve just got to buy something for tea. I hoped I might get staff discount at this supermarket but that’s only for the women working the tills.’

‘Get some red treats for a bedroom picnic to celebrate your job.’

‘Hey, we’re economizing.’

‘Very cheap red treats?’

‘Do you think baked beans could be called red?’

‘Just. Get some red plums for pudding.’

‘Or red apples. And a block of raspberry ripple ice cream?’

‘Yes! And what about a strawberry gâteau?’

‘I think that’s coming it a bit, old girl. Beans, plums and ice cream, that’ll do. I’ll be home soon then. You get the trays ready.’

I padded about the kitchen thinking we really should have a cake to celebrate properly. I remembered this ancient packet of cake mix I’d won on a tombola at the school fête donkey’s years ago. I had a poke around the kitchen cupboard and found it crumpled behind some tins of soup. Jo didn’t go in for making cakes and the only sort I’d ever made were pretend pink dough ones when I was a little kid, but this packet sort looked a doddle. You just had to add an egg. I found one egg in a box at the back of the fridge. I thought back to when we’d last had scrambled eggs and it was only about a fortnight ago so it should be all right.

I tipped the contents of the cake mix packet into
a
bowl, swished the egg around until it was all sticky, scooped the lot into the tin and shoved it in the oven. Easy-peasy, simple-pimple.

‘What’s that lovely smell?’ said Jo when she came in the door.

‘A surprise. Hey, congratulations.’

‘I’ve got
two
jobs! I phoned the number where they want someone to look after the little boy as well as do a bit of cleaning. That’s in the afternoon, so it’ll be easy to fit that in too.’

‘Where are you going to look after this little boy then? Not round here, I hope,’ I said. ‘I don’t want him messing up all my stuff.’

‘He sounds a nice sensible little boy, though he’s very shy. I spoke to him on the phone. And his dad sounds nice too, though ever so sad. His wife left and he’s trying to cope on his own.’

‘We cope fine on
our
own,’ I said. ‘Look, you’re a cleaner now. Why don’t you just stick to cleaning jobs. You don’t want to be a nanny too.’

‘It’s seventy-five pounds a week. That’s not bad. If I could find just one more job like that to fit in midmorning then we’d be laughing,’ said Jo. ‘Hey, is your surprise all right? It’s not burning, is it?’

It had burnt just a little bit, but only around the edges. I decided to cut them off – and then I went on cutting and trimming, turning the round sponge into two letters, a big ‘J’ and a small round circle for the ‘o’. We didn’t have any icing so I smeared some
strawberry
jam on the top and then studded both letters with Smarties.

‘That looks wonderful,’ said Jo. ‘Hey, you’re really good at this.’

I don’t want to sound disgustingly boastful, but it really wasn’t bad for a first attempt.

I added a line to my work advert:

MAKES EXCELLENT CAKES.

I didn’t show Jo my advert. I wanted to surprise her. But when I took my advert into the newsagent’s and asked Mr Raj to put it in the window he shook his head.

‘You can’t work. You’re just a little girl,’ he said.

‘Girls work just as well as boys.
Better
,’ I said indignantly.

‘It’s not because you’re a girl. You’re too young. You couldn’t do any proper work.’

‘Yes I could! Look, a hundred years ago I could work full time as someone’s servant. I could be scrubbing all day. I’m doing this project about it for school, see.’

‘That’s what you should be doing at your age. Concentrating on your school work.’

‘You don’t get paid for doing school work.’

‘You kids. Just wanting money money money. What do you want? A bike? Roller blades? A computer? My kids want all these things, nag nag nag. If the boy don’t turn up to deliver the newspapers and I ask my boy to help me out then it’s “How much money will you pay me?”’

‘
I’ll
do a newspaper round,’ I said.

‘You can’t. You’re too little. It’s against the law, see. Times have moved on since your history project. Kids aren’t allowed to work.’

I could see I was wasting my time. I tried the newsagent’s down in the town but he said the same. So I decided to use my initiative. I’m quite good at that. I spent most of my spare cash photocopying my advert and then I went round sticking them through people’s letterboxes in our flats and the flats over the road and half the houses down the street.

I’d put my phone number, so I sat by the phone and waited. And waited. And waited.

‘What’s up with you?’ said Jo.

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on. Are you waiting for a phone call?’

‘I might be.’

‘Don’t play games with me, Charlie, I’m feeling too dopey to work it out,’ said Jo, yawning.

She’d started her job at the supermarket and was finding it an awful struggle to get out of bed at five.

‘Look, why don’t you go to bed now, get a really early night. You look exhausted,’ I said.

‘Why do you want me out the way? Who is it who’s going to phone, eh?’ Jo’s sleepy eyes suddenly sparkled. ‘Hey, it’s a boy!’

‘What?’

‘You’re waiting for some boy to phone you!’

‘I am not.’

‘Yes, you are. You’ve got a boyfriend,’ said Jo, giggling.

‘Don’t be so stupid. I hate boys.’

‘So you
say
. I know. It’s . . . what’s-his-name? The one you keep going on about at school. The one you sit next to.’

‘Jamie Edwards! You have to be joking. I can’t
stick
him. Sitting next to him is driving me absolutely crazy.’

I couldn’t believe Jo could be so crackers. I truly detested that Jamie. He was just the most annoying person in the whole world to have to sit next to. He waved his hand in the air so often to answer Miss Beckworth’s questions that I was in a permanent breeze. And every time he got the answer right – which was nearly flipping always – he gave this smug satisfied little nod, as if to say, see, what a super intelligent smartie-boots I am.

I hated the way when Miss Beckworth set us some work he’d start straight away, his posh fountain pen bobbing up and down as he wrote, while the rest of us were still scratching our heads and ruling margins and looking at our watches to see how long it was till playtime.

I hated the way his work came back from Miss Beckworth, tick tick tick at every paragraph, and
Well done, Jamie!
written at the bottom. I got lots of crosses and
You could try much harder, Charlotte
, and
Tut tut, this is very shoddy work
, and
You can’t fool me by making your writing enormous and widely spaced. You can only have spent five minutes
on
this work at the most. This is not good enough!

I didn’t want to be bothered with anything else but learning about the Victorians. I was starting to kind of enjoy writing my project. It was weird. I read stuff in books and then started writing and it was as if this other girl entirely was scribbling it all down. The servant girl. Lottie the nursery maid. She’d started to feel real, like I’d known her all my life. I knew her better than I even knew Lisa or Angela. I just picked up a pencil and all
her
thoughts came rushing out on the paper.

I couldn’t stand the thought of Miss Beckworth speckling it with her red biro. It was private. At least we didn’t have to hand our projects in till they were finished, and we had weeks yet.

Of course You-know-who had practically finished his project already. He didn’t want to keep
his
project private. He kept flashing it around at every opportunity. He even took it into the canteen with him at dinner time. Well, he did that once. I just happened to choke on a fishfinger and so needed an immediate drink of Coke and in my haste I happened to tip the can over and the merest little spitty bit of froth spattered Jamie’s precious folder. Only the outside. But he declared the posh marbled paper was all spoilt. The next day he carted his project to school, completely re-covered with repro-Victorian wrapping paper, all fat frilly girls in bonnets and soppy boys in sailor suits, yuck yuck. And inside there was page after page of Jamie’s neat blue handwriting with his own elaborate illustrations, carefully inked
pictures
of railway engines and mineshafts and factory looms, but he didn’t have any train drivers or miners or factory hands because he can’t draw people properly.

‘I’ll draw them in for you, Jamie,’ I offered.

He turned down my generous offer. He didn’t trust me. I wonder why!

He had lots of proper pictures too, cut out of real old illustrated Victorian papers, and samples of William Morris wallpaper, and photos of Victorian families standing up straight in their best clothes, and real Victorian coins carefully stuck in with Sellotape. Jamie’s file was bulging already. My notebook was small and slim and there were still only a few pages of writing.