Pumpkin Pie (15 page)

What I needed now was a hot top to go with it, and maybe a pair of boots. I decided to ask Dad. Not Mum! I can wheedle almost anything out of Dad if I put my mind to it. I waited till I came home from school on Monday, when I could be sure of having him to myself. Dad was making a cheese sauce to go with some macaroni. He was eager for me to try it, so I obediently took a spoonful over to the sink and said, “Yum yum! That’s good!” at the same time frantically running the tap and washing the sauce down the plug hole, because cheese is
extremely
fattening.

“Dad, do you think I could have a new top and a pair of boots?” I said. “I need them, Dad! It’s for this show we’re doing. We’re going to film it on Saturday, and I’ve got nothing to wear!”

That was all the wheedling I needed to do. Dad was so taken up with his sauce that I think he would have said yes to anything. He told me to go ahead and buy whatever I needed.

“When do you want it?”

I said, “Tomorrow?”

“I’ll come and pick you up after school,” said Dad.

I was so grateful that I gave him a big hug and took another spoonful of sauce to dump in the sink.

“Is it OK?” said Dad.

“Scrummy!” I said.

I knew that it had to be, because Dad’s sauces always are; and in any case some had touched my lips so that I’d been
almost
tempted to eat it. But I knew that I mustn’t! Just one mouthful would be enough to set me right back. It had to be all or nothing – which was what I explained to Saffy when I invited her to join me on my shopping trip and she started on at me yet again about not eating.

“I don’t know how your mum and dad let you get away with it. My mum would go spare if I stopped eating!”

“Look, just
shut up”
I said. I’d invited her to come with us ‘cos I thought she’d enjoy it, helping me choose what to buy. Now she was going and ruining it all! “Don’t keep on,” I said. “It’s very bad manners.” I mean, for goodness’ sake! She was my
guest.

Dad took us to Marshall’s and sat himself down in a chair while me and Saffy roamed about, examining stuff. I could buy anything I wanted! Skinny rib, halter neck. Anything! With Saffy’s help I finally got a blue T-shirt with writing on it
(Funky Babe,
in gold letters) plus a pair of blue denim boots with zips and high heels. I thought that Mum’s raincoat would cover the heels so that no one would know I was wearing funky footgear and not old lady shoes. I swore Saffy to silence.

“You’re not to tell anyone! It’s got to be a surprise.”

Saffy said, “Yeah. OK.” and waved a hand like all of a sudden she was bored.

“Now what’s the matter?” I said.

“You!” said Saffy. “Always giving orders. You’re so
bossy.”

Well! Bossy is just about the last thing I am. I said, “Look who’s talking! I’m not the one that’s been going on.

At that point we left the changing room area and found ourselves back out in the open. Just as well, or we might seriously have fallen out. With Dad there we couldn’t very well go on slinging accusations at each other so we both simmered down and tried to make like there was nothing wrong. Dad wanted to take us upstairs to the restaurant to have tea. Once I would have thought this was a brilliant idea, since Marshall’s is famous for its cream cakes and squidgy buns. Once I would have guzzled a whole plateful of them. Today I was thrown into panic at the mere thought of it.

“Don’t you think we ought to get home?” I said.

“No, I think we ought to go and have some tea,” said Dad.

“But Saffy’s got to get home!” I said. “Her mum will be wondering where she is.”

“No, she won’t,” said Saffy. “I rang her.”

“So what do you reckon?” said Dad. Talking to Saffy. Not
me.
“Do you reckon we ought to go and have some tea?”

“Yes, please!” beamed Saffy.

Oh! She was
such
a traitor. I glared at her all the way up in the lift, but she resolutely took no notice and chattered brightly to Dad about absolutely nothing.

“Now, what shall we have?” said Dad, rubbing his hands in delighted anticipation as he studied the menu, which I am here to tell you is a total nightmare of carbohydrates and calories. “Mm… raspberry pavlova! How about that?”

Dad had raspberry pavlova, Saffy had fudge cake, I had the plainest thing I could find, which was a packet of boring biscuits. But even boring biscuits are fattening! If I’d been on my own with Dad I could have slid them off the table, one by one, and hidden them in my school bag. I couldn’t do that with Saffy there; she watched me the whole time. Well, actually, she watched the biscuits. She got, like, fixated on them. I just had this feeling that if I tried anything she would tell on me. So I had to force myself to eat them. It nearly made me gag! There is nothing worse than having to eat when you don’t want to.

But anyway, ho ho to Saffy! The minute I got home I did my usual trick. I raced upstairs to the lavatory and stuck my fingers down my throat. I was distinctly annoyed with Saffy, though, because it is not at all pleasant sticking your fingers down your throat. For one thing it makes your throat sore, and for another it makes your stomach muscles ache with all the heaving and straining you have to do. But I couldn’t afford to put on weight. I had to be thin for my transformation scene!

S
ATURDAY CAME, AND
I was so excited! We all were, but me, I think, more than anyone. I put on my transformation outfit before leaving home, with Mum’s raincoat over the top. I wanted it to stay a secret right until the very end! While everyone else was changing, I sat in a corner, huddled in my raincoat with all the buttons done up. People kept tweaking at it and going, “Come on! Let’s see what you’re wearing!” but I wouldn’t let them.

“I bet
she
knows,” said Twinkle, pointing at Saffy. “Tell, tell! What’s she got on?”

“My lips are sealed,” said Saffy, zipping a finger across her mouth.

One girl, Mitch Bosworth, even crawled on her hands and knees and tried to see underneath! The boys were nowhere near as interested. In fact, they didn’t really seem to care what I had on underneath Mum’s raincoat. I thought that was good, because then it would really come as a surprise.

Filming was due to start at two o’clock. I had always thought that making films was a very slo-o-o-w and laborious process. I’d read somewhere that it could take an entire day just to shoot one tiny little scene, but we filmed the whole of
Sob Story
in one afternoon. I suppose it wasn’t quite the same as real movie-making. Two students came in from the local art college with a video camera and we just had one final run-through and then it was, like,
go for it!

We did have one or two stops and starts. That silly girl Mitch Bosworth, for instance, got the giggles, and Saffy went and forgot her lines. Her
own
lines, that she had made up. She just, like, froze, and this trapped expression appeared on her face. It wasn’t quite as bad as the angel disaster back in Juniors, when she had to be led off stage, sobbing; but I did think it went to show that she was not cut out to be an actress.

Zoë, on the other hand, far from forgetting her lines actually went and added to them! She launched into this mad speech that she had
never
done before. It went on and on, going absolutely nowhere, saying absolutely nothing, and the rest of us just standing around with our mouths sagging open, wondering what to do. It was Mark who saved the day. He just suddenly cut in over the top of her, and that shut her up. If it hadn’t been for him, she might have gone rambling on for ever, and all the things that were supposed to happen – all the things that we had so carefully rehearsed – would no longer have made any sense. Mark pulled it all together again, and I thought that showed that he was a true pro. Whereas Zoë was nothing more than a silly selfish show-off, with no control over her own mouth.

I would like to report that I
rose to the occasion,
as the saying goes. I would like to tell how I rushed in to the rescue, and came to Mark’s support as he struggled to get us back on track; but I didn’t! I wasn’t a true pro. I just stood around with the rest of them, gaping, and not knowing what to do. I felt like running at Zoë and strangling her, but in fact I took root, like a pot plant, and did nothing at all. I was just so worried that she might ruin my transformation scene! That was all I cared about. I had long since lost any interest in being a crotchety old woman who went round complaining. I didn’t care if it did make people laugh. I didn’t want people to laugh! I wanted them to gasp and go
wow!
I wanted to be glamorous! I wanted Gorgeous Gareth to be gobsmacked! I wanted Beautiful Mark to take notice of me… which I suppose must mean that I am no more cut out to be an actress than Saffy.
Sigh.

Thanks to Mark and his quick thinking, we were able to move on. We got to the end. My big moment… ba-boom! Gasp. Wow!!!

Nobody actually did gasp or go “wow!” because by now they were all expecting it, and in any case it would have been unprofessional, but Zoë came up to me in the changing room afterwards and said, “Groovy gear, Granny!” Portia said I looked fab, and Mitch Bosworth told me that “That was a really neat idea… like something out of panto.” Only that stupid Twinkle had to go and upset me. She poked me in the ribs and said, “Come on, you can tell us now! You
have
been slimming, haven’t you? Was it because of the book?”

Acting as hard as I could go, I said, “What book?” Like very cool and sophisticated.

“You know!” said Twink. “The one you were on the cover of… the one about the fat girl.”

Oh! I was so hoping they wouldn’t have seen it. But I might have known they would. I had to pretend not to care. I mean, there is such a thing as pride. (I may have said this before.) I gushed, “That photo was just so
awful.
They padded it out!”

“They what?” said Zoë.

“Padded it! You know, like they take away people’s lines and wrinkles and double chins? They padded it out to make me look fat.”

“How do they do that?” said Mitch.

I said, “I don’t know
how
they do it, but that’s what they did. And it looked so horrible!”