Pumpkin Pie (2 page)

“I think I may have developed in a test tube… I could be an alien life form!”

Well, we were only nine; what did we know? Poor Saffy was convinced she was going to start sprouting wings or turning green. Later on, of course, she discovered that she had been born too early and had been
put
in an incubator, so then she stopped worrying about being an alien and got a bit boastful.

“I was a premature baby!”

Like it was something clever. If ever she starts to get above herself I remind her of the time she thought she was an alien, but I have never told a living soul about it and I
never will.
Her secret is safe with me! Because that is how it is with me and Saffy.

Maybe because of being premature, Saffy is incredibly dainty. She is not terribly pretty, as her nose is a bit pointy and her mouth is rather on the small side, but she is very sweet and delicate-looking. She has green eyes, like a cat – she really ought to be called Emerald, not Sapphire! – and feathery red-gold hair. Oh, and she has freckles, which she hates, but which personally I think are really cool. I would like to have freckles! I once tried painting some on out a rather horrible boy in our class yelled “Spotty!” at me, so I didn’t do it any more.

Alone of all us three pennies, I take after Dad. Mum is slim and graceful: Dad is
tubby.
He is also a bit thin on top, which I am not! I have fair hair, like Petal – quite thick. But whereas Petal’s is thick and
straight,
mine unfortunately is thick and curly. Ugh! I hate curls. Another thing I once tried, I spread my hair on the ironing board and ironed it, to get the kinks out, but instead I just went and frizzed it up into a mad mess like a Brillo pad. I didn’t try that again! Saffy suggested I should hang heavy weights off it, which seemed like it might work. So I collected up all these big stones from the garden and spent hours in my bedroom sewing little sacks for the stones to go in, I even stitched ribbons on to them – pink, ‘cos I wanted them to look nice in case anyone saw me – and I tied them on to my hair and went to bed all clunking and clanking in the hope that I would wake up in the morning with my hair as blissfully straight as Petal’s.

Well. Huh! What a brilliant idea
that
turned out to be. First off, I had to sleep on my front with my nose pressed into the pillow, as a result of which I nearly suffocated. Second, every time I moved a stone would go clonk! into my face. Third, I woke up with a headache; and fourth, it had
no effect whatsoever
on my hair. All that hard work and suffering for absolutely nothing!

I should have learnt my lesson. I should have learnt that it is foolish and futile to put yourself through agonies of pain in a vain attempt to be beautiful. But of course I didn’t. Saffy says, “Does one ever?” I would like to think so. I would like to think you reach a stage where you are content to be just the way you are, without all this stress about freckles and hair and body shape; but somehow, watching Mum put on her make-up every morning, watching her carefully select what clothes to wear (like when she has a client she specially wants to impress) Somehow I doubt it. I feel that we are doomed to hanker after unattainable perfection. Until, in the end, we get old and past it, which surely must be a great comfort?

Although in my plumpness I take after Dad, I think that in many other ways I take after Mum. I am for instance quite ambitious. Far more so than Petal, though not as much as my little boffin brother, who will probably end up as a nuclear physicist or at the very least a brain surgeon. But I wouldn’t mind being a high flyer, like Mum – if only I could make up my mind what to fly at. Sometimes I think one thing, sometimes another. Over the years I have been going to be: a tour guide (because I would like to travel); an air hostess (for the same reason); something in the army (ditto); a children’s nanny (I would go to America!); or a car mechanic.

It is so difficult to decide. I once tried speaking to Dad about it, because I did think, at the age of twelve, I ought to be making plans. Dad said, “Rubbish! You’re far too young to bother your head about that sort of thing. Just take life as it comes, that’s my motto.”

“But I want to know what to
aim
at,” I said.

Dad suggested that maybe I could follow in his footsteps and be a chef. He was all eager for me to start straight away. I know he would like nothing better than to teach me how to cook, but I feel I am already into food quite enough as it is. I don’t need encouragement! I’ve seen Dad in the kitchen. I’ve seen the way he picks at things. He just can’t resist nibbling! Sometimes when he cooks Sunday lunch Mum tells one of us to go and stand over him while he is dishing up.

“Otherwise we’ll be lucky if there’s anything left!”

She is only partly joking. Dad did once demolish practically a whole plateful of roast potatoes before they could reach the table. He doesn’t mean to; he does it without realising. I can understand how it happens, because I would be the same unless I exercised the most enormous willpower. I think food is such a comfort!

I could see that Dad was a bit upset when I showed so little enthusiasm for the idea of becoming a chef. He said, “Don’t let me down, Plumpkin! Us foodies have got to stick together.”

I thought,
Plumpkin?
I looked at Dad, reproachfully, wondering whether I had heard him right. You couldn’t go round calling people Plumpkin! It was like calling them fatty, or baldy, or midget. It wasn’t PC. It was insulting!

“Eh? Plumpkin?”

He’d said it again! My own dad!

“It’s up to us,” said Dad, “to keep the flag flying. Beachballs versus stick insects! There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know, in having a healthy appetite.”

Saffy has a healthy appetite. She eats just about anything and everything and never even puts on a gram. Life is very unfair, I sometimes think.

I managed to get Mum by herself one day, for about two seconds, and said, straight out, “Mum, do you think I’m fat?”

She was whizzing to and fro at the time, getting ready for work.

“Fat?” she cried, over her shoulder, as she flew past. “Of course you’re not fat!”

“I feel fat,” I said.

“Well, you’re not,” said Mum, snatching up a pile of papers. “Don’t be so silly!” She crammed the papers into her briefcase. “I don’t want you starting on that,” she said.

“But Dad called me Plumpkin,” I wailed.

“Oh, poppet!” Mum paused just long enough to give me a quick hug before racing across the room to grab her mobile. “He doesn’t mean anything by it! It’s just a term of endearment.”

“He wouldn’t say it to Petal,” I said.

“No, well, Petal doesn’t eat enough to keep a flea alive. You have more sense – and I love you just the way you are!”

“Fat,”
I muttered.

“Puppy fat. There’s nothing wrong with that. You take after your dad – and I love him just the way he is, as well!”

With that she was gone, whirling off in a cloud of scent, briefcase bulging, mobile in her hand. That’s my mum! A real high flyer. It is next to impossible to have a proper heart-to-heart with her as she is always in such a mad rush; but it would have been nice to talk just a little bit more.

It was definitely round about then that I started on all my fretting and fussing on the subject of fat.

B
EFORE GOING ANY
further I think I should describe what was a typical day in the Penny household.

Typical Day

8am. In the kitchen. Mum standing by the table, blowing on her nails. (She has just painted them with bright red varnish.) Mum is wearing her smart grey office suit, very chic and pinstriped. She looks like a high-powered business executive.

Petal bursts through the door in her usual mad rush. She is no good at getting up in the morning, probably because she hardly ever goes to bed before midnight. (As I said before, she is allowed to get away with anything. I wouldn’t be!)

Petal looks sensational even in our dire school uniform of grolly green skirt and sweater. The skirt is
pleated.
Yuck yuck yuck! But Petal has customised it; in other words, rolled the waistband over so that the skirt barely covers her bottom. Her tiny bottom. And nobody says a thing! Mum is too busy blowing on her nails and Dad wouldn’t notice if we all dressed up in bin bags. But wait till she gets to school and Mrs Jacklin sees her. Then she’ll catch it! But not, of course, before all the boys have had a good look…

Mrs Jacklin, by the way, is our head teacher and a real dragon when it comes to dress code. Skirts down to the knee.
No jewellery. No stack heels. No fancy hairstyles.
It makes life very difficult for a girl like Petal. It doesn’t bother me so much.

I am sitting at the table trying to finish off my maths homework, which I should have done last night only I didn’t because I forgot – a thing that seems to happen rather frequently with me and maths homework. I, too, am wearing our dire school uniform but looking nothing like Petal does. For a start, there is just no way I could roll the waistband of my skirt over. I wouldn’t be able to do it up! There is a hole in my tights (grolly green, to go with the rest of the foul get-up) and I suddenly see that I have dribbled food down the front of my sweater. From the looks of it, it is sauce from yesterday’s spaghetti. Ugh! Why am I so messy?