The Strawberry Sisters (17 page)

‘I can feed Buttercup,’ Lucy said.

Mum ruffled her curls. ‘Thank you, girls. And I’m going to make sure that I work hard when you’re at your dad’s and then I can enjoy spending time with you when
you’re at home without feeling guilty.’

‘You know what else you should do sometimes when we’re at Dad’s?’ Amelia said.

‘What’s that?’

‘Go out with your friends and have fun.’

‘I might just do that.’ Mum pulled us all into one ginormous hug. ‘You really are wonderful. And I’m sorry that things have been a bit chaotic around her for the last
couple of weeks.’

‘It hasn’t been chaotic for the last couple of weeks,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s more like the last few years.’ But she said it in a smiling way.

‘I like our house,’ Chloe said. ‘It’s not chaotic, it’s . . . full. Of our things and us and us doing stuff.’

‘Well, that’s not so bad then. But I am sorry that I’m such a stressed-out old badger.’

‘You’re not!’ I said.

‘Not all the time anyway,’ Chloe said.

And that’s true because, even though sometimes my mum goes mad because there are crumbs all over the sofa, sometimes she lets us lie on her bed and eat Whoopee fairy cakes with no plates
at all.

‘How’s Thunder?’ I asked Chloe. It was Sunday evening and we were washing up the tea things at Dad’s house.

She stuck a finger in the custard jug and licked it. ‘Better. I had a talk like you suggested.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, “Are you being funny with me because I said I didn’t want to go to the disco with you?”’

That wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that I imagined her saying when I told her to talk to him. ‘What did he say?’

‘He just mumbled and went bright red. So I told him it wasn’t because I didn’t like him. I mean, he’s not very good-looking, but he is quite good at football and
he’s excellent at fitting things in his mouth.’

‘Did you tell him that stuff?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And did that cheer him up?’

‘Seemed to, which is pretty dumb really because obviously I like him and obviously we have fun together.’

‘Do you know what, Clo? I think that you’re the sort of person who knows things without people having to say them, but some people need help seeing stuff clearly. You have to tell
them how you feel.’

‘Yeah, that’s definitely true about Thunder.’

‘I’m like that too.’

She nodded. ‘I think, even though she’s all prickly, that’s really what Amelia is like too.’

We thought about that for a minute. I knew Chloe was right. The last couple of weeks had shown that Amelia wasn’t the tough girl we’d thought she was.

‘Anyway, thanks for helping me with Thunder; we’re definitely good friends again now.’

Dad came into the kitchen while Chloe was talking.

‘Thunder?’ he said. ‘Is he a new friend?’

Chloe squirted more washing-up liquid into the already bubbly water. ‘He’s not exactly new any more.’

‘Oh. And what about you, Ella? Who’s your best buddy at the moment?’

‘Kayleigh of course and Ashandra next door, remember?’

Dad crossed his eyes. ‘I can hardly keep up.’

He was trying to be funny, but for some reason it made me mad. Really mad.

‘That’s because you don’t try! You don’t know anything that anybody is doing because you’re never here and when you are you don’t listen to us.’

My words hit him in the face like gravel.

He blinked a bit. ‘Well, I know I’ve been busy lately.’

‘You’re always busy!’

‘Ella, listen, I—’

‘No, you listen. You told me that you were looking forward to watching Kirsti grow up, but you’re already missing her doing cute stuff because you’re working late. And
it’s not just about Kirsti; you’ve got us as well. We haven’t finished growing up; you should be enjoying us too!’

I stumbled towards the door. Chloe put a hand on my arm, but I shook her off. ‘I’m going to Ashandra’s,’ I said. And I went out before either of them could stop me. I
even slammed the door.

I didn’t actually go straight to Ashandra’s because I was too upset. I walked all the way down to the roundabout in a rage. It took me a while to calm down enough to go back and ring
on Ashandra’s doorbell.

She opened the door herself. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I was just going to call for you. I wanted to talk to you about something.’

She took me up to her room. Ash’s bedroom is like a library; one wall is covered in shelves full of books and in front of the books she puts interesting stuff like the fossils her dad
takes her hunting for or the little figures that you get in
Kinder
Eggs. She’s even got a tiny family of dolls sitting there. Ash would never hide anything she liked under her bed.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You look a bit funny.’

‘I had a row with my dad.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? You never row with people; at least, normally you never do.’

‘I’m cross with him. He doesn’t listen to me.’

She put an arm round me. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I shook my head. I knew that if I talked about it I’d cry.

‘Do you want a Coke and some cookies?’

I nodded.

Ashandra brought them upstairs and then we played on her computer. She talked about cheerful things instead and I was glad she did.

‘Kayleigh showed me this really good website where you can learn all the different kinds of horse tack,’ she said.

‘That’s good.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I wanted to apologise to you, Ella. I shouldn’t have been so rude about Kayleigh to you.’

She was watching me very closely so I gave her a little nod.

‘I mean, you know what I’m like. I want things to be perfect and I can be a bit stroppy, especially when other people are more laid-back. Obviously, Kayleigh doesn’t know that
and she probably just thought I was evil.’

I laughed. ‘You were both a bit hard on each other.’

‘I know. Kayleigh says that she was worried that everyone at secondary school would be better at stuff than her and that they’d make her feel like an idiot, so when I started bossing
her about she got really angry.’

That made sense. Kayleigh is definitely more likely to shout than to cry when she’s upset, but I was surprised to think of Ash and Kay getting stressed about school. And also a bit shocked
that they didn’t tell me about it.

‘It’s understandable really,’ Ash said.

I smoothed out her pillow. ‘How come you two suddenly started understanding each other?’

I thought that she was going to say that my tough attitude forced them to take a good look at things, but instead she said, ‘We were worried about you.’

‘Were you?’

‘Yeah, you didn’t seem like yourself. We started talking about if you were OK in maths and we thought that maybe we’d upset you so we came up with the idea of going riding to
cheer you up.’

I nearly laughed. Sitting on top of one of those giant stompers is not my idea of being cheered up.

‘But then we talked a bit more and . . . I think she’s nice.’

‘She is. So are you. That’s what I kept telling you two.’

‘Maybe we just needed to work it out for ourselves.’

I smiled.

‘But I feel really bad that you got in the middle of it all. I’m sorry I was all bossy and rude. I feel even worse now that I know you’re having problems with your
dad.’

I sniffed.

‘Do you want to talk about it now? If you don’t, we could watch a DVD, but we can, you know, if you want.’

It all came pouring out. How he’s always late home from work, even on Wednesdays when he’s supposed to be seeing us, and how even though he makes Plans for the weekend half the time
he’s still thinking about work. And how it’s hard to get him to listen to me because when he does pay anyone any attention he’s talking sports with Chloe or cooing over
Kirsti.

‘That’s horrible,’ Ashandra said. ‘I’m glad you shouted at him.’

I scrunched a handful of duvet. ‘I’m not sure it was a very good idea. I’ve calmed down now and I feel a bit bad.’

‘Don’t feel bad: he deserved it. But maybe you could talk to him? My mum’s always really busy with work, but we had a chat about it last year and now we always spend Saturday
afternoon together. Maybe you could have a special afternoon with your dad?’

But I knew there was no way Dad could squeeze a special afternoon with each of his daughters into a week.

When I got back from Ashandra’s, I went straight to bed. I should have been happy that Ash and Kay were finally getting on, but I was still upset about Dad. I felt horrible about shouting
at him. It was a stupid idea to try to be tough. I couldn’t pretend not to care about things because I did. I cared a lot. It had even turned out that Amelia cared about things too. She was
only horrible because she was upset about Mum and Dad splitting up.

I’d thought that being tough had got Ashandra and Kayleigh to talk to each other, but now Ashandra had told me that they’d started talking because they were worried about me. They
went riding because they wanted to make me happy. They were being nice. So maybe being nice was the right thing after all.

I hadn’t got very far trying to be like Amelia or by following Chloe’s lead. And there was no way I could ever hope to be like Lucy. You’re either born a Lucy or you’re
not.

Maybe Mum was right in the first place and I should be myself.

In the morning, Dad left for work before I got up. I was glad to go to school to have something else to think about and because I was looking forward to hanging out with
Ashandra and Kayleigh now that they were friends and I wasn’t pretending to be hard any more. Except that, when we got to school, all that Ashandra and Kayleigh seemed to talk about was the
art competition and horses. So I ended up having to pretend not to care about things after all.

Tuesday was International Day. I was excited about doing lots of activities instead of normal lessons, but I was glad that they gave us a timetable so I knew exactly where I
had to be at what time.

Before break, we did African dancing. I was a bit self-conscious, but I liked it when it was my group’s turn to play the drums while the others danced. After break, we had half-an-hour
taster sessions of different activities. Our tutor group did yodelling, International Sign Language and capoeira.

At lunchtime, we could buy the Year Nine’s cooking from around the world. I bought three mini samosas from Amelia to share with Ashandra and Kayleigh. When I brought them back to the
table, they were talking about the art competition. Again. It was nice to see them getting excited about it, but I was still feeling horrible about shouting at Dad and I wished they’d talk to
me and take my mind off it.

After lunch, everyone was herded into the sports hall, which was the only place big enough to fit the whole school plus lots of parents. All around the edges were the competition panels. Year
Sevens were let into the hall first so while we were waiting for everybody else to file in we swivelled our necks about to check out the other classes’ panels.

‘Some of them are really good,’ Ashandra said.

‘That’s Chloe’s class’s,’ I said, pointing to the Finland panel, but Ash and Kay were discussing our chances with their heads bent together. I looked back to
Chloe’s class’s panel; they’d done a good job. When you looked closely, you could see that there was a tiny army of Moomins marching round the outside edge. Some other Year Eights
had done the USA, using loads of little pictures to make up a big image of the stars and stripes flag. It was really effective. I still thought ours was the best, but my nana always said not to
count your chickens before they hatch, so I tried not to get my hopes up about a prize. Even so, I definitely saw a lot of people admiring the dragon bursting out of the background. The tiny lights
in the lanterns really grabbed your attention too.

Ashandra and Kayleigh hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t joining in with their conversation. They’d moved on to discussing their waiter at Pizza Hut and his crazy hairstyle.
Somehow, that wound back to horse riding.

‘Are we still on for Wednesday in half-term?’ Ashandra asked.

‘Definitely,’ Kayleigh said, smiling.