Pick ‘n’ Mix. Jean Ure

thought that was funny? One of my best friends thought it was funny that Mum was going to be mad at me? I glared at her.

      “Well, sorry,” said Jem, “but really! You do the stupidest things.”

      I resented that. “It wasn’t stupid,” I said, “it was the logical solution. If you can’t make the ceiling higher, you make the floor lower. I was just being practical! You can’t have a corner cabinet not standing in a corner.”

      “Of course you can’t,” said Skye, soothingly. “You did what anyone would have done… you cut a hole in your carpet!”

      She and Jem both fell about.

      “It was only small,” I pleaded.

      “Only small!” shrieked Jem, clutching herself round the middle.

      “Now it’s this size –” Skye held her arms out in a circle. They collapsed on each other, helpless with foolish giggles.

      Crossly, I said, “How was I to know it would start unravelling?”

      “Unravelling!” squeaked Jem.

      Screech. Hoot. These were supposed to be my friends.

      Skye wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. “Maybe you could say it was Rags that made the hole.”

      “And get a poor little innocent dog into trouble? I couldn’t do that! In any case,” I said, “you can tell it’s been cut.” Not meaning to boast, I added that I had made a proper pattern. “I cut right round the edge of it with Dad’s knife. The one he uses for carpets. It’s really sharp! I was ever so careful, cos I didn’t want to cut myself. I just wanted my cabinet to go in a corner!”

      “And now it’s in one,” said Skye, soothingly.

      “Yes, but there’s a great bald patch!” I explained how for the moment I’d hidden the bald patch beneath a pile of clothes. “But Angel’s like this real tidiness freak? She’ll want it all cleared up. I tried suggesting me and Emilia share my room, I even offered to sleep downstairs, like on the sofa or something, so’s Emilia could have the room to herself, cos she probably wouldn’t mind a few clothes lying about the floor, but M—”

      “How old is this girl?” said Jem.

      I looked at her, annoyed. I felt like saying, “Pardon me, but I was in the middle of speaking.” It is really bad manners to interrupt a person.

      “Emilia,” said Jem. “How old is she?”

      “She’s thirteen, but—”

      “Thirteen? You mean she’s Year 9?” Skye pulled a face. We were only Year 7 and most Year 9s, at our school at any rate, treated us like snot.

      “I dunno what year she’s in. She has learning difficulties so she’s more like an eight year old? She goes to St Giles.” St Giles is the special school just a bit further down the road from where we go. “I expect probably she’ll need a bit of looking after.”

      Skye said, “What kind of looking after?”

      “Well – you know! Just making sure she’s OK. I promised Mum we’d be responsible for her.”

      “Us?” Skye was starting to sound a bit alarmed.

      “She’s ever so sweet,” I said. “She won’t be any trouble.”

      “You reckon?”

      “It’ll just be, like, seeing her to school and picking her up again, checking she doesn’t get lost. That kind of thing. Actually,” I said, “I’m quite looking forward to it.” Well, I had been.

      Just at the moment all I could think of was what Mum was going to say.

      Jem put her arm through mine. “I don’t mind helping look after her,” she said.

      I beamed at her, gratefully; at least I had the support of one of my friends. Skye was gnawing at her lip, her forehead all crinkled. She is such a pessimist! If I listened to what she had to say I would never go anywhere or do anything. I suppose it is what comes of having this massive great brain, like a computer. Instead of just looking straight ahead, she whizzes frantically about, all up and down the side roads, in and out of blind alleys, searching for things that could go wrong. A bit too complicated for my liking. I think I am quite a straightforward type, though Mum would probably say I tend to act without thinking, which is what she said when I accidentally set fire to Dad’s garden shed and almost certainly what she was going to say when I tried to explain why I’d cut a hole in my carpet…

      I gulped as we reached Sunnybrook Gardens, which is where the three of us go our different ways.

      “Wish me luck,” I said.

      “What for?” said Jem. “Oh! Yes. Your carpet.” She giggled. “Hope your mum doesn’t get too mad!”

      “Blame it on Rags,” urged Skye.

      Maybe I could. After all, it was sort of his fault. If he hadn’t chewed the fronds I could have snipped them off and nobody would ever have known. I could tell Mum that I’d cut the hole after he’d done his chewing. I could say I’d been trying to tidy things up and the knife had slipped, so then I’d thought I might as well make the hole triangle-shaped and put the cabinet on top of it. Yes! That would work.

      I crashed through the front door, all prepared with my story (in case Mum had already made the dreaded discovery and was waiting for me like a great hovering cloud at the top of the stairs). But then Rags came bounding down the hall, full of his usual doggy ecstasy at seeing me again, and I knew that I just couldn’t do it.

      “It’s all right,” I whispered. “I won’t blame you!”

      While me and Rags were having a hug-in, the door of the front room opened and Mum looked out.

      “Oh, Frankie, there you are. I’ll be with you in a minute, I’m just seeing one of my ladies. You and Angel go and make a start on your bedrooms. Tell Angel she doesn’t have to move every last item… concentrate on clothes.”

      I said, “OK.” Trying to make like it was no big deal and that my heart wasn’t already starting to sink like a lead balloon.

      Angel was in the kitchen, texting someone. She is always texting. I said, “Mum wants us to get on with moving things.”

      Angel pulled a face.

      “She says not every last item. Just clothes, mainly.”

      Angel said, “If you think I’m leaving all my stuff for you to get your grubby hands on—”

      There was a pause, while she went on texting.

      I said, “What if I do?”

      Irritably, she said, “Do what?”

      “Think what you just said.”

      “Then you’d better think again!” Angel snapped her phone shut and went flouncing ahead of me, up the hall. “Let’s get this over with. And you can clear up all your mess,” she added.

      I said, “What mess?”

      “The mess in your room.”

      “How do you know there’s any mess in my room?”

      “Cos there always is. Just because I have to exist in a cupboard for the next few weeks doesn’t mean I have to live in a tip.”

      I sniffed as I went up the extra little flight of stairs to my room. The clothes were still on the floor, where I’d left them. I was about to pick them up when I had another of my bright ideas. It just struck me suddenly, as these things do. I think I must have a very active sort of brain.

      I left the clothes where they were, seized an armful of stuff from the wardrobe and went plunging down to Angel’s room, crossing paths