Fizzypop (2 page)

Chapter Two

Angel went stalking off, wobbling slightly in her designer shoes. Sling backs, with long pointy toes and tiny little spike heels. She has to take them off once she reaches school and put on her ordinary flat black ones, same as the rest of us.
Clodhoppers
, she calls them. I don't personally mind clodhoppers. The way I see it, if a herd of maddened elephants suddenly came roaring down the street you would at least be able to make a run for it. Angel wouldn't; she would be crushed underfoot. It's pathetic, really. Risking life and limb just to impress boys. Cos that's all it is. It's all about boys. She does have good legs, though.

I watched her receding into the distance. I suppose in her way she has style. I could see that as a stolid ten-year old, dumping along at her side, I probably had cramped it for her. I am not really what you would call a fashion accessory.

I humped my bag over my shoulder and stomped on. I know that I stomp cos Miss Henderson, our PE teacher, has told me so. She said, “My goodness, Frankie! You're a bit of a stomper.” It is just the way I am built. Mum says I am “four square and solid”. Angel, on the other hand, cos of only eating low-fat yoghurt, is all frail and wispy. She'd be an easy target for elephants. I reckon a flock of sparrows could crush her.

Skye was waiting for me on the corner of Barlow Road. We meet up there every morning; me, and Skye, and Jem. Skye Samuels and Jemma McClusky are my two best mates. We were all at primary school together, and we all live near each other.

I said, “Hi.”

Skye said, “Your sister's just gone marching past with her nose in the air. I said hello but she, like, totally ignored me?”

“She's in one of her rages,” I said. “Just cos I shrivelled her shirt.”

“You shrivelled her
shirt
?”

“Only a little bit! You wouldn't hardly notice. But you know what she's like.”

“I know what
you're
like,” said Skye.

What was that supposed to mean? I decided to pretend she hadn't said it.

“It was kind of surreal,” I said. “She just totally lost it. Got all frothed up and went into this furious megasulk, yelling and carrying on, saying it was her favourite shirt and I'd gone and ruined it.”

“People are so unreasonable,” said Skye.

Well, I do think they are, and especially my sister.
Angel
. Her name is actually Angeli, but everyone calls her Angel, which if you ask me is a big laugh considering she is anything but. For one thing she is totally vain, always gazing at herself in the mirror and thinking how beautiful she is. For another, there's this humungous temper that she has. Mum says she will grow out of it, it is just a teenage thing, but I personally reckon she should be sent to anger management classes.

“No sane person,” I said, “would get all worked up over a tiny bit of shrivel. It was only on the edge.” I hoicked up the edge of my shirt to demonstrate. “
There.
Just
there
! It's not normal.”

“Seems to me,” said Skye, “shrivelling the edge of someone's shirt isn't exactly what you'd call normal.”

“I didn't do it on purpose! I was
ironing
,” I said. “I was trying to
help.
The thing just went and shrivelled before I could stop it.”

“You mean you had the iron too hot.”

“I didn't have it too hot, it got too hot.” Why did everyone keep trying to put the blame on me all the time? “I reckon it must have been getting too much electricity or something. It's what happens, it all comes rushing through the mains.” I know about things like that; Dad's an electrician. “Power surges,” I said. “I bet that's what it was.”

“So why didn't you just turn it down?”

“Cos I didn't know! You don't, with power surges. They just happen. Suddenly. Anyway,” I said, “I'm sick of talking about it. Where's Jem?”

“Dunno.”

“She's late!”

Skye looked at her watch. “If she doesn't arrive soon we'll have to go or we'll miss registration and that'll be our names in the Book.”

“Ooh!” I shivered. “Don't want our names in the Book!”

“It's not funny,” said Skye. “You can get into a whole load of trouble.”

“Only if you're in it three times.” “I don't want to be in it
one
time, thank you!”

Skye is a very law-abiding sort of person, it really upsets her if she breaks a rule, like by mistake or not knowing about it. According to her, rules are there to be obeyed. Mostly, on the whole, I do obey them, cos it's no fun being told off, but I sincerely believe that you have to exercise your own judgement and not just blindly follow. Like at our school, Hillcrest, we have this rule about not eating in the street. What kind of a rule is that? You could be dying of starvation and you're not allowed to eat a bag of crisps or a doughnut? They'd rather you just collapsed in a heap? If someone's child fell under a bus through being weak from hunger and not allowed to eat, their parents could probably sue the school. That's what I'd have thought. But Skye is a bit of a boffin, she likes to get good marks and be well thought of. Not that she is a teacher's pet, or anything; she is just a natural straight-A student. She is the only person I have ever known who actually
enjoys
doing her SATS. You can never tell what people are going to like or not like; we are all different. Me and Jem have learnt to accept it. You can't help the way your brain is wired.

“We'll give her one more minute,” said Skye. “Starting from…
now.
”

She stood, watching the second hand go ticking round the dial. She is always very precise.

I said, “Know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think she only said it was her favourite cos of wanting to get me into trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” said Skye.

“
Angel
. Saying it was her favourite shirt. She only said it cos of m—”

“Do we have to?” said Skye. “I thought you weren't going to talk about it any more?”

“Well, I wasn't. But I bet if she hadn't discovered it she wouldn't even have remembered she'd got it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Skye. “Right, that's it! We're going.”

She shot off on stilt-like legs up the road. I practically had to run to keep up with her.

“She has some nerve,” I said. “I mean, when does she ever do anything to help? All she ever does is wash her hair and paint her nails and—”

“Oi!” We stopped, and turned. A small huffing figure was scurrying towards us. “You could have waited,” it said.

“We did wait,” said Skye. “You're late.”

“Only a few minutes. Don't go on at me!”

“Talk about going on,” I said. “You should have heard my sister.”

Skye groaned. “Not again!”

“She's going to burst a blood vessel one of these days if she's not careful.”

Jem said, “Yeah?” And then, in this slightly hysterical tone of voice, “Don't talk to me! I don't want to know!”

“She shrivelled her shirt,” said Skye. “I've had to hear all about it, why shouldn't you?”

“Cos if anyone talks to me,” said Jem, “I shall be the one that bursts a blood vessel. I don't want to know, I don't want to know!” She stuffed her fingers in her ears. “Just don't talk to me!”

“No problem,” I said. “We can easily pretend you're not here. You just hang back and—” I broke off. “Excuse me?” I turned, politely. “Did you wish to say something? Or was that a mouse squeaking?”

“
Why
did you shrivel her shirt?” said Jem.

Skye gave a muffled scream. “Don't ask!”

“I thought you wanted me to hear?”

“I've changed my mind. Anyway, you said you didn't want anyone talking to you.”

“I don't,” said Jem. “I feel like I'm going to explode
.
Like the top of my skull's going to burst open.” She brought her hand down,
whumpff
, on top of her head.

“That's right,” said Skye, kindly. “You keep hold of it.”

Jem made a noise that sounded like
aaargh
and went beetling off ahead, her legs (which aren't very long) pumping up and down, her hand still clamped to her head.

It might, I suppose, be considered cause for alarm, our best friend saying she was about to explode; but me and Skye have known Jem for too long. She is one of those up-and-down sort of people. All fizzing and bubbling one minute, then pop! The cork comes flying out of the bottle and she's, like, climbing the walls. Or holding her head on. It's impossible to keep up with her. At least with Angel you
know
she's going to be in a rage, cos she practically lives in one. With Jem it's like being on a mad rollercoaster.

“Fizzy Pop,” I said. I turned to Skye. “D'you remember? That's what we used to call her.”

“That was when Mrs Fletcher told her she ought to calm down or she'd burst.”

“It was a good name,” I said. “Why did we stop using it?”

“You decided nicknames were naff.”

“
I
did?”

“Yes, you didn't like being called Rumblebelly.”

“Oh. Well,” I said, “that was just rude. And it only happened once! Jem's like fizzing and popping all the time.”

We both gazed at her small scurrying figure. She'd stopped holding her head on, but she was still whizzing along at an absurdly fast rate.

“Let's get a move on,” said Skye. “I don't want to miss registration!”

First period that day was geography with Mr Harper, who likes to drone on about rift valleys and things and never notices what people get up to so long as they get up to it quietly and don't disturb anyone who might just want to hear what he's saying.

Me and Jem sat in the back row, with Skye between us. Skye really likes to pay attention in class, so she wasn't best pleased when Jem pushed a note in front of her and pointed at me. She thinks it is childish to pass notes. Impatiently, not taking her eyes off Mr Harper, she flicked the note towards me.

Y U shrivel shirt?

I sent a note back:
Not my fault. Y U think skull going 2 burst?

Tell U ltr
, replied Jem.
Y not yr fault?

I was about to explain about the iron, and all the electricity rushing out of control through the mains, but I didn't get the chance because at that point Skye wrote
STOP IT! BEHAVE YOURSELVES
, heavily underlined, on the back of her geography book.

She can't help being bossy; both her mum and dad are teachers.

Second period was English with Miss Rolfe, who gave us back the essays we'd written the previous week on the subject of ‘Beginnings'. We'd had to write all about our early lives, as much as we could remember.

“On the whole,” said Miss Rolfe, “I was quite pleased with them.” Ooh! It takes a lot to please Miss Rolfe. “Daisy, could you hand these back for me? There is one that I would really love to read aloud… Jemma?”

Jem looked startled. She is not used to being singled out, unless it's for talking, or fidgeting, or not paying attention.

“Do I have your permission?” said Miss Rolfe. “I won't if you'd rather I didn't.”

Jem by now was bright pillar-box red. “It's OK,” she muttered.

“Are you sure? Maybe you'd like to read it yourself?”

Jem shook her head, violently.

“All right, then. Here we go! This is what Jemma wrote.

“My beginnings are shrouded in mystery as I was adopted when I was a baby and don't remember anything about my life before. Some people feel sorry for me and say it must be terrible not ever having known my real mum and dad, but as far as I am concerned my mum and dad that adopted me are my real mum and dad. I don't want any others! Maybe one day I will feel curious and want to know who my birth mother was but for the moment I am perfectly happy and anyway I would not like to upset Mum and Dad by trying to find out in case they might think I didn't love them.

“One of the things about being adopted is that people never say to you, ‘Oh, don't you look like your mum?' which is what they sometimes say to my friends that aren't adopted and my friends get really mad as for some reason they don't seem to want to look like their mums. My mum is quite large and jolly and laughs a lot. I am rather small and not always jolly, though I do like to have a bit of a laugh. Dad is very sweet and gentle, and that is definitely not like me! I am sure if you asked my friends they would say that sweet and gentle is the last thing I am!!! I am not sure what they would say I was. A bit of a pain, probably.

“I am an only child, and only children are often said to be spoilt, but I don't think my mum and dad spoil me. Mum is quite strict in spite of being jolly. Dad is not quite so strict as he tends to leave all the telling-off to Mum, but if she says NO he always backs her up. I feel very grateful to them for adopting me. I'm sure there were lots of other babies they could have had if they'd wanted. I think that is the BEST thing about being adopted, you know that you have been chosen and it makes you feel special.”

There was a silence as Miss Rolfe finished reading; then Skye started to clap, and all the rest of us joined in. It was so amazing! It was obvious that everyone was really moved by what Jem had written. It was just such a brave thing to do. It made me feel quite ashamed of my own essay, which had gone on at great length about Angel and her temper, and Tom being an alien. I'd never once thought to say that I loved Mum and Dad.
Or
Rags. Or even Angel and Tom, if it came to that. Cos I do love them, in spite of everything. I would just have been too embarrassed to say so.

“I think you'll agree,” said Miss Rolfe, “that that was really heart-warming. Refreshingly honest. Thank you very much, Jemma, for letting me read it. Girls, I know that was the bell, but please don't rush!”