Freaks Out!

All I can say is, it wasn't my fault! I wasn't the one that let Rags in from the garden with muddy paws. I might have been the one that let him
out,
but I wasn't the one that let him inâ¦

All I can say is, it wasn't my fault! I wasn't the one that let Rags in from the garden with muddy paws. I might have been the one that let him
out
, but I wasn't the one that let him in. Angel was the one that let him in. It was her responsibility, not mine.

She got all angry when I accused her of it. She said, “He was scraping at the door! What was I supposed to do? Let him ruin Dad's paintwork?”

What she was
supposed
to do was clean up the floor. That is the rule: whoever lets him in with dirty
paws has to clean up after him. It wasn't any good her screeching that she was about to go out and was all dressed up. She is always dressed up. She works on the principle that a gorgeous boy could walk into her life at any moment and she has to be prepared. Like she might answer the front door and there he'd be, SuperGuy, and omigod, what a disaster if she was wearing tatty old jeans and a raggedy T-shirt!

Not that she would. She is
obsessed
with the way she looks. Like Mum is obsessed with the kitchen floor.

“Look at my floor!” she goes. “Covered in dog prints!”

It's so weird, the things people get hung up about. My feelings are, a kitchen floor is a kitchen floor. It is
there
to get messed up. But it matters to Mum, and it doesn't do to be small-minded about these things. I could just have left it; I'd have been within my rights. But I was thinking of Mum. Poor Mum! She and Dad work their fingers to the bone
taking care of me and Angel and Tom. Well, that is what she always says.

“I don't expect gratitude, but just now and again a bit of consideration wouldn't go amiss.”

I think I am quite considerate on the whole. I do like to make Mum happy whenever I can. And
I
don't mind getting down on my hands and knees, sploshing about on a wet floor. Wouldn't bother me if SuperGuy suddenly appeared.

I filled a bowl with hot water and added a nice big dollop of washing-up liquid. I am one of those people, I believe in doing things properly. I thought while I was there I would give the whole floor a going-over, so when Mum came in she'd be, like, knocked out at the state of it.

“Oh!” she'd go. “Who's cleaned the kitchen floor for me? Whoever it was, they've done an excellent job!”

I crawled all over, getting quite damp in the process. We used to have a mop thingie. A squeegee thing. I used to enjoy using that, but last
time I'd used it, it hadn't got put away properly. It had been left propped up against the side of the sink, and Dad had gone and trodden on it.
He
said it was lying on the floor. Don't ask me how it got there.
I
didn't leave it on the floor. But Dad trod on it and snapped it in two and as usual it was my fault. Everything is always my fault. Mum said it was time I learned to put things away after me. But I was going to!

I'd been on the point of shutting the mop back in the cupboard when my telephone rang and there was a text from Jem, something about Daisy Hooper, who is this girl at school that we all absolutely hate, so obviously I had to stop and text back â
Wot u talkin bout?
â and just as I'd done that the phone had gone and rung
again.
It had been Skye this time. I couldn't help it if my friends wanted to talk to me! I got sort of sidetracked and wandered into the garden, talking about Daisy and this super-gigantic row she'd had with her best friend, Cara Thompson, and one thing sort
of led to another, cos after speaking to Skye I felt I had to speak to Jem, who is, like, really talkative and practically never stops, plus Rags had come bundling out with me and wanted me to throw his ball, which I had to do cos you can't just ignore him, and by the time I got back it was too late. Dad had gone and trodden on the mop and broken it.

So now we didn't have a mop, which I just bet was the real reason Angel didn't bother clearing up. Catch her down on her hands and knees!

The floor seemed a bit slippy when I'd finished. But at least it was
clean.
Quite sparkling, really. I reckoned Mum would be well happy. I ever so carefully emptied the water down the sink and wrung out the cloth, the way she likes it. She goes mad if you leave it all soggy and dripping. Another of her weird hang-ups!

I was so pleased with the job I'd done that I decided to sit down and read the local paper while I waited for Mum to appear. She'd only popped over the road, so I knew she wouldn't be long. I really
wanted to see her face when she opened the door and all the lovely bright shininess rose up before her!

One of my favourite bits in what Dad calls “the local rag” is the horoscope page with Crystal Ball. That is her real actual name. It says so at the top of the column:
Your Horoscope Read by Crystal Ball
. I think that is so neat! I also think there has to be something in it. Fortune telling and stuff. Crystal is really gifted, she can predict all sorts of things. Like once, for Capricorn, which is Dad's star sign, she said, “A big change could be coming your way,” and that very same week Dad shaved off his moustache. And once for Gemini, which is Angel, she said, “Diet plays an important part in your life at the moment.” Well! You couldn't get much more accurate than that.

Tom said it didn't count since diet always plays an important part in Angel's life. He also said that Dad's didn't count cos he shaved off his moustache himself.

“Wasn't like it was something that just
happened.
”

I said, “Well, it hardly could, could it? A moustache can't just fall off by itself.”

“Be more impressive if it had,” said Tom; and he sniggered, as if he had said something clever.

The trouble with my brother is that he has no imagination. None whatsoever. He says horoscopes are nothing but piffle and bunk. Dunno where he got those words from, but anyway he is wrong, wrong, wrong! Crystal Ball knows what she is talking about. I proved it that morning, without a shadow of a doubt.

I'd just been reading the horoscope for Taurus, which means bull and is
me,
which Mum says is fitting cos it's a perfect description.

“Like a bull in a china shop! Only have to come through the door for things to start crashing down.”

Like I said, I get the blame for everything. But guess what? My horoscope was sympathetic! This is what it said:

Not for the first time, you run the risk of being falsely accused. Try to stay calm. Matters will be resolved.

I couldn't help wondering what I was going to be accused of this time. What had I done? I hadn't done anything! Then Mum came in and slipped on my beautiful sparkly floor and nearly broke her neck, or so she said. She screamed, “Good God, Frankie, what have you been up to? This floor's like a skating rink!”

I felt really hurt. After all my hard work!

“I cleaned it for you,” I said.

“Well, I'm sure that's very sweet of you,” said Mum, pressing both hands into the small of her back, “but what on earth did you use? Furniture polish?”

I said, “No!” Who'd use furniture polish for cleaning a kitchen floor? That would be just stupid. I told her proudly that I'd used washing-up liquid.

“Like about half a litre of it,” said Mum. “Do we still have any left?”

Of course we had some left! What was she on about?

Mum just shook her head, like she was feeling defeated.

“What?” I said. “What have I done?”

It seemed I'd used a bit more than I should have.

“All you need â” Mum said it almost pleadingly â “is just the tiniest, weeniest little drop. If any!”

How was I supposed to know? They don't give you measurements.

“The floor was in a right mess,” I said. “There were muddy pawprints
everywhere.
”

“Yes, you did a splendid job,” said Mum.

Well, I reckoned I had, specially as it shouldn't have been up to me in the first place.

“I wasn't the one that let Rags in,” I said. “
She
did. She never cleans up after him.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Mum. “You'll know better next time.”

Pardon me? If this was the way I was going to be treated, there wouldn't be any
next time
.

I watched as Mum grabbed a bunch of kitchen roll and set about drying the floor. I guess it
was
still a bit wet. I thought of saying how we needed a new mop, but decided against it on account of that was yet another thing I'd got the blame for. She'd only start on about me not putting things away. Probably best to change the subject.

“Mum,” I said, “what's your star sign? Is it Virgo? I'll read your horoscopeâ¦
A very bad accident narrowly averted.
” I wrinkled my nose. “What's that mean?”

Mum said it meant that she could have broken her neck and ended up totally paralysed, while as it was she had merely ricked her back. “Which is quite bad enough.”

“So, like, something
nearly
happened, but then it didn't.”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Mum.

Wow! That was two things Crystal Ball had predicted: me getting falsely accused and Mum almost breaking her neck.

I said, “You know Tom thinks that horoscopes are rubbish? Do you think they're rubbish?”

“Absolutely,” said Mum.

“Even when they say things that come true, like about you not having an accident?”

“I did have an accident.”

“Yes, but you could have had a really
bad
one.”

“Tell me about it!”

“No, but really,” I said.

“Really,” said Mum, “take it from me, horoscopes are a total nonsense. Completely made up.”

“You mean, like, people just invent stuff? Like, what shall I say for Virgo? Oh, I know!
You nearly have a bad accident, but in the end you don't
, sort of thing. And then it just happens to come true, and you and Tom say it's all rubbish.”

“Coincidence,” said Mum. “It's bound to happen occasionally. Then gullible people like you think it's some kind of magic.”

I frowned. “What's gull'ble?”

“Easily taken in,” said Mum. “You'd believe any
old nonsense!”

What Mum didn't realise was that Crystal Ball had made
two
correct predictions, not just one. But I didn't bother arguing with her. I have noticed before that when people close their minds there is nothing you can do to convince them. It's like Dad and UFOs.

“Flying saucers?” he says. “Load of claptrap!”

He would still say it was claptrap even if one landed in the back garden and a crowd of aliens got out. Fortunately, I am the sort of person who is always open to new ideas; I think it is the way one develops. If we were all like Mum and Dad, we would still be living in caves.

I tore out the horoscope page and put it in my bag to show Jem and Skye as we walked into school.

“Just no way,” I said, “
no way
was it my fault!”

Jem and Skye are my two best mates in all the world, but I have to say they are not always as supportive as they could be. You would think they would automatically be on my side. I mean, that is
what mates are for. They are not supposed to jeer and make stupid remarks.

I told them in great detail about Rags coming in from the garden with muddy feet. I told them what the rule was. But when I read out my horoscope, about being falsely accused, they treated it like it was some kind of joke.

Well, Jem did. Skye was more like, “Oh, please!” Skye can be just a little bit superior at times. She said, “Yawn, yawn! What's new? You're always being falsely accused.”

“Yeah, right,” said Jem. She went off into a peal of idiotic giggles. “Nothing isn't ever her fault!”

Crossly, I said, “It wasn't my job to clean the kitchen floor.”

“But whoever
did
clean it,” said Jem, “left it soaking wet and nearly broke your mum's neck!”

I said, “
So?
It still doesn't make it my fault. Does it?”

Jem giggled again. Skye just hunched a shoulder. I really didn't know what was wrong with Skye these
days. She was behaving very oddly. Not depressed, exactly, but certainly not her usual self. She's never been what you'd call a bouncy sort of person, but just suddenly she'd stopped being fun.

“Anyway,” I said, “that's not all. Guess what Crystal Ball wrote for Mum?
A bad accident, narrowly averted.
”

Jem cackled. She sounded like a hen that's just laid a square egg. “Living with you, I should think your mum spends her life having bad accidents narrowly averted!”

I decided to ignore the uncouth cackling.

“Seriously,” I said, “it can't just be coincidence that she got it right for both of us. And both on the same day!”

“What's my one?” said Jem. “What's she say for Leo?”

“Leoâ¦
Take action now to start de-cluttering.
”

“Oh!” Jem gave a high-pitched squeal. “Mum told me only yesterday that my bedroom was too cluttered and I really ought to see if I'd got any
stuff we could give to charity.”

Well.
So much for her and her silly giggling.

“I reckon that just about proves it,” I said.

“What's she say for Skye? Read what she says for Skye!”

“Sagittariusâ¦
You need to face a fear and conquer it.
”

We turned expectantly to Skye.

“I don't have any fears,” said Skye.

“You must have
some
,” I said. “Everybody has
some.
”

“Well, I don't!” She said it quite angrily. “It's all rubbish! What have I got to be scared of?”

“Spiders?” said Jem.

“I'm not scared of spiders!”