The Strawberry Sisters (10 page)

Lucy shook her head. ‘I can’t fish anyway. I’ve got ballet.’

Dad said something rude about ballet. Even though Lucy goes every Saturday, Dad is always forgetting about it.

‘It’s teaching me to be graceful.’ Lucy flopped across the table with her legs in the air to steal a slice of Chloe’s toast. ‘Anyway, I want to try to saw Madame
Donna in half.’

‘Does Madame Donna like it when you do magic tricks on her?’ Chloe asked.

‘I don’t always tell her exactly what the trick is.’

Dad looked at Lucy for a few seconds, then turned to Chloe. ‘You’re looking forward to fishing, aren’t you, Chloe?’

‘Yep, I’m going to be brilliant at it. And, while we’re doing it, you can help me with my Fantasy Football team.’

Dad beamed. ‘Excellent.’

Amelia made a vomiting noise. Dad turned to where she was slumped on the sofa.

‘There’s no need for that. You know, it’s nice and quiet by the river; you could sing us one of your songs.’

Amelia lifted her head. ‘Or I could stay in bed like normal people do at the crack of dawn on a Saturday. Anyway, since when have you been interested in my singing?’ And then she
slumped back down face first.

‘Amelia hasn’t got time for us,’ Chloe said. ‘She needs hours to put on all her make-up and then she’s got to text all her friends about whether some idiot boy
looked at her or not.’

But Dad was still trying to get someone other than Chloe excited about fishing.

‘There’ll be maggots, Lucy! You like wriggly, squirmy things, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, that’s why she likes you, Dad,’ Amelia said and she rolled off the sofa and crawled back upstairs.

‘That was quite rude,’ Chloe said. ‘You ought to speak to her about her attitude, Dad.’

Dad blinked. Chloe doesn’t normally talk in that teacherish way.

‘I’ll come,’ I said. I wasn’t exactly keen on fishing, but it would be nice to spend some time with Dad and he seemed so excited that I didn’t want to disappoint
him.

‘You’re all coming,’ he said.

Lucy waved a ballet shoe at him.

‘Except Lucy.’

A door closed upstairs.

‘And Amelia.’

In the end, we left Amelia in bed and dropped off Lucy at the community centre for her lesson. Then we headed out of town to the neighbouring village, parked the car at a pub and made our way to
the river.

‘But won’t Lucy need picking up soon?’ I asked.

‘I asked Rose’s mum to drop her back at home. We can stay for a few hours.’

Chloe started telling Dad about football transfers. I wasn’t sure if they were real ones or fantasy ones. I just hoped that wasn’t the only thing they were going to talk about.

It was pretty down by the river. The sun was shining and birds were singing. The trees were leaning over the bank like they were admiring themselves in the water. It was very calm and
peaceful.

‘I wish we had an air pistol,’ Chloe said.

Dad set up a couple of deckchairs and showed Chloe how to bait a line. We only had two rods so I just had to watch. Once the lines were in the water, there wasn’t that much to do so they
talked some more about football. A lot more.

‘Can we talk about something else?’ I asked.

So they talked about rugby. And then rally driving.

Eventually, Chloe said, ‘Sorry, Ella, I’ve had ages. It’s your turn.’ And she gave the rod to me. ‘Actually, I saw a kind of burrow hole back there. I’m going
to go and see if there are any vicious badgers in it.’

‘Don’t disappear,’ Dad said.

So then I got to copy Dad casting his line. He got tangled up the first time so I’m not sure that he was a really good example to follow, but eventually we both got everything where it was
supposed to be. I sat back in my chair. It was nice being outside and having Dad all to myself for once.

But I couldn’t think of anything to say.

It was quiet for a minute. Dad yawned.

‘Kirsti’s nice,’ I said eventually.

‘She’s a bonny baby, isn’t she? You know, I was working so hard when you girls were small that I missed out on a lot of things. I’m really looking forward to seeing this
little one grow and flourish.’

‘You can still watch us growing up too,’ I said.

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

If I hadn’t been being super nice, I might have thought that he seemed to say that in quite a quick way, like he didn’t really mean it; instead, I tried to say something else about
Kirsti, but I couldn’t really think of anything because she didn’t exactly do a lot.

There was a long pause.

‘How’s Mum?’ Dad asked.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that. Was Mum supposed to be happy or sad without him?

‘She’s fine.’

‘Good.’ He leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. ‘And how’s school?’

I knew the answer to that one. ‘It’s great because now Ashandra is at the same school as me and Kayleigh so we can all be friends together.’ I stared at the water. ‘I
mean . . . we’re not exactly
best
, best friends at the moment. Actually, Kayleigh said something not that nice about Ashandra the other day, and also Ashandra didn’t want to work
with us on a book project, but we’ve all joined the Hockey Club so that’s good.’ I squeezed the fishing rod tight. ‘In the end, I think we’ll all be really good
friends. Don’t you?’

I looked at Dad. He was fast asleep.

I didn’t wake him up. When Chloe came back, she took the rod gently out of his hands. She said that she heard him walking about with Kirsti in the middle of the night so he must have been
tired. Sometimes it’s difficult to think of the bright side of a baby who takes up all your dad’s spare time, even when she’s not there.

We thought we’d got a bite on the fishing line at one point, but when we managed to reel it in it was only a chunk of wood.

Eventually, Dad woke up and took us home for lunch.

The afternoon’s Plan was much smaller because Dad needed to do some work. He said we just had time to take Kirsti for a quick walk round the park before he got started.

‘You’re not coming, are you?’ Amelia asked Suvi while Dad was changing Kirsti.

‘I think I will stay here and make some phone calls,’ Suvi said, but her face looked like she’d wanted to say something else.

It takes a long time to get out of the house when you’ve got a baby with you. First you have to make sure that they’re not hungry and that their nappy is clean. Then you have to
check that they won’t be too cold or too hot. Dad had a ginormous bag full of things to take with us, even though we were only going down the road.

‘Don’t be long,’ Suvi said as we were leaving. ‘Kirsti will need another feed soon.’

We piled out of the door. Dad stopped to adjust the handle on Kirsti’s pram and an old lady walking past peered in at Kirsti.

‘Isn’t she lovely?’ she said. ‘Goodness, are all these girls yours?’ she asked Dad.

‘Every one.’

She beamed at us. ‘How splendid. You must be very proud. Five little treasures.’

Dad smiled back. ‘Sometimes it’s more like five little monkeys!’ He put his arm round Lucy. ‘They’re good girls really. You make your old dad proud, don’t
you?’

I didn’t know that I made Dad proud, but I smiled at the old lady. Amelia cracked her chewing gum.

‘Enjoy the weather while it lasts,’ the old lady said and she was off.

‘Who was that?’ Lucy asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Dad said. ‘A nice lady.’

‘Why was she talking about us?’

‘I think she was impressed that I’ve managed to produce such a handsome, well-behaved brood.’

Kirsti let out a wail, Chloe burped and Amelia said a bad word.

‘I think she thought we were famous,’ Lucy said.

The walk didn’t last long. Kirsti cried a lot. Lucy asked a lot of questions about why Kirsti cries so much. Chloe didn’t stop talking to Dad and Amelia didn’t say a word. I
offered to get another blanket out of the bag in case she was cold, but Dad said no. Then I said I could push the pram if he was still tired, but he didn’t want me to do that either.
It’s quite hard being nice when people don’t want your help.

When we got back, Dad disappeared into his study and we hardly saw him again that weekend.

I was really pleased when Ashandra said she wanted to sit with me and Kayleigh at lunch on Tuesday, but it turned out that she just wanted to talk about the art
competition.

‘Do you want to show everyone your research first in class or shall I?’ she asked Kayleigh.

‘You can show yours,’ Kayleigh said. ‘Actually, I haven’t exactly got very much research.’

Ashandra pursed her lips. ‘Why not? We agreed on Friday that we’d get our research done this weekend. You heard us talking about it, didn’t you, Ella?’

To be fair, it was mostly Ashandra that I’d heard talking about it. Although Kayleigh definitely did do some head-nodding. Before I was forced to answer, Kay folded her arms. ‘I
don’t really think we need to do all this research stuff; we should get on with decorating our panel.’

‘We need to know what we’re going to put on it first.’

‘I’ve got loads of ideas.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not going to be a very accurate representation of Chinese culture if we don’t have a solid foundation of research.’

When big words come out of Ashandra’s mouth, they seem to clog up Kayleigh’s ears and she doesn’t listen to anything else. She rolled her eyes at me.

‘Kayleigh?’ Ashandra tapped the table. ‘We’re supposed to be in charge of the project.’

‘Seems like you’re being in charge enough for both of us.’

‘Somebody has to be responsible and not act like a little kid.’

Kayleigh clenched her jaw. ‘Are you calling me a baby?’

Ashandra drew herself up tall. ‘I’m saying that you’re irresponsible and you’re letting the class down.’

‘That’s better than being a stuck-up bossy-pants who thinks she’s better than everyone else.’ Kayleigh pushed back her chair and flounced off to the drinks machine.

Ashandra stood up with her head held high and walked off in the opposite direction.

I was left in the middle.

‘Has Miss Gardner told your class about the art competition yet?’ Chloe asked me while we were making pasta bake for tea. Amelia was supposed to be in charge, but
she was scribbling in a notebook.

‘Yes,’ I said. Ashandra and Kayleigh had ignored each other all day after their row. It made me feel sick just thinking about it.

Chloe was distracted by Amelia noisily leafing through her notebook.

‘Amelia, you’re supposed to be doing the peppers,’ Chloe said.

‘I’m doing something more important.’

‘Nothing’s more important than making food for me to eat.’

‘I’m writing a song for International Day. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand the importance of music in an otherwise bleak existence.’

‘Has it got any rude words in it?’ Chloe asked.

Amelia rolled her head back like she couldn’t even bear to listen to Chloe. ‘No, it has not.’

‘Then I don’t think it’s as important as making tea.’

‘We’re doing China for our panel,’ I interrupted before full-scale war broke out. ‘Did you know they’re going to be on display in the hall on International Day when
the parents come in the afternoon? Do you think Dad will come?’

‘Yes,’ Chloe said.

‘No,’ said Amelia at the same time. ‘He didn’t bother coming to see me sing my solo in the carol concert.’

Chloe bit into a chocolate finger. I don’t know where she got it from. There weren’t any in the cupboard. ‘You can’t really blame Dad for not wanting to listen to you
sing,’ she said through her biscuit. ‘It is super boring.’

Amelia opened her mouth, but I interrupted again. ‘What country are your class doing?’ I asked Chloe. ‘For your panel?’

Chloe looked back at me. ‘We’ve got Finland. I’m going to ask Suvi for ideas.’

Amelia pulled a face. ‘What are you asking the Ice Queen for?’

‘Because that’s where she’s from obviously.’

‘It’s revolting the way you suck up to her and Dad.’

‘I don’t suck up to them! I’m just not rude and horrible like you are.’

Amelia put down her pencil. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

‘Get what?’

‘You’ve got no sense of solidarity with Mum.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

Amelia gave her a withering look. ‘You don’t understand anything. You’re too immature.’

Chloe slammed the casserole dish down hard on the counter. ‘I’m twelve! I can be immature if I want to! Why do people want me to act a certain way and do stupid grown-up stuff? You
think you’re an adult because you’re always being sarcastic and reading boring books and talking about boys. If that’s being grown up then I’d rather be immature.’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about! I’m talking about looking after Mum, but you obviously don’t care about that.’ Amelia snatched up her notebook. ‘You
don’t care about anything!’ She stormed out of the kitchen.

‘Yes I do!’ shouted Chloe. And she went out into the back garden, throwing open the door so hard that it smacked against the wall.

I was left in the middle.