Jean Ure - Fizzypop

“Get yourselves ready,” she said, “and get off to school.”

Angel disappeared, muttering, into her room. I went through to the kitchen to eat some breakfast. I always eat breakfast. I once read somewhere it’s the most important meal of the day; it gives you brain power. Angel doesn’t bother with it, on account of being figure-conscious. The most she ever has is a low-fat yoghurt, but I believe in eating properly. Angel can be stick thin if she wants. I’d rather not have my stomach rumbling in front of the whole class, which is what happened to me once and was just, like, so embarrassing I wanted to die, especially when people started calling me Rumblebelly. Who wants to be stick thin anyway? She is at that age, Mum says. Fifteen. It makes her very angry.

Tom was in the kitchen, packing books into his school bag. I said, “You eaten?” but he just mumbled and went on packing. I have never actually seen Tom eat breakfast, but that’s not to say he doesn’t. He is just a very private kind of person. Very secretive. I have this theory that Mum must have been abducted by aliens and that his real father is some kind of robot creature from outer space. It seems the only rational explanation. Mum says I’m not being fair; she says he is just shy. “Imagine what it must be like for him, sandwiched between you two.”

At least he doesn’t fly into rages.

“Honestly,” I said, “talk about over the top! It was just a little bit of crinkle.”

I’d hoped he might sympathise with me for the way I’d been treated; that we might even have a cosy chat about Angel and her furious temper. But you can’t really have cosy chats with Tom.

“It’s not like I crinkled the whole thing,” I said. “Soon as I saw what was happening, I stopped.”

Tom grunted, and stuffed some more books into his bag.

“And that thing with the shed… I was just trying to fumigate it.”

“Yeah?”

“For Dad.”

“Yeah.”

“Cos of what he was saying about someone leaving the door open and the foxes getting in?”

“Yeah?”

“Saying it smelt bad, it needed to be fumigated?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I’d do it for him.”

Tom wedged in the last of his books. “Surprised you knew what fumigate meant.”

“I Googled it!” I’m not stupid. I know how to find things out. “It’s when you fill a place with fumes to get rid of smells and stuff.”

Which is what I’d done. Tried to do. I’d taken one of the big scented candles left over from Christmas and put it on Dad’s work bench and lit it. I’d stood it on a saucer! I’m not irresponsible.

“I was only trying to help,” I said.

“Some help,” said Tom.

I’d thought Dad would be pleased. I thought next time he went out there he’d find a lovely scent of pine. Instead, there’d been a horrible smell of burning. Mum had been a bit cross. She said who on earth would leave a lighted candle in a shed full of combustible materials, meaning stuff that would go up in flames. Angel said, “ She would!”

I felt a bit bad about it cos I had this feeling it might have been me that had left the shed door open in the first place. It might not have been; but it could have been. Which is why I very nobly offered to give up two weeks’ pocket money to help pay for the repairs. I never thought Dad would accept!

“I still don’t know how it happened,” I said.

“Yeah.” Tom picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. “A total mystery.”

“Well, it is!” I agreed, eagerly. It was a mystery. It’s what I’d been saying all along, only no one would listen. “Might not have been my fault at all,” I said. “Someone might have gone in there and knocked the candle over. A burglar, or something. Don’t you think?”

But Tom had gone. He is a most unsatisfactory person to talk to. I slathered some marmalade over a piece of toast and wandered up the hall in search of Mum. She was in the front room, preparing stuff for Mrs Simmonds.

I said, “Mum?”

“What? Why haven’t you left for school? Frankie, please don’t let that dog in here! I’ve asked you before… not when I have someone coming.”

“OK.” I squashed Rags back out and closed the door.

“And don’t eat over Mrs Simmonds’s clothes!”

“I’m not.” I moved away. “Mum, about Angel’s shirt… I didn’t know it would shrivel! I was only trying to help.”

Mum sighed. “Yes, I’m sure you were.”

“You have so much work to do!”

“I do,” said Mum, “don’t I? And you’re just making even more for me, standing there dropping toast crumbs on the floor.”

“Sorry,” I said, “sorry! I’ll get the vacuum cleaner.”

“No! For God’s sake! I mean… it’s all right,” said Mum. “I’ll see to it. You just get yourself off to school.”

“All right.” I crammed in my last bit of toast. “Abow a garn sh—”

“I beg your pardon?” said Mum.

I swallowed. “About the garden shed… you don’t think a burglar got in there, do you?”

“Not really,” said Mum. “No.”

“It could have been a burglar! He could have knocked the candle over. He could have done it deliberately .”

“Oh, Frankie,” said Mum, “just go to school!”

“I was only asking,” I said.

Burglars did that sort of thing. Seemed far more likely to me than a big fat candle falling over all by itself.

“Frankie, will you please —”

“Yes, yes, I’m going!” I said.

I reached the front door at exactly the same moment as Angel.

“I hope you don’t think you’re going to walk with me,” she said.

I used to have to walk with her when I was in primary school; either with her or with Tom. Angel used to complain that Tom was always wriggling out of it.

“Just because he’s a boy!”

She doesn’t like being seen with me in public, she says I’m an embarrassment and that I cramp her style, whatever that is. I can’t say I particularly like being seen with her; not when she’s always flying into rages. It’s like being out with a crazy person. I tossed my head and told her that she didn’t need to worry.

“I’m meeting my friends.”

“Friends?” Angel snorted. “I’m surprised you’ve got any! Wait till you start shrivelling their favourite shirts.”

We sidestepped elaborately as we went through the door. I took a pace backwards.

“Age before beauty,” I said. I thought that was pretty good. I’d been dying to use it ever since reading it in a book.

Angel stuck her face close to mine.

“You are a hideous child,” she said. “I find you unspeakably loathsome.”

She is totally mad. I feel sorry for her.

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.