Jean Ure - Freaks Out!

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 –” Mum said it almost pleadingly – “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 horoscope… 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?”

“Leo… 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!”

“Sagittarius… 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!”

“I know, I know!” I clapped my hands. “Not getting A+ for her maths homework!”

“And for her French homework!”

“And for geography!”

“And for history!”

Now I was going off into giggles myself. Skye is like the class brain; it would frighten the life out of her if she ever got a B for anything. She once got A-for an essay and it threw her into total depression for a whole week.

“You are such morons,” she said.

I suppose it is not quite fair to laugh at a person, especially if they are one of your best friends, but all the same I do think people should be able to take a joke now and again. I know I can. I am always being laughed at. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Even if it does, I don’t make a big thing of it.

“Where are you going?” said Jem.

“I’m going to school, if that’s all right with you.” Skye flung it at us over her shoulder. “I want to get there on time.”

We watched as she went stalking on ahead of us, her legs, long and spindly, clacking to and fro like a pair of animated chopsticks.