Lottie Project Read online

  I could not believe it. I knew it would be a very large stretch of water, but I’d pictured it like the river at home. I had no idea it would shimmer as far as the eye could see. And it moved so, wave after wave rolling over and over.

  It was very cold in the early morning air but I tore my boots and stockings off and paddled in the shallows just to say I had done it! A fat old woman told me I could use one of her bathing machines if I cared to, but I was happy enough just to let the water whirl about my ankles. My feet were blue with cold all morning but I didn’t care.

  Then, when I took the three children to the beach later that morning there was an ice-cream man selling hokey-pokey for a penny a lump, even though it was the winter season. I had three pennies so I bought one for Louisa, one for Victor, and one for Freddie and me to share.

  My first ice cream! This time my lips turned blue but I licked them warm again.

  I still cannot say I enjoy being a servant – but it has its compensations!

  CHRISTMAS

  Jamie’s Victorian project did win. Well, it was obvious it was going to. It was easy-peasy, simple-pimple to work it out. Though my postcards from Bournemouth certainly helped. They made Jamie’s project much thicker and the pages clicked enticingly as you turned each page. These postcard pages were so bright and glossy that Miss Beckworth couldn’t help being dazzled. All right, she puts lots of ticks and stars and Well Dones! on his sections on railway engines and factories and coal mines, and she liked his town and country pages and all his maps in the British Empire bit, and she went a bit overboard on his Crimean War with an EXCELLENT! underlined. My postcards just got a tick or two, but that was obviously because she didn’t want to deface the beauty of the page.

  Miss Beckworth held Jamie’s project up and showed it to the class and all the goodie-goodies went Oooh and Aaah and all the baddie-baddies went Yuck and Boring and Swot and Teacher’s Pet. I would normally count myself the baddest baddie-baddie – and yet I found myself thumping old Jamie on the back and saying, ‘Well done, Clever Clogs.’

  He went very red when I said that. Maybe I thumped a bit too hard. Then he had to go up to Miss Beckworth and shake her hand and she said ‘Well done’ too. She said she’d like to give him a little prize. She gave him a £5 book token and a little painted Victorian soldier. Jamie was dead chuffed.

  I couldn’t help feeling a bit wistful then. I waited for Miss Beckworth to hand out the rest of the projects. I was sure mine would have red lines all through it and SEE ME, CHARLOTTE! in cross capitals. But you’ll never ever guess what! Miss Beckworth paused theatrically.

  ‘Jamie’s brilliant project tells us almost all there is to know about Victorian times. But there’s one other project here that tells us what it feels like to be a Victorian.’ And she held out MY project!!! ‘I’m so impressed with your diary of Lottie the Nursery Maid that I’d like to award you a prize too, Charlotte.’

  ‘Great! Good for you, Charlie,’ said Jamie.

  Yep! Good for me! Miss Beckworth beckoned me out to the front of the class and I had to go through the handshaking ceremony too, which was OK – but I kept thinking, am I getting a prize like Jamie? And I did! A £5 book token, and a tiny reproduction china doll the size of my little finger.

  ‘Oh, she’s sweet! Thank you very much, Miss Beckworth,’ I said.

  ‘Do you know what they used to call that sort of doll? They were called Frozen Charlottes,’ said Miss Beckworth, and she actually grinned at me.

  I appreciated her little joke. I actually sort of appreciated her for once. She asked me to read out some of my diary entries for Lottie. So I did. Everyone got a bit shuffly and sighing to start with – but by the time I’d got to the bottom of the first page they were riveted! I read on and on and not a single person said Yuck, so there!

  Lisa and Angela got a teensy little bit snotty afterwards. Lisa especially, because her dad had done all her Victorian project on his posh computer with special loopy writing and graphics and it hadn’t even had a special mention.

  ‘You’re really getting to be a teacher’s pet now, Charlie,’ said Lisa. ‘I don’t know who’s the swottiest now, you or your precious Jamie.’

  ‘He’s not mine. And he’s not precious either, come to that,’ I said, snorting.

  ‘We saw you putting your arm round him when his project won,’ said Angela, giggling away.

  ‘Purlease!’ I said. ‘Don’t be so pathetic, Ange.’

  ‘You’re the one that’s pathetic, Charlie, getting all matey with Jamie Edwards. He’s the nerdiest boy in the whole class.’

  ‘So?’ I said fiercely.

  ‘So what do you see in him?’ said Lisa.

  ‘He can be quite good fun sometimes. OK, he does look a bit weird—’

  ‘You’re telling me!’ said Lisa.

  ‘And he wears the grottiest clothes,’ said Angela.

  ‘Yes, right, he’s a total Arnie-Anorak, but I don’t care.’

  ‘She’s gone off her rocker,’ said Lisa to Angela.

  ‘Completely nuts,’ said Angela to Lisa.

  ‘Yeah, you’re mad, Charlie. You could probably get any boy in our class keen on you – well, apart from Dave Wood – yet you choose Jamie for a boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s NOT my boyfriend. You two aren’t half slow at catching on. He’s a friend who happens to be a boy – OK a nerdy, grotty, swotty boy – but so what?’ I shouted. A little too loudly. Jamie himself came out the boys’ cloakroom and stared. Lisa and Angela doubled up laughing. I felt myself going red. Totally screamingly scarlet.

  ‘Better leave the two lovebirds together,’ said Lisa, and she tugged Angela away.

  They went giggle giggle giggle down the corridor.

  ‘Idiots,’ I muttered. I blew hard up my nostrils, fluttering my fringe. ‘Phew, isn’t it hot in here?’ I paused. ‘What are you staring at?’

  ‘Did you just say I was nerdy and grotty and swotty?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘Oh,’ I groaned. ‘No.’

  ‘I heard you,’ said Jamie, looking wounded.

  ‘Well, all right, yes. But it wasn’t my description,’ I said.

  ‘So everyone thinks I’m nerdy and grotty and swotty,’ said Jamie.

  ‘No. Yes. Well, a few of the girls maybe. And the boys. Don’t look all upset, Jamie, I’m trying to make things better.’

  ‘I’d hate it if you were trying to make things worse then,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Look, you’re not daft, you must have twigged that’s what they think,’ I said.

  ‘You are making it worse,’ said Jamie.

  ‘But you don’t really care, do you, Jamie?’

  ‘Don’t I?’ said Jamie.

  ‘Well, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but that’s because everyone likes you,’ said Jamie.

  ‘No they don’t. Not even Lisa and Angela much, and they’re supposed to be my best friends.’

  ‘And . . . did you say I was your friend too?’ said Jamie, looking a bit perkier.

  I shrugged. ‘Mmm,’ I said.

  ‘You mean it? We’re really friends? Even though I’m a boy? And a nerdy grotty swotty one at that?’ Jamie didn’t seem at all upset now. I wondered if he’d been pretending before. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  ‘I generally can’t stick boys,’ I said. ‘But you’re OK.’

  ‘So are you,’ said Jamie.

  We stood there looking at each other. For two ultra-chatty people we suddenly seemed lost for words. And then there were these s-t-u-p-i-d slurpy kissy-kissy sounds. Angela and Lisa had crept back towards us.

  ‘Look at them!’

  ‘Gazing into each other’s eyes, dumbstruck!’

  ‘Go on then, Jamie, kiss her.’

  ‘They’ll be snogging at the school disco next week!’

  They collapsed with laughter.

  ‘Take no notice,’ said Jamie calmly. ‘Let the lower mortals prattle.’

  ‘You what?’ said Lisa.