My Sister Jodie Read online

  lettuce,’ said Jodie. ‘ I’m the one who can pack a good punch. Leave me to fight my own battles, Pearly.’

  I spoke to Harley in private.

  ‘Why are they all being so hateful to her?’

  ‘They’re not all hateful. James and Phil are morons but the rest of the boys are OK. The girls are being a bit spiteful though.’

  ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘Oh, just stupid stuff,’ said Harley uncomfortably.

  ‘Like what? Tell me!’

  ‘Stuff about her hair and her earrings and the way she talks,’ said Harley. ‘So of course Jodie plays up to it, acting really tough when she’s around them.

  And she swears a lot. She swore in class today.’

  ‘At the teacher?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. Mr Michaels was talking to her about her English literature essay. We had to comment on the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

  Jodie wrote this total rubbish about falling in love and said real teenagers wouldn’t say a lot of fancy stuff you could barely understand, they’d just sneak off together and start snogging.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Was Mr Michaels furious?’

  ‘He was very fair at first. He tried to explain that she’d get no marks at all if she answered that way in an exam. Jodie said she didn’t care, she just wanted to say what she thought. Mr Michaels said it was irrelevant what Miss Jodie Wells thought, fascinating as that might be, and Anna and the others all sniggered. Jodie got angry and said,

  “That’s just stupid,’’ using the F-word as an adjective, and we all went quiet. Mr Michaels missed a beat and then he said, “Are you calling me, etc. etc.’

  and I prayed that Jodie wouldn’t get even crazier.

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  Luckily she climbed down a little and said sulkily that she was simply referring to the principle of English essay writing when you weren’t supposed to say what you really thought.

  Mr Michaels nodded coldly at her and said,

  “Well, that’s just as well, because if I thought you were subjecting me to personal abuse, I would have to report you, whereas if you’re merely attacking our system of education, I can simply give you extra homework. You’re to learn the entire balcony scene off by heart by tomorrow, young lady, and I shall require you to recite it in front of the whole class.’

  ‘How mean of him!’

  ‘Well, I thought it was quite good of him, actually.

  Jodie seems determined to wind him up and yet I can’t quite see why.’

  ‘She’s always been a bit like that. She’s OK if she really likes a teacher, but she just mucks about if she thinks they’re rubbish.’

  ‘But I still don’t see why. If she was really thick, I could see why she needed to be the class clown, but she’s quite bright. She doesn’t know that much, but she’s ace at arguing her point, and she’s very quick to catch on.’

  I didn’t like Harley talking about Jodie like that.

  He sounded patronizing.

  ‘Jodie’s ever so clever,’ I said firmly.

  Harley gave me a funny look. ‘I bet she’s not as clever as you are. Maybe that’s why she messes around so – because she knows her little sister will always do better.’

  ‘That’s silly,’ I said. ‘Jodie doesn’t think like that at all.’

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  Harley raised one eyebrow in an extremely irritating way.

  ‘You think you’re Mr Know-it-all, Harley, but you know zilch about Jodie and me. I’m not speaking to you any more.’

  I marched off with my head in the air. My heart was thumping. I hated quarrelling with anyone. I especially hated quarrelling with Harley. Now I’d walked off, and we hadn’t properly fixed up whether we were going badger-watching tonight or not. We couldn’t meet up late at night any more.

  Everything was different now that term had started. The boys’ house was locked at ten o’clock now. The male teachers took it in turns to sleep in the master’s room, keeping an eye on everyone.

  We’d tried meeting up in the early evening after tea, but so far hadn’t glimpsed so much as a snout.

  I stomped back to our flat. Dad was dozing on the sofa, a wood shaving caught in his hair like an alien ringlet. Mum was sitting at the table with her calculator, doing her accounts. Her forehead was puckered as if someone had tried to stitch her eyebrows together. She muttered as her fingers tapped.

  ‘That bloody Frenchie,’ she said. ‘I’ll show her.’

  She glared and then focused on me. ‘All right, poppet? Been playing with Harriet and Freya and Sheba and Camilla?’ Mum enunciated each name carefully, so proud of my posh new friends. ‘Better get on with your homework now. Jodie’s in the bedroom doing hers.’

  Jodie was in our bedroom but she certainly wasn’t doing homework. She was sitting in front of the mirror in her bra and knickers, her hair piled 293

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  on top of her head. It was soaking wet and a startlingly different shade, a weird purply-black. She saw my face in the reflection.

  ‘Hi! I’m your new Goth sister,’ she said. ‘Like my new black persona?’

  ‘Oh, gosh. Well. It’s different. Very . . . Goth.’ I touched a wet strand tentatively. ‘Is it meant to be purple?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jodie determinedly. ‘Well, no, it’s actually meant to come out black. I don’t think it helps that it’s already dyed orange. Perhaps it’ll get blacker when it dries.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said.

  I dabbed at Jodie’s hair with the towel to hurry the process. Her scalp was a vulnerable pinky-purple, the colour of a just-born baby. I put my arms round her, resting her damp head against my chest.

  Little strands of her hair slithered about like lurid earthworms.

  ‘What do you think Mum will say?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t care what she says,’ said Jodie. ‘ I think it looks great.’

  ‘So do I,’ I said.

  Jodie put her head closer to the mirror, peering.

  ‘Maybe I should dye my eyebrows too.’

  ‘No!’ I said.

  ‘Well, I need something matching.’

  ‘You could paint your nails?’

  ‘I haven’t got any nails,’ said Jodie, waggling her fingers.

  She’d always nibbled her nails, but now they were bitten so badly they were just little slivers, the exposed finger flesh very pink and raw.

  ‘Oh well, paint your nose purple instead,’ I said, 294

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  trying to make her laugh. She was starting to look anxious.

  ‘Ha ha,’ Jodie said, sighing.

  She shook the towel off and ran her hands through her hair. ‘It really needs a new style to go with the colour. Something wild.’

  She started rattling in the drawer. I was scared she was searching for scissors. She had a habit of snipping at her fringe so that her hair already had a ragged uneven look, as if a sheep had been grazing on it overnight.

  ‘Don’t cut any more off!’

  ‘No, no, I was looking for . . . yeah, your beads. I could string them on a strand or two, just the purple ones, to make out the colour’s deliberate.’

  Sheba was next in line for a friendship bracelet.

  She’d asked for a purple one, her favourite colour. I badly wanted to please Sheba and all my new friends, but I wanted to please Jodie more.

  ‘Purple will look seriously cool,’ I said, fishing in my bead jar. ‘Though if you stick beads in your hair, it will look as if you’re copying Jed.’

  ‘So?’ said Jodie. ‘Don’t you think he looks cool?’

  ‘No. I think he looks horrible,’ I said.

  ‘So what’s your definition of cool? Harley? ’ said Jodie.

  ‘You can be as mean about Harley as you want, s