My Sister Jodie Read online

  She went to visit them for an hour or so every evening. I sometimes went too, lurking in a corner, listening to her. I didn’t mind a bit when she talked to the boys, in fact I sometimes cuddled up with Dan and his man while Jodie told everyone stories.

  Dan was always a little stand-offish in his odd little outfits, but when he was dressed in his soft striped pyjamas, he seemed to lose several years and become this cuddly little baby. Even his man stopped being so freaky because Dan wrapped a big hankie round him for a nightshirt, covering up his disconcerting innards.

  It was a much weirder experience going to the girls’ house because Jodie treated them exactly the way she used to treat me. In fact ‘Little Paws’ was my story, made up to celebrate the birth of my first teddy bear. I felt so proud of Jodie when all the little girls ooohed and aaahed at every aspect of the story – and yet I also wanted to clap my hands over their ears because ‘Little Paws’ belonged to me.

  I caught Jodie fishing Edgar, Allan and Poe out from underneath my duvet.

  ‘They’re my bears, Jodie,’ I said.

  ‘Of course they are, baby. I just want to show them to all the littlies. I’ve made up the coolest bear story for them called “Purplelocks’’. They’ll simply love it, especially if I act it out.’

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  ‘You’re not acting it out with my bears,’ I said childishly.

  Jodie stared at me and then laughed. ‘Who’s gone all green-eyed then?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I snapped.

  She was right, I was jealous, especially when Sakura hung on Jodie’s every word and begged to hold her hand. I’d always felt that Sakura was my special little girl but I hardly got a look-in now.

  Jodie was still ostracized by most of the others in her class but she truly didn’t seem to mind now.

  Both Matron and Undie complimented her on her relationship with the little ones, though Undie seemed understandably peeved. Miss French congratulated her. Mr Wilberforce took Mum and Dad to one side and told them that Jodie was doing a sterling job with the small children and seemed to be settling down at last.

  ‘You’re turning into a little treasure, Jodie,’ said Dad, picking her up and whirling her round, the way he did when we were little. ‘We’re so proud of you, aren’t we, Shaz?’

  Mum nodded and mumbled something vague but she didn’t really praise Jodie properly. She seemed distracted, not properly focused any more. She concentrated hard when she was cooking but the rest of the time she seemed in a daze. She watched a lot of television, but she didn’t laugh at any of the sit-com jokes or shout out the answers to the quiz shows. She didn’t nag us or question us or correct our grammar. It was much more peaceful but a little weird.

  Mum still got irritated when Miss French told her what to do.

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  ‘Pumpkins!’ Mum exploded.

  ‘That stupid

  woman’s ordered thirty blooming pumpkins so that the little kids can carve silly faces for Halloween –

  and then she wants me to make pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie and pumpkin tart and pumpkin risotto and pumpkin kiss-my-bum. What a ridiculous waste of money – pumpkins are the most tasteless, useless veg. Then she wants umpteen kilos of apples, and these aren’t even for eating –

  they’re for bobbing for apples! What a waste of bloody food, pardon my French, getting kids sticking their heads underwater to bite lumps out of apples. I ask you!’

  ‘You have to enter into the spirit of Halloween, Mum,’ said Jodie.

  ‘It’s all silly American nonsense,’ said Mum. ‘It’s all rubbish, this trick-or-treating lark, little kids dressing up as ghosts and ghoulies and skeletons and pestering for money.’

  ‘Yay!’ said Jodie.

  She started preparing all her little children for Halloween. She sweet-talked Matron into letting her have a stack of old worn sheets so that most of the little kids could have ghost costumes. She invented specific and wonderfully scary costumes for Zeph, Sakura and Dan. She stole an old-fashioned scythe from Jed’s garden shed and made Zeph a Grim Reaper. She dressed Sakura in her black gym leotard and black tights and then painted white bones all over her, turning her into a skeleton.

  ‘ I want to be a skellington and look like my Man,’

  said Dan.

  ‘You’re too chubby to be a skeleton, Dan. No, I’ve 345

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  got a better idea for you. You’re going to be a scary monkey,’ said Jodie.

  She made him a papier-mâché monkey mask and purloined Dad’s old brown wool balaclava to be the fur on his head. She dressed him in a big woolly jumper and then gave him two rotting rubber hands from the toy monkeys in the attics.

  ‘You hang onto them inside your sleeves and offer to shake hands with people and then let go, so that they’re left holding a severed hand,’ said Jodie, demonstrating. ‘See, Dan? You’ll give people such a fright.’

  Dan whooped triumphantly, turning round and round, juggling with his horrible monkey hands.

  ‘You’re getting them all over-excited,’ I said sourly. ‘And you’re totally mad letting Zeph near a scythe. ‘He’ll kill everyone.’

  ‘It’s all blunt and rusty and I’ve wrapped sellotape round it to make it safe,’ said Jodie. ‘Now, what are you going to wear for Halloween, Pearl?’

  ‘I’m not wearing any stupid costume,’ I said. ‘I’m not one of the babies.’

  ‘You’re acting like a baby,’ said Jodie. ‘Look at that lickle sulky face, diddums!’

  She ran her finger over my lips, making a silly noise. I bared my teeth suddenly and bit her.

  ‘Ow! That hurt!’

  She shook her hand, rubbing the finger, showing me real tiny toothmarks. I started to feel terrible.

  Jodie traded on this, holding her hand in her armpit and looking anguished.

  ‘It was only a little bite,’ I said.

  ‘You broke the skin. Don’t you know what damage a bite can do, even a little one? Remember 346

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  when that dog bit me? I had to go to the doctor’s and get an injection. You could have given me any old infection. Tetanus. Maybe even rabies.’

  ‘I haven’t got tetanus or rabies so how could I possibly give them to you?’

  ‘You could easily be a carrier. It might not affect you but you could pass it on to me and I could get desperately ill, even die.’

  ‘You’re just being silly,’ I said, but my stomach clenched and goose pimples crawled up and down my arms.

  ‘Oh, well, if I die, I’ll turn into a ghost and then I won’t need a Halloween costume, I’ll be one!’

  ‘I’m sick to death of Halloween and I’m sick to death of you!’ I shouted.

  I didn’t speak to Jodie any more that evening, not even when we went to bed – but in the middle of the night I climbed under her duvet and hugged her tightly, crying.

  ‘You’re making my pyjamas all wet,’ she complained sleepily.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I bit your finger. It is all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, I think so,’ said Jodie. ‘It’s just – oh God!’

  ‘ What? ’

  ‘Feel!’

  I scrabbled for her hand in the dark. I felt her thumb – and one, two, three fingers.

  ‘It must have fallen off in the night!’ said Jodie.

  ‘It can’t have!’ I gasped, feeling again frantically.

  She was hiding one finger in her palm. I shook her furiously while she howled with laughter.

  ‘You are so bad,’ I said.

  ‘And you are so stupid,’ Jodie chortled.

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  I found Harley at breakfast on Halloween morning and asked if he wa