Double Act Read online

  Yuck! Now. Where was I?

  Oh yes. Garnet is truly despairing because I have broken up our twinship. She needs me. She might think she’s the clever one now, but not a bit of it! She’s utterly lost without me. But I’m fine. I don’t need her. Not one bit of her.

  Well, maybe her hand would come in useful some of the time. So she could do the writing when I get bored.

  I do get a little bored sometimes. I go out because I don’t want to stay in that smelly old shop, but there aren’t many places to go to in this horrible dump. So I just sort of mooch about.

  I don’t need Garnet to make up games for me. I can make up my own. I mostly pretend I’m this intrepid explorer trekking through the jungle, and there are killer snakes and huge hairy poisonous spiders

  and ferocious tigers

  and I wade through the rapids

  and hang by my fingertips from dangerous mountains

  and whenever I get the merest glimpse of the enemy I have to hide because in spite of my superhuman powers and mega-brilliance I am hopelessly outnumbered.

  I am planning an ambush when the Blob goes unprotected.

  The Intrepid Explorer often starves for days and days. She has to make quick raids into enemy territory

  but often has to make do with natural resources.

  The Intrepid Explorer did ponder about doing a bit of hunting

  but she decided she was a vegetarian. Even though she doesn’t actually go a bundle on vegetables. Sprouts . . . yuck. Cabbage . . . yuck. Cauliflower . . . double yuck.

  If this is a Memorandum book, then it’s just about me . . . and I can jot things down at randum. I know what that means too, Miss Jeffreys, so ya boo sucks to you. It means there’s no plan, and you just shove things in any old how. So these are my random jottings.

  I am Ruby Barker and I am a brilliant actress and if my ex-twin hadn’t made such a muck of things then I could be starring in a telly serial this summer.

  I tried phoning the television people, telling them I was willing to audition for any other part. They thanked me and said they’d get in touch. But they didn’t. So I phoned again and they got a bit shirtier this time and said there weren’t any parts going spare, sorry and all that but would I quit pestering them please, and if I really wanted to be an actress I needed to get myself an agent and why didn’t I go to a good stage school.

  Well, how can I go to a good stage school when my rotten old father won’t send me to one, though he’s sending my sister to the poshest boarding school in the country.

  OK, he doesn’t have to pay fees, but her uniform is costing a fortune.

  You should see it too. Talk about awful and old-fashioned! I wouldn’t be seen dead in those clothes. Garnet looks appalling.

  Well, I suppose Dad isn’t having to pay out of his own pocket. Rose helped Garnet sell her doll at an auction. The crummy china baby doll, twin to mine. I sold mine at the car-boot sale and they gave me £20.

  It is exceedingly painful to have to write this next bit. Garnet’s doll went for £600. Yes. Mine would have been worth that too. It’s some rare French make and daft doll-collectors are willing to fork out a fortune. I mean, you could probably buy a real baby for that sort of money.

  Rose was very very angry when she found out the car-boot people only gave me £20. Not angry with me, with them. She went and found them and kicked up a great fuss, but they argued that it had been a perfectly fair deal and she was in the business and she should know they weren’t running a kiddie’s charity. But they did very reluctantly hand over £100. As a gesture. Rose was still cross because she said they must have made heaps more, but I was happy because that £100 is mine, and although boring old Dad said I should put it in a building society, Rose said she didn’t see why I shouldn’t have some spending money as I was having a bit of a tough time just lately.

  Only I’m not having a tough time at all. Like I said, I’m fine. Doing great. Couldn’t be better. And I’ve ended up with £50 to spend all on ME (plus £50 in Dad’s boring old building society).

  I don’t have to waste it on a horrid, hideous school uniform either. And special suitcases and hockey sticks and dressing gowns and frightful Clarks clodhopper shoes.

  I can spend it on

  or

  or

  or

  or

  or

  or

  It’s weird. I’ve never had my very own money to spend before. I’ve always had to share. So it’s great to get twice as much.

  It’s just I can’t quite get used to being just me.

  I don’t even look like me. It’s a shock whenever I see myself in the mirror. My hair’s growing a bit but it seems to have lost all idea of gravity. It’s growing up.

  This has attracted comments from certain uncouth local loonies, enquiring whether I’m a boy or a girl.

  I soon dealt with them.

  But then the Huge and Horrible Blob opened his horrendous gob.

  He had such an inventive and witty new nickname for me.

  So I invented several new names for him and his stupid mates.

  So then they got all these grass cuttings and asked me if I’d like a green wig and then they threw them all over me

  so I hid behind a hedge until I heard them coming and then I jumped up and yelled that they all talked a lot of rubbish so look out—

  and they got this black plastic bag full of rubbish all over them.

  I’d just grabbed a bag out of someone’s dustbin. I hadn’t looked inside. It turned out it was wondrously smelly soggy rubbish, all sour milk and tea-leaves and half-eaten Chinese takeaways . . .

  So then they got really mad and yelled, ‘Let’s get her!’

  I couldn’t run away quite fast enough.

  So they got me.

  And they smeared rubbish on me and I hit out at them and they kicked me and I bit them but there was only one of me and there were a lot of them.

  And then while Blob and I were bashing away at each other, this horrible boy with ferret teeth got his arm round my neck and started choking me and I tried to reach round and hit him where it really hurts but he was hurting that wobbly bit where you swallow so much that I couldn’t move and Ferret-Face yelled, ‘Go on then, Jerry, bash her face in!’ and I thought, This is it. I’ve already lost my hair. Now I’m going to lose my looks. I’m going to have to go round with a broken nose and no teeth for the rest of my days, and it’s not going to help my acting career one bit, and I had my face all squeezed up ready for the blow but Blob hesitated.

  ‘Leave go of her, Brian, she’s choking,’ he said.

  ‘Well, hit her then!’

  ‘Not with you hanging on to her. And all you others. It’s not fair. We’ll just fight it out, her and me.’

  Ferret-Face muttered and moaned, but he did leave go. I reeled a bit, rubbing my sore neck.

  ‘Are you OK?’ said Blob.

  ‘Course I am,’ I croaked.

  ‘Right. Let’s fight,’ said Blob.

  So he gave me a punch on the shoulder. Quite a soft punch. And I gave him a shove in his stomach. But not too hard. And then he wrestled me to the ground. But carefully. And I kicked at him. Though I actually barely touched him. We seemed to have lost interest in a really ferocious fight. We were just sort of going through the motions.

  Ferret-Face and the other mates got a bit bored with the whole situation too. And they were fed up being covered in all the stinky guck from the rubbish bag, so they sloped off home.

  Blob and I were left.

  ‘Shall we just say that I’ve won the fight and call it quits?’ said Blob.

  ‘You haven’t won the rotten fight!’ I said indignantly. I gave him another punch, though it was a very feeble one.

  ‘All right all right. Well, how about if we call it a draw?’ said Blob.

  I thought a bit. And then I nodded.

  ‘OK. Though I could have won, you know,’ I insisted.

  ‘You’re quite a good fighter. For a gir