For my editor, Rachel Denwood,

who sowed the seeds.

Everyone seemed to think it was my fault that Rags ate the rissoles. I always get the blame for everything! Like when I encouraged one of my best friends to try and trace her birth mother. Mum said I shouldn’t have interfered. But I wasn’t interfering! I just wanted to help.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Turn over for a sneak preview...

Also by Jean Ure

Copyright

About the Publisher

Everyone’s talking about Frankie!

“As soon as I opened Fizzy Pop I knew this was going to be a fantastic read! From the very first word Frankie spoke, I realised she was going to be my friend.”

Imogen, age 12

“Original, funny and well-written, you just can’t put Fizzy Pop down. I loved getting to know the characters through the story, especially Frankie, and her here-to-help attitude was really hilarious. The book was a real page-turner; I read it in one night it was that captivating.”

Beth, age 9

“This book is addictive! It’s funny and brilliant with great characters and a fantastic storyline. Frankie Foster’s adventures are gripping with lots of twists – I could not put it down!”

Zoe, age 12

Chapter One

“FRANKIE FOSTER!” My sister’s voice came shrilling down the stairs. “Was this you?”

Uh-oh. Trouble!

Guardedly, I said, “Depends what you’re talking about.”

“This. This is what I’m talking about!”

She stood, quivering with rage, on the top step, waving a bit of rag. Well, at first glance it looked like a bit of rag. At second glance I could see that it was in fact her pink-and-white stripy shirt that I had kindly ironed for her just the other day. Unfortunately, there had been a slight problem with the iron; it had got too hot, or something. Obviously faulty. I find that a lot of the things I have to deal with turn out to be faulty. It is somewhat discouraging.

“Well?” Angel thumped impatiently on the banister rail.

I said, “Well—”

“I know it was you, so don’t bother trying to deny it!”

I hadn’t been going to deny it. I suppose I have my failings, same as anyone else, but I do try to be truthful whenever I can.

“There’s something wrong with the iron,” I said.

“There’s nothing wrong with the iron, you idiot!”

“There must be,” I said. “It didn’t do that to the other things. It was only when I got to your shirt it went funny.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” She was shrieking now. She does a lot of shrieking. “Eleven years old and you haven’t even learnt how to use an iron properly!”

I resented that, considering I’d done a whole load of sheets and pillowcases without so much as a single wrinkle. I was proud of my ironing!

“Maybe,” I said, “it’s something to do with your shirt.”

“Yes, you’re supposed to use the iron on cool, you moron!”

I said, “Oh.” And then, “How was I to know?”

“It says it right here, on the label, if you’d just bothered to look!”

“You don’t have to yell,” I said.

“I do have to yell! Yelling’s the only thing that keeps me sane. It’s the only thing that stops me putting my hands round your throat and throttling you! It’s—” She stopped. “What are you pushing for?”

“Excuse me,” said Tom. “I’m just trying to get down the stairs.”

“There’s no need to push. As for you, Frankie F—”

“What’s going on up there?” Mum had come out of the kitchen, accompanied by Rags. Rags is our dog; he loves a bit of excitement. “What’s all the shouting about?”

“It’s them,” said Tom. “They’re at it again.”

“I’m not at it,” I said. “She’s the one making the noise.”

“You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Mum. “What’s the problem?”

“She is!” shrieked Angel. “Look what she’s done!”

She hurled her shirt viciously down the stairs in a scrunched-up heap. What dog could resist? Rags was on it in an instant. Angel let out one of her ear-splitting screeches.

“Stop him!”

I made a grab, but Rags was too quick. He capered off joyously down the hall, shaking the shirt from side to side like it was a rat. Angel screeched again. Dad says when she does that it is like a car alarm going off inside your head.

“Rags!” Mum cornered him at the end of the hall. “Drop! Bad boy!”

He wasn’t a bad boy, he just thought it was a game. Any dog would have thought it was a game. But he always obeys Mum, I don’t know why. He doesn’t take any notice when I tell him to do things. I think it’s because we’re mates, while Mum is an authority figure. She can be really stern when she wants. Which, now I come to think of it, is quite often.

“Right. Now!” Mum held up the shirt. “What’s the matter with it?”

“She’s gone and shrivelled it,” wailed Angel.

“Only a little bit,” I said. “If you tucked it in, nobody’d ever notice.”

“I don’t want to tuck it in! That was my favourite shirt, I was going to wear it on Saturday. Mum, it’s not fair! She shouldn’t be allowed to touch my things.”

“Frankie.” Mum turned to look at me. She didn’t seem cross; just kind of… resigned. “I told you to stick to simple stuff… sheets, pillowcases. Tea towels. Why did you have to go and mess with Angel’s shirt?”

“It was there,” I said, “waiting to be ironed. I thought you’d be happy! I folded everything all nice and neat. And I put it all away.”

“And you went spying in my room!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Did not. I just put it away for you.”

“Just tried to hide it, you mean.”

I hadn’t actually tried to hide it, cos that would have been dishonest; but I had sort of hoped that by the time she came across it she’d have decided it was just, like, totally naff and she couldn’t bear to be seen dead in it, which is what usually happens when she’s worn something more than a couple of times.

“You might at least have owned up,” said Mum. “Just admitted to an honest mistake.”

“Honest!” Angel made a loud barking sound. “Huh!”

Whatever that was supposed to mean.

“Look, just calm down,” said Mum. “It’s not the end of the world. We’ll get you another one.”

“She ought to buy it.”

“Well, I can’t,” I said, “cos I haven’t any money.”

“No, that’s because you’re still paying for setting the garden shed on fire!”

“That was an accident.”

“Are you saying my shirt wasn’t?”

“No, I—”

“Are you saying you shrivelled it on purpose?”

“No! I just—”

“STOP!” Mum’s voice came bellowing at us up the hall. “I have had enough!”

We both quavered into silence. When Mum gets mad, she gets really mad. Far worse than Dad.

“Just button it! I can’t take any more, this time of the morning. I’ve got Mrs Simmonds coming for a fitting at eight o’clock, I don’t need to be all hot and bothered.”

Mum works from home doing dressmaking and stuff; she often has people arriving at weird hours.

“Get yourselves ready,” she said, “and get off to school.”

Angel disappeared, muttering, into her room. I went through to the kitchen to eat some breakfast. I always eat breakfast. I once read somewhere it’s the most important meal of the day; it gives you brain power. Angel doesn’t bother with it, on account of being figure-conscious. The most she ever has is a low-fat yoghurt, but I believe in eating properly. Angel can be stick thin if she wants. I’d rather not have my stomach rumbling in front of the whole class, which is what happened to me once and was just, like, so embarrassing I wanted to die, especially when people started calling me Rumblebelly. Who wants to be stick thin anyway? She is at that age, Mum says. Fifteen. It makes her very angry.

Tom was in the kitchen, packing books into his school bag. I said, “You eaten?” but he just mumbled and went on packing. I have never actually seen Tom eat breakfast, but that’s not to say he doesn’t. He is just a very private kind of person. Very secretive. I have this theory that Mum must have been abducted by aliens and that his real father is some kind of robot creature from outer space. It seems the only rational explanation. Mum says I’m not being fair; she says he is just shy. “Imagine what it must be like for him, sandwiched between you two.”

At least he doesn’t fly into rages.

“Honestly,” I said, “talk about over the top! It was just a little bit of crinkle.”

I’d hoped he might sympathise with me for the way I’d been treated; that we might even have a cosy chat about Angel and her furious temper. But you can’t really have cosy chats with Tom.

“It’s not like I crinkled the whole thing,” I said. “Soon as I saw what was happening, I stopped.”

Tom grunted, and stuffed some more books into his bag.

“And that thing with the shed… I was just trying to fumigate it.”

“Yeah?”

“For Dad.”

“Yeah.”

“Cos of what he was saying about someone leaving the door open and the foxes getting in?”

“Yeah?”

“Saying it smelt bad, it needed to be fumigated?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I’d do it for him.”

Tom wedged in the last of his books. “Surprised you knew what fumigate meant.”

“I Googled it!” I’m not stupid. I know how to find things out. “It’s when you fill a place with fumes to get rid of smells and stuff.”

Which is what I’d done. Tried to do. I’d taken one of the big scented candles left over from Christmas and put it on Dad’s work bench and lit it. I’d stood it on a saucer! I’m not irresponsible.

“I was only trying to help,” I said.

“Some help,” said Tom.

I’d thought Dad would be pleased. I thought next time he went out there he’d find a lovely scent of pine. Instead, there’d been a horrible smell of burning. Mum had been a bit cross. She said who on earth would leave a lighted candle in a shed full of combustible materials, meaning stuff that would go up in flames. Angel said, “She would!”

I felt a bit bad about it cos I had this feeling it might have been me that had left the shed door open in the first place. It might not have been; but it could have been. Which is why I very nobly offered to give up two weeks’ pocket money to help pay for the repairs. I never thought Dad would accept!

“I still don’t know how it happened,” I said.

“Yeah.” Tom picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. “A total mystery.”

“Well, it is!” I agreed, eagerly. It was a mystery. It’s what I’d been saying all along, only no one would listen. “Might not have been my fault at all,” I said. “Someone might have gone in there and knocked the candle over. A burglar, or something. Don’t you think?”

But Tom had gone. He is a most unsatisfactory person to talk to. I slathered some marmalade over a piece of toast and wandered up the hall in search of Mum. She was in the front room, preparing stuff for Mrs Simmonds.

I said, “Mum?”

“What? Why haven’t you left for school? Frankie, please don’t let that dog in here! I’ve asked you before… not when I have someone coming.”

“OK.” I squashed Rags back out and closed the door.

“And don’t eat over Mrs Simmonds’s clothes!”

“I’m not.” I moved away. “Mum, about Angel’s shirt… I didn’t know it would shrivel! I was only trying to help.”

Mum sighed. “Yes, I’m sure you were.”

“You have so much work to do!”

“I do,” said Mum, “don’t I? And you’re just making even more for me, standing there dropping toast crumbs on the floor.”

“Sorry,” I said, “sorry! I’ll get the vacuum cleaner.”

“No! For God’s sake! I mean… it’s all right,” said Mum. “I’ll see to it. You just get yourself off to school.”

“All right.” I crammed in my last bit of toast. “Abow a garn sh—”

“I beg your pardon?” said Mum.

I swallowed. “About the garden shed… you don’t think a burglar got in there, do you?”

“Not really,” said Mum. “No.”

“It could have been a burglar! He could have knocked the candle over. He could have done it deliberately.”

“Oh, Frankie,” said Mum, “just go to school!”

“I was only asking,” I said.

Burglars did that sort of thing. Seemed far more likely to me than a big fat candle falling over all by itself.

“Frankie, will you please—”

“Yes, yes, I’m going!” I said.

I reached the front door at exactly the same moment as Angel.

“I hope you don’t think you’re going to walk with me,” she said.

I used to have to walk with her when I was in primary school; either with her or with Tom. Angel used to complain that Tom was always wriggling out of it.

“Just because he’s a boy!”

She doesn’t like being seen with me in public, she says I’m an embarrassment and that I cramp her style, whatever that is. I can’t say I particularly like being seen with her; not when she’s always flying into rages. It’s like being out with a crazy person. I tossed my head and told her that she didn’t need to worry.

“I’m meeting my friends.”

“Friends?” Angel snorted. “I’m surprised you’ve got any! Wait till you start shrivelling their favourite shirts.”

We sidestepped elaborately as we went through the door. I took a pace backwards.

“Age before beauty,” I said. I thought that was pretty good. I’d been dying to use it ever since reading it in a book.

Angel stuck her face close to mine.

“You are a hideous child,” she said. “I find you unspeakably loathsome.”

She is totally mad. I feel sorry for her.

Chapter Two

Angel went stalking off, wobbling slightly in her designer shoes. Sling backs, with long pointy toes and tiny little spike heels. She has to take them off once she reaches school and put on her ordinary flat black ones, same as the rest of us. Clodhoppers, she calls them. I don’t personally mind clodhoppers. The way I see it, if a herd of maddened elephants suddenly came roaring down the street you would at least be able to make a run for it. Angel wouldn’t; she would be crushed underfoot. It’s pathetic, really. Risking life and limb just to impress boys. Cos that’s all it is. It’s all about boys. She does have good legs, though.

I watched her receding into the distance. I suppose in her way she has style. I could see that as a stolid ten-year old, dumping along at her side, I probably had cramped it for her. I am not really what you would call a fashion accessory.

I humped my bag over my shoulder and stomped on. I know that I stomp cos Miss Henderson, our PE teacher, has told me so. She said, “My goodness, Frankie! You’re a bit of a stomper.” It is just the way I am built. Mum says I am “four square and solid”. Angel, on the other hand, cos of only eating low-fat yoghurt, is all frail and wispy. She’d be an easy target for elephants. I reckon a flock of sparrows could crush her.

Skye was waiting for me on the corner of Barlow Road. We meet up there every morning; me, and Skye, and Jem. Skye Samuels and Jemma McClusky are my two best mates. We were all at primary school together, and we all live near each other.

I said, “Hi.”

Skye said, “Your sister’s just gone marching past with her nose in the air. I said hello but she, like, totally ignored me?”

“She’s in one of her rages,” I said. “Just cos I shrivelled her shirt.”

“You shrivelled her shirt?”

“Only a little bit! You wouldn’t hardly notice. But you know what she’s like.”

“I know what you’re like,” said Skye.

What was that supposed to mean? I decided to pretend she hadn’t said it.

“It was kind of surreal,” I said. “She just totally lost it. Got all frothed up and went into this furious megasulk, yelling and carrying on, saying it was her favourite shirt and I’d gone and ruined it.”

“People are so unreasonable,” said Skye.

Well, I do think they are, and especially my sister. Angel. Her name is actually Angeli, but everyone calls her Angel, which if you ask me is a big laugh considering she is anything but. For one thing she is totally vain, always gazing at herself in the mirror and thinking how beautiful she is. For another, there’s this humungous temper that she has. Mum says she will grow out of it, it is just a teenage thing, but I personally reckon she should be sent to anger management classes.

“No sane person,” I said, “would get all worked up over a tiny bit of shrivel. It was only on the edge.” I hoicked up the edge of my shirt to demonstrate. “There. Just there! It’s not normal.”

“Seems to me,” said Skye, “shrivelling the edge of someone’s shirt isn’t exactly what you’d call normal.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! I was ironing,” I said. “I was trying to help. The thing just went and shrivelled before I could stop it.”

“You mean you had the iron too hot.”

“I didn’t have it too hot, it got too hot.” Why did everyone keep trying to put the blame on me all the time? “I reckon it must have been getting too much electricity or something. It’s what happens, it all comes rushing through the mains.” I know about things like that; Dad’s an electrician. “Power surges,” I said. “I bet that’s what it was.”

“So why didn’t you just turn it down?”

“Cos I didn’t know! You don’t, with power surges. They just happen. Suddenly. Anyway,” I said, “I’m sick of talking about it. Where’s Jem?”

“Dunno.”

“She’s late!”

Skye looked at her watch. “If she doesn’t arrive soon we’ll have to go or we’ll miss registration and that’ll be our names in the Book.”

“Ooh!” I shivered. “Don’t want our names in the Book!”

“It’s not funny,” said Skye. “You can get into a whole load of trouble.”

“Only if you’re in it three times.” “I don’t want to be in it one time, thank you!”

Skye is a very law-abiding sort of person, it really upsets her if she breaks a rule, like by mistake or not knowing about it. According to her, rules are there to be obeyed. Mostly, on the whole, I do obey them, cos it’s no fun being told off, but I sincerely believe that you have to exercise your own judgement and not just blindly follow. Like at our school, Hillcrest, we have this rule about not eating in the street. What kind of a rule is that? You could be dying of starvation and you’re not allowed to eat a bag of crisps or a doughnut? They’d rather you just collapsed in a heap? If someone’s child fell under a bus through being weak from hunger and not allowed to eat, their parents could probably sue the school. That’s what I’d have thought. But Skye is a bit of a boffin, she likes to get good marks and be well thought of. Not that she is a teacher’s pet, or anything; she is just a natural straight-A student. She is the only person I have ever known who actually enjoys doing her SATS. You can never tell what people are going to like or not like; we are all different. Me and Jem have learnt to accept it. You can’t help the way your brain is wired.

“We’ll give her one more minute,” said Skye. “Starting from… now.”

She stood, watching the second hand go ticking round the dial. She is always very precise.

I said, “Know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think she only said it was her favourite cos of wanting to get me into trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” said Skye.

“Angel. Saying it was her favourite shirt. She only said it cos of m—”

“Do we have to?” said Skye. “I thought you weren’t going to talk about it any more?”

“Well, I wasn’t. But I bet if she hadn’t discovered it she wouldn’t even have remembered she’d got it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Skye. “Right, that’s it! We’re going.”

She shot off on stilt-like legs up the road. I practically had to run to keep up with her.

“She has some nerve,” I said. “I mean, when does she ever do anything to help? All she ever does is wash her hair and paint her nails and—”

“Oi!” We stopped, and turned. A small huffing figure was scurrying towards us. “You could have waited,” it said.

“We did wait,” said Skye. “You’re late.”

“Only a few minutes. Don’t go on at me!”

“Talk about going on,” I said. “You should have heard my sister.”

Skye groaned. “Not again!”

“She’s going to burst a blood vessel one of these days if she’s not careful.”

Jem said, “Yeah?” And then, in this slightly hysterical tone of voice, “Don’t talk to me! I don’t want to know!”

“She shrivelled her shirt,” said Skye. “I’ve had to hear all about it, why shouldn’t you?”

“Cos if anyone talks to me,” said Jem, “I shall be the one that bursts a blood vessel. I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know!” She stuffed her fingers in her ears. “Just don’t talk to me!”

“No problem,” I said. “We can easily pretend you’re not here. You just hang back and—” I broke off. “Excuse me?” I turned, politely. “Did you wish to say something? Or was that a mouse squeaking?”

“Why did you shrivel her shirt?” said Jem.

Skye gave a muffled scream. “Don’t ask!”

“I thought you wanted me to hear?”

“I’ve changed my mind. Anyway, you said you didn’t want anyone talking to you.”

“I don’t,” said Jem. “I feel like I’m going to explode. Like the top of my skull’s going to burst open.” She brought her hand down, whumpff, on top of her head.

“That’s right,” said Skye, kindly. “You keep hold of it.”

Jem made a noise that sounded like aaargh and went beetling off ahead, her legs (which aren’t very long) pumping up and down, her hand still clamped to her head.

It might, I suppose, be considered cause for alarm, our best friend saying she was about to explode; but me and Skye have known Jem for too long. She is one of those up-and-down sort of people. All fizzing and bubbling one minute, then pop! The cork comes flying out of the bottle and she’s, like, climbing the walls. Or holding her head on. It’s impossible to keep up with her. At least with Angel you know she’s going to be in a rage, cos she practically lives in one. With Jem it’s like being on a mad rollercoaster.

“Fizzy Pop,” I said. I turned to Skye. “D’you remember? That’s what we used to call her.”

“That was when Mrs Fletcher told her she ought to calm down or she’d burst.”

“It was a good name,” I said. “Why did we stop using it?”

“You decided nicknames were naff.”

“I did?”

“Yes, you didn’t like being called Rumblebelly.”

“Oh. Well,” I said, “that was just rude. And it only happened once! Jem’s like fizzing and popping all the time.”

We both gazed at her small scurrying figure. She’d stopped holding her head on, but she was still whizzing along at an absurdly fast rate.

“Let’s get a move on,” said Skye. “I don’t want to miss registration!”

First period that day was geography with Mr Harper, who likes to drone on about rift valleys and things and never notices what people get up to so long as they get up to it quietly and don’t disturb anyone who might just want to hear what he’s saying.

Me and Jem sat in the back row, with Skye between us. Skye really likes to pay attention in class, so she wasn’t best pleased when Jem pushed a note in front of her and pointed at me. She thinks it is childish to pass notes. Impatiently, not taking her eyes off Mr Harper, she flicked the note towards me.

Y U shrivel shirt?

I sent a note back: Not my fault. Y U think skull going 2 burst?

Tell U ltr, replied Jem. Y not yr fault?

I was about to explain about the iron, and all the electricity rushing out of control through the mains, but I didn’t get the chance because at that point Skye wrote STOP IT! BEHAVE YOURSELVES, heavily underlined, on the back of her geography book.

She can’t help being bossy; both her mum and dad are teachers.

Second period was English with Miss Rolfe, who gave us back the essays we’d written the previous week on the subject of ‘Beginnings’. We’d had to write all about our early lives, as much as we could remember.

“On the whole,” said Miss Rolfe, “I was quite pleased with them.” Ooh! It takes a lot to please Miss Rolfe. “Daisy, could you hand these back for me? There is one that I would really love to read aloud… Jemma?”

Jem looked startled. She is not used to being singled out, unless it’s for talking, or fidgeting, or not paying attention.

“Do I have your permission?” said Miss Rolfe. “I won’t if you’d rather I didn’t.”

Jem by now was bright pillar-box red. “It’s OK,” she muttered.

“Are you sure? Maybe you’d like to read it yourself?”

Jem shook her head, violently.

“All right, then. Here we go! This is what Jemma wrote.

“My beginnings are shrouded in mystery as I was adopted when I was a baby and don’t remember anything about my life before. Some people feel sorry for me and say it must be terrible not ever having known my real mum and dad, but as far as I am concerned my mum and dad that adopted me are my real mum and dad. I don’t want any others! Maybe one day I will feel curious and want to know who my birth mother was but for the moment I am perfectly happy and anyway I would not like to upset Mum and Dad by trying to find out in case they might think I didn’t love them.

“One of the things about being adopted is that people never say to you, ‘Oh, don’t you look like your mum?’ which is what they sometimes say to my friends that aren’t adopted and my friends get really mad as for some reason they don’t seem to want to look like their mums. My mum is quite large and jolly and laughs a lot. I am rather small and not always jolly, though I do like to have a bit of a laugh. Dad is very sweet and gentle, and that is definitely not like me! I am sure if you asked my friends they would say that sweet and gentle is the last thing I am!!! I am not sure what they would say I was. A bit of a pain, probably.

“I am an only child, and only children are often said to be spoilt, but I don’t think my mum and dad spoil me. Mum is quite strict in spite of being jolly. Dad is not quite so strict as he tends to leave all the telling-off to Mum, but if she says NO he always backs her up. I feel very grateful to them for adopting me. I’m sure there were lots of other babies they could have had if they’d wanted. I think that is the BEST thing about being adopted, you know that you have been chosen and it makes you feel special.”

There was a silence as Miss Rolfe finished reading; then Skye started to clap, and all the rest of us joined in. It was so amazing! It was obvious that everyone was really moved by what Jem had written. It was just such a brave thing to do. It made me feel quite ashamed of my own essay, which had gone on at great length about Angel and her temper, and Tom being an alien. I’d never once thought to say that I loved Mum and Dad. Or Rags. Or even Angel and Tom, if it came to that. Cos I do love them, in spite of everything. I would just have been too embarrassed to say so.

“I think you’ll agree,” said Miss Rolfe, “that that was really heart-warming. Refreshingly honest. Thank you very much, Jemma, for letting me read it. Girls, I know that was the bell, but please don’t rush!”

Me and Skye wandered slowly out into the playground with Jem, who was still quite pink.

“That was brilliant,” said Skye.

I said, “Yes, it was.

” I thought Jem would be pleased, but instead she looked at us with her face all scrunched up and said, “Oh, I wish she hadn’t done that!”

Chapter Three

“Done what?” said Skye.

“Read it out!”

“But it was lovely,” I said.

“Refreshingly honest.”

“And heart-warming!”

“It could even get chosen for Speech Day,” said Skye.

We’d been told by Miss Rolfe that every year one junior girl and one senior girl got to read out their essays in front of the whole school, including parents and governors, not to mention what she called “local dignitaries”. Meaning the Mayor, I suppose, and the Mayor’s husband. It is hard to think what other dignitaries there could be.

“Imagine,” said Skye, “you’d have your picture in the paper.”

“I don’t want my picture in the paper!”

Pardon me? Was this my friend Jem speaking? Just last term at primary school we’d had an author visit and Jem had been the first to rush forward when the photographs were taken. She’d been so eager she’d practically left a trail of bodies behind her. I reminded her of this and she said, “That was different.”

I said, “How?”

“It just was!”

“Is it because you don’t want people knowing you’re adopted? Cos that’s just silly! Like you wrote in your essay, being adopted makes you special.”

“You think so?” said Jem.

“Well, that’s what you wrote! Anyway, you didn’t have to let her read it. You could have said no.”

“Didn’t like to,” muttered Jem.

“But why would you want to?” Skye was obviously at a loss. She is always having her stuff read out. “It’s an honour!”

Jem sighed. “I s’pose.”

“So what is the problem?” We’d reached our favourite corner of the playground, hidden away in the angle between the drama studio and the wall which separates us from Tom’s school next door. We’d staked it out as our territory from the word go. It was a bit dark and dingy, but it was where we went when we wanted to be private. “I don’t get it,” said Skye. “I mean… heart-warming!”

“Refreshingly honest.”

“But it’s not true!” wailed Jem.

Not true? Was she telling us she wasn’t adopted?

“When you say not true… which bits,” said Skye, “exactly?”

“The yucky stuff.”

“You mean, like, about your mum?”

“All that stuff about her being jolly and Dad being sweet and me being perfectly happy… all yuck!”

We stared at her, perplexed.

“Has someone upset you, or something?” said Skye.

“Mum, if you must know!”

“Your mum?” What could she have done? Me and Skye adore Jem’s mum. She is large and jolly, and she does laugh a lot. She’s fun!

“What’s she done?” said Skye.

“Just gone and ruined my entire life is all!”

Uh-oh! Me and Skye looked at each other. I pulled a face: Skye rolled her eyes. It is hard, sometimes, to take Jem seriously, especially when she goes into drama queen mode. But we are her friends and she was obviously desperate to offload. Now that the cork was out of the bottle, there was no stopping her. Her mum was impossible! She didn’t understand her, she didn’t even try to understand her. And her dad just sat on the fence. He never stood up for her! He never even stood up for himself.

“He just agrees with everything Mum says! It doesn’t matter what it is, she’s the boss and he just goes along with it. Like ask your mum and what does your mum say? and—”

“And what does she say?” said Skye.

“She says no! So Dad says no!”

“Says no to what? I’m afraid,” said Skye, “you are not making any sense. Try starting at the beginning,” she said kindly, “then perhaps we’ll know what you’re talking about.”

“Right.” Jem heaved a great quivering sigh and clutched at her hair with both hands. I wondered if the top of her skull was coming off again. “There’s this girl in my road? Liliana? She’s, like, thirteen?”

We nodded, solemnly.

“Well, she’s joined this model agency, OK? And she’s already got her first job, modelling clothes for a catalogue, and they’re paying her, like, a fortune? So she says why don’t I enrol, cos they’re really looking for kids like me, sort of… ” Jem waved a hand.

“Pretty,” I said. I don’t mind admitting that Jem is pretty.

“Yes. Well, sort of. But, like, good in front of a camera. You know?”

Jem is good in front of a camera. It’s why she loves being photographed. Me and Skye just freeze, but Jem really plays to it.

“So anyway,” she said, “I asked Mum if I could sign up, I begged her to let me. I pleaded with her! I told her I would so like to be a model, cos I feel it’s something I could really do. You know?”

“I thought you wanted to be a make-up artist,” said Skye.

“There’s nothing to stop me being both! I could be a model and a make-up artist. This girl, Liliana? She says it’s so cool! She’s even got her own portfolio.”

I said, “What’s a portfolio?”

“It’s like this collection of photos? Like head-and-shoulders and full-length… all different. But big ones! Not just titchy little things. You get them when you join the agency.”

“What, for free?”

“Well… sort of. You don’t have to pay them till you start earning money. But Liliana’s already earning money! Her mum’s putting it in the building society for her, for when she’s older. If I did that, it would help me go to college to study make-up and stuff. I told Mum, I said it would mean she and Dad wouldn’t have to pay anything, but she wouldn’t listen. She’s just so… stodgy. And fat! She’s fat. That’s why she won’t let me do it! She doesn’t approve of people being models. She thinks they’re too thin. She hates people that are thin! She says what I do when I leave school is up to me, but she’s not having me starving myself to a size zero while I’m in her care. Like I would! She’s just being totally stupid. And all Dad says is, it’s up to your mum. It’s all he ever says!”

On she went; on and on. We did our best to console her. I made soothing noises and Skye made what I think were supposed to be helpful suggestions such as, “Maybe if she sees you’re really serious your mum will change her mind,” and, “Maybe you should speak to your dad and tell him how much it means to you.” So Skye! But Jem had gone into tragic mode. We obviously didn’t understand: her life had been blighted! Totally blighted! This other girl, Liliana, was going to get rich and famous while Jem would be left behind to moulder. All because of her mum!

I did sort of feel sympathetic, cos I know what’s it’s like to desperately want to do something and not be allowed to. Like one time when I really really really wanted to try hang gliding and Mum said, “At your age? You must be joking!” and Dad said, not on your life. I sulked for a while, like about a day or two, but then something else turned up and I forgot about it. I could see that not being allowed to join a modelling agency was probably more frustrating for Jem than me not being allowed to go hang gliding, since hang gliding wasn’t exactly going to turn into a full-time career. Jem really could be a model. Well, a mini model. As Skye somewhat tactlessly pointed out, she wasn’t ever likely to grow tall enough to be a proper one.

I groaned. That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. That just got her going even more. She kept at it all the rest of the day. All through the lunch hour, all through the afternoon break, all the way home. It’s funny how some people can’t ever let a subject drop.

I wondered, as we all peeled off in our different directions, what Mum would say if I told her I wanted to do modelling. Not that I did, I am just like totally the wrong shape, being sort of… square, I suppose is the word. But I thought I would put it to her, just out of interest. See if she reacted the same way as Jem’s mum. If she did, then maybe it would make Jem feel a bit better and not so down on poor Mrs McClusky. It was really mean of her to call her mum fat!

I started to yell “Mu-u-um” as soon as I let myself in, but then I saw that the door of the front room was closed which meant Mum had someone in there so I went through to the kitchen to find that Dad was home. He was sitting at the kitchen table with Angel, eating pizza. Well, Dad was eating pizza; Angel was nibbling on a lettuce leaf. I was glad he was there as there was something I’d been meaning to ask him. It was a pity about Angel, but as she lives in the same house it is not always easy to avoid her.

“Dad,” I said.

Dad said, “Mm?”

“Can you tell me something?”

“Don’t know till you ask.”

“If you were using an iron,” I said, “and all of a sudden there was a power s—”

“Not again!” shouted Angel. “Don’t you ever give up?”

She looked like she might be going to turn violent.

“Well, all right, then,” I said. “What about the garden shed? You don’t th—”

Angel screamed. A short, sharp, mad sort of scream.

“Do you mind?” I said. “I’m trying to talk.”

“Yes, and I’m trying to relax,” said Dad. “Do I have to remind you both that I was out of the house by five thirty this morning? I’ve had a hard day, I can do without you two going at each other.”

There was a pause.

“I’ve had a hard day,” I said. “We had double maths after lunch.”

“Shut up,” said Angel.

“Shut up yourself!”

“No, you shut up!”

Dad banged on the table. Tom, who had silently come in and helped himself to a slice of pizza, went silently back out. At the door he bumped into Mum, on her way in.

“What’s going on?” said Mum. “What’s with all the noise?”

“They’re at it again,” said Tom.

“For goodness’ sake!” Mum pulled out a chair and sat down next to Dad. “If you have to shout, go and do it somewhere else. Not down our ears!”

Very dignified, cos I wasn’t going to lower myself to Angel’s level, I said, “Pardon me, but I was just trying to talk.”

“Just trying to make excuses! Drivelling on about power surges. Honestly,” said Angel, “I sometimes can’t believe I’m related to it. You didn’t secretly adopt it or something, did you?”

“Not as far as I can recall,” said Mum.

“It wouldn’t worry me,” I said. “Jem’s adopted. She says it makes you special. But I think if I was,” I said, “I’d want to find out who my birth mother was. Wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose I might, at some stage,” agreed Mum.

“Jem says she’s not interested.” Well, that’s what she’d said in her essay. She might feel differently now that her life had been blighted. “She says she wouldn’t want her mum and dad thinking she didn’t love them.”

“In that case,” said Mum, “don’t you go putting ideas in her head.”

“Me?” I said.

“Yes, you.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Well, make sure you don’t.”

I munched for a bit on a slice of pizza.

“Jem wants to join a model agency,” I said. “She’s decided she wants to model clothes for catalogues and earn pots of money. Would you let one of us do that? If we wanted to? Jem’s mum won’t let her. Jem’s so upset.”

“I wouldn’t mind joining a model agency,” said Angel.

“Oh, no!” Mum was very firm about it. “We’re having none of that, young woman! You’re already quite obsessed enough with your weight as it is.”

“So you mean you wouldn’t let us?” I said. “Not even me? I’m not obsessed!”

“Neither of you,” said Mum.

“But why not? I don’t understand why not!”

“Because apart from anything else, it would distract from your school work.”

“And who would want you, anyway?” said Angel.

I said, “Somebody might.”

Angel tossed her head. She likes doing that as it makes her hair swish. I guess she thinks it will attract boys.

“You have to be joking,” she said. “What would you model? Boxing gloves?”

Dad banged again on the table. “Enough!” he said. “I have had enough. If you can’t manage to be civilised with each other—”

I said, “I’m civilised. She was the one being rude.”

Angel opened her mouth, then caught Dad’s eye and closed it again. Dad doesn’t very often get ratty, but when he does it’s best not to try his patience.

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