Jean Ure

For Emily Collins and

Katherine Story

Contents

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Also By Jean Ure Copyright About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Hi! I’m Fudge Cassidy, and this is my friend, the Cupcake Kid. She’s my bestie!

There’s a photo of us that Cupcake’s mum took last year, when we’d just started at secondary school. We’re showing off in our new school uniforms, which we now wouldn’t be seen dead in. Not if we could help it. We are both smiling proudly, looking straight at the camera. Nothing to hide! No guilty secrets. That all came later…

Cupcake’s the thin one. The one with the long, dark hair tied in a plait. I’m the short, stubby one with all the freckles. Not to mention the blobby nose, which Dad always says looks like a button mushroom. Cupcake has a really nice nose! Sort of… noble. She complains about it being too long; she says it’s like a door knocker, but I’d sooner have a door knocker than a mushroom. I think people show you more respect.

Another thing Cupcake complains about is her teeth. They are being trained not to stick out, which means she has to wear a brace, which sometimes makes her sort of buzz and click when she says certain words. Mostly ones beginning with S. I have never told her, but when she first had the brace and started buzzing and clicking I thought it was really cool and wished that I could have one! I did suggest to Mum that maybe I ought to, “just in case”. Mum said, “Just in case what?” I said, “In case my teeth start growing outwards. I think they are starting to… look!” And I pulled this bunny face with my bottom lip sucked in, just to show her. But Mum never takes me seriously. She says I’m too impressionable and always getting these crazy ideas.

“There’s nothing the matter with your teeth! Don’t be so daft.”

I bet Cupcake’s mum wouldn’t tell her to put her teeth away and not be daft. Well, she obviously hadn’t. She’d taken her to the dentist to get a brace put on, which is what any normal mum would do. Not mine! “No,” she says, when I remind her of it, “I am a hard woman.”

Cupcake’s mum isn’t hard; neither is Cupcake. They are both very caring sort of people. In fact, Cupcake is nothing but a great big softie, which is what I’m always telling her. If Cupcake takes after her mum, I s’ppose I ought to be honest and admit that I probably take after mine. I do love my mum (in spite of her not letting me have a brace) but I just HATE it when people look at me and go, “Ooooh, don’t you look like your mum!” I mean, nobody wants to look like their mum, right? If they said, Don’t you look like………………. (fill in the name of your favourite celeb). Well! That’d be different. But I don’t expect anyone’s favourite celeb is likely to be short and stubby with a button mushroom instead of a nose, and a face covered all over in splodgy brown freckles. Yuck yuck yuck!

Now I’ve gone and lost track. I’m always doing that! Attention span of a flea. That is what Mrs Kendrick said to me last term, and I guess she might be right. My mind does hop about a bit! What I really meant to do was write about me and Cupcake. Say how we first met. How we got to be friends. That sort of thing.

OK! Me and Cupcake first met when our mums were in the hospital, right next to each other in the ward. How cool is that? Cupcake was born a whole half-hour ahead of me without any fuss at all, and afterwards she just lay there gurgling in her crib, as good as gold, so that everyone ooh-ed and aah-ed and said what a sweet little baby she was. I apparently was all loud and red and screaming and kept sicking up over everything and generally making a nuisance of myself. I don’t suppose anyone ooh-ed and aah-ed over me. They probably took one look and jumped back in horror, going “Aaaaargh! Save me!”

Once, when I was trying to discover a bit more about those ancient times, I asked Mum if she could have told which baby was me and which baby was Cupcake if we hadn’t had those little wristband things with our names on – cos, you know, all babies look alike when they are first born. Well, I think they do. I wouldn’t be surprised if all kinds of mistakes are made. Mum seemed to find this amusing. She said, “We never had the least trouble telling you apart!” She said that Cupcake was always “such a dear little soul… so good and quiet and eager to please.” Unlike me, is what she meant! I guess it’s true, me and Cupcake are just, like, totally different – which doesn’t stop us being in-sep-arable. Like, joined at the hip, as people say, though I’m not quite sure why. If we are joined anywhere, it’s at the shoulder. We go round all the time with our arms round each other. Either that, or linked together. Sometimes it’s like we’re stuck with glue! It’s strange to look back and remember that it hasn’t always been like this.

After we’d got born, and our mums had taken us back home, we didn’t see each other again for ages. Years and years. Nine, to be exact. I was in Year 5 when Cupcake suddenly turned up at my school. We didn’t know we’d already met! After all, it wasn’t like we’d been properly introduced or said hi, or anything. So to begin with, the first few days, we didn’t really take much notice of each other. I thought Cupcake was a bit boring, to be honest. All mousey and miserable. She didn’t ever seem to laugh, or join in any of our games at break time. Just skulked round by herself, looking like a tree had fallen on top of her, with her shoulders hunched and her head way down. No fun at all! She confessed later that she hadn’t liked me any more than I had liked her. She said I was all loud and bossy. “A right show-off!”

Thing is, Cupcake had a reason to feel sad. I didn’t have any reason for being loud and bossy. I think my voice just naturally comes out as a bit of a bellow; Mum is for ever telling me not to shout. As for being bossy – well, maybe I sometimes am. But not on purpose! I just get kind of carried away. Same with showing off. I never mean to. “No,” says Cupcake, “you just do.” But she has learnt how to squash me! And she has learnt how to laugh, in spite of everything. I like to think this is partly thanks to me.

It wasn’t till she had been in school several days that our mums arrived at the same time one afternoon to collect us and surprise, surprise! They recognised each other. That was when we discovered that we had already met. Our mums immediately started swapping memories. Cupcake’s mum remembered how I hadn’t seemed to want to be born – “You were so overdue!” – and my mum told us how Cupcake had been such a quiet little baby and how I had been the noisy one.

I remember me and Cupcake exchanging glances. I was thinking, “Quiet just means boring,” while Cupcake was thinking, “She still is noisy.” I know this is what she was thinking cos ages afterwards she actually told me.

It turned out that Cupcake and her mum were living just two minutes away from us. I was not exactly overjoyed when I first realised this, and I don’t expect Cupcake was, either. I nearly shrieked when we got indoors and Mum said, “Isn’t that lovely? Meeting up again after all this time! I do hope you’ll become friends.”

I pointed out that I had already got friends.

“So?” said Mum. “What’s to stop you having another one?”

I said, “I don’t want another one! You can’t make yourself be friends with just anybody.” Simply because their mum happened to have been in the hospital at the same time as yours.

Mum told me not to be such a grouch. “Don’t be so unwelcoming! She’s new, she doesn’t know anyone. You’re not shy! You could at least make a bit of an effort.”

I could have, but I didn’t. Me and Livy and Claire were quite happy as we were, just the three of us. We didn’t need some little mouse tagging on! It wasn’t till about a week later that Mum explained to me why Cupcake was so down. It was because she had a little brother who wasn’t well and her mum and dad had just split up, and that was the reason she’d had to change schools, cos they couldn’t afford to go on living where they were.

When I heard that I just felt so sorry for poor Cupcake. No wonder she was sad all the time! If my mum and dad split up, I would be sad all the time. More than just sad, I would be in floods of tears. I couldn’t bear it!

It was thinking about her dad that made me start trying to be a bit nicer, like inviting her to join us at break time, and even, once, when Livy was away, going and sitting next to her. I didn’t really think about her little brother all that much. I knew he couldn't walk too well, and that sometimes he fell over. I'd heard Mum say to Dad what a terrible shame it was, but it never occurred to me to ask what was wrong. It wasn't something Cupcake ever talked about. She seemed not to want to, and if she didn't want to then neither did I. I suppose I'm a bit of a coward in that way; I would rather not know.

In spite of making an effort to be more welcoming, I still didn’t feel that Cupcake would ever really fit in and be one of us. I certainly never dreamt that we would end up best mates! It was her baby brother who brought us together. His name is Joey and he is the sweetest little boy I have ever known. Exactly how I would like my brother to be if ever I had one (instead of my spoilt brat of a sister, Rosie). He’s so bright, and brave, and funny! He could still walk in those days, and even pedal about on his little tricycle. Sometimes his mum used to bring him with her when she came to pick up Cupcake from school. Other times, if he wasn’t too well, she would leave him at home and the old lady who lives in the upstairs bit of their house would look after him.

“She doesn’t mind,” Cupcake assured me. “She loves Joey.”

Everybody loves Joey! You can’t not. Even if you are like me, and not at all a gooey sort of person, you still want to put your arms round him and give him a cuddle. He has these huge, dark eyes and curly hair and looks just so angelic! Whenever I say this, Cupcake goes “Huh! That’s what you think,” making like she finds him as big a pain as I find Rosie. But it is all put on. I was quite shocked the first time she said it, but now I realise it is important to her to pretend that he’s no different from anyone else’s little brother. In fact, he’s full of mischief and manages to get up to all kinds of tricks, like the time he collected a load of slugs from the garden and put them in a dish on the kitchen table. Cupcake screeched. I know, cos I was there! I just went, “Yeeeurgh!” but Cupcake shot out of her chair going, “Take them away, take them away! That’s disgusting!”

In this hurt voice, Joey said he’d got them for us as a treat. He thought we’d enjoy them. He said that French people enjoyed them.

That really cracked me up. “That’s snails!” I said. “Not slugs!”

Joey said, “Slugs is only snails without any shell.” And then he picked up the bowl and ever so politely held it out to me. “You could try one!”

I said, “I don’t think so.”

“Just get rid of them!” screamed Cupcake.

Joey sighed and did his best to look hurt, but I knew he was only playacting cos he couldn’t help this big, happy grin spreading across his face.

“See?” said Cupcake. “See what I mean? He does it on purpose!”

Joey tries ever so hard to behave the same as any normal little boy, only you can’t say this to Cupcake cos it gets her really upset. I said it once, when I’d tried to help him on to his tricycle and he’d pushed me away and struggled on to it by himself. In this small, tight voice Cupcake said, “What d’you mean, the same as any normal little boy? He is a normal little boy. You saw what he did the other day!” She meant with the slugs. I knew that in spite of her screeching and saying how disgusting it was, she had been secretly quite pleased. Putting bowls of slugs on the kitchen table in the hope of making your sister feel sick is the sort of thing that little boys are supposed to get up to. To make her feel better I told her how I would like a brother like Joey – “Cos my sister is just sooo annoying!” – and that immediately made Cupcake stick up for Rosie, and we had a long discussion about whether or not she is spoilt. Which she is. Take my word for it! Cupcake said, “Yes, but she’s only six years old.” She said that Joey had been spoilt when he was six years old.

“And still is!” That was her mum, suddenly appearing through the back door. She said, “You two girls between you spoil that boy rotten.”

I don’t think we do! We just like to make him happy. We like to invent games that he can play, and read to him, and take him up the park. Once, for his birthday, we even wrote a special story for him. It was fifteen pages long, with pictures. We printed it out on the computer and made a proper cover so it looked like a real book that you could buy in a shop. It was called Man on the Moon. It was all about this boy who dreamt of becoming a spaceman only everybody told him he couldn’t cos of being in a wheelchair. Then one day some aliens came from outer space and with the help of their advanced technology they turned the wheelchair into a spaceship, and the boy went whizzing off to the moon and it was all over the television,

Wheelie Boy in Moon Trip.

Cupcake said, “Wheelie boys can do anything they want!”

Joey loved the book so much he read it to pieces and we had to print it out all over again. We thought about getting it published, except we couldn’t decide which names to use. Our real names or our nicknames? We tried it both ways:

MAN ON THE MOON

by Fudge Cassidy & the Cupcake Kid

MAN ON THE MOON

by Danielle Cassidy & Lisa Costello

I thought we ought to use our real names, so as to sound more professional, like proper writers, but Cupcake said that would mean everybody would know who we were.

“They might even put our pictures in the local paper!”

Personally I would love to have my picture in the local paper. I would love everybody knowing who I am! But Cupcake’s not into fame the way I am, and in the end we spent so much time arguing that we never did send the book to a publisher. Which I think is a pity, as it was really good, and we will probably never have the time to write another one. I wish now that I had given in and agreed to use our nicknames, in spite of them not being very professional. I bet the papers would still have found out who we were. I could have been a local celeb!

It was my dad who gave us the nicknames. He is quite a funny man, always making jokes. He laughed and laughed at the idea of me being Fudge Cassidy, though I would like to say right here and now that I am not called Fudge because I’m a pudge. And not because fudge does happen to be my all-time favourite treat. Well, practically my favourite food. I would live on fudge if I were allowed to! All kinds of fudge: chocolate fudge, vanilla fudge, cherry fudge. Even fudge with nuts in, though it is a bit of a drag having to pick the nuts out.

Dad was watching me do this one day, spitting out the nuts and gobbling up the fudge, and that is when he cried out “Fudge Cassidy!” like it was the best joke he had ever made. I suppose it’s what’s called a play on words. See, there’s this movie called Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid that my dad is kind of obsessed with. He’s got it on DVD and every year on his birthday he sits and watches it. (Like Mum with The Sound of Music.) I watched it with him one year, after he started calling me Fudge, but I couldn’t get what he saw in it. It’s about these two men who rob a bank and become outlaws and in the end they are shot, which is a bit sad I suppose, cos even though they are bank robbers they are not really bad people, and sometimes they are quite funny. I liked it when one of them rides round on a bicycle singing this song about raindrops. “Raindrops keep falling on my head.” That is my favourite part!

I told Cupcake about it and taught her the song, and every now and then she’d jump on Joey’s tricycle and ride round the garden singing it, except she used to change the words to “Cupcakes keep falling on my head”. I know it sounds a bit childish, but Joey thought it was really funny. He thought it was even funnier when I changed the words to fudge keeps falling on my head. He used to squeal and go, “Eeeurgh, bird poo!” He was only little, after all. Well, seven years old. That is quite little.

Oh, I nearly forgot about Cupcake and how she became the Cupcake Kid. It was cos once when she came to tea and Mum had bought all these different coloured cupcakes – pink and lemon and strawberry and chocolate, plus some with sprinkles and some with little silver balls – Cupcake greedily went and ate one of each, which made six altogether. Six cupcakes! I have never let her forget it. Cupcake rather boastfully says, “And I wasn’t even sick!” Dad was impressed. He said he had never seen anything like it, and that if I were Fudge Cassidy then she was obviously The Cupcake Kid. Which is what we have been ever since.

Mum says if we don’t stop calling each other by our silly nicknames we’ll live to regret it.

“Believe me,” she says, “you won’t want to be known as Fudge when you’re my age!”

I expect that may be true, but it is way too far ahead for me to worry about it. In any case, Mum can’t really say that our nicknames are silly; not now that we’ve lived up to them. Little did we know when Cupcake’s mum took that photograph of us in the back garden, showing off our new school uniforms, that we were about to embark on a life of crime. That movie that Dad loves so much, the Butch Cassidy movie? It nearly came true. Me and Cupcake didn’t exactly rob a bank, but for a short time we were handling stolen goods…

CHAPTER TWO

It was Cookie that gt us started on our life of crime. Not that he was called Cookie back then. Back then he was just “the puppy”. The puppy that lived in the garden over the wall.

See, at the back of our block of flats there’s this old, crumbly wall that me and Cupcake used to use for tennis practice. We’d be out there whatever the weather, walloping about with our tennis racquets. Cupcake was never as keen as I was, but I can always get round her! All I had to do was wail, “You know how important it is to me!”

The reason it was so important was because I had this dream that one day, if I practised hard enough, I might end up a big star, playing at Wimbledon. I have a different dream now: I am going to be a TV celeb. I sort of gave up on Wimbledon; I got sick of losing tennis balls. It was mainly me who lost them, I have to admit. I am quite an energetic sort of player. I’d take a good swipe, and instead of bouncing off the wall the thing would go flying right over the top and into the garden on the other side. Well! You can’t keep buying new tennis balls all the time, and you can’t keep trailing all the way round the block and knocking on someone’s door and asking “Please can we get our ball back?” Specially not when the person who answers the door is this crotchety old woman who complains that she is trying to watch television or trying to get a bit of rest. After the first few times Cupcake wouldn’t come with me any more; it didn’t matter how much I begged and pleaded. She said, “I can’t! She’s too horrible.”

“She’s only an old woman,” I said.

“So you go and ask,” said Cupcake.

I could have, I suppose; crotchety old women don’t frighten me. But quite honestly it was getting to be a bit of a drag, especially when you went to all that trouble and then she wasn’t there.

“Prob’ly be easiest if we just climbed over,” I said.

Cupcake is such a scaredy-cat! She wouldn’t do that, either. She whispered, “What if we got caught?”

I said, “We’re not doing anything wrong! We’re only getting our ball back.”

“I dunno.” Cupcake pressed the strings of her tennis racquet against her face, making her nose go all squashed. “It’s still trespassing.” Thing about Cupcake is she does have this tendency to dither. Me, I just go ahead and do things.

“Look, you stay here,” I said. “I’ll go. You keep a lookout.”

That was when I took my first step towards a life of crime… I didn’t realise it at the time, of course; I mean, what’s a little bit of trespassing? No one was going to put me in prison for just climbing over a wall and getting my own property back. But I guess that’s how it always is. You start off with small things like trespassing and before you know it you’re a full-blown criminal.

It was quite easy hoisting myself up. I used an old bucket to stand on, then shoved my toes into cracks in the brickwork. Cupcake stood jittering while I swung myself over the top and jumped down on the other side. Almost before I’d even landed, a thing had launched itself at me. A furry, wriggling thing that made little squeaking noises. I went “Yow!” and fell in a heap with the furry thing on top of me. Next thing I know, Cupcake’s peering over the top of the wall going, “Fudge? What’s happening?” And then she saw the furry thing and went, “Oh!” And then, “Oh!” And then, “It’s the puppy!”

We’d seen the puppy before; just quick glimpses when we’d knocked at the door. He’d be there, snuffling at the door crack, trying to say hello, and the old woman would always kick him back inside. She didn’t kick to hurt, I don’t think, cos she only wore slippers, but one time the puppy whimpered, like maybe he’d crashed into something. It didn’t seem to me a very kind way to treat a little friendly animal. But then of course she didn’t treat me and Cupcake very nicely, either, considering all we wanted was our ball back. It wasn’t like we went round there on purpose to annoy her.

Cupcake’s voice came squeaking anxiously over the wall at me. “Fudge? Are you OK?”

By this time I was flat on my back and the puppy was smothering me in a frenzy of wet kisses. I went, “Help! Ow! Ooch!” and promptly collapsed into giggles. Which is when Cupcake took her first step towards a life of crime. Before I knew it, she was over the wall and flying to my rescue. Maybe she is quite brave, after all! She said later that she thought I was being attacked.

Cupcake isn’t used to dogs; in fact she is a bit scared of them. But not even Cupcake could be scared of a tiny puppy. Once she understood that he was just being friendly, and that the strange noises I was making were giggles, and not death rattles, she went all gooey and melty and wanted to cuddle him. But the puppy had other ideas. He was so pleased to have us in his garden! I’m sure he thought we’d climbed over the wall just to play with him. He immediately ran off and fetched a tennis ball – one of our tennis balls! – and came scampering back with it in his mouth. Plain as can be he was saying, “Throw it for me! Throw it for me!” So of course we did.

Cupcake got quite carried away! She just wouldn’t stop. In the end I had to remind her that we were trampling about in someone else’s garden.

“She could come out any minute!”

That got her moving. She shot back over the wall like she was jet-propelled, with me scrabbling after. And then, guess what? I realised that I’d gone and left the tennis ball behind!

Cupcake said, “Well, but we couldn’t have taken it off him. It’s his toy!”

I agreed; it would have been too heartless. We perched on the upturned bucket and peered over, watching as he went scampering off up the garden, throwing the ball in the air with his mouth and chasing after it.

“So cute,” sighed Cupcake.

All puppies are cute. Much cuter than babies, I think, though of course that is only my opinion. But it was the first time Cupcake had ever properly met one, so naturally she thought he was special. She asked me what sort of breed he was. “Is he a pedigree?”

I said I didn’t know. “He could just be a mongrel.” I added that some people reckon mongrels are best. Cupcake shook her head.

“I think he’s a pedigree,” she said. She didn’t know any more than I did! She didn’t even know as much as I did. But it was obviously what she wanted to believe, so I didn’t argue with her.

Now that we knew the puppy was there, we started taking quick peeps over the wall before getting on with our tennis practice. My tennis practice. Cupcake seemed to have got more interested in watching the puppy than helping me prepare for Wimbledon.

If he was in the garden by himself, without the old woman, we’d call to him and he’d come rushing up, all happy, tail wagging and ready for a game. Even I wasn’t quite brave enough to climb over again, but we broke bits of stick off a nearby tree and threw them for him, and once we found an old burst football and lobbed that over, and he carried it off as proud as could be, shaking it from side to side.

Sometimes the old lady was out there, hanging washing on a clothes whizzy thing, or prodding about in the flower beds with a trowel. She never played with the puppy like we did. He tried so hard to make her! He used to run and fetch a toy and push it at her, or drop it by her side then back away with his bum in the air and his tail whirring in circles. I knew what he was saying. “Go on, missus! Throw it for us!”

But the old woman just ignored him. Either that or she shoved him out of the way. She really didn’t seem to like him very much. Quite often she’d shout at him.

“Just stop bothering me!”

One time she whacked him for digging up one of her flowers. Poor little boy! He didn’t know it was wrong. He was just trying to have fun. Another time we saw him in the garden by himself, tossing something small and bright into the air and catching it as it came down. Me and Cupcake were clapping and going “Yay!” and “Well done!” I suppose you could say we were encouraging him. Maybe we shouldn’t have, cos all of a sudden the old woman came bursting out of the back door and started screeching.

“You bad dog! Bad! Drop that! Stop it! Drop it this instant!”

At first the puppy thought it was a game, he thought she was playing with him at last, but then he started to cower, and his ears went back and his tail crept between his legs, and the old lady grabbed the small, bright thing he’d been playing with and gave him a sharp crack across his nose. Oh, he did yelp! We felt so sorry for him. In a doubtful voice, afterwards, Cupcake said, “I suppose he has to learn.” But you don’t teach children by hitting them, so why teach puppies that way? We hated the old woman for that.

“I told you she was horrible,” said Cupcake.

We still didn’t know what the puppy’s name was. The old woman never seemed to call him anything except “Bad dog”. We just called him Boy. I was the one who came up with the name Cookie. We were perched on our bucket, dangling a pair of old woollen tights over the wall for the puppy to play with. I’d tied a big knot in one of the legs, and the puppy was tugging and making little growly noises.

“Thinks he’s sooo clever,” crooned Cupcake. “Such a big grown-up boy!”

She was getting to be like one of those yucky, show-off mums who are for ever going on about how wonderful their kids are. I tried teasing her about it, but instead of laughing – cos it was funny, well, I thought it was – she just hunched a shoulder and went “Humph.” It wasn’t like Cupcake; she usually has a good sense of humour. I can almost always make her laugh. But she’d been a bit down just lately. The puppy was the only thing that seemed to bring a smile to her face.

I said, “Here! You play with him.” I thought it might cheer her up. She took one leg of the tights and obediently hung on to it, but not with very much enthusiasm. She’d suddenly gone all miserable and quiet. I did my best to make a game out of it. I said, “Grr!” and “Go for it!” and shook my head madly from side to side making growly noises, but the puppy could obviously sense there’d been a change of mood cos he dropped his knotted end and sat down instead to have a scratch.

I said, “Here, boy!” And then, “Know what?”

Cupcake said, “What?”

“We ought to call him Cookie.”

There was a silence. I said, “The dog in Joey’s book? He looks just like him!”

Cupcake sighed and said, “Mm… maybe.”

“He does!”

Joey had this book, Charlie Clark, all about a little boy called Charlie and his dog, Cookie. Charlie and Cookie got up to all kinds of mischief. The book was one of Joey’s favourites; almost as big a favourite as Man on the Moon. I don’t know how many times he must have read it, but it always had him chuckling. He loved the idea of a boy and his dog having adventures. Maybe it’s because he’d have liked to have adventures, same as all the tough little kids who lived in our block and were always getting into trouble for climbing on garage roofs or kicking footballs through windows or jamming the lifts by messing around with the buttons. Joey couldn’t do any of those things – but Charlie could! So could Cookie. Charlie and Cookie went everywhere together. And in spite of Cupcake and her “Mm… maybe,” our puppy looked just like Cookie’s twin. Brown and white and cheeky.

That was when I had my great idea – well, I thought it was a great idea. Why didn’t Cupcake ask her mum if they could have a dog?

“For Joey,” I said. “Joey would love it!”

Know what? All she did was grunt. Like, hmm.

“I’m thinking of Joey,” I said.

She didn’t say anything at all to that. I felt like shaking her. I said, “Well?”

“Well, what?” said Cupcake.

“Why not try asking her?”

“I’m not asking my mum if we can have a dog! She’s got enough to do, looking after Joey.”

“But it would make him so happy!” I said.

“How?” She suddenly turned on me. “How would it make him happy? He couldn’t play with it, he couldn’t take it out for walks, he c—”

“We’d take it out!”

“And that would make him happy?” She didn’t have to bite my head off. “How d’you know what’d make him happy? He’s not your brother!”

That really got to me. “Doesn’t mean I don’t care about him!” I said.

She obviously felt a bit ashamed, then. She mumbled something about being sorry, but that it wasn’t like I was responsible for him. I said, “No, but I still don’t like it when he’s sad.”

She muttered, “I expect you’d be sad if you were in a wheelchair.”

If I was in a wheelchair I’d be so frustrated I would probably scream and smash things. But Joey was such a bright, sunny little boy! He’d always just seemed to accept that there were certain things he couldn’t do. Until I’d gone round the previous weekend I’d never known him to be grumpy. Cupcake had been riding round the garden on Joey’s tricycle singing her silly cupcake song, but for once he hadn’t shown any interest. Usually he demanded that I do “the bird poo one”. I did offer. I said, “Come on! Let’s do it together… you get on the bike and I’ll push you, and we’ll both sing. Fudge keeps a-falling on my head… ”

But he wouldn’t. I grabbed his hand and tried to coax him, but he just snatched his hand away and shouted, “Don’t wanna!” I was really upset. Now Cupcake was upsetting me as well!

I said, “Look, I’m just saying… if he had a dog he mightn’t mind so much about—”

“What?” she said. “About what?”

“About…” I faltered. She’d sounded really fierce. I wasn’t used to Cupcake sounding fierce. “Being in a wheelchair?” I whispered.

Cupcake’s face had gone bright red. “Why don’t you just shut up?” She hissed it at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

What had I done to deserve that? She was in a really weird mood. I hated to quarrel with her, but you can’t just let yourself be trampled on. I said, “OK, if that’s the way you want it. Sorry I bothered.” And then I walked off, swishing my tennis racquet and leaving her there to sulk.

It was the first time me and Cupcake had ever seriously fallen out. And I still didn’t know what it was I had done to upset her!

In school next day we didn’t seem to be talking. Instead of sitting next to each other like we usually did, we both deliberately chose seats next to other people. Everybody noticed. At lunch time we even ended up at different tables. Livy said, “What’s going on?”

I said, “Nothing. Why?”

“Just asking,” said Livy.

I gave her this stony glare, and she pulled a face and said, “Well, pardon me for breathing!” and began to talk to someone else.

Me and Cupcake caught each other’s eye and quickly looked away again. I think we both felt a bit foolish. And upset, too. I can always tell when Cupcake is upset. She droops, and sags, and goes very quiet. I tend to do the exact opposite. I get all busy and LOUD, and charge about yelling and making jokes in the hope that no one will notice. I did a lot of charging about and yelling that particular day. In art, I charged about so much I managed to upset the fruit and flower arrangement we were supposed to be painting and skidded halfway across the studio on a bunch of grapes. Mrs Rae, who is normally very relaxed, threatened to send me out if I didn’t control myself.

“What’s the matter with you, Danielle? You’re completely hyperactive!”

Next day, it was like nothing had ever happened. Like both of us had decided the time had come to make up. We didn’t actually say anything, but Cupcake came and sat next to me, same as usual, and asked me how I’d got on with the French translation we’d been given for homework. When I said that I hadn’t got beyond the first few words, she said, “D’you want to borrow mine?” and slid her book across the desk for me to look at. It was like a sort of peace offering. Like in her own way she was saying sorry for having been so mean and grouchy. It immediately made me feel that I wanted to say sorry, too, so I thanked her and promised “I won’t actually copy.”

Cupcake said, “You can if you want. I don’t mind.” Which was really generous of her, since she nearly always gets an A in French, whereas I am totally hopeless and usually get a big red D, plus rude comments along the lines of “Danielle, I really would appreciate it if you made a bit of an effort to stay awake when I am teaching you.” But anyway I didn’t totally copy as it might have got us into trouble. I am used to being in trouble, but it wouldn’t have been fair on Cupcake.

After that, we were back to normal. I still had this feeling that Cupcake was a bit down, but sometimes with her it is hard to tell as she is naturally a quiet sort of person. She’s also quite secretive. I tend to blurt everything out, whereas Cupcake keeps things to herself. Still, I didn’t want to upset her again, so I did my best to pretend I hadn’t noticed. I thought if I talked loudly enough it would act as a sort of cover and nobody else would notice, either, which I don’t think they did. They are used to me being noisy and Cupcake being quiet.

Saturday morning I went round to her place, same as always. We liked to give Joey a bit of time before we went off to mooch round the shops or practise my tennis. He was really on form that morning! All bright and bubbly and wanting to do things. We took him into the garden and he insisted on trying to get on his tricycle without any help from me or Cupcake. Unfortunately he couldn’t quite manage it, and toppled over on to the grass. We rushed to pick him up, but he pushed us away, going, “I can do it, I can do it!”

It is very difficult to just stand by and watch, but we knew we had to let him. He almost made it. Slowly he pulled himself back on to his feet, muttering, “Now I fall down, now I get up. Now I fall down… now I get up!” And then, at last, he let us help him.

We both hugged him, which was something we wouldn’t have dared do a week ago. He’d been so angry the previous Saturday he’d probably have punched us. Now he was all cheeky and grinning and demanding the bird poo song as we pulled him round the garden on his bike.

We played for about an hour, until it was time for Joey to rest. I said to Cupcake, “Let’s go and see if Cookie’s there!”

He was, but so was the old woman, so we didn’t like to call to him. We just perched on our bucket and watched for a while as he pottered about the garden. His legs were still rubbery, and while he was digging in a bit of old earth, one of them suddenly gave way and he sat down with a thump, looking quite surprised. I immediately thought of Joey; his legs kept giving way. It was what had happened that morning, when he’d tried to get on his bike. Now I fall down, now I get up.

Impulsively, as we stepped off the bucket, I said, “Joey seems so much happier! D’you think he’s getting better?”

Cupcake didn’t say anything. She just frowned, and dug the tip of her trainer into a bit of soft earth at the bottom of the wall.

“I mean… he almost managed to get on his bike by himself!”

In this small, tight voice Cupcake said, “This time last year he could get on his bike by himself.”

“Well… y-yes. But he’s better than he has been!”

“Last year,” said Cupcake, “he could still ride round the garden. When we first came here, he could still walk.”

I fell silent, chewing on my lip. I could remember Joey walking. He used to come with Mrs Costello to pick Cupcake up from school.

“He just gets worse all the time,” she cried. “He’s not ever going to get better!”

And then she burst into tears and I didn’t know what to say. I felt that I should do something, like put my arms round her or something, but I just stood there, staring at the ground and twiddling my tennis racquet.

After a bit I managed to mumble that I was sorry.

“It’s all right. It’s not your fault.” Cupcake wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “You weren’t to know.”

But I should have done! I’d watched Joey grow weaker and weaker and I’d never once asked any questions. I’d tried telling myself it was because of not liking to think about people being ill, but maybe it was simply because I was scared of what the answer might be. The truth is, I hadn’t really wanted to know.

“I should have told you,” said Cupcake. She said that she had always known, right from the beginning. Her mum had never kept any secrets from her. “I’m sorry! It’s just – ” the tears came welling up again – “I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it!”

I pulled a crumpled tissue from my pocket and silently handed it to her. Then I patted her on the back a few times, like I’d seen people do in movies when they were trying to comfort someone. I felt really ashamed of being so useless. I’m not usually so useless! If Cupcake had fallen off a cliff I would be the first one scrambling down to save her. If she were to fall into the canal I would dive straight in after her, never mind that I can’t swim. If she got sucked into a bog I would tear off the branch of a nearby tree and push it out to her, and wouldn’t let go no matter how close I came to being sucked in with her. But now, because she was crying, I couldn’t think of a single thing to do except just stand helplessly by and watch.

After a while she dried her eyes and blew her nose and said again that she was sorry.

“Want to play some tennis?” I asked.

We played for a bit, but not for very long. It suddenly seemed kind of pointless, bashing tennis balls against a wall when Cupcake was so sad. We didn’t go and look round the shops, either; I didn’t even suggest it.

“Think I’ll go home now,” said Cupcake.

She didn’t ask me to go with her, but I understood.

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

Cupcake just nodded, and ran off.

CHAPTER THREE

Mum was surprised to see me back so soon.

“I thought you were out there training for Wimbledon?”

It was her idea of a joke. Danielle training for Wimbledon, ha ha! Mum always treats my ambitions as a joke, it doesn’t matter what they are. She thinks my present ambition, to be a TV celeb, is the biggest joke ever. She says, “Surely celebs have to do something?”

I will do something! It’s just I haven’t yet decided what.

Rather sternly I said, “Cupcake had to go home.”

“Oh. Well! In that case, if you’re at a loose end,” said Mum, “maybe you could entertain Rosie.”

I didn’t want to entertain Rosie.

“I wish you would,” said Mum. “She’s feeling a bit sorry for herself.”

Just because she had the sniffles. Not even a proper cold! And there was poor little Joey, stuck in a wheelchair and still managing to laugh.

“Go on,” said Mum. “Do something nice for once!”

I said, “I don’t feel like it.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Cupcake said Joey isn’t going to get any better!” I blurted out. “She said he’s only going to get worse!”

“Oh.” Mum stopped what she was doing, which was chopping stuff for dinner. She wiped her hands on her apron and held them out to me. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry!”

I used to have lots of cuddles with Mum when I was little, until Rosie came along. Not that I cared. I was too old for all that kind of stuff in any case. But just now and then, like when she isn’t around, we have a bit of a secret snuggle. It can be quite a comfort.

“Is that why you’re back early?” said Mum.

I nodded, with my head pressed into the bib of her apron, which smelt for some reason of oranges. Now I always think of oranges when I think of Joey. I expect I always will.

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