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“Have you both had time to think?” said Mum.
“I didn’t have to think,” boasted Nat. “I already knew!”
“What about Zoe?”
I said, “Yes, I’ve decided.”
“Well, that was quick,” said Mum. “OK, if you’re sure, let’s get started. Your dad first!”
I know Dad was every bit as excited as the rest of us. He is just not the sort of person to show his emotions. But even he couldn’t stop a big grin engulfing his face. He told us that he had already handed his notice in.
“Couldn’t do it fast enough!”
Dad had never really cared for his job. He was always telling me and Nat how important it was, if you possibly could, to find work that gives you satisfaction.
“But he’s not going to be a gentleman of leisure,” said Mum. “Are you?”
She looked across at Dad like she was really proud of him. Dad, suddenly going all bashful and un-Dad-like, agreed that he wasn’t.
“Wouldn’t suit me, sitting around doing nothing.” He said he was going to carry on working, but not for the council. “For myself!”
“He’s going to start up his own business,” said Mum. “Mr Bird, the Handyman.”
“What do you reckon?” said Dad. “Catchy?”
“Brilliant,” I said.
“We’ll get a nice new van,” said Mum, “have it all painted up.”
“And a car,” said Dad. “About time we had a proper car.”
“Now that we’re rich,” said Nat.
Mum frowned.
I said, “That is so not cool!”
“Well, but we are,” said Nat. “We are,” she insisted, “aren’t we?”
“I prefer to think of it as no longer being chronically hard up,” said Mum.
Dad chuckled. “Tell them what you’ve decided on!”
Mum said that what she wanted was to move to a house – “Somewhere nice” – with lots of rooms and a large garden. No surprise there!
“Now ask me,” said Nat. “Ask me what I want!”
“We know what you want,” I said.
“No, you don’t! I want a dog—”
“You already told us that.”
“And a pony!”
She announced it with a triumphant flourish. Dad blinked, but even the pony wasn’t all that much of a surprise. Two summers ago we’d gone on a camping holiday to Devon and Nat had done some riding at a local stable. We both had, but Nat had become, like, obsessed for a while. I thought she’d forgotten it. Obviously not!
Mum said that if Nat really and truly wanted her own pony then she supposed she could have one.
“So long as you’d be prepared to look after it properly. Not just leave it to other people.”
Nat said, “Mum, of course I’d look after it!”
Nat is always saying of course she will do things and then never doing them, but I think in this case we all believed her. She is really into animals.
“Right,” said Mum. “So what about Zoe? What has she decided?”
I took a breath. A really deep one. Right down to the bottom of my lungs.
“Well?” said Dad.
“I’d like to go to boarding school!”
The words came spurting out of me. It was the only way I could do it. All in a rush, before I got cold feet.
There was this long, shocked pause while they all gaped at me; then Dad said, “Boarding school?”
I appealed to Mum. “You know I always wanted to!”
“Well – yes,” agreed Mum, sounding rather shaken. “I suppose you did.”
“I did! I always did!”
“This is ridiculous,” said Dad. “She can’t go to boarding school!”
“She’s mad,” said Nat.
“You do realise,” warned Mum, “that it wouldn’t be like it is in Gran’s books?”
“I know that,” I said. I wasn’t stupid! I could tell the difference between stories and real life. “Mum, I really do want to go!”
“But what about all your friends?” spluttered Dad.
“I’ll just make more,” I said.
I don’t have any problems making friends; I’m what Mum calls “an easy mixer.” I hadn’t exactly been moping around since Sophie left. But there wasn’t anyone special. No one that could replace Sophie. I was looking forward to meeting new people.
Dad was frowning at me like I was being really disloyal, but I think Mum understood how I felt. She knew how close me and Soph had been.
“Mum?” I said. “Please?”
“Well –” Mum turned to consult Dad – “I suppose, if she’s genuinely serious about it?”
“I am!” I said. “I am!”
“We did promise,” said Mum. “Anything they wanted.”
“Within reason,” muttered Dad.
I said, “Da-a-a-d!”
“A promise is a promise,” urged Mum.
Dad shook his head.
“Dad, please,” I begged.
There was a bit of a silence. Mum and I exchanged glances. Then Dad threw up his hands like, what can you do?
“All right, all right! I give in.”
“Does that mean I can go?”
“Well, it seems your mum’s in favour, so … I suppose the answer is yes.”
Yay! Mum gave me this little secret wink. She can always manage to get round Dad!
“We’d better start looking for somewhere,” she said. “It’ll be no use trying for one of those places where you have to have your name put down at birth.”
Eagerly I said, “I’ve been looking on the computer. I think I’ve already found one that would be OK. And it’s not all that far away!” I’d purposely picked one that was quite close, cos I knew Mum wouldn’t be happy if I couldn’t get home occasionally. Maybe I wouldn’t, either. “Shall I show you?” I said. “D’you want to come and see?”
“Why not?” said Mum. “No time like the present.”
After that, everything happened really fast. Dad bought a smart new van and set himself up as The Handyman. Mum fell in love with a house just outside of town and almost before we knew it we were moving in there. Nat then dragged us all off to the nearest animal shelter and found an adorable Staffy pup, all rubbery and wrinkled, that she said she was going to call Lottie – “Short for lottery!” The pony was going to take a bit longer, but Nat said she didn’t mind waiting, as it would give her a chance to do a bit of puppy training. Mum was pleased. She said, “It’s really given her a sense of responsibility, having a pet to look after.”
Even though I am not specially a dog person, I had to admit that Lottie was pretty cute. She had this funny little habit of licking your ears, getting her tongue really deep inside and slurping about. Once I would have thought it disgusting; now I just giggled. Nat, needless to say, was like totally besotted. She said she didn’t know how I could bear to go away and not be there to see Lottie grow up.
I pointed out that I was only going to be away during the week. Mum had insisted on that. “I want you home at weekends!”
The school I’d found was called St Withburga, which Nat immediately started calling St Cheeseburga, like it was screamingly funny. I forgave her, though. I was just so excited! I couldn’t wait to get there. The school hadn’t been going all that long, so they still had places, plus they were only a short journey away, which made Mum happy. She and Dad took me down there to check it out, and even Dad had to admit that it seemed OK. High praise, coming from Dad!
“It’s nice and small,” said Mum. “I like that.”
She added that it struck her as very funny, though, that I’d been complaining for years about having to share a bedroom with Nat and now here I was, choosing to share a dormitory with a bunch of total strangers!
I said that that was different. It was what you expected at boarding school.
Nat, who had come with us (simply to be nosy), told me for the hundredth time that I was mad.
“They’ll be all snooty and look down on you.”
“Why would they do that?” said Mum.
“Cos it’s what they’re like,” said Nat. “Posh people!”
“She could be right,” said Dad. He looked at me anxiously. “Are you sure about this, kiddo? You honestly want to come here?”
“I do,” I said. “I’m really looking forward to it!”
So there it was, all settled. Me and Mum went into Norwich to buy my uniform and various other bits and pieces that I was going to need, and that was it. I was ready! Just three weeks to go.
And that was when I caught the chicken pox.
(#ulink_fb54d42e-323b-57c5-b2ed-2967ffa49af7)
It was the middle of September when I finally started at St With’s (as I soon learnt to call it). I was a whole week late! I couldn’t help thinking if there was anyone else that was new, they’d have made friends by now, which meant I’d be the odd one out. I told Nat that if she hadn’t gone and breathed on me I might never have caught her rotten chicken pox. It was just an observation. She didn’t have to get all uppity about it.
“Wasn’t my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know it was the chicken pox!”
I said, “Well, considering you were covered in spots.” Which she’d scratched. At least I hadn’t done that.
“I meant at the beginning,” she said. “At the beginning I didn’t know. And anyway, you’re not the only one starting a new school. It’s just as bad for me.”
“It was your chicken pox,” I said. “And it’s nowhere near as bad for you!” Nat was starting at secondary school. She’d still be with lots of her friends. “It’s loads worse if it’s boarding school.”
“Well, you chose it,” said Nat.
That was the point at which Mum came into the room. “Are you two at it again?” she said. “What’s going on? You never used to fight like this. It’s enough to make me wish we’d never won the wretched lottery!”
I couldn’t believe Mum really meant that. She loved her new house with its big garden.
“I do hope,” she said, “that you’re not regretting this, Zoe?”
“I’m not!” I said.
I was just having a sudden attack of what Gran calls the collywobbles. Not even that, really. Just the odd flutter, like butterflies in my tummy.
Mum and Dad drove me down to St With’s on a Sunday afternoon. Nat had to come with us on account of Mum thinking she was too young to be left on her own. We squabbled again in the car. Nat had found a new joke: instead of going to St Cheeseburga, I was now going to St Beefburga. She cackled uproariously as she said it. Several times. In the end I told her to shut up. She said, “You’re not supposed to speak to me like that.” I said I could speak to her how I liked, it was a free country. So then she said, “This is what happens when people go to posh schools – they get all big-headed.”
“Talking about big heads,” I said, “you’d just better be careful you don’t fall off your pony, when you get one, and knock all your brains out! Not,” I added, “that you have much in the way of brains to begin with. It’s mostly just sawdust.”
She then yelled, “Beefburga!” in a mindless kind of way, but before I could think of a suitable retort Dad told us both to be quiet, he was sick of the sound of our voices, while Mum said that if this was what having a bit of money did to us she’d almost be tempted to give our share to charity. She said Nat didn’t deserve a pony and I didn’t deserve to go to boarding school. Just for a moment I felt like saying, All right, then, I won’t!
The butterflies were flapping like crazy, all swooping and swarming. To be honest, if Dad had said, “Let’s just forget about it and go home,” I’d have been secretly relieved.
Miss Latimer, the Head of Boarding, was there to meet us when we arrived, sweeping up the drive in Dad’s new car. The first new car we’d ever had!
Miss Latimer said, “Zoe! I’m so glad you could make it at last.” She said it like she really meant it, like she’d almost been counting the days till I could come. I immediately felt a whole lot better. The butterflies had settled down and I couldn’t wait to get up to the dorm and start arranging my things.
