Family Fan Club

They staggered on, through the script that Jazz had so laboriously typed out on the old machine in the attic. Rose kept saying Vomit and Yuck and “I’m going to be sick!” Laurel didn’t pay proper attention and kept reading stage directions and typing errors.

“Really, girls, you are both to be balmed – balmed? Oh! You mean blamed. You are both to be blamed, beginning to lecture in her – oops! Sorry! Stage direction. You are old enough to leave off such boysih – BOYISH tricks and tobe have better. What’s tobe have b – oh! To behave better. Why do you keep splitting words up all funny?”

“I couldn’t help it,” said Jazz. “It’s the typewriter. It keeps sticking. If you would just concentrate—”

“It’s all yuck,” said Rose.

Daisy was the only one who really tried, but Daisy wasn’t the most brilliant reader at the best of times. It was as much as she could do to read what Jazz had actually typed.

“If J–Jo is a r–romboy—”

“A romboy!” Rose threw up her hands in delight. “Jo is a romboy!”

Jazz screamed, “Tomboy, you idiot!”

She wasn’t screaming at Daisy; you didn’t scream at Daisy. It was that stupid Rose, always trying to be so clever.

“What’s the matter with romboy?” said Rose. “I like it!”

“It’s w–what it says,” stammered Daisy.

“Look, look! What’s this word here? Clotehs.” Rose wrapped her tongue round it, lovingly. “Meg wants some new clotehs!”

“So do I,” said Laurel. “I want a whole wardrobe of new clotehs.”

“We could invent a language,” said Rose. “Typing Error language. Like sock would be cosk and milk would be klim and b—”

“All right! If you don’t want to give Mum a present” – Jazz hurled her script across the floor – “then don’t give her one!” And she raced from the room, slamming the door very loudly behind her.

There was a silence.

“We could call it Terrol,” said Rose, brightly.

“Call what?” said Laurel.

“The language. Typing Error language … Terrol! Book would be boko. Foot would be foto. Hair w—”

“Stop it,” said Laurel. “We’ve upset her.”

“W–was it my fault?” whispered Daisy.

“No! Of course it wasn’t.” Rose rushed fiercely to her sister’s defence. “You only read what she’d typed. You weren’t to know!”

“We shouldn’t have fooled around,” said Laurel. Laurel was, after all, the eldest. She was fourteen. Old enough to know better.

“Well, she’s only got herself to blame,” said Rose. “Takes everything so seriously.”

Rose was a fine one to talk. Get her started on one of her isms and she had about as much sense of humour as a shark with a sore tooth.

“Anyway,” said Rose, “she’s not really doing it for Mum. She’s just doing it to show off!”

“It’s not showing off.” You had to be fair to Jazz. It was true her enthusiasms sometimes ran away with her and made her a bit domineering, but she wasn’t a show-off. “It’s very important to her,” said Laurel, “being an actress.”

“Yes, ’cos she really really wants to go to drama school,” said Daisy. “She wants to show Mum what she can do.”

“Don’t see how she thinks we can afford drama school if we can’t even afford proper Christmas presents!” retorted Rose.

“She doesn’t mean fulltime,” said Laurel. “Just that little one up the road … Glenda Glade, or whatever it’s called. There’s a girl in her class goes there. Pinky Simons? The one with all the hair? She goes there twice a week. She’s done a commercial. It’s very frustrating,” said Laurel. “It’s what Jazz wants to do more than anything in the world!”

“What, a commercial?” muttered Rose, but she was starting to look a bit shamefaced.

“If she got a commercial,” said Laurel, “she’d probably earn enough money to pay for herself.”

“Huh!” Rose didn’t mean to sound cynical, but how often had she heard Mum and Dad say the very same thing? If I could just get a commercial …

“Well, I know,” said Laurel, reading Rose’s thoughts. “But she can dream!”

Rose sighed. “I s’pose we’ll have to do it for her. Even though,” she added, with a flash of spirit, “we’d never be cast as Little Women. This was America! We’d probably have been slaves!”

“Oh, don’t start!” begged Laurel. “Daisy, go and tell Jazz we’re sorry.”

“Why me?” said Daisy.

“’cos you’re the only one she won’t get mad at!”

Jazz was upstairs in her bedroom. She lay face down on the bed. Great sobs were shaking her, choking her, making it difficult for her to breathe.

Partly they were sobs of sheer rage. It was all so unprofessional! Messing up a rehearsal like that. How could they do such a thing? Rose and Laurel were the worst offenders. Poor little Daisy, she’d done her best. Daisy always tried to please. But those two—

Jazz banged her clenched fist into the pillow. They just didn’t care!

Fresh tears came spurting. Tears of self-pity, as well as rage. They knew how much it meant to her, being an actress! They were deliberately ruining her chances. If Mum could just see what she could do, what she could really do, not just pottering round in the chorus of the school nativity play, she would surely let Jazz go to drama school? Only two days a week! It wasn’t much to ask.

A timid knock came at the door. Jazz sprang into a sitting position, snatching up her sleeve for a handkerchief. She blotted angrily at her eyes. What had got into her, just lately? She never cried! She was the strong one. Now, it seemed, the least little thing set her off. She wouldn’t normally let Rose and Laurel get to her. It must be something to do with Christmas, and Dad not being there. She couldn’t imagine Christmas without Dad!

“J–Jazz?”

It was Daisy’s voice, piping uncertainly. Jazz scrubbed at her eyes, blew her nose, stuffed her handkerchief back up her sleeve. She marched across to the door.

“What do you want?”

Daisy’s lip quivered. “They told me to c–come and s–say sorry.”

“Why you?” said Jazz. “You didn’t do anything!”

“They r–really are s–sorry,” whispered Daisy.

“Just too cowardly to come and tell me themselves!”