Freaks Out!

“You mean, you don’t want to?” I said.

“Gotta be joking,” said Tom.

Dad was my last chance. I reminded him what the government had said about us all taking more exercise to stop from getting fat and flabby, but Dad laughed and said he got quite enough exercise watching sport on TV, thank you very much.

Honestly! What a family. An exciting new opportunity and not a single one of them would grasp it. Still, I put it on my list. It was the first real sign we had had. A proper sign. Not like Jem and her hairy monsters. After all, you can’t blame horoscopes if people are too stupid to follow their advice. I just wish I knew which one of the family it was!

I couldn’t make up my mind whether to tell Jem or not. I knew if I did she would only start arguing again about ankles being the same as heads and tiny little mice being huge furry monsters, but, anyway, as it happened, I didn’t get the chance. Skye was with us, as usual, as we walked into school, and we were together all the rest of the day.

Skye was in a really glumpish sort of mood. Even in maths, when Mr Hargreaves wanted to know if anyone had the answer to some weird mess he’d scrawled all over the board, she didn’t put her hand up. I could tell Mr Hargreaves was surprised, cos Skye always has the answer to everything. Me and Jem exchanged glances over her head. Something was definitely not right.

We discussed it in whispers in the cloakroom at break. Should we ask what the problem was, or should we just go on pretending not to have noticed? We still hadn’t reached any decision when Skye came out of a cubicle and wanted to know what we were gossiping about.

“Not gossiping,” said Jem.

“So why are you being all furtive?”

I couldn’t think of any answer to that. Jem, her brain whizzing into overdrive, said, “Oh! You know,” and waved a hand rather vaguely about the empty cloakroom, but Skye didn’t pursue the matter. She obviously wasn’t that interested.

Last class of the day was drama with Miss Hamilton. Me and Jem adore drama! Whenever we’re told to choose partners, we always choose each other. Never Skye! Not if we can avoid it. Drama is one of the few classes Skye is useless at. She can’t act to save her life. It’s because she can’t show her feelings. Me and Jem like nothing better. We are full of feelings! Sometimes, Miss Hamilton says, we overflow. Skye says we swamp. But I think we are just naturally expressive.

Today, Miss Hamilton said, we were going to do improvisation, making up our own short scenes with a partner. Hooray! I love improvisation. Seems to me it’s far more fun making up your own words than having to stick to other people’s.

“So,” said Miss Hamilton, “find yourselves a partner.” Me and Jem immediately bagged each other. We didn’t even think of Skye. “I want one of you to be unhappy, and the other one has to find out why, and try to comfort her. OK?”

Jem begged me to let her be the unhappy one.

“Please, Frankie, please!”

I didn’t mind. I’m good at comforting. I’m a people person!

We waited impatiently for our turn. I hate having to sit and watch while everyone else gets up and does things. Specially when they’re not very good at it. Some of them were OK, like Brittany Fern, crying cos her pet goldfish had died. I think that losing your goldfish would be quite upsetting. I know you can’t take a goldfish to bed with you or cuddle it, like I can Rags, but I daresay they have their own little fishy ways that you get fond of.

Daisy Hooper was pathetic, as usual. She’s another one that can’t act; she just thinks she can. She lumped herself into the middle of the floor and started bellowing about how she’d been promised a trip to Disneyland and then at the last minute it had been cancelled, sob sob, boo hoo. Like anyone cared. Hardly in the same class, I would have thought, as losing your goldfish.

Skye did her scene with a girl called Lucy Westwood that hardly ever speaks above a whisper. It was a bit embarrassing, really, what with Skye all wooden and saying how she’d failed this really important exam – oh, disaster! – and Lucy whispering how sorry she was. Well, I think that was what she was whispering; it was hard to tell.

Me and Jem were left till last. Top of the bill! Stars are always on last. Not meaning to boast, but I do think we are more talented than most people in our class. What I couldn’t quite understand, as we took the stage – well, the centre of the room, actually – was why a series of tiny little squeaks were coming from Jem, like she’d got the giggles and was fighting to suppress them. This was serious stuff! Jem was supposed to be unhappy and I was going to comfort her. What was there to giggle at?

I was soon to discover. Miss Hamilton said, “All right, you two, off you go!” I felt that she was expecting something really special from me and Jem. I’d already put my face into sympathetic mode, letting my mouth droop and my eyes go all big and swimmy. It’s something I’ve practised in the mirror. I’ve practised lots of faces in the mirror. Evil ones, soppy ones, scaredy ones. All kinds! You never know when they might come in useful, like if you’re going to have a career as an actor. Not that I am, probably, but I like to think that I could. If I wanted.

I turned to Jem, who was still making little squeaks, and said, “Oh dear, Jem, you are not looking very happy! Is something the matter?” Instantly, Jem stopped squeaking and burst into loud, heart-rending sobs. Real sobs. I don’t know how she does that! It’s a gift that she has.

I was immediately sympathetic. “What’s wrong?” I said. “Tell me what’s wrong!”

“It’s my great-great-grandmother!” sobbed Jem.

Pardon me? Her great-great-grandmother? Great-great-grandmother?