Sugar and Spice. Jean Ure

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      “Get up!” I said, and kicked the bed. Unlike Mum, I don’t stand for any nonsense. You have to be firm. “Go on! Get up!”

      “Don’t want to get up,” grumbled Lisa. “Haven’t finished sleeping.”

      “Can’t help that,” I said. “You have to go to school.” When I was nine, I loved going to school. I couldn’t get there fast enough. “Who’ve you got this term?” I said.

      Lisa sniffed and said, “Mrs Henson.”

      I felt this great well of envy. Lisa didn’t know how lucky she was! Mrs Henson was just the best teacher I ever had. The best. When I told Mrs Henson I wanted to be a doctor she didn’t laugh or say that I’d better not set my sights too high. She said, “Well, and why not? I’m sure that would be possible, if you work hard enough.” She made you feel like you could do anything you wanted. You could be a doctor or a teacher. You could even be Prime Minister!

      “Mrs Henson is just so lovely,” I said.

      Lisa said she wasn’t lovely. “She tells me off.”

      “In that case, you’re obviously doing something wrong,” I said.

      “I’m not doing anything wrong. She just picks on me!”

      “Mrs Henson doesn’t pick on people,” I said. I felt quite cross with my stupid little sister. Fancy having a wonderful teacher like Mrs Henson and not appreciating her! If I still had Mrs Henson, Mum wouldn’t have to bawl and bellow at me every morning. I’d be out of bed like a shot! “You just get dressed,” I said. “And stop whining!”

      I dragged on my school clothes, which I hated almost as much as I hated school. Black skirt, grey jumper. Ugh! It made me feel miserable before I even got there. I’d always looked forward to having a school uniform as I thought it would be something to be, like, proud of, but nobody could be proud of going to Parkfield High. (Or Krapfilled High, as some of the boys called it. I know it sounds rather rude, but I think it’s more suited than Parkfield since there isn’t any park and there isn’t any field and it’s absolutely crud. Which is why I hated it.)

      Lisa was now complaining that she couldn’t find her knickers and Kez had gone and put her top on inside out, so I had to stop and grovel on the floor, all covered in shoes and socks and toys and books and dirty spoons and empty pots.

      I found the missing knickers, which Lisa then screamed she couldn’t wear on account of someone having gone and trodden on them and left a muddy footprint; so we had a bit of an argument about that, with me telling her that no one was going to see them, and her saying that they might, and me saying how? – I mean, how? “Boys peek when you go upstairs,” she said, which meant in the end we had to get out a clean pair, by which time Kez had not only got her top on inside out but had put both feet down the same leg of her trousers and couldn’t work out what to do about it. Honestly! My sisters! Was it any wonder I was always late for school? Not that I cared. Nobody ever noticed, anyway.

      In the kitchen, Mum was putting on her make-up, filling lunch boxes, getting breakfast, dressing Sammy. Sammy is my little brother. He’s four years old and is even more spoilt than Kez and Lisa. This is because he’s a boy. There is a lot of sexism going on in my family.

      Mum said, “Ah, Ruth! There you are. About time! Just keep an eye on the toast for me, love. Oh, and lay the table, will you, there’s a good girl.”

      So I kept an eye on the toast and laid the table and finished dressing Sammy and removed the raw carrot from my lunch box as I’m not a rabbit, whatever Mum may think, and put some more peanut butter in my sandwiches when she wasn’t looking, and got out the Sugar Puffs, СКАЧАТЬ