Fruit and Nutcase. Jean Ure

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      It’s like I’ve got this reputation for being aggressive and Tracey’s got this reputation for being good and that’s all anyone cares. But sometimes I think you have to be a bit aggressive or people just stamp all over you. Like with Oliver, and Billy Murdo’s gang. They bully him something rotten and no one ever does a thing about it. That’s because they do it where the teachers can’t see. And Oliver, he’s such a sad, weedy little guy, he never sticks up for himself.

      I bet if he did, Miss Foster would say it was all his fault, even though Billy Murdo’s about ten times bigger.

      Sometimes you just can’t win. But on the other hand, you can’t just sit back and do nothing. I don’t think you can.

      Half-past three is when school ends. I can’t wait to get out! I never stay behind for anything; not if I can help it. I run like a whirlwind to Bunjy’s to pick Mum up and go shopping with her.

      Bunjy’s is the name of the baker’s where Mum works. But the lady who owns it, the one who keeps threatening to give her the sack, isn’t called Mrs Bunjy but Mrs Sowerbutts. Mum calls her old Sourpuss. She’s not quite as bad as Misery Guts, but they both give Mum a lot of hassle.

      Sometimes when I get there I’m a few minutes early. If old Sourpuss is around Mum pulls this face at me through the window and I know that I will have to wait.

      Old Sourpuss wasn’t there that day, the day I bashed Tracey Bigg and made her nose bleed. Mum came waltzing out looking all happy and giggly ‘cos she’d left a few minutes before she ought!

      I love it when Mum behaves like that. It means we’re going to have fun!

      Before we went home we called at the supermarket to buy some food for Dad’s tea. Mum wanted to do him something different, something a bit posh. She started talking about making pastry and putting things inside it, but I managed to talk her out of that idea. Last time Mum tried making pastry it was an absolute disaster. It came out all hard, like a layer of cement. Dad said, “Blimey O’Reilly, you’d need a hammer and chisel to make any headway with this!”

      I don’t know why Dad says Blimey O’Reilly, but he only does it when he thinks something is funny. Sometimes he just doubles up laughing at Mum and her cooking. Once she put the sugar in the oven to dry and it melted all over the place, and Dad said she was daft as a brush. He said, “Oh, what a yum yum!” And we all fell about, including Mum.

      But other times, like if he’s had a bad day or old Misery’s had a go at him, he doesn’t say Blimey O’Reilly he says things that are cross and unkind and Mum gets all upset. So it seemed to me it was silly to take chances. I reckoned Mum ought to get him something he liked. Food is terribly important to men. They get really upset if they come home and their dinner isn’t ready or it’s not what they want. Women don’t care quite so much. Well, that’s how it seems to me.

      So in the end we bought his favourite pie, which I reckoned even Mum couldn’t ruin as all you have to do is just put it in the oven. Mum said, “We’ll have toast fingers and a bit of paté to start with,” ’cos she still wanted to be posh.

      Well, we got in and first thing we know is old Misery Guts is there waiting for us, hiding behind the door. All in one breath she says, “Mrs-Small-I-really-must-complain-about-the-state-of-the-bathroom-it-looks-as-if-a-bomb-has-hit-it.” To which Mum chirps, “We should be so lucky!” and goes racing up the stairs two at a time with me giggling behind her.

      The reason the bathroom looked as if a bomb had hit it was that the hot water thingie had blown up when Dad was running his bath. The hot water thingie looks like an ancient monument.

      Before you can get any hot water out of it you have to move lots of little levers and turn on lots of taps and then light a match. I’m not allowed to touch it in case I blow myself up. Half the wall is down, now.

      “That Misery Guts,” panted Mum, as we pounded up the stairs to our own floor. “A pity it couldn’t have blown up when she was in there!”

      “In the bath,” I said. “All naked.”

      Sometimes old Misery Guts makes Mum’s life a real pain, but we just laughed about her that day. Mum was in a really giggly sort of mood. She turned the oven on, to heat it up for Dad’s pie, and we had a cup of tea and watched a bit of telly, and then Mum put the pie in and I laid the table and we got the bread out for toasting.

      “Let’s do some thing special,” said Mum. “Let’s cut the toast into funny shapes. We’ll cut one into a Misery Guts shape and see if your dad can guess who it is!”

      So that was what we did. We made a Misery Guts shape and an old Sourpuss shape, and Mum made Nan and Grandy shapes, and I made Tracey Bigg and Miss Foster shapes, and then we just went mad and made any old shapes that took our fancy. Shapes with big heads, and shapes with big feet, and shapes with big bums. Fat shapes, skinny shapes. Tall shapes, short shapes. Shapes of all kinds!

      We ended up with way too much toast!

      “We’ve used up the whole loaf!” said Mum.

      But we just giggled about it, ‘cos that was the sort of mood we were in.

      Dad got in at five o’clock. He swung me up in his arms and said, “And how’s our Mand?”

      “We’ve been making toasted teachers,” I said.

      “That sounds a bit dodgy,” said Dad. “I hope they’re not for my tea?”

      “Only for starters,” said Mum, proudly. She was really chuffed with her posh starters. Paté and toast! That’s what the nobs have.

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