wanted to check that you’re okay and feeling better.”
He rammed his hands into his jeans pockets as if he thought I might grab them and beg him to stay.
“Thanks,” I said. I had been wondering if I dared ask him to come again, but his gesture decided me against it. Besides, he had enough on his plate.
Toby opened the door and looked back toward my bed. All of a sudden he seemed fascinated by the jug of water on top of my locker.
“Um … would it be okay if I popped back again tomorrow? It’s, you know, really nice to have a conversation with someone when I come and visit Kate. It gets quite hard to, er, just sit and talk to a person who doesn’t reply. Would you mind?”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Glen Campbell
WICHITA LINEMAN
THE HEL-SAM BOX OF IMPORTANT STUFF!
KEEP OUT!! UNLESS YOU ARE
HELENA JANE NICHOLLS OR SAMANTHA GRANT!!
In the event of the untiemally death of either of us ,
this box is to go immidiatally to the other one’s house and stay there .
No-one else is ever, ever, allowed to look inside .
It’s all completely Top Secret .
I sat back on my heels and admired my handiwork, purple felt-pen blotches all over my hands. Sam was lying on her stomach next to me, laboriously gluing shiny paper flowers onto an old hat box, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth.
“What do you think?” I waved the piece of card at her.
“Needs some glitter,” Sam replied.
“Give us the glue, then.” I grabbed it and squeezed twirls of Bostik around the edges of my cardboard notice. I shook generous quantities of silver glitter over an area approximately sixteen square feet, some of which managed to land on the intended target.
“Watch it!” said Sam crossly as I frosted her flowers, the whole hat box, our hands and faces, and the carpet. “Your mum will kill us if she sees the mess in here.”
We were illicitly camped out in my parents’ bedroom, because later that day a new, extra-specially comfortable bed was going to be delivered, to help Mum sleep better. It was to be a surprise for her from Dad, who had dismantled the old one and gone to take it to the dump. Its departure had left a brighter, lusher, thicker square of blue carpet, protected from years of harsh sunlight by the darkness of the bed’s cool underbelly. Impossible for us not to play on.
“This is our magic carpet, to fly us away,” I’d said as we crept into the room.
We had adopted Ali Baba positions, kneeling up, arms folded across horizontally, imagining the square slowly lifting up and out the window, carrying us to a place where Dylan’s Chinese burns and homework didn’t exist.
However, the carpet’s stubborn refusal to levitate eventually became a little disappointing, so we had transformed it into a stage instead, and choreographed a Guys and Dolls dance routine to show my mother on her return from the doctor’s, a sort of “Welcome New Bed” ceremony.
We were all set: hair blow-dried into monster flicks; as many plastic necklaces as we could find in Mum’s jewelry box; me, a Guy, sporting Dad’s bright green best shirt, its flared collar flapping around my neck like Dumbo’s ears; Sam wearing a matching (or as close as we could get) chartreuse towel round her waist as a skirt. She always got to be the Doll because she was more petite. (Actually, I wasn’t much of a fan of Guys and Dolls , but I went along with it, because Sam would have to do the Carl Douglas “Kung Fu Fighting” routine with me later.)
But ages had passed, and still we hadn’t heard the sound of Mum’s key in the lock. So to while away the time, we decided to decorate the hat box, which had been designated the Hel-Sam Box of Important Stuff.
“Can I keep it at my house?” Sam asked when I had finally succeeded in sticking the decorated label on its lid.
“Okay. For a while.” I was frantically trying to brush glue and glitter off the sleeve of Dad’s shirt. By this stage I was quite keen to be rid of
He rammed his hands into his jeans pockets as if he thought I might grab them and beg him to stay.
“Thanks,” I said. I had been wondering if I dared ask him to come again, but his gesture decided me against it. Besides, he had enough on his plate.
Toby opened the door and looked back toward my bed. All of a sudden he seemed fascinated by the jug of water on top of my locker.
“Um … would it be okay if I popped back again tomorrow? It’s, you know, really nice to have a conversation with someone when I come and visit Kate. It gets quite hard to, er, just sit and talk to a person who doesn’t reply. Would you mind?”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Glen Campbell
WICHITA LINEMAN
THE HEL-SAM BOX OF IMPORTANT STUFF!
KEEP OUT!! UNLESS YOU ARE
HELENA JANE NICHOLLS OR SAMANTHA GRANT!!
In the event of the untiemally death of either of us ,
this box is to go immidiatally to the other one’s house and stay there .
No-one else is ever, ever, allowed to look inside .
It’s all completely Top Secret .
I sat back on my heels and admired my handiwork, purple felt-pen blotches all over my hands. Sam was lying on her stomach next to me, laboriously gluing shiny paper flowers onto an old hat box, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth.
“What do you think?” I waved the piece of card at her.
“Needs some glitter,” Sam replied.
“Give us the glue, then.” I grabbed it and squeezed twirls of Bostik around the edges of my cardboard notice. I shook generous quantities of silver glitter over an area approximately sixteen square feet, some of which managed to land on the intended target.
“Watch it!” said Sam crossly as I frosted her flowers, the whole hat box, our hands and faces, and the carpet. “Your mum will kill us if she sees the mess in here.”
We were illicitly camped out in my parents’ bedroom, because later that day a new, extra-specially comfortable bed was going to be delivered, to help Mum sleep better. It was to be a surprise for her from Dad, who had dismantled the old one and gone to take it to the dump. Its departure had left a brighter, lusher, thicker square of blue carpet, protected from years of harsh sunlight by the darkness of the bed’s cool underbelly. Impossible for us not to play on.
“This is our magic carpet, to fly us away,” I’d said as we crept into the room.
We had adopted Ali Baba positions, kneeling up, arms folded across horizontally, imagining the square slowly lifting up and out the window, carrying us to a place where Dylan’s Chinese burns and homework didn’t exist.
However, the carpet’s stubborn refusal to levitate eventually became a little disappointing, so we had transformed it into a stage instead, and choreographed a Guys and Dolls dance routine to show my mother on her return from the doctor’s, a sort of “Welcome New Bed” ceremony.
We were all set: hair blow-dried into monster flicks; as many plastic necklaces as we could find in Mum’s jewelry box; me, a Guy, sporting Dad’s bright green best shirt, its flared collar flapping around my neck like Dumbo’s ears; Sam wearing a matching (or as close as we could get) chartreuse towel round her waist as a skirt. She always got to be the Doll because she was more petite. (Actually, I wasn’t much of a fan of Guys and Dolls , but I went along with it, because Sam would have to do the Carl Douglas “Kung Fu Fighting” routine with me later.)
But ages had passed, and still we hadn’t heard the sound of Mum’s key in the lock. So to while away the time, we decided to decorate the hat box, which had been designated the Hel-Sam Box of Important Stuff.
“Can I keep it at my house?” Sam asked when I had finally succeeded in sticking the decorated label on its lid.
“Okay. For a while.” I was frantically trying to brush glue and glitter off the sleeve of Dad’s shirt. By this stage I was quite keen to be rid of
Similar Books
