“GET INTO GROUPS OF TWO OR THREE. EACH group will represent a planet,” said Miss Steadman in science. “As it’s stopped raining, we’re going out to the playground to map out the solar system.”
I said to Mia Johnson, who was my best friend, “Let’s us two be Earth.”
Then Daisy Bouvier came over, chewing her nails. She hung around us like she’d been doing a lot lately since she fell out with Florence Green at a sleepover. Mia looked at me funny and said, “Daisy, you’re in my group too.”
Miss Steadman started talking about planets being millions of miles away and that we had to pretend the playground was the whole solar system. I nudged Mia and tried to whisper about what us two could do at break-time, not including Daisy. But I couldn’t tell her because Miss Steadman said, “Shush, Cally. Let’s try very hard today not to talk when I’m speaking. Otherwise you won’t learn anything.”
She marked our place with a blue chalk circle and set off to Mars with another group and some red chalk.
Doing space reminded me of the day when our family had gone to Wells. Inside the enormous yellow cathedral was one of the oldest clocks in the world. The earth was painted in the middle of the clock and the ancient sun circled round the outside on the long hand.
Mum had said, “Sometimes people get things the wrong way round.”
Because it was hundreds of years old, the people who painted it didn’t know what the universe was like. Now everyone knows we are the ones spinning on our tiny planet through space, circling round the sun. It’s funny how that happens and we can’t even feel it.
“Look,” I said to Mia and Daisy, “this is how our planet spins.”
With my arms out, I went round and round. It made my hands go heavy and my eyes go giddy.
“Stop it,” said Mia, “we’re supposed to be listening not talking and spinning.”
“You could be the moon,” I said to Daisy.
“Miss Steadman didn’t say to be a moon,” she said. “And I wanted to be Mercury.”
“But look,” I said, “look what would happen if we suddenly started spinning a different way.”
I bumped into the moon and that made me fly off in a different direction.
“Look,” I said, “we could go right out into space and see what’s there.”
“Cally Fisher!” Miss Steadman shouted across the galaxy. “Go back to your circle and stay there!”
But I wanted to see what was out there. I imagined a splash of light winking from across the universe. Maybe it was a star, maybe it was a doorway, a way through a hole in the sky where souls and angels go. And who wouldn’t want to find out what was shining in the darkness when it’s the only bright thing in the whole of space?
Anyway, I got sent to Pluto with Daniel Bird who didn’t have a partner.
“You’re in trouble again,” he said, because he is always stating the obvious.
WE HAD MUSIC NEXT WITH MR CRISP. I LOVE singing. I get that from my mum. She could sing and Dad would say the early morning birds ought to think about getting another job. Mum said singing is like knitting: it ties everything together, especially people. That’s why Dad played the guitar for her and why he played in a band down at the pub on Friday nights. Well, he used to.
So when Mr Crisp said we were doing a farewell concert at the end of term, me and Mia said we’d put our names down for the auditions to sing together, seeing as it was our last year at Parkside Juniors.
Then, after music, I heard Daisy talking to Mia in the loos.
Daisy said, “Let’s just put our names down to do something on our own. We’ll just not tell her.”
Mia said, “We could do a duet, seeing as we’re best friends now.”
They talked about some songs they liked.
“She’d only drown us out anyway,” said Daisy.
They laughed and Mia said, “Actually, I think she’s a rubbish singer.”
Then they came round the corner of the cubicles and Mia slammed, smack! right into me in the doorway.
“I’m not rubbish,” I said.
Her eyes flashed. “I never said that.”
“I heard you.”
Mia went red. She punched her hands on her hips. “I was only joking,” she said.
“She can’t take a joke,” said Daisy.
“And anyway, every time we do something with you, you always get told off. And you’re always making such a big fuss about everything.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“Yes, you do!” said Mia.
“No, I don’t! And you’re supposed to be my friend.”
“See, you’re doing it now. You just spoil everything. And I never said for definite I was going to do it with you.”
“You’re not a very good friend. Good friends wouldn’t say things like that.”
“Well, if that’s how you feel,” said Mia, hooking Daisy’s arm and marching down the corridor, “we don’t have to be friends any more.”
I stayed in the loo with the door locked, peeling bits of plastic off the scabby patch by the loo roll until the bell rang.
I could still put my name down for the concert. Only now I’d have to sing on my own.
“QUIET NOW. EVERYONE LOOK THIS WAY. Cally … Cally!”
Miss Steadman glared. “Put the felt pen down. Now, please. Thank you, Cally. Now I have something to tell you all.”
In registration Miss Steadman told us that our school was going to raise money for a charity called Angela’s Hospice. Angela’s Hospice is a place nearby where they care for sick children and try to make their wishes come true. Miss Steadman said the members of the student council would be along in a minute to tell us how we were going to raise the money.
While we waited for them, Miss Steadman asked us what our wishes were. We wished for fast cars (mostly boys), to meet famous people, for new computers and Xboxes, that all the tigers, bears, dolphins and whales were saved (mostly girls), a rocket to go to the stars (me) and to save the planet.
Daniel Bird shouted out that he wished he could win the lottery. He said if he won, he’d buy a time machine and go back to the day he cut off half his finger in his granddad’s deckchair. He’d pick it up and make sure it got to the hospital in a bag of ice and have it sewn back on.
I said, “Why don’t you have the time machine take you back to just before your granddad sat down and get your hand out the way!”
Obviously.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Daniel, “there’s no such thing as time machines.”
He was so annoying.
“That’s enough bickering, Cally, Daniel,” said Miss Steadman. “What other wishes do we have?”
Daisy said she wished for world peace. Mia folded her arms and scowled at me. I thought she’d be wishing her hair wasn’t so fuzzy.