Muddle and Win (14 page)

(Darlington High’s Food Tech block was the pride of the school when it opened on the site of the old staff car park. That was five years ago, and nowadays bits of it rattle and shake more than they should. The Food Tech Department keep asking the Headmistress to talk to the Governors about funding some renewals. The Head says she will, she really will, as soon as they have cleared one or two very high priority items that are already in the system. Like finding somewhere for her to park her car.)

‘Richard, will you share with David, please?’ said Mrs Bunnidy.

‘Oh boy,’ muttered the Inner Sally. ‘Food fight of the century, here we go.’

‘And I want to see you all cooking
nicely
 . . .’

‘I give it five minutes,’ said Sally, mixing her flour and baking powder.

Through the windows of her mind they saw Charlie B draw a floury hand across his mouth, giving himself a white moustache and goatee beard. Someone out there shrieked with laughter.

‘Billie, haven’t you got a partner?’

‘Late as usual,’ grumbled Sally in the privacy of her mind. ‘You think she’d learn.’

‘We’ll find someone for you  . . .’

Sally stiffened mid-knead. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘No, please no  . . .’

‘Has anyone not got a partner?’ Mrs Bunnidy’s voice was getting ominously nearer.

‘Time to look busy,’ said Sally. She bowed her head over the idea of her bowl and focused fiercely on the thoughts of teaspoon and bicarbonate of soda.

‘Sally  . . .’

‘
I am invisible
,’ whispered Sally.
‘I am not here. I am not  . . .’

(It was at this point that, out there in the Food Tech room, the first fistful of flour flew through the air behind Mrs Bunnidy’s back.)

‘Sally, wouldn’t you like to share with Billie?’

Slowly, like a space marine who hears the slither of alien goo behind her, Sally turned. The mutinous
face
of Billie swam in her vision. Billie was clutching a crumpled bag of flour as if it was a grenade.

‘There you are, Billie. Cook nicely together.’

Only Mrs Bunnidy could have thought this was a good idea.

THERE ARE TIMES
when Heaven trembles.

It’s not when wars are declared, harvests fail or dictators seize power. These things are expected and so far as Heaven is concerned they don’t change very much.

It’s the little things that matter.

It’s when someone might laugh or cry, and doesn’t know which until the moment they do it. It’s when they might say a kind word, but forget to do so. It’s when they might cross the road and meet someone, or they might not.

It’s at times like these that the angels hold their breath.

And when two sisters face one another by an oven door – that’s when they shriek ‘
ALERT!
’ in High C.

*

‘What are you making?’ said Billie suspiciously.

‘Muffins,’ said Sally.

‘It’s supposed to be scones.’

‘I asked her and she said I could. I missed getting my muffin because Mrs Goodwin held us back at break.’ (Sally really hadn’t meant to sound as though it was Billie’s fault that the class had been held back. But of course Billie had been one of the ones Mrs Goodwin had snapped at, and so of course that’s how it sounded to Billie. That’s the way the muffin crumbles.)

Billie looked at Sally’s preparations, which were already well advanced. ‘I’ll make muffins too,’ she said. (And of course that was meant to annoy Sally. And of course it shouldn’t have done. But it did.)

Billie plonked down her bag of flour and rummaged in the drawer for a whisk. Her fingers closed upon it. And the Billie in the Food Tech Block put that on the surface too.

But the Billie in the inner chamber of her own mind took that whisk and brandished it like a battle-axe in the face of her twin. ‘Come on, you twerp!’ she yelled. ‘You just
try
to tell me how!
You just try!
’

‘Hey,’ said Ismael.

‘She’s
such
a know-all!’ cursed Billie. ‘She will, I bet you!’

Ismael looked across the little table. On the far side, the eyes of Scattletail peeped over the tops of his cards. They were deep and dark. They did not blink.

‘Remember,’ chimed the maddening voice of Mrs Bunnidy. ‘Your dough should be
light
. Think of
air
, children, as you knead it. Think of butterflies and air.’

Ismael looked at his own hand. Why was he never the dealer at times like this?

Scattletail’s eyes were like a wall.

A little bead of sweat started to trickle down Ismael’s forehead. He licked his lips. He bared his teeth.

‘Twist,’ he said.

Meanwhile, in
Sally’s
mind  . . .

‘Trip her up!’ howled Muddlespot, jumping up and down.

‘No!’ cried Windleberry.

‘Jostle her!’

‘No!’

‘Swap her sugar for salt!’

‘Nice one,’ said Sally. But she went on working grimly.

‘Now own up, children,’ cried Mrs Bunnidy, a little less musically than before. ‘Who threw that?’

And there was one other thing. It was a big one. As big as an elephant. In a way, it
was
an elephant.

When people talk about an ‘elephant in the room’, what they mean is that there’s something really big that everyone knows and no one talks about. The elephant in this case was Mum. More exactly, it was Baking with Mum.

There was an elephant wandering around in the central chamber of Sally’s mind. It was slightly floury, and in a funny way it did look a bit like Mum, which was odd because Mum didn’t look like an elephant at all. But what it meant was what Baking with Mum meant.

It meant that Billie could shout, scream, manipulate, get her way, force people to do what she wanted just by making them sick of her, but she couldn’t make herself good at baking. Being good at baking meant that you were patient. It meant that you paid attention. It meant that you didn’t throw
tantrums
when you found that the lumps wouldn’t come out of your dough – you just kept beating them until they did. You didn’t go off stamping your feet and you did come and bake when Mum suggested it, and so you got a lot of practice. With Mum. Doing what Mum wanted.

If you were good at baking, it meant you were good with Mum. It meant that you were Good, full stop. You were what Mum wanted. There was nothing Billie could do about that.

And both girls knew it.

‘Pass the milk,’ said Sally quietly. Billie seemed not to hear.

‘Pass the
milk
, please,’ said Sally. Billie still seemed not to hear.

Sally walked round the back of Billie to reach the milk. Whereupon Billie passed it to where she had been standing.

‘I had to get the goo off my fingers,’ Billie said.

Howls broke out on the far side of the room, where a triple dough strike had just totalled a tray of raisins.

Sally looked at the pulsating mass in Billie’s bowl. ‘She said butterflies, not elephants.’

‘Shud
dup!’

*

‘I don’t know why I said that,’ said Sally in her own mind. ‘I must have elephants on the brain.’

(The elephant in Sally’s brain reached a floury trunk over her shoulder and whipped one of the raw dough muffins from her tray.)

‘Whoops!’ came Billie’s voice. The salt had somehow spilled over Sally’s tray of muffins. ‘Sorry.’

Thin smoke started coming out of the Inner Sally’s ears.

‘Don’t react, Sally,’ cried Windleberry, desperately hosing her down with the idea of a handy fire extinguisher. ‘Don’t
react
!’

‘That’s all right,’ said the Inner Sally grimly.

‘That’s all right,’ said the Outer Sally’s voice.

‘ . . . I kept some extra back just in case  . . .’

‘ . . . I kept some extra back just in case  . . .’

‘ . . . You tried something like that,’ the Inner Sally finished.

The Outer Sally left that bit unsaid.

Quickly Sally reshaped her spare dough into muffins while Billie looked daggers into her left ear. And deftly Sally opened the door of the preheated oven
with
one hand, and shoved her tray into the top spot. She checked the clock: fifteen minutes to lunch. Just nice.

Elsewhere around the room, chaos reigned. Amos was on his hands and knees coughing up half-digested batter. Kieran was feigning an epileptic fit in the corner. Flour dust hung like battle-smoke in the air.

‘Children!’ called Mrs Bunnidy. ‘Time to start clearing up!’

Cries of pain greeted her words.

‘If you
haven’t
finished, you can let them bake over lunch. I will be here until quarter past. But all the ovens must be switched off by then. Is that clear?’

‘Oh, Mrs
Bunnidy
 . . .!’

‘ . . . But we have to get our
sandwiches
!’

‘I’ve said all I’m going to say!’ Even Mrs Bunnidy was beginning to crack. ‘And
don’t
forget to clear up!’

‘I’m nearly finished,’ said Billie stoutly. ‘I’m definitely going to finish. They can do until I get back from lunch. Fresh muffins for pudding – yummy!’

Sally looked at the lumps of porridge-like dough on Billie’s tray. She said nothing.

‘But I’ll have to make sure I’m first in the queue or they’ll burn,’ said Billie, putting them into the oven.

‘Don’t you dare leave me with your clearing—’ Sally began.

‘Just leave them to bake, right?’ said Billie. ‘Don’t touch them.’

RIIIINNNGG!!!
went the bell. At once, the sounds of a human avalanche began to rumble through the school.

‘ . . . At a
quarter
past, remember? And everything
must
be cleaned away, and
all
the surfaces wiped  . . .’

‘YIPPPEEE!’ yelled Billie, disappearing into the general scrum of arms and legs at the exit, and leaving a moonscape of spilled flour, spilled egg, spilled egg mixed with flour and those little scraps of dough that are
really
difficult to get off once they’ve started to harden, uncleaned and unwiped on the work surface.

Sally stayed where she was, watching the clock.

After five more minutes she opened the oven door and took her own muffins out. She put them on the rack.

She picked up a cloth.

*

‘Well, just look,’ said Muddlespot in tones of surprise. ‘She’s left you to do all the clearing up.’

‘I know,’ said the Inner Sally.

She began to make wiping motions. As she did so something else sauntered into the chamber. It was an idea. The idea was a pressure gauge on legs. The needle was on the red.

‘We have to let off steam,’ said Muddlespot.

‘No we don’t,’ said Windleberry. ‘That’s exactly what we don’t have to do. We know why she did it  . . .’

‘Yes, we do,’ said Sally.

‘She was having trouble with her dough  . . .’

‘Mum makes dough,’ said Sally. ‘She’s always ready for us to make it with her. That’s how I learned. Billie could never be bothered.’

‘Then let’s just
leave
her share of the clearing up  . . .’

‘I’m not going to. I’m going to clean it up for her.’

‘But
why
, Sally?’

‘To show her what she is.’

‘That’s not a good answer, Sally.’

‘Good?’ cried Muddlespot. ‘Just a moment! What do you mean, “good”?’

*

Sally finished wiping away all the mess. She tried one of her muffins. It tasted quite – well – quite nice, actually.

It was unnaturally quiet, now. The only other people in the room were Richard and David, who were clearing up the devastation left by the food-fight of the century. Mrs Bunnidy was standing over them. They were taking one hundred per cent of her attention. Sally could have lobbed fifty flour bombs behind Mrs Bunnidy’s back, but she didn’t. She waited.

She watched the clock.

After a little while, she ate another muffin. Somehow it didn’t taste quite as good as the first.

‘ . . . And that’s
always
the way, isn’t it?’ Muddlespot was working himself up into a frenzy. ‘It’s always
Sally
who has to clear up! It’s always
Sally
who has to understand! It’s always Sally who has to – er  . . .’

‘Make my bed,’ said Sally.

‘ . . . Make her bed, and  . . .’

‘Practise my music.’

‘ . . . Practise her music, and  . . .’

‘Get the grades.’

‘ . . . Get the gr— Hang on! Who’s tempting who here?’

‘You’re just so good at it, you see?’ said Sally sweetly. ‘But you left out the vegetables.’

‘Vegetables?’ said Windleberry.

‘Billie makes a fuss about eating vegetables,’ said Sally. ‘So she gets small portions. I don’t.’

‘Isn’t that
typical
?’ cried Muddlespot. ‘And why? Because Sally’s good at everything! She’s good at being good.
And everybody’s got used to it!
’

‘Don’t listen to him, Sally!’

‘I thought he was doing really well  . . .’

Sally took another mouthful of muffin. She looked at the clock. Eight minutes past.

Carefully, she stowed her remaining muffins in an airtight Tupperware box.

She looked at the clock again. Still eight minutes past. Time was moving as slowly as a sandwich queue.