'It's going to be a brilliant birthday,' I gabbled, and then I charged upstairs and locked myself in the loo where I could cry in private.
Eighteen
Iwoke up very early on my birthday. I waved to Melissa sitting in petticoated splendour on my windowsill. She waved back with her stiff white arm. I kicked my dolphin duvet off and lay beached on my bed, arms and legs flung wide.
Happy birthday, me, I whispered. And then,
'Happy birthday, Alice.'
I stuck my right thumb and little finger out, making my hand a pretend phone. 'Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday, dear Al-and-Gem, happy birthday to us,' I sang softly.
There was a snuffling sound outside my door.
Barking Mad came nosing in to give me a big birthday lick. I patted him and felt a lump hanging from his collar. It was a tiny packet of chocolate drops with a message: Happy Woof-Woof Birthday, with love from Barking Mad. His handwriting was very similar to Jack's crazed scrawl. I gave Barking Mad a 209
big hug and then we shared my birthday treat together, one chocolate drop for me, one chocolate drop for him . . .
'What's all this?' said Mum, coming into my bedroom in her dressing gown. 'You know Barking Mad is not allowed to eat chocolate drops. Mind Mum doesn't find out or you'll be in terrible trouble!'
I giggled and Barking Mad drooled.
'Happy birthday, Gemma darling,' said Mum, giving me a kiss.
She handed me a pink tissue parcel
tied with a polka-dot ribbon. I shook it for clues.
'Careful!' said Mum.
I saw the word MAKE-UP faintly showing through the pink tissue. Oh dear, it ing through the pink tissue. Oh dear, it looked like Mum had taken me seriously about wanting to be girly. I tried to pin a smile on my face as I ripped the tissue off. Then I smiled properly, a great grin from ear to ear. It wasn't ordinary girly pink lippy and peach powder. It was a box of stage make-up, with all kinds of colour sticks, zingy oranges and crimsons, wild greens and greys and deep blues. I stared at the sticks and saw myself made up as the Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, Dracula, the Lion King . . . My starring roles were endless. There was even a stick of black to make an excellent Fat Larry moustache.
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'Oh Mum, it's magic!' I said. I rushed to the mirror to start experimenting.
'Hey, hey, you haven't even washed yet!' said Mum.
'Yeah, well, I'll need to wash after, won't I?' I said.
I came downstairs to my birthday breakfast as a blood-crazed vampire, with chalk-white face, purple eyes and blood dribbling down my chin. My school uniform rather spoiled the effect, so I draped a sheet round me, hoping it looked like a shroud. Everyone cowered away from me in a very satisfac-tory manner. Mum made pancakes for a special birthday treat (she declined my offer of help). I dolloped strawberry jam on mine and pretended it was blood.
I looked round hopefully for presents, even though I had to morph back into a girl and go to school in ten minutes' time. Gallum saw my eyes roving and laughed.
'OK, OK. My present's in the hall,'
he said.
It was my own bike!
'Oh Callum, you're so great!
A new bike!'
'Yeah, I'm very great, but it's not new, dope. It's Ayesha's old
bike. We've stripped it down and
painted it up for you. You like?'
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'I love,' I said, jumping on the bike and trying it out there and then.
'Gemma! Get off that bike! Watch the carpet and the walls!' Mum yelled.
'No sweat, Mum, I know what I'm doing,' I said, taking my hands off the handlebars.
But then the postman thrust a wodge of envelopes through the letter box, startling me. My new bike went whizzing down the hall. I didn't manage to keep up with it.
'Watch the paintwork!' Mum screamed.
'Oh Gem, don't bash the bike up before you've even had a ride on it!' Callum yelled.
I checked the bike and the paintwork. For once I was in luck and both were undamaged. I sifted my way through the letters. Bills, more bills, birthday cards from old aunties and cousins and all-sorts.
But not the card I was looking for.
I went through the post all over again in case I'd missed it, though I could pick out Alice's handwriting from the other side of
. the room. I'd sent her a birthday card. I'd made it myself. It was like a collage, with photos from every birthday we'd ever had in the past, all the way back to our first birthday when we were sitting in adjoining high chairs with our first birthday cake.
Alice was very daintily licking her icing. I had cake 212
all over me, even in my hair, and I was yelling because I wanted another slice.
I'd cut lots of balloons and birthday cakes from Mum's magazines and stuck them in all the gaps, and then stuck a border of silver stars all round my collage. It was all a bit sticky and top-heavy when I'd finished, but I hoped Alice would appreciate it anyway. I hoped she'd like her present too.
I'd spotted it in Mum's catalogue, a pink fluffy cushion in the shape of a heart. It was very very pink and very very fluffy.
I thought it would be perfect in Alice's new bedroom. It was also very very expensive for a girl with no savings whatsoever, but Mum let me open up an account with her, so I could pay it off weekly.
It would take up all my pocket money for ages and ages, almost until our next birthday, but it was worth it.
I tried not to mind that Alice hadn't sent me anything, not even a card. I couldn't help crying just a little bit when I was scrubbing my vampire face off, but maybe that was because I'd got soap in my eyes.
'Where's the vampire gone?' said Jack, when I came out the bathroom.
'It's daylight so he's flown away,' I sniffed, mopping my sore eyes.
'Pity. Here's a birthday present he'd like,' said 213
Jack, thrusting a black shiny paper package into my hands. When I tore it open I found a black plastic wallet with bats flying all over it, teeth bared.
'Thanks, Jack, it's a cool wallet,'
I said.
'Try opening it,' said Jack, as he went into the bathroom to have his ten-second wash-and-brush up.
Try opening it? I pulled it open – and found a twenty-pound note inside!
'Jack!' I hammered on the door.
'What?'
'Jack, come out, I want to give you a hug.'
'No fear! I'll have to stay locked in here now.'
'Oh Jack, how come you're so generous this birthday? You're usually really stingy when it comes to presents.'
'Oh, thanks a bunch, Miss Tact and Diplomacy!
Actually, I'm not really being generous this time.
The wallet was a freebie with my Fantasy Gore fanzine – and the money's just your earnings.'
'My earnings?'
'All those rubbish jobs you did for me so I'd let you use my computer. I started to feel a bit mean about it. You can use it any time you want, kiddo.'
There wasn't any point now. I was one hundred per cent certain old Cake Face wouldn't feel like passing on any messages.
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It felt lonelier than ever sitting next to an empty seat at school. Still, I could always turn round and talk to Biscuits. He gave me a great birthday card of a big boy sitting at a huge table spread with hundreds of cakes: iced cakes, cream cakes, cheesecakes – every kind of cake you can think of. He was clutching an éclair in either hand, taking bites out of both with a big beam of bliss upon his face. The card said on the front I LIKE CAKES – and then inside Biscuits had written, But I like you more.
'Oh Biscuits,' I said, blushing.
'What are you giving Gemma, Biscuits?'
'Why has she gone bright red?'
'Show us what he's put, Gem!'
'Hide it, quick,' said Biscuits, blushing beetroot too.
I shoved it into my school bag while Mrs Watson clapped her hands together and told everyone to settle down. Some id
iot tried to grab my school bag so I bonked them hard with it.
'Gemma!' said Mrs Watson. 'You settle down too or you'll find yourself in serious trouble, even if it is your birthday. Which reminds me! She put an envelope on my desk.
Mrs Watson had a special birthday card for me! It had a picture of a very fierce old-fashioned teacher with a mortar board and 215
a cane, saying, 'Behave yourself!' Mrs Watson had written inside, Have a very happy birthday and she'd drawn herself with a smiley face.
It was just an ordinary old school day, of course, and we had to do the same old boring lessons – but at play time Biscuits and I had a see-how-quickly-you-can-munch-a-bar-of-chocolate competition –
and I won! As Biscuits' teeth seem to have superior chomping skills to mine I think he might have been chewing deliberately slowly just to let me win.
Grandad was waiting for me at the school gates when the bell went. He didn't just give me a birthday hug, he picked me up and whirled me round and round, though he wheezed a bit when he put me down
again. Then he retrieved my birthday present from the pavement. It was Fat Larry's Special Easy-Peasy Cookery Book for Beginners.
'You wouldn't mind if I borrowed it off you once or twice, would you, Gem? I'm thinking of asking someone round to supper and I need a bit of help, especially as the lady herself is an excellent cook.'
'Just which someone might this be, Grandad?' I asked, giggling.
'Ah, that would be telling!' said Grandad.
'Might it be a certain someone you'll be seeing shortly at my birthday supper?' I said. 'A certain 216
elderly relative of my mate Biscuits?'
'Hey, hey, not so much of the elderly. The lady's in the very prime of life,' said Grandad.
We didn't go home to Grandad's. We went back to my house to help get everything ready for my birthday supper. Mum was still at work and Callum and Jack were still on their way home from school, but Dad was up and calling to us from the garden.
He'd given the grass a quick mow and got out all the garden chairs and covered the mossy old table with the embroidered tablecloth. There was another older tablecloth bunched over something big and bulky up in the tree.
'Goodness, what's that, Dad?' I said. 'Is it going to be a bird feeder for giant eagles?'
'It's my birthday surprise for you, Gem,' said Dad.
He stretched up on his tiptoes and whirled the cloth away, like a bullfighter flourishing his cloak. It was my tree house!
It was a total beauty,
with a neat rope
ladder and an arched
doorway and a proper
roof.
'Oh Dad, it's so
cool!' I gasped.
I went flying up the
ladder straight away.
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There was a little notice on the door: GEMMA'S DEN.
Inside on the wooden plank floor Dad had put a big fat cushion and a little shelf for my favourite story books.
I couldn't help wishing there were two cushions
– but I was trying hard not to think about Alice now.
'It's the best tree house ever – and you're the best dad,' I yelled.
I wanted to stay in my tree house all afternoon, but the minute Mum came rushing home from work she made me go and have a bath.
'Then you can put on your party clothes. I've washed your yellow dress and it's come up a treat.'
Mum paused. She grinned. 'Your face, Gemma! I'm just teasing. Put on your best jeans and a clean T-shirt, OK?'
She made Callum and Jack bathe and change too, which they weren't very thrilled about. Biscuits looked as if he'd just emerged from a piping-hot bath when he arrived, because he seemed extra shiny-pink and scrubbed, twinkling emerald sparkles in his Fat Larry suit. Biscuits' mum was wearing her pink meringue outfit, and Biscuits'
granny was wearing hyacinth blue, and Biscuits'
baby sister Polly was wearing a very cute little Minnie Mouse dress, bright red with little white spots. Even Biscuits' dad looked colourful, in a purple shirt and crimson tie.
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They were such a big bright bouncy family they filled our living room right to the brim. It was a relief, after Dad had got everyone drinks, to spill out into the garden.
Biscuits' present to me was a little Fat Larry glove puppet with short fluffy fur hair and a miniature sparkly green jacket (no trousers because he didn't have any legs). Biscuits made him jump about, waving his arms and waggling his head, doing his own mini Fat Larry routine.
'Do you like me, Gemma? Am I a good birthday present?' little Fat Larry asked me, tickling me under the chin and butting me affectionately with his furry skinhead hair.
'I like you lots and lots, little Fat Larry. You're a truly brilliant birthday present,' I said. 'Please thank Biscuits very much indeed.'
'Well, Biscuits' mum made most of me, but he drew my face,' said little Fat Larry. 'Biscuits made all of your cake though.'
'I can't wait to see it,' I said, wondering if it 219
might be a Fat Larry cake, and if so, whether I'd really like emerald-green icing.
'Well, I'm going to stand back. I don't want you to throw it at me,' said Biscuits. 'I know what you're like, Gemma.'
We had the pizzas first. Dad collected them in his taxi. The grown-ups had pretty boring toppings and little Polly didn't have pizza at all, just bread sticks (though she liked these a lot and used them like drumsticks on her fat little tummy). Biscuits and I had a lengthy discussion and came up with a superb ideal pizza: tomato sauce, three cheeses, mushroom, sweetcorn, tomatoes, pineapple, olives, frankfurter sausage and chicken.
'Are you sure that's enough toppings, kids?' said Dad sarcastically.
'Well, maybe we could go for salami too. And beef.
And some mixed peppers?' said Biscuits, taking him seriously.
He wolfed his pizza down no
bother at all, and insisted he had
heaps of room for birthday cake. I had room inside my tummy too, but no
room at all outside because there
was a severe shortage of chairs, so Biscuits and I ate our multi-topped pizzas squashed up in my tree-house den. We had to raise our arms simultaneously when we ate for ease of movement.
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Once or twice Biscuits found himself absent-mindedly taking a big bite out of my pizza as well as his own.
He wanted to fetch my cake and light the candles himself, so we had to do a lot of wriggling and heav-ing and tugging before Biscuits finally popped out of the tree house like a giant cork from a bottle.
I waited for my birthday cake, my heart beating hard inside my tight T-shirt. I hoped it wasn't going to be a chocolate cream cake like the one I'd made for Alice. I hated thinking about that one now – and the wasted wish.
Biscuits carefully carried a big plate into the garden, candles flickering. It was a brown cake, but it wasn't any old ordinary chocolate cake. It had a little roof! Maybe Dad had tipped him the wink and it was a tree-house cake?
I jumped down to the ground to have a proper look. It wasn't a tree house, it was a cake in the shape of an old-fashioned well. It was beautifully made, every little brick outlined in white, with icing flowers all round the base, and little marzipan frogs and bunnies and squirrels doing a dance around the
well. Biscuits had written Happy Birthday Gemma in beautiful copperplate icing writing across the well's roof.
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'It's a wishing well,' said Biscuits. 'You get the biggest birthday wish when you blow your candles out – and then every single slice has a special wish in it too.'
'Oh Biscuits!'
I darted forward. Biscuits took one step back, looking nervous.
'I'm just going to thank you, silly!'
'You blow your candles out first. I don't want the wax dripping all over my cake. Those bricks took ages'
'You're a brick, Biscuits, the best mate ever,'
I said.
I to
ok a deep breath. I blew hard, and as all the candle flames gave one last flicker I made my wish.
I wished that Biscuits and I would always stay best mates – and that Alice and I could still somehow stay best friends for ever too.
I knew it was partly a wasted wish, especially as Alice hadn't even sent me a birthday present, but I couldn't help it.
'What did you wish for?' asked Biscuits, as he helped me cut the cake.
'I can't say or it won't come true,' I said, grinning at him.
'Well, I won't tell you what I'm wishing for then,'
said Biscuits, grinning back.
We all munched Biscuits' delicious cake. Even 222
Polly licked a little icing very appreciatively. We all wished and wished and wished.
Then we heard a knock at the front door.
'Is this my tall dark handsome stranger already?'
said Mum, giggling.
Dad tutted, pretending to be cross. 'No, it's my blonde curvy dream-girl,' he said. They both shook their heads, smiling at each other.
Biscuits' mum and dad were smiling at each other too. Biscuits' granny and Grandad weren't just smiling – they were holding hands!
Callum and Ayesha went sloping off
together, holding hands too. Jack
pulled a disgusted face and shook
paws with Barking Mad, feeding
him cake crumbs.
Dad came back through the French windows with a little Jiffy bag. 'It was old Miss Michaels next door.
This came Special Delivery this morning and she took it in for us. It's for you, Gem.'
It had a Scottish postmark, though I didn't recognize the writing. I tore the envelope open. There was a little silver paper parcel and a birthday card. It showed two little bears having a big hug, one pink, one yellow. It said Happy Birthday up above them in pink and yellow writing, and inside, Lots of Bear Hugs, Best Friend.
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Underneath, Alice had added,
I opened up t h e tiny parcel, my h a n d s trembling.
It was Alice's silver charm bracelet. Right next to t h e special little Noah's Ark there was a brand-new silver charm in t h e shape of a heart. It had four words on it.