‘All right. I promise. I won’t breathe a word,’ I said, sighing.
It would have been so wonderful to boast about Foxy to Karen and Louise but it couldn’t be helped.
‘I’ll only have him a few days more anyway,’ said Nylon Nightie, and she reached out and patted him regretfully.
‘Can’t you keep him? Make him a proper pet?’
‘Oh no, that wouldn’t be fair. Foxes are meant to be wild. And he’s getting a right handful already. He keeps getting into scrapes.’ She gave me a funny sideways look. ‘I suppose I might as well tell you now. It was Foxy who chewed up your nice story book.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘Although it was really my fault, I suppose. I shouldn’t have let him out of my room. But he gets so cooped up in here all day and all night that he tears round chasing his own tail, going barmy for lack of exercise. He makes such a mess, you wouldn’t believe. I thought it might calm him down a bit if I took him for a little walk. So I took him with me when I vacuumed all the dormis, using my dressing gown cord as a sort of lead. So there I was, cleaning your dormi with Foxy safely tied to the bedpost, or so I thought. But the little devil wriggles free, doesn’t he, and gets his head into your chest of drawers and mistakes your book for a big bite of dinner.’
‘You bad little boy,’ I said, pretending to tap Foxy on the back. ‘Oh well. It’s all mended now, so it doesn’t really matter.’
One thing mattered. I’d been so sure Karen had spoilt my book. I’d said some awful things to her. She’d cried all night—and it hadn’t been her fault after all.
I felt hot and fidgety when I thought about it. I’d have to try to make it up to her somehow. But I didn’t want to think about it now. I concentrated on Foxy instead.
‘Do you think I could actually have him on my lap for a minute?’ I asked.
‘I don’t see why not. Go gently though.’
I lifted him and cradled him almost like a baby. He whined and scrabbled a bit, but I held on to him and begged him to be a good boy—and he suddenly stopped trying to get away.
‘He’s snuggling into me, look! He likes me,’ I whispered.
‘Mind he doesn’t pee on you. He’s worse than a baby,’ said Nylon Nightie, chuckling.
I remembered Dora’s bed and the damp patch and knew who was the culprit!
‘I wish we could keep him,’ I said wistfully. ‘Couldn’t we make some sort of cage for him?’
‘You wouldn’t like to be cooped up in a cage, would you? Well, neither would he.’
‘But how’s he going to manage when you let him go again? Do you think he’ll be able to find his mother?’
‘Maybe. Yes, I expect she’ll come when she hears him wailing. He’s obviously been missing her a lot.’
‘I miss my mum,’ I said.
‘Of course you do, pet,’ said Nylon Nightie, and she put her arm round me. ‘Still, she’ll be coming to collect you soon. And you’re having a good time here, aren’t you?’
‘Well. Sometimes,’ I mumbled.
‘You’d better get back to your dormi now, eh? It’s ever so late. And remember, you’ll keep quiet about Foxy, won’t you?’
I kept my word—although it was agony. The others were all desperate to know where I’d been. Rosemary was crying, and Marzipan had been all set to go and tell Miss Hamer-Cotton I was missing.
‘You mad twit! You couldn’t tell on me, you’re supposed to be my friend,’ I said indignantly.
‘Well, I was so worried about you. You weren’t in the bathroom. We looked all over the place for you but you’d just disappeared.’
‘So where did you go, Baldy? You didn’t hear that wailing noise again, did you?’ asked Karen.
‘What wailing noise?’ I said vaguely. ‘No, I didn’t hear any noise. I just decided to go for a little walk, so I did.’
‘In the pitch dark?’
‘Mmm. I dared myself.’
‘You’re mad, Baldy,’ said Karen—but she sounded a little bit impressed.
I got another parcel from Mum and Uncle Bill the next day. They were in Italy now so they’d sent me a gilt gondola crammed with chocolate lire coins and a new T-shirt. I thought the gondola was very grand but I’d rather gone off chocolate since the midnight feast, so I wondered about offering it as a prize for my Super Star magazine quiz. I’d had a lot of entries, mostly because I’d promised a Super Star prize for the winner, and I was getting a bit bothered about what it was going to be.
I certainly didn’t want to donate my new T-shirt. It was emerald green with silver stars patterned all over it. I loved the stars although I was a bit sick of Emerald green. Louise pointed out the designer label and actually seemed impressed. Karen said nothing but she looked at my T-shirt longingly.
Karen didn’t have any nice T-shirts of her own. She had the giveaway Evergreen one and some old baggy things that had gone out of shape. Some girls wouldn’t bother about it but Karen cared desperately about clothes.
I still hadn’t made it up to Karen for thinking that she’d ripped my book.
I thought it over. I shuffled several thoughts.
‘I think I’ll keep my gondola and offer my new Italian T-shirt as the Super Star prize,’ I said.
‘You’re mad, Baldy,’ said Karen. ‘Giving away that fabulous T-shirt! What if someone like James wins it? He couldn’t even get it over his big fat head—and anyway, it would be wasted on a boy.’
‘So why don’t you try and win the T-shirt for yourself?’ I suggested.
‘I’m not doing your daft competition,’ said Karen. ‘Besides, I can’t, can I? The Emerald girls aren’t allowed to enter because we made up some of the questions.’
‘You didn’t,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t join in. So I can’t stop you entering, can I?’
So Karen bought a copy of the magazine and got busy. She handed in her competition entry the next morning. She’d made heaps of silly guesses. She didn’t really do very well at all. But I was the editor and I was the one who marked all the entries.
‘You’ll never guess who’s won,’ I announced at the end of the week.
Karen put on her new emerald green starry T-shirt and stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were as shiny as the stars.
‘Even Louise hasn’t got a T-shirt as posh as this,’ she said softly. ‘You’re mad to give it away, Baldy, but thanks all the same.’
Marzipan grinned at me.
‘That was ever so good of you, Stella,’ she said privately.
I got a bit unnerved. I was used to being bad, not good. And yet I seemed to have got into the habit of being good now. I didn’t muck about so much in all the activities and Jimbo said I was practically black belt standard at judo now, although he might have been joking.
I’d made friends with Miss Hamer-Cotton and coloured her a big picture of Tinkypoo. She was very pleased with it and pinned it up on her wall, although she said it was a pity about the little orange smudge. It wasn’t a smudge. It was a very very tiny picture of Foxy with his teeth bared ready to bite Tinkypoo in a very rude place indeed—but of course I didn’t explain that.
I was even making progress in macramé. I got Jilly to show me how to make a watchchain. It just looked like a long piece of tangled string when I’d finished, but when I gave it to the Brigadier and explained what it was he seemed delighted. I wondered about making a watchchain for Uncle Bill too because they were really easy to do, but I decided against the idea. I set about making myself a wig instead.
‘I’m going to start a new fashion. String hair! You don’t have to wash it or comb it so it’s a great improvement on the real thing. And you can wear little brown paper bows for the complete parcel look,’ I said, plaiting away.
The others all thought I was mad but Jilly said it was a very original idea.
But I still couldn’t swim. I did try. But I knew it wasn’t going to work.
‘I can’t do it, Uncle Ron. Can’t we just give up?’ I said, struggling, desper
ate to keep my head out of the water. I was still so scared of going under.
‘You’re nearly swimming. If you could just stop being so scared and start to enjoy it then you’d be swimming like a little fish,’ said Uncle Ron. ‘You can’t expect to swim when you’re all tense and terrified.’
That was daft: I was all tense and terrified because I couldn’t swim. It was no use. Uncle Ron found me a cork float but it kept bobbing away with me and I couldn’t bear it. He tried me doing doggypaddle instead of the breast stroke but that was even worse, because when I splashed the water went right up my nose.
‘Come on, Stella, there’s a chum,’ said Uncle Ron, screwing up his face in frustration. ‘I was so sure we’d have you swimming by now. Just six little strokes, eh? Then we can put you in for the Beginners race in the swimming gala.’
Janie and Bilbo and all the other beginners could do at least six strokes by now. I couldn’t do one. So I was the only child at Evergreen who didn’t take part in the gala.
‘As if I care,’ I said airily.
‘You are a baby though, Baldy,’ said Karen. ‘Fancy not being able to swim when even a little kid like Bilbo can do it, easy-peasy.’
Sometimes I very much regretted letting her have that T-shirt.
The star of the swimming gala was Alan. Uncle Ron had let him go in the advanced team after the first week. He won all the races. It really annoyed Louise. It really pleased me. Uncle Ron got him to give a diving display at the end of the gala and the Brigadier presented him with a special little trophy.
The Emeralds got so many team points for swimming that we won the Evergreen trophy too.
‘Although it’s no thanks to you, Stella Stebbings,’ said Louise, still cross because she’d only come second at swimming. ‘You kept losing us all those rotten team points by messing about and being so stupid.’
‘Cheek! I won some of them back. Miss Hamer-Cotton gave me two for my magazine, so there.’
‘Now then, now then,’ said Miss Hamer-Cotton, shaking her head at us. ‘I don’t want to see any cross faces today. Why don’t you all hurry over to Jimbo and Jilly? They’re fixing a special camp fire feast and I’m sure they could do with a bit of help cooking the sausages.’
‘Ooh, yummy! I love sausages,’ I said, starting to run—but the Brigadier beckoned me.
‘Miss Stebbings? Might we have a little word?’
So the others all rushed off without me.
‘I was disappointed not to see you in the pool with all the other children,’ said the Brigadier.
‘I said I wouldn’t ever be able to swim.’
‘Did you really try?’
‘Yes! Really. But it’s no use.’
‘Uncle Ron says you could swim. You just worry about getting water on your face.’
‘I don’t like going under.’
‘You won’t, not if you swim. And even if you do, it’s all right so long as you’re in the shallow end. You can just bob up again.’
‘I still know I can’t swim.’
‘And I know you can. Tell you what. How about giving it one more try now?’
‘No thank you.’
‘As a little present for me?’
‘I’ve already given you a present.’
The Brigadier laughed and felt in his waistcoat pocket. He produced his half hunter watch on the end of my grubby macramé chain.
‘And it’s proving very useful, as you can see. But I’d really like you to try to swim too. Will you?’
I sighed. ‘I haven’t got my swimming costume.’
‘It won’t take you two minutes to nip back to the house to get it. And tell you what. I’ll come too and I’ll get mine. We’ll have a little swim together, all right?’
I still wasn’t keen, but I rather wanted to see what the Brigadier looked like in his swimming costume. I hoped he’d look really funny in one of those old stripy suits that come right down past the knees. But he had a pair of perfectly ordinary navy trunks and he didn’t look funny in them at all, just a bit white and wrinkly.
‘You promise you won’t throw me in?’ I said, shying away from him when he tried to take hold of my hand.
‘Of course I won’t. You make your own way down the steps. I’ll just get in and get warm.’
He dived in. It was quite a good dive too, almost Alan standard. He swam up and down the pool in a flash.
‘You can swim ever so fast even though you’re old,’ I said, when he came up to me at the steps.
‘I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or cross,’ he said, laughing. ‘Well, are you getting in properly, young lady? You’re shivering.’
‘I know. I don’t want to. I hate swimming.’
‘Come on, Miss Stebbings, don’t lose all your spirit,’ he said encouragingly.
So I went down one step and then another and stood in the cold water and screwed up my face and slid forward and tried to swim. I really tried. I pushed with my arms and I kicked with my legs but the moment I started moving I panicked. I tried to put my head back so it wouldn’t get wet and my feet bumped on to the ground.
‘See. It’s no use. And Uncle Ron’s tried me with a float and tried me with doggy-paddle and tried holding me under the chin but nothing works,’ I said despairingly.
‘Has he tried backstroke?’ said the Brigadier.
‘What’s that?’ I said suspiciously.
So the Brigadier flipped over on to his back and showed me.
‘It’s fun,’ he shouted. ‘The water doesn’t get in your face this way. You don’t have to do the armstroke. You can just paddle your hands like this. You’ll stay up in the water so long as you kick your legs.’
‘I couldn’t do that!’
‘Have a go. Look, I’ll hold the back of your head. I won’t let you go under, I promise. You just lie back in the water. It’s like a big comfy bed, you’ll see. Then just kick your feet, paddle your hands—and Bob’s your uncle.’
‘My uncle’s Bill, not Bob,’ I muttered.
‘My, what a girl for a quibble. Come on then. Over on to your back. I’ve got you. You’re perfectly safe, I promise. Come on now, Stella. Give it a try.’
So I leant back into the water. The Brigadier cupped the back of my head with his big gentle hands. I kicked up with one leg and kicked up with the other too.
‘That’s it. Stick the old tummy out, that’ll help keep you up. Keep kicking with legs. Gently, you don’t have to do the tarantella. And paddle with your hands. There. That’s it! You’re swimming, Stella. You’re swimming!’
I was! All right, he still had hold of my head—but only just. I was very nearly swimming all by myself. It wasn’t fun, it was still as scary as ever, but I was actually doing it.
We practised for ten minutes. Well, the Brigadier said it was ten minutes. It felt more like ten hours to me.
‘I can smell sausages,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps you’d better run along now. How about just one more go though? Without me this time?’
‘No!’ I said.
But I tried again. It was much worse without his hands. But at least I wasn’t splashing water in my face. In fact if I stared up at the sky I couldn’t see the water at all. So I kicked and I paddled and I counted. One, two, three, four, five, six. As quickly as I could. Then I put my feet down.
‘I did it!’ I yelled. ‘I swam six strokes, didn’t I? Well, sort of six.’
‘Undoubtedly six,’ said the Brigadier, beaming. ‘Well done! You can go and eat six sausages now in celebration.’
So I wrapped myself in my towel and ran off to join the others.
‘Guess what! I swam. I really swam. Ask the Brigadier if you don’t believe me. I swam, Karen, so take it back about me being a baby. I swam six strokes all by myself, so there! Here, I hope you greedy lot have saved me some sausages.’
I didn’t eat six. I ate seven. I even beat James. Evergreen really wasn’t so bad after all. I could swim. I’d produced a magnificent magazine. And I was the sausage-e
ating star of the whole camp.
But I didn’t tell Mum and Uncle Bill when they came to collect me the next day. It took me ages saying goodbye to everyone. I gave Marzipan and Rosemary and Janie a big hug and I waggled my tongue at Karen and Louise. I said goodbye to all the Emerald boys too and Alan gave me his last week’s copy of the Beano. I found Orange Overall and gave her a handful of my chocolate lire coins to share in secret with Foxy. I gave Uncle Ron a wave. I shook hands demurely with Miss Hamer-Cotton. I even tried to stroke Tinkypoo but he hissed and ran away. And I asked the Brigadier to bend right down and then I gave him a kiss. He went very pink and I think he was pleased.
‘I hope you come back next year, Stella,’ he said.
I smiled because I wanted to be polite for once.
Uncle Bill could barely conceal his triumph.
‘What did I tell you?’ he chortled, when we were in the car. ‘I knew you’d love Summer Camp, Stella. I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘No. You were not right at all. You were wrong, wrong, wrong,’ I insisted.
Mum leant over and gave me a hug.
‘Come off it, darling. You’ve obviously been having the time of your life. And you’ve made all these new friends. Which one was Marzipan? Was she the one with the ponytail wearing the T-shirt we sent you? Did you give it to her as a goodbye present? That was nice of you.’
‘That was Karen. I had to give her the T-shirt,’ I muttered.
‘Why? Did you do a swap with her? Oh, Stella, I’m so glad you had a good time. I couldn’t help worrying about you at first,’ said Mum.
I wanted her to go on worrying about me. And I wanted Uncle Bill to stop chortling.
‘I keep telling you, I didn’t have a good time. It was terrible. I was just pretending when I said goodbye. They were all hateful to me. That girl Karen, she made me give her my T-shirt. And she messed up all my things. She even stole my chocolate. They were all horrid to me and they teased me about my hair.’
‘I can’t imagine anyone getting away with teasing you, Stella,’ said Uncle Bill.
‘What did they say about your hair?’ said Mum. ‘It looks a lot better now it’s grown a bit. It’s still rather spiky but it looks cute. I think it suits you.’