Rick took the ice cream and licked at it tentatively.
‘Yes, it’s great,’ he said. ‘So why don’t you want it, eh?’
‘I did. But I felt sorry for you, what with falling over again. Oh no, you haven’t ripped your other jeans now, have you?’
‘Maybe Mum won’t notice,’ said Rick, with touching optimism. He took a big bite of ice cream. ‘Well. Thanks, Rose. That’s really nice of you.’
Charlie staggered into view, his snub nose bleeding.
‘You watch it, Square-Bum,’ he shouted.
Rick frowned. He took another bite of ice cream. He sucked thoughtfully.
‘Don’t you call my sister Square-Bum,’ he said. ‘Or else I’ll duff you up, see?’
Charlie blinked, looking surprised.
‘But that’s what you call her, Rick.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Rick, munching Mars chocolate. ‘But I’m her brother. You’re not.’
There was no answer to that. Rose skipped back to the flat. She felt like doing her funny dance again but that might be asking for trouble.
Rose and Dad spent a very happy afternoon watching Lady and the Tramp and tucking into all the goodies from Uncle Frank’s. Rose’s appetite quickly returned. In fact she rewound herself and ate each chocolate bar twice. Dad unwittingly ate many packets of crisps and drank copious cans of coke but he didn’t seem to mind. He enjoyed Lady and the Tramp just as much as Rose did.
‘I saw it when I was a little kid. I’ve always loved it. Especially that bit where Lady and Tramp eat the plate of spaghetti,’ Dad said, smiling.
‘I’ll rewind that bit for you then, Dad,’ said Rose.
‘No! You leave that video alone. Your mum was right, it was you eternally monkeying around with the video that made it pack up before. Now it’s fixed — and I still can’t work out what that old chap did, but never mind — I want it to stay fixed.’
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘You’re not to touch the rewind or fast forward button, do you hear me?’ said Dad.
‘I hear and I obey, Great Masterful One,’ said Rose. She didn’t need to press the ordinary old rewind button on the video recorder any more. She could press her very own rewind and replay time itself. She clenched her fist until she got to the bit watching Lady and the Tramp where Dad started chuckling fondly at the spaghetti scene and then replayed it for his benefit — though he didn’t know anything about it, of course.
At the end of the film Dad stretched and sighed. He looked at his watch.
‘Gosh, I’d lost all track of time.’
‘So did I, Dad,’said Rose.
‘We’d better start getting tea ready for when Mum gets back,’ said Dad. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten those crisps. I don’t feel a bit hungry now. Funny that. I only ate one measly little packet and yet it feels like I’ve eaten six.’
‘I wonder why,’ said Rose innocently.
She was feeling pretty stuffed herself, and left half her baked potato at teatime.
‘That’s not like you, Rose,’ said Mum. ‘I think you must be sickening for something.’
‘No I’m not. I’m just eating carefully. I’m trying to stick to a diet,’ said Rose. It wasn’t really a fib. She was taking extreme care to stick to a diet of chocolate and sweets and crisps and coke.
‘Well, that’s sensible, Rose, because you really are getting awfully podgy,’ said Mum.
‘Not to say square,’ said Rick.
Rose looked at him reproachfully.
‘I said not to say square. And I’m not going to,’ said Rick.
‘Just as well, brother dear,’ said Rose. ‘Or else I might start talking about jeans and rips and roller-skates.’
‘Oh no Rick, not again!’ said Mum.
‘You rotten sneaky Square-Bum!’ Rick bellowed. ‘Tell tale tit.’
‘No I’m not,’ said Rose, but she wriggled uncomfortably. Maybe she wished she hadn’t told now. It had been quite a novelty being on friendly terms with Rick. Now he was angrier than ever and it might not be to her advantage.
Well, she could change that. She clenched her left fist for a moment. Time rattled back a few seconds, to the square conversation. Rose opened up her hand and started again.
‘Just as well you didn’t say square, brother dear,’ she said, but this time she snapped her mouth shut and wouldn’t let the rip and roller-skates part out.
Rick gave her a little nod and a wink, and when Mum said it was Rose’s turn to do the washing-up Rick started piling up the dishes too.
‘I’ll help you, unsquare sister,’ he said.
‘What’s been going on this afternoon?’ said Mum, unhooking a very sticky Robbie from his highchair and taking him off for his bath. ‘I thought it seemed a bit weird that you somehow managed to get the video mended for only a pound, but now you two are being so nice to each other I know it’s magic!’
‘Works-like-magic,’ Rose whispered happily, hugging herself.
‘I wish there was some way of magicking all these dishes done,’ said Rick, beginning to wish he hadn’t been quite so obliging. ‘We’ve got the gungy old baking tin to do as well. And all Robbie’s gummed up baby dishes. We’ll be ages.’
‘We’ll have to try to speed things up a little,’ said Rose. She was looking at her hand. Not her left hand this time. The right one. She clenched her fist and it glowed, sending sparks right up her arm. And then she was suddenly jolted into action, flinging dishes in the sink, scrubbing at them in a fury, while Rick dried with dazzling speed and charged round the kitchen as if he were still wearing his roller-skates.
‘We’re fast-forwarding!’ said Rose, and in two tiny seconds all the washing-up was done.
5…
Rose could barely get the waistband of her school skirt done up on Monday morning. She had a double-decker chocolate spread sandwich for breakfast and then rewound for a few minutes and ate it all over again. The quadruple sandwich was the last crumb. The button on the waistband fell off and the zip shot open.
‘Mum, have you got a safety pin?’ asked Rose.
‘You kids,’ said Mum, who’d spent over an hour last night sewing up half her son’s garments. ‘Come here, then. I’ll sew the button on, I’m not having you wandering about with safety pins like a little punk. Well, breathe in, then, Rose, so I can see what I’m doing.’
‘I am breathing in,’ Rose gasped, with Mum down on her knees tugging at her skirt. ‘Ouch! That was me,’ she complained bitterly, as Mum started sewing up her waist rather than her waistband.
‘Well, honestly. You’re getting so big. I thought you were supposed to be on a diet,’ said Mum. ‘You ought to try to eat more sensibly, love. No more chocolate. You should eat salads, boiled fish, cottage cheese -’
‘Salads are stupid, boiled fish is boring, cottage cheese is crummy,’ Rose gabbled.
She was starting to find the whole conversation stupid and boring and crummy so she clenched her right fist. The button was sewn on in a trice, Mum changed Robbie’s nappy with one flick of the wrist, and they were all off and out the door in a blink. Rose unclenched her fist, not wanting to get to school too quickly.
She was walking along the road with Rick, who was teetering on his roller-skates.
‘Funny,’ said Rick, shaking his head and looking dazed. ‘I seem to have got ready in a bit of a rush. One minute you’d bust your button and Mum was nagging on at you for being fat and then the next… we’re here.’
‘I’m not fat. I’m just big,’ said Rose. She glared at Rick who was a very thin and wiry boy. ‘I’d much sooner be big than a skinny spider like you.’
‘You ought to take more exercise, then you’d get skinny too,’ said Rick relentlessly. ‘I’ll hire you out my roller-skates if you like. Ten pence for ten minutes, how about it?’
‘Get knotted,’ said Rose. ‘I don’t want to borrow your stupid old skates. I can go as fast as I want just with my own feet.’
‘You what? Did you say you can go f
ast? Hang on a minute, are you the same sister who came last in the running race and the skipping race and even the egg and spoon race on Sports Day?’
‘You shut up. I didn’t want to be bothered with those dopey races. But I can run really really fast if I want,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll show you.’ It wouldn’t work if Rick raced along beside her while she fast-forwarded. He’d go quicker too and beat her by miles. ‘You stand still and just watch, OK?’ said Rose.
Rick folded his arms and leant against a lamp post, sniggering.
‘Right,’ said Rose, and clenched her right fist. She hurtled forwards, practically flying through the air. She was down outside the school before she could stop herself. She opened her hand out and waved triumphantly at Rick, who was now a tiny matchstick boy in the distance.
‘See!’ Rose bellowed.
Rick had certainly seen. He came roller-skating up to her, looking utterly bewildered.
‘I told you,’ said Rose, and swanned into school triumphantly.
Her cheeriness chilled a little as she went into her classroom. She wasn’t enjoying school very much nowadays. She had a horrible strict teacher called Mrs Mackay who kept clapping her hands and saying ‘That’s quite enough, Rose. Now just sit down and stop showing off.’ Mrs Mackay didn’t let them talk much in class, and they had to do proper lessons like Arithmetic and English. Mrs Mackay even spoilt the fun lessons like Art and Music and Movement. Rose wasn’t allowed to paint lovely sploshy pictures of flying elephants and wicked witches. She had to paint incredibly boring things like A Spring Day or An Autumn Wood, and Mrs Mackay nagged if she went over the lines. Rose couldn’t make up her own swirly swooshy dances in Music and Movement. Mrs Mackay wanted them to learn special steps and the boys could march but the girls had to be on their tippy-toes. Rose snorted in disgust.
‘Good morning, Rose,’ said Mrs Mackay, eyebrows raised. ‘Are you doing a pig impersonation?’
The children giggled and Rose burned.
‘No Mrs Mackay,’ she mumbled.
‘Then stop that silly snorting, please. Now sit down and get out your Arithmetic book.’
Rose sighed deeply. She looked at her hands. Maybe she could fast forward herself through lessons to playtime? But then it was PE and now they were in Mrs Mackay’s class they had to play Rounders, and Rose could never hit the silly ball or catch it either come to that. She’d have to fast forward PE too. In fact if she didn’t watch out she’d be fast forwarding steadily right though the Juniors and she’d be at Secondary School before it was time to go home.
Rose wasn’t too sure about Secondary School. Some of the boys in Rick’s gang were already at the Comprehensive and they kept telling horrible tales about your lunch being nicked by other kids and if you made a fuss you got beaten up in the toilets. Rose wasn’t convinced they were telling the truth but she wasn’t terribly keen to find out one way or another. Changing schools was certainly going to be a big step. Going up into the Juniors from the Infants school had just been a little hop.
Rose had loved life in the Infants, especially the first baby class. There were no proper lessons and you could talk all you wanted. She’d had a lovely teacher called Miss Flower who’d made a special fuss of Rose because she had a flowery name too. Miss Flower pinned Rose’s paintings up on the wall. Miss Flower asked Rose to sing a song because she had a good loud voice. Miss Flower laughed and clapped when Rose made up a little dance to make listening to the song more interesting. Miss Flower never said ‘That’s quite enough, Rose. Now just sit down and stop showing off.’
I wish I was back in the Infants, Rose thought.
Then she thought some more. She looked at her left hand. She wondered if there was some way of locking it into position so she could whizz back into the past in a matter of seconds.Her hand started glowing at the thought. Of its own accord her thumb tucked in tight and she had an overwhelming urge to press it hard. It looked like she’d worked out the way.
But what if it didn’t work properly? What if she zapped herself too far back? She really didn’t fancy being a baby again, wearing soggy nappies and only able to say goo-goo gargle-gargle like baby Robbie. You couldn’t have a snack whenever you got peckish, you had to yell your head off until Mum got the message and stuck a bottle in your mouth. And even if you got fat from all the feeds you were still little. It was a long time before Rose got big enough to hold her own against Rick. In fact it was sometimes still a struggle nowadays. Maybe it would be better to stay firmly in the present?
‘Now, we’re going to do some Problems in Arithmetic today,’ said Mrs Mackay. ‘Rose, come up to the blackboard.’
Rose had a serious problem tackling Problems. If it took six men three hours to dig a hole in a field it took one girl half a second to clench her fist tightly over her thumb and whizz herself back to the past.
‘W-h-e-e-e-e-e-e,’ Rose squeaked, as she went whirling backwards, so fast this time that she couldn’t possibly keep track, she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t change her mind, she couldn’t even think, she just unspooled through her past life until suddenly her thumb shot out of her fist, her hand opened and she was shaken right back into her five year old self.
‘What’s the matter, Rose?’ said a gentle voice, and a sweetly familiar figure in a soft blue frock bent down by the tiny chair.
‘It really is you, Miss Flower!’ said Rose. She looked down at herself and saw her own soppy little checked frock and her long-ago red shoes with straps and when she shook her head she felt the two wispy plaits she’d once worn bounce about on her shoulders.
‘Of course, it’s me,’ said Miss Flower. ‘I think you must have fallen asleep for a minute, Rose! Wake up now, poppet.’
Rose was wide awake now and raring to go.
‘I’m really in the Infants class,’ she said, looking round the bright friendly room with the finger-painting easels and the water trough and the playhouse in the corner and the pink dough — oh, she’d forgotten all about the pleasures of playing with pink dough!
She settled herself at the dough table and stuck her fingers into the lovely squashy ball of dough. Her fingers were small and fat and five years old, but her mind was still her own and had sophisticated ideas. She wasn’t going to make boring old sausages or snakes or necklaces like the other children. She stroked the pink dough, sniffing its strange smell. She decided to model a rose. Yes, a beautiful pink rose, with a tight bud and curling petals. She could feel it blooming beneath her fingers.
She set to work fashioning a petal. But her hands were hopelessly clumsy now. When she tried to roll the dough into thin strips her fingers bunched and botched. When she tried to curl the edge of a petal it broke off completely. When she tried to stick several petals together she pressed too hard and the rose got squashed into a shapeless lump.
Rose groaned, despairing. She found she had baby tears in her eyes.
‘What’s the matter, Rose?’ asked Miss Flower.
‘I can’t make the dough work,’ said Rose, sniffing and snorting.
‘Yes, you can, dear. Why, that’s lovely! A dear little pig.’
A pig, indeed! She couldn’t seem to get away from pigs today.
‘How about doing some finger painting now?’ Miss Flower suggested tactfully, as Rose crossly flattened the pig-rose into a pancake.
Rose pulled on an apron, fiddling with the fasteners for ages before they would pop into place. She stood at the easel, dipped a finger into the pot of paint, and started on a self portrait. She wanted to paint her plaits with ribbons and her check frock and her red shoes with straps. But her finger wouldn’t paint what she wanted. It drew a stupid round shape with spidery arms and legs. It didn’t even manage a head, let alone hair. It smeared two blobby eyes right in the middle of the chest, and a smiley mouth straight across the stomach.
Rose stamped her red shoes.
‘What’s the matter, Rose?’ said Miss Flower yet again.
‘I can’t make the paint work either,’ Rose moaned. br />
‘Oh dear, you are having trouble today,’ said Miss Flower. She came and looked at Rose’s picture. ‘But it’s a beautiful painting, you funny girl.’
‘What is it?’ said Rose. She peered up at Miss Flower.
Miss Flower hesitated. She looked at the painting intently.
‘It’s not another pig,’ said Rose.
‘Of course it’s not,’ Miss Flower agreed. ‘It’s a picture of you.’ It was probably just a lucky guess.
‘It’s a picture of me looking like a pig,’ said Rose, and she couldn’t feel proud when Miss Flower pinned the silly painting on the wall.
Perhaps it wasn’t such fun being an Infant again after all. Rose’s hands were so helpless. She didn’t have much luck weaving a little raffia mat and though she could manage to thread big beads onto a piece of string it soon became terribly boring. She tried chatting to the other children in her class, but they just prattled on about baby things.
Rose brightened when Miss Flower clapped her hands and told them to sit in a circle because it was story time. Rose recognised the little girl and boy on the cover of the book.
‘Oh, it’s Topsy and Tim. I remember! I read that ages and ages ago,’ Rose said.
‘Did you, Rose?’ said Miss Flower. Her eyebrows were raised and her blue eyes were twinkling. She obviously thought Rose was telling stories herself.
‘I did, really I did. I read all the Topsy and Tim books,’ Rose insisted.
‘Well. I expect you’ve looked at the pictures,’ said Miss Flower.
‘No, I can read! It’s easy-peasy,’ said Rose, and she went and stood next to Miss Flower, looking at the book on her lap.
She’d show her. She’d read it right through to the whole class. She might be back in her five year old body but she could still remember how to read, for goodness sake.
Or could she? She looked at the squiggly black shapes on the page. She could pick out an ‘a’ here, an ‘e’ there… but that was all! She looked at a big letter that might be a ‘T’ but she didn’t even know whether it was T for Topsy or T for Tim. She felt so silly standing there in front of the whole class. She clenched her fat little fists. She was tired of being little and stupid. She tucked her right thumb tight inside her fist. The circle of children seemed to start spinning. Miss Flower’s kind face faded. Rose suddenly rushed forwards, hurtling through time, round and round so quickly that when she suddenly stopped with a jerk and found herself standing at the blackboard feeling silly all over again she staggered and nearly fell, the chalk in her hand squeaking all the way down the board.