Scram!, page 4
She says, ‘You are saying
he followed you into my bedroom?’
I say, ‘No, he followed me home and then we were hiding out because I was worrying Minal would tell – he’s such a little big mouth. And I don’t want him to say anything to Grandad
because he will worry that Chirp
might be eaten.’
She says, ‘But who does the dog belong to?’
I say, ‘He doesn’t belong to anyone.’
She says, ‘How do you know?’
I say, ‘Mr Clement was talking about him
to Grandad and they both were saying
how he’s a stray who was on the hill living under the bench and Mr Clement was going to call the dog-collector people
because no one is responsible for him.
This dog is a dog on his own.’
Marcie looks like she might cry.
Marcie never cries except if it is to do with dogs being sad.
I say, ‘I don’t think he wants to go to the dog-rescue place because otherwise he wouldn’t have followed me.’
Marcie nods her head and says,
‘I think we should
keep him.’
I say,
‘I do too.’
She says, ‘At least for now.’
And I say,
‘And maybe longer.’
She says, ‘I mean he has chosen our house and if he likes it here he should live here . . . probably.’
I am remembering what Mr Clement said about the collar and the name tag.
And I say, ‘If we name him,
then he’s ours and not a stray.
I mean, if we get a collar and a name tag for him, then he won’t be lost any more.
WE will be
responsible for him.’
Marcie does a face, which means she is thinking.
Then she says, ‘That’s true.’
I say,
‘In fact, I have a tag for him.
It’s not sent off for yet but it’s a free offer
from the horrible-spaghetti people –
we could send it today.
And if you include two first-class stamps
plus two more then you can get his
name scratched on it.’
Marcie says, ‘But what is his name?’
I say, ‘Well, I have had a few ideas . . .
One is Spaghetti.’
I look at Marcie and she shakes her head.
She says,
‘You have to think how it will be
calling Spaghetti across the park.’
I think about this and I decide I don’t want to shout ‘Spaghetti’ across the park, especially if anyone I know is around, or that boy Karl, who is in my class.
I don’t even like spaghetti. Only sometimes.
I like it the way Dad does it with the tomato-ish sauce he makes and I like it with cheese and sometimes Bolognese but otherwise not really so much, unless Peggy or Granny makes it, then I like it with anything.
Marcie says, ‘So what’s your other name idea?’
I say, ‘My other name idea is Tomato.’
Marcie says,
‘Where are you getting these ideas from?’
I say, ‘It’s what I was shopping for when I first met him.’
She says, ‘Where were you shopping?
The post office? Because you can’t call him Postoffice.’
I say, ‘No, it was the corner shop – you know, Clement’s. That’s where I found him.
He was lurking about outside on his own, waiting for someone who wasn’t there but we can’t call him Cornershop either.’
Marcie ignores this and says,
‘So you first saw him outside Clement’s?’
And I say, ‘Yes.’
Then we both look at each other in the eyes at the exact same moment.
And we both say,
‘Clement!’
Except actually I say Clement’s but Marcie says it’s better without the S.
And our dog starts
wagging his tail
like we have
guessed his name
finally.
Marcie quickly fills in the spaghetti form with our name and address, and I fill in the little squares to tell them what dog name we would like written on the tag. You have to put it carefully in capitals exactly in the little squares on the form and you mustn’t go wrong.
Then I pop the five tokens in the envelope and Marcie searches around on Mum’s study table for four stamps. They add up to about three-ish pounds if you had to buy them, so I fetch £1.30 from my toadstool and Marcie does the same and we put it in Mum’s drawer so it’s not actually taking the stamps without paying.
We have to check for the coast to be clear before we can get down the stairs and out of the front door.
Marcie says, ‘No one must see us with Clement.’
And I say, ‘Especially not Minal.’
And she says,
‘He can’t keep a secret without telling.’
Which is exactly what everyone knows.
Marcie says, ‘Maybe wear something long so we can tuck Clement under it.’
I say, ‘Won’t I look a bit suspicious?’
She says, ‘You can just pretend you are dressing up. No one will think that’s strange.’
The only long trailing thing I can find is Mum’s kimono, which I am a bit nervous of borrowing because it is strictly not allowed.
As soon as we get out into the street, we see the Cushions walking towards us. But we can’t get Clement to hide under the kimono – he is too excited about being outside.
He just stands there, wagging his tail.
And the Cushions stop to pat him and they say, ‘Hello, dog. Do you have a name yet?’
And me and Marcie say,
‘Clement,’ both at the same time.
And one of the Cushions says, ‘Like the shop?’
And we say, ‘Yep, the same as that.’
And the other Cushion says,
‘Hello, Clement. Where are you off to?’
And Marcie says,
‘We are just taking him for a walk.’
And the Cushions say, ‘What a good idea to wear a kimono. It will keep the sun off you.’
And I say, ‘That’s what I thought.’
Which is slightly not true but sometimes it’s good to agree when you are trying to act unstrangely.
We decide it doesn’t matter if the Cushions know we now have a dog because they are new to the neighbourhood and they will think it is completely normal.
We go all the way up
Navarino Street . . .
and on to the hill and then Clement runs about but he doesn’t run away – he just runs in circles.
It turns out Marcie knows quite a lot about dogs. She knows that when they are young they aren’t meant to go on very long walks. It is bad for their legs or something. We don’t actually know how old Clement is but you can tell he is not a fully finished dog yet.
He is obviously learning our language because when we say it’s time to go he comes with us straight away. On the way down, we can feel the breeze blowing into our faces but by the time we get to the bottom it has disappeared.
We reach the gate, and Marcie stops to tie her shoelace and then she looks up and says,
‘You can have my rainbow roller skates if you still want them.’
And it’s hard to speak because of course
I am amazed.
I say, ‘How come you have changed your mind?’
And she says,
‘Because you found a dog.’
I know what she means.
Because I know my sister has always wanted a dog, so she doesn’t care any more about the free-gift flip-flops or the creased beagle in a beret.
All she cares about is having a real actual dog.
I say, ‘But the problem is I have spent all my savings on dog food and stamps and so I haven’t even got the three pounds now –
I’ve only got the seventy-nine p.’
And she says, ‘It’s OK. You can just have them.’
I say, ‘Thanks, Marcie.’
And she says, ‘You’re welcome.’
And then we keep walking.
We don’t go straight home. Instead we stop off to buy some more dog food with the rest of Marcie’s pocket money.
We go into Furry-Fins Pet Shop and we ask the lady – who is called Jackie, written on a badge – which sort of food we should buy and she says, ‘How old is your dog?’
And we say, ‘He’s a rescued one, so it’s hard to be sure.’
And she says, ‘Well, I can see he’s still a puppy, so I would recommend . . .’ and then she looks at the shelves and picks up a tin. ‘This one!’
The problem is we can only afford one tin and a small bag of the dried-up food.
And we need to buy a lead and a collar and all the other thingummyjigs.
Marcie writes down all the things on a piece of paper and next to them all the prices.
We tell Jackie that we will come back soon when we have fetched the shopping bag with wheels so it will be easier to carry everything.
We don’t want her to know that we don’t have the money or she will wonder why
Mum and Dad aren’t helping.
Marcie says,
‘We have to seem like
responsible people.’
The dog lead I really want most has rainbow stripes on and it will look good with my new rainbow roller skates but Marcie says we might not be able to afford such an expensive lead. She says, ‘We have to be practical.’
She says, ‘First of all we need to think how we can find the money to get all the things we absolutely need and have to have.’
And that’s when I think of a really good idea.
I say, ‘We can sell stuff.’
And Marcie says, ‘What stuff?’
And I say, ‘All the gubbins in my walk-into cupboard, which is getting in the way, and also that stuff Mum has left out for the jumble.’
Marcie says, ‘What stuff?’
I say, ‘In the box in the corner of the washing-machine room.’
And Marcie says, ‘But where are we going to sell it?’
And I say, ‘Outside our house, like the Cushions do sometimes when they sell their homemade plants – we can set up the wobbly table
on the pavement and sell all the stuff
we don’t want any more.’
And this is what we do.
It takes quite a long time to carry everything out and the jumble box is over full and I am not sure what is for the charity shop and what is meant to be for the ironing, so in the end I have to sort of guess.
We set it all up in a way that makes it look like it’s worth buying. Marcie says it’s important to display everything well because then people can see that it might be nicer than they thought.
She is right about this because once we have covered the table in Mum’s new Christmas tablecloth and put everything out I am wondering why we don’t want to keep it.
Marcie makes a sign which says,
‘Antiques for sale’ and another one which says, ‘Everything for sale
except the tablecloth and the kimono!’
I write the prices on some stickers with a PINK marker pen and then we stick them on everything. Marcie says it makes it easier for people to make up their minds if they know the prices.
Marcie is wearing a sunhat with a sticker with 50p written on it, a jacket that has £1.50 clipped to it and a skirt over her shorts which says 25p. She is wearing the shorts underneath just in case anyone wants to buy the skirt.
She says, ‘This way people can see how it all looks.’
She seems to know a lot about selling things.
It’s quite hot sitting there on chairs in the sun although there is a biggish tree in front of our house.
The shade keeps moving so in the end we go and fetch the stripy parasol.
It helps keep the sun off our faces but even so Marcie is finding she is sticking to her chair.
There is utterly
not a whisk of a
breeze.
I am wearing my new roller skates. I’m not actually rollering in them – I’m just sitting on a chair behind our table – but I like the feel of them even if they aren’t going anywhere.
Clement falls asleep under the table while we wait and wait for the shoppers.
After ten minutes we are beginning to worry that maybe no one will come. But then all of a sudden we have several customers and we manage to sell my Teeny Pocket Pet collection, five pairs of tights which have gone too tight, my How to Make Pictures Out of String Kitand a puzzle of some bears drinking out of teacups, plus quite a lot of old jumble junk Mum was getting rid of, like saucers that don’t have cups any more due to breakages.
Mrs Papadopoulos says she can use them to stand her pot plants on.
Also we sell a pair of oldish curtains that are slightly frayed at the bottom – our neighbour Elena says she can shorten them, so she’s not put off. Marcie sells her rubber-band-bracelet-maker thing and a dream catcher I would like to buy myself but Marcie says we must not buy anything off our own stall or there is no point selling it.
Two people at once want to buy Kurt’s orange T-shirt, which is not surprising because it’s almost new. I don’t know why he put it with the jumble box.
Absolutely no one wants Minal’s caterpillar slippers.
By two o’clock we are beginning to get peckish and everyone has vanished except for a couple of bumble bees.
Marcie says all the people have gone to the hill to sunbathe.
They like to go there on hot days and lie on the grass like kippers.
Marcie counts up all of the change we have collected. She says, ‘It still isn’t quite enough.
We are exactly five pounds short.’
Which makes us a bit down in the dumps.
We are about to decide to fold up and take the things indoors but then we notice a tall girl in blue shorts walking towards us.
Marcie says, ‘Let’s wait for this one person just in case she is a customer.’
When she gets to our table she peers at everything carefully and picks up a snow globe with an Eiffel Tower in it and I hold my breath.
You see I slightly don’t really want to sell that.
Then she puts it down and I am relieved and also disappointed because we need her to buy it.
I say, ‘Is there anything particular you are looking for?’ Because they often say this in the shops.
And the girl points at Marcie’s sweatshirt, which is hanging on a hanger by the doorstep, and she says, ‘How much for that?’
So I say, ‘One or two pounds I think.’
And Marcie says, ‘One pound fifty.’
And the girl asks if she can have a look at it, so I stand up and skate over to the front door to get it.
Then the girl in the blue shorts says,
‘Hey, I like your skates,’
and she looks at the notice that says,
‘Everything for sale
except the tablecloth and the kimono!’
And she says, ‘Are they for sale?’
And I look at Marcie and she looks at me and I say, ‘Umm . . .’
And the girl says, ‘They are super cool.’
And I say, ‘I know.’
And it’s hard to say YES because I have always wanted these roller skates ever since Marcie first got them and now they are actually mine.
And I look at Marcie and I think about how she really wants this dog, and how dogs need lots of things.
And if we are going to be responsible for him then we must get him a collar and a lead to prove he is ours.
So I say, ‘They are five pounds.’
The girl says, ‘Done!’
And I bite my lip a bit too hard and it slightly begins to puff up.
Marcie whispers, ‘But you love those skates.’
But all my words have dried up and I can’t even say, ‘I know.’
And I quite slowly pull at the bow of my loopy laces and I feel sad that I haven’t even been to the end of Navarino Street in them.
Marcie says, ‘Are you sure?’
And I just nod.
I hand them to the girl in the blue shorts and when she puts them on I am secretly hoping they won’t fit.
But they do.
She says,
‘I love them. I really love them.’
And I say, ‘So do I.’
And she says,
‘But then why are you
selling them?’
And Marcie says, ‘Because she is trying to help someone else.’
And then we explain about our lost dog and how we want to keep him.
Marcie says, ‘You see, we need the money to buy him a collar and stuff.’
I say, ‘Dogs have to have collars or people won’t know they belong to someone.’
The girl agrees. She says, ‘That’s true.’
She smiles at me. ‘Well, it is really nice of you.’ Then she reaches in her purse and hands us two more pounds.
‘Here, for your dog – thanks for
selling your roller skates.
I promise to look after them.’
And then she skates away.
Marcie gives me a touch on the arm and says, ‘You can always ask for rainbow roller skates on your Christmas list.’ And I know she is trying to cheer me up.
But I say, ‘I don’t think there are any more rainbow roller skates – rainbow ones are very unusual.’
We are so hot and all we can hear is wasps and bees buzzing. Everyone else is lying down.
We pack up all the unsold bits and bobs and drag it all back indoors.
When we fold up the tablecloth, we notice the marker pen I was using to write the prices on the stickers has leaked out and there is a big blot in the shape of a heart.
Marcie says, ‘I don’t think that’s ever going to wash out.’
We have to stop for a quick biscuit and a glass of water and then we go off to Furry-Fins.
This time we take the shopping bag on wheels with us.
We get everything on our list and due to the extra £2 from the blue-shorts girl, we can even afford the rainbow lead.
