‘But I wanted plaits.’
‘I haven’t got time to do plaits. Sadie, get dressed. You too, Taya.’
Sadie smacked her pencil down on the table. ‘I’mnotgoing to school with my hair in bunches.’
Beatrice counted to five. ‘When I asked you how you wanted your hair, you said you didn’t know.’
‘Well I do now, and I want plaits.’
She briefly considered fetching her scissors and snipping the offending bunches off. It would solve the problem – but in turn would generate a much bigger one.
‘Taya, if you don’t put your uniform on in the next five minutes, you’ll be going to school in your pyjamas,’ she warned.
Taya gave her a ‘yeah, right’ look and slowly got to her feet. Taking her book with her, she dawdled out of the kitchen.
With a sigh of relief that at least one of her children was doing as she was told, Beatrice turned her attention to her youngest daughter. ‘Come on, it’s time you got dressed too.’
Beatrice shot a look of longing at the toaster, but she knew she would be needed upstairs, despite Sadie being more than capable of dressing herself. If she wanted to get her kids to school on time, she would have to forgo breakfast. Telling herself that her waistline would thank her for it, she cleared away the breakfast things – and byclearing awayshe meant dumping them on the draining board to be dealt with later.
‘Mummy, I’m going to ask Santa for a Wixset for Christmas,’ Sadie announced.
Beatrice blinked. What’s a Wixset, she wondered.
‘And a talking puppy that wees and poops, because you won’t let me have a real one. And a scooter. Not like my old scooter – I want one you plug in. It goes really fast. And I want a tiara. A proper one, not a plastic one.’
Ushering her reluctant daughter into the hall and up the stairs, Beatrice said faintly, ‘I’m not sure Father Christmas can stretch to all that. It’s rather a lot.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ Sadie’s reply was confident. ‘Penelope had a scooter and a Wixset from her mummy for her birthday, and her granny and grandad got her a Poopy Puppy, and her dad bought her a tiara. It’s got real diamonds. Penelope said so.’
Oh well, ifPenelopesaid so, Beatrice grumbled silently to herself. Even without knowing what a Wixset was, she had a suspicion that that little lot would cost a fortune.
Sadie hadn’t finished. ‘And I want a head.’
Beatrice steered her into the bedroom and helped her remove her pyjamas. ‘Just a head? No body?’
Sadie nodded. ‘Just a head. I want to learn to do plaits, because the ones you do fall out.’
‘Oh, right. Okay. A head with hair.’ Beatrice used to have one of those when she was a girl.
‘Duh!Of coursewith hair. Silly Mummy.’
The door to the bedroom bounced open as Taya stormed in. ‘Mum!’ she cried, ‘I need a new school bag. The strap has broken.’ She waved the offending item in Beatrice’s face, and Beatrice’s heart sank further when her daughter asked, ‘Can I pick the next one?’ because she simply knew it would be the one all her friends had and would be hideously expensive.
Not for the first time since her youngest had started school in September, Beatrice thought about getting a part-time job. But the problem was, finding one which fitted in around school times was as likely as the diamonds in Penelope’s tiara being real.
‘Mrs Webb, can I have a quick word?’
Beatrice saw Sadie’s teacher beckoning her from the door of the classroom, and her heart sank for the second time that morning. A teacherwanting a wordwas never good, plus Beatrice had hoped to make a quick getaway, considering Sadie had walked into the classroom without any drama, but seeing Miss Barnes talking to her might evoke some.
Miss Barnes seemed equally as concerned, as she glanced over her shoulder. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to inform you that Sadie is going to be Toadstool Number One in the Christmas play, and I know she wanted to be a fairy so she’ll probably be a little disappointed when she finds out. But the fairies are all Year Three children as there’s quite a lot of dancing, and…’ She ground to a halt.
Beatrice said, ‘Thanks for the heads up.’ She was going to have to find some way of bigging up the toadstool role. Knowing her daughter’s penchant for pink and silver, a sparkly pink number might do the trick. ‘Can the toadstool be any colour?’ she asked.
‘Oh, yes. Just use whatever spare material you’ve got lying around.’
Bless her. From what Beatrice could gather, this was the teacher’s first year in the classroom. She had an awful lot to learn about the competitive nature of certain mums. And although Beatrice didn’t want to spend hours making a costume which would only be worn for a matter of hours, she wasn’t going to let her daughter down by having her wear a substandard outfit. Maybe she could enlist some help in making it?
It was a good idea to strike while the iron was hot (in other words, before her enthusiasm waned or she forgot) so Beatrice decided to call in to see her mum on the way home. Thinking it best not to arrive empty handed, she popped into the bakery on the way and picked up a selection of cream cakes.
