Year 9 Sisters - A Mel, Tab, Mewla & Cathy story

Chapter Three


  Purbelle rang us that evening, just before tea.
  "It's unbelievable!" she said. "Mewlarka is just back to the happy best friend I had before! She was so apologetic! And we've only just got home - after school she insisted on taking me into town and buying me a hot chocolate in the cafe, and we sat and talked and stuff, and she's fine now!"
  "Well what was the matter with her?" I asked.
  "I don't know." Purbelle said. "She doesn't know. She just said she felt very grumpy and stressed and unhappy and needed a bit of time on her own."
  "But that was no excuse to treat you the way she did, screaming at you and saying she hated you." I said.
  "I know, but to be honest Mel, I'm just glad that things are back to normal." Purbelle said. "I think it's worth putting up with an insult or two just to be friends again."
  "Well, as long as it's all OK, I'm glad." I said.
  "Yeah, it's fine." Purbelle said. "She's come back with me for tea at our house. I won't see anything of her over the weekend because she's going to visit her cousins..." she stopped. "Yeah, coming Mum!" she yelled. "Got to go, Mel - tea's ready." she said. "See you on Monday."
  "Yeah, see you." I said. "Bye."
  "Any news?" Mewla appeared.
  "Yeah, everything's fine, apparently." I said. "She took Purbelle into town and bought her a hot chocolate at the cafe, and has gone back to Purbelle's for tea."
  "Weird." Mewla said, as we went through to have our tea. "How could she be so different?"

***

  After tea, as none of us had any urgent homework, we met up with Cathy and Tab and walked up to the big pond up the road, which was frozen over. Cathy and Mewla started to have a snowball fight, and Tab and I brushed the snow off a bench and sat down to talk about Mewlarka. Tab was amazed when I told her what had happened after school.
  "Certainly seems like she felt bad about today." Tab said. "Mind you, so would I if I said things like that to any of you lot."
  "Maybe she just had a bad morning." I said. "Not that that's an excuse for behaving like that."
  "Whoooo hoooo!" Cathy raced past, with Mewla chasing after her with pawfuls of snow. We laughed.
  "Let's just forget it." Tab said. "Everything's OK now."
  "Fine with me." I said, and we got up to join in the fun.

***

  Saturday was a fun day. The four of us met up in town with Tibbicca and Purla and we did a bit of shopping and had lunch together. It was the usual kind of girly day out - clothes, food and plenty of giggles. While we were out, Mum rang us and asked if Tab and Cathy would like to come to tea that evening, and they gladly said yes, so that was something else to look forward to. We caught the bus back home late that afternoon, just as the snow started to fall thickly again.
  "I suppose we ought to do some swotting up for those damn science sessions next week." Cathy said, after we had hugged Tibbicca and Purla goodbye at the bus stop and were making our way up our road. "Tab and I can go and get our stuff from our houses and come down to yours in a minute."
  "OK." I said. Mewla and I went in through our front gate and let ourselves into the house, while Tab crossed the street to her house and Cathy hurried up the close to hers. Mum called hi to us, asked if we had a nice time, and told us that she was cooking a roast dinner for later. Mewla and I went upstairs to get our science stuff, then went to settle down in the living room, where Dad had just lit a roaring fire.
  "Doing homework, you two?" he smiled. "That's a rare sight!"
  Mewla stuck her tongue out at him as he left the room. Cathy and Tab arrived a moment later and came through to us. Their faces were red from the cold and their hair was sprinkled with snow.
  "So where exactly do we start with all this stuff?" Cathy said, lying down on the rug on her stomach and opening her folder. "I mean, I've got all my science stuff here and written in my books, but I have no idea where to start."
  "Well I guess we'll be told on Monday what we'll be doing." I said. "So we'd better just recap on everything we have."
  We had some music on and spent a fun couple of hours going over all our science notes and work.
  After our delicious roast dinner we all went back into the living room to finish up our work and then watch a DVD. We were just clearing up all our notes when Mum called to us.
  "Mel - can you answer the door please?"
  I got up and went out into the hall, and opened the front door, but there was no-one there.
  "Hello?" I looked out. "Hello?"
  It was very dark outside and was still snowing. I couldn't see or hear anything, so I shut the door.
  "There's no-one there, Mum!" I called through to Mum.
  "No-one there?" called back Mum. "Odd - I know I heard someone knock!"
  I shrugged and went back through to the others. We settled down in the warmth to watch our DVD.
  Cathy and Tab left at about half past eleven. Mum and Dad had already gone to bed. We hugged them goodbye on the doorstep and Cathy said she would ring us the next day to arrange to go out or something. We watched as they went off down the snowy path and out through the gate.
  "Well I don't know about you but I'm off to bed." Mewla said. "I'm knackered."
  "Me too." I said, so after we had switched off the TV and the lights, we went up to bed. I went into my room and switched on the light - and couldn't believe what I saw. My bedroom carpet was soaked and covered in slushy half-melted snow. I just stood and stared. I had left my bedroom window open earlier - the only thing I could think was that someone had been into the back garden and flung snowballs up and through my window.
  "Mewla!" I hissed, as I heard Mewla cross the landing to the bathroom. "Come here!"
  Mewla came over, and stood and goggled at my carpet when she saw it.
  "What the hell?" she said. "What's happened?"
  "Well all I can think is that someone must've sneaked into the garden earlier and chucked snow up here through the open window." I said. "I left it open earlier because it was getting like a furnace in here."
  "Well who would do that?" Mewla said. "One of those bratty little kids from down the road, I suppose."
  "It must have been something to do with that knock earlier." I said.
  "Yeah - I bet you anything it was those kids." Mewla said. "They do things like that at Hallowe'en - knock and leg it."
  "Little brats." I said. "What the hell am I going to do with this carpet?"
  "There's nothing you can do." Mewla said. "Just leave it and it'll dry on it's own. Just don't let Mum or Dad see it."
  It wasn't nice, padding round my room in bare feet and treading on cold, soggy carpet. I got ready for bed, feeling cross. I had to smile though - I knew that as soon as we told Cathy she would want to go down the road and give the little kids a good slapping.

***

  Sunday was fairly uneventful. The snow was still falling, so there wasn't much to do. The four of us went into town at lunchtime to have a look round the shops and get some food, but wandered home at about three o'clock because we were soaked through and bored. Cathy said she was going to go home because she had a few Chemistry notes left to write up, and Tab wanted to go and dry off and chill out for an evening, so we said bye outside our houses and went home.

***

  All four of us were dying to get our boots off when we got into school on Monday morning. The snow had been deep all along the road to school and our feet were freezing and soaked. Tibbicca and Tibleau wre already there when we got there, and they had the same idea - they had their socks spread out on the radiator and their shoes underneath it.
  "Morning!" Cathy grinned as we went in.
  "Hiya!" Tibbicca smiled. She pointed to their socks. "Wet feet."
  "Yep, us too." Cathy put her bag down and lost no time in pulling off her wet boots and socks.
  Purla suddenly burst in through the door, but was yanked back because she had her bag strap caught on the door handle. We shrieked with laughter, even Purla. She is always great at taking a joke.
  "God it's like the Arctic out there this morning!" she said, getting the snow out of her silky dark hair and taking her coat off. "I'd love to dry my socks!"
  "Join the gang." Cathy moved away from the radiator to reveal the six pairs of socks lined up on it. Purla laughed.
  It wasn't long before Miss Mewola came in, with wads of papers. The rest of the class had arrived by then. Purbelle and Mewlarka were sat together, talking and laughing nineteen to the dozen.
  "Right then - quieten down everyone!" Miss Mewola said. "Science week begins here!"
  A groan ran round the class and Miss Mewola laughed. She called the register quickly then picked up the wad of papers.
  "I've got your new timetables here." Miss Mewola said. "Tibbick, can you hand them out please. Right then - we have decided to devote each day to a particular subject, instead of having you going from lab to lab. We thought that you would be able to concentrate more on that particular subject if you could do it all day and not switch from, say, Chemistry to Biology. You will be based in the appropriate labs for the whole day, so as soon as you've had registration here with me, you can take all your stuff and leave it in the lab all day."
  "Bets on who'll be glowing green after this week in the labs." Tom said. We all laughed. "I reckon it'll be Cath."
  Cathy pulled a face at Tom and he winked at her. Those two have such great chemistry together - they're a real double act.
  Tibbick gave us all a timetable and we examined them. Monday was a day of Chemistry, Tuesday was Biology, Wednesday was Physics, Thursday was Chemistry and Friday was Physics.
  There were a few mutters of "Bloody hell" from the boys, which made us all laugh.
  "Go on then - off to your lab." Miss Mewola got up. "See you all later."



______________________________________________