Shrinking Violet Read Free

really relieved when Mum stood up to Dad and said
no way.
I didn’t want to visit any chat rooms! It would be too much like actually meeting people; I would get tongue-tied and not know what to say.
    But then Mum had an even worse idea. Worse even than Dad’s!

    “Maybe we could find some sort of club.”
    I thought, No! Please! We’d already tried a club. An after-school club. I’d hated it! Lily had
immediately
made about twenty new friends and I’d just sat in the corner like a droopy pot plant waiting for Mum and Dad to come and pick us up.
    “Maybe on her own,” said Mum, “without Lily …”
    It is true that I tend to get a bit crushed by Lily. She is so loud, and so bouncy! She bursts through doors like she’s jet-propelled.
    And then it is all shrieking and screeching and stinking swizzlesticks. (Her favourite expression for this term.) It is very difficult, when you are a shrinking kind of person, to have a twin that is so noisy. Everyone expects you to be the same.
    Actually, it’s funny, but no one ever expects Lily to be like
me
. They all expect me to be like Lily. And I can’t be! I’ve tried. It just doesn’t work. Maybe if I was on my own, people wouldn’t think it so peculiar if I was a bit quiet. But I still didn’t want to join any clubs!
    I never got to hear what Dad thought of Mum’s suggestion ’cos just as he started to say something there was this loud CRASH, followed by a series of thuds and bangs, like the house was collapsing. All it was, was Lily, coming out of her bedroom and hurtling down the stairs. She always hurtles down the stairs. Dad asked her the other day if wild elephants were after her.
    “Mum!” She went shrieking past me, into the kitchen. “I’ve been trying to find something to wear on Saturday and I can’t! I haven’t got anything!Mum, I need something new! I’ve got to have something new! ’Cos it’s
Riverside
, Mum. There might be actors! I’ve got to, Mum!”
    She goes on like this all the time. Like, if she’s already been seen wearing something, she can’t possibly be seen in it again. To be seen in it again would be
death
. It’s what happens when you lead a mad social life.
    Under cover of all the shrieking I slid into the kitchen and helped myself to a bowl of cereal, which is what I’d been going there for in the first place. I stood by the sink, munching it, while Mum and Lily got into one of their shouting matches about how many clothes a person of ten years old actually needs.
    Lily yelled, “Enough so your friends don’t keep seeing you in the same old thing all the time!” To which Mum retorted, “What utter rubbish!” and told Lily that she was:
    a) too obsessed with the way she looked
    b) in danger of becoming shallow-minded and
    c)
spoilt.
    Lily screeched that Mum was mean as could be. “You don’t understand what you’re doing to me! You’re ruining my life!”
    This is nothing new. Dad once counted up and said that on average Lily accused Mum of ruiningher life at least three times a week. Sometimes I feel like telling Lily that
she
is ruining
my
life. If she weren’t so shrieky, I might not be so shrinky. Though I suppose it is not really fair to blame Lily.
    At least it got Mum off the subject of clubs. By the time she and Lily had finished yelling at each other, Mum was all hot and bothered. She said she was going to go and soak in the bath and calm herself with thoughts of grass and trees and flowers.
    “And not of spoilt selfish brats!”
    So that was all right. But I kept thinking about it, especially when Saturday came and Lily went swaggering off (in new jeans and a new top, which were in fact
mine
). I would have loved more than anything to visit the set of
Riverside!
But you can’t barge your way in where you’re not wanted. Sarah was Lily’s friend, not mine. I would only be a drag.

    I spent most of that day helping Mum in Flora Green, but somehow it wasn’t as much fun as usual. I kept thinking of Lily,