Extract

‘Fraiy Mergdooth is a freak!’ The hateful words and drawing were stuck on the notice board in my form room on the last day before the Christmas holiday. It was Chris Chewy. How did I know? As usual Chewy had almost fallen off his chair at his own joke! His head fell back as he laughed loudly. Strangely, I seemed to be the only one who noticed the moth fly into his mouth!

Everyone laughed as I took the notice down. I still had to sit through a lesson of nudges, nasty looks and whispered comments.

When I got home I sat by the fire with the crumpled drawing of a horrible stick figure in my hand. I read the hateful words again ‘Fraiy Mergdooth is a freak!’

Could I help it if I was named after my Dutch grandmother? Was it my fault I was plain? So what, if there was something about me that made me different?

I screwed the paper into a ball with all the strength of my six fingers, threw it into the flames and watched it blacken and burn. Spiteful red sparks spat and sizzled around it. I didn’t see the words ‘Fraiy Mergdooth rocks!’ flare up in green and blue flames then disappear in an instant.

So here I was on the day before Christmas Eve feeling very sorry for myself and waiting for Aunt Isodora, or Izzy as we all called her, to arrive. She was my mum’s older sister and had been out of the country since before I was born, but this Christmas she’d decided to stay with us.

You’d think the queen was coming to visit. Mum had moved all the furniture so she could clean behind and beneath it. She’d turned out all the bedrooms and cupboards. So everything was clean, but shabby.

Let me explain. A couple of years ago dad had worked for a firm which made a sensationally popular new drink called ‘Vermwood’s Adult Tonic’. Unfortunately he’d slipped on some verm juice and hurt his neck. Now he was in a neck brace and in constant pain. The rotten firm had refused to pay him any compensation.

We’d relied on mum’s wage as a cleaner, but ‘Vermwoods’ had taken over the firm and made her redundant. We’d been living on mum and dad’s savings for some time. We didn’t have the money to buy new furniture.

I tried to forget about money worries and Chewy’s bullying as I collected holly, ivy and mistletoe from the back garden. It was north facing and freezing. Covered in prickles and scratches, I bundled the greenery into the house and dumped it on the kitchen table.

Racing into our colourless sitting room, I warmed my tingling hands at the fire. I ignored the bare plastic tree and the boxes of cheap ornaments then sat on the faded window seat and daydreamed. If only the temperature outside would drop a bit more and the skies become grey.

Even though it was late afternoon, the sun defiantly streamed through the south facing sash window and into the lounge. It was all very annoying. I decided that Christmas had arrived apart from one tiny little thing. There was no snow! Why? Earlier in the week Pustula Deadnettle, the Children’s Minister, had banned it! ‘Snow,’ he’d announced, ‘was not allowed’, because he, ‘didn’t like it. It was too white, too wet and too cold.’ He just didn’t get it, did he? Hadn’t he ever made a snow beast, or an ice glide or a snow giant? Had he ever been a child who had fun?

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