Daizy Star and the Pink Guitar Read online

  I haven’t the heart to tell Dad that this dream has even less chance of happening than the last one. How can it? Mum is not crazy about the idea of living in Malawi and Becca is outraged at the very idea of it. I let out a little sigh of relief. It’s not going to happen, surely … not when Mum is so firmly against it all.

  ‘What have you been writing down?’ Dad asks, spotting my notebook.

  I close it quickly.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just making a list of … um … useful things for Malawi.’

  Dad’s face lights up. ‘That’s my girl,’ he grins. ‘I knew you would understand. I just knew I could count on you, Daizy Star!’

  Oops.

  I am in love.

  I know it’s love because my heart is racing and whole flocks of butterflies are doing triple somersaults in my tummy.

  Beth and Willow said this would happen. They said it was inevitable, a part of growing up, and that I had better watch out now I was eleven because my hormones would be bubbling away like one of Dad’s nettle and wheatgrass smoothies. I mean, ewwww! And then just when I least expect it, BAM! I’d be in love.

  This happened to Beth and Willow earlier in the term, with Ethan Miller. He is without doubt the yuckiest boy I have ever met, the kind who spends hours in front of the mirror perfecting his hair-gelled spikes and playing with his mum’s fake tan. Ugh. His only skills are football and winding people up.

  Still, you cannot choose who you fall for, I suppose. And now I have fallen too, head over heels, just like Beth and Willow said I would. They assumed it would be with a boy, of course, but who says you can’t fall in love with a pink guitar?

  After all, a boy might let you down, but a guitar never would. It stays faithful and true to the end, and it’s always there when you want to let off steam. And this weekend, obviously, there has been a lot of steam.

  It is kind of tragic, really. I am discovering my star quality, I’m sure I am – and now perhaps it could be snatched away from me forever. Who knows, maybe I am swapping a future as the world’s most talented rock princess for a life of milking goats under the blistering African sun.

  In between writing tragic rock songs about living in a tin hut on the shores of Lake Malawi, I have spent hours and hours on the Internet, researching life in Africa.

  It hasn’t really helped me to come up with a plan to stop Dad’s mad idea. It has just made me feel very, very gloomy.

  ‘Did you know that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world?’ I ask Beth and Willow, next day at school.

  ‘You might have mentioned it,’ Beth says patiently.

  ‘Once or twice,’ Willow sighs.

  We are in the school lunch hall, eating sausage and mash with baked beans. I bet they don’t have that in Malawi.

  ‘I can understand why Dad wants to go over and help,’ I tell my friends. ‘I mean, some villages have no clean water at all. They have all these scary diseases and there aren’t enough hospitals or clinics or medical supplies to make people better, or even enough doctors and nurses. And there aren’t enough schools or teachers for kids like us to have a proper education …’

  ‘Lucky things,’ says Ethan Miller, leaning over to spear a sausage from my plate. ‘No school! Just imagine!’

  I slap his hand, and the stolen sausage plummets down into the water jug, where it sinks without trace.

  ‘Ouch,’ he says.

  ‘It’s not funny, Ethan!’ I growl.

  ‘How would you like it if you had to work in the fields all day long in the scorching sun, just to help your family put food on the table? How would you like not being able to read or write?’

  Ethan shrugs. I should have guessed. Reading and writing is no big deal to a boy like him.

  ‘Do they have football over there?’ he asks.

  ‘No!’ I snap, although I think they probably do. Football is the kind of stupid game that finds its way just about everywhere.

  Ethan blinks. ‘No football?’ he gasps. ‘That’s terrible!’

  Beth flutters her eyelashes at him sweetly. ‘That’s what Daizy is trying to tell you,’ she explains. ‘Malawi is a developing country, and Daizy’s dad wants to go out there and help.’

  ‘Help?’ Ethan echoes.

  ‘Yes, help,’ Willow explains, a little breathlessly, squinting at Ethan. ‘He wants to build a school, dig a well, teach the kids.’

  Willow was reading my sister Becca’s TeenGal magazine at the sleepover. There was a feature called ‘Flirting For Beginners’, with tips for speaking softly and sending lots of mushy glances towards the one you love. Willow needs a bit more practice with the glances. A lot more, actually.

  ‘Er … cool,’ Ethan says. ‘He could teach them football, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Willow squints.

  ‘Have you got something in your eye?’ Ethan asks.

  Willow stops squinting and rolls her eyes up to the ceiling in exasperation. ‘No, I have not,’ she sighs. ‘Do you want my sausage?’

  It didn’t say anything in TeenGal about sausages as a flirting technique, but it seems to do the trick with Ethan Miller. He grabs the sausage and swallows it down in three bites, and Beth offers him hers too. It’s kind of sad to see your two best friends fussing and flirting around a footy-mad bonehead like Ethan Miller, but they say love is blind.

  ‘And Daizy’s mum is a nurse,’ Willow rushes on. ‘So she could be really useful too. The whole family might have to go over.’

  ‘To Malawi?’ Ethan blinks.

  ‘To Malawi,’ Beth sighs. ‘It sucks, right?’

  Ethan frowns. He actually looks slightly upset, but that may just be because I made him drop the stolen sausage into the water jug, of course. Not because he would miss me, or anything. Ethan Miller is not that kind of boy. He is probably just wondering who else he could wind up and annoy, if I ended up living in Malawi.

  ‘It’s not definite,’ I say. ‘I don’t suppose it will really happen. Mum doesn’t seem too keen.’

  I push my plate away and reach for the bowl of steaming sponge pudding and chocolate sauce. Mmmm … I take one bite, but the warm, sweet sponge seems to stick in my throat. A pudding like this could keep a whole family in Malawi going for a week, probably.

  I put my spoon down again, tasting guilt instead of chocolate.

  Ethan is digging me in the ribs. ‘I could bring in a spare football from home, if that would help?’ he suggests. ‘For the kids over there.’

  I glare at him. ‘The kids in Malawi don’t need footballs, they need schools and hospitals and wells and herds of goats!’

  ‘Goats?’ Ethan puzzles. ‘What do goats have to do with it?’

  ‘A herd of goats can keep a whole bunch of families in food and milk for years and years!’ I say. ‘Not to mention providing manure to help grow vegetables, and skins to make shoes and things.’

  ‘My uncle keeps goats,’ Ethan says. ‘He makes this really disgusting cheese.’

  Cheese? I worry about Ethan Miller, sometimes. He has a brain like a grasshopper.

  ‘Maybe I could bring you in a goat?’ Ethan muses.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I snap. Ethan just doesn’t get it. He thinks he can fix everything with an old football and a goat. As if it could be that simple. ‘What use is one measly little goat? You’d need a whole herd of them …’

  I trail away into silence. I can feel little cogs and wheels creaking away inside my brain, slowly, painfully.

  It couldn’t be that simple … could it?

  ‘That’s it!’ I grin at Ethan. ‘That’s what I have to do! Raise the money to buy a herd of goats and dig a well and get medical supplies and school books and everything! And if I can do all of that, then maybe, just maybe, Dad will decide we don’t have to go out there!’

  Beth is frowning. ‘Daizy,’ she says patiently. ‘You’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of pounds! How are you going to get that kind of money?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘But I’ll
think of something!’

  ‘I hope so,’ Willow says. ‘I don’t want you to go and live in Malawi.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Beth agrees.

  ‘Nor me,’ Ethan Miller adds.

  Beth, Willow and I turn together and give him a long, hard stare. Ethan winks at me, and just for a moment I wonder if it would actually be worth living in Malawi for a year, just to get away from the most annoying boy in the whole, entire world.

  As for the winking, that will have to stop right now. I don’t want Beth and Willow getting the wrong idea about me and Ethan Miller, like they did at the start of term when they thought I fancied him.

  I mean … eeewwww!

  This time, though, Beth and Willow just smile. Beth flutters her eyelashes, and Willow gives him that squinty look again and links an arm through his.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ethan,’ she says in that breathless, whispery voice. ‘We won’t let anything happen to Daizy.’

  ‘No way,’ Beth adds. ‘The three of us can work together to come up with a plan.’

  Ethan looks slightly alarmed, but you do not argue with Beth and Willow. They tow him off towards the playground, plotting and whispering, and I am left alone in an empty lunch hall. I look down at my dish of sponge pudding and chocolate sauce.

  It’s cold and soggy and disappointing, just like my life.

  Dad does not seem to be giving up on his Malawi dreams. I think he is trying to wear Mum down, win her over to the idea, but so far it doesn’t seem to be working.

  ‘Isn’t it what everybody wants in life?’ he says. ‘To say they have made a difference? Changed things for the better? Helped other people?’

  ‘You don’t have to go to Malawi to do that,’ Mum huffs. ‘I do those things every day, at work. It’s what a nurse does.’

  Well, I suppose so. I can see it is not quite what Dad has in mind, though. Mum has just been telling us about one of her patients, who managed to nick a wheelchair and make a break for freedom, returning half an hour later with fish, chips and chocolate bars for the whole ward.

  ‘You can’t blame him,’ Mum had said. ‘Hospital food is not the best.’

  ‘Livvi, I know you love your job,’ Dad says. ‘But I want to do something to make a difference too.’

  ‘You did, when you were teaching,’ Mum says.

  ‘The children at Green Lane Community School did not want to be changed,’ Dad grumbles. ‘They just wanted to send text messages under the desk and read copies of Hello magazine whenever my back was turned. They were beyond help.’

  ‘Nobody is beyond help,’ Mum tells him, but I think she could be wrong. I think that Dad might be.

  ‘Malawi needs us,’ he says with passion, and Becca throws her maths homework in the bin and says that if Dad doesn’t give up on the whole idea, she is going to run off with her boyfriend Spike and join the circus.

  ‘We’ve been planning it,’ she says. ‘We will be the first Goth trapeze artistes ever. Or maybe we will do a high-wire act, or ride unicycles. But we will definitely do it, Dad, unless you come to your senses.’

  Dad fishes the maths book out of the bin, brushing off a couple of beansprouts, but Becca says she won’t need to know about advanced geometry when she is in the circus.

  Mum sighs. ‘Don’t worry, Becca. Nobody is going to Malawi.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Becca,’ Dad echoes. ‘You’ll love Africa. We all will. Just give this idea a chance!’

  The door slams so hard it makes the floor shake. I am used to seeing Becca flounce off to her room, but this time it isn’t Becca.

  It’s Mum.

  If there is one thing worse than living in a tin hut in Malawi with a herd of goats for company, it is watching my parents row. It is not nice. It makes my tummy churn with worry, and my mouth turn down at the sides.

  I would rather pack my bag tomorrow and head for Africa than listen to any more slamming doors and huffy arguments.

  Luckily, I have the pink guitar to focus on. I took it to school yesterday, to show Miss Moon. I had been hoping she might ask me to do a guitar solo in front of the whole class, and then give me her special Star of the Week award for being a musical genius, but sadly, no. Tom Taylor got the Star of the Week award, for building a model of the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks. It was pretty amazing.

  Miss Moon did say my guitar was lovely, and told me I was a very lucky girl. Then she suggested we put it in her stock cupboard for safekeeping. I guess my plans to wow the school with my rock princess performance will have to wait.

  On Friday, Mum announces that she has signed me up for a course of guitar lessons with a famous guitar guru called Mr Tingley.

  I practically jump up and down with excitement.

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea, Livvi?’ Dad asks. ‘There’s not much point in Daizy starting guitar lessons now. We might not be here for much longer.’

  My heart sinks. ‘I’d really like lessons,’ I say in a very small voice. ‘Please?’

  ‘You won’t need an electric guitar in Malawi,’ Dad says.

  ‘I will!’ I protest. ‘I will need it wherever I go! What if I get inspired and need to write a song?’

  ‘Of course she will need her guitar!’ Becca defends me. ‘Get real, Dad. Don’t you even care that you are turning our lives upside down?’

  ‘Try to see it as an adventure,’ Dad grins. ‘Most of the schemes I’m looking at are just for a year. We can all manage for a year without guitars and TV and hot and cold running water, right? One year, that’s all I ask!’

  ‘But a year is like forever!’ Becca argues.

  ‘Just give it a chance,’ Dad insists. ‘We would never regret it! The chance to give something back, to change things for the better, to leave the world a better place than we found it …’

  ‘Leave the world?’ I repeat, horrified. ‘You mean we could DIE?’

  ‘No, no, that’s not what I mean at all!’ Dad huffs. ‘I just mean –’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ Mum says firmly. ‘OK, Mike? About the health and safety aspects, and education, and the culture shock, and whether it would be the best thing for us all, as a family. Calm down, everybody. It is most unlikely we are going anywhere, OK?’

  I stare at Mum, wide-eyed. She is not the kind of mum who yells and argues and gets stroppy. She is gentle and kind and easy-going. Last time Dad had a crazy idea, she complained a bit, but mostly she just went along with it until he realized it was a bad, bad plan.

  This time around, though, she looks very grumpy and cross. She doesn’t want to go to Malawi any more than we do – and she is making sure Dad knows it.

  ‘As for Daizy, of course she should have guitar lessons,’ she says. ‘It’s all arranged. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Thanks.’

  Later, much later, when I’m lying in bed with the stars shining in through the gap in my curtains, I hear Mum and Dad downstairs, arguing. Their raised voices drift up through the darkness, spiky, grating, awkward. I pull the duvet over my head, but still those voices worm their way in. They get inside my head. They make my eyes mist with tears and my tummy ache.

  Mum and Dad never used to argue.

  What if Mum decides she has had enough of Dad’s crazy plans? What if my family falls to pieces?

  I can’t even bear to think about it. Anything would be better than that.

  Even Malawi.

  A week later I am sitting in the waiting room of Mr Tingley’s Guitar Studio, cradling the pink guitar and waiting for my first lesson. I am nervous, but in a good way. It is like being at the start of a very exciting journey that could end with fame, fortune or, at the very least, a Star of the Week award.

  Mr Tingley will spot my raw talent and train me to become a rock legend.

  Well, maybe.

  Spotting talent may not be his strong point.

  Right now, the sound of screeching guitar strings booms through the studio door, making my ears hurt. The racket builds into a fren
zy of strangled, mangled chords before ending with a series of slamming thuds that sounds like guitars and amps being smashed to bits. This is a bit worrying. Have I come to the right place?

  The studio door opens and a tall, black-clad Goth boy slouches out, lugging a guitar. His lippiercing glints in the light, and he peers menacingly from behind a dipping, green-dyed fringe as he looms over me.

  I blink.

  ‘Hello, Daizy,’ he says.

  ‘Hello, Spike! I didn’t know you had guitar lessons with Mr Tingley!’

  My sister’s boyfriend Spike looks very, very scary, but actually, he is quite sweet. His real name is Sebastian Pike and he plays the cello.

  He and Becca met in the school orchestra and bonded over their love of backcombed hair and smudgy eyeliner.

  ‘Yeah, Mr Tingley is cool,’ Spike says gruffly. ‘He’s helping me explore my musical dark side.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m in a band,’ he explains. ‘The Smashed Bananas. We’re a thrash-metal-punk band. Our sound is all about chaos and destruction.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say again. ‘That’s … um … cool! I might start a band, once I can play a bit better.’

  ‘Well, you don’t actually need to be able to play guitar to be in a thrash-metal-punk band,’ Spike explains. ‘You just need a feeling for discord and disaster.’

  ‘Oh,’ I echo. I have never heard of thrash-metal-punk before, but it doesn’t sound difficult exactly, if the racket coming from the studio a few minutes ago is anything to go by. As for the discord and disaster, I am surrounded by it. My life is one big disaster, pretty much.

  Sounds like thrash-metal-punk could be perfect for me.

  ‘We’re going to enter the Battle of the Bands next month,’ Spike says. ‘Get some of your friends together and come and watch!’

  ‘Maybe,’ I sigh. ‘If I am not in Malawi by then, tending to my herd of goats.’