Leopold Blue by Rosie Rowell Page A

luck.’
    â€˜Margaret,’ I corrected her. ‘Or Meg.’
    She looked at me, head cocked to one side, her cat’s eyes narrow. ‘Nah, it’s definitely Madge,’ she said, the corners of her mouth twitching.
    *.
    Mr
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    Rock rabbit

CHAPTER SIX
    My new name stayed with me all weekend. ‘Madge,’ I practised when no one was around. ‘My name is Madge.’ It made me stand differently; it changed the angle of my head. It was a second chance. I could step out of everything I didn’t like about Meg and fill Madge with all the things I wanted to be. Meg was a hen’s name – it rhymed with peg and beg and dreg. Madge was too gritty to rhyme with much at all.
    I made a list of Madge things to do. I managed ‘hang out with best friend; have a boyfriend; go for milkshakes’ before I realised that was what the characters did on
Beverly Hills 90210
. More than that, the last two items on my list were currently impossible in Leopold.
    I studied myself in the mirror, searching for signs of Madge. I needed a look. Xanthe had one without even trying. Her mouth was subversive. Her eyes were steely. They made me think she enjoyed having secrets. Most of all she looked experienced. You couldn’t fake that. At this my Madge mood started to slip.
    Mum found Beth and me on the stoep, locked in a hyperventilating competition.
    â€˜Dad says there’s a new girl in your class.’
    I grunted without looking up from the stopwatch.
    â€˜Why don’t you invite her for lunch?’
    â€˜No thanks,’ I said.
    â€˜They’re not actually friends,’ panted Beth, forfeiting her time.
    â€˜Yes, we are!’
    â€˜So then,’ said Beth, still red in the face. ‘Invite her for lunch.’
    Later that week I stood over the kitchen sink, staring at a mug in my hand. I had left the washing-up long enough for Mum to be fuming but not yet thundering through to my room. The mug was brown with a pattern of square orange flowers embossed on it. It was the last remaining of a set of four.
    Xanthe would hate this mug. It was old and chipped. The handle had been glued back on several times. I dumped it on the drying rack. What would she think about the old yellow clock on the wall and the kitchen table and the net curtains? Mum insisted on the curtains; she said they were ironic. They were tatty and beige with age. Two weeks ago the kitchen had been fine. Now I knew it was awful. It hadn’t occurred to me before then that the dishtowel lying on the counter was a puke shade of yellow, it had simply been a dishcloth. I leaned over and chucked it away in disgust, but that didn’t feel like enough. I picked up the brown mug and smashed it onto the floor.
    My parents appeared.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘It slipped out of my hand.’
    â€˜It was my favourite,’ said Mum quietly as she bent down to pick up the pieces.
    â€˜I know,’ I said. I stared at the chunks of thick brown porcelain on the floor. ‘Why did you call me Margaret?’
    Mum peered up at me. ‘What?’
    â€˜Margaret, of all names?’
    â€˜It’s a very pretty name,’ she said.
    â€˜It’s not! It’s clumpy and stuffy and so 1970s,’ I said.
    â€˜But darling, you were born in the 1970s.’ Her confusion made me want to scream.
    â€˜Margaret wasn’t my choice,’ said Dad, as he picked the dishtowel up off the floor.
    â€˜A-ha!’ I said to Mum.
    â€˜I wanted to call you Petronella, after my grandmother,’ he said. He folded the dishcloth over the oven rail. Mum giggled and left the kitchen.
    â€˜What do you think about that dishcloth?’ I turned on Dad.
    He glanced after Mum, then turned back to me, his head on one side.
    â€˜The cloth,’ I said, ‘the colour, what do you think?’
    He looked down at his hands and back at me. ‘It’s  …  nice? Different? Nicely